Billy woke up, his drowsy eyes gradually bringing the room into focus. A golden glow of sunshine shone through his curtains and he smiled, snuggling into the duvet for a few more minutes. Everything was back to normal and he could put the scares of the night out of his mind.
A soft thumping noise was coming from somewhere, probably their old boiler heating the water for his bath. His dad was always promising to get a new one. Then he heard his dad singing badly to the radio downstairs, and there was a reassuring clatter just outside his door.
Oh, good, he thought, propping himself up on his elbows. His mum was bringing him a cup of hot chocolate. She always did on Saturdays, so he could have a lie-in. He usually played football, but today was Tom’s birthday and he didn’t want to be late.
‘What’s the time, Mum?’ he asked, as the door opened with a squeak.
But it wasn’t his mum.
‘Rickett!’ Billy shrieked, springing upright as the collector shuffled into his bedroom.
‘Get out! Get out of my room, now!’ He leaped out of bed, backing away from the lanky guard in horror. ‘Dad, help!’ he yelled. ‘Come quick.’
Rickett looked blankly at Billy and then stood aside so he could see through the doorway to the dark landing lined with doors.
‘No!’ shouted Billy, realizing he was still inside the fortress. He ran over to the window and pulled back the curtains. It was still the dead of night, and there had been no sunlight shining through them after all. In a mad panic he rushed for the door, desperate to get away, but Rickett caught him by the wrist.
‘Coooome,’ he mooed, and began to drag Billy towards the landing.
‘Wait!’ cried Billy, tears of confusion stinging his eyes. He had no idea what was going on.
Rickett looked at him with a vacant expression.
‘Where am I?’ asked Billy feebly.
‘Hoooome,’ Rickett replied, gesturing around the room.
‘This isn’t my home. Please let me go. My mum and dad will be worried, and you are gonna be in so much trouble!’ Billy pleaded, but Rickett grabbed him in his powerful grasp, hauled him out of the room and forced him along the landing and through the dark fortress.
They passed some blind snufflers patrolling the corridors, and a huddle of crones who stood in the middle of a room, chattering and clucking like hens.
‘G’morning, 5126. Cat shtill got your tongue? Hee-hee-hee!’ cackled a spiteful voice. It was Morwella. The others fell about laughing and Billy’s face burned with humiliation.
He was led across wide dining halls, and through rooms that smelled as rank as farmyards. He heard fearsome growls and screams of terror coming from behind closed doors, and he grew even more scared. Then, all of a sudden, Rickett stopped and pointed down a long corridor. At the far end a door stood ajar, and a pale glow shone through the gap.
‘The Briiiight Roooom,’ he said, and without another word he disappeared, melding into the shadows.
‘What do you mean, “the Bright Room”?’ asked Billy. ‘Hey, come back!’
But Rickett had already gone.
Billy couldn’t believe it, and felt a spark of hope – he had been left on his own so now he could escape from the fortress! If he could get back to his house, surely he would find a way to break in … But glancing towards the door at the end of the passage, Billy felt an irresistible urge to find out what was on the other side.
Don’t be stupid. You’ve got to find a way out of here, he told himself. And yet even as this thought crossed his mind, he found he was walking down the corridor towards the Bright Room. He couldn’t fight the urge to look inside.
‘Surely it can’t hurt to have a peek,’ he reasoned. He pushed the door open and stepped into a room bathed in a soft ethereal light.
He was in a round hall with glass walls that glowed with bright angular patterns. The air seemed charged with energy, and little balls of light fizzed and popped and fell through the air like coloured rain. Just breathing the air made Billy feel calmer and happier. Then he heard a noise and turned to see a girl wander in, and his heart leaped. It was Zoe, a girl from his school – she was in the same class as him for some lessons.
‘Billy?’ she said. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I’ve no idea, but this place is incredible,’ said Billy.
Zoe gazed around the room in wonder.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.
Then another child entered the room, and then two more, and Billy got the shock of his life.
‘Tom!’ he cried. ‘How did you get here?’
‘N-n-not sure,’ said Tom with a nervous grin. ‘I followed a cat down a passageway. I thought it was injured. When I got to the other end everything was d-d-dark, and I ended up in this fortress. Oh, Billy, I’ve been so scared.’
‘Me too. I’m so glad to see you,’ said Billy, holding up his hand for a high five. Then he recognized some of the other children coming in now – Samir and Jessica, who also went to his school.
‘I wanna go home,’ said a small boy Billy didn’t know. He looked petrified.
‘Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll get home soon,’ said Billy. ‘And we’re all together now, and this room feels safe enough.’ But he didn’t even convince himself. Then he noticed a scratch on the boy’s wrist, and looked at the other children’s hands. They all had tick-like scratches.
