by Heide Goody
“You’ll need to go through me first,” said Myra, as she walked round and trained the machine gun at Dainty. “I’ve seen enough jumped up wannabe dictators to know one when I see one. There’s one thing you boys always forget.”
“Oh? And what is that,” said Dainty, an amused smile playing around his lips.
“That your Achilles heel is actually between your legs,” said Myra, expertly kneeing him in the groin and using her free elbow to fell him completely as he sank to the floor.
“Now, let’s move!” said Myra.
At the vanguard of the retreat, Rose was cutting a path to the exit. She brandished the shotgun, blasting some of the tables. They clearly fell into the category of magical things that she disapproved of.
Ella steered Roy in the right direction.
“I have to say, I find this all jolly confusing,” he said.
“You’ve probably just had a bit too much to drink,” she said.
“Really? Bit early in the day to have such a blinding hangover. Wedding go all right did it?” he asked Ella. “Can’t seem to recall any details.”
“I’ll bring you up to speed as we go,” said Ella.
Across the way, Ella saw the teapot trotting along the side tables, kicking champagne bottles onto the floor with cries of “Call yourself a bloody proper drink, eh?” Shitfaced was crawling along behind it, trying to save the bottles, or drink the contents as they fell.
“Although some of it isn’t easy to explain,” said Ella. She passed Roy the leg off a destroyed table. “Take this and hit any dwarfs you see with it.”
Roy obliged by bopping the approaching Disco over the head.
“Uncool, brother,” said Disco. “Join me. Find your personal groooove.”
Roy bopped him harder.
Together, Ella and Roy ran to catch up with Rose. Outside, wedding guests fled in all directions, discarding high heels and good manners to hasten their escape. Ella pulled Roy along the path towards the garden centre. Balloon arches were pushed askew or ripped from their moorings by their passage.
“Where are we running to?” said Roy.
“From. We’re running from,” said Ella. “The further away we get from Carabosse, the harder it will be for her to marry us off.”
“Marry who off?”
“You. Me. And that way you won’t become king.”
“Was there any danger of that happening?” asked Roy.
“Apparently.”
“Oh,” said Roy. “Can I ask another question?”
“Sure.”
“Why is that badger waving at us?”
“Where?”
“There.”
“Oh. Let’s follow him.”
“Is that wise?”
Following the badger-ish ogre, Ella hauled Roy through a hedge and into the garden centre car park where Rose stood over the wolf who was laid out on the ground, belly up, writhing in pain.
“What’s wrong with your dog?” said Roy.
“Where’s mum?” said Ella.
“And why is your dog wearing women’s clothing?” said Roy.
“Thought Natalie were wi’ thee,” said Rose.
“She was with you.”
“Poor boy appears to be in some pain,” said Roy, crouching beside the wolf.
“He’s et summat as disagreed wi’ him, I reckon,” said Rose.
“Buster once ate a whole bar of Fruit and Nut,” said Roy sagely.
“I was more thinking o’ that nasty red-hatted bugger that’s in there.” Rose pointed at the small fist shaped bumps distending the wolf’s stomach as the dwarf battled to get out.
“Let me rub it for him,” said Roy. “Buster gets bellyache all the time.” He kneeled down and rubbed the wolf’s belly, ignoring the thumping from within. “What’s this?” He dug a lump out of the wolf’s leggings pocket.
“How does rubbing help exactly?” asked Ella.
“Moves the gas around,” said Roy,” helps to move things along — whoa!”
The wolf gave a whoop of relief as his tail lifted, his whole body shuddered and Psycho the dwarf shot out in a filthy slurry.
“Blimey!” said Roy, wafting his hand.
“I know!” said the wolf in hearty agreement.
Psycho jumped up and hollered at the top of his voice. “Over here lads! Bastard wolf sharted me out!”
Roy reached for his table leg but Psycho stamped on his fingers. The ogre-badger snapped at him with his sharp, weasely teeth. Psycho recoiled and punched the badger on the snout and the ogre reflexively bounced back into his enormous natural form.
