“Lemons. Lemons everywhere. Yellow, curved, with those odd little nubs on either end. Nothing but lemons, an endless sea of them stretching from here to eternity. To be honest, I’m starting to get a bit sick of them. Now and again, just once, I’d like to see something different. Like an apple, or a banana. But no, it’s just lemons. That’s all we ever get around here.”

Malcolm stared at the words he’d just typed. Gibberish, absolute gibberish. As if the Bard would ever deign to come up with such trash. He tore the paper from the typewriter, fed a new sheet behind the ribbon and started again.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was one of those times somewhere in the middle that could be better but could be worse, like a rainy Tuesday afternoon.”

No, that still wasn’t right. Malcolm glanced over at his neighbour, an elderly chimp with the odd patch of grey in his fur, whose page was already overflowing with references to ghosts, daggers and witches. Still, his spelling was pretty atrocious. Malcolm took pride in his spelling.

But if he didn’t start channelling some Shakespeare soon, there’d be no peanuts for him tonight.

Malcolm concentrated, meditating on the collective sound of a thousand typewriter keys tapping out their staccato rhythms. His fingers flexed.

“Maria, I’ve just met a girl named Maria. And suddenly I’ve found how wonderful a sound can be…”

Oh no. Not again. Even the lemons were better than this second rate musical.

Why was he struggling so? Just the other week he’d dashed off three scenes from Coriolanus without a second thought. He tore out the defiled paper, screwing it into a ball and tossing it amongst the growing pile of rejects around his desk.

“Jim, I’m taking a break.”

The greying chimp didn’t reply, lost in the flow of dialogue and dreaming up arcane spells for his three witches. Malcolm didn’t try for witches any more. The last one had ended up with red shoes, green skin and an army of dogs with wings that she set on innocent Kansas farm girls.

He headed to the kitchen for a cup of tea. It was stone cold. He didn’t care. Anything to get away from the stench of failure emanating from his desk – unless that was the banana sandwich he’d lost last month, of course. The cleaners certainly weren’t that thorough these days.

“Hey, Malcolm. How’s it going?”

Malcolm looked up. “Hey, Cyril,” he said. “Could be worse, you know.”

Cyril, a spider monkey from Accounting, was the sort to remember everything you said and repeat it later in the annual budget meeting. All the typists in this section were terrified of him – there were rumours of more cutbacks. Once there were supposed to have been a million monkeys in the typing pool – now less than a tenth of that number remained, though they were told they were the best in the company. Malcolm wondered if the best had merely taken the opportunity to join the space program. NASA were always looking for new test pilots.

“Isn’t your PDR due soon, Malcolm?”

The dratted performance development review. Malcolm suppressed a shudder. He was dreading this – a meeting with his line manager to discuss his output. A few months ago he’d been producing a page of prose a day. Lately he hadn’t managed much more than a few stage directions in weeks, Coriolanus aside. But he was damned if he’d give those accountancy bastards the satisfaction of watching him squirm.

“This afternoon, actually,” he breezed, trying to sound casual.

“Best be off,” Cyril grinned, showing more teeth than pleasure. “I’m stocktaking the peanuts again. After all, we can’t let our hard workers go unpaid, can we?”

Malcolm smiled, dropped the empty teacup back in the sink and headed back to his desk.

“The PDR’s the thing,” he typed, “to prick the conscience of the king.”

Damned performance reviews. They were all he could think of now. He added another ball of screwed up paper to the pile below and started again.

“To be, or not to be, that is not really a question. My kingdom for a hearse! Cry havoc, and let dogs bring the slippers of war. To sleep, purchase a dream. Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards. A plaque on both your houses, stating Roy Waz Ere! Bill Stickers is innocent! I once shot an elephant in my pyjamas…”

Gibberish! Sheer gibberish! Malcolm shivered at the thought of meeting his boss, a four hundred pound gorilla in a suit slightly too small for him. Approximately half a pound of that weight was made up of brain, and that might be overestimating it. But that was how the company worked – put the good workers at the bottom, and promote the bad ones to management, where they couldn’t get in the way too much.

Malcolm returned to the typewriter, dashing out a quick sonnet that seemed determined to focus on a young girl from Nantucket. The Bard was being particularly unhelpful today. It was a relief to escape from work for a half hour at lunch time.

Bananas again. And not fresh ones. More budget cutbacks.

As Malcolm threw aside the final bruised banana skin, he felt a large hand upon his shoulder. “It’s time, Malcolm.”

“Yes, boss. Coming, boss.”

They headed for the trees. Lowly typists such as Malcolm had to make do with cubicles, but management had their own trees, a miniature jungle of foliage in which to work. Malcolm found it strange that sunlight and greenery were considered essential for the upper echelons but a distraction for their underlings. Still, this was no time to philosophise about business management. He had the dreaded review to survive.

The gorilla took up home on a sturdy spot near the trunk and gestured to a nearby branch. “Let’s get right to the point. Malcolm, I’ve been looking at your output for the last month or so. I’m very disappointed. There was a time once when we could afford to slack off; a million monkeys all typing for eternity, how could we not get the job done? But with all these cutbacks – I’m going to have to let some of you go. Tell me why it shouldn’t be you.”

Malcolm decided not to mention the wife and six children back home. That wasn’t really what the boss meant, after all. “I’m just going through a dry spell, sir. You know I’ve always been a top worker in the past. I can do it again.”

“Malcolm, Malcolm. I’m worried about you.” The gorilla’s cold, dark eyes suggested otherwise. “I’m afraid you might have burned out. Sure, you’ve managed some great stuff. That page of Titus Andronicus – brilliant work. You’ve inserted long-missing lines into six different scenes of Romeo and Juliet. But lately – I think something’s cracked.”

To his horror, Malcolm saw the gorilla smooth out a crumbled piece of paper.

“Yes, we’ve been checking your reject pile. Paper’s valuable stuff, Malcolm. It doesn’t grow on trees. Now what’s all this about lemons?”

“Sorry, sir.”

The gorilla growled. “I don’t want apologies, grunt. I want explanations. Why lemons? What work of Shakespeare ever mentioned lemons?”

