New Title 1

by Billings, Ian

  A girl about ten years old strutted into the room. She liked strutting. It was something she had inherited from her father.

  “Give!”

  She held out her hand, pouted her cheeks and poked out her bottom lip. She was used to getting her own way and she was getting it right now.

  “Victoria, my dear. How lovely to see you.” Beads of sweat appeared on Mr Scabb’s reddening face as he looked down at his daughter. “Look what I found for you.” He gently held the scratch card before her scowling eyes. She inspected it, snatched it from his hand and placed it in her pink handbag, clicking it shut.

  “Well, it took you long enough!” she snarled and scanned the room of speechless faces.

  “Well, you didn’t think any of you were going to get it, did you? It’s mine. I’m very important. I’m two hundred and fifty-ninth in line to the throne, you know. The Queen thinks about me all the time4.”

  Mr Scabb grinned awkwardly, “This is my daughter, Victoria Scabb and…”

  Victoria held up a finger to silence her father.

  “And I’m going to visit the Grot Factory!”

  * * *

  1 Nincompoop. Unknown origin. Fool, idiot, dolt, Robinson.

  2 Forthwith was one of those old fashioned words Mr Scabb liked to use a lot.

  3 Gurgle.Com - the most popular search engine on the internet.

  4 She doesn’t.

  VIOLA MUDGUARD

  I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Who’s next?” If you’re not thinking, “Who’s next?” then I’ve probably not done a very good job and you’re thinking, “What’s for tea?”, “Where’s my yo-yo?” or “I wonder what mud tastes like.” If you’re thinking any of these things then please pay attention. I said PAY ATTENTION!! I’m about to introduce the third winner of a Plonka™ Scratch Card and her name is Viola Mudguard.

  At this moment Viola was teaching her puppies how to meditate. She loved to meditate. She had been doing it for months and it was better than sitting around doing nothing.

  She sat cross-legged amidst a yapping gaggle of playful puppies all eager to jump, skip, nuzzle, dribble and hop. Each was dressed in a little costume and each was wishing they were not dressed in a little costume.

  “And, like, relax…” said Viola, exhaling loudly.

  For the first nine years of her life Viola Mudguard had been one of the biggest stars in Wollywood. Her face was known throughout the world. So were her knees, elbows and ears. You’ll probably remember her movies, “Pinocchio 2: the Revenge,” “Cinderella Drives a Tractor” and the classic, “Whoops it’s an Ostrich.” But since the age of ten all the major studios had decided she was too old to be a movie star and dropped her like a hot sausage. That’s why these days she spent a lot of time sitting around doing nothing.

  “And let’s all, like, say our relaxing word,” she said softly, “Mine is pay-check… Paaaayyyyy-chhheeeccckkkk….” She exhaled, “Now you, Scorpio.”

  “Woof!”

  “Capricorn?”

  “Woof?”

  “Gemini? Gemini, don’t sit on Leo’s head. Oh, Sagittarius, stop licking the window. Aries, I told you to go outside if you want to do that!”

  Viola was a millionaire. In fact she was probably a squadrillionaire but we can’t waste our time counting her money now we have a story to tell. The mansion she lived in had 250 faucets (or taps as they’re otherwise known), 39 baths, 107 beds, 52 fridges (one for each week of the year) and 19 swimming pools (each a different shape, depth and temperature). It was a bright cream mansion with huge towers. It was washed every day by a gang of sponge-wielding house-cleaners at enormous expense. Viola earned a lot of money from movies, she also spent a lot of money. In fact to tell the truth, and being an author I always tell the truth, she was running out of money very quickly. She needed to make another movie very soon or she might have to sell one of the cars, one of the toilets or, worst of all, one of her puppies.

  “It’s, like, so unfair.” She was sitting in her organically sourced rainbow-coloured onesie, as her assistant, Tarquin, entered the room clutching some papers. “I mean, like I was huge. I was on lunch boxes, you know, Tark!”

  Tarquin was six foot tall, with broad shoulders like a bison with a gym addiction, and dressed in exquisite Wollywood fashion. Every inch of his black hair was cut like a well-mowed lawn and his teeth as white as a well-scrubbed drive-way and his after-shave was…

  “Neurosis!” announced Viola, stroking Aquarius.

