“Come on, Yknan,” shouted Estap, “let’s go!” They dropped the bomblets they were counting out back in the box and ran. Then people began to react.
“Follow the drill!” yelled a man who turned out to be a union steward. “Follow the drill! You know what to do! Do NOT panic!” It worked. People began exiting the building through the allocated doors and channels.
Bang! A door burst open behind Jalli. It was Big Plo and the senior management come down from the offices above.
“A detonator,” shouted Jalli, “in Loading Bay Number One.”
“Rubbish,” replied Big Plo. “Get back to work.”
“I strongly suggest,” said Jalli, “that you follow the evacuation procedures. This is NOT a drill.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?”
“The question is, ‘Who do you think you are, being so stupid?’ Now get out!” barked Jalli. “Now!”
Kakko turned to see Big Plo doing as he was told. He had not come across such a confident order from a diminutive woman before – certainly not on his own factory floor.
***
Ten minutes later everyone was outside the building in their muster stations and the allocated people were checking off their names.
“OK. Now you’ve had your fun!” said Big Plo, seeing Jalli with Yknan and Estap. “I want to know who you are and what you think you are playing at.” He called to one of his henchmen. “See that this woman doesn’t go anywhere but my office… now how about everyone getting…” but Plokr Spraken III never got to finish his sentence.
Suddenly there was a huge explosion at the back of the building as Loading Bay One went up. Bits of shrapnel, building materials, dust and crate shot into the air amid the painful flash that transfixed the retinas of those who were unfortunate enough to be looking in that direction. Clouds of black and white smoke and a wide variety of debris billowed high above them and then began to fall on the rest of the building, the car park and the people. A piece of roofing smacked into the branches of a tree behind Kakko and Jalli.
“Open the gates!” shouted the union steward. The guards on the gates activated the electric pulley and the gates slid back. Everyone moved to push through. Jalli deliberately held onto her daughter, who, for some uncanny reason waited and didn’t join the crush. Kakko was quick to move but she was also quick to sense danger. The fence around the gate and gatehouse began to bulge and then gave way. People left by whatever passage opened up and Jalli and Kakko were then borne up on a tide of people and deposited across the road outside the plant. They made for an area of wasteland with everyone else, just as another huge explosion ripped through the building – only this was five times the size of the first.
***
Back on Planet Joh, Matilda and Momori were helping each other hang out the washing. They had decided that now was a good time to muck out Kakko’s room and had all her bedding washed. Matilda found it easier to lift the sheets with Momori’s help. The day was beautiful, the soft breeze blew the sound of the birdsong from the woodland out the back of their cottage onto the peaceful garden. The men were all out about their business and Jalli and Kakko on another planet somewhere.
“I wonder what they are up to?” wondered Momori.
“Women’s work for sure. No need for the men it seems.” Then Matilda stood still. “Momori. I… I can see a white gate!” she said with some alarm.
“Where?”
“In the same place where Jalli and Kakko left. Can you see it?”
“I can’t say I can. Are you sure you’re not imagining it?”
Matilda strode across the lawn, touched the gate and called. “There is no doubt about it.”
Momori joined her. “Not for me,” she stated.
“Do you think they need rescuing?”
“No point speculating. You’d better go.”
***
Matilda stepped through the gate just as the second explosion ripped through the factory. She was at least a kilometre away from it but she felt the blast hit her with a wall of air. People were running towards her. Matilda gasped and held on to her gate. People were rushing by her now. They were clearly anxious to get away. They suspected, rightly, that more explosions were on their way.
Then Matilda spotted Jalli and Kakko running hand-in-hand together over to her right.
“Jalli!” she called. Then, summoning up all her strength, surprised herself at the volume she managed, “Kaa-kkoo!”
Kakko thought she heard her name and looked across the waste-ground to her left. She saw the gate first and then her nan.
“Nan!” she yelled, pulling her mum round.
“Brilliant!” exclaimed Jalli and they both made a bee-line for Matilda and the gate. Jalli reached her mother-in-law. “I’ve never been so pleased to see you!”
“Come on! Get through!” But just as she said it, a third huge blast rocked the ground. They were out of reach of anything but hot air now though. The people around them continued to rush past. Kakko saw Yknan with Estap wobbling along behind her.
Jalli turned. “Yknan, Estap. Are you alright?”
“Never been better,” breathed Estap heavily. “We’re safe here.”
“You’ve worked there years. What are you going to do?” asked Jalli.
“Now? Don’t know. But we’re free! I don’t care what bloody Big Plo thinks. He don’t own us no more. Something will turn up.”
“We should stop calling him Big Plo,” put in Yknan. “He’s not big any more!”
They laughed like children. “What a smashing great, big bang!”
Then Estap stopped, “But we have to thank YOU! If you hadn’t have come and got us to leave we’d have still been in there. You saved the whole ruddy lot of us.”
“How did you know it was going to blow? You’re activists I bet!”
“No. Not us,” said Kakko. “We might have wanted to blow it all up but not with anyone in it! I just ran into the store room and… we saw the wires.”
