Finn had been gifted a red Mini to drive around, which he adored (even though its speed had been restricted at Grandma’s insistence).
But right now none of that helped.
Various people had already called to reassure them: Grandma, Commander King and, over a video link, the Prime Minister. Even Hudson had been sent for. Not many kids could ruin the ‘jeans and hoodie’ look, but with his long hair, massive glasses and uncomfortable expression, Hudson was one of a kind. He was in on the Boldklub secret because he’d been dragged into the climax of operation Scarlatti and proved himself an unlikely hero.
“What a bummer … That’s so rubbish. Bet you were looking forward to being tall again?” said Hudson when he arrived.
“Mmmm,” said Kelly, looking round for a gun to shoot him with.
“It must really eat away at the back of your minds …” Hudson mused.
At which point Delta politely asked that they be left alone “to suck things up a while”.
“At least he didn’t offer to write one of his poemsfn1,” said Finn when the nano-team were alone again.
Stubbs grunted. “We are at the very margins of human comprehension. We might be stuck here for years and years …”
“What do you know, old fool!” Delta said to Stubbs.
“Quite a lot, actually,” said Stubbs defensively.
Doubt stirred like a great black eel in the pit of Finn’s gut.
Be yourself. Trust yourself. Just keep going. These had been his mother’s Big Three rules. But how could you be yourself when you were stuck in the wrong-sized body? What was the use of trusting yourself when you were totally dependent on other people? And how could you just keep going when you were so obviously stuck? When he’d complained about this to Christabel, their local vicar and a good friend since his mother’s funeral, she’d said, “Use it. Just like your mum left you three lessons, see what lessons you can learn from what you’re going through.”
All he’d learned so far was that the more you wanted something, the further away it got.
“I expect you’ve had better birthdays, Finn,” said Stubbs, looking more than ever like a dejected tortoise.
Kelly gave a hollow laugh and slapped the old man on the back for being such a grouch. Stubbs could fix anything, but didn’t have much clue when it came to ‘being a human being’.
“Thanks – it’s not until tomorrow,” said Finn.
“Hey – a birthday is still a birthday. What do you want to do?” asked Delta, trying to brighten things up. She didn’t normally do ‘close’ but her younger sister Carla was the same age as Finn so he’d become a de facto younger brother.
Finn shrugged. What was there to celebrate at 9mm? He didn’t even get to skip school. Instead he was attending via Skype, Hudson dutifully carrying him around on a laptop (the official explanation for Finn’s absence being he had a highly-contagious skin disease). Grandma insisted on the arrangement. “So he can live a normal life, like any other boy,” she had said, to which Finn responded, “IN WHAT POSSIBLE WAY COULD MY LIFE BE CONSIDERED NORMAL! I’M NINE MILLIMETRES TALL!”
“At least you lot get to go to work …” Finn complained.
There was a military research project that Finn wasn’t really supposed to know about called the ‘nCraft’. One great problem of being a centimetre tall was the time it took to cover even a modest distance and a new vehicle was being developed to take full advantage of the massively improved power-to-mass ratios at nano-scale. Al disapproved of any military application of his technology but Finn knew, that out of sheer boredom, Stubbs and the others had been working on it.
They felt for him.
“Don’t sulk, you’ll get over this! You can get over anything,” said Kelly. “You know how many cars I’d stolen by the time I was thirteen? I spent half my teens in youth custody – and look at me now!” he boasted, opening his massive, battle-scarred arms as if he was a model citizen.
“This is what I tell Carla,” said Delta. “Between thirteen and seventeen you do a lot of suffering, then life gets much, much better.”
“Oh great,” said Finn, sarcastically.
“People always say things like that to teenagers,” said Stubbs, “but as I recall you never really get over the trauma of your teens. The bullying … the heartache … the loneliness …”
“The being nine millimetres tall …” added Finn.
“Hey! If I got over a childhood in a Philadelphia children’s home, you can get over this. You just need a little help and support – am I right?” said Delta, glaring at Kelly and Stubbs.
“She’s right,” said Kelly, then added generously, “and if you need things livening up, just say the word! One of us can always tie you to the train tracks, or shoot at you …”
“I could drop you out of a plane?” offered Delta.
“Or ostracise him. Mental cruelty,” added Stubbs.
“You’d really do that for me? Thanks, guys,” said Finn, smiling at last.
A pulse came from Finn’s nPhonefn2.
He opened the pack and checked the screen.
U there? Skype?
“What’s wrong? You look like death.”
The girl who on a daily basis filled his Skype screen with dark hair, bright eyes and wisecracks, peered into the lens at him, suspicious.
“Wrong? Nothing’s wrong,” said Finn, wondering how Carla’s emotional radar could possibly work at this distance.
The background usually showed her bedroom in the States, but right now he was looking at a hotel room in Kunming, China, where Carla was on tour with the Pennsylvania Youth Orchestra. Her luggage and a cello case lay on the bed behind her.
What she saw from China was a mock barrack room that had been built especially within the nano-compound. Carla thought Delta was stuck at an airbase in England working on a secret project and that Finn was just a kid who lived on the base with his uncle. They had hit it off as soon as Delta had introduced them, not so much soul mates as complementary opposites. Carla knew everything Finn didn’t know – and much he didn’t want to know – about art and life, and Finn knew everything she didn’t know about the natural world.
What Carla also didn’t know was that everyone she saw on camera was about a centimetre tall.
“Something is definitely wrong.”
“I lost a pet,” said Finn for cover.
“A pet? They let you have pets on an airbase?” she said, sceptical.
“Only a mouse.”
“A mouse? What was its name?”
