Believe me, Harrison’s room was a real mess. Well, in Mum’s opinion, anyway. Harrison himself actually thought it was perfectly fine.

‘Don’t forget your French word cards’, Mum reminded him one morning.

Harrison was nervous before each and every one of his tests: ‘Where are they? Where are they?’, he kept shouting.

‘They should be in your school folder, shouldn’t they?’, Mum suggested.

Harrison checked. They were not.

‘Then, probably they are at the very bottom of that rubbish heap’, Mum pointed to one of the smallish mountains of books, Lego, empty boxes (that one day, would certainly be useful for something or other), dirty and clean clothes, etc. artistically disorganised.

Harrison checked. They were there.

‘This is not a “rubbish heap”, Mum’, he protested, ‘this is a carefully organised and structured storing system.’

‘I see’, Mum laughed. ‘Well, the important thing is that you’ve got them now.’

Harrison got the French word cards all right, and he had also found a Lego figure at the bottom of the heap, that he had never seen before. He had a green face with a cheeky smile, a strange spherical read brick on the top of his head, his body was white and had a mysterious symbol on his chest, that looked like some kind of spacecraft orbiting a planet. His hands were the most unusual: white arms ending in green spheres. His legs were white too but there was a red circle on his right knee. Harrison was pretty sure that he had never seen such a figure before, although he was quite an expert in Lego. Since Harrison was in a hurry, he put the strange little man in his trousers pocket and decided to examine him later.

‘When you finished checking your work, go out to the corridor quietly so you don’t disturb those who are still working’, the teacher said towards the end of the French test.

Harrison had been ready for quite a while, so he handed his paper in, and went out of the classroom. In the corridor, he got the Lego figure out of his pocket and started to examine it closer. No doubt, he was an old figure: somewhat shabby, with a few loose joints.

A girl stepped to Harrison and held out her hand to touch the figure: ‘What’s that?’

‘Nothing’, Harrison said, and quickly put the figure back in his pocket.

‘I’m Ivy’, the girl introduced herself. She was ginger and she had freckles all over her face and neck. Her eyes were shiny green and she had quite a cheeky smile.

‘Hello’, Harrison said, ‘I’m Harrison.’

‘I know that’, Ivy laughed.

‘Do you?’, Harrison was a bit taken aback.

‘I’ve been following you for a while now’, Ivy confessed, ‘You are quite a strange one, you know.’

‘Am I?’, Harrison felt like being caught red handed.

‘You know’, Ivy said, ‘I’m sort of a Lego freak.’

‘Are you?’, Harrison looked at her with growing interest.

‘And I’ve never seen such a figure before’, Ivy said, ‘Those hands–’

‘I know’, Harrison took the figure from his pocket and gave it to Ivy.

They both looked at it closer.

‘He’s pulsing!’, Ivy cried out.

‘What??’, Harrison took the figure in his hand, ‘Yes, he is’, he whispered.

The little man’s chest was indeed pulsing, though very weekly and irregularly.

‘He is ill’, Ivy observed.

Harrison knew that she was right.

‘What shall we do?’, Ivy asked.

Harrison was secretly happy that the girl said ‘we’, but he still had no idea about the answer.

Also, the teacher came out of the classroom to call them back in, so they had to stop their conversation. Harrison hid the figure in his pocket again and they went back to the classroom, both deep in their thoughts.

After French, Harrison and Ivy had to run to different directions and they only met again at lunch time.

‘Have you figured something out?’, Ivy asked as soon as they sat down with their lunch boxes next to each other.

‘I think so’, Harrison said.

‘Go on’, Ivy urged him impatiently.

‘You know’, Harrison started, ‘I found him this morning, in my room, under a heap of stuff. I am sure that he was not there yesterday - or ever before.’

‘I see’, Ivy said, ‘So we need to go back to where you’ve found him and look for clues about how he got there in the first place.’

Harrison tried hard not to smile when he heard Ivy using ‘we’ again.

‘Let’s do that’, he said.

After school, Harrison took Ivy to his house and showed her his room.

‘What a mess!’, Ivy cried, ‘Sorry’, she added, a bit ashamed.

‘This is not a “mess”’, Harrison said, offended, ‘this is actually a carefully organised and structured storing system.’

Ivy laughed: ‘If you say so.’

Harrison showed her where he had found the figure that morning.

They both looked very carefully trying to find any clues about the figure’s origins.

‘Look’, Ivy suddenly cried.

Harrison looked. ‘A red circle’, he observed, ‘just like the one on his knee.’

‘And another one’, Ivy pointed to a book lying on the carpet, ‘and another’, she showed it on a T-shirt.

Soon, they managed to spot thirteen red circles altogether, on different objects in and around the heap.

‘What could they be?’, Ivy wondered.

Harrison put his index finger on one of the circles.

Whoosh! A swirl caught Harrison and he was spinning and spinning. He closed his eyes. When he was able to open them again, he saw the heap from below: he was tiny. The same size as the Lego figure standing next to him.

‘Ivy!!’, Harrison shouted.

Whoosh! The girl was standing next to him, the same size.

‘That’s really cool!’, Ivy exclaimed.

‘What shall we do now?’, Harrison asked.

‘Help me. Please’, came a weak voice from close by.

Harrison and Ivy looked at the Lego figure who sat down, tired, and put his spherical hands on his chest as if he was in pain.

