Many Worlds of Albie Bright Page 2

  Victoria takes a step back to inspect her creation. I can see now that what I thought was a mountain of mashed potato is actually strips of plain paper smothered in glue and moulded into a papier mâché peak. At the bottom of the slope there’s a row of Lego houses guarded by Lego Roman soldiers and plastic farm animals. Victoria points her brush at this Lego brick town.

  “This is Pompeii. I borrowed the Lego soldiers from my little brother’s bedroom, and the toy cows and sheep come from Early Years. Miss Benjamin says it’s one of the best science projects she’s ever seen. Your dad had better choose me as the winner next week.”

  I don’t want to set Victoria off again, so I decide to keep quiet about the fact that Dad probably won’t be judging the Science Fair after all. Instead I ask her why her mountain has a hole in it.

  “It’s not a mountain, Lame Brain. It’s a volcano. Mount Vesuvius erupted nearly two thousand years ago. When it blew its top it buried the town of Pompeii under a layer of volcanic rocks and ash. Nobody could escape the deadly lava flow and thousands of people were buried alive or burnt to a crisp.” Victoria’s eyes glitter as she describes the destruction. “And when I pour vinegar and bicarbonate of soda into the crater of my volcano then – KABLOOM! It’s firework time.”

  I look down at one of the toy soldiers, his tiny spear pointing towards a plastic cow twice his size. I imagine Victoria’s volcano burying his house under a tidal wave of bubbling lava.

  “Why didn’t the people try to escape?”

  “Nobody knew that Vesuvius was going to erupt,” Victoria replies smugly. “One minute they were sitting in the sun eating pizza, the next KABLOOM! Total wipeout.”

  Mum used to tell me that I worried about things too much. Global warming, asteroids hitting Earth, whether her experiments would create a black hole that would destroy the known universe. If I’d lived in Pompeii, you wouldn’t have caught me hanging around eating a hot and spicy pizza.

  “Miss Benjamin told us about your mum,” Victoria says. “She said we had to be extra nice to you when you came back to school.”

  Victoria’s definition of being “extra nice” obviously doesn’t include not calling me Lame Brain, but it’s what she says next that gives me a bigger surprise.

  “So do you want to come to my birthday party on Friday? It starts at seven o’clock in the village hall. There’s going to be a DJ, a photo booth, a dance competition – I’m so going to win that – and tons of cool people. And my mum said I should invite you too, to cheer you up.”

  On a scale of completely miserable to totally cheered up, the thought of going to Victoria’s birthday party scores pretty low. I don’t like having my picture taken and I can’t dance to save my life. But Dad said we had to start getting things back to normal, so maybe I should give Victoria a second chance too.

  “Thanks,” I tell her. “I’ll ask my dad if I can come.”

  Victoria picks up another Lego soldier and turns back towards her volcano. “Don’t forget to bring me a present,” she calls out over her shoulder.

  “Did Victoria Barnes just invite you to her birthday party?” From the desk behind me I hear Kiran whistle in surprise. “Wow, I’ve seen everything now.”

  Kiran Ahmed is my best friend in Class 6. In fact, he’s probably my only friend in Class 6. It’s tricky trying to make friends when you start a new school in the middle of Year 6. Everyone else has known each other for the past six and half years – they’ve learned their times tables together, played football in the playground, and all remember when Wesley MacNamara carried out the Great Stick Insect Massacre in Year 2. Everyone has got all the friends they need and nobody was going to waste any time making me feel welcome. Apart from Kiran, that is.

  At first I thought he only wanted to be my friend because my dad was on TV – just like Victoria – but then I found out that Kiran was obsessed with space. He says he’s going to be the first man to set foot on Mars, but if he can’t make it that far he’ll settle for being the first British Asian astronaut instead. He’s taking scuba-diving lessons at the swimming pool to practise being weightless and he knows the names of every moon in the solar system.

  “Check it out,” he says, dangling Buzz Lightyear from his mini parachute. “I’m sending this bad boy to infinity and beyond!”

