Rebel Without a Clue

by Kerrie Noor

  “That’s the same as a robot,” shouted the boy, poking him. “He feels squishy.”

  “You ever seen a robot?” said Woody.

  “Android,” said Pete.

  The little boy shook his head.

  Mex, in full view of the restaurant, walked across the car park, tripped, skidded, and then, with a few pickled exclamations, tripped again. Everyone stared, and this time they didn’t look away—a fiftysomething half cut in the middle of the day was asking to be stared at.

  Mex was not used to wearing running shoes and comfortable clothes, and she was completely unbalanced without her whip waving by her side. As she staggered to right herself, she remembered something that had been blurry since the previous night. Bunnie had taken Mex into her inner sanctum to revamp her while suggesting that the whip be placed in a safe place.

  According to Bunnie, a whip in daylight was “asking for trouble.”

  Mex, however, could not imagine a day without her trusty friend strapped to her thigh. She knew there was an incognito button somewhere, and after several staggering attempts in Bunnie’s inner sanctum, Bunnie found it. The whip collapsed like a folding umbrella. And Bunnie, impressed, amused, and pleased with herself, handed Mex her least favorite, for-the-bin handbag.

  “Keep it,” said Bunnie, “for your whip.”

  Mex stared at her carrot-sized whip. Not as impressive or as accessible, but better than nothing, she thought and placed it in the handbag.

  Mex entered the restaurant and watched the small boy continue to poke Pete, each time a little harder.

  He stared at Mex as she staggered in. The little boy’s mother told him not to look; when he asked why he was told to be quiet.

  BY THE TIME THEY HAD gotten to Bunnie’s, Archie was beginning to wonder about the mysterious woman from the BBC; she was attractive in a Joan Rivers sort of way but suspiciously not what she seemed. She was too quick to order and looked at everything like she was seeing it for the first time. And as for H2, how annoying can one female be? Like all Identities, Archie had a fondness for women and their happiness that stretched all boundaries of age and size. But H2 pushed the limit of tolerance; she had an answer for everything, even about things he didn’t know, and she didn’t care who she offended. In fact, he wondered if she had any idea at all about offending people or had ever heard the word tact.

  “The port was over there—not there, anyone can see that from the construction and reconstruction.”

  He started to make eye contact with Beryl in the rearview mirror. Beryl nodded, sighed, raised her eyebrows, and in the end Archie took a chance and ESP-ed.

  “Pain in the preverbal,” Beryl ESP-ed back.

  When they arrived, Bunnie’s light was out, the door was locked, and no sound came from anywhere. Beryl walked around the back, confused and disappointed. Archie knocked on the door and shouted.

  Beryl surveyed the garden and soon spotted the burnt remains of an H-Pad carcass under the tree, crashed into the ground. It was embedded upright in the ground, with a small bird with a blacked-out face perched on it. It blinked at her, turned its head to the side, and chirped. Beryl mimicked the bird. It flew off the carcass, and before H2 had a chance to walk around the corner, Beryl picked it up and slid it into the personal-space pocket in her backpack . . .

  “Quick, ma’am, look at this,” shouted H2 from the front of the house.

  Beryl raced around to see H2 standing by the dustbin, black from an explosion; she lifted the lid and pulled out the mangled plugulator.

  “We’re as good as toast,” said Beryl.

  “Pickled as a gherkin,” muttered H2.

  Archie wondered what food had to do with anything but knew that now was not the time to ask.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven—The Ol’ Fella

  “AGE IS ONLY A NUMBER to the old—the young never count.” —the Ol’ fella

  Woody showed the address to the waitress.

  “Oh, you’re looking for the Ol’ fella,” she said.

  “Ol’ fella?” said Mex. “No, it’s Johnny we are looking for.”

  The waitress looked at Mex like she was an idiot. “This address is where the Ol’ fella lives.”

  “Ol’ fella?” said Pete.

  “Aye, the Ol’ fella. He stays there when he’s creating; other times, well . . . not sure where he goes.”

  “Everyone knows the Ol’ fella,” said the boy with a tentative pat on Pete’s behind.

