The Astounding Broccoli Boy Read online

  ‘For the television. The remote thingy.’

  ‘Television! Not now, Tristram. We’re having a meeting!’

  ‘You have to see this.’

  Koko found the remote control behind one of the cushions of the big couch. ‘I’ve got it, everyone,’ she said. ‘Panic over.’ She made it sound like she had saved Christmas.

  Tristram flicked through the channels. ‘There,’ he said, stopping on a picture of London’s tallest building. The Shard. Three hundred metres high. Seventy-two storeys. A giant splinter stuck in the sky.

  ‘Why are we looking at the Shard?’ asked the Prime Minister.

  ‘Listen,’ said Tristram. ‘And watch.’

  He turned up the volume. A reporter was talking about how people all over London had seen the alien. Tweets scrolled across the bottom of the screen . . .

  Big, angry, dripping wet, accompanied by penguins #scaryaliens

  Penguins on the South Bank – lovely. Big wet smelly green creature with them – not so much #scaryaliens

  In our car when Bang . . . the alien walked over our car roof like Godzilla. Tried to run it down but foiled by penguins #scaryaliens

  They were talking about Tommy-Lee. ‘They’re talking about Tommy-Lee,’ I whispered to Koko.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Sightings,’ said the reporter, ‘are coming in from all over London.’ He played a conversation from a radio phone-in . . .

  ‘I got a photo of him, Chris, on my phone. I nearly lost my life. Opened the back door and there he was on my front step, drinking the milk straight from the bottle. He looked right at me. Like he wanted to speak. He’s green all over and I think he’s got three eyes. One in the middle of his forehead.’

  ‘Did you speak to him?’

  ‘I did not, Chris. I slammed the door right shut. I took a peep at him through the little peep hole in my front door. He didn’t try to break the door down, I’ll give him that. I was terrified though. I thought the smell of fish off him might be some kind of nerve gas that would make you do his will or whatever.’

  ‘All afternoon,’ went on the reporter, ‘the police have pursued the creature across London. Their efforts have been frustrated by the many false alarms. There’s no way it could have been in central London one moment then ten miles away in Brixton the next. Unless of course it can teleport. But now the chase is over. Now we have this . . .’ The reporter pointed to the Shard. The camera zoomed up to the roof. It was so high above the Thames there was a little scarf of cloud around the top. Sticking up out of the cloud – like the legs of a great magical bird – was a bright yellow crane. You could see the cabin where the driver sat and you could see its great steel arm reaching out across the river. You could also see, working their way along it, the big, bulky shape of Tommy-Lee Komissky and three wobbly black dots that must be his penguins.

  Shift to a clip on YouTube – showing three green children upending a dumper truck full of rubbish on to a parked car. Someone had filmed this with their phone. It already had ten million hits.

  ‘Nine million of those hits,’ said the reporter, ‘came in the last hour. The world is watching London. Government sources refuse to confirm or deny the existence of Little Green Men, insisting that the creatures who have been spreading fear across the city are just three children with an unusual skin complaint. It’s difficult to see, however, why or how a child with a skin complaint could climb London’s tallest building and stand up there like King Kong. What does he want? Is it a prank? Or a serious threat to national security? How did he get up there? Surely he must have some kind of ability – a superpower, if you will – that no earthly child would have.’

  The Prime Minister looked at us. Everyone stared at us. Like they were trying to figure out if we really did have superpowers. ‘Couldn’t the crane driver just go up there and make the crane swing around?’ asked the Culture Secretary.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Well, if it was pointing over the river instead of the road, at least he’d fall in the river instead of on the road.’

  The Chancellor snorted a laugh. ‘That YouTube clip actually is very funny, you know. The face on the driver! Have you seen the one with the baby and the subtitles?’

  ‘Would the Chancellor please engage with the very serious predicament before us?’ said the Home Secretary.

  Exactly! I wanted to shout. How can you just sit there making jokes about Tommy-Lee?! He may be big, but he’s still just a kid. What kind of government sits back and makes jokes while kids, or aliens for that matter, are dangling off the ends of cranes!

