Chapter 4: The Mindsqueezer
Stella felt numb. Just one thought kept repeating itself over and over in her mind. ‘This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.’ The first feeling that returned to her was an ache in her hand, where she was gripping her pendant too tightly. She forced her fingers to uncurl from the star and saw it had left an impression on her palm of an ‘S’ with the seven points traced onto her skin. A thought streaked across her mind, jolting her like an electric shock.
“It was after the star! It wanted my necklace,” she said, holding her hand out for Dodds to see.
He took her hand in his and peered at the strange design on her palm. Lifting his bushy eyebrows in surprise, he locked his unfathomable gaze onto hers. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, but he, I mean it, couldn’t keep hold of it. It was like it burnt him or something.”
“Perilous indeed, to wield parhelion’s flame,” Dodds murmured, his eyes losing focus, as if he were remembering something.
“What? What was that…Greddy…thing, and why would it want my necklace?” Stella blurted out.
“I’ll do my best to answer those questions, but I first want to make sure we’re safe,” Dodds said, looking up at the sky.
A high-pitched screech pierced the air, and the flapping creature that had driven the Greddylick away swooped down and perched itself on the umbrella rod that Dodds was still holding. It began preening its wings with a great fuss of chirping and clicking that Stella understood as complaints over being rudely awoken.
“Ah, Persiminon, I’m sorry to have disturbed you,” Dodds soothed and stroked a patch of velvet fur between its pointy ears.
“Stella, meet Persiminon. She’s a Pyxian bat.”
Stella nervously reached out her hand, wary of Persiminon’s pointed teeth.
“It’s all right,” Dodds said. “She won’t bite you. Pyxian bats are normally gentle creatures. Persiminon tends to sleep most of the time, but she likes to have her ears rubbed and maybe the odd beetle for a snack. It’s lucky for us, though, that if there’s one thing that’ll surely get a Pyxian bat angry, it’s a Greddylick.”
Persiminon seemed to be calming down and consented as Stella carefully patted her velvety head. The Pyxian bat gave a final disgruntled cheep, and then yawned to reveal her needle-sharp teeth. She curled her leathery wings around her perch until only those with sharp ears would detect the faint snoring that would mark Persiminon out as anything other than a commonplace umbrella.
“Stella, look sharp. We need to get you home,” Dodds said.
He strode into the alleyway, so Stella had to run to keep up. Occasionally Dodds would stop suddenly and stare into the darkness and then abruptly stalk off again, barking at her to keep up. There was something in his tension that spread, causing Helix to whimper and Stella to imagine that she could hear footsteps behind her. Every time she glanced backwards, she felt that she saw a shadow flitting just beyond her vision.
“Do you think somebody is following us?” Stella whispered breathlessly.
“It’s not what we might find behind us, but what is in front of us that I worry about,” Dodds said grimly.
“But I thought Persiminon chased the Greddylick away.”
“That she did, but chased it to where?”
Stella shuddered as she imagined the dreadful sightless face waiting behind every corner and those sniffing fingers grasping towards her. Her pace got quicker and quicker until she could see the familiar lights of her house and sprinted towards safety. She was so desperate to get home to her parents that she ignored Dodds’s cry of warning. She rushed to her front door and rang the doorbell several times before she realised that the door was already slightly ajar. She swung it open, and through a blur of tears, she saw the figure of her mum and ran to her.
Wrapping her arms around her mum, Stella was so grateful to be home again that it took her a moment to realise that something was wrong. Always quick with comforting or scolding words, Mrs Mayweather had said nothing, and her arms were slack beside her. Drawing away, Stella looked up.
“Mum?”
Mrs Mayweather wasn’t looking at Stella, though, and showed no signs of noticing that she was even there. She was smiling vacantly and staring out through the open door. She almost knocked Stella over as she walked out of the hallway.
“Mum? Don’t go out there. The Greddylick could be waiting!”
But Mrs Mayweather was carelessly shuffling into the street. “Pilades Cluster,” she said, lifting her hand up and pointing into the sky.
“Mum, get back in the house. It’s not safe!” Stella cried. Rushing outside, she tried to drag her mum back in.
Mrs Mayweather looked down as if seeing her daughter for the first time and grinned. “Plenty of sun and plenty to eat, the nicest people you could meet,” she sang.
“Mum! Are you drunk?”
“Pilades Cluster is where to go, so why not come and say hello,” Mrs Mayweather rhymed. She spotted a neighbour peeking out of their kitchen window and gave them a wave. “Pilades Cluster!” she shouted.
“Poor Jill. It looks like I’m too late,” Dodds’s gruff voice said sadly. Putting his arms around Mrs Mayweather’s shoulders, he guided her towards the house.
“What’s wrong with her?” Stella asked.
“It looks like the Greddylick has got here first.”
Between them, Stella and Dodds managed to manoeuvre Mrs Mayweather into the sitting room, where Stella was dismayed to see her dad looking out the window and pointing at the sky.
“Great for kiddies, cubs and grubs, just fifty light years past your sun,” he said, grinning stupidly. “Pilades Cluster is just the place to put a smile back on your face.”