“Lawks a lordy!” exclaimed Roy, falling back in surprise.
Ella saw something fly from his fist, a small glowing something that he had found in the wolf’s pocket, which of course was Ella’s pocket, the leggings she had been wearing when doing the chores in Granny Rose’s garden that morning.
“Magic bean!” yelled Ella in warning.
“Quick lads!” shouted Psycho. “They’ve got a troll. I bloody hates trolls!”
The bean touched the ground…
Ella had once been in a car accident when the airbag had been deployed. She had no recollection of the airbag emerging from whichever part of the car concealed it, only that at one moment it wasn’t there, and then she had an airbag in her face and a bruised nose. In much the same way, there was now a beanstalk. With no sense or recollection of it actually growing, she was now clinging to a beanstalk, the width of a mature oak tree and the height of... Ella looked down.
The garden centre and The Bumbles already looked like a view from Google Earth and the beanstalk was still accelerating upwards.
“Crap,” she muttered, and made sure that she grabbed a couple more of the leaves. They were incredibly coarse, the hairs like wire scratching her hands.
“Aye,” came Rose’s voice from somewhere just above Ella’s head. The beanstalk seemed stable, but swayed in the rising wind and that did not feel good. “Was this all part of the plan?”
Above Rose, Roy clung to the beanstalk like a castaway to a barrel, holding the wolf beside him. Higher still was the ogre, apparently borne aloft on the stalk’s spire.
“They’re trying to escape!” yelled Psycho, tangled in tendrils up above.
Not far below, six angry little mountaineers climbed towards her.
“She’s hoping to escape into the land of the giants,” said OCD.
“I’m not. I’m really not,” Ella muttered to herself.
At ground level, a disturbing quiet had settled over things. The wedding guests were either gone, in hiding or in such a dazed and awestruck state that they weren’t going to be making much fuss anymore. It had suddenly turned darker too. The beanstalk that had sprung up in the car park — of course it was a beanstalk, thought Natalie — was so massive as to partially block out the sun but, more than that, it seemed to be racing upwards towards a layer of thickly gathering clouds. She didn’t want to think what lay beyond those clouds.
Natalie had come down to the garden centre, hoping to find Rose and Ella (who she now suspected were far, far above her) but had found instead Gavin and Myra and the two bridesmaids, taking shelter inside the Diggers and Dreams building. In amongst a jolly display of garden hoses, rakes and other gardening paraphernalia, Myra had turned two wheelbarrows on their sides to make a little barricade. From somewhere far behind them came the continuous sound of crockery or some such being smashed. Myra aimed her pilfered weapon as Natalie approached.
“Friend,” said Natalie, hands raised.
“What the hell’s going on out there?” said Myra, not so much alarmed by the magical mayhem as annoyed.
Natalie gave her a blank and frankly exhausted look.
“Was that a rhetorical question or do you actually want to know?”
“The short version,” said Myra.
“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “A fairy godmother is hell-bent on making Ella happy and so is forcing her to marry Roy who is now ne
xt in line to the throne.”
“Is he?”
“He is. She’s got the seven dwarfs to help her but that’s okay because we’ve got a wolf and an ogre. Incidentally to all this, Mr Dainty thinks Ella should marry him and that Gavin is responsible for the magical furniture moving around in his castle.”
“I knew something strange was happening,” said Gavin.
Myra hoiked a thumb over her shoulder towards the sound of smashing pottery.
“There’s a teapot back there, systematically destroying all the plant pots.”
“I think he’s got receptacle envy or something,” said Natalie.
“And you?” said Myra, a coldness in her voice.
“I don’t have receptacle envy.”
“No. Explain yourself.”
“I pricked my finger on a spindle and I fell asleep for thirty years.”
“Bollocks.”
Natalie shrugged. “It’s true.”
Myra stood and her weapon was still loosely but undeniably aimed at Natalie.
“Stay there,” she told Gavin, came round the barricade and approached Natalie. Natalie stood her ground and waited. Myra reached out and prodded Natalie’s shoulder, as though to check she was real.
