by David Parkin
THUD!
“OW!”
“…why doesn’t anything work for longer than a few days?”
CLUNK!
“OW … OW!”
“Stop whining, you useless…”
“OW … OW… OW!”
“Right, you asked for it!”
There was a particularly loud KURTHUNK, a crash as the metal box hit the floor and a lot of stamping.
“OW … OW … OW … OOOOOoooowwww…”
The mechanical voice trailed off and then was silent.
The front door opened and Doctor Skinner stood there looking dishevelled. The metal box lay in pieces at his feet. He stared up at Christopher as if surprised.
“Oh yes, you!” He reached into his pocket. “Look I haven’t got much change … I don’t know why you lot have to bother good people like me…”
“I don’t want money.”
“I bet you do. What is it then? Are you selling cookies or something?”
“No…” said Christopher. “I came to see you. I was hoping you might be able to help me.”
“You came to see me?” Doctor Skinner seemed taken aback. “No-one comes to visit me. Not out of working hours anyway.”
Christopher felt a bit awkward and shuffled his feet.
“In that case,” said the doctor, grabbing Christopher’s hand. “Do come in, come on!”
Before Christopher could say a word, the excited doctor was pulling him up a winding stair.
“I’ll show you my laboratory! Prepare to be amazed!”
Christopher panted up the last set of stairs.
“Bit of a climb, I’m afraid,” said Doctor Skinner. “But the view’s worth it.”
The doctor proudly opened the door.
For the second time that day, Christopher was speechless. The laboratory was high up in one of the mansion’s turrets. Instead of a roof, the sun shone down through a huge glass dome that hung over the strange room. Christopher shielded his eyes and looked around.
One side of the room was engulfed by technology. Computer terminals hummed and beeped. Monitors crackled, and lots of strange machines that Christopher had never seen before buzzed with flashing lights and clunky mechanical noises.
“And these,” declared Doctor Skinner, gesturing to the other side of the room, “are my specimens!”
Hundreds of jars of all different shapes and sizes stood upon rows and rows of shelves. Each one held a dark blue liquid and was labeled.
Christopher walked closer.
“I don’t believe it,” he said.
Ears, eyeballs, feet, noses, teeth, mouths, fingers, belly buttons and lots of other bits and bobs floated inside the glass jars.
“Pretty fantastic eh?”
“Erm … yeah.” Christopher felt his stomach turn. “Really … fantastic.”
“Aren’t they just?”
“Where did you get them from?” asked Christopher, not sure if he wanted to know the answer.
“I make them.” The doctor glared closely at his specimens. “And a very tricky procedure it is too. It’s all about the ingredients, you see. You have to get the mix exactly right, otherwise it doesn’t work at all. Just making one single eyelash is more complicated than you could ever imagine.”
“So what do you do with them?” Christopher stared into a jar. An eyeball gazed lifelessly back. He took a few steps away from the shelves. “Do you use them for your plastic surgery?”
“Some yes … but most I use for my own private experimentation.”
“Experimentation?”
“Well firstly, there are my own personal improvements.” The Doctor wiggled his twelve fingers at Christopher and grinned. “Secondly, are my devices … which are my real passion.”
Doctor Skinner spun away from his specimens and turned to Christopher.
“Plastic surgery … although very good for bringing in the money, was never really a passion for me.”
He fixed Christopher with a serious look. “And its so important to have a passion … don’t you agree?”
“Yes … very important.”
“My work,” announced the doctor, “is the most important thing to happen to this world since the invention of the wheel! What did you think of the doorbell?”
Christopher struggled to find the right words. “Very … unusual!”
“It’s a prototype of course, still a few teething problems.”
Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Doctor Skinner burst into giggles.
“Teething problems!” He cried. “Because it’s a mouth … Oh dear … that’s priceless … hee hee … teething problems… Heavens to Betsy … Sometimes I crack myself up…”
Christopher watched in awkward silence and tried to smile.
Doctor Skinner wiped a tear from his eyes, chortled a little more and then was deadly serious.
“My work, you see, brings together two very different things.”
He pointed to his computer bank, “Technology” then turned to his specimens, “and the body. I call it Techbodylogy!”
Doctor Skinner glared at Christopher with a twinkle in his eye.
“Would you like to see some?”
Scuttler and Funky Feet
The thing darted across the floor and disappeared behind a computer terminal.
“Did you see it?” asked Doctor Skinner. “He’s a nippy little fella!”
Christopher slowly sat on the swivel chair in the centre of the room.
“Not really…” He lifted his feet off the floor. “What is it? A spider?”
“Close,” said the doctor. “But not quite right.”
He fiddled with the large remote control in his hands. “Hang on a sec. I still haven’t quite got the knack of this.”
A finger appeared from behind the terminal, probing the air, as if checking the coast was clear. It was followed by another three fingers and then a thumb.
“I am proud to present…” said the doctor, “the incredible SCUTTLER!”
