The Great Alien Adventure

A David Sands Competition story by Jacqui Collins

An entry in The Sands of Time Writing Competition

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The Great Alien Adventure by Jacqui Collins

The Great Alien Adventure started out with Rosie taking Monday off work, to take me to the hospital. My foot had started itching - not normally a problem, but when you have a bionic foot… well, that’s not normal. My doctor wanted to see me as soon as I called him, taking phantom limb pain seriously. Rosie and I don’t often get to do things together during the week, so after the appointment we had lunch at a country pub. Rosie spent a full hour telling me everything she was sick of this month, from annoying effing academics to effing annoying filing, but eventually she ground to a halt and asked me how the appointment went. The doctor had said there was no obvious reason for the itching, suggested it was maybe a spot of unusual electrical activity in the bionic circuitry, and gave me antihistamines just in case. I made a mental note to call in for a foot service, even though it hadn’t been long since the last one.

Rosie didn’t take this lack of resolution very well. She is a very - shall we say, passionate? kind of a person. Her boss often says that I am extremely lucky that she loves me, as it’s very clear that I wouldn’t survive five minutes if she didn’t. Bit of a force of nature, our Rosie Lee.

We - the three of us: me, Rosie, and her teenaged son - live in Rushford, where Benjamin goes to school. Rather agreeably, he had just gone on a week-long school residential trip, leaving the previous evening. It was just me and her together today, with the whole lazy afternoon stretching ahead of us. If only I could get her to stop ranting and come home with me, we might have a nice leisurely nap. Everyone likes a lovely afternoon nap, don’t they? But no. Rosie was in full flood. It was ‘terrible’ how my poor missing foot made me a guinea pig for the latest crackpot contraptions, it was ‘horrible’ how I had lost my foot in the first place, it was even ‘awful’ that she hadn’t been allowed in the hospital room with me and my consultant that morning. That was no accident. She had previously terrified the poor man so much that he could barely speak, which isn’t what you want or need from a medical professional. It was during this part of the conversation that my foot stopped itching and started beeping.

We both fell silent, her open-mouthed, mid-sentence, and me with a chip halfway into my gob. It fell out onto the table when my foot beeped a second time. Rosie gave me a Hard Stare. I quickly picked up the chip, but the Stare continued.

“Has it always done that?” she interrogated me in the manner of an Iberian Inquisitor.

“No, never before.”

“What do you think it means? Is it low on battery or something?”

I shrugged. “Not a clue. It’s fully charged - see this green light? Do you think perhaps they did some kind of software upgrade again?”

The foot was occasionally emailed some electronic updates by its inventors - don’t ask me, I have no idea how it works - but usually they did the big upgrades when I was physically in the building, and I hadn’t been there for weeks.

“Perhaps something got switched on remotely? Would that make it itch?” she said, with a suspicious tone to her voice. OK, an unusually suspicious tone, even for Rosie.

“I’ll ring them in a bit.” I said. “Perhaps they can tell me what it is.”

“Er,” said Rosie. “Maybe ring them tomorrow when I’m back at work. I didn’t tell anyone I wasn’t going in today and they don’t appear to have noticed.”

My foot beeped twice in quick succession, and then was silent for the next few minutes, as was I.

I finished my chips and my pint, and Rosie drove us home. There were more beeps during the journey, so I took the foot off and put it in the pantry before going upstairs for our nice long nap.

When I retrieved it later, the battery light was still full, but occasionally blinking, which was new. The beep seemed to be quieter, I discovered, if I kept my foot flexed, so I spent the rest of the evening, and the next morning, holding it at a slightly odd angle. Rosie reluctantly went back to the office, and I attempted to work on my latest novel. It was a sprawling space opera with ships and planets and all kinds of galactic warfare, and I was soon lost in the narrative - but when I took a break at lunchtime I discovered I’d somehow inserted the word ‘beep’ into the text at irregular intervals.

Some instances made a little sense - I’d put it in the mouths of several characters, who now appeared to be swearing a lot more than usual. Most instances, however, did not - “the ship beep orbited the planet’s surface, all the while monitoring beep beep the radio signals emanating from it”. That’s no good, even in my admittedly daft brand of SF. I sighed and made a note to run Find and Replace at regular intervals. After eating, I rang and left a message about my foot. No one was available to speak to me, and it seemed unlikely they’d have a quick answer, so I went back to writing. Before I knew it, it was dinner time and Rosie was back. She’d brought a bunch of curious research scientists with her, lured by my message. They all wanted to hear the beeping for themselves.

