‘Yeah, I know what you mean, mate,’ the top-hatted man agreed.
By the time the theatre opened its doors, the end of the queue was out of sight. ‘I hope we’re not out here too long,’ Amy said, popping on her sunglasses. ‘I’m cooking like a Christmas turkey in tinfoil in this silver get-up. The wig’s making my head sweat, too.’
‘Thanks for sharing that,’ said the Doctor. Amy wrinkled her nose at him.
People started to go into the theatre through one door. After about ten minutes, the first people left again by another door. They all looked upset. The man in the tiger suit was crying.
‘Get a life!’ Amy whispered to the Doctor. ‘Crying because you don’t get on a TV show, that’s pretty sad.’
‘Be kind,’ said the Doctor. ‘Some people don’t know there’s a whole universe out there.’
‘Well, they should try finding out,’ said Amy.
It was some time before the Doctor and Amy got to the doors of the theatre. A guard was standing outside, stopping people getting in before they were wanted. To Amy’s relief, it wasn’t the guard they’d met the night before. She wasn’t sure their disguises were really good enough to fool anyone. People tended not to forget the Doctor.
After a few more minutes, the guard waved them into the foyer.
A man with a clipboard came up to them. He handed them a piece of card with a number on it. ‘You will be shown into the theatre. When your number is called you will go on the stage. The judges and Sammy Star will be sitting in the front row. You may begin when they tell you to. Your act should take no more than three minutes. The judges may stop you and ask you to leave at any point. Got that?’
‘Yes, sir!’ said Amy, giving him a salute. ‘Has he been taking lessons from the Daleks?’ she whispered to the Doctor.
They had to sign a form. Amy spotted that the Doctor had signed it ‘Fred Astaire’, so she signed it ‘Ginger Rogers’. The man didn’t seem to notice. He ushered them in to the main theatre and went to tell the rules to the next person.
A short, stocky girl in top hat and tails was on the stage. ‘Just one more trick,’ she pleaded, taking her hat off her head and pulling some flags out of it.
‘Thank you, we’ve seen quite enough,’ someone said from the stalls. ‘That’s a No from me.’
Amy peered into the seats. She’d seen the three judges on TV before. That voice belonged to Austin Hart, a tall, smug-looking man covered in fake tan. Next to him was Bill Evans who was short, bald and Welsh. The only woman in the line-up was Daisy Mead, a model who’d married a pop star.
‘Enough for a life time,’ said Bill Evans. ‘Don’t give up the day job, love. No from me.’
Daisy Mead drawled, ‘I don’t want to be cruel, right? It was just dreadful though. Really bad.’
‘So that’s a hat-trick of “No”s for your hat trick,’ sniggered Austin Hart. ‘Sammy? Do you have any comments to add?’
‘Learning magic is hard work,’ said Sammy Star. ‘It’s also lonely.’ The girl on stage nodded. ‘For some people it’s worth it. For you, it isn’t. You’re awful.’
The girl burst into tears. She put the hat back on her head, flags hanging over her ears.
Amy turned to the Doctor. ‘That’s really mean. Do they have to be so nasty? So her magic’s not great. What have they done with their lives?’
The Doctor’s eyes narrowed. ‘For some people, being mean to others is the point of their lives. They’re the ones you should be feeling sorry for. It must be worse than being a Cyberman.’
As the girl shuffled off the stage, a voice called ‘Number thirty-seven, please.’
‘Ooh, that’s us!’ said the Doctor. He nudged Amy, and led her onto the stage.
‘Name?’ asked Austin Hart.
‘I’m Doctor Daring,’ said the Doctor giving them a wave, ‘and this is the Amazing Amy, my lovely helper.’ Amy smiled and did a twirl.
‘What’s your act?’
The Doctor bowed. ‘I am an escape artist. In fact, I am the best escape artist you will ever see.’
All four of the judges started laughing.
The Doctor turned to Amy. ‘You know, I think they might be laughing at us, rather than laughing with us. That’s not very nice.’
‘Well, let’s give them something to laugh about,’ said Amy, opening the carpet bag. She pulled out the chains with a flourish and began to wind them around the Doctor. Next out of the bag came three huge padlocks. She displayed them to the watchers, then linked them through the chains. One by one, she snapped them shut.
