by Heide Goody
“What are you doing?” said Sister Genevieve.
“Never mind what I’m doing,” said Rutspud. “Just keep giving the car instructions. Always somewhere a bit beyond that running human.”
“Which… human?”
“The one with the hair! The one the armour-plated goody-two-shoes is chasing!”
Rutspud put the nun’s cross between his teeth (it made them vibrate and sing) and pushed himself headfirst into hole in the dashboard and the inner workings of the car.
Sometimes, Joan forgot what genuine physical exertion was. The Celestial City, her home, operated a shadow copy of the laws of physics – mostly for the convenience of people who were used to time running forwards instead of sideways and preferred ‘down’ to be in the traditional direction. However, the Celestial City was also, by its nature, a place without suffering. So, it didn’t matter how much running, lifting, falling or playing mixed doubles tennis one did in Heaven – it was never painful or exhausting.
Joan was nineteen years old (and had been for over half a millennium). She had been raised on a lean medieval diet and strengthened in the forge of battle. She was, by the standards of any age, an athletic young woman. In a straight sprint, she should have been able to outpace almost anyone. There were, unfortunately, three barriers to her catching Felix Winkstein: first, apart from some minor adventures in France a few years back, she hadn’t run in the real world for over five hundred years; second, she was carrying the weight of full plate armour and a broadsword; and third (and most mystifyingly), the fast-food-loving computer nerd had a raw, wiry energy that always kept him a dozen yards ahead of her.
They had circled round the Erdington high street and now Joan was chasing Felix along a wide and busy road. As they approached Boldmere, he narrowly missed being mown down by a shopping trolley loaded with poles and broom handles and a green bottle the size of a fat toddler. It was pushed by a team of six boys who were being harangued by an agitated man that Joan realised she had met before.
She came to a gasping halt next to the trolley and gestured at the enormous bottle.
“What…?” she panted and hoped that the situation itself would fill in the gaps that her breathlessness would not allow her to fill with words.
“It’s a Melchi-something of champagne,” said Ben Kitchen.
“Why…?”
“To launch Clovenhoof’s yacht during his big fun day speech.”
“Where…?” She pointed down the road in the general direction Felix had dashed in.
“Yeah, at the Boldmere Oak.”
“Hey, babe,” said the most roguish-looking of the lads. “You chasing someone or something?”
She waved again. “Winkstein… Programmer… Very dangerous…”
“You want a lift?” said the boy.
“We don’t have time for this, Spartacus,” said Ben.
“Sure, we do,” said the boy. “Hop on my sweet ride, honey.”
Spartacus took the poles out of the trolley. Joan didn’t hesitate. She climbed in and crouched with her legs either side of the massive bottle.
“PJ, Jefri, take these,” said Spartacus. “Everyone else, delta formation.”
“We don’t have time for this!” cried a distressed Ben but he went ignored as Spartacus and his companions pushed the trolley into a bone-rattling sprint. Joan gripped the bottle tightly.
She became aware that the trolley commander running at her side was staring at her. She pointedly looked back at him.
“I like your… armour,” he said. “Very, um, shiny.”
“Eyes on the road, driver,” she said and her underage chauffeur reluctantly did as he was told.
Nerys stepped through the crowd and grabbed Clovenhoof’s elbow.
“Come on. You’re up next. You should be backstage already.”
“There’s no hurry,” he said. “It’s my party. It’s not as if I can miss my slot.”
Nerys looked concerned.
“There’s a protest march of nuns and other folk not far from here,” she said, “apparently they’re urging solidarity with the church. Okra’s worried about the church’s PR.”
“You still got that useless posh-boy hanging around?” said Clovenhoof. “You know you’re an independently wealthy woman now, Nerys. You don’t need a man for a meal ticket.”
“Old habits,” she shrugged and looked round. “I had him here a moment ago. Anyway, he’s beginning to think the Church got bigger problems than they realise with this and your PrayPal app puncturing a hole in their attendance.”
“What does solidarity with the church even mean?” said Clovenhoof.
