First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2020

Published in this ebook edition in 2020

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Text copyright © David Baddiel 2020

Cover and interior illustrations copyright © Steven Lenton 2020

Cover design © HarperCollins Children’s Books

David Baddiel and Steven Lenton assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work respectively.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008334208

Ebook Edition © October 2020 ISBN: 9780008334239

Version: 2020-10-03

To the other member of my family, Stasia K

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Hello readers

Part One

Chapter 1: The Stadium Above the Clouds

Chapter 2: HouseUnit 72

Chapter 3: A kind of toy

Chapter 4: Any questions?

Chapter 5: Basic regulation

Chapter 6: TRANSPORTER

Chapter 7: Whatever You’re Looking For, We’ve Got it … Somewhere

Chapter 8: Inflatable dartboard

Chapter 9: Retro day at the stadium

Chapter 10: THE CHICKENS HAVE SURRENDERED!

Chapter 11: Pretty Polly! Pretty Polly!

Chapter 12: Just a real blink

Chapter 13: THE All-Weather Brella

Chapter 14: So silver

Part Two

Chapter 15: Keep ’em peeled

Chapter 16: Bobbins

Chapter 17: Pippa von Vandersteiner

Chapter 18: Don’t groan!

Chapter 19: WIE GEHT ES DIR HEUTE?

Chapter 20: Forty different types of screwdriver fittings

Chapter 21: Tweet, tweet tweet tweet tweet

Chapter 22: Meow

Chapter 23: MindLink

Chapter 24: A cup of Hot Fudge Vita-Tea

Chapter 25: IS THAT THE BELL?

Chapter 26: And not just pig colds

Chapter 27: Much activity in the fear regions

Chapter 28: VERY DEADPAN

Chapter 29: I’m calling a meeting

Chapter 30: A weird thing to make up!

Chapter 31: Fwam!

Chapter 32: The EMSTS ZXC/999

Chapter 33: Lederwhatty?

Chapter 34: Oops

Chapter 35: One-star rating

Chapter 36: Last one

Part Three

Chapter 37: Don’t be ridiculous

Chapter 38: An inventor, not a planner

Chapter 39: Pip vs Pip

Chapter 40: SUCK IT UP

Chapter 41: Free

Chapter 42: Sill-ee

Chapter 43: It’s complicated

Chapter 44: MUMMY AND DADDY

Chapter 45: The ‘Oh!’

Chapter 46: SOMEWHERE VERY DIFFERENT

Chapter 47: Flackle-alikes

Chapter 48: Surely no one was going to believe this?

Chapter 49: Say something!

Chapter 50: A tiny bit more time

Chapter 51: My friend

Chapter 52: Like rockets

Chapter 53: A memento

Chapter 54: What if it explodes?

Chapter 55: It’s a lovely day

Chapter 56: The boy from Block 5

Chapter 57: The magical fairy-story part

Coda: (IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE ENDING)

Keep Reading …

Books by David Baddiel

About the Publisher

Hello readers,

Thank you for buying this book (or, at least, for picking it up in the bookshop and reading this bit). I just wanted to let you know something, which is: this story mainly takes place in 2019. Originally, when I started writing it, in January 2020, it mainly took place in 2020. But then things happened in the world – the real world, I mean – which made me think: Hmm. Might be better to set this story just before all that.

Actually, some parts of this book take place in 3020. And, as you’ll see, the way I wrote the world as it might be in 3020 is kind of a bit like things actually got in 2020 for a while (and I suppose, although hopefully not, might get again). It was almost like I knew what was going to happen. I’d like to go ‘weeoooweeoooweeoooweeooo’ now (that’s the actual word for the music they have in films when a magic thing happens, of course) as if I did magically know that, but I didn’t.

Anyway. Now this book mainly takes place in 2019, before everything that happened in 2020 happened … but what the world is like in 3020 is what the world might be like unless we … Well, maybe you need to start the book and see.

Enjoy,

David

As ever, it was hard for Pip@256X#YY.3_7’s mum to get her out of bed. This was because Pip@256X#YY.3_7 was eleven and eleven-year-olds often are hard to get out of bed. But it was also because Pip@256X#YY.3_7 slept in a pod that had a built-in DreamSet, and last night she had programmed it for a Scoring the Winning Goal in the World League Final dream.

At the point at which her mum started knocking on the window of her BedPod, Pip@256X#YY.3_7 had, in fact, scored that goal, and celebrated by whooshing round the ground in her GravityLess Boots. But there was still the Great Slide down from the Stadium Above the Clouds to do, and she wasn’t going to miss that: it always looked like such fun when the winning team zoomed down the giant slide, holding up the trophy. So she just let the DreamSet reframe her mum’s Knock! Knock! Knock! so that it became the crowd chanting, ‘Pip! Pip! Pip!’

