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‘Ok, Arthur, we are going to dim the main lights now,’ came a voice once the room had cleared.
Nodding, Arthur took a deep breath.
‘Ready when you are,’ said the voice.
Dark, except for a soft light above him gently illuminating the platform, Arthur cleared his throat and held the box up into the air.
‘Open. Open. Open,’ he said clearly and evenly.
Expecting it to suddenly leap out of his hands, he watched in horror as it tumbled on to the floor in front of him. <<Oh no! Why didn>>’<<t it shoot up into the air like last time!?>>
Picking it up, he glanced over at the glass wall, fully expecting to see someone come out of it. But there was only silence. And catching his reflection in the glass, he tried to recall what he’d done that day at the cottage. <<Where was I? I was in the attic. What was I doing? I was sitting on the floor. What did I do? I held up the box and said >>‘<<open>>’ <<three times.>>
Sure that the only real difference was that he was sitting on a chair, he slipped off it and sat cross legged on the floor. He raised the box up again.
‘Open! Open! <<Open!>>’ he said, this time in an even more commanding voice.
A crushing silence fell upon the room.
‘I’m sorry. I don’t understand what’s happened, but I can’t make it open,’ he said.
‘Are you sure you remember everything that you did the first time?’ came the voice.
‘Yes,’ replied Arthur.
‘Are you definitely sure?’
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ he said, already feeling foolish.
The lights flickered back on, and the doctor emerged with his father and the General. There was no hiding the troubled expressions on each of their faces.
‘Okay, now let’s think, shall we,’ said the doctor. ‘Where were you when you opened it, what was around you, what you were doing, and so on?’
Arthur ran his hands slowly through his hair.
‘I…um… I was at the cottage, upstairs in the attic. The room doesn’t have anything special in it—a bed, a cupboard, a few windows, Aunty M’s painting stuff… I was sitting on the floor, and I said the word “open” three times, and it opened.’
‘And that’s all?’ asked the general.
‘Yes.’
The doctor and the general glanced at each other.
‘Doctor?’ prompted the general.
‘I mean, I suppose we could try to move this experiment to a higher floor—to a room with a window, for example. But I struggle to believe that it could be significant. You remember what happened that night on the train,’ said the doctor, mopping his brow again.
The general nodded and shook his head.
‘Wait!’ said Arthur, ‘I… um… I know this might sound strange, but my cat was also there with me at the time.’
‘Your <<cat>>?’ repeated the general, aghast.
‘Yes, he was there when it opened.’
‘Doctor?’ Please don’t tell me that a <<cat >>could be the reason why this isn’t working?’
The doctor stared at him thoughtfully. ‘Well, I suppose that it could be possible,’ he said at length. ‘Given everything we know, there’s no reason why it might not be the case.’
‘But Doctor, a cat!?’
‘I am well aware of how it sounds, General. But please don’t forget that the boy is the only person to have successfully opened the box without destroying everything around him.’
‘So, and what now? We’re going to have to send a jet to pick up a cat?’ he barked. The general’s usually amiable face had become contorted with frustration.
‘I believe so. Unless you have a better idea.’
Cursing, the general turned to go.
‘Wait… I… Actually, I brought him with me,’ said Arthur.
‘What, really?’ asked his father, looking astonished. ‘How is it that I didn’t know anything about this?’
‘Well, I um, had him in my backpack.’
‘You never!’ He laughed. ‘So, that whole not wanting to put it in the car boot and then your appearing again in the kitchen this morning two minutes after you’d just left was because of the cat?’
‘Yes.’
The general stared at them both in stony silence. ‘Go and get the animal!’ he instructed the doctor.
‘I can go,’ offered Arthur.
‘No, you’ll stay here. I am sure at the very least, the doctor can manage to get this right!’
‘Stay here, please,’ said the doctor, looking extremely put out by what the general had just said.
‘You know, I’m curious. What made you want to bring the cat?’ asked his father, when the general had become distracted by a colleague.
‘I’m not really sure. It was kind of a feeling that he needed to be here too…’
‘A feeling. Wow. You realise how strange that sounds, don’t you?’
‘I guess.’ And for a moment, Arthur wondered if it might not also be a good time to reveal that he and the cat were able to talk to each other.
