The Day She Saved the Doctor

by Susan Calman

  The Doctor turned to walk on, but Clara stopped him in his tracks with one sentence.

  ‘Are you worried you won’t be able to solve it, Doctor? Is that it?’ She gasped theatrically. ‘What if this is the ONE maze that defeats the Doctor? I mean, if you don’t want to take it on, that’s fine. It’s a pretty big-looking maze. I suppose someone else will come along and solve it eventually …’

  The Doctor turned round slowly, narrowing his eyes at Clara. Then, without a word, he took her hand and dragged her into the maze, his face splitting into a big grin as they ran. The sound of Clara’s laughter echoed off the empty city’s walls.

  Clara and the Doctor only stopped running when they found themselves suddenly faced with a wall. Tall by any measurements, it was dwarfed by the gigantic yellow flowers that created an archway just in front of it. They could choose one of two options: go left or go right.

  ‘Well, Doctor,’ Clara said, ‘show me how easy this maze-solving is, then!’

  Smirking, the Doctor walked confidently along the left-hand passage, gesturing for Clara to follow.

  They wandered for a while in companionable silence. It was pleasantly cool, far nicer than being in the blazing sunshine, and Clara felt herself relaxing; even the fact that Cui Palta was so quiet stopped bothering her. This was fun!

  At the Doctor’s instruction, they took every left-hand turn available. The Doctor seemed pretty confident with his strategy, even waggling his eyebrows at Clara occasionally as if to remind her of his genius. But Clara soon started to have her doubts. When they passed a rock that looked like a grumpy frog for what she felt sure was the third time since they had entered the maze, she stopped. The Doctor was a few paces up ahead of her; without him noticing, she bent down and gently turned the stone so that the ‘frog’ was facing the wall. Then she stood up again and hurried after the Doctor.

  Just a few minutes later, they rounded another corner – and there it was! The little frog with its face turned to the wall, looking as though it had been banished to the corner for misbehaving.

  ‘Doctor! Stop!’

  ‘What? We’re nearly there!’

  ‘No, we’re not! We’ve been this way already. Look at the frog!’

  The Doctor moved towards Clara, a concerned look on his face. ‘Have you had too much sun? I knew I should have brought the fez … Or are you hungry? I have lots of popcorn.’

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of toffee popcorn, sticky and oozing in the heat, bits of pocket fluff all over it.

  ‘I’m not hungry, and I don’t have heatstroke! I’ve seen this rock before,’ Clara insisted, pointing at the rock. ‘The last time we passed it, I turned it to face the wall so I could be absolutely sure that we are definitely going round in circles!’

  The Doctor made a noise that sounded rather like Pshaw! He shook his head. ‘Of course we aren’t lost! This is a tiny little maze in a tiny part of the city. Look!’ He pointed to the top of the wall next to them. ‘We can still see the big yellow flowers and the tops of the temples! This maze can’t be more than half a mile long at best. We just need to find the right formula and we’ll be out in a jiffy, okay?’

  They set off again, this time taking every right-hand path, turning and turning and turning, and with every passing moment Clara became ever more uneasy. Before long, they turned another corner … and found themselves staring at the frog again.

  Clara couldn’t help it now: she was starting to panic. Her worst fear as a child had been of getting lost, and here they were on an alien planet, in a maze, with no exit to be found.

  ‘Can’t you just use the screwdriver to locate the TARDIS and find a way out?’ she said.

  ‘What, already?’ the Doctor replied. ‘You’re such a maze killjoy! We’ve hardly even started enjoying ourselves.’

  ‘I think I’d like to get back to the TARDIS now. We must have been in here for at least an hour …’

  ‘All right,’ the Doctor said petulantly. ‘But only if you acknowledge that I definitely could have solved this maze very easily, but you were the one who wanted to give up.’

  ‘Fine.’ Clara folded her arms. ‘You know exactly what you’re doing. I believe you.’

  ‘And …?’

  ‘And what?’

  The Doctor raised his eyebrows.

  ‘You are the king of the maze! Are you happy now? Can we please go?’

