by Brian Hughes
“Can’t you ’ear ’em, Missus?”
A distant tune that wasn’t exactly a melody but more of a nonsensical air, drifted up through the hatchway.
Nancy slammed the hatch shut, curtailing the tree frog’s orchestration.
“You said the buggers only ever sung once in the whole of history, didn’t you?” Spike went on. “Why ’ave I got this horrible feelin’ that if I hadn’t have tried to stop ’em they’d never have started?”
“Don’t worry, Gypsy. Whilst you was down there I was off doin’ research.”
The glove came off with the ease of a meringue from a well-buttered baking tray.
“You mean you weren’t holdin’ the rope?”
“I was havin’ a look in the library. To be honest I didn’t expect you to be successful anyhow.”
“But I’ve bin riskin’ life and limb! And I bet those frogs are pissed off and all!”
“I had to do somethin’ to keep you quiet.” She threw the asbestos clothes into a crate containing a lesser-spotted haggis. “I was gettin’ sick of you moanin’. But not to fear. I’ve found a way of puttin’ it all to rights.”
“It doesn’t involve stickin’ bangers between me buttocks, does it?” Spike snorted.
“See this old biddy?” Nancy shoved an encyclopaedia beneath his nose. She arrested the fluttering pages on a black and white photograph. “That’s Josephine Lowry. She was responsible for inventin’ the Overlords. The Dark Lord put her in stasis in ’is museum.”
The volume slammed shut and vanished.
Nancy appeared to wink. “All we do is rescue her. Then she can invent somethin’ to get us out of this mess.”
Some point in the future.
The rumble of tyres across rough ground. The SPODs worked their way through the Dark Lord’s palace. Down narrow corridors, through antediluvian rooms.
In the darkest vault the Dark Lord waited. Ancient ducts with respiratory problems coughed smoke above his head.
The door opened. The three pepperpots reeled in with beating hearts. They stopped before his throne and bowed.
“Good mornin’ your Right Royal Regalness, Most Exalted Entrepreneur, Holder of the Mystical Gold Card. Defender of Commercial…”
“Get on with it, Sergeant!” The Dark Lord’s fingertips drummed against each other. “What news of our Industrial Heritage?”
Corporal 85B suddenly remembered the stupid glasses. A grain of Castrol GTX trickled from his lid. Sergeant 89D saluted nimbly with a clunk.
“Bad news, I’m afraid, your Imperial Magnificence.”
“Did I hear you correct, Sergeant? Did you say, ‘Bad News’ in my presence? I hardly need remind you what the penalty for failure is.”
The bead of oil circumnavigating the Corporal’s temple grew larger. He clenched his mechanical buttocks together and prayed to the Great ZX Spectrum in the Sky.
“Er, possibly not, your Splendiferous Greatness.” The Sergeant lowered his bent antennae, brushing the dust from the floor. “What I meant to say, in point of fact was, ‘Good news’. ‘Fantastic news’ even.”
Gurgle, squelch, went Corporal 85B’s complicated waste system.
“Go on then, Sergeant. This had better be worth while.”
“Well your Utterly Brilliant Excellence, it would appear that…” Sergeant 89D sought for the most appropriate word. “Quite splendidly and most…happily…Nancy Skunk is no longer in the time period requested.”
A moment for contemplation.
“Apparently she stole the other time machine.” The Sergeant turned optimistically to his companions who both came sharply to attention. “Which, on the whole, I thought was marvellous. Don’t you agree, Lads?”
The other SPODs nodded enthusiastically. Perhaps a little too enthusiastically.
The Corporal’s digestive problems finally got the better of him. Far from sneaking out, the gaseous build-up blasted through his iron seat like a thunderous foghorn. With one delicate hand he dispersed the stench of cabbage, muttering, “That un ’ud strip a rabbit of its skin, Sarge!”
The Dark Lord rose. An ominous shadow fell across the SPODs.
“Oddly enough, that’s not what I would call ‘Good News’, Sergeant.”
He jabbed violently on a concealed remote. From the rafters a bolt of electricity earthed itself into the Corporal’s dome.
A buzz shook the building.
Corporal 85B danced uncontrollably above the floor.
Moments later the SPOD was nothing more than a sad collection of defunct Meccano.