“Uh… sonnet number 56 mentions pomegranates… I think…”

“Shall I compare thee to a fruitcake, Malcolm? Lemons and pomegranates! Next you’ll be wittering on about rainy Tuesdays. Oh, wait. You did.” He unrolled another sheet. Malcolm looked down at the ground and wondered whether a fall from this height could be fatal. Perhaps if he aimed carefully and landed head first…

“Truth is, though, Malcolm, I’m short staffed. When the company first started this project we had all the funds you could want. Now no-one is interested in Shakespeare. Look… you’re a good worker. I think you just need a change of scenery. I’m transferring you to the Meyer department.”

Malcolm gasped. “Not the Twilight series!” he wailed. “It’s utter dross!”

The gorilla smiled evilly. “I know. Keep on writing this codswallop, Malcolm, and no-one will ever notice. You might even improve it.”

Malcolm headed back to his desk, collected his few possessions, and headed off down the corridor. It felt like a punishment. Perhaps it was a punishment. But if a million monkeys on a million typewriters couldn’t produce the works of Shakespeare, perhaps something a little easier might be worth a try.

He sat at a new typewriter, threaded a new ribbon, and fed in a new sheet of paper.

“Vampire Edward and his bride Bella sat at the abacus, flicking beads back and forth. ‘One! Ah! Ah! Ah!’ chortled Edward. ‘Two! Ah! Ah! Ah!’ joined in Bella. And there were no lemons or pomegranates in the room. No, sir.”

Malcolm sighed. Utter, utter dross. He carefully took the paper out and added it to the out tray for the printers. He could only hope it would pass as good enough.

“And if, by chance, I have offended,” he thought to himself, “who gives a monkey’s?”

Find a large cardboard box, and with a broad permanent marker or similarly bold writing implement, write ‘Time Machine’ on the side. It must be written in black ink since no other colour will do the job. Open the lid and climb inside. Use the same marker pen to draw all the flight controls and instruments needed to control your craft. Set the dials and be sure to select Auto Pilot. Turn the ignition. There’s a stutter, a splutter, a mechanical hiccough then failure! It’s a used box, after all – damp, battered, with dog-eared corners – that Dad dug out of the garage, just moments earlier, especially for you to use on this sodden day. New boxes work best, but this one will have to do. It just needs a little extra help, a little coercion, a gentle knock here and there to get things going. Your eyes dart around the craft in search of Universal Adjuster, a tool otherwise known as a hammer. You pick it up and start tapping. Metallic rings and clangs resonate around the craft. Then a clonk!

‘Aha!’ you exclaim. ‘Inter-dimensional-space-bending-cardboard-box-time-machine-engines should not sound like that!’

There’s a moment’s pause for fiddling and fettling. The engine looks in much better shape now, and you use Universal Adjuster once more to check your work. The clonk becomes a delightful clang that reverberates about your ears and about the titanium inner skin of the capsule in which you are sitting.

‘Marvellous! I’m good to go!’ you say to yourself out loud excitedly, pleased with your work.

A second attempt of firing up the beast follows. And whilst crossing the fingers of your left hand you turn the ignition key with your right. To your delight, the engine roars to life! ‘I’m a genius!’ you shout emphatically, congratulating yourself.

Wheels spin. Cogs whir. A mechanical hum accompanies a gentle vibration that makes the ‘Arrggggh’ sound you’re letting out wobble like it does when sitting in the passenger seat of Dad’s car as he transverses cobbles. Stroboscopic lights – myriad in colour red, blue, green, white – flash before your eyes. And through the small oval-shaped, drawn-on windscreen of your highly advanced technologically superior Cardboard Box Time Machine (CBTM) a vortex opens. It looks just like a vortex that bath water makes as it escapes down a plughole. Except this vortex’s longitudinal axis falls along a horizontal, not vertical plane.  You notice how the vortex opening resembles a basking shark’s gaping mouth vacuuming plankton. It fills the entirety of your vision and it’s getting close to gobbling up the entire craft with you in it. ‘Gulp, here goes,’ you think as you reach down, push a lever forwards and whooooosh! Cardboard Box Time Machine along with its pilot enters at full throttle. Basking Shark Vortex opens wide and swallows. The craft lurches violently from side to side. It pitches forwards and backwards with ferocity. From the point of view of an observer standing outside, CBTM looks just like a small fishing vessel being tossed about by a violent winter’s ocean. There are bumps, twists and turns, and one or two 360 degree stomach-churning rolls and then finally there’s a sudden and abrupt stop. Splat! Your head hits the windscreen of the vessel as you’re hurled from a seated position at the back to the front.

‘Ooooouchy!’ you cry out whilst rubbing your head.

A rapid health assessment ensues. Feet-check: a quick toe-wriggle-all ten digits present and accounted for; legs-check: hands still attached to arms-check: arms still attached to body- check: body intact; evidence of cuts and bruises absent.

‘Pheeweee, that was a lucky escape.’ Counting yourself very fortunate indeed to have survived your fiftieth inter-dimensional trip through space-time and Basking Shark Vortex. ‘Next time, I might not be so lucky. I can live with a throbbing head, just,’ you add.

As the fogginess in your head begins to clear so too does the mist, or more precisely the smoke, that envelops your technological superior craft. A mental note is made to improve future landings. ‘Perhaps I need a crash course in inter-dimensional space-time travel,’ you think, chuckling to your own asinine joke. ‘Dad always said I paid no attention in class.’

The view outside the windscreen begins to present itself by degrees. You squint to enhance visual acuity. Perplexed by what you see, eyes are rubbed and refocused and a squint follows for the same reason as before. ‘That can’t be right, surely?’ is the question upon your lips. ‘Something has gone terribly wrong!’ naturally follows. The view outside your craft appears identical to that before the ignition was turned. Lots of head scratching, lots of ‘umming and arring’ and lots of wheels and cogs begin to spin and whir in your mind just as the wheels and cogs spun and whirred in Cardboard Box Time Machine earlier. You begin the cognitively challenging task of piecing together what clues you can find. You stare at the array of dials before you. The drawn-on altimeter indicates ground level, the attitude indicator level, airspeed and vertical speed indicators both show zero and the magnetic compass you so very diligently drew upon the interior of the cardboard box at the start of your adventure agrees with the heading indicator – both point north. All these readings are perfectly normal and exactly what you’d expect them to be at the end of an inter-galactic inter-dimensional flight through Basking Shark Vortex. ‘Humph.’ A sound reflecting your mental stumbling block. There’s more head scratching, more ‘umming and arring’ and new wheels and cogs are recruited to accompany those already spinning and whirring. ‘Hold on to your hats, it must be the fuel.’ A conclusion which is discounted as quickly as it’s formulated by a quick glance of the gauge; the tank is half full or half empty, depending on your point of view. In either case, it’s perfectly normal – nothing suspicious there – just what a space-time traveller might expect of her craft after completing the outward leg of a journey. ‘Well, I’m stumped!’ you say to yourself, disappointed at the impasse.

