Green Planet

by Anthony E. Southby

  Suddenly a branch cracked nearby causing them to freeze in mid-flight, and bringing their fun to a grinding halt.

  * * * * * * * *

  A dark presence was evident, looming somewhere in the near vicinity. Below them stood none other than Mathias the wizard with a large pistol that oozed luminous yellow goo. He resembled some kind of a wicked space creature about to annihilate the innocent victim. He chanted something under his breath as he leapt forward, attempting to squirt the trio with his toxic goo. He hated them with all his being. The pistol he carried contained poison especially prepared for the destruction of the Malco balls. He leaped forward in anger, disappointed with being discovered. He shoved the sticky pistol forward, squirting the yellow liquid into the air in an effort to spray the alerted trio. But they were too fast for him; they zipped smartly up a tree and blended instantly with the surroundings, safely out of harm’s reach. He flung his pistol down in rage.

  ‘Where have you disappeared to now, you pesky balls?’ he grunted, glaring through the trees.

  ‘When I finally catch you, I am going to turn all three of you into lovely shiny useless marbles!’ he raged, waving his fist. ‘And I will most definitely catch you, you can count on that, silver goons, you can count on it!’

  Mathias knew he was wasting his time and marched off back to his lair. ‘Next time I won’t be on foot, I will catch you in flight,’ he muttered, clenching his long fingernails into his palms, causing them to bleed.

  * * * * * * * *

 

  The Malcos hastily spun off.

  ‘Zip, we have to be more careful in future; we can’t afford to take a chance like that again,’ Zen rattled, sounding quite shaken.

  ‘I realize that Zen! Why should I get all the blame? Because I’m a lady?’ Zip squeaked indignantly, spinning to the front.

  ‘Don’t start that Zip, please! You are the one that spun off like that in the beginning, that’s all I’m trying to say!’

  Zip and Zen continued arguing for some time, which was starting to give Zet a terrible ball ache. Zet spun in front, bobbing up and down in frustration. ‘Please stop arguing for goodness sake,’ he pleaded, ‘it was no one’s fault; we are all to blame and we just need to be more careful in future.’

  Zen and Zip immediately stopped squabbling and looked at Zet in surprise.

  Zet was very reserved and only ever spoke when it was absolutely necessary, otherwise he simply followed orders. Zen was more of a leader and liked taking charge over a situation. Zip was a real lady and always had to have her say like most women do. Other than that the trio worked together as a good team, well at least most of the time they did.

  The three Malco balls headed home, which lay on the very far outskirts of the woods.

  Zen cried out with a shrill squeak, suddenly intercepting a magical message, ‘Formation time in progress!’

  They spun into formation, positioning themselves into an evenly spaced, floating triangle.

  Once the triangle was perfectly formed, each of them projected a beam of light towards each other. The light formed a solid tube of twisting rainbow colour, shining brightly like an encounter with an alien spaceship. The triangle of light hovered for a moment, gaining perfect form, then it gently settled to the ground. Once the triangle had landed, the three colourful bars of light projected a surge of dazzling radiant colours upwards, linking together at a point, and forming a large brightly coloured pyramid of light. The dazzling light gradually faded as the Malcos decreased the energy flow, and finally disappeared altogether.

  * * * * * * * *

  Left standing there was a great being who radiated truth and resembled all that was pure. His brilliant blue eyes shone like liquid gold that spoke of great wisdom and peace. He had a long mane of wispy white hair, with a touch of gold. His beard was the same wispy white, only slightly coarser and with a dash of grey. His face was pale with a touch of red in the cheeks, showing his age in fine wrinkled lines. He had a large, crooked, pointy nose and long pointy ears. He was dressed in a dark ivy green robe with brown trimmings. He wore pointy brown leather shoes and carried a staff, made from century old oak. Chimzen the wizard was a peacekeeper, with a great love for the woods and all the little animals that lived in it.

