by Craig Zerf
As a result Master Smegly was being, perhaps, a little overprotective and, as such, Plob was becoming more and more miffed. And narked. Vexed even.
So he decided to do something about it.
The chairman of the board strode across the oval, climbed the stairs to the podium and stepped up to the microphone-laden speaker’s altar. As he bent his head towards the forest of electronics an expectant hush descended upon the massed spectators. The noise of him clearing his throat was magnified across the grounds and beamed into over seven million households.
‘Ladies and gentlemen and Australians. It is with great grief and furious anger that I must inform you that the Ashes have been stolen. From under the very noses of our security guards the most venerated sporting trophy in the civilised world has been snaffled…’
The rest of his speech was drowned out by the total bedlam that followed. Never before in the history of Lords had such pandemonium ever been witnessed on those hallowed grounds. The crowds were baying, the umpires were screaming and the officials were wailing. Amongst the players there was such a gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts and rending of hair that it was almost too painful to watch.
But watch we did - as it was happening. And the anguish was shared by the televised audience of over forty million souls.
The bewhiskered and bespectacled man buried his face in his hands and groaned. As the British prime minister and the leader of the ‘New non-radical Tory-labour-Lib-dem-monster-raving-loony-attempt-to-please-everybody’ party, (they were thinking about shortening the name to the NorToLadMorapy Party or maybe even Not-Apy but some of the members were not happy about the abbreviation so for the present they were stuck with their current unwieldy moniker), he would be expected to do something about the calamitous chain of events that had occurred. Meanwhile, both his minister of defence and the Australian foreign minister sat opposite him and screamed insults at each other.
He watched for a while and then stretched his hands out in front of him, palms up, arms spread wide and donned the most placatory expression that he could muster up.
‘Gentlemen, gentlemen.’ He looked directly at the Australian to ensure that he knew that he too was being included in the conversation. ‘Please stop this insane bickering. We are all adults here,’ another reassuring glance at the Aussie. ‘Surely there is a way to settle this amicably? Sir Godfrey,’ he turned to the MOD. ‘Enough talk of war - it really is not necessary, and anyway…’
‘But, prime minister,’ interrupted Sir Godfrey. ‘We can take them. After the Ashes win, the country’s morale is at an all time high. Of course there will be a huge loss of human life but I’m sure that will be acceptable. Australia can be truly English once more. Think of the publicity, Sir. Labour promised less taxes, the Tories promised less unemployment but only the NorToLadMorapy party have given you a new continent.’
The prime minister leant back in his chair with a thoughtful expression on his chubby face.
‘We’d rather die first, you cheating Pommie-pongo-poofter,’ shouted the Australian foreign minister as he rose up out of his chair.
‘That can be arranged!’ Screamed Sir Godfrey at the top of his voice as he jumped to his feet, knocking over his chair in the process.
‘Enough!’ Screeched the prime minister as he too leapt up. ‘Shut up, the both of you. Shut up, shut up, shutupshutupshutupshutup. Shut. Up.’ (And to think that we voted for him. Well someone obviously did or how else did he get there?) ‘Sit down. All two of you.’
The Australian foreign minister returned his posterior to the padded leather wingback and the MOD followed suit, or tried to. Unfortunately, as his chair was still in the non-vertical position, all that he succeeded in doing was falling backwards over the prostrate piece of furniture, ripping his trousers and squealing in a decidedly un-macho way as he windmilled to the carpet. The Aussie erupted with a gigantic guffaw accompanied by much pointing and mimicking of Sir Godfrey’s undeniably feminine yelp. The MOD sprang up to screech a few choice insults, the Australian bellowed a rejoinder, the Prime minister screamed shut up and the whole merry farce began all over again.
Chapter 2
So - just what does a fifteen year old almost qualified, almost adult, almost world famous magician’s assistant do to earn a little extra cash so as to be able to impress the girls? (bearing in mind that he has been forbidden by his master to commit all and any acts of unsupervised magiks.) Well, it’s quite simple really, he disobeys.
All it would involve was a couple of simple incantations. A small addition of a few ‘air-spell’ magiks. Perhaps a teeny smidgeon of the odd, much more powerful, ‘earth- magic spells’ every now and then and Bob’s your uncle. (or should that be Plob’s your uncle?)
To cut a long story short, Plob was setting himself up as a long-distance-communicator. If one needed to ask a question of cousin Nonny who lived above the bakers over by the big mill on the other side of the river Splonge, then the usual way would be to pen her a missive, hand it to the postman, together with the mandatory penny for postage and, within a couple of days, cousin Nonny (who lived above the bakery over by the, etcetera.) would send back her poorly spelt reply for your perusal. However, with Plob’s new instant messaging service, one could now commune virtually instantaneously over great distances for the equivalent cost of the one-way postage.
Initially it was a bit difficult putting the word about without his master rumbling to the idea, but he had got around that by going into partnership with Blean, the blacksmith who lived and traded just around the corner and who had been a firm friend of Plob’s for over a year now. They agreed to split the profits sixty-forty, in Plob’s favour, and in return the teenager could use the small room next to the smithy and Blean would be a one-man advertising service to all of his regular customers. Dead brill, hey? Well Plob definitely thought so and, judging by the amount of interest he was already getting, so did a lot of other people.
Nice and uncomplicated. A couple of hours a week and soon he would have enough cash to impress the heck out of anyone that he wished to. The best thing about the whole plan, thought Plob to himself, was that it was too simple for anything to go wrong.
What the fifteen-year-old almost-magician didn’t realise is that when you think nothing can go wrong, it definitely will.
Especially when you’re dealing with magic.
And Evil awoke from his restless slumber, cast a languid eye in Plob’s direction and thought, ‘well this is interesting,’ before turning over and returning to the eternal foetid darkness of his dreams.
To my wife, Polly and my son, Axel.
For without her there would be no today and without him, no tomorrow.