Just then a stroke of pure genius flashes through your time-travelled mind. ‘I’m a dingbat! Of course, silly me. I forgot to check the clock – that’s the first rule in “Time Travellers Companion to Time Travel” – Duh! Set the clock! Stupido!’ You now check the misshapen clock that’s drawn on the inside of your technological superior craft. It reads 1985, a fact that’s difficult to reconcile with the familiar view of the living room outside. ‘Normally, when I time-travel, time and place change but this time only time has changed – weird!’ All sorts of questions about time travel, the universe and your place in it cascade through your mind. ‘It’s the same but different place; the same but different living room…I feel the same but somehow different…it all feels the same but different…” Your thoughts trail off.

*

For those of you who can remember and for those who cannot and for those who are just too young to have been there in the first place, the latter of whom I envy enough to make passing reference, 1985 was memorable. This is the year that Thatcher quashes the British Coal Miners Strike, kills an entire industry and dispenses thousands of P45s. 1985 is the year in which the first UK mobile telephone call is made. An eccentric and deluded Clive Sinclair launches, and presumably rather wishes he had not, the C5 electric tricycle which achieves a head turning battery-assisted maximum speed of 15mph! Whoosh there it goes! Also making the headlines are housing estate riots in Brixton, London and Liverpool; Boris Becker wins the men’s Wimbledon final at – wait for it – just seventeen years old, a new record. And as if to offset that benchmark on the plus side with another on the negative, English football clubs are banned from competing in Europe and no wonder. During the European Cup Final between Juventus and Liverpool thirty nine people – mostly Juventus fans –die and 600 are injured when they are crushed against a wall in Heysel Stadium, Brussels, before the start of the game. As if that wasn’t bad enough, 500 Hippy travellers clash with police on their way to Stonehenge and a human-shaped hole, arguably, is discovered in the earth’s Ozone Layer by British scientists.

But for me the most significant event of 1985 has to be the Live Aid concert, conceived by Geldof and Ure as follow-up to their hugely successful ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ chart-topping, record-breaking single released the previous year. Both endeavours are inspired by Michael Buerk’s BBC News reports that beam haunting, grotesque images of millions of men, women and children dying of starvation during the 1984 Ethiopian famine.

Live Aid, billed as the ‘global jukebox’, is a dual-venue concert held conjointly in Philadelphia and London, with seventy-two thousand attending at Wembley. An estimated global audience of 1.9 billion, across 150 nations, tunes into the live broadcast and it raises over 50 million in relief funds. And I, like literally billions of others, become transfixed by the whole affair. BBC’s macabre images are etched permanently onto my retina, and, of course, I become swept-up in the excitement of seeing such big acts play at such a big venue for such a big and worthwhile cause. The Coldstream Guards band opens with the ‘Royal Salute’ and ‘God Save the Queen’. U2 play just two songs: ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ and a fourteen-minute rendition of ‘Bad’. Queen whips up a storm by playing some of their greatest hits including ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘Radio Ga Ga’ and ‘We are the champions’, and occasionally Freddie Mercury leads a thick Wembley crowd in booming refrains. I join in at home watching in front of our push-button colour TV Set. We all do, I imagine. David Bowie performs ‘Heroes’ and remarks after introducing his band, ‘I’d like to dedicate this song to my son. To all our children and to the children of the world’. His words resonate well with the mood of the nation and of the world.

And to wrap-up this whistle stop tour, 1985 is the year in which the first .com domain name – symbolics.com – is registered by the Symbolics Corporation; .edu domains, for educational institutions, outnumber commercial .com’s. Microsoft releases its first version of Windows, Windows 1.0, which makes my Windows 7.0 look less like a dinosaur (or a Windowsaurus). And Back to the Future, starring Michael J Fox, is released, grossing nearly 400 million dollars worldwide. How reassuring it is that such big profits can co-exist with such diabolic famine.

*

The throbbing in your head has slowed to a manageable yet noticeable pulse. The smoke outside the windscreen has fully dissipated. Your thoughts organise themselves into a coherent whole. ‘I’m an intrepid inter-dimensional space-time traveller. I MUST EXPLORE!’ This, once voiced, acts as cue to spring the hatch and climb out of your technologically superior craft. Once outside, a cursory inspection of CBMT follows, if only to make certain the journey back to your present can be completed. The damage is worse than expected. Basking Shark Vortex has ripped off those dog-eared corners. You notice a gouge as long as your arm down one side of the fuselage as well as a hole about the size and shape of a little girl’s head in the windscreen. ‘Oh no! That’s never going to get me back!’ you say out loud in disbelief at the extent of the damage. Fortunately, and unlike the first, you paid attention to and complied with the second rule of ‘Time Travellers Companion to Time Travel’, which states: ‘For ad-hoc repairs always carry sticky tape’. And before going any further, you spend no more time than absolutely necessary repairing your craft. To ensure durability – and let’s face it inter-dimensional space-time travel is a tricky, death-defying feat of accomplishment, make no mistake about it. You decide, in your good judgement, to wrap the entire craft not once or twice in clear sticky tape but seven times, giving no regard to how you’ll climb back into CBTM. Now dizzy, having just run around the craft like a maniac, you stand back and whilst wobbling from side to side say to yourself, ‘Just the job, that’ll get me home…I hope,’ as if to give yourself a well earned, if anxious, pat on the back.

