The bus dropped them off by a large field, on a cliff. In the middle of the field, which had a lot of cows and sheep in it, stood a very colourful tent: mainly green, but also red and orange and blue and spray-painted with words like LOVE and PEACE and, strangely, NEIL.
Next to the tent was an old double-decker bus, exactly like the ones from Barry’s world (well, exactly like the ones that used to be in Barry’s world in the old days and that he still sometimes saw on TV in old films set in London). The PCs weren’t all that keen on trudging across the muddy field to get to the tent and not sure what to do when they got there.
“Do we knock?” said PC 890.
“Knock on what?” said PC 891.
PC 890 looked at the tent doubtfully. There was a zip holding the canvas together. “The… door…”
PC 891 shrugged, made a fist and had a go. But his hand just folded into the canvas with a tiny shushing sound.
“Hmm. What do you suggest?” said 891, withdrawing his hand.
“We could call them,” said 890.
“Call them what?”
“No, I mean… Mr Cool?! Mrs Cool?!” PC 890 shouted. “Are you in there?”
There was a shuffling inside the tent. Then a man’s voice said: “Do you, like, have a search warrant?”
PCs 891 and 890 looked at each other and at Barry, confused.
“Um… no… We’re from the Parent Agency…”
“Oh! Yeah! Cool!”
The zip came down, sticking a couple of times as it went. Out of the tent came a thin man with a large shock of curly brown hair and an equally curly big beard, wearing pyjamas.
“Sorry to wake you, sir,” said PC 890. He checked his watch as he said this: it was half past two in the afternoon.
“Hey, no worries, man. So which one of you is, like, Barry?”
“Er… me…” said Barry, putting his hand up.
“Cool,” said the man. “I’m Elliott.”
As he said this, a woman pulled the zip further down and came out of the tent. She was quite a large lady in a flowery dress. “Hi. I’m Mama Cool,” she said. Then she looked at PCs 890 and 891 and said: “Do you work for The Boy?”
She had an accent a little like Barry had heard back in his own world, on a holiday his family once went on, to Cornwall. They had stayed at a Bed & Breakfast in a place called Coverack where the owner, also quite a large lady, was very proud of how strong her tea was. “You could stand your spoon up in this, my lovers!” she would say as she put down the cups for Barry’s mum and dad, every breakfast.
“I’m sorry?” said PC 890.
“Well,” said PC 891, “we work for a boy.”
“Hmm, I’d normally give you a much harder time,” she said. “But I won’t today because you’ve brought us… our son!!!”
She opened her arms and gave Barry a hug. She smelt of mud and horse poo. But in sort of a nice way.
“OK, PCs,” she said, still holding him, “be off with you. Because, once we start parenting Barry, we don’t want you and your rule books around no more!!”
“OK,” said PC 890.
“OK,” said PC 891. “Mind how you go!”
And they left, waving politely.