The Great Slide down from the Stadium Above the Clouds was great. The tallest in the solar system, the slide was made from Graphite42, a metal that was completely friction-free, and Pip whooshed down it at what felt like over a thousand kilostrands a minute! And the view, as she approached the City from above, was fantastic! She was nearly at the bottom when …

BUMP!

Her progress was halted by the GravityLess Boots of someone hovering in the way.

‘HEY!’ shouted Pip, rubbing her face. ‘You can’t be here!’

‘I can,’ said the person hovering in the way. ‘I’m your mum.’

‘I know!’ said Pip. ‘But this is my dream!

‘Yes,’ said Nina@256X#YY.3_7, ‘but I’m your mum!’

‘You just said that!’

‘Yes, but you seem to be forgetting it. And also that I have one of these!’

Nina took from the pocket of her ImageSuit a small crystal inscribed with the words: DreamSet: Override Control.

‘Oh no …’ said Pip. ‘Mum …’

Nina rotated the crystal. Instantly, everything – the Great Slide, the view up to the Stadium Above the Clouds, the view down to the City – dissolved like tears in rain. And was replaced by Pip in her BedPod, looking up at her mum standing outside the window of her pod. Nina’s ImageSuit was now set to StandardMum. She had her arms crossed.

‘Now what’s going on?’ said Pip. ‘I thought your Dream Override could only change my dream – not actually wake me up?’

‘You’re not awake,’ said her mum. ‘I just changed your dream to this.’

‘What … I’m now dreaming that I’m at home in my pod?’

‘Yes.’

‘What a rubbish dream!’

‘Yes. Which is why you might as well wake up.’

Pip sighed. She blinked three times, and woke up. She stretched, yawned, and pressed the button by the side of her AirMattress. The window of her pod opened with a smooth hiss. She frowned.

‘Actually,’ she said, ‘have I woken up? Because this looks exactly the same as my dream.’

‘Yes,’ said her mum. ‘Good morning – time for school!’

Luckily for Pip, who felt quite tired after all the dream confusion, school in 3020 was not somewhere you went. She did still have to get dressed, and eat breakfast, but it helped that these things didn’t involve a lot of effort.

Pip, like everyone in 3020, had a small wireless chip implanted in her brain called a MindLink. The MindLink synced up to some of the items in her HouseUnit. So, when she wanted to get dressed, all she had to do was picture herself wearing her ImageSuit, and immediately it flew out of the cupboard and – once she stuck her arms out – fitted itself round her.

The same with her boots: she lay down on the floor, stuck her legs up, wiggled her feet, then thought about them with boots on, and they – the boots – hovered from the side of the pod (where she’d left them yesterday) and slid themselves on to those very same feet.

Pip’s breakfast didn’t take much in the way of effort either. Not because the pots and pans and food flew on to the CookStation when she went into the FoodSpace and thought about them via MindLink – although she could have done that – but because it was made by someone else. Not her mum or dad: they were already busy working in the LabSpace. No, Pip’s breakfast was made by Pip 2.

You’ll meet it – no, let’s be nice and call it her – in a minute.

This morning’s breakfast was Pip’s favourite: boiled egg and soldiers. (Not a boiled-egg-and-soldiers pill, but real boiled egg and soldiers; just because this is the future doesn’t mean everything’s going to be like you expect it to be from films. Although obviously the egg had been made from chicken cells, not laid by an actual chicken. Actual chickens lived in Zone X, where they had formed a very anti-human army, and refused to lay eggs any more.)

Once Pip had dressed and eaten breakfast, it was indeed time for school. Or, as you would call it if you lived in 3020, the Learning Matrix. TLM was, as you might have guessed, an online school.

I know you might think that you do a lot of things online. But, in 3020, everything happens online. This is partly because in the future computers are more advanced, but also because almost no one goes outside in 3020. It’s too hot or, in some places, too flooded, and also there are some very nasty bugs floating about, some of which come from the mutant animals that have taken over a lot of the Earth, and some of which were produced by humans as weapons, in the various wars between now and then.

This is why Pip’s family name was @256X#YY.3_7. With nearly all communication outside the HouseUnit happening by computer, normal surnames had been replaced, a long time before, with an online address. Obviously, with twenty-four billion people in the world – and a whole section of the animal kingdom, particularly the chimps, now online as well – this meant that everyone had to have a long, complicated address.

To start today’s lesson, Pip sat in her HouseUnit’s MainSpace, and reached for her G-Glasses. Before she put them on though, she looked over to Block 5. Pip and her family – which was just her and her mum and dad, as the Population Police only allowed one child per family – lived in HouseUnit 72. This was about halfway up Block 4, one of twenty enormous skyscrapers in Zone J, one of the poorer zones of the City.

Pip saw that the sky was very red, like it was most of the time, and she could hear – as you could most of the time – the distant sound of thunder. But, across the way, Pip could see the boy in the window of his HouseUnit. He was just about to put on his G-Glasses as well. As he sometimes did, the boy looked up – they both knew what time they were meant to start school – smiled and waved. Pip smiled and waved back. He turned away and put his G-Glasses on.

