And the Queen of all the chickens squeezed the trigger.
And then gave a sudden shriek and fell in a jumbled heap.
‘Dorothy,’ said Jack. ‘You—’
‘Wrung its scrawny neck,’ said Dorothy. ‘Well, you’d have done the same for me. Wouldn’t you?’
Jack was about to say, ‘Yes.’
But he didn’t.
Jack instead said, ‘No!’
Because fire from below rattled into the craft.
And the craft turned upside down.
And then the Great Mother-Henship, the sole surviving member of the chicken strikeforce, dropped from the sky.
And, ‘No!’ shouted Tinto. As it was coming his way.
And then there was another of those terrible explosions.
But no, not in slow motion.
Enough is enough is enough.
27
Chief Inspector Bellis looked all around and about himself.
A very great deal of Toy City appeared to be ablaze.
The bells of fire engines came to his ears.
The wreckage of his car once more to his eyes.
And the wreckage of the spaceship beyond.
‘Well,’ said Bellis, ‘that would appear to be that. Job jobbed, but goodness, I dread the paperwork.’
Amelie looked through her fingers. ‘Did we win?’ she asked.
‘Naturally, my dear. Most naturally.’
Amelie shook her beautiful head, beautiful, but drunk. ‘I am so impressed,’ she said. ‘You saved Toy City. You are so a hero.’
‘He wouldn’t have done so if I hadn’t tipped him off,’ said a clockwork spaceman.
‘Then you are so a hero.’ And Amelie threw her arms around him.
‘Oi!’ said Bellis. ‘Not so fast. He would never have tipped me off if he hadn’t … How did you put it, spaceman?’
‘Received a telepathic message,’ said the spaceman. ‘From the other side of The Second Big O. A bear spoke unto me. Told me what was to occur. Said he kept going in and out of his body, whatever that meant.’
‘Well, let’s not worry about that,’ said Bellis. ‘And get your spaceman’s hands off my girlfriend.’
‘Do you think there are any survivors?’ asked Amelie, stroking the spaceman’s tin-plate chest. ‘And do spacemen have credit cards, by the way?’
‘Big shiny gold ones,’ said the spaceman.
‘Survivors?’ said Bellis, prising the hands of Amelie away from the spaceman’s helmet. ‘Aliens in need of shooting, now there’s a thought.’ And reached towards his car, then reached away, for it smouldered.
‘Shoot ’em with this,’ said Tinto, wheeling through the doorway and presenting Bellis with a shotgun that he, as indeed do all barmen, kept hidden beneath his bar counter.
Just in case.
Bellis took the shotgun and approached the craft.
It was pretty buckled up and smoking.
Some laughing policemen who had escaped annihilation through being in the toilet when the mayhem occurred backed up Bellis at a distance.
The fallen craft had flattened several shops. It lay half upon its side.
And as Bellis approached, and so too the policemen, the hatchway slowly opened.
‘Hands up, you aliens,’ cried the chief inspector.
And struggling down from the hatchway came a tattered trio.
Jack was helping Eddie Bear. And Dorothy helped Jack.
28
And Tinto served drinks on the house.
Jack toasted Eddie.
And Eddie, Jack.
And Bellis toasted himself.
‘You did brilliantly, Jack,’ said Eddie Bear, balancing upon his head on the barstool in order that he might really benefit from the beer. ‘You are as brilliant as.’
‘We both did okay,’ said Jack. ‘We’re a team, you and me. We’re the business.’
‘And we should be back in business now.’ Eddie struggled to pour further beer down his inverted throat. Jack gave him a little helping out. ‘We can open for business big time now.’
‘You think we’ve seen the last of the chickens?’
‘I reckon so. The portal between the worlds is destroyed.’ Eddie hiccuped. ‘And from what we both know about the chicken matriarchy, the new Queen will reverse the policies of the old. Pretty daft system, I grant you, but they are chickens. And so I suppose that means that not only is our world saved, but the world of men also.’
‘I didn’t take much to that world,’ said Jack, draining his glass and ordering several more. ‘Things are problematic here, but out there … That place is mad.’
‘I thought it held some appeal for you.’ Eddie tried to remain on his head and did so with some style. ‘What with that Dorothy. Where is she, by the way?’
‘She’s gone,’ said Jack. ‘She left.’
‘Left?’ said Eddie. ‘Left for where and why?’
‘She returned to the soil,’ said Jack. ‘I dug her in.’
