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

plastic shield, and the bin scraped along the pavement, not being quiet at all.

      MAVIS 3000 nodded at me with her square head, and her red traffic-light eyes flashed. ‘THIS IS THE ONE I TOLD YOU ABOUT, DOREEN,’ she bleeped, and DOREEN XL97-220 did a computery-sounding tut.

      ‘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.

      

       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.

      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!

      ‘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.

      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.

      ‘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.

      ‘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.

      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.

      ‘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.

      

      ‘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.

      ‘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.

      

      ‘. . . 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.

      ‘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.

      Mrs Frogshnoff patted me on my aerials 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.

      ‘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.

      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