‘No, no, no!’ Sir Gideon shouted. His scales went from pink to green to blue to brown to crimson to really crimson, to oh-so-very-very crimson. ‘No!’
But the Time Worm’s mouth was moving across the edge of the hole, sealing it as though she was crimping two pastry edges together on a pie.
‘All closed up,’ she said dolefully, turning to look at them. She burped. ‘Sorry about that. It happens.’
Sir Gideon let out an undignified whimper, and he fluttered to the ground. ‘The end. It’s the end,’ he muttered.
‘What happened?’ Hattie asked. Her body was tense. She was still half expecting Victor to toss her up in the air, past the purple-grey blubber of the Time Worm and through a hole that might open up again at any moment. And if that happened, she’d be on her way to who knew where.
‘You’re still here,’ Sir Gideon screamed as he fluttered round her face. ‘You’re not supposed to be here. You’re supposed to be anywhere but here. Anywhere but Somewhere-Nowhere.’
Sir Gideon turned to face Victor. ‘And you stopped that from happening.’ Sir Gideon’s scales started to change colour again. ‘You didn’t throw her,’ he yelled.
‘No, I didn’t,’ Victor said.
‘We agreed.’
Victor looked up at the cloud that was now a little way away from them. ‘And then I unagreed,’ he said.
‘You can’t just unagree.’
‘Yes I can. I’ll show you why.’ Victor moved towards the cloud. He waved his trunk. ‘Watch,’ he told Sir Gideon, positioning himself underneath the cloud.
‘Watch what?’ Hattie asked. If there was something interesting to see, she wanted to make sure she didn’t miss it. She followed Victor’s gaze and looked up at the cloud.
And as she watched, the cloud shivered, and a small shower of rain fell on them. Where the drops hit the ground, delicate yellow flowers sprang up from the soil, like flashes of gold in the red dust.
Sir Gideon gasped, and the Time Worm made a sound like a reverse burp.
‘It rained on her,’ Sir Gideon said.
‘That’s why I didn’t catapult her back into the human realm,’ Victor said.
‘But it wasn’t much.’ Sir Gideon’s colour had settled at green.
‘More than I’ve ever seen in one go like that.’
Sir Gideon and the Time Worm were staring at Hattie, and she wasn’t sure she liked it. They were staring at her in a way that made her skin tingle.
‘Can someone tell me what’s happening?’ she said. ‘First you wanted me to be here, then you didn’t. Then you wanted to throw me out of your world like I was a ball, then you didn’t. What’s going on?’
‘It rained, that’s what’s going on. It rained from the cloud,’ Sir Gideon said.
‘That’s what clouds do,’ Hattie said. ‘They take up water and then they use it to make rain.’
‘Not here,’ Victor said. ‘Here the clouds don’t rain.’
‘Not unless …’ the Time Worm started.
‘Shhh,’ Victor said.
‘But the cloud rained on you.’ The Time Worm stared even harder at Hattie. She turned her face up to the cloud, which was floating away from them. ‘If we had another one, we could see if it was a one-off.’
‘We can wait for the next one.’ Hattie followed her gaze, thinking it was probably a good thing that she wasn’t on a solo flight to a mystery place, but she still needed to get home.
‘There aren’t many clouds here,’ Victor said. ‘In fact, there are only the ones the Time Worm sets free.’
‘I’m meant to send nets with the clouds in them to the Cloud Keeper near the city.’ The Time Worm’s large bulging eyes blinked slowly as she spoke. ‘But every now and then I let a cloud go. I always say it’s an accident, but it’s so everyone outside the city can have a bit of rain too. I shouldn’t. If Lord Mortimer catches me, I’ll be punished.’
‘He won’t catch you. No one who lives outside the city would tell. They’re too grateful.’ Victor smiled.
‘What’s the point of releasing the clouds if they don’t rain?’ Hattie asked.
‘We throw stones and sometimes that gets a few drops out of them.’ Victor’s expression darkened. ‘To get water for the city they have other methods. But you made it rain without us having to throw stones. No one’s ever done more than a few drops at a time.’
‘But it wasn’t much. The shower didn’t last long.’
‘That shower counts as a miracle around here.’
‘It could have been the change in the temperature,’ Hattie said. ‘The cloud’s just been pulled through from — well — I don’t know where. But wherever it was, the temperature could have been different enough for rain to start when it got here.’
The Time Worm nodded. ‘The human-realm child may be right, Victor.’
‘Hattie,’ said Hattie. ‘I’m called Hattie.’ When would they start treating her like she was more than a curiosity?
‘What an unfortunate name,’ the Time Worm said. ‘I hope it doesn’t make you sad.’ She turned to the others. ‘I’d like it to be the human Hattie. But it can’t be. It must be a coincidence. The cloud was adjusting to the new world, like the human Hattie said.’ The Time Worm’s eyes brimmed with tears. ‘So now she’s trapped for nothing.’
‘Did you say I’m trapped?’
‘Yes, you can’t go back until a new order for clouds comes through from Lord Mortimer, and who knows when he’ll ask me to drill again. He doesn’t like me to do it too often, in case the people in the human realm notice.’ Her voice became higher and higher. ‘I’m sorry, human-realm child. I’m sorry, human Hattie. They shouldn’t have condemned you like this. And all for nothing.’ Tears swelled in her eyes. ‘And now I feel so sad. I don’t think I can go on.’ The tears started to spill over the rims of her eyes. ‘I could have saved you. I could have saved you,’ she wailed. ‘They’ve been so cruel.’ She began to rock back and forth.
‘Marcia, the cloud isn’t a coincidence,’ Victor said. ‘When I was in the human realm, she saw me.’
The Time Worm’s wails stopped. Her body swayed unsteadily. ‘It’s a miracle,’ she managed to say before she fell flat on her stomach.