Aradas in Space

 [NOTE - this book is incomplete.  I don't think I will ever finish it because I don't have the energy for it anymore.  But here is the work, what I have been able to do.  This is the sequel to Aradas, the Dragon master, a story about the adventurers of a talking horse that I wrote quite a long time ago now.  Best wishes the author SWW.]
HERE is the first book to which the following story is a sequel.  Thank You.

Aradas in Space

A Horse in Space!

Chapter 1: If only I could reach the Moon…

Of all the animals living on Low Income Farm Fackle the owl was arguably the most confused of them all.

  After building twenty five different nests inside the old farm barn and forgetting the way into every single one of them, the owl decided it was time to build a new house – on a completely different planet!

  ‘I am bored of Earth,’ he admitted one night to Glowy Blowy, the talking caterpillar.  ‘I just want to get off this darn planet and start a new life somewhere else, somewhere wonderful like the moon!’

  ‘The moon!’ echoed the caterpillar.  ‘How I would love to live on the moon myself.  It’s made of honey, you know?’

  ‘So I have heard,’ replied Fackle the Owl (secretly he was impressed by the caterpillars silent wisdom, but he didn’t want to admit it so continued to speak with nonchalance).  ‘Farmer Overtax went there once after he married that woman he wanted to help him pay his insurance.  They live in separate buildings today, bless them, but they went to the moon at some stage.’

   ‘Liars!’ cried a voice from afar.  It was Flat Head, the local barn mouse.  The mouse had been hiding in some cunning little crevice until then, and now sticking its head out into the air it shouted in its loud mouse voice, ‘The moon is made of cheese, not honey!’

  ‘Everyone says that but it’s just a myth,’ replied Fackle the Owl speaking in his most astute “I know it all” voice.  ‘I can’t believe you of all people, Flat Head, would believe in that immature children’s story.’

  The mouse was so offended it immediately hid its big head again in the crevice and stayed hidden away all day.  

  The owl hummed sadly to itself, and murmured to the caterpillar, who barely heard his quiet words: ‘Yes!  I belong on the moon!’

  Just then Aradas came plodding up the road.  Aradas was a horse, and he was fat, and he was also the most popular animal on the farm being generally loved, sometimes even hero worshipped by all the other animals.  

  When the horse saw the sad looking owl perched on the fence he bellowed up to the bird, ‘Watcha Fackle!  What are you up to today then?’ - The owl almost fell off with surprise!

  ‘O it’s you Aradas!’ said the owl after re-adjusting its spectacles.  ‘I’m sorry if I don’t appear very receptive; only I am a little depressed this morning!’

  Aradas chuckled when he heard this.  ‘That’s unlike you, Fackle; you’re always chirpy and singing away – even when you’re supposed to be asleep!’

  ‘O!  He’s planning on flying to the moon, Aradas,’ said Glowy Blowy.  ‘This isn’t the first time he’s talked about that kind of thing.’

  Aradas turned to the owl and said to him, ‘You have wings don’t you?  Can’t you just fly there already?’

  ‘I’m too lazy for that,’ said the owl, ‘takes me an effort just to fly up onto this fence!  Anyway,’ the owl took a deep breath and began anew, ‘forget me and my problems Aradas, how are you?  I hear you have been up to your old tricks again?’  Here the owl started to chuckle at some dear old memory.  ‘I heard you got yourself stuck up another chimney!’

  The horse gave the owl a crafty wink.  ‘You know how it is with me and chimneys, Fackle!’ said the horse.  

  Aradas is a horse and he didn’t want a lot in life, but his one private dream was to sweep chimneys for a living.  He just loved the thought of cleaning chimneys – getting his large head stuck up in a dusty old chimney pipe and feeling the air on his face.  It just seemed to be such an attractive job to him.

  ‘Well,’ said the horse, and he began to tell his story.  ‘How could I help myself?  You see, Farmer Overtax had got drunk again, as he does, and had fallen into his bath and couldn’t get out.  I could see that the window to the old farmhouse was open, and there was a good enough gap for me to get through!  Well, I needed some help of course, I had to get a few of the sheep over to give us a push, but after a good squeeze I got through the window and after that was done I had my head stuck up that chimney so quickly you could say “Spratza” in Spanish (Which is Spritz)!’  Now the horse sighed when the memory of that day returned to him.  ‘You can’t imagine what that was like for me!  That dark old tunnel and the air on my face!  A whole day had passed before I released I couldn’t get out again… they had to remove the whole chimney in the end.’  Now here the horses head sagged like a weary old sack.  ‘But I don’t have a chimney no more which makes me feel sad.’

  Just then Flappy Face the dog came huffing up the lane gazing about with his serious-looking face.  He was freely sniffing the air, his sagging cheeks sloshing about as he repeatedly flicked his head left to right – he came up to them and whispered: ‘I’m on a mission!  It's important for you to know this!'

  'Know what?' said Aradas.

  The dog flapped its saggy head left to right, cheeks swaying a like a swing chair in summertime, and he whispered again, I am on a mission!  Something BIG is going to happen and I must be ready for it!'       Then he dashed off like an ostrich - only seconds after he had disappeared from the scene there was a loud BANG followed by someone shouting - "Watch out below!"

  Moments later a rusty car landed on the ground!

  Aradas and Fackle were so amazed they literally didn't know what to do.  

  After awhile the car door began to open, and a tall man in a white coat stepped out.  The first thing he did was brush back his long white hair with a comb, and then began to examine the wrecked car with a magnifying glass he produced form his left pocket.  After a while he put the glass away, muttering under his breath – ‘Quite disposable…  Quite disposable indeed!’

  Fackle owl decided they should investigate this strange man so he hopped up between Aradas's ears and the two of them tentatively approached the stranger.

  Just as they were within conversational reach of the strange man the car exploded!  

  The strange man lay prostrate on the ground, and Aradas and Fackle crowded about to see if he was alright (not that there was much the two animals could have done, neither of them were medics, or understood how to use a phone to call for help).

  When the man opened his eyes the first thing he saw was a fat old horse with an owl sat on its head looking down on him.  

  The first thing he said was, ‘I don’t suppose any one of you two are good at fixing cars?’

  He stood up, brushing his coat down, took out the magnifying glass again to investigate the burning flames.

    But Aradas was bemused.  'You could have seriously killed somebody with that?' said the horse, eyeing the flaming car.  

  And the man replied, ‘Only if they got in the way!’  Then he finally introduced himself as:

  ‘Doctor Fiddle About The Piddle, and I like hey diddle diddle and doctor do-little and other classic nursery rhymes.’  He addressed the horse personally, holding his hand out to the beast.  Aradas did all that he could do, being a mere horse of the field, and sniffed into the doctors hand.  

  'So you do Hey diddle diddle?' said the owl.  'I bet you can't do that without a fiddle?'

  'Sure you can,' the doctor replied, and he showed them all by dancing about on the spot, throwing his arms and legs about in a wild manner.  Everyone thought the doctor looked funny, and even Aradas couldn’t help but allow himself a small gruff horse-like laugh.

  ‘So you are a doctor, hey?’ said Aradas, ‘what kind of doctor exactly?’

  ‘Thermodynamics,’ he replied.  

  ‘Ah well it’s always useful to know that,’ said the horse.  

  ‘My plan is to build a spaceship and explore the galaxy!’ said the doctor, speaking briskly and like everything he had just said was normal and every day.

  This fascinated the animals, especially Fackle the owl who started daydreaming again about flying to the moon.  ‘So you want to explore the Galaxy, hey?’ he said.

  ‘Yes my friends,’ said Doctor Fiddle, ‘first the Galaxy and then the solar system!’

  ‘Would you ever consider landing on the moon?’ said the owl, 

  ‘Most definitely,’ the doctor replied.  ‘I’ll make the moon our first destination – but first I need to build a ship!’

  None of the animals could believe that he was being serious!   ‘And how are you going to build a ship then?’ they asked.

  ‘O I have the plans drawn up and ready!’ said Doctor Fiddle.  ‘All I require now is a bit of open ground to build on, and then some assistance, and that is what brings me here!’  As he said all this he had his eye on Aradas in particular…

  ‘You actually want us to help you build a spaceship?’ all the animals cried together.

  ‘I can’t think of better people to enlist!’

  ‘Well I am sure Farmer Overtax will be happy for you to use his field,’ said Aradas.  ‘He’s drunk most of the time and probably won’t know what’s going on!’

  ‘Then I shall get to work immediately!’ said the doctor.  And then he turned to the animals, ‘help me succeed in this endeavour and I shall share the glory with you!  We will explore the bowls of space, and become more famous than the most famous.  Everyone will want to know everything about our cosmic adventures.’  

  ‘Wait a second,’ Aradas spoke up.  ‘Are you saying you actually want us to go with you as well?’

  ‘Of course!’ cried the Doctor.  ‘You helped me build the ship so it’s only logical that you share in the glory as well!’

  ‘Well, what if the ship blows up?’ asked the horse.

  ‘We’ll just have to make sure it doesn’t,’ the doctor replied.

  ‘I like the sound of this,’ said Fackle the owl.  ‘I mean, how can things go wrong with my brains behind it all?’

  ‘Precisely!’ said Doctor Fiddle jubilantly.  ‘We will make the perfect ship in no time.’

  ‘Wait a second,’ Aradas felt he had to add something objective to all this, ‘let’s just sort this out.  Fackle the owl builds nests and later forgets where he built them, and this here so called Doctor Fiddle, who nobody has heard of before, just flew a car into our field – and you think any of us have the right stuff to actually be astronauts?’

  And to this Doctor Fiddle said, ‘We will be more than just mere astronauts my horse shaped friend, we will be space scientists!  We shall succeed!  But first we must build pour spaceship.’

Chapter 2: Build me a spaceship!

Doctor Fiddle was an inventor of singular brilliance, and he was about to prove it.

  By drawing upon his vast pool of knowledge in thermodynamics the doctor built several miniature rockets to give his friends a miniature demonstration of what the final operation might be like.  

  These rockets managed to get as far as the earth’s atmosphere using for their fuel only refined quantities of water and air.  His second miniature rocket was called the earthbound – it was created wholly out of a plastic bottle and the good doctor filled it with enough air to propel it into space itself!  It was almost a success but the bottle melted in the earth’s atmosphere… which was a shame…  It had once contained Aradas’s favourite bottle of pop!

  Doctor Fiddle’s miniature prototypes proved stunningly successful, and it filled his friends with confidence when he started to talk about the larger model – the vessel that would actually take them all into space…

  Everyone decided that enough tests had been done, and it the time had no come for the main project to begin!

  After studying the diagrams, the annotated plans, and seeing the actual model in its early construction stages itself, Aradas and his friends could easily see with their own eyes the precise method and succinct orderliness Doctor Fiddler had placed into his brilliant invention.  

It took weeks to build the spaceship.

  The actual frame of the ship was based on the earlier designs only this larger model was made out of hundreds of compressed plastic bottles.

  Then they covered the plastic frame with paper; the little gaps and creases we filled in with mud; the doctor told his animal friends that mud would turn into a strong glue when the rocket made its journey through the Earths atmosphere – “the raw soil,” he said, “would turn into a type of tough cement and stop the rocket from falling to pieces.”  Because he was a man of superior intellect, the animals just took his word for it.

  The spaceship was fitted with one large room, which would become the main deck – and engine room, and cabins for the crew.  All the windows inside the ship were cut out of the plastic frame and covered in several layers of good thick tracing paper.  

  After about a week of solid work, the doctor started to load the rocket with large glass jars, each one sealed tight, and all containing the air they would need as part of the ships fuel source.  

  It was time to name the ship, and this honour fell to Aradas, because everyone liked him so much; in the end the horse decided to call the ship the Disconnectable!

  The next day they loaded aboard the water, which was kept in large see-through containers.  Later they attached the water and the air into the ships engines.  The engines were made out of an intricate series of pipes with little valves where one could enter certain quantities of water and air.   When the right amounts of water and air were used in combination with the helium, and fire also kept on board, there would be a combustion which would give the power needed to lift the ship off the ground and send it on its space bound voyage.

  There weren’t the resources for a test flight, if things went wrong then the ship would implode, and then they would have to build it again and they just didn’t have the material for that.  So it was to be a one way trip, as it were.  If the experiment failed then they would all die: ‘we live or die - that is our destiny,’ said the doctor filling them all with confidence.  ‘And what is life without risks?’ said Aradas and the doctor, smiled, because that was the sort of attitude he admired, and then he replied, ‘If there were no risks, there would be no life!’

  They all agreed, even though they never knew why.

  They lit the rocket with an old cigarette lighter, and then the computer began the countdown – five – four – three – 

And upon three there was a huge explosion (which everyone was lucky to have survived), and then, just a little short of two seconds, The Disconnectable was up in the sky!

  And then they were in space!

  Thankfully they had listened to all the doctors precautions, adding extra layers of pure mud to seal in the ships creases – and just as he had predicted, the soil hardened as it entered the atmosphere and the ship held and remained in one piece when it finally left the Earth.

  Doctor Fiddle was the perfect model of calm and tranquillity.  It looked as though he had done this before, and to see him there, calmly looking out of a window, with his ease of mind, whistling a tune, just made everyone laugh!  

  ‘Ease some water into the engines will you Aradas?’ he said.  

  Taking one of the tubes the horse pinched off cylinder with his teeth and allowed just a few drops of water into the engines.  ‘Not too much there,’ said the doctor, though he could plainly see the horse had hardly used any.  ‘Every now and then the ship will slow down, and to give it a boost we must release a little of the water.’

  ‘How does this work?’ said Aradas with genuine interest.  

  ‘Some of the water evacuates the ship and as it does so space freezes it.  Once the ice is in our engines it explodes, and as the ice shatters into shards it pushes the ship forward with a tremendous boost of energy!’

  ‘Why have scientists of old not thought about travelling through space using this economical fashion?’ said Aradas.

  ‘They never thought to use the right values,’ the doctor replied.

    As they were floating through the black ether the doctor would cry out every now and then, ‘More water!  Water!  Let it flow!’ and just after that he admonish Aradas for using too much of it.   ‘You are far too liberal with the water, my son,’ he would say to the horse.  And then he would add, sarcastically, ‘Leave some for the return journey, won’t you?’

The moon became an ever growing phenomenon on their view screen, and what a glorious sight it was.  Indeed, everyone was surprised how quickly they reached it.

  ‘I was expecting a few days of travel but it seemed that only in a few minutes and now the moon is right in front of us!’ said Fackle the owl.

  ‘How did we reach the moon so quickly?’ said Aradas and the doctor replied, ‘Our fine precise mixture of air and water helps keep the rocket in line with relativity.  We are presently travelling at light speed, my boy, light speed!’

  ‘But that’s impossible?’ said the horse, but the doctor only laughed at the horse.  

  ‘Improbable, you mean,’ he said, ‘but never impossible!  Now then,’ he said, speaking of something completely different, ‘pay attention to my words, and ease off with the water there on the engines.  We want the ship to slow down before we literally collide with the moon!  And I say again with vigour, collide!  For we shall do that, unless we cool off the engines!’

  So Aradas eased off the supply of water and looked out of the window.  And there, sure enough, was the ugly fungous like body of the moon below.  Aradas felt the desire to get out of the rocket and walk across the moons’ surface –

  …When he realised the great mistake they had made.  

  They had no space suits!  

‘We don’t need them!’ said the doctor.  And then he explained why.  ‘Why do you think the moon is white from a distance?’

  Everyone shook their heads because they didn’t know the answer.

  ‘I will tell you why,’ said doctor Fiddle, ‘it’s because the moon is covered with snow!’  

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, my son,’ the doctor said to Aradas.  ‘What scientists don’t know is that the moon actually has an atmosphere just like earths!’

  Everyone was amazed, even Aradas who had never really thought about such things before.

  Doctor Fiddle plopped the ship down on the surface of the moon and asked everybody if they were ready to leave.  Fackle the owl was so excited about seeing the moon that he couldn’t stop flying about in circles!

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Aradas.

  Then the doors opened and they set out.

Chapter 3: That’s Where Father Christmas lives…

It was wonderful on the moon!  

  Never too cold and covered all over with lovely glinting ice!

  ‘I could easily live here,’ said Fackle.

  Aradas had to agree with his friend.  ‘I just feel like sticking my head in all that snow!’ said the horse in an excited voice.  In the end the horse just couldn’t help himself and flopped down on his one side and covered himself with as much snow as he could!

   After they had finished basking in the snow they decided it was time to explore this desert of ice, 'We don't have to worry about losing the ship while we see the sights,' said Doctor Fiddle.  'There are only our tracks in the snow - we will just follow them when we need to find our way back.'

  You wouldn't think there would be much to see on a giant orb covered in snow, but after only taking a few meagre steps they discovered a crater.  It wouldn’t have been that entirely interesting if it wasn’t for the fact that a strange looking man was sitting down at the bottom of it, smoking a pipe!  

  As soon as he knew he had been noticed he got to his feet and climbed out of the crater and stood before them.  ‘I suppose you are going to have a go at me, hey?’ was the first thing he said.

  Obviously Aradas and the others were confused because they didn’t understand what he was talking about.

  ‘Have a go about what?’ said Doctor Fiddle.  ‘We’ve only just arrived!’

  ‘That’s what the Chinese said,’ the strange man went on.  ‘They caught me having time off and told me to get back to work right away!  “You’ve only got one year to prepare for the Big Day,” they said.’  Then he started pacing around in a circle, cussing and repeating himself, ‘No one let’s me have a break.  No one!  Always work!  Work!  Work!  Work!’

  ‘We don’t know what you’re talking about!’ said the Doctor.  ‘Stop being so disposable, and settle down!  When you are calm you can tell us your name!’

  Here the strange man stopped in his tracks – he seemed to be genuinely stunned that Doctor Fiddle didn’t know who he was.

