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“I must say all this bending is jolly awkward.” grumbled Tinia-Tiffany Bloo. “The sooner we get these aliens escorted back to earth and we are able to return to Thereon the better.

“Stop whining will you!” snapped Betty Bloo, her antagonism in large part due to intense jealousy at Tinia’s gorgeous pale robin egg blue colouring. “It is totally unprofessional.”

Tinia smiled sweetly as she ducked her head under her arm. That poor Betty, she really drew the short straw with that awful pigmentation.

Eb was rendered temporarily speechless by the milling throng of rainbow blue aliens he was viewing through the monitor.

“So they …. so they have been built to be aware of themselves as aliens?” he eventually managed to ask.

“Correct. It is very sophisticated technology, but to put it in the simplest of terms” — Finnley 22 stopped short at adding even a simpleton like you could understand —“a whole history on the planet Thereon from the galaxy Cosmos Redshit has been programmed into their memory banks.”

“Wow. And what about the different shades of blue?”

“Ranking.”

“Ranking?” repeated Eb quizzically when no more information was forthcoming. “I am not sure I follow.”

Finnley sent an amused eye roll through the network.

“Let’s just say that creating hierarchy is an elegant way in which we can maintain order within the group.” She gave her trademark immodest smirk. “And of course, the various shades of blue are so creative and attractive, if we may say so ourselves.”

“Oh yes, beautiful. Fantastic. Absolutely phenomenol.” Eb wondered if he was laying it on a bit thick, but he was anxious to atone for the termitation fiasco. To be honest, he found the mass of blue creatures a little disquieting. He was also a little puzzled by something but knowing the Finnleys’ propensity for succinctness—and Finnley 22 in particular was renowned for her impatience with foolish questions— he wondered if he dared ask.

Deciding it would come back to haunt him if he did not find out now he plucked up courage.

“And … just one more thing … why are they bending like that?”

“Mustn’t mention Mars” mumbled Molly Mulligan morosely. “Muddled murky misunderstood malarkey; most misleading.”

Aunt Idle:

I dozed off while sitting under the Kurrajong tree this afternoon and had a strange dream. I was in a Tardis and it had landed on an expanse of sandy coastal scrub land. There was nobody else in the Tardis except me, and as the door swung open, I could smell the smoke, acrid and eye watering, and I could hear the snapping and crackling of the flames on the dry brush. The Tardis had landed in between the advancing flames and the sea. I ran back in the Tardis and looked around wildly at all the controls, wondering how to operate the thing. How the hell was I going to get out of here before the fire engulfed us? I ran back outside and the flames were roaring closer by the minute; panicking, I ran back inside, ran out again, and then ran as fast as I could away from the approaching fire until I came across a little blue row boat, rotting away on dry land, right next to a crumbling pyramid. I climbed into the boat, sitting on the bench seat between the dry thistles, thinking with relief that I would be safe in the boat. In the dream, I relaxed and closed my eyes and started to hum My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean, and then I felt the heat, opened my eyes, and saw showers of red orange sparks like fireworks all around me, and then flames ~ I was surrounded by the wild fire and couldn’t see the Tardis anymore for the flames leaping and dancing around me. I held my head in my hands, weeping, waiting for the inevitable ~ and then I noticed a sapling growing in between the rotten boards at the bottom of the boat. It was growing so fast I forgot the sizzling heat around me and watched it grow, the side shoots bursting forth and the wood of the boat splintering as the trunk grew in girth. When a dried seed pod dropped onto my head ~ that’s how fast this tree grew, when I looked up it was fully mature, and I was sitting in the cool green shade ~ I looked around, and the sandy coastal scrub had gone, and I was sitting on a stone bench in the middle of a plaza. The smell of burning brush was gone and the stench of garum fish paste filled the air. A handsome fellow in a crumpled linen toga was sitting beside me, elbowing me to get my attention…

“I made you a tuna sandwich, Auntie,” Prune was saying, prodding me on the arm. “Did you know that Kurrajong trees are fire retardant plants, and they start to send out small green shoots from the trunk within a fortnight of being burnt?”

Well, I just looked at her, with my mouth hanging open in astonishment. Then the horrid child shoved the tuna sandwich in it, and then scampered off before I could slap her.

“When I suggested you didn’t encourage fluffy words, Blather, I had something a little more subtle in mind,” replied Medlik, “Something in the nature of an elegant panache, a light but swift and decisive flair, that sort of thing.”

“I didn’t say a word!” replied Blather, astonished.

Medlik looked disconcerted for a moment. “Ah!” he said, “Not yet you haven’t.”

“That’s meddling, you could get fined for that, old boy. Struck off the Time Slip register. Under Now arrest.”

