Dastardly Doings - Part 9

By Sean Bean.

Explanatory Note: In Part 7 when Iris and Greased Batshit roared away from the start line in the race to decide who wrote the next episode of Dastardly Doings, Sean was the first to recover from the shock. The others were still trying to clear their ears when Sean staggered down the course. He just edged Bistro Waiters into third place with Arjy a close fourth and therefore Sean writes the second in the self-help episodes.

A LITTLE EARLIER ON TAMBORINE MOUNTAIN.

(The whole world is a muzzy blur. I remember a loud bang and a horrible feeling of shock. Then a huge yellow thing followed by a brief silence and then another different sort of crash. Now I am swaying and I can hear the wind, I can also hear Arjy shouting at me.)

Arjy: Sean! Wake up! Come on wake up you stupid shit! I can’t get you out on my own!

(My vision clears a little and I can see Arjy. She is leaning into the Jeep and trying to undo my seatbelt. But the Jeep is all bent and there is shattered glass everywhere. Why is Arjy outside leaning in and why is she tied to a tree?)

Arjy: Listen carefully, Sean. If you don’t pull yourself together and start trying to help me, you WILL die. Make no mistake, this car wreck is hanging by a couple of bits of steel to a very thin tree that is about to uproot. When that happens the whole mess will fall about 300 metres onto some very nasty rocks and so will you if you don’t sort yourself out. Now COME ON!

(That will do it every time. I like the way Arjy sums things up so simply. I scrabble with the seat belt and ignore the pain. Arjy isn’t tied to anything; she has her extraordinary legs wrapped around the trunk of a tree just above where our Jeep has got stuck. As she drags me through the window past the airbags there is a creak, followed by a crack and finally a groan and the Jeep starts to shift. The tree snagging the Jeep rips out of the ground and the car wreck rumbles forward and into space. Arjy, holding on to me like a trapeze artist, is left hanging by her skinny legs. She starts to swing me back and forth and each swing gets wider and wilder until abruptly, she lets go. I scream but, after a heart-stopping moment of flight, I land safely on a dirt ledge and Arjy joins me there a few minutes later.

Unbelievably, apart from cuts and bruises we are unhurt and we collapse onto the ledge gasping with relief and shock.)

Me: What the fuck happened?

Arjy: Not sure - but I recognised the driver of that bulldozer.

Me: Ah yes, the yellow thing. Who was it?

Arjy: Constable Gruff.

Me: Gruff? What’s Slideback’s nephew doing trying to kill us?

Arjy: Don’t know that either but there seems to be a link between Iris Pessary, the police and that other ugly bastard that Iris was talking to at the pub. We have to get back to Jimboomba fast.

Me: That might be hard, our transport is in bits at the bottom of the mountain.

Arjy: Yes but we passed Thunderbird Park just before we were bulldozed. We should find help there. Let’s go.

(There is no arguing with Arjy once she is set on something so I follow her and scramble up the slope to the road. When we reach the road there is no sign of a bulldozer or the truck and only a few deep gashes in the bitumen prove that something has happened here. We limp down the hill to Thunderbird Park.

Thunderbird Park seems deserted. The cafe is closed and there doesn’t seem to be any staff, guests or visitors. It is as though the whole area near the attack on us has been cleared of possible witnesses and only the police could do that effectively. We look around for some sort of transport to get us back to Jimboomba. I find a pony and trap but Arjy rejects that idea and then she cries out in triumph. I wander across to see what the fuss is about and I find Arjy standing at Thunderbird Park’s newest kiddie attraction. It is a racetrack for go-karts and lined up at the start are Rory the Racing Car and his nemesis Maxi, the yellow Italian racer. They are quite small but probably very quick and they are fuelled up and ready to roll so, within a few minutes we are careering down the mountain and thoroughly enjoying ourselves. In fact we are quite sorry to reach Jimboomba but that changes when we find we have managed to get back before Iris and are able to see her arrive and then deliver what looks like a mesh cage to the police station before she drives on to Incontinental. Arjy decides to stake out the police station. I buy two cheap pairs of binoculars from Dollars and Sense and we sit in our clock towers and watch.

It is after dark before we see anything worth looking at. A shadowy figure leaves the police station carefully carrying what looks like the mesh cage. The figure scuttles down the steps to Woodies car park and creeps over to the Jimboomba Times office where it spends a lot of time fiddling at the door. I decide that the lock is being picked. Eventually the figure enters the office and comes back out a few minutes later carrying the gage far more casually. Whatever was in that cage is now in the office of the Jimboomba Times. Arjy and I discuss the case over the string phone and we decide to be at the door of the Jimboomba Times office when Bistro Waiters arrives to open up in the morning.)

THE NEXT MORNING – JIMBOOMBA TIMES OFFICE.

Arjy: Good morning, Bistro. Nice day.

Bistro Waiters: Blimey, what happened to you two? You look as though you’ve just crawled out of a car wreck.

Arjy: We have, but it was yesterday.

Bistro Waiters: Oh, what a shame. We’ve got our quota of traffic accidents for this week’s edition. Don’t suppose you’ve won any nice jam making competitions have you?

Arjy: Sadly – No.

Bistro Waiters: Sod it! I need a big story for the front page. How about macramé? Do any of that kind of thing, do you?

Arjy: I fear not. But how about a juicy break and enter?

