Vote at Toad Hall

by Eddie Saint

  The main arena was an altogether bigger challenge than he had prepared for, not least because the floor seemed to double up as a rudimentary seating area. The whole balloon-far-away-but-up-close thing was too much to deal with in such a busy environment, so he hoisted it down and held it out in front of him in both paws, then made his way gingerly towards the stage. He looked for all the world like a sightless Giraffe who had brought his Guide Balloon For The Blind along.

  Spike the Porcupine saw him before he got to the stage, and tried to offer assistance.

  ‘J… j… just a few m… more steps,’ he said, hoping that by standing at the top of the steps the blind Scoots could home in on his voice like a lamp in a harbour cottage window. Ivan changed direction and made for the friendly sound.

  Three things happened in very quick succession after that, and none of them deliberately Ivan’s fault.

  First, he stepped on something that wasn’t floor. It was something that moved and spoke and sounded more sullen than anything else. Second, and as a direct result of the first event, Ivan let go of the balloon he was holding so as to put his arms out in front of himself to avoid toppling over. Third, an alert Spike plucked one of his quills and launched it like a javelin straight through Ivan’s balloon.

  ‘That was cl… cl… close,’ said Spike, waving an apology to the Goat running a plushie stall who was, at that moment, busy trying to placate a hyperventilating Barn Owl while removing a large porcupine quill from his recently purchased Angel Delight doll. ‘Only, I c… c… can’t let them h... hit the r… roof or I lose my… m… my… my insurance.’

  Ivan’s view of recent proceedings was quite limited owing to his periscope vision. He held up his paws, one bandaged, the other dangling a torn piece of red latex from a string still wrapped around his wrist.

  ‘Oh… I’m s… s… soooo s… s… s…’ began Spike.

  Ivan held his bandaged paw higher, palm towards Spike.

  ‘It’s ok,’ he ventured, trying to hide his Fox accent as best he could. ‘No hard feelings, eh?’

  ‘W… want another?’ asked Spike, but Ivan was keen to move on. He could feel eyes starting to turn on him and he was supposed to be undercover. Without answering the Porcupine he turned and, peeking through the bottom of his Scoots headdress, made his way cautiously to the relative safety of a bench by a coffee stall.

  Never, ever give Roadblock a sit down job. That seemed to be the main script advice driving his character. If there were heavy obstacles or an advance party of enemy aliens then Roadblock was your Rhino. Otherwise, send him to the on board gym, or the sewing room to fix the rips in his uniform. The very last place you wanted him was on the Bridge, where Hunter with his flowing mane and Zena with her intelligent eyes charted the Starship Carrington and its five crew on a glamorous course through the inky blackness of space towards the next adventure. Meanwhile, below decks, Jewel, the Elephant engineer, kept her engines working through improbable amounts of strain, often brought about because Scoots, the hapless but well intentioned stowaway Giraffe, was given the job of look-out and was never quite up to it.

  Buster, being a big sci-fi fan, had cracked Tony’s code almost as soon as I’d shown him the files. Each page had one error. It was always something you had to be a real fan to spot. He had seen straight away that Angel Delight would never wear pink because she hated gender stereotypes. The Starship Gemini clue was a little better hidden, but obvious to him. The Starship was actually run by two snow white siblings who were not twins but part of triplets. The third one only got a mention in one episode of Season 4, where her ice blue (not ‘orange’) arm could be seen through the frosted glass of her cryogenic pod.

  I figured that Tony was using the codes to somehow meet up with contacts under the cover of fan conventions, like a modern twist on the briefcase swap on a frosty park bench. He would send the coded file, and even if it was intercepted its secret would not be apparent to anyone but a real fan. If the contact was able to meet up then Tony would know it was safe because the contact would be the only one at the convention in a pink fighting outfit or an orange Gemini body sleeve. Or today, they would be the only Roadblock in a pristine uniform.

  Mel and I agreed to split up. This involved me working systematically from side-room to side-room while Mel sat at a table in the main arena sipping an expensive coffee and watching the mad world go by, to the accompaniment of a saxophone busker.

