Evil Machines

by Terry Jones

  ‘Very well,’ said the bicycle. ‘I won’t be long.’ And with that he looked out of the alleyway, to make sure the coast was clear, and then sped off down the road to find a petrol station.

  Once he had gone, the old ex-army Matchless turned on the Triumph. ‘Have you gone soft in the ’ead or somefink?’ it exclaimed. ‘Splitting our money with that smart-arsed, two-bit, pedal machine! No way am I going into partnership with a push-bike! Over my dead body!’

  ‘Now calm down!’ said the Triumph. ‘Just ’cause I says things like that to him don’t mean that’s what I’m gonna do.’

  ‘What yer on about?’ grumbled the Matchless.

  ‘You don’t really think I’m a-going to let that little bit of bent tin with its prissy spokes and its tinkle-bell do us out of

  our fair share of the spoils, do you?’

  ‘Well, that’s what you said you was going to do . . .’

  ‘Yeah, but like I say – what I said and what we actually does ain’t necessarily exactly the same fing – is they?’

  ‘What yer saying?’ asked the Matchless.

  ‘Look, are you willing to let me handle this, so as we don’t have to split nuffink with that there push-bike?’ asked the Triumph.

  ‘OK,’ said the Matchless. ‘I’m wiv yer till the end.’

  ‘That’s my buddy!’ said the Triumph, and they put their handlebars around each other, and gave each other a hug.

  ***

  When the bicycle returned, it was clearly not expecting any trouble. It placed two cans of fuel on the floor and then produced a second can of top-quality lubricating oil.

  ‘This’ll loosen you up, mates!’ it said and splashed a little on the ancient old Matchless and a little on the chain of the Triumph, before taking a dab to rub over its own chain.

  ‘Oo-er . . . That feels better!’ said the Matchless. ‘I’m beginning to feel more frisky already.’

  ‘Ahh!’ sighed the Triumph. ‘That stuff has never felt so good!’

  ‘It’s the best-quality oil they had!’ said the Raleigh Metro. ‘From now on – only the best for us!’

  ‘You’re right!’ exclaimed the Triumph. ‘Only the best for us for the rest of our lives!’ and with that it unscrewed the cap to the can of fuel but, instead of tipping it into its own fuel tank, it suddenly threw the can at the bicycle. Petrol poured out of the can as it flew through the air and all over

  the bicycle and the pavement where it was standing. Before you could say ‘Reg Harris!’ the old Matchless had produced a box of Swan Vestas, struck a match and thrown it on to the bicycle, and in seconds the bicycle was consumed in flames. After a few minutes, the bicycle’s tyres had popped from the heat, the paint had cracked and peeled and the rubber pedals and the saddle had all ignited. Before the flames had finished the very frame of the bicycle had begun to twist and melt until it was scarcely possible to even recognize it as a bike.

  As I said at the beginning, the two motorbikes, for all their joking ways, were as evil as evil can be.

  But the thing is, they were really no worse than the Raleigh Metro GLX. For this is what that Evil Machine had done. When it went to the garage to buy fuel for its confederates, it did not buy two cans of petrol as it was supposed to, but two cans of diesel fuel. Now diesel is not at all the same fuel that is used in petrol engines. For a start it has 15 per cent more density, and it burns in a different way, so that if you put diesel into a petrol engine, the engine will seize up and cease to function.

  And that is precisely what happened to the two motorbikes. The bicycle had intended to fill its companions up with diesel and then make its getaway, knowing full well that they would not be able to chase it. In the event, the Triumph filled up the old Matchless, and then filled up itself. The moment it did, however, it realized something was wrong. It started up, and because it had some petrol left in its tank it was able to sputter and start . . . But it didn’t get further than the end of the alley, before it started to seize up. It staggered into the middle of the main road, but there

  it juddered to a halt and crashed over on to its side, in front of an oncoming bus. In the ensuing crash it was smashed to piece and bent out of all recognition.

  It was later scooped up off the road and sold for scrap.

  As for the Matchless G3L army bike – it still couldn’t move, and so it simply lay there in the deserted alleyway, for month after month, in all weathers, and it grew rusty and corroded, until not a single part of it could ever work again.

