8.7: A standoff in the dark

pTravis has the feeling that he should play for time. Though why? Is he somehow waiting for Fabian? In one of the fantasy books of his youth, a species of horse – the ranyhyn – could pre-empt when they might be summoned and traverse many leagues to arrive just when needed.

Fabian is the opposite. Lacking psychic foresight, he could only set off on seeing the need or hearing about it and, being a snail, albeit a racing snail, he would take some time to cover even a fraction of a league, however far that is.

“Even if that were written by the Poet, what of it? Why should we listen to him?”

“A foolish question, lizard! We all know his supernatural wisdom. Recall you not his miracles and inventions? That time he transformed three stale pints of keg Skol lager into three foaming pints of cask Tetley’s Bitter? Or his contrivance, in a mystic bakery-disguised pub in Cambridge, of the first pint of Caffrey’s cream flow from a simple keg of tedious Irish bitter and the nitrogen intended for Guinness? Even some cretinous CAMRA members were fooled by his cunning and trickery.

“Think thee so little of his inspiring collection of 1970’s bus tickets in numerical order? He still owns the last packet of Love Hearts ever sold in Bradford’s Darley Street Woolworths! And you bend the knee to the pathetic Order of the Sponge?!? Subsidiary even to Johnsons Dry Cleaners!”

Masongill permits himself an evil cackle and his minion sponge-borgs rock silently as though laughing along.

pTravis turns to Lottie and remarks. “I never thought I’d get to hear Masongill ‘give’ his evil maniac.” But Lottie is much more upset than amused.

“Why have you made your robots in the form of sponges? Why be so mean? To us, I mean. Why take something I have come to hold dear and corrupt it?” There is a slight catch in her voice.

pTravis cannot help remembering the time an ill-wishing stalker blasphemed against Lottie’s precious sponge badge by sending her a quite ordinary Scottish fish finger disguised as a badge, bought from a petrol station convenience store, no doubt a typical Scottish choice for grocer, and itself a hollow pastiche of Waitrose. What’s your life expectancy, Scotch Girl! In the end, though, Lottie turned that insult into a triumph against her ill-wisher by fabricating her own safely artificial fish-finger badge and wearing it with pride.

For a moment it looks as though Lottie’s question might affect Masongill. Does he really want to be standing outside the cosy Potting Shed threatening his friends with his army? But then, as though shaking himself, he replies.

“Just as JRR Tolkien fashioned his army of orcs – made to terrorise Oxford and kill CS Lewis – in the shape of corrupted elves, so my sponge-orcs ridicule your Order!”

“Er, ’Gillo, old chap, have you read the Lord of the Rings? I’m not sure it is quite like that.” asks pTravis helpfully. “I think Tolkien was quite keen on elves, not orcs, and, though he thought Lewis an idiot, I don’t think he actually filled Oxford with evil creatures to kill him.”

“Didn’t he? It matters not! No one reads long form fantasy fiction any more.”

This comment gives pTravis a strange idea.

“That’s very true. Imagine someone reading about all *this*! I think they might want a short break around now. To have a little calvados and mull over how things are going. They might be thinking waist a wise fellow the mole is. An ur-lord, dark in power, perhaps? I don’t know about you and your spongelings but I’m quite cold and Lottie here looks to be shivering a bit…” Lottie is about to object but pTravis kicks her. “I think we’re going to go inside and sit by the stove and then go to bed. Why don’t we all meet up here this time tomorrow. Feel free to sleep in the den, if you like”

Without waiting for an answer, he gathers Lottie up in his wing, bundles her through the door and quickly follows and closes it.

Masongill, looking a little surprised, stands there for a moment and then gathering his henchmen army sets off towards the woods.

“Well I don’t think that went too badly” pTravis says to his Chairman.