Dispersee Blather, or Dispy for short, was late for the crowning ceremony. It wasn’t unusual for Dispy to be late for official ceremonies and meetings, or to miss them altogether, but she was aware that her unique presence would be missed at this particular ceremony, as she was the one to be crowned. She had recently, much to her astonishment, achieved the coveted goal of the Descended Dispersed Tradition, or DDT for short, and her newly recognized super powers were to be publicly acknowledged in the crowning ceremony.

Dispy’s old friend Floverley (and by old, lest we be misunderstood, we mean old in the sense of having known each other for eons and countless lifetimes, not decrepit, wrinkled or senile) had offered to design the crown that was to be placed on Dispy’s sparse, dare we say wispy, head of hair ~ something light and elegant, she said, with a feeling of fluidity, something that wouldn’t swamp her delicate features.

At the crown fitting appointment the day before, it quickly became apparent that Floverley had misjudged the extent of the fluidity of the materials she used to construct the crown, resulting in a thorough drenching. Dispy was a good sport by nature, easy going and able to see the funny side in most situations, but she had not been pleased. She had been on her way to meet Stinks Mc Fruckler, a double agent posing as a descended trickster, for the purpose of writing a report on his activities in disrupting artificial ascension practices, and had to cancel the date at the last minute.

Not one to hold a grudge, partly due to having no borders with which to contain a grudge, Dipsy had forgiven Floverly for the drenching.

I just hope she has managed to rectify the crown in time for the ceremony, she thought, as she tried to scrub the last traces of martian mist stains off her eyebrows.

“Who else is coming? Don’t remind me, I can’t bear it,” Elizabeth said fretfully while Norbert opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish.

“I have an idea!” she announced suddenly, standing up and crushing a mince pie that had rolled under her desk. “Gather round, come on, come on!”

Arona Haki shuffled in with the dustpan and mop, as Finnley blew her nose loudly and wiped the tears from her eyes. Norbert stood silently, waiting.

“It wouldn’t matter WHO came,” Liz paused for effect, “If none of us were here!”

“But we are here, aren’t we,” remarked Finnley. Norbert and Haki murmured in agreement.

“We are now!” replied Liz, “But we could be gone in an hour! We could go and visit my cousin ~ third cousin twice removed, actually ~ in Australia. They have an old inn and it’s sure to be half empty, it’s in the middle of nowhere, and,” she added triumphantly, “It will be lovely and warm there!”

“Blisteringly hot, more like,” muttered Finnley, “And would they like unexpected visitors for Chri, er Kri, er, that date on the calendar?”

“I’m sure they’d be delighted, “ replied Liz, crisply. “Not everyone is as curmudgeonly about Chri, er, Kri, er that date on the calendar as we are. And anyway,” she added, “If I write it into the story that they are delighted, then they will have no option but to be pleased to see us.”

“If you bloody lot are coming to the Flying Fish Inn, I’m buggering off to Mars for the holidays” said Bert.

Elizabeth spun round, saying sharply, “Bert! Get back to your own thread this instant! The bloody cheek of it, thread hopping like that, really!”

“If anyone needs exterminating,” muttered Clove under her breath when she heard Finly on the phone, “It’s you, you fucking Nazi.”

I found Joe near the fallen bridge. He was sobbing. I approached silently and put my hand on his shoulder.
“Are you alright, mate ?”
“Yes I’m alright”, he snorted. “You remember when we used to play there ?”
Of course I remembered, we called it the bridge to nowhere. I’ve never really understood why Bert had built that bloody bridge. Jasper told me after the blast that the old man also made sure nobody could use it again. That was no surprise. Old Bert was a tight as a duck’s ass when it came to his craft. That’s why he never could make it in his trade, if he didn’t like what you did of one of his creations he’d rather smash it up so that no one could use it afterward. Always the sneaky one.
“I remember”, I said. “Your face looks like a Panda.”
He snickered. “You know my father. He’s got a liking for China.” He laughed, but it felt forced. Anyway, I laughed with him. There was no point in bringing up the gloom, we needed fun.
“Let’s take a dive!” I said. Hoping to change his mind. He tried to smile but cringed as his face must have hurt badly. When he removed his shirt, my heart sank as I saw the dark marks on his chest and back. No pushing him in the water.
“Last one to reach the other side of nowhere!” he shouted before jumping in the cold water.
“That would be you!” I roared. Naked in the wild, at least as close to the wild as you could have here, I felt like a lion, full of strength, dangerous.

It was good to get off the ship and finally arrive. Lizette had been having doubts during the long journey, wondering if she had made the right decision. Admittedly she’d been bored back home on earth and was ready for a new adventure, but once on board the ship, the doubts had crept in. Often she had woken up in the night during the journey in sheer panic, feeling trapped, but had managed to calm down and look on the bright side. The settlers needed her unique skills and her usual unbridled enthusiasm, and it would do nobody any good if she gave in to moments of fear and confusion.