  He stretched his palm out towards the trio, and they responded in seconds, leaping onto their master’s hand. They were definitely his most magnificent creations; not at all surprising Mathias so desperately wanted them destroyed. The Malcos were the good wizard’s main method of transportation, used to teleport him from place to place. They could fly off to almost any place they were assigned, allowing him easy access to wherever he wanted to go.

  The wizard stepped forward with the Malco trio neatly tucked inside his pocket. He would often take walks during the day, checking on the general wellbeing of things. The woods had become very quiet over the past few years, ever since Mathias had decided to take up residence there. The little animals that once inhabited the place were rapidly becoming a thing of the past; not even a rat could be found creeping through the grass; even the sound of birds chirping in the trees had disappeared. He shook his head in dismay, his heart saddened by his cousin’s destructive behaviour.

  Mathias used them for experimentation, for his own selfish gain, and now they were all hiding in fear of their lives. They sensed his sickening presence, which infected the woods like a plague, and they kept themselves well out of sight. Hundreds of the small creatures ran across the streets in a desperate effort to escape from that dark place, and many had been flattened to death by the oncoming traffic.

  This explained why Senton Village council saw it necessary to erect a wall all the way around the woods. Before there would be the odd badger or squirrel running astray, and ending up in the street, but nothing quite like this.

  Chimzen strolled on, finding the silence more and more disturbing. Deep in thought, he slowly raised a hand to rub his coarse beard. ‘There must be something I can do to put an end to my cousin’s destructive behaviour. Surely there must be a way I could expel his treachery from this place.’ The problem was, as far as he knew, no real crime had been committed other than cruelty to animals. Being the fair wizard he was, walking in truth and always doing what was considered right, he really had no valid argument to challenge Mathias’s actions.

  What made the situation worse was that Mathias was using poor monkeys and squirrels as live moving puppets and selling them to his brother Mathick, a druid in Asia. He would freeze the poor creatures with one of his dreadful potions, and magically move the body parts up and down, making them respond to a clap or a whistle. The moving puppets looked so real that no one could resist them. They were taking Asia by storm, making Mathias an extremely wealthy man.

  He believed that there was nothing better than the real thing, and developed many clever ideas with the use of his wicked creative streak – frogs that jumped up and down, croaking when pressed on the nose; a pair of beautiful lovebirds flying in a perfect circle, without the need of a cage; a rat that stood on its nose at the snap of the finger, spinning around like a top, and so the list went on. Poor little animals suffering continuous abuse.

  * * * * * * * *

  Chimzen was aware of many of his cousin’s deceitful schemes and greatly disliked his treacherous ways; however, he was completely unaware of his latest antics.

  Mathias was up to something terrible, of which you may have some idea already. Due to the shortage of furry creatures in the woods, he replaced them with human subjects. The evil wizard took great pleasure in the capture of schoolboys who had wandered into the woods. They made the finest magical monkeys, equipped with a human voice box. Not only did they bounce up and down while playing a small set of drums, but they also sang the most beautiful songs. Young schoolboys possessed some of the finest voices. These monkeys would fetch a particularly large sum of money, and were seen as particularly rare.

  Recently two boys from Senton High (other than Philip and Frank) had also go
ne missing, appearing in the “child missing” column in the local newspaper. According to the report, the boys had wandered into the woods on a Saturday morning to do a spot of birdwatching, and neither of them had been seen since. They searched Senton Woods for weeks, and the only thing ever found was a pair of binoculars with one broken lens. The whole incident was put down to kidnapping, which wasn’t too far wrong. If only the search party had known, the boys had been there the entire time. Well I guess those poor children are busy tapping drums and singing lullabies somewhere in Asia right now. If Chimzen had been aware of any of this, he would have most certainly taken serious action against his evil cousin.

  As he continued with his walk, he noticed a very faint footprint in the sand, with clearly defined sole ridges, like the print a shoe with a plastic sole would make. The shoe impression appeared like it had been formed by a fairly small shoe. He leaned over and scraped up some of the soil shaped by the tread, and carefully placed it into his left hand pocket.

  He quickly looked up, alerted by barking dogs and men shouting in the distance.

