Arnie, Mervin, & The Blood of Kings

by Pedliham, Luke

  Mervin stops for a moment, shrugs his shoulders and then nonchalantly replies;

  “Yeah ok, why not.”

  Mervin then clicks his fingers and carries on into the kitchen. Arnie shrugs his shoulders also and follows accordingly.

  Back in the little medical room, Vera is winding Gwyneth up about the object of her affection;

  “So your boyfriend can talk to animals then? Like, Arnie Doolittle or something?” she teases as she carefully picks up one of the small red granules from the mortar and drops it into a bowl of water.

  “It was one granule, two lines in the syringe right?” she continues.

  “I thought Mervin said only to fill it to the first line?” replies Gwyneth.

  “No, he said ‘first the granule, and then fill the syringe to the second line. He definitely said that.” argues Vera.

  Both girls look at Loui who still looks to be dealing with the revelation that his new best friend can speak to animals.

  “Hmm? Oh, er….yeah, Vera’s right.” says Loui obliviously as he blindly backs the sister he is closest to.

  “Ok whatever!” says Gwyneth as Vera pokes her tongue out at her sister and defiantly dips the syringe into the bowl, pulling the plunger up to the second line.

  Everything suddenly slows down to a crawl. Even Loui slows right down as Gwyneth carefully holds Archie’s beak open and Vera’s shaky hands squirt the contents of the syringe into his mouth. Two seconds later Gwyneth looks at Vera and says;

  “It didn’t work. Maybe he said the third li….”

  As Gwyneth is speaking Archie’s eyes fly open wider than they ever have before with his pupils as big as buttons - almost enveloping his entire face! He screams;

  “HOOOLYCRAAAPWHAAAATSGOOINOOOONNN!!!” and shoots off of the table at lightning speed, bouncing off of the walls, floor and ceiling and knocking the contents of the entire room all over the place in the process.

  Gwyneth, Vera and Loui who have all ducked for cover under the very table they were just using, can only watch as the large feathered pinball shoots around the room, out of the door and down the corridor whilst making a sound like an Countertenor who just realised he ordered the Vindaloo instead of the Korma.

  “Ok, alright – he said first line!” says Vera as she holds her hands up and pre-empts the dressing down she’s about to get from her sister.

  Loui however has another more pressing issue on his mind at this moment;

  “Er,….did that bird just say ‘holy crap?’” he asks as he points to the table where Archie was lying.

  “You heard that too? Oh thank God! I thought I was losing it. I think he also said ‘what’s going on!’” says a similarly confused looking Gwyneth.

  “You two are off your heads. You’ve been hanging out with them lot for too long. Talking birds,…what next talking rabbits? Pfffft!!” says Vera as she strokes Sir Jumpalot’s little blue head who just popped it out from her bag having been woken up by Archie’s outburst.

  Loui and Gwyneth just look back at Vera scornfully without even addressing her denial-laden statement.

  In the kitchen, Mervin and Arnie approach the fridge cautiously as they hear a lot of commotion coming from inside. Mervin opens the door slowly to reveal afore mentioned Seagull covered from head to toe in guacamole.

  “Alright?” says the gull casually.

  “Oh it’s you!” replies Arnie before Mervin gets the chance to Articulate anything. Mervin looks over at Arnie blankly - prompting him to elucidate.

  “Tut. You senior citizens and your memory. This is the ‘gull you introduced me too when we were in the caverns beneath Tintagel. You remember, under the cliffs, just outside the cliff door thing?”

  Arnie then addresses the ‘gull directly:

  “Sorry, I didn’t get your name before.” he says.

  “I didn’t give it did I!? Probably because I aint got one.” replies the ‘gull belligerently.

  “Oh ok, so…..what do we call….”

  “You’ll have to give me one. A name I mean,……and a wet wipe too if you’ve got one. Had a bit of a guacamole based accident trying to get to the chorizo you see. You know how it is.” interrupts the ‘gull as he attempts to clean himself off.

  “I knew it! He ate the chorizo!” exclaims Mervin as he throws his hands up and recoils away from the fridge downheartedly.

  Alfie hops off of Mervins shoulder at this point onto the top of the fridge, pre-empting any further over-animated responses from Mervin.

