The Paradise Trap

‘They want a code number,’ Marcus informed Holly.

  ‘Who does?’ she asked.

  ‘I dunno. It’s a recorded message.’

  ‘Can you dial out?’ was her next question, which puzzled Marcus. Why would she want to know that?

  ‘It’s not very magical, is it?’ he observed, confused by all the technology. At which point Sterling remarked, ‘Maybe this is a code number.’ And he held up his Crystal Hibiscus pamphlet, tapping at something that Marcus couldn’t see. ‘It’s in very small print, but it’s a number. Eight-zero-three-four-four-seven-one-one.’

  Marcus hesitated. The recorded voice was still chanting in his ear.

  ‘Maybe we should be careful,’ Holly warned faintly. But Sterling said, ‘Go on. Don’t stop now – we’re really getting somewhere!’ There was an expectant gleam in his eye.

  Squaring his shoulders, Marcus punched Sterling’s mystery number into the phone. Eight. Zero. Three. Four. Four. Seven. One. One. As the final digit was keyed in, there was a noisy clank from the back of the room.

  The lift door was sliding open.

  ‘Lovely.’ Sterling tucked the Crystal Hibiscus brochure into his hip pocket. Then he marched into the lift, with Holly at his heels.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Marcus followed them both.

  ‘Wait!’ cried Holly. ‘What about Prot?’

  ‘Come along, Prot.’ By wedging his foot against the door, Sterling stopped it from shutting. ‘Hurry, please.’

  ‘There are buttons in here,’ said Marcus. ‘Should we push one?’

  ‘Not if it’s red,’ Sterling joked. He released the door once Prot had chugged past him. ‘Let’s wait and see what happens,’ he advised.

  The door closed gently, but the lift didn’t stir. It just sat. It was a very ordinary lift, with worn carpet and wall-mounted buttons.

  Marcus had never seen anything less magical in his life.

  ‘Maybe we should key that code number in again,’ Sterling suggested. ‘What was it? Eight-zero-three-four-four-seven-one-one?’

  Marcus nodded. ‘Prot had better do it,’ he said. ‘Just in case.’

  So Prot keyed the code into the control panel, using one of his retractable fingers. There was an immediate response. With a shudder, a bounce and a painful grinding of gears, the metal box in which they stood began to move – up, not down.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Holly. ‘This doesn’t seem right.’

  ‘Don’t tell me we’re going back upstairs!’ Marcus protested. He had a horrible feeling that the lift was about to deposit them in the caravan again.

  As their journey stretched on and on, however, he changed his mind.

  ‘This can’t be one floor up,’ he decided at last. ‘It’s taking too long.’

  ‘Is there an emergency stop button?’ Holly queried, her voice shaking.

  ‘Yes. But who’s going to help us?’ Marcus couldn’t even tell where they were, because the numbered buttons on the control panel weren’t illuminated. ‘What if it’s not going anywhere?’ he asked. ‘What if we can’t get out?’

  ‘It’s all right.’ His mother took his hand. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll get out.’

  ‘It’s clever, isn’t it?’ Sterling remarked cheerfully. ‘You’d swear we were in a twelve-storey building.’ The words had barely left his mouth when the lift lurched to an abrupt halt. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Here we are. I’ll be interested to see this.’

  Ping! The door chimed and trundled open, admitting a great rush of warm, perfumed air. Marcus could hear the splash of water and the tinkle of harp strings. He could see gleaming marble and glossy foliage.

  It was all reassuringly familiar.

  ‘Oh, wow!’ he exulted. ‘We’re here! We actually did it!’

  Once again, they were on the threshold of the Crystal Hibiscus Health Spa.

  20

  THE CRYSTAL HIBISCUS REVISITED

  ‘WELL, I’LL BE DAMNED.’ STERLING SHOOK HIS HEAD, awestruck. ‘This is unbelievable. I’ve never seen virtual reality like this before.’

  ‘We should have brought cat food. Or maybe a stick.’ Holly was peering suspiciously at the bright, balmy, unpopulated scene in front of them. But there were no giant cats around – just enormous blossoms, towering palm trees, and multi-coloured birds of paradise. ‘What are we supposed to do if we get chased again?’

  Marcus figured that this was probably a rhetorical question, since the answer was obvious. If they got chased, they would run.

