by Mark Speed
"Please, Mrs Roseby. We're just returning by cab after rather a hectic day's work." The Doctor put a hand on Kevin's back and guided him towards the front door.
Kevin saw a pair of bright green eyes underneath David's real black cab. One eye winked at him. He put a hand on the front door of the house and it opened. A bolt of black shot past Kevin's legs and into the porch. Mrs Roseby's cat shrieked an un-cat-like shriek and leapt two feet into the air, landing on the old woman, claws digging into her shoulder. The old woman shrieked her own shriek and grabbed the cat.
"Doctor How!" she shouted. "I don't know what you're up to but I'm complaining to the association this evening. And I'm minded to call the police to have that cab towed. The tax had better be up-to-date on it."
"I look forward to being copied on your letter of complaint, Mrs Roseby. Good evening to you. And your cat."
The Doctor closed the porch door behind him, held up his arms and spread his legs. Kevin adopted the same pose. The UV light came on and bathed them. The door to the house opened and they went in. Kevin placed his Con-Bat in the umbrella stand by the door.
"Like, why won't David's Spectrel come in?"
"Kevin, I just don't know the answer to some questions. Still a little distrustful I think, and mad at David. At least she's proximate now. I wish I could say the same for mine."
"Do you know...?"
The Doctor turned to face him. "Hacked, I think. In the hands of these enemies? I don't know. She was able to send for help. And thank God that help was available. Can I get her back? Hopefully. How? I'm not sure." The Doctor let out a deep sigh. "This is a fine pickle, Kevin. I've lost my Spectrel, and my cousin with it. I could kick myself for not offloading him here with a med-bot. We only have his Spectrel, and she's not up to much. I've got no idea who these people are who are attacking us. What a fix. I was joking earlier when I said we could be defeated by tea-time. This whole thing has been an elaborate set-up. A trap. And I fell for it. I didn't even get so much as a screw from that array of display processors. What a waste."
Kevin put a hand on the Doctor's shoulder. "Sorry, boss. Look, there's one thing about us south London boys."
"Really?" said the Doctor, flatly.
"You can take the boy out of south London, but you can't take south London out of the boy." He reached into his pocket, brought out a piece of metal and handed it to the Doctor. "I nicked this. I know I shouldn't have, but... you know, a souvenir, innit?"
"You're right; you absolutely shouldn't have taken it. Worse than taking pictures, in a way. But I knew there was a reason I needed you. Thank you. This is a start."
The doorbell rang.
"Damn that woman," said the Doctor. "As if I haven't got enough on my plate. Answer that for me, will you Kevin?" He turned to go into the downstairs washroom.
Trinity stood alert at the base of stairs as Kevin went into the porch. Through the mottled glass of the external door he could see the head of a figure wearing a black peaked cap with a gold badge at its centre. His heart sank.
He opened the door. A postman was standing on the step, wearing a grey uniform that looked like something he'd seen in old photographs. He was shorter than Kevin, and in his mid-forties. His short hair was a light red. His sharp grey eyes reminded Kevin of someone, except that they were behind a pair of black plastic-framed spectacles of the type that would once have been called NHS specs.
"Oh," said the postman. "I-I-I was quite sure Doctor How lived here. Is he in?"
Something caught Kevin's eye. To the side of the Doctor's drive, just visible over the wall, was a red post box of the traditional solid pillar design. He couldn't remember there being a post box on the Doctor's road at all.
"Who wants to see him?" asked Kevin, wishing he'd thought to have the Con-Bat with him.
"D-d-does he?" asked the postman, surprised. He nudged his specs up the bridge of his nose.
Kevin squinted.
"Sorry," said the postman. "I thought you meant something else. Tell him it's..." The postman looked over Kevin's shoulder.
"Well, well," said the Doctor from just behind Kevin. "It's cousin When. Long time no see."
End of book one
Thanks for reading – I hope you enjoyed it! Like most independent authors I rely on word of mouth. If you enjoyed this novel, please help spread the word by way of a review. I really appreciate your help! You can also get free stuff by signing up to be part of my Readers' Group. Go to www.doctorhow.tv for more.
