by Heide Goody
Clovenhoof turned to tell Nerys to deal with it but she was on the phone now, taking wine with someone.
“Fine, I’ll sort my own beach,” said Clovenhoof.
Ben walked with him towards the convoy of nine dumper trucks. “It’s just a bottle,” he said.
“I need to make a statement today,” said Clovenhoof, “and that statement is I’ve got a fricking huge bottle of champagne.”
“Size doesn’t matter,” said Ben
“There speaks a man in denial. You should get yourself a watery cock-extension like me. Tell you what, later on you can take her out for a spin.”
“No thanks, I get seasick on anything larger than a pedalo.”
A bent figure in kitchen white and chequered trousers scampered over.
“Boss! Boss!” called Milo the chef. He held a silver platter aloft to Clovenhoof, like a tribute to the gods.
Clovenhoof regarded the golden half-moons on offer.
“The latest batch,” said Milo. “I think I’ve cracked it. I found a man who worked on the original development team and I took notes – oh, the amount of notes I took…”
Clovenhoof picked one up and sniffed it. Ben picked one up too. Milo flashed him a look of pure contempt as though he were not worthy of sampling his wares.
Clovenhoof bit deeply. There was definitely a satisfying crunch.
“They’re very cheesy,” he said, spitting crumbs.
“Too cheesy, boss?”
“No, definitely the right amount of cheese. But…”
“But?” Milo’s face froze in horrified anticipation, a rollercoaster rider coming to the brow of the hill, seeing only a plummet into the abyss on the other side.
“Is the mix of spices, right?” said Clovenhoof.
“No,” whispered Milo.
“It’s an open question. I was just wondering…”
Milo cast his silver platter of pancakes aside. He snatched the one from Ben’s hand and stamped it into the ground. “I have failed. I have failed you, boss.”
“They were very close,” said Clovenhoof kindly but Milo was already scampering away, shamefaced.
“I will fix it!” he wept as he ran. “I will do it right, boss!”
“What a strange man,” said Ben as they moved on. He waved at the nearest lorry driver. “Is this the beach?” he asked.
The driver jerked his thumb back at the convoy of trucks behind him. “Twenty tonnes of fine grade sand. Fifteen tonnes of aggregate. Eight tonnes of cement.”
“Cement?”
“Yeah.” The man opened his paper docket. “We’re laying the foundations for a wall or something tomorrow.”
Clovenhoof rubbed his hands together in glee.
“A fun day in the sun. An imposing and brutalist wall. It’s like a dream come true.”
“Mixed messages more like,” said Ben.
“This is just the start,” said Clovenhoof. “Next week, theme park rides and underground torture chambers.”
“So where do you want it?” said the driver.
“Probably over there,” said Clovenhoof, pointing at an unexploited corner of Hooflandia. “We don’t have much room so we might have to combine them. The Hooflandia Log Flume and Waterboarding Centre.”
“So, the sand, aggregate and cement over there?”
“No,” said Ben. “He was wittering about something else. We want the sand and that over here, on the beach.”
“Beach?” said the driver.
“Well, it isn’t one yet. But not the cement. That will need putting out of the way.”
“Surely, the beach should be on the inner edge of the lagoon,” said Clovenhoof.
“Right,” said Ben, “so over there. And the cement on the scrubby land next to where the trucks have dumped the soil from the moat.”
Nerys approached, ending her phone call.
“When in doubt, call a crook,” she said. “Animal Ed says he can rustle up a Melchizedek of champagne in half an hour. I told him you’d collect it, Ben.”
“Why me?”
“Because I’m happy to do a deal with that man but I don’t want to spend any time in his company. That pet shop of his smells and he’s a little too handy and familiar when I’m around.”
“You don’t mind men getting handy and familiar most of the time,” said Clovenhoof.
“Yeah, but he spends his day handling bird poop and lizards.” She shuddered.
“I don’t see why having a big bottle is important,” said Ben. “And what kind of message about alcohol is that sending to the kids at this fun day?”
