evolting little thing, isn’t he?” puffed Faisal. “I think we’ll be wanting to use the exit strategy.”
“I’d say that might be prudent, Great-uncle. And said exit would be …?”
“There, on the monitor – see the room the clowns have just walked into?”
Ned, Lucy and Tinks peered at the screen.
“There’s an emergency exit behind the stage.”
“Ah,” said Ned. “Not much immediate use then.”
“No,” said Great-uncle Faisal, “perhaps not.”
“Where exactly is that room?” asked Lucy nervously.
“Just the other side of this door.”
Right then from under the doorway came the telltale sound of the padding of oversized shoes.
A spring audibly broke in the old machine’s head.
Great-uncle Faisal picked up a large adjustable spanner from his workbench and handed it to Tinks.
“You need me to fix you?”
“No, Tinks, I need you to hit clowns with it,” he said. He then took Whiskers from his shoulder and placed him on the floor. “Now, young scamp, before you were a mouse you were a dog, and this was once your home. We have intruders – I think you know what to do.”
The Debussy Mark Twelve’s fur bristled, its little clockwork gears beating with the brave soul of a mighty St Bernard, ready to protect its lair.
“Scree!”
“That’s the spirit, ma boy!”
Ned grabbed a wrench from the table. He might not have had his powers any more, but he could still take a swing at Eanie and his cronies.
“Everyone, get either side of the door. I’ve got a plan,” said Ned and promptly flicked the light switch to his side.
Great-uncle Faisal went to one side of the opening as quietly as his aged pistons would allow; Tinks and Lucy took the other side, while Ned held back in the shadows.
“Gorrn?” whispered Ned.
But the familiar was already ahead of him, oozing flat to the ground and stretching along the floor of the doorway. To anyone else, he would have looked like a shadow across the floor. Their trap was almost ready to spring. Finally Whiskers got himself into position, his tiny mouse bottom on the floor, his back upright and little chest heaving. For a moment Ned could almost see the St Bernard that he’d been, till the “Woof!” he’d no doubt wanted to bark came out as a minor “Scree!” instead.
Then the door swung open.
Eanie was the first to approach.
The passing of time had done little to dull the revulsion Ned felt for him. Even smaller than a minutian but with none of their kindness or cleverness, the clown’s silhouette came across the doorway. He wore the same bowler hat and oversized shoes, had the same straggly orange hair. But it was the smell that made Ned want to wretch.
It was a smell like rotting fish and pickles, bin juice and malice; he would recognise it anywhere.
Eanie looked down and saw Whiskers, just as planned.
“Mousie, is it? I members you. You da boyz friendy.”
Whiskers knew as well as Ned what the creature was capable of, but he didn’t budge, not even an inch.
Eanie may well have been a coward, and dumb, but dumb cowards can make for cunning adversaries when it comes to the setting of traps. Eanie peered through the doorway carefully, eyes squinting at the dark.
“Jossy boy? I knows it’s you – I sees your mousie. Come out and I makes it quick-r-snick, no needs for smashin’ or bashin’.”
Ned’s muscles tensed and knotted. Every fibre of him wanted to lash out and attack, but things were different now. His powers had left him and they needed the advantage of surprise – of a trap.
And as the clown stepped through the doorway and bent down towards Ned’s mouse, the trap was sprung.
Eanie’s eyes crossed with pain as Gorrn rose up from the ground and all around him like a black tidal wave. A second later and his muffled scream was pulled into the darkness by Ned’s familiar, before fading to a sickening silence. Whatever Gorrn might have done to him, Ned was glad of it and so were the others, Tinks, Faisal and Lucy all sighing with relief from the shadow of the doorway.
One down, two to go. But the others came fast and Gorrn, Ned guessed, was still digesting, or whatever it was a familiar did after swallowing a clown whole. Meanie found the lights and Mo barrelled into the room with an angry snarl, eyes wild and arm ready for punching.
“Wotcha dun wit’ Eanie?!” he hollered. “Mo makes sneaksie boy pay, Mo grind your bones ta bits ’n’ bobs, and then he end da girlie!”
Ned looked at the creature in horror. Great loose lips stretched over a red and greedy mouth. Nothing the creature wore fitted him, because nothing could fit the unbreakable ball of blubber that was his belly. Every stitch and seam was frayed to bursting and his tiny bowler hat made his face look even larger and more eager to catch his prey.
Behind the creature, Meanie was struck from the side by Tinks’s spanner. But the clown was built of stronger stuff and turned on the minutian violently. Two swings of his blackjack club and both Tinks and his great-uncle lay motionless on the floor.
Immediately, Ned struck out at Mo with his wrench but it just bounced off harmlessly.
“Silly jossy-boy. You can’t hurts Mo – no one hurts da big one.”
“Yeah, silly sneaksie jossy-boy,” said Meanie, and where there had been one clown there now stood two.
“Lucy, get behind me,” seethed Ned. The creature’s belly might be impenetrable, but Ned was quite certain that the two clowns’ knees would feel a wrench if it was swung hard enough.
Lucy brushed by Ned quietly and approached the clowns. Meanie grinned and Mo’s tummy rumbled as if he’d just sat down to a Sunday roast.
“Gentlemen?”
“Girlie?” grinned Mo.
“You have frightened, bullied and shot people that I care about deeply,” said Lucy.
“What’s it to you, prissy whissy?!” barked Mo.
Lucy raised her hand and closed her eyes. “I would like you to STOP.”
And that’s exactly what they did. Both of the clowns froze in motion – mid-chew, mid-breath, mid-moody and menacing glare. It was as if time had stopped, but only for the clowns.
Ned couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “Wha-what did you do?!”
“I’ve been practising. Their minds think they’re asleep, so they’ve stopped moving. I can’t fool them forever, though. Quickly, we need to get out of …”
But her words trailed away.
At the door was a horror in metal, pointed and sharp, with arms for pinching and cutting, and soulless eyes fixed wholly on Ned.
Tick, tick, tick.