Pip frowned. She wished she knew him better, but though she could see him clearly – and liked his nice face and friendly smile – he was too far away for her to ImageSearch for his name.

Pip sighed and put on her G-Glasses. At first, these just looked like ordinary glasses, but, after a second, the lenses went dark. They bleeped, and a series of lights went on around the edges of the lenses. In Pip’s vision, a schoolroom appeared, although she was the only pupil.

Miss Lucy was waiting for her.

‘Hello, Pip,’ she said.

‘Hello, Miss Lucy,’ said Pip.

‘I’ll be your teacher today.’

‘You’re my teacher every day,’ said Pip.

Miss Lucy frowned, and the edges of her body froze for a second, then unfroze.

‘I have processed that statement, and found it to be a little bit rude,’ she said. ‘Part of your learning is politeness.’

‘Sorry, Miss Lucy.’

‘Just because I don’t exist is no reason to make fun of me.’

‘You do exist,’ said Pip.

‘Not in the real world,’ said Miss Lucy, looking a bit sad. Her body froze and unfroze again. ‘Sorry, that was a Human Emotion glitch. Anyway,’ she said, ‘today we’re going to be doing history.’

‘Oh good,’ said Pip. ‘Which period?’

‘Your favourite. The twenty-first century.’

‘Hey,’ said a voice to Pip’s left, ‘no one’s fed me my Kitty Chunks.’

‘Hold on, Miss L,’ said Pip.

‘Is that Squeezy-Paws@256X#YY.3_7?’ she replied.

‘Yes,’ said Pip, taking the G-Glasses off and looking down at a large – really, an absolute unit, a total chonk of a – cat. ‘Are you telling the truth?’

‘How dare you!’ said the cat in a slow, rather posh drawl. ‘I always tell the truth.’

‘No, she doesn’t,’ said a high-pitched – a better word would be squawky – voice.

Pip looked over at the BirdCube. Dag – the family’s green parrot, who lived in a see-through cube, which hovered below the middle of the ceiling – was staring in a bored way at Squeezy-Paws.

‘Shut up, parrot.’

‘You shut up, cat.’

‘No, you shut up. Fat idiot.’

‘Oh, I know you are. But what am I?’

‘Guys,’ said Pip, ‘stop arguing. What’s the point of animals evolving speech if that’s all you’re going to do?’

‘I’ve told you before, Pip,’ said Dag, ‘saying that is offensive to parrots. We could speak centuries ago! And then, after years of lagging behind, the other animals caught up. But now people forget how we parrots led the way!’

‘Well, the truth is, Dag,’ said Miss Lucy, appearing as a full-size hologram in the middle of the room, ‘that all that parrots used to say, in the olden days, was Pretty Polly! Pretty Polly! over and over again.’

‘That’s all you thought we were saying,’ muttered Dag darkly.

‘This is all fascinating,’ said Squeezy-Paws, ‘but meanwhile who’s going to feed me?’

‘Not me,’ said Dag. ‘I can’t leave this cube, can I? It’s a prison, I tell you, for a bird. I should be allowed to fly! That’s what birds do!’

‘Dag,’ said Pip with a sigh, ‘you know it wouldn’t be safe. The air filters would suck you in and you’d be—’

‘Yes, yes, I know,’ said Dag.

‘Um, still hungry here,’ said Squeezy-Paws.

‘I’ll do it!’ said Pip 2. ‘I’ll feed you!’

‘Oh, okay, thanks, 2.’

‘No problem,’ said Pip 2, scooping up the enormous cat and taking her out of the room.

‘Ouch! Be careful with those RoboClone hands. They’re pokey!’ said Squeezy-Paws.

‘Sorry!’ said Pip 2 as they left the MainSpace.

‘The cat’s right – someone needs to download some new software for that thing,’ said Dag after they’d gone. ‘It spilled my seed tray yesterday.’

‘Shh,’ said Pip, ‘she’ll hear you.’

The parrot stared at her. ‘You know it’s a robot, right? It’s not a real person.’

‘It’s a clone,’ said Pip defensively. ‘Of me.’

‘It looks and sounds like you, yes. They’ve done a great job on the outer skin shell. But inside it’s all moving parts. And some of them are rusty.’ Dag ruffled his feathers. ‘I heard your mum and dad talking about … a proper upgrade yesterday. A real upgrade.’

Pip looked round sharply towards the FoodSpace. Pip 2 was feeding Squeezy-Paws, but she was also looking through at them. Had she heard? Pip moved closer to Dag, out of the RoboClone’s view.

‘Getting a new Pip 2, you mean?’

‘Yep. Pip 3!’ said Dag.

Pip didn’t know how to feel about this. Three years ago, her parents had bought her Pip 2 to keep her company. The RoboClone came with a growth cell installed, which meant that as Pip grew so did Pip 2, continuing to look and sound the same as her.

