Where the Birds Hide at Night (17 page)

‘You could have broken his leg!' cried Ruby, chasing after Mr Monkey as she looked back at her husband.

‘He could have broken my nose… if it was a real nose,' replied the puppet.

‘Is that that damn puppet?' Arthur grunted, squinting ahead.

Fighting Ruby back, Mr Monkey opened a hatch in the roof and collected the girl and his briefcase.

‘Your fare please, Sir,' asked a ticket conductor behind the puppet. He turned around slowly and found himself face to face with the giant man he'd just fought on the roof. But that couldn't be, surely? He was decapitated by a tree. Mr Monkey gulped as the man brandished a huge sack and grabbed hold of him, tossing him inside and tying a knot in the top.

* * *

Mr Monkey wakened, again on board a plane. It was the same plane as the one before. He was tied to the same chair in the same way. What the hell was going on? Extreme puzzlement was the order of the day. The door in which Dr. Bullings had made his entrance opened. Who walked through it but Nicola Williams. The puppet looked back, astonished. The Worm followed in behind her. Were Mr Monkey's purple button eyes telling him lies? Was this
really
Williams? If so, what was she doing with The Worm?

They stood at each other's side and glared at Mr Monkey with a mixture of mischievousness and stupidity on their faces.

‘Well you've completed your training exercise, Brendan,' Williams shouted. Mr Monkey rolled his eyes.

‘My training exercise?' questioned the puppet. ‘No, no, no, there's something else afoot here… something altogether more sinister than a training exercise.'

‘Your mind is void,' she came back at him. ‘You were sent on a certain training exercise to see if you could still perform well enough for us. Overall you failed the training.'

‘Tell me, Williams, have you joined ARSEN? Have you turned to the evil side of humanity?'

‘Oh Mr Monkey,' The Worm laughed, ‘so, so foolish. Yes, my foe is once again in my power. How on earth do I do it? I am absolutely wonderful, amazing. I saw the chance to have you in my power yet again and I couldn't resist. So I said why not. But nobody took a blind bit of notice. It's an old saying that, isn't it? You know, a blind bit of notice. The other rebels always ignored me but I rose above them and look at me now. Look where I am!' he roared, but was interrupted by Mr Monkey:

‘Yes, you're standing over there.'

‘Your time for dying has caught up on you sooner than you imagined, puppet. Other people always think they know best, but they don't because I know best. I am the best. The best in the world. I will own the world. I will own everything in the world, including you,' The Worm yelled, frantically waving his hands about in the air.

‘Ah yes, that old chestnut,' Mr Monkey yawned. ‘I want to own the world rubbish! We all know that you'll never be Napoleon.'

‘Indeed not. Unlike Napoleon, I'll win.'

‘Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it.'

‘You will not live to witness such an event… as much as I'd like to keep you alive long enough just to gloat. I might keep your purple button eyes as a trophy, mind… I'll have them stitched onto my nightshirt.'

‘I doubt I will perish at your hands, not with someone like The Clown standing in your way. You're second to him. He is the leader of your occult group, shall we say. Which ever way you look at it, you will lose in the end.'

The Worm put his hands together and smirked at the bound puppet. ‘What if he wasn't with us for much longer?'

‘Oh. Oh yes, I see it now. So you kill two people and suddenly every leader in the world abdicates and allows you to dictate their country. Yeah right. Get in the real world dim-wit,' laughed Mr Monkey. ‘Are you too scared to let me roam around free, so you have to tie me up? Is that the idea? Oh I thought this was the end of a training session,' Mr Monkey boasted as he waved his head from side to side.

‘No, this is just the end,' The Worm announced, as he removed a gun from his pocket and pointed it at his rival. This startled Williams, but she took the initiative and suddenly karate-chopped the gun out of his hand. The whole wall surrounding the three opened up to reveal about fifty scantily-clad young women holding a machine gun each. The Worm looked back at Mr Monkey and smiled, marching out of the circle to leave the two surrounded.

‘Untie me you idiot,' the puppet whispered to Williams in a violent tone, turning to protrude an eye at one of the women. She smiled back and cocked her machine gun at him.

‘I'm very sorry about all this,' Williams whispered back as she quickly untied him.