“There is no evidence at all that large quantities of alcohol do anyone serious harm,” said Clovenhoof.
“Hmmm. And how big is a Melchizi-whatsit?” said Ben.
“It holds forty bottles of wine.”
“Oh, and I’m supposed to collect it? I can’t even say it, let alone carry it.”
“Improvise. Commandeer a vehicle. There’s enough of them around this place.”
Ben cast about.
“Hey! Spartacus! Can I borrow you a minute?” he called and went off.
“Right,” said Nerys. “Are we sorted here?”
The truck driver pointed to the inner edge of the moat. “We’re going to dump the first four loads on that area there to create a beach and the rest is going on the scrub land.”
“Two beaches?” said Nerys.
“No, just one,” said Clovenhoof.
“That’s what I thought. When that’s all down we’ll put out some brightly coloured parasols and some deckchairs. Everything about today is going to be big and bright.”
“Cool,” said Clovenhoof.
“Apparently, the Military Wives Flashmob Choir who’ll be on before your speech will all be wearing fluorescent jumpsuits. Sounds good?”
“Lambrini hula girls might help as well,” said Clovenhoof.
“To brighten the place up a bit?”
“No, just generally,” said Clovenhoof dreamily. He gazed at the hoses that were slowly filling his beautiful moat. “He’s right,” he said. “It does make you want to piss.”
Clovenhoof strode to the edge of the moat and unzipped his fly.
“Seriously?” said Nerys. “Here?”
“Every drop helps.”
Nerys made a scoff of disgust and turned to give the lead truck driver clear instructions on where the sand needed to go.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Joan and Rutspud stood at a bus stop, about to board the next number eleven.
“Ready, Ticket Inspector Joan?” said Rutspud.
“Ready, Ticket Inspector Rutspud?” said Joan.
“Got me hi-vis vest. Got me peaked cap.”
“I’ve got my clipboard. I’ve got my pen. If people knew this was all you needed to ride buses for free I’m sure more people would do it.”
“As cover to have a little search of each bus, it’s ideal,” agreed Rutspud.
“Of course, there’s only really one thing that could go wrong with a plan like that,” observed Joan, looking over Rutspud’s shoulder.
“What’s that?”
“If a real ticket inspector appeared,” said Joan, nodding towards the man who was walking towards them. He, like them, was wearing a hi-vis jacket, an official looking hat and an expression of mild confusion.
“Not seen your faces before,” said the real ticket inspector to Joan and Rutspud.
“No, we’re new,” said Joan. She noticed that he was eyeing her sword and armour.
“Have you confiscated that weapon?” he asked her.
“Yes,” said Rutspud, before Joan had weighed the relatively minor sin of lying against the greater good that their mission would surely represent. While Joan pondered the question, Rutspud was embellishing the lie. “There are cosplayers all over the place today. There’s a protest march.” He held out the flyer that Sister Anne had given them. “Watch out for the nuns. They’ve got martial arts weapons concealed under their robes.”
“No! Nuns? Surely not?”
Rutspud nodded, his eyes melting pools of utter sincerity. “It’s true. Nunchucks. They have terrible habits.”
Both Joan and the genuine ticket inspector turned to Rutspud, incredulous.
He shrugged and gave Joan a small grin. “Sorry.”
Joan glared at him. “That could have worked. That could actually have worked but you had to go and be extra clever.”
“Sorry?” said the ticket inspector, as the next bus pulled up. “Do you mean that you’re not real ticket inspectors?”
“We’re unreal ticket inspectors,” said Rutspud.
“Look, excuse me, I think I need to –”
“We’ll take this bus, you do the next one,” said the demon and bundled Joan aboard before the inspector could complain further.
Halfway along the upper deck of the fourth bus, they approached a man tapping on a laptop. He wore a sports top rather than the chunky knitwear in the photo, but the curly hair was exactly the same. Joan met Rutspud’s eye and saw that he had come to the same conclusion.
