The Boy Who Made the World Disappear Read online

  ‘Well? What do you say, Harrison?’ asked his mother.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Harrison politely.

  ‘You’re most welcome, Harrison,’ said Shelley with a glint in her eye. ‘You are most welcome indeed.’

  Harrison reached out his hand, took hold of the string and pulled the balloon towards him.

  As Harrison walked home with his parents, he studied his extraordinary balloon. In fact, he couldn’t take his eyes off it. He was vaguely aware of crossing the village green and climbing the hill to their cottage, but it was as if it was all happening to someone else. The balloon was like a huge dark magnet, pulling him in. He stared deeper and deeper into its depths, looking for a place to rest his eyes: a shape, maybe, moving in the black, or a tiny chink of light. But there was nothing. Harrison was starting to wonder if it even was a balloon, or something altogether more mysterious . . .

  ‘RUFF!’

  A loud bark startled Harrison from his thoughts as a set of sharp white fangs snapped shut about a centimetre from the end of his nose. He leapt in fright, letting go of the string. Luckily, the balloon was tied to his wrist, otherwise it would have floated away and, well, this would pretty much be the end of the story.

  Harrison knew that terrifying bark and those razor-sharp teeth all too well. They belonged to Blue, his neighbour Mr Hardwick’s black-and-white Border Collie. His heart began to race and he started to feel faint.

  ‘Help!’ he cried.

  ‘Just turn your back, Harrison,’ said Mr Hardwick, leaning over the fence. ‘Blue won’t hurt you. Stand still and she’ll soon lose interest.’

  Harrison did as Mr Hardwick suggested and turned away from the dog. Then he felt Blue’s hot breath on his neck as she snapped her teeth just millimetres from his right ear lobe. He turned back around and tried to shoo the dog away.

  ‘Don’t wave your arms,’ said his mother calmly. ‘She thinks you want to play.’

  Harrison held his arms close to his chest. He could feel his heart thumping against his ribs, like a crazed hamster trying to break out of a cage. Blue darted in front of him and kept jumping up, barking and snapping her teeth in his face. It was unbearable.

  ‘Agghhh!’ yelled Harrison.

  ‘Oh, don’t be so silly, Harrison,’ said his father. ‘Blue’s just being friendly.’

  The next few seconds felt like hours. As his parents continued their conversation with Mr Hardwick, Harrison twisted and turned, doing everything he could to avoid Blue’s yapping and snapping. But the dog wasn’t giving up, this was much too fun a game.

  She crouched low on the pavement . . .

  Prepared to leap . . .

  Sprang from the ground . . .

  Harrison shut his eyes tight and ducked!

  For the longest time, he stayed in that position with his eyes closed, expecting to be torn apart at any moment. But nothing happened.

  He opened his eyes.

  ‘They left our recycling box behind,’ Harrison’s mother was saying.

  ‘Because we put a soggy tissue in it. I thought paper was recyclable?’

  Harrison looked up and down the lane. Blue was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘That’s the council for you,’ Mr Hardwick replied. ‘They love to make things difficult.’

  Where had the dog gone? Harrison couldn’t make any sense of it.

  And then he remembered he was still holding his balloon. His very strange balloon . . .

  It couldn’t have anything to do with the dog disappearing, could it?

  He crouched down, just like he had when Blue had sprung at him, and looked up. As he suspected, the balloon was hovering directly above him. So when Blue had leapt for him, she could easily have hit it. What if she had crashed into the blackness and vanished?

  Harrison shook his head. No, that was ridiculous. Blue must have jumped right over him and run off down the street while he had his eyes shut. Perhaps she’d seen a squirrel and run after it or heard a cat wailing down on the village green?

  ‘Harrison, are you all right?’ his father asked.

  Harrison didn’t say anything. His mind was whirring with possibilities. Could Blue have really disappeared into the balloon? And if so, did that mean he could make other things disappear?

  As soon as Harrison was safely inside his bedroom, he set to work.

