Montgomery - Max and the Millions

Max is used to spending time alone its difficult to make friends in a big, chaotic school when youre deaf. He prefers to give his attention to the little things in life like making awesome, detailed replica models.

Then Mr Darrow, the school caretaker and fellow modeller, goes missing. Max must follow his parting instruction: Go to my room. Youll know what to do.

There on the floor he finds a pile of sand and in the sand is Mr Darrows latest creation. A tiny boy, no bigger than an ant: Luke, Prince of the Blues. And behind the tiny boy, millions of others a thriving, bustling, sprawling civilization!

A civilization that needs Maxs help

Mr Darrow was building a world.

He was building it in his bedroom, which was the biggest in the boarding house. The room was as cold and bare as a cellar, with high ceilings and uncarpeted floors. Mr Darrow had asked to be moved somewhere better, but the headmaster had always refused. After all, the headmaster would say youre just the caretaker.

Mr Darrow wasnt just anything. He was a genius. Unfortunately nobody knew it but him.

After tonight, that was all going to change.

Mr Darrow gazed at the miniature world on his desk. It was a little tray of sand, no bigger than a book. Inside were hundreds of tiny palm trees, each one made by hand and the size of a matchstick. Theyd been planted in a ring around a green lagoon. It glimmered in the lamplight like an emerald dropped on the sand.

There was no doubt about it this was Mr Darrows masterpiece. The greatest model he had ever made.

Other models filled the shelves above his desk. There were hundreds of them, piled on top of each other from floor to ceiling. Model boats, model planes, model palaces, monuments, dinosaurs, skyscrapers each one smaller and more perfect than the last.

But they were nothing compared to his latest creation. It was paradise and it was almost complete.

There was just one thing left to do.

Mr Darrow opened a drawer beside him and took out a pair of metal goggles. They had two thick lenses and were covered in switches and wires. He pulled them on and pressed a button on the side. The lenses shot out like telescopes.

Mr Darrow was proud of his microscope goggles after all, he had built them himself. They were priceless.

Just like the serum.

Mr Darrow picked up the tiny bottle beside him and held it up to the light. Less than a thimbleful of liquid lay inside, but the colours shifted and clouded in a pattern of millions. Mr Darrow carefully swirled the bottle, merging red, then green, then blue, before the colours separated again.

It had taken him twenty years to find the serum. Hed never expected to get his hands on so much, and of such perfect quality but even so, he had only one chance to use it.

He tilted the lamp over the sandbox. The lagoon shimmered.

Light and water, he whispered. Thats all it needs.

Mr Darrow swallowed. Five years of construction, twenty years of planning it had all come down to this one moment. He tried not to think about what would happen if he used too much serum, or too little, or and it didnt even bear thinking about he dropped the bottle.

Mr Darrow unscrewed the lid, took a deep breath, and leaned over his greatest work.

Oh well, he said. Here goes nothing.