Rebel Without a Clue

by Kerrie Noor

  MEX, STILL AT THE BUS stop, looked at Woody’s Terry Pratchett book. The cover is interesting and yet confusing, she thought. She had no idea that people were staring. Mex was so engrossed in Terry Pratchett on paper—something she had not experienced on Planet Hy Man—that three buses had driven by and reversed back; one even wound down the window and shouted “Porno Gran!”

  Mex flicked the pages back and forth. She had heard about paper, but somehow, once held between the fingers, it was so—disappointing.

  Finally, as instructed by Beryl, Mex headed towards the West End. “Look for a reputable B&B,” Beryl had said. “I hear the breakfasts are something else.” Mex had B&B information care of Beryl, a traveler’s backpack meticulously packed by her assistant, Pete, and a list a mile long, which some would consider a book.

  She looked down the road, ignoring the waves and horn-tooting from the cars, assuming that it was customary to shout remarks about “wanting some.” Mex had foolishly believed in what she had been told. That on Earth, leather worked on all levels—and as for a whip, the larger the better, apparently, and if it was waving about your person like the tail of a cat, all the better!

  MEX OPENED HER B&B leaflet at the top of Great Western Road and started walking. The rain splashed on her leather with little effect as she stared at the houses on the side of the empty road. Bricks, and roughly cast; she could not believe it, but Pete was annoyingly right. Just as he was right about the driving. They drove like there was a fire somewhere and splashing puddles on the odd walker would somehow put it out. Mex hated it when Pete was right and made a mental note not to mention the buildings, the driving, or the fact that Beryl’s “open house” theory was also looking, as Pete said, “out of date.”

  Mex arrived at the top of Byers Road and stared at a road full of color, light, and sound. She stared at the variety of folk as they tumbled out of a Gothic-looking building with music pulsating from God knows where and in time to the lights that circled the spiral. Mex was almost impressed, until she noticed the women teetering on high heels with more flesh exposed than covered as their hair obeyed every whim of the wind. They appeared to have absolutely no awareness of the rain and a willingness to laugh at anything, even when they tripped and fell.

  Mex wondered just how many colors one head of hair could have.

  “Excuse me, my good lady,” said Mex to a woman clutching onto a man like he was the mast of a sinking ship. “Your shoes,” she continued, “are they not for keeping feet dry?”

  The woman looked into the eyes of the leather-clad granny dressed for a fetish party for the retired—granted she was glamorous and fit, with an I am retired but that doesn’t stop me sort of stance, but she was still a granny, old enough to remember life before a remote control—what was she thinking?

  The woman stared and stumbled against her man and was just about to say something that required half a bottle of vodka to be considered witty when her man slid his arm around her shoulder, drew her lips to his, and planted a big sloppy kiss somewhere between her lips and her nose.

  Mex watched, waiting for the woman to retaliate, and nearly choked on her neckband. The woman not only didn’t retaliate but laughed and planted an even bigger, noisier, longer kiss straight onto his lips. Mex took appropriate action with a swift flick of her whip that was so fast no one saw; the crack echoed down the street followed by a yelp from the man.

  The young man rubbed his arm while letting out a string of unrecognizable words, which Mex didn’t hear. The wind had blown her B&B leaflet from her hands and she followed it down Great Western Road at a speed that had many couples staring, mid snog.

  A cabbie with a fondness for athletic women in leather watched. It was an impressive sight, a woman past her prime running like an Olympic stud. He watched as she pulled her whip from her belt and stabbed the leaflet with a precision that had him dreaming of more than his usual three-in-one Saturday-night takeaway. He pulled up beside her, wound down his window, and wondered if his luck was in.

  “You wanting a lift?” he said.

  She looked up.

  “Bunnie’s?” said the cabbie without blinking an eye.

  Mex went with her hunch and said yes. She jumped into the cab as the cabbie put his car into first gear. She staggered onto the seat and fumbled with her backpack, her whip, and a very wet and now useless leaflet.