“Right, Sergeant?” The Dark Lord lowered the remote control again, confronting the frightened SPODs with a snarl. “I think it’s time you found out where Skunk has gone. Before we all die.”
Chapter Twenty-Four: The Most Courageous Facet Possessed by the Quantum Gambler
The Royal College of Science, 1884. Test tubes bubbled and crucibles fizzled. Hunched over their experiments in stained yellow lab-coats the students mixed their way towards a scientifically better future. Mr Bromley walked across the room. He was a tall gent with a copious midriff and a slightly singed beard.
“Now then, Wells?” Bromley pulled up before the scholar anxiously blending alkalines together. “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news, old boy.”
He studied his pupil’s worried expression. “Put your tongue in Wells. Don’t want the damn thing getting burnt. The dean’s received a letter from your mother in Kent.” He cast his eyes towards the scorch-marked floorboards. “Apparently your Great Aunt Gladys in Carlisle is ill.”
Almost as though bad news was something to be avoided at all costs Bromley suddenly changed the subject. “Now, what exactly are you hoping to achieve with this concoction?”
“N...n…not altogether s…s…sure, Sir,” the youth stammered anxiously, holding the compound at arm’s length. He picked up a microscopic amount of powder on a petri dish. “I’m hoping to…to…find the equation for…‘Cavorite’ Sir. An anti-gravity material to h…h…help with space-flight propulsion.”
“Excellent, excellent!” Mr Bromley rocked back on his well worn heels. He was nothing if not a genial mentor. “Go ahead! Let’s see what happens.”
“Very good, Sir.”
The granules plummeted one by one, the liquid transforming from a reddish-copper to a greenish-ochre. For several moments nothing happened apart from a threatening hiss bringing loam to the rim.
“Apparently very little, Mr Wells.” Bromley sprinkled a tiny amount of sulphuric acid into the concoction. “Perhaps if we added a bit more sub…”
And that, for the next few minutes, was that. Eventually the smoke cleared, Mr Bromley now resembling a charcoaled tulip. He coughed a marrow of dark red smog from his mouth and wiped his eyes.
“Perhaps, Mr Wells, it might be best if you left your studies for the time being.” A feather of lung tissue whistled out of his lips. It fluttered onto the tip of Wells’ nose. “Your Great Auntie Gladys would probably enjoy a visit. If you want my advice you’ll go to your dorm and start packing straight away.”
Forwards through time. The Planning Committee Chamber. Private 72F trundled up to his superior officer and saluted. For the previous hour he’d been trolling around like a mother superior at a French massage parlour, all haughty grimaces and condescending looks. Finally he’d decided that enough was enough. His oil-bag needed flushing out.
“Permission to visit the toilet, Sarge? I’m desperate for a leak.”
Sergeant 89D lowered his Sunday supplement. From time to time broadsheets would get blown into the barracks at the rear of York Street.
“I s’pose so. But don’t be long. You heard what the Dark Lord said about Skunk possibly comin’ here. We’ve got to catch this ’ologram, you understand? Or else his bloomin’ great eminence will ’ave our fan belts for garters.”
The arm was lowered with a creak. The gratified junior squealed off.
With a hollow thud the door closed behind him. The sound of a pain-stic
k being carefully positioned against the wall was followed by the noise of oil against the skirting board.
Seconds later the roar of electricity filled the room. It grew in strength until the sergeant’s antennae were streaming backwards. The low wattage bulbs flickered overhead, the Perspex slabs casting rainbows across the ceiling. Several pages of cartoons, the sergeant’s favourite section, tore from his grip and fluttered round the walls.
Out of the ceiling dropped a forty-ton caravan. An ornamental time machine in a twisting maelstrom.
There was a crunch. And the sergeant’s lenses misted over.
Silence returned in turgid fits. The undercarriage joists creaked as they settled back down to their normal shape. Several newspaper leaves came slowly to rest on the caravan’s roof.
The colourful door inched open expectantly. Nancy emerged triumphantly, ignorant of the crumpled SPOD beneath her stanchions.
“There you go, Gypsy.” She drew in a breath and stepped forwards. “Told you there’d be nobody ’ere to stop us.”
