Chapter 2:

Or: How I Rescued My Dad From A Cockney Nutjob

"So what's up?" I ask, flopping down on the sofa and grabbing hold of a squishy cushion which for some reason smells like bananas.

"Ah."

Nana sits down next to me, her expression growing serious.

"It's your Dad, I'm afraid. I can't find him."

"What d'you mean, can't find him? I thought you could always find any of us in the timestream? Sort of."

I don't mention the number of times she's gotten lost, or mixed up, turning up in the wrong places or at the wrong times. We all make mistakes, after all

"That's the problem. I don't think he's in the timestream any more, not in the usual sense any way."

I feel a sudden panic grip my guts and twist.

"You don't think he's dead, do you?"

"Oh no," she reassures me, a calming hand on my arm. "I'm sure he's fine. But he does seem to be somewhere… unusual. So I need you if we're to find him. I need another mind who can focus within the timestream, someone linked to him. And we can't tell your mother either, not just yet."

I shrug.

"She'd go mental if she knew, anyway. And if we're careful, she'll never find out."

"That's my girl," Nana pats my arm and gets up.

Don't get me wrong, she loves my mum, but they don't agree about the time-travelling stuff, so it's best not to get involved in it, really. I get up too, putting down my cushion and taking Nana's outstretched hands.

"Now. Close your eyes and think about your Dad. Focus on what he looks like, how his voice sounds, that sort of thing."

I know the drill. She began teaching me how to do this a while back, but Mum disapproved so we haven't had much practise.

So I think about my Dad. The northern accent that's refused to surrender to living down south, even after all this time. The way he used to do his improvisational jazz singing to get me to sleep when I was little. I remember dancing around the living room with him to his favourite records from as soon as I was old enough to stand. I wouldn't ever admit to liking jazz anymore – not exactly cool, and beside, Uncle Vince got me into decent music – but I can almost hear the sounds of jazz trumpeteering and slap bass as I focus.

I think about his face, the moustache that's survived all attempts by my Mum to remove it, the eye patch, the way his face creases up when he laughs.

The more I think, the more I feel the room shift around me, the threads of the space/time continuum unravelling and knotting around us as we disappear once more.

As we materialise, I feel the cold from our surroundings seep into me – I dressed for an indoor office, remember?

"Bloody 'ell, what's this?" shouts out a strange, heavily accented voice.

"Some old bird and a little girl!"

I open my eyes and oh dear god, no.

There he is, no more than a few feet away, in full Technicolour glory, exactly as I always imagined. The peppermint nightmare. The only thing to really scare my Dad.

The Hitcher.

My heart's pounding in my chest as I realise we've materialised straight into a cage at the back of his lair, which is currently decked out like the laboratory of a mad scientist, with bubbling, smoking beakers of liquid and everything.

Nana squeezes my hand and I squeeze back, trying to force down my fear.

Okay, so even my universe-saving Dad's frightened of this guy, but he's faced him numerous times, right? So I can too.

"Where's my Dad?" I demand. "I know he's here. What have you done with him?"

The Hitcher's sidekick, a short, tubby green man with a thin red moustache made from strawberry bootlaces, laughs.

"The kiddie's got guts, eh?"

"Shut yer mouth!"

The Hitcher stomps over to us, the black bird on his shoulder squawking, flapping its wings, which is unexpected to say the least, seeing as how it's stuffed.

His huge white eye bores into me and I steel myself to return his gaze, but it moves over me quickly to take in Nana.

"Ere, I know you. You and that whelp of yours stopped one o' my evil schemes before, din't you?"

Nana gazes back at him calmly.

"More than that, dear. Take it long to grow back, did it?"

The Hitcher slams his cane into the bars of the cage.

"You keep that tongue o' yours still or I'll cut it out a yer!" he bellows, but Nana doesn't even flinch.

"So this must be his little brat then, eh?"

The Hitcher turns back to me.

"I'm Daisy Moon," I reply, with more than a hint of pride in my voice. Well, I am proud. My family's stopped this nutjob more than once, we can do it again.

"Still got both o' your eyes, I see," he gloats. "Yer Dad ever tell you about that, eh? How come he wears that patch?"

He gestures towards his own single eye, but I don't reply, just stare back at him

"Now that was a good day. Din't end too well, mind you."

He glares back at Nana.

"Look, what's your problem?" I interrupt anger and fear battling each other for supremacy. "Why do you have to be evil all the time?"

"I'm not always evil," he replies, sounding almost offended by the accusation, which is kind of weird seeing as how I thought he loved to brag about how evil he is.

"I went straight for a bit, tried to make a go of something that weren't unspeakably nasty. Did a bit of actin'. There was my Zoo, o'course, full of animals that got kicked out a' other zoos for bein' 'orrible. And then there was that farm. Awww, that was terrible!"

"What's so terrible about farming?" I ask, wondering just what the hell would make a one-eyed Victorian psychopath turn to farming.

