when I saw my reflection.
My nose had whiskers on it and a black blob at the end like a shiny full stop. A pair of aerials poked out of my head, and a plug sat at the end of a cord that was sticking out of my bum. A bin bag hung flappily down my back like a cape, and on my belly fizzled a TV screen.
42
No wonder that angry-looking woman had screamed when she saw me! Not only had the bolt of lightning zapped me and Not Bird into the future, it’d fused me together with the rat - and my rubbish old TV too!
43
‘WHAT DO YOU RECKON, DOREEN?’ bleeped MAVIS 3000. ‘NICE SLICE OF RATBOY ON TOAST FOR BREAKFAST?’ she said, her shiny metal teeth glinting in the Sunkeels morning sun.
‘OOH, I COULD JUST MURDER ONE!’ nodded DOREEN XL97-220, pressing a button on the side of her head.
44
The bubblegum blob she’d been chewing on started to balloon out
of her mouth, blowing up to the size of a baby elephant. She crunched her lips shut and the balloon floated into the air, bouncing on the pavement towards my shiny full-stop nose.
‘I am NOT a ratboy, my name is Colin Lamppost!’ I shouted, as the balloon tried to swallow me whole.
45
‘RATBOY! RATBOY! RATBOY!’ squawked Not Bird, and I tucked him under my arm, twizzled round and forward-rolled into the bin, which immediately started to roll away, thank coolness.
46
‘Operation Don’t Get Swallowed Whole By A Bubblegum Balloon!’
I cried, zooming down the High Street inside my wheelie bin.
I leaned left and we skidded down an alleyway, crashing into a wall.
47
The bubblegum balloon floated past the end of the alleyway, followed by MAVIS 3000
and DOREEN XL97-220, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
‘It’s just like ATTACK OF THE KILLER ROBOT GRANNIES!’ I said, crawling out of the wheelie bin and giving Not Bird a thumbs up.
48
‘NOT!’ squawked Not Bird, giving me a thumbs down with the thumb bit of his wing.
I looked up and peered at a man with thirteen eyes.
49
‘No need to be scared, little ratboy!’ smiled the man with thirteen eyes. Not that he was a man exactly,
he was more of a man-sized fly.
His arms and legs had hairy spikes sticking out all over them, and on his back, neatly folded up like a see-through tablecloth, hung a giant pair of wings. Next to
him was a woman-sized fly
and two kid-sized ones.
50
51
‘My name isn’t Ratboy, it’s
Colin Lamppost!’ I said, and the
man-sized fly chuckled.
‘Very nice to meet you, Colin! My
name is Dindle Frogshnoff, and I think
I might be able to help you,’ he buzzed,
shooting his hairy hand out to shake.
So I shook it.
Even though it was pretty
scary looking.
But not as scary looking
as a robot granny claw.
52
‘. . . and that’s how I ended up standing
here talking to you!’ I said three hours
later, once I’d told the Frogshnoff
family my whole story.
‘Fascinating,’ yawned Dindle. ‘Now, as
I said three hours ago, I think I might
be able to help you - I was an orphan
once too, you see . . .’ he buzzed, and
my plug-tail twitched.
53
‘Hang on a millisecond, I’m not an
orphan!’ I said, smoothing my
nose-whiskers down with my tongue.
‘We’re just stuck here for a bit until
we work out how to get home, isn’t
that right, Not Bird?’
‘NOT!’ screeched Not Bird.
and grabbed Not Bird, giving him a little
cuddle. ‘NOT!’ he screeched again,
wriggling out of the cuddle and lowering
himself down on my head like a wig.
54
‘I understand, Colin,’ buzzed Dindle.
‘But until you DO get home, you’ll need
a place to rest your head,’ he smiled,
looking at Not Bird, who’d dozed off
and was snoring NOTs.
He pointed up the street to a tall brown
building with a shop at the bottom of
it called ‘Bunny Deli’. On its roof sat a
gigantic plastic cheeseburger and chips.
Next to them stood an enormous blue
cup with a stripy red-and-white straw
sticking out of it.
55
The cheeseburger looked like it’d been
designed on a computer. Its bun was all
jaggedy like the pixels on a screen, and
the chips were zigzaggedy instead of
straight like I was used to.