  First, he tested what would happen when he let go of the balloon’s string. Cautiously, he untied the knot round his wrist. Instead of floating up to the ceiling like a normal helium balloon would do, it hovered mysteriously in mid-air. Harrison was tempted to poke it with his finger, but Shelley’s warning not to touch it rang in his ears. If it really could swallow a mediumsized Border Collie, what could it do to him?

  He walked around the balloon so he could look at it from every possible angle. He crouched down and gazed up at it, and stood up on tiptoe, peering down. It looked exactly the same from every direction: a flat black circle. Like a piece of black card had been cut out and stuck in mid-air. It wasn’t round like a balloon should be.

  He noticed it didn’t have a knot either. Whenever he got a balloon from a fair or a party, there was always a knot at the bottom where the string was attached. But this thing, whatever it was, didn’t have one. Instead, the string just sort of vanished into the blackness.

  Hmmm . . . Harrison was starting to have an idea of what his ‘balloon’ might really be.

  He closed his bedroom curtains, switched on his torch and turned out the lights. He swished the beam around in the darkness, until he found the ‘balloon’. Which was when he noticed the oddest thing. Instead of reflecting off the surface, the torch beam seemed to disappear right into it. Harrison shone the torch onto a bowling ball sitting on his shelf, so he could compare the two. But that looked round and shiny and – quite frankly – like a ball. Not flat and completely black.

  Harrison turned the light back on and then crawled under his bed, rummaging around until he found the toy he was looking for: a fluffy grey elephant called Elmond. He and Elmond had never really got on, mainly because his fur was made of rough nylon fibre which triggered Harrison’s eczema. Elmond would be the perfect test subject.

  Harrison took a deep breath and balanced Elmond in his right hand, as if he was throwing a spear. He took careful aim, putting all his focus on his target, and launched the elephant into the air.

  Elmond floated gracefully past the posters of stars and planets on Harrison’s bedroom wall . . .

  And splatted against the side of the ‘balloon’.

  Now, you might think that being struck by a fast-moving fluffy elephant would have sent the ‘balloon’ flying, but, oh, no. It remained rock steady. And that wasn’t the most curious thing, because the instant Elmond struck the ‘balloon’, the fluffy elephant seemed to freeze in time, then slowly, slowly, it started to fade, until it became completely see-through. Harrison was sure that he saw the toy’s eyes widen in shock before it disappeared completely.

  That proved it. Just as Harrison had suspected. This was no ordinary balloon. This was a black hole.

  That night, at supper, Harrison had the opportunity to conduct further tests.

  True to form, his parents were trying to make him eat vegetables by giving him broccoli to go with his cottage pie, even though he had tried broccoli three times and most definitely didn’t like it. Even worse, one of the boys in his class had told him that eating too much broccoli turned your hair green, and he really didn’t want that.

  ‘Harrison, remember the rules,’ his mother said. ‘Eat all of your vegetables or no pudding.’

  ‘I don’t want the broccoli,’ Harrison told her. ‘It tastes like trees.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, you love broccoli!’ said his father.

  ‘Just try it,’ suggested his mother.

  ‘I have tried it,’ replied Harrison. ‘Three times.’

  ‘Well . . . try it again,’ said his father.

  Harrison felt his temper rising. What if the boy at school wa
s right? If he went to school with green hair, everyone would laugh at him! Just the thought of it made his eyes sting with tears. Why were they forcing him to eat something so horrible? He wanted to lash out, scream and shout . . .

  He was just about to pick his plate up and fling it across the room, when an idea struck him. What if he didn’t? What if, instead of losing his temper, he used his black hole?

  ‘Okay,’ he said innocently. ‘I suppose I can try it again.’

  And instead of growling and grinding his teeth, he broke out into the broadest of smiles.

  His parents looked confused at the sudden turnaround, but also relieved. At least their son wasn’t going to have another Code Red.

  Harrison picked up his fork and took a bite of his cottage pie. Then, while his parents weren’t paying attention and his sister Lana shovelled up her own vegetables like they were the most delicious thing on earth, he slowly, slyly, took hold of the string, and manoeuvred the black hole under the table, where no one could see it. Of course, he was very careful not to touch it. After all, he didn’t want to fall into it like poor Elmond.