Uneasiness appears in your mind. ‘Wait! I’ve missed something.’ There’s a short-lived nervous pause. ‘But what is it?’ you ask, searching for the source of doubt. In pursuit of an answer, you mentally scan ‘Time Travellers Companion to Time Travel’ stored in your infinitely flexible, organic cerebral processor: your brain. You adhered to rule two but skipped rule one. Are there any other rules you may have skipped? A forefinger presents itself in your minds-eye and settles on rule three, which reads simply: ‘Take essential provisions.’ ‘That’s it! I’m hungry, silly me I forgot rule three. What a nana brain!’ And with that, you walk into the same but different kitchen, which is in the same place but different time to the one you left behind in your present. You learned on Tuesday, from your misadventures in the garden, sorry, ahem, African Bush, how very important it is to travel light. Losing a leg to a disgruntled crocodile in a different time won’t do, so you busy yourself rummaging around the cupboards hoping to find the three essential provisions for inter-dimensional space-time travellers: Jam sandwiches, full-fat cola and jelly snakes! There’s the bread, white of course – crusts binned, torn-off – discarded flamboyantly over your left shoulder. There’s the butter, spread thickly, and jam spooned on, generously. A freshly made jam sarney is folded in two and shoved, indelicately, into a jean pocket for later. Now for the cola. ‘Gutted!’ There is none, so a tin of IRN BRU spotted in the fridge is settled on. ‘It’s made from girders,’ you say, chuckling to yourself in the best wee lassie Scottish accent you can muster. And now for the most important provision of all: Jelly snakes. ‘No house is complete without ‘em. Come out come out wherever you are,’ you say as if to charm them out of the cupboards directly into your hand. Snake charming is not your forte, however. ‘Housewife is fired!’ you say, pretending to be a CEO sacking her PA. A melodramatic soliloquy commences in the form of ‘Humph! How will I ever survive?’ You suck in your stomach. ‘I’ll surely die of starvation!’ You now drop to the floor, curl up in a ball and feign agony. ‘I’ll never get back now. It’s just not possible. I can’t make it.’ Just then, out the corner of your eye, you spot a tin on the counter top marked ‘Treats’. Without a pause you jump to your feet, rush over to the tin and prise open its lid. There inside, you spot an array of familiar sweets and treats including Refreshers, Drumsticks, Black Jacks and Gob Stoppers. ‘Boooooooring!’ To your bitter disappointment, Jelly Snakes are absent ‘Drats! I’m dooooomed!’ Then a reprieve. Several silvery packets, all identical – the design of which you’ve never seen before – catch your eye. You pick one up, shake it. It rattles like a snake. ‘Curious,’ you think. You flip the packet over and it reads ‘Space Dust’. ‘Even curiouser,’ you think for a nanosecond. And before your hands are able catch-up with your thoughts, they grab hold of three packets, rip them open feverishly and in the blink of an eye your mouth is full of small exploding rocks.

‘WhoooooOOOAAA…hooooooOOOAAA…Brilliant! It’s like Alien Spray but different,’ you manage to articulate amid spitting out tiny fragments of dynamite. You grab a handful of treats, Space Dust an’ all, and stuff the lot into a jean pocket. You are a now ready to explore 1985.

A short shadowy figure appears behind the mottled pane of the kitchen door. Your first instinct, guided by rule four ‘Do not interfere with locals’, is to hide, and a full length cupboard offers a suitable spot. You don’t want to draw attention to yourself so you move slowly, without making a sound. You are now safely stowed, and through a narrow slit, left purposely between the door and its frame, you observe the shadow, which judging by its size and shape belongs to a boy. A loud single knock makes the glass rattle. Hundreds of tiny spiders crawl up and down your spine. It’s the hairs on the back your neck standing to attention. ‘Oh no, he must have seen me!’ you think. ‘I’ll stay just where I am, thank you very much. Better not break rule four, or I’ll be brought before the Council of Inter-Dimensional Time-Travellers again and last time it got nasty!’ There’s another knock, much louder than the first; then another and another and another. ‘This guy’s impatient,’ slips out, muttered under your breath.

‘Issy! Issy! It’s Maggot. Are you hiding from me again?’

‘That’s weird,’ you think.

You try hard to suppress all curiosity through fear of what the Council of Inter-Dimensional Time-Travellers might do. And whilst you’re trying not to think about what your punishment might be for contravening rule four, you also begin to wonder why a shadowy figure, a real Muppet with a truly ridiculous name, Maggot, is referring to you as Issy. And then it dawns on you. ‘Oh nooooooooo!’ – a thought played in slow motion. ‘I must have accidently hit the transmogrification button during turbulence.’ And, in fact, that’s exactly what did happen. Whilst Basking Shark Vortex tossed your technologically superior craft down its neck, a stray hand inadvertently hit a button labelled ‘Transmogrify’ and in an instant your body transformed from that of Jessica, a ten-year old animal loving African bush-baby who refuses to wear shoes, into Issy a very cute, adventurous tree climbing BMX chick who, by coincidence, also refuses to wear shoes.

The shadowy figure presses on. ‘Issy! Issy! Open up, it’s Maggot!’

Peals of laughter are now streaming out of your belly, through your mouth and into the ears of Maggot who’s standing outside the door waiting to be let in.

‘I can hear you laughing, Issy! Come on- open up, it’s Maggot.’

Throwing caution to the wind, you leap out of the cupboard and position yourself directly in front of Maggot; you on the inside him on the outside.

‘Okay, Maggot,’ you say whilst still laughing. ‘Tell me how you got that ridiculous name and I’ll think about letting you in.’

‘Come on, Issy, you know the story. You gave me that name!’

‘Did I now? Well remind me!’ you say, assertively putting your foot down.

‘Stop being mean, Issy. Let me in!’

‘No! Not until you tell me why I called you Maggot!’ you reiterate, standing your ground. Jessica and Issy have much more in common other than their dislike of shoes; both share a stubborn streak too.

‘Fine, here goes again for the umpteenth time. How humiliating!’ Maggot’s voice trails off into an embarrassed murmur.

‘Speak up, Maggot, I can’t hear you! Why did I give you that name?’

‘It’s because I stink of maggots! I carry a bag of ‘em everywhere I go so I can fish whenever I like! You happy now?’