  The Doctor grinned and nodded vigorously. ‘Since you have admitted I am the maze-solver supreme, we can leave. Let’s go and have a good laugh about this over a nice, cooling lemonade.’

  He pulled the sonic screwdriver from his pocket and held it above his head triumphantly. A persistent beeping emanated from it, but the tone of the beeps didn’t change as the Doctor walked slowly along the path. There was no sign at all to indicate whether they were getting closer to the TARDIS or not. It was as if the world outside the maze simply didn’t exist.

  ‘Hmm. Something seems to be broken,’ the Doctor said, holding the sonic in front of him and peering closely at it. ‘It isn’t connecting with the TARDIS.’ He hit the screwdriver a few times with his hand, then held it aloft once more, and walked onwards … but still the tone of the beeps didn’t change. The Doctor switched the sonic off and on again. ‘Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best!’

  But the sonic still wasn’t behaving as it should.

  They walked for another twenty minutes, with the sonic’s constant, unchanging beeping accompanying every step, and yet the TARDIS seemed to stay out of reach.

  Clara leaned against a wall, defeated and tired.

  The Doctor tried to lift her spirits. He crouched down beside her and smiled. ‘Sometimes even Time Lord technology can be temperamental. Don’t despair! You forget, I have at my disposal the most powerful weapon in the universe.’ With a flourish, he pulled from his pocket a small piece of white chalk. ‘Let’s do things the old-fashioned way, shall we?’

  The Doctor scrawled on the wall: THE DOCTOR WOZ HERE. He then drew an arrow pointing left, along the passage they then took.

  As they rounded each corner, the Doctor marked their progress with a different message – things like TARDIS 4EVA, and DALEKS SUCK – every time throwing a big smile in Clara’s direction. She couldn’t help but be comforted by his apparent nonchalance, drawn into his irresistible orbit. But when they rounded a corner to find their original message – THE DOCTOR WOZ HERE – waiting for them, Clara started to feel very uneasy again.

  ‘That’s fine. It just means we have to go the other way. To the right!’ cried the Doctor, and they ran on.

  By this time, the sun had started to set, casting long shadows around them; dark corners loomed towards them, and their pace quickened. They turned yet another corner and read: TARDIS 4EVA. Then, round the next: CYBERMEN JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN.

  There was no denying it now. This was no ordinary maze. They were trapped, walking round and round in endless circles.

  The Doctor had stopped smiling now, and his face looked uncharacteristically grim. A heavy silence descended between the two of them and, without uttering a word, they stumbled on through the shadows until they found themselves facing a wall twice as high as any they had seen so far. Clara gasped when she saw what was drawn on it: arrows. Hundreds and hundreds of arrows, of all sizes, pointing in every direction.

  ‘Clara?’

  ‘Yes, Doctor?’

  ‘I think this maze might not be as simple as I first thought.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘What we need to do is keep going. Perhaps just a little bit more quickly than before.’

  The Doctor held out his hand, and Clara took it. In his other hand, he held the sonic screwdriver. He lifted it up, and a beam of light lit the now-darkened path ahead of them. Together, they ran onwards. Gradually, the maze started to change. Small yellow flowers – miniatures of those that surrounded the city – appeared on the walls, in the gaps between stones, and in the crevices of the ground.

/>   Suddenly Clara stopped and let out a cry. ‘Doctor, look!’

  She pointed to the end of the long passageway in front of them, where a figure was sitting on the ground, one arm outstretched as if warning strangers to stay away.

  The Doctor held his sonic screwdriver higher, throwing light over the figure. ‘Hello there!’ he called, but the figure remained motionless.

  ‘Why aren’t they moving?’ Clara whispered.

  ‘Maybe they’re just a bit tired,’ the Doctor replied, but he didn’t sound very convincing. They inched towards the figure and the Doctor called out another cheerful greeting, but there was still no reply. In fact, it was so quiet that Clara was sure she could hear her heart beating through her chest, louder than a drum.

  ‘Are they … dead?’ she whispered fearfully, as they neared the motionless figure.

