‘Extra Hot Madras Curry Powder,’ she read. ‘Spicey Bombay Curry Powder, Number One Karma Hot Curry Powder…’
‘What are you doing?’ cried Harry Bunce, alarmed that Elsie was clearing the shelves of his favourite curries.
‘Come and see,’ laughed Elsie. ‘I’m going to make the biggest and best curry you’ve ever seen, Harry! Ah! I may as well put in the cayenne pepper, and those black peppercorns.’
Having filled her bag to the brim, Elsie hurried back to the pit, where the three policemen were busily scraping cement off each other. Elsie sighed.
‘I did warn you,’ she pointed out. ‘Now, I think you’d better move well away. If this works it could be dangerous.’
‘What are you going to do?’ demanded the chief constable, eyeing Elsie’s bag with suspicion.
‘Well,’ Elsie said. ‘In this film there are these terrible tanks and nobody can destroy them. Anyway, the hero comes along – that’s Burt Lancashire, I do like him! And he pops hand grenades inside them and they get blown to pieces – exploded from within.’
The chief constable goggled. ‘You haven’t got hand grenades in there!’ he gasped.
‘No – curry powder.’ Elsie gazed steadily at Durkin. He didn’t say a word. By this time he was willing to try anything. He squelched off in cement-filled shoes and began moving everybody away from the pit.
Elsie gripped her bag and tiptoed towards the hole. Every so often Fatbag’s snout shot up and snorted viciously at the edge. Elsie would stop, wait, then tiptoe forward once more. She wasn’t afraid, but filled with a marvellous sense of excitement. She was the heroine of a great film, where everything depended upon her. She alone could save the town – the world!
At last she reached the edge. She could see Fatbag’s cement-streaked dome. She could feel his rasping breath. Silently she knelt down, hoping desperately that Fatbag wouldn’t choose this moment to suddenly slurp round the edge. She began to empty her little tubs, making small heaps right round the edge of the pit: Extra Hot Madras Curry Powder here; Spicy Bombay Curry Powder there; then the cayenne, the peppercorns – all quietly spaced round the pit.
Elsie got slowly to her feet and tiptoed back to safety. Chief Constable Durkin folded his arms stiffly. He looked at Elsie with utter bewilderment.
‘What are you doing?’ he croaked despairingly.
‘Watch,’ smiled Elsie. She picked up a small stone and lobbed it into the pit. There was a clang, then Fatbag’s roaring snout shot up and slurped viciously around the edge. The little heaps vanished. There was peace again. Durkin shrugged his shoulders.
‘Mrs Bunce,’ he began wearily. ‘Would you mind…’
‘Aachoo!’
‘What was that?’ snapped Durkin, whirling round.
‘Fatbag just sneezed,’ explained Elsie. Sergeant Polski grinned and was about to speak when he was cut short by another sneeze and then another. They became more and more violent until the road trembled with each successive explosion.
‘Stand clear!’ shouted Durkin. ‘There’s going to be an earthquake!’
But it was more like a volcanic eruption. Fatbag’s sneezes were becoming so powerful that bits of the pit ripped into the air. There was an ear-splitting sssSSNCHOO!! Fatbag’s snout hurtled up, with the tube waving and looping like a flying snake. It crashed down on a roof. More sneezes quickly followed and bits of Fatbag came flying out at tremendous speed, curving up into the sky.
Suddenly his domed top went spinning furiously down the road, closely followed by a castor-wheel. Half his tail looped up into the air and wrapped itself round a chimney-pot. For a brief moment only the sound of Fatbag’s last intake of breath could be heard. Everybody knew that the Big Sneeze was on its way. They covered their heads and flattened themselves against the buckled road.
The noise alone reduced the nearest house to a crumbled ruin. Fatbag’s cracked body scorched into the air, turning over and over. With a sound of echoing thunder it exploded into tiny pieces like some exotic firework.
Metal tinkled onto the road. Paper clips flashed in the sun. A pair of football boots fell gracefully into a garden pond. Down came a police siren, three car wheels and a bent foam gun. The banging and crashing slowly died away. A cloud of dark dust over-shadowed the town. Scraps of paper slowly twirled down, landing silently around Elsie and her companions.
Chief Constable Durkin took his hands from his head and gazed stupefied at Elsie and her empty bag. ‘Curry powder!’ he whispered. ‘It was so simple!’
He was suddenly elbowed aside by a smart young woman waving a microphone.
‘This is Tamsin Plank, On-The-Spot reporter for ETV Late Night News. Congratulations on a wonderful victory, Elsie! You’ve saved the town! Who’d have thought of curried Fatbag! What a marvellous a-a-achoo! Pardon me! Just listen to the cheering crowds, and Elsie’s being carried shoulder-high now and people are dancing round a-a-snchoo! Oh I beg your achoo! And everybody’s started sneezing! My eyes are stinging. Tears are streaming down people’s faces and I haven’t cried so much since this morning, when Chief Fire Officer Potts asked me to marry him! Viewers may remember when I was locked in a cage achoo! with a hungry tiger and bottle of tomato ketchup. A-achoo! It can’t be worse than that, so I’ve agreed!
‘Goodness, it must be that great cloud of achoo curry powder above us. People are clinging to each other and sneezing and laughing. Chief Constable Achoo! has just told me that Constable Thomas who wore the dustbin so thrillingly has been promoted to the Special A-achoo! And Sergeant Polski has been
Snchow! given an extra fortnight’s holiday to recover.
‘Now the Mayor a-achoo! has come out of the Town Hall and he’s kissing Elsie. And Harry Bunce has told him off but ACHOO! It doesn’t matter because we’re all sneezing and laughing and dancing. Curry powder is simply raining down on us here. ACHOO! I can hardly see for tears but I shall try to go on. I can’t ACHOO! tell you what a wonderful occasion this is though viewers may remember when I went hang-gliding over an erupting volcano in ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO! Oh dear! This is Tamsin ACHOO! stopping an On-The-Spot report for the very first time ever…’
So it was that Fatbag, even though he was in a thousand little pieces, managed to bring chaos to the town just once more. But a few days later the streets were clean, the damage he’d caused was busily being repaired and a large notice appeared outside the Town Hall.
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
This afternoon Mr Burt Lancashire, the famous film star, will present to Mrs Elsie Bunce a reward of a video tape recorder, a new (small) vacuum cleaner, and a book – Great Curries of India. This is in gratitude for ridding the town of the notorious giant vacuum cleaner – Fatbag.
Meanwhile, not so very far away, deep inside the Ace Electrics factory, a large electric lawn-mower waited for his release…
The Demon Vacuum Cleaner Page 5