“You’d best close the curtains, Stella, or they’ll be at it all night,” Dodds said.
“Pilades Cluster!” they both shouted happily.
“What’s the Greddylick done to them?” Stella wailed.
Dodds searched his pockets and produced a small torch. He began shining it in Mr Mayweather’s eyes and then peered up Mr Mayweather’s nose.
“It looks like your parents have had their brains tampered with.” He sighed. “All the symptoms show that they’ve been victims of a pretty powerful mind squeeze.”
“You mean the Greddylick’s turned them mad?” Stella gasped in horror.
“Not mad. The Greddylick has used a mind-squeezer on them. What a mind-squeezer does is suck out a person’s memories and thoughts and replaces them with a simple set of instructions. In the case of your parents, these instructions apparently involve the Pilades Cluster. They won’t be able to think of anything else until their own minds have been returned to them.”
Dodds turned to Helix, who was consolingly licking Mrs Mayweather’s slack hand.
“It looks like I’m going to need your swift paws again tonight, old friend. Gordon should be waiting by the school. Go there and bring him back here as fast as you can.”
Helix gave a departing bark and bounded off, a streak of white fur, through the kitchen window.
“You can understand Helix too!” Stella exclaimed.
“Of course. I don’t have your obvious gift for languages, Stella, but there are other paths to understanding on this world. As for Helix, he was the one who warned me that the Greddylick had located you. Helix has been quite worried about you for weeks. We all have, ever since your little display in the park.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Stella said automatically.
“Didn’t you?” Dodds asked. He swiftly caught Stella’s wrist and turned her hand. The seven-pointed star was still emblazoned on her palm. Instinctively, Stella pulled her hand away and grabbed at her necklace.
“It’s not my fault. I don’t know what I did.”
“I realise that, Stella,” Dodds said, “but I’m afraid that now you have no choice but to learn.”
Stella felt as if her mind was unravelling. There were so many questions bombarding her skull, she felt that it might burst.
Feeling dizzy, she sat on the sofa next to her mum. Mrs Mayweather held Stella’s hand and cheerily sang, “Pilades Cluster!”
“Oh, Mum, what’s going on?” Stella asked. She felt like bursting into tears.
“Your mother wouldn’t be able to give an answer, even if she had a mind to do so,” Dodds said. “I had hoped that we would never have to have this conversation and you could have grown up quite peacefully and happily with your foster parents, but now I feel you should be told about where you came from. I can only say sorry that so much has been hidden from you, but please know that I have always tried to do as I’ve thought best, and there are gaps in your past that I do not understand myself. I cannot give you all the answers.”
To Stella’s eyes, Dodds seemed to look older and somehow more frail.
“You have known from an early age that you are adopted, I think, but you haven’t been told about where you came from. This is because no one is sure. All I can say is that you were not born on this world, but on another.”
“What? Are you trying to tell me that I’m some kind of alien?” Stella snorted. “I look the same as everyone else, I am…” but Stella couldn’t finish her sentence. A thought popped into her head, ‘But I am different.’
“I’m sorry, Stella. I know it’s hard to take, but the truth is, you don’t come from here. My work occasionally takes me to different planets, and you came to me as an orphan baby that needed a home. Jill is my sister’s daughter, and I knew she wanted to have children. It seemed like the perfect solution, you both needed a family, so I brought you to live here. You have a mother and father who love you, but I felt it wiser to keep your parents in the dark about where you came from. As you said, you look human, even though you can speak to other life-forms on this planet, like our friend Helix. I saw no reason why you couldn’t live a happy life here.”
Stella was dumbfounded. Yesterday, she’d have thought Uncle Dodds was mad, but after the experience with the Greddylick, she felt she could believe anything.
“Why now? Why is all this happening now?”
“I am responsible, although you must believe that I felt I had no choice. I think it’s because of your pendant. It was the only object found with you. It was hanging around your neck when you were brought to me and has been in my keeping ever since you were adopted. It was always my intention to pass it to you when you were old enough. There was always a risk that there would be some consequences if you were re-united with your birthright, but I couldn’t have foreseen anything as quite as spectacular as your display in the park. Ever since Helix told me about that, I have tried to stay at hand.”
“So you think that this thing,” Stella took the star from around her neck and stared at it, “is the reason why all this is happening?” She felt like chucking the necklace as far as her strength could throw it, but her hands didn’t move, somehow she couldn’t quite make herself give it up.
“The seven-pointed star is part of you, Stella Mayweather,” Dodds said, his voice echoing the thought in her head, “and for good or ill, it always will be.”
“I don’t want it,” Stella said.
“You do not? Would you rather the Greddylick had it? Its kind has always craved power and wished to enslave all others. I fear the terrible things that would happen if it were to get its hands on it.”
“But he can’t. It burnt him.”
“Exactly! And you must use it wisely if it isn’t to burn you.”