  But before I could open my mouth, the 200-per-cent brain had already clicked into action. It had noted all the useful things about the room – the long table, the key in the door, the mobile phones on the desk in the hall. I sneaked one of the notepads from the middle of the table, scribbled on it and passed the note to Koko.

  ‘We have to rescue Tommy-Lee.’

  Underneath she wrote, ‘You’re kidding!! I’m not leaving these people to run the country by themselves. They need help. You go. I’m staying.’

  If you get bullied at school, you learn to be inconspicuous. The best form of defence is not being noticed. Sometimes walking down the corridor with my big folder clutched to my chest, staying close to the wall, I was practically invisible.

  I used those skills now.

  Bit by bit I slid down in my chair until I was actually under the table.

  I crawled along the floor, avoiding the feet of the Cabinet ministers, under the chair of the Foreign Secretary and out of the room. Once outside in the hall, I reached around and took out the key, eased the door shut and locked them in.

  The collected mobile phones of the Cabinet ministers were all clunked together on a desk. It was easy to spot the Prime Minister’s. His screen saver was a picture of him with one of his children. I went through his address book until I found someone called Sam with ‘Driver’ after his name. I texted him: ‘Sam, come around to the front. Do whatever Rory asks. PM’. I put his phone in my pocket and headed for the front door of Number 10.

  Invisible Boy Addresses the Nation

  There were hundreds of news cameras waiting out there. I knew that. The Prime Minister wanted to hide us away from them. I quite liked the idea of getting a permanent secret identity from the government, but the truth was I didn’t want to hide from Trouble any more. If I’d learned one thing it was this – there’s no point in hiding from Trouble. Trouble comes looking for you. Wherever you hide, Trouble will find you.

  The Prime Minister had said he was worried that I would get ridiculed and laughed at. So? I’ve been laughed at most of my life. My whole class saw me turn green. My whole class saw me fall off the bus every night. I’m used to being laughed at. Laughed at doesn’t worry me. I might be the smallest in my year, but I was big enough for this.

  I opened the door. There was a lightning storm of flashlight. I blinked. Hundreds of journalists held their microphones out over the crash barriers. I walked up to them. I sort of knew what I was going to say.

  I was going to say something like: ‘Sorry. It was all my fault. We’re not aliens. We’re just three kids. Now my friend’s in trouble. Let me go and help him.’

  That’s really, honestly what I was planning to say.

  But when I got out there, and saw all those microphones, all those cameras, my mind just changed. They all looked at me and then past me, at the open door of Number 10. They were waiting for the Prime Minister to come out. I went back and closed the door.

  There wasn’t going to be a Prime Minister.

  There was just me.

  Everyone went quiet.

  Everyone was just a little bit nervous.

  Everyone was just a little bit confused.

  Everyone was thinking, If a person is standing on the doorstep of Number 10 Downing Street, that normally means that person is in charge of the nation.

  ‘Who are you?’ shouted the journalist with the biggest microphone. �
��What have you done with the Prime Minister?’

  I could have answered, ‘I’m the smallest in my year. I’ve locked the Prime Minister in the Cabinet room. Why not push me off a bus?’

  I raised my hand. I appeared confident – just like it says in Don’t Be Scared, Be Prepared. I said, ‘Don’t be scared.’

  They all looked at each other. Nothing makes people more scared than being told not to be scared. Especially if the person telling them not to be scared is possibly a little green alien.

  Some of them shouted out questions, but I raised my hand again. There was silence.

  I said, ‘No one will get hurt.’

  Now they were really worried.

  I looked up into the sky as if I was expecting a delivery of secret super-weapons.

  Someone shouted, ‘Are you from space?’

  Someone else shouted, ‘No. He’s from Birmingham.’

  ‘Where’s the Prime Minister? Who’s in charge?’