My TV belly rumbled, and I patted it,
realising I hadn’t had anything to eat
in millions of years.
‘Lets go see if there’s any room at my
old orphanage!’ grinned Dindle, flapping
his wings and buzzing off towards the
giant cheeseburger.
I shouted, running after him.
56
57
I followed the Frogshnoff family up
the street, wheeling my bin behind me.
‘Don’t worry Not Bird, I’ll find a way
to get us home!’ I said to Not Bird,
who’d woken up from his nap and was
fluttering next to me.
‘NOT!’ he squawked, dodging a
lamppost, which is my second name,
in case you’d forgotten.
58
‘Dindle!’ smiled a fat lady standing
outside the tall brown building. She
was quite a bit older than my mum,
and had ten arms. Her hair looked
like it was made out of an enormous
smelly green mop, and her nose was all
pointy like a beak.
Apart from that, she seemed quite nice.
59
‘Bunny!’ buzzed Dindle, and
I guessed her name must be
Bunny.
‘Ooh, it’s good to see you,
Dindle!’ grinned Bunny,
hugging Dindle with her
ten arms, and his thirteen
eyes bulged out of their
hairy sockets.
peering down at me.
60
Dindle explained how I’d been zapped
into the future and turned into a half
rat, half boy, half TV.
‘My name’s Colin Lamppost,’ I said.
‘And this is my sidekick, Not Bird.’
‘RATBOY! RATBOY!’ squawked Not Bird,
pointing his beak at me, and I nudged
him away while staring through the
window of Bunny Deli. Inside were
three weird-looking kids, sitting at
a table, chatting and laughing.
61
One of them was a boy with two
faces. He was wearing a shiny red suit
with two little wings sticking out of
the hood. Covering the top half of his
two faces were two masks, one for
each set of eyes.
Next to him sat an alien with a big
bald blue head. His eyeballs were
black, and he had pointy,
dinosaurish teeth.
62
The third kid was a girl with round
glasses and five arms - two on each
side and one in the middle. She was
wearing one of those long white
coats scientists wear, except
with five arm-sleeves
instead of the
usual two.
63
Bunny put two of her hands on her
hips and scratched her head with the
third one. She itched her bum with
her fourth hand, and shook hands
with Mrs Frogshnoff with number
five. Hand numbers six, seven and
eight gave the Frogshnoff kids a hug,
and she patted me on the head with
number nine.
‘Well, you look like a lovely little
Ratboy to me!’ she said, grabbing
one of my hands with her tenth
one, and she led me into Bunny Deli.
64
The Frogshnoff family waved goodbye
through the window as Bunny sat me
down at the weird-looking kids’
table. ‘Meet the gang!’ she smiled.
‘This is Twoface, Splorg and Jamjar,’
she said, pointing at the two-faced
kid, then the blue alien, then the girl
with five arms.
65
Bunny explained to them how me and Not Bird had been zapped into the future inside a bin.
‘There’s a spare bed for you upstairs, Ratboy - until we work out how to get you home, of course!’ she added, and I nodded, feeling all relieved that Bunny was going to get me home.
66
Not Bird fluttered across the table and landed on Twoface’s hood, right between his two little wings.
‘Er, is it just me, or did that bird thing just land on my head?’ said Twoface with one of his mouths. ‘Hey, I felt that too!’ he said with his other mouth, and his wings waggled.
67
Not Bird squawked and jumped on to the table.
‘Don’t be rude to our guests, Twoface!’ drawled Splorg, who sounded a bit like a slug, if slugs could talk. He picked up Not Bird up and lowered him on to his big bald blue head. ‘Nice to meet you, Ratboy!’ he said, sticking his hand out all slowly, and I shook it, even though Ratboy isn’t really my name.
68
A see-through floating menu fizzled up in front of my face, and I peered at it, remembering how hungry I was.
‘Hello, my name is Malcolm and I’ll be your Smellnu today!’ said the menu, which was all photos of food, with none of the boring writing bits.
69
‘What’s a Smellnu?’ I said, and Jamjar pushed her glasses up her nose.
‘It’s a menu you can smell!’ she smiled, waving all five of her arms around.
‘I invented it myself! It was nothing really, just had to bump up the biometrics on the nostrilisation variables. Once that was done, it was simply a matter of decalibrating the choosification modules . . .’