  “CLIFF!” exclaims Arnie loudly;

  “I first saw you while I was in the cliffs,….so your name is Cliff. Easy!” he continues;

  “Cliff? Yeah, I like it. Oh and don’t worry about your precious chorizo there Granddad - I left you some. I’m no Piggy.” says Cliff playfully.

  “Granddad?” says Mervin.

  “I’m old enough to be your granddads, granddads, granddad I’ll have you know!”

  “Well, that would make you about sixty then. Seagulls only live for about ten years. Genius….” says Cliff sarcastically.

  Arnie sniggers and grins at the seagulls surprising wit as Mervin stands there looking contemplative as he does the maths in his head.

  “Anyway, like I said, I’m no piggy. I’m not far off I grant you, but nevertheless give me some credit. I’m not just going to fly in off the street and eat all your food am I?” says Cliff.

  “Well you are a seagull…….” says Arnie accusingly.

  “Oh so that immediately makes me a scavenger does it? It makes me a beggar? Like I’m a tramp or something? A flying tramp? Huh? Well does it? You bigot!” replies the seemingly offended ‘gull as he skewers two olives and a bit of cheese together on a cocktail stick and pops it in his beak.

  “Who, wha…me, no….I was only joking.” says Arnie defensively.

  Mervin then decides to join in Arnie’s defence in a roundabout way.

  “Pay no attention to him, he’s just a silly kid that’s all. He doesn’t know any better.” he says.

  Arnie, offended by Mervin’s dismissive comment, visibly recoils and decides that he can’t let that just slide given everything that he’s been through recently;

  “Er….who doesn’t know any better? Is that me you’re talking about there? Arnie Pendragon? The chosen one? Or should it be ‘The silly one’ now? Carrier of the blood of plums? As well as being friend to all creatures great and small and the last hope for bringing balance to the world and establishing a……”

  “Yeah, yeah. Friend to all creatures great and small, establish equilibrium, blood of plum…….I mean kings blah, blah, blah - we know! Carry on spouting all that self-serving clap-trap and I’ll poo on you again.” interrupts Alfie rudely.

  “Charming!” says Arnie as Archie suddenly bursts in through the door, bouncing off the walls, ceiling and floor and eventually crashing into the fridge - ending up next to Cliff in a similar state of condiment based carnage.

  “ARCHIE!!” shout Mervin and Arnie in ecstatic unison as Cliff spreads his wings menacingly and directs his seemingly aggressive ‘gull-speak towards Archie;

  “AAAAAAW AAAAAAAAW AAAAAAAAW!”

  Arnie interjects quickly as he thinks Cliff is about to attack;

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down Cliff! It’s just Archie. He’s a friend.” he says diplomatically;

  Cliff calms down and starts rubbing his eyes with his wings.

  “What? What’re you banging on about? What, you think I’m about to attack an owl of his size? Are you mental? I helped get him back here for Christ’s sake!” he says irritably.

  “But you started going like ‘AWWWWW, AWWWWWW, AWWWW’ and scowling at him, and your wings were spread out and stuff…..” replies Arnie;

  “Yeah…..because he squished the Chilli and Lemon tapenade all over the place when he made his grand entrance and it went in my eye! HAVE YOU EVER HAD CHILLI AND LEMON TAPENADE IN YOUR EYE? NO? WELL IT BLOODY WELL STINGS LET ME TELL YOU!” says Cliff angrily.

  �
��O.k alright, sorry! Jeez,….keep your feathers on....but what an entrance though?” replies Arnie.

  Cliff reluctantly nods in agreement as it was indeed something of a grand entrance, giving credit where credit was due.

  “whereami,whatsgoingon,whyiseverythinggoingsofast? Itsallablur,icantfocus, ohgodohgodohgodwhatsgoingon,whathaveibeengiven….” rants Archie as he winks and twitches erratically whilst squirming around at the back of the fridge in a pool of condiments.

  Loui, Gwyneth and Vera all run into the room in pursuit of Archie and stop and attempt to calm down and casually style out their concern for Archie before a united front of contempt as the others all look at the twins angrily.

  “So, how many lines of the syringe did you give him then girls?” asks Mervin scornfully as they all approach the fridge and start picking at the food around the two birds.