"Ever tried to farm 'edgehogs, 'ave you? Awww, it was awful. I was findin' spines everywhere, I was! Worst half hour o' my life!"

I sigh. I think I understand now why people get so exasperated whenever they hear about my home life; they think I'm making stuff up, talking nonsense and this must be what it sounds like to people who don't believe a word I say.

"Look, we know you took my Dad. So where is he?"

The Hitcher grins his hideous teeth, his tongue flickering around the edges of his mouth and I have to suppress a shudder.

"He's alright, don't you fret, darlin'. Your Uncle Hitcher's lookin' after him and his little wife."

His wife? Mum! But Nana squeezes my hand again.

"I think he means your Uncle Vince, dear," she murmurs and I relax a fraction.

Of course; people always think Uncle Vince is a girl for some reason. I've had men ask me if we're sisters before. And I think Uncle Vince knows how to deal with this guy better than my Mum would. She's used to our lives being odd, but not to being abducted by Cockney madmen.

"I might be needin' 'em for me little experiment, so they're safe enough."

"What are you trying to do? Why do you need my Dad?"

The Hitcher taps the side of his long green nose.

"That would be tellin'. But seein' as you're 'ere, you might as well help me out. You can both do that time-travellin' thing, can't yer?"

I clamp my mouth shut, sensing that answering him wouldn't be clever, but it doesn't seem to matter. He grins again.

"Course you can. Well, ain't that handy? I grab one traveller and end up wiv three!"

"You're trying to move in time?" Nana asks, horrified. "You can't! The consequences-"

"Oh, blow the consequence!" he bellows, waving his cane in the air, nearly knocking the hat off his assistant's head. The strawberry bootlace man dodges though, seemingly used to ducking out of the way on such occasions.

"You think this is the first time I done it? How d'you think I got 'ere in the first place? Look like I come from round 'ere, do I?"

"But you can't!" Nana's getting more and more agitated at the thought of the Hitcher roaming free in the space/time continuum.

"Shut it, you old trout!"

He bangs his cane on the cage again and Nana falls quiet, but I can tell she's still shocked and appalled at whatever she's worked out his scheme is. I'm frustrated that I don't know enough about time travel or the Hitcher to understand, but at the same time, I'm sort of glad. I don't think I'd like it, if I knew.

"So, I guess we'll be starting with you then."

The Hitcher jabs his cane towards me, and his henchman comes closer, reaching out to unlock the cage.

"Come on, little lady. I won't hurt ya, not unless I 'ave to."

At his words, something inside me snaps. My Dad calls me little lady. No-one else is allowed to, not even my Uncles. Certainly not this insane Polo-eyed, stab-happy lunatic.

"You keep away from us!" I yell, throwing my hands up in front of me as if to ward them off. And to my utter astonishment, they do. And not just that, they stop dead still, not moving an inch. Even the frothing liquids in the beakers on the lab benches behind them stop bubbling and smoking as if instantly frozen.

I turn to Nana, who appears just as motionless, but this turns out to be shock.

"What happened?" I ask her, no less surprised myself.

"Daisy-" she turns to stare at me, wide-eyed in disbelief. "Was that you?"

"I- I think so. What did I do?"

"You stopped time around them. Even I can't do that, nor your Dad. How did you know how to do it?"

"I didn't," I confess. "I just – wanted them to stop, so I sort of, pushed."

"Pushed?"

"Yeah, I don't know what I did."

"Well," she says reluctantly. "Time to sort this out later. Now we have to get out of here and find your Dad."

She reaches through the cage bars and fishes the keys out of the frozen grasp of the Hitcher's henchman. After a moment's fumbling with the lock, the door swings open, and we push our way past the immobile cockneys.

I scan the lab, looking for some clue as to where he's keeping Dad and Uncle Vince, but the room is chaos, crammed full of the most bizarre collection of objects and I don't even know where to start.

Nana starts rifling through the pile of stuff on the nearest table and I follow suit, lifting up hamster cages, various hats, bicycle pumps, a tableau of a stuffed squirrel wrestling a penguin and three boxes of random shoes but I find nothing useful.

Then I look up, across the lab and I know where they are.

"Nana," I say, causing her to look up from the lightning conductor covered in sea shells she's holding.

"You said the Hitcher can bend space, right? Fit things into spaces that should be too small to hold them?"

"That's right, dear. He had his zoo inside a box small enough to carry. I don't quite know how he did it-"

But I'm not really listening. I'm heading across the room, lifting up the dollhouse from the floor, and wrenching off the roof. And sure enough, there inside is my Dad.

He's pacing the floor of what appears to be an Edgar Allen Poe-esque library, all dark wooden panels and hideous furnishings.

The room next door is a full-on 1980's roller disco, complete with glitterball and funky music. Unsurprisingly, skating around without a care in the world, is Uncle Vince. I can't see anyone else in the house, so I have to assume that they're the only two the Hitcher abducted. I have to say, holding my Dad and his best friend in a box in my arms is not an experience I ever thought I'd have, nor is it one I ever want to repeat.

