Kingdom Of The Nanosaurs (trilogy)

Kingdom Of The Nanosaurs - chapter 2

KINGDOM OF THE NANOSAURS

2. Cygnus Hyperbole

Morgan caught the 11.06 train to Cambridge, heading home for the summer holiday after a week of torment, triumph and infatuation. He gazed out of the window and stared at Cygnus Hyperbole, narrowing his eyes to bring the comet into focus. He shuddered when he remembered standing on the cliff top watching it. How could he have thought for one second that it was anything more than a perfectly natural phenomenon. It certainly wasn’t a vehicle for transporting angels or any other kind of supernatural beings. That was impossible. He had convinced himself that he must have suffered some kind of mild mental aberration when he cliff dived. It was down to adrenaline and sheer terror. But he felt proud of himself. He had done it. He had actually done it.

 Cygnus Hyperbole appeared in the gloomy late morning sky as a bright smudge with little starfish tails attached to its back. It was as though someone had dipped their thumbnail into pots of luminous silver and orange paint and scratched a jagged squiggle in the heavens. It didn’t appear to be moving yet it was – at a phenomenal speed. Luckily, it was reaching its nearest point to Earth, but at around four hundred thousand miles that was a few thousand miles too close to the Earth as far as Morgan was concerned.

Morgan gazed at the bright celestial body with a mixture of wonder and fear. There had been headlines. There had been warnings. Astronomers and scientists, including Morgan’s Nobel Prize winning father Rufus, had been located, dusted with face powder and plonked in front of television cameras to display instant expertise and explain the possible dire consequences of such a close encounter with the mighty comet.

His week at Evanstone would fester in his memory for some time. He squirmed in his seat as he remembered the headmaster’s words. To be branded a cheat because he had got straight As for the school’s toughest exam was just one barb too many. Morgan just hated the injustice of being accused of something he hadn’t done, especially by the hideous Barker.

The headmaster, however, had not been convinced by his explanation. Somehow, and Doctor Simpson didn’t know how, Morgan must have used foul means to achieve such a result. The headmaster was clearly acting on an unfounded accusation, there was no proof, and only went as far as issuing a severe reprimand and a lecture about cheats never prospering.

But Morgan had left Barker with a little problem of his own. He had transmitted the ‘jump or get pushed’ insult into Doctor Simpson’s mobile phone and caused it to ring during their interview. He watched with pleasure and satisfaction as the headmaster’s face turned puce with rage. Flustered, and barely suppressing his fury, Doctor Simpson had dismissed Morgan with a wave of his hand while he listened to the message again fully believing it was meant for him.

Bored with gazing out of the train window, Morgan slipped his latest invention out of his inside pocket. It resembled a slim metal pen with tiny antennae sprouting along the sides and a crystal embedded at one end. He’d designed and built this little gizmo that could open most any lock and move objects at a distance. It was a really useful gadget to have. Idly he manipulated the sliding bar at one end and watched as the filaments performed an elegant dance, intertwining with each other and changing colour. Morgan aimed the gizmo at an empty cardboard coffee cup left behind on the table. With gentle movements of his wrists the cup slowly rose from the table and was transported across the aisle and deposited into a wastebasket behind the seat opposite. Morgan quickly slipped his gizmo back into his pocket just as the ticket collector came through the interconnecting carriage door and stopped to stare at the wastebasket. He shook his head and clipped Morgan’s ticket looking at him steadily before lurching along the aisle.

Morgan’s mother Hilary was waiting for him at Cambridge station. He hugged her on the platform where long shadows shimmered, stretched and merged together as passengers made their way to the exit .