Link Arms with Toads! (18 page)

Outside, a skiffle band was growing its hair.

*

Back in the office, Celia collapsed into her swivel chair and waited for it to massage her neck and shoulders. “I’m tired of working out in the field,” she told her assistant. “So tired!”

Jules Oviform was sympathetic. He patted her hand and flashed his new smile at her. He rarely failed to amuse Celia: she had spent a small fortune on his French accent and love of garlic. The voicebox and tastebuds had been grown together in a tank and grafted on at a private clinic. Celia had chosen him for his entertainment value.

“
People can be so obtuse,” she added. “I met a housewife today who flirted openly with a big blue storm eye. Thought she could have some harmless fun! She let herself and her neighbours regress back to the 1920s before doing anything about it.”

Jules raised Celia’s hand to his lips and kissed it. “I only have eyes for you. And not just eyes but croissants too.” Celia withdrew her hand and wiped it with a handkerchief.

“
What worries me is where the rogue style goes after it disperses. Is it all accumulating in the atmosphere?”

Jules made a comic face. “Ah,
mon cheri
! Such ideas!” But Celia was in no mood for his buffoonery. She switched on her secretary and began to forge ahead with her report. Paperwork depressed the machine as much as it depressed her. To enliven the process, the secretary occasionally queried the accuracy of her version of events.

A chime sounded and Celia threw up her arms in despair. “What now?” she cried. The chime was a summons from Big Boss Barium. This usually meant more problems. She stood and made her way out of the office onto the moving walkway of the corridor.

Big Boss Barium was sweating in his plush room, his huge bulk suspended from the ceiling on a system of wires. He greeted Celia with his customary sneer. The neons on his oversized pinstripe suit crawled with council slogans. “Sit down, Ms Radical.”

“
There’s nowhere free,” she replied.

“
Exactly!” he roared in triumph.

The room was filled with large rubber balls designed to break his fall if the wires snapped. Big Boss Barium glowered for a full minute in silence and then he spoke again, his chins wobbling alarmingly as he rumbled the words in her direction. “I’ve had a complaint, Ms Radical. A complaint concerning you. I want you to know that the Style Council takes such matters very seriously.”

“
Who made the complaint?” she asked.

Big Boss Barium chewed his fat lip. “The Chief of Police, El Greco Cooper himself! He rang through a few minutes ago and demanded to know why you were poking about in Betjeman Gardens.”

“
I was doing my job,” responded Celia.

Big Boss Barium shook a finger smudged with chocolate. “Mrs Diode is one of his favourite aunts. We don’t take action against the friends and relatives of the police force. We can afford to let a few nostalgia storms work themselves out naturally. I suggest that you return the eye to her kitchen immediately!”

“
I sent it to the crushers half an hour ago.”

“
Can’t you call it back?”

Celia shook her head. “It’s already jelly.”

Big Boss Barium held his head in his chubby hands. Pulleys groaned and squeaked as he sobbed. “There’s such a thing as being too efficient, Ms Radical. This is all becoming a mess.”

“
El Greco must learn to live with disappointment.”

Big Boss Barium flew into one of his melodramatic rages. They were bad for his health but sometimes earned him a bonus. Celia knew that one of the rubber balls contained a secret critic who judged these rages and arrived at a monetary figure. As the wires twanged and whistled and the vast blob of flesh bounced and span over her, dribbling foam, she decided to take the easy way out.

“
Fine. I’ll make a replacement.”

Big Boss Barium shuddered to a halt. “You will?”

“
I’m dedicated to my job but I’m not a particularly ethical person. My morality is fake, for intimidation purposes. Nobody is better at swelling up hugely with artificial righteousness.”

“
We all have our individual bloats,” Big Boss Barium agreed.

“
I’ll open the refrigeration units where the jellies are kept and mould a new eye from a big blue scoop.”

“
That will be a very sensible thing for you to do,” said Big Boss Barium. He was convinced he had won the bonus and was already planning to spend it on more ultra-high calorie food, which in turn would damage his health more, making his next melodramatic rage more alarming and droolly and more worthy of a bigger bonus. This cycle would accelerate towards a spectacular blubbery doom.

“
I’ll do it right now, with your permission.”

“
Of course!” He waved a shapeless hand and allowed her to depart his presence. He had no love for his employees, no outstanding loyalty to the Council. His only concern was not to come under the adverse scrutiny of his superiors, the Style Gurus, or to make an enemy of the President and his Police Chief. El Greco Cooper was the sort of man who arrested autumn leaves for crunching underfoot without an entertainment license. It was imperative to keep on his right side: but that side was as thin and sharp as a scalpel.

Celia urged the walkway to maximum speed and returned to her office within seconds. “Jules!” she called.

Jules Oviform appeared at her side. “
Mon cheri
!”

“
We have an unorthodox job to do. We’re going behind the crushers to pilfer some eye jelly.”

“
How bohemian! How
fin de siècle
!”

“
Then we’re going to shape it into a new eye and plant it under the sink in a domestic kitchen.”

“
How escargot! How Victor Hugo!”

Celia nodded. It was going to be all those things and more. Opening a filing cabinet and selecting a winter scarf and mittens, she hurried down the tunnel that ran behind the crushers. These garments matched her colouring not at all and suited her in no degree. The Style Council was full of confiscated goods. And all of them were bad.

*

The walls of the tunnel were decorated with murals depicting packets of frozen peas and carrots, tubs of ice cream, bottles of beer and other refrigerative subjects. Celia and Jules proceeded to a chamber that resembled a garage. This was the deepest part of the Style Council. Here stood the Five Famous Freezers.