  After double-checking his parents weren’t looking, he picked up a particularly unappetising piece of broccoli from his plate and dropped it onto the black hole. The effect was remarkable. Just as with Elmond, the moment it struck the black hole the broccoli appeared to freeze in time. Then, after a few seconds it slowly faded, until finally it was completely gone.

  Harrison couldn’t believe his luck. This was great! No more awful, disgusting vegetables! One after another, he snuck the pieces of broccoli off his plate and threw them at the black hole, waiting for each one to fade from view before disposing of another, until piece by piece, he’d removed every bit of broccoli from his plate.

  ‘Goodness me!’ said his father, with delight. ‘Every bit of broccoli gone! Well done, Harrison! You’ve definitely earnt your dessert!’

  Harrison felt a twinge of guilt, but that quickly vanished with his first mouthful of chocolate pudding.

  He raised the black hole up above the table again, so that he could look at it. Hmmm, he thought. This might come in handy. After all, there were one or two things he wouldn’t mind getting rid of. Hector Broom’s elastic band, for example . . .

  The next day was a school day and Harrison’s alarm woke him with a start.

  Beep! Beep! Beep!

  For an awful moment, he wondered whether the black hole might have been a dream. But, to his great relief, when he sat up and opened his eyes, there it was, tied to the bottom of the bed exactly where he had left it.

  Was it smaller than it had been the night before? Or was he imagining things?

  All balloons shrink a bit overnight, he reassured himself. Maybe black holes were no different? Either way, today he was going to have some fun.

  Beep! Beep! Beep!

  He picked up his alarm clock from his bedside table and launched it through the air!

  Beep! Beep! Bee—yowp!

  The clock had an irritating smiley-face sun on it and Harrison watched with satisfaction as it faded from view.

  Oh, yes, this was going to be a great day.

  It was their father’s turn to walk Harrison and Lana down the hill to school. Luckily, he was so busy doing whatever it is that grown-ups do on their phones that he didn’t notice Harrison had brought his black hole. He also didn’t notice when Harrison took his reading book from his satchel and threw it over his shoulder. And he most definitely didn’t notice when that self-same reading book froze at the surface of the black hole and slowly faded from view.

  Ha! thought Harrison. Now no one will know I didn’t do my reading homework!

  Harrison smiled to himself. His black hole was primed and ready for action.

  Soon they reached the bottom of the hill, where a crowd of parents and schoolchildren was hovering near Shelley’s grandmother, the school lollipop lady.

  Now, I need to give you a bit of background on Shelley’s grandmother. As I’ve already mentioned, she was the school lollipop lady, meaning she helped all the children and parents cross the busy road outside the school. Secondly, she was known to be slightly strange. Very few cars came through the village, so you might think she would be constantly leading children across the road, but that wasn’t how she operated at all.

  Instead, every morning, she would wait with her lollipop until a large crowd had gathered round her. The road would be empty, without a car to be seen. But would she cross? Oh, no. She would wait. And wait. Then, as soon as she saw a car coming, she would inch her way into the middle of the road, plant her pole and blow her whistle.

  Once, when there was a very long gap between cars, one of the fathers had grown impatient, taken his children by the hand and started to cross the road without her permission.

  PHEEEEEP!

  He stopped in his tracks.

  ‘There’s nothing coming!’ he exclaimed.

  PHEEEEEP! went Shelley’s grandmother’s whistle.

  ‘But—’

  PHEEEEEEP!

  ‘I—’

  PHEEEEEEEP!

  Luckily, at that moment an elderly cyclist had pootled into view, so Shelley’s grandmother was able to voyage to the middle of the road, plant her pole and let everyone cross.

  Usually the lollipop lady wasn’t one for conversation, so Harrison was very surprised when she smiled as he approached and put a friendly hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Ah, you must be Harrison,’ she said, with a twinkle in her eye. ‘What did you think of Hector’s birthday party?’

  ‘It was okay,’ said Harrison. ‘But I had an argument with your granddaughter. She wasn’t very nice to me.’

