The Young Dictator

by Hughes, Rhys

  Jenny groaned. Where was the fun in that?

  Tubbs kept talking, but Jenny stopped listening. It was clear that life as a politician wasn’t going to be easy.

  And she was quite right about that.

  In fact it turned out to be harder than she feared!

  The hotel was a boring place and she sat up in bed and watched TV until she fell asleep. The next thing she knew, the car was sounding its horn outside her window. She got dressed and didn’t even have time for breakfast before she was driven to a place called Whitehall that was full of men even more boring than politicians.

  These men were the so-called civil servants her driver had mentioned. She was polite to them, but they weren’t polite to her. They acted as if she didn’t matter in the slightest. Imagine!

  Then she was taken to visit the ambassadors.

  One of them gave her a teapot as a gift, she never knew why. It was as tall as she was and made of copper.

  After that she went to visit the Queen.

  But before she had finished her third biscuit, it was time to go again. As she said goodbye to the Queen, she began to realise that her plan of kicking her off the throne was unrealistic.

  The rest of the day was dreadful!

  Instead of being able to make rules for other people, she wasn’t even allowed to abolish the rules that already existed, and she had to continue working until the evening, even though the work didn’t seem to have any point. She went to many places and shook hands with many people. The only good thing about all this activity was that she got the chance to make promises she had no intention of keeping.

  “This is so dull!” she moaned. “I wish Gran was here!”

  Life as an independent politician was almost like going to school, but not quite as bad. At least not yet…

  Jenny sat on a bench in the House of Commons, which is where Members of Parliament hold debates. The place was packed because an important debate was taking place, something to do with hospitals. The Blue, Red and Yellow Parties wanted to do different things, and they were about to take a vote to decide who was right.

  There were 646 members of Parliament and the three different parties all had 215 members, so the deciding vote would belong to Jenny, but she couldn’t get interested in the subject and her mind kept wandering as she listened to people arguing with each other.

  She decided to slip out for an hour.

  Nobody noticed as she ducked down and left the chamber. She went along a corridor and found a stairway. She walked down this to the very bottom and then followed another corridor. There was another stairway and more corridors at the bottom of it.

  This went on and on. Before long, she was lost. She knew these were the cellars but that’s all she knew.

  Then she heard a distant noise…

  It sounded like people shouting, but it wasn’t like the debate above, it was somehow more mysterious.

  She kept walking and the noise grew louder.

  At last she reached a door.

  Behind the door, an unseen man was saying very seriously, “My name is Mr Paracelsus and I’m an alky!”

  Then there came applause from other people.

  Jenny waited and listened.

  She heard a different voice say, “My name is Mr Zosimus and I’m an alky! A few days ago I relapsed!”

  Although Jenny didn’t understand what that meant, she was amazed. She recognised the voice of the man who had lived across the street! The people behind the door began clucking their tongues and muttering at Mr Zosimus, but then another voice said something that amazed Jenny even more. It was an old woman’s voice.

  “He only relapsed because I asked him to. So don’t blame him. We needed a special cloud that would make people lose interest in politics just for that day, so he created one. And it worked! That’s how Jenny managed to win the election…”

  “We must contact her soon,” said Mr Paracelsus.

  Jenny turned the handle of the door and opened it slowly. “Gran!” she cried. “What are you doing here?”

  The room beyond the door was dim. There was no electric lighting and only a few candles with flames that leaned first one way then the other. In the middle of the room was a long wooden table and large carved chairs were arranged around it, and on the chairs sat men and women with sooty faces and white hair. The walls were made of rough stone blocks and huge cobwebs vibrated in every corner.

  There was a fireplace full of dinosaur bones, but they weren’t burning, and a suit of armour stood on one side, but it had four arms and feet that pointed backwards. Very peculiar!

  On the shelf above the fire was a purple knitted idol…

  Gran looked up at her and smiled.