My foot did not cooperate. I walked up and down the garden for them, with my trouser legs hoicked up so they could see it. The battery light had stopped blinking again. The beep did not make an appearance until they were all leaving in sad resignation. They turned back, as one, and rushed towards me to hear it.

“It’s only a beep,” said Rosie, who obviously wanted them all to leave now.

“It’s been quiet most of the day,” I added, in an attempt to be helpful. “It is only doing it now because I’ve relaxed my foot, I think.”

There was some whispering among the researchers, and eventually one was pushed forward to ask, shyly, if they could take the foot away for the night.

“If I can get it back when Rosie comes home tomorrow?” I asked. I could manage without for a day - I’ve got a non-bionic spare, and crutches if necessary.

They nodded, as one, and scurried away with it. Rosie slammed the door behind them.

“Well, that’s enough of that.” She said, and marched off to cook dinner angrily. The food even tasted a bit angry, when she served it. I wasn’t quite sure why she was so irate - a malfunctioning prosthetic shouldn’t really cause rage, but then, nothing was ever really obvious where Rosie was concerned.

On Wednesday, Rosie went to work as usual, and I hopped around the house on crutches, putting off going back to my novel. It didn’t feel quite right, writing without my foot, strange as that sounds. I watched some daft Cutter vids and made some scribbled notes on what I thought might be a good basis for the next novel. When I reviewed them, my handwriting was even worse than I remembered. I appeared to have written ‘beep beep beep’ in several places where I could swear it should say ‘bioterrorism’ and ‘terraforming’. Thanks, subconscious. But nothing had actually beeped in the house apart from the oven timer.

Wednesday evening, Rosie and my foot returned. The battery light had been covered with a piece of tape - a very hi-tech solution to the blinking, she assured me with a straight face - and nothing else looked different. She handed me a note, which possibly said “we have forced an update to the software, and it didn’t beep for the whole time we had it”, or alternatively “we have undermined the scripture and it isn’t asleep for too long, lucky rabbit”. You can never be entirely sure with research scientists, whose handwriting is all much worse than mine. I put my foot back on - and immediately, it beeped.

Rosie screeched in irritation, and stormed off upstairs with a packet of biscuits and a novel. I got the hint that I should not follow. At least, not with both feet. I busied myself in the kitchen for a while, but the beeping grew louder and more frequent. I took it into the garden, where I startled an owl and two grateful mice. It was starting to annoy me now as well. I sat on the garden wall and took my foot off to have a closer look. I peeled off the tape and confirmed that, as I expected, it was still blinking. There seemed to be a pattern to it now - blink blink, pause, blink, pause, blink blink, beep. Repeat. Every couple of times through the sequence there’d be two beeps, sometimes three. I couldn’t keep count well enough to tell if this was also a repeated sequence, but there definitely was Something happening here. I set the foot on the wall next to me and pondered.

Could I live without it? Sure. I have a spare, as mentioned. Did I want to? Well, it wasn’t like it was super whizzy, despite the bionics. I couldn’t leap tall buildings with a single bound, or anything fancy. Benjamin had at some point scribbled on the sole with a marker pen, and it was pretty scuffed up and tatty even before the application of tape, so it wasn’t even a beautiful example of a prosthetic foot. But dammit, it was mine and I liked having it.

The foot beeped twice at me.

“What?” I asked it, jokingly.

It beeped rapidly, six or seven times. I grabbed it with both hands and peered closely.

“Are you trying to tell me something?”

It beeped multiple times, and the light blinked quickly.

“Um. I have no idea what you are saying. Let me have a think for a moment.”

It beeped once and stopped blinking. It was waiting for me.

No amount of jumping through time to see unimaginable things, or writing stories full of - ok, not unimaginable, because I imagined them, but strange things, anyway - had prepared me for the possibility of needing to have a conversation with a prosthetic foot.

I needed to stop thinking of it as a foot, I thought. Too weird. It is a bionic device, with software like any computer. Perhaps I should speak to it like a pod. But saying ‘door’ to a foot seemed a bit strange, and it couldn’t initiate anything. C’mon David, think.

I hopped back to the house - I felt strangely queasy at the thought of putting it back on to walk there - and grabbed my spare from the cupboard. I ventured halfway up the stairs and called softly to Rosie.

“I think I’ve had a breakthrough. Can you help me?”

