The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day Read online

  The only people coming to my party today are members of my own family. Mum, Dad and Lily, Nanna Day and her friend Elsie, Aunt Maggie, Uncle Colin, Auntie Pat, Grace and Jack, all my other aunties and uncles and the rest of my cousins too, even baby Alfie. All ages from eight months to eighty years old, but there’s only going to be one person who’s ten and that’s me.

  You see, because I don’t go to school, I don’t have a ready-made gang of friends like Lily. She’s always going round to her best friend Sophie’s house or inviting Sophie, Daisy and the rest of her friends round to ours. They stay up in Lily’s bedroom for hours on end. They’re supposed to be revising for their GCSEs, but seem to spend most of their time OMG-ing at the tops of their voices.

  Sometimes I hang round the bottom of the stairs trying to work out what they’re actually doing up there. But I can never quite hear what they’re talking about, just the occasional boy’s name mixed in with squeals of excitement.

  And when Mum sends me upstairs to ask if they want a biscuit or a drink, Lily always gives me the dead-eye – the room going instantly quiet as soon as I walk in.

  I used to think Lily’s best friend Sophie was nice. She always used to talk to me when I went up to Lily’s room. Sometimes I even started to think that she could be my friend too.

  What used to happen was Sophie would grab hold of her revision textbook and flick to the answer section at the back. Then she’d fire questions at me and everyone would cheer when I got them right – everyone except for Lily. How old is the universe? Which fossil fuel produces the most carbon dioxide? What speed does electromagnetic radiation travel in a vacuum? It wasn’t a big deal. They were only simple questions. But it still felt kind of special to have the chance to hang out with Lily’s friends, even if it was just for a little while. I thought Sophie liked me.

  But then, one time, I hung outside Lily’s door for too long when Mum had sent me upstairs with the biscuits and the drinks.

  “Oh my God, Lily,” I heard Sophie say, the sound of her voice squeezing through the half-closed door. “Your little sister is such a freak. She’s practically autistic.”

  I stood there at the top of the stairs, the mugs of tea and a plate piled with chocolate biscuits trembling on the tray as I waited for Lily’s reply.

  I don’t know what I wanted her to say. To stick up for me, I suppose. To tell Sophie that I wasn’t a freak. There’s nothing wrong with being autistic, but I’m just academically gifted. But my sister didn’t say a thing.

  I left the tray at the top of the stairs. Mum didn’t make me go up to Lily’s room after that.

  So this is why Mum and Dad have invited the whole family to my birthday party. They think it will help me forget that I don’t have any friends.

  “Never mind whose tenth birthday was the best,” Dad says, trying to keep the peace just like he always does. He slides the latest pancake out of the frying pan and on to the plate in front of Lily. “Have a banana pancake.”

  Lily curls her lip as she inspects Dad’s culinary creation. I’ve only just started mine, but I already want another one. They’re just so delicious.

  “I don’t want a banana pancake,” Lily says, pushing the plate away. “I just need some toast and a coffee.”

  Dad looks kind of hurt. Banana pancakes are his speciality.

  “Are you sure?” he asks. “Do you know that bananas are the perfect brain food? It’s something to do with all the albino acids they’ve got inside them.”

  I think Dad’s been reading my New Scientist again. He might be a whizz when it comes to technology, but he doesn’t know the first thing about biology.

  “Amino acids,” I say.

  “That’s right, amino acids,” Dad agrees. “It said so in one of Maisie’s magazines. Apparently these amino acids can boost your brain function and even stop you from getting stressed.” He gently pushes the plate back towards Lily. “Your GCSEs are just round the corner. Why don’t you try a bit of banana pancake? It might help.”

  Actually I think New Scientist said it was the magnesium in bananas that reduces stress, but before I can tell Dad this Lily just explodes.

  “You’re the one making me stressed,” she says, spitting out the words as she pushes her chair back with a screech. “Going on about my GCSEs when I’ve just got out of bed. I only wanted a bloody piece of toast.”