  ‘Are you joking?’ said the man.  ‘Why its me, Father Christmas!  But you can call me Jack.’

  ‘Jack?’

  ‘Aye.  That’s my real name.  Not too sure when the Father Christmas came along, but that’s what must people call me these days.’

  They now had to have a good look at Father Christmas, because he bore no resemblance whatsoever to the cheery, well rounded character who adorned so many Christmas cards.  This was not the Father Christmas they had grown up with since childhood.  No.  This was just a strange looking man…

  For example – he didn’t have a beard.   He was also extremely skinny.  And he was wearing a dirty old vest and yellow bracers – Aradas and the others all thought he was just having a good old laugh with them!

  ‘That’s funny,’ said Aradas chuckling away.  ‘So what do you do here on the Moon, Jack?’

  ‘Get ready for Christmas nearly all the time,’ Jack replied.  ‘We decided it was better to have my toy making factory hidden away somewhere; so we chose the moon in the end, it was the only way to ensure that the little children couldn’t raid the toy factory anymore.  That used to happen in the old days, back when we used to live on the Earth.  No, now we can get on with our work here on the moon – we only get visitors occasionally and all they do is leave a flag behind and head off home again!’  Jack took a deep breath, plucked his bracers and said, ‘No.  Its’ nice and peaceful on the moon, and that’s just as we like it!’

  Aradas was amazed.  ‘Are you trying to tell us then that you really are The Father Christmas?’ said the horse.

  Jack started to cuss again and shake his head in disdain, ‘I already told you, didn’t I?  Good grief!  How many times do you need me to say?’  I’ll tell you what.  I will show you the Factory where I live.  Then perhaps you will believe what I am saying.  Visitors are rare here on the moon so I have got the time to show you about.’

Everyone agreed it was a great idea and agreed to follow Jack over the hills of snow.  When it looked like they were getting absolutely nowhere this huge building poured unrealistically into their view.  It was a vast building made of red stone, and it had two large chimneys and several towers with little windows at the top and Jack told his companions, ‘my blasted reindeer live up in those towers.  They make their nests in the tall heights and fly in and out of the windows!’

  ‘Fly?’ said everyone and Jack laughed and replied, ‘don’t sound so surprised!  How else do you think we get about?’

  But Aradas wanted to know more about these reindeer, and threw Jack another question; ‘Why do they build nests?’

  ‘Because they think they are birds?’ Jack replied.

  Aradas gave Jack a blank look with his right eye and Jack explained to the horse, ‘because they can fly they think they are birds so they build nests!  Do you see it now?’

  ‘Yeah I think that makes sense,’ said Aradas.  

  Jack was extremely tall, which surprised everyone considering he was supposed to be Father Christmas, and how on Earth did he ever fit down chimneys was the question everyone asked, but his height did give him an advantage as he stalked through the thick layers of snow, kicking aside a path for the others to follow.  

  Very soon they reached the front entrance of the large building and standing before this great structure they now realised how truly huge this factory was.  ‘Why this place must have been built by a giant,’ said Aradas.

  ‘I think you are right about that,’ said Fackle the owl, ‘a really big giant!’

  ‘A big giant with lots of disposable strength,’ added Doctor Fiddle.

  The door opened as they approached and they all entered the glow that filled the hallway within.  

  Inside they found a vast room that contained every treasure you can imagine adorning a childhood, picturesque scene of Christmas at its best. 

  There were lights glimmering simply everywhere!  How was it possible?  There were lights dispersing all manner of colours - except pink for some reason…

  And great holly bushes seemed to be growing out of the walls, and huge pine trees grew out of the wooden floors, and there were candles dripping everywhere and there were all these small ugly little men run to and throw bits of falling fax and then moulding them into toys!

  ‘Who are these little chaps then?’ said Aradas, noting the strange horde of dwarfs climbing in and out of the trees.

  ‘These are my elf’s thank you very much,’ said Jack.  ‘An absolute waste of time as well; they cost a fortune to maintain, but, as the old saying goes – “Elf’s!  You can’t live with them, can’t live without them!’

  ‘Well I’ve never met an elf before,’ said Aradas and Jack gave the horse a fearsome look and said, ‘well aren’t you the lucky one!’

  Aradas didn’t understand what Jack meant and so he decided to just ignore him.

  At that moment several elf’s came skipping along like gay children, and two climbed up onto the horses shoulders and a few others started to dance excitedly around Jack.  ‘Should would make our guests some tea?’ they said.

  ‘Fine idea,’ Jack replied.

  ‘Should we put a bit of ginger in the tea,’ said one of the elf’s and Jack replied, ‘O if you must!’

  The elf’s scurried off like frightened beetles looking for a crevice to hide in; they momentarily returned carrying a large teapot over their shoulders!  After they had settled down, and this talk about five minutes, they poured everybody a cup of ginger tea. 

  Before doctor Fiddle drunk his tea he examined the cup like it was some incredible thing, and when he had ended his inspection he thanked a nearby elf, saying, ‘Why this is just what I needed!  How very disposable of you kind sir!’

  And so everyone drunk their ginger tea, and yes it tasted awful but because nobody wanted to offend the elf’s nothing was said about it.

  ‘I think this is the first time I have stopped working all year,’ said Jack.  ‘I only work one day a year, of course, and you know what day that is – I am Father Christmas at the end of the day – but I have got to spend all the other days getting ready for the one BIG day.  And it’s hard work.  People draw pictures of me and make me look like this fat old fool, but it isn’t true because I have got to keep in shape; believe me when I tell you that climbing up and down those chimneys all day is serious business!’  

  ‘Well it sounds like a fine job to me,’ said Aradas.  ‘I love chimneys.  I want to be a chimney sweep, you see?  I would certainly make a swap with you if you were ever interested.’

  Jack looked the horse up and down, and after a while this little glint appeared in his right eye.  ‘Now you come to mention it,’ he said, slyly, ‘I could do with some help this year.  You see, all my reindeer are sick!  It’s because they have eaten too many eggs!  But you could help me out if you wanted?’

  This idea amused Doctor Fiddle thoroughly.  ‘Father Christmas being pulled along in a sleigh by a horse instead of his reindeer!’ he cried, ‘how novel!’  

  Then an elf ran onto the scene, flapping his arms about in the air with excitement and shouting repeatedly, ‘Our new song is ready!’

  Jack turned to Aradas and the others to explain what the elf was talking about.  ‘We have been writing our very own special version of the twelve days to Christmas,’ he said.  ‘We have done two variations already.  All of them quite bad, but it’s still fun and gives us something different to do!’    He returned to the elf and said, ‘Very well then!  Sing us your new version!’

  And the Elf did so.  These were the words:

On the Twelfth day of Christmas my secret lover said to me:

Five winds are blowing,

The leaves are falling,

The snow is thawing, 

1 a car is stalling

2 a baby that is balling

3 This song is very boring

4 And more than annoying

5 So please stop yawning

Fifty thousand silver rings!! (they are cheaper – you see)

Eighty buttered eggs

An old dog

And a horse with his head stuck up a chimney!

  And that was the end of it!

  ‘I like that last line the best,’ said Aradas.

  And Doctor Fiddle added, ‘I say!  That song is quite disposable!’  It was probably the truest thing he had said in a long time…

  When the song was finally over Jack nudged the horse and whispered in the animal’s right ear, ‘So how do you feel about helping me out this Christmas?  Will you pull my sleigh and help me deliver all those presents to all those little children?’

  ‘My dear friend,’ Aradas spoke up, ‘if you knew me from old then you would know that I would never turn down a job that involves working with chimneys!’

  But Jack was very firm on the point that it would be he, and he alone who would be doing the chimney climbing, ‘I mean,’ he explained, ‘you would never fit down any of them.  You’re a horse and you are too big!’

  When poor old Aradas heard this his horses’ head sagged like a sad old empty Christmas stocking!  But he still agreed to help.

  

‘It is so very grand of you to help me, horse,’ said Jack as he and all the elf’s started loading up the sleigh.  

  Aradas looked at the sleigh disconcertedly; the elf’s had loaded it with a veritable hill of presents and Aradas began to ponder – “How am I supposed to pull that to every home on the planet Earth?” and, “This looks like too much work!!”

  ‘I say Jack,’ Aradas spoke up, ‘that old sleigh looks heavy.  You do realise that I am going to have to pull that on my own?’

  ‘And with me sat on it as well!’ said Jack as if it was all a laughing matter.  ‘Don’t worry Aradas my old buck, the sleigh is magical!’

  ‘How so?’  Aradas didn’t believe it.

  ‘Strap it on and you will see!’

  Arads did as he was told and before he knew it he was flying though the sky!  And soon they were in space again and Earth was growing larger before them.  

  ‘First stop Trotterville, America,’ said Jack.  

  Of course Aradas didn’t know where that place was, but luckily the sleigh did and soon they had turned the road to Trotterville.

  The town had been fully decked in Christmas attire.  There were trees with flashing lights and old lanterns glowing warmly in doorways.  It looked the sort of place an adult who had been an unhappy child would have liked to have grown up in and had a mysterious encounter with Father Christmas.

  Jack parked the sleigh right outside Mr and Mrs Janitors house.  ‘This is where it begins,’ said Jack leaping off the pile of presents where he had been sat for the whole journey.  ‘Mr and Mrs Janitors two children, Slip and Dip, have been well behaved this year and they are going to have a few extra special presents as a reward!

  ‘I like paying the Janitors a visit,’ Jack added.  ‘They always make sure to leave me a mince pie!’

  ‘Do you think they will leave me with anything?’ said Aradas with a child-like glint twinkling in his eye.

  ‘Well seeing as they never leave anything for my reindeers all the years before I guess the answer to that would be no.  Now listen up, horse.  This is where things are going to get difficult.  I’ve got to climb up onto the roof so I can reach the chimney.  It never gets easier all this roof climbing but it’s got to be done or there will be no presents in the morning and it will be a sad day for all.’

  ‘Well we better get climbing then,’ said Aradas, ‘don’t you worry my friend.  I’ll be with you all the way!’

  ‘No you won’t!’ Jack shouted.  ‘You’re going to stay down here on the floor and make sure I don’t fall!  If I do fall down you’ve got to move quick and catch me!’

  Aradas continued to I insist that he wanted to follow, but Jack wasn’t having it, and even threatened to tie Aradas to a tree if he continued to mention the matter.  ‘This is the first house of millions we have to visit and already you are pestering me!’ he shouted.  ‘Now do as your told, horse, and make sure I don’t fall!’

  Aradas was upset but he remained determined.  “I’ll follow in secret if I must!” he thought.

  Jack brought up an extendable ladder he had hidden among all the presents, and started to ascend.  While Jack was only half way up the wall back down below Aradas was already making his plans…

  He needed to get up on top of the roof, and he had already thought of a way of doing it.

  He shoved the sleigh, which amazingly wasn’t very heavy, right next to the building.  When the sleigh was in place he started to climb the hill of presents all the way to the top, till he was high enough to step onto the roof.  It was an amazing achievement and Aradas was well pleased with himself.

  By the time he had got to the top Jack was already halfway down the chimney.  Aradas trotted over and called down the tunnel, ‘Everything alright down there Jack?’

  Jack couldn’t believe it when he looked up the chimney tunnel and saw the horse looking down on him.  ‘How did you get up there!?’ he cried.  ‘I told you to stay below!’

  But Aradas replied, ‘I can’t quite hear you Jack!  Looks like I am going to have to follow you down!’

  Aradas definitely would have heard Jack’s fatal please for mercy “NO Aradas!  Don’t do it!” as he slid down the chimney tunnel with a YAHOOO!!  - Minutes later the horse was stuck - And Father Christmas was squashed…

The Janitor family must have got the shock of their lives the next morning, especially little Slip and Dip, who instead of seeing a room filled with presents found absolutely nothing except the rear side of a rather copious horse thrusting out of the hearth place.

  Jack had spent all night pulling at the horses tail, hoping that eventually the horse would pop out of the grate, but that hadn’t happened yet.  

  ‘I don’t think I have ever wasted a Christmas morning so badly,’ said the poor old man, heaving and fuming.

  He had to apologise twice to the Janitor family before managing to get them all involved in the difficult task of pulling the horse out of the chimney.  It took all of their efforts, but they succeeded eventually – even though they brought down a large chunk of the living room wall in the process, they managed to get the horse out of the chimney and there he was, covered in dust and not looking in the least but fussed about all the devastation and dismay he had caused.  In fact the first thing he said was, ‘It is a pity you got me out - I was enjoying that!’

  ‘I must apologise about my horse,’ said Jack, who was eager to brush things up.  He was already fantastically late for Christmas and needed to get a move on.  ‘I must apologise for the mess as well,’ he said, ‘all unintentional.  I have done this year after year and nothing has ever gone wrong.  But I suppose even Father Christmas has to have a bad day every once in a while.’

  ‘I always thought Father Christmas had reindeer?’ said one of the children.

  ‘Well I do, normally.  But this year I fancied a change.  Reindeer get boring year in year out.’

  And where had Aradas gone?  

  He was in the kitchen stuffing his face with all Christmas food!

  The Janitor family had taken all that there patience could handle.  Losing half a wall in the morning was one thing, but to have their whole Christmas lunch chewed up by a horse was completely overstepping their tolerance threshold.  Mr Janitor stepped up: ‘I have taken all I can of this nonsense!’ he cried.  ‘I’m going to call the police!’

  ‘Now hang on a minute!’ said Jack, in a fluster.  ‘That’s a bit hasty!  I’m a busy man, don’t you know?  I have millions of presents to deliver!’

  ‘And you have caused me millions of pounds of damage!’  And then he turned on Aradas and cried, ‘And as for you!  I know you are just a horse, but I want you taken away to prison as well!

  Aradas was offended, ‘I’m just a horse hey?’ he said.  ‘Haven’t you noticed that I can speak the English language as well?’

  They were just starting to hear sirens in the distance.  Evan Aradas realised this was the sign to make a run for it!

  Amidst the sound of the wailing police cars there was a second noise that almost blanked the sirens out.  It was the Disconnectable!

  The ship landed and the door swung open.  ‘Get side Aradas!’ cried Doctor Fiddle.  ‘Be quick!  The police are almost on top of you!’

  Aradas galloped like he had never before in all his life, and leaped aboard the ship.  Seconds later the doors were sealed, and the Disconnectable was back up in the skies; the horse just had time to look out of the window to see Father Christmas being whisked away in a police van!  

  Seconds later he could see only stars.

  They were in space again.

Chapter 4: Aradas becomes a cook…

‘I think we should take it in turns to fly the ship,’ said Doctor Fiddle.  ‘I need to calibrate the engines.  You take over Aradas!’

  ‘But I’m so tired!  I might fall asleep at the wheel!’

  ‘Don’t worry!  We’re in space, my dear horse.  There’s nothing to crash into out here!’

After flying a really long time through nothingness a huge rock shaped like a china kettle came into their view.

  ‘Well that looks like an interesting place,’ said Doctor Fiddle.

  ‘Quite incredible,’ said Fackle the owl.  ‘Incredible and incredulous at the same time,’ the owl added.  ‘I know space is pretty big in all directions, and it must hold some incredible secrets, but I could never have imagined seeing a rock shaped like a kettle.  I think I would have laughed if someone told such a thing existed before I actually saw it.’

  ‘I think somebody must have actually carved it,’ said Doctor Fiddle.  ‘I shouldn’t think it naturally exists in that shape – ‘

  ‘Maybe it looks like that by coincidence,’ said the owl.

  ‘Or a crazy accident,’ Aradas added.  ‘Do things erode in space?’

  ‘There is such a thing as space erosion,’ said Doctor Fiddle.  ‘I know this because I studied it at university.  We had to do a whole section on it, took three years to complete: “space erosion and its ways.”  Apparently our telescopes on earth have picked up objects that have been eroded into shapes that vaguely resemble earth objects – for example I have actually seen the Great Cosmic Spoon, a whole moon amazingly shaped like a spoon!  It was an exciting thing to see!’

  ‘Well wouldn’t you believe it!’ said Aradas the horse looking at the giant kettle in the view screen.  ‘Perhaps such things can exist after all!  I mean if you can get a cosmic spoon then why not a kettle?’

  ‘And a tea cup would go down nicely as well,’ said Fackle the owl, and the thought of it got him so worked up he started flapping around in circles – making a mess two times on poor old Aradas’s head!  ‘Maybe we could have tea in the stars!’ cried the excitable bird.

  ‘With a kettle that large there will be more than enough tea for all,’ said Aradas.  ‘We will need a large table to put all the cups.  And we would all need to work together to pour the kettle, that could take all day.  And we might need a larger ship – I mean, by the time we have drunk it all we are bound to be twice our ordinary size.’

  ‘Don’t be fooled!’ Doctor Fiddle spoke up, destroying the jolly moment.  ‘It isn’t a real kettle!  It’s just an illusion!’

  ‘Is that what people see when they’ve been stuck in a desert for a long time?’ said Aradas.

  ‘NO.  That’s hallucination.  There is something out there, but it’s not really kettle shaped.  Our eyes are telling us that it is, but it isn’t really.  Our brain wants us to believe it is a kettle, but in reality it isn’t.’

  Now that got everyone confused.

  ‘Maybe we should pretend it is just a giant kettle for now,’ said Aradas.  ‘It’s just slightly easier for us to understand that way.’

  ‘O very well,’ said Doctor Fiddle.  ‘But how am I ever going to teach you darn animals anything unless you listen to my wise words!’

  ‘I’m easily confused,’ Aradas admitted, and Doctor Fiddle replied, ‘That’s excellent, my horse friend because I want to make your large brain dance in that copious skull of yours.  You will be as smart as me at the end of the day!’

  Everyone thought the kettle was so curious that they wanted to explore it up close.