  The cabbie watched in his mirror, idly wondering exactly where the zip would be for such an outfit and whether he still had it in him.

  “Graveyard shift, huh?” he finally said. “Not much on a Sunday morning and the rain don’t help.”

  Graveyard? she thought, dumping her backpack on the floor. Shifting?

  “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

  She looked at the cards attached to the back of the cabbie’s seat. Sheila’s Wheels was the first she noticed. A good incognito name . . .

  “Aussie, huh? What you doing over here, then, Sheila? Don’t the rain piss you off?”

  “I have a job to do,” said Mex. “Once that’s done, I’ll be off faster than a cat with his tail on fire!”

  The cabbie stared at the road ahead. He’d never met a working girl who talked like she read books before.

  He pulled up by a shabby side street. On the corner was Bunnie’s Establishment. With one inhale, Mex knew her instincts were buggered; she couldn’t smell anything, not one clue. All she could smell was the rain on the pavement and that was not going to help.

  Mex left the cabbie with some money and just the smallest whiff of something unfamiliar yet sweet lingering in the car. The cabbie took in a deep breath and looked down at the fifty-pound note. “Your change?” he yelled. Mex dismissed him with a wave of her hand and walked down a side alley that led to the entrance to Bunnie’s Establishment.

  The cabbie watched the rain splatter off her leathers and then looked down at the fifty-pound note again. “The name’s Don if you’re ever wanting a lift,” he shouted into the air, “but you can call me Donnie or Don.”

  Mex never heard; after all, since when did a man have something worthwhile to say? Instead she marched on until she saw Bunnie’s red light glowing in the porch and knew she had found an “entrance.”

  Don looked down at the fifty again, crisp and new. The queen had a smirk on her face like she was sitting uncomfortably and enjoying it.

  “She must be something else,” he muttered before pulling out a smoke. “I never met a working woman with a fifty before.”

  Chapter Seven—Bunnie’s

  “AN ENTRANCE IS EVERYTHING.” —Pete’s log

  Mex walked into the side entrance of Bunnie’s Establishment and waited for her eyes to adjust to the light. In its day, Bunnie’s Establishment had been the sort of establishment where leather and whips didn’t look out of place. It had been the sort of establishment that was open all night and looked shut during the day. And the sort of establishment where someone looking like Mex could have earned a lot of money.

  But Mex had no idea about that sort of thing. No one did on Planet Hy Man.

  Mex rang the bell and inhaled the pungent smell of sausages and Air Wick. The entrance was small, with just enough room for a couple of umbrellas, a doormat with “enter at your peril” written on it, and a small window at the side of the door with smoky glass, clean, with no view. In fact, the whole entrance was spotless.

  A short, plump woman appeared from nowhere in an outfit that made getting into or out of a car almost pornographic. She had a ton of necklaces sitting on the sort of chest that got in the way of everything, including painting your toes. And, as she walked, the necklaces bounced on her chest like balls on a bouncy castle. A mesmerizing sight for many a man, despite her age.

  In her time, Bunnie had been a catch and had earned a fortune, but thanks to bad choice in men, Bunnie had lost most of it and was now forced to rent out her rooms and make fry-ups in the morning. Not something she was good at; in fact, the smell of bacon often brought back memories of a time she
would rather forget.

  She looked at Mex’s slim waist and smiled to herself; that was not the sort of waist that would want a fry-up in the morning. That was the sort of figure that lived on low-fat yogurt and prunes; she was sure she had a tin somewhere.

  “I would like a room, good woman,” said Mex, “if you please.”

  Bunnie stared at Mex and wondered where she had been in such a getup. Sure, she was past her best—you could tell by the neck—but she obviously worked out. Her arms were the arms of a wrestler, muscles that stretched the leather like a way-too-small condom.

  This was a woman who made Wonder Woman look like a frump. She had a square face and strong-looking hips that gave her the seductive appeal of a granny who could hold on.