  ‘We should leave Prot here to hold the door open,’ he suggested. Though he had spotted an up button beside the door, he no longer trusted doors – or buttons. ‘We don’t want the lift leaving without us.’

  ‘Good point,’ said his mother. Then she turned to the robot. ‘Prot, you should stay, please, to keep our escape route clear,’ she ordered. ‘Understand?’

  ‘Clarification required,’ was the robot’s toneless, plodding answer. ‘I do not understand how I must staple east to key power escape route clear.’

  ‘Just stay here, Prot,’ Marcus instructed, very slowly and precisely. ‘Hold the door open. And wait until we come back. Okay?’

  ‘I will hold the door open and wait until you come back,’ Prot concurred.

  ‘Good.’ Looking around, Marcus saw that Sterling had already wandered out of the lift. ‘Mr Huckstepp! Hold on!’ Marcus squeaked in alarm. ‘We have to be careful!’

  He and his mother rushed to join Sterling, who was reverently patting a white wicker chair. Holly tried to explain in a low voice that they couldn’t linger – that they had to find Coco – that the Crystal Hibiscus Health Spa was a very dangerous place. But Sterling seemed more interested in the flowers, and the fountains, and the fact that the lift was embedded in a caretaker’s hut.

  ‘Isn’t that neat?’ he gabbled, before dipping his hand in a stone basin to test the water. ‘Hey! Check this out! It feels like the real thing!’

  ‘Shh! Not so loud!’ hissed Marcus.

  ‘God help us! Will you look at that!’ Sterling pointed through an archway towards the distant view of whitecaps on a sapphire sea. ‘Is that a back-screen projection of some kind, or what?’

  ‘Sterling. Listen to me,’ Holly begged, in the softest of whispers. ‘We have to find Coco. She came here and wouldn’t leave—’

  ‘I’m not surprised!’ Sterling boomed, just as two giant cats rounded the nearest bend in the path. One cat was pink and one was grey; both were carrying trays laden with tropical fruit, chocolate-covered nuts, manicure equipment, and vials of nail polish in every shade of pink known to humanity.

  Sterling gave a shout of laughter.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s Coco’s dream come true! She must be having the time of her life!’

  His voice echoed off the sweeping expanses of white marble like a thunderclap. Holly and Marcus both winced as the two cats froze. Four identical golden eyes swivelled in Sterling’s direction. A pair of tails began to twitch.

  ‘No wonder she’s hiding out!’ he continued. ‘I don’t blame her for not wanting to leave; I’d like to stay too!’

  The two cats exchanged glances. Though they didn’t exactly shrug, Marcus somehow sensed that they wanted to. They then proceeded on their way quite calmly, as if nothing had happened.

  Holly’s jaw dropped.

  ‘What was that all about?’ said Marcus.

  ‘I – I’m not sure . . .’

  ‘They didn’t attack us. Why didn’t they attack us?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I do.’ The answer had come to Marcus in a flash.

  ‘It’s because of Mr Huckstepp. He keeps saying how wonderful everything is—’ ‘—and how Coco would never leave!’ his mother finished. ‘Which is exactly what the cats want to hear!’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘So he’s not regarded as any sort of threat.’ Holly frowned as she watched Sterling trot after the two cats. ‘Oh dear. What’s he up to? You shouldn’t touch a cat’s
tail – cats hate it when you do that.’

  ‘It moves!’ Sterling called back to her, gesturing at the fluffy pink tail that had jerked away from his reaching hand. ‘It’s got some kind of hydraulic system built into it! ’

  Marcus sighed and tugged at his mother’s sleeve.

  ‘Come on,’ he muttered. ‘We’d better stay close, or he’s bound to do something stupid. Anyway, those cats will lead us straight to Mrs Huckstepp. There’s no one else around here who’d be wanting mangoes; cats eat fish.’

  So they set off in pursuit of Sterling, who was following the cats. Their path led them through coconut and hibiscus groves, beneath flower-studded pergolas, over mosaic terraces, and around tiled pits full of bubbling goo. (‘Ooo!’ said Holly. ‘Mud baths!’) All the while, Sterling continued to marvel at every little thing, working himself up into a state of feverish admiration. ‘Who the hell did this?’ he would cry. ‘This is fantastic! Hey – will you check out the definition on that visual field?’

  Thanks to his obvious enthusiasm, not one of the busy, bustling cats that they passed on their journey spared them so much as a curious sniff.

