Doctor Bonkers!

by Jeremy Strong

  All three of them turned to the cat.

  ‘Bandit, can you fly a spaceship?’

  Bandit rolled over and displayed his fluffy tum, hoping someone, anyone, would give him a good tickle.

  ‘Not helpful,’ muttered Dylan, slumping to the ground. He suddenly began laughing, or was he crying? ‘What are we arguing about? Nobody can fly the spaceship because the doctor has taken half the engine with him. It’ll never fly again. It’s all so crazy I could scream!’

  He groaned and looked at his sister. ‘You and your pyjamas. I can’t believe the mess they’ve got us into. We’re all going to DIE now, and it’s all because of those poxy pyjamas of yours.’

  BLAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!

  The Titanic was sending up a huge bow wave of foam ahead of it and the iceberg rocked violently. The three children clutched each other, scared out of their pants, and quite possibly their pyjamas too. Alfie was crying. So was Dylan, but that was because Bandit had leapt on to his head and dug his frightened claws into Dylan’s scalp.

  ‘I’m sorry!’ sobbed Rosie. ‘I love you all!’

  ‘Love you!’ echoed Dylan.

  ‘Meeeow meeoow,’ went Bandit.

  It was Alfie who spotted the little flashing picture on Rosie’s cosmic pyjamas.

  ‘Look! It’s all lit up! It’s a pretty picture of our house!’ And he touched it.

  KERRANNGG BAM SSWIZZZ JOOOOMMFFF!

  The world disappeared – no more iceberg, no more Titanic. It was just a swirl of colours, a whirlpool of light and dark. The children felt themselves falling, or was it flying? Anyhow, they were travelling faster than the speed of light until –

  CRASSSSHHHHHH!

  All four of them landed in an almighty heap on Rosie’s bed.

  FFUDDD!

  The bed legs broke and the next thing the children heard was an angry voice stomping up the stairs.

  ‘What on earth is going on up there!’ their father bellowed.

  Of course nobody believed them. Rosie and Dylan didn’t even bother to tell their parents what had happened. It was Alfie who tried, but Mum and Dad simply looked at him with a tired expression, the one that says, ‘Oh, really? Of course – and pigs might fly.’

  ‘It wasn’t pigs,’ said Alfie breathlessly. ‘It was Vikings. And they bombed us from aeroplanes and the ancient Egyptians had all these dinosaurs and some were riding them and then the pteranodons came and bombed the Vikings and it all went crazy and I rode on a Tyrannosaurus rex!’

  Dad was hardly even listening. He was inspecting Rosie’s bed. ‘Completely broken,’ he muttered. ‘You’ll have to sleep on the floor until I can mend it. How many times have I told you lot not to jump on your beds?’

  The children shrugged and looked at each other. How many times? Hundreds, that’s what. They’d never thought they were supposed to count.

  Anyway, Rosie secretly thought that sleeping on the floor would be good fun – as long as she never had to wear those cosmic pyjamas again. She changed out of them as soon as she could and handed them over to her mother.

  ‘I thought you liked them,’ said Mum.

  ‘I did when I first saw them, but they kind of take you by surprise,’ Rosie explained.

  Her mother frowned. ‘What do you mean – take you by surprise?’

  ‘They just kind of – you know.’

  ‘No, Rosie, I don’t. If I knew I wouldn’t ask.’

  Rosie wrinkled her nose. ‘They’re itchy,’ she said at last. Mum raised her eyebrows, but took the pyjamas from her.

  ‘I’ll see if the charity shop wants them,’ sighed Mum. ‘Looks like I’ll have to wash them first. You’ve sat in something disgusting.’

  ‘It was only a squashed melon,’ said Rosie.

  ‘Why on earth did you sit on that?’ asked Mum.

  ‘I fell off the cart when Dylan crashed it.’

  ‘Your brother crashed a cart? How did he do that?’ Mum was aghast.

  Rosie shrugged. ‘He was riding a triceratops and couldn’t get it to stop and we went round a corner and there were these stegosauruses and –’

  Mum held up her hand. ‘OK, OK. Stop right there. I’ve had enough of that from Alfie. Go on now. Leave the pyjamas with me.’ Mum chuckled and shook her head. ‘I wish I had your imagination.’

  Rosie gave a little smile and went back upstairs. In her bedroom she shut the door, leant back against it and let out a long breath. Phew! She would never have to wear those pyjamas again. For a brief moment she wondered what might happen to the next person who wore them, but that thought soon vanished from her head. She had better things to do, like finishing off the game she had been playing on Dylan’s PlayStation. (Which he was still searching for.)

  11¼ Meanwhile …

  On another planet far away, just like Earth, the ancient Egyptians built pyramids and carried on worshipping lots of gods, including cats. Julius Caesar tried to invade Britain, unsuccessfully – the Romans had to come back over a hundred years later. And even later still, the Vikings sailed halfway round the world and fought and farmed and made a bad reputation for themselves even though some of them were probably quite nice, if a bit hairy. (Not the women, of course. Apart from Erik the Red’s wife. She had a BEARD!) Later still, the Titanic crashed into an iceberg and sank. Doctor Starkly-Bonkers was only five years old when that happened, but somehow he already knew all about it and wasn’t surprised.

  As for the cosmic pyjamas, they are no longer with Rosie and may well be in a shop near you, so be careful what you wear.