Stella felt as if her world had been turned upside down. It had always been difficult for her to know that she’d been adopted. It made her different, but she didn’t realise how different.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud barking outside. Helix had returned and was asking to be let in. Uncle Dodds opened the kitchen door, and Helix rushed inside, followed by a small figure in a baseball cap. He furtively sidled into the house, sideways like a crab. At first glance, Stella thought he was the same age as her, but the face under the cap was wrinkled like a prune.
“Gordon Gordon at your service, miss,” the strange dwarf said, sweeping into an elaborate bow. He took off his cap, and two green antennae sprang from his head.
“Nice place yer got ’ere. Like it, like it.” Gordon wiped his nose on his rather overlarge sleeve.
Mr Mayweather had followed them into the kitchen and used the opportunity of an uncovered window to point at the sky.
“Don’t be stingy, don’t be sour. Book a trip to Pilades Cluster now.”
“Would luv ter, mate, but already used up me holiday, ain’t I?”
“Pilades Cluster is for you, if you want great things to do.”
“Wot’s wrong wiv ’im, then?” Gordon cocked his head towards Mr Mayweather.
“His mind’s been squeezed and so has his wife’s,” Dodds said. “Gordon, I’d like you to stay here and look after them for a while. Make sure that they eat and don’t let them wander outdoors.”
“Can’t you help them?” Stella wailed. “Can’t you stop this mind squeeze thing?”
Gordon whistled. “Very tricky fings, mind squeezes, luv. Veeery tricky.”
“Gordon’s right, it’s too dangerous to move them now. We need the mind-squeezer that the Greddylick used to replace their minds. It’s too risky to move them without it.”
“That’s right, luv.” Gordon scuttled over to the Mayweathers’ fridge and peered in. “Don’t worry, I’ll look after ’em. Though, by rights, babysittin’ should be paid double time. Yer dad, ’ee don’t have any Mercurial Spirits around abouts, does ’ee?”
Gordon was startled from his pilfering of the fridge by a loud crash in the garden. His skin turned an alarming green, and his whole body swelled up remarkably, like an inflated balloon. Spikes prickled out of him, so that he resembled a fat green hedgehog. Dodds was the first out the door, with his umbrella clutched in his hand. Stella followed behind, with Helix beside her. She was glad that she could reach out and be reassured by his soft warm fur.
Edging their way across the patio, Stella could make out a hunched figure in the corner of the garden. Helix growled and sprang forward, causing the figure to yelp and reveal himself. It was Tom Warner.
“What are you doing here?” Stella asked angrily. Wasn’t it enough finding out that you’re an alien, without having her troubles at school lurking in the back garden?
“I sssaw it!” Tom stammered. “I saw it all. That thing, with the sniffy fingers, that umbrella.”
“You have been following me!” Stella gasped.
“I just wanted to know what was going on. You wouldn’t tell me.”
“I told you. Nothing is going on,” Stella said.
“Nothing, is it?” Tom gestured towards the green, inflated Gordon, who had spikes sticking out of him.
Gordon just gave a weak wave and said, “Alright, guvnor?”
“What is your name?” Doctor Dodds asked.
“Tom.”
“It would be better for you if you went home now, Tom. This is Stella’s business, not yours.”
Stella had always thought Tom was weak, especially since he was always picked on at school; however, she began to think she might have been wrong as Tom’s eyes remained locked with Uncle Dodds’s formidable stare.
“N-no, it isn’t,” Tom stammered, but held his face up to keep Dodds’s gaze, “Stella stopped me…getting hurt. I don’t know how, but she did. I also don’t know what that thing was that attacked her. I do know that I’ve seen it, so that makes it my business too.”
“No, it doesn’t…” Stella started to interrupt.
“Please…I have to…” Tom implored.
He gave a quick terrified glance into the kitchen at Stella’s parents, who had started to point at the sky again. Stella noticed his gaze, and her anger increased. Tom obviously thought this was some kind of freak show.
“Stop staring at them. They’re…not well.”
Dodds had noticed Tom’s gaze as well. “Where are your parents? Won’t they be worrying about
you?”
“I don’t have any parents. They’re dead,” Tom said miserably. “My gran thinks I’m staying with friends.”
“Still. I think we should take you home.”
“No! No, you can’t go there…my gran is… she doesn’t like visitors.”
Dodds gave Tom another long stare, and this time Tom averted his eyes.
“So be it,” Dodds said. “But we have to leave here. Now.”
“He can’t come with us!” Stella shouted. “This is nothing to do with him.” She couldn’t understand why Dodds was allowing Tom to poke his nose in.
“I think it’s safer that Tom comes with us, Stella.”
Stella tried to object, but Dodds just told her to go upstairs and pack some clothes.
By the time she had got a bag ready and had come back downstairs, her parents were placidly standing in the kitchen, watching a deflated Gordon attempt to create the world’s first eight-slice sandwich.
“Bye, Mum. Bye, Dad,” she said, trying not to cry. Neither of them took any notice of her.
“Will they be okay?” she asked Dodds.
“The Greddylick has already left its message. They’ll be safe enough,” Dodds replied. “I fear the same cannot be said for the contents of your mother’s fridge.”