  At last they arrived at a circular pavilion with open sides and a palm-frond roof. The Corinthian columns holding up this roof seemed to emerge like mighty reeds from a pool of azure water; in the centre of the pool was a raised platform, on which several giant cats were attending to Coco Huckstepp.

  She was draped across a couch, wrapped in a pink bathrobe and reading a glossy magazine. Her face was covered in green gunge. One cat was buffing the nails on her left hand, while another was giving her a scalp massage (claws retracted). A third cat was pouring out tea. A fourth was flapping a huge fan made of pink ostrich feathers.

  Marcus was puzzled by the antics of cat number five, which seemed to be spraying Coco’s feet with jets of water from a trigger nozzle at the end of a long, flexible hose.

  ‘Hydrotherapy,’ Holly murmured before he could ask. She sounded wistful. ‘You aim the water at pressure points on the soles of the foot.’ With a sigh, she added, ‘I love a good foot massage.’

  Sterling raised his voice to shout across the narrow stretch of water that separated him from his wife. ‘Coco! Sweetheart! Isn’t this something?’ he bellowed, waving both arms. ‘Boy, you must feel like you’ve died and gone to heaven!’

  In response, Coco sat bolt upright.

  ‘Sterling!’ she shrilled. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Why, I came to see what all the fuss was about!’ her husband rejoined. ‘And now that I’ve had a look – well, I just can’t believe my eyes! This is the greatest feat of computer engineering in the history of civilisation.’ He made a dramatic gesture that encompassed the entire spa. ‘So what do you say? Should we get the kids in here for a virtual swim? Edison will love this, I just know it!’

  21

  TRIGGER POINT

  THE ONLY WAY ONTO COCO’S LITTLE ISLAND WAS A SHORT bridge made of white marble. Since the island was already crowded, it was clear why Coco rose from her couch, shuffled into a pair of slippers, and crossed the bridge just ahead of her attendants, who immediately swarmed after her. ‘We’re not finished, Coco!’ they yowled. ‘What about your herbal lava pack? What about your hot stone massage?’ They seemed surprised and anxious, though not yet angry – perhaps because Coco hadn’t yet tried to leave. And there was no point getting mad at Sterling. Not while he was busy heaping praise on everything in sight.

  ‘Isn’t this great?’ he demanded. ‘Isn’t it a masterpiece? And it’s tailor-made for you, Cokes!’

  ‘I guess it is.’ Coco sounded slightly lost, as if she’d just emerged from a coma. ‘What was all that about the kids again?’

  ‘They’d love it here. Don’t you think?’ Throwing an arm around his wife, Sterling fingered a fold of her bathrobe. ‘Did you bring this with you,’ he asked, ‘or was it supplied?’

  ‘Uh – Mrs Huckstepp?’ said Marcus. He’d been keeping a close eye on the cats, some of which were now rubbing themselves against Coco’s body, purring endearments and promising all kinds of delightful bonus offers: steam baths, vibration therapy, a seaweed wrap. Though every claw was sheathed, Marcus knew that the cats might take offence at any moment.

  He therefore remained fully alert, choosing his words with great care.

  ‘Newt and Edison are in their own dream holidays, right now,’ he informed Coco, ‘and they wouldn’t leave when I asked them to. So if you want to show them how great it is here, you’ll have to bring them back yourself.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Holly butted in, lying through her teeth as she faked a carefree smile. ‘Newt wouldn’t listen – would she, Marcus? We kept telling her what a wonderful time she’d have in this place, getting her legs waxed and her energies aligned, but she refused to come.’

  ‘And she’s at a dance party,’ Marcus added. ‘Where everyone’s drinking alcohol.’

  ‘What?’ Suddenly Coco snapped back to life. Her back straightened. Her eyes widened. She impatiently pushed a cat’s head off her shoulder and rapped out, ‘What dance party? Where?’

  ‘Oh – um – it’s not far,’ said Marcus, pointing in the general direction of the lift. ‘It’s back that way . . .’

  ‘Show me.’ Coco set off at a brisk pace, much to everyone’s surprise. The cats padded along behind her, protesting that she hadn’t finished her therapy. Sterling seemed astonished that she didn’t want to stay put. Even Holly said, ‘Aren’t you going to change first, Coco? You’re still in your robe and slippers . . .’

