Five minutes later, I’m at the Skyburb Down- station with Oscar, waiting for our home, Skyburb 9, to dock above the Up-station below. At 9.15, we feel Skyburb 9 grind to a halt in the sky and send down the zoom tube that will take us to ground level. We jump into the first available aircell, and before we know it, we’re zooming downwards through a bunch of fluffy orange clouds. The air finally clears as we slow to a stop and step out of the aircell.
In my pocket, I’m carefully guarding the mystery cylinder. It’s wrapped in thick black plastic. I’ve even stuffed it into a little zip bag for another layer of protection.
‘Okay, Oscar,’ I say. ‘Map, please.’
Oscar looks up at me and tilts his head sideways.
‘Sorry, Oscar,’ I sigh. ‘I never actually told you the destination. We’re going to 6 Wubble Street West. That’s where we’ll find the headquarters of the Bluggsville East Photographic Society. I’m sure there’ll be someone there who can help us bring the pictures in this thing to life.’
Oscar grins and nods his head. A second later, a map beams up from the middle of his back and hovers in the air. There’s a red dot in the middle of it, telling us where we are at the moment. There’s also a green dot telling us where we need to get to. Luckily, our destination only seems to be a few minutes’ walk from where we’ve landed.
We walk as quickly as we can down Wigg Street, then turn left into Blix Road. From there, all we have to do is cross the pedestrian bridge and take the stairs down to Wubble Street West.
The moment we hit the footpath, I see a grand old building on the other side of the road. It must be at least as old as the strange little cylinder in my pocket. We wait for a gap in the hover-traffic and cross the road. Then, we slowly walk up the steps to the main entrance. There’s only a very small sign on the door, but in neatly engraved letters, it says:
BLUGGSVILLE EAST PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY, MEMBERS ONLY.
‘Gosh,’ I say. ‘I didn’t realise this was such an exclusive club. Do you think they’ll let us in, Oscar?’
Oscar tips his head sideways and winks at me. He seems to be saying, ‘Maybe not, but why would we let that stop us?’
I reach up and press the red button in the middle of the door. The moment I remove my finger, a camera pops out from the left side of the door, and then another one from the right. Each of them zooms up to my face on the end of a long, bendy arm.
From a little speaker above the door, I hear a man’s voice. ‘You have arrived at the Bluggsville East Photographic Society. How may I help you?’
‘Well,’ I say nervously, ‘we were wondering if we might be able to talk to someone in there. We need to learn a few things about photography.’
‘Well, we need to know how it was done in the 20th century.’
‘And why should we help you?’
‘Well, we have something that might be of interest to you.’
All I hear in reply is the man’s voice, bellowing with laughter. ‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ he chuckles, ‘but what could you possibly have that could be of interest to our society?’
Suddenly my brain whirs and I look down at Oscar.
‘Never mind,’ I reply. ‘The more I think about it, it’s probably nothing you’d be interested in. Sorry to waste your time, sir.’
I can hear the man snorting through his nose as we walk down the steps. When we get to the bottom, Oscar looks up at me with disappointment in his eyes.
‘Don’t look at me like that, Oscar!’ I say. ‘It’s all part of my plan. We’ll be back a bit later, and no one will be laughing at us.’