  Doctor Fiddle took the spaceship right down inside the kettle’s giant funnel.  With a slight nudge or to they passed along through the funnel, and were very soon inside the teapot itself!  

  But they found no hot water – no tea – just this old sign with the words, written completely in space, rust – “WELCOME TO - The Ever After Café!!!”

  This is definitely not what they were expecting see, but nobody complained.

  They parked the ship on a piece of random ground and stepped out.  Strangely, the world inside the teapot had a breathable atmosphere, and this was probably just as well because none of them thought once about putting on a space suite!

  The moment they stepped out this alien, who looked rather like a huge lobster with these large giant clippers, was waiting to greet them.  

  The lobster said his name was, Rab-Dab.  ‘What can I fetch your sirs?’ he said very politely and in perfect English.  

  Doctor Fiddle was fascinated by the lobster, and already had a question ready for the creature, ‘I am amazed that you can speak our language,’ he said.  ‘Is it possible that all aliens understand English?’

  ‘Chinese and Russian as well,’ the lobster replied.  ‘We thought it might come in handy, you know, in case visitors like yourself ever pop up from Earth.’

  ‘It’s quite a bit handy indeed,’ the Doctor replied.  ‘Saves us from having to learn the nonsense your people probably speak.’

  ‘And saves us from having to be conquered and assimilated as well,’ the lobster replied.  ‘So, my dear sirs, I say again, what can I fetch you?’

  ‘You run a restaurant do you?’ said Doctor Fiddle looking around at the place.  ‘How disposable!’

  ‘This, my friends, is the ever after café!’ said the lobster.  ‘And it is also my home!’

  Aradas thought it sounded like a daft name and let everyone know, verbally.  ‘The ever after café, hey?  What’s that all about then?  It sounds bit crazy to me,’ said the horse with a grunt.

  ‘I made the name up,’ said the lobster, ‘I called it that because it’s the only café that sits in space and as you know space goes on forever!’

  ‘Are you sure that it’s the only café in space?’ said Aradas.  ‘I mean, not to be rude or anything, but as the name of this place implies space goes on forever, how do you know there isn’t another café somewhere, drifting in the abyss.’

  ‘Well if there is one then I can tell you it isn’t worth knowing!’ the lobster replied.  ‘The ever after café is the best place in the galaxy.  I know this because I have been about a bit in my lifetime and there isn’t really a lot to see.  No.  Not a lot at all,’ he said finally.  ‘Space is a boring place.  And it’s not worth knowing.’

  The next thing Aradas put to the lobster was this: ‘Why does the place look like a kettle from the outside?’  Here of course was a question everybody wanted to know the answer to, and the lobster replied, ‘O it isn’t shaped like that in real life.  It’s just an illusion!’

  ‘Alright we’ll stop you right there,’ said the horse quickly, ‘– we’ve already talked about that once and that was enough for one day!’

  Fackle the owl listened to Aradas and started to chuckle like some merry child.  ‘Aradas didn’t know the difference between an illusion and a hallucination,’ he said.  ‘It was such a funny thing to hear!’

  Aradas was bemused.  ‘I can’t help it if I don’t know about such things,’ said the horse indignantly, ‘why I am only a chimney sweep for goodness sake!’

  ‘Chimney sweep hey?’ said the lobster.  ‘I imagine you know a thing or two about chimneys then?’

  And Aradas replied, proudly, ‘what I don’t know about chimneys ain’t worth knowing, my friend,’ and he gave the lobster a sly old wink with his left eye.

  ‘Well that’s a shame,’ the lobster replied, and then it sighed sadly.  ‘We had our old chimney removed a couple of years ago.’  After that the lobster started to talk about something completely different.  ‘I don’t suppose you know anything about working in a kitchen?’ he said.  ‘It just gets rather busy here sometimes and … oh no!  Here they come again!!’

  Before anyone knew it there was about twenty other lobsters standing around them!

  Almost right away they were putting forth their orders, shouting and calling and scrapping among each other.  It was obvious, by the frustrated look in his eyes that Rab-Dab was at a loss, and appeared to be about ready to pass out on the floor!

  ‘How shall I ever serve all these mad customers!’ he cried.  ‘This will be the end of me and my beautiful café!’

  Feeling pity in his heart for the poor old lobster Doctor Fiddle asked if there was anyway he and his friends could help, and then Rab-Dab had a glowing crafty look in his eyes, and he said in a sly voice, ‘I don’t suppose any of you know how to make a pumpkin splat?’  Doctor Fiddle admitted that neither he nor his friends had heard of such a thing, ‘But if you teach us what to do then that will be a different matter!’

  When Rab-Dab heard this he started snapping his pincers with glee.  ‘That’s excellent!’ he cried.  ‘Right then lads!  Follow me into the kitchen!’

  

The kitchen was full of pumpkins!

  Doctor Fiddle was baffled by the sight of the pumpkins and he muttered – how disposable – maybe five times, but it was Aradas who asked the Rab-Dab the question: ‘where do you get the pumpkins from?  You don’t grow them do you?’ 

  ‘I do indeed,’ said Rab-Dab, ‘Tis the only thing that grows on this planet!  There are pumpkins everywhere!  It’s the only thing we eat here, pumpkins!  So we have to think of all these different ways to make the pumpkin more interesting – everyone’s favourite in the ever after café is the pumpkin splat!’  

  When Aradas asked how one went about making a pumpkin splat Rab-Dab gave the horse a wink and said, ‘I will show you the secret of the pumpkin splat right now!’

  So Rab-Dab brought up a pumpkin of particular extensive girth and placed it on a table.  A few seconds later he climbed up onto the table itself and amazed everybody by standing on the pumpkin, squashing it into thousands of orange threads.  When the destruction of the fruit was complete Rab-Dab scooped the orange mess into a bowl – smoothed the surface till it became nice and flat, and then spat on it.

  ‘And there you have it,’ he said in a proud voice.  ‘You won’t find a finer pumpkin splat not in all Uranus!’

  It looked quite easy to do, so Aradas said he would have a go.  ‘Roll us over a pumpkin and I will stand on it for you,’ said the horse.  

  ‘Here you go Aradas,’ said Rab-Dab, and the lobster rolled out a pumpkin that both in width and height succeeded the size of a cow.  It was almost as big as Aradas!

  ‘How am I supposed to stand on this?’ said the horse, who was now staring at the vast orange thing in front of him.  He decided in the end that the only thing he could do was fall on the pumpkin on his side and hope that the weight of his copious bulk would suffice to smash the pumpkin into pieces.  

  It was not.

  ‘The pumpkin has been inside my cold storeroom and the cold has made it go tough,’ said Rab-Dab.  ‘Here is what I will do.  I will light up these stones…’

  He put a little fire under these nearby stones and then they rolled the giant pumpkin onto the stones.  It worked a treat and soon the pumpkin was nice and soft and now when Aradas flopped on it the pumpkin splattered all over him!  

  'Excellent!’ cried Rab-Dab.  ‘Now here’s another!’

  Aradas couldn’t understand why the lobster kept bringing him all these giant pumpkins because when he looked in the store room there were plenty of ordinary sized ones.  It just seemed that Rab-Dab was trying to making a hard job of everything for no reason.

  But Rab-Dab didn’t care and soon more giant pumpkins were rolling in!

  Everyone except Fackle the owl was given a pumpkin each, and within a few minutes everyone was standing on a pumpkin, or falling on them as it was in Aradas’s case.  

  Soon the splats were ready and being scooped into dishes.  They had twenty splats in all, and now it was time to serve the riotous crowd outside.

  ‘Let’s get this food out before it’s too late,’ said Rab-Dab, who looked terribly stressed.  ‘Come here Aradas we need your help again!’

  Before Aradas new it he was balancing all the dishes on his head!  

  When Aradas had been crowned with twenty dishes he was shoved out into the crowds and each of the twenty lobsters snapped a dish off the horses head.  

  They gobbled their splats in a few seconds flat and were calling out for seconds!

  And a few minutes later everyone in the kitchen was standing on pumpkins again and wondering how on earth (or how not on earth, as the case maybe) they had ended up getting involved in this totally ridiculous situation.

  And the crowd outside was so hungry, and angry as well, and never stopped making orders and acting like they had been made to wait for hours on end.  Every time the food was served they would snap it away snorting and shouting unpleasant things like; ‘So what took you so long?’ and, ‘you just can’t get the staff these days!’

  After a few hours Aradas and his friends were feeling pretty miserable, and quite low.  

  But no matter how hard they worked the crowds always made fresh demands.

  I want my splat served upside down!

  I want my splat heated, boiled, fried, turned into a soup, someone even asked their splat to be served actually inside a whole pumpkin.

  ‘I want some fresh water on this!’ someone shouted, and Rab-Dab called back, ‘Fresh water coming right up!’ 

  And another voice echoed not far away, ‘I want water as well!’ – and soon everybody wanted water with their pumpkins!

  And Aradas was sent back again, dishes wobbling on his head!  And he helped serve the water to all the lobsters, but even after all that it was still not enough in the end.  

  This sort of dandy looking lobster with a posh accent had a special request to make.  He called Aradas over and said, ‘I will have a shaved pumpkin split please!’

  Shaved Pumpkin Split??  What was that!?

  ‘Well at least he said please,’ Aradas grumbled.  He was angry of course – he was being made to work!  He didn’t like it.  “These lobsters gobble more food than the pigs back on Low Income Farm,” he thought.

  For drinks the lobsters wanted pumpkin and barley mixed with soda and they drunk these in glasses made of quartz.  

  ‘With any luck they will go away now,’ Aradas thought and hoped, but he did not know giant lobsters and their eating habits very well, because the day had only just begun…

  The next thing they wanted was a pumpkin and melon mix.

  ‘So they want melons now?’ Aradas cried.  ‘Good grief!  How much to these people eat?  I have had enough of this nonsense.’

  Doctor Fiddle whispered in the horses left ear, ‘I think we should sneak out of this place.  Let’s creep back to the ship and get out!’

  Aradas nodded.  ‘Sounds like a fine plan to me,’ he said.  

  But when they reached the ship they discovered that they had a new problem.

  ‘Confound it!’ said Doctor Fiddle.  ‘They have cut off our water supply!  Without water we will never escape this wretched place!’

  The lobsters had stolen all the bottles of water on board the ship!  Without water for fuel the ship was never going to fly – making escape totally impossible!

  ‘These are bad times indeed,’ said Doctor Fiddle.  ‘We have to find the stolen bottles of water again, and quick, unless we want to remain here making pumpkin splats for the rest of our lives!’

  ‘Until then I suggest going into hiding,’ said Fackle the owl, but at the moment he said that Rab-Dab returned, virtually catching them in the act of escape!

  He was in a very savage mood; you could see it in his knotted brow, his fuming bulging eyes.  ‘What is this then?’ he cried.  ‘Trying to run off hey?  You ungrateful dogs!  You scum!  I ask you for your help and what do you do?  You scarper!  You make off!  You abandon me!  And here I am, thinking you were my friends.  But it looks to me like your ship isn’t taking off.  Ha!  Look’s like you will have to stay with me after al!’

Before they knew it they were back in the kitchen again.  

  ‘Here’s today’s menu,’ said Rab-Dab, showing them the board.  ‘We have a lot of work to do today so let’s getting snapping!’  The lobster delighted in saying that – “snapping!” as he snapped his clippers away.  

  They read the menu and felt only despair when they got to the end of it.

  Here it is as written by Rab-Dab:

ALL YOU CAN EAT FOR 7 CROWNS

Pumpkin mush

Pumpkin and melon washed with water

Pumpkin with the scum essence of vegetable wheat

Salted pumpkin

A pumpkin slice

Two pumpkins with horns

Stewed pumpkin

Pumpkin relish with potted melon

Pumpkin and barley mix

Sweated pumpkin

One fatted marrow with a dash of pumpkin

Two melons inside a pumpkin 

Melon shaped like a pumpkin

Flat Pumpkin (aka pumpkin splat)

Marrow stuffed with pumpkin and melon

For dessert

Stuffed Marrow Deluxe

Marrow surprise with a hint of pumpkin

Pumpkin with lemon flavouring 

Pumpkin seeds pushed into a poached lemon

Pumpkin followed by pumpkin

And one boiled bullock! (large/small on demand)

‘A boiled bullock?’ cried Aradas.  ‘What?  Are you telling me they are carnivorous now?  And where do we get a bullock anyway?  It seems the only thing that grows here are pumpkins and melons apparently?’

  ‘Why you silly thing!’ said Rab-Dab.  ‘You are so out of date!  For exotic dishes we must use the Universe Web!’

  Now everyone was absolutely confused, and Rab-Dab had to explain that the Universe Web was this super shop that sold everything and you could access it anywhere so long as your pockets were full of spiders…

  ‘Order a few bullocks and we are ready to go!  O, and the other day there was a special request for a seasoned pumpkin, and after that someone wants bullock served with pollock – or bullock pollock as we like to call it.’

  ‘You can’t be serious?’

  ‘Seriously serious,’ Rab-Dab replied.  

  ‘So we have to make a special order for fish, melons, marrows and a bull?’

  Rab-Dab wagged his head and clipped his pincers.

  Minutes later the crowd was back and the café was simply thronging with countless chitinous bodies!  It was an awful sight, and Aradas almost collapsed with the thought of how much work he was going to have to do.

  ‘For my whole life I have never had any bad feelings against pumpkins,’ said Doctor Fiddle.  ‘But now I find them positively Disposable!’

  ‘I never want to see a pumpkin again,’ said Fackle the Owl, who was sat on Aradas’s head.  ‘I think just looking at a pumpkin is enough to make me fall over and smack my head on the ground.’

  ‘I hear what you are saying,’ said Doctor Fiddle.  The Doctor gazed at the owl with his great eyes and whispered in the owls ear, ‘I shall go mad if I stay here a minute longer!’

  Then Aradas suggested ‘Why don’t we try to stand up to him?’ he was referring to Rab-Dab the lobster.

  Doctor Fiddle thought this sounded like a great idea.  ‘What an intelligent beast you are!’ he said to the horse.  ‘We shouldn’t be made to work here; I mean, think what the Union would have to say about it back on Earth.  We’re not even getting paid!’

  So Doctor Fiddle confronted the lobster, even went as far as to point out that he had been an avid member of the Workers Union since the 1970’s and he didn’t take nonsense not even from giant lobsters.

  ‘I am a liberal, you see,’ pointed the Doctor, ‘and the working conditions of your café at present are despicable and disposable.  We don’t like it here and we want to leave.  So be so kind and show us where you have hidden our water supplies so we can get back into our ship and fly away.’

  ‘You’d like that I suppose?’ said the lobster meeting the Doctor with a fiery gaze.  ‘Just get into your ship and flyaway, leave me on my own!  Ha!’ now you could hear the anger doing the salsa in his voice.  ‘You’re not going anywhere because I have tipped all your water away!  You shall be stuck here forever and ever!’  

  In all his life Aradas had never felt so depressed.  None of them could have ever imagined that there great space adventure would end with them all being stuck inside a giant teapot and then worked to death by an extensive lobster.  

  ‘And what if we decide to go on strike?’ said Doctor Fiddle.

  ‘Then I will have to strike you with these,’ said Rab-Dab, and he snapped a claw at them.

  So ended all attempts at resistance and then it was back to work for them all.  

  Before Aradas knew it he was thrown back out at the front and soon receiving all sorts of verbal abuse from people he had never seen before in all his life.  

  The horse was presently balancing ten sizable dishes on his head when a sly voice reached him from a not too distant table: ‘You look like you’re in trouble?  Head over to my table and let’s talk…’ 

  Now there was a rather cool looking character set with his legs up on the table and holding his head back in his arms.  He was dressed in a long leather coat that would have touched his feet if he was standing, and he was wearing a hat on his head.  He introduced himself as Drim Brazer.

  ‘Yeah that’s me,’ he said, ‘Drim Brazer, one and only Space Cowboy in the whole darn galaxy!’

  ‘Space Cowboy hey?’ said Aradas.  ‘So do you get many cows in space then?’

  ‘And horses now by the looks of it,’ he replied, and he gave Aradas a respectful nod.  ‘How would you feel if I told you that I could get you and your friends off this planet?  Sounds good right?  Well then, you do me a good turn, and I will spin that wheel right round to your favour.  So what do you say?  We have a deal?’

  ‘Deal?’

  ‘Then it’s a deal buddy,’ said Drim Brazer.  ‘What’s the name by the way?  I need to know the name of my partners before we take this any further.’

  ‘Well I am Aradas, Aradas DuLac, and over there are my friends Fackle and Dr Fiddle.’

  ‘Doctor Fiddle?  That aint no relation to Doctor Do Little is it?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so, but he does like Hey Diddle Diddle, and other classic nursery rhymes.’

  ‘Sounds like the man to me!’ Drim Brazer replied.  

  Aradas sneaked off to the kitchen and introduced his friends one by one to Drim Brazer.  

  When the Space Cowboy saw Fackle the owl he pointed at the bird and shouted, ‘Hey Fackle how’s it hooting?’  And when he saw Doctor Fiddle he burst into laughter!  ‘Well if it ain’t Doctor Fiddle o fiddle!’ he said.  ‘So how’s it fiddling doc?’

  Doctor Fiddle gave the Space Cowboy the most disgusted look you can imagine, and said, ‘So you are a Space Cowboy hey?  Well I don’t like the sound of that!  You say Space Cowperson in today’s times.  I didn’t get as far as I did in the Union by being politically incorrect!’  Aradas was quite surprised by how abrupt the Doctor was with this man who was willing to help them escape, but in the end the horse just put it down to the Doctor being disposable.

  ‘Everybody this is Drim Brazer,’ said Aradas, ‘and he says he is going to help us escape!’