  They were – all three of them – thoroughly Evil Machines.

  The Kidnap Car

  The Rev. McPherson had a very nasty car. It was full of malice and guile. And it was no good being kind to it . . . No, sir! It remained mean and devious.

  Once he bought it some brand-new brass headlights. He bolted them on and polished them until the car could see its own reflection in them. But was it grateful? Does your breakfast go on holiday to Scotland with you every morning?

  No.

  The Rev. McPherson’s car waited until his back was turned, and then rolled down the slope and smashed itself into the garage doors so that he had to replace both the new headlamps and the radiator.

  Another time, the Reverend fitted the car out with Brand New, Luxury, Genuine Lamb’s Wool Fleece Seat Covers. What did the car do? It suddenly swerved off the road and drove straight into the river. That’s what the car did. Needless to say, the seat covers were ruined.

  The Rev. McPherson tried to reason with the car, but

  it simply wouldn’t listen. Oh! it might pretend that it had turned over a new leaf, but then – when he was least expecting it – it would strike a single deadly blow . . . something that it knew would cut the Reverend to the quick.

  Like the time it kidnapped the Atkins children.

  They lived next door to The Rev. McPherson, and he often took his dinner with Mr and Mrs Atkins, especially when they had shepherd’s pie. There were three children: Emily, Margaret and Frank, and they were the pleasantest family you could imagine – apart from Frank, who smelt of biscuits.

  Well, one day, the Reverend gave the Atkins children a lift in his car. They were going for a picnic in the Forgotten Forest that lay on the other side of town.

  They drove down the High Street without a hitch, and Emily, the eldest, said, ‘What a fine car this is, Mr McPherson.’

  ‘When it behaves itself,’ replied the Rev. McPherson.

  Then they turned out on to the Dawlish Road and drove for two miles until Margaret said, ‘Well, it seems to be behaving itself today.’

  The Rev. McPherson stiffened, for he could hear the car making a strange grating noise with its gears.

  ‘Let’s hope it continues to behave,’ he said.

  Then they had to stop to buy some petrol. The car glugged the petrol down as if it were thirstier than a camel that had crossed the Sahara.

  ‘That should keep the blighter happy for a bit,’ thought the Reverend to himself, as he screwed the petrol cap back on.

  But the moment he stepped back into the shop to pay for the petrol, the car spluttered into life and charged out of the

  petrol station as fast as its wheels could take it!

  The Rev. McPherson ran after it, shouting, ‘Come back! You Aggravating Automobile!’ But it was gone.

  The car drove hell-for-leather at 80 mph, before turning sharp left and plunging into the Forgotten Forest.

  Emily, who was the eldest, scrambled across into the driving seat, and grabbed the steering wheel, but the car didn’t like that one little bit. It turned the wheel sharply and threw Emily off.

  She hurled herself back on to the wheel, but the car stopped so abruptly that Emily shot forwards and her head got caught in the steering wheel. Then the car sped off again, and at the same time twisted the steering wheel so that Emily’s head became jammed against the gearstick. Emily couldn’t breathe, but – as luck would have it – at that moment one of the front wheels hit a tree stump and the ca
r jumped into the air. The steering wheel span free, and Emily was able to pull her head out.

  The car ground its gears with rage, and started smashing through the undergrowth – heading straight for the edge of a high cliff.

  ‘Look out!’ screamed Emily.

  ‘We’re going to die!’ screamed Margaret.

  ‘What’s happening?’ called Frank, who had his hands over his eyes and didn’t dare to look through his fingers. But the car had already screeched to a halt, with its front wheels dangling over the edge of the cliff.

  ‘Let us out!’ screamed Margaret. But the car had locked its doors, and it growled ominously, as it teetered to and fro on the edge of the precipice . . .

  ‘What’s going on?’ yelled Frank, who still hadn’t dared to look through his fingers.

  ‘Look out!’ yelled Emily, as the car gave an almighty blast on its horn, revved its engine, and lurched forward. The children found themselves shooting out off the edge of the cliff deep in the Forgotten Forest.

