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thing …’ He had turned away and was rooting amongst a jumble of rubbish on a worktop. After a few moments, he turned back, carrying what looked like a leather holster. ‘Strap this around your waist,’ he told Kip, handing it to him.
    Kip buckled it around his skinny hips feeling rather like a cowboy donning a set of pistols, but this holster held only a brick-shaped gadget made of what looked like black Bakelite. It was studded with knobs and dials and switches.
    ‘And this?’ asked Kip, securing the buckle.
    ‘The Lazarus Communicator,’ said Mr Lazarus, wearily. ‘Goodness, you ask a lot of questions!’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ muttered Kip. ‘I was only wondering.’
    ‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ said Mr Lazarus. ‘I’ll contact you when you’re there and explain
everything
.’
    Kip scratched his head.
    ‘When I’m
where
?’ he asked.
    ‘In the film,’ said Mr Lazarus. ‘Now. Are you ready?’
    But Kip was staring at him, completely baffled.
    ‘In the film?’ he echoed. ‘I don’t get it.’
    ‘You will,’ Mr Lazarus assured him. With one hand, he set the projector running; and with the other, he placed a hand against Kip’s back and pushed him hard. The platform slid forward on its oiled wheels, straight into the light. Kip experienced a sudden wave of panic, rising within him.
    ‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure I—’
    But then a bright light was blazing into his face and almost instantly he felt a weird change coming over him. It was as though his arms, his legs, his body, were all … dissolving. He seemed to be falling and he couldn’t even reach out his arms to grab at something as he went down into a great blazing pit of brilliant white light.

CHAPTER SEVEN
     

    KIP’S FEET THUDDED against a hard surface. He felt like he was going to fall and had to fling out his arms in order to regain his balance. Then everything swam back into focus. He stood there, staring in complete astonishment at his surroundings, trying to understand what had just happened. But he couldn’t really take it in. This was nuts.
    He was standing on a street in the middle of a big city – but it wasn’t a city in the modern day and it wasn’t even the UK. It was a city he had seen recently. In
Public Enemy Number One
.
    Now it came to him, pretty much the last thing that Mr Lazarus had said before pushing him into the light. ‘I’ll contact you when you’re there and explain
everything
.’ Kip stared around open-mouthed.
    He could feel a sense of panic rising within him. He was in the film. He was really in the film!
    The blare of a car horn almost made him jump out of his skin and he scuttled to one side, allowing a black Ford to rumble past him. He could see the driver staring at him through his side window, his mouth open as though he was looking at a spaceman. Kip realised that his red T-shirt, jeans and Converse trainers must look strangely out of place here.
    He looked around again. He couldn’t stop himself. Everything was here in perfect detail – the cars, the people, the buildings. Glancing upwards, he saw a couple of dowdy pigeons flapping overhead. He had to take a deep breath and hold it for a moment, because he felt as though he was going to panic.
    Then the phone-like thing on his hip started beeping loudly. He looked down at it in dull surprise and pulled it from its holster. A green button was flashing, so he pressed that and lifted the device to his ear.
    ‘Well, Kip,’ said Mr Lazarus’s voice, compressed to a tiny insect-like buzz in Kip’s ear. ‘What do you think?’
    ‘I … think … I must have … I can’t … this can’t be happening!’
    ‘Oh, but it is, Kip. Look around you. It’s all there in perfect detail.’
    ‘But … it looks … real.’
    ‘It
is
real. When you go into a film it becomes real. You mustn’t forget that.’
    ‘How do you mean,
real
?’
    ‘I mean that Russell Raven is no longer an actor. He is John Dillinger, public enemy