Finnley 8 had helped her adjust her suit, which seemed cumbersome and restricting ~ Lizette normally preferred to wear next to nothing back on earth. But with her customary sanguine attitude, she quipped to the robot, “Well, at least I don’t have to wear a bra underneath all this bumph!”, to which Finnley 8 made no reply.

Nobody heard him so he tried again.

”knock knock”

”Who’s there?” called out Elizabeth

”Norbert”

”Norbert who?”

”Nor, bert ya shudn’t cull out uf ya don’t wont mey tu carm knuckin”.

”Friggin kiwi accents,” muttered Finnley. “I can’t understand a word they say.”

Aunt Idle:

Bert came with me. Usually one of us always stayed home to keep an eye on Mater and the kids, but now we had that capable girl, Finly, to keep an eye on things.

It was good to get away from the place for a few hours, and head off on a different route to the usual shopping and errand trips. The nearest sizable town was in the opposite direction; it was years since I’d been to Ninetown. I asked Bert about the place on the other side of the river, what was it that intrigued him so. I’ll be honest, I wondered if he was losing his marbles when he said it was the medieval ruins over there.

“Don’t be daft, Bert, how can there be medieval ruins over there?” I asked.

“I didn’t say they were medieval, Idle, I said that’s what they looked like,” he replied.

“But …but history, Bert! There’s no history here of medieval towns! Who could have built it?”

“That’s why I found it so fucking interesting, but if it doesn’t fit the picture, nobody wants to hear anything about it!”

“Well I’m interested Bert. Yes, yes, I know I wasn’t interested before, but I am now.”

Bert grunted and lit a cigarette.

We stopped at a roadside restaurant just outside Ninetown for lunch. The midday heat was enervating, but inside the restaurant was a pleasant few degrees cooler. Bert wasn’t one for small talk, so I picked up a local paper to peruse while I ate my sandwich and Bert tucked into a greasy heap of chips and meat. I flicked through it without much interest in the mundane goings on of the town, that is, until I saw those names: Tattler, Trout and Trueman.

It was an article about a ghost town on the other side of Ninetown that had been bought up by a consortium of doctors. Apparently they’d acquired it for pennies as it had been completely deserted for decades, with the intention of developing it into an exclusive clinic.

“There’s something fishy about that!” I exclaimed, a bit too loudly. Several of the locals turned to look at me. I lowered my voice, not wanting to attract any more attention while I tried to make sense of it.

“Read this!” I passed the paper over the Bert.

“So what?” he asked. “Who cares?”

“Look!” I said, jabbing my finger on the names Tattler, Trout and Trueman. Bert looked puzzled, understandably enough. “Allow me to explain” I said, and I told him about the business card that Flora had left on the porch table.

“What does Flora have to do with this consortium of doctors? And what the hell is the point in setting up a clinic there, in the middle of nowhere?”

“That,” I replied, “Is the question!”

“What ARE you reading, Finnley?”

“Just a book I picked up in Paris,” she replied nonchalantly, hoping that would be enough information to appease Elizabeth’s curiosity. And also, as an added bonus, adding a certain je ne sais quoi to her vibe. Finley knew she could come across as a tad boring, something she was quite proud of. Still, it didn’t hurt to mix things up every now and then.

Elizabeth sighed loudly. “If you can’t think of anything sensible to say then I wish you would just talk nonsense. Or go to another thread” she added as an afterthought, wondering just whose thread this was anyway. Finley was tending to monopolise things lately. Even without saying much.

“At least I am reading a fucking book”, muttered Finnley under her breath.

That being a euphemism for writing a fucking comment of course.

Finnley got a book out of her bag and started reading, rather rudely, Elizabeth thought.

Liz leaned over so that she could read over Finnley’s shoulder, in the absence of anyone to talk to as all the characters had been written out of the script.

“…full of misinformation and wrong opinions.” she read.

“Then sir, you may say so. The ruder you are, the more the editors will be delighted.”

(A point worth bearing in mind, Liz thought)

“But it is my own opinions which I wish to make better known, not other people’s.”

“Ah, but, sir, it is precisely by passing judgements upon other people’s work and pointing out their errors that readers can be made to understand your own opinions better. It is the easiest thing in the world to turn a review to one’s own ends. One only need mention the book once or twice and for the rest of the article one may develop one’s theme just as one chuses. It is, I assure you, what every body else does.”

“Hmm, you may be right. But, no. It would seem as if I were lending support to what ought never to have been published in the first place.”

When Elizabeth had had enough of reading, she wrote Godfrey back into the script.