‘You did what?’ And Eddie fell from the barstool.
Jack helped Eddie to his feet. ‘She wasn’t human,’ he said. ‘She was something else entirely. The last of her kind. She was, well, is a vegetable.’
‘And you’re kidding me, right?’
‘No,’ said Jack. ‘I’m not. The chickens conquered her world a couple of years back. She escaped through another Big O, this one in a big sign that spelt out “SPROUT-LAND”. She escaped to Hollywood. She was waiting there for someone like me – well, someones like us, as it happens – to help her take her revenge against the chickens for wiping out her kind.’
‘And you “dug her in”?’
‘Into Tinto’s garden. She’ll take root. She’ll bloom here. She’s, er, been fertilised.’
‘Excruciating,’ said Tinto.
‘That almost makes me want to cry,’ said Eddie. ‘But I’ll fight the sensation and drink more beer instead.’
‘I really liked her, you know,’ said Jack, making a wistful face.
‘A bit more than liked, I suspect,’ said Eddie, climbing back onto his stool.
‘Nothing of the sort,’ said Jack. ’I’m as hard as nails, me. Women are just women.’
‘Leave it out, Jack, you’re as romantic as.’
‘Yeah,’ said Jack. ‘I suppose I am. Now where is Amelie?’
‘She went to the toilet,’ said Eddie. ‘To throw up, I suspect. Ah, here she comes now, wobbling somewhat. And, oh look, there’s the Phantom of the Opera.’
Eddie waved towards the Phantom and the Phantom waved back.
And there indeed came Amelie. And she was wobbling somewhat. And she swayed up to Jack and gazed into his eyes.
And then she flung her arms about him.
And gave that Jack a snog.
And Jack for his part snogged her in return.
And Jack, as he would soon find out, was really, truly in love.
‘And so all’s well that ends well,’ said Eddie, resuming his inverted position on the barstool and enjoying the sensation of all that alcohol draining back into his head.
‘All’s well indeed,’ said Wellington Bellis, looking with distaste towards the snogging Jack and then with even greater distaste towards Eddie. ‘And now I feel it is time to bring matters to a satisfactory conclusion. And make my arrest.’
‘Your arrest?’ asked Eddie.
‘Bring the malcontent to justice,’ said Bellis. ‘To whit, arrest you, Eddie Bear, cat’s-paw of the evil criminal mastermind, Tinto—’
‘What?’ went Tinto.
‘Eddie Bear, mass-murderer, and clearly commander of the alien strikeforce, I arrest you in the name of the law. You do not have to say anything, but anything you do say will be twisted around and used against you as damning evidence. In order to condemn you to prison, or worse; and I can think up far worse.’
Eddie Bear said, ‘Hold on there.’
And Bellis said, ‘You’re nicked.’
‘No, hold on,’ said Eddie, tumblin
g from his stool. ‘It’s not the way you think – I’m the good guy. I sent this telepathic message to the spaceman to warn you what was going to happen. You see, there were these chickens. You don’t understand …’
Wellington Bellis laughed and laughed. ‘Had you going there,’ he said to Eddie. ‘You’re not really nicked, I was only joking.’
Eddie Bear looked up and huffed and puffed.
‘Do you know what?’ said Bellis. ‘I feel you deserve some special reward for your services to Toy City. In fact I feel that you deserve some special position, or rank. I have the necessary clout to pull a few strings around here. How would you fancy taking on the job of mayor?’
‘Well …’ said Eddie Bear.
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Robert Rankin 2006
All rights reserved.
The right of Robert Rankin to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2006 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
This eBook first published in 2011 by Gollancz.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 08821 4
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
www.thegoldensprout.com
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* The term preferred by Nursery Rhyme characters, to Nursery Rhyme characters. (As it were.)
* As Eddie was unable to do corroborative nouns, Tinto would never know just how hard Eddie had tried, although given the sincerity of the bear’s tone, the clockwork barman could only surmise that it had been very hard indeed.
* The sun’s father’s name was also Sam. As is often the case with suns.
* See The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse for further details. In fact, buy a copy right now if you haven’t already read it, read it all the way through, then go back to the first chapter of this book and start again. Because this is a sequel. And although a damn fine book in its own right, one in fact that should win any number of awards, but probably won’t because there is no justice in this world, it might be best to read the first book first and the second book second. Only a suggestion.
* Neat trick.