Bistro Waiters: Nah, no interest you see. People are seeing break and enters every day around here. Some get done while they’re sitting down for breakfast. The villains just wander past and expect to be directed to the valuables and then given a cup of tea on the way out. Do you know, some of the Jimboomba burglars are so bloody idle they’ve taken to doing it by email? That’s right, they email and ask for the stuff to be left outside the front door for them. Mind you, it’s a good thing in some ways because it cuts down on damage to locks and windows. But the buggers I can’t stand are the bloody burglars that email and ask for the stuff to be delivered direct to their fence. That’s taking the piss that is.

Arjy: What about if it was the Jimboomba Times office broken into last night?

Bistro Waiters: That might be an angle. But it depends what was pinched?

Arjy: Or left. Why don’t you open up and we can see what’s been going on?

Bistro Waiters: Righty Ho.

(We go inside and look around but there doesn’t seem to be anything unusual lurking there.)

Arjy: Ok, do you see anything out of place or odd or strange?

Bistro Waiters: Not really, it all looks quite ………My God!

Me: What? What? What?

Bistro Waiters: I think we’ve just walked into an Alien movie. You’re not Sigourney Weaver in drag are you Sean?

Me: Cheeky sod! I……Shit!

(I’ve just noticed what Bistro is staring at on the Editor’s desk. He is staring at the strangest creature I have ever seen. It had been so still I’d taken it for some weird ornament but then the ornament moved its head. It is like a snake but not a snake. The head is snake and the body is snake but the two spindly legs holding the front half of the creature high off the desk are definitely not snake. The rest of the snake body continues past the legs normally for a bit but instead of tapering away to a point it curls under. The back half of the body is supported on the stumpy tail that ends in a four-toed foot. Somehow, we seem to have ourselves a three-legged snake.

The head and body are black and has a familiar red blush on the underside; this is no three-legged tree snake. It’s head sways back and forth as it looks at each of us in turn and the tongue flickers scarily as it scents us. Stretched out, the snake thing would be about a metre and a half long and that’s plenty big enough for me - but something has to be done.

The office boasts a shredding machine and below it is a large empty bin that I pick up. Now, I have seen loads of animal shows on TV so, with a resounding shout of ‘CRIKEY’, I leap and scoop the bin over the snake trapping it on the desk top. I just can’t believe how rash I have been so I pass out for a minute or two. When I come round Arjy and Bistro are already discussing what to do next.)

Bistro Waiters: We have to get that thing identified. It might be a completely new species though.

Arjy: Got to be. But the important thing is why did someone from Jimboomba police put it here and what has Iris Pessary and her ugly friend got to do with all this?

Bistro Waiters: Maybe it’s all linked up. I need to get this thing to my Uncle Morris.

Arjy: Uncle Morris?

Bistro Waiters: Doctor Morris Plinthmember. He’s a retired Zoological Geneticist.

Arjy: How convenient.

Bistro Waiters: Indeed.

Arjy: Where do we find Dr. Morris?

Bistro Waiters: He’s a resident at Incontinental and he even has his own laboratory there.

Arjy: Why did I already guess that?

Bistro Waiters: Now you’re taking irony to the point of being silly. Let’s just get over to Incontinental with this brute, shall we?

LATER, AT INCONTINENTAL – DR. PLINTHMEMBER’S CHAMBERS.

(We are gathered in Dr. Plinthmember’s laboratory. The snake thing has been safely transferred to a Perspex holding chamber and Plinthmember has been examining it. The doctor is obviously very excited but also seems confused.)

Dr: Plinthmember: This is not a new species, Bistro, in my opinion it is no species at all. It is a creature that has mutated into its present form because of some catastrophic interference with its genetic structure - most likely radiation did this.

Arjy: What makes you think radiation is involved?

Dr. Plinthmember: This little holding chamber of mine is littered with sensors including radiation detectors. Your weird beastie is hot stuff and registering 40 Rutger Hauer’s.

Me: Wasn’t he in Blade Runner?

Dr. Plinthmember: Possibly, possibly but I don’t follow popular music. The last pop musician I took any interest in was Victor Silvester. But back to this little beast. Before we put it in the holding chamber I took a scraping of the soil trapped between its scales. I put some of this in the mass speckleometer and some in the crud analyseometer. The results are surprising.

Bistro Waiters: In what way?

Dr. Plinth member: When I was a young scientist I was commissioned by the Australian government to do a study on the effects of contaminated soil from the Maralinga atom bomb testing grounds. This was to determine what effect, if any, the contamination might have on local wildlife and the ecology generally. Part of that study included taking an accurate record of the soil composition. Soil composition is unique to an area so if you give me a lump of dirt, I can tell you which garden it came from – anywhere in the world. The dirt from this snakes scales is an exact match for Maralinga, specifically the One Tree site; I know because I still have all my research documents.

Bistro Waiters: What the hell is a mutated snake from Maralinga doing in a newspaper office in Jimboomba?

Dr. Plinthmember: Giving you this weeks front page?

Bistro Waiters: Brilliant!

Arjy: Bistro! I need to talk to you about your Uncle Morris. There’s something odd going on here and it’s not just the bloody snake.

Bistro Waiters: No time, I’ve got a front page to write and some photos to take.

Dr. Plinthmember: Precisely - well done nephew – and as for you, Ms. Barjy, I’d like you to get your interfering self and your idiot friend out of my laboratory. Now!


TO BE CONTINUED.