Like I promised, two hours later we’re back at the very same door. But this time we both look a bit different. I’m wearing one of Jessie’s big coats, a grey wig and a beard, and I’ve suddenly got a rather tubby stomach. As for Oscar, he’s invisible - because, just for now, he is my stomach!
‘Not too squishy in there, pup?’ I ask him.
I feel him squirm against my ribs.
‘Sorry, Oscar. This’ll all be over soon, I promise.’
I press the red button. Again, the cameras pop out towards us, and a very familiar voice booms out from the speaker. ‘Bluggsville East Photographic Society. Can I help you, sir?’ it asks.
‘Um, yes,’ I say. ‘We have something very important to share with your members.’
‘I think that’s highly unlikely, sir.’
‘Excuse me?’ I cough. I thought he might show a bit more respect to someone slightly older ...
‘We’ve allowed ... Skyburb people through these doors before, and it’s never gone well.’
‘How do you know we’re ... I mean Im, from a Skyburb?’
‘Look at that shaggy beard and raggedy old coat. You have ‘shadie’ written all over you, sir.’
Suddenly I feel myself boiling under Jessie’s coat. It’s very rude to call someone a shadie. We didn’t choose to live up in the Skyburbs, and it’s not our fault they cast shadows over people like the members of the Bluggsville East Photographic Society.
‘Now listen here, cranky pants ...’
Before I can finish my sentence, I feel Oscar digging a paw into my ribs. I guess that’s his way of holding me back. If I tell the mystery man what I really think of him, we’ll never get through that door!
‘I don’t mean to be pushy,’ I say, ‘but this is a very special case - I have an incredible discovery to share with you.’
The man sighs loudly. ‘Make it quick, then. Just for the cameras.’
The two cameras zoom up to my face and dart from side to side. I take the zip bag out of my pocket, open it up, remove the plastic and hold the canister up in front of my face. Both cameras zoom up to it like a pair of sniffing hyper-hounds.
‘Holy hover-hamsters!’ cries the voice. ‘I haven’t seen one of those for more than 30 years. Is there anything inside it?’
‘Of course there is. We wouldn’t knock on your door with an empty plastic cylinder.’
Oscar nudges my belly as if to say, ‘Keep a hold of yourself, Max!’
I give the container a little shake so the man can hear the roll film rattling inside it.
‘No, no, no!’ he gasps. ‘Be gentle with that!’ And then, I hear a strange buzzing sound as the door unlocks and slowly creaks open.
I take the last step up and look around the edge of the door. There’s no one there to greet us. But, we seem to have permission to go in. I undo two buttons in the middle of the coat so Oscar can peep out. Then, I step inside.
We find ourselves in a narrow entrance hall, with modern walls and shiny floorboards, and several old photos in frames on the wall.
I look down at Oscar. ‘What do you think we do now?’ I ask.
Oscar aims his nose towards the staircase at the far end of the hallway.
‘You’re right, Oscar. I suppose we may as well go on up.’
As we take the first two steps, I hear a door creaking at the top of the stairway. I stop and tuck Oscar’s head back into the coat. A tall, thin man appears at the top of the stairs. He laughs and smiles.
‘Come on up, sir,’ he beams. ‘We’re always thrilled to meet sha ... Skyburb dwellers who share our passion for photography.’
When I reach the top of the stairs, the man shakes my hand and introduces himself as Aldus Chen.
‘I’m Ma ... Matthew B ... Brewster,’ I reply.
‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Brewster,’ says Aldus. ‘Follow me through to the meeting room. I have some friends in there who’d love to see what you’ve brought along.’
As I follow Aldus down a long wooden corridor, I see all sorts of strange signs above the doors we walk past. One of them says Negatives, another says Developer Storage. Another says Slides, and the last one we pass says Enlarger Repair Room. It’s all extremely confusing, but I suppose they all sound kind of photographic.
At the end of the corridor, Aldus stops and points towards the room on his right. The door is already open. I look in, and so does Oscar. I have to quickly push his head back into the coat again.