The thing did indeed scuttle across the floor. It scampered over to Christopher and stopped dead, right at his feet. Christopher yelped and clutched his knees under his chin.
And there it was: a remote control hand. Half flesh, half machine. An electronic box with flashing lights and antennas imbedded in its wrist.
“Now for the really clever bit!” said Doctor Skinner and flipped a switch.
There was a beep, an electrical whir and then, out the top of the hand, an eye blinked open and stared at Christopher.
“Is it friendly?”
“It’s as friendly as whoever’s got the controls,” said Doctor Skinner as he handed them to Christopher. “Why not have a go?”
Christopher took the heavy remote.
“Look, there you are!” The doctor pointed to a tiny monitor on the controls. Christopher looked down at the screen and saw himself as seen by Scuttler.
“So that’s what I look like when I’m terrified,” he tried to joke.
“It’s cutting-edge stuff,” said Doctor Skinner, taking no notice. “The computer in the hand transmits what the eye sees straight back to this remote.”
The doctor snatched the controls back off Christopher and began to fiddle with the levers. Scuttler rose to its fingertips and then scampered away into a corner.
“Probably the most marvellous thing you have ever seen … right?” shouted the doctor as he disappeared into a closet.
“Probably the weirdest thing I have ever seen,” muttered Christopher.
“Prepare to be doubly amazed!” Doctor Skinner burst back into the room, carrying another odd-looking machine. He placed the contraption in the middle of the laboratory. “Take a look at this gadget!”
&nbs
p; This machine was considerably larger than Scuttler. Half of it was a very ordinary-looking record player with a few extra knobs and dials. The other half, however, was a hairy pair of legs. They stood underneath the record player like legs to a table.
“Being a genius, I don’t really have time for socialising,” said the doctor wistfully. “So life can sometimes be a very lonely affair.”
He jumped back into the closet and reappeared clutching a record.
“But occasionally we geniuses like to have a little fun as well.” He glanced over the record and placed it onto the turntable. “Hmmmm … some jazz I think…”
Doctor Skinner grinned at Christopher.
“No-one to dance with?” he said as the music began to play. “Then why not try the incredible Funky Feet!”
The song started with a laidback beat, a double bass and a playful trumpet. The legs of the machine responded casually, a knee bent in time and a foot tapped to the rhythm.
Doctor Skinner clicked his fingers and grinned. “Cool daddy-o…”
There was a roll of drums, a blast of horns and the song exploded into a swirling swinging mix of beats and screaming saxophones.
Funky Feet jumped into life and flew across the laboratory, in a twirling display of high kicks and knee swivels.
Doctor Skinner clapped his hands in delight as the device jigged and jived around the specimen jars and machinery.
“Look at it go!”
By this point Christopher was feeling very uneasy indeed. Although the doctor’s devices were incredible, they were also very creepy. And there was something about the strange doctor and his constantly changing moods that Christopher didn’t trust.
“Erm … Doctor Skinner …”
But the doctor wasn’t listening. He was watching Funky Feet and swaying to the music.
The jazz tune built to a crescendo, Funky Feet leapt into the air, clicked its heels and then landed with a heavy thud. The record skipped.
Doctor Skinner’s face fell.
The skip in the record caused the legs to twitch and kick … which caused the record to skip again.
Doctor Skinner’s cheeks turned a dark crimson as he watched Funky Feet turn from a debonair dancing device into a malfunctioning machine of mayhem.
The legs flung themselves in different directions, attempting a ridiculous kind of breakdance – which made the record skip – so they spun on one knee, while doing the highland fling with the other – which made the record skip again. The legs swayed and spasmed and twitched and twirled, and all the while the needle jumped from one spot to another, from one song to the next.
The doctor’s eyes bulged as he watched the machine bang and crash around the room, jumping and kicking like crazy.
Christopher watched with a sense of déjà vu. For some reason, the out of control Funky Feet reminded him of how his mum danced at weddings. Doctor Skinner’s huge fists clenched white with rage.
“Blasted thing!” he bellowed and threw himself upon the device.
Specimen bottles smashed, monitors cracked and Christopher watched wide-eyed as Doctor Skinner angrily wrestled Funky Feet to the floor.
“Confounded useless bowlegged rubbish!” One of Doctor Skinner’s big hands grabbed at a foot as the other tore at wires, knobs and dials. “The only time I have a visitor and you have to spoil it all!” The record smashed and the legs flayed and fell limp.
Doctor Skinner stood up, flushed with anger, clutching half a broken record in one hand and a clump of leg hair in the other.
Then, for a whole minute he stood staring into nothing, his face a deep purple, his eyes bulging.
“Doctor Skinner?” said Christopher eventually. “Are you okay?”
The doctor blinked and looked at Christopher. He shook his head as if waking from a dream, then glanced around his laboratory.
“Right … sorry about that…” He ran his twelve fingers through his thinning hair. “Sometimes I get a bit carried away.”