‘Of course’, Ivy promised, ‘But who are you?’

‘B.E.B.O.’, the figure introduced himself.

‘Nice to meet you’, said the girl, ‘I’m Ivy, and this is Harrison. We are here to help you.’

‘Thanks’, sighed B.E.B.O. and collapsed.

Ivy kneeled down and leaned closer to listen to his breathing. Harrison just stood there frozen.

‘He is OK’, Ivy reassured him, ‘he’s just fainted.’

Harrison kneeled down next to them. ‘What shall we do?’, he asked.

‘Bring a glass of water, please’, Ivy said.

‘Are you kidding?’, Harrison stared at her, ‘We are 1.5 inches tall. Even if I somehow manage to get to the kitchen downstairs, how on Earth could I bring a glass of water back?’

Ivy thought about it. ‘Right’, she said, ‘Do you have some water in your room?’

‘On the windowsill. For my experiments’, Harrison explained.

‘Good’, Ivy said, ‘Let’s take him there’, and she grabbed B.E.B.O.’s feet.

Harrison lifted the strange little man by his shoulders and they started to walk slowly towards the window. It was not easy. Not easy at all.

‘I’m sorry’, Ivy laughed, ‘but your “carefully organised and structured storing system” does look a bit like a mess from below.’

Harrison smiled.

‘He is heavy, isn’t he?’, Ivy was short of breath, ‘Let’s put him down for a minute.’

So they did. Harrison looked around and spotted a green milk bottle cap that had two drilled holes in one side. He wanted to use it for something or other in the past, only he had forgotten about it. Harrison looked for some kind of string. Soon, he found a Santa beard made out of wool, and with some difficulty, he managed to pull a string out of it. Harrison put the string through the holes in the bottle cup and the sleigh was ready to carry B.E.B.O.

‘You are a genius!’, Ivy smiled at him.

Harrison did not say anything, just lifted B.E.B.O. up gently, and put him on the sleigh.

The two of them pulled the sleigh by the two ends of the string. It was still not easy going around and under all that– well, “carefully organised and structured storing system”, but in the end they reached the wall.

‘How do we get him up on the windowsill?’, Ivy wondered.

Harrison looked around.

Soon, he found a broken tetrahedron shaped wooden brick, a tea spoon and a piece of dirty Blue Tack, the size of their bodies.

‘You are a genius!’, Ivy exclaimed as Harrison had finished assembling the catapult, and with that, she climbed up on the curtain. ‘I’m ready to catch him’, she shouted down from the windowsill.

Harrison gently laid B.E.B.O. in the spoon and with some difficulty, he climbed up on a heap of stuff nearby. Harrison took a deep breath and jumped on the handle of the spoon.

‘I’ve got him’, Harrison heard Ivy shouting, from below a heap of plastic containers, odd socks, Lego, broken pens and newspaper cuttings.

With some difficulty, he curled out from under all that stuff and started climbing up on the curtain. But that was not as easy as it had seemed when Ivy had done it. So Harrison looked around and found some paper clips and strips of old cellotape. He quickly made himself some climbing equipment. (Meanwhile he actually thought that he should present this invention of his to some Alpinist society when he would have nothing better to do.) Harrison was up on the windowsill in no time.

‘Wow!’, Ivy exclaimed. ‘So where is your experiment water?’, she asked.

‘Ac–,ac–’, they heard B.E.B.O. mumbling.

‘What?’, Ivy put her ear close to the figure’s mouth.

‘Aci–’, B.E.B.O. sighed.

Ivy looked at Harrison, totally puzzled.

‘Acid’, Harrison exclaimed, ‘of course! He needs acid.’

‘Well’, Ivy said, ‘I guess that is something that even your “carefully organised and structured storing system” doesn’t contain.’

Harrison smiled: ‘You’re wrong’, and showed her a half rotten lemon in a glass jar, connected to various electronic equipment with a mess of multi-coloured wires.

‘Yuk!’, Ivy said first, then she corrected herself: ‘You are a genius, Harrison. But what is that here for??’

‘Experiments’, Harrison explained while, with some difficulty, he got one of his pipettes, that was three times the size of him, in the jar and got some lemon juice in it, ‘I’m trying to prove that the energy coming from the rotting lemon can make these machines work.’

Ivy stared at him: ‘Can it?’

‘Well’, Harrison sighed, ‘not yet. But I’m on it.’

The two of them lifted the pipette to B.E.B.O’s mouth but the figure desperately shook his head and pointed to the red circle on his knee. So Harrison and Ivy let a drop of lemon juice into the circle.

Whoosh! B.E.B.O. flashed in green and then he stood up as if nothing had happened. He shook hands with Harrison and Ivy, which was a bit strange given the spherical shape of his hand.

‘Thank you ever so much’, he said, and with that, he turned the strange red spherical brick on his head and simply disappeared.

Harrison and Ivy looked at each other and shook hands laughing happily.

They slid down the curtain, found a red circle each and jumped on them.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Harrison and Ivy were tumbling on various heaps of stuff, normal size now.

‘You know what?’, Ivy said smiling, ‘I’m starting to think that your “carefully organised and structured storing system” is– well, not that bad, anyway.’

‘Thanks’, Harrison laughed. ‘Please try to explain it to my Mum.’

‘I shall’, Ivy promised.