by Debi Gliori
Titus’s eyes met hers. In his gaze, Pandora read fear, pain, and utter misery. Without thinking, she raised her left hand and began to draw lazy circles in the air with her wand.
“Right, kid,” Pronto said, waving his gun. “Over here. Don’t make a squeak or your brother’s a human colander.”
“He means it,” muttered Titus. “Just do as he says, Pan.”
Pandora advanced on Pronto, her wand poised to cast the spell.
“And put that stick down,” added Pronto. “It’s making me nervous.”
“This old thing?” Pandora said innocently, gazing at the wand as if she’d just noticed it. “Here—catch!”
Titus flinched and braced himself. The wand flew through the air toward Pronto, who was completely taken aback. Reflexively he thrust out his gun to knock the wand out of the air. The wand and the gun made contact. There was a dazzling flash. Titus and Pandora reeled backward, their frazzled eyeballs temporarily out of order as afterimages of intense light seared their retinas. Blinking frantically, Pandora was first to sense that everything had not gone according to plan. Contrary to what she’d imagined when she cast her spell, Pronto was not holding a miniaturized firearm, capable only of immobilizing ladybugs and bruising crane flies.
Pronto gazed at his outstretched arm, a nasty grin stretching across his face. He no longer held a small machine gun. Instead, Pronto was stroking the oily barrel of the deadliest automatic weapon known to man. So sophisticated, it didn’t have a trigger, it picked up signals from the user’s brain. So advanced, it didn’t have a telescopic sight, it had an infrared flesh-detector to locate and lock on to its target. Such a deadly weapon that its inventor had turned it on himself in a fit of remorse for having created such a lethal artifact. Its name was Wormwood and it lay hissing quietly in Pronto’s arms, its blind snout jerking from side to side as it located first Pandora and then Titus.
“Oh, well DONE,” Titus said bitterly. “What a GENIUS. What a STAR you are, sister dear.”
Pandora rubbed her eyes and glared at her brother. “It’s that wand,” she wailed. “I did everything right, but the wand didn’t work.”
“This old thing?” Pronto purred, picking up the fallen wand and examining it. “ ‘Contrawand,’ “he read, “ ‘reverses spells, undoes charms, and nixes hexes.’ Hang on, there’s something else in very small letters. ‘The manufacturers recommend six uses only before safe disposal as hazardous magical waste.’ ”
Pandora’s shoulders slumped.
“Well …?” demanded Titus.
“Actually,” admitted Pandora, “the wand worked perfectly.”
“I’ll second that,” gloated Pronto, patting Wormwood. From the gun came a ghastly sound like forks being dragged across a plate.
The children shuddered.
“Right,” Pronto continued, addressing Titus, “where were we before we were so charmingly interrupted? Ah yes, UP AGAINST THE WALL AND SAY YOUR GOODBYES.”
A Pound of Flesh
Don Lucifer di S’Embowelli Borgia gazed at his reflection in the mirror. Dressed in a lilac hospital gown with a disposable paper hat covering his skull, he was aware that he did not look his best. This impression was supported by the fact that his vast nose was covered in blue lines and words like “nip,” “tuck,” “slash,” and “tear along the dotted line.” These scrawled instructions together with the grid of blue lines made the Don’s nose resemble a street map drawn in haste on the back of a napkin. Very undignified, the Don thought, but it will all be worth it. Today I go under the knife of Italy’s top plastic surgeon, Professore Flense-Filleto. Not only will he sculpt me the perfect nose but he and his team of doctors and nurses will provide me with the perfect alibi. The Don permitted himself the tiniest of smiles, imagining that evening’s newspaper reports:
Don Knifed
While Brother Crisped
Don Lucifer di S’Embowelli Borgia was undergoing surgery in an exclusive Milanese hospital while a mysterious fire broke out at his secluded palazzo. Firemen called to the scene arrived too late to rescue the Don’s beloved brother, Luciano, from the inferno that razed the palazzo to the ground.
Police sources reveal that the Don is not under suspicion.
Don Lucifer bared his teeth in a feral grin. Perfect. With all witnesses able to swear that on the day of the “accident,” the main suspect had booked himself into their hospital for a major rhinoplasty, there was little that the police could do to pin the “mysterious fire” on him. Perfect. A master plan, in fact.