‘What is going on?' he demanded. ‘I am mildly confused!'

‘Well, to keep my own life after I was captured, I proceeded in aiding The Worm to get some information out of you. I had to walk in with him and pretend that you had only been on a training exercise,' she explained, holding her head in shame.

‘And did he get what he wanted out of me?'

‘I doubt it. Probably just thought of a better way. You know, all these women. He has the weird idea you have a weakness for them.'

‘I have no weaknesses… except maybe my cotton seams,' he stated firmly.

‘Yes, that's why you're tied up here after an unsuccessful escape.'

Williams seemed rather pleased with her jocular statement, though Mr Monkey was not. His paws now free, he stood straight and surveyed the pretty faces around him. ‘Maybe I do have a weakness,' he trilled.

‘I must be leaving you,' The Worm's voice called out from behind the wall of beauties. ‘I eagerly await your entrance at the lair. Everything has been organised for your arrival.' With this, he slipped a parachute onto his back and opened the plane door. ‘Tally-ho,' he called back, leaping out.

‘There's something fishy about all this,' Mr Monkey remarked, as Williams eyed one of the women up and down. She looked sternly back, pouting her lips.

* * *

‘You left them to it on the plane? Can he escape?' inquired The Clown, fuming with circus rage. His bushy red hair fell into tight curls either side of the baldness atop his pale white head. His giant shoes slammed around as he paced up and down.

‘Not unless he seduces fifty attractive women,' The Worm replied.

‘You fool, he'll be all over them,' The Clown hooted. They were in the headquarters of their hide out. It was dark and murky… until The Worm turned on the lights. The room was huge and spacious, a gigantic conference table filling the majority of it. Despite the massive diameter of the table, only six chairs occupied its circumference. ‘How many beans make five?' he pondered momentarily to himself as he counted the chairs.

* * *

‘So this is what heaven looks like,' chuckled Mr Monkey. He turned to Williams and whispered: ‘Where is the girl that was on the train with me?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Let's get out of here. What do you say?' He turned to face the girls. ‘Hey you,' he called out to one of them, moving closer, ‘did you hear what she said about you?' He pointed at another girl. ‘She said you had big hips… childbearing hips.' One girl turned to face the other, and Mr Monkey jumped at her machine gun, yanking it from her. ‘Now, drop your weapons,' he demanded.

* * *

‘It takes us almost ten years to retrieve and rebuild our organisation, get Mr Monkey and have a chance of killing him and what do you do?' The Clown fumed. ‘I'll tell you what you do – you leave him with fifty single females on a plane. Why?!!!'

‘Don't you dare yell at me!' The Worm half-yelled, half-squirmed back, slipping here and there. ‘If it wasn't for me you wouldn't be alive anymore, and those women have had strict orders to assassinate the puppet and his crony.' He waved his fist at The Clown.

‘We don't want them dead you stupid idiot, and why does it take fifty to knock him down? Answer me that.'

The Worm whipped a knife out, running at The Clown whilst shouting: ‘This is the same knife I killed my poor old mother with.'

‘She wasn't your real mum,' The Clown revealed, lifting up his chair and swinging it at The Worm's hand.

‘You'll have to do better than that to stop me, you clown,' The Worm proclaimed, ducking out of the way. He threw the knife at his opponent, who caught it in his teeth and spat it out.

‘Twenty five years in the circus, wormy boy. I'm unstoppable,' The Clown laughed.

The Worm turned around to grab hold of the chair legs, but The Clown kicked him in the backside. He fell to the floor as The Clown picked up another chair and smashed it over his back. He dropped in a heap as The Clown got out his party whistle and blew it down his ear.

* * *

Mr Monkey stood over the pilot in the cockpit, pressing a gun to his head.

‘Tell me where The Worm parachuted to.'

‘No,' the pilot replied.

‘Where is he?' Williams yelled, grabbing hold of his head and slamming it onto the controls.

‘Take it easy, you mad cow,' he whimpered. Williams did it again, the pilot's face now very much ruined. ‘Okay, okay. He went to his secret hide-out if you must know.'

‘And where's that?' Mr Monkey asked politely.

‘I don't know,' he cried, as Williams prepared to smash his face a third time. This time he was telling the truth. ‘Please, no. All I know is the co-ordinates where he parachuted out at.'

