When the double doors to her wardrobe suddenly swung wide and banged against her dressing table, Daisy Potter put down her school reading book, slid off her bed, and went to explore.

 

She was a sensible but curious little girl, and she stepped through the wardrobe doorway wholly unconcerned, expecting to find just a broken clothes rail and a heap of fallen dresses, coats, and hangers.

 

What she discovered instead, however, was a star-studded sky and an inch-worth of snow beneath her feet. Her nine-year-old brain briefly switched to thoughts of Narnia.

 

Except this clearly wasn’t Narnia: partly because she could see neither sign of an old-fashioned lamppost nor Mr Tumnus and partly because she was pretty sure that Narnia was a made-up place anyway, but mainly because there was a big, black, red-eyed robot coming toward her.

 

“What the f—!” Daisy said, knowing that her mother was well out of earshot.

 

“What the f—!”, said the robot, waving cheerily, thinking that this was some form of colloquial human greeting.

 

Daisy rapidly recovered her composure, ignored the robot’s use of the expletive, and went on the offensive. “What’re you doing in my wardrobe?” she demanded. “And where’s all this snow come from? My mum’s gonna go ballistic when she sees it!”

 

The robot gave out a series of strange clicking and whirring noises but offered up no verbal reply.

 

Daisy mimicked her mother and exaggeratedly folded her arms under her chest.

 

“Well?” she said, and she tapped her foot on the ground for added emphasis.

 

The whirring and clicking continued a while longer. Eventually, the robot spoke. “This location is not wardrobe,” it said.

 

“Yes, it is,” said Daisy. “It’s in my house, in my bedroom, and it’s my wardrobe.”

 

The robot gave out a final perfunctory click and elaborated: “Your house, slash bedroom, slash wardrobe, is four-dimensionally displaced and intersecting with Docking Aperture 3-B-36.”

 

Daisy blinked.

 

“It’s what?” she said.

 

The robot raised an arm and pointed back over Daisy’s shoulder.

 

She turned around to look.

 

In the space beyond her wardrobe doorway, where only minutes before she’d had a pastel pink co-ordinated bedroom complete with scatter cushions, floor cushions, and Laura Ashley curtains, she now saw a vast grey, riveted metal platform reaching out to star-sprinkled blackness.

 

Attached to the platform, there were numerous bits of complex machinery interconnected by snow-dusted cables and steam-leaking pipework.

 

Overhead, she saw an enormous… thing… fly past.

 

A thing that looked rather like a frying pan.

 

A massively oversized frying pan. With thrusters.

 

Daisy looked back at the robot.

 

“Where’s my bedroom gone?” she asked, now somewhat subdued.

 

“Docking Aperture 3-B-36 connects to Transit Hub Gamma-19,” the robot explained. “Transit Hub Gamma-19 currently intersects with your domestic clothing storage unit.”

 

“You mean my wardrobe,” Daisy clarified.

 

“Yes,” the robot confirmed.

 

Daisy stepped out onto the platform and spotted a small sign sticking up.

 

She brushed away the light covering of snow and read: WELCOME TO TRANSIT HUB GAMMA-19. PLEASE MIND THE GAP.

 

“Okay,” she said briskly. “Back to my first question. Why are you in my wardrobe?”

 

“I am the Docking Attendant assigned to Docking Aperture 3-B-36,” it said. And Daisy thought it looked very pleased to have this role, or at least as pleased as a robot was able to look, given that it had no mouth and no proper eyes.

 

“Interplanetary shuttle VV-7 is expected in seventeen point four universal standard time units,” it continued. “Passenger transfer imminent.”

 

Daisy shook her head and groaned.

 

“My mum’s really not going to be happy about any of this,” she said.

 

There was then a distant rumble, and something very big, very bright, and very egg-shaped appeared overhead. It was looming larger by the second.

 

“Interplanetary shuttle VV-7 approaching,” the robot announced.

 

Daisy squinted upward.

 

“Oh, brilliant,” she muttered.

 

The shuttle came to rest out on the metal platform with a loud WHOOOMP, simultaneously spraying snow everywhere.

 

A ramp unfolded, steam hissed, and a many-legged, blue-armoured, three-eyed creature about the size of a Ford Mondeo stepped out. It had what looked suspiciously like a travel pillow round its neck.

 

The creature looked at Daisy.

 

Daisy looked at the creature.

 

The creature looked at the robot.

 

The robot looked at the creature.

 

“Welcome, Transit Passenger Fllrgghhruff,” said the robot.

 

The creature made a series of confused burping and slurping noises in response.

 

Daisy raised her hand politely.

 

“Hi,” she said. “Just so’s you know, this is technically my wardrobe.”

 

The creature burped and slurped some more.

 

The robot proceeded to click and whirr for a bit, and then gave the creature an explanatory few burps and slurps.

 

“Ah, my apologies,” the creature said. “Is this not the Starbucks-Marriott Layover for Proxima Centauri B then?”

 

Daisy shook her head.

 

“This is Clapham,” she said. “46 Victoria Road, Clapham.”

 

The creature stared at her, all three of its eyes conveying an inner feeling of dismay.

 

Meanwhile, the robot had started to emit a worrying succession of high-pitched beeping noises.

 

“Mega dimensional navigation error detected,” it said when the beeping stopped.

 

“How mega?” Daisy asked.

 

“Sixty-seven light-years,” the robot replied. “Give or take.”

 

The creature sighed deeply.

 

Daisy brightened.

 

“Does that mean your spaceship is stuck in my wardrobe?” she asked.

 

“Probably,” said the creature.

 

“Definitely,” said the robot.

 

Daisy thought about this very carefully.

 

Then she grinned.

 

“Don’t s’pose I could have a quick go in it then, could I?” she asked. “Just till my mum gets back?”