S1.2: Hipparchus’ worry

Masongill turns the lamp low, looks at his audience, and begins. 

“A while ago, when Fabian arrived at the Potting Shed and Alcock suggested he take over from me as the main Night Watcher, I took him out to see the shelter I’d constructed. 

“Of course, he could have picked any base for the role. I think Alcock asked him to become the main Night Watcher because I was the only person happy to take on the new role of feeding Crow worms – no one is very happy handling worms except me – and so I needed to be freed to do that and he, Fabian, carries his own shelter with him on his back. So he didn’t really need a base at all, let alone mine. But perhaps out of a kind of respect for continuity or because he guessed that sometimes eccentrics, like young Lottie here, would want to accompany him, even though it is not their job, he adopted my shelter. 

“I must say, he’s made a good job of it. He has strengthened the roof and he often adds new brushwood to keep out the rain and make it invisible to ne’er-do-wells. But although it has good sight lines to the Potting Shed, it is a little way away from it. It is a bit of a hike either way.

“Shortly after Fabian took up the job, Hipparchus went to see Alcock to express a worry.” 

“Ah! I know this bit. He’s my tutor after all and he told me about the conversation.” If anything pTravis is surprised it took this long for Lottie to interrupt! He gestures for her to pick up the tale. 

“Hipparchus went to see Alcock, just after breakfast, to point out the obvious problem with having Fabian doing this job. As we all know, Hipparchus’ second most important job is to track the migration of dangerous bulb spiders across the country.” (He is also Lottie’s tutor.) 

“And so he thinks that that’s the main point of the Night Watcher. Fabian may be a racing snail but, seriously, how fast could he get to the Potting Shed to warn us if he saw a pack of marauding bulbs arriving in the dark, all lusty and murderous, singing their terrible song?” She shudders, remembering the ‘difficulty’ two summers ago. 

“So Hipparchus says: ‘We should give him a radio or something!’ And Alcock says, uselessly, we don’t have a radio and we don’t have money to buy such things.’ Alcock is hopeless at times. So Teach says: ‘But the tiny creatures in the Think Tank have a little gizmo they call an ‘Eyelet of Harmony’ which controls their machine and I happen to know they have a spare one. It has a ‘dematerialise lever’, which wouldn’t help us, not having a TARDIS, but it also has a communications system. We could try that. That way, Fabian could at least call them in an emergency and they could fly over in a jiffy to tell us.’”

“Past tense, Lottie, remember, for ‘shorts’,” suggests pTravis, suddenly remembering that they are also supposed to add to Lottie’s informal education.

“I preferred it my way!” And she may have a point.