Book two, Doctor How and the Deadly Anemones is available now!
US www.amazon.com/dp/B00SDGFNEQ
UK:www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00SDGFNEQ
Doctor How, Trinity and Kevin continue their adventures in book two of the Doctor How series: Doctor How and the Deadly Anemones Free preview chapter follows after the legal stuff.
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About the author
Mark Speed finished writing his first novel at the age of fifteen. His comedy writing has appeared in newspapers as diverse as the London Evening Standard and The Sun, and been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra. He performed his solo comedy, The End of the World Show, at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2011 and 2012.
Amongst other postgraduate and professional qualifications, he has a Master's degree in Creative Writing from City University, London. In 1995 a chiropractor told him he'd never run again. Sensibly, he gave up chiropractors, and has since completed several marathons and a couple of Olympic-length triathlons. He occasionally does irresponsible things like scuba and skydiving. NLP founder Richard Bandler publicly called him a 'polarity responder'.
Other titles by the same author:
The Doctor How series:
Book one, Doctor How and the Illegal Aliens: The Doctor Who is Not A Time Lord
US: www.amazon.com/dp/B00IWC40JK
UK: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00IWC40JK
Book two, Doctor How and the Deadly Anemones
US www.amazon.com/dp/B00SDGFNEQ
UK:www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00SDGFNEQ
Book three, Doctor How and the Alien Invasion
US:www.amazon.com/dp/B06XF6DLBV
UK: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XF6DLBV
Books that are NOT the Doctor How series:
Why not broaden your horizons with one of these?
The Default Girlfriend: A Sex Comedy
US: www.amazon.com/dp/B006X2SYWU
UK:www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006X2SYWU
Apocalypse Later: A Guide to the End of the World by Nice Mr Death
US: www.amazon.com/dp/B00KIX4VH2
UK: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00KIX4VH2
Britons in Brief (anthology)
US: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AD5LS9O
UK: www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00AD5LS9O
More about him is available from these sources:
Author information and more writing: www.markspeed.co.uk
Amazon Author Central: http://www.amazon.com/author/markspeed
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Lynda Thornhill for proofing. Thanks to ace beta-readers Ian Sturgeon and Suzanne C. Cope CBT for early feedback and encouragement. Thanks also to Nathan Van Coops, author of a fantastic time travel series. If you want an excellent three-part time-travel series check out Jule Owen's The House Next Door series.
Disclaimer
For the avoidance of doubt, this is a work of parody. You might also have noticed that it's a work of fiction, and that – as such – any characters are fictitious. Any apparent similarity to real people, living, dead, or yet to be born is coincidental. Historic figures referred to are dead and beyond caring, but I've tried to be sensitive to living relatives and not made them monsters, which is more than you can say for some biographers.
Doctor Who and TARDIS are registered trademarks of the BBC. (No, really – they are.) This book series is not affiliated with or endorsed by the BBC. It is not a Doctor Who story.
Copyright Notice
Copyright © Mark F Speed 2014
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-0-9573204-4-4
The right of Mark F Speed to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and publisher.
Cover design by Rachel Lawston
http://www.lawstondesign.com
Published by Terra Supra Limited
Registered in England and Wales no. 8109753
www.terrasupra.co.uk
Nothing is black and white
Preview – Doctor How and the Deadly Anemones
Lin-Lin silently thanked the Communist Party for its one-child policy. One was quite enough, and it was her husband's tough luck that they'd had a daughter, not a son. "Ah-lam, it is not the end of the world. I will buy you the DVD next week. The street sellers will have it."
"But I wanted to see it now," wailed her daughter. "All the other girls at school will have seen today's episode." Ah-lam kicked the DVD recorder, scratching her fake designer shoes, and stubbing her toes. She began to cry. "I hate this DVD! I hate it, I hate it, I hate it! I want a new one."
