Out to Launch Page 3

  I’m so good at this, he said to himself. Maybe I should’ve used actors for all of it and a scriptwriter and … Oh no, that’s called drama, isn’t it? I haven’t got where I am today by wasting money on scriptwriters and professional actors, and I’m not going to start now.

  He’s so good at this, Fiona Hardly said to herself.

  She realised straight away that the granny was going to be an actress and so if things got a bit boring, she could be used to spice things up. Of course, Radius had secret plans far bigger than anyone could have guessed, not even Fiona, who seemed to be able to read her boss’s mind.

  In fact, it was probably not that she could read his mind, but that she had a head full of devious ideas that matched his exactly – except that Radius had more levels of deviousness and they went far deeper than hers. He had known, right from the start, that being stuck inside a glass bubble on a dead rock did not have a lot going for it in the action department. He knew it would only be a matter of time, and probably quite a short time too, before the family began getting bored, but that didn’t matter, because Radius Limpfast had a Plan B.

  He also had Plans C, D, E, F, G, H right down to Plan Z and beyond, but they were all locked away in his head with coded copies hidden safely away in his top-secret safe. In fact, he had a whole second and third alphabet full of plans to keep Watch This Space running for years, and he had no doubt at all that more and more brilliant ideas would come to him in his sleep as time went by.

  So, he said to himself, it’s all good.13 And, if I’m not mistaken, he added, my brilliant assistant will probably come up with a few great ideas of her own.

  ‘By the way, RR,’ Fiona said when they were out of anyone else’s earshot, ‘perhaps you could get Professor to implant a secret two-way radio in the grandmother’s head, so you can have direct contact with her whenever you want.’

  ‘Brilliant!’ said Radius.

  Behind them, the helicopter flew back to the city to collect Crumley, leaving them alone in the middle of nowhere. Apart from the big mansion, Limpfast Manor, there were no other signs of human life – no roads, no buildings, no man-made sounds, just an endless countryside of woods, occasional fields of lush green grass dotted with lakes and rivers and a few cows and horses.

  There had been a road to the house in the old days, but when Radius had bought the place and the surrounding area, he had had the roads ripped out and replaced with grass and trees. There had been several villages and farms with houses, but they were gone now. And, of course, there was no-one left to ask where they’d all gone, which was a good thing.

  Now the only way to reach Limpfast Manor was by helicopter, or by walking, which was inadvisable due to the booby traps, pits full of spiky sticks, lions, mountains of lion poo and bombs that ringed the entire estate. There was also, as a final security measure, the special Bio-Dynamic Barbed Wire.14 A few people had tried – mostly the sort of people who wore big baggy shorts and rucksacks full of thermos flasks of cold tea – and bits of them were stuck in the tree branches, where they had either been blown or stashed away by the lions.

  ‘Well, people, welcome to my home,’ said Radius, as they went through the front door of Limpfast Manor, into the massive entrance hall. ‘Relax, settle in, enjoy. Anything you want, just ask one of my staff.’

  The Contrasts were taken upstairs and shown to their rooms. They were each told that dinner would be at seven-thirty and were handed a map that would lead them back to one of the staircases to the dining room.

  It was all just so incredible. Only a few hours ago, the Contrasts had been one of the hundreds of thousands of families queueing up in the grey city streets around the world, and now they were in another world – one full of excitement and unknown possibilities and the promise of fame and fortune. (Their fame would be massive, but it wouldn’t be until quite a bit later that they’d realise the fortune part had never actually been mentioned.)

  ‘Isn’t this brilliant?’ said Jack to Primrose when he finally found her room. ‘My bed’s nearly as big as my whole bedroom at home.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Primrose, ‘but there’s no phone signal here. I mean, I can’t tell ANYONE! It’s dreadful. Like, all my Facebook friends will think I’m dead.’

