The impending lawsuits from multiple animal rights groups, several avid watchers of Coronation Street, and one lawsuit from a Shropshire restaurant owner kept the lawyers of the newly formed Chatham, Chitham, and Chump busy for the following couple of years. They charged ridiculous amounts for their services but had a real knack for tying things up in the British legal system forever.
The lawyers called their respective secretaries and ordered more tea. A large red phone installed on the boardroom table was a direct line from Neville's personal assistant to the lawyers and it came as little surprise when the phone suddenly rang. Neville hadn't had any lawsuits for at least three months, so it was around that time again.
"Chatham, Chitham, and Chump, Charles Chitham speaking," said Charles as he answered the phone.
"Matthew here, Charles. Neville has asked that we move to a yellow alert. We have a possible situation in London," said Neville's assistant, Beatrice.
"Splendid," said Charles, "we will be at the ready," and hung up. He addressed the rest of the boardroom. "Good news, chaps, looks like we'll have a busy month, we're now on yellow alert."
There were several mutterings of approval and just as the great legal minds of Britain began to jump into action, more tea arrived and they all decided there was probably time for one more cup.
Twelve.
Jeremiah the goldfish was at this moment chasing his tail. He didn't remember seeing it behind him before, but had the distinct feeling that something had been following him for quite a while. When he finally worked up the courage to look back, he noticed his tail. The smug way it wiggled at him made Jeremiah feel it was making fun of him, so he decided to chase it. This had been going on for just over three minutes when he stopped, couldn't remember what he had been doing, looked around, and then got the distinct impression that something was following him.
Nigel wandered through the streets of London. Life had been so much simpler this morning, hanging off a building, and then all of a sudden, his once stable life had been taken to with a rather large sledgehammer, destroying reality as he knew it to be. He kicked an empty pop can out of anger and frustration, only to have it hit an unsuspecting seven-year-old boy in the head. The boy burst into tears as Nigel ducked into a nearby alley and continued moping.
He hadn't moped in such a long time that it all felt rather unfamiliar to him. The last time he moped was back in college. Things seemed fairly simple back then, as well.
The early morning sun flung rays that danced from drop to glistening drop of dew sitting atop the grass in front of St Mary's College, Birmingham. As anyone from Birmingham would understand, it was a complete rarity for anything to be dancing across the grass, especially sunlight, as England constantly loses sunlight to nicer, brighter countries like Australia. Ironically, Australia was the place where England sent its criminals. They were caught doing some illegal act in a dreary, dank, and gloomy country where drizzle was a common factor throughout the day, and then they got shipped off to a beautiful sandy beach, very close to the Great Barrier Reef. Punishment was obviously a skewed thought in everyone's mind, back in the olden days. Probably something to do with the rain falling and softening what were obviously already very soft heads.
Nigel had been attending St Mary's for the better part of a year already and learnt fast that college was a place to grow. A place where his talents and intelligence were unmatched. A place where he experienced a breakthrough. Everyone, at some point early in life, experienced those sorts of days when everything seemed perfect. Literally perfect. And everyone knew that perfection existed because they had that perfect feeling inside of them. It felt like their best and favorite emotions battled amongst each other, only they were not really battling, they were dancing. Nigel had one of those days when his breakthrough happened.
He woke up in the fourth-floor apartment in the student housing building, much as he always did. He rolled out of bed on the left side, just like any other day. He stepped over an unconscious roommate, just like normal, because there was often an unconscious roommate or two lying around the floor in the morning. Usually a product of a heavy night’s drinking. The kind of heavy night that caused people to wake up to find someone had painted their feet blue and they had a traffic cone glued to their head. Nigel half staggered, half slid over to the full-length mirror that his roommates had bought so they could take naked pictures of themselves, a common practice among British college students. Nigel looked at his reflection and saw how horrible he looked.