  “Lily!” Mum says.

  But my sister just springs out of her seat.

  “Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter how many banana pancakes I eat for breakfast,” she shouts, crossing the kitchen in a handful of strides. “I’ll never be as clever as Maisie.”

  Storming out of the room, Lily slams the door shut behind her.

  Mum and Dad stare at each other in shock as the sound reverberates around the house.

  It might be my birthday, but as usual Lily’s managed to make it all about her.

  3

  I stare at the pile of envelopes on the kitchen table, my name written across each one.

  Today’s my birthday. I should be opening these cards with Mum, Dad and Lily here, but instead I’m all alone. The room seems to hum with an ominous silence. Where is everyone?

  What I saw when I opened the front door was like something out of a nightmare.

  I look around the kitchen. Beneath the cooker hood, the black and silver hob gleams shinily, no sign of any of the usual spills and splatters from Dad’s Saturday-morning fry-up. On either side of this the worktops stand empty, the plates and mugs all neatly stacked or hanging in place from the racks on the wall. The fridge-freezer, the microwave, the washing machine, the dishwasher, even the kitchen sink. Everything is exactly where it should be. And through the patio doors that lead out into the back garden, the plastic sheets covering the gazebo sparkle with dew under the early-morning sunshine.

  But is any of this real?

  When you’re dreaming you think that what you see, what you hear, what you can feel is real, even though the dream is all happening in your mind.

  Is this what’s happening here? Am I still dreaming?

  I read that one way you can tell whether you’re really awake or still in a dream is to perform a reality check. This can just be a simple action that can help you to confirm if what you’re experiencing is real.

  Looking back down, I slide my finger beneath the flap of the lumpy envelope at the top of the pile, feeling the paper tear as I rip it open and pull out an outsized birthday card.

  On the front of the card there’s a picture of a space rocket zooming through a starry sky, silvery lines linking the constellations as they spell out the message HAPPY BIRTHDAY. And fixed to the top corner is a birthday badge with a big number ten printed inside a star.

  Unfastening the badge from the front of the card, I steel myself, getting ready to perform my own reality check. If this is all a dream, there’s one way to find out.

  I jab the badge pin into the end of my thumb.

  “Ouch!”

  Wincing, I watch as a droplet of blood wells from the pinprick. Squeezing the end of my thumb to try and deaden the pain, the droplet falls on to the front of my birthday card, leaving a brand-new red planet shining among the stars.

  This feels pretty real to me.

  I shake my head. Maybe I just had some kind of temporary black-out before, a glitch in my brain that meant I couldn’t process what I was seeing properly when I opened the front door. But I need to make sure.

  Pocketing the badge, I push my chair back, feeling the cold tiles beneath my feet as I cross the kitchen to reach the patio doors.

  Gazing through the glass, I can see the flower beds blooming red, yellow and blue, the blossom on the trees framing the green leaves with a powdering of pink. And in the glass there’s a faint reflection of my face, a frightened look in my eyes as I stare out on this perfect scene.

  I know that the only reason I can see any of this is because of the Sun that’s shining down. The green grass, the pink blossom, the sparkle of the plas
tic sheeting thrown over the gazebo – everything that I can see is a result of photons of light reflecting off these things and travelling to hit my eyes. Even the faint reflection of my face is caused by some of these photons hitting my skin and bouncing back to hit the glass. Without the Sun I wouldn’t be able to see any of this.

  But a shiver runs down my spine as I remember that infinite blackness I saw when I opened the front door.

  Scientists don’t accept the result of an experiment until the experiment has been repeated and gives the same result. If you repeat the experiment and get a different result, then you know that something’s wrong.

  If I want to find out if the Sun is really shining through the glass, I’m going to have to open the patio door.