  Vera just stands there for a second looking guilty while rolling a pickled onion around in her gob as Gwyneth backs up a few steps and slyly points the accusing finger at her sister whilst silently mouthing the word “two”.

  “Two lines? Great! We now have an owl that operates at more than triple the speed of a normal owl. He see’s things like a fly now, in slow motion. He is going to be very hard to get any sense out of him for a while so I’d keep your distance if I were you. It’s like he’s very, very high.” says Mervin.

  “High? But he’s stopped flying now Mervin. He can’t be high now because he’s not in the air silly.” says Vera naively.

  “Yes,….er, you’re absolutely right Vera. Well spotted.” says Mervin as he backtracks away from the subject;

  “I’vegottogetoutofhere,gottogooutsideandflyaroundandaroundandarounduntilicantflyanymore.” continues Archie agitatedly;

  “What did you give him?” asks Arnie

  “Oh, just some essence of chaos fire.” says Mervin casually.

  “ESSENCE OF CHAOS FIRE??” comes the unified and astonished response from everyone except Cliff.

  “Just a little bit! Or at least, it was meant to be just a little bit.” says Mervin defensively, trying to turn it around on the twins.

  “How would chaos fire help us in any way?” asks Arnie, still reeling from Mervin’s revelation.

  “Well, used sparingly it’s a bit like adrenaline. Used unsparingly it’s more like being suddenly woken up by having electrodes attached to your ball……er, nipples, and having a permanent IV drip filled with molten lava in your arm. That being said, even that can have its advantages if you need to get things done in a hurry.” replies Mervin.

  “Oh,…that sounds horrid. Perhaps we should give Cliff some. He looks to have had far too much humus and whatever that is around his….everything, to even stand - let alone fly!” says Arnie as he scoops a big blob of humus off of Cliff’s head and pops it in his mouth.

  “Oi! What are you insinua…..insinui….insign….saying? That I’m greedy? Well you lot are hardly perfect are ya? I find myself shacked up with two owls, one of which seems to be a drug addict and the other,….well, he’s alright ‘coz he fed me. A bunch of kids including one very annoying and self-important bigot who doubles as a drug pusher, a girl that moves around so quickly it looks like there’s two of her and one really crazy, really old man! Just my bleedin luck…” replies Cliff.

  Mervin leaves the conversation midway through Cliff’s rant and walks over to the window. He looks out towards the sky for a few moments before the other realise something is wrong. Everybody stops talking and directs their attention towards Mervin as his tall, thin figure becoming gradually silhouetted as the sun disappears behind an approaching darkness that is unlikely to be a raincloud. Mervin turns back to the others with a very serious look on his face. He bangs his cane on the floor once, sending an amplified booming sound through the house, illustrating the importance of the coming moment;

  “It’s time!” he says fatefully….

  Chapter Twelve: Lady’s day.

  Mervin goes over to Cliff who is just removing a the last piece of avocado from under his wing and says;

  “Ok listen, I know you ‘gulls don’t really like….well, anyone really - but we could really use your help here! See that dark cloud approaching over there?” asks Mervin pointing towards the horizon;

  Cliff moves Archie’s twitching wing out of his way and pokes his head around the fridge door and nods to acknowledge he sees it;

  “That’s no cloud.” says Mervin seriously;

  “It’s a space station!” interjects Arnie;

  “A SPACE STATION?” comes the fearful mass exclamation.

  “No! No, it’s not a space station, Arnie’s just being silly. It’s not the time for that right now Arnie!” says Mervin scornfully;

  “It’s the Crows.” says Loui worriedly

  Mervin interjects;

  “Drones actually. They were crows once, and a few Magpies maybe, but they will have all been corrupted by Morgan meaning they are now…..”

  “More machine than man. Twisted and evi…” interrupts Arnie inappropriately before Mervin angrily interrupts him;

  “I SAID NOT NOW ARNIE! Everything you have been doing since you got here….actually, everything you have EVER done has been leading up to this! Morgan is coming and she’s not alone. It’s time to start taking things seriously. Where’s Excalibur anyway?” says Mervin as he scans the room;

  “What?” says Arnie obliviously;

  “THE SWORD ARNIE! WHERE’S THE DAMN SWORD?” shouts an increasingly irate Mervin.

