The Verruca Bazooka. Jonny Moon

the very last moment Jack managed to push the creature out of the way, saving it from decapitation.

      Interesting, thought the Watcher from his secret hiding place. Very interesting.

      “No, no, no” shouted Jack suddenly.

      Oscar looked over at him, alarmed. “What’s up?” he asked.

      “The heli-frisbee” answered Jack.

      “Well, duh, of course it is!”

      “No, I mean it’s too far up!” explained Jack. “If it gets too high in the sky it’ll go out of range and…”

      Oscar frowned, then frantically jigged the controls. “It’s not responding!”

      Jack sighed. “And we won’t be able to control it”

      He took the controls and had a go but it was no use. The boys watched helplessly as the heli-frisbee flew off over the bush – which still bore an Oscar-shaped imprint from his recent impact.

      “Wait here with the other stuffy,” Jack shouted and bolted off.

      Following the heli-frisbee, Jack ran along the fence until he found a gap leading into the ornamental gardens. Jack continued his pursuit, taking care to stick to the paths and not to damage any of the flowers. He didn’t notice a squirrel taking a more direct route through the flowerbeds behind him.

      The heli-frisbee was beginning to lose height – it only just managed to clear the fence on the other side of the garden. Jack burst through another gap in the fence and stopped dead. A group of older kids, three or four of them, were bunched together in front of him. They had their backs to him. Something about the way they were standing troubled Jack. What are they looking at? he wondered. Then one of them moved and Jack could see the object of their attention.

      It was a girl of about Jack’s age. Jack didn’t know much about girls; as a rule he tried not to have much to do with them. They confused him with their talk about things he had little interest in – boy bands, fashion, toy ponies – and this one looked like any other that he had come across. She had long black hair, pulled back in a pony tail, brown skin and bright intelligent blue eyes. She was also wearing a bright pink ballet dress thing…What was it called? A tutu? It was this distinctive and unusual fashion choice that had attracted the older kids’ attention.

      “Nice dress,” said one of the older kids. Now Jack recognised her. It was Jess, a heavily-built girl from the nearby estate. When Jack and Oscar had started at primary school she had been in Year Six and everyone knew that she was a horrible bully. Jack realised that he was looking at the back of Jess’s latest gang.

      “Give us a twirl then,” said Jess and the other kids laughed, and not in a nice way. “How about showing us some ballet?” Jess pronounced the word in the wrong way, sounding the final “t” to rhyme with jet.

      The dark-haired girl just looked at them – her face set.—

      “I didn’t choose this dress” she replied bravely. “Ballet’s rubbish.”

      Jessica laughed. “In that case maybe we’d better put you in the bin.”

      Jack saw that there was a large rubbish bin further along the path. He didn’t remember ever seeing it before. It was bigger than the usual park bins. The gang started milling around the tutu girl, pushing her towards the new bin.