  ‘So what?’ Coco retorted. To Marcus, who was trying to keep up, she said, ‘Is Eddie with Newt? She didn’t take him to her party, did she?’

  ‘No,’ Marcus replied. He was slightly out of breath. ‘Edison’s gone to this really dangerous amusement park—’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’ Coco cut him off, her tone crisp. ‘As soon as I get a moment’s peace, those two start carrying on like hooligans . . .’

  ‘But sweetheart,’ puffed Sterling, who was beginning to sweat as he waddled after her, ‘why not let me go and get them? You can always stay here, if you want.’

  ‘Yes! Yes! You can always stay here!’ the cats howled. They were growing more and more alarmed; Marcus could see their tails twitching. ‘You’re booked in for a pedicure!’ they wailed. ‘You haven’t had an ozone bath! You’ll age ten years if you don’t finish your treatment!’

  ‘I’ll age ten years if I have to worry about Newt,’ was Coco’s response, which didn’t go down well with the cats. One of them hissed. Another glared balefully at Marcus. A third slipped past Coco and planted itself in front of her. ‘You mustn’t go yet,’ it argued. ‘If you stay for a detox sauna, we can offer you a free set of mink eyelashes.’

  ‘Get out of my way,’ Coco said crossly.

  The cat’s tail began to lash back and forth. ‘At least let us remove your conditioning mask,’ it wheedled.

  ‘No. I can do that myself.’

  ‘But you can’t,’ the cat growled. ‘You’ll require a special alkaline toner.’

  Marcus had had enough. He knew that any further delay would simply mean a build-up of feline reinforcements. So he lunged at the cat, pushing it into a nearby mud bath.

  ‘Run!’ he yelled.

  Holly didn’t need any encouragement. She grabbed Coco’s wrist and leaped forward. Marcus was right behind her. As for Sterling, he followed his wife’s example, though he looked rather bewildered and had a hard time matching her pace.

  ‘Ouch!’ he complained, fending off a cuticle probe. ‘Hey! Guess what? That really hurt! These things can really hurt you!’

  Marcus glanced back. Only a couple of cats were now in pursuit; the rest had paused to pull their thrashing, squawking, traumatised friend out of the mud bath. But Marcus was getting worried. It wouldn’t be long before the fastest cat (a snow-white Persian) caught up with Sterling and brought him down like a baby antelope in a nature documentary.

 
‘Nearly . . . there . . . now . . .’ Holly panted. Sure enough, the lift was in plain sight, about a hundred metres ahead. As he measured the distance with his eye, Marcus noticed something else that was even closer: a plunge pool with hydrotherapy attachments.

  He had to veer to the right before he could reach it.

  ‘Go! Go!’ he screeched.

  His mother pounded past, dragging her friend. Sterling, however, was beginning to slow down. Red and sweaty, gasping and staggering, he was no match for the snow-white cat – which was down on all fours now, and closing in like a cheetah, its ears back and its hackles up.

  Marcus didn’t delay. He hurled himself at the little cluster of shiny chrome taps, pipes and jets beside the plunge pool. Snatching up a deadly-looking trigger nozzle, he pointed it straight at the white cat.

  Then he unleashed a high-pressure stream of hot water.

  ‘Bulls-eye!’ he crowed, as the white cat fell back – turned tail – and ran screeching. The pink cat behind it hesitated. But when Marcus adjusted his aim, the pink cat didn’t stick around for a dose of extreme hydrotherapy. It took offlike a bullet.

  ‘Come on!’ Marcus bawled. He threw down the trigger nozzle, grabbed Sterling’s arm, and galloped towards the lift – where Holly and Coco were already waiting. Coco was beckoning frantically. Prot was still holding the door open.

  Holly rushed to her son’s aid; together they yanked a breathless Sterling into the cramped steel box. Marcus caught a last glimpse of about two dozen snarling, spitting, tiger-sized cats hurtling towards him.

  Then the lift door clanged shut, blocking out this awful sight forever.

  22

  GATECRASHING

  THERE WAS A BRIEF, STUNNED SILENCE.

  ‘It’s a good thing cats hate water so much,’ Holly said at last. She’d barely finished speaking when a sudden thump was followed by a frantic scratching on the other side of the door.

  Marcus quickly pulled the dance-party brochure out of his pocket.