The Doctor wriggled his fingers, showing he was held firm by the chains. Amy faced him and raised her eyebrows. He gave a slight nod. That was their signal to show the bonds were loose enough for him. He had to seem trapped, but still be able to reach his sonic screwdriver.
So far things were going as planned. Amy pulled a sack out of the bag and placed it over the Doctor’s head. He gave her a wink before the cloth covered his face. She then produced a large wooden cabinet from the bag. Although such a big box could never have fitted in a bag of that size, no one clapped. Amy almost laughed. The judges thought an alien wonder was just a cheap trick! They really were clueless.
Getting the box into the right place was the most crucial part of the Doctor’s plan. He’d told Amy just where it had to be placed on the stage. She had to be careful while looking careless. The watchers mustn’t guess that she was putting the cabinet on top of a trapdoor.
Certain it was in the right place, Amy stepped away from the box. She tapped it hard on all sides to show it was solid. Then she ushered the bound Doctor into it. Using handcuffs, she fixed him to metal rings inside the box. When it was clear that the Doctor was helpless, she shut the door on him.
For Amy, the next few minutes would be tricky. All eyes were on her, and she had to keep it that way. The Doctor needed all the time she could buy him.
‘Trapped in this box!’ she cried. ‘How will he escape his bonds?’
The seconds ticked past slowly as she danced around the cabinet. Whenever she was behind it, out of sight of the judges, she rattled a piece of chain. That would make people think the Doctor was trying to escape inside the box.
At last someone called out, ‘Three minutes are up.’
‘Just a bit longer!’ she called back. She put her ear to the box, acting as if she could hear a voice from inside. ‘He’s nearly free!’
‘Do us a favour, love!’ said Bill Evans. ‘You’re wasting our time.’
‘Well spotted. That’s the point,’ muttered Amy to herself.
‘You’re going to have to let him out now,’ said Austin, sounding bored.
‘I am, like, so asleep already,’ said Daisy Mead.
Amy smiled and pretended to try the door. ‘It’s stuck!’ she said. ‘Hold on, give me a moment.’ She made a show of pulling the handle. ‘No, really stuck. Sorry!’
‘Hang on a minute,’ came an angry voice. ‘I know that accent.’ Sammy Star jumped up from his seat and stormed onto the stage. Amy ducked round behind the box. She was able to waste quite a few more seconds as Sammy Star chased her round and round.
The judges cheered from the stalls. ‘This is the best thing we’ve seen yet!’ called Austin Hart.
It couldn’t go on for ever, of course. Sammy Star caught up with Amy and grabbed hold of her wig. ‘Aha! I thought so!’ he cried as her long red hair tumbled out. ‘The Scottish redhead from last night! She’s a spy,’ he told the judges. ‘She’s trying to ruin my act, her and this Doctor Daring friend of hers.’
‘Yeah, but he’s, like, stuck in that box, yeah?’ said Daisy Mead. ‘So he’s not doing anything, is he?’
Sammy Star hissed through his teeth. He shoved Amy out of the way and opened the box.
It was empty.
‘Oh, sorry, did we say this was an escape act? It’s really a disappearing act,’ said Amy. She grinned. ‘Our mistake.’
* * *
Chapter Eight
AS SOON AS Amy shut the door of the box, the Doctor set to work. He’d hidden the sonic screwdriver up his sleeve, and now he shook it down into his hand. Amy had been careful to leave the chains loose enough to allow him to do that.
A couple of quick buzzes from the screwdriver made the chains and padlocks fall away, followed by the handcuffs. The Doctor pulled the sack off his head and knelt down.
He’d watched Sammy Star’s act closely. Sammy had appeared from a ‘grave’ as if by magic. The Doctor had worked out that there must be a trapdoor in the stage. He’d told Amy to put the cabinet over that exact spot. Now he opened the trapdoor and climbed down.
There was just enough space to stand up under the stage. He shut the trapdoor behind him, then looked around. A dim light showed a door to one side. The Doctor went through it and found himself in the heart of the theatre. There were no guards or dogs as no intruder was supposed to get this far in. This was the place he’d been searching for, Sammy Star’s prop store.