“What’s that noise?” Spike scuttled out behind her. “Sounds like the radiator’s leakin’?”
“There’s Mrs Lowry!”
In a single bound Nancy was off, removing a gadget from her apron that resembled a Gameboy. She swung it across Grandma Jo’s translucent tomb.
“’We’ll get her out of there, no trouble.”
These days most science fiction movies rely heavily on the latest morphing techniques. Spike had sat through many an intergalactic battle with animated Space Cockroaches with exploding heads. It came as a disappointment when Nancy’s machine produced the sort of stop-motion effect that had committed Ray Harryhausen to the redundancy list. The orange laser strobed the Perspex. Not since the early years of Doctor Who had such an unconvincing meltdown taken place.
The old woman emerged from her prison like Bagpuss waking up. Her pinched lips were already open, as though she’d left off in the middle of an argument.
“…tard! I’ll ’ave you know that….”
Sudden confusion swamped her muddled brain. In surprise she screwed up her fists and gave her eyes a damn good rubbing.
“What’s appened to the Dark Lord? ’Orh, me back ’urts!”
She straightened herself with a series of cracks.
“And me bloody bunions! By the left, they’re givin’ me jip! How come everything’s suddenly different?”
She narrowed her eyes and blinked rapidily.
“And what the ’Ell are you doin’ here, Miss Bloody Skunk?”
“We’ve come to rescue you, Mrs Lowry.”
“Oh, aye? And what would you want to do a thing like that for?” She fixed down one eyelid and glowered. “I thought you was workin’ for Bobby Beaumont? Or the Dark Lord as the silly bastard prefers to be known?”
“We had a bit of a disagreement.”
Nancy grabbed Grandma Jo’s cardigan gingerly. She looked like the kind of bloated geriatric who would burst if she fell over.
“Come on! We’ve got to leave before we’re caught.”
The trickle of liquid against Artexed plaster concluded with a squirt. There was a sigh, two further outbursts of seepage, and then, for some unfathomable reason because SPODs had no need for them, the sound of a creaky zip-fastener being closed.
“I’m not goin’ anywhere with you!” Grandma Jo dug her boots into the floor, hoisting herself backward at an angle. Nancy clung dogmatically to her cuff, with the skill of an angler landing a bass. “I don’t know where you’ve bin!”
“You know me though don’t you, Grandma Jo?”
Josephine Lowry scowled disapprovingly as Spike stepped forwards, all insincere teeth and effulgent pimples.
“Edward Johnson. I used to knock about with y’r grandson, Dennis?”
“I know you all right.” The pensioner appeared to swell, Nancy much to her own astonishment being forced off her feet. “Edward ‘Spike, ’Amster-Murdering’ Johnson!”
Her head went over onto one side in the fashion of a buoy at low tide, a peevish expression raising her brow.
“That was a long time ago, Missus Lowry. And I didn’t know the plug was in.” Spike’s face filled with regret. “Besides, your Dennis suggested the experiment. Take’s after you in that respect. Always delving into things scientifically.”
A sudden buzz squeezed itself beneath the doorjamb. The sort of noise that damp, metallic fingers coming into contact with a switched-on pain-stick might generate.
A flash accompanied the howling scream.
“Come on, Mrs Lowry! We’ve got to go!” Nancy tugged. The solid old goose remained as steady as a countersunk gatepost. “If we don’t go now we’ll be killed. And then we can’t save civilisation.”
“What about Dennis?”
“Who?” Nancy anxiously looked around at the other stasis pods. “We’ll have to leave him! We ’aven’t got time.”
The door burst open theatrically. Private 72F filled the lower half of the frame. Helixes of smoke pirouetted from his fluorescing dome, the occasional glow-worm of static chasing its tail around the pain-stick’s thrashing end.
“You’re all under arrest!”
He raised the weapon above his head.
“Give us that, Spike.” Grandma Jo tugged the scarf from Spike’s throat. “There’s a fundamental design flaw with these useless contraptions.”
Seconds later the SPOD was hurtling round in a circle, bumping into the pile of rotting furniture. Small clouds of blasphemies forced themselves through the woollen bonnet. Having watched the pantomime for a few moments Grandma Jo took a supercilious sniff and turned.