  ‘Your Prime Minister,’ I said, ‘is quite safe.’ Then I added, ‘But . . .’ just to see. They all went quiet. I couldn’t actually think of a but though. In my pocket, the Prime Minister’s phone buzzed. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a glossy blue car sliding towards me in front of the crash barriers. Everyone was staring at me, expectantly. It seemed rude not to say something so I said, ‘People of Earth – stop pushing people off buses just because they’re small. And just because a person is big, that doesn’t mean they’re not frightened sometimes.’ I didn’t know I thought that until I said it. ‘And what does it matter if a person is green? We . . . I mean, you . . . are all human beings. Every one of you – tall or short, green or whatever – is useful. Be nice to each other. And –’ the car was pulling up in front of me now – ‘don’t try to follow me.’ I jumped in.

  ‘Where to?’ said Sam the Driver.

  ‘Shard. As quick as you can.’

  Sam slipped the car into gear. Camera flashes glittered all around as we moved forward. Then the back door opened and someone climbed in next to me.

  How are you supposed to apologize to a Prime Minister who’s caught you in the act of trying to steal his car after you’ve locked him in a room in his own house? The Prime Minister didn’t even give me a chance to try. He just said, ‘To the Shard, Sam. And make it snappy.’

  Journalists were yelling and engines were roaring as we sped out of Downing Street. He didn’t look at me, but he snarled out of the corner of his mouth, ‘I’m the Prime-bloody-Minister – did you really think I don’t have my own key to my own Cabinet room?’ I couldn’t think of anything to say. Police sirens swirled around us. I thought they were coming to arrest me. ‘Relax,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘I asked for a police escort. To speed things up. No one’s going to put you in jail. Yet. Now, can I have my phone back, please?’

  I finally thought of something to say. ‘You look smart.’ He was wearing a suit now. He was still in his dressing gown a few minutes ago.

  ‘I put the suit on over my pyjamas,’ he said. ‘It feels a bit lumpy, to be honest.’ There was a TV in the back of the front seat. He turned it on. I kind of screamed when I saw who was on there.

  ‘Someone you know?’ asked the Prime Minister.

  ‘My geography teacher.’ Yes. It really was Ms Stressley.

  ‘This was when you were at school on Mars, I suppose?’

  ‘No. Birmingham.’

  The television news people had already worked out who we were and where we came from. They were interviewing people who knew us, asking them what we were really like. Ms Stressley said I was a problem child who was always seeking negative attention. ‘I’ll give you one example. On a class trip, we went on a nature walk. Everyone else stuck to the path. Rory on the other hand threw himself in the river. This business of turning green is completely typical of him, I’m afraid.’ After her it was Kian and Jordan saying, ‘He was always a bit evil. He tried to kill our friend with a biscuit.’ Bonnie Crewe came on and said I was a loner who never spoke to anyone! As if anyone ever spoke to me! She also said I was a bit weird. ‘When he turned green – which was actually quite funny – he made us all think he was incurably ill and probably going to die. You know, to get sympathy.’

  I was probably sitting there with my mouth open in shock because the Prime Minister said, ‘Don’t worry about it. People say nasty things about me too.’ Then he said, ‘So why is your mate on top of the Shard? And how are we going to get him down?’

  I looked out of the window, pretending that I was thinking of a great plan. I pressed a button that I thought would open the window but instead it made the back seat massage our bottoms.

  ‘I get the feeling,’ sighed the PM, reaching over to turn it off, ‘that we are going to be winging it. Again.’

  Taller Than King Kong

  The observation deck of the Shard is on the seventy-second floor. Until I saw the view from there I thought twelve floors was high. Compared to seventy-two storeys, twelve is a mushroom. Even without going near the windows, you know you’re high up. The floor was moving around as though it couldn’t get comfortable.

  ‘Wow!’ said the Prime Minister to the loads of policemen who were waiting for us. He didn’t go over to them. He waited for them to come to him.

  The police all stared at me.

  ‘He’s possibly contagious,’ said the Prime Minister, ‘so keep your distance. So am I, by the way. Killer Kittens.’ He sneezed.

  The policeman in the fanciest uniform said, ‘If you could step over to the window, Prime Minister, I’ll be able to show you the suspect.’