  ‘I can’t see how,’ said Doctor Fiddle, ‘not unless he has another space ship hidden away.’

  ‘I’ve got a plan Doc,’ said Drim Brazer.  ‘That’s one thing you will learn about me pretty soon.  I always have a plan.  I like to keep them up my sleeve at all times.  I never leave home without a plan.  One can never tell what the day is going to lead to – one minute you could be on a peaceful walk down the street, and then the next you could be in the bag and sold to some poor country into slavery.’  

  He then told them a gripping story:

  ‘There was this time, a couple of years ago (back in the day when I was dressed in my best high school breeches), that I wanted to be a sailor!  

  ‘Yes!  I wanted to feel the sea air on my face.  I wanted to feel the salt sting my tongue.  I wanted to see whales leap out of the ocean, and listen to dolphins make strange screeching noises.  I wanted to know what it was like to fall in the sea by accident and be chased by sharks.  It was the thrill of ocean life that saw me join the crew of the Sea Drinker, this sturdy old fishing ship, and for three months we were at sea.  I said to myself, before we set out, if ever we hit trouble or if trouble ever hits the ship I should take with my pet monkey who is an athlete and a brilliant swimmer and my monkey would be able to help me swim ashore!

  ‘Well one day it proved wise of me to make that plan.  There was a storm brewing, you see, but that wasn’t the problem.  The problem was the whales…’

  ‘Whales?’ said everyone.  

  ‘Aye.  Whales.  A great old whale, the worst monster I have ever seen, attacked our ship!’

  ‘I thought whales were docile,’ said Doctor Fiddle.  

  ‘That’s just a myth,’ Drim Brazer spoke on.  ‘I learned the truth that day, that whales are a vicious breed of animal.  This whale in particular gave the Sea Drinker the biggest thrashing you could ever imagine, split the ship in half eventually.  Everyone was cast into the sea and drowned, except me of course, because I had planned ahead for such a terrible event, and holding onto my pet monkey, the both of us managed to swim to the nearby shore.  

  ‘Now you see the reason why I alone survived while the rest of the crew went down with the poor Sea Drinker is because I alone had the plan!  The plan saved me!’

  ‘You didn’t think about sharing your plan with anyone else?’ spoke up Doctor Fiddle.

  ‘Ah well, you see, I have plans, yes I do, but that day I didn’t plan far enough ahead for other people.  And well, not all monkeys are as clever as mine.’

  ‘What happened to the monkey in the end?’

  ‘Well we just got ashore when this great old killer whale came out of the water and ate him!’ said Drim Brazer.  ‘And that was the end of my poor old monkey.’

  ‘I suppose you didn’t quite plan for that to happen either?’ said Doctor Fiddle, with a snigger.  

  Drim shrugged.  ‘No.  But cut me some slack, Doc, we all make mistakes every once in a while.’

  Silence followed, until Aradas said, ‘So what’s your plan on this occasion then Drim?’  

  Drim Brazer replied by showing them this fine set of strapping pistols.

  Everyone looked at the pistols and they were not amused.

  ‘So what are you going to do?  Shoot all the lobsters?’ said Aradas.

  ‘Nah I’ve already eaten one whole pumpkin with potted melon,’ Drim replied.  ‘I can’t manage anything else after that!’

  ‘So how are these guns going to help us then?’

  ‘My friend,’ said Drim Brazer calmly, ‘these are none other than water pistols.’

  Water pistols???  So they contained water!!!! - Now it all finally made sense.

  ‘I will fire some water into the engines and the ship should be good to go!’

  ‘We will need to get by that pesky Rab-Dab first.’  

  ‘I've got a plan for that as well.  He likes pumpkins so much, so let’s give him a proper pumpkin splat!’

  So Drim Brazer grabbed a nearby pumpkin and when Rab-Dab waddled over to investigate the reason why Aradas and his crew were not at work, the Space Cowboy leapt into action and squashed the pumpkin on top of Rab-Dab's head!

  With that deed done they hastened for their space ship, The Disconnectable, and once on board Drim Brazer put his water pistols inside the ships engines and let them fire.  

  There was an awkward moment where it appeared nothing was going to happen, but then there was a LOUD bang!  The water and air in ships engines had finally combined and the ship was alive again!  

  It didn’t take long after that, with a bit of neat steering on Doctor Fiddle’s behalf they were back in space again leaving angry old Rab-Dab far behind snapping his claws back up at them!

  

Chapter 3: Planet Forever Pancake Day…

‘That was a lucky escape,’ said Doctor Fiddle.  ‘I would have gone utterly mad if I had stayed in that kitchen any longer!’

  ‘All the work has left me feeling exhausted!’ exclaimed Fackle the owl.  ‘I think I might need some sleep.’  He suddenly dropped to the floor like a brick and lay there snoring for hours.

  ‘I am impressed how quickly The Disconnectable got us out of that giant teapot,’ said the Doctor.  ‘Those engines have certainly got one mighty kick in them; I wasn’t expecting to get out of that teapot so quickly!  That’s Doctor Fiddle’s engineering at its best I tell you!’  

  ‘It was a good clean escape,’ Aradas added.

  ‘Yes well I don’t expect anything else from my ship,’ said Drim Brazer, proudly.

  He was looking quite casual at that moment, leaning back in the captain’s chair – originally given up to Doctor Fiddle as he was the only one who could sit down – with his boots up on the control panel.  ‘It’s the best ship in the Solar System.’

  ‘Wait a second!’ cried Doctor Fiddle.  ‘Since when has it ever been your ship?  Me and the animals built it, not you.  It’s our ship and you’ve got nothing to do with it.  You’re just a passenger!’

  ‘We made a deal Doc,’ said Drim leaning forward and meeting the Doctors unhappy glance head on.  ‘I helped you escape now you owe me!’

  This made Doctor Fiddle fall quiet because he knew it was true.

  ‘He has a point you know,’ Aradas spoke up.  ‘If it wasn’t for Drim here we would still be slaving away in that abysmal café.’

  ‘Then what do you want us to do?’

  ‘Find me this,’ said Drim Brazer placing a cloth map on the computer desk.  ‘It’s a Star Map,’ he told them.  ‘The dots you see all over it are stars.  But that large X in the middle is where I want you to take me.’

  ‘And what is the X?’

  ‘You will find out when we get there,’ he replied.

Doctor Fiddle was in despair.  His tour of the universe had transformed into escapade for Drim Brazer, a hitherto complete stranger!

  It was an unacceptable, almost disposable situation.  “We may have escaped the teapot,” the doctor thought, “but how are we ever going to escape Drim Brazer?”

  The answer to that would have to wait because at the moment they were apparently stuck with him.  

  But that was not an entirely bad thing, as Doctor Fiddle and the animals soon discovered Drim Brazer seemed to know a few things about space…

  ‘We are on the outskirts of the Solar System,’ he said.  ‘If we keep our present course we will soon enter the Merry Festival System.  It’s a great place!  I had lots of fun the last time I was there.’

  But they needed more water.  There was only enough water in Drim Brazer's pistols too last the ships engines a few hours.  

  ‘Our engines are nearly dry,’ said Doctor Fiddle.  ‘We need to replenish our water supplies immediately!  Surely there must be a planet out there in space that within our reach and also contains water?’

  ‘Don’t panic Doc,’ said Drim coolly.  ‘I know where to go!  Consider our water problems solved!’

  

'Here's our first stop,' said Drim Brazer.

  There was a planet on their screen and when they looked at it they saw that it was perfectly round, and it had this wonderful golden browny look to it - 'that planet looks like it has been nicely cooked!' said Aradas.  'Why I could almost eat that planet!'

  'We'll take the ship in and land,' said Drim.  'There's someone on this planet I want to meet!'

  Doctor Fiddle was not amused when he heard this.  ‘What about the water?’ he said.

  ‘It can wait, Doc.  Just have some patience.’

  ‘Actually it can’t wait!  We run out of water and we are stuck out in the middle of nowhere forever!’

  ‘Cool it down Doc, please!’ said Drim.  ‘I’ll get us the water, don’t worry.  I know what I am doing.  I know space, and I know ships.  I’d go as far as to say I know spaceships and space better than I know my own hands.’

  ‘Well I have only your word to take for that,’ said Doctor Fiddle.

  ‘Well you could do with a lot worse,’ Drim Brazer replied.  ‘Now before we go any further I think we should all be given different roles to carry out inside the ship.  It’s a mess inside here and we need to sort things out before we go any further.’

  ‘Sounds a good idea,’ said Aradas.  ‘Who am I going to be then?’

  ‘Aradas, I want you to be the ships chief engineer because you are such a smart fellow!  Fackle the owl will be our technician, and I of course will be the captain!’

  Doctor Fiddle cleared his throat and approached the newly self-appointed captain Drim Brazer.  ‘And what am I supposed to be?’

  ‘Sorry to leave you out like that Doc,’ said Drim, and he paused for a second over a thought.  ‘I didn’t think that far ahead.  I suppose you could be our… cleaner?  How does that sound?’

  The Doctor was incensed.  ‘It sounds terrible!’ he cried.  ‘This space adventure was my idea – my brains built this ship.  I am a doctor, and I went to University as well, and you – YOU!’ and now he was gesticulating, ‘Drim Brazer dare to delegate me to cleaning duties!  Who do you think you are to treat with me in such a way?’

  Drim shrugged.  ‘I’m me and no one else,’ he replied.  ‘Let’s take a vote and sort this out once and for all.  All who think I should be the captain of the Disconnectable say “One up for Drim!”’

  Both Fackle and Aradas cried in unison: “One up for Drim!!”

  ‘That’s three cheers if you include mine as well,’ said Drim.  He slapped his hand on the Doctors shoulder and laughed.  ‘So Doc - or perhaps I should say cleaner,’ he said, ‘fetch yourself a bucket and broom!’

  Doctor Fiddle was lost for words!  He retired to the corner of the ship and sat there with his head bowed and miserable.

A few minutes later the space ship had landed on the golden brown planet.

  They stepped out onto the warm sand below and started to explore.

  They didn’t walk far when this strange, very tall man (I’d say he was over six foot – that or he was standing on stilts) stepped up from behind a hill and approached them.  He was wearing a long trench coat that his feet threatened to trip on with almost every step, and on his head he was balancing a clock!

  ‘Hello there!’ he said when he met Drim Brazer and the others.  ‘I don’t suppose any of you fellows could tell us the time?’

  ‘You could find that out for yourself,’ said Drim Brazer, and when the strange tall man asked, HOW?  Drim replied, ‘Well there’s a clock on your head – you fool!’

  The strange tall man laughed at him, and said, ‘How silly of you!  Why do you think I put the clock on my head?  I put it there so others can tell it to me!  My name is Shandy by the way!’

  ‘That’s interesting to hear,’ said Drim Brazer.  He was eager to change the conversation, and he did so by asking this question, ‘I am looking for someone called Drifter.  He’s an old friend of mine.  I don’t suppose you know where I can find him?  I know he lives on this planet, and despite his name he never goes anywhere.  He’s got to still be about here somewhere?’

  ‘So you are looking for Drifter?  I know him.  He’s my brother, actually, and he’s in hiding.  But luckily I know where he is.  I am the only one who knows about his secret hiding place!’  

  ‘I suppose he told you because you are his brother?’

  ‘No not really.  He just needs me to do all his shopping for him.’

  

So Shandy (still balancing his clock on his head) led them to the secret hideout which in the end turned out to be a small shed with the words written on top “YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THIS PLACE – followed by – ITS ONLY A HALLUCINATION!!!”

  Aradas looked at the shed, turned his head to face Doctor Fiddle, and said; ‘now that, I know for sure, is a hallucination!'

  And Doctor Fiddle replied, ‘You are learning, my dear horse, you are learning indeed!  One day your brain will be as oiled and as fine-tuned as my own!’

  Drim, with his hands resting tentatively on the hilt of his water pistols, walked into the building while the others nervously followed.  None of them knew what to expect…

  ‘Hey Drifter!’ Drim shouted as he entered, ‘it’s me, Drim Brazer… show yourself you old rascal!’  

  …It was quite a tense moment - The Space Cowboy looked ready for a fight.  Who is this Drifter? everyone was thinking, and why does Drim want to see him so much?  

  ‘I’m over here,’ a weak voice replied.  

  They didn’t know it but there was a strange man in the corner of the room and he was hiding in a very large flower pot…

  ‘Sorry about the pot,’ said the voice.  ‘Today I am disguised as a flower.  That’s probably why you didn’t notice me until now.  Wait one second and I will get out.’

  He titled the flower pot till it toppled over and crashed into pieces.  Standing in the middle of the clay shards was a middle aged man with a bolding head above his brow.  He was wearing a pair of bracers whose straps he was repeatedly tugging all the time.  

  This was Drifter then.

  ‘Well blow me trousers down if it isn’t flipping Drim Brazer!’ was the first thing he said.  ‘It has been a while since we last met.’

  ‘Seven years since the Space Owl Wars ended,’ Drim replied.  ‘Why were you standing in a flower pot just now?’

  ‘I have a disguise for every day.  I need to keep in disguise or I might be caught!  You know what it has been like since the war.  There isn’t a single planet out there you can land on and live in peace.  Your every movement is being watched – there are cameras everywhere!’

  ‘Sounds a bad business,’ said Drim.

  ‘I’ve got to keep my head down,’ Drifter went on.  ‘They are tracking my moves, you see.  They track every leg movement that I make.  I think it’s the reason why my trousers won’t stay up!

  ‘So who is tracking you?’

  ‘The C.O.F of course!’

  ‘Really?’ Drim sounded surprised.  ‘How long have they been tracking you?’

  ‘For as long as I have been tracking them,’ Drifter replied.  

  ‘And how long is that?’ Drim asked, and Drifter said, ‘almost as long as these bracers I have to keep pulling up!’

  And then Drifter noted Drim Brazer’s odd looking companions, and he suddenly looked afraid…

  ‘And who are these lads with you?’ and then he added in a whisper, ‘I mean - do they work for the C.O.F?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Drim Brazer.  ‘These guys are clean.  They travel with me in my ship, the Disconnectable.  The horse is my chief engineer.  The owl sat on his head is the technician.  The other guy in the back, that’s Doc Fid – he don’t do much.’

  Doctor Fiddle stepped up and spoke out load so all could hear him, ‘I’ll have you know that I have been to University and I am a Doctor in thermodynamics!’

  He was ignored.

  ‘It’s the reason why I am here,’ Drim continued.  ‘The C.O.F thinks I am dead.  I kind of want them to keep thinking that.  I don’t want them chasing me next…  I prefer to stay out of all that serious business if possible.  So what I am saying is, Drifter, old pale, best buddy; If they do ever get round to capturing you I don’t suppose you could put a good word in for me – or perhaps even not say anything about me at all?’

  ‘Well…They caught me a few days back, in fact; I was disguised as a basket at the time but I think they must have seen through it when I made myself a cup of tea.  When they had finished interrogating me I told them that you had survived the war and that you were alive and well.’

  ‘Well thanks for that, buddy.  Thanks for looking out for me…’

  ‘No problem, Drim.  That's what friends are for.  We got to look out for each other in these dark times.’

  ‘Did they say anything else to you?’

  ‘Yeah.  They told me that they have sent mercenaries after you.’

  ‘Mercenaries?’

  ‘That’s right.  And they have employed worst crew of all.  They call themselves The Rabbit People…’

  Drim's face literally turned pale.  His facial features had changed into the image of pure horror...  Drim Brazer never came across as the kind of man who would worry about things but at that moment he looked terrified.  

  The Space Cowboy gasped.  'The Rabbit People,' he said afterwards, 'they are my worst enemies!'

  Aradas was slowly growing impatient with all these crazy names.  ‘Before we go any further with this,’ he said.  ‘You are going to have to tell us who the heck are the C.O.F!’

  ‘That is the name given to the Confederacy of Federations,’ Drim explained.  ‘Three Federations bound into a mighty Confederacy.  They are very powerful.  I don’t think there is a single planet out there in space where they don’t have some ground under their control.  They are absolutely everywhere!’

  ‘Well I have never heard of them,’ said Aradas.  ‘So they can’t be that powerful or absolutely everywhere.’

  ‘That’s the key to their success,’ said Drim, ‘they are there – but then at the same time not really there…if you get my meaning…’

  ‘If they are not really there then they can’t be much of threat then?’ the horse pointed out.

  ‘That’s what they want you to believe!’ Drim replied, and then he explained, ‘that’s how they rule the galaxy, by saying they do, when really they don’t.  They pretend to be in charge, and that’s what gives them their power!’

  ‘Well they sound like idiots to me.’

  ‘You don’t know them as well as I do.  Like I said the C.O.F is made up out of three Federations.  They are the Federation of Puns, the Federation of Shoes and the Federation of Confetti, and I am enemies with all three of them!’

  ‘Flipping heck mate you half aint half got a complicated life!’ said Aradas, and Drim replied, ‘I’ve made enemies with the most violent, most powerful, most stupid men in the galaxy – not many can claim to that.’   Drim made that speech sound like it was all something to be proud about.

  'Well the C.O.F is definitely on to you Drim,' said Drifter.  'They told me themselves in person.'

  'You mean they have actually been here?'  Drim Brazer sounded aghast.

  'O yeah.  They've been around, sniffing about.  And the Alternative-President was here in person as well.  But then it got to that time of day –’ now here a hush fell upon the room and Drifter found that he could speak no more.

  Drim Brazer was confused.  What time of day?  What was his friend talking about?

  'Why pancake hour, of course.  Don't you know about it my friend?  You are on planet Forever Pancake Day!  Everyone who lives here knows to stay off the streets when it gets to pancake hour.'

  'Why?  What happens on pancake hour then?'