There was a keypad by the storeroom door. A sequence of numbers would be needed to unlock it.
Just as he was about to attack the lock with the sonic screwdriver, he heard movement. There was someone inside the room. It couldn’t be Sammy Star, as he was still upstairs in the theatre. The Doctor shrugged and knocked on the door. It seemed the easiest way.
‘Who is it?’ a girl’s voice called from inside the room.
‘It’s me,’ the Doctor called back. He’d noticed before that people often accepted that without asking who ‘me’ was.
Sure enough, the door was opened from inside. A girl stood there. She had long black hair and wore a white Victorian-style nightdress. The Doctor did a double-take, but a second look showed it wasn’t Kylie Duncan. She was in the past now, the Doctor knew. It must be that Sammy Star chose girls who looked alike. That way people wouldn’t notice it was a new girl every night.
‘Hello?’ said the girl.
‘Hello, I’m the Doctor,’ replied the Doctor cheerfully. He shut the door behind him and was inside the room before she knew what had happened.
He looked around with interest. A cage in a corner held a large, sad white rabbit with floppy ears. Plastic gravestones leant against the walls. There was a full-length mirror on a stand. Chains and ropes dangled from hooks. A dozen costumes hung from a rail.
Next to the rabbit’s cage was a tall box. It was about the same size and shape as the one he’d been locked in. He smiled, thinking of Amy still dancing around on the stage.
As the girl watched, confused, he ran the sonic screwdriver across the box. ‘Hmm,’ he said, glancing at a reading. ‘Lead-lined.’
‘No one’s allowed to touch that box!’ the girl cried. ‘That’s why the door was locked!’
‘Well, yes, he would have told you that,’ said the Doctor. ‘Wouldn’t want anything to happen to you before tonight, would he?’
‘What do you mean?’
The Doctor stared straight at her. ‘We’re going to have a little talk in a minute. Then you’re going to leave. You’re in danger here.’
‘I was in danger out there, Doctor Whoever-you-are,’ she said. ‘It’s not much fun being on the streets. This bloke’s offering me a good job, good money, a chance of being on the telly.’
‘Where you’ll end up, there isn’t any telly!’ the Doctor told her. ‘They stopped broadcasts during the war and it doesn’t begin again until 1946. Even then it’s pretty much only Muffin the Mule and the News!’
‘You’re mad,’ the girl said.
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘Now, are you going to help me steal this box or not?’
She stared at him. ‘Not, of course!’ She turned away. ‘I’m going to get Mr Star.’
He darted across the room to get to the door first. ‘Please don’t,’ he said, barring her way. ‘I’ll explain.’ He took a deep breath.
The door burst open, nearly hitting the Doctor, and Sammy Star charged in. ‘I knew it!’ he said. ‘I knew I’d find you here!’ He turned to the girl. ‘Go and wait in the theatre while I deal with this spy.’
‘I’m not a spy,’ said the Doctor as the girl hurried out. ‘I’m a concerned citizen. Concerned that you’ve got a deadly alien monster inside that box, and you keep letting it loose.’
‘I don’t care if it’s deadly,’ said Sammy Star. ‘I don’t care if it’s alien and I don’t care if it’s a monster. All I care is that it’s bringing me fame and fortune. I’m not going to let you spoil that for me.’
The Doctor boggled. ‘You’re really putting fame and fortune above the lives of all these young girls?’
‘Yes.’ The magician strode towards him. ‘They’re nothing. They’re worthless. The scum of the gutter. They have no place, no use. They have no home.’
‘I have no home,’ said the Doctor quietly. ‘Having no home doesn’t make you a lesser person.’ He turned and pointed at the lead-lined box. ‘Doing this sort of thing is what makes you a lesser person.’
The Doctor shouldn’t have turned his back. Sammy Star grabbed a coil of rope off a hook and jumped on him. The Doctor fought back, but he’d been taken by surprise. His arms were pinned to his sides, and Sammy Star tied him to a chair.
‘No one’s going to get in my way,’ the man said. ‘I don’t know how this thing works, but I know that it does work.’ He unlocked the padlock on the lead-lined box and nudged the door open. ‘I’ll say goodbye now.’ He backed out of the room and the Doctor heard the sound of a beep as the door locked itself.