  Tarquin sniffed his sleeve and twinkled a smile, “$30,000 a bottle! Could I get your attention for just the shortest of short moments, Miss Mudguard. Just a quick momentette?”

  “I’m meditating, Turk. It’s Tuesday. I meditate Tuesdays. I have to keep in touch with my inner penguin. Otherwise she waddles across the iceberg of my sorrow and paddles in the puddles of my despair.”

  Viola was always saying things like that. No one really knew what they meant. I’m pretty sure she didn’t know and I know I don’t know and I wrote it. Tark certainly didn’t understand it, but he wasn’t going to tell Viola that. He needed his job.

  “That was beautiful, Miss Mudguard. You’re so poetic.” He pretended to wipe away a tear, decided he’d pretended enough and pressed on with the matter in hand.

  “Can we talk?”

  Viola clapped her hands, the puppies scattered and she laid back on her 19 seater sofa.

  “Okay, talk.”

  Tark rustled his papers, “There’s not many offers of work, I’m afraid.”

  “What about ‘Rapunzel and the Concrete Mixer’?”

  “It went to another actress.”

  “How about ‘Snow White and the Seven Otters’?”

  “Another actress.”

  “‘Goldilocks and Three Sardines’?”

  “Another actress.”

  Viola sighed, huffed, moaned, groaned and grimaced.

  “Don’t I have, like, any work?”

  “There’s a zit commercial. It pays okay.”

  “How much?”

  “$400!”

  “That wouldn’t even pay for your Neurosis! I have to entertain my fans. They write me, Tark! Listen.” She tapped her ePad.

  “‘Miss Mudguard you am great’, ‘Miss Mudguard, I would sell my toes to buy a ticket for your movies,’ ‘Miss Mudguard, you are the beautifulest in movies. I like horses but you is prettier.’ See?”

  Tark rustled his papers some more. Then said, “Pacy’s Superstore are looking for someone to play Santa this Christmas.”

  “I’m a MOVIE STAR!!” Viola bellowed and considered throwing a puppy at Tark but threw a vase instead.

  “Miss Mudguard, please,” whimpered Tark, dodging the vase, “Please get back in touch with your inner penguin!”

  Crash!

  “Otherwise she’ll waddle across the iceberg of your sorrow and… and... that other thing you said.”

  Crash! That was one very big bowl which was now lots of little pieces instead.

  “I need money. I need success. My face is on toilet paper, you know! Think about that!”

  Tark didn’t want to think about it, but didn’t want Viola to think he didn’t want to think about it. So he thought about it for a second then wished he hadn’t thought about it.

  By now Tark was cowering behind the 19 seater sofa as a shower of classy and expensive objects rained down on him. He was jabbing at his ePad, searching the Wollywood jobs section, when something very interesting happened.

  The doorbell rang.

  Viola stopped hurling things, the dogs stopped yapping and Turk stopped jabbing.

  You’re probably thinking, “What’s so odd about a doorbell ringing?” Well, I’m glad you asked. I’ll tell you.

  No one ever came to Viola’s mansion. Absolutely no one. I mean would you? You might get a bowl thrown at you or a chair or even a confused puppy. Viola had a reputation for being volatile1 and so everyone avoided her. Especially film producers. That’s why when the
doorbell rang it was a very unusual event.

  “What’s that?” hissed Viola.

  “I think it’s the doorbell.” whispered Tark.

  “Why is someone, like, ringing my doorbell?” muttered Viola.

  “Perhaps they want to come in?” mumbled Tark.

  “Then let them in!” whooped Viola, putting a nervous Pisces back on the carpet, “This could be my big break. This could be an agent, a producer, a director. This is my big moment. Let them in, let them in!”

  Tark emerged from behind the settee, trudged through the sea of shattered furniture and opened the large white door.

  Viola meanwhile was herding her puppies and frantically combing her hair. She threw herself on the settee and tried to look as casual as possible.

  At the door was a ten year old girl dressed in an organically sourced rainbow onesie.

  “I’m Viola Mudguard’s number one fan! Call me Betty Plunge!” she announced and stomped straight into the mansion without being asked, stomped straight over to the settee on which Viola was attempting to look casual and screamed, “OMG cubed! It’s you! LOL max! Smiley face to infinity. Hashtag blowing my mind! Instapic?”