‘Something on your mind?’ asked his father, raising an eyebrow expectantly.
‘Um, no, no, everything’s fine,’ he replied, changing his mind.
The doctor returned about forty-five minutes later holding the cursing, wriggling cat tightly under one arm.
‘Let go of me, you big elephant! You’re holding me too tight! Where are we going? Where’s Arthur? What’s this place? I don’t like it. You smell funny!’
Handing him over as quickly as he could, the doctor took out a tissue and began to wipe the bloody scratches on his hands.
‘I was manhandled, I tell you! No pleasantries—they just came in and grabbed me as if I were a common mouse or something!’
‘Cat, calm down,’ whispered Arthur, putting him down and then picking him up.
‘Oh, no, don’t you start!’
The cat wasn’t used to being picked up by anyone.
‘Shh, listen. It’s going to be hard for me to talk to you here. I can hear you fine, so I’ll nod or shake my head if you ask me a yes or no question, but if you want to talk more, then I’ll have to pick you up like this. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, yes, now put me down… No, wait! What are we doing here?’
And after filling him in on what had happened, Arthur placed the cat onto the chair.
‘So, go on, tell me, they think I’m like your lucky charm don’t they?’ he purred.
‘Lucky charm? You didn’t really just call yourself that, did you?’
‘Sure. How else do you explain my needing me to be here?’
‘Honestly, Cat, the things you come out with.’
‘Arthur, are we ready to do this again?’ asked the voice across the tannoy system.
‘Yes.’ He nodded.
‘Okay, everyone, clear the room, please. Dimming the lights now.’
Having already decided to sit on the floor again, Arthur cupped the box in both hands and slowly raised it into the air.
‘Arthur?’ said the voice, after he appeared to just be staring at it.
‘What? Yes, sorry, I’m ready,’ he replied. ‘<<Open! Open!>> <<Open!>>’
This time, the box flew straight out of his hands and froze several metres above him. Snapping open, just like it had done at the cottage, it filled the room with light before plunging it into darkness seconds later.
‘Yes! We did it,’ he cried, turning to congratulate the cat. ‘Hey! What are you doing over there?’
He could just make out a pair of ears poking over the edge of the platform.
‘What do you mean what am I doing over here? Honestly, I would have thought that it was obvious. I was finding a better place to study the map.’
‘Yeh, right, sure you were.’ He grinned.
‘Listen, buster, you can grin as much as you like, but as of this exact moment, I’ve just officially become a lucky charm, hero, eighth wonder of the world. Feel free to pick any or all of the above, because whatever you think, that box ain’t gonna open without me!’
Arthur rolled his eyes.
‘You’re definitely a wonder, Cat. But don’t you think that it’s really weird that it only opens if we’re together?’
‘Not really.’
‘Why not really?’
‘Because you could only talk to me, and I could talk to you and the fish. So…’
‘So?’
‘So, I’m obviously like a golden key or something.’
‘A golden key?’
<<‘Yep, cross my whiskers and hope to die, stick a mouse tail in my eye.’>>
‘But it still doesn’t explain why it only opens if we’re both here.’
‘Sure, it does.’
‘It doesn’t.’
‘Yeah, it does.’
‘Cat, it doesn’t!’
‘Suit yourself! But it does.’
‘Aaah! Well done, my boy!’ beamed the doctor, the first to emerge from the glass wall. ‘You did it!’
‘Thank you,’ said Arthur, handing the box back to him. ‘Doctor, what it shows, it’s a map isn’t it? To get to those planets with the writing next to them?’
‘We believe so, my boy, we certainly believe so.’
‘But what I don’t understand then is that even if it is a map, it’s never going to be possible to get there, is it? I mean, I read that we don’t have the technology for space travel, and that even if we did, it’d still take lifetimes to be able to get anywhere.’
The doctor smiled at him approvingly. ‘This is of course an excellent and valid question and one which deserves a serious answer. But just not at this moment, if you please,’ he replied, hearing the general coming over and turning to shake his hand.
‘Good job,’ said the general, shaking Arthur’s next.
‘Thank you.’
‘Hey! Look at you, lapping up all the glory. I haven’t heard my name being mentioned once yet,’ came a disgruntled meow.
‘Cat! Shh,’ Arthur hissed.