I could hear her huffing and puffing, but the bedroom door eventually opened, and she peered out.

“Go on then, what do you need?”

“I think it’s trying to talk to me, but I need help figuring out what it’s saying.”

“Oh, give it here!” Rosie reached through the banisters and took it from me. I scrambled quickly up the rest of the stairs and followed her into the office. She put the foot on the desk, and disappeared out for a moment, going into Benji’s room. She reappeared holding an alphabet chart which he’d had on the wall for a year or two before he started school.

“You ask it questions,” she said, “and I’ll point at the letters and write down what it says. If it can see the letters, of course, and if it makes sense.”

She had a tone of voice that said ‘if you have just wasted my time you are going to hear about it tomorrow’. I pressed on, however, as I was fairly sure this was going to work.

“Hey, foot!” I started. Rosie rolled her eyes. “I’m going to ask you a question and Rosie is going to point at a row on the chart. If you want a letter from that row, you beep once. If she should go up, beep twice; down, three times. When we know which row, she’ll move her finger along until you beep again. She’ll write it down and we’ll know what you are trying to say.”

The foot beeped once. Rosie’s finger was on the row that contained XYZ.

“Are you beeping once for yes?” I asked. Rosie moved her finger to the Y and the foot beeped.

“Weirdest ouija session ever,” said Rosie, but I could see a sly glimmer of interest under her usual resting-Medusa-face expression. She was hooked.

I started by asking the foot if it was trying to communicate with me alone. N-O. With everyone? N-O. With someone specific, perhaps a specific group? Rosie rolled her eyes and said “just name them, you fool”. Y-E-S-S-P-A-C-P-O-L-E-E-S-P-L-E-E-Z.

“Spacpo-leesp-leez?” I asked in confusion.

Rosie sighed. “Space Police, dumdum.” She handed me the alphabet chart and put my finger on the ABC row. “You do that. I’ll do this bit.”

I did not dare argue.

“Not calling any police,” she said, “not until you tell us who you are and what you want.”

I braced my finger. But the foot went silent. Stayed silent. Stopped making deliberate noises. You know what I mean.

“You scared it off.” I ventured.

Rosie shrugged. “Perhaps it needs time to figure out what lie to tell us.”

“You’re so cynical, Rosie.”

“And?”

I couldn’t really come up with an answer to that. She was usually right to be.

At 3am the following morning, the beeping restarted. Bleary-eyed, I scrambled to the alphabet chart. Rosie, less than happy about being woken, gave the foot a selection of choice insults and stopped just short of telling it to bugger off and never speak to us again. I fetched her a cup of black tea - I keep all the fixings in the office for emergency cuppa needs, but no milk - and handed her a scratchpad.

“Right, you bastards,” she said. “Make this worthwhile or I’m chucking you out of the window for the night.”

S-O-R-R-I-S-O-R-R-I-P-L-E-E-Z-L-I-S-S-E-N.

“Don’t think much of their spelling.” Rosie whispered to me.

“I don’t know if they can hear us whispering,” I whispered back, “But maybe pretend they can - we don’t want to upset them?”

“Go on,” said Rosie loudly, through gritted teeth.

S-T-U-C-K-I-N-S-P-A-C-E-S-O-M-W-H-E-R-E-N-O-I-D-E-A-N-O-M-A-P-N-O-I-N-N-F-O.

“I was not expecting that,” said Rosie, eerily calm.

I was dumbstruck. My hand continued moving but my brain was racing at a million miles an hour.

“Why are you using this to communicate? Why us?” she asked.

D-A-V-D-I-S-K-N-O-N-E-T-O-U-N-D-E-R-S-T-A-D-N-D-A-V-D-R-I-T-E-S-T-H-E-T-R-O-U-T-H-H-E-L-P

“I’m sorry,” I said, “you’ve, er, read my books?”

Y

“But you want the police to help?”

D-A-V-D-C-A-N-N-O-T-H-E-L-P-D-A-V-D-N-O-T-I-N-S-P-A-C-E

Undeniably correct. I had not the faintest idea how to help.

“I only write fiction about space, I can’t offer any practical solutions, that’s true.”

Rosie shushed me. “Do you think you belong here?”

Y

“Are you from here?”

There was no reply for a while. Then:

N-O-S-O-R-R-R-I-N-O-T-O-T-L-S-T-R-A-N-J-E-R

Rosie put the scratchpad down and gestured to me to follow her out of the room. On the landing, with the door shut, we conferred. Which is to say, Rosie talked, and I nodded a lot.

