Lucas, comfortably sat before a crackling fire, kicked his feet onto a footstool and picked up the newspaper. The curtains were drawn against the cold evening, Clara read on the sofa opposite, and a hot cup of tea sat on the table at his elbow.
'Mind if I put the radio on?' he said, twisting the dials until the voices stopped cracking.
'Thankfully no,' said Clara, frowning at him.
He blew her a kiss and settled back to read an adventure story meant for boys, and listen to the news broadcast.
The newsreader sounded quite stressed, and seemed to be talking about Mars a lot.
It caught Clara's attention, too.
'Gas explosions on Mars?' she said. 'What are we listening to?'
'I think it’s the news,' said Lucas.
'Hmm,' said Clara, turning back to her book. 'I'm sure it's fine.'
A moment later she looked up again.
'A meteorite?'
'Uh-huh,' said Lucas, more interested in the exploits of the Cowboys and Indians in his story. 'But I don't see what stuff dropping on America has to do with us.'
'Probably nothing,' said Clara, a tad uneasily.
Normally a fast reader, her page didn't turn again for a very long time.
Not that Lucas noticed, having dozed off.
'Lucas,' she hissed, waking him. 'Lucas, did you hear that?'
'Wha'?'
'A huge metal cylinder fell on New Jersey.'
'Oh?' said Lucas, shifting into a more comfortable position and shaking his newspaper out again. 'Good for them.'
'I don't think so,' said Clara, panic in her voice. 'The end is unscrewing.'
‘Good,' said Lucas absently, trying to find his place in the story again.
'Something crawled out the top,' cried Clara. 'It - it sounds like it’s from another planet.'
'Clara,' said Lucas patiently. 'There’s nothing on other planets. Even if there is, they landed in America. There's a lot of water between them and us.'
'And a lot of nothing between us and another planet,' said Clara. 'But that didn’t bother it any.'
'No,' said Lucas. 'But the army will deal with it before it gets to Castlebury, so I wouldn't worry too much.'
'Oh,' said Clara, relaxing slightly. 'I suppose you're right.'
'Of course I am,' said Lucas. 'There's a first time for everything, after all.'
Yeah, that'll definitely end well...
Thankfully, everything in these challenges gets reset at midnight, so Lucas will never have to find out how wrong he was :)
Saff x
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