  The Doctor reached out with the sonic to illuminate the shape slumped against the wall … only to discover it wasn’t a person at all. It was a skeleton.

  The tatters of clothes hung off the bones. One knee was propped up, supporting an arm, which was perpetually stretched out as if to indicate to passersby an escape route from the maze that the skeleton would never find.

  The Doctor gulped. ‘If he’s not dead, then he’s very much in need of a good dinner.’

  Clara reached forward and gently touched the middle finger of the bony hand. The entire finger wobbled, then fell and hit the ground with a thud.

  ‘Doctor, I don’t think this is a good sign.’

  There was a small crunching noise, and the Doctor and Clara watched in horror as the skeleton’s skull shuddered, as though nodding in agreement, then dropped from the body and slowly rolled away into the darkness.

  ‘Not everyone is cut out for puzzles, Clara. This fellow just didn’t keep his head.’

  Clara stared at the Doctor. Not even his terrible jokes could stop her from being frightened now.

  Seeing the look on her face, his weak smile faded. ‘Come on. Let’s keep moving.’

  They ran in step with each other, checking over their shoulders every few seconds, as though to make sure an invisible enemy wasn’t on their heels. Everywhere Clara looked, she saw evidence of others who had also become trapped in the maze: a discarded shoe, a notebook, lines that looked horribly like fingernail marks on the walls …

  Darker and darker and darker it got; deeper and deeper and deeper they ran.

  At the entrance to a familiar-looking passage, the Doctor stopped. ‘This is new,’ he remarked, breathing heavily. ‘We’ve definitely been here before, but this wall wasn’t here last time.’

  He approached the new obstacle: a wall lower than the others within the maze, which only came up to his shoulder, but which cut directly across their path. He peeked over the top to check what was on the other side, then turned to Clara and shrugged.

  ‘Well, this is interesting. On the other side, the path simply carries on. The wall is definitely new, though.’

  ‘Should we go over it?’

  ‘Of course! When a wall like this appears in a devious, tricksy maze, its purpose must be to prevent people from getting to the exit.’

  The Doctor pulled himself to the top of the wall, scrabbling and groaning as he heaved himself aloft.

  ‘See – king of the maze!’ he exclaimed, throwing his arms up, then quickly regretting the move when he started to wobble.

  ‘Doctor! This is not the time for messing about!’

  ‘Sorry! The time for messing about is first thing in the morning, as everyone knows. Right, give me your hand and I’ll help you over the top.’

  Clara stood so the toes of her shoes were brushing the wall. She stretched her arms up as the Doctor leaned down, but just as their hands touched there was a noise. A rumble. It started quietly, then grew and grew until the vibrations were shaking Clara’s teeth.

  ‘What’s happening?’ she shouted.

  ‘I have no idea!’ the Doctor yelled in return.

  ‘Maybe you should come down from that wall!’

  ‘What? I can’t hear you!’

  ‘I said maybe you should come down from that wall!’

  ‘I’ll need to come down from this wall! I can’t hear a thing!’

  The Doctor moved to jump back down, when he was suddenly thrown into the air. Initially, he felt as though he was floating, like he had somehow been catapulted into the atmosphere, but after only a split second he realised that the wall itself was rising. With incredible speed, it shot higher and higher into the sky. He hugged the bricks tightly, his cheeks wobbling as the air rushed past him, the temperature dropping as he watched the city fall away below him.

  ‘Claraaaaaaaaaaaa!’ he yelled as far, far below him she became a dot barely bigger than a speck of dust.

  On the ground, Clara watched the Doctor fly up and away from her.

  ‘Come back! Don’t you dare leave me here!’

  She stretched an arm out towards him, but snatched it back when she realised that she was echoing the skeleton, that poor person who had ended up trapped in the maze forever.

  ‘DOCTOR!’

  The Doctor couldn’t hear Clara’s cry. He was still ascending, faster and faster. Then, as suddenly as he had started climbing, he stopped.