“Ticket please,” said Joan.
The young man passed his travel card over without even looking up. Joan looked at it to confirm that, yes, this was the man from the internet picture. His name was printed underneath. She wasn’t sure why she felt comparing two pictures was proof when she had the actual man right in front of her but it was him nonetheless.
“Felix Winkstein?”
“Yes?” he said.
“You’re the creator of PrayPal,” said Rutspud.
“We really need to talk to you about it,” said Joan.
Felix’s eyes went from Rutspud to Joan. He snapped his laptop shut and stood up. “Sure. Happy to chat. Hold this for a second, will you?”
He held a folded umbrella out, and Joan put out a hand to take it. Felix gave a sudden shove with it, heaving Joan into Rutspud as the spring-loaded umbrella sprang open. He scrambled for the stairs while Joan and Rutspud righted themselves.
Rutspud seemed to be engaged in a life and death struggle with the umbrella. It was like he was being attacked by a wire-frame octopus.
“Go!” he yelled but Joan was already hurling herself down the stairs.
The bus had hissed to a stop and Felix was squeezing through the doors.
Joan pushed past other passengers and followed Felix off the bus. He was already a good way down the road. He was undoubtedly fast on his feet for someone who spent all of his time at a keyboard.
Rutspud literally tumbled down the stairs, fought his way through the passengers inconsiderately blocking the aisle and clawed his way off the bus, only then taking a moment to shake off the umbrella still clinging to his ankle.
Rutspud looked about and thought he had already lost sight of Joan and her quarry but then he caught a glimpse of a hi-vis jacket some distance down the road. He growled in frustration and then realised that this stop was the one where they’d left the self-driving car. It should be parked just over…
“Yes!” There it was. He could follow in that. He had the key and opened the car as he dashed over to it.
He jumped in. “Go, Kylie, we need to follow that woman in the plate armour!”
“I’m sorry,” said Kylie. “The law requires an adult with a full driving licence to control this vehicle at all times when it is in operation.”
Rutspud jigged in his seat with the frustration. “Right. Right. We need to add some weight to the seat. Hold on.”
He got out of the car and stood on the pavement looking up and down the street.
“March for solidarity in support of the church?” said a woman and thrust a leaflet at him. It was a nun. Not a sister of the Mission Society of the Thrown Voice but a nun nonetheless: coif, crown, wimple and all.
Rutspud looked her up and down.
“Sister, how much do you weigh?”
Clovenhoof checked his notes for his keynote speech. His warm-up act was the military wives choir. He wasn’t sure if any of them were military wives, but Nerys had suggested that a military wives choir was an established ‘thing’ and it sounded more appealing than the mad squawking of a hundred wannabee spice girls that Clovenhoof had pencilled in to the timetable. On the stage, they were warbling their way through Robbie Williams’ Angels, which he thought proved his point.
Clovenhoof sighed contentedly. This was easily the best fun day that he’d ever been to and, better still, there was no chance of him being kicked out.
Everything was going brilliantly. Nerys had even managed to find Lambrini hula girls, although one of them looked suspiciously like Tina, her long-time nemesis. He had to hand it to Nerys, she was a master of multi-tasking. She could solve a practical problem and sock it to her enemies at the same time. Tina wiggled her way round the crowds, offering glasses of Lambrini from a tray. She also held up a little sign that said Ask me how you can buy your own title. Be a Duke or Duchess of Hooflandia!
Even Clovenhoof’s yacht had arrived. Eighty feet of sleek, white, I-got-cash-and-you-ain’t shamelessness sat on its trailer next to the performance stage. A team of engineers had jury-rigged a wedge-shaped slide along which the majestic vessel would slip into the water. They’d even been unusually confident that this wouldn’t involve the boat snapping in two, spectators on the other side of the moat being impaled on the prow or the whole lorry and trailer being dragged into the water too. Officers from the council and the local police force had made representation, claiming that the very presence of the yacht was an inconvenience to local traffic and contravened any number of by-laws. However, Clovenhoof discovered to little surprise that even moral employees of the state had a price and all had been handsomely paid off.
