“Why-aye there man! Are you OK, like?”
Cyril slowly opened his eyes one at a time. This was not the sound of a feathered fury disembowelling him without even pausing to wipe its feet. He found himself looking into the eyes of a rather bemused magpie.
“Er, yeah. I’m f-fine thanks,” he stammered. “Yourself?”
“Aye, canny, lad. I didn’t startle you, did I?”
“No, no!” Cyril lied, his voice laced with sarcasm. “I was just taking a nap. What the hell were you doing?”
“Er, sorry.” The magpie nodded at the object that had tripped Cyril. “I was after that.”
Frowning, Cyril sat up and rubbed the back of his head with his right paw. Still frowning, he leant forward and pulled the object clear of the earth. Still frowning, he sat and stared at it as it lay on the grass, gleaming in the sun.
Beside him, the magpie exhaled with a low whistle. “Champion.” He turned back to Cyril and offered his left claw, which was missing the top of one toe. “I’m Jimmy, by the way.”
Cyril took the claw and shook it. “Cyril. You’re Duke’s friend, aren’t you?”
Jimmy jumped back. “Who’s askin’?”
“Eh! Calm down, calm down, it’s OK. Duke’s my friend too, like.”
“Oh.” He hopped forward again. “Me and Dukey have done some business, yeah.”
“Thought so.” Cyril stood and gingerly put the weight on his tangled foot. Nothing seemed damaged. He turned back to the sparkling object, arms folded.
“It’s a beauty, ain’t it?” Jimmy asked, taking another hop forward.
Cyril frowned at it once more, puzzled. “Hmm?”
“A bit heavy to carry, though. That’s why I dropped it. Third time today! It sure does shine like a bitch, though.”
Cyril nodded. It certainly did catch the light. “Just one question,” he said.
“Aye, lad?”
“What’s it made from?”
“Er, dunno. Adamantium, I think.”
“Adamantium? Isn’t that what the Terminator was made out of?”
“Aye, probably. I just made it up. It’s nice and shiny though, isn’t it? Platinum seems more likely, now I think about it.”
Cyril shook his head, bemused. “A platinum dildo.”
“Aye.”
He shook his foot out of the metal ring in which it had been caught. “On a key ring.”
“Aye, lad.”
“What on earth do you want with a platinum dildo key ring, eh?”
“What does anyone want with a platinum dildo key ring?”
“Fair point. I’ll leave you to it, then.”
“Champion. Good luck doing... whatever it is that you’re doing.”
“Shit!” Cyril suddenly remembered that he was meant to be in a hurry. He left Jimmy struggling to get the dildo airborne again and tore off across the field, all thought of aerial attack was forgotten.
At the far side of the field, he ducked under a bush and paused for thought. The reasons for this were threefold. Firstly, his head was still thumping and he needed to catch his breath. Second, the fence into the next field was often electrified. Finally, and most important of all, he was very wary of entering the next field, known to all around as Watchtower Valley.
The title was curious due to the fact that it was neither a valley, nor did it have any watchtowers. Instead it was named after the unusual method Farmer Jones had employed to scare pests away from his crops.
The defences were based upon the traditional scarecrow. Originally, following the practices of many farmers in the area, the fake farmhands had been equipped with remote-triggered guns to scare away anything getting too confident. When gun laws had been tightened up, most farmers replaced their shotguns with devices that made loud noises. Garth had come up with something much more sinister.
Working from the principle that the guardians of his crops needed to conjure up some built-in response to flee from danger, he invoked the powers of a group of people that immediately stirred up thoughts of getting away to safety as soon as they were spotted; Garth Jones had built himself an army of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The effect was terrifying. Even Jones’ own cat, a particularly vicious tabby once rumoured to have taken on an escaped Snow Leopard, was not prepared to set foot in this particular field.