He’d dropped the sonic screwdriver during the struggle. It took just a fraction of a second for him to look down to see where it had landed. By the time he looked up again, the Weeping Angel was out of the box.
‘Oh dear,’ the Doctor murmured to himself. ‘This is slightly awkward.’
Amy was carried out of the theatre by a security guard.
‘Wow,’ said a girl who was dressed as a court jester. ‘I thought it was bad when they came out crying.’
Amy wasn’t surprised to be thrown out. It was getting to be a habit. She only hoped that the ruse had bought the Doctor enough time. He would have had a couple of minutes’ head start, at least. As long as he was able to find the Angel, that was the main thing. They had a good few hours yet to work out how to deal with it. Of course, she also had to work out a way of getting back into the theatre. At least she had a while to sort that out too.
She went and sat by one of the bronze lions in Trafalgar Square while she thought things through.
Amy wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting there when she heard a vehicle screech to a halt. A minibus had stopped on one of the roads at the edge of Trafalgar Square. To her huge surprise, she saw Rory jump out of its door. To her even greater surprise, two old ladies hobbled after him, walking sticks in hands. They appeared to be the two old women who’d sat behind them in the theatre the night before.
‘Hey! Hey! Over here!’ Amy called out.
Rory heard and swerved towards her. ‘Nice outfit,’ he began.
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said Amy. ‘I look like I’m from the space year 3000, I know. What are you doing here? I think you’re going to get a parking ticket, by the way.’
‘I found out something. I thought the Doctor ought to know as soon as possible,’ Rory said. The two ladies joined them. ‘Amy, this is Kylie Duncan and Amber Reynolds, as was. Now Mrs Collins and Mrs Hooper.’
‘Hello, we met last night,’ said Amy. ‘It’s very nice to see you.’
Mrs Hooper peered at her. ‘You tied me up.’
‘Er, no,’ Amy said. ‘I’m pretty sure you’re thinking of someone else there.’ She quickly turned to Rory. ‘What is it that the Doctor needs to know?’
‘Oh, right. Yes.’ Rory frowned. ‘OK. This is what it is. We were talking in the garden, and Miss Leake came out. She’s the warden of the Golden Years home. Anyway, she had a magazine. I didn’t realise what it meant at first.’
‘What what meant?’ Amy wa
s almost shouting. ‘Come on, come on!’
‘There was an interview with Sammy Star. It said he’s being filmed this afternoon, while those talent-show judges are here. He’s being filmed doing the Graveyard Ghost act, then it’s being shown on TV later. We thought we had hours, but the Angel could be let loose any time now. We’ve got to tell the Doctor before it sends some other poor girl back into the past!’
Amy stared at him in horror. ‘It’s much worse than that,’ she said.
Pictures from a long time ago flashed into her mind. She’d been locked in a room. A recording of a Weeping Angel had started to come to life before her eyes.
‘The image of an Angel itself becomes an Angel,’ she whispered, hardly daring to say the words out loud. ‘So if a Weeping Angel is filmed and shown on TV...’
She couldn’t carry on. The thought was just too scary. A Weeping Angel would appear in front of each TV set that was showing Sammy Star’s act. Millions of Weeping Angels coming to life all over the country. Perhaps all over the world.
* * *
Chapter Nine
THE DOCTOR WAS struggling. He was struggling to get out of his bonds and he was struggling not to blink. He knew his eyes had flickered once or twice already. In those tiny moments, the Angel had advanced. It was halfway across the room now.
The big mirror on its stand was at the other end of the room. The Doctor could see himself in it out of the corner of his eye. He looked helpless, and that was making him angry. He struggled even harder.
‘I wouldn’t bother zapping me if I were you,’ he told the Angel. ‘You feed on the energy of the time I would have had in the future. Well, I’m still going to have it. I’m not human, you see. I’ll just live out a few decades and then pop right through that door.’ He paused for a second, hoping to hear the door open. It didn’t happen. Of course, he couldn’t turn up and rescue himself before he’d been sent back in time. If that happened, he wouldn’t have got sent back in time after all and so couldn’t rescue himself. It was confusing, even for a Time Lord.
Doctor Who: Magic of the Angels Page 4