There was a discreet knock at the door. The Don leapt across the room and arranged himself on the bed. Professore Flense-Filleto swung into the room, followed by a posse of young doctors and nurses.
“We’re ready for you now, Signor di S’Embowelli Borgia,” said the professore. “All the knives are razor sharp and I’ve been practicing my sewing on an old bit of chamois leather, har-dee-har, fnaar-fnaar.”
Obediently, the posse broke out in forced laughter. The Don paled. Propelled by three nurses, his bed began to move slowly across the room.
Opening the door, the professore oozed confidence. “Not nervous, are we? Mustn’t mind my little jokes. We’ve got a lovely little elephant’s trunk just waiting for you in the operating room, haven’t we, nurse? Haar-haar, fnaar.”
Wearily, the posse sniggered on cue. The Don sat bolt upright in bed. Pushing him back into a horizontal position, the professore continued. “Nothing can possibly go wrong, signor. We have technology at our fingertips. We’ll hook you up to our machines, everything computer-controlled and linked to several hospitals across the world, and that way we have the skills of many of the finest surgeons at our disposal. You could say that you are on the cutting edge of science, hurr-hurr-hurr.”
The nurses gave the Don’s bed a particularly vicious push, and he found himself barreling through the doors to the operating room.
“Just a little jab and you’ll soon drift away,” one of the nurses said, bending over the bed and slipping a needle into the Don’s arm. She straightened up and began sorting scalpels and forceps. “Count backward from ten for me, Signor di S’Embowelli Borgia …?”
Obediently, the Don began, “Ten, nine, eight, seven lawyers, six … six policemen, five alive, alive oh, four no more, four sharksss … Ragu … Lucianoooo …”
His eyeballs slid backward in his head. The Don’s last awareness was of straps being placed round his head and arms, and the disembodied voice of the professore saying, “Signor, is that a fine pair of sunglasses you’re wearing or are those your nostrils? Huurr-hurr, dee-fnaar.”
You’re Toast
Signor Strega-Borgia clapped a hand to his forehead. This computer infestation was beyond him. He had spent the better part of a working day frantically dismantling computer mainframes, and still the rats eluded him. No sooner would he undo the maintenance panels on one monitor than the rats would disappear from within it with a squeak. Within seconds, they would reappear on a nearby screen with their pink noses pressed up against the glass in a demented form of peekaboo.
To add to his discomfort, the temperature in the computer room was climbing rapidly. Signor Strega-Borgia loosened his tie, removed his jacket, and rolled up his shirt sleeves. After a moment, he removed his shoes and socks. The marble floor felt warm underfoot.
“Strange …,” he muttered, padding across the room to a working terminal. He keyed in stregaschloss.co.uk and stopped. In front of him the cursor blinked, on, off, on, off. If only it was all so simple, he thought, on, off, yes, no. Despite their apparent complexity, computers work on a binary system of choices. On or off were the only options. No in-between choices. No shades of gray. Just two choices. And what if you make the wrong choice, he thought, like that awful day when
I stormed out of StregaSchloss, fueled by a moment’s rage.…
The empty screen waited. Taking a deep draft from a bottle of warm Coke, Signor Strega-Borgia began feverishly to type an e-mail to his son. After a few
paragraphs, he found that the sweat trickling down his forehead was stinging his eyes. His shirt stuck to his back and his fingers slithered around on sweaty keys. “Need some air in here,” he muttered, heading for the door.
PUSH, it read. Signor Strega-Borgia pushed. Nothing happened. Signor Strega-Borgia pushed again. The door remained firmly shut. Signor Strega-Borgia hurled his weight against the door. Still, nothing. Taking several paces backward, he ran at the door and launched a flying kick at it.
He slowly picked himself up off the floor, checked that no major limbs were broken, and crawled to the door. Pressing his eye up to the keyhole, Signor Strega-Borgia singed his eyelashes on the metal. Disbelieving the evidence of his eyelashes, he felt the keyhole with his hand. “OUCH!” he yelled. The metal was red-hot.