“Come on then! Watcha all standing around for? There’s a lot o’ stasis booths to be turned off before we can get on!”
Chapter Twenty-Five: Character Information
Time to unbolt our strongbox once more and delve amongst its contents. What’s this? A schoolbook, vandalised with badly drawn private parts, the word ‘Mathematics’ crossed out and, ‘Spike’s Ornifollojikal Advenchurs’ scrawled over the top.
Thersday: Bunked of school during jim. One day ill ram Mr Porters cain up his big fat arse. Had a look for the Leser Spoted Greeb at the municifal Park. Ait banananana and sugar buttie then stood acksidentally in big crusty dog terd. Caught site of fiveteen thrushes one startling one ded Robin and what apeered to be bin liner nesting in tree tops. Have theary. The ruskies have been breading black bags for sirveylance mishons. Another too of them were atemting to copulait on top of war memoriel. Parky chased me through the gates for pewking banananananana pulp all over prise azaleas.
Saterday: Gordon Birns on Norf West tonight said Grater Crested Monglion Tit had been spoted by abandond railway tunel at Devils Creviz. There are only fore known to ecksist in hole world. Couldn’t get close thow. Entrence barricaded by dozens of idiots in oiled jakets. Got anoiyed! Went hoam for Cat.
(The Johnson household owned a feline whose name was simply ‘Cat’ for reasons never entered into. It was a monstrous, battle-scarred demon from all accounts.)
Cat soon put stop to al the noize. Now there are only thre Grater Crested Tits left in ecksistence.
Monday: Saw pare of Even Grater Tits this morning. Dad gave me belt, told me to turn off Richurd and Judi and get to skool. Have manajed to secur deal with Denis Lowree in the secund yere to borow his mothers vidio camra. Going to maik film abowt ‘Warbelers.’
Fortunately we have a recording of that video-cassette. It’s a bit on the demagnetised side and its label is peeling off. But it still gives us some insight into Spike’s hobby.
The opening shot consists of Spike grubby fingertip tapping the lens and making the film splutter with electrical lines.
“So we can add titles t’ this, can we?”
“Yeah! Timothy Clewes ’as got a computer that does that sort of thing.”
That was Dennis’ voice. Dennis was several years younger at this point. Possibly fatter than during his adolescent years. The sort of fat that
his mother had always said he’d grow into. They’d found an uncomfortable hiding place in the loft of the Victorian Bogg Street schoolhouse. From here there was a view of the trains entering the station. There was also an apron of pigeon droppings fringing their lookout hole.
“Right.” Spike shuffled backwards, trying to hide the piece of cardboard bearing the words, ‘Spike’s Film abowt the Grayminstre Kestral. And Warbelers.’ At which point the camera fell over with a crack.
Short period of static. Spike’s ugly features filled the frame once more.
“We’ve just spotted the kestrel. I’m gonna ’ave to…ungh!”
“Hurry up Spike, it’s gettin’ away.”
The camera was hoisted off its tripod, the self-focusing mechanism throwing an epileptic fit. Various close-ups of spiders.
Eventually the scene altered to that of the hole, focusing in on the rooftops of the terrace opposite.
A complaining seagull shouted from Mrs Frost’s gable end.
“Just look at that! What a magnificent sight.”
From below a chant. Four denim-clad hoodlums with haircuts like roundheads minced their way along the pavement. The camera took a jerky look in their direction. None of them knew they were being watched, although their hymn had threatening undertones.
“Edward Johnson. What a wanker! You’re gonna get your fuckin’ ’ead kicked in.”
The shortest of the group, Spazzer Watkins, the first in his year at junior school to get a tattoo, stopped in his tracks, lifted a brick from the kerbstone and smartly delivered it through the headmaster’s window. The ensuing crash caused a sudden rumpus.
“Grab the camera! We’ve got to get out of ’ere. The copper’s are bound to come now. We’re trespassin’ illegally, Spike!”
From outside the noise of hastily departing footsteps accompanied shouts of, “Geddout of ’ere you dick’ead. You’ll ’ave the rozzers onto us!” “’Ere we go, ’ere we go, ’ere we go. They’re the only fuckin’ words that we know,” and “Let’s go round to Johnson’s ’ouse and kick ’im in the bollocks!”