‘Charlie’s right,’ said Lady Naomi. ‘Even if your story is true, you ought to have registered your purpose for travel with Control as a science expedition.’
‘That process takes months! If I’d missed this wormhole, I would have had to wait over a year and a half before I could get to Earth. It was far better for me to travel as a tourist, and then later –’
‘I can see your point,’ said Lady Naomi, ‘so I hope you can see ours, too. We are going to have to escort you down to Tom’s so he can contact Control and –’
‘Nope, sorry!’ Foxy suddenly snatched his bio-scanner out of Lady Naomi’s hand, and took off deeper into the bush. He might have been a scrawny little thing, but he was seriously fast on those paws.
Lady Naomi growled in annoyance. ‘Fantastic. You two, tell Tom. I’ll go and get this genius.’ She ran up the trunk of a leaning gum tree until she reached its first branch, a few metres above the ground, and looked for Foxy’s path. ‘Got him,’ she murmured, and then sprang in that direction, disappearing immediately into the gloom.
‘Wonder what Sophie T would say if she’d seen that,’ said Charlie.
Sophie T!
‘Oh, no, I can’t!’ Amelia groaned. ‘She’s –’
‘You heard Lady Naomi. We’ve got to tell Tom now.’
Feeling like the worst sleepover host ever, Amelia knew Charlie was right.
‘Let’s go,’ she said. Crashing their way back out of the bush, they turned away from the hotel, and headed down to Tom’s.
‘Is Tom even down here?’ said Charlie as they reached the clearing beyond the magnolia trees. ‘What if he went back up to the hotel after the fireworks to get some cake?’
‘Now you ask!’ said Amelia, but through Tom’s lit window, she could see someone moving.
They crept slowly closer. It was always better to know who was in there before knocking, plus – although Amelia knew it was very bad manners – they’d learnt a lot of really useful things by eavesdropping in the past.
‘I know you can’t go near it,’ Tom’s voice drifted through the open window. ‘But there must be some way you can get rid of it. Throw it in the Nowhere, or –’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said a second voice. ‘You’ve seen what happens when I even approach the thing. And even if I could take it from you, there’s no telling what might happen if it entered the gateway. An energy source of that power – of that nature? The result could be catastrophic – we have no way of knowing what disaster we avoided when those Guild morons were stopped from stealing it.’
‘The canister,’ Charlie guessed in a whisper.
Amelia nodded – the canister that had been hidden at the hotel for over a century, until the Guild had come looking for it two weeks ago. The canister whose contents were so secret and dangerous that Tom refused to tell even Control about it. Worse: he’d lied to Ms Rosby – the only agent at Control who was really on their side – and then he’d made Lady Naomi take it away and hide it somewhere so that not even he knew where it was.
‘What do you expect us to do, then?’ asked Tom, his voice rising. ‘Just trust that Lady Naomi’s found a safe enough hiding place to keep the Guild from ever –?’
‘You might start by being a bit quieter about it,’ said the second voice, and before Amelia had time to wonder what he meant, two thin hands shot out through the open window, grabbed her and Charlie by the backs of their shirts, and dragged them into Tom’s cottage. It wasn’t comfortable, either: Amelia banged her knee hard on the windowsill.
‘Hello, Leaf Man,’ said Charlie, as the pale, gaunt man dropped them to the floor. He stood back from them, shaking out the sleeves of his trench coat. He didn’t look nearly strong enough to have hauled them through the air like that, but Amelia knew that behind his holographic disguise stood a powerful Keeper – a guardian of the gateways.
Tom glared at Amelia and Charlie as they got up from the floorboards. ‘When will you two learn to mind your own business?’
‘We’re here on business,’ Charlie retorted.
‘Then why were you lurking about out there like a pair of snoops?’
‘We weren’t snooping!’ Charlie sounded hurt. ‘We were just too polite to interrupt.’
‘Anyway,’ Amelia said quickly. ‘Lady Naomi sent us – that alien scientist guy was out there in the bush with a scanner he sneaked past you.’
Tom looked furious. ‘Where is he now?’
‘He ran off when Lady Naomi tried to bring him here,’ Charlie said. ‘She’s gone after him.’
Tom and Leaf Man exchanged glances.
‘What sort of scanner?’ asked Leaf Man.
‘He’s scanning for animals,’ said Amelia. ‘He’s researching the effect of wormholes on them or something.’
‘Not looking for the canister then,’ said Leaf Man. ‘Whatever’s in that thing, it isn’t an animal.’
‘So this guy isn’t Guild,’ said Tom. ‘He’s just some other kind of trouble. That’s the closest we’ve come to a break that I can remember.’
‘So he’s not dangerous then?’ Amelia was relieved. She hadn’t liked Foxy exactly, but she respected scientific research, and if anyone around here could help her find Grawk, she was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
‘Dangerous to my career,’ Tom grumbled. ‘If Arxish finds out I let an alien illegally transport unregistered tech onto Earth –’
‘But not so dangerous you need my help,’ said Leaf Man, nodding at Tom. ‘I’m going.’