“We don’t know what it is. We don’t know where it is, or if anything it is saying is true. We don’t know how it is communicating with you, or why it picked you and not, say, some kind of space agency that could actually help.”

“Well, to be fair, perhaps it tried, and I was the only person paying attention?”

“It beeped a lot, David. Are you saying that in a space - um - place, lab, thing, full of things monitoring y’know, space, no one would pay attention to something beeping to indicate it had found something communicating from flippin’ SPACE?”

I shook my head. She had a point.

“Maybe something they did to my foot made it receive the signal better?”

She harrumphed. “Now that’s plausible.”

“So we think it’s really in space?”

She glared at me and I shut up again.

“We don’t know, but it wants us to think it is, doesn’t it?”

She paced across the landing.

“So if it is in space, what can we usefully do to help? Nothing. But on the other hand, if it is in space, how the hell is it communicating with us? How can it see us?”

I blinked. That was a very good point and I was annoyed with myself for not thinking about that. Did my foot have a camera now?

Rosie tutted and sat down on the top stair. “Let’s think about this logically. It can see us when we move our hands on the chart, so it has some kind of camera. It can hear us speaking, so there’s a microphone too. It can’t seem to broadcast to us, except by blinking and beeping, which presumably is using some function in that blasted prosthetic. Why did they have to keep adding features? Wasn’t a basic foot good enough?”

I pointed out that the alien - because obviously it was one, this was far too exciting for it not to be aliens - maybe didn’t have a microphone at their end, and maybe the foot was still capable of broadcasting sound if they sent any. Rosie glared menacingly at my knees, which were level with her head. I backed away slightly.

“I think we should go and prod the actual foot a bit,” I said. “Then maybe ask some more questions.”

Rosie nodded and disappeared off into the bedroom, emerging a moment later with a very large hammer. I made a mental note not to ask why it was in there.

We went back into the office. The foot was dark and quiet, the battery light no longer blinking. Rosie picked it up and started to examine it closely.

“Here,” she whispered, and pointed. There was a panel that was new-looking - shinier than the rest - just under the battery light and above the charging point. Rosie held the foot still under the central light fitting, while I lifted the edge of the panel with the tip of my letter opener. We could see a tiny microphone and speaker underneath. I let the panel fall back into place. The battery light, on closer examination, now held a small camera, like a webcam, just visible under the coloured panel.

“Well, that is new,” I said. “Must have been put in last time they upgraded it. They’re always trying out new things on me. At least they fixed whatever made it pull sideways whenever it got near a security door.”

Rosie scowled, an expression I had come to love and fear in equal measure. “Stupid beggars,” she said. “Spying on us. Good job you wear socks in bed.”

She set the foot back down on my desk and addressed it.

“Here, space person or whoever you are. I’ve got this hammer -” she gestured to it. “And I’m not afraid to use it to smash this thing to pieces if I see fit. He’s got another foot he can use.”

The blinking resumed, wildly at first, then back to a pattern. Rosie pointed at the chart again.

D-O-N-T-S-M-A-S-H-N-O-T-T-H-R-E-T-T-E-N-I-N-G-J-U-S-T-W-A-N-T-H-E-L-P-T-R-A-P-P-D

Rosie put the hammer down on the edge of the desk, but kept her hand near it.

“Where are you? Can you tell us exactly?”

S-P-A-C-E-S-H-I-P-I-N-S-P-A-C-E-I-U-S-E-D-A-G-I-S-M-O

I groaned. “A gadget of some kind? A gizmo?” I asked.

Y

“What does it look like, where you are?” asked Rosie.

D-A-R-K-N-O-L-I-G-H-T-S-O-N-L-Y-S-T-A-R-S-A-T-W-I-N-D-O-W

“Are you floating?” She had a thoughtful look on her face. “Is it zero gravity there?”

N-O-T-H-A-T-S-A-B-I-T-W-E-E-R-D-I-A-M-S-I-T-T-I-N-G-O-N-C-H-A-I-R

“I don’t think it’s space,” she whispered to me with her thumb over the battery light camera.

S-H-D-I-B-E-F-L-O-T-I-N-G

“Yes,” snapped Rosie. “So I don’t think you are in space at all. But we don’t know where you actually are, so let’s concentrate on figuring that out.”