  Bunnie unplugged the bell, cutting short the third Bollywood tune on a harmonica, and Mex’s foot stopped tapping. “Where you from?” said Bunnie. “Never seen you before.”

  Mex stared at the Bangladesh Tandoori carry-out menu on the wall and thought on her feet. Something she knew she was good at.

  Bunnie threw her another look. “Fifty quid and I ask no questions.”

  “And breakfast?”

  “You taking the piss?”

  “Oh, piss? I never take—but I am hungry.”

  Bunnie pushed a key across the desk with an “aye, right” comment. “Look, Sheila from Bombay! You keep clean and I don’t ask no questions!”

  “And breakfast?”

  Bunnie looked at Mex’s expensive leather. She took in the array of tools swinging from Mex’s belt, not unlike the redundant tools hanging in her own glass cabinet, and thought on her feet, something she knew she was good at.

  “Breakfast is extra!” she said.

  PETE HAD ARRIVED IN Dunoon to a captive audience and a round of applause.

  He had arrived in the middle of a street party run by the Baptist Youth Club and the Dunoon Community Radio. But as it was an eighties retro street party most of the audience were the parents of the said Youth Club. The women were mainly dressed in some sort of Madonna guise and the men as George Michael and Spandau Ballet lookalikes, except for the DJ. He was dressed as Boy George, and he played every single Boy George song he could find.

  “Karma Karma . . . ?”

  Poof! Boom! Fizzle . . .

  “You come and go . . .”

  The smoke cleared and Pete “materialized” on the top of a scaffold in front of the Bough Hall with a jolt and a small skid.

  “What the fuck!” shouted one of the few younger boys just before being slapped about the ear from an overweight Madonna spilling out of a wedding dress.

  Pete attempted to regain his balance on thin wooden slats and quickly jumped into the incognito pose. He stared down below at the street. It was full of unrecognizable people dancing to some sort of unrecognizable music. The beat pulsated through his Teflon.

  The Operators had not taken into account the flexibility of a Teflon-ic robot when entering the coordinates, because it was unheard of for a robot to materialize anywhere other than on Planet Hy Man. So Pete had landed across the water from Glasgow in a place of which neither he nor anyone on Planet Hy Man had heard.

  For those getting down on Boy George and the like, Pete looked like one of those gold performing “street statues” that had plagued cities during the eighties. And the fact that the plugulator looked like a head mic only increased the illusion that he was some sort of surprised performer.

  Pete listened to the applause rippling through the chilly night air. Was his incognito pose not working?

  He found himself forcing a smile as the applause continued. He went for a mild nod, an acknowledgment he had often witnessed Her Supreme-ness perform, and then he wondered what to do next. No BBC sitcom had prepared him for this.

  “Keep moving downwards!” shouted an Operator from his earpiece.

  The crowd looked up expectantly: Who had organized this surprise and why? Moreover, what amazing magic would this golden statue do next?

  “Pete, the coordinates you need are three degrees sideways and at least eight feet down.”

  No reply.

  “You need to move downwards for us to move you.”

  “What?” said Pete through a strained smile.

  “You need to make your way to the bottom of the scaffolding, you’re out of range!”

  Pete looked down at the street. It was a long way down and full of not only people but stalls as well. A slight drizzle began, and as Pete lifted his hand to wave, his foot slid on the water; he lost his balance and skidded into the splits, which is nothing to the flexible Pete.

  “Oh.”

  “Aargh.”

  “Shit!”

  The music faded out and he looked like he was going to fall; the crowd gasped.

  Pete’s eyes were on the coordinates at the west of the scaffolding just around the corner and four flights down. He bent back down to the next level and then swung his legs over to follow, like a Russian gymnast performing floor work. His feet lightly touched the bar.

  “Oh my God . . .”

  “Jesus, Mary Mother of five.”

  Then he swung his legs apart with his toes grabbing onto the poles, moving into the sort of position that had many of the audience wincing.

  “Now, you must move now!” shouted a voice in his ear.