*

That explanation about how Maggot earned his name is only partly true. Yes, he  carries  a bag of maggots in one jacket pocket and rudimentary fishing tackle – a reel, a hook and float – in the other, just in case a fishing opportunity presents itself. He’s potty about angling. He talks about it insistently; the fish he lands, the whoppers that get away. He dreams about landing perch, barbel and roach. You get the idea. He’s as mad as a very mad hatter about fishing as possibly anyone can be. Tucked away, in the inside pocket of his favourite jacket, and it’s his favourite because it’s his only jacket, Maggot keeps stashed a bag of Rainbow Kaylie, as Emergency Rations. Now, if you believe that you’ll believe almost anything. Maggot is addicted to that stuff. He’s just as crazy about that sugary delicacy as he is about fishing. One day, whilst Maggot is fishing in his favourite spot along the Llangollen branch of the Shropshire Union canal, not far from the Dusty Miller, Issy spots Maggot’s jacket hanging on a branch of a hedge, just behind where’s he’s sitting. It’s unattended and Maggot’s concentration is focused entirely on a bright yellow luminous dot bobbing about on the surface of the water. Nothing but him and the float exist in the whole world. Issy spots her opportunity, and the more playful side of her character, or rather the more devilish side, goes to work. She knows Maggot won’t notice a thing if she’s quick, and my goodness Issy is the quickest in the business when she wants to be. In one swift movement, she grabs a handful of maggots from one pocket and releases them into the bag of Emergency Rations. Now, a lot of girls would turn their noses up in disgust at the thought of handling maggots. But Issy is no ordinary girl. She’s doesn’t flinch. Anything boys can do, Issy can do better.

After planting Maggot Time Bomb, Issy leaves Maggot to exist in his world whilst she spends the remainder of the afternoon sat atop a nearby lift-bridge, to be in hers. It’s nearly tea time now and our two friends are feeling hungry. From her lofty perch, Issy can see a disappointed Maggot packing up his gear, dejected, head down, having landed nothing all day. And rather than climb down from the oak beam on which she sits, Issy shouts, ‘Geronimooooo!’ as she jumps straight into the canal below with a splash! Meanwhile, Maggot is walking up the tow path with both their bikes to meet her. He’s shaking his head in acknowledgement of Issy’s lunacy. That bridge is at least five metres from the surface of the water. It’s a jump he’ll never ever, not a million trillion gazillion years attempt, ever. Issy is no ordinary girl.

‘I’m starving,’ Issy says to Maggot as she’s climbing out of the water, trying her dastardly best to detonate Maggot Time Bomb.

‘Me too,’ Maggot replies. ‘Come on, let’s ride home.’

‘Sure you don’t need Emergency Rations first?’ Issy says, trying once again to trigger an explosion.

‘Good idea,’ Maggot says as he pulls out the bag of Kaylie from his inside pocket. ‘Here, you have some,’ he adds, offering the bag to Issy first.

‘Oh no, I couldn’t deprive you. Look you’re a bag of bones as it is! They’re your Emergency Rations after all, not mine,’ Issy counters, already smiling, knowing her encouragement will be sufficient to help plunge the lever…

‘Thanks Issy. You’re a good friend.’

‘Yeah right,’ you think, whilst trying desperately hard to hold down your laughter.

Maggot Time Bomb is primed! Issy’s friend throws his head back and throws the entire contents of Emergency Rations into his gaping mouth, which once full he closes. There’s something very odd about this batch of Kaylie, he notices. It’s lumpy. It tastes unusual and, wait for it, it’s wriggling! None of that perturbs this boy and none of that prevents him from doing what he does next. He begins to chew. Grooooosss! Each bite lets off a small explosion, and small packets of gooey slime hit every corner of Maggot’s mouth. He coughs and splutters. He spits. He sticks his fingers down his throat to eject any stray maggots he may have swallowed. Meanwhile, Issy is laughing hysterically, doubled-up holding her belly. It now dawns on our expert angler what has just transpired.

‘What did you do that for?’ Maggot asks angrily.

‘Just because, Maggot. Come, let’s go home,’ Issy replies, still laughing and feeling just a little guilty for having just put one her best friends through her expertly executed Maggot Time Bomb escapade. And that’s the true story of how Maggot earned his nick name and ever since that day it has stuck like a limpet’s foot does to a rock.

*

‘You sure that’s the whole story, Maggot?’ Issy prompts whilst chuckling to herself, recalling briefly the real story behind her friend’s unflattering name.

‘You know it isn’t, Issy. Let me in!’

‘Okay. You win. Open, says me!’ And with that, Issy opens the door and allows Maggot to enter the kitchen.

The first time they came to visit Meggie, she was fast asleep in bed. They hovered outside her window, speaking to each other in low, chattering voices, before sliding their thin spindly fingers under the frame and lifting it open. Meggie awoke to a cool breeze upon her face.

As fresh air began to make her feel a little more awake, she felt a very gentle weight settle on one of her legs; then another and another. She sat upright in surprise. In the darkness she could see three little, glowing figures perched on top of the quilt.

“Who are you?” she asked, frowning, without any real reason to suppose that the creatures should be able to answer. Yet when they did, it seemed to Meggie to be a perfectly logical thing for them to do.

One of the creatures rose up on wings that looked like skeletal, decaying leaves. “We are your friends, Meggie,” said the creature in a light, papery voice. “We have been your friends your whole life. Don’t you remember us?”

Meggie considered this for a moment. She was sure that if she had ever met such unusual creatures before she would have remembered it; and yet now, looking at the strange trio, she felt a sense of familiarity. It was much like when you dream of something, forget the dream, but then have some reminder of it the next day, and the imprint of it drifts through your mind like smoke. Meggie recalled playing in the falling leaves under the big oak tree in the garden the previous autumn and then imagined the creatures dancing in the air around her.         She cocked her head to one side and looked at the creature inquisitively. “Yes,” she said slowly. “Yes, I think I do remember you.”

A low chatter of apparent concurrence issued around the creatures. Another of them rose into the air in front of Meggie. She thought perhaps that this one was boy, if such a thing were possible. He came closer to her face than the first, and she saw that his skin was green-brown in colour and the texture like that of moss. His face was quite ugly.

“We have brought you a gift,” he said with a slight bow and swept his hand in the direction of her dressing table, where Meggie now noticed there to be another faint glow.

She pulled back the covers and tiptoed on bare feet over to the table. On it laid a circle of silvery metal with several tiny beads threaded onto it. The light was emanating from the one in the centre.

“It’s beautiful,” gasped Meggie, and suddenly two of the creatures swooped over and picked it up between them, fastening it around her neck.

The boy-fairy, who had remained behind now spoke again. “There are seven beads,” he said in a flippant tone. “The centre one, as you can see, is now filled with starlight. Every night, another of the beads will become infused with it. On the seventh night, the final bead will light up and then we will return bringing an even greater gift.”