Which sounds like Pip 2 was a kind of toy, but really it was much more than that: Pip 2 used to be Pip’s closest friend. They’d done everything together. They’d read together, and fed the pets together, and played all the games together they could within the HouseUnit. They’d even slept in the same bed together – the last thing Pip would say at night was, ‘Goodnight, Pip 2!,’ and Pip 2 would say, ‘Goodnight, Pip!’

But now that Pip was bigger (as, because of the growth cell, was Pip 2), there wasn’t room for the RoboClone inside her BedPod. And, as time had gone by, and Pip’s parents began working all day in the LabSpace, Pip 2 had ended up spending less time with Pip and more time helping out round the house, cooking and cleaning and fixing things. Which was what Pip’s parents needed Pip 2 to do.

So Pip and Pip 2’s relationship had changed. It was still a bit like having a friend, but, to be honest, Pip thought – and she didn’t like thinking it, but she knew it was true – it was a bit more like having a twin who was more of a HouseUnitKeeper than a sister.

Plus, Pip’s mum and dad didn’t have much in their CryptoCoin account any more, and so some of the updates and fixes needed to keep Pip 2 from glitching had recently not been done.

‘Ahem,’ said Miss Lucy. ‘Any chance of starting this lesson? I mean, I know I’m only a hologram, which means – yes – I don’t have a home to go to or anything, but still I think we should get cracking.’

‘Sorry,’ said Pip, putting her G-Glasses back on.

‘Thank you,’ said Miss Lucy, disappearing from the real room, and reappearing in the virtual schoolroom. ‘So. The twenty-first century …’

She lifted her hand, and a HoverScreen appeared. It started playing a film, with images of people walking about on old streets and squares. A deep, reassuring voice said:

‘At the start of the twenty-first century, life for humans was still mainly driven by what used to be called face-to-face contact.’

The screen cut to show some men and women in a café, talking and laughing. Then an image of some other men and women, dressed more smartly, in an office, talking seriously.

‘Yes, back then people actually thought that the best way to get things done was to meet, in person, and talk. But it was at this point that …’

The film changed to show a man in a room typing on what Pip knew, from other films she’d seen, to be a computer, even though computers in 3020 didn’t look anything like that any more. They didn’t have keyboards and screens in 3020. If, for example, Pip wanted to search for something on the Grid (what you know as the internet, although a hundred thousand times faster), she would just do it through her G-Glasses, or even directly from her MindLink.

The screen split into two, showing a woman on a computer. Then it split into four, with a teenager and a child tapping on keyboards. And it carried on splitting and splitting until there were hundreds of people in rooms, all typing on those old computers.

‘… everyone realised it was much better and quicker to communicate using screens. And, even though it was a very long time ago, this can be said to be the start of our own modern times.’

Miss Lucy raised her hand and the film stopped playing.

‘Any questions?’

Yes, thought Pip. Why does everyone look so lonely?

But she just shook her head, and Miss Lucy let the film carry on.

Pip’s mum and dad were scientists. They had once worked for the City Government, trying to create inventions to help with the heat and the flooding and the viruses.

But, in the last few years, the City Government had given up on that. Now they spent the bulk of their money just redesigning buildings so that people could live their entire life indoors. The buildings had become taller and taller, and everything the people who lived in them needed was delivered by drones, which buzzed constantly round the high windows, dropping their packages off into chutes that tunnelled straight into every HouseUnit.

But Pip’s mum and dad hadn’t given up on inventing. They just did their work by themselves (which was why they were running out of CryptoCoin), researching and experimenting at home. Both of them still thought there was a way to make the outside world better. Even though there wasn’t much sign of that when you looked out of the window.

On the day Pip was having her history lesson, Pip’s mum and her dad – Ivan@256X#YY.3_7 – were in the LabSpace. It was actually just the SpareSpace in their HouseUnit, but since no one ever came to stay her parents had put all their science equipment in there. Sometimes the space went very dark, and then, through the small round window in the LabSpace door, you could see lots of lights twinkling on and off.

Recently, Pip had noticed – and noticed again as she came into the MainSpace, having finished her lesson – that her parents would go in there and not come out for hours. Which was why Pip 2 had been doing so much of the housework.

‘Oh my days, what even is this?’ asked Squeezy-Paws.

‘It’s KitABeef Product 67.’

Pip, in the MainSpace, looked over to the FoodSpace. Squeezy-Paws was sitting by her bowl, staring up at Pip 2.

‘KitABeef Product 67 tastes like kitty litter. That I’ve weed and pooed on. I like Kitty Chunks!’

‘Oh dear,’ said Pip 2, blinking. ‘I’m afraid I have run a search through every available cat food and KitABeef Product 67 is the foodstuff recommended for a cat of your size.’

‘It isn’t even made of real cows,’ said Squeezy-Paws, sniffing her bowl unhappily.