He grimaced and wafted a hand dismissively toward the mirror, which subsequently and quite unexpectedly smashed into a million pieces which organized themselves not entirely so neatly on the floor. Nigel looked at his hand, looked at the smashed mirror, then continued on to the kitchen. He rubbed his head and wondered why there was a strange tingly feeling somewhere in his frontal lobe. Then he remembered the night before.
His friends had gone on a pub-crawl, which was traditional on any night of the week that wasn't a Thursday. Thursdays were special. On Thursdays, it was an ironclad tradition to play Hide the Kipper, an altogether different kind of drinking game that involved several pints of beer and a few dead fish. The rules for Hide the Kipper were as follows:
Preparation: All you needed were two pints of beer per person, per round, a stopwatch, a pen and paper to keep score, and a dead fish. Preferably, a kipper, as that was the name of the game. If a kipper was unavailable, then any dead fish could be used, but the name of the game must be altered accordingly, i.e., hide the herring, hide the smelt, hide the cod, etc.
The game takes place on the doorstep of someone's house or in front of a student apartment building, otherwise known as home base.
Rules:
The participant takes a pint of beer in his/her right hand and the dead fish in the left hand.
A moderator must stand to the participant’s left to observe alcohol consumption and to operate the stopwatch.
A scorekeeper must stand to the participant's right to keep score as directed by the moderator.
At the moderator’s command, and usually a whistle or a good solid Go! will suffice, the stopwatch is started and the participant must down the entire pint of beer.
If the participant downs the entire pint without stopping, then he/she is awarded one point. Upon finishing the beer, the participant must throw the glass up over his/her shoulder where the other participants await their turn. The participant who catches the glass is awarded one point.
The participant with the dead fish must then run out into the street, followed by the moderator, and find a passerby, otherwise known as the victim. Upon finding the victim, the participant must then shove the dead fish down the victim's trousers and then leg it back to the home base.
Upon reaching home base, the participant must then down the second pint of beer, where he/she will receive another point if he/she manages to drink without stopping. As soon as the second glass is empty, the stopwatch is stopped.
Points for time are awarded as follows: One minute and under, ten points. Between one and two minutes, eight points. Between two and three minutes, six points. Between three and four minutes, four points. Between four and five minutes, two points. Anything after five minutes is minus one point and the failing participant must drink another pint.
The next person steps up with his/her pint and dead fish and the game continues until everyone has a turn.
Then the second round begins.
Games normally last ten rounds, or until the beer runs out. The points really don't matter; it's mostly to do with shocking strangers by stuffing dead fish down their trousers.
Nigel grinned at the memory of last night's shenanigans. They must have hit about seven pubs in the space of three hours. Probably the reason for the fuzzy feeling in his head. Although, at the moment, the fuzzy feeling in his head was matched only by the gooey feeling in his heart. The reason for that feeling was Harriet.
Harriet was a fellow student, majoring in Biology,
and had a love of riding expensive horses that her daddy dearest was all too happy to buy for her. Harriet and Nigel had been seeing each other for a month and Nigel was ecstatic about her, especially since, last night before the shenanigans began, he clearly remembered Harriet telling him that she loved him. What could be better than that, he thought? He'd had a fabulous night out, his girlfriend told him that she loved him, and he had no classes today. Things were going perfectly. To prove the point, he stood in the centre of the kitchen and stretched happily, throwing his arms out on either side. What he didn't expect was exactly what happened next.
The kitchen window exploded outward, the kitchen cupboards splintered into many small pieces, cutlery scattered everywhere, dishes and crockery exploded, and Nigel grasped his forehead as huge lightning bolts of pain threw themselves around inside his head. Gradually, he passed out. First, the kitchen became kind of blurry. Then he saw the vague shape of one of his roommates, obviously one who wasn't unconscious, standing in the doorway of the kitchen with a kind of shocked expression on his face. Then Nigel's world turned to watercolour and everything kind of slipped off the page. And then everything went black.