“It means they think people who’ve turned away from the church really ought to return and they believe the reason for the downturn in church attendance is PrayPal and you, specifically.”
“Wow, it is amazing how much blame I get for things round here.”
“Anyway, the sooner you’ve done your bit, the better. Maybe wrap things up before they even get here.”
Clovenhoof grinned. “Are you kidding? If there’s one thing that could make today more perfect, it would be nuns, especially angry ones. Do you think they might try to gatecrash my fun day?”
“Given that the moat’s not a full circle yet, I don’t see quite how you would stop them.”
Nerys bustled him towards the stage and to stairs at the side.
One of the soldiers – one of his own soldiers, he thought with a thrill – saluted him as he neared.
“Got your notes?” said Nerys.
“Oh, yes.”
He thought he might break the ice for his speech with the joke about the drunken zookeeper and the bagpipes. Perhaps he might sing a brief medley of hits, then he would share some titbits of his valuable wisdom with the crowd to give them a taste of what they might learn at his lifestyle coaching centre. Florence was lining the army up to form the back and two sides of the temporary stage, near to the dismally grey beach that sloped down into the freshly-filled lake.
“Why is the beach so grey?” said Clovenhoof but Nerys was gone again.
He rubbed his hands in anticipation. A religious march by the church’s supporters against those it perceived as the enemy. When had that ever gone wrong?
Clovenhoof pondered that for a second. His grin widened.
“Take me to the nearest florist,” said Sister Genevieve. “Now, the nearest charity shop. Now, a petrol station. I don’t really understand why I’m doing this.”
“We’re trying to catch a man,” said Rutspud who was currently tucked up inside the confines of the car’s dashboard and pulling out circuitry and hastily rewiring things for all he was worth.
“Are you the police?” asked Sister Genevieve.
“Sort of. Not really. Joan’s like the police. I’m like…” Rutspud clawed his way out of the hole in the dashboard and onto the passenger seat, his hand clutching a bundle of cables and his tablet. “You ever seen The Spy Who Loved Me?”
“I’m sorry?”
“James Bond film. He’s a British spy. She’s a Russian spy. Together they team up to defeat the bloke with the unrealistic underwater city and – not that Joan and I have got some kind of romance thing going on. Although I can do that thing Roger Moore does with his eyebrow.”
“What thing?”
“Act. Anyway, the bloke we’re chasing is like that evil villain.”
“He has an unrealistic underwater city?” said Sister Genevieve.
“Maybe.”
“I really ought to be getting back to my sisters. We’re supposed to be marching to protest against that horrid Mr Clovenhoof and his PrayPal computer thingy. Have you heard about that?”
“Yes! And the guy we’re chasing is the guy who created it!”
“Really?” Sister Genevieve leaned forward, suddenly interested.
“Really,” said Rutspud, inserting wires into the data ports on his tablet. “We’re going to force him to shut PrayPal down. Now, if I’ve done this right,
we can feed any visual input we like to Kylie’s processor and get her to speed up.”
An orange warning icon flashed on the windscreen Heads Up Display.
“I have suffered a cognition impairment,” said Kylie. “Causes may include a malware attack or unexpected bird strike. I must be checked in for service immediately.”
That didn’t sound right. Rutspud tapped on his tablet and wiggled a loose wire. The orange warning icon disappeared (which was a good thing) but was immediately replaced with a much larger red warning icon (which was a bad thing).
“I have suffered a catastrophic cognition impairment.” Kylie’s voice wobbled alarmingly. “This car may be under attack from Russian or North Korean hackers.”
“That’s quite a specific assessment of the situation,” said Sister Genevieve.
The car began to slow.
“No! No! Don’t do this, you stupid piece of junk!” cried Rutspud but he could do nothing to stop the car’s deceleration.
Sister Genevieve peered ahead. “I think we’ve lost sight of them anyway.”
Rutspud looked up. There was indeed no sign of Winkstein or Joan. However, he did see someone he recognised on the pavement. He leaned out the window as they crawled by.