‘Of course not!’ shouted Dag from his cube. ‘A cow is Chancellor of the Exchequer now. And a very good one she is too, in my opinion.’

‘Yes, okay,’ said Squeezy-Paws. ‘But meanwhile you know I hate it.’

Pip 2 shook her head at the cat. ‘I do not know that. You have never told me.’

‘Meow,’ said Squeezy-Paws, which she sometimes still said, although always in a deadpan way, like someone saying something they don’t really mean. ‘I must have told the real one then.’

At this, Pip 2 made a face. It seemed, to Pip, looking through from the other room, like an angry face. This confused and concerned her. She knew that one of the most basic rules, written into Pip 2’s core software, was that a RoboClone never reacts angrily to anything said to it by a living creature. Pip came through to the FoodSpace. She bent down to the cat.

‘Please don’t call me the real one in front of Pip 2,’ she whispered, glancing at Pip 2. ‘I don’t think she likes it.’

Squeezy-Paws looked up at Pip 2. ‘Hmm. I guess it does look kind of upset.’

‘Shh!’ said Pip. ‘But, yes, you did tell me about your food. And I said you should eat KitABeef Product 67. Stop trying to trick Pip 2.’

Suddenly there was a loud bang from inside the lab. Pip looked over.

‘What’s going on?’ she said.

‘IT’S OKAY!’ shouted Ivan.

‘EVERYTHING’S FINE!’ shouted Nina.

But then they started to do a lot of coughing and the small round window went black. Pip 2 immediately ran over with a cloth and reached up to try to clean it. Which was a bit silly because a) it wasn’t dirt – it was smoke, and b) all the smoke was on the other side of the window. But Pip 2 was a RoboClone that needed upgrading.

‘Mum! Dad!’ shouted Pip, trying to see past Pip 2.

‘You are not allowed in the LabSpace,’ said Pip 2, pushing her away.

‘I know that! But—’

Pip 2 pushed her again, quite roughly. Once more Pip thought that was really odd: anger against humans was prohibited for a RoboClone, and of course violence even more so. Pip tapped her G-Glasses to try to MindLink with Pip 2 so she could figure out what was going on with the RoboClone—

But just then the LabSpace door opened, and a huge cloud of black smoke billowed out. Pip’s mum and dad stumbled into the MainSpace, coughing and spluttering. Everything went very dark.

‘Pip! Where are you?’ shouted her mum.

‘Here!’ shouted Pip.

‘Okay!’ she said. ‘I’ve got you!’

‘Come this way!’ shouted her dad. ‘Don’t worry! We’ll just go and sit in another space and wait for the smoke to clear!

‘Where will it go? Out of the window?’ said Nina.

‘Obviously not. We’re not allowed to open them! Up the ventilation shafts. Meanwhile, let’s get the pets and lock ourselves in our PodSpace!’

Scrabbling in the smoke, they made their way out of the MainSpace and into Nina and Ivan’s PodSpace, and shut the door.

‘Okay, good. Everyone here? Dag?’

‘Yes.’

‘Squeezy-Paws?’

‘Meow.’

‘Pip?’

‘I’ve got Pip,’ said Nina, who was still holding her hand.

‘Yes, I’m here,’ said Pip.

And Nina and Ivan were reassured because it certainly sounded like Pip.

‘Mum? Dad?’ said Pip, who was lying on the floor, trying to breathe. She had hit the ground and stayed there when the black smoke came out of the lab, and had heard her parents calling for her … but then noticed that they’d stopped saying her name. It was weird.

At least it was becoming a bit easier to breathe. She looked up. The smoke had cleared enough for her to see where she was: in the LabSpace. She’d fallen into it.

‘Mum? Da—’ she said.

Then she thought: Hmm. Maybe I’ll stop calling for them. Just for a few minutes. Because, even if Pip 2 was malfunctioning, the RoboClone had been right: Pip wasn’t normally allowed in the LabSpace and she was curious about what was in there.

She got up and looked around. It was a small room, crowded with all sorts of things. In one corner, there was a HoverCabinet, marked MEAL PILLS. She opened it: inside were some small lozenges. Hmm, she thought. Maybe her mum and dad were trying to make 3020 more like people had thought it was going to be in the olden days after all! She tried one – it tasted like egg and soldiers! She smiled with pleasure and stuffed a handful of them into the pocket of her ImageSuit.

In another part of the LabSpace, there were lots of black boxes with switches on them. Some had built-in lights that were flashing on and off. Others had tiny screens with rapidly changing numbers on them. There were several crystals suspended in the air. One of the black boxes looked like it had exploded: the top had been ripped off, and Pip could see that this was where the smoke was coming from.

But she wasn’t too worried about it: the smoke seemed to be dying down. And anyway she was more interested in what was behind that box. A large bright ring of green light seemed to be attached to the wall, but, on closer inspection, it was actually hovering a few centimetres away from it. There were two crystals on either side.