  The phone signal thing wasn’t exactly true – there was just no signal for any of the Contrasts’ phones. There was no way Radius wanted any of them, especially the daughter-with-attitude, ringing their friends or the newspapers or anyone else in the outside world. From now on, every single word the Contrasts said and, hopefully, thought would be carefully controlled.

  But in a thoughtful, caring sort of way, Radius said to himself.15

  Laura Contrast had no problem making her mind up about anything. She didn’t waste time filling her head with questions. There were too many other things for her to fill, like all the drawers and shelves in her walk-in wardrobe, her social diary, the family bank account and the heads of her husband and children.16 There were no should-I-get-the-red-shoes-or-the-black-ones problems in her life. She just bought both pairs, and quite often got fed up with them before she’d even reached home.

  Every month Laura was voted Donator of the Month at four out of the five charity shops in their suburb. The fifth charity shop specialised in nylon and Laura did her best to be a nylon-free zone.

  The first time she had seen Stark at the International Nut and Bolt Expo, she had decided that he would become her husband. She had never had a problem with that sort of thing. She was very attractive and men, boys, even small dogs loved her. They all fell adoringly at her feet, happy to follow her blindly around like puppies.17

  Stark Contrast was good-looking, but not so good-looking that all her friends would be after him. He was just the right height to see over the top of her head, which could be useful when shopping, but not so tall that he could look down on her. He had an important, safe, reliable job in one of the biggest nut and bolt companies in the world and, to top it off, he was the inventor of the legendary, nay, almost mythical, chrome molybdenum seven-and-a-half-sided nut.

  Two days after the Expo finished, she and Stark were engaged and what seemed like only fifteen minutes later – but was actually seventeen thousand, two hundred and eighty minutes – they were married.

  Laura had ticked marriage off her mental list, moved on to the next things on the list and, approximately half a million minutes later, Primrose had been born. A lot more minutes later, Jack had followed. So that was the first three things on her clipboard completed exactly as planned. Laura assumed that the fourth and final thing on her list would automatically follow and, by and large, it did, though her daughter could be a bit of a handful from time to time. The fourth thing was, ‘Live happily ever after’.

  It had been Laura who had suggested the family apply to be in the TV show. The idea of being incredibly famous appealed to her, especially because, as far as she could tell, she wouldn’t actually have to do that much. The kids were as keen as she was, but by the time Laura had downloaded the application form, filled it out, added her husband’s credit card details and sent it off, Stark was still saying that they should probably think about it and weigh up all the pros and cons.

  ‘Yes, well, you do that,’ Laura had said, ‘and then you’ll be ready to apply for the third series.’

  She had even already bought clothes for the family to wear to the audition. Once again, Stark had said he needed to think about that, because he couldn’t really see what was wrong with the reindeer cardigan his mum had knitted for him, which he always wore on special occasions.

  ‘People like my cardigan,’ he’d said. ‘It makes them feel relaxed.’

  ‘No, darling, it makes them feel well dressed,’ Laura had replied.

  Now, Laura assumed it was her excellent taste in audition clothes that had caused them to be chosen. Her only regret was that they had been whisked off to the mansion so fast that she’d had no time to pack, which was both a bad thing and a good thing. It was a bad thin
g because she only had the clothes she was wearing and by mid-afternoon, which it currently was, she would usually have changed clothes at least twice since getting up that morning. But then it was a good thing because it meant she would usually have to go online and buy new clothes.

  Except there was no internet.

  For the next five days the Contrasts felt like they were living in a luxury resort. It was as if they had died and gone to heaven. There was nothing any of them could think of that wasn’t there.

  ‘Apart from the internet,’ said Primrose. ‘And, like, my mobile and Facebook.’

  ‘And the fact that I’ve got nothing to wear,’ said Laura, who was not naked so obviously did have something to wear.

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ Radius lied. ‘Some satellite problem, apparently. I’ve got my guys working on it.’

  ‘Isn’t there, like, somewhere in the village where I could go online?’ said Primrose.