A penguin. A flightless bird with rubbery skin and a penchant for black and white. And normally the kind of bird who was quite at home in the cold. As far back as Gerald could remember, he had always been a penguin, ever since he was born. But there had always been this nagging inkling at the back of his mind that kept telling him that he was meant for greater things and that this rubbery complexion and cold atmosphere comprised only a temporary setback. And one day, he might even have the distinct pleasure of stopping the world from destroying itself. But after all, that was only an inkling and Gerald was only a penguin, and so he never really put much more thought into things than that.
Yesterday had been no different than the day before, and today had been no different than yesterday. He had a sneaking suspicion that tomorrow was going to be very much the same, as well. He'd get up, eat some fish, find somewhere semi-private to do his morning business. Maybe he'd waddle around a bit and stare menacingly at other penguins who usually were not in the least bit intimidated and had long ago just taken to ignoring Gerald altogether. And then, just after lunch and a second helping of fish, he'd swim off to his cave and have a nice little nap without all this chatter going on in the background.
It was like a constant cocktail party going on and whether he wanted an invitation or not, it was mandatory to attend. But not Gerald; he had his cave.
"In fact, I think I'll pay it a bit of a visit." And with that, he dived into the water and headed straight for his tunnel, weaving a bit here and there so as to lose anyone who might think of following him.
The cave was exactly how he'd left it the previous day; he slid out of the water on his stomach and skidded happily across the ice. The ice in here was so clear that he could see into it, showing reflections and a blue swirly thing. That was what Gerald had been looking at for a while.
In the very centre of the cave there was an almost perfectly formed block of ice about twenty feet high, and each side measuring a width of about ten feet. But that wasn’t what was amazing. Although it was quite amazing that there was an almost perfectly rectangular block of ice in the centre of an ice cave within an iceberg somewhere in the South Pole, what was more amazing was the blue swirly thing that seemed to be trapped within the oversize dice cube.
Of a clear, deep blue colour, it spiraled up in a swirly kind of formation within the ice. It looked very much like it should be moving but the ice seemed to prevent motion. Gerald had waddled around the cube many times. Today was the first day he'd noticed a flaw. The cube seemed to be melting, which was very unusual, as Gerald was definitely not feeling any warmer. He waddled around to another side, which also turned out to be melting.
A thought slowly crept into his head; it felt like it had traveled a great distance. In actual fact, the notion originated from within a fishbowl somewhere in London's East End. It simply said, duck. And Gerald did. Just in time. The ice block exploded, unleashing the blue swirly thing, which swirled in a hyper-hurricane type of way, with bits of electrical charges thrown in for good measure. Chunks of ice flew by Gerald, then all of a sudden stopped, as if frozen in time. For a moment, everything seemed to stop; even the blue swirly thing slowed down. Gerald experienced one of those rare times when his mind turned completely blank. This was a rare occurrence for anyone, but happened on a daily basis to someone, somewhere in the world. Usually, to someone presented with an impossibly impossible situation who didn’t know what to do about it.
Gerald staggered forward a few steps as if he'd been pushed. Nope, wait a minute. He'd been pulled. Chunks of ice began flying back past him as the blue swirly thing shifted directions. Before, it had been spinning anti-clockwise. It appeared to have changed its mind and now spun clockwise, and in doing so, sucked anything not tied down into its blue swirlyness. Gerald turned and began to waddle as fast as he could but he didn't seem to be going anywhere. He waddled faster, but to no avail.
This is the end. I'm done for!
The blue swirly thing moved faster and faster and within a split second Gerald, the chunks of ice, and a rather shocked fish got sucked into the blue swirly thing and vanished.
Consequently, the blue swirly thing heaved a sigh of relief and blew itself out.
Thirteen.
Nigel woke up on the couch and looked into two very worried-looking faces. The faces, to the best of his recollection, belonged to his roommates, Giles and Herbert.
Giles, tall and skinny, could consume large amounts of food without gaining a pound but as a consequence, couldn't hold his liquor and often ended up passing out on his bed. Although, more often than not, he fell off his bed and ended up on the floor.