“We thought you were dead,” she said softly.
“I know.”
“I got you a huge funeral wreath.”
“That’s nice.”
Myra looked back at Gavin.
“And we moved on.”
“I’m glad.”
“This was meant to be my special day… But…”
Myra threw her arms around Natalie and hugged her with spine-snapping ferocity.
“I missed you.”
“Me too.”
The bridesmaids whispered to each other.
“What’s happening?” said one.
“Not sure,” said the other. “I think she’s a time-travelling robot sent back from the future.”
“I did think it might be that.”
“Gavin,” said Myra. “Don’t be such a cold fish. Get out here and hug your wife.”
Gavin approached obediently. He flicked an indicative finger between Myra and himself. “This, this isn’t what it looks like.”
“What are you talking about, man?” said Myra. “She caught us getting married, not having a quick fumble in a stationery cupboard.”
“I’m just saying,” said Gavin.
“It’s okay,” said Natalie. She hugged him. He wasn’t her Gavin. He was a remnant of her Gavin, like a distant cousin to the man she knew she had truly lost forever; but she hugged him all the same. “I’m very happy for you.”
Gavin burst into tears.
“Soppy fool,” said Myra.
Gavin dabbed his eyes with his sleeve.
“Sorry, dear,” he said. He gave Natalie a panicked looked. “I, um, call her dear now. Is that… Is that okay?”
Myra huffed. “The man’s insufferable. What’s the plan?” she asked Natalie.
“Plan? We get out there. We find my mum and my daughter and we run for the hills.”
“And where are they?”
Natalie pointed up.
Chapter Seventeen
There was a rumble of thunder and lightning flashed in the gathering clouds. Ella wiped the first raindrops from her face and looked again. It might have been her imagination but she thought she saw figures in the clouds, illuminated by the lightning flashes, vast humanoid figures as large as mountains. The ogre at the top of the beanstalk was already disappearing into the lower edges of the cloud world.
“Trapped between giants and dwarfs,” shouted Rose above the growing gale.
“Oh, the symbolism,” said Ella bitterly.
There was a holler of alarm from above. Psycho had hold of Roy and was using feet and fingers to prise the unhappy heir to the throne from the beanstalk.
“Wolf!” yelled Ella.
The wolf held out his paws, perhaps ready to explain that he was not well-suited to climbing leguminous vines. But it was too late already. Roy lost his grip and fell. The wolf snapped at him, Ella flung out a hand to him but he was already falling away from the stalk, falling far and fast.
A black folded shape shot past her, blasting the hair from her face as it passed. A bird. A huge bird. An eagle or some other raptor, as big as a man, diving after Roy.
“It’s tha ogre friend,” said Rose.
Ella watched them both, man and bird, falling until they were but dots, closing together but not quite touching. Ella peered, leaning out as far as she dared to watch them. She sniffed. There was a sudden stink in her nostrils: cabbagey, toilety, ripe…
She swung around, fist extended and punched Windy (who had been creeping up on her) clean off the beanstalk.
“Silent but deadly,” she said.
The brown-hatter tumbled away and then with some industrial rectum-pumping began to control and direct his descent. Below, the others were closing in on her.
“Ideas?” Ella asked her grandma.
Rose regarded her shotgun. “I’m out of ammunition.” She closed one eye and threw the gun downwards like a javelin. It struck Passive Aggressive in the chest and knocked him off the stalk.
“And now I’m out of ideas, love,” said Rose.
Inappropriate’s hand grabbed hold of Ella’s ankle.
“Get off!” she shouted.
“Come on,” he said. “I always look up to women. Particularly when I can see up their skirts.”
“Filthy bugger,” said Rose.
The lecherous creep was as slimy and as unshakeable as a sinus infection. One handhold then another, he worked his way up Ella’s legs.
A shadow swooped over them, grabbed Inappropriate in one claw and Shitfaced in another and ripped them from the stalk. The ogre-eagle flung them aside.