Pip peered into the ring and saw that the wall behind it simply wasn’t there. There was only darkness, a completely black hole inside the circle of green light. She frowned, and reached up to touch the blackness – assuming it was some kind of illusion – and her hand went straight through it. More than that: she felt her hand being pulled into it.

Quickly, Pip took her hand out and backed away. What is that? she thought.

Underneath the ring was a HoverScreen, on which someone – probably her mum, who tended to do the maths – had scribbled a series of really complicated equations. Beneath those was the word TRANSPORTER, underlined.

‘Oh!’ said Pip. ‘It’s a Transport Portal!’

One problem with a world in which no one went outside was that humans did still sometimes have to get to other places, which weren’t where they lived. The richer people had GravityLess Cars parked right outside their HouseUnits. They could go straight inside those through airlocks, and fly to wherever they needed to go without ever stepping outside. But most people either couldn’t go out, or had to brave the frightening heat.

So some scientists were trying to invent a machine that could transport people from place to place, and from building to building, without them actually going outside. So far no one had managed to make it work. And there had also been one very messy incident involving a scientist and a fly.

But Pip’s parents, it seemed, were still working on the problem.

Exciting, thought Pip, and it really was. She herself could not remember ever going outside. It felt so frustrating sometimes, having all this technology and only being able to use it indoors. What’s the point, she often thought, of having GravityLess Boots, and only ever using them to hover round the HouseUnit?

She wished she could use them outdoors. She wished she could hover high above the towers, and feel the air on her face as she flew. Just for a few minutes.

Pip looked around, expecting to see another bright ring somewhere. Because, she thought, her parents must be testing the transporter in the lab, and probably, what you did, was to go into this ring and come out another one. But there wasn’t another ring to be seen.

‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘That’s odd. Maybe it’s in another part of the HouseUnit.’

It then occurred to Pip that she was never going to know the answer to this because her parents didn’t allow her in the lab. So they’d never let her try out the transporter. This made Pip cross. It’s not fair, she thought. They get to try out all these amazing gadgets and I never get a go. I just have to stay in my pod and then be at school in the Learning Matrix, and listen to the cat and the parrot fight, while Mum and Dad get to do all the cool stuff.

The other ring must be somewhere else in the HouseUnit, she reasoned. Or, more excitingly, somewhere else in the block. Or even, she thought, somewhere else in the City! Maybe she would come out at the Stadium Above the Clouds! She’d never been there in real life, of course – only the very rich could afford tickets to see games live at the stadium, and you needed a TurboCharged GravityLess Vehicle to get there. But, once you were inside, it was so high that it was one of the very few places left on Earth that wasn’t hot, and no viruses could penetrate the sealed roof. You could watch a whole match without worrying!

By the time she’d finished thinking all this, Pip had convinced herself that this was definitely where the other ring was: that, if you stepped into the portal on the wall, you would instantly come out of another one in the Stadium Above the Clouds.

People do that sometimes. They wish the world was a certain way and so they decide that, yes, it is like that.

I’ll only have a quick look, thought Pip. Just at the view from the Executive Pods. Then I’ll turn round and come back straight away.

And, with that thought, she raised herself up, took a deep breath and climbed through the bright green ring into darkness.

It was Sunday, so Rahul Agarwal and his family were watching that TV show where people bring in antiques for experts to look at. A man with a beard was nodding at an expert in a bow tie, who was holding a vase and talking.

‘Look at him,’ said Rahul’s dad, Sanjay. ‘Look at his eyes. So bored. So full of, “Please stop explaining where it’s from – just TELL ME WHAT IT’S WORTH!”’

Sanjay looked over at Rahul, who normally laughed when he said this (which he did every time the show was on). But Rahul just carried on watching blankly.

‘Come on, Rahul!’ said Sanjay. ‘Cheer up!’

‘I’m fine, Dad.’

‘Are you sure?’ said his mum, looking up from the TV. Prisha was sitting in her favourite chair, the one underneath the large framed photo of her Uncle Raj.

‘Don’t ask me about my homework,’ said Rahul.

‘Who said anything about homework?’ said Sanjay.

‘That’s what Mum always means,’ said Rahul. ‘When she asks me anything.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Prisha.

‘“How are you feeling, Rahul?” means: have you done your homework? “Have you had a good day, Rahul?” means: have you done your homework? So I assume “are you sure?” means: have you done your homework?’

‘That is very unfair, Rahul. Isn’t it, Sanjay?’

Sanjay blinked.

‘I said, isn’t it, Sanjay?’

‘Um … anyway, Rahul, why don’t you go and invent something? You haven’t done that for ages!’

Sanjay was right. Some of you who read my last book might remember that Rahul liked to invent things. His greatest invention was a wheelchair that he turned into a supercar, and that his friend Amy Taylor had driven, with him in the passenger seat, all the way to Scotland.