  “Well, I don’t,” muttered Mex. She stared at the waitress’s powdered face.

  “He comes here for his tablet,” said the cook, poking his head around the corner. “He says my tablets is the best ever.”

  Tablet? What the gherkin is tablet? thought Mex. She looked at Woody.

  “It’s a sweet,” said Woody. “Scottish.”

  Mex looked at him.

  “You suck it,” said the boy.

  “I see,” said Mex, still confused.

  “I heard he had a tea shop in Glasgow and sold it to some Jimmie guy and moved here to write,” said the cook.

  “He’s a writer?” said one of the customers. “Fancy that. I thought he was an alcoholic.”

  “No, he writes. Folk come looking for him—when he’s here.”

  Pete turned to Woody. “Maybe there’s someone who stays with him? Johnny?”

  “Never heard of no Johnny,” said the waitress.

  “Legless?” said Mex.

  “What kind of name is that—Legless?”

  The customer looked up from his roll and sausage. “Maybe he’s an alcoholic?”

  PETE, MEX, AND WOODY stood outside the café with the directions to what sounded like an old shack in the middle of nowhere, owned by an old writer—of what, no one knew—who could be an alcoholic.

  “Finding Beryl, let alone getting home, seems as possible as Woody doing the high jump,” said Mex.

  Woody, ignoring the high jump comment, waved to the small boy now pulling faces through the café windows. The boy waved back and then ran out, clutching a bag of tablet. “Cook says you’re to take this to him. He’s running out . . .”

  THE FOOTMAN WAITED until all was quiet in the shed, then pressed his ear as instructed by Hilda to the vent with a glass. Hearing nothing, he entered, switched on the remote, and connected it to Hilda’s H-Pad.

  “What are you up to?” said DBO, switching on her makeshift flashlight.

  The footman looked about; the shed looked quite homely. DBO had spread a few rugs about the place, and in the dark with silk around her shoulders and her hair down—no one wore their hair down in the daytime—she looked friendly, not intimidating at all.

  “Would ma’am like a foot massage?” he said.

  DON AND HIS PASSENGERS headed toward Benmore Garden and drove over the bridge, “bearing left” as the waitress had told them.

  At first, they argued. Bunnie maintained they had better things to do than deliver sweets to some unknown geriatric stuck out in the back of beyond. “I mean what are we, postmen?” she snapped.

  Woody tried to defend himself. “Why not see a little countryside?” he said. “Where’s the harm?”

  Bunnie, in a huff, stared out of the window as Pete began to mutter about his sensors tingling.

  Mex, however, didn’t hear a thing she was staring at the road ahead; it was muddy and interesting. At first there were a few new houses and the odd white cottage, but as the road got muddier, the homes became less frequent until it was just fields with cows and sheep. Mex had heard of such things—animals on a field waiting to be eaten—but in the flesh it was more surreal, like the animals were in on the whole thing too.

  They parked at the postbox and walked down the dirt track—all apart from Bunnie, who remained in the car with an “I’ll wait here,” arms-crossed stance, muttering “an entourage to deliver tablet—what next?”

  On the fence were two mugs with a half-eaten roll, suggesting that there was more than one . . . or perhaps, as Woody put it, the Ol’ fel
la was not into washing up.

  They stood at the front of a stone cottage. The beat-up porch had two seats, one warmed by a mangy old cat that even Mex didn’t want to touch.

  Don knocked on the door; no one answered.

  “There’s no one in so let’s go,” yelled Bunnie from the car.

  Don pushed the door open and shouted; no one answered.

  Mex, impatient, walked around the back with Woody, shouting, “Anybody in?” They saw a rosebush, some hens around the rosebush, and a shed small in comparison to the Operators’ shed. The door was open and a lot of grunting was coming from inside.

  Mex stared at the garden. She never seen anything like it before—broken bits of cars with brambles crawling over them and a couple of hens pecking about. One made a beeline for Mex. She bent down to pat it and it pecked her fingers.

  “Get out of it, will yer, that’s the dinner,” shouted the voice from the shed, followed by a dog barking and the crashing of a bowl. “Look at the mess, you made yer buggar, and who’s gonna clean that up? Me, I suppose—yer old fart.”

