Nat loved books and the different worlds you could escape to through reading. When he had started school, he just didn’t seem to have that much in common with any of the other kids he met. He knew it bothered his mum a good deal more than it bothered him, so he was careful to make sure she never found out he didn’t really have any friends. Like most mums and dads, his parents could be a source of much embarrassment; but while other mums didn’t appear that concerned about global warming, recycling, or rescuing the whales, his own seemed determined to save the world single-handedly. Last winter, he had been dragged along with her on a demonstration to protest against cell phone towers and, unfortunately for Nat, the scenes of both him and his mum being forcibly removed by two burly policemen had been on TV. Nat’s usual strategy of keeping a low profile had been blown, and he held Jude completely responsible for the abuse he got from the other kids at school.

And on top of the unwelcome media attention, someone had spread a rumor that his dad had been sent to prison.

As is so often the case, though, the truth of the matter was more complicated.

Nat’s dad, Evan Carver, was an inventor, or rather, an inventor of useless and often dangerous contraptions. His last brainwave, HovvaDogga, a hovercraft designed to help disabled dogs, had seemed flawless in blueprint. Sadly, the prototype had resulted in near-fatal injuries for its doggy pioneers, a dachshund and a Pomeranian, which had both been too fat to walk, but evidently not too fat to be propelled fifty feet into the air when the hovercraft sped up in hot weather.

Another disaster, Action Pants!, a robotically enhanced trouser press, had attacked an elderly man, imprisoning him in his closet for three hours. The old man had accused Evan of assault and battery, for which he had been arrested then released on bail.

With the trial pending, Evan Carver had tried to get a legitimate job, but without success. And since money was scarce, he resorted to borrowing from a shady moneylender to make ends meet. When it became clear he couldn’t pay back the money he owed, he was visited by a couple of large, well-built gentlemen who had threatened to snap off his arms and legs. Not surprisingly, Evan panicked and jumped bail. He hastily arranged for Jude and Nat to leave London and stay indefinitely with Jude’s parents in Temple Gurney, a small town in the southwest of England. The last Nat had seen of his dad was a tiny stick figure waving from the stern of a ferry bound for Calais, France.