“I thought being tossed off by a bird would be more fun,” cried Inappropriate and was gone.
“Where’s Roy?” shouted Ella to the eagle. “Where’s Roy?”
The progress of the Hannaford / Whuppie family across the car park to the beanstalk was not without incident. First of all, a dwarf and a shotgun fell from the heavens into the roof of a nearby greenhouse. Then a giant eagle appeared and deposited a startled Roy at Natalie’s feet before taking off again. A short while later, a flatulent dwarf made a controlled descent, powered by his own personal booster rocket. Myra had taken aim but the windy one had scuttled round to the far side of the stalk before she could get a shot off.
And now, the sound of an engine revving from the other side of the car park took their attention away from the retreating dwarf. The cement mixer door slammed. A somewhat bruised and tattered Mr Dainty leaned out of the window and shouted over at them. Natalie could indeed see the exotic European passion in his posture and the powerful pride and purpose in his eyes and she was sure that his threats were spoken from the heart but they were, unfortunately, mostly drowned out by engine revs and gusty winds.
“You have all —” vrmm, vrmm “— like a fool, and you must know —” whirl, whoosh “— mess with me only end up —” vrmmm, whirl “— your language contained the richness of cursing that my native —” whistle, vrmmm “— and your mother’s vagina and —” swirl, whistle “— fear the translation does it no justice.”
“I’m sorry,” hollered Gavin in reply. “We didn’t get all of that.”
“I said,” yelled Dainty, “you treat me like a —” vrmmmm, swirl “— curse your mother’s vagina and your sister’s —” howl, vrmm “— shits.”
“Yes?” shouted Gavin. “We definitely got the bit about my mother’s vagina. My sister’s what was it?”
“Are you purposely trying to antagonise him?” said Roy.
“I’m just seeking some clarity,” said Roy’s nearly but not quite father-in-law.
But Mr Dainty had had enough of talk. He revved the engine, engaged the gear and roared towards them in the giant orange truck. They should have been able to jump out of its path w
ith relative ease but Natalie attempted to herd them all in one direction and Myra in the other and with no time to spare they found themselves exactly where they were. Two dwarfs chose that moment to fall out of the sky and through the front window of the cab.
The truck swerved, banked impressively on fifty percent of the recommended number of wheels and slammed into, and partially through, the beanstalk.
Ella felt the impact before she heard it.
“What was that?”
“I would hazard it was a heavy goods vehicle striking the base of the beanstalk,” said OCD, gasping for breath as he closed in on Ella.
A low groaning sound could be heard from the beanstalk as it reverberated.
“Are we falling?” called the wolf from above.
The beanstalk leaned… slowly, and ever so slightly, but it leaned.
“Yes!” yelled Ella back. She looked for the eagle-ogre. “Get the wolf!” she shouted.
“More importantly,” said OCD, “can we talk about the absolute ruin you’ve made of that lovely dress.”
She glared at the crazy dwarf.
“Are you kidding me? This dress is ridiculous and these shoes are killing me!”
“What’s a little pain in pursuit of perfection?”
Ella slipped one shoe off and smashed it over OCD’s head.
“Indeed,” she said, changing her grip as the beanstalk leaned slightly but irreversibly further.
“Reckon it’s going over,” called Rose. “This would be a really good time for one o’ them clever ideas.”
“Oh tosswobbling wankgoblin!” called Ella.
“Now then, there’s no call for that kind of language,” said Rose.
“I need to spunkmaggot twattimasturbankling cunnibasterlate,” explained Ella.
“Oh, right,” said Rose and cleared her throat. “By all that’s flamin’ well wrong in life, like... like ready meals and television.”
“May need to give it a bit more, Granny,” urged Ella, as the beanstalk leaned, quite treacherously now.
“By God. Lancashire cricket! Soft southern water! Herbal infusions!”
Ella’s stomach flipped as the stalk began to collapse. Against the green and rapidly approaching ground, a definite rectangle unfurled and raced up to meet them.