  'On pancake hour the pancakes go on the move!  They attack anyone they see!  They never attack me because I am in disguise, and Shandy, well, no one ever bothers with him so he doesn't have to worry, but you lot, being strangers, aren't safe at all.  You better get back to your ship and fly away before - o dear....' he was looking out of the window, and you could see him beginning to quake with fear.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I already think it’s too late!’

  Now everyone was looking out of the window, and this is what they saw; three golden pancakes had appeared out of nowhere and they were flopping about on the road – it was an amazing, not to mention frightening sight to behold.  

  ‘As soon as they get a whiff of you they will be tracking you down like dogs,’ said Drifter.  ‘You better get out now and go back to your ship.  But don’t use the front door!  They will see you if you go that way.  Shandy will show you a secret way we have out at the back!’

  ‘Don’t worry I will show you the way,’ said Shandy, and then he began to tut and shake his head.  Then he grumbled, ‘Here’s poor old me helping you out, making sure you are not captured by those ravenous pancakes, and still nobody will tell me the time!’

The secret way out turned out to be nothing more than door leading into a back alley, that eventually led them into the countryside.  They could have used the front door, and still ended up standing in the same place.

  The pancakes were flipping about the trunk of a very large tree; it looked like they were caught up in some kind of strange pancake dance!

  ‘I better get back inside the base,’ said Shandy, still balancing that clock on his head.  ‘I don’t fancy being pancaked!  I need to find out what time it is first!’

  He disappeared from view leaving Drim Brazer and the others stranded and alone.

  ‘We should have asked them if they had any water,’ said Doctor Fiddle.  ‘I don’t think the ships engines will be able to handle another take off…’

  ‘With me at the helm the Disconnectable can handle anything,’ said Drim.  ‘But first we need to make sure those pancakes don’t see us.’

  It was too late…

  They had seen Aradas and the others – they knew where they were and now they were heading straight in their direction!

  ‘I don’t think we are going to be able to outrun these guys,’ said Drim Brazer.  ‘I think we are going to have to fight!’  Drim brought up his two water pistols and let it rain water on the pancakes.  The pancakes didn’t like this, and they rolled round in full retreat!

  Once he had got his breath back Doctor Fiddle exploded with anger.  ‘Stopping wasting our water supplies!’ he cried.

  ‘Wait a second doc,’ Drim returned, ‘before you start throwing your hard words at me I just saved your life!   Those pancakes were almost on us.  If I wasn’t with you we would all be goners!’

  ‘That is incorrect!’ Doctor Fiddle replied.  ‘If you weren’t here - Drim Brazer - we wouldn’t be here either!  You brought us to this dangerous planet, you crazy fool!’

  Aradas looked up, his ears and nose were twitching – he could sense something!  ‘I think they are coming back!’ he cried.

  And he was true.  A dozen or so pancakes were flipping over the hills.  

  ‘I don’t think they can see us yet,’ said Drim.  ‘Maybe if we climb into this nearby tree they might go by and we will be safe?’

  There was a great tree standing conveniently right in front of them – in its branches there was a sign, it read: “Prince Charles Tree, get up there if you see anything Round go by!”

  Getting up into the tree wasn’t going to be a problem for someone like Fackle, because he was a bird and could fly, but Aradas the horse… he had to be pushed up into the lower branch on the shoulders of his two friends Doctor Fiddle and Drim Brazer.  It was a difficult job, because the horse was heavy, and Doctor Fiddle was tired; Fackle tried to help by offering words of encouragement like “AH!  The pancakes are almost on us!”  The seconds seemed to last hours and the pancakes always seemed to get closer – but eventually they got the darn horse onto the branch, and Doctor Fiddle and Drim just had time to climb up themselves.  

  The pancakes rolled away underneath, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘We will wait for them to disappear from view,’ said Drim Brazer.  ‘Then when they are gone we will climb down and find the ship again.’

  Getting down the tree was every bit as difficult as getting into it, again because of Aradas, who was so large and awkward.  In the end the branch he was on snapped and then the horse fell right down directly on Doctor Fiddle.  ‘That was quite a soft landing,’ said Aradas.  ‘Thank you for standing there, Doctor.’

  I think Doctor Fiddle would have said something like, “you disposable horse!” if it wasn’t for the fact that he was unconscious, and it took several minutes to revive him.

  Then they were on the move again, looking left right and behind, making sure the pancakes weren’t sneaking up on them again.

  Soon the ship was in sight and pancakes as well!  Hundreds of them were waiting in ambush!

  But Aradas and his friends didn’t mess around.  

  They leaped aboard the space ship, slammed the door too, threw the engines into action and in a few minutes were back in space again.  They had left all the hundreds of pancakes hoping angrily on the ground below, and very soon, in a few minutes, the planet of Forever Pancake Day eventually looked like an ordinary pancake again floating in the black ether with the stars twinkling beside it.

Chapter 

‘I can defiantly say in all my life I’ve never known such sizzling pancakes!’ said Drim Brazer lounging in the captain’s chair with his feet up on the controls.  He was speaking about their whole pancake adventure like it was something casual, or fun, and not a near death experience which is what it really was.  ‘I don’t know how I got us out of that one, but fair play to me I did a darn fine job of it!’

  ‘You almost got us killed!’ cried Doctor Fiddle.  He would have plucked out tufts of his hair in desperation if he hadn’t felt so tired at the time.  Instead he just looked out of the window with a sad droopy face, and admired the simple never ending blackness of space.

  ‘The engines are almost dry,’ he groaned.  ‘We are doomed to drift forever in nothingness.’

  ‘I told you before we set out that I have a plan for everything,’ said Drim.  ‘I have pointed this ship in the direction of a planet I know of and been to before and I can tell you this - it is literally covered all over in water!’

  ‘You mean it’s a water planet?’

  ‘You said it Doc!  A whole planet covered in the best water you could ever imagine.  You’ll have so much water at the end of the day, Doc, when the engines have been refilled you will be able to bottle the rest and sell it in shops and make a fortune!’

  And Drim was right, the planet he was speaking about appeared on their screen.  Everyone danced, or beat their wings with jubilation!  They had been saved!  

  ‘It’s call planet Deep Down,’ Drim told his friends.  ‘You better get the engines ready.  Soon this ship will sail like a dream when it gets a taste of the water that sparkles over the surface of this planet!’

  Unfortunately when they landed on the planet they found nothing but a draught.

  The planet actually turned out to be a desert...

  ‘Maybe we took a wrong turn?’ said Aradas, but Drim Brazer shook his head.  

  ‘This is the place I know it is,’ he said.  ‘I mean read that sign over there.  It tells you where we are!’

  There was a retired whale lying on the sand not far away and it was holding a huge sign under its flipper and on it written in red paint were these words: “Deep Down is deep no more!”

  Doctor Fiddle mused over the situation.  ‘I wonder what happened here?’ he said. 

  ‘Ah it’s just the dry season,’ said a voice not far away.  A metal latch, about a metre away, opened up in the sand and a gruff fat man wearing a helmet on his head stepped out to meet them.  ‘It’s been sunny for weeks,’ he said.  ‘We had the warmest winter you could image.  If you had been here this time last year a total different picture would have greeted you.  We had nothing but wind and rain.  There were floods everywhere!  And now we get nothing but sunshine, and then after that this draught.  I tell you the weather on this darn planet goes from one extreme to the other!’

  ‘So it would seem,’ grumbled Doctor Fiddle.  He examined all the dust with a speculative gaze, and then he turned to face Drim Brazer and said, ‘I suppose you have another fine plan up your sleeve to get us out of this one?’

  ‘My motto: always be ready for the worst,’ said Drim Brazer.  ‘Keep your head down and the rest of yourself out of it and the worst will never get you.  That’s how I have always lived.  Anyway, there’s another planet we can go to and it’s only just round the corner…’

  ‘You might be interested to know that our engines are dry, Drim Brazer.  Our ship is never going to move again without water, and you have landed us in the middle of a desert!’

  ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ said the man with the helmet, standing halfway out of the metal hatch intently listening to them argue, ‘it’s just I can hear the kettle singing below, and there is more than enough room down here for you all to join us in a bit of rest and recreation!’

  Everyone said it was a good idea and agreed to follow him.

  Inside the hatch there was a metal lift and it took them down to the inside of a long stone tunnel.  The tunnel seemed to run on in front of them forever.  Electrical lights were flickering on the ceiling and ran the full length of the tunnel but only barely lifted the gloom that surrounded them.  

  ‘My headquarters are not far away,’ said the man with the helmet.  ‘I know it looks quite a distance from here but honestly it won’t take long – just an hour or two....’

  ‘Before we go any further,’ said Doctor Fiddle, ‘what is this place and what do you do here?’

  ‘I am a plumber,’ the replied.  ‘This tunnel we are in is part of a vast network of drainage pipes.  We are actually standing in a sewage system!’  

  ‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed Doctor Fiddle.  ‘Can my situation get more wretched?  First I am chased by pan cakes and now I am standing in a sewer!  What did I ever do to deserve this?’

  ‘It seems strange,’ said Aradas, ‘to have a sewage system here on a planet where nobody lives.  I mean, I know there is a desert up there, but isn’t this world usually covered in water?  Even so, desert or ocean, it just seems a bit silly to build a sewage system!’

  ‘O we built it for the whales my friend!’ said the plumber.  

  Everyone, even Aradas, was flabbergasted when they heard this.

  ‘You built a sewage system for whales?  Why?’

  ‘We just want to keep the oceans clean,’ said the plumber, and then he explained why.  ‘We clean water on as many planets as we can.  It’s our way.  It’s what we do.  We are on a mission.  Every planet we see we have to settle down and starting cleaning it up.  The whales love the place, can’t you tell by that happy glint they have in their eyes?  You will never find an ocean this clean anywhere in the Galaxy.  Surely you must appreciate seeing a clean bit of water?’

  ‘Well as I don’t live in the ocean I wouldn’t know,’ said Aradas.  ‘And the planet is a desert, anyway.  If that’s your way of keeping the water cleaning, with there being absolutely no water about at all, then you are doing a darn good job!’

  ‘Thanks,’ the plumber replied.  ‘Now let’s head to that tea I mentioned earlier!  My office is not far ahead.  Just wait a minute while I go and fetch my bike…’

  A bike?  

  Aradas found this interesting and had to ask him what he used the bike for.  ‘Do you use a bike to move up and down these tunnels?’ he said.  ‘That’s quite a good idea.  I would use one as well if I could ever fit in the saddle…’

  ‘Me ride a bike?’ the plumber replied and chuckled.  ‘Now that would be lazy of me!’

  He left the scene and returned seconds later actually carrying a bicycle on his back!  When he met the expressionless faces of the others he shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Just taking the bike for a ride!’

  Everyone was so stricken by disbelief that they could not find anything to say.  Not even Aradas could imagine why someone would want to carry a bike on their back.

  ‘Right follow me then,’ he said, and off he trotted; the bike he was carrying was obviously heavy, and twice he trembled and dropped the thing, but he only laughed picked it up and carried on again.

  ‘Here’s my office then,’ he said directing them into what appeared to be a very empty room.

  ‘I’ll be back in a few seconds,’ he said, and if he hadn’t already amazed everyone enough for one day he increased their general astonishment by saying, ‘I am just going to wash the bike and put it to bed.  It’s getting late out there, you know?’

  Doctor Fiddle felt that he had to say something to this.  ‘Well there is one thing I do know, my friend,’ he said, ‘and that is you are the strangest man I have ever known!’  But the plumber merely chuckled and calmly turning round he replied, ‘Better to be strange than boring!’

  Then he closed the door on them.

  After waiting an hour Doctor Fiddle thought to try the handle, and found to his surprise that it had been locked!

  ‘If he forgets us we won’t have much of a chance of getting out you know?’ he said, but Drim Brazer who was leaning on the wall looked quite relaxed, said, ‘He’ll be back!’

  ‘How do you know that?’ said Doctor Fiddle.

  Drim said, ‘I know his sort.  He won’t leave us here.’

  ‘He won’t, hey?’ grumbled Doctor Fiddle.  ‘Well I will just have to go along with what you say, Drim Brazer.  I won’t argue with the kind of man like you, someone who says we are landing on a water planet that turns out to be nothing but a desert!  I would never attempt to waste energy and breathe in such an exchange!’

  Just as he finished speaking the door opened, and an exultant Drim gave the Doctor a wink and said, ‘When am I ever wrong, hey Doc?’  

  But it wasn’t the plumber who had opened the door.  As they entered the room Aradas and his companions had the chance to inspect this stranger now standing before them under the flickering lights.

  ‘My manager would like to meet you,’ they said.  

  Standing right in front of them was a large dog dressed in a butler’s suit.  It was holding a tray out in its paw and on it was balanced a singular cup of tea.  

  Because the dog had just proven it could talk Doctor Fiddle decided he would speak to the animal.  ‘Sorry if I sound rude,’ he said, ‘but who are you?’

  But the Dog repeated, My manager would like to meet you…

  ‘What’s with the cup and tray?’ spoke up Aradas, who fancied a drink and had his eyes on the steaming cup of tea.

  The Dog replied by raising its paw, taking the cup firmly in its claws, and drinking down the contents within.

  “Well that was helpful,” everyone thought.

  Then without further notice the dog wobbled away still balancing the tray in the air with one raised leg.  The animal looked ridiculous!

  Having nothing else to do Aradas and the others decided to follow the weird creature.

  It led them along the tunnel, they walked forward in a straight line and when it looked as if they were not going to find anything interesting the tunnel turned, and they were suddenly surrounded by mist, vapors of pure filth, and after wading through this they found themselves standing in a large room with a pool of green ooze bubbling in the middle.

  There was someone standing beside the green pool, but it was not the talking dog – that thing was now nowhere to be seen, it was something far more disappointing than that – it was the plumber again…

  ‘There you are!’ he said.  ‘You made it then?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Doctor Fiddle, who shared the same confused state of mind as his companions.  ‘Don’t tell me you are the manager?  What was that business with the dog?  Why couldn’t you come and see us yourself.’

  And the plumber replied, ‘I am a busy man.  I have two jobs, you see.  I work down in the sewers most of the time, but in secret I am an agent of the C.O.F and you lot are wanted criminals!’

  ‘C.O.F?’ said Aradas.  ‘Is that the Cranky Old Flippers… oh no!  You mean the Confederacy of Federations!?’

  ‘Indeed,’ said the plumber.  ‘A few days ago our spies gave us this information – ’ and he produced a letter from his pocket and read it out loud:

You will find the filthy criminal, Drim Brazer, travelling in the company of a certain horse whose main feature I have been asked to explicitly express is its notable roundness.  This rotund creature has been seen wobbling beside the said Drim Brazer - enemy of the state.  Our benefactor also kindly provided descriptions of two other characters in the company of this wanted villain – one was a flapping creature, most like a bird of the owl-kind, and the other was this pretty useless, rubbish looking man (we probably don’t have to worry about him so if he manages to escape just let him go). Keep an eye open for this band of criminals, and arrest them on sight in the name of the C.O.F!

  It was interesting to note that the author of the message actually used the word “wobbling” when describing the motion of the horses’ movements!  

  But this only made Aradas chuckle, and he said, ‘I suppose I do wobble every now and then!’

  ‘It was the first thing I noticed about you,’ said the plumber.  ‘In fact it was the horse who gave you all away.’

  Drim Brazer was baffled by this turn of bad luck.  ‘I just need to get this straight in my head,’ he said.  ‘The C.O.F has actually ordered a secret agent to work under cover as a plumber inside a sewage system beneath a random dust planet in the middle of nowhere?’

  ‘I understand how it sounds crazy,’ said the plumber.  ‘But here you are now in our power Drim Brazer, so it was a good idea in the end,’ then he added under his breath ‘it was my idea actually!’  Then he continued to speak normally.  ‘All I need do now,’ he said, ‘is hand you over to the Rabbit People when they arrive…’

  ‘Rabbit People?’

  ‘I have been in communication with them for the last few days.  They have ships only a few hours away, and they will be here very soon.’

   ‘Well it seems you got us,’ said Drim Brazer, acting quite coolly, to everyone’s surprise.   ‘It seems we are going to meet a bad end after all.  Before we die I don’t suppose you’ve got some drinking water at hand?  I’m just a bit thirsty you see, and I could do with a drink.’

  ‘We have a water decanter at the back,’ said the plumber, and when Drim Brazer heard this he smiled and slapped the Plumber on the shoulder like he was some old friend.  ‘Listen up,’ he started, speaking like some pro “I’ve got all the cards” businessman, ‘I know what the C.O.F really wants.  I have the Star Map and I have hidden it on board my ship.  Give us some water to drink, and I will fetch it for you.  It will save you searching later on, and you will get all the credit for finding the map first!’

  ‘A drink of water hey?  That’s all?  Well we are not savages here, Drim Brazer.  I won’t deny a thirsty man.  I’ll fetch you water and you fetch me the map and we can call it a done deal!’

  ‘That’s what I like,’ said Drim, ‘there really is nothing better than a done deal done well.’

  But when the Plumber returned Drim Brazer saluted the man and said, ‘I’ll go fetch the map right now.  I’ll take this water with me as well and drink it on the way.’  He carefully took the cup in his hands and returned back down the tunnel with his friends at his side.  As they walked along he gave Doctor Fiddle a crafty wink and whispered, ‘I think this definitely stands as my best plan yet!’

  They entered the lift which took them back to the surface.  Their spaceship, the Disconnectable was waiting for them.  They hoped on board and Drim Brazer threw the cup of water into the engines.  ‘Let’s get off this worthless rock!’ he shouted.  Soon the engines were rattling like a blocked drainpipe, and in a few minutes they were back in space.