‘You’re what?’ said Tom. ‘But –’
‘Timing is everything,’ said Leaf Man. ‘You’ve seen for yourself how unstable things are getting. How violent and unpredictable the wormholes have become. Doesn’t that tell you something?’
‘Nothing obvious, no.’
‘Truly?’ Leaf Man tutted. ‘You’ve manned this post for decades, Tom. Have you learnt nothing in all the years you’ve sat here and watched?’
‘Sat here and watched?’ Tom snapped. ‘Sat here and watched? Is that how you see the miserable life I’ve had? Some old slob just parked on his bum, watching? Because I’ve learnt a lot, now you ask. I’ve learnt that the universe is far bigger than anyone on Earth knows, and that there’s not a lot of kindness or fairness out there. I’ve learnt that doing the right thing will cost you more than you can bear, and there will be precious little that comes to you in return for it.’
‘Oh, Tom.’
‘Don’t pity me!’
‘Doesn’t someone have to?’
‘If you have any pity, then pity Lady Naomi. It’s not right that she of all people should have to take responsibility for the blasted thing.’
‘Which is exactly why I’m going,’ said Leaf Man, crossing the room and disappearing down the stairs. ‘To help Lady Naomi. Or at least, since the Nowhere has been stirred up by all this instability, for the first time I’ve seen a hint of how to find the only person who can.’
Amelia glanced at Charlie, who looked just as confused as she was. They were lucky if they ever understood half of what Leaf Man was talking about.
When Leaf Man said nothing more, Tom grunted, ‘Get on with it, then.’ He picked up a length of coiled rope, slung it over his shoulder and began limping toward the door. Then he growled at Amelia and Charlie. ‘Go on. Get back to your stupid party. Leave Lady Naomi and the alien to me. As usual.’
He stamped out, leaving Amelia and Charlie standing alone in the cottage.
Amelia felt extremely tense walking back toward the hotel. The moon had risen by now, and was lighting their way with a cool silver glow, and far below, at the base of the headland, the sea was beating out its usual soothing music on the cliffs. But all Amelia could think about was Lady Naomi and Tom searching the bush for a rogue scientist, Leaf Man disappearing into the Nowhere on some mysterious quest, Grawk lost and who knew where, and up ahead – worst of all – Sophie T, whom she had abandoned at the hotel without any warning or explanation.
Would she still be there? Amelia wouldn’t blame her if she’d called her mum and asked to be picked up.
With a heavy heart, she opened the main doors and stepped into the lobby. Mum was making a phone call at the reception desk, but when she saw Amelia she smiled and pointed to the library.
Amelia braced herself and opened the library door – totally unprepared to find Sophie T sitting wide-eyed on the sofa, seemingly entranced as James explained one of his gadgets to her.
‘It’s based on Napier’s Bones,’ he was saying, showing her a set. ‘You see how you can arrange the rods in any order and use them to multiply or divide any numbers with up to nine digits? Well, imagine if instead of using rods to construct a two-dimensional matrix, you used a combination of spheres and cogs to make a three-dimensional system.’
Sophie T’s eyes flicked to the door, saw Amelia, and then flicked straight back to James. ‘And what would you use it for?’
James hesitated. Amelia knew he couldn’t tell Sophie T he’d been trying to invent a machine to calculate the distortion in the gateway’s pattern of wormhole movements. ‘Err … it’s for – sort of for – that is …’ He looked and smiled broadly at the sight of his sister. ‘Amelia! Charlie! Where have you been? Sophie and I have just been, er, waiting for you.’
‘Yeah, Amelia,’ Sophie T said in an ominously sweet voice. ‘Where have you been?’
Amelia pulled a face. ‘I’m so sorry for disappearing on you, Soph, but one of the guests wandered off into the bush and we had to, uh, stop him from getting lost.’
Sophie T looked from Amelia to Charlie, and back to Amelia, uncertain. ‘Right. So do you often have to run off and rescue random guests?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Charlie, so wearily that Amelia almost believed him herself. ‘Not the Australian ones, of course. They know we’re not kidding about spiders and snakes and paralysing ticks and goannas that’ll run up your leg and claw your face off. But the overseas ones … whoo. We’ve got to look out for those guys.’
Sophie T, desperate to know whether she was being fooled with, looked to James. He shrugged modestly and nodded. ‘It’s like I told you, Sophie – I didn’t know what Amelia and Charlie were up to, but there’s always some little emergency that needs to be dealt with straight away.’
Amelia saw Sophie T’s shoulders hitch up toward her ears, and her fingers curl into the fabric of her skirt. She was staring at James, waiting for some signal in his face of whether he was telling her the truth.
James gazed back, unruffled, and then Sophie T smiled and let out a deep breath. ‘Of course. I knew it was something like that.’
‘Well.’ James got to his feet. ‘Nice talking to you, Sophie. I’ll tell Mum you’re ready for that movie now, Amelia.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, meaning more than just the movie.