  ‘Yes, I’ll go too,’ Laura agreed. ‘I need to buy some clothes.’

  ‘Village, what village?’ said Radius.

  ‘Well, there must be a village or another house or something.’

  ‘No, not near enough to walk to.’

  ‘Yeah, well, so why can’t we drive there?’ Primrose went on and on and on and on.

  Radius was getting impatient.

  ‘I’m sure we can sort something out,’ said Fiona, seeing her boss was close to losing it. ‘Just give me a couple of hours and I’ll see what I can do.’

  The ‘what I can do’ involved one of the communications technicians, Bill – who lived full-time at Limpfast Manor, making sure that Radius always had faultless super-fast connections to every bit of his media empire – and one of the kitchen staff, Beryl.

  ‘What I need you to do, Bill,’ Fiona explained, ‘is to set up a self-contained internet so that the wretched Contrast daughter can go online without being online. I need her to think she has contact with the outside world when in fact she is in contact with you, Beryl, while you’re in one of the soundproof recording rooms in the basement.’

  So Bill the technician created an entire fake internet.18 It looked just like the real internet, but it was all inside one small computer two floors down from where Primrose would be.

  ‘Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news,’ said Fiona, when she went back to Primrose’s room. ‘I’ve got you some internet, but I’m afraid the phone lines, mobiles and landlines are still out of order. I’ve phoned the telephone company. Er, no, I mean, I’ve emailed the telephone company, but all they said was that they were working on it.’

  Then she added, ‘But please don’t tell anyone where you are or that you’re going to the moon.’

  ‘OK, OK, I won’t,’ snapped Primrose.

  And she didn’t.

  Not.

  Of course the first thing Primrose did was email her best friend, Nazzy, and tell her that she was going to the moon.

  It took quite a while for Primrose to get through. She typed in Nazzy’s email address, then Bill emailed the same address pretending to be Primrose, but just said they were on holiday, not that they were about to go to the moon. Nazzy emailed back, and then Beryl replied to Primrose, pretending to be Nazzy. If Nazzy’s email message was harmless, Beryl just cut and pasted it into the fake reply. If the email had stuff that might be a bit awkward, then Beryl sent something different which of course was totally confusing to everyone except Primrose, who thought it was all real or as real as her internet life was, especially the site with all the kitten photos.

  After about an hour, everyone was getting really fed up with the whole thing, so Fiona slid her hand across her throat and Bill pulled the plug.

  Primrose was suspicious.

  Her friend, Nazzy, had been really weird. Nazzy was always weird, but it was different this time. She kept using strange words that Primrose had never heard her use before and she didn’t seem the slightest bit excited about the moon stuff, which was really weird because Nazzy got excited about everything, even something as pathetic as a photo of a kitten.

  It was almost like she was a different person, Primrose thought, but then she’s probably freaking out that I’m actually going to the moon. Can’t wait until she tells everyone at school. They’ll be so jealous.

  Laura was a lot easier to sort out. She and Fiona were about the same size and shape and they both liked similar clothes, so Fiona just let Laura choose some of hers. When Laura saw the expensive names on the labels, she was only too happy to do so.

  ‘It’s just until we get the internet back on,’ she said.

  ‘Of course,’ Fiona agreed. ‘And once you’re on your way to the moon, you’ll all be wearing special spacesuits anyway.’

  ‘Spacesuits?’ said Laura.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Fiona said quickly. ‘They are very elegant. I supervised the designs myself.’

  ‘Colour?’ said Laura.

  ‘Yes, loads of it,’ Fiona said. ‘After all, they’re probably going to be the clothes that will be seen by the most people in the whole world at the same time ever, even more than Lady Diana’s crumply wedding dress. You will look amazing.’

  Naturally, most of this was rubbish. There was no way Radius Limpfast was going to spend that sort of money to get cool designer spacesuits made, and even if he did, they would still have LIMP-TV printed all over them in bright neon lettering. Which they did – all over the silver nylon fronts, sleeves, legs and backs, so that no matter which angle the Contrasts were viewed from, the writing was big, bold and impossible to miss.