  “Hello Jenny! Welcome to Alchemists Anonymous!”

  Jenny squinted. “Are you all alkies?”

  Mr Zosimus and Mr Paracelsus nodded. “Yes, but we’re trying to give the habit up. Turning cheap metals into gold is bad for the health because of the fumes. We meet once a week to discourage each other. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing now.”

  Jenny frowned. “But why do you meet here?”

  Gran said, “It’s where we’ve always met, at least since the time of Guy Fawkes, four hundred years ago!”

  “Was he an alky too?” wondered Jenny.

  Gran nodded. “Yes, and one of his experiments went wrong and some people thought he wanted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. They said that he failed to set off a bomb.”

  “Isn’t that what really happened?” asked Jenny.

  Gran laughed. “No, my dear, it was just bad alchemy, but it was a very strange explosion. All the force went down, not up, and left the building standing, but it blew a hole in the ground.”

  She pointed at a dark circle on the stone floor and Jenny realised that it was in fact the entrance to a secret underground cavern even deeper than the cellar. “What’s down there?”

  Gran shrugged. “We don’t know. That’s what we hope to find out. We think it might be a magical world.”

  “An entire world under this room?” gasped Jenny.

  “Part of a world,” said Gran.

  “Which part?” demanded Jenny.

  “The reception area,” said Gran.

  Mr Zosimus spoke up. He said, “The hole is too narrow for any of us to enter, but you are just the right size and that’s why we need you here. So we helped you win the Carrington by-election to make sure you came to London and was allowed in Parliament.”

  “Did the smoke that came from your house and settled over the town stop people wanting to vote?” asked Jenny.

  Mr Zosimus said, “Most people wouldn’t have voted anyway because of apathy, which is another word for laziness, but two people would have voted – your Mum and Dad.”

  Jenny blinked. “Without the smoke, I would have won by three votes, is that what you mean?”

  Gran cleared her throat. “They planned to vote against you, Jenny.”

  Jenny clenched her fists. “Oh, did they?”

  “None of this is important,” growled Mr Paracelsus. “Can’t we get on with the main topic under discussion?”

  “What would that be?” asked Jenny.

  “How you can help us,” answered Mr Paracelsus.

  “I was going to reveal myself to you this evening,” said Gran, “and bring you here, but you found us on your own. We want to lower you on a rope through that hole. We are convinced that something of great value exists down there, and we want it for ourselves. We have an idea of what it might be, but we’re not sure.”

  “Money?” suggested Jenny.

  Gran shook her head. “Not that, no.”

  “Sweets? Expensive clothes? Lottery tickets? Jewels?”

  “Power!” announced Gran.

  “Power?” blinked Jenny. “You mean…”

  Gran jumped to her feet and snarled, “Yes, my girl! Power will give us the chance to do anything we like, anything at all! We can boss everyone else about and make them work for
us, but we won’t have to work at all. It will be the best time of our lives!”“

  Jenny took a deep breath. “Fetch that rope!”

  It was like being lowered down a chimney. At least, that’s what Jenny decided as she descended into darkness. The circle of light above her shrank as she went deeper and deeper.

  The air grew warmer and suddenly she saw a green glow below her feet. Then the chimney widened and became a cavern with slimy walls that gave off their own light. She landed on an old carpet and untied herself. Then she looked around.

  The cavern was like a market. It was full of stalls!

  But the owners of the stalls weren’t people. They were purple and had four arms. Jenny looked at their feet and saw they pointed backwards, which probably made walking tricky.

  She wandered through the market, looking at the bizarre fruit that was for sale. The purple creatures shouted out things like, “Forty ripe glums for a fiver! Kilo of numb nuts the same!”

  Some stalls sold strange clothes including trousers with one leg twice as long as the other. Other stalls sold paintings that were in every shape except square. Everything was odd.