“Hey. Ben, isn’t it? You didn’t happen to see Joan running by, perhaps chasing a surprisingly agile nerd?”
“Did I?” said the mopey man. “She stole our trolley, our best pushers and a Melchi-something of champagne.”
“And which direction did they go in?”
One of the two young humans with him, who were carrying various poles, waved a big stick down the road. “Towards the Boldmere Oak and the fun day.”
“You sure?”
“They’d better be,” said Ben. “They need that bottle of fizz to launch the yacht.”
“Oi, you!” said Rutspud to one of the youngsters. “What’s your name?”
“PJ,” said the lad in the tones of one who spent much of his life having to explain his name to people and taking remedial action against people who sniggered at it.
“PJ, I need a couple of those pole things that you’ve got,” said Rutspud.
With some help, Rutspud dragged the poles inside the car, the ends hanging out through the windows at each side.
“Right, now we need some pictures of something.”
“Pictures of what?” said PJ.
“We need a carrot and a stick.” He took one of the flyers from Sister Genevieve.
“What do you want that for?” she asked.
“This is the stick. Kylie will do anything to avoid hitting some innocent nuns. And now I need…”
“What?” said Ben.
“Anything that doesn’t look like a busy traffic junction. What have you got?” Rutspud asked Ben.
Ben patted his pockets. “I’ve got the draft copy of Hooflandia, living the dream – your island getaway in the heart of the city,” said Ben. “Why, what do you want it for?”
“Pictures?”
“Yes, it’s got the artist’s impression of the beach and a picture of a Noble Knight of Hooflandia gazing over the rolling hills.”
“Give it here,” said Rutspud. He grabbed the leaflet, ripped out the pictures and spat into his hand. “Nothing stickier than demon spit,” he cackled.
“What?” said Ben.
“Nothing,” said Rutspud, sticking the images onto the ends of the poles.
The light of comprehension suddenly dawned on Ben’s face. “Wait, are you doing what I think you’re doing? That’s unbelievably reckless!”
“You got me banged to rights. Unbelievably reckless it is,” said Rutspud.
For several hundred yards, Joan rode the shopping trolley (and the jiggling bottle of champagne) without any sight of Felix. The boys grunted and groaned but, to their credit, they never slackened the pace. They drove pedestrians off the pavement, cut off vehicles at crossings and junctions and thrust Joan recklessly in front of oncoming cars with the kind of bravery that only the young and the foolish could exhibit.
Ahead, Joan saw the helter-skelters and big wheels of some sort of fun fair and suspected they were very close to Clovenhoof’s ill-judged fun day event. Nearer to though and much more importantly there was Felix, but only a moment after spotting him, Joan was dismayed to see him plunge into a thick crowd of nuns. This then was the much-touted march against Clovenhoof’s immoral ways and irreligious excesses. Not quite a million nuns, Joan noted but there were a heck of a lot of them. They waved placards, shouted slogans and from some point in the gathering a swell of voices sang, Abide With Me. It was currently a peaceful protest which was at least something.
“Do you go to hell for mowing down penguins?” shouted Spartacus.
“Slow, don’t stop,” said Joan, knowing she couldn’t afford to lose Felix in this sea of bodies.
The boys dutifully slowed but kept their course down, driving at the nuns. They scattered like birds, grey, black and blue tunics flapping as they fled. Joan caught sight of a suspiciously bulky nun, fixing her robes in place.
“He’s trying to blend in!” she shouted.
“What?” said Spartacus.
“Felix! Hiding in plain sight! Keep going!”
As the trolley ploughed on, Joan stood, got up onto the rim of the trolley and leapt right on top of the fake nun. They landed with an oof sound and Joan sympathised briefly, knowing that her armour was rather weighty.
She rolled and came up on her feet.
“This has to stop!” she yelled.
The nun slipped and stumbled on the ground. Joan stepped forward and yanked the veil back to look at Felix’s face. Except it wasn’t Felix, it was an elderly nun who looked winded, bruised and very, very angry.
“Ah,” she said.
