CHAPTER FOUR - Pluto
‘Excuse me?’
‘I said –‘the boy stopped short and registered her face, gaping at him in blank disbelief. ‘Oh nargons….you probably don’t know…’
‘Know what?’ Her voice sounded hollow in her head, as though someone else was speaking.
The boy looked uncomfortable. ‘You don’t know who you are, do you?’
Venus bristled with indignation, which is quite difficult when you’re wearing very daft and infantile pyjamas with pictures of fluffy kittens on them, not your best ones that you save for sleepovers. ‘I’m Venus Matthews, thirteen and a half years old, from number twenty seven Seymour Drive, East Sutton, Surrey, England…..the World,’ she announced in a defiant tone. ‘Occupation, schoolgirl,’ she added for good measure.
‘Oh. Yes, of course you are…’ The boy looked worried and peered at the scar on her cheek.
‘It’s rude to stare you know.’
‘Yes, sorry.‘ He made a few shapes with his fingers and a digital symbol sprang into the air and hung there, wavering around the edges. It was a circle with a cross underneath. He glanced back at her face. ‘It all matches up….oh stegonauts… I hope I’ve got the right being..’
Venus glared at him. ‘Being! I am a girl, not a being. And you had no right to abduct me if that’s what you mean. Take me back! Now!’
The boy eyed her closely, each eye moving disconcertingly in a different direction. There was an awkward pause. ‘Look do you mind if I ask you a personal question? ‘
‘Oh go right ahead, feel free, I mean we’ve known each other all of ten minutes!’ snapped Venus.
The boy flushed a deep turquoise, and one of his three eyes swept over her. ‘You are – a female of the species yes?’
Venus gasped at his effrontery, acutely aware that she was not wearing her junior bra. ‘Are you asking for a slap?’
The spiky ridge of hair on top of the boy’s head flattened down. He looked chastened. ‘Sorry – it’s just that, well I was expecting you to be a male – er – of the species.’
‘Oh pardon me for living! Sorry if I’m the wrong gender!’ A hot flush of indignation rose up her neck. ‘But down on earth, where things are civilised, we have this thing called equality between the sexes! Well, we’re s’posed to anyway!’
The boy’s hair swivelled about like a sea anemone. ‘I’m just trying to make sure that you really are –‘
‘- she is!’ boomed a deep voice behind her. ‘He has come back as a she.’
Venus spun round and nearly fainted; behind her stood a very large black panther. He had the shiniest, sleekest coat imaginable, big mustard-gold eyes that glowed like headlamps, and what appeared to be a circlet of sparkling diamonds embedded across his brow. They shone with an inner glow, as though connected to some unseen electrical current. He was dressed in magnificent shimmering gold robes and a solid gold collar studded with precious stones hung around his massive neck. And here was the really interesting part; he was standing upright, with all the stance and posture of a human, his massive paws folded across his chest. He towered above her, at least six feet tall. On top of all that, he could obviously speak.