  ‘Do I have to go nearer to the window, Commissioner?’ asked the Prime Minister. ‘I’m usually OK with heights, but this is . . . it gives me a bad feeling in the back of my knees.’

  ‘Me too, if I’m honest,’ said the commissioner. ‘Julie, binoculars, please.’

  Julie turned out to be the Policewoman with the Loudest Voice in the World. Only she didn’t have a loud voice when she was talking to the Prime Minister. She was all, ‘There you go, Prime Minister, this is how you focus them. Great to meet you, by the way.’ She didn’t say anything to me, not even, ‘Sorry about tasering you.’

  At first when we all looked up there was nothing to see but a thick grey cloud. ‘Looks like we’re going to have more snow,’ said the Prime Minister.

  ‘There!’ shouted the commissioner. ‘See the crane. Look right at the end.’

  The Prime Minister swung the binoculars around to a hole in the cloud, then said, ‘Actually I can’t. Back of the knees again.’ Without looking at me, he handed me the binoculars and asked the commissioner what the plan was.

  ‘We’ve been in touch with the crane driver—’

  ‘Why is there a crane on top of the Shard? They’re surely not trying to make it taller?’

  ‘Installing a new aerial on the top, Prime Minister. Mobile phones.’

  ‘How do they get the crane up there?’

  ‘I can find that out for you in due course, Prime Minister, but in regard to the possible alien at the end of the crane . . .’

  I could see him now. Right at the far, thin end of the crane’s arm, stood Tommy-Lee, hands on hips, penguins at his side, their stabilizer-wings outstretched, all enjoying the view. For birds that can’t fly, they certainly seemed happy being high up.

  ‘We’ve sent for the crane driver,’ said the commissioner. ‘We were hoping that the crane arm was retractable – that we’d be able to wheel him in. But no. He can however swing the crane through forty-five degrees to the north.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Then the end would be over the river. So when he falls he’ll fall into the water.’

  ‘You’re the second person that’s said that today. Why do we want him to fall down? Can’t we get him off there?’

  ‘Health and safety, sir. If he does fall, we don’t want him to fall on people. Just on fish.’

  Another man in uniform said, ‘Speaking of fish, the penguins—’


  ‘Penguins aren’t fish,’ said the Prime Minister, sounding confident for the first time.

  ‘No, but fish made me think of penguins. And with regard to the penguins—’

  ‘The penguins are not a priority.’

  ‘I think you’ll find that the British public thinks they are,’ said the man in the uniform.

  ‘This is Roger,’ said the commissioner. ‘He’s from the RSPCA.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the Prime Minister, ‘great. But can we talk about the suspected alien? He has a name. It’s . . .’

  ‘Tommy-Lee,’ I said.

  ‘Can we talk about Tommy-Lee? How are we going to get him down?’

  ‘With respect, Prime Minister, suspected alien Tommy-Lee got himself out there, so presumably he can bring himself back in.’

  ‘The penguins on the other hand,’ said Loud Julie, ‘were probably tricked into going up there.’

  ‘Very true,’ said RSPCA Roger.

  ‘Just because Tommy-Lee can get into trouble,’ I said, ‘that doesn’t mean he can get out of it again.’

  ‘We could shoot him down,’ suggested Julie. ‘Once he’s over the river.’

  ‘Why would you want to do that?’ asked the Prime Minister.

  ‘Just an idea.’

  ‘It’s not a good idea,’ said RSPCA Roger. ‘The penguins could be hurt by a stray bullet. Also be stressed. They’re probably quite stressed as it is . . .’

  ‘I imagine Tommy-Lee is pretty stressed too,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘Can we get a helicopter close enough to rescue him?’

  ‘The wind from the blades would blow him off the edge. Are we sure he wants to be rescued? He must have gone up there for a reason. I hesitate to put my men at risk for someone who doesn’t want to be rescued.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure that if someone’s clinging to a crane three hundred plus metres above London, they don’t want to stay there forever. Have you tried talking to him? To find out what he wants?’