Squirrel Attack

Mo
We needed to talk to Hector, but we were out of time, so there was only one option.

‘You’re going to have to come over,’ I said.

‘Now?’

‘Yes. And we’re also going to have to explain my knee, which really hurts by the way – thanks for asking, everyone.’

‘I have a genius plan,’ Lottie said. ‘Everybody follow me!’

We walked home as sneakily as we could, ducking behind trees and parked cars. When we reached our stretch of the road, we stopped for a second to make sure nobody was watching from the windows, and then raced up the steps to our front door. I was a bit concerned about Lottie’s plan, but I had no ideas myself, and it was an emergency situation.

She opened the door and yelled, ‘Emma, come quick!’

I heard a chair scrape and bang and Mum came running out of the kitchen towards us, looking alarmed. ‘Mo, you’re bleeding!’ she said, scooping me up like a toddler and carrying me into the bathroom. ‘What happened?’ She looked at Hector. ‘And I don’t mean to be rude, but…’

‘This is Hector. He’s the lollipop man from school,’ Lottie said. ‘And a brilliant job he does, too.’ She winked.

‘Lovely to meet you,’ Mum glanced at Hector while examining my knee.

‘So lovely to meet you,’ Hector smiled at Mum in a very strange way.

‘Let me explain what happened,’ Lottie said. ‘Mo thought he heard a noise outside, so he leapt like a graceful gazelle… [she demonstrated the leap] over to the window to check it out. “Hector’s in trouble!” he said, as he ran heroically out of the front door and down the steps to where Hector was being attacked by a raging squirrel. I’ve never seen anything like it before – all teeth and claws…’ She did an impression of a wild animal slashing and biting, then she paused dramatically and looked around at us all. ‘Mo fought off the squirrel and fell, scraping his knee, which resulted in the injury you see before you.’

‘Gosh,’ said Mum. ‘A raging squirrel?’ She looked at me.

‘It was extra ragey,’ I said.

‘I don’t know what I would have done if Mo hadn’t seen me being attacked as I happened to be walking past your house,’ said Hector.

‘You’d probably be dead. Ripped to shreds. Nothing left but bloody little pieces on the ground for the birds to peck at.’ Lottie was taking it too far, as always.

‘And you work at the school?’ Mum looked up at Hector.

‘Yes. My job is to protect your children, which I have been doing to the best of my ability.’

‘What happened to Derek?’ Mum asked.

‘He left to be with his own kind,’ Lottie said. ‘In a special retirement home for lollipop men.’

Hector smiled at Mum again. ‘It really is awfully nice to meet you.’

Mum looked at him for a moment, and I saw the worry on her face fall away as it melted into a smile. I think she saw what I saw whenever I looked at Hector – there was just something about him that I liked.

‘Well, thank you for returning my brave Mo-Bear,’ she said. ‘Let me get him cleaned up and then I’ll make us all a cup of tea.’

 

Lottie
I noticed that nobody congratulated me on my quick thinking and incredible re-enactment, but I was too busy watching the weirdness going on between Emma and Hector to tell them off.

When we were sat in the living room and Emma went to the kitchen, I turned to him. ‘Why are you flirting with Emma?’

‘I am most definitely not flirting with Emma,’ Hector said.

‘But you’re looking at her like she’s your favourite celebrity crush.’

‘I like her,’ Hector said. ‘She’s kind and she smells like pancakes and strawberries.’

‘Well, hands off,’ I said. ‘My dad has already dibsed her.’

I didn’t know why it bothered me so much, but it put me in rather a bad mood.

‘We don’t have time to talk about this now,’ said Mo. ‘We only have a few minutes and there are more important things to discuss.’

I knew he was right, so I settled for giving Hector the stink-eye.

‘So, I guess you guys have more questions.’ Hector was sitting on the sofa, still wearing his lollipop man coat with his hat pulled low.

‘Ooh!’ I said, putting my hand up.

‘Yes!’ said Mo, jumping out of his chair.

‘And by questions, I mean questions about the predicament you are in and not about irrelevant stuff from the future.’

I put my hand in my lap, feeling extremely disappointed, and Mo sat back down.

‘Can you tell us more about why the Junkers are after us?’ Mo asked.

‘I can tell you a bit, but there’s only so much I can say without it having a dangerous effect on the future,’ Hector said. ‘You see, everything we do and say, no matter how small, creates ripples which…’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ I said. ‘We’ve all seen Doctor Who. We know about spoilers and rips in the fabric of the space-time continuum, or whatever.’

‘Just tell us what you can, please,’ said Mo.

‘OK. I guess I should start with the Discovery Competition. You guys have to win.’

‘You already told us that!’ I was getting impatient. ‘Why do we have to win?’

Sadie came into the room and sat next to Hector. He sort of chuckled when he saw her, although I couldn’t think what he had found amusing.

‘It’s fine to talk in front of Sadie,’ I said. ‘She’s part of the team.’

‘The work you’ve done for the Discovery Competition,’ Hector said, looking at Mo, ‘will one day put the Junkers out of business. You’re going to change the world.’

‘What? Mo is?’ I said.

‘Oh yes, he wins awards and everything.’

‘Mo does?’

‘Yes.’

‘This Mo.’

‘The Mo sitting in front of me now.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m certain.’

‘It seems unlikely.’

‘Hey, I’m standing right here!’ Mo stood up and flapped his arms about.

‘I’m just saying what everyone else is thinking,’ I said.

‘I’m sure nobody else is thinking that, Lottie,’ Hector frowned. ‘You should have a bit more faith in your brother.’

‘Nonsense,’ I said. ‘Sadie was thinking it, weren’t you, Sadie?’

‘Purrow meowt.’