  My throat feels dry as I reach down to turn the key in the lock. It’s ridiculous. All the evidence from my eyes is telling me that all I’ll find waiting outside is the back garden, same as it always is. But I can’t stop my fingers from trembling as I take hold of the door handle, a faint smear of blood now visible on my thumb.

  It’s time to find out what’s real.

  Turning the handle, I push open the door.

  Even though my mind is half expecting it, this doesn’t stop the sight I can see from hitting me like a punch in the face.

  There’s no Sun shining down on our back garden. No green grass, no blooming flowers, no pink blossom in the tree. No back garden. Just an empty black space that begins at the doorstep and stretches into infinity in every direction that I look.

  My fingers tighten around the door handle, every instinct inside screaming at me to slam the door shut. But I resist. I’ve got to make sense of this.

  It’s as though our house has been launched into the depths of space. But what I can see outside the back door isn’t a starry sky like the one on the front of my birthday card. This is an empty universe, not a single star in the sky.

  Swaying slightly, I cling on to the handle, feeling as though I could just float out into this infinite blackness.

  There’s this stuff called Vantablack, which is the darkest material ever invented. Scientists make it out of carbon nanotubes – teeny-tiny tubes of carbon, thousands of times thinner than even a human hair – which are woven together. If you shine a light at something that’s made out of Vantablack, the light just gets lost in this forest of nanotubes so all you see is an empty black space where the object should be. It’s not just black – it’s super-black.

  This is what it looks like outside.

  Still clinging tightly to the door handle, I reach out with my free hand, pushing it against the darkness. There’s no resistance – no change in temperature as my hand moves from inside to out. But as I push against the darkness I can’t help feeling scared that the darkness will push back.

  I crouch down, bracing myself against the door frame as I lean forward. I need to see how far this blackness goes. There might be no world outside, but can I even see where it might have gone? My stomach lurches as I crane my neck in every direction, desperately searching for any sign of life in this infinite blackness.

  But that’s all I can see. Darkness, everywhere.

  Shaking, I haul myself back from the edge, my bare feet slipping against the black-and-white tiles as I retreat from the door.

  If you can successfully repeat an experiment, then the evidence supporting it grows.

  This is real.

  Outside my house there’s an empty void and I don’t know if Mum, Dad and Lily are ever coming home.

  As I stare out into the infinite blackness, the shape of the door frame seems to blur.

  I rub my eyes, thinking that maybe the signals from the optic nerves to my brain are getting confused by this super-blackness. That’s what happens if you stare at Vantablack for too long – with so little light reflected, your brain can’t figure out what you’re looking at. All surface details disappear. A crumpled-up piece of paper looks completely flat when it’s coated in Vantablack.

  But then I realise that the door frame isn’t blurred. There are black blobs floating around it. The darkness is coming inside.

  Frozen, I stare as these blobs hover on the threshold. I can only see the ones that are silhouetted against the white door frame, flat discs of absolute blackness that seem to slowly pulsate as they float inside.

  Six … seven … eight … nine … ten…

  More of them keep coming – invisible against the darkness of the abyss until the moment they float inside and are framed against the white UPVC of the patio doors.

  The intensity of the blackness hurts my eyes. It’s like a nothing-space, a complete absence of any light. I can’t even seem to focus on the blob-like shapes as some of these hover above the shoe rack that’s standing next to the patio doors. On this, Dad’s big black wellies look almost muddy-brown in contrast.

  Then the closest blob touches the top of a boot and I watch, horrified, as an impossible blackness spreads across the surface of Dad’s wellie. I can see it transforming in front of my eyes, changing from a real thing I can see into a flat, two-dimensional shape.

  Its darkness hurts my eyes. There’s no light reflecting back – just an empty black space where Dad’s wellie used to be.

  And the black blob grows larger, almost shivering with pleasure as it floats forward again.

  Still crouching down, I feel my stomach flip and choke back a mouthful of sick as more of these blobs flood through the open door. I watch the white UPVC frame slowly eaten away until only darkness remains. And as the blobs touch the black-and-white kitchen tiles, each of these is transformed into a square of absolute blackness, the emptiness advancing across the room in a relentless tide. The outside is coming in and erasing everything that it finds.

