Jim Smith - Future Ratboy and the Attack of the Killer Robot Grannies

‘RAAAT!’ she screamed, which was weird seeing as I was Colin Lamppost, not a rat, and she zoomed off in her hover-trainers.

Not Bird floated out of the bin and landed on the pavement. ‘Not Bird, there seems to be a problem,’ I said in my superhero voice. ‘I think we might’ve been zapped into the future!’ I cried, pointing around at how shiny and futuristic Shnozville High Street had become.

‘NOT!’ chirped Not Bird, pecking at a dried-up blob of pink bubblegum, and the blob twitched, slithering off to find a quieter bit of pavement.

‘You see!’ I said, pointing at the blob. ‘You’d never get a bit of bubblegum doing something like that in the old days!’

Not Bird looked up at me and tilted his eyebrows into their scared positions.

I said.

Then I realised he was looking at whatever was behind me.

‘HELLO DEAR,’ bleeped a familiar robotty voice, and I turned round to see MAVIS 3000 standing there with another robot granny.

She was fatter than MAVIS 3000 and had neon-red lipstick zigzagged round her mouth. Dented into her metal skirt in scary-looking capitals was the name ‘DOREEN XL97-220’.

Both the robot grannies were carrying handbags and pulling old granny shopping trollies, except unlike normal old granny shopping trollies, these ones floated – probably because we were in the future.

‘EEK!’ squeaked Not Bird’s bubblegum blob, trying to slither off a tiny bit faster, and MAVIS 3000 stomped her foot down on the pavement, spiking it to death with her clippy-cloppy heel. She held her shoe up to DOREEN XL97-220’s mouth and waggled her metal eyebrows.

‘OOH. TA VERY MUCH, MAVIS,’ bleeped DOREEN XL97-220, pincering the blob off MAVIS 3000’s heel with her jaggedy metal teeth and starting to chew.

‘Operation Back Away Quietly,’ I whispered to Not Bird, dragging the wheelie bin in front of us like a smelly plastic shield, and the bin scraped along the pavement, not being quiet at all.

MAVIS 3000 nodded at me with her square head, and her red traffic-light eyes flashed. ‘THIS IS THE ONE I TOLD YOU ABOUT, DOREEN,’ she bleeped, and DOREEN XL97-220 did a computery-sounding tut.

‘OOH, YOU’RE RIGHT, MAVIS. HE IS A BIT RATTY, ISN’T HE?’ she bleeped, and I wondered if they maybe weren’t talking about me at all, seeing as I wasn’t ratty in the slightest, I was Colin Lamppost-y.

I twizzled my head around, looking for that rat that’d been in the bin with me and Not Bird the night before. ‘Operation I Reckon It Must Be That Rat They’re Talking About, Not Me . . .’ I said.

That was how big my gasp was when I saw my reflection.

‘RAT!’ I shouted, pointing at myself. I pushed my scuba mask on to my forehead and stared at my new reflection.

My nose had whiskers on it and a black blob at the end like a shiny full stop. A pair of aerials poked out of my head, and a plug sat at the end of a cord that was sticking out of my bum. A bin bag hung flappily down my back like a cape, and on my belly fizzled a TV screen.

No wonder that angry-looking woman had screamed when she saw me! Not only had the bolt of lightning zapped me and Not Bird into the future, it’d fused me together with the rat – and my rubbish old TV too!

‘WHAT DO YOU RECKON, DOREEN?’ bleeped MAVIS 3000. ‘NICE SLICE OF RATBOY ON TOAST FOR BREAKFAST?’ she said, her shiny metal teeth glinting in the Sunkeels morning sun.

‘OOH, I COULD JUST MURDER ONE!’ nodded DOREEN XL97-220, pressing a button on the side of her head.

The bubblegum blob she’d been chewing on started to balloon out of her mouth, blowing up to the size of a baby elephant. She crunched her lips shut and the balloon floated into the air, bouncing on the pavement towards my shiny full-stop nose.

‘I am NOT a ratboy, my name is Colin Lamppost!’ I shouted, as the balloon tried to swallow me whole.

‘RATBOY! RATBOY! RATBOY!’ squawked Not Bird, and I tucked him under my arm, twizzled round and forward-rolled into the bin, which immediately started to roll away, thank coolness.

‘Operation Don’t Get Swallowed Whole By A Bubblegum Balloon!’ I cried, zooming down the High Street inside my wheelie bin. I leaned left and we skidded down an alleyway, crashing into a wall.

The bubblegum balloon floated past the end of the alleyway, followed by MAVIS 3000 and DOREEN XL97-220, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

‘It’s just like ATTACK OF THE KILLER ROBOT GRANNIES!’ I said, crawling out of the wheelie bin and giving Not Bird a thumbs up.

‘NOT!’ squawked Not Bird, giving me a thumbs down with the thumb bit of his wing.

I looked up and peered at a man with thirteen eyes.