  Betty snapped fourteen pictures of Viola before either she, Tark or the puppies had any idea what was happening.

  “Selfie?”

  Viola was about to say, “What the diddling heck do you mean by stomping into my mansion, fish face, without being asked?” but what she actually heard herself saying was, “Huh?”

  Betty threw herself on the settee, snuggled up against Viola and snapped a pic.

  “Could you answer some questions?”

  Viola wanted to say, “Get the darn doodle outta my home, gecko breath, and take your camera with you,” but what she actually heard herself saying was, “Sure.”

  Betty slipped an ePad from her “I Heart Viola” backpack and said, as if talking to someone she had known for years rather than a few seconds, “Okay. Question One. What’s your favourite toothpaste?”

  Viola looked to Tark for help but he simply shrugged helplessly.

  “Aqua-Gleam?” said Viola.

  “Hey, mine too. The world’s only oyster-friendly toothpaste. We’re like sisters.”

  She crossed her fingers in front of Viola’s befuddled face.

  “Just like that! Question Two - in scene 37 of “Cinderella Drives a Tractor” you’re seen holding your glass slipper in your right hand but in the next shot it’s in your left hand. Could you explain that?”

  “No.”

  “Question Three - this is the biggy. I know fans always ask this, but I am like your number one fan. I’m an even bigger fan than Dakota Whipple and she is, like, a mega-big fan. Grinning face. Hashtag a bit loopy, if you know what I mean.”

  No one knew what she meant.

  “So - here goes - could I have your autograph?”

  Viola finally managed to gather her thoughts long enough to say, “Will you go away if I do?”

  “Sure. I’ll do whatever you say, I’m your number one fan. I’m a bigger fan than Dwight Stump. And you know what’s he's like. LMBO. Hashtag major issues! If you know what I mean.”

  But still no one knew what she meant. Suddenly she started rummaging in her “I Heart Viola” backpack like a rabbit digging a hole muttering, “Where is it? Where is it? Where is it?”

  She sighed, “Of course! I loaned my autograph book to Alonzo Kackle. And you know what he’s like. SHFWB. Hashtag identity crisis! Smiley face, sad face, smiley face, sad face!”

  Betty produced a small card from her bag and thrust it in Viola’s face. “Sign this, instead! Wait, use my “I Big Heart Viola” pen.”

  Viola slowly took the pen from her number one fan, scribbled an autograph across it, handed it back and said, “Show Miss Plunge to the door, Tark.”

  “Don’t worry I know where the door is. I know everything about your home. I’m your number one fan. You have 250 faucets, 39 baths, 107 beds, 52 fridges and 19 swimming pools. Look…”

  Betty put the card on a nearby table, rummaged in the backpack again and produced a map of Viola’s home, “I drew it myself…”

  “The door, Tark, the door!”

  Tark was a very big man and very few people argued with him. He walked her to the door, gave her a gentle push and slammed the door behind her. The letter box flapped open and Betty’s voice trilled through, “Let’s be friends forever!” Tark slapped the letter box shut and quickly covered it with sticky tape.

  Viola sighed, Tark sighed and the puppies barked.

  “I have to get some work!” said Viola then her eyes fell on the small card on the table. “She forgot my autograph. Tark, bin that card, please.”

  Tark picked up the card and just as he was about to tear it in two Viola said, “Wait a minute…” grabbed the card and turned it over, “This a Plonka™ Scratch Card.”

  Suddenly lots of thoughts jumbled and bumbled through her brain.

  “If I win a place on the Grot Laboratory tour I’d get global publicity and then Wollywood would have to give me a new film role!”

  She grinned a shiny grin and said, “Give me a coin.”

  Tark handed her a dime. She started to scratch.

  Well, you don’t need me to tell you what happens next but being the author I suppose I should. It’s my job after all. Yes, you guessed it. There was a loud puff, a louder pop. A rancid, foul, putrid and repugnant stench filled the mansion sending the puppies whimpering behind the settee. The smell of bad alligator eggs, curdled badger’s milk and bacon yoghurt three years past its sell-by date filled the air.