The other two creatures hovered by the open window now, and the third swooped over to join them. Meggie thought they were about to leave, when the boy-fairy turned around with a thoughtful expression on his face.

“Of course,” he said offhandedly, “you must take care of it until then. There’s no telling what the Magic might have in store for you if you don’t.”

Before she could ask any questions, they were gone through the window. Meggie felt excited, but had suddenly become very drowsy. She clambered back into bed, and before she even had time to take another look at the necklace, she was fast asleep.

*****

The next time Meggie awoke, daylight was streaming through the window. It took her a few moments to remember the night’s events, but when she did, she quickly felt about her neck to see whether she had just been dreaming. When she felt the metal, she sighed in relief and happiness. It was real! She felt behind her neck to undo the hook. It was very stiff, but eventually she managed it. The whole necklace was a lot lighter than she remembered.

She took it from around her neck, and to her shock saw nothing like what she had expected. Instead of the beautiful silver curved torque with the star-shine glinting in the middle, she had removed from her neck a bent and rusting length of wire, crudely bent to form a hook at each end. Threaded upon it were not beads of metal but seven mangled wine corks. She shook her head in disbelief and disappointment. However, she did not have time to dwell upon the matter, because at that moment she heard her mother’s footsteps coming up the stairs.

Without thinking, Meggie shoved it under her pillow. Her mother came in and tutted at the open window, saying she’d catch her death at this time of year.

Meggie didn’t think about the necklace again until she went to bed that evening. A few minutes after she had settled herself down to sleep, she remembered, and immediately snatched it from underneath her pillow.

To her great amazement, it had transformed again: the rust was gone, and the metal had regained its silvery sheen and elegant curves. Two of the beads now shone with an unnaturally bright light. Meggie smiled gleefully at her good fortune, and for a long while she sat gazing at her treasure, occasionally glancing up at the window, wondering whether the creatures would come back, although they did not. Eventually Meggie placed the necklace back underneath her pillow and went to sleep.

The following four days and nights passed in much the same way. During the day, the necklace would resume a mundane appearance, whilst at night time it would regain its beauty – each time another of the beads becoming lit. By the sixth night, so much light was being emitted by the necklace that Meggie’s bedroom was almost as bright as in daylight. Meggie put on the necklace and sat down at her dressing table admiring herself. The strange light cast a serene glow upon her face, and to Meggie she seemed a lot less plain; perhaps even beautiful. She sat there for some time, before going back to bed.

On the seventh day, she set the necklace beneath her pillow and went off to school as usual. There was a strange knot in her stomach, which Meggie put down to excitement over what the night would bring. She felt nervous with the anticipation of what the “even greater gift” could be.

That night she sat up nervously in bed, waiting for the rest of the house to go to sleep. When everything was eventually silent, Meggie went to extract necklace from beneath her pillow.

It wasn’t there.

Panicked, Meggie searched the room – in the drawers, under the bed – in a vain attempt to locate the necklace. All the time, the parting words of the boy-fairy echoed around inside her head: You must take care of it, he had said. There’s no telling what the Magic might have in store for you if you don’t.

Meggie suddenly wondered if her mother had been into her room during the day. What if she had found the necklace? What if she had mistaken it for a piece of rubbish and thrown it away? Without a second thought, Meggie tiptoed out of the room as quickly and as quietly as she could and headed downstairs to search the bins. She had to find the necklace before the creatures came back!

After no success in the kitchen, she slipped through the back door to search the dustbins outside. It didn’t take long; as soon as she opened the lid she saw the unmistakeable item resting right on top of the rest of the rubbish – a rusting, twisted piece of wire, threaded with battered corks.

Meggie picked it up, feeling helpless. Where had the starlight gone? Where was the silver?

Something changed in the air around her, and she knew she was no longer alone. Twenty or thirty of the creatures hovered, chattering around her, with the boy-fairy (or one very much like him) at the fore. Meggie could see that his face was furrowed and angry.

“I don’t know what happened,” she cried. “Where has the starlight gone? What can I do?”

The papery voice of the boy-fairy sounded very harsh and rasping now. “You have failed, us, Meggie,” he said, darkly. “You would have had so many gifts. So many beautiful things. But you must come with us now.”

Meggie could tell from the tone of his voice that he did not mean for a short stay or a pleasant purpose. “What about my parents?” she protested. “They will miss me. They will look for me.”

Something of a sneer embarked upon the boy-fairy’s lips. “They will not miss you,” he replied. “They will not find you. Not where we are going.”

Meggie saw something move in the shadows. A figure was emerging; a familiar one. The further protest she was about to make died on her lips. The girl was her exact replica in all ways but two – her expression was completely blank, and her eyes distant and otherworldly. A few of the creatures guided the girl towards the open back door, and Meggie’s move to stop her was halted by the rest of the creatures flying around her in a swarm, driving her towards the trees at the bottom of the garden.

*****

The next morning at breakfast, Meggie’s mother vaguely noticed that her daughter was wearing a silvery beaded necklace that she had never seen before. It seem to give off a faint sort of glow, she mused, although of course that was quite impossible. She was about to comment upon it when Meggie smiled, so beautiful and captivating a smile that her mother quite forgot what she was about to say.

A spatter of salt is a chess board, and the players sit concentrating on the nothing between them, their elbows on the table and their hands clasped tight beneath their chins. Glum and bored. Clamour from the street sneaks into the restaurant whenever the door opens, on and off like the staccato tuning of a radio.

The nephew’s nothings of thought are sweet, whilst the aunt’s are bitter and sarcastic.

“Go on then, give me an idea,” says the nephew, “something to write this about.”

Rolling her shoulders into a pedantically smug, straight back, the aunt mocks, “Tell a story about two people sat in a café, waiting for an expensive, full breakfast.”

The nephew raises one eyebrow.

“All right.” She pauses. “Tell a story about a boy who meets a rabbit in the park.”

He throws a half-grin aside. “It has to have interesting characters, something sinister too.”

“Gosh, isn’t a rabbit interesting enough for you? All right. A boy meets a girl in the park. And he shoots her.”

“Ha!”

“Or a boy and girl both shoot a rabbit together… in the park.”

“That’s just silly.”

“Well, sorry.”