  The Ol’ fella walked outside. He spied Mex and Woody but said nothing and kept on walking, looking about for something. He scratched his hip as he rummaged around by the side of the shed. “Where’s that spade? Put it somewhere.” He looked up at Mex. “Cannae find my spade, you seen it? The dog’s messed things up in the shed.”

  Woody pulled it from the veg patch and offered to help.

  The Ol’ fella smiled, revealing a perfect set of teeth. “Thanks, son.”

  There was a crash at the front as the cat made a jump at Don, and the Ol’ fella ran around like a man of twenty. “What the hell are you doing here? I told you, I’m not interested in your new build so you can just piss off.” He paused. “You’re not from the council, are you?”

  “No,” said Don.

  THE OL’ FELLA’S LOUNGE was warm, dark, and claustrophobic. The walls were covered in paintings and photographs of women and shelves of books such as Legends of the Not So Great and The Chronicles of This and That. The floor was covered in worn mats and the furniture was old and smelly—the whole feel was very Middle Earth, apart from Woman’s Hour playing in the background.

  DJ caught sight of a photograph of a blonde. She was familiar. He tried to recall where he had seen her before as the Ol’ fella started to talk with a familiarity that was unnerving.

  He told them to take a seat as he made tea in the other room. “But don’t make yourself at home,” he said, “I’ve had my fair share of visitors for today.”

  The foursome looked at each other. Woody mouthed Is Bunnie okay? to Don, who, with an I’ll go out and look shrug, left, just as the Ol’ fella brought through a tray with black sticky tea, biscuits, and some tablet. He offered his tray to Mex with a prolonged look and gestured to the tablet. “It’s Scottish, very special—from Sheila’s Diner.”

  She picked up a small piece of tablet and a mug.

  “You’re not from here, are you?” he said.

  “Close by,” she said with the tablet on her lips.

  “And those clothes—you look uncomfortable. I take it they’re not yours?”

  Mex, wondering what had happened to the old man fumbling about in the shed and why the sudden interest in her clothes, bit into the tablet. The powdery sweet crumbled as the taste of sugar and condensed milk exploded in her mouth. She closed her eyes; nothing could describe the beauty of such a taste . . .

  “Oh, my pickled egg,” she muttered.

  Pete took a biscuit; he wanted a clear head. His intuition was making him feel uncomfortable.

  The Ol’ fella put the tray on the table, allowing the others to help themselves while he focused on Mex, and offered to read her palm.

  “Ma’am, it is an ancient practice of reading between the lines,” said Pete. “Perhaps best left for another time?”

  Mex had no idea what he or Pete was talking about and didn’t really care. She took another piece of tablet and this time washed it down with the sweet tea. It was better than wielding a whip at high speed, better than caffeine after a hard day of whip-wielding, and almost as good as foot rub.

  She went for another piece.

  The Ol’ fella held her hand and closed his eye. He was quiet at first and then began to hum chanting noises. Ooooooom.

  DJ continued to stare at the photo. He was still trying to work out where he had seen the blonde . . .

  “She,” said the Ol’ fella, flicking his eyes open, “is Johnny dressed as woman. Nothing to worry about; he sometimes likes to tell stories from a woman’s point of view.”

  DJ looked at Ol’ fella. He winked, then ESP-ed, “And if Bunnie was here, she would have said that that explains a lot.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight—The Lead

  “YOU CAN LEAD A DOG to water but you can’t stop him jumping in.” —the Ol’ fella

  Don took one look at Bunnie sitting in a huff and decided to “leave her to it.” A hen pecked at his feet; he bent to pat it and it ran into the shed. Don decided to follow. He slipped inside and, having been pecked several times, gave up on the idea of patting and began to shoo instead—not an easy feat for Don. His only experience of a chicken was it stuffed, sliced, and covered in gravy. He had no idea they could move so quickly, let alone make such a mess on the floor. He continued to shoo until the hen disappeared under a pile of papers.