‘What are we going to see?’ Sophie T asked, eagerly taking up the change in subject. ‘Is it on DVD or Blu-Ray? Oh – do you have a 3D TV?’
‘Actually,’ Amelia said, ‘we don’t have a TV at all.’
‘Really? Oh.’ Sophie T was unperturbed. ‘So you just watch everything through your laptops?’
Charlie laughed. ‘They don’t have any computers either.’
Sophie T narrowed her eyes. Despite deciding to accept their excuse for running off on her, she was clearly still worried that they were laughing at her somehow. ‘OK then, smarty, so how are we supposed to watch a movie?’
‘On that,’ said Amelia, pointing to the old reel-to-reel film projector that was sitting on its trolley beside the rolled-up projection screen.
Sophie T blinked. ‘And what movie are we going to watch on that?’
‘Um …’ Amelia gulped and hoped very hard that Dad had got something good. ‘I’m not sure, let me check.’
She slipped out to the lobby and saw that Mum was on her way with a large, thick plastic disc tucked under her arm: the can of film.
‘What is it?’ Amelia asked.
Mum grinned. ‘Have a look for yourself.’ She held the can out to Amelia. It was heavier than Amelia expected and had a paper label stuck to it, with untidy handwriting telling her the title was …
‘Spring Kisses?’ Amelia was puzzled. ‘But …’
‘What?!’ Sophie T yelped from inside the library. ‘What did you say?’
Amelia showed her the can.
‘Spring Kisses?’ Sophie T gasped, then shrieked. ‘The actual, genuine Spring Kisses with Harry Badenburger?’
‘Yes, I think so,’ said Mum. ‘Was that a good choice?’
Sophie T grabbed the film from Amelia’s hands and hugged it to her chest, jumping up and down with such feverish joy Charlie took a step back.
‘This is unbelievable!’ she cried. ‘This movie isn’t even out at the cinemas for another month – how did you get it? It’s impossible!’
Mum and Amelia looked at each other. How could they explain why a little family in a crumbling hotel in a nowhere town on the edge of Australia had a copy of the biggest teen movie in the last fifteen years that no-one had even been able to preview? Imagine if – after all their problems with cyborg rats, Guild mercenaries, and ancient starships – their cover ended up being blown by Sophie T’s knowledge of movie release dates!
Sophie T, though, was too excited to let the oddness of the situation waste a single second of her time. ‘Can we put it on now?’ she pleaded. ‘Right now?’
‘Of course!’ Mum said brightly, thrilled to avoid explaining her way around Control’s connections with the movie industry.
Charlie, meanwhile, shot daggers at Amelia.
‘What?’ she said.
‘Spring Kisses?’ he said with distaste. ‘Are you for real?’
Amelia shrugged. ‘My dad was in charge of what we got.’
Charlie snorted. ‘What happened to getting Ninja Cops on Mars?’
‘Yeah, that was your choice, Charlie, not mine.’
‘But you can’t really want to see this film,’ he said kindly. ‘I mean, I get that Sophie T does, but not you, Amelia.’
‘Why not me?’
‘Because … because …’ he spluttered.
‘Is there a problem?’ said Mum, threading the film through the projector
’s spools, while Sophie T set up the screen.
‘No, not at all,’ Amelia said, sitting on the sofa. ‘Charlie just figured out I’m a girl.’
‘Oh,’ Sophie T smirked. ‘Boys.’
Charlie didn’t reply, but sat down on the other side of Amelia with an air of heroic resignation.
‘Oops, quick!’ said Dad from behind them, just as Mum flicked on the projector and Sophie T sat on Amelia’s other side. There was a soft purr from the old motor, and a square of light appeared on the screen, flickering before it was replaced by an honest-to-goodness old-fashioned countdown.
‘Before it begins,’ said Dad, ‘I’ve got a whole dinner in forty-five-degree sectors for you!’
He set down two big plates of food: one of pizza slices, and the other of watermelon.
Looking much more cheerful now there was food in the room, Charlie helped himself to pizza and settled down to endure the movie. Sophie T squeezed Amelia’s arm and whispered, ‘Sophie F and Shani will die when they find out what they missed!’ Amelia settled into the sofa cushions, smiling.
It turned out that the movie was pretty dim. Harry Badenburger was so gorgeous it wasn’t funny, but the movie wasn’t funny either, and Amelia was almost sure it was supposed to be. Even Sophie T had to admit that he didn’t make a very convincing international diamond thief. When the sad and lonely (but totally beautiful and rich) main girl confronted Harry at the top of the Eiffel Tower, saying, ‘You’re nothing but a common thief – I know you stole my necklace,’ and he replied, ‘All’s fair in love and war. After all, you stole my heart,’ all three kids covered their faces with their hands and howled.
‘No wonder nobody’s leaked the film onto the internet yet,’ said Sophie T. ‘Who could be bothered?’
Amelia giggled. ‘I don’t know, I think it’s starting to grow on me. Look – Harry’s about to burst into song again.’
The Dark Giants Page 3
