7
Searching for Yesterday

Boo put the beetle’s box in his school bag, then slipped the bag onto his back and padded into the wormhole.

What am I doing, he wondered suddenly, trotting down a wormhole to another universe, all alone and without a single plan between my whiskers?

‘Squeak?’ The mouse stuck his head up from his pouch, peered around and ducked back down again.

Well, all alone except for a mouse.

How could he convince the Guardians to give Yesterday her freedom—or at least let her study a bit longer at the School for Heroes?

Why should they listen to a puppy dog, even if he was a Hero?

But he had to try, he thought. At least then Yesterday would know they hadn’t all abandoned her, forgotten about her, just going on with their lessons and Heroing as though she had never existed.

And if this didn’t work, he’d keep thinking till he thought of something that did!

Suddenly he felt better. He lifted his leg and left a few drops on the dark side of the wormhole, then padded onwards. Somehow all wormhole journeys seemed to take the same length of time—or all the ones he’d taken so far had, anyway. Surely he’d walked for long enough now…

Even as he thought it he began to rise, up, up through the blackness of the wormhole roof. There he was, under the rough leather hammock in Yesterday’s stone hut.

He peered around. The hut had been rebuilt since the school bus had pounded through the doors, the rocks piled up again. He could feel the heat of Yesterday’s universe through his paws, somehow quite different from the heat of the volcano, a low steady heat, while the volcano always seemed ready to bite your paws. Stone floor, stone walls, the big rock for a table.

‘Yesterday?’ he barked softly.

If only I’d had the sense to bring her something, he thought. Some food at least, the sort she liked. All he had in his bag was his slug sandwiches for lunch, and Yesterday didn’t like slug sandwiches, even when the slugs were all green and bubbly. At least he still had the banana Dr Mussells had offered him. Yesterday liked bananas.

‘Yesterday?’ he barked again, lifting his leg on the door post, then suddenly wondering if Yesterday would mind. Okay, it was bad manners to widdle at school, except in toilets, but Hero School was weird in lots of ways. And Yesterday liked dogs. She’d said so. So she wouldn’t be silly about a few drops of widdle…maybe she’d even like the smell.

‘Who is it?’ The voice sounded young and scared. But it wasn’t Yesterday’s. Boo lifted up his nose. Yesterday’s scent was there, but only faintly. Another human’s—a boy’s—scent was stronger.

Where was Yesterday? Was it the boy who’d spoken? Dinosaurs didn’t speak.

He gulped. Did they?

‘It’s me. I mean it’s Boojum Bark, Hero Level 4.’ Boo padded out of the hut, trying not to shiver at the memory of the few scraps of bloody bone that had been all that was left of the Greedle and its bogeys.

But there was no sign of the Greedle now. Boo supposed the dinosaurs had devoured everything. There was the lake of silver grey, the grey flat rocks, the dull grey sky above. The only difference this time was the young human shivering in front of him.

He was just a pup—a boy, Boo corrected himself—younger than Yesterday. He wore a tatty leather tunic, just like Yesterday’s, and had bare feet and a dirty face. But Yesterday held herself straight and brave. This boy looked like he was trying not to run away.

‘You…you’ve come out of the wormhole, h—h—haven’t you?’ stammered the boy.

Boo nodded. ‘It’s okay. I’m a Hero.’

‘N—not a bogey?’

Boo sighed. ‘Do I look like a bogey?’

The boy peered down at him through his dirty hair. ‘I don’t know. I never seen a bogey before.’

‘Trust me. Bogeys are ferocious.’

The boy blinked. ‘Aren’t Heroes ferocious?’

‘Well yes. But in a different way. A good way,’ Boo added. The boy looked like he was going to melt into a puddle of terror.

A shadow passed across the flat grey rock, a deeper shade of grey. Boo glanced up. It was one of the flying dinosaurs, one with a long narrow head. Even from down here he could see its two rows of teeth.