It’s another antique room, with a large wooden table in the middle of it. The walls are covered in paintings and photos of ancient cameras and photographic equipment. Five very well dressed people are sitting around the table.
‘Excuse me, members,’ says Aldus. ‘We have a guest here with something he’d like to share with you.’
Their faces go blank. They look up and down at my clothes like I’m some kind of street rat. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I’m about to turn back to the staircase when the woman at the far end of the table stands and walks towards us. She shakes my hand with her very long fingernails.
‘Hello, sir,’ she purrs, ‘I believe you have something interesting to show us today?’
‘Well,’ I gulp, ‘I’ve recently come across this strange little canister. I think it could be three or four hundred years old.’
I take the canister out of my pocket and hold it up in front of the woman’s eyes. Her head tips back and her eyelashes seem to swim to the top of her head.
‘This is extraordinary,’ she says. ‘That is a plastic film canister from the year 2006. It was one of the last of these canisters ever produced.’
‘That’s right,’ says Aldus, ‘but don’t get too excited about the canister. There’s something inside that’s even more interesting.’
The woman reaches towards it with one of her hands, but I’m not happy to let go of it just yet.
‘I think we’d better go somewhere a bit darker,’ I say. ‘The lights in here are too bright for the thing inside it.’
‘Is that so?’ says the woman, with a glint in her eye. ‘Come with me - I know the perfect place.’
As I follow her down two long corridors, the woman introduces herself. ‘I’m Professor June Snarkle. You’ve probably heard of me. I’m the president of this fine society.’
‘Yes, of course! I’ve been a fan of yours for ... many minutes! It’s ... er, very nice to meet you.’
We soon find ourselves in front of a door with two large words painted on it:
DARK ROOM
I wonder what could be so special about this room. Most rooms are pretty dark when you turn the lights off!
Professor Snarkle presses a thumb onto the security scanner beside the door handle, and we hear a buzz as the door unlocks. She asks me to wait outside for a moment and vanishes into the room. I try to look in, but all I can see is darkness. A few seconds later, the room lights up in a very strange, soft red glow.
‘Please, Mr Brewster,’ says Professor Snarkle. ‘Come on in.’
I step inside and look around. It’s a very strange room, with desks and cupboards along every wall and scary-looking metal devices on some of them. There’s a red light bulb sitting upright on a desk at the back wall. I ask Professor Snarkle what it’s for. She seems surprised to hear my question.
‘Surely you know we can only look at film under soft red light?’
‘Ah, yes ... I must have forgotten. It’s safe for the film, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right,’ says Professor Snarkle. ‘Now, let’s have a closer look at this lovely item of yours.’
I hand her the canister, and she pops the lid off. I can see her eyes growing rapidly as she slides the film out and lifts it up to her nose. She spins it around in her fingers as she tries to read the faded words printed on it.
‘This is unbelievable,’ she says. ‘It’s the oldest film case I’ve ever seen. I can only imagine what’s inside it.’
‘Exactly,’ I say. ‘I’d be very grateful if you could help me find out.’
‘My dear chap,’ she says, ‘don’t you worry about that. I’ll start work on it right now. If the film inside has survived, I’ll even print you copies of the photos in there.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ I say, but deep in my stomach there’s a dark gurgly feeling I can’t seem to get rid of.
I watch as Snarkle picks up a strange-looking pair of pliers and cuts into the film’s metal casing. She slides the reel of film out, and the whole thing unravels all the way down to the floor.
I gasp out loud, and Snarkle gives me a strange look.
‘Relax, my dear,’ she says. ‘I’ve done this before. Our film ... sorry, your film, is in no danger of being damaged.’
Suddenly I hear a growling sound under my coat - and this time it’s not my stomach!
‘Excuse me,’ I say. ‘I haven’t had lunch yet. My tummy’s a bit rumbly!’
I gently tap Oscar’s nose through the coat, and he goes quiet again - for now!
For the next few minutes, I stand there silently, watching as Snarkle takes a plastic tray out of a cupboard and fills it with liquid from a black bottle. She carefully lowers the film into the tray and leaves it there a few more minutes.