  But even though they had escaped Drim Brazer was not his usual self exultant self.  Instead he was very quiet, and after examining the computer screen he slowly turned around and said to his friends, ‘We can’t celebrate yet!  I can see other ships out there.  Looks like we are being followed…’

Chapter : Aradas and the Interstellar Space Ball

‘It appears these Rabbit People mean business,’ said Doctor Fiddle.  ‘They will catch us unless we are ultra-careful.  Somehow we need to lose them – I don’t suppose anybody here has a plan?’

  At this point Drim Brazer was rolling up his sleeves.  ‘You should know me by now,’ said Drim.  ‘When do I never have a plan?  It just so happens that I have one ready to use right here right now.’

  ‘Well that’s great,’ said Doctor Fiddle sarcastically.  ‘So what is it this time?  Get chased by pancakes, or refill our dwindling supply of water on a desert planet?  Your plans have been pretty interesting so far, and nearly got us killed.  Sometimes I wonder if you actually do have plans, or if you aren’t just making things up as you go along.’

  ‘I have got a true cracker of a plan this time,’ said Drim Brazer.  ‘In fact I think it is the best plan I have ever had.’

  ‘Really?’ said Doctor Fiddle.  He was very sceptic, and he had a good reason to be what with the way things had been going.  His relaxing tour of the wonder of space had been transformed into a wild chase – and now there was a genuine risk that he and the animals might just be captured by the dreaded Rabbit People.

  ‘Straight up!’ Drim replied.  ‘This plan is so full-proof you could put against A wall, shoot it with a gun and watch the bullets bounce right back off it!  This plan is made of metal, Doc.  You could accidentally kill yourself with it if you weren’t careful.’

  ‘Alright.  So what is it then?’

  ‘Have you ever heard of Planet Let’s Get into A Dance?’

  ‘Funnily enough, no I haven’t,’ Doctor Fiddle replied.

  ‘Well let me tell you it’s a smashing place,’ said Drim Brazer.  ‘I have been there a few times and it’s always been great.  The people living there are the best you can imagine, they just party all day and do nothing else but that.’  

  ‘So none of them work?’

  ‘They would even know what work meant,’ Drim replied.  ‘They are too clever to get involved with all that kind of thing.  Their days are divided by two events; the first revolves around them getting drunk, and the second event usually sees them falling about the floor.’

  ‘They sound like a civilised people,’ said Doctor Fiddle sarcastically.  ‘And how are these people going to help in your plan?’

  ‘My good Doc,’ Drim replied, ‘they ARE the plan!’  Drim Brazer decided to acknowledge the blank expressions he received by elucidating his previous speech.  ‘We are going to use all those people as cover.  We are going to blend in with the crowds.  We will have to wear disguises, of course, and when we are out there among all the other dancers the Rabbit People will never recognise us!’

  It seemed for the first time since they had known him that Drim Brazer had finally managed to offer that degree if polish which is required to make a really good plan shine.  He had conceived something that was entirely plausible - but as good as the plan was it still weighed heavily below the surface of perfection by a number of sagging flaws.

  First they did not have any disguises.

  The second problem was Aradas.  How were they ever going to disguise a full grown horse in a hall full of dancers?  

  ‘I know a shop where we can purchase costumes for the ball,’ said Drim Brazer.  ‘That part of the plan is sorted.  We will go there first.’

  ‘But what are we going to do about Aradas?’ said Doctor Fiddle.  ‘The Rabbit People know that we are travelling through space with a horse.  Even among a crowd of dancers a horse is still really going to stand out!’

  ‘I have a simple answer for that,’ said Drim Brazer.  ‘We will just have to tell them that Aradas is not a horse!  We will have to find a really good disguise for him first.  Let’s wait till we reach the shop, and then I will tell you what I plan to do.’

They finally reached the famous planet of Shop-Me-Not.  It was a whole planet dominated by one super shop which contained everything you could imagine, even blunt pins.  

  There was also a section called Glorious Costumes, and it was run by this bloated green slug called Master Tailor.

  The first thing Aradas asked the slug was, ‘How do you manage to work as a tailor when you have got no hands?’ and the slug replied, ‘I use my eyes!’

  Aradas decided that he wasn’t interested in how that worked so he didn’t bother to ask any more questions.  

  ‘We have finest costumes here,’ said the slug.  ‘Please, friends, vocalise if there is a particular brand of costume one would like to purchase.’

  ‘You have different brands?’

  ‘Please,’ the slug went on, ‘let me bring your attention to our pedigree rabbit purchase.  This particular set is most popular with politicians and comes complete with five separate rabbit costumes.  They allow the wearer complete freedom of movement and are designed especially for all manner of working conditions, including office and factory work.  Thanks to our rabbit costumes it is now possible for you, friends and family, to re-enact the Great Rabbit Picnic Adventures based upon the classic works of M.B.Buckley.’

  ‘That’s not what we had in mind,’ said Drim Brazer.  ‘We plan to blend in with the crowds – rabbit costumes would sort of make us stand out – quite badly I think.’

  ‘Then maybe I can introduce you to our fine range of gazelle costumes.  You will never stand out in the African plains dressed in these.  You will be skipping across the dusty wastes with your friends and sight seers will look on and go “Why look at that fine band of happy gazelle’s running along – and oh my, see how they are being freely ravaged by a lion…’

  ‘We are not planning on going to Africa,’ Drim Brazer replied.  ‘We are planning to attend the Space Ball and we need disguises.  To make a long story short we are wanted by the C.O.F and we need outfits to help us hide among the crowds.’

  ‘Party outfits, hey?’ said the slug in its slurpy voice, ‘how intriguing.  Then I think I should introduce you to our select range,’ and then the slug slid to the one side of his shop and showed them a couple of rather badly done and crumpled looking outfits shaped like…   hippos?  Nobody, not even Aradas, could tell what they were supposed to be.

  The costumes were simply awful, and the stitches looked like they were more than happy to fall apart at any time.  Worst of all was the price tag – people in the far reaches of space living under the C.O.F used land as their currency and this set of disgusting hippo costumes cost the payer a total of fifty thousand acres!

  But the slug seemed proud of them for some reason.  ‘Let your eyes feast upon our premium priced Hyper Hippo costumes,’ he said.  ‘By the look of your expressions you have never heard of the popular children’s programme?  It’s all the rage these days; everyone loves to dress up as a hippo in parties these days, even I do every now and then.’

  “Hyper Hippo’s?” thought Aradas – and he muttered to himself, “more like Deranged Hippo’s.”  What kind of a fool what would want to dress in them?  And by the look of the badly done stitch work the costumes would fall off straight away!

  The slug was waiting anxiously for an answer, and he showed this by twitching his tail and swinging his eyes about.  ‘Well?  Will you buy?  The Hyper Hippos are yours for half a planet – did you hear me?  Just half a planet, so let’s get talking business or maybe your just not interesting in buying anything after all…’

  ‘Me and my friends need to think,’ said Drim Brazer.  

  ‘Then think away,’ said the slug, oozily.  ‘I don’t sleep and have plenty of time to wait.  And wait I will, till I can fetch you a bill – and make a deal will both live beside happily ever after.’

‘I can’t stand that slug,’ said Aradas when they moved into a different room.  ‘I right slippery slimy fellow.’

  ‘Ignore him,’ said Drim Brazer.  ‘All we need to think about now are what costumes we are going to wear.’

  ‘Do you have anything in mind?’ said the horse.

  Drim Brazer had been thinking about this part the most.  He knew what to do.  ‘To enter the Space Ball you need to have a partner to dance with,’ he said, ‘so I am going to pretend I have brought my family with me.  Aradas will be my wife, so we need to get him a dress to wear.  Fackle will be our little boy, and Doctor Fiddle will be the Granddad!’

  When Doctor Fiddle heard this he couldn’t contain his fury.  ‘Ever since you have taken over my ship you have worked effortlessly to humiliate me!’ the Doctor fumed.  ‘But listen to me now, Drim Brazer; I won’t stand for it any no more!’

  ‘You need to cool down Doc,’ Drim replied, calmly.  ‘You’ll burst a vessel if you can’t keep yourself together.  Before you rage again just listen to me.  We are working against time, and I know from experience that time don’t hang around – and it certainly won’t for us.  We can’t mess about here.  We’ve got to be quick and we’ve got to get on with it!  So let’s have no more arguments!’

  Doctor Fiddle was obviously in a huff – but at the same time he knew that Drim Brazer had made a valid point.

  ‘Don’t forget that The Rabbit People are tracking us,’ Drim Brazer went on.  ‘So please Doc, stop acting unintelligent and help us out here.  You are going to be a Granddad for a couple of hours at a Space Ball – no one will see and no one will care.’

  Doctor Fiddle agreed that he was being stupid, and now the argument was finally over everyone decided it was time to purchase the costumes.  

  For Aradas they brought a great flowing flowery dress, and a long pink scarf which they wrapped around nearly all of his head.  

  ‘You look great,’ said Drim, patting the horse on the nose.  ‘We need to give you a more womanly name – I think we should call you Slappydas!’

  Aradas laughed and said, ‘That is a great name!  I shall be Slappydas Brazer!’

  ‘Now that’s you sorted,’ said Drim, ‘let’s see what we can do for the others!’

  Fackle was made to wear a coat and a pair of buckled shoes – this meant that the owl couldn’t fly anymore, so the poor immobile bird sat miserably on top of Aradas’s head.  They bought Doctor Fiddle this old cap to wear on his head but apart from that he didn’t need anything else, Drim Brazer said the Doctor looked fine as he was.  

  But Drim Brazer didn’t buy a costume for himself – ‘There’s no point me doing something like that,’ he said.  ‘I’m so famous I will be recognised anywhere.’

  After that bit of business had been done they returned to their ship and set off back into space.  

  ‘We are almost there,’ said Drim Brazer looking out of the window.  Nobody could see that they were getting close to anything because it all looked so black outside, and so they had to take his word for it.  But in the end Drim Brazer had been right, and in a few minutes a bluish sphere appeared in their sights.  

  ‘Here it is then,’ said the Space Cowboy, proudly.  ‘The Planet of Let’s Get into A Dance!  I haven’t seen this place in years.  Seven years in fact, not since the Space Owl Wars…’

  There was a bit of turbulence as the ship entered the planet’s atmosphere, and at one time there was a nasty wobble and poor old Aradas fell over onto his one side!  But once they were through the invisible barrier there was no further trouble for them, and Drim Brazer brought the ship gently down to the surface, parking it in a junkyard at the back of this old building.  

  They stepped out of the vessel and followed Drim Brazer along the dark road that ran before them.  Just ahead they started to hear the sound of music.  Indeed it sounded so incredible, that for a few minutes everyone just stood still so they could listen to it.  Even Aradas, who didn’t really like music that much, got caught up in the rhythm of it and started swishing his tail side to side.  

  Then their road started to end, and then a huge structure materialised before them.  This building, as it were, looked like it had been built out of light!  Hundreds of lights there were, all leaping frivolously under the blue starry dome above.  How marvellous it looked, so inviting and mysterious it lit up that whole region of the sky.  

  Finally they approached the main stairs leading up to the entrance, and these two shimmering sheets slowly parted creating an opening for them.  Within a few minutes they had passed through, and were standing inside the building of lights.

  Here there was a great hall, in fact it was so great you couldn’t see any side of it, it just appeared to go on forever into oblivion.  

  And there were people everywhere – all huddled into crowds, dancing and dancing – ‘This place would be no good if one was claustrophobic,’ Doctor Fiddle mused.  

  Aradas observed the revellers, and after taking note of their behaviour, turned to Drim Brazer and said, ‘Is that all people do here, just dance all the time?’

  ‘Dance and get drunk!’ the Space Cowboy replied.

  When he had heard this Doctor Fiddle muttered under his breath, ‘Sounds a bit like life on Earth then, really.’

  They were going to mingle with the crowds when this large man in a suit and boater hat invited them over to join his own private gathering.  He was presently sat to a table with a group of lizards and when Aradas approached he just heard hints of a conversation about bonsai trees.  

  The man in the boater hat immediately stood up and grabbed Drim Brazer’s hand and started vigorously shaking it.  ‘You don’t recognise me,’ said the man when he noticed Drim Brazer’s blank expression; the man in the boater hat had a disappointed look on his fat face.  ‘It’s me, your old buddy Tofter!  Can’t you remember?  We fought together during the Space Owl Wars!’

  Now Drim Brazer knew who the man was he cried with absolute joy and amazement.  ‘Tofter!  Of course!  Why the last time we met you were a skunk if I recall?’

  ‘Yes.  But I have had a full body changeover since then.’

  ‘I don’t blame you,’ Drim replied.  ‘I certainly wouldn’t want to be a skunk especially if I had the choice.  So what are you doing these days?’

  ‘I am a train conductor now,’ he replied.

  Drim had a little think about this, nodded his head and then he said, ‘A noble choice!  Do you enjoy it?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Tofter, ‘but once we ran out of coal for the engines so I burn pieces of toast and threw them on – and the train almost blew up…  apart form that it’s a fine job!’

  ‘It’s good to hear that you are doing well!’

  ‘And what are you these days?’ asked Tofter.  ‘Are you still that crazy old Space Cowboy?  Are you still being chased about the Galaxy by all and sundry?’

  ‘Not these days, old boy,’ Drim replied.  ‘I live the quiet life these days.  I’ve settled down.  To prove it I have brought my family with me.  Over there is my old pa,’ he showed them Doctor Fiddle, who stood growling in the back, ‘and next to him is my young son,’ and he pointed to Fackle the owl.  ‘And at my side is my fine wife Slappydas!’ here Drim Brazer pushed Aradas forth for all to see.

  ‘I’m Slappydas!’ said Aradas happily.  ‘I hope you like my nice pink dress!’

  Tofter observed the horse and then shook his head with amazement.  ‘We’ve known each other, Drim, all through the entire Space Owl Wars,’ he said to his friend, ‘but you never said you were married?’

  ‘Ah you know me,’ said Drim, giving his old friend a nudge with his elbow, ‘I was always a bit sly like that.’

  Then Tofter asked the horse, ‘So Slappydas, what do you do for a living?’

  Now this was a question Aradas was always happy to answer – ‘I like to stick my head up chimney’s!’ said the horse proudly.  ‘Working with chimneys is the best thing in the universe!’  

  ‘Chimney’s, hay?’ said Tofter, and he sounded puzzled, ‘that sounds a bit weird and random to me.  So why are you into that kind of thing?’

  ‘It’s been my dream since I were a wee lad…err… girl I mean.  I just like the idea of being stuck up in a chimney.  I think it stems from this experience I had as a very young foal,’ and then he told them his tale.  ‘I was exploring the old field once when I fell into this big old wastepipe used for draining the fens.  I was stuck there for quite a few days before I was found and rescued.  I could do nothing except just dangle there in that pipe, but in all the time I was there I had the most gorgeous breeze on my face, and that was when I knew that working with pipes was the life for me!’

  ‘Well fair play to you, I say,’ said Tofter.  ‘It must be good to know what you want to do.  Take me for example.  I never knew what I wanted to do when I left school.  I mean it was pretty hard to think about a career when two lads have you pinned down while a third clocks you one between the eyes, but I just never knew what I wanted to do.  I couldn’t find any work at all!  My parents wouldn’t have it, so they threw me out onto the streets!  Those were hard times for me.  But then the war came along, and that was it!  You could say that the war saved me!  I became a soldier, and that is my tale.’

  ‘Ah, those were good days!’ said Drim Brazer, and then he pulled himself a chair and sitting quite relaxed, began to reminisce.  ‘Life was simpler back then.  I think we should drink to those good old days!’

  ‘I’d like to do that, Drim,’ said Tofter, but then he sighed, leaned backwards into his chair and then for some strange reason he turned all gloomy and grey.  ‘I’ve got to get up early,’ he said.  ‘I’ve got some important things to take care of…’

  ‘Really?  Like what?’

  ‘I have got to take care of my trains, but I might save that for later on in the day.  First things first I need to see you and your mates locked up behind bars.’

  Drim Brazer burst into laughter!  Surely his old friend was just having a little joke with him!

  But when he saw that Tofter was now holding a gun in his hand Drim Brazer realised that his friend meant business. 

  ‘I am sorry, Drim,’ he said, ‘but you are wanted.’

  ‘So you are going to hand me over to the C.O.F then?’  

  Tofter shook his head.

  He had other plans, it seemed…

  ‘…Surely not the Rabbit People?’  Now Drim was really starting to panic!

  ‘You are wanted by a third party,’ said Tofter, ‘someone even higher than the C.O.F.  I shouldn’t divulge the name of my employer, but the man who pays my fee is none other than Prince Gallivant.’

  Here Drim was stumped.  ‘Who the heck is that?’ he asked.

  ‘How could you not know?’ said Tofter with a look of astonishment in his eyes.  ‘He is only the most powerful and influential man in the whole Galaxy!  He is better known as the supreme ruler of the never ending Broken Empire!’

  ‘Well I’ve never heard of him,’ said Drim.  He looked at his friends.  They shook their heads as well.  They hadn’t heard of a Prince Gallivant either.  ‘Are you sure you are not just making that name up?’ Drim asked his friend.

  ‘He has paid me already with several sheets of land,’ said Tofter.  Then he handed Drim Brazer his gun and said, ‘He gave me that weapon.  Look at it!  See this golden stamp on the handle?  It bears the seal of the High Prince.  That is the imperial mark!  Look!  That is the sign of royalty!’  Drim Brazer said he could see the royal mark (though it didn’t mean much to him), and Tofter gently took the gun back.  ‘Now I am going to hand you over to his guard, who are waiting for you outside, and we are going to get this business done very peacefully, and quietly.  I want no games, Drim.  I know form old how slippery you can be.  You are like a frog in a fisherman’s grip – you just jump around the place and cause havoc.  But that isn’t going to happen now – is it Drim?  Today you are going to do as you are told, right?’