“Yer tinplated eejit! Wha’ do you think –”
“Yes, sorry. You I thought you were a man and –”
Joan was cut off by a placard whacked directly in her face.
It had been a peaceful protest, but Joan had just changed that.
CHAPTER FORTY
The Military Wives Flashmob Choir was massacring its last song when Spartacus Wilson and Kenzie Kelly came running up the backstage steps with a satisfyingly gargantuan bottle of fizz.
“Brilliant!” said Clovenhoof. “And just in time.”
“We were extra careful,” said Kenzie. “Didn’t break it.”
“Well done, boys. Now, let’s get it hooked up so I can smash that mother off the prow of the presidential yacht. Oi, privates, corporals, whatever your rank is.” Clovenhoof whistled and waved a trio of his soldiers over. “Get this in the cradle for the boat launch.”
“Yes, sir,” said the most eager chap.
“What rank are you fellers anyway?” asked Clovenhoof.
“Ninja, sir,” said one.
“Black Ops Decimator,” said another.
“Lennox said we could just pick our own ranks until we got a proper hierarchy sorted.”
“I like it,” said Clovenhoof. He turned and thrust an uncounted quantity of cash in the hands of the two delivery boys.
“Don’t spend it all at once. But if you do, spend it here.”
On stage, the Military Wives Flashmob Choir’s routine came to a rousing and sudden end. Clovenhoof wasn’t certain if they had simply finished or someone had cut the mic. Either way, the crowd cheered and clapped now that it was finally over. While the cheering continued, Clovenhoof looked at his speech notes, decided that winging it would be best and took to the stage.
“Hello, Sutton Coldfield!” he yelled. “Let’s get on down and cosy on up! I’m the man who put the ‘F’ in Fun Day, and we’re all about effin’ fun here!”
A sea of faces stared at him in confusion. Clovenhoof had worked a tough crowd before. He might have to treat them to a strip.
Rutspud and the two boys, PJ and Jefri, stood awkwardly on the front seats and leaned out of the Eddy-Cab’s sun roof. Each held a pole in their hands. Rutspud leaned forwards,
dangling a picture of open sunny vistas with definitely no inconvenient traffic. PJ and Jefri leaned generally towards the back, presenting images of nuns to the car’s rear cameras.
“Like this?” said PJ.
“Whatever,” said Rutspud. “I want to hold those against the car’s sensors or cameras to make it do what I want. It’s programmed not to hurt people, so pictures of nuns coming at it might move it along, I reckon.”
“That is by far and away the most dumb-ass thing I have heard all day,” said Jefri.
“You don’t think it’s going to work?” said Rutspud.
“Pfff,” shrugged Jefri.
Down in the car, Sister Genevieve made a sceptical noise.
Ben had climbed in the back seat. “I’m coming with you. If I don’t get these Street Polo players back in time for their performance, I’ll lose my position as Vice Lord Baronet of Hooflandia.”
“Hey, Kylie,” Rutspud shouted, “we need to move quickly or those speeding nuns are going to hit us!”
“How do we know where the sensors are?” said PJ.
“Just wave the pictures around, we’ll work it out,” said Rutspud.
Unbelievably, the car began to accelerate. Rutspud hooted with delight. “It’s working! Do more of whatever you’re doing! Look, Kylie, go towards the lovely country view.”
“This could be dangerous for the boys!” warned Ben from the back seat.
“Shut up, old man,” said PJ. “We’re having fun.”
The traffic was backing up ahead of him, waiting to pull out onto the Chester Road. Kylie started to slow down to join the back of the queue. Rutspud waggled his pole, hoping that his assessment of where Kylie’s cameras were situated was reasonable.
“Oh look, there’s a brand new filter lane on the left, let’s go that way.”
“Beep your horn, Kylie!” commanded Sister Genevieve.
Kylie blared the horns as they shot out of the junction, into the path of the traffic approaching from left and right. Remarkably, to the accompaniment of many horns honking and the last-minute squealing of brakes, they crossed the junction without being hit. There were whoops of delight from the lads.