It was at this point that Luciano Strega-Borgia gave up hope of ever seeing his family again.
Stripped down to his boxer shorts, Signor Strega-Borgia sat panting at a computer terminal. The temperature in the computer room rose by the minute. Half an hour before, it had been perfect for cooking meringues; now it was the ideal temperature to roast turkey. Large turkeys.
Two tears tracked down his cheeks, evaporating as they slid chinward. Signor Strega-Borgia was typing what he knew to be his last letter. He paused to wipe his sweat-slippery hands on his discarded shirt. Blinking through his tears, he looked at his words on the screen in front of him:
Dearest Titus, beloved Pandora, adored Damp, and my beautiful wife,
Recalling their faces, he tried not to imagine them held at gunpoint, pale and terrified, his beloved family at the mercy of Pronto. It will be all right, he reassured himself, Lucifer has what he wants and he will call off his hired thugs. Hoping against hope that this was indeed the case, he returned to his e-mail and typed:
I shall shortly be leaving you forever, but before i go, I want to say these few words …
Titus—my son, my firstborn. I loved you from the moment I heard your newborn wail. as I watched you grow from an infant into a fine young man, my love grew daily. be brave, my son, be true.
Signor Strega-Borgia paused to blow his nose loudly into his shirt. Stifling a sob, he continued:
and there’s a keyboard shortcut for Death & Destruction II that neutralizes the force field round Nettlefold. It’s control, shift, alt while your left hand holds down option, shift, caps lock. good hunting!
Pandora—my darling girl, my eldest daughter. born with the August moon flooding your eyes, you have brought perpetual summer into my life. Your regal dignity surrounded you since you were a tiny baby, my princess. be brave, my love, and remember—at least this way, I won’t embarrass you when you grow up.
One last thing—no pierced ears, noses, or whatever until you’re at least 21, and that’s final.
and Damp—my little baby, my sweetest flower. by the time you are old enough to read this yourself, you won’t remember me at all.
He paused again, struck by the thought that for his youngest child he would be nothing. Not even a vague memory. A blank dada. The thought was not a happy one. The soles of his feet began to feel uncomfortably hot, so perched on a melting stool, he carried on.
You’ll have to ask your mama about me. ask her about raspberries blown on your tummy, about how we laughed together, about how much I loved you.
May your life be full of flowers, love, and laughter. and know this—that your daddy loved you to bits.
He stopped for a short weep. The winking cursor blinked on and off, waiting mindlessly for more words. “It’s so sad,” howled Signor Strega-Borgia. “I won’t see any of them grow up. I’ll be a blackened crisp while they slowly forget me.…”
He picked up his shirt, noticing that despite having used it as a giant handkerchief, it was dry … and very hot. Blowing his nose yet again, he came to the final part of his farewell letter.
My love, my life, my dearest only wife …
He typed frantically for as long as he could, stopping occasionally to pour warm Coke over his head in a hopeless attempt to cool himself down. Finally he reached the end of the letter. Sniffing, he typed in the address:
my best-loved [email protected]
and blowing a kiss to the screen, he pressed ENT and ER. To his relief, up on the screen came the reassuring words: MESSAGE SENT.
Emptying the last drops of Coke over his head, Signor Strega-Borgia sat and waited for death.
The Music of the Pipes
Pronto’s arms ached with the weight of the gun Wormwood. “Come on,” he groaned. “How long does it take to say goodbye?”
“A long time if you’re a Strega-Borgia,” muttered Pandora.
“You see, we have to say it in Urdu, Serbo-Croatian, Mandarin …,” explained Titus.
“Not to mention Xhosa, Pig Latin, ancient Greek, and Yibble,” added Pandora.
“Two minutes more,” warned Pronto, drumming his fingers on Wormwood’s barrel. “Don’t think I don’t know when I’m having the Michelangelo taken.”
“Ot-whay ow-nay?” whispered Titus.