  ‘Welcome fans, welcome to Comic Con. We hope you have the best time yet,’ beamed an overly cheerful announcer over the PA system. ‘Do pop down and visit the brilliantly talented artists in the drawing alley in Room Six, but remember: they have to eat too! So why not take them a snack to show your appreciation? And if they are hiding under the table just give them five minutes to have a break. OK good folks? All-right!!!’

  I had been through five of the side rooms but could plainly see how unscientific my approach was. In the Brownian Motion of characters at the event I was bound to miss a fair percentage of Roadblocks. It seemed futile. Even when I thought back to how I had homed in on Tony’s address there had been a certain logic to my steps. This was just wandering around and hoping for a lucky break, like a spaceship drifting through the Universe.

  Why hadn’t Tony chosen Scoots? I’d only seen two Giraffes all day. Tony would have been a cinch to find.

  Maybe Mel, parked at a table, had the better idea after all. Wasn’t a stopped clock at least bang on accurate twice a day?

  An albino Mink with an ice blue body sleeve came up to me as I was on the cusp of going off to join Mel.

  ‘Badge, Hunter?’ he said.

  His dungarees were covered in enamel fan badges, to the point that he looked like he was wearing chainmail. His blue right paw held his waistcoat open and there, in glorious primary colours, I saw his merch.

  (Incidentally, all life-forms in the entire known universe can be placed neatly into one of two groups: those who snigger at unintentional double entendres, and those who don’t.)

  Pinned to the inside of his waistcoat were row after row of tiny enamel faces: Hunter, Zena, Jewel, Roadblock and Scoots.

  ‘C5 badge Hunter? Got a good one with your face on it.’

  I stopped and pretended to look at the badges, but really I was glad of an excuse to stand still and survey the swirling crowd.

  ‘Come on. You know you want one. Three quid, or two for a bluey. Can’t say fairer than that now, can I?’

  The Mink, too, was scanning the crowd, probably looking for the next soft touch, I reckoned, as I handed over a fiver and took a Hunter and a Roadblock.

  ‘Much obliged, Hunter. Ta very much,’ said the Mink pocketing the blue note with a blue hand. ‘You, er, you might want to be careful of the pin. Got a bit of a lively spring on that batch. Nothing a strong Lion can’t ‘andle though, eh? Eh?’ and he was off, laughing through the crowds.

  I pocketed the shoddy badges and shuffled back in to the main arena where Mel was still at her table.

  ‘Thank Father Badger you’ve come to rescue me!’ she exclaimed. ‘I couldn’t make that coffee last any longer and the busker is starting to try my patience.’

  We shared our progress, or lack of it, and then reluctantly decided that the best of the poor plans before us was to head across to Room Six and keep searching. A ring of young costumed animals sitting on the floor comparing their purchases and freebies, however, blocked our path across the arena. One capped fringe looked familiar.

  ‘Hello, Buster,’ I said cheerfully, crouching to join the group on the floor.

  ‘I’ll stand, if you don’t mind. My hips,’ said Mel.

  Buster looked delighted to see his new grown-up friend again.

  ‘Sweet Hunter rig,’ he said, approvingly.

  ‘Er, thanks.’

  ‘You seen your Roadblock?’

  That made me do a double take. I’d let Buster think it was a treasure hunt. The idea that there were actual animals wearing the clues had never been mentioned.<
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  Buster must have seen the look on my face and sparkled a grin at me.

  ‘Come on, I may not be doing well in school, but I got brains. I reckon I know there’s more to it than just a puzzle. At least, I do now.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yeah, man. Since I saw him.’

  ‘Saw who?’

  ‘That shiny clean Roadblock, over there.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  When the saxophonist started unpacking her case Ivan knew it was time for him to start moving. A kind waiter had arrived with a complimentary frappé and brownie just as he had sat down on the bench, saying it was to settle his nerves after the balloon quill incident. The extra long straw had been a nice touch too. But nothing, not the ministrations of the Bobcat barista, not even the dread of the queasiness that periscope vision gave him, could make him stay and listen to a saxophone busker.

