Future Ratboy and the Attack of the Killer Robot Grannies. Jim Smith

Nowit was just an empty metal tube withflashing buttons on the walls.

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      MAVIS 3000 opened a little door onher square, metal belly and stuck herclaw-hand in, pulling out a mug. ‘NICECUP OF TEA?’ she bleeped, pouring asip’s worth into her non-closingmouth. ‘MMM,’ she pinged, likemy mum’s microwave,and a cloud of teasteam hissed outof her nostrilsand into myface.

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      ‘DIVE FOR COVER!’ I shouted in mysuperhero voice, not diving for coverat all. My scuba mask had misted upfrom all the tea steam, and I backedaway down the path, bumping intothe green plastic wheelie bin I’d justjumped out of.

      Bird fluttered out of the bin. ‘WAAAHHH!’he screeched, peering up at MAVIS3000, and he flew through the airtowards me and tucked himselfunder my arm.

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      I glanced down at Bird, forgettingabout the crazy robot granny for amillisecond, and wiped the tea steamoff my scuba mask.

      ‘Something weird’s going on here,’ Imumbled, poking Bird’s fat furry belly,and he squawked. ‘Bird doesn’t rufflehis fur . . . or fly through the air . . .or squawk when you poke his belly!’

      I peered into Bird’s shiny plastic eyes,and they blinked. ’YOU’RE NOT BIRD!’ Ishouted.

      screeched Bird, copying what I’d justsaid, and I was just about to pinchmyself to see if I was dreaming, whenI heard MAVIS 3000 clip-clopping downthe path towards me.

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      ‘FANCY A BISCUIT?’ she bleeped,towering above us like a lamppost,which is my second name in case youforgot. A chocolate digestive whirredout of a slot in her belly and shepincered it with her claw and slid itinto her mouth. ‘YUMMY,’ she bleeped,and a crunching sound blurted out ofthe little speaker on her chest.

      You know when you chomp on achocolate digestive and the crumbsstart flying out of your mouth? That’swhat was happening now. Except thatthe crumbs flying out of MAVIS 3000’smouth were zooming towards myface like billions of tiny bullets.

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      ‘ARRGGHH!’ screamed a flower stickingout of the front lawn, as a crumbshot through one of its petals. Whichwas weird, because I’d never heard aflower scream before.

      ‘OOF!’ groaned a snail, its shell explodingfrom a biscuity bullet.

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      ‘Operation Don’t Get Hit By A ChocolateDigestive Crumb!’ I cried, diving into thewheelie bin with Not Bird. My housewas on a hilly road, and I’d alwayswondered what it’d be like to rolldown it - NOW WAS MY CHANCE!

      ‘Let’s get the uncoolness out of here!’I screamed, as the bin began to moveand we zoomed downthe slope towardsShnozville High Street.

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      The bin crashed to a stop and I crawled out. We’d bumped into a pair of legs with yellow trainers on the end of them. The trainers hovered a centimetre off the pavement, which was lucky, because underneath them was a worm going for his morning stroll.

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      ‘Hey, your bin just crashed into my legs!’ shouted the owner of the legs, who was an angry-looking lady with a see-through TV screen floating in front of her face. She wasn’t actually even looking at me, she was more staring at her screen.

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      ‘Good morning! It’s Sunkeels thetwo-hundred-and-seventeenth ofPlurgtember, Eight Million and Twelve,and this is today’s news . . .’ saidthe man on the screen.

      ‘Sunkeels?’ I said, looking aroundat Shnozville High Street.

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      The buildings were about a hundredand seventeen times taller and shinierthan I remembered, and the carsfloated more than usual. ‘What’s aSunkeels?’ I said. ‘And what was allthat about it being Eight Millionand Twelve?’

      The lady looked down at me, hereyes turning from angry to scared.

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      ‘RAAAT!’ she screamed, which wasweird seeing as I was Colin Lamppost,not a rat, and she zoomed off in herhover-trainers.

      Not Bird floated out of the bin andlanded on the pavement. ‘Not Bird,there seems to be a problem,’ I saidin my superhero voice. ‘I think wemight’ve been zapped into the future!’I cried, pointing around at how shinyand futuristic Shnozville High Streethad become.

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      ‘NOT!’ chirped Not Bird, pecking at adried-up blob of pink bubblegum, andthe blob twitched, slithering off tofind a quieter bit of pavement.

      ‘You see!’ I said, pointing at the blob.‘You’d never get a bit of bubblegumdoing something like that in the olddays!’

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      Not Bird looked up at me and tiltedhis eyebrows into their scaredpositions.

      I said.

      Then I realised he was looking atwhatever was behind me.

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      ‘HELLO DEAR,’ bleeped a familiar robottyvoice, and I turned round to seeMAVIS 3000 standing there withanother robot granny.

      She was fatter than MAVIS 3000 andhad neon-red lipstick zigzagged roundher mouth. Dented into her metal skirtin scary-looking capitals was the name‘DOREEN XL97-220’.

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      Both the robot grannies were carrying handbags and pulling old granny shopping trollies, except unlike normal old granny shopping trollies, these ones floated - probably because we were in the future.

      ‘EEK!’ squeaked Not Bird’s bubblegumblob, trying to slither off a tiny bitfaster, and MAVIS 3000 stomped herfoot down on the pavement, spiking

      it to death with her clippy-cloppy

      heel. She held her shoe up to

      DOREEN XL97-220’s mouth and

      waggled her metal eyebrows.

      ‘OOH. TA VERY MUCH, MAVIS,’

      bleeped DOREEN XL97-220,pincering the blob off MAVIS3000’s heel with her jaggedymetal teeth andstarting to chew.

      ‘Operation Back Away Quietly,’ Iwhispered to Not Bird, dragging thewheelie bin in front of us like a smellyplastic shield, and the bin scraped alongthe pavement, not being quiet at all.

      MAVIS 3000 nodded at me with hersquare head, and her red traffic-lighteyes flashed. ‘THIS IS THE ONE I TOLDYOU ABOUT, DOREEN,’ she bleeped,and DOREEN XL97-220 did acomputery-sounding tut.

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      ‘OOH, YOU’RE RIGHT, MAVIS. HE IS A BIT RATTY, ISN’T HE?’ she bleeped, and I wondered if they maybe weren’t talking about me at all, seeing as I wasn’t ratty in the slightest, I was Colin Lamppost-y.

      I twizzled my head around, looking for that rat that’d been in the bin with me and Not Bird the night before. ‘Operation I Reckon It Must Be That Rat They’re Talking About, Not Me . . .’ I said.

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       That was how big my gasp was

       when I saw my reflection.

      ‘RAT!’ I shouted, pointing at myself. I pushed my scuba mask on to my forehead and stared at my new 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.

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      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,