  Viola Mudguard was a winner! She was the third person to join to the tour to Billy Plonka’s Grot Laboratory. Of course she was a winner! Do you think I have spent the last few pages writing about her if she wasn’t a winner?

  * * *

  1 Volatile - changeable; flighty; mercurial; Viola Mudguard.

  SPIKE PEECEE

  “Bleep, bleep, bleep, wibbley-wibbley, bleep!”

  “Bleep, wobble, twing, bleep, bleep, twingy-twing, bleep!”

  Spike Peecee was clutching a third-generation USB-interface-remote-control-CPU-stick and staring deeply at some screens like a hypnotised hedgehog.

  He lived in a basement. I don’t mean a damp, smelly, snotty, grotty place like the Sucketts’ home. No, no, this was much nicer. It was the basement of his parents’ home somewhere in America. They lived in a comfortable house in a comfortable street near a very comfortable park and beneath the comfortable house was the comfortable basement - Spike’s basement. It was stuffed to the top with every type of technical gadgetry you could imagine. You see, Spike Peecee was a techno-geek. It said so on his t-shirt. And his socks. And his hat. And even his pants. He spent most of his days avoiding school and sitting in a big comfortable chair before a huge bank of screens. Probably about twelve screens. As his part of the story begins he is playing three games simultaneously1.

  The games were “WobbleTron3”, “BioBurp” and “TechnoCheese.” He was at level seven on the first, level nine on the second and level thirty-three on the third. You’ve probably played them yourself, but none of you would be anywhere near as good as Spike Peecee because Spike Peecee was one of the best gamers in the world. You might not know his real name but you’ll know him by his gamer name - “GeekGod.” No? Well, go and Gurgle it then. I’ll wait. Was it there? No? Oh, dear, let’s move on.

  He stabbed a button, tweaked a handle, waggled a lever and shouted, “Die, fairy, die!” One of the screens exploded in a brash flash of light and announced “You are a winner!” and a triumphant fanfare played. Tra-laa!!

  “Way to go!” Spike high-fived himself and yelped, “I got my Burp on!” He turned to one of the other screens, “Now to destroy the WobbleTronosphere!” He put on his Wobble Goggles and within seconds the screen screamed, “You are a winner!” Spike punched the air, “I’m on a roll! Now for the Big Cheese!”

  He replugged the WobbleGoggles into another socket
, slid his CGI-optical-generating-helmet on his head, placed his seventh-generation-nano-wifi-ephones in his ears and smiled. He loved playing “TechnoCheese.” Not only did it have Virtual Vision and Sound, it also had Virtual Smell and Taste and for that he needed more gadgets. He unboxed his first generation epod-virtual-gob-mounted-taste-generator, which looked like a pair of false teeth on a stick, and placed it in his mouth. Finally he was going to try a brand new gadget that Limpopo™ had delivered just that morning. He carefully unsealed it, slid off the cover, opened the box and there it was - The Sniffer3000™ - a state-of-the-art Odour-Generator using cutting-edge 360° Whiffology. It was like a big ping-pong ball and it was meant to go on your nose and that’s where Spike put it. He was ready to play “Techno Cheese!”

  He logged onto the global-interweb and messaged his fellow players. He typed -

  “MightyGerbil? Online?”

  “Online!”

  “DragonMassager? Online?”

  “Online!”

  “SwordofJelly? Online?”

  “Online!”

  “SumoPixie? Online?”

  “Online!”

  “Let’s play….

  and simultaneously2 all four players typed…

  “TechnoCheese!”

  And that’s where Analog comes into the story. Analog was Spike’s pet cat. He’d been given Analog for his tenth birthday by his parents who were worried Spike didn’t interact with real things enough. They were right. Spike looked at Analog through his WobbleGoggles and wondered why his parents had bought it. He couldn’t play it, plug it in, charge it up, power it down or connect it to the global interweb. He couldn’t even send it as an attachment. He tried once and made his scanner messy. All he could do was put food in one end and deal with whatever came out of the other end. So Analog was pretty much left to do his own thing and, while Spike typed to his virtual pals, Analog wandered about the basement looking for things to do…

  Spike slapped a button and launched into the game.

  “Bleep!”

  “Thirty cheese crumbs!” bleated the computer screen.