"So- how do we get them out?" I ask Nana, seeing as how neither of them seem to have noticed me.

"I'm not sure. Maybe we could just open the door?"

"Worth a try."

I set the box down on a bench top, peering closely at the front of the house and knocking open the front door with a fingertip.

"Dad?" I call. "Dad, can you hear me? Come to the front door!"

Inside, my miniature Dad stops his pacing.

"Uncle Vince is next door. Bring him too!"

"Maybe we should step away," Nana warns, pulling me back just in time as they come flying out of the door to land in front of us, now thankfully full-size.

"Daisy!"

Dad grabs me tightly in a hug that would be embarrassing in front of my friends, but is very welcome right now.

"Alright?" Uncle Vince doesn't seem the slightest bit affected by what's happened, taking it all in his stride as usual.

"We should go," Nana interrupts. "I don't know how long they'll stay that way."

She nods towards the Hitcher and his sidekick.

"Agreed."

I can feel Dad and Nana starting the jump to take us home, but before it can fully take hold, I wriggle out from Dad's arms and reach out to grab the Hitcher's hat from off his head. I don't want it, but I feel like I should take something from him, just to prove a point.

Back in the flat, Dad's relief turns to worry.

"What happened back there? How did you find us?"

I set down the Hitcher's Polo-adorned top hat on an arm of the sofa, next to Uncle Vince, who's settled down reading Mum's Heat magazine as if nothing at all could be odd about having just been released from a miniature Roller Disco inside a dollhouse in the lab of a mad Cockney scientist.

"I got concerned when you vanished from the timestream," Nana explains. "So I fetched Daisy to help me find you. We ended up in that terrible man's lab."

"Are you alright? Did he hurt you? If he did anything-"

"Relax, Dad. We're fine. He shouted a lot, but he didn't do anything."

I don't feel scared anymore, but I'm grateful for his protective arm around my shoulders, all the same.

"So how did you stop him? What happened?"

"Daisy stopped time."

Dad stares at Nana, open-mouthed, then looks at me, his brow creasing.

"Cool." This is from Uncle Vince.

"You did what?" Dad asks.

"I don't know how," I tell him. "I just sort of, did."

"But – I've never met anyone who could do that! Not even the top people in the Agency can directly control time."

"I don't know if I can control it," I butt in. "Maybe this is a one-off."

Nana shakes her head.

"No, dear. I felt something change around you when you stopped them. Like your aura or something shifting. This is something that comes from you alone, but it's something permanent, that much I'm sure of."

She looks over at Dad.

"It's because she started learning to use her abilities young, I'm sure. Maybe if you had when you were her age, you'd be able to do something similar."

Dad sighs heavily.

"Your mother's not going to be best pleased about this. You shouldn't have ever taken her with you."

This is directed at Nana, who stands firm.

"If it wasn't for your daughter, you and Vince would still be inside that dollhouse."
"It's not that I'm not glad she rescued us." Dad gives me another squeeze. "But she's still a little girl; she shouldn't have been put in danger like that."

"Oy! I'm not a baby, you know!" I protest.

"To me you are," Dad replies, seriously. "I had to send you away in time once before to keep you out of harm's way. Daisy, you're only fifteen. I don't want you getting involved with people like – that again. It's not safe."

I'm not about to argue with him about tangling with the Hitcher again, but something he said catches at my thoughts.

"You sent me away in time?"

"When you were a few months old. There was… some trouble here, so I got your Nana to take you somewhere safe."

"Is that something to do with how Uncle Vince painted a picture of me before I'd been born?"

Dad glances down at Uncle Vince, who shrugs and goes back to reading about some celebrity divorce or other.

"What makes you think that?"

"It's in the background of that photo you took of Mum when she was pregnant with me. You know, on the day I was born?"

"Ah. Yes, that was then. But I mean it, Daisy. I'm glad you got us out, but you should never have been there in the first place. I don't want you involved in anything dangerous."

I don't push it. No doubt we'll have this argument over and over again until I'm considered grown-up enough to make decisions for myself. Which, knowing my Mum and Dad, will be when I'm about sixty-five.

"Okay."

I perch on the arm of the sofa alongside Uncle Vince, accidentally knocking the Hitcher's hat over. It falls to the floor, making an alarming cacophony of sounds as it does, worse even than any of the unsigned bands I've ever watched audition for Uncle Vince at the Velvet Onion.

"What did you bring that for?" Uncle Vince asks as I carefully pick it up again.

Dad, I notice, does not look happy.

"I wanted him to lose something important too, so he knows what it feels like."

"What's in it?" Dad asks, nervously. "There isn't a girl dressed like an ice dancer, is there?"

I decide not to ask why he thinks that and lift up the top of the hat, which flips open on a hinge.

"Um, is there a reason why his hat would be full of sheep?"

FIN