"There's nothing wrong with it. Maybe the electricity went off." Lin-Lin glanced at her watch. Somehow the DVD's clock was an hour out, and had recorded a different show. In her youth this kind of wealth and these consumer goods had been unimaginable, and what had that and the one-child policy given them? A generation of spoilt brats demanding round-the-clock attention and entertainment. Lin-Lin was nothing if not meticulous. She'd set the device to record that morning, and would swear on her own ancestors' graves that the time had been right.
"I tell you what, I'll call round a few people. Maybe someone else recorded it? Here, play with the little bouncing flower. See if you can figure out how it works." She took the little white flower down from the windowsill, grasping it by its two-inch diameter green plastic pot.
Lin-Lin knew exactly how it worked. She was an export marketing manager and it had been her idea to look for another use for the little motors that powered the waving paws of maneki-neko, the plastic good luck cats her factory sold. The market was saturated, so she'd told the designers to brainstorm a new product and this was it. They expected it to be a huge hit in Western Europe. She'd had a scheduled sales call with her distributor in London, which was why she'd picked up her daughter late from nursery. They'd liked the sample, so a consignment was to be air-freighted so that they could test the market. If they sold well, millions would be produced and shipped over by the container-load.
She placed the flower down in front of Ah-lam. It bobbed up and down on its stalk, and the two green plastic leaves either side flapped up and down in an equal and opposite motion. The weight of the flower, stalk and base in the centre of the pot was finely counterbalanced by the weight of the two leaves on either side. Two photovoltaic cells formed the brown 'soil' on the top of the pot, and powered the simple and tiny electric motor. Ah-lam stared at it, mesmerised.
Lin-Lin called a neighbour a few floors below who also had a five-year-old daughter, and confirmed they had recorded and watched Hello Kitty. Her phone said 18:49. "I'll be down in one minute," she said, and turned to Ah-lam. "I need you to behave for Mummy for two minutes, little girl. I'm going to get Hello Kitty for you. You're tired and hungry. I'll put something in the microwave. It'll be ready when I get back." She took some soup out of the fridge, put it in the microwave, set the timer to two minutes and turned it on. "Two minutes! Behave!" she called as she shut the door behind her.
Lin-Lin checked her phone when she got back to the apartment. 18:53, so four minutes, give or take.
But she could hear the microwave humming. She looked in the kitchen. There was still over a minute to go on the timer. The seconds were ticking by painfully slowly. She went over, switched it off and opened the door. A plume of steam billowed out. Pieces of red and green vegetable plastered the inside walls. What the hell was up with her appliances today?
She listened. Silence. Nothing from the living room.
"Ah-lam?" she called, her heart missing a beat. "Ah-lam?"
She ran through to the living room. Her daughter was still staring at the flower, bobbing up and down on its stalk, its two leaves flapping. Tears were rolling silently down the child's cheeks.
"Ah-lam?" She knelt down and grabbed her daughter's shoulders. "Ah-lam? What's the matter? I have your DVD. We can watch Hello Kitty together now. I told you it wasn't the end of the world. Cheer up, darling."
"It is the end of the world, Mummy. It is."
"Hush now. Hush." She picked up her daughter, who was getting too old and heavy for this kind of comforting. "Why do you say such a stupid thing, sweetie?"
Ah-lam pointed a trembling hand at the flower. Her mother rolled her eyes. This would be her mother-in-law's superstition. Maneki-neko were Japanese in origin. Her husband's mother was from a peasant family. The flower was white with a small yellow centre; that was the problem. White meant death in Chinese tradition. The Westerners weren't so stupid: white was a neutral colour that would please consumers in their millions. They'd agreed it with the distributor –– any other colour would have made fewer sales, and this was a volume business.
She put her daughter down and picked up the flower and put it back on the windowsill. "See? It's not going to hurt you."
A sob from Ah-lam said she thought otherwise.
Book two, Doctor How and the Deadly Anemones is available now!
US www.amazon.com/dp/B00SDGFNEQ
UK:www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00SDGFNEQ