  Now that Drim knew that the Rabbit People were not on the planet looking for him he calmed down and regained his typical lethargy; throwing on his negotiator act he said, ‘Don’t do this Tofter!  Look at me old buddy.  I am not the man I used to be.  I’ve settled down.  I have got a wife and kid to think about.  And look at my old pa at the back there – why, without me at his side he would probably fall over all the time!  If you hand me over to this – what was his name again – that’s it - Prince Gallivant - I might never see my loved ones again.’

  Tofter started to feel sorry for the other man.  He slowly nodded his head and put the gun away.  ‘I am giving you five seconds to get out,’ he said to Drim, and he nodded at the others as well.  ‘The guards are already on their way.  But before you go, Drim,’ he said just as the Space Cowboy was about to give flight, ‘I just want to say I am sorry!  No.  I really am.  You were my best friend!  It’s just… times change…’

  Well after listening to that feeble lot of rubbish Drim Brazer escaped the scene, all the while being chased by the imperial guards who at the time were (for some unimaginable reason) disguised as members of a famous sixties rock band.

Chapter : By Chance of mistaken identity

They arrived just in time to see their spaceship, The Disconnectable, being carried away by several little robots – Aradas thought they looked like mobile dustbins (he didn’t want to say anything in front of Doctor Fiddle, who looked ready to fume again, but the sight of the little robots made him want to laugh because they looked so ridiculous).  

  Doctor Fiddle just heard one of the robots muttering its self-contented rattling crackling voice, ‘When we leave the planet this (referring to their spaceship of course!) will be the first thing to go into the trash!’

  ‘Hold up one second!’ cried the Doctor.  ‘But that’s our spaceship you’ve got there, and it’s not trash!’  

  But the robots ignored him and loaded the spaceship onto this huge vehicle with wings.  On the side of the vehicle was written these words:  “Ditch your junk in space – it’s big enough to hold it!”

  ‘Sorry but we can’t stop to talk,’ said one of the robots.  ‘We’ve got a lot of work to do!  Cleaning up the trash of every planet in space is hard work, and we have nine hundred planets left in this sector of space before our work is complete!  So please show some respect and leave us be!’

  ‘You’re not listening!’ cried the Doctor.  ‘You are towing away our ship!  You will leave us stranded on this miserable planet and I can’t let you do that!’

  To his amazement the dustbins totally ignored him!  “What’s the matter with them?” he thought, ‘Are they ignorant?  Do they not have ears?”  

  He decided he couldn’t take it no more.  Besides, he and his friends outnumbered the robots, and the robots looked like dustbins so they wouldn’t be able to do much – he thought.  

  ‘Right Drim Brazer!’ he cried.  ‘Let’s at ‘em!  We’ll give these little metal swine’s a good old thrashing!’

  But before the Doctor or any of his friends could take action they were suddenly surrounded by at least twenty of these dustbins, and suddenly, perhaps because they were now so many of them, the little robots appeared quite menacing.  

  Everyone stood in silence, not a hundred percent sure what was going to happen next, when one of the robots wheeled itself up to Doctor Fiddle, and said, ‘You are under arrest for disturbing the peace of the C.O.F’s intergalactic trash removal service.  We gave you a chance but you refused to back off, and so now we have no choice but to bring you in!’

  ‘Arrest us hey?’ said the Doctor, ‘And how are you going to do that?  Are you going to push me onto the floor?  Are you going to roll me to death?  Why you are small enough to be used as basketballs – we could bounce you all around the park without wearying ourselves!’

  Even Aradas could see that the robots were upset by what the Dr had said.

  You knew they were upset by the way they just stood there, silently, like ominous lampposts, you just didn’t know what they were going to do next…  

  ‘Right you asked for it!’ said one of the robots.  ‘Prepare to fall asleep with boredom!’

  A little latch opened on the robots head and then it shot a dart into Doctor Fiddle’s neck, and then the robot did the same with the others.  When everyone had been jabbed with one of these pesky little darts the robot spoke again: ‘You have all been poisoned!  The dart has injected a set of images into your memory banks – three hours of video footage revolving around the domestic use of cleaning chemicals in a common household will now be playing out repeatedly in your minds – you will watch it and listen to it, willingly or no, and you WILL fall asleep with boredom!  I promise you, everyone succumbs eventually – even actual cleaners who do cleaning as a full time job.’

  Within an instant they had all dropped down, except Aradas who as it turned out found the subject matter quite riveting, (as a would be chimney sweep he found the thought of cleaning something quite exciting) so the robots sung him an hour’s worth of country songs and the poor old horse was out for the count in no time.  

  After that Aradas and his friends, and the spaceship, were lifted off of the planet by a great red beam of light, and transported on board a huge space freighter.  The vessel was vast, and looked like a giant vacuum cleaner, and it had many pipes and metal things poking out of it.  It looked ugly, and boring, and scary as well all at the same time - and the friends were now stuck right inside of it!

So there they all were stuck in prison.  A pretty boring room made of metal with no windows and only one door which after trying was of course very well locked.  They could tell they were no longer on the planet anymore because they could all hear the hum of the freighter’s massive engines as it slid through space.

  ‘Well this is a pretty miserable situation isn’t it,’ said Fackle the Owl.

  Doctor Fiddle raged.  ‘Those cursed little wretches!’ he was referring to the robot dustbins, ‘how dare they do this!  This is thoroughly unacceptable and disposable all at the same time!’

  Everyone sat down with their backs against the wall and looked depressed.  Even Drim Brazer sighed, and then he said to Aradas under his breath, ‘Yeah… being captured by space dustbins… this is definitely not the greatest moment in my ongoing career as a space cowboy.  I think I will have to leave this one out of my memoirs, Aradas.’

  The horse, empathising with his friend, nodded its great head and replied in a sad weary voice, ‘I ate my memoirs long ago…  I haven’t got no hands, you see, so I had to hold the pen with my mouth and ended up eating it and the paper in one go.’

  The Space Cowboy asked if it tasted any good and Aradas offered his friend a thoughtful look, nodded and said, ‘It was as good as one of those old Sunday roasts my great aunt used to serve.’

  ‘Your aunt used to roast paper?’

  ‘Yeah.  With hay, as well.  Those were the good days.’

  Doctor Fiddle was listening to the conversation, and it was obvious by observing the red tint increasing across much of his face that he was getting angry.  ‘Will you two stop talking nonsense!’ he cried.  ‘We need to plan an escape!’

  ‘You should know me by know, Doc,’ said Drim, coolly.  ‘I’m always armed with a plan!’

  ‘O I know you Drim Brazer,’ said the Doctor, taking in a deep weary breath.  ‘I know you too well.  So what is the plan this time then?  Get us locked up in a prison and lead the exciting life of a prisoner?  Well that sounds wonderful, and here we are locked up in a strange place with no idea where we are.  You are truly a great man, Drim Brazer.  I don’t know where you ever get these brilliant plans from!’

  The Doctor was being sarcastic, of course, but Drim Brazer merely shook off the man’s dreary words like he always did, and replied, ‘I’m just good at what I do, Doc.  There’s nothing else to say.’

  And then he explained his plan.  ‘I don’t know if any of you other bright fellows noticed that small looking hole in the door over there?  Pretty insignificant and not worth thinking about I suppose, that’s what you are thinking, but it’s just about the right size I say for our owl friend to fit through.’  

  Drim Brazer spoke the truth.  There was a looking-hole in the door which was conveniently just about the right size for an owl to fit through.  It was almost like the hole had been built on purpose by some mad bird lover who wanted to ensure any wrongly imprisoned birds could easily escape.

  ‘And, pray, what am I supposed to do when I get on the other side?’ said the owl.

  ‘Do what owls do my friend,’ said Drim, ‘fly around and look for help!’

  The owl wasn’t happy at all about this plan, but he could see that he and his friends were in a pretty nasty fix and that they needed to get out somehow and maybe, just maybe, no matter how incredibly unlikely it appeared, he could find someone out there who would be willing to help them.  

  While he was gone Doctor Fiddle decided it was time to vent his spleen… again.

  ‘Well this is a fine thing,’ he said.  ‘I, Doctor Fiddle, trapped inside this singular room with the very singular Drim Brazer.  You are a fine specimen for catastrophe, you, the man who stole my ship.  They could put you in a jar and put a label on in it saying “Disaster!”’

  Drim Brazer adjusted his head upon his folded arms and smiled like a man on a beach enjoying a lazy summer holiday somewhere not in England.  ‘Tone it down, Doc,’ he said, with great lethargy.  ‘I’ll get you out of here, eventually.’

  ‘Indeed you might,’ the Doctor replied, ‘It’s where you will put me and my friends next I am worried about.  Danger follows you about, Drim Brazer.  It’s hiding in your shadow.  You are going to get us killed I am sure of it!’

  ‘Just chill and enjoy yourself,’ said the Space Cowboy, to which an exasperated Doctor Fiddle exclaimed, throwing his arms about like a manic juggler on thirteen cups of coffee, ‘Enjoy!’ in screeched.  ‘Are you on the same planet as the rest of us?’

  ‘Doc, I hate to put it to you, but I don’t think we are on a planet any more.  Feels like we are on a spaceship to me, and by the feel of those engines reverberating in this cell I say it’s a pretty big one.’

  ‘You don’t care about anything do you?’

  ‘I have saved our lives Doc, so I must care about something.’

  ‘Saved our lives?  Have you really?  What have you saved us from exactly?  Enlighten me in detail, Drim Brazer.  Perhaps I fainted at some stage and missed out on something.  What, in this prison cell, have you saved us from?’

  ‘Well, believe me when I say this, but I would rather be stuck here inside this prison than be captured by the Rabbit People…’ and he shuddered with this horrible thought.  ‘That would be the worst thing!  The thought of it makes me feel ill.’

  ‘Are you ever going to tell us who these Rabbit People are, exactly?  I mean, we have been on the run from them for quite a long while.  What is it that makes them so dangerous?’

  ‘I find it hard to talk about them,’ said Drim Brazer.  ‘I was captured by them once, long ago during the Space Owl Wars.  I was wanted for crimes I had accidentally committed while sleep walking.  I was on the run even back in those days.  They chased me through three systems, and they captured me in the end because I made the simple mistake of trying to be too clever…  I donned a disguise and pretended to actually be one of the Rabbit People!  I worked with them for about five weeks, and I could have gotten away with it if I hadn’t fallen madly drunk and started singing out loud my favourite song of all – “I am the Drim Brazer!”

  ‘And that was it.  The game was up.  Now they had me in their power they took me at once to their leader, and my greatest enemy – Three Toots and A Hoot!’

  ‘Was that really his name?’ asked Aradas.  ‘If it is then that must be the craziest name I have ever heard!’

  ‘That’s what the Rabbit People call him.  But his real name is Roger…  How do I know this?  Well, Three Hoots and a Toot is actually my own half-brother!’

  Everyone was amazed to hear this.  Aradas started to shake his head because he just couldn’t believe it.  ‘Half-brother hey?  That must be a bit awkward then?’

  ‘NO.  Not really,’ Drim Brazer replied.  ‘We never really knew each other.’

  ‘So what did they do when they finally captured you?’ asked Doctor Fiddle.  He tried his best not to show it but he actually found himself intrigued by Drim Brazer’s story and wanted to hear the ending.

  ‘So I was brought before their leader, that took about four hours because he was busy refurbishing the roof of his old house, and then I was subjected to twelve hours of the Rabbit Dance!  O Yes!  Twelve hours my friends.  It was the worst moment of my life.  They danced around in a circle, throwing their hands into the air and flicking their hair about.  But when it was over I was not allowed to feel relief.  Three-Toots came up to me and said it was time.  They were going to punish me in the worst way imaginable - a bicycle air pump up the nose!’

  ‘Good grief!’ exclaimed Doctor Fiddle.  ‘They sound like savages!  What do you think they would do to me and the animals if they ever got us…?  I mean, we are completely innocent?  We haven’t done anything wrong!’

  ‘As my friends they will treat with you as they would me – it will be the air pump for you all…’

  ‘So how did you escape in the end?’ 

  ‘I didn’t,’ Drim replied.  ‘I passed out with shock and they must have thought me dead and so they jettisoned me off into space.’

  Jettisoned into Space?  ‘And how did you survive that?’ everyone cried.

  ‘I’m Drim Brazer I suppose,’ replied the Space Cowboy, and he shrugged.  ‘It’s what I do and what I am good at.  I can escape pretty much anything – I don’t see why space should be any different.’

  ‘I hear you,’ said Aradas.

  

Just then Fackle returned.  He was continuously flapping around the place like a crazy moth!  It took a few seconds for him to finally calm down.  ‘I’ve found somebody!’ he was saying, repeatedly, ‘He’s on his way right now!’

  ‘Calm down you silly fowl!’ said Doctor Fiddle, ‘get your breath back and tell us who is on their way.’

  ‘He’s a cleaner,’ said the owl.  ‘I told him you were cleaners as well.  You are new recruits, I said, freshmen to be precise, and you have accidentally got yourselves locked in this room!’

  ‘You told him we were cleaners?’ cried the Doctor.  ‘Whatever possessed you?’

  ‘I’m sorry.  It was the only way I could get him to help out!’

  So the owl had only just finished speaking when the lock on the door began to rattle, and then door itself opened.  And then into the room stepped the most incredible person they had ever seen – he seemed to be made up entirely of squashed trousers, t-shirts, jackets, bits of old clothe, and his head was a great old woollen sock!  His arms were two very long (probably stretched) woollen stockings.  He had buttons for eyes.  He stood still, looked at them all, and started to engage in conversation.  ‘I’m glad to be in space,’ he said – his voice was low and sombre.  He sounded incredibly depressed, and even though he was just a sock, he had the look of someone who had been hard done by.  ‘At least I won’t be down there when the bombs fall…’ he groaned.

  ‘Bombs?’ everyone asked.

  What was he talking about?

  The old sock started to tut, and wag its woollen head about – ‘Damn bombs damn bombs!’ he went on.  ‘Always dropping bombs!  Cities crumble, planets blow up, and my laundry gets all dirty!  Is it our destiny to destroy everything in existence?’

  This strange depressing dialogue confused everybody, and nobody knew what to say – except Aradas who now plucked up his chest like a proud robin redbreast and spoke out loud, ‘If the world blows up then there’s nothing much we can do about it – There’s an old saying I have always lived by, it goes:  “What will be, will be!”’

  The cleaner was not impressed by this speech.  ‘And I suppose you will be saying the same thing when the bombs do eventually drop hey?’ he said to the horse.  Thankfully, and to everyone relief, the Sock changed the subject and finally introduced himself, ‘Trod’s the name,’ he said, ‘dragging this mop and bucket along these halls is my game.  To be honest with you I am glad to have some help.  I didn’t know my manager cared about how hard things were for me down here, cleansing this whole darn dang place – all one hundred and fifty miles of it!’’

  Did he say one hundred and fifty miles?  ‘That’s just you exaggerating, I suppose?’ said Doctor Fiddle, with a merry chortle.

  ‘Not so, my son,’ Trod replied.  ‘We are inside an enormous freighter that was built out of the remains of an imploded planet.  It takes me days to walk from one side to the other.  I will give you the tour if you like.’

  ‘Well… so long as it doesn’t take several days,’ said Aradas.  ‘I’m just a poor old horse and I can’t walk far without falling down with exhaustion!’

  The cleaner told them not to worry, and that he had one or to shortcuts literally up his sleeve, and proved it by drawing a map out from one of his coats.  ‘I use this to get around,’ he said.  He put the map up close to his button eyes and even though it was the wrong way round, with north pointing south, he hummed a merry tune and said, ‘Right!  We will start by going this way!’

  As they started walking down one of the long corridors the sock called Trod began talking to them about his strange life.  ‘My name is Trod Warm-Wearer in full.  I’m not really from around here.  I am actually from another dimension.  I don’t know how I ever got stuck here, I think I must have sleep walked one night; since then I have been trapped on board this huge vessel with no way of escape, but I have managed to scrape a living somehow as cleaner and I haven’t done too bad either.  It’s boring work, mind, but then it’s something for me to do.  Better to clean than lounge around all day, I say!  But before we go anywhere I must fetch my bag.  My room is just down here.’  

  They followed him to his room, and good grief! were they ever surprised by what they found inside there.   It was truly a spinster’s catastrophe!

  There were woollen strands all over the ceiling and the floor, it looked like the strands of a fantastic web span out by an over ambitious spider.  And there were yarn balls that everyone tripped over, and an old loom covered in threads and lots of sowing needles sticking out of everything…  it was too dangerous for them to enter the room so they let Trod, being made of bits of cloth he didn’t mind having the odd needle stick in him, go in and get what he needed by himself.  He returned momentarily after rummaging around some layers of cloth holding this old leather bag.  

  ‘This is what I was looking for,’ he said.  ‘This is a marvelous thing!  Has everything I need to get me through the day.  Here are some of my best sowing needles – be careful not to hurt yourself on them!  Here is a spare yarn ball – I need that to keep myself together… sometimes the threads on me arms get a bit loose and need sowing up again!  And then there is this!’ and he sneakily pulled up a full bottle of whiskey.  ‘I couldn’t get through the day without a drop or two of the good stuff!’

  Aradas gave the sock-headed alien a cunning wink with his left eye and replied, ‘I know what you mean my friend!’

  With all that out of the way it was time to start the tour proper.

  As they walked Trod explained the purpose of the freighter.  ‘The idea behind this place,’ he said, ‘is to go from one planet to the other collecting as much junk as possible and then deposit it all on some random planet nobody cares about.  We have one special item at the moment; I will show you it now.’  They turned a sharp corner and found a huge room full of scrap metal and other pieces of worthless junk.  ‘It’s this thing we found by accident…’ he said, ‘it was so rubbish that we are making it our priority to chuck away first thing – and here it is!’

  It turned out to be non-other than their beloved spaceship the Disconnectable!

