UNDERCOVER on the TITANIC (book 1)

Part 7 - Think Thrice!

It was a dream. I was floating like a soap bubble high above the countryside, drifting down like a dandelion seed and bouncing off the ground as the breeze blew me back into the sky. This dream was always fun. It never turned into a bad dream, so it was quite a shock when I woke up in the dark . . . to a real nightmare. 

Something thudded against the window. My first thought was Grandma sleepwalking but she was snoring in the next room. I went back to sleep. It was probably only an insomniac seagull.

There it was again, something hit the glass with a solid thud.   I stumbled out of bed and looked out the window.   Outlined against the street lights was a large, black round shape. It looked like a giant spider dangling from its web except it had only four legs and two of them were wearing boots. I rubbed my eyes, incase I was still dreaming.   When the image remained, I ran to the living room, quietly opened the balcony door and stepped out, onto two large leather gloves.

The shape was bouncing gently, in mid air, a metre from the balcony. Gradually it made sense. Someone was bungie jumping from the roof. And whoever it was, was upside down, gesticulating wildly and cursing unintelligibly. 

'Sssh!' I hissed. 'You'll wake Grandma . . . And you don't want to do that.' The rotund shape rotated slowly to a horizontal position and hissed, 'Ziff, lad, lend me thy hand.' It was Triple Oh.

'What's in it for me? I asked as I closed the balcony door behind me.  'Thy life perchance,' Triple Oh muttered cheerfully.  My life? 

I moved my bicycle out of the way and leaned carefully over the balcony rail.   It was loose. Triple Oh was just beyond my reach. 

'A pox take this belt,' he hissed.' He swung his legs and promptly pivoted upside-down again, his legs thrashing about helplessly. 'Give me a foot,' I whispered as he flailed around. I hooked my foot under the frame of my bike and stretched out as far as I could. On the third swing I managed to grab one of his enormous boots. Then the balcony rail moved and I flipped over the rail. 

My heart almost stopped. I was dangling from one of Triple Oh's boots, thirteen stories above the parking lot.  The good news was, my weight had flipped him right side up.  Unfortunately, we were now slowly spinning. I tried not to look down. This wasn't happening! We swung away from the building, and then slowly back, oscillating like bumbling trapeze artists in terrifying slow motion. His boot was slipping off!   I reached higher and grabbed his pants.

'Hold fast . . . Master Ziff,' he grunted. I was petrified with fear as his pants suddenly slipped down and then something double clicked in my brain as my fear turned to anger and . . . I was floating. 

I swung both legs over the balcony rail, dragging Triple Oh with me like a soggy balloon. There was a sickening lurch and I opened one eye. Triple Oh had hooked one leg over the rail and his pants were around his ankles but the rail started to rip away from the building. I reached down, grabbed his hand and hauled him onto the balcony. He seemed incredibly light. We sat panting with shock on the concrete balcony floor. 

'Cheese!' I closed my eyes. 'Did you say something about risking my life?'

'Thank 'ee master Ziff,' he gasped as he unhooked a thin black wire from a harness around his shoulders and hooked it onto my bike. 'And a thousand pardons. I am not so spry as once I was.' He inhaled slowly and tugged his pants back into place. 'By hazard, we found an aged crone riding her broomstick-on-wheels in the lobby.' He actually said age-ed. 'And she revealed that thou dwelt on the thirteenth floor. But, in the lifting closet, the thirteenth button was missing. So I rappelled down from the roof and counted from the top.'

'Gorgonzola,' I swore as I sucked a scraped knuckle. 'What were you thinking?   Why not take the elevator down? It's a lot easier than bungie jumping from the roof.'

'Truly, it is said,' Triple Oh groaned ruefully, 'think thrice, act once . . . Who is this Gordon Zola?'

'Gorgonzola? It's a type of cheese,' I explained. 'Anyway, what brings you back here? I thought you were out of your time.'

'A small error.' He shrugged. 'We let loose your abductors hoping they would lead us to Murga, but they eluded Duncan and Theo.'

'No, I mean, why are you doing this?' He seemed puzzled by my question. 

'Tis my task to protect thee.'

'I might be safer without your protection,' I retorted sarcastically, rubbing my bruised knees. 

Triple Oh ignored my joke. 'Murga now knows when thou art and he will pursue thee.'

'You mean he knows where I am,' I corrected him.

'Both where and when.   Time is not as thy may think.'

'But why?'

'He needs thine endowment for his prophecy.'

'My what?'

'Thou wert given a special skill and Murga will have it at any cost. Thine grandfather is a renowned (he actually said renown-ed) expert in genetic engineering.   He enhanced Dunc's brain and vocal chords while he was still in the egg and he gave you the ability to use gravitational anomalies.   We must guard thee lest Murga returns.'

Most of that went completely over my head as I tried to figure out what wert and lest meant. 'I don't have anything and . . . wait a minute.  Gravitational anomalies,' I repeated. 'What are those?'

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