Celia opened the first freezer and removed the ice tray, turning it upside down and pressing the bottom with her thumbs until the frozen key worked itself loose. This key provided access to the second freezer and
its
ice tray and frozen key, which in turn opened the third freezer, and so on. These security measures were deemed cool by Style Gurus the world over. Even Guru Futuro approved.

The fifth freezer was directly connected to the crushers. Its door was rarely opened. Big Boss Barium preferred not to know what the jelly inside was doing. All those pulverised storm eyes gave him the jeebies. He could live with heebies but had a dread of jeebies. Celia felt no such qualms as she opened the lock.

The inside was empty! This was worthy of a gasp!

Celia was amazed. The container that should have held a milky white jelly streaked with blue, green and hazel, the end result of a thousand storm eye pulpings, had gone. In its place was a note. She snatched it and read it aloud with a frown:

“
I am a terrorist organisation and I have stolen the storm jelly in order to build a massive nostalgia bomb. This bomb will be detonated at noon on the President’s birthday.”

“
But that’s today!” simpered Jules.

“
Don’t be ridiculous. The President was born under the sign of the Toerag. The sun is still in Hoops.”

“
He changed the law. Didn’t you hear? He passed a rule saying that from now on
every day
is his birthday.”

“
What’s the time?” Celia roared.

“
Ten minutes to noon! Goodbye
mon cheri
! How I adored you!”

“
We must show this note to Big Boss Barium,” said Celia. She closed the freezer with her foot and ran back up the tunnel, Jules clattering along behind her. Then he stopped dead.

“
Footprints! I know who the culprit is!”

Celia span. “What do you mean?”

“
See these footprints,
mon cheri
! They must belong to the person who proceeded us to the eye jelly.”

“
But there aren’t any footprints!”

“
Exactly! That proves that the man who made them did
not
walk down this tunnel. He must have come some other way. Among all the agents of the Style Council who is the only one who never walks? Big Boss Barium! This evidence is incontrovertible.”

“
I’m not sure about that,” responded Celia.

Jules seemed on the verge of tears but Celia had no time to comfort him. She continued along the tunnel, reached her office and then mounted the walkway to Big Boss Barium’s office. She knocked on his door with a minute to spare. “Enter!” he bellowed.

He was swinging and sweating when she came into his presence. Jules remained in the corridor, timidly peering through the open doorway. Big Boss Barium scowled and juddered.

“
Did you manage to make a replacement?”

She shook her head and passed him the note. He read it and frowned so deeply the folds of skin above his eyebrows came down and obscured his vision like blubber goggles. He traced the words with his fingers instead and then crumpled the note in his fist like an empty chocolate wrapper. “This must be a hoax,” was his conclusion.

A giggle escaped from one of the rubber balls. Celia and Big Boss Barium exchanged glances. Now everything was clear! This explained why there were no footprints in the tunnel. It suddenly seemed obvious that a hidden critic would aspire to be a terrorist. Big Boss Barium leaped across the room, dangled high and peered down, trying to work out which ball had emitted the telltale sound.

He hovered over one ball, rubbed his chin, chose another. He cocked his head, angling his ear carefully but the critic remained silent. Then Big Boss Barium grew impatient and bounced violently on his cables. This action worked off his frustration but it also created catastrophe. With a horrible pinging sound, the cables snapped. Big Boss Barium plummeted to the ground like a dropped house.

He landed on one of the balls. It broke his fall but it happened to be the ball with the critic inside. And the critic happened to clutching his nostalgia bomb. There was an awful sound, a squelch not merely of bones and fat but aeons. Suddenly winds of yearning were everywhere, a thousand storm eyes unleashing their fury all at once. Celia blinked in horror at the changes in her environment. One moment she was wearing a toga, the next furs. Then she felt an abrupt chill and gazed down. What was keeping that fig leaf in place?

*

After the prehistoric mists had cleared, Celia went looking for Jules. He was squatting at the base of a vast tree. Sap dripped from a gash in the bark and slowly covered him.

“
Move away,” warned Celia, “or you’ll become trapped in amber for eternity and be expensive to collect.”

He glumly shuffled to her side, tripping over his newly acquired long beard. “My odour is unbearable!”

She sniffed. “You’ll get used to it. Where’s Big Boss Barium? What are these grooves in the earth?”

“
He has been dragged away on ropes,
mon cheri
.”

They followed the grooves through the Cenozoic forest until they reached a rocky plain. A flint tower stood precariously at the summit of a low hill and here they found the President and El Greco Cooper going about their familiar business. The President was attempting to juggle three sabre-toothed tiger’s teeth, failing to catch them properly and cutting his arms in the process. El Greco Cooper was standing in a muddy puddle swinging a club awkwardly.

Still fully concentrating on the flying fangs, the President nodded at his Chief of Police and said to Celia, “First I declared mud illegal and he clubbed every puddle around here. Then I declared clubs illegal and now he’s trying to club his own club.”

“
Very amusing,” commented Celia as she passed on.

Jules began complaining about the condition of his feet. He didn’t mean blisters but the fact that his toenails weren’t nicely manicured. Celia ignored him and continued until she came to a cave. Just inside the entrance stood a large pot and inside the pot bobbed Big Boss Barium with wild carrots and asparagus.

“
It’s boiling in here!” he groaned.

Celia and Julia managed to overturn the pot and release Big Boss Barium. But he wasn’t able to rise without his wires. He just sat there like a magnified globule of mucus.

“
Who did this to you?” Celia asked with only minor interest.

“
A pair of cannibals. I couldn’t get a word of sense out of either of them. They were positively Pliocene!”

“
I think you’re exaggerating,” remarked Celia.

Big Boss Barium shrugged. “I’m just glad you rescued me in time. They’ll be back soon. They went to collect some salt from the nearest ocean. I find that grossly insulting!”

“
I think we’re in the region of Betjeman Gardens,” said Celia.