Dome (ON HOLD)

Chapter One

8.50am 2 July 2011

Milo King held out his prize for his group of friends to see with pride. Who else in Harbourview had a glowing chunk of rock mixed with crystal to wave around? "That's cool, Milo," Fiona Cook, Fizz to her family, said with a grin. "Where'd you get it, again?" 

"Found it when we were UFO tracking," Milo replied. He and his father were England's greatest UFO trackers by far! They researched alien activity for at least two hours every night and on Friday and Saturday nights, the dark hours of the evening were always filled with looking through telescopes or lying on the lawn watching shooting stars. Of course shooting stars were actually UFOs, but nobody but he and his dad knew that. They had spent last Saturday in Reid Forest when they'd seen something fall from the sky and land within the trees. Milo had found the alien rock.

"UFO tracking, eh?" Milo turned though he didn't need to to know whose smart-arse voice that was. He tightened his grip around his prized possession as his dark brown eyes met Ross Martin's blue ones. Ross was one of Harbourview Sports and Academic School's most influential and powerful bullies and by far the smartest and most evasive of punishment. Being fourteen years old, he ruled the 'Junior School', Years One to Nine and the 'Senior students', those in Year Ten to Seventh Form, didn't exactly intervene with anything he did. Ross Martin was basically the school's brown haired equivalent to Draco Malfoy from Hogwarts but with a bit more fear induced 'popularity' and as he liked to put it, 'charm'. Milo nodded silently. "Yes," he added after a moment. 

Ross smirked. "That's cute."

He swung his arm around Milo in a mockingly friendly half hug. "So what else are the Tweenies up to today?" Since Ross had moved from Kent three years ago, and found the group of four friends, three of which were two years his junior and one of which was one year his junior, he had dubbed them 'the Tweenies' due to them coincidentally having the same names and having similar attributes to the British TV Programme. Unfortunately, Milo, Jake, and Fiona had been nine at the time, with Bella only just ten, and so Jake and Fiona had both giggled and not protested when Ross had started the never ending name calling. Very few people would know the four friend's names if it weren't them being called 'the Tweenies'. Milo wished they were still invisible. "We aren't doing anything that concerns you, Martin," Bella growled, her long blonde fringe barely concealing cold eyes. Ross feigned a hurt look. "Please, don't attack me with my last name! Please, no, stop before I go and cry and become ashamed of my own surname and change it."

For a split second nobody did anything, and then suddenly Ross had his hands on the alien rock and was dancing away from Milo before the younger boy could blink. "Hey!" he screeched. Ross had stopped and was now studying the glowing solid with exaggerated curiosity. "Is this your alien evidence, Milo?" he asked in a sarcastically interested tone. 

"Yes, now give it back you bully!" Ross let out a gasp, dropping the rock in Milo's open hand and holding his own to his heart. "I am not a bully, Milo! How could you say that?" 

He chuckled. "That isn't alien, it's just a crystal." 

"It is alien!" 

"Prove it." 

"How am I going to do that?" 

"If you can convince the junior school that that is alien, then clearly I'm wrong and am ignoring the obvious facts." He concluded with one of his winning smiles that made most girls in the school fall at his feet and then he turned and walked down the corridor just as the bell for the start of school rang. "So you basically want me to stand up in assembly and make a fool of myself, huh?" Milo shouted after him. Ross turned to him and raised an eyebrow. "But surely if that is alien then you wouldn't be making a fool of yourself." He scowled. "Unless you doubt they actually exist or-"