“On’t-day o-knay,” said his sister, nibbling the skin round her gnawed fingernails. “E’re-way oomed-day.” She was trying not to look at Wormwood. In her terror, her eyes scanned round Titus’s room, finally alighting on a gloomy oil painting that had hung in the bedroom for as long as she could remember. It was a particularly hideous depiction of a fox cornered by men in red jackets and fat, drooling hounds. The fox, as could be expected, was looking rather nervous, the hounds somewhat hungry, and the red-jacketed men faintly nauseous. The whole had been painted in somber earth colors of mud, sludge, and silage, and titled The Unspeakable in Pursuit of the Inedible.
It hung on the wall, just behind Pronto, massive and ugly … and ever so slightly askew. In fact, not askew, Pandora realized. It looked just like a vast door, slightly ajar.…
At the top of the secret stairway, Latch and Mrs. McLachlan halted. Trying not to sneeze in the dusty air, they whispered to each other in the darkness.
“We’ll surprise him,” hissed Latch. “I’ll burst in, tackle him, hurl him to the ground, get his arms up behind his back, kick his gun to one side, frog-march him downstairs, and phone the police.…”
“Er, no, dear, I don’t think so,” whispered Mrs. McLachlan, discreetly removing her little case from her pocket and flipping it open. “Too risky—we can’t have stray bullets flying around.”
Attempting to shield the case from Latch’s inquiring gaze, she switched it on and peered within. It lit up with a silvery glow, illuminating her face and causing Latch to wonder why, at a time like this, his companion had decided to turn girly and powder her nose.
“Have you a better suggestion?” he muttered through clenched teeth. “For heaven’s sake, woman, there isn’t time to gaze in your mirror, come on!” And without waiting for a reply, he burst through the secret door into Titus’s bedroom.
Later, Pandora would recall that everything moved very quickly from the moment that she’d noticed the off-kilter painting. One minute she was wondering why it appeared to hang from the wall on hinges, and next thing, Latch was flying through it like a … well, really, like a hero, she admitted as Latch landed on top of that vile gangster with the horrible gun.
“BANZAIIIIiii!” yelled Latch, launching himself at Pronto. “GERRRRONIMO!” he added for effect as he knocked Wormwood out of Pronto’s grasp.
Pronto was scrabbling across the floor in pursuit of Wormwood, followed by Latch, who was intent on fastening his hands around the thug’s throat, when Mrs. McLachlan stepped through the hole in the wall with a dazzling object held in her outstretched hands. A beam of light streamed from it, bathing Pronto in a silver glow.
The gangster flailed and screamed, and Latch, sensing victory, fastened his hands around Pronto’s neck.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” wailed Mrs. McLachlan as she saw what a ghastly mistake she had made. “What a stupid idiot. What a moron. What a cretinous act of cybermagic.
What a dumb thing to do!”
“WHAT?” roared Latch, his hands tight round Pronto’s throat. “What have I done now, woman?” From beneath him came a ghastly sound like a strangulated wheeze.
“Not you, dear, me. I missed. My aim was off.” Mrs. McLachlan tutted, closing her case with a snap and instantly dropping it into her pocket. She crossed the room to where Wormwood lay twitching and spinning on the floor. “This,” she explained, picking up the gun with some difficulty, “this was my intended target.”
The gun hissed in her arms, twitching this way and that, seeking skin. “Revolting thing,” said Mrs. McLachlan, reaching under the trigger for the on/off switch. Immediately, Wormwood slumped over her arm, floppy as a disk and pliable as a Slinky.
Latch gazed at her in some confusion. If the gun hadn’t become her target, what had? A snort from Titus caused him to turn back to his wheezing victim.
“Oh, Latch,” gasped Pandora, “if you could only see your face!” Bewildered, Latch slowly released his grip on the fallen Pronto.
A strangely familiar droning groan came from beneath the butler’s kilt. Titus and Pandora made eye contact and burst into hysterical giggles. In a forlorn attempt at maintaining some shred of dignity, Latch rose to his feet, dusted down his kilt, and cleared his throat. “Would someone be kind enough to explain to me why I find myself locked in mortal combat with that … that thing?” he spluttered, pointing at what lay on the floor at his feet.
Pronto had undergone a magical transformation. Where seconds before he had stood, exuding bristling Mafia menace, now he lay metamorphosed into a giant set of bagpipes, droning like a stale tartan fart.