‘Hold on a minute,’ said Billy, rolling back his sleeve and showing the tick on his own wrist. ‘Did you get that scratch in the Park Street shop?’
‘Yes,’ said the little boy. ‘And it stings.’
‘Me too,’ said Zoe, holding out her wrist.
‘And were you served by a strange old man?’
‘Yeah, he was really creepy,’ said Samir. ‘And smelly!’
‘You’re right – he smelled just like Morwella. Surely that can’t be a coincidence,’ said Billy, screwing his face up in thought.
Suddenly there was a loud humming noise and the floor began to slowly turn beneath their feet.
‘Whoa! What’s happening?’ cried Zoe.
A hole opened in the middle of the floor, and grew bigger and bigger as it turned. Steam billowed up as a gleaming, streamlined roller-coaster car with three rows of seats rose from the darkness below. There was a hiss of air brakes and the seats’ shoulder-restraints sprang up.
‘Oh wow, that’s so cool!’ cried Billy delightedly, as a row of lights flashed around the seats, as if to invite them aboard. Without a moment’s hesitation he clambered into the front seat of the car followed by Tom and the others, their hearts racing with expectation, all thoughts of home having melted away.
The shoulder-restraints lowered automatically and with a sudden lurch the roller coaster sprang forward and hurtled straight towards the glowing wall.
‘Yahoooo!’ the children yelled jubilantly, as the wall appeared to melt and their car passed through it into a long winding tube of flashing kaleidoscopic colours. The car looped the loop, throwing everyone to the left and right, and then left again.
‘Woohoo!’ he heard Tom cry as they shot from the end of the tube into a vast, velvety blackness. Everything went quiet. A million stars sparkled like diamonds all around them and enormous planets glowed copper and red and yellow as they spun majestically through outer space.
‘Oh, wow,’ gasped Billy again.
The seats’ shoulder-bars hissed open and the children were tipped out of the car. Billy floated weightlessly across space. He recognized Saturn and Jupiter – they were as colourful as crystallized gumdrops – and when Billy looked down he saw the bright blue Earth beneath him. He knew his mum and dad were somewhere down there, but he was finding it difficult to think clearly about his home when he was in such a wonderful place.
His friends floated around him, smiling and wide-eyed. Billy felt he could happily stay there for ever, but with a sudden and disconcerting rush he found himself being dragged across the void at an ever-increasing pace, straight towards a gaping black hole. His body was stretched like a piece of elastic, and grew longer and longer. It was a very strange feeling being a hundred metres long, and Billy felt sure he would snap in half, but without knowing quite how it happened, he was catapulted right back into the Bright Room. The hole in the floor had disappeared and Tom and the others landed in a happy, chattering heap beside him.
‘Hey, Tom, what do you think—’ Billy began to say, when suddenly a row of long, ghostly tables began to appear in the room, and he fell silent. They were laden with plates of food that shimmered like holograms, and then solidified into the most wonderful feast Billy had ever seen.
‘This – is – incredible!’ he murmured in an awestruck whisper.
There were burgers and hot vinegary chips, sticky cakes, boxes of sugar-dusted Turkish delight, and boiled sweets that shone like jewels. There was a jam roly-poly as long as one of the tables, and a huge bowl of bright yellow custard that steamed and bubbled like a witch’s cauldron.
His stomach rumbled and gurgled, and Billy realized just how famished he was. He forgot what he was going to say to Tom and rushed over, picked up a pastry and sank his teeth into it. He had never tasted anything so delicious – until he tried one of the cheeseburgers. It made his brain fizz with joy. How could anything taste so good?
Billy made his way along the table, stuffing Christmas pudding and chocolate sponge, chips dipped in ketchup and Neapolitan ice cream into his hungry mouth. There was even a birthday cake there for Tom! His friends did the same, and they let off party poppers and pulled crackers with each other, and drank fizzy drinks that seemed to set off fireworks inside their heads.
No matter how much they ate, there was always more to try. Each mouthful was better than the one before, and by the time he’d finally had enough, Billy was feeling strangely numb. All his anger and fears had melted clean away.
‘B-b-brilliant,’ muttered Tom, with a slight belch as he stuffed another slice of his birthday cake in his mouth, but then the tables disappeared before their eyes and the door to the Bright Room creaked open.
Rickett and a group of other collectors entered. ‘Come,’ said Rickett, but Billy didn’t want to leave the enchanted room. He felt full of wonder and magic.
‘Can’t we stay a little longer?’ he pleaded.
‘Come,’ repeated the other collectors, and Billy’s friends trooped reluctantly out of the room.
Rickett pointed after them, his face as expressionless as a mask, and Billy grudgingly got to his feet. He was feeling so calm now he quietly followed the collector back to his room in the tower.