‘Now,’ she says, ‘it’s time to get this thing dry.’
Snarkle takes the film out of the tray and picks up something that looks like an ancient hairdryer. She blasts warm air from one end of the film to the other. When she’s sure it’s dry, she pours a different liquid into another tray and lays the film down in that one.
‘Can you help me with something?’ she asks.
‘Of course, Professor!’
‘See that timer on the wall? Press the round button, please.’
I reach over to the digital timer and press the button below the time display. When it clicks over to two minutes, Professor Snarkle yanks the film out of the liquid and rushes over to the red globe.
‘Yes!’ she cries, examining the film in the red light. ‘Our film contains a photo!’
I hurry over to see what she’s talking about. Most of the film is black, but with the red light shining through it, I can see something that looks like an old building near the end of the reel.
‘This is incredible,’ says Snarkle. ‘We are the first people to see this image since it was taken, more than four centuries ago!’
‘This certainly is a historical moment,’ I say, ‘but what do we do next?’
‘The next step takes a little longer. We’ll have to put the film into this machine,’ she says, pointing at a towering metal contraption on one of the desks. ‘We use its light to shine the image onto some special paper. Then, we need to put the paper into another chemical to make the image appear.’
‘Gosh,’ I say, ‘I didn’t realise it was so complicated.’
‘That’s not even the end of it! After the image appears, we still need to put the paper into one more chemical to make sure the image doesn’t fade away.’
‘Wow!’ I say. ‘We’d better start straight away!’
The smile on Professor Snarkle’s face begins to flatten out. ‘I’ll need to find some photographic paper first,’ she says. ‘It’s extremely rare and expensive. That could take a while, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘But, I have an idea, Mr Brewster. How would you feel about ... selling the film to us?’
Gosh. I wasn’t expecting to hear that. ‘Well,’ I say, ‘how much do you think it might be worth?’
‘The truth is, it’s priceless. A well-preserved film like this hasn’t been found for over 50 years. The society doesn’t have a lot of money, but I could probably offer you about nine million dollars for it.’
I have to grab onto the nearest desk to stay on two feet! Nine million dollars could change my life, and Oscar’s too. It might be just enough to buy a slightly more comfortable home than a packing case in a dusty storeroom.
‘Well,’ I say, ‘that does sound quite generous to —
Before I can finish the sentence, my stomach starts wriggling violently. The next thing I know, there’s a beagle-bot’s head poking out where my stomach is meant to be! The buttons of my coat pop off and fly in all directions as Oscar leaps out and tumbles to the floor. On the way down, his tail catches my beard and rips it off my face.
Oscar hits the floor with a thud, rolls over and steadies himself on all fours. He looks up at me with a very disappointed look on his snout.
‘Sorry, Oscar,’ I say. ‘I was dazzled by dollars for a moment there. But you’re quite right - we need to be more professional about this.’
For a moment I forget that Professor Snarkle is standing right beside us, watching and listening to every word we’re saying.
‘Silly, silly me,’ she says. ‘Only an uneducated shadie would need to ask so many silly questions. But don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of time to learn about all sorts of things where I’m about to send you.’
Professor Snarkle darts from the room, and before we know it she’s locked the door behind her. We run over and press our ears against it. Somewhere out there in the corridor, I can hear her making a call.
‘Captain Selby? Yes, June Snarkle from the Bluggsville East Photographic Society. I’ve managed to detain a Skyburb urchin and his wretched robo- dog ... Yes, a boy, 11 or 12 years old, and a beagle- bot ... Oh, really? Well, I’m very glad I can help you take them back where they belong.’
As Snarkle’s voice fades, I look down at Oscar. ‘Did you hear that, pup? If we can’t get out of here quick smart, the Unclaimed Urchins Recapture Squad will be taking us back there.'’
There is the Skyburb 7 Home for Unclaimed Urchins. We escaped that terrible place two years ago, and we have no intention of going back - ever!
‘Let’s get thinking, Oscar,’ I gulp. ‘We need an escape plan - and rather quickly too!’