  Tied to the corner of Kiran’s desk is a helium balloon in the shape of a My Little Pony. The end of the string holding it down is looped around Buzz Lightyear’s utility belt.

  “With a My Little Pony balloon?”

  Kiran shakes his head. “I’ve got more than just one balloon. My dad bought a job lot off eBay – only £9.99 plus postage and packing for a hundred balloons. He got them for my little sister’s birthday party, but she’s into Spiderman now so he gave them to me instead. Miss Benjamin is storing the rest in the stock cupboard until the day of the Science Fair. You’ve seen that film Up? Well, I’m going to use these helium balloons to send Buzz Lightyear into space. The first action figure to make it into orbit.”

  If Kiran can put Buzz Lightyear into space powered only by a flock of My Little Pony balloons he’s bound to win first prize at the Science Fair. There’s just one problem with his plan to launch the first action-figure astronaut.

  “The Discovery space shuttle took a Buzz Lightyear into orbit back in 2008,” I tell him. “My dad showed a video of the toy Buzz floating around on the International Space Station when he did a countdown of the top-five weirdest astronauts on his TV show. Buzz came third behind a jellyfish and a Russian space dog called Laika.”

  Unfortunately, Kiran doesn’t take this news very well. He bangs his Buzz Lightyear down on the table, and Buzz’s flight wings snap open as his voicebox squawks, “To infinity and beyond!”

  “Not if you’ve already been there before,” Kiran snaps at Buzz. “I want to be the first. There’s got to be something special I can send into space. Something that’s never been done before.”

  “How about a Lego spaceman?” I suggest, glancing back at Victoria’s volcano. Maybe Kiran’s balloons can airlift the Lego people of Pompeii to safety before Mount Vesuvius blows its top.

  Kiran shakes his head.

  “Nah, two Canadian kids sent a Lego man into space back in 2012. I saw their video on YouTube. That’s what gave me the idea for the balloons.” He starts to unhook the string from Buzz’s utility belt. “Are you going to be doing a project for the Science Fair? You can always help me out with mine if you’ve not got time to do your own. You know – because of your mum.”

  At the moment the only science I’m interested in is quantum physics. But before I can explain this to Kiran, the sound of a loud shriek comes from the back of the classroom.

  “Miss!” Lucy Webster shouts out. “Wesley has let Mr Sniffles out of his cage!”

  Mr Sniffles is the class hamster. Squeals and shouts follow his escape route across the desks, a furry brown streak weaving between test tubes and pots of play dough as Miss Benjamin battles to make herself heard.

  “Quiet! QUIET! QUIET!”

  Snatching up Mr Sniffles before he launches himself through an open window, Miss Benjamin turns to face us. Her face is a volcanic shade of red and her left eye is twitching into overdrive.

  “Class 6, this behaviour is completely unacceptable! I will not allow such chaos in my classroom! If you can’t work on your Science Fair experiments without disturbing the rest of the school, then you’ll have to do a science test in silence instead.”

  Everybody groans.

  “Quiet!” Miss Benjamin shouts again. Striding to the back of the classroom, she puts Mr Sniffles safely back into his cage.

  “I didn’t mean to let him out, miss.” Wesley MacNamara holds up a plastic tray filled with tiny green leaves. “I just thought he might like a nibble of my cress.”

  Miss Benjamin ignores Wesley, her left eye still twitching out an SOS.

  “Now, everyone, pack away your experiments and get your pens and pencils out instead. Quiet! I don’t wan
t to hear another sound out of any of you until the bell rings for break time.”

  Brilliant. My first day back at school and I’ve got to sit a science test. And unless all the questions are about quantum physics, this isn’t going to help me find my mum.

  Then I remember that Miss Benjamin has already given me the excuse I need to get out of this test. While the rest of the class grumble as they pack their experiments away, I put my hand up.

  “Miss, can I take some time out, please? I’d like to go to the library.”

  “You’re looking for a book about what?”

  Mrs Forest peers at me over her glasses, her library stamp hovering over a pile of Horrible Histories.

  “Quantum physics, miss. It’s for my science project.”