He forced himself not to shiver. He was a Hero, wasn’t he? He bet the Werewolf General wouldn’t shiver just because there was a flying dinosaur up there who could rip the most ferocious of the Greedle’s bogeys into shreds…He looked back at the boy. ‘I’m looking for Yesterday.’

The boy looked more nervous still. ‘That’s me.’

Boo blinked as Yesterday’s words came back to him. I don’t even have my own name.

Boo sat on his haunches, then lifted his bum quickly. This ground was hot. ‘I’m looking for the Yesterday who lives here.’

‘I live here,’ said the boy. ‘I feed the dinosaurs. I feed them in the morning and I feed them in the evening. That is my job.’

Boo tried not to show his exasperation. ‘I mean…the other Yesterday. The Hero Yesterday.’

‘You mean the Yesterday who fed the dinosaurs before?’ The boy looked slightly reassured.

‘That’s the one.’

‘She’s not here.’ The boy looked almost happy at finally being able to give the right answer.

Boo hoped you didn’t need too many brains to feed dinosaurs. ‘I can see that. Where is she?’

‘With the Guardians.’

‘What’s she doing there?’

The boy stared at him, then shook his head. ‘She is with the Guardians,’ he said again, as though that explained it all.

‘Well, how can I get there?’

The boy’s eyes opened wider. He didn’t answer.

This was getting nowhere.

Suddenly Boo was furious. Not at the boy. Boo bet this kid had never had a chance to know anything. There was no one to care for him, here in this barren land of rock and lizards. No one to cook him sheep’s eyeballs and spaghetti, or dust his sleeping basket with flea powder. No, he was angry at the Guardians. Who did the Guardians think they were, putting a scared kid like this among the dinosaurs, with a wormhole to watch over, too? Who knew what bogeys might be lurking?!

What would the Werewolf General do? he wondered. And then he knew.

‘Look, kid,’ barked Boo. ‘I’m a Hero. Do you know what that means?’

‘No,’ said the boy.

‘It means that if a Monstrous Bonglegrub oozes its way up that wormhole I might be the one who zaps along to save you—and save the Guardians too. If a Hero wants to see someone, they get seen. Look,’ he added more gently, because the boy was quivering like the practice jelly-monster bogey back at school. ‘You must have some way to contact the Guardians in an emergency. What if a Monstrous Bonglegrub does come up that wormhole?’

The boy quivered even more. ‘Is it going to?’

‘No,’ said Boo honestly. ‘But I’m betting that the Guardians will be very, very angry if you don’t let them know a Hero wants to see them. Now.’

The boy stared at him for a moment. ‘All right,’ he whispered at last. ‘There’s…there’s a button in the hut. I push it if trouble comes.’ He nodded, as though to reassure himself. ‘I feed the dinosaurs every morning. I feed the dinosaurs every night. I press the button if trouble comes.’ He looked pleadingly at Boo. ‘They won’t be angry?’

Boo jumped up, planted his paws against the boy’s chest and licked his grubby chin. The boy leapt back, terrified and shivering.

‘I’m not trying to tenderise you!’ barked Boo, exasperated. ‘I’m being friendly! If the Guardians are angry it’ll be with me, not you. Here,’ he added, because the boy looked so lost and so alone. ‘Have a banana.’

He wriggled his jaw around, grasped the banana in his bag and tossed it over. The boy caught it. He looked at it as though he had never seen a piece of fruit before.

‘Peel the skin off, bite, then swallow,’ said Boo. ‘Ooops, sorry,’ he added as the boy did all of that and promptly began to choke. ‘I should have said “chew” too. Then press that button.’

USEFUL DEFINITIONS

A Person: Someone who invites you to dinner.

A person can have three heads, long fangs and eighteen tentacles, but they are still a person as long as they’re polite.

A Bogey: Something that invites you to BE dinner. Or more often doesn’t bother with an invitation at all.

An Animal: Something that might have you for dinner or might be your dinner, but doesn’t have the capacity for invitations, polite or otherwise.

FROM COUNT TTOO-TTEN’S

GUIDE TO THE UNIVERSES