The doctor noticed the broken record he was still clutching in his hand. He gently placed it upon his desk and tried to smile. “What was it you wanted to ask me, anyway?”
Christopher had seen enough.
“Oh nothing…” he said, getting up.
“Come on, don’t be shy.”
“I had something to show you,” said Christopher, edging toward the door. “But it doesn’t seem important anymore.”
“How intriguing,” said Doctor Skinner, a look of excitement dancing across his face. “It’s in the bag, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes,” said Christopher. “But I really should be going…”
“Oh, don’t be such a tease!” Doctor Skinner snatched Christopher’s rucksack and delved inside.
Christopher watched helplessly as he whipped off the lid and upended the contents of the shoebox on to the floor. Cotton wool scattered everywhere and then with a small splat, a terrified Little Big Nose hit the floor.
“Oh.” The look of excitement fell from the doctor’s face. “That old thing.”
“What?” said Christopher.
Doctor Skinner looked at Little Big Nose with a sneer.
“It’s very nice of you to return it but I threw it out years ago. You can keep it.”
The Nose Is Mine!
Christopher picked up Little Big Nose and clutched him to his chest.
“You made him?”
“Of course,” said Doctor Skinner. He peered at the nose. “It was some time ago now. I was just learning, but it’s definitely one of mine.” He pointed to the damp little suckers that lined the nose’s back.
“See, it’s got my trademark BURPs!”
“Burps?”
“Biological Utility Retention Puckers. To think, some plastic surgeons are still sewing bits and bobs onto people.”
“So your specimens can stick themselves onto patients?”
Doctor Skinner snorted. “Well, it’s a bit more complex than that, but you’ve got the right idea…”
He walked over to his desk and grabbed a small book.
“If I’m not mistaken, that particular specimen was made quite a few years ago. Let’s have a look in one of my old diaries … I think this is the right one,” he said, flipping through the pages. “Yes, here we are … it was when I was experimenting with noses that made their own mucus.”
He looked up from the book. “There I was working on it, when the damn thing exploded and covered us both in snot.”
Doctor Skinner cast the diary aside. “I never did work out how to make a stable mucus gland. All the noses I make now are dry. It’s not as realistic, but what can you do?”
“So what happened?” Christopher felt Little Big Nose begin to sniffle and tremble in his hands.
“I was very annoyed.” Doctor Skinner frowned and stroked his chin. “I think I threw it out the window … you wouldn’t guess it but I do have a little bit of a temper.”
Christopher decided it was time to go.
“Right,” he said. “I think I should head home now because my mum…”
“AAAACCCCHHHHOOOO!”
Christopher looked down at Little Big Nose and then back at the wide-eyed doctor.
“What was that?” whispered Skinner
“A sneeze,” said Christopher, feeling like he was stating the obvious.
“A SNEEZE … how could it SNEEZE?”
“Well… “ Christopher walked to the door. “He does that when he’s nervous … anyway got to go now, thanks for your time!”
“STOP RIGHT THERE!”
Christopher froze in his tracks and looked round at the doctor, who stared at him wildly. “Is that nose alive?”
Christopher nodded.
“But this is incredible,” said Skinner,
never once taking his eyes from Little Big Nose. “A living specimen! I … created … a living nose.”
Then once again, Doctor Skinner’s mood changed. He was suddenly very composed and serious.
“As I said, thanks for returning the specimen.” He held out a hand to Christopher. “Now if I could just have it back. I will pay you handsomely for this kind deed.”
“But you said you didn’t want him,” said Christopher.
“But that’s before I knew he was ALIVE,” said Doctor Skinner, moving closer. “This is an incredible thing that has happened. I will need to do some experiments on the specimen…”
“Experiments?”
“There’ll have to be a dissection, of course.”
“Dissection…” Christopher knew what the word meant, it meant putting Little Big Nose to sleep and sharp knives. “You can’t cut him up, he’s a living thing!”
Doctor Skinner lunged forward and grabbed Christopher by the shoulders.
“I think you’ll find I can do whatever I want…” he growled. “I made him! He belongs to me!”
“I most certainly do NOT!” snorted Little Big Nose.
“He can talk as well!” Doctor Skinner looked down at the nose in amazement.
Christopher seized his chance. “Yes, he can! And he doesn’t want anything to do with you!” He kicked Doctor Skinner hard in one of his six knees, ran through the door and began to jump down the stairs.
“Come here!” yelled Skinner.
Christopher didn’t look back. He flew down the stairs as fast as he could. He heard the doctor clattering after him. Christopher fell into the hallway and began to frantically unlock the front door. There were several bolts and locks, and his hands shook as he turned keys and fiddled with latches.
“Come back here!” the doctor cried from the stairwell. The last bolt clunked open and Christopher burst through the door and out onto the drive.
He dragged his bike off the gravel and was just about to jump on it when he felt something clamp firmly around his ankle.
SCUTTLER…
The hand had a strong grip. Christopher watched, frozen with fear as it slowly crawled up his leg.