  Emily screamed, Margaret screamed, and Frank screamed (although, as he still didn’t dare look through his fingers, he was only screaming because his sisters were screaming).

  But the strange thing was that although they fell such a long way, there was no terrible crash when they hit the ground. Perhaps it was an incredible stroke of luck, or perhaps it was by design, but there it was: a stack of old, discarded mattresses right at the bottom of the cliff!

  The car bounced up in the air, turned a somersault and landed the right way up.

  Emily, Margaret and Frank looked out of the windows. They were in the wildest and most desolate spot in the whole of the Forgotten Forest. And there, in a clearing beneath the cliff, were gathered cars of all sorts and condition: ancient sports cars, with crushed-in bonnets and smashed-up sides, broken-down old vans with rusty wheels, cars without roofs, cars with no tyres, cars without engines and cars which hardly looked like cars at all.

  ‘Meet the Others!’ said the Rev. McPherson’s car, and it unlocked its doors.

  ‘Well . . . if it isn’t a little family!’ growled a lorry that had a stoved-in radiator and only one windscreen-wiper.

  ‘Welcome to the Forgotten Forest!’ snarled an out-of-

  date sports car with only one front wheel.

  ‘I bring you hope!’ exclaimed the Rev. McPherson’s car to the damaged and unroadworthy vehicles around him.

  ‘Hope?’ sputtered an ancient Morris Minor with a rusty mudguard, no windows and no wheels. ‘What kind of hope is there for the likes of us?’

  ‘I’ll never feel the road under my wheels again!’ sniffed a battered Ford Transit van.

  ‘What hope can you bring us?’ clamoured the other cars.

  ‘These three children are your hope!’ replied the Rev. McPherson’s car. ‘Soon you will have wheels and tyres, engines and even fully working lights!’

  ‘Can these children repair us?’ shouted an old Triumph Herald with a damaged roof and a door missing.

  ‘They don’t look like mechanics!’ said a black Wolseley sedan, that had once belonged to a doctor and considered itself a cut above most of the other cars.

  ‘Girls can’t be mechanics!’ snorted a dilapidated Jaguar XJ, with no interior furnishings and no engine.

  ‘What do you know about girls?’ snapped an Austin Princess, who still had curtains in her back windows. ‘We all know you’re empty under the bonnet!’

  ‘Hrumph!’ replied the Jaguar XJ.

  ‘But what have we got to hope for?’ cried an old Standard Vanguard.

  ‘If you’ll all pipe down, I’ll tell you!’ blared the Rev. McPherson’s car. ‘We will hold these children as hostages, here in the Forgotten Forest, until each of you abandoned cars have been restored and repaired. One car for each hostage!’

  There was a stunned silence as the other cars tried to understand all this, for some of them had become a little slow from years of disuse, and none of them, of course, had on-board computers.

  Then one or two lifted up their bonnets and gave a whoop of joy, while others started slamming their doors and hooting, until a dented Mini piped up:

  ‘But there are only three children! There are hundreds of us cars!’ it said.

  ‘Quite right!’ cried the Rev. McPherson’s car. ‘I shall bring you more hostages every day – until each and every one of you has been restored to a condition that befits the dignity of an automobile.’

  The crashed and abandoned cars cheered and tooted again, and the Jaguar XJ cleared its throat and said, ‘I hereby move that the meeting pass a vote of thanks to the Rev. McPherson’s car. Who knows? Perhaps we shall soon taste again the freedom of the road, the thrill of the breeze against our windscreens, and the roar of an engine beneath our hoods!’

  And all the abandoned cars cheered yet again and those that still had them banged their doors.

  Emily, Margaret and Frank were quickly surrounded by battered vehicles that pushed them into an old Black Maria, with bars in its windows and a back door that locked as it slammed behind them.

  They were prisoners.

  Emily looked at Margaret and Margaret looked at Frank, but he didn’t look at anybody because he still had his hands over his eyes.

  ‘Right!’ said Emily. ‘Let’s get out of here!’