The only thing missing at the moment was the giant-sized bottle of champagne Clovenhoof was going to use to launch the vessel. The engineers had hung a harness and swing from the rigging of the stage. All it needed was the bottle itself and Clovenhoof was ready to swing, smash, splash and party like never before.
Down in the grassy heart of the fun day, Lennox was showing off the army to the visitors. It had swelled to around forty members now. The dress uniforms were crisp pale blue and sported more embellishments than Clovenhoof had ever seen on an outfit. Gold fringed epaulettes hung down from their shoulders. Bright green and red sashes crossed their bodies. Gold braid snaked across their bodies from their shoulders via the buttons to their waists, and medals filled any space that was still available. Lennox had appointed Florence as drill sergeant, and she bellowed at the new recruits, putting them through their paces using a series of highly personalised threats and insults.
“Excellent work on the army, Lennox. Florence is clearly a natural,” said Clovenhoof, wandering over.
“Yeah, I asked Ben first of all. He ought to know loads about the military with his model soldiering, you know? Trouble is, he’s just not bossy enough. He kept saying ‘please’, like it’s optional to do what he says. That’s when I knew I had to put Florence in charge. Most of these soldiers are already terrified of her, so it’s worked out well. But I thought Ben would be here, giving me some pointers.”
“He’s on a vital national mission at the moment,” said Clovenhoof. “The Boldmere Ponies are helping him.”
“Who?”
“The boys with the trolleys.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Sister Genevieve Powell was a professed sister of the Holy Community of St Paul the Apostle in Perry Barr. She had been a nun for seventeen years, was a very generous soul and, most importantly, was two hundred pounds of solid nun.
“I don’t understand,” said Sister Genevieve. “I don’t have a driving licence.”
Kylie piped up. “The law requires an adult with a full driving licence to control this vehicle at all –”
“She does have a driving licence,” said Rutspud, standing in the passenger seat. “Now, belt up, sister. Literally and metaphorically. Kylie, let’s go.”
“Where would you like to go?�
�� asked Kylie.
“Just drive!” he growled.
“Please repeat the destination,” said Kylie’s infuriatingly patient voice.
“There is no destination! I want you to go up there!”
“Please repeat –”
“Fine!” snapped Rutspud, scanning the road ahead. “I want to go to, um, the nearest carpet shop.”
The car trundled towards the carpet shop, which was about two hundred yards down the road. Before it could slow down, Rutspud sought out the next destination.
“Now I want to go to a petrol station,” he said, “and I want to go faster than this.”
“Optimum speed is dictated by road conditions and safety considerations,” said Kylie, without altering speed.
“Who is talking?” asked Sister Genevieve.
“I am the car’s on-board journey management sys –”
“What safety considerations?” cut in Rutspud.
“I am programmed to preserve human life above all else,” said Kylie.
“Right, well what if I were to tell you that human life is at risk if you don’t go faster?”
“Is it?”
“Probably. Human lives and the entire cosmic balance are currently at stake if we don’t catch up with that man.”
“I may only use information from my sensors combined with other approved inputs,” replied the car, keeping to a gentle, unthreatening speed.
“Wow. Dismissed by a car.”
Rutspud seethed and wondered if he could find the processor that controlled the car’s logic. All he’d need to do was smash open the dashboard or pull apart the panels where they joined. Of course, one never had a screwdriver to hand when one was needed.
“Sister?”
“Yes.”
“That cross you’re wearing. Is it gold?”
“I shouldn’t think so. Probably just gold-plated tin or something.”
“Excellent. May I borrow it?”
The mindlessly charitable nun was halfway through handing it over before she even thought to ask why. The holy symbol fizzed softly against Rutspud’s demon fingertips, barely more than a tickle. He rammed it into the gap in the dashboard panels, whacked it hard with the palm of his hand and then levered away the plastic panel.