‘Now, Sadie,’ Hector said, ‘that’s just plain rude.’

‘What did she say?’ Mo was still flapping.

‘Probably best I don’t repeat it, to be honest, Mo.’ Hector made a face.

‘Hang on,’ Mo said. ‘How can you understand her?’

Hector’s eyes went wide for a second, and then he said, ‘In the future, the most commonly spoken language is Cattish.’

‘Really?’ Mo was sucking it up, just because he was Hector’s favourite.

‘Sure,’ said Hector. ‘Maybe.’

‘So anyway, Mo is going to invent something, blahdy blahdy blah,’ I said. ‘That doesn’t explain why they’re after me, too.’

‘Ah, yes,’ Hector said. ‘He can’t do it without your help.’

‘Obviously.’ I rolled my eyes.

‘And I suspect the Junkers can only take one of you, so they’re probably deciding which of you to junk.’

‘Why can they only take one of us?’ Mo said.

‘It’s complicated,’ Hector sighed. ‘But to simplify: it’s to do with the power required for time-jumping. It’s easy to jump from the future to the past. Jumping requires a huge surge of power, and in the future we have power sources strong enough to provide that surge. In this time, there simply isn’t enough power.’

‘So how do you power a time-jump?’ I asked.

‘To make a jump from this time, we have to use the sun as a power source.’

‘Solar flares!’ Mo said.

‘Exactly,’ said Hector. ‘An X-class solar flare provides enough power, momentarily, for a single jump. But the Junkers need to make two jumps: one to send the – erm – junkee to the Junkyard, and the other to allow them to escape back into the future soon afterwards, before the disappearance of the junkee is investigated.’

‘And two X-class solar flares occurring close together is quite rare!’ Mo was getting very overexcited about all the sciency stuff.

‘So they come back and wait to make their move, just before a double flare.’

‘What’s with all the parts in their house, then?’ I said. ‘What are they building?’

‘That I don’t know,’ Hector said.

‘Something to take back to the future with them?’ Mo peeped out of the window at the Junker house opposite.

‘It can’t be that – it’s impossible to time-jump with any sort of metal on you. It would cause an explosion.’

‘That makes sense,’ I said. ‘In books and stuff people quite often have to time travel wearing just their pants.’

‘So, if the Junkers were to junk someone who had a watch on, for example,’ said Mo, ‘it would blow all of them up?’

‘Ooh.’ I jumped up. ‘That’s why Mr Gideon had that box of metal stuff in his van – he must have taken it from people before he junked them!’

‘Lottie, you’re right!’ Mo said. Of course I was.

‘Here we are,’ Emma walked into the room carrying a tray of tea and biscuits. ‘How’s your knee, Mo-Bear?’

‘It hurts a bit,’ he sniffed.

‘At least you both seem to be over that food poisoning now,’ Emma smiled. ‘You need to build your strength back up.’

Mo, Sadie and I stuffed ourselves with biscuits while Emma and Hector chatted, with him giving her that goofy smile the whole time.

‘Hector,’ Emma said. ‘I do love that name.’

 

Hector stayed for a while, drinking tea with six sugars, and stroking Schrody who sat on his lap. We didn’t get another chance to speak to him alone. I had been quite hard on him but, after spending that time together, I did believe we could trust him. After he left, Mo, Sadie, Schrody and I went up to Mo’s room. We had a lot to think about.

‘If only we could have asked him some more questions,’ Mo said. ‘There’s still so much we don’t know.’

‘Why don’t we write a list?’ I said. ‘We could pass a note to him when we cross the road tomorrow, and he could pass us one back on the way home. Assuming, of course, that he hasn’t been fired.’

‘That’s actually a good idea,’ said Mo.

‘Why do you always seem so surprised when I have a good idea?’ I asked. ‘It’s insulting.’

I thought he’d argue, but he just thought for a moment, and said, ‘Sorry, Lottie. I’m not used to working with other people. I’ve always thought that I was glad to be alone because I’m smarter than everyone else and they’d only mess things up. It’s hard, now, getting used to the idea that I was wrong to think that. You’re just as smart as me and it’s much better being part of a team.’

‘What?’ I said. Surely he was winding me up.

‘I said I’m sorry.’

‘If you think I’m an idiot, you should just come out and say it.’

‘I don’t though.’

I felt furious. ‘Whatever, Mo. Let’s write the list.’

You’ll find it in the evidence box, labelled Exhibit S.

Questions for Hector

How does time travel work?

What does a time machine look like?

How does junking work?

Does it use the same equipment as a time machine?

‘We’ll give this to him on our way to school tomorrow morning,’ I said, ‘And hopefully he’ll be able to answer us at home time.’

‘I don’t know how much he’ll be able to tell us. You know, without potentially destroying the future for everyone on Earth.’

‘You need to chill, Mo. It’ll be fine.’

‘What if we’re being watched, though?’

‘Who would be watching us?’

‘I don’t know – the Discovery Competition judges; the Time-Jump Spoiler Police; the Junkers. I don’t want it to look like we’re cheating. I don’t want to get arrested and put in Time-Jump Spoiler jail. And I don’t want us, or Hector to get junked.’

‘I don’t see how anyone would suspect Hector of being capable of any of those things,’ I said. ‘No offence, but he comes across as a bit of an idiot.’

‘That’s really mean, Lottie.’

‘Weren’t you listening? I said “no offence”.’

‘It doesn’t count if you follow it by saying something offensive.’

‘Have you got our Discovery invention working yet, Mo?’

I’ve never been exactly sure what a scowl is, but if I had to guess, I’d say it was the expression on Mo’s face at that moment. He stomped over to his desk and I smiled to myself. My brother was kind of adorable when he was cross.