  But there was no way out. They tried the doors, the windows and the roof, and eventually they slumped, exhausted and miserable, on the floor of the Black Maria, as darkness fell over the Forgotten Forest.

  And then it was that the children heard a strange sound: it was like a gong echoing through wood. They rushed to the windows of the Black Maria, and saw an extraordinary sight: the abandoned cars had gathered in the moonlight around an old oak tree that stood in the middle of the clearing. A fork-lift truck was banging a red petrol can that hung from one of the branches of the tree, while the cars began to toot their horns and those without horns rattled their radiators and those without horns or radiators just swayed from side to side in a sort of dance. And soon all the abandoned vehicles were dancing around that old oak tree in the moonlight in that clearing in the Forgotten Forest.

  When the dance had finished, the abandoned vehicles gathered round the Rev. McPherson’s car and bombarded it with questions about the world outside. They asked it about the latest styles of radiator caps, and whether green was still a favourite colour. They were surprised to hear how crowded the roads had become, and when they heard about the speeds that some modern cars achieve the older models thought the Rev. McPherson’s car was making fun of them.

  ‘80 mph!’ exclaimed a venerable two-seater upon whose side you could just make out a faint number 7. ‘That’s what us racing cars used to do!’

  And late into the night the cars sat gossiping about the

  good days they remembered and the better times to come.

  In the meantime, the children grew very hungry and very thirsty and Emily pleaded with the Ford Prefect, who had been put on guard duty, to let them get the picnic out of the Rev. McPherson’s car, but the Ford Prefect said it didn’t dare, because the Rev. McPherson’s car could be very mean- spirited, especially to the commoner models of automobile like Ford Prefects.

  So the Atkins children passed an uncomfortable and hungry night in the Black Maria.

  ***

  All this while, the Rev. McPherson had been searching for his car. He phoned the police station and told them it had run away with three children on board.

  ‘What make of car is it?’ asked the duty sergeant.

  ‘Well,’ replied Rev. McPherson, ‘it looks a bit like a 1953 Humber Supersnipe, but it could be a Mercedes Benz 230 Fintail, and it has something of the old Ford Fairlane about it, though it has a Studebaker radiator with Daimler wheels and all-terrain tyres.’

  ‘What’s the registration number?’ asked the duty sergeant, anxious to change the subject.

  ‘EV 1 L,’ said the Rev. McPherson. ‘I should have realized when I got it what that spelt!’

/>   ‘We’ll let you know if somebody spots it,’ said the duty sergeant, and hung up.

  Then the Rev. McPherson went to the local newsagent’s shop and put up a card that read:

  MISSING: One car

  Make: Various

  Number plate: EV 1 L

  If seen, please telephone Rev. McPherson

  Do NOT try to approach this vehicle! It is dangerous!

  Then the Rev. McPherson went to the pub and drank several pints of beer, despite the fact that he was a vicar.

  ***

  The next day, the Rev. McPherson’s car was prowling the streets, looking to make another kidnap.

  It lurked for some time behind the entrance to the railway station. Then it hung around the Public Library, but nobody went in or out.

  It next positioned itself behind the corner shop where the Rev. McPherson had put up the notice. Several people went in and out, but they didn’t look rich enough to be held to ransom.

  But just as the car was turning away, a man came out, took one look at the car and yelled, ‘There it is!’

  The man was the Rev. McPherson himself.

  Well, the car shot across the street so fast it crashed into the wall opposite. The Rev. McPherson grabbed its rear bumper and shouted, ‘I order you to stop! You’re my car!’

  But the wicked car backed so fast that he was nearly run over by his own vehicle! However, he sprang out of the way and, as he did so, he wrenched a door open, and threw himself on to the back seat. But the car was clever. Oh yes. It

  simply opened the opposite door, rolled over to one side, and tossed the Rev. McPherson out into the middle of the road.

  The Reverend sat up and watched his car skid round the corner, when a loud horn blast behind him made him jump out of his skin. A double-decker bus was bearing down on him.

  He flung himself out of the way, while the bus braked and skidded into a pillar box. The driver leapt out, and embarked on an interesting lecture about the dangers of sitting in the middle of the road.