  ‘I wonder what’s going on? Sounds like a search party,’ he muttered, peering through the trees to his right. ‘Just as I suspected. I wonder who’s missing? Maybe this search has something to do with the shoe print I’ve just seen.’

  Chimzen reached into his pocket, and brought the Malco trio out. They chuckled excitedly, always ready for action.

  ‘Home, Malco trio!’ he roared, thrusting them into the air. In a second the trio were flying like a bullet in between the trees, off to the far end of the woods, up the tall old pepper tree which extended far higher than any other, and into the quaint old tree house where their master lived. They completed their colourful pyramid of light formation, in preparation for his return. Chimzen waited patiently for them to teleport him home. In a short space of time he vanished and promptly reappeared in the comfort of his home.

  Chapter 6

  The boys sat trembling in their dark cages, wondering what this evil man was going to do with them. Once again faint barking noises could be heard from outside. The sounds grew louder, until the voices of men calling their names could be heard. Once again Mathias sprayed the entrance to his gloomy abode, disguising any scent which might attract the hunting dogs. Philip and Frank were excited all over again, in the hope that they would soon be found. Realizing once again that they were a pair of monkeys, they collapsed on their furry butts and let out dismal sighs.

  ‘We really don’t stand a chance, do we Frank?’ Philip asked, his voice trembling.

  ‘I think we are well and truly doomed!’ Frank replied, ready to give up all hope.

  ‘There must be a way out of this, Frank! We have to try and escape the first chance we get!’

  ‘I agree Philip. The only thing that worries me is even if we do escape, does your family really need a pet monkey?’

  ‘You’re right, it looks like we’ll be eating bananas and peanuts for the rest of our lives.’

  ‘What if this wicked man wants to make monkey stew out of us? Or what if he sells us to the circus?’

  ‘Don’t talk like that Philip, you’re giving me the bleeding creeps! We have to get out of this maggot hole somehow. There simply has to be a way!’

  The boys had no idea how really bleak their future looked. Their only chance of survival was to escape from Mathias.

  The determined shouting and frantic barks of an exhausted search party soon died down to a cold disturbing silence. The boys were deeply saddened, fumbling in the straw with their tiny hands like poor animals taken from their mothers and shipped off to the circus. They had to escape from this treacherous man no matter what the cost.

  * * * * * * * *

  Shortly after the search party retired from their search, a jingling noise could be heard coming down the passage. The boys sprang to their feet, clutching onto the bars with tiny monkey paws.

  ‘What’s that?’ Frank screeched in fright. Before Philip could reply, a voice came booming down the passage.

  ‘It’s your old friend Mathias, the zookeeper, coming to fetch his two hairy friends! Are the peanut eaters ready for some monkey business this morning?’ he cackled, placing his lamp neatly between the two cages.

  The boys shuffled to the back bars, two little hearts thumping in panic. Mathias leaned forward, and produced a small bundle of keys. He carefully unlocked Philip’s cage. At the same time he produced two small chains with shackles on either end, which he had neatly clipped to a thick leather belt around his waist. He wore a thick pair of leather gloves, just in case one of the two decided to use their animal instincts and take a bite.

  ‘Come to me my little friend, let’s go and have some fun.’ He grinned at Philip, displaying a set of filthy yellow teeth, overjoyed at the look of terror on the poor monkey boy’s face. He grabbed one of Philip’s legs and clamped it with a shackle in a matter of seconds.

  He proceeded to the next cage. Unlocking it first, he leaned forward, attempting to shackle one of Frank’s reluctant paws as well. Frank stood upright on his hind legs in boxing position. As Mathias leaned forward, he began swinging vicious little monkey punches towards the wizard, his small monkey hands lashing out in desperation. Unfortunately for Frank, punching Mathias with his little paws was like whacking a door with a feather duster. All his skill and technique as the school boxing champion were of no use to him this time, being the small creature with tiny paws he now was.

  Mathias groped about the straw and grabbed Frank brutally by a leg. He swiftly yanked the boxing champion off his feet, and proceeded to clamp his leg firmly with a shackle.