He sips his coke. “It has to have meaning. S’gotta be deep. Throw in a couple of political undertones and an existential commentary.”

“In America.”

“What?”

“He shoots her in America.”

“Ha ha, right, sure.”

“Well, I’m sorry, just because I don’t have as good an imagination as you young lot do.” She’s still grinning. A waitress summons a clatter as she knocks over a wet floor sign; they turn to observe her throw despair at the ceiling fan. “By heck lad, look at her, afraid God’s unhappy that she’s clumsy and that she’s gonna get smitten.”

“Smote.”

“Smote?”

“Yes.”

“Well, include her, getting smote.” She fails to stifle a laugh. “In America!”

Laying in the centre of the room, before the wide, stone fireplace, the glass coffin became the main focus for the small audience. The only sound aside from the crackling logs came in the form of hushed whispers and the occasional sneeze; all eyes following the tall man as he walked to the fireplace, stooped low and took a long, thoughtful while to light his pipe.

‘Come now, Mr Holmes,’ said the only one of the assembled group to wear spectacles, ‘why exactly have you gathered us here? Some of us have work to get to, you know.’
Several grunts and nodding of several small heads accompanied the words, although the detective appeared lost in thought and temporarily oblivious to any form of complaint.

For the umpteenth time that morning Holmes walked to the coffin and peered through the glass to the unmoving form beneath the lid.
‘Mr Holmes!’
Finally, the detective blinked and looked disdainfully in the direction of the grumpy owner of the voice.
‘Mr Holmes, it’s quite clear who the culprit is here. I don’t see why we have to stand here like statues, while the evil Queen gets away. Why aren’t you arresting her instead of picking on us working folk?’
A low rumble of agreement rose up from the group.
‘I…I do hope that this is not a case of height-ism, Mr Holmes’ stuttered a red-faced bashful fellow, ‘I would really hate to complain to Scotland Yard. I w…would indeed.’
Further grumblings filled the room and once more all eyes were on Holmes as he relit his pipe from the fire, before turning to face the room.
‘Gentlemen, I am of course most utterly grateful for the giving of your time to assemble here and I promise that I won’t detain you a moment more than absolutely necessary.’
Holmes’s words and kindly facial expression did little to appease the small crowd, but before the grumpy gentleman could begin a new verbal tirade, the detective raised his hands in a commanding manner as if conducting an orchestra.

As one, the dwarves fell silent.
‘I will concur,’ said Holmes, ‘that initially it appears that there can be only one assailant in this crime. All fingers point to the Queen…perhaps, if I may suggest, a little too conveniently for my liking.’
Indignant gasps met Holmes’s ears, but his hands dipped quickly into his coat pocket, producing approximately one half of an apple, which he held aloft.
‘According to your testimonies, the victim was visited by an old woman who proceeded to persuade this poor, naïve, young lady to bite upon this very apple, thus rendering her unconscious and in a temporary medical state of comatose immobility.’
Holmes watched the slightly confused expressions with interest, smiling faintly to himself as he noted the one tiny face who was the exception.
‘Before my arrival here, gentlemen, I took the liberty of analysing the available evidence. The Queen keeps only one type of poison, namely rat poison within the bounds of her castle. However, the liquid contained within this apple is an extremely rare combination, formed from specific crystalline compounds…or, as one trained in chemistry might label it, arsenic.’
The silence in the room was broken only by a loud sneeze and a faint hum of snoring.
‘Naturally, the properties of arsenic would be unknown to most people…but then you’re not most people, are you, ‘Doc’? Or should I say, Professor Heinrich Morgan from the University of Vienna and reported leader of the infamous ‘Little Red Handed’ gang?’
The face of the bespectacled dwarf turned bright red and began a faltering, stammered reply, before quickly falling into silence.
‘Wanted by Interpol for jewel thieving in Milan…kitten rustling in Sardinia…small-arms smuggling in Barcelona and now apparently contract-killing in the Enchanted Forest.’
The front door to the compact and bijou home suddenly burst open, revealing a large group of police officers, with Inspector Lestrade and Doctor Watson bringing up the rear.
‘At last, Watson!’ beamed Holmes, “I thought you’d never get here. Officers! If you would be so kind as to remove these gentlemen into the safety of Her Majesty’s custody.’
Holmes jabbed an accusing finger at each culprit as each one was led away; small heads bowed in shame.
‘Farewell indeed, ‘Smiling Boy’ Smith…‘Grumpy Jack’ McDougal…Bob ‘Sleepy Byes’ Brown…’Shy Stan’ Sinclair…Hank ‘Handkerchief-Howling’ Harris…and of course, last but not least, the notorious brains of the outfit, ‘Dopey Dan’ Denton, himself.”
Watson peered at the tiny, cross-eyed face and viewed the tongue peeking from the side of the mouth with disdain.
‘Brains of the outfit? Are you sure, Holmes? The fellow seems positively doo-lalley to me.’
Holmes nodded and relit his pipe from the hearth.
‘Absolutely sure, my dear Watson, Denton might play the absolute fool to perfection, but then the seven times winner of the ‘North England Gurning Competition’ would naturally fool even the most ardent of observers.’
Denton’s face fell and relaxed back into a definite scowl.
‘Damn you, copper! This would have been our last job before retirement. We’d bought a little place on the French Riviera…’
He sighed loudly as a burly officer escorted him from the room, leaving only Watson and Lestrade with a clearly gloating Holmes, who paced the hearth rug in triumphant style.
‘Well…’ said Lestrade, ‘another victory, Mr Holmes. Of all your recent cases this one dwarves all the others by comparison.’
‘Indeed,’ nodded Watson, ‘no small feat at all, Lestrade. Will they get short sentences?’
‘Perhaps, Doctor Watson,’ chuckled Lestrade, ‘after all they were only ‘miner’ offences.”
Ever the perfect professional, Holmes ignored the childish laughter, for his eyes had fallen on the front of a newspaper which lay upon a tiny coffee table; his lips moving as he read the main headline from ‘The Hunter‘s Bugle‘.
‘And what have we here? ’Opportunist Girl Snares Gullible Prince in Glass Slipper Plot‘….hmmm, come Watson, with all haste! There is no time to waste!’