  It’s like this nature programme I watched on TV that showed how mould spreads. They set up loads of time-lapse cameras in an abandoned house and these recorded how a tiny spore of black mould in the bathroom grew into a black tide of fungus that slowly took over the entire house.

  I stare in horror as these blobs of absolute blackness spread across the kitchen, the darkness shape-shifting as it devours everything that it touches.

  This seems like a nightmare, but the bitter taste of sick in my mouth tells me that it’s real. I’ve got to get out of here.

  Scrambling backwards, I turn towards the kitchen door and that’s when things start to get really weird.

  Ahead of me, I can see the door that leads to the hall, still closed from when I slammed it shut, but this picture seems stretched as though I’m looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope. Our kitchen isn’t that big, but the door seems to be getting smaller with every second that passes as it recedes into the distance.

  I shake my head, my brain unable to process the information it’s receiving.

  One time, when I was little, I got an infection in my inner ear and had to stay in bed for a week. I felt sick and dizzy all the time, and couldn’t even stand up without falling down. It was like everything was spinning and moving around even when I was completely still. Eventually the infection went away, but I’ll never forget how strange it made me feel.

  That’s how I feel right now as I watch the black-and-white squares tiling the kitchen floor seem to stretch to the horizon.

  I glance back over my shoulder, a fresh wave of nausea welling in my throat as I see what’s behind me.

  Everything’s gone. It’s like the kitchen is being peeled inside out, the walls, floor and ceiling disappearing until only darkness remains. And it’s speeding up.

  The voice inside my head is screaming now, telling me that I’ve got to get out of here.

  Turning back towards the door, I try to scramble to my feet, but find I can barely even lift my head as the force of gravity pushing me down suddenly intensifies. Twisting my neck, I see the spotlights in the ceiling overhead stretch into arrows of light as the room keeps expanding.

  Nothing makes any sense. I try and drag myself forward, the floor tiles beneath my
fingers almost scorching to the touch. Sweat slicks my forehead. I can feel it running down my face, stinging as it mingles with my tears. I open my mouth to shout for Mum and Dad, but no sound comes out, just an empty howl of silence.

  Falling from my pocket, I watch my birthday badge skitter across the floor. For a second, it’s close enough to touch, but as my fingers start to close around it, the badge fades into the distance. Everything’s accelerating – the room around me turning into a universe.

  When our universe was born in the Big Bang, scientists think it started out as a tiny seed. A bubble of space-time – a trillion-trillion-trillion times smaller than a grain of sand – seething with all the energy and matter that would eventually create everything in the universe. When the Big Bang happened, this tiny bubble suddenly got very big, very fast. In less than a second it grew from the size of a subatomic particle to a space thousands of millions of miles across. And since then it’s just kept on expanding.

  But as I watch the kitchen door dwindle into infinity it seems like the kitchen is exploding even faster than this.

  My head’s spinning. I don’t know why any of this is happening. Today was meant to be the best day ever, but reality has turned into a nightmare.

  Some scientists think that reality is everything that would still be here even if there was nobody around to experience it. I don’t know where Mum, Dad and Lily have gone. The only person left now is me. If I close my eyes, will this nightmare be over?

  Snatching a fearful glance behind me, I see an absolute blackness lapping at my heels. I’m dangling on the edge of infinity and if this darkness touches me, I know that I’ll be gone.

  With a last desperate lunge, I fling myself forward, closing my eyes as I reach for the handle of a door that’s half a universe away.

  And then I turn it.

  4

  Warm sunlight hits my skin as I step out into the garden, an instant tingle that turns my goosebumps into memories. I’m wearing my favourite T-shirt, the white one with a sequined star on the front, and the new jeans that Mum has bought me for the party. It’s going to be a perfect day.