  Mrs Forest doesn’t like to call herself a librarian. She says she’s a book doctor who can prescribe the right book to anybody. The last book she gave me was called Danny the Champion of the World and it was all about this boy called Danny who lives in a caravan with his dad. His dad spends most of his time inventing all kinds of cool things like kites, go-karts and fire balloons to make up for the fact that Danny’s mum is dead. To be honest, I stopped reading it after a few chapters because it just reminded me how rubbish my own dad is. Everyone thinks it’s really cool to have a TV-star dad who knows how the universe works, but I’d swap him any day for an ordinary dad who knew how to fly a kite.

  In our last library lesson Mrs Forest told Class 6 she had books that could take us anywhere. Brandnew countries, unforgettable places, fantastic lands. That’s when Wesley MacNamara put his hand up to tell her that she was getting books mixed up with Ryanair. Everyone else laughed, but right now I just hope she can find me a book that will take me to a parallel universe.

  Mrs Forest puts her book-stamper down and leads me to the non-fiction section, hidden away round the corner. Peering at the middle shelf, she frowns as she flicks through a row of books with blue stickers on their spines.

  “All the science books are here, Albie, but I don’t think you’ll find any books about quantum physics. It’s not on the key stage 2 curriculum, you see. Couldn’t you ask your dad instead? He probably knows more about science than all the authors I’ve got here put together.”

  “He’s too busy with his work,” I quickly reply. “I just want a book to help me with the basics.”

  “Aha.” Mrs Forest pulls a book out from the middle of the shelf. “It looks like your dad might be able to help after all.”

  As she hands me the book, I look down to see my dad’s face staring back at me from the cover. Ben Bright’s Guide to the Universe: From Asteroids to X-ray Stars and Everything in Between. After his TV series was such a big hit, Dad had been asked to write this tie-in book for kids, and he locked himself away in his office to get it finished. The last summer we’d had together as a family before everything went wrong and he’d just wasted it.

  At the time Mum had tried to make me feel better.

  “He wants you to be proud of him, Albie. He’s writing this book for you.”

  I didn’t believe her then, but now I hope she was right.

  Sitting down in the reading corner, I turn straight away to the index. Asteroids, atoms, the Big Bang, black holes, cone radiation, dark matter, Einstein and loads more words that I don’t even understand. But halfway down the page I find the entry that I’m looking for.

  Quantum physics 108–109

  I flick back to page 108 and this is the first thing I read:

  If you think you understand quantum physics then you don’t understand quantum physics.

  Great way to start an explanation, Dad.

  Quantum physics is seriously weird science. It tries to explain the strange ways that atoms and particles behave. You see, inside the teeny-tiny quantum world, an atom or particle can be in more than one place at the same time and even be in two different states at once! According to quantum physics, everything is possible until you take a look.

  I scratch my head. Dad has lost me already. How can something be in two different places or even be two different things at exactly the same time? It doesn’t make any sense.

  To give my brain a break, I take a look instead at the cartoon in the middle of the page. This shows what looks like a zombie cat trapped inside a box with a hammer hanging above a bottle of poison, a Geiger counter and a glowing radioactive lump. The text underneath starts to explain this creepy cartoon.

  To show the strange effects of quantum physics, a scientist called Erwin Schrödinger invented an experiment. A cat is put inside a box with a lump of radioactive uranium that has a 50% chance of decaying. This means that at any moment there is a 50% chance of a radioactive particle being emitted. If the Geiger counter detects a radioactive particle it will trigger the hammer and smash open the bottle of poison. This will kill the cat. However, quantum physics says that until the box is opened and we take a look, the particle will be in both possible states – decayed and undecayed – simultaneously. This means the cat inside the box is dead and alive at the same time!

  I shake my head as I try to make sense of this crazy experiment by the Worst Pet Owner Ever. How can a cat be dead and alive at exactly the same time? But before I can read the rest of the explanation, Wesley MacNamara whips the book out of my hands, crash-landing next to me on the sofa.