  Meanwhile, Stark and Jack believed everything they were told. Radius Limpfast reckoned that was pretty good – a family of four with half of them totally trusting him. Fifty-fifty was the standard odds on which he had built his success.

  ‘I mean,’ he said to Fiona Hardly, ‘we could reject the Contrasts and look for a family that was one hundred per cent gullible, but I reckon this family will give us more opportunities. Because, as we both know, living in a glass box on a barren rock covered in dust doesn’t have a lot going for it. So we need all the help we can get, and I reckon the Contrasts will work perfectly.’

  ‘Not to mention the apparently helpful robot they’ll have with them,’ said Fiona. ‘And the sweet little old granny we’ll be giving them.’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ Radius agreed. ‘We must get the granny organised.’

  Primrose Contrast was fourteen going on five or twenty-six, depending on what mood she was in. She was not fat like most of the girls at school, and although she had angry hair she was quite pretty, but not as pretty as her mother. Whatever age Primrose was being, she knew her family were idiots. She was so much cleverer than they were in every single way. In fact, quite often, she didn’t believe that Stark and Laura Contrast were her real parents.

  ‘I reckon I’m adopted,’ she had said to her friend, Nazzy. ‘My real dad is probably some brilliant genius scientist and my mum is, like, a famous movie star.’

  ‘That is, like, so weird,’ said Nazzy, ‘because I reckon I’m adopted too. I mean, my mum and dad are total bucketheads. My real dad is probably, like, some computer genius billionaire and my mum’s a famous movie star too.’

  ‘Hey, maybe our real mums know each other,’ said Primrose, but at the same time she was thinking, Yeah right, as if your parents would be anyone brilliant. You’re as big a buckethead as they are.

  And Nazzy, real name Anastasia, was actually Primrose’s best friend. She was also Primrose’s least best friend because she was Primrose’s only friend due to Primrose thinking all the other girls she knew were either nerds or spotty or stupid or ugly, or all four.

  As for boys, Primrose thought every one she met was either a nerd or spotty or stupid or ugly or all four, except for Harold, who was quite good-looking, incredibly intelligent and not in the slightest bit interested in her, even though she’d given him a Vegemite sandwich when he’d lost his lunch on the bus. He hadn’t so much lost it on the bus as under th
e bus, when the bus arrived and ran the sandwich over.

  Primrose actually liked quite a lot of boys, but they were in magazines and not real life.

  Even if her mum and dad were her real parents, there was no way her thicko brother Jack was her real brother. He was definitely adopted.

  ‘Mum and Dad aren’t your real mum and dad,’ she kept telling him. ‘They found you in a ditch. Mum told me. When they took you to the police, the police said you were so ugly and stupid that no-one would want you, and that Mum and Dad had to keep you.’

  Then Jack would burst into tears and run to tell Laura, who would shout at Primrose and send her to her room, but Primrose thought it was worth it, especially as it meant she wouldn’t be sent outside to get some sunshine and fresh air and all that boring nature stuff.

  Jack Contrast was one year younger than Primrose and had almost nothing in common with her. For a start, he was a boy. He had spots and his sister didn’t, apart from a rather painful one she had in a secret place so embarrassing that even she had never looked at it. Jack always smelled of boiled cabbage, even though he had never eaten it.19 Primrose smelled of Roses – not the ones growing in the garden but the chocolates that come in a box.

  Jack only seemed to have one hobby and that was picking his spots, at which he was an expert. Once he managed to keep a spot on his forehead going for over a year, by picking the scab off at exactly the right time.

  Jack did have a second hobby, though most people just thought there was something wrong with him. He was a farter of Olympic standard, capable of letting them out exactly when he wanted to, and with a choice of six different flavours, all of which were revolting.