“You were definitely in the right place at the right time. If you had waited another five minutes it would have been too late,” said Estap.
“Say that again!” said Kakko. “If I had waited…”
“…it would have been too late,” concluded Estap.
“Thanks,” said Kakko. “You mean we’ve saved hundreds of people!”
“Thousands!” exclaimed Yknan.
“Thank you,” said Jalli quickly. “Thank you for making us so welcome. We do pray that you will soon find something else to do though, some alternative employment.”
“I’ve already decided,” said Estap. “Me and my husband, we’ll go down south. After this there’ll be nothing here.”
“What about you and your blind husband?” asked Yknan.
“Oh, we’ll manage back home. This is my mother-in-law who has come over to fetch us. She’s got something lined up for us.”
“Great! Better be off. I want to get to a phone to call my family before they worry.”
“Good idea. Good luck! Bye.”
“Bye! And thanks again!” They walked on together through the drifting smoke.
“Let’s get home!” said Jalli.
“And put the kettle on!” laughed Kakko.
***
Kakko was insufferable for a week. Apparently her impetuous defiance had saved millions (the number grew day by day). Jalli had to acknowledge that had she been more patient and heeded her mother they, and many others, would probably have died. But Momori quietly pointed out that if it had been Kakko’s brusqueness that had saved the day, it had been Creator who had called her to be there. Without the white gate nothing would have happened to mitigate the situation. Credit should be given where credit was due. Kakko would have more friends if she had just a little humility. Bandi just listened to all this, and quietly learnt.
In the privacy of their own room Jack said they should be proud of their daughter. She might not be perfect but her heart was definitely in the right place. You
had to admire her for taking a stand and not going along with something she didn’t hold with. That takes a lot of guts. She put her principles before her personal safety and not many people would do that. And she was no fool either. The rest would follow, he felt, with a bit of maturity; she’d get over the inflated sense of herself. That might, he suggested, come from a degree of teenage insecurity. When she grew in confidence, her apparent lack of humility would decline.
“You mean the outward arrogance is a sign of self-doubt?” echoed Jalli.
“Yes. What she did got you into the right place at the right time, but which one of you noticed the detonator?”
“I did. I saw the wires.”
“Who took charge of the situation then – you or Kakko?”
“Me,” said Jalli. “After I saw the wires she just did as she was told.”
“One day,” said Jack, “she’ll acknowledge that.”
“But not yet?”
“Not yet. But one day. At the moment she may be doubting herself too much… now, though, I am very, very proud of you. You haven’t lost your ability to act in an adventure one little bit! And I could never see my wonderful Jalli getting the slightest bit of a big head!”
“Not, even the teeny-weeniest bit?”
“Well, perhaps a teeny-weeny bit. Just enough to give her confidence to stand up to her headstrong daughter!”
***
Some days later, Kakko and Bandi were in the garden having a go at trimming the hedge.
“It’s really not on that someone should be allowed to make guns and bombs to sell to others so they can blow each other up!” said Kakko. “I mean, that Big Plo was making money hand over fist. I would say that makes him as bad as the people who use his weapons. Only it’s worse because he doesn’t even have a cause that he’s fighting for. All he cares is that he makes a profit and is a big man in his town. He should be charged as a murderer.”
“No. It isn’t right,” agreed Bandi. “There is something evil about that. I can’t say, though, that I am against making weapons to defend yourself with. I mean if someone wanted to invade us.”
“I’m not sure that is right either. If you have weapons then people are far more likely to use theirs on you. I mean, could we really defend ourselves against an invasion here on Joh without it resulting in the complete destruction of all of us? Actually, I think I would rather be killed than kill someone – even if they were evil.”
“But what if they were going to kill someone else, someone you love?”
“Oh. Bandi, you make things so complicated!”
“Sorry. But the thing is, that the more you think about things the less black and white they become. But I do agree with you about your Big – what’s his name – Plo and his factory. I expect you’re glad it is all blown up.”
“Yeah. But I keep wondering who it was that did it. It wasn’t someone who was against killing people – they would have killed thousands.”
“You mean millions!”
“Well, perhaps that’s exaggerating it a bit… Bandi, are you laughing at me?”
“Who, me?”
“Stop teasing me! This is serious.”
“Agreed. They have an enemy that doesn’t mind using their own weapons against them… you know you mustn’t ever go back there. You and Mum will be prime suspects, you know.”
“Yeah, I’ve thought about that. I doubt we’ll have a gate there again. But if we do, we’ll have a reason for going. And you can count on me being very careful to watch my back.”
“Good,” said Bandi.
4
Things were just settling back into some kind of routine when one day, as Jack got up to make his wife a drink, he became aware of something unusual through the kitchen window. His brain was registering a sensation in the visual cortex. It was rather frightening after so long as his brain had got used to not receiving signals from his damaged eyes. It appeared to be something beyond the kitchen window and he thought he knew what it was – another white gate. It was many years since he himself had last experienced one. Yet for Jack, blind though he had become, the ‘sight’ of a white gate could still be made out even though he couldn’t see anything else.