  Don looked around at the mess. He skidded on a newspaper, grabbed a shelf to steady himself, and knocked a notebook to the floor. Scraping off a chicken dropping, he opened the book. On the front was a sketch of Johnny on a motorbike with a blond ponytail and his kilt flowing in the breeze. Don began to read . . .

  He roamed the glens of Scotland, telling stories like no other. He told stories for free drink, a free bed, and anything else on offer.

  Don turned a few pages . . .

  An offer is an offer—never turn one down without serious contemplation.

  Don started to flick through the pages . . .

  However, if what is on offer has already been offered before and left you wanting . . .

  Don began to feel bored . . .

  THE OL’ FELLA STARTED to talk of Mex’s great adventure, of the years she spent slogging away after men building a reputation. “Now you want to retire in that villa with a balcony by a sea you’ve never seen,” he said, “but she has other plans.” He waffled on about robots and Androids, the masses and leather.

  The Ol’ fella tried to catch her eye; he wanted to ESP her a private message, but Mex was too busy sucking her tablet. It had stuck to her teeth, and it took all her attention.

  Mex started to giggle. Her mouth was full of delicious, sweet sensations. Why do they not have stuff like this on my planet? She went for another piece of tablet.

  “Ma’am, I think perhaps we should find Beryl,” said Pete.

  The Ol’ fella turned to Pete, his eyes crinkling into a smile. “We both know you have no palm for me to read.”

  “Ma’am?” said Pete. “We should go.”

  Mex started to breathe deeply—lulled into a slumber of bliss.

  Pete turned to Woody: “One more tablet and she’ll be down for the count.”

  “No lifeline, no Mount of Venus; your palm is like a tablecloth,” said the Ol’ fella to Pete.

  Pete looked away. “There’s no need to be so mean.”

  “We just need to know about Johnny,” Woody ESP-ed.

  “Johnny’s a storyteller,” the Ol’ fella said. “He tells them like no other, sometimes too much, and he can get a bit boring. See all these books?” He gestured behind him. “All about women. I keep telling him women have the depth of the universe. But does he listen? Not him, just keeps writing . . .” He pulled out a book and began to read:

  “‘Never warm your feet on a woman—they take it personally’ . . . ‘Socks are death in the bedroom’ . . . ‘A woman’s idea of coordinating has nothing to do with balance.’”

  The Ol’ fella shut the book
and looked up with an expectant face. He saw their looks of boredom and sighed. “Who wants to read that?”

  “A bit of humor wouldn’t go amiss,” said DJ.

  “At least he’s not mean,” muttered Pete.

  BUNNIE WATCHED DON as he entered the shed and then went back to her staring. She waited for someone to notice she wasn’t there, she waited for Don to come back, and she finally came to the conclusion that no one was coming back because no one gave a damn about her. Well, we’ll see about that, she thought. Here I am helping when I don’t even need to and no one gives a fig . . . She stomped to the shed to give Don “what for” and pushed opened the door, and a hen fluttered from the top of the door and landed on her shoulder.

  She let out an ear-piercing scream. Don started, and the cat which up to now had been in a deep trance-like sleep jumped, snarled, then looked about . . .

  “That’ll be Nellie,” laughed the Ol’ fella, “the oldest hen I have ever had—she loves to spook folk.”

  Nellie pecked Bunnie’s cheek.

  She screamed again, this time with wild flapping movements that sent Nellie into a frenzy of flapping, along with several other hens which had been quietly snoozing in corners.

  “Aye, that’s Nellie, all right.”

  The cat raced to the shed.

  The shed was now full of hens flapping and Don, who now considered himself an expert shoo-er of chickens, regained his composure and began to shoo with dignity.

  Bunnie asked him what the hell he was doing.

  “It’s called shooing,” said Don with a glare. “It’s what farmers do.”

  The cat began to stalk Bunnie.

  “How would you know?” she said, swiping a hen from her feet.

  “Saw it on TV.”

  Bunnie pushed a hen from her feet and skidded on the same bit of newspaper that Don had.

  “Mind!” yelled Don.

  Bunnie staggered back, backing the cat into the corner, which sent the hens into another frenzy of flying.