Kingdom Of The Nanosaurs (trilogy)

Kingdom Of The Nanosaurs - chapter 4

                                                                      4. The Vanishing

 The Lane’s family kitchen was spacious, untidy and comfortable; the hub of the house. An enormous Welsh dresser and a large table that had been hand-made from railway sleepers formed the centrepoint of the room. It was warm and steamy and Morgan loved it. It was the place he always thought of when he dreamed of home at school. The radio rumbled behind the clatter of pans and the squeak of chairs sliding on the tiled floor.

Morgan patted Nucloid as the sheepdog padded by before curling up in his basket by the warm range. Morgan washed his hands and sat down. Winston immediately scuttled by making for his usual chair and chattered at them while Lin brought a basket of bread rolls and a bowl of bananas and placed them in the centre of the table. She smiled quickly and secretively at Morgan then picked up her book and opened it. Morgan blushed. Why should a simple smile cause him to feel hot and confused?

Steam was rising from the hob as his mother filled soup bowls with a hearty stew. “Okay,” called his father, “dishing up.”

Morgan happened to glance out of the French windows suddenly paying acute attention. Cygnus Hyperbole appeared to be waxing, changing shape and distorting. Casually, his mother went to switch off the radio as his father brought over the stew when an item caught her attention and she turned up the volume.

‘…tsunami has devastated southern Indonesia and is surging across the Pacific Ocean. Other reports coming in tell of minor earthquakes in California along the San Andreas fault line and a hurricane has hit the north-west coast of Australia. Flooding has been reported as the result of tidal surges in the north of Japan. Britain is bracing itself for high winds and storms. The Met Office has issued a severe weather warning for the entire country. The United Nations is meeting in emergency session and the World Health Organisation has issued the following advice…’

Suddenly, the French windows ripped open violently slamming on their hinges as the first light storm hit. The sky had turned molten red, staining the world a sickly shade of pink. And yet it was eerily bright with a strange, brooding luminosity. Without thinking, Morgan jumped up from the table and raced outside followed by the others. They hurried down towards the end of the garden staring at the heavens. Bands of angry violet and orange energy force fields were sweeping across the early evening sky like St Elmo’s fire. The ground began to tremble. Further down the garden, a mini tidal bore surged along the Cam and flecks of white foam burst into the air in cascading fountains.

“We can’t stay here,’ shouted Morgan’s mother. “It might be an earthquake.”

“Not in Cambridge,” his father reassured her.

Winston started leaping around the garden as the first winds tore in from the west. The others didn’t notice as the orangutan turned tail and scuttled back towards the house. They had almost reached the river when Morgan and Lin were knocked to the ground by the force of a pile-driving gust of high-pressure wind.

Morgan reached out towards her. Strangely, he felt unusually protective towards Lin whose book of mysticism had been torn from her hands and sent spinning skywards.

The wind died down momentarily but the air was still throbbing with a strange vibratory booming sound. Moments later, the book thumped back to earth and Lin was quick to recover it.

“Is it over?” shouted Morgan’s mother.

“I don’t think so,” his father called. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

 Before anyone could move a muscle the rain started, only it wasn’t just a rainstorm, it was a deluge. They were all completely saturated within seconds as the rain hammered down like high velocity bullets and the ground began again to shake and shift. Above them, Cygnus Hyperbole had turned an ugly shade of purple amid the searing energy forces that swept high and majestically within the stratosphere.