I gestured to Rosie to let me ask questions for a while. She made a face but let me speak.

“The gizmo you mentioned. What does it do?”

T-R-A-V-E-L-I-N-S-P-A-C-E-A-N-D-T-I-M-E-I-T-H-I-N-K

I groaned. I had a fairly good idea about what had happened, and a decent theory about why we were able to communicate with the unfortunate victim of yet another science experiment.

H-E-L-P-H-O-W-C-A-N-I-G-E-T-H-O-M-E-W-H-E-R-E-D-O-Y-O-U-T-H-I-N-K-I-A-M

“I think you have jumped somewhere. If you have a tracker, you can be found.”

N-O-T-R-A-C-K-E-R-N-O-W-W-H-A-T

Rosie sighed. “How does anyone at work jump without a tracker? They’re getting sloppier every day.”

I pondered. “Perhaps they were not meant to jump. You didn’t have a tracker for a long time, because you don’t jump. I had mine removed when I left. Maybe they don’t even work there.”

We stared at the foot, hoping inspiration would strike. It beeped twice, apparently randomly, and the light went out. Whoever was at the other end was also having a bit of a think, it seemed.

After half an hour it had not resumed communication, and neither Rosie nor I had come up with any bright ideas, so we went back to sleep. It was already starting to get light but I didn’t need to wake up early and Rosie - well, Rosie left for work whenever it suited her at the best of times, so no one would remark on her being late.

The foot did not beep again until lunchtime, when I was on my own in the office, trying to figure out how to get a galactic fleet through a wormhole without spaghettifying the crew. Science fiction is really much easier when you don’t care too much about the science. I grabbed a scribblepad and attempted to point with one hand and write with the other.

C-H-E-C-K-D-N-O-T-R-A-C-K-E-R-G-E-T-T-I-N-G-H-U-N-G-R-I-N-O-W

I put down my sandwich in a fit of misplaced guilt. “Did you have provisions, then?”

Y

“Did you plan for this?” I felt a growing suspicion.

K-I-N-D-O-F-H-A-D-S-U-P-P-L-I-E-S-F-R-S-H-O-R-T-T-R-I-P

“And now you’ve eaten them all and you’re getting worried?”

Y

I sighed. “We’re going to have to tell them you have been stranded by their gizmo. They might be able to trace it, if not you.”

S-T-O-L-L-I-T

“I thought that might be the case. Sorry, but if you want help we’re going to have to snitch on you.”

P-L-E-E-Z-N-O

“No, I’m sorry. I really don’t know what else to do to find you. And I don’t want you to run out of food before we find you.”

O-K-W-H-O-W-I-L-L-Y-O-U-T-E-L-L-P-O-L-E-E-S-O-R-S-O-M-E-O-N-E-E-L-S

“I’m going to ring Rosie and ask her to make some discreet enquiries at work, see if we can’t keep it mostly quiet. You don’t need everyone charging in to find you, just one or two. You’re - you’re not going to hurt anyone, are you?”

I realised we knew nothing about who was on the other end of this conversation, other than that they had no tracker and were not very good at spelling. That ruled out many people we knew, though probably wasn’t enough to completely narrow it down.

C-O-U-R-S-E-N-O-T-T-H-A-N-K-Y-O-U

Rosie was not particularly keen to do this, although she relented, grumpily, when I pointed out that she would have a death by starvation on her conscience if she didn’t. She tried to argue that they could just pop back to the start of the week when the not-alien had full supplies, but I pointed out that that might cause a little bit of a paradox as all the conversations we’d had since Monday would cease to exist, as might the person who went to fetch them. There’s a reason no one jumps within their own lifetime. Rosie shrugged - I could hear that in the tone of her voice.
“Some of them might deserve that,” she muttered, and went into a short rant about people who asked her to file things they hadn’t correctly labelled. I brought her back to the matter in hand by repeatedly shouting “Rosie!” down the phone until she paid attention - usually the only effective way.

“OK,” she said eventually. “You see if you can find out any more clues - what those stars look like, for instance, and I’ll call you back if I ever find someone trustworthy enough to help.” She laughed cynically.

I sighed and went back to the foot to resume interrogation.

We eventually established that the stars visible from the window didn’t move at all, and there weren’t any recognisable constellations. Back to the drawing board. The room they were in appeared to have a chair and table, and a couch where they had been sleeping, but no lights, floor coverings, or obvious exit. There did seem to be a door handle but it didn’t move when rattled. It was tiring work and when I said I had to go and get a cup of tea, the blinking and beeping became frantic again.