  It was balanced on top of a large pile of junk…

  ‘That’s our ship!’ cried Doctor Fiddle.  ‘You can’t dispose of that!  Why, it’s not disposable for goodness sake!’

  ‘It doesn’t look like a ship to me,’ said Trod, standing back to observe the rusty old thing.  ‘I thought it was some kind of broken down dustbin…’

  ‘We need that ship if we are ever going to leave this place!’

  ‘Leave?  You intend to leave?’

  ‘Indeed,’ we do,’ said the Doctor, ‘as soon as possible, if the possible is possible inside this blasted forsaken place.’

  ‘I like the sound of that,’ said Trod, ‘Let me have a think and I might be able to help you!’ but as he started thinking a loud voice hollered up the corridor just at the right moment to snap the motions of his undulating brainwaves, and make him forget what he was thinking about.

  ‘Ah!  Trod!’ the voice cried.  Now a huge ostrich came skipping towards them.  ‘Haven’t seen you in a while,’ it said.  ‘What have you been up to, you old rascal?  

  ‘Why I’ve been away trying to dry off my broom!’ he replied.  ‘That takes some work – doesn’t help that I keep the broom in a bucket of water…’

  Here the ostrich noticed that Trod had company, and the bird started to give Aradas and the others an uncertain, almost suspicious look.

  ‘It seems that you have company?’ said the bird, and Trod turned round and introduced his companions in turn.  ‘These are the new cleaners here to give me a hand, bless them.  They are good lads, freshman in fact.  You can speak to them as freely as you would speak to me.’

  And then Aradas asked the bird, ‘Who are you?’

  The ostrich didn’t respond straight away, instead it gave the horse an angry, almost quite offended glance.  After a few seconds had passed the bird finally spoke, ‘How is it you do not know me?  Why I am only the most important person you are going to meet on board this vessel.  I am the captain!’

  An ostrich was the captain…?

  ‘How did you end up with that position then?’Aradas asked, and it was a good question because the idea of an ostrich being in charge of a giant freighter floating in space did seem to be a little bit ridiculous.

  ‘Ah!  How did I become the captain?  That’s the question everyone wants to know,’ said the ostrich, and then the bird gave its tale: ‘I was part of the original crew.  Back then I was a member of the Space Zoo alongside other animals, and we were put on display in various places across the galaxy.  As the unhappy years went by I, as well as a few other caged beasts, eventually learned, from observing the lip sync of our masters, the English Language!  And once that was done – and general communication among the animals in the zoo was secure - we launched a massive take over.  There was a great and very eventful scrap, which we eventually won, and when it was over I ended up in charge.  But we would never have succeeded if it wasn’t for the help our great hero, and my friend, Pointless  Patch…  And would you believe it here is right now!  How amazing!’

  Now this forlorn looking clown, with huge boots with tips that jumped out awkwardly to the right and left and touched the walls on either side, plodded down along the corridor, walked straight passed everybody, and then onwards till he was completely out of sight and all without speaking a word!

  ‘And there he goes!’ cried the ostrich flapping its tiny wings with delight.  ‘What an amazing fellow that Pointless Patch is!  I don’t know how any of us would get things done without his help.’

  ‘Well it’s been nice talking to you captain,’ said Trod, respectfully.  ‘But I have got to get to work, you know how it is.  This vessel won’t clean itself, though I wish it would!  Then maybe I would have more time to sit down and do some knitting.  I really need to knit myself a new leg someday; this old one just sags behind and slows me down…’

  ‘Of course of course!’ said the ostrich jovially.  ‘Maybe we will meet again later, I am sure of it!’

  So the ostrich leaped away and now they were on their own again Trod Warm-Wearer turned round and said to his companions, ‘We better get to work now I suppose.  First I will introduce you lot to the boss.  Then I will get us each a bucket and mop and we will get ready to do some cleaning!’

  Doctor Fiddle couldn’t take much more of this nonsense.  Their ship, the Disconnectable, and freedom, was only a few steps away.  He was not prepared in the least to do any cleaning and felt that something had to be said.  ‘I must have a word with you,’ the Doctor finally spoke up.  ‘You said your name was Trod?’

  ‘That’s my name,’ he replied, ‘Trod Warm-Wearer in full.’

  ‘Now listen here Trod,’ said the Doctor, ‘you have got things all wrong in that cotton head of yours!  We are not really cleaners!  Not at all!  We are space travellers, completely lost in this permanently uneventful vacuum, and on the run from people I have never in my life ever heard of before.  In other words we are in a fix, and you have our ship stored away in your junkyard, and we want it back!  In fact we need it, might I add quite badly as well because I don’t intend to spend another hour trapped in this miserable place not if I can help it!’

  Trod suddenly remembered that he was thinking about something.  ‘O yes!’ he said, ‘I remember you talking about that.  Don’t you worry now you fellows!  I’ll give you a hand – Good gracious and I don’t even have any hands!  But I will help as best I can.

  ‘I know a few things about this place.  I know how things work, and I have worked here long enough to know who does what, and I have made a few friends in my time here as cleaner.  But that’s it, you see, like you lot I am not really a cleaner.  I am trapped here just like you are!  Like I said I can’t remember how it happened, but I just woke up in this place one day – and have never found a way out.  But anyway, going back to my plan – ’ and they formed a circle round Trod and listened in.  ‘You need to get the port open if you plan to fly the ship out,’ said Trod.  ‘Fortunately I am friends with The Controller – we play Eye Spy with each other to pass the time some days… it can get quite boring in this place, believe me, and Eye Spy is a real time killer, especially in a place where all you see most of the time is four grey walls.

  ‘Now because The Controller knows me he will believe everything I say, and I will tell him that we have an urgent disposal to make, and he will open the port and jettison all the junk into space…  You will be in your ship at the time that happens, and then you will have the chance to get away!  But I can’t speak to The Controller not yet.  He works shifts, you see, and I am guessed he will still be asleep at the moment.  So you are still going to have to play along in the meanwhile, like I do, and pretend to be cleaners.  When the time comes, I will let you know, and you can sneak back to your ship!’

  ‘This is awfully good of you,’ said Doctor Fiddle.

  ‘I always like to lend a hand when I can – or can’t as the case nearly always is,’ said Trod, and he lifted up his stocking arms and gazed at them with a sad twinkle in his button eyes.  

  ‘Is there any way we can repay you?’

  ‘Well…  now you mention it – yes!  But we won’t mention it now.  It can wait till later, and then we will mention it again!’

  Everyone agreed that they liked the sound of Trod’s plan.  There was only one question now: what were they going to do in the meanwhile?

  ‘The Controller won’t be up for a while yet,’ said Trod, ‘so I suggest that for the meanwhile, so as not draw attention, you should stay hidden in those disguises of yours.  We won’t make anyone suspicious if we make them think we are just humble cleaners!  We will go and see my boss; he will find us something to do to pass the time.’

  Doctor Fiddle admitted that he would rather just hide somewhere, but Trod got all in a faff about this, he flapped his stockings about and said, ‘People will see you and they will get suspicious.  Better you stick with me, and do what the boss says.’

  There were a few moans but everyone understood that Trod knew best, and agreed to follow him along the bleak corridors of this giant Galactic Waste Bin.

Chapter: And all for a mop

At the end of yet another long boring, bleak corridor there was a door with the words above it “Managers Office” and underneath this a little message – knock once and if there is no response then LEAVE!  The one thing that Aradas admired about that message was that it was completely to the point.

  ‘This is going to be so awkward,’ said Doctor Fiddle; he looked fidgety and nervous.  ‘I mean, none of us are cleaners.  We are going to look stupid.’

  ‘We are just going to have to put on an act for now,’ said Drim Brazer.  For the last few minutes a plan had been fizzing away in his brain.  He knew what had to be done to get their ship back, and he knew that there was going to be no other way than working in cahoots with their new friend Trod Warm Wearer.  ‘When we get inside the office leave all the talking to me,’ he said.  ‘I am confident we can get through this, but we are going to need my skills in rhetoric if we are going to succeed.’

  ‘Well I am glad you are confident,’ the Doctor grumbled under his breath, ‘I personally think this disposable situation will be the end of us all!’

  Trod knocked the door and a gruff voice behind asked – who is it?  Trod told them, “It’s the cleaners,” and the voice replied curtly, “O…okay.  You can enter.”

  As they passed through the door Drim Brazer reminded them one last time, ‘Leave all the talking to me!’

  The manager turned out to be a scruffy looking Irish setter; probably another one of the revolutionaries to escape the galactic zoo and take over the freighter.  

  The Setter looked them all up and down and said to Trod, ‘Who the Jilly Jibs are these people you are with?’

  Now it was the time for Drim Brazer.  He at once broke in with this: ‘You may not recognize who we are, but I will be very surprised if you have never heard of us.  We four are the Universal S-Bend Cleaners.  We are known for our deeds across space, as well as our famous epic quest to clean every toilet in existence.  Toilets don’t bother us.  That’s where we get our famous name from.  No one else cleans a toilet like we do.  We are the best at it.  We go deeper than the rest.  We actually get INTO the toilet.  We flush ourselves down it.  We do that because we are the best!’

  The Setter regarded them with an admirable twinkle in his eye, and he said, finally, ‘You sound like a fine band of lads.’

  ‘We are,’ Drim Brazer went on.  ‘Let me introduce ourselves.  I am the leader of the S-Bend Cleaners, the most important person, and the only one you really need to talk to.  This horse at my side is my sidekick and best friend – the owl in the back is our apprentice presently learning the ancient skills of the S-Bend Cleaners.  Lastly we have Doctor Fiddle – he is sort of the freshman; he doesn’t know a lot.  He left school at a young age and never accomplished much in life.  You could say that he is kind of a dropout.’

  The Setter observed Doctor Fiddle with a squint-eyed unhappy gaze and he said to Drim Brazer, ‘Why did you agree to take this obvious looking waster along with you?’

  ‘I am just a charitable man,’ Drim replied.  ‘I like to give people a chance, even if they look like they are going to be a complete waste of time!’  

  All the while Doctor Fiddle was fuming in the back – but he remembered that this was all an act, and so he stood squarely where he as and said nothing.

  ‘Well it’s good to have you guys along,’ said the dog.  ‘I will introduce you to our toilets post haste then.  You can exercise your skills and get to cleaning them right away.  There are about four hundred of them on board the freighter and none of them have been cleaned for six whole months – ’ and then he turned to Trod Warm-Wearer and added, ‘Shame on you Trod!’ 

  Poor humble old humble Trod sagged his sock-like head, and because he felt so ashamed he could say nothing to defend himself and remained quiet.

  The thought of cleaning four hundred six-month soiled toilets frightened everybody but Drim Brazer was already armed with a response, ‘This looks like a good opportunity for our new member, Doctor Fiddle, to prove his worth!  Trod!’ he said to the talking sock, ‘Give our new man, Doctor Fiddle, your mop!  Let’s put him to work right away.’

  Trod nodded his cotton head and gave Doctor Fiddle his bucket and mop.  Before the Doctor was given chance to utter a feeble syllable he was cast out of the office and collapsed on the floor with all the fervor of a redundant electron.  He lay sprawled on the floor like an extensively depressed sloth, before finally picking himself up and slopping away to do his work.

  ‘I admire you,’ the Irish setter said to Drim Brazer.  ‘I think you deserve an early lunch break.  Fancy some chow?  Trod!  Show these lad’s to the cantina!’

  Trod nodded his sock head in response and they were soon striding down another bleak corridor, to a metal door that opened automatically as they approached.  On the other side of this door was a large room and in the middle this enormous centipede was serving drinks behind a bar.  The creature must have been over twenty feet long, its hundreds of segments literally looped all around the room, its little legs pouring drinks, mopping cups, serving patrons.  Other hidden segments of his body were in the kitchen, preparing meals, washing cups and dishes.  This alien centipede was truly a one-man-band: manager, chef, waiter, barman - all in one flow.

  ‘The names Juggler,’ said the centipede as they approached it.  ‘They call me that because I always get in a bit of a pickle – I never know which bit of me is where, and what it gets up to!  I am literally throwing things all over the place!  Down there’s the food, and up here’s the drink – but I muddle it up sometimes, it’s easy to get things back to front when you are as lengthy as I am, and over the years I have lost count of how many hands I have!  Hands?  Did I say hands?  Or they might be legs!  But as they all do the same thing I suppose it doesn’t matter!’

  ‘I can certainly see that this place in good hands,’ said Aradas.  ‘So you really run everything by yourself?’

  ‘When you have as many hands as me you don’t need any help,’ the centipede replied.  ‘Just as well because I couldn’t afford to hire any staff.  This place makes hardly any profit.  It’s my fault, of course.  I keep spilling the drinks onto my customers all the time!’  

  ‘You don’t have to worry about things like that with us,’ said Aradas.  ‘We are not fussy.  I have had drinks thrown at me in the past and I still don’t mind!’

  How jubilant the centipede was when he heard this.  ‘Excellent news!’ he cried.  ‘So what then can these many humble arms of mine fetch you?’

  Again Aradas said that none of them were fussy and so the giant centipede released a sigh of relief and said, ‘It will be tea and toast then,’ and then it added under its breath, ‘because that’s the only thing I know how to do really…  Thought I must mention now, I don’t know what will be served first, the tea or the toast; I do get it muddled up all the time!  Some people say that I must not know the difference but that is not true – they just don’t know the truth about my arms and their ways!’    

  Aradas shook his great horse head with amazement.  ‘I never thought of it before but I suppose it must be an effort keeping all those arms and legs in order?’ he said.

  Here the centipede starred at the horse and replied, ‘You have no idea!  Why let me tell you my friend you have no idea how easy your life is just having two arms and two legs… good gosh you are blessed!’

  ‘Well I must stop you there, sir,’ said the horse.  ‘I don’t have arms only four legs – but even then I find it hard to figure out where I am going.  You know there isn’t a day that I don’t fall over.  That’s why I spend so much time lazing around eating grass.  It’s less complicated you see if I just sit down.’

  ‘Well four legs are better than a hundred,’ the centipede went on.  ‘Imagine what it’s like being me for a few seconds.  You say that you fall over a lot hey?  Good grief!  I am doing cartwheels all the time!  You do get used to it after a while, but it does make life ever so confusing.’

  'I imagine simple tasks are hard for you to do?' asked the horse.

  'For me there is no such thing as simple tasks,' spoke the centipede.  'Every day for me is a topsy tervy merry go round.'

  Now he had finally finished talking the centipede finally got to work.  Everyone else took a place at the bar and waited anxiously to be served.  'I am looking forward to my toast you know?' said Aradas to Drim Brazer who was sat next to him.  'A refreshing cup of tea does anyone a world of good,' the Space Cowboy replied.  

  After about an hour the centipede finally rolled out of the kitchen with their orders.  ‘Right then guys here we go!’  The Centipede put out a spread for them on the bar.  There was a bowl of yesterdays lentil soup for Drim, a copy of the Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyman for Fackle, and Aradas got a pair of old boots.

  ‘I don’t suppose you can make toast out of those boots?’ Aradas asked, and the centipede turned round and said, ‘I don’t see why not but I would take the laces of first, don’t won’t to get tongue tied!  It’s pretty embarrassing when that happens and especially when one is at lunch!’

  Then a voice at the back shouted something about toast, and “where’s that bowl of lentil soup I ordered the other day?” – and then the centipede smacked himself over the head with several of his legs and cussed like a sailor.

  ‘Darn!’ he said.  ‘I’ve released what I’ve done now!  I have served your orders to the people at the back!  That sort of thing happens when you have got a hundred legs…   you get things all knotted up!’

  ‘A bit like shoe laces then,’ Aradas muttered, looking miserably at his pair of old boots.

  ‘I’ll have your orders straightened in a minute or two,’ said the centipede.  ‘Just give me a few minutes to turn around and there – I think I have got it right now.’

  And now Aradas and his friends found themselves sitting before Father Brown and Paddington Bear.

  ‘O and bless me there I go again!’ said the centipede, and he looked so confused that Aradas started to really feel sorry for the poor arthropod.  ‘I’m getting it all wrong,’ he said, ‘I never know what my arms are up to these days!  Wait I will roll back in a second…’  

  After a few more hours had gone by, and by that time the centipede had managed to get himself wrapped round the whole bar and two chairs, Aradas and his friends decided it would be for the best if they moved on to somewhere else.   

 ‘I know this fantastic place,’ said Trod Warm Wearer.  ‘It’s called the Super Space Store!  Wow!  Such an exciting place!  So much to see and do!  I have only ever been there on the end of a broom, when I was being used to wash the floor, but even from there it looked like so much fun!’

  ‘Then that’s where we will go,’ said Aradas and he flipped his tail in Fackle’s face and let Trod Warm Wearer lead the way.

  ‘I am so excited about visiting this new place!’ said Trod flapping his stockings about.  ‘The best thing about being a cleaner is when you are made to clean the Space Store floor!  I have so many great memories of being dragged up and down those floors!  Gosh!  It’s enough to make ones knotty fabrics disentangle!’

  Finally they were all standing before the Super Space Store, and everyone, even Drim Brazer, was amazed to find that the whole building had been built out of cardboard boxes.

  And everyone was even more amazed to find that all the shops inside were closed – fancy taking a look at the clothes store?  Well tough luck because there was a sign up saying straight in your face “We are closed!”  Want to sample some of our fine wines?  Sorry son, you’re out of luck because we are closed.  What about these farm fresh foods – You’d probably like what we’ve got but well, we’re closed…

  ‘Not a lot going on here,’ Aradas said with a long sad sigh.  ‘This looks like a pretty boring place…’

  ‘Take a look at this!’

  There was one shop that was open!  It was a shop that sold plastic jars!  

  Plastic jars and nothing else!   

  How splendid!  

  Well...

  Sort of.

  At least it was something.