  He got unsteadily to his feet and pondered his next move. His mission was to find a Badger with, ideally, a Rabbit in tow, but where to start? Luckily for him, the PA announcer gave him a shove. In her cheerful tone she outlined the plight of the poor starving artists, who were corralled in an alley and had to eat food off the floor. Their plight reminded him of so many of his fellow Forest Foxes back home. He had no idea such poverty could exist here, in the heart of Wild Wood!

  He was struggling to get the brownie past his headdress anyway, so he wrapped it up and headed for Room Six, on a mission to ‘Feed the Artists’. As Ivan the Whys had written: ‘Do good deeds and the Universe will bring back good things to you in abundance.’ Well, there was no harm in trying.

  Room Six puzzled him when he got there. There was no alley for a start. The artists all seemed to be sitting at tables, laughing and chatting, and not showing any signs of malnutrition or daily hardship. Maybe the announcer had been mistaken. Or maybe her appeal had been so successful that already the socio-economic artist crisis had been solved. The one thing Ivan was sure of was that there were no badgers in Room Six, and as such it was of no use in his mission. He gave his brownie to the nearest artist, hoping the Universe was watching anyway, and shuffled back out towards the main arena.

  The metallic ghost that accosted him gave him quite a surprise, its blue arm waving high above his head, on the edge of his periscope vision, tying to attract his attention.

  I’m not hallucinating, am I? he thought. It is getting hot in this giraffe head.

  ‘I said I’ve got a great Scoots badge!’ said a voice, as if it was shouting to be heard.

  Ivan put his arms out to feel in front of him, to see if he could locate the ghost. He felt nothing.

  Well, actually, what did I expect? he reasoned. Then a sharp pain ran through his otherwise uninjured paw.

  ‘Ow!’ he said.

  ‘Oh, sorry, sorry,’ the ghostly voice replied. ‘These new pins are a bit lively. Anyway, I’ve put a Scoots in your paw. They’re three squid each or two for a bluey.’

  Ivan prided himself on how well he had learned the language ready for his Wild Wood posting. In fact he proudly considered himself to be more than functionally fluent, but try as he might he could not make sense of the words that came from the spikey ghost.

  And then a reassuringly familiar, if not entirely welcome, sensation came to him. He was bleeding. The little metal ghost had cut him!

  ‘Er… hey, sorry about that. You seem to have cut yourself,’ said the ghost. ‘Anyway, keep the badge. Call it a gift. No, in fact, don’t call it anything. You never saw me, right?’

  Ivan looked around and saw no ghosts at above head height. Then he stooped forward to try to take in a visual sweep of his environment at ground level. No ghosts there either. What he did see, though, took his mind off the blood and the vicious, metallic ghost. There, across the room, was a Badger! Not only that, but next to it was a Lion, but it was a Lion with a Rabbit’s tail.

  Suddenly he was right back in mission mode. He was there to look for a Badger, who went by the name of Melody Higgins. The one who had been in Oak Leaf’s flat the night before…

  As those ideas ran through his head he watched the Rabbit sit cross-legged on the floor and start to talk to a young Otter, and then the Badger stooped and joined in the conversation.

  ‘Futtocks!’ he muttered under his breath, proud of his ability not to swear in a second language. That couldn’t be his Badger, not hanging out with a bunch of teenage critters. Or could it?

  He swivelled his headdress to take in the rest of the room, and immediately locked on to another possible target: pointy nose with stripes, wearing a fancy armour costume, walking with a large, gangly rabbit, both heading for the toilets.

  ‘Thank Ivan, and thank the Universe!’ he intoned, delightedly, into his Scoots mask.

  He took a deep breath to steady his nerves then set off in pursuit as carefully as he could, glad that he had made the effort to come in such a cunning disguise.

  I leapt to my feet and tugged Mel’s sleeve.

  ‘That’s him,’ I said, excitedly. ‘That’s our Roadblock.’ I stood with my back to the animal in question so Mel could look beyond my left ear, through the straggly tufts of mane, to a group of animals standing by the Carrington 5ive booth. One of the three Roadblocks she saw there was in a crisp new uniform, looking smarter even than the handsome Hunter he was standing with.