But, since then, that car had fallen to pieces (on a race track in Scotland). And, although Rahul was proud of having made the Taylor TurboChaser, he felt that with it he’d taken inventing as far as he could. Which meant that now he’d sort of … retired.

Plus, Amy was spending much more time with her dad in Scotland, so although Rahul was pleased that he had helped her – a lot – he also felt a bit sad sometimes. Because he’d ended up losing his best friend.

‘I don’t really have invention ideas any more,’ he said.

‘Hmm,’ said Sanjay, looking worried. He was genuinely concerned, as he was of the firm belief that, one day, Rahul was going to invent something that would mean he didn’t have to work quite so hard every day. ‘Don’t say that. You’ll come up with something.’

Rahul didn’t say anything.

‘Why don’t you just go and have a look through all the gear downstairs? That’s how you usually get ideas.’

Sanjay owned a big warehouse called Agarwal Supplies, which the family lived above. He was right. In the past, all of Rahul’s inventions had come from using stuff he found in there. Which fitted with the sign above the warehouse:

Although that sign had now gone missing.

‘I dunno, Dad,’ said Rahul, shaking his head. ‘I’m really not sure I’m cut out to be an inventor any more …’

His dad clearly didn’t know what to say. He looked very sad.

‘Oh well!’ said Prisha. ‘If you’re not going to be thinking about silly inventions, maybe you can sit down at the table and make sure you do your homew—’

‘I’ll just go and have a look in the warehouse,’ said Rahul, getting up.

Rahul sat on a beanbag – one of twenty, in all different colours – in the warehouse. One of his favourite planned inventions, in the past, had been bean pants, which would allow the wearer to have the sensation of sitting on a beanbag, but without the bag.

In the old days, he would’ve been prodding the beanbag to work out exactly what type of beans were in there, how many you would need per pair of pants, and then maybe going over to the hundreds of pants boxed up in the far corner to work out exactly how to sew an internal lining in them to hold the beans.

But today he was just sitting on the beanbag, looking at his phone. He wasn’t even jotting down ideas in his favourite notebook (seeing the last one – inflatable dartboard – only made him feel more depressed). He was just scrolling through some old messages from Amy, thinking about how much he missed her, and wondering if he’d stayed down here long enough for his dad to think he’d been inventing, when he heard a noise.

He looked up. It was a strange noise, a kind of whooshing, like it was windy outside and a window had been left open in the warehouse. Except it wasn’t a windy day.

Rahul got up from the beanbag (with a bit of difficulty – it was a big one and he was quite squashed into it).

‘Hello?’ he said.

No one replied. But the whooshing sound continued. He walked round to where it seemed to be coming from, which was somewhere near the extra-large toilet seats and the boxes of cough mixture that they weren’t allowed to sell any more.

‘Hello?’ he said again. The whooshing sound, he now realised, was accompanied by a bumping noise.

Bump. Bump. Bump.

Rahul walked over to that part of the warehouse. The whooshing and bumping got louder, but he couldn’t see anyone. All he saw was the row of extra-large toilet seats, none of which anyone had bought, even though Sanjay had been totally convinced that, with the amount people ate these days, they’d be selling like hot cakes.

‘Like the hot cakes people are eating so many of these days, Rahul!’ he’d added while Rahul had helped him stack them up against the wall.

But then Rahul looked more closely. In the middle of the row of toilet seats, there was one where the lid was not properly shut. Which was not particularly noticeable in itself – but what was strange was that it seemed to be … moving. The lid was banging up and down … as if someone was trying to open it from behind.

Which was odd, as all that was behind it was the warehouse wall. But not quite as odd as the fact that the rim of the toilet seat was lit up in a bright green oval ring.

Rahul thought about screaming. It was a strange moment because screaming – well, you might think that’s something that you do straight away, as soon as you’re frightened. You don’t stop to think about it.

But actually Rahul – who was a thoughtful fellow – was thinking about it. He was thinking: Oh my Lord, I’m frightened. But also, What is going on here? His curiosity, in other words, was battling against his fear and eventually it overcame it.

He didn’t scream. He peered down at the toilet seat, and put his hand on the edge of the lid. As his fingers gripped it, he muttered a short prayer: Please, whatever else comes out of here, please let it not be a huge wave of ghost poo.

And, with that prayer sent up to no one in particular, he pulled on the lid. It was easier to open than he expected. It was, in fact, about as easy to open as a toilet lid normally is; somehow he’d expected it was going to be much harder. Rahul was relieved that no ghost poo came out.

But he did scream this time because what did emerge from the toilet seat was a girl.

‘AAAARRGGGH!’ said Rahul, backing away fast.

The girl tumbled out and rolled over a couple of times. Then she sat up.

‘AAARGGGHH!’ said Rahul again.

‘Hello,’ said the girl. ‘Are you all right?’

‘WHAT! AARGH! NO! YOU’VE JUST APPEARED OUT OF A TOILET!’

