you see?’
‘And that’s what happened to the statue?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Shall I stick the plate away in the cupboard now? I don’t think it actually belongs in the cutlery drawer where you’re putting it.’
Dave chuckled. ‘Thank you, Barney.’
‘If we gave the locket to the four-dimensional creature,’ reasoned Gill, ‘it could use it to go home without having to absorb the energy of the fusion reactor. And if we were
very careful, no one need get hurt at all.’ She put a hand to her throat and lifted a thin silver chain from around her neck. Dangling from it was a small silvery shape. She handed it to
Barney.
‘You’ve still got the locket?’ Barney stared at it in awe. He felt like he was holding a very small but immensely powerful bomb.
‘Couldn’t get rid of it, risk someone else vanishing into it. Far too dangerous. And it reminds me of Fleur. Maybe it can do some good today for once.’
‘We should get going,’ said Dave. ‘We can’t afford to hang about. Too much is at stake.’
‘How are we going to get there?’ asked Barney. ‘It’s twenty miles away.’
‘We’ve got our bus passes,’ said Gill. ‘Have you got enough money for the fare, Barney?’
‘What?’ He looked at her, momentarily dumbfounded. ‘Uh, yeah. I guess. But isn’t there any quicker way of—’
Gill and Dave looked at one another and suddenly burst out laughing. Slowly and painfully, Gill rose to her feet. She hobbled with her walking frame over to a kitchen cupboard and fished out a
key from a bowl. She held it up for Barney to see.
‘This is the key to a nineteen seventy-three Ford Cortina XLE. She hasn’t been out of our garage for nearly fifteen years, but every weekend we give her a polish and start her up
just to hear the engine.’
‘Her name’s Daisy,’ explained Dave.
‘And you haven’t driven her for fifteen years?’
‘We’ve never had anywhere to go,’ said Dave.
‘Until now,’ said Gill. ‘Come on.’
‘Are you sure you’re both up to it?’ asked Barney, eyeing them uncertainly. ‘I mean, I don’t mean to be rude or anything but neither of you are as young as you once
were . . .’
Gill kicked over her walking frame violently. It clattered to the kitchen floor. ‘Time’s a-wasting,’ she said. ‘Let’s hit the road. Geek Inc. and the Society of
Highly Unusual Things have a problem to solve.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SANDERLING RIDGE
It was a clear, chilly evening and the two massive cooling towers stood silent and brooding like twin giants surveying the vast stretch of barren countryside that formed their
kingdom. They rose amidst a complex of buildings – boxy control rooms, pipe-sprouting reprocessing facilities, vast cathedral-sized turbine halls and an enormous hexagonal-patterned reactor
dome resembling a gigantic golf ball half buried in the earth.
High in a plush office in one of the buildings, working late for the fourth night in a row, Julia Goosefoot, the general manager of Sanderling Ridge (formerly Cherrycroft Mount, formerly Lark
Meadows, formerly Dandelion Grove) sat at a desk and stared lovingly at a framed photograph of a handsome man and two extremely cute kids. The man wasn’t her husband and the kids
weren’t hers – in fact it was a photograph she had cut out of an advert for biscuits in the magazine that came with her Sunday paper. But she loved the photograph anyway because it made
visitors to her office think she was normal. And when people thought she was normal that gave her an advantage over them – because in reality there was very little that was normal about Julia
Goosefoot. She was, to pick just three things at random, abnormally cruel, abnormally single-minded and abnormally ambitious.
At the age of four, Julia had attached roller skates to her sleeping grandmother’s garden chair and sent the old woman trundling down a hill towards a busy road, just so she could steal
her grandmother’s last slice of toast.
‘And that’s what happened to the statue?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Shall I stick the plate away in the cupboard now? I don’t think it actually belongs in the cutlery drawer where you’re putting it.’
Dave chuckled. ‘Thank you, Barney.’
‘If we gave the locket to the four-dimensional creature,’ reasoned Gill, ‘it could use it to go home without having to absorb the energy of the fusion reactor. And if we were
very careful, no one need get hurt at all.’ She put a hand to her throat and lifted a thin silver chain from around her neck. Dangling from it was a small silvery shape. She handed it to
Barney.
‘You’ve still got the locket?’ Barney stared at it in awe. He felt like he was holding a very small but immensely powerful bomb.
‘Couldn’t get rid of it, risk someone else vanishing into it. Far too dangerous. And it reminds me of Fleur. Maybe it can do some good today for once.’
‘We should get going,’ said Dave. ‘We can’t afford to hang about. Too much is at stake.’
‘How are we going to get there?’ asked Barney. ‘It’s twenty miles away.’
‘We’ve got our bus passes,’ said Gill. ‘Have you got enough money for the fare, Barney?’
‘What?’ He looked at her, momentarily dumbfounded. ‘Uh, yeah. I guess. But isn’t there any quicker way of—’
Gill and Dave looked at one another and suddenly burst out laughing. Slowly and painfully, Gill rose to her feet. She hobbled with her walking frame over to a kitchen cupboard and fished out a
key from a bowl. She held it up for Barney to see.
‘This is the key to a nineteen seventy-three Ford Cortina XLE. She hasn’t been out of our garage for nearly fifteen years, but every weekend we give her a polish and start her up
just to hear the engine.’
‘Her name’s Daisy,’ explained Dave.
‘And you haven’t driven her for fifteen years?’
‘We’ve never had anywhere to go,’ said Dave.
‘Until now,’ said Gill. ‘Come on.’
‘Are you sure you’re both up to it?’ asked Barney, eyeing them uncertainly. ‘I mean, I don’t mean to be rude or anything but neither of you are as young as you once
were . . .’
Gill kicked over her walking frame violently. It clattered to the kitchen floor. ‘Time’s a-wasting,’ she said. ‘Let’s hit the road. Geek Inc. and the Society of
Highly Unusual Things have a problem to solve.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SANDERLING RIDGE
It was a clear, chilly evening and the two massive cooling towers stood silent and brooding like twin giants surveying the vast stretch of barren countryside that formed their
kingdom. They rose amidst a complex of buildings – boxy control rooms, pipe-sprouting reprocessing facilities, vast cathedral-sized turbine halls and an enormous hexagonal-patterned reactor
dome resembling a gigantic golf ball half buried in the earth.
High in a plush office in one of the buildings, working late for the fourth night in a row, Julia Goosefoot, the general manager of Sanderling Ridge (formerly Cherrycroft Mount, formerly Lark
Meadows, formerly Dandelion Grove) sat at a desk and stared lovingly at a framed photograph of a handsome man and two extremely cute kids. The man wasn’t her husband and the kids
weren’t hers – in fact it was a photograph she had cut out of an advert for biscuits in the magazine that came with her Sunday paper. But she loved the photograph anyway because it made
visitors to her office think she was normal. And when people thought she was normal that gave her an advantage over them – because in reality there was very little that was normal about Julia
Goosefoot. She was, to pick just three things at random, abnormally cruel, abnormally single-minded and abnormally ambitious.
At the age of four, Julia had attached roller skates to her sleeping grandmother’s garden chair and sent the old woman trundling down a hill towards a busy road, just so she could steal
her grandmother’s last slice of toast.
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