‘That'll have to do, I guess,' Williams sighed, letting go of his head. Mr Monkey turned to her, clearing his throat.

‘Gosh, Nicola,' he gulped, ‘I wouldn't like to upset you these days. There was a time when you wouldn't have said boo to a goose.'

‘Yes, well the geese have flown, Brendan. Experience has taught me to toughen up, otherwise people just piss on you.'

* * *

‘Here, put this on.' Mr Monkey handed Williams a parachute.

‘No. I'm getting too old for this. I'd just hold you back,' Williams replied, pushing it away.

‘Nonsense, you're in your prime.'

‘No. I'll stay on board, make sure the pilot doesn't try to contact anyone.'

‘Okay, you're excused,' he chuckled as he opened the plane door, turning to salute her. ‘You're quite a woman, Nicola,' he yelled over the gushing wind. ‘You wouldn't hold me back.'

She held her hand out and reached for his paw, a flicker of passion fleetingly floating past. He jumped out, and she pulled the door shut.

* * *

‘Beautiful tropical islands? How can this be the base for a group of bodging twits?' Mr Monkey asked himself as he peered through his binoculars at the gorgeous unspoilt hideaway ahead. The landing area was a fair sized group of islands joined together by stone bridges. He was still in the air. Suddenly a helicopter appeared out of nowhere, and without a word of warning swooped down, slashing right through the puppet's parachute. It caught up with his tumbling body, getting under him as if to try and mash him up with the blades. It didn't work, for all of a sudden a gust of wind blew the flimsy puppet out of the way and he found himself clutching onto the bottom of the helicopter as it swooped from side to side.

The passenger hatch of the helicopter opened and a foot appeared on the bar right next to Mr Monkey's clutching paws. The passenger was The Worm. He stamped on one of the puppet's paws, forcing him to let go. Now with just one paw clutching on, Mr Monkey found himself severely compromised. The Worm waved his fist in triumph, treading on his other paw. But, this time Mr Monkey kept a firm grip. He wasn't going to give up that easily. Next came a foot to the face for the flailing puppet. He used his other paw to grab hold of The Worm's foot. The pilot of the helicopter pushed The Worm out, and both he and the puppet plummeted towards the depths of the crystal clear water below. But, luckily a piece of his polyester fur got snagged on the rock face as he rushed past, and he found himself dangling from it. Below, The Worm clung onto one of his paws. He flapped the other paw across The Worm's nose, causing him to sneeze.

‘Let go,' yelled Mr Monkey, feeling himself literally coming apart at the seams.

‘Please don't kill me,' The Worm pleaded.

‘Why? After all you've done to me, why should I save your life? Go on, answer that,' Mr Monkey yelled.

‘The Clown was the pilot that pushed me out of the helicopter. He wants me dead! I was under his control all this time, I never wanted to be evil. Please, you must believe me,' he sobbed.

Mr Monkey relented, hauling himself and The Worm up onto the top of the rock. He pulled a gun out from under his gaping puppet hole and pointed it at The Worm. ‘I don't believe you, but I can't kill a man in cold blood like you can.'

‘Can't you?' The Worm laughed, but Mr Monkey protruded a button eye, so he stopped. ‘Do you want to know where the helicopter disappeared to?'

‘Try me.'

‘To my, well our – you know, The Clown and myself – ahem… our secret hideout,' whispered The Worm, covering his mouth with his hands as he looked around to see if anyone could hear him. It was doubtful they could. Even Mr Monkey was having trouble.

‘Never!' Mr Monkey feigned shock, his spare paw covering his mouth. ‘And where is this hideout thingy of yours?'

‘I'll show you.'

* * *

‘Nice of you to join us. It seems your new friendship has grown to immense proportions,' The Clown's voice announced on the speaker. Mr Monkey shot the speaker, ‘Shut up,' casually slipping from between his polyester lips.

They were crawling through a narrow metallic passageway leading to the hideout.

‘This is the only other way to get in apart from the helicopter opening,' The Worm pointed out in frustration, struggling to crawl. He was ahead of Mr Monkey, his bum right in the puppet's face.

‘Try not to pass wind, please. Anyway, you're The Worm, are you not? Crawling is your forte.'