  “All right, Lame Brain.” He looks down at the cartoon in Dad’s book. “Is this what you want to do for your science project? There’s no way Miss Benjamin will let you create a radioactive zombie cat. She wouldn’t even let me dissect a duck-billed platypus.” Wesley’s left eye starts to twitch in an exaggerated wink as he does his best Miss Benjamin impression. “‘They’re a protected species, Wesley, and I will not have you cutting up cuddly Australian creatures in my classroom.’”

  Wesley growls, “They’re furry freaks is what they are. Flippers like an otter, tail like a beaver and an electricity-detecting beak like a mutant duck. I reckon they’re actually weird-looking aliens who have come to invade our planet. That’s why she doesn’t want me chopping one up in case I find out the truth.”

  This isn’t actually the craziest thing I’ve ever heard Wesley say. When I started at Clackthorpe Primary he’d told me that all the teachers there were actually shape-shifting extraterrestrial reptiles who drank the blood of pupils to stay alive. When Miss Benjamin overheard this she told Wesley that if she was a shape-shifting extraterrestrial reptile she definitely wouldn’t be working as an NQT. Then she said that if she heard him say that again he’d be spending the rest of the week in detention. Wesley kept pretty quiet about blood-sucking alien teachers after that.

  “What are you doing for your science project then?” I ask him, trying to change the subject.

  Wesley scowls. “She’s got me growing cress in a cupboard – again. It’s the same project I’ve done since Year 1. But this time I’ve got a plan.” He leans forward with a dangerous gleam in his eye. “When we go on our science trip tomorrow I’m going to find out the truth about the duck-billed platypus and you’re going to help me.”

  I don’t like the sound of this. Tomorrow Miss Benjamin is taking Class 6 on a school trip to the Clackthorpe Museum of Natural History and Mechanical Wonders. According to Kiran, this is the same school trip that the class has been on for the past five years. He says it’s called a museum but that it’s really just a big house filled with loads of old junk. It used to belong to a Victorian explorer called Montague Wilkes, who left Clackthorpe to explore the world and sent everything he found back home again before he carked it in the middle of Australia. I’ve had a look on the museum’s website and most of the things he found seem to be stuffed animals. I’d even spotted what looked like a duck-billed platypus stuck in a glass jar and I now had the horrible feeling that this was part of Wesley’s plan.

  “Er, I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it to the museum tomorrow. It was my mum’s funeral yesterday—”

  Nearly as fast as an atom whizzing r
ound the Large Hadron Collider, Wesley’s fist shoots out to give me a dead arm.

  “Ow!”

  “You’d better help me tomorrow,” Wesley warns me, “or else. And don’t think you can use your mum as an excuse. Loads of people haven’t got a mum, but you won’t catch me crying about it.”

  Wesley lives with his nan and grandad. Kiran told me that Wesley’s mum went on holiday to the Costa del Sol when Wesley was in Year 3 and never came back, but at least he gets to see her in the summer holidays.

  Mrs Forest suddenly appears like a Library Ninja from behind the Geography and History bookshelves.

  “What’s going on here?” she says, a look of suspicion on her face. “Wesley, what are you doing out of class?”

  “Miss Benjamin just sent me to check that Albie was OK, miss.” Wesley drops my dad’s book back into my lap as he gets up from the sofa. “You know, because of his mum and everything.”

  “And are you OK, Albie?” Mrs Forest asks, looking down at the open book in my hands. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  As my dead arm aches, I look down again at the cartoon cat – the zombie pet still half alive and half dead. I don’t have a clue how Schrödinger’s crazy experiment could help me find my mum again. Quantum physics is seriously confusing. I need time to think, but there’s no chance of that happening in school. Especially not with Wesley MacNamara dead-arming me to take part in his latest crazy scheme. I can feel my brain shutting down to take the pain away, leaving me empty inside. I’ve got to get out of here.

  “I’m not sure, miss,” I sniff, wiping a bit of wetness from the corner of my eye. “I just want to go home.”

  As Mrs Forest bustles me off to the school office to phone Grandad Joe, Wesley calls out after me.

  “See you tomorrow.” I look back to see Wesley clench his fingers into a fist. “Or else,” he mouths.