‘They?’

Dressing quickly, Arthur hurried into the kitchen to find several people sitting at the table. His mother, still in her dressing gown, was busy preparing tea and coffee. Seeing him coming in, the general got up.

‘Ah, my young friend,’ he said, shaking his hand and patting him warmly on the shoulder. ‘Nice to see you again. How are you doing after all those summer adventures of yours?’

‘Okay, thank you,’ Arthur replied nervously.

‘Good, good. Right, well, Arthur, as you can see, I’m not alone this time. So, before we get started, let me quickly introduce you to the two colleagues who have travelled with me here today. On my right is Peter, head of our Artefacts Research Team at the facility. As you can no doubt imagine, he has dedicated a great deal of time and effort into studying the box you found.’

‘A pleasure to meet you,’ replied the slightly plump man with a silver goatee. ‘You certainly did us all a big favour by finding it.’

‘Indeed, you did,’ nodded the general. ‘And, on my left, Doctor Semenova who heads up our Psychological Evaluation Committee at the facility.’

Arthur nodded shyly

‘So, let’s get down to it then, shall we? The reason why we’ve come here today is because we urgently need your help. More specifically, we need you to try to remember back to this summer, to your opening of the box. Do you think you can do that for us?’

‘Yes,’ Arthur said.

‘Excellent.’

Peter took out his mobile phone and pointed it at him. ‘It’s so we can recall exactly what you said,’ he explained.

‘Please go ahead and describe for us how you opened it and what happened next?’ prompted the general.

Trying not to look at it, Arthur cleared his throat and for a moment wondered where he should start. It all sounded so strange in his head that he was sure if he mentioned the cat and, even worse, the fish, that they’d all think he’d cracked.

‘Well, um, at first we tried to open it using some of the tools from my grandfather’s tool shed, but it was impossible,’ he began.

‘Just a moment, please. You said we,’ interrupted the general, looking surprised.

‘What?’

‘Yes, you said that <<we>> tried to open the box. Who was the other person with you?’

Shooting a look at the cat, who’d just jumped up onto the windowsill, he blushed.

‘No one. Sorry, there was no one else there. So, anyway, when I couldn’t open it with tools I… I began to think about the words written on it, you know, about wanting to know things and having to say “open” three times.’

‘And you worked that out by yourself, did you?’ asked Peter, rubbing his chin.

‘Well, yeah… I guess.’

‘Good. And that’s what you did?’

‘Yes, I said “open” three times.’

‘And then what happened?’

‘Well, everything went really bright and then really dark and the room I was in turned into, like, a floating map.’

‘A floating map?’

‘Yes.’

‘And why do you think it was a map?’

‘I don’t know. I mean, it looked like a map—like a star map. Like something I’d seen at the planetarium with my dad.’

‘And did you recognise any of the planets?’

‘No,’ he said, shaking his head.

‘And can you tell us anything more about this map?’

‘Not really. But I remember that some of the planets were just kind of spinning, and some of them were grouped around what looked like suns.’

‘And that’s it?’ asked Peter after a lengthy silence.

‘Yes, I think so.’

The head of research leaned over and whispered something into the general’s ear, causing him to frown slightly and nod.

‘OK, well then, I think we’ve got everything we need,’ said the general, rising. ‘We don’t want to take up any more of your Sunday.’

‘No, hang on—wait!’ said Arthur suddenly, as the others stood up and followed the general over to the front door. ‘Actually, there <<was>> something else! There were like these symbols. Some kind of writing. I couldn’t understand them, though.’

Peter put down his coat and quickly took out his phone again.

‘Can you describe these symbols?’ he asked.

‘No, I’m sorry, but—’

‘But?’

‘But I remember that they were only next to one group of planets, and not any of the others.’

This time Peter nodded to the general.

‘Good. Thank you, Arthur. Now, if you could please give us a moment alone with your parents, there are a few things which we need to discuss with them.’

‘What? But why? I thought I answered all of your questions?’

‘You did,’ replied the general. ‘You have been very helpful indeed.’

‘Arthur, go and wait in your room,’ said his mother anxiously.