Big Change for Stuart by Lissa Evans Page A

triangle, joined to the others only at the bottom. It was obviously designed to fold up. And you could see that when it was folded, the triangles would all slide behind one other, with the one in the middle ending up at the front. And he also noticed that the one on the far right had a sort of ledge along the length of it. Perfect for putting a foot on, and pressing down …
    Stuart gave it a go, and felt a slight springiness. ‘Dad,’ he said. ‘Can you come round here? This is where I need a bit of muscle power.’ His father wandered over.
    â€˜Put your foot on that ledge, next to mine, and when I count to three, really, really press down. As if you’re trying to stretch the fan out even wider.’
    â€˜If you’re confident that I won’t contribute to its comminution.’
    â€˜You’re using long words again, Dad.’
    â€˜Sorry. I won’t damage it, will I?’
    â€˜I don’t think so. Now – one, two,
three
!’
    There was a rusty screech followed by the
boing!
of a giant spring, and Stuart found himself flying through the air. He had the weird impression that he passed straight
through
the fan before landing with a thud halfway across the room.
    â€˜Have you sustained any serious contusions?’ his father called anxiously, loping across to where Stuart lay.
    â€˜No
…
I don’t think so.’ He sat up, feeling a bit bruised and dented. One of his shoes had fallen off during the flight.
    â€˜That’s certainly an extraordinarily powerful mechanism,’ said his father, helping him to his feet. ‘One would have thought you’d been expelled from a cannon.’ They both looked over at the Fan of Fantasticness. It had snapped shut like a Swiss Army knife. From where they were standing, only the central triangle was visible – all the other segments had folded in behind it.
    â€˜From several to single,’ remarked his father. ‘Rather akin to my continuing attempt to move from polysyllabic to monosyllabic speech.’
    Stuart limped across the room to pick up his shoe. Odd bits of loose change from his pockets were scattered across the floor, as well as the remains of a packet of mints that he’d forgotten about, and he crawled around collecting them.
    â€˜My goodness,’ said his father, peering into the mechanism of the fan. ‘There’s a considerable gap just behind this central segment. I think you may have passed through it during your flight. It’s actually large enough for an individual to interpolate themselves into it – indeed, someone shorter than myself standing here would be totally invisible to the audience.’
    Stuart looked up and laughed to see his father’s head poking over the top of the triangle.
    â€˜That must be how they did it,’ he said. ‘Great-Uncle Tony’s assistant would hop into the gap just as the whole thing snapped shut. Everyone would think she’d disappeared.’
    â€˜And there’s an artefact here as well,’ remarked his father, crouching down.
    â€˜A what?’
    â€˜A man-made object. One might call it a star – apart from the fact that it only has four extrusions.’
    Stuart’s hand flew to his pocket. The Magic Star had been in there; it must have fallen out when he shot through the air.
    â€˜And there’s an odd quartet of sulci in the gap where I was standing,’ continued his father. ‘In fact, it looks as if this stellar object might be perfectly congruent with—’
    A terrible realization shot through Stuart, and though he didn’t know what the words
sulci
or
stellar
or
congruent
meant, he somehow
knew
that his father was just about to fit the four-pointed Magic Star into a matching set of grooves that he’d just found in the Fan of Fantasticness, and he hurled himself across the room, arms outstretched, yelling, ‘DON’T DO IT, DAD! DON’T FIT THE STAR IN