  ‘Well spotted!’ she said.

  ‘It was Buster, actually.’

  ‘Was it indeed?’

  Mel bent down stiffly at the waist and quietly gave the young Otter some words of praise that made his face shine.

  ‘I’m going over there,’ I said. ‘Wait here, will you? Its crazy easy to get lost in this place.’

  I skipped through the crowds milling by the stage and began to work my way slowly through the group of fans huddled around the Carrington 5ive display.

  And then it hit me.

  I didn’t actually know what to do once I found my Roadblock.

  There had been no extra part of the clue in the file. Just a single error. A means of identifying that the coast was clear: a flower in a lapel; a curtain half drawn at a window…

  I knew I had little time to waste. Tony was critically ill and the Foxes, in the form of Buck Wildheart, were closing in on me too. I had to find out what Hornworm was so I could work out how to defend myself. Anything else was just like waiting for the sharp teeth in the depths of the dark warren.

  I pushed myself confidently through the last of the crowd and tugged the Roadblock’s new shirt.

  ‘Nice threads,’ I said.

  ‘Really? You like it?’

  ‘Sure I do,’ I said, not quite knowing what words were going to come out of my mouth until they appeared, and just hoping madly that they would be the right ones.

  ‘Well, I don’t. I’m wearing it for a bet.’

  My mouth opened but no words came out. I scrambled around in my brain for an idea, any idea to pick Tony’s lock.

  ‘Have you worn anything else for a bet?’ I tried.

  The smart Roadblock bent down a little to get a good look at my face under that big mane of Hunter hair.

  ‘If that’s a chat up line you’re staring at the wrong Rhino, miss,’ he said, kindly but with a strong sense of conversational finality.

  I turned my big eyes on him. I smiled. I willed the right words to present themselves, but nothing came except, ‘Ah, shame. There must be a lucky Mrs Roadblock somewhere then.’

  ‘Yeah, something like that,’ he replied, and stepped backwards. It was only a small step but instantly there seemed to be a new row of animals between him and me, and as I looked between the costumes all signs of the brand new Roadblock had gone.

  Crouching down on his paws and knees Ivan shouldered his way into the toilets, silently wishing public spaces had been designed with Giraffes, especially cosplaying ones, in mind. He had seen the potential Badger target, accompanying the Rabbit, heading to the toilets. He was certain they definitely hadn’t come out again, so sneaking in u
ndetected and trying to eavesdrop their conversation was his next plan.

  What surprised him first as he struggled to his feet (one in a bandage, the other in its shiny calliper) was how feminine all the male cosplayers looked, and just how many Angel Delight costumes there were. Sure, he’d been to his fair share of army parties, and it seemed almost compulsory that the blokes had to pull on a dress and mince around. It was almost as if not to do so was somehow less masculine. But this! Here, making running repairs to their costumes, were blokes who had gone the whole distance; who had even, it seemed, gone in for surgery to…

  ‘Oi, creep, get your big neck and your fake skirt back out that door and do one!’ shouted a far from delighted sounding Angel. Ivan tried to focus through his periscope. Now that he was kneeling, his scope was at head height. Or, to be precise, slightly below head height. When the moment of realisation came, the mixture of feelings was simultaneously ecstatic and mortifying.

  A kindly Gemini character cut him some slack, took him by his good arm and led him carefully out through the door marked ‘Cows’ and over to the one marked ‘Bulls’ opposite. Before she left him she said,

  ‘Oh, let me get this for you,’ and she gently teased out the Scoots enamel badge that was still lodged in his palm. Carefully, and with some effort, she tucked the pin back behind its safety lug and placed the badge back in his paw.

  ‘Um, thanks,’ he said, grateful for the kindness. Not since he had left his vixen’s apron strings had he felt the kindness of another in quite that way. It almost made him forget his mission.

  ‘You can… call me, if you want,’ said Gemini coyly.

  ‘Um…’ said Ivan again, not having a clue how the conversation was supposed to go from here. Ivan the Whys had most certainly said nothing about this sort of situation.

  Gemini glanced far up to her right without moving her head, and then looked back at Ivan and gave him a small smile.