70
‘Gotcha,’ I said, my eyes going all blurry, and Bunny put one of her ten arms around Jamjar.
‘Jamjar here’s my niece,’ she said.
‘Her mum and dad are famous scientists! Except they accidentally shrunk themselves to the size of full stops during an experiment last year, and nobody can find them anywhere.
So Jamjar’s staying with us for a bit, aren’t you, Jamjar?’ she said, and Jamjar nodded, looking a tiny bit sad.
71
‘So . . . your name’s Jamjar?’ I said, because I’d never met anyone named after a jam jar before.
‘Yes, Jamjar!’ said Jamjar.
‘Nice to meet you, Jamjar!’ I said, holding my hand up, and Jamjar high-fived it with one of hers.
I focused my eyes on the Smellnu and noticed that my full-stop nose was
a millimetre away from a photo of
a cheeseburger. ‘Hmmm . . . let’s see
if this thing really works . . .’ I said, breathing in. ‘Mmmm, cheeseburger!’ I cried, the smell of cheeseburger going up my hairy, ratty nose, and Jamjar tapped the photo with one of her twenty-five fingers.
72
‘You have chosen the Cheesebleurgher Meal Deal!’ crackled Malcolm, and the floating see-through Smellnu started to quiver.
A beam of light shot out of the photo, and a computery-looking cheeseburger with zigzaggedy chips fizzled to life on the table in front of me. A pixellated blue cup with a stripy red-and-white straw appeared next to it, and I remembered the giant plastic meal
deal I’d seen on the roof of Bunny Deli.
73
‘CheeseBLEURGHer?’ I said, lifting the burger up to my mouth and giving it a chomp.
burped the cheesebleurgher, and I realised why the cheesebleurgher was called
a cheesebleurgher - because it said
BLEURGH every time you chomped it!
‘Cool times a millicools!’ I smiled, picking
up a zigzaggedy chip, and Twoface started to laugh. I turned to him and
did my ‘WHAT?’ face, which is just my normal face, but with slightly raised eyebrows.
74
‘Did you just say the word “COOL”?’ he chuckled through his left mouth.
‘Er, yeah?’ I said, chewing on my cheesebleurgher. ‘Cool’s my favourite word!’ I grinned, putting my hand up for Not Bird to high-five it, but he just ignored me.
75
Twoface shook his head, both his faces rolling their eyes to themselves. ‘We
say “KEEL” here in the future!’ he said out of his right mouth. ‘Yeah, Ratboy! Saying “COOL” is the unkeelest thing ever!’ he said again, going back to the mouth he’d started this whole thing with.
Bunny winked at me and gave my aerials a ruffle. ‘You’ll get the hang of it, Ratboy!’ she smiled, and I nodded, not that I reckoned saying ‘keel’ instead of ‘cool’ was all that hard a thing to get the hang of.
76
I carried on chomping my cheesebleurgher while Splorg slowly tilted his head downwards and started staring at the plug on the end of my tail. ‘What’s that for?’ he smiled with his jaggedy dinosaur teeth.
77
‘Excellent question, Splorg!’ I said in my superhero voice. Then I said, ‘dunno’, in my normal voice, seeing as I hadn’t really had time to plug my tail in anywhere, what with the killer
robot grannies trying to eat me
for breakfast and everything.
‘Let’s see!’ blurted Jamjar, pushing her glasses up her nose with one of her hands and grabbing the plug with another.
78
There was a socket in the wall on the other side of Bunny Deli, far too far away for my tail to reach. ‘Here, Socky Socky!’ shouted Jamjar, waving her three spare arms, and
the plug socket peeled itself off the wall and tiptoed over on two little plug-socket-sized feet.
‘KEEL!’ I said, saying ‘keel’ for the first time, which felt keel.
79
‘Good plug socket!’ said Jamjar, picking the plug socket up and patting it on its head. ‘This is Socky the
never-ending plug socket . . . he was my first-ever invention - no wires
or anything!’ she smiled, plugging my plug-tail into Socky’s three little holes, and my bum lifted a centimetre off its seat.
80
‘Keel times a millikeels!’ I cried, saying ‘keel’ for the second and third times, which felt keel times a millikeels, and Bunny patted me on the back all mumsily.