  ‘Ah, is that so? Did she give you that balloon?’ she asked innocently, pointing at the black hole. ‘It’s a very unusual colour.’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Harrison carefully. Could Shelley’s grandmother know the truth about his ‘balloon’?

  ‘Have you put anything in it yet?’ whispered Shelley’s grandmother, leaning in close so no one else could hear.

  So she did know! Which meant that Shelley must have intentionally given him the black hole . . . but why? Harrison checked to see if his father was listening, but he seemed to be busy chatting away on his phone. ‘Only Elmond the elephant. And some broccoli,’ Harrison whispered. ‘And my alarm clock. And my reading book.’

  ‘Your secret’s safe with me,’ said Shelley’s grandmother, tapping her nose. ‘But be careful. Once you put something in there, it can never come out.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ said Harrison. ‘I don’t want that stuff back.’

  ‘Are you a witch?’ interrupted Lana. It was a bit rude, but Harrison knew what she meant. The lollipop lady didn’t have warts or a cloak or a black cat, but there was something ever so slightly unusual about her. Maybe it was her sharp green eyes . . .

  ‘Quite the opposite, my dear,’ Shelley’s grandmother replied. ‘I’m training to become an astronomer.’ Both Lana and Harrison looked impressed.

  ‘Like Shelley?’ asked Harrison.

  ‘Very like Shelley. In fact, exactly like Shelley,’ said Shelley’s grandmother, chuckling. ‘And this must be your father.’

  Their father, who was still busy on his phone, nodded hello.

  ‘Or, of course, it could be you, Harrison,’ said Shelley’s grandmother. ‘Only older.’

  ‘Me?’ asked Harrison.

  ‘Have you never thought,’ replied the old lady, ‘that if you want to know what you will look like when you grow up, you should look at your parents?’

  Harrison hadn’t.

  ‘Or your grandparents,’ added Shelley’s grandmother, rather mischievously. Then, seeing that Harrison’s father was still on his phone, and not really listening, she said in a low voice, ‘You must keep feeding it, you know.’

  ‘Feeding it?’ asked Harrison in the quietest voice he could manage.

  ‘Or it will shrink to nothing. That’s the thing about black holes,’ said Shelley’s
grandmother. ‘Always hungry.’

  ‘I’m hungry,’ said Lana. ‘I want some cake.’

  ‘No one’s having any cake,’ said Harrison’s father, ending his call. ‘You’ve only just had breakfast. And, besides, Harrison’s got swimming.’

  Swimming!

  Harrison had completely forgotten. Monday was swimming day!

  Which reminds me: there’s something else I need to tell you about Harrison. He wasn’t in any way a scaredy-cat, but like most people, there were some things that he Didn’t Like At All. You might be scared of spiders or dentists or mouldy grapes, for example. But Harrison? Well, for Harrison, it was swimming.

  It had all started with his very first lesson. His father had taken him to the local pool, where a large, round-faced man with curly hair told him that he was his new swimming instructor and would have him water-borne in no time.

  ‘Let’s see what you can do, Harrison,’ said the instructor, as he removed Harrison’s armbands.

  ‘I can sink,’ said Harrison. ‘But that’s about it.’

  ‘Swimming is all in the mind,’ the instructor told him. ‘If you think you can’t do it, you can’t. If you think you can –’ he smiled a knowing smile – ‘you might surprise yourself.’

  ‘What if I surprise myself by drowning?’ Harrison had asked.

  ‘You won’t drown,’ the instructor had said with a chuckle. ‘I’ll be right here the whole time.’

  Of course, what the curly-haired instructor hadn’t known when he’d said that was that there would be a lady instructor in the pool that morning, and that the two of them would really enjoy chatting. In fact, they would enjoy chatting so much that when Harrison did need help and began to splutter and swallow and sink beneath the water, the curly-haired swimming instructor would completely fail to notice. It was only when Harrison tugged at the curly-haired instructor’s shorts to get his attention, accidentally pulling them down, that the man finally realised what was happening. Even then, he seemed to be crosser that the lady instructor saw his bottom than sorry that Harrison had nearly drowned.