Shrunk! Read Online Free PDF

it’s getting really warm.’
    â€˜Oh?’
    â€˜Yeah, we’re getting closer to the sun. And the Asteroid Belt will go mad without Jupiter. There’s nothing to stop stuff from that crashing into us, and ultimately . . .’
    Behind us, the door to the street swings open. Eric’s dad, Colin, stands in the doorway. They look exactly the same, but Colin’s bigger, lopsided and got less snot and carrot on his face.
    â€˜Eric, sweetheart – a bit under the weather?’
    â€˜Ultimately what?’ I ask.
    But Eric doesn’t answer, just throws up over his father’s trousers and staggers out.

Chapter 10
    I’m beginning to wonder if shrinking Jupiter was such a good thing. At the end of school I get to look for it in the playground. Fat chance – a thing the size and colour of a lentil in a gravel football pitch?
    The boats are gone and someone’s stolen the dinosaur.
    I walk home, and to make myself feel better I do a bit more shrinking. Just a little bit. Nothing serious.
    A bench,
    Click
.
    The large plastic hot dog outside the chip shop, which Mum hates,
    Click
.
    A sand sculpture of the Prime Minister,
    Click
. It dissolves in my hand.
    I stop for a moment. Mr and Mrs Albermarle go past. He’s ever so tall, and she seems to be holding on to his coat as if he might run away.
    Once they’ve gone, I look around for more things to shrink.
    A pumpkin lantern from outside the pub,
    Click
.
    Another pumpkin lantern,
    Click
.
    It’s getting dark, so the pumpkin lanterns look really cute, about the size of cherry tomatoes, but glowing. I take four more.
    Click
,
click
,
click
,
click
.
    Oh yes! I line them up on the sea wall and put the bench at the end. The bench is completely perfect in every way. It’s even got a tiny drinks can scrumpled into the back.
    Something whooshes over my head.
    And another, and another.
    Whoosh.
    Whoosh.
    Whoosh.
    Shooting stars, masses of them.
    Wow. Like fireworks.
    They’re going off all the time.
    Awesome.
    I blow out the candles in the pumpkin lanterns and put them gently into my backpack. The bench just fits on top with the plastic hot dog. Perhaps I’ll give these to Tilly.
    Eric’s dad scuttles along the road. He’s got a massive roll of wire that he’s laying out behind him.
    â€˜Oh – evening, Grandson of Amalthea.’
    I nod. I really don’t know what to say to him.
    He points up at the shooting stars. ‘They’re coming, Tom. Won’t be long.’ And he runs on, paying out his wire.
    A band of trick or treaters career by, and I tuck myself in against a wall. Eric’s hanging around at the back. I can tell it’s him – even with make-up, no one has a face that white. He doesn’t look very happy.
    If I’d been sick at school, Grandma would never let me out, but I suppose that with a dad like Eric’s anything goes.
    They disappear around the corner. I wonder what the time is? I’d like to see the news, but I don’t want to go anywhere near home, or the town hall, not with Mum dressed in a pumpkin suit. Who knows what Dad’s dressed as – Frankenstein?
    I hope nobody goes to ‘Mr and Mrs Magic’s Night of Halloween Fun’. I hope it’s a disaster and they give up and we can go back to London.
    I cross the square and peer into the penny arcade. The man in the booth is watching the telly. There’s a shot of London Zoo, and a picture of a polar bear, then a reporter stands by a big crater, and I can see that the wall of the zoo’s disappeared. They show a tiny piece of rock, and some men in white all-in-one suit things and a load of zookeepers running around with torches looking in the trees. Then a red-faced man with a penguin under his arm starts talking to the camera.
    Then they show a picture of the Eiffel Tower, with a chunk missing.
    Then they show a map of the solar system with Jupiter missing.
    It’s all my