Boom!

17 Individual broccoli tartlets

We ran out of petrol halfway, having used the back-up supply to destroy the Weff-Beam. But there were oars and it was a sunny day, and just being on the surface of our own planet was a pleasure.

I tried to explain everything to Becky, but after a while she told me to stop. “It’s doing my head in, Jimbo. I’m tired and hungry and filthy. I’ve been living in the wilderness for nearly a week, hitting strange people over the head. I need normal. I need ordinary. I need bacon and fried eggs and toast. And I need a long hot shower. I do not need hover-scooters and intergalactic ferries.”

So she went and sat at the bow and Charlie sat facing me while I rowed and we shared our stories about how he’d been captured and how Becky and I had set off in pursuit on a stolen motorbike.

And maybe Bob-with-the-Hawaiian-shirt was right. Maybe it was cool being on a planet on the far side of the known galaxy. And maybe it was even cooler escaping and getting home again. But the coolest thing of all was having my best friend back.

“What about Mrs Pearce?” I said.

“What do you mean?” asked Charlie.

“She said she was going to make us suffer. You don’t think she’s going to, like, track us down and kill us, do you?”

Charlie put his head on one side and stared at me. “She’s an elderly lady with no job. The police will be looking for her. She has a tail. And no belly button. If I were her I’d be heading for the hills and living off nuts and berries.”

We took turns rowing and after a couple of hours we reached Elgol harbour with two seagulls circling above us and a friendly seal in our wake.

The red Volvo was parked a little way up the road from the slipway.

“So,” said Charlie, rubbing his hands together, “are we going to break in and hotwire it?”

“Don’t be daft,” said Becky. “I had the driver tied up for three days.” She fished a set of car keys out of the holdall. “These were in his pocket.”

“You are a true professional,” said Charlie.

“Thank you,” said Becky.

“Can I have a go at driving?” said Charlie.

“Are you out of your mind?” said Becky. “Get in the back.”

The Volvo was pretty straightforward after the Moto Guzzi. It had four wheels for starters, so it wasn’t going to fall over sideways. We scraped a couple of stone walls and bumped in and out of a few ditches over the first couple of miles but Becky soon got the hang of it.

The journey was glorious. All those things I’d never looked at before seemed wonderful now. Cooling towers. Transit vans. Concrete bridges. I looked at electricity pylons and felt a warm glow in my heart.

After three hours we stopped at Gretna Green. Becky ordered her fry-up, I ordered a pizza and Charlie ordered a black coffee and four apple turnovers.

We had another six hours of driving in which to plan our stories. But we were too tired. After about four minutes Charlie and I fell asleep and didn’t wake up till we reached the M25. Luckily, Becky only fell asleep twice, but each time she was woken up by a lorry honking as she veered into the wrong lane of the motorway.

We offered to drop Charlie off first but he reckoned our parents were less likely to kill him.

When we pulled into the car park by the flats I looked up at the tatty, peeling, weather-stained block and I must admit I got a bit tearful. Then I remembered the complications waiting upstairs and my heart sank.

I turned to Becky. “What are we going to say?”

“We?” said Becky. “I think that’s your job, mate. But if you want my advice, I’d go easy on the aliens-with-hairy-tails-and-space-travel aspect of the whole thing.”

“Gird your loins,” said Charlie. “Let’s get this over with.”

Becky unlocked the door of the flat and we stepped inside. Mum was on the phone. She dropped it and froze for several seconds. Then she screamed. It was actually quite frightening. She threw her arms around me and Becky and squeezed and cried and shouted, “You’re alive! You’re alive!”

Then Dad came into the hallway and did the same thing, without the screaming. Then everyone noticed that Charlie was standing to one side looking a bit left out so we grabbed hold of him and had a group hug, by which time all of us were crying, even Charlie, and I’d never seen him cry before, ever.

Things calmed down after a few minutes and we stopped hugging each other. Mum’s face went a bit dark and she said, “Where in God’s name have you been?”

And this was the point when I realized we should have worked out a story. “Well…”

There was a horrible silence.

“You disappear for a week,” said Mum, her joy ebbing rapidly away. “You don’t tell us where you’re going. We call and you don’t ring us back. We’ve been through hell wondering what happened to you.”

Then Charlie had a brainwave. And I have to say that it was both simple and rather brilliant. “We were kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped?” said Dad.

“Kidnapped?” said Mum.

“By Mr Kidd,” said Charlie. “And Mrs Pearce. From school.”

“They took us to Scotland,” I said. “To Loch Coruisk. On the Isle of Skye.”

“What…!?” said Mum. “What…!? What…!?” She sounded a bit like a chicken.

“So,” said Dad, shaking his head, “who wrecked the flat?”

“What?” asked Charlie.

I looked over Dad’s shoulder and saw two halves of the snapped coffee table stacked in the corner of the living room and it all came back to me. “Oh, that,” I said.

“We came back home,” said Dad. “The fridge was on its side. The sofa was upside down. And we found one of the kitchen chairs in the car park.”

“Obviously we didn’t want to be kidnapped,” said Becky, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. “So we put up a fight.”

“But… but… but…” said Mum, sounding like a slightly different kind of chicken. “But why did they kidnap you?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” said Charlie breezily. “You’ll have to ask Mrs Pearce and Mr Kidd. Perhaps they can explain everything.”

“I’m going to ring the police,” said Dad.

“Excellent idea,” said Charlie. “But I really do think I ought to go home first.”

Becky and I showered rapidly and grabbed some clean clothes and Dad drove us all over to Charlie’s house.

We knocked on the door and it was pretty much a repeat of what happened at our house. The hugging, the crying. Except that Mrs Brooks screamed a lot louder than Mum.

Dr Brooks rang the police, and two sergeants arrived ten minutes later. Reassuringly, neither of them were wearing brass wristbands.

We told them the kidnapping story. Like Becky suggested, we missed out the aliens-with-hairy-tails-and-space-travel aspect. And the stealing-a-motorbike-and-a-car-and-driving-without-a-licence aspect. And the saving-the-Earth-from-destruction aspect.

The police asked us whether we wanted counselling. We said we’d prefer a hot supper. They told us they’d be in touch and headed out to their car.

Charlie, Becky and I then wandered into the kitchen to discover that Dad and Mrs Brooks had formed a team. Mrs Brooks was rustling up a Stilton sauce to pour over steamed vegetables, while Dad was putting together some individual broccoli tartlets. Mrs Brooks was really rather impressed.

Indeed, while we were eating supper she said that if he was looking for work, she often needed help with some of her bigger catering jobs. Dad said he was very flattered but he’d have to go away and think about it.

Over a dessert of pears in chocolate custard Mum asked Becky whether she was going to ring Craterface. Except she called him Terry because she was in a good mood because we weren’t dead. And Becky said she’d be happy if she never saw the lying skunk again. Which was probably just as well since we’d left the Moto Guzzi in Scotland.

Then there was a loud pop! and Dr Brooks appeared carrying champagne and a tray of seven glasses. He filled them, we raised them, Dad said, “Welcome home,” and Charlie sank his glass in one go and let out one of the loudest burps I have ever heard in my life.