* The debate regarding whether mermaids can be described as having thighs continues. And remains unresolved.
* Which is to be found chronicled in that damn fine book (and SFX award-winner) The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse. Available from all good booksellers.
* Stop it now! Ed.
† Last warning! Ed.
* Careful now. Ed.
* And let’s be honest here, who isn’t? Because when it comes to royalty amongst the ranks of British entertainers, the Chuckle Brothers reign supreme. No? Well, please yourselves, then.
* Even though sighing really wasn’t Eddie’s thing. As it were.
* Well, just think of the fun you could have, sticking it over a friend’s front door while they’re out and seeing their expression when they come home.
* Clearly Tinto’s reference to quintuple murder at the end of the previous chapter must have something to do with his problem with numbers. Clearly!
* Yes, of course you know where!
* It really does.
* And I’m not joking here. When I worked in a prop house, I regularly received free tickets from one of the staff who was dating a Covent Garden ballet dancer. The tickets were always front-row tickets. I used to breathe through my mouth.
* As opposed to the ‘ceiling below’ – although there is no such thing. Unless of course you live in a flat. But this is by the by.
* Well, it was all soiled with the sewage.
* The Hollywood sign is probably the most famous sign in all of the world. It was erected in 1923 to advertise the housing development beneath it. The original letters, fifty feet high and thirty feet wide, spelled out ‘Hollywoodland’ and were lit up nightly by more than four thousand bulbs. With a chap living in a little hut behind the sign, whose job was to change them when they needed changing. Nice work if you can get it. In 1932 an aspiring young starlet named Peg Entwhistle threw herself off the H. Others followed her example, but to avoid the bad publicity their names went unpublished in the Los Angeles press. In 1939, the light-bulb chap was sacked, the sign fell into disrepair and all its light bulbs were stolen. But then in 1949, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce restored the sign, knocking down the ‘land’ bit at the end. By 1978 it was all knackered again, so the Chamber of Commerce got a fund-raising campaign going, raised enough cash to completely restore the sign and have kept it looking smart ever since. With the aid of sponsorship from Hollywood stars. Apparently Alice Cooper sponsors The Second Big O.
* For it is indeed upon Mount Lee that the Hollywood sign is to be found.
* The Roosevelt Hotel is a magnificent Spanish-colonial-style affair, built in 1927 and thoroughly unspoilt, and it is to be noted that not only were the very first Academy Awards presented there, but Marilyn Monroe did her first ever professional photo-shoot beside the pool.
* Yes, there, obviously.
* Now, again for those who harbour an interest in such things, it is to be stated that Mann’s Chinese Theatre can truly be described as the jewel in Hollywood’s crown. Created in the late nineteen-twenties by Sid Grauman, this oriental-style folly, with its sixty-nine-foot-high exotic bronze roof and its wealth of architectural detail, dazzles the eye and is the palace for the ‘royalty’ of Hollywood.
* What? Ed.
* Look it up. It’s really weird.
* Yes, there. What a good movie, Blade Runner, eh?
† Oh, it’s the 1950s, is it? YES, IT IS.
* You look a right Herbert in the one you bought. Ed.
* As well he might!
* Number twenty-three being that number which always turns up in American movies. On hotel room doors, on the sides of freight train carriages. Here, there, everywhere. Why? Well …
* Ronin. And what a great movie that is!
† Well, it would in the 1960s on Owlsley acid.
* And there is!
* Absolutely true.
† Ah, that’s where.
* (For there is much jargon involved in being a trucker in the USA and chatting on the old CB.)
* There it is again. Weird, isn’t it?
* This being one of those roadside diners that had a petrol pump in front. Which was quite convenient really.
† And a garage too. How convenient was that?
* Damn me, not again! said Jack.
* If it’s going to become a running gag, it’s already becoming tedious. (Ed).
* Make that the last (Ed).
* The old ones really are the best.
* It might well be asked why, if the other Jack was in fact an armoured robot, he didn’t simply do away with the officers when they arrested him at Area 52. It might well be asked, but it’s as sure as sure that it won’t be answered. Surely he was ordered not to cause a commotion near the launch site, and at all until the launch time was up and he was sure that the operation was under way! It’s possible, so let’s stick with that.
* A soft drink popular amongst rubber toys.
* Or hen pit, possibly. Or possibly not
.
* As opposed to starboard. As ships of all varieties are wont to do in this kind of situation.
Robert Rankin, The Toyminator
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