G-E-T-I-N-G-T-H-I-R-S-T-I-N-O-W-B-C-O-S-I-D-R-A-N-K-A-L-L-M-Y-W-A-T-E-R

Oh crap.

I called Rosie back but she scathingly asked me if I had in fact waited for her to call me back. I had not. I quickly told her what I’d learned and rang off again.

I attempted to reassure the not-alien and asked more questions.

“Can you think of anything else that might help us find you? Can you hear any noises? Smell anything?”

S-M-E-L-L-S-L-I-K-E-S-C-H-O-O-L-D-I-N-N-E-R-S

Ohhhh. A metaphorical lightbulb went on for me. A couple of them, in fact.

“Can you shout ‘LIGHTS’ for me? Really loudly? Like, the loudest you can manage and a bit more?”

Y

I waited.

L-I-G-H-T-S-O-U-T-S-I-D-E-W-I-N-D-O-W-N-O-M-O-R-S-T-A-R-S

Bingo. I rang Rosie again. “I think I know where we need to look. But - maybe I should go on my own.”

I held the phone away from my ear while Rosie let me know exactly how she felt about this suggestion. In due course I told the handset that I was going now, and hoped Rosie would hear me.

I don’t like driving with my spare foot, as a rule, as it’s a lot less responsive than the fancy bionic one, but I didn’t have to go far - down to the edge of the grounds, park the car, and head for the junk sheds on foot. I knew that stored here were all kinds of bits of abandoned tech, things that simply couldn’t be fixed or recycled for other purposes. And things people were trying to hide from prying eyes in the main buildings. Many of us had sneaked out here to kill time when we were meant to be training, were avoiding boring lectures, or when we were in big trouble and needed time to let things blow over. I had a growing hunch that my alien was in that third category, whether or not they knew it yet.

Inside the second shed I tried, the lights were on. A poster on the wall provided the stars I thought I’d see there. And yes, in the far corner of the room was a small high window in the wall, through which a viewer on the other side might see those stars. Everything smelled of cabbage, so there was obviously some leftover pod tech here. The door in the wall was blocked by a large amount of broken wood and furniture. I carefully pulled it away and found that the key was jammed in the door. I unlocked it, with the aid of Rosie’s enormous hammer.

“Hello Benji,” I said. “Are we going to tell your mum what happened here, or are we going to discreetly sneak away and never speak of this again?”

“That please, David.”

The gizmo turned out to be a rather rough-looking handheld transporter marked ‘NO!-DO NOT USE-THIS MEANS YOU!’, with most of its buttons disabled, including half the comms ones. Luckily for our foolhardy alien explorer, this also meant that travel in time was not an option, and travel in space had been strictly limited to 500 yards. Another 10 yards and he’d have landed, unscathed, at the bottom of the lane. 10 yards less, the shallow stream that ran into the lake. Pure luck, of the very worst kind, had dropped him and his camping gear in the blocked-off walk-in cupboard at the back of a rarely used shed. I shuddered to think about what might have happened if he hadn’t worked out how to attract my attention. I’d be having Harsh Words right now with whoever had linked the gizmo to my bionic foot, if I thought that wouldn’t result in Benji’s immediate pulverisation into millions of atoms under his mother’s fiercest Hard Stare.

“So where did you get it?” I asked, as I marched him back to the car.

“Found it in the shed last week. It only worked properly once - I couldn’t jump back.”

I tutted to myself. “And the school trip?”

“Forged a note from you to say I wasn’t going.”

“Me? Not your mum?”

“Nah, they know her writing.”

“And that she can spell.”

He had the grace to blush. “That chart was hard to read in the dark! Glad Mum thought of it, though.”

I stopped the car, and threw the gizmo in the lake, before we drove home. We told Rosie that Benji had worked out how to hack my foot, and had been playing a sily prank while away on his trip. She frowned at us both in her best ‘if I ever find out that you’re lying’ manner. I offered to set fire to my bionic foot to avoid anything like this happening again. She countered with offering to set fire to Benjamin if he ever did anything like this again. I laughed. He laughed. Rosie glared. Normal family life had resumed.

About Jacqui Collins:

Jacqui lives in Oxford with her daughter, a lot of books, yarn & hair dye, and - now - a Dodo D'Or. She gets far too involved with things and is always absolutely exhausted as a result.

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