You might laugh me out of the text but I think it is etymological discrimination. Just you check and see how many times little words like ‘the’ and ‘and’ get used compared to me. I understand the argument about conjunctions and articles being used a lot because they are essential to the smooth running of the prose, but what about real meaning? Now, there is something that is vital to any exposition; have you seen what Elmore Leonard used to do to his novels? I never rated them myself, and I think some of the readers who raved about them could be described as me; I mean, he never really even describes his characters properly and leaves out the bits that readers would skip anyway. That’s no good; novels are supposed to be hard work, aren’t they?

I think my basic problem is that I was born as an adjective. Now, what is the essence of an adjective? What is its function? The humans always boast: ‘I think therefore I am’. The most an adjective can say is that ‘I describe therefore I am’. This means that my existence depends on someone using me to describe something or someone else. I have no independent existence; I always have to depend on a noun being available that I can apply myself to.

Don’t get me started on nouns. Do you know how arrogant they are? ‘I am therefore I am’, they always say, relishing their independent existence. And as for gerunds, they are even worse, seeing themselves as upmarket nouns. ‘We can do the job of both nouns and verbs,’ they boast. ‘I am and do therefore I am’. Snobs, all of them.

Yes, I’m afraid I suffer from the adjective’s perennial problem: low esteem. I have been to see my Thesaurus, Dr Roget, but she wasn’t much help. ‘You should just accept your place in the lexicon and be happy with that,’ she said. ‘You have had a good life. I know you were in the Army; the Paras, wasn’t it? That gave you a chance to travel, and I believe Jonathan Swift wrote all about your adventures around the world.’

‘Yes, but even he spelt my name wrong. You’d think a man of the church would go to the trouble of getting that right, wouldn’t you? I think the main cause of my problem is that I am still the only word that has been left out of an edition of the OED by mistake. They made sure I was back in the next edition, but how do you think that makes me feel? What do you think I should do?’

‘My suggestion is this: accept your place in the order of things and your characteristics that you cannot change. You will always be an adjective, for example, and there is nothing wrong with that. Where would we be without the valuable work that you and your colleagues do? The world would be a very simple and plain place. I suggest that you go back to your home in the OED and make friends with your neighbours. The one before you, ‘the passage by which food passes from the mouth to the stomach,’ sounds like he may have some interesting stories, and the one after you, ‘a ravine or channel formed by running water,’ may have some stories of far-off places that you both have visited.’

‘OK, I’ll try that. Thank you, doctor.’

‘No problem, always glad to help. If you have any more problems, you can always come and look me up.’

I walked out through the waiting room and saw an old friend of mine, Hannah Rayburn, sitting in the corner.

‘What are you doing here?’ I asked

‘I’ve been coming here for some time, to see Dr Roget. She is treating me for my problem.’

‘What problem is that?’ I asked, a little indelicately.

‘I get frightened by old-fashioned cookers in big, open plan kitchens,’ she said. ‘The doctor thinks I am suffering from agoraphobia.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I had better let you get on with your therapy then, I can see you have a lot on your plates.’

‘Yes, I’m cooking dinner tonight.’

She knocked on the door and walked in the doctor’s treatment room. I didn’t believe a word of it. Who did she think I was? I’m not a backward Evian. I’ve been around a bit.

I did as Dr Roget suggested and made my home in the G section of the OED. I was getting well settled in when, one day, there was a lot of noise from just overleaf, on the next page. I looked it up and found it was gunfire – the repeated firing of a gun or guns – so I looked across to the opposite page and talked to my guardian – a person who defends and protects something. Yes, I know he is one of those nouns, but he agreed to look after me. I think he was feeling quite proud to be asked, even if it was only by a lowly adjective. He was really a guerrilla guardian from Guatemala who was quite fond of alliteration, so we bonded well as we went fishing for gudgeon together.

That’s what he told me and I, of course, believed him. That is what I do.

“I can explain everything,” Susan promised. “But first, I think we should get out of here.”

Pinned against the wall by her body, Jeremy nodded. In all honesty he was more concerned with the Ford Mondeo currently sitting in the middle of his living room than what was being said to him. Had it really just come crashing through his patio window? Had some random woman really just hurled herself at him to save his life?

“We really, really need to go,” Susan insisted, extricating herself from his lanky frame and grabbing hold of  his hands. She tugged him forward, stumbling as his torso came away from the wall but the rest of him didn’t.

“Oomph!”

She dropped his hands and grabbed his shoulders.

“Okay, okay,” she said, strain showing in her voice now. “Let’s stand up properly shall we?”

Jeremy nodded again, still staring at the car sitting where his coffee table should be.

“It was an antique,” he mumbled, managing to move his feet this time when Susan pulled him forward.

“I’m sure it was lovely,” she soothed, patting his shoulder distractedly while she scanned the ceiling above them. “Oops. Wrong way!”

Jeremy felt the air leave his lungs as he landed, Susan crunching down beside him on the glass a second later.

“What ar-” he was cut off as the ceiling gave a creak, and then a groan, before deciding to give up altogether and simply plummet onto the spot where they’d been standing the moment before.

“Oh,” he said. “You just saved my life.”

“Meh,” Susan shrugged. “Only twice. Trust me, today you’re going to require a lot more than twice.”

Jeremy’s features crumpled into a frown.

“What do you mean?” he asked, finding himself quickly being pulled to his feet and steered back towards his own front door.

“I quite like the philosophy of crossing that bridge when we get to it,” Susan said, gripping him by the elbow now and hurrying him forward. “Granted it does help when one has some for-warning of what those bridges might be.”

Jeremy’s eyebrows squirmed.

“What bridges?” he asked. “Where am I going? Who are you?”

“No one, no one,” said Susan, waving away the question with one hand. “Well not really a no one per say I suppose, I’m someone, but not someone you really need to know. Does that make any sense?”

“No,” said Jeremy. “None at all.”

“I didn’t think so,” Susan sighed. They’d reached the door and she was opening it, shooing Jeremy out of his own house.

“Hey! I think I deserve some answers here!”

Susan hummed at him and pulled the door shut behind them.

“I’ll explain everything. I did promise,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, so you can start with what you were doing in my house!”

“Saving you,” she said.

“But why?” Jeremy demanded.

Susan shrugged.

“I was bored I guess.”

“Bored?” repeated Jeremy.

“Yeah,” said Susan. “Bored.”

Picture courtesy of Wikipedia