  A few stalls sold mirrors that reflected not what was in front of them but what was happening far away. Jenny peered into one and saw a young girl who was working on a school project on a kitchen table somewhere in America. Then the mother of the girl entered the kitchen with a smile and the image faded.

  Jenny walked on and frowned.

  Above this stall was a sign that said: THE YEAR 2016. ONLY HALF GONE. Nothing was on display, but the creature that squatted behind the stall beckoned her to approach.

  “Are you a goblin?” asked Jenny.

  “What a stupid idea!” laughed the creature.

  “Maybe you’re a gnome or a leprechaun?” cried Jenny.

  “No! That’s completely wrong!”

  “A troll? An orc? A moleman?”

  “Of course not! I’m just an honest skargill.”

  “I’ve never heard of those,” confessed Jenny, “but that doesn’t surprise me because I’ve never been so deep underground before. What are you selling here? I can’t see anything.”

  “I’m selling what my sign says. The year.”

  Jenny frowned. “Which one?”

  The skargill also frowned. “This year. What other is there?”

  “Fair enough. How much is it?”

  “What sort of a question is that, young lady? Have you come here to waste my time or make fun of me?”

  “I really want to know,” said Jenny.

  The skargill sighed. “The price is the same as what it says on the label. I don’t haggle over things like that.”

  Jenny finally understood. “Ah, you mean the price is 2016 because the present year is 2016? That makes sense.”

  “Why do you think all years are numbered? It’s the price! What else could it be? You didn’t think the numbers refer to the date, did you? Now that would be really ridiculous.”

  “So the price goes up by one every year?”

  “Indeed. I’m still amazed I haven’t got rid of 2016 yet. No one seems interested, but it’s such a bargain!”

  “Is it really?” asked Jenny. “What can be done with it?”

  The skargill’s eyes widened. “You really are a joker, aren’t you? If you own the year, you own everything inside it, which is everything in the world! That should be obvious.”

  Jenny licked her lips. She didn’t have that sort of money and so she didn’t even bother searching through her pockets. She just said, “Will you keep it for me? I’ll be back later.”

  The skargill showed his teeth. “Sorry. I can’t promise not to sell it to anyone else who might come along.”

  “I’ll be as quick as I can!” called Jenny.

  She ran back to the rope, tied it around her and gave it a tug. This was the signal for her to be pulled back up. She rose back into darkness and then she emerged in the cellar.

  Gran asked impatiently, “What happened?”

  Jenny said, “You were right. Power can be found down there, but I need cash to buy it. I need two thousand and sixteen pounds. I only have 50p on me. Will you lend me the rest?”

  Gran emptied her pockets and so did Mr Paracelsus and Mr Zosimus. In fact every alchemist in the room did the same, but together they only managed to raise £15.50. Jenny added her own coin and sighed. “Where are we going to get the remainder?”

  “That’s easy,” said Gran. “You’re a politician now. £2000 is nothing to a Member of Parliament. All you need to do is claim for a thing called expenses. It’s an old custom here.”

  “Please explain more,” prompted Jenny.

  Mr Paracelsus said, “Politicians make ordinary people pay taxes. In other words, working people must give lots of the money they earn to the government. The government is supposed to spend it on things that will improve the country, but some money always goes missing. The missing money is called expenses and politicians can spend it on themselves. It’s a well known secret and quite normal.”

  A voice from beyond the door cried faintly, “Miss Khan! Where are you? You are needed for the vote!”

  “That’s Tubbs, my driver,” said Jenny.

  “You’d better go,” advised Gran. “When you’ve got the two thousand in expenses, come back here again.”

  Jenny nodded and rushed out of the room.

  Gran was right. Getting hold of two thousand pounds was easy. She just had to go to an office and claim ‘expenses’ for cinema tickets, restaurant bills and concerts she hadn’t gone to. There was no need to provide any proof. Then she was allowed to dip her hand into a large jar labelled TAX MONEY and take what she needed.