  “It’s just here.” says Arnie sheepishly as he picks it up from behind the fridge door where he had lent it up against the wall a moment ago;

  Mervin, calms himself and puts one hand on Arnie’s shoulder as he notices him welling up because of the chastising he just gave him. All of the others look on in shock also, even Alfie and their mouthy new friend Cliff;

  “I’m sorry Arnie. I should have taken this more seriously before now to prepare you instead of sitting you in front of the telly. It’s all happened quicker than I had anticipated and I’m sorry for that. I love a Star Wars reference, you know I do – but right now you need to take your sword in hand and get ready for a fight! A big fight!”

  Arnie nods to signal he understands as Mervin points towards the looming drone army that are gradually taking over the sky and turns to the rest of his troupe;

  “Loui, I feel I should say that it’s not too late to pull out if you’re having second thoughts, but if you’re still with us (which I really hope you are) just get behind Arnie…..or in front of him and have his back……or front,…….jeez - you know what I mean!”

  Loui nods and stands beside Arnie like his minder as Mervin turns to the twins to continue;

  “Girls, I’m going to need you two to…..”

  “Us? B,b,but what’re we supposed to do?” interrupts Gwyneth concernedly as Vera nods along in worried agreement;

  “Actually, I have a very important job for you two.”

  Mervin waves his hand over the table in front of him and suddenly a large leather bound book that looks very old appears in a mixture of golden smoke and house dust. Mervin opens the book and starts flicking through it quickly. Suddenly he stops and starts scanning the page;

  “Ah, here it is!”

  Mervin swings the book around to face Gwyneth and Vera who both look at it with worried intrigue;

  “You two are going to cast this elemental spell. Just read the words out loud and when you are finished you repeat it, over and over until I say otherwise. Understand?” says Mervin as he is distracted by the dark cloud getting nearer still;

  “They’re nearly here so we need to hurry girls!” he says worriedly;

  Gwyneth and Vera visibly panic as Vera asks;

  “B..b..but w..we’re not magicians like you. How can we….”

  Mervin claps his hands together in a grand gesture above his head, sending out a strong shockwave that nearly knocks the twins off their feet, followed by array of golden sparkles that linger
and drift in the air as they envelope the two sisters, visibly calming them both down. Mervin then continues in an altogether calmer manner;

  “This place is strong with magic, it’s in the very air that you breathe. This means you don’t need to be a wizard or sorcerer to cast this spell. You just need to believe. Have faith in the universe, in me and more importantly, have faith in in yourselves! Now - come on, I’ll start you off. *FLATUS, AQUA, TERRA. THREE ELEMENTS OF ASTRAL, WE SUMMON THEE. STRENGTH OF THESE ELEMENTS BY MY SIDE, TO THIS FORCE OF NATURE YOU SHALL ABIDE!*”

  As the golden sparkles Mervin conjured linger in the air around them, Mervin repeats the chant whilst looking at the girls intently who in turn start to join in softly and with trepidation and gradually begin to get louder and more confident as he encourages them to keep going;

  “Flatus, Aqua, Terra. Three elements of Astral we summon thee. Strength of these elements by my side, to this force of nature you shall abide. FLATUS, AQUA, TERRA! THREE ELEMENTS OF ASTRAL, WE SUMMON THEE. STRENGTH OF THESE ELEMENTS BY MY SIDE, TO THIS FORCE OF NATURE YOU SHALL ABIDE!”

  “Just keep it going girls. Don’t stop ok?” says Mervin as the girls just nod as their vocabularies are otherwise engaged;

  He turns to Archie who seems to have finally begun coming down off of his high;

  “Archie! Are you compos mentis?”

  Archie twitches and winks from the back of the fridge but manages a nod as he climbs to his feet and hops out of the fridge onto the table.

  “Where do you want me?” he says heroically;

  “Out there!” says Mervin pointing to the sky;

  “Along with the girls’ elemental spell, you and Alfie will be the first line of defence. I know we’re outnumbered but we’ve faced greater odds before and won.”

  “Have we?” says Archie as he looks upon the feathered cloud which is all but on top of them, like a large black blanket that’s being pulled up and over the world.

  “Ok, no, we haven’t. But I believe in you two.”

  “Three!” says Cliff as he hops out of the fridge and onto the table beside Archie.