Herbert was a rich kid with a serious distaste for money, so in order to get rid of it, he tended to spend vast amounts of it at a time. Herbert paid for the apartment they rented. Herbert bought all the food and alcohol consumed within a mile of the apartment. And all the crockery that laid in many bits and pieces on the kitchen floor had been bought by, and belonged to, Herbert.
Nigel rubbed his head and tried to shake the fuzziness from his eyes. He had the strong sensation that something had happened, a breakthrough of mammoth proportions. He could feel everything in the room around him; even the stuff he couldn't see from his spot on the couch was firmly etched in his mind.
"You all right?" asked Giles. "You took a nasty fall."
"What the hell happened to my kitchen?" said Herbert with a smaller trace of concern in his voice than Giles had expressed.
Nigel still felt shooting pains in his forehead, but they seemed more organized. Not quite as chaotic as before. He sat up and looked around the room. Shards of crockery littered the doorway to the kitchen.
"Did . . . did I do that?" he asked.
"I heard the smash and came in just in time to see my kitchen destroyed, and then you passed out. What did you have to drink last night?" said Herbert.
"How did you do that, Nigel? The kitchen, I mean?" asked Giles.
"I, uh, I don't really know," was the only response that Nigel could think of. He stood up, then steadied himself. "I was thinking about what a good night we had and how well things were going with Harriet and how everything was going perfectly."
The buzzing in his head turned into a low hum.
"And that's why you destroyed my kitchen? I was hoping for something a bit more melodramatic," said Herbert disappointedly.
Nigel looked around the room. Everything seemed exactly like before, nothing had changed. And yet it all felt different. It was a strange sensation, but he felt like he had control over everything. He had the distinct feeling that if he waved his hands at the couch, he would be able to move it without even touching it. He decided to test the theory and in doing so, using only his mind and a simple wave of his hand, forced the couch up through the ceiling and off to God knew where. God did know; as it turn
ed out, where was actually a nude beach in the south of France where, to this day, people still enjoy sitting on the couch that some claim fell from the sky.
Giles and Herbert, who had been standing next to the couch at the time of its ascension, dusted the plaster out of their hair and tried hard to glare at Nigel in anger. This proved too difficult, as they were both somewhat afraid that Nigel would fire them through the roof, too.
Nigel smiled. He'd read about this kind of thing. Telekinesis: the ability to move things with the mind. Usually some kind of trauma or episode would bring this form of talent and power to the surface of one's mind.
In Nigel's case, everything in his life had suddenly become perfect and, in doing so, a rare power that existed hardly anywhere else on Earth had been handed to him. He couldn't help but laugh; this was life changing. This was amazing. The things he could do! He picked up Giles and Herbert, suspending them both in mid-air, which caused both of them to panic simultaneously. Nigel floated them both toward him and gave them a big hug. This day really was perfect.
Unbeknownst to Nigel and his newfound powers, disaster was fast approaching. The disaster decided to wear a particularly nice mini-skirt today, with a lovely, fuzzy red sweater. The knee-high leather boots that most would consider looked better on a hooker, but which the disaster thought rather stylish, completed the outfit. The disaster was about to ruin Nigel's life for quite a long time.
The disaster walked up to Nigel's apartment building just in time to see a couch fly out of the roof and head off toward France. The disaster flicked her long blonde hair, as if to say, "That's not the first flying couch I've seen," and entered the building.
Nigel, Giles, and Herbert had lots of fun testing out Nigel's newfound abilities. The apartment got messier and messier, as Nigel hadn't quite figured out the strength of his mind, but none of them cared as a cardboard cutoutof Marilyn Monroe sauntered across to Giles and head-butted him. This in turn sent Nigel and Herbert into fits of laughter. The laughter encountered an interruption when disaster knocked at the door. Nigel swung the door open from ten feet away to reveal the disaster in its entirety.
Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish Page 8