Taking some minor consolation from this last fact, Cyril ducked under the fence – being sure not to touch it in case it was electrified – and into Watchtower Valley. He was not sure what crop it was that Jones was growing but it was too tall for Cyril to see over. Although this was good as it meant that nasty things could not see him, it was bad because it meant that he could not see nasty things. In particular, he could not see the Jehovah’s Witnesses. This was very bad indeed. Garth Jones was very handy with gadgets and technology. Rumour had it that he had rigged up the Jehovah’s Witnesses with motion sensors and infrared detectors that could potentially spot an intruder and bombard them with pamphlets from over fifty yards.
Cyril cursed out loud. He did not have time to play games. He certainly did not have time to play hide and seek with a load of psychopathic robots. But it was also a very wide field and he did not have time to go around it. He was going to have to plot a course through the sentries, and that meant he was going to have to jump up out of the crops to see them.
Logistically, this was no problem – Cyril had plenty of spring in his step – but it was certainly a perilous manoeuvre; if he was too close to one of the scarecrows, he might end up dropping back to the ground permanently. Figuring that the Jehovah's Witnesses were likely to be near the centre of the field, Cyril decided that it was worth the risk to get his bearings.
Like a meerkat on a pogo-stick, Cyril sprung straight up and scanned the horizon. He only had a split-second airborne above the crops but it was enough. There was a big, ugly Jehovah's Witness scarecrow almost precisely in his path about sixty yards distant. Another was closer at about ten o’clock and a third more distant at half past one. Beyond these, it was hard to tell; he would have to pop up again in the middle of the field.
Keeping low, Cyril set off at an angle to bisect the two in front and to the left. Hopefully the crops, which at ground level had retained much of the morning’s dew, would shield his body from the infrared detectors. Not for the first time, Cyril found himself wishing he had his shell suit body armour.
After about a minute, Cyril stopped. So far, so good, but he judged that he had gone far enough to make another pop up. Re-orientating himself to face the far side of the field squarely, he jumped. His guesswork had been good – he now had one Jehovah's Witness level with him on the right and another behind him. He was by no means out of danger yet, however, and was now completely surrounded by scarecrows with three more at half past nine, twelve o’clock and long at one-thirty. Judging the spacing as best he could, Cyril figured that his best bet would be to head for this last Jehovah's Witness for about fifty yards and then he should have a straight run at eleven o’clock, or half past nine as it would be then. This just made his headache worse.
Mentally positioning the enemy in terms of a clockface reminded Cyril that he was in a hurry. Without pausing to double-check, he headed off in the planned direction, staying low to ground once again. He reached his second checkpoint without incident. This seemed too good to be true. For the last time, he jumped up.
As Cyril’s head cleared the crops, he learnt a valuable lesson: if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. He had overshot his mark and was too close to one of the automated crop defenders. He was still in the upward part of his leap as the Jehovah’s Witness spun quickly to face him, informative leaflets at the ready. As he reached his apex, the thing fired. Warned by the red dot of the laser range finder, Cyril twisted in mid-air and just managed to avoid the pamphlet as it skimmed over the field towards him. His evasive manoeuvre did not come cost-free, however, and the squirrel landed awkwardly, upside-down and disorientated.
The crops had broken Cyril’s fall rather efficiently, so he was not hurt but he had lost his bearings and this was bad news. As he sprung back to his feet, he heard a faint whisper from behind him. Instinctively, Cyril dived to his right as a copy of Watchtower scythed its way through the crops past him. He must be within infrared range now, too.
Desperate times called for desperate measures. Picking a direction that seemed vaguely right, Cyril ran for all he was worth. He heard a few more twangs as Jehovah’s Witnesses discharged propaganda at him but the range meant that he had always moved on before they hit their target. Then, all of sudden, he broke out of the crops. He had reached the far side of the field. A quick check verified that it was the right edge too. That meant it was the border to Toby O’Bee’s land.
Smiling, Cyril ducked a final leaflet and vaulted through the fence into the paddock beyond.
“Made it!” he cried aloud in triumph.
The words had barely left his throat when Cyril felt a sharp pain in his tail as if something heavy had landed on it. It had.
“I don’t think so,” hissed a feline voice from behind him.
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