Jack was not given to panic and he had become even more stoic as he had matured, so he made the tea and took it up to Jalli. She sat up to take the mug from him and saw concern on his face.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Jalli, I am aware of something outside. It feels peculiar inside my head. I… I think it is a white gate… Will you look out the window and check in the hedge?”
Jalli got out of bed, padded down the stairs into the kitchen and looked across the back lawn. Sure enough there was a special white gate and beside it a small wooden shed, the kind that was used to contain stuff for the world on the other side. Jalli quietly remounted the stairs.
“I do see it. There is a white gate… with a shed too… Jack you realise what this means! We’ve both been invited to visit another world. Do we have to go?”
“It’s been more than twenty years for me!” sighed Jack. “And it was a bit of a shock ‘seeing’ something again after all that time. It feels quite… well, quite peculiar. Rather disorientating. But I knew what it was.”
“You know what we say. If we see a white gate, then we are meant to go through it. We have a job to do.”
“Yes, I know. When should we…”
Jack never managed to finish his question because there was a sudden burst of excitement from Kakko’s room. Bandi had seen a white gate that had matched his parents’ description in all their adventure stories. He had been gazing absent-mindedly out of the downstairs bathroom window as he washed his face at the basin. He had looked up and seen a white gate in the hedge. He had wiped his eyes and looked again. There was definitely a new gate! Ignoring her indignant protests regarding her privacy, Bandi stole into his sister’s bedroom which looked out in the same direction.
“Look sis, outside,” he said. “Can you see a white gate?”
“Sure. There’s a white gate. That’s why this cottage is called ‘White Gates Cottage’ wouldn’t you believe?” she said in mocking tone.
“No. I mean… there is another white gate.”
“What’s all the fuss about?” called Shaun, thumping down the stairs and staggering barefoot through the open door to his sister’s room. He was still dressed in the T-shirt and shorts he wore to sleep in.
“A white gate, an extra white gate,” declared his brother.
Kakko pushed her way to her window which overlooked the back lawn and stared. Then she yelled, “I see it! I see it!”
“Let me look!” said Shaun. “Yeah, I see it too. What does it mean?”
“What does it mean? It means adventure!” yelled Kakko, bouncing up and shouldering Shaun under the chin who staggered backwards onto the floor at the feet of his parents who had just arrived at the doorway.
“A white gate,” said Jalli calmly. “So I gather you can all see it?”
“Yes, I spotted it first,” said Bandi.
“Actually,” said his father, “I spotted it first.” Jalli nodded her confirmation.
“How?”
“Magic,” explained his father with a grin. “The whole business is, of course, magic.”
“But real magic?” uttered Shaun, troubled. “I mean, it’s not pretend magic, an illusion, with some logical explanation?”
“Well it does have a logical explanation…” began Jack.
“I mean, not a regular scientific explanation.”
“There will have to be some science…”
Jalli took Jack’s arm, “We know what you mean, Shaun. It’s not an illusion, it’s real. This time we’ve all been invited somewhere else in the universe for some purpose we won’t know until we get there.”
“I suppose ‘magic’ is probably not the best word. I take it back,” considered Jack. “‘Miraculous’ would be a better word. It is given by the One who holds us all in ‘being�
��.”
“Yeah! We’re going through the gate – all of us this time! Yippee!” yelled Kakko
“What on Planet Joh is going on here?” They all turned and saw Momori and Matilda standing outside the door.
“A white gate! Come in and see!” bubbled Kakko. (Kakko’s room was now very crowded.)
“Well then,” sighed Momori, “we had better be ready for another disturbance in our routine. If you can allow a couple of less active people to come and look too…” The three young people, Jack and Jalli moved away from the window and allowed the ladies passage.
“I can’t see a new gate,” stated Matilda.
“And I can’t say I can see anything out of the ordinary either,” agreed Momori.
“But it’s definitely there!” exclaimed her great-granddaughter.
“I don’t doubt it. But not, thank God, for me,” breathed Momori with audible relief.
“Or me,” said Matilda. “It looks as if we’re going to have the house to ourselves for a bit… but what are you all going to do about your work, and school?”
“You can tell them all we’re off on an unplanned holiday?” suggested Kakko.
“No, Kakko. That won’t do,” said her mother. “We shall all write and explain. Tell the truth.”
“But… there isn’t time!” said Kakko with impatience. “You remember last time. If I had waited…”
“There is always time to do what is right,” said her nan.
“So, first things first,” ordered Jalli. “Let’s go and see what’s in the little shed.”
“Exciting or what!” said Kakko, leaping to her feet. The young people didn’t need a second invitation. They charged out into the garden in their pyjamas.
In the shed they found two cases and five small piles of clothes. There was also a packet with money in it. Jalli picked it up and looked at the notes.
“I think I know these. I’ve seen some like this before. I recognise the sort of script. I think this is the place with the Fellowship Group. You know, with Tod and Kakko – the ‘Kakko’ you were named after, Kakko.”
Ultimate Justice Page 3