  As soon as she had it, she returned to the cellar and was lowered down the hole a second time. The skargill was still there and the year was still for sale. He watched her count the banknotes.

  When she was pulled back up by the alchemists, she held a document that proved ownership of the year.

  “Good work!” said Mr Paracelsus. “Hand it over!”

  Jenny shook her head. “It’s mine.”

  Gran studied the document over her shoulder. “It has her name on it. No use arguing.” Then she winked slyly at Jenny. “Well done. You did what Machiavelli recommended!”

  “I followed my own instincts,” said Jenny.

  “Even better!” approved Gran.

  Mr Paracelsus pouted. “So I have to obey a little girl, do I? I didn’t become an alchemist to be told…”

  “Put a sock in it, you sap!” ordered Jenny.

  Instantly, Mr Paracelsus shut up.

  “What are your plans now?” asked Mr Zosimus.

  Jenny turned to Gran. “What do you think? I ought to employ you as my main adviser. That’s my first decision.”

  “And it’s a good one,” replied Gran. “If I was you, I would make Mr Zosimus chief in command of your army.”

  “I don’t have one!” pointed out Jenny.

  “Sure you do. You own the year! Every statue in London will come alive and do whatever you say if you give the word, and some of those statues are mythical monsters too!”

  “Great!” said Jenny. “In that case, Mr Zosimus is the new general of my army of statues. What next?”

  “You should dissolve Parliament,” said Gran.

  “In acid, you mean?” asked Jenny.

  “No, I mean you must kick out all the other politicians and declare yourself a dictator. Then you can join Fascbook.”

  “Facebook? I’m already on there.”

  Gran smiled. “Not Facebook. I said Fascbook. It’s a social networking site just for dictators. I’m sure Adolf, Benito and Pol Pot will add you as a friend and they’re useful contacts.”

  Jenny frowned. She didn’t recognise those names.

  Gran said, “Don’t expect everyone to let you push them around. There will be resistance to your regime. You must be strong and determined and be prepared to crush all opposition!”

&
nbsp; “I’m ready for anything!” declared Jenny.

  “Good girl! There’s no time to lose. Let’s march into the House of Commons and declare a putsch.”

  “That’s a funny word,” said Jenny.

  “Yes, but they won’t be laughing when they see us! It just means that the old government is finished and you are in charge now and nobody is allowed to do anything against you.”

  “Hurry up!” roared Jenny.

  They left the cellar and walked down the corridor to the stairway. But how could a young girl and a bunch of ancient alchemists overpower the guards on duty in the debating chamber?

  Jenny had an idea. Many statues can be found even inside the Houses of Parliament. Most of these statues are of obscure politicians who lived and died a long time ago, but some are just random gargoyles or exotic animals like pelicans and panthers.

  As she passed each statue, Jenny waved her document in front of its blank eyes. The statues came alive at once and jumped down from the pedestals on which they stood.

  “Follow me!” she ordered.

  And they obeyed without question, knees squeaking as they lurched unsteadily down the corridors behind her.

  Soon they arrived at the doors of the debating chamber. “I’m scared,” said Mr Paracelsus. “Maybe we should turn back?”

  “Do that if you want to,” said Jenny, “but this lady’s not for turning. Onwards!” And she flung open the doors and rushed inside, followed by the alchemists and the statues.

  “What is the meaning of this?” demanded the Prime Minister, turning his smug chin in her direction.

  “Parliament is now dissolved,” cried Jenny, “and democracy has been abolished. This country is now a dictatorship and I am in total command. If you disobey me, you’ll be…”

  She frowned and whispered to Gran, “What should I threaten them with? Sent to bed without supper?”

  Gran shook her head. “Too mild. Beheading is better. Torn limb from limb by weasels is another option.”

  The Prime Minister didn’t wait for this whispered conversation to be completed before he took action of his own. He jumped off his seat and ran towards Jenny with his fists raised.