I can see the TV news crews still camped outside my house, the camera lights that illuminate the pavement outside my front gate so bright that nobody noticed the brief flash of light that beamed Dad and me back down in the middle of Ashcroft Road.
I hop from toe to toe as I wait for the effects of teleportation to wear off, my dad doing the same silent dance before the pain eventually fades away.
Glancing up I see the silent darkness of the Cosmic Authority’s ship disappearing into the night, the stars coming out again one by one.
‘Are you ready?’ Dad asks me.
I glance across to meet his gaze. He’s still dressed in his ridiculous silver ski suit, but at least Dad’s used the Quintessence to change his skin back from being bright green. We don’t want to create any kind of international crisis about an alien invasion.
I nod my head.
‘Ready,’ I reply with a smile. ‘Let’s go home.’
We start walking, making our way past the outside broadcast vans parked along the street and we’re almost at the front gate before the camera crews notice that we’re there.
‘It’s them!’
As the camera operators scramble for position, the reporters jump into life, firing out questions as Dad pushes open the gate.
‘Was that really a UFO?’
‘Can you tell us where you’ve been?’
‘Is this all some kind of hoax?’
I follow my dad, ignoring the camera flashes as the front door opens and I see Mum start running down the garden path to greet us, Damon and Amba grinning wildly as they follow close behind. But before I take another step forward I feel a hand on my arm, pulling me back.
I turn around and, leaning over the garden gate, Asha Barnes thrusts a microphone into my face.
‘Jake,’ she asks, her expression deadly serious. ‘Are we alone in the universe?’
I look down the camera lens that’s hovering over her shoulder. I think about what I saw on the Cosmic Authority’s spaceship: glowing squids and smelly space slugs, the endless galleries filled with strange alien races all swaying in time with the song. I remember staring at the stars glittering in the dark, each one a sun with planets spinning round it, just like ours. I felt really small then, but I wasn’t alone.
I shake my head with a smile.
‘No,’ I reply, the word almost popping out of me as my family and friends wrap their arms around me in a hug. ‘We’re not alone.’