The girl frowned and looked round. ‘No, that’s a portal.’

‘NO, IT’S A TOILET! WELL, A SEAT! WITH A LID!’

Rahul started to think these were slightly strange words to be shouting. So he tried to calm himself down, in order to speak more quietly. But she spoke first.

‘No,’ said the girl, going over to it. ‘It’s definitely a portal. It’s got the ring of green light. And besides, obviously, we don’t have toilets any more. Our waste is just processed remotely and turned directly into biofuel. Not that it’s really helped the environment.’

Rahul shook his head and frowned. ‘Right, well, all those words were just noise. It’s a toilet seat.’

The girl looked at it again. ‘No. It can’t be. Apart from anything, it’s much too big for any normal person’s bottom!’

She moved away from the toilet seat and looked around. ‘Is this the back entrance to the stadium?’

‘Pardon me?’

‘Or maybe the changing rooms?’

‘Sorry? What stadium?’

The girl laughed and said, as if it was obvious,

‘The Stadium Above the Clouds!’

Rahul frowned. ‘Um … is that a song?’

Now the girl frowned. ‘I don’t think so. But there might be one about it.’

Rahul came closer. She was quite a strange-looking girl. She had short hair, cut in an odd style he’d never seen before, as if she’d asked her hairdresser to shave it close, but leave little pyramids of hair sticking up all over her scalp. And her clothes were … weird. She was wearing a shiny silver one-piece suit, made out of plastic or Lycra or something, but it didn’t seem to have any zips or buttons. There was one pocket, but not on the side, in the middle.

‘What on earth are you wearing?’ she asked.

‘Um …’ said Rahul. ‘I was just about to ask you that.’

‘Is it some kind of retro day at the stadium? Like, are you part of a history parade or something?’

Rahul shook his head. ‘I really don’t know what this stadium thing you’re going on about is. This is just my T-shirt. Look. What’s your name?’

The girl frowned again. ‘Hasn’t it come up in your G-Glasses?’

‘My what?’ said Rahul.

‘Your G-Glasses. My name should come up as soon as you scan me.’

Rahul took his glasses off and looked at them. ‘I got these at Specsavers.’

‘Hmm,’ said the girl. ‘Well, anyway, my name is Pip@256X#YY.3_7.’

‘Pardon?’ said Rahul.

‘Pip@256X#YY.3_7.’

‘Yeah,’ said Rahul. ‘And mine is Rahul@bbc.co.uk.’

The girl nodded. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

‘No, it isn’t really.’

‘What?’

‘That isn’t my name. I was joking. Goodness! I’m the one people normally say doesn’t get jokes.’

The girl squinted at him. She reached into her pocket and took out a pair of glasses. She put them on and Rahul saw lights come on round the frame. The girl stared at him, moving her eyes up and down.

‘That’s odd,’ she said. ‘You don’t have any readings. Have you gone off-MindLink?’

‘Look,’ said Rahul, ‘my name is Rahul Agarwal. And this is my dad’s warehouse, Agarwal Supplies!’

The girl took off her glasses. ‘It’s not the Stadium Above the Clouds?’

Rahul shook his head. ‘I don’t know where that is. But this is really not it. Apart from anything, we aren’t above the clouds. We’re very much on the ground. If you look out there, you’ll see the A41. And two chicken shops.’

‘Oh no!’ said the girl, looking suddenly worried. ‘Am I in Zone X? Are the chickens armed?’

‘Er … dunno about arms,’ said Rahul. ‘I think you can definitely have legs. If you order a Big Bucket.’

The girl looked troubled. ‘Right, I think maybe I should just go back home.’

‘Um …’ said Rahul. ‘Okay. But … how? It’s really late. Are your mum and dad going to come and pick you up?’

‘What?’ said Pip. ‘No. I’ll just go back through the portal …’

‘The …’

‘Look, it was nice to meet you, but … goodbye.’

She went back to the lit-up toilet seat and lifted the lid. Rahul noticed for the first time that, through the seat, he couldn’t see the wall of the warehouse. Instead, inside the ring, there was just a vast blackness. And a whooshing sound. That was where it had been coming from!

OMG, thought Rahul, maybe it is a … a portal!

‘Wait a moment …’ he said. ‘Where exactly are you from? What did you mean about not having toilets any more? About me looking like I’m in a history parade?’

‘Sorry, but I think I have to go,’ said the girl, preparing to dive into the toilet seat. ‘I don’t know how much longer the portal will stay open.’

‘Wait!’ said Rahul. ‘Pip!’

On hearing her name spoken for the first time – it was actually the first time Pip had heard her name said by someone outside her HouseUnit ever – she looked round.

She smiled at Rahul slightly sadly, as if to say: I’d love to, but I can’t. And then turned back to jump into the blackness.

At which point, a parrot came flying out of the toilet seat and hit her in the face.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.