  He swung onto the next level.

  The crowd applauded.

  Pete, balancing preciously on a foot-wide bench, bowed, and before he had time to move to his point of contact, Wham! had started to play.

  “Wake me up before you go . . .”

  Pete immediately liked it. Give ’em a few more moves, he thought, what harm could that do?

  Pete moved across the slim bench with turns and twists, finishing with a fast-paced up-and-down splits—one of his specialties. The applause continued. And when he swung across the corner of the building like Spider-Man, the applause was so uplifting he felt like he wanted to stay forever—bugger the mission. He liked being noticed, having an audience; it was way better than being invincible.

  “Wake me up before you go,” he shouted, and the crowd joined in.

  “Listen, golden boy, get to the point or you can kiss your so-called ‘log’ goodbye,” said the third in command. “Hilda will be here any minute.”

  Pete ignored them; he had decided that Wham! was the best music ever, just perfect for splits and backbends, and the more the audience cheered the faster he moved.

  The Operators were getting jittery. Hilda was due anytime, and she would blow a fuse if she saw Pete and his “look at me” spectacle.

  “We must keep the masses in the dark and the Earthlings ignorant,” was Hilda’s motto.

  “Hardly that now,” said the second in command. “He’ll be leaving a calling card if we don’t do something soon.”

  The Operators continued to scramble with their connections and discovered that the steel bar could vibrate the coordinates. Pete’s body began to vibrate.

  Poof! Boom! Fizzle . . .

  He dematerialized, leaving behind just his plugulator dangling from the scaffolding pole.

  The DJ (who everyone knew as DJ) was standing close by. DJ noticed the plugulator, picked it up, and put it in his shoulder bag.

  “Bollocks,” shouted the first in command, “how could we have missed that?”

  HILDA HEADED TO THE kitchen of new cuisine. It was her favorite place to think, taste, and coordinate, or “interfere,” as Beryl liked to call it. Unlike Beryl, she had been there many times, even for a while as an apprentice, and had done her fair share of herb-picking—giving cheek was pretty much tattooed into her DNA.

  She entered through the back way and was just on the verge of requesting a tasting session when the fridge door, which was as wide as a barn, opened, completely hiding her.

  Lidia was describing the vision of a gray-blue beehive passing by to an unconvinced audience of four. Hilda held her breath . . . Beryl was a pure limo lady, never an incognito-walking t
ype. Beryl liked an entrance with a fanfare and a few footmen and got decidedly grumpy when there was no applause. While sneaking about the kitchen, Hilda’s eyes flashed across the garden to the shed . . . what was she up to?

  “I saw it between those two shelves there,” the girl said. “It was gliding by like a UFO looking for a landing place . . .”

  “It’s a beehive.”

  “What?”

  “Hairstyle from the past.”

  “No, it was definitely gliding on its own, I didn’t see no neck . . . it was from another planet, I tell you, this kitchen is . . . is . . . a landing pad—it’s radioactive.”

  The dark lady laughed. “That’s plucking too much fennel that is . . . next time do it in the fresh air.” She closed the fridge door and stared at Hilda.

  “You want to try our new casserole with pickled beets, although Herself over there calls it a stew.”

  “Not now,” said Hilda and headed for the shed; she was planning to make her “catching them off guard” entrance.

  Hilda flashed across the grass like a young paratrooper, running from hedge to stone to hedge, hiding. When she got to the shed, she crouched below the window and was about to make her way to the door when she heard, “If this gets out, the shit will really hit the proverbial.”

  She stopped.

  She slunk to her “incognito viewing spot” (peephole), silently skidding on an empty pizza carton. Hilda, like a pro, caught her breath along with her footing just in time to view Pete disappearing with a piff, puff, and poof of smoke. She held her breath and peered through her viewing spot once more, this time with her magnifying glasses. She saw, on the screen, the replay of Pete’s piff-puff-poof exit, and as the smoke cleared there was DJ George, on his knees, looking at the plugulator.