  ‘So you think you are strong hey? I will show you what strong is, you useless peanut eater!’ he barked, grinding his filthy fangs. Raising his right hand, he slapped Frank brutally across the face.

  ‘That will teach you a lesson, you miniature baboon!’

  Frank fell over backwards onto the straw, clutching at his face in pain. His head was so sore that it felt like it would explode at any minute. The poor boy felt really sorry he had ever challenged the evil wizard.

  Mathias marched down the passage, dragging Philip and Frank along like vermin to the slaughter. Frank held his aching cheek, feeling a bit disorientated and confused with the unusual feeling of walking like a monkey.

  ‘Don’t try and fight with me; you will only make things difficult for yourselves. If you simply behave we can get this over with as quickly and efficiently as possible,’ Mathias lectured, approaching the main entrance hall.

  ‘Get what over with exactly?’ Philip and Frank wondered.

  Mathias was in the process of transforming them into a pair of singing drummer monkeys, which required a lot of skill and concentration. A process far more complicated than turning them into mere monkeys.

  Some time ago when he had originally started experimenting with schoolboys, he had experienced great difficulty in transforming them into monkeys, never mind drummer monkeys. After endless days and nights of frustrating experimentation he had finally succeeded. Now, according to him, even a monkey could get it right. When he first started with his evil magic, the schoolboys were turning out with human legs, monkey heads and bodies, or complete monkey bodies with a human head. With much determination he had persevered with his monkey-cross-schoolboy experiment until finally he had it perfected. The only unfortunate thing was that he had absolutely no idea of how to change the monkeys back to schoolboys. That wasn’t a problem for him, though; after all, why should he ever need to change them back?

  He stood in the main room at the entrance of his underground shaft. It was very dark except for a bit of light shining in through the entrance. There was a fairly large round steel table in the centre of the room, with six steel chairs. It was hard to believe that anyone associated themselves with this man, let alone came for a visit. Everything was painted black, and the only ornament in the room was a little canary sitting on a perch, hanging from the ceiling over the steel table. Mathias had a
large wooden table on which he worked, positioned in the far corner of the room.

  The two monkeys were shackled to a leg of one of the steel chairs, while Mathias got on with final preparations.

  In the meantime, Frank and Philip climbed up and down the chair to get a good feel for their new monkey bodies. Although very scared, and having no idea what this wicked man was up to, they weren’t prepared to just sit back like lambs for the slaughter.

  Behind the table on a ledge stood a long line of candles, which lit the table brightly. The flickering candles created weird shadows on the walls of the room, giving the place an eerie feeling. On the far end of the large table lay a variety of colourful bubbling mixtures, set up in glass flasks, each one bubbling at a different rate, which gave the impression that each one was boiling at different temperatures.

  In front of these colourful concoctions, sitting on a stand, stood a very large black book displaying large black Gothic text. This was Mathias’s book of black magic, filled with terrible spells of death. Lastly, in front lay a rubber mat, just the right fit for a squirrel or a monkey. At each corner of this mat lay a small chain and shackle, enabling Mathias to clamp down a creature firmly during its transformation process. Scattered over the left side of the table were a variety of herbs, leaves and roots. Above those lay a sealed flask, containing a variety of slugs and bugs. Besides that, many other natural bits and pieces could be found, freshly picked from the woods, used as a final touch for one or other potion.

  The boys chatted quietly together while he continued with his preparations. The evil wizard paged through his magic book, running his long index nail up and down the pages. Finding the required chapter of misery he ranted to himself in a strange language. Reaching for the bottle of slugs and bugs, he carefully removed the lid and pulled out a long centipede, then quickly replaced the lid, before any of the other slimy creatures could escape. The centipede wriggled between his fingers while he chanted. His eyes gleamed demonically in the flickering light. The centipede was carefully placed into one of the flasks filled with a green mixture, which appeared to be bubbling very slowly. Once the centipede was fully immersed, the green mixture began to bubble rapidly. The centipede disappeared into the green solution, which continued to bubble like raw chips in a deep fryer.