  Carefully, he raised his head, looking around nervously in case the wall started to move again. It didn’t, so he risked looking down to see where he was, shaking his head to clear it. Everything was topsy-turvy and his senses were dulled. As he focused his eyes, he saw that, despite feeling as though he should be in the clouds, he wasn’t actually that high above the city at all. He searched for landmarks, for anything he had seen before – temples or markets – but there was nothing familiar. Instead, stretching from horizon to horizon was the maze, twisting and turning and flowing seemingly without end. It was as if the whole planet was a maze … but how could that be? When they’d landed here, the maze hadn’t even been visible – not even from the hilltops in the city.

  Though reluctant to admit he’d been defeated by the maze, the Doctor decided it was probably time to put his secret ‘Plan B’ in motion: to call the TARDIS into the maze, using the key in his pocket, and get off this planet as soon as possible. Things were getting a bit too dangerous, even by his standards.

  The Doctor was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn’t notice the wall begin to slowly descend again. Only when he heard Clara shouting did he realise that he was moving gradually downwards, a gentle breeze ruffling his hair. At last, the wall came to a halt back in its original position.

  Clara was eager for information. ‘What could you see from up there? Could you see the way out?’

  She was clearly still frightened, so the Doctor made a decision – one of the decisions he often had to make when he needed to protect the people he loved. ‘Yes. I could,’ he replied confidently. ‘It’s not far away, but I think we should take a shortcut and call the TARDIS for a lift.’

  Clara clasped her hands together in relief. ‘You’ve got the key in your pocket! Why didn’t you say so?’

  ‘Well, since I am the maze-master extraordinaire, I don’t like to take the easy way out. But it is rather dark in here now, and I could do with a cup of tea … and this doesn’t appear to be your usual sort of maze.’

  Clara sighed in exasperation. ‘You don’t say!’

  The Doctor ignored her. ‘First thing, though, let’s get over this wall in case it decides to move again.’

  The Doctor held out his hand, but this time Clara hesitated.

  ‘Trust me,’ the Doctor said.

  She took hold of his hand and he hoisted her up. The two of them tumbled over the wall, ending up in a heap on the ground. Clara laughed, and it was a good feeling – a nice change from the fear the maze had churned up inside her.

  The Doctor smiled. ‘Right then. TARDIS?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  The Doctor put his hand in his pocket … but, to his horror, the key wasn’t there. Perhaps he had put it
in the other pocket, or in the inside pocket for safekeeping? He searched, keeping the smile on his face. But, as his scrabbling became more and more desperate, Clara realised something was wrong.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve lost it!’

  The Doctor dropped to the ground and started to search around in the dirt. ‘Must have dropped out of my pocket when the wall moved. Has to be here somewhere!’

  Clara looked around desperately, hoping to spot a glint of metal in the dirt. ‘Maybe it’s on the other side of the wall?’ she said hopefully.

  The Doctor threw his hands up. ‘Of course it is!’

  He walked towards the wall, but as he did it moved once more, shooting into the air and blocking any chance of getting to the other side. The Doctor turned slowly back to Clara. Even he was going to struggle to put a positive spin on the latest developments.

  ‘Clara. I think we may have to consider that we might be just a little bit lost.’

  Clara sighed and shook her head, wiping the dirt from her hands.

  ‘Come on, Oswald. Chin up. A maze is simply a puzzle, and this just happens to be a very, very good one. This is absolutely not the time to panic. We need to find the way out.’

  Clara looked exhausted, but the Doctor persisted.

  ‘Come on! We’ve been in worse scrapes than this! A brick wall can’t be more frightening than a Dalek, can it?’

  Clara raised her eyebrows.

  The Doctor simply pointed down the passageway ahead of them. ‘Onwards!’

  They set off in silence, Clara’s face set in a steely expression of grim determination. As they walked, she felt sweat trickling down her brow. The air seemed to be closing in around them, and even though the maze remained shrouded in darkness it felt as though it was getting warmer. The walls, all partially covered with great blossoms of the ever-present yellow flowers, seemed nearer and tighter than before, the turns more frequent and extreme. Clara started to feel lightheaded and sick; it was as if the maze was whirling around her. Then she saw something move a little way up ahead.

  ‘Doctor, stop,’ she whispered, grabbing him.