There’s no let up for those unfortunate earplugs yet. Could this be the time when they finally get their arses well and truly kicked? To find out, read on…
The cold that had permeated into Mister Pong’s Exotic Food Restaurant was also playing havoc with the lake in the arboretum. In fact it had frozen it solid and made it all lumpy. Naturally the zombie population were thrilled. And because they had no circulatory system to keep them warm, some of them began a pleasant stroll across it…
Less happy with their ‘stroll’ were Erronious and Hellfire. Although experienced in the mountains, the unseasonal snow had thrown them off the track home…
“Erronious,” Hellfire almost whimpered, “not a lot worries me: but I really don’t want some bunch of adventurers, in the future, discovering my frozen corpse in a snow drift.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean, Hell.” Erronious replied with difficulty. “I’m not much into ignominious ends. I don’t want to die with my snow shoes on either. Come on, pal: use your innate talent for path finding. Find us our charming farmstead. Failing that, try and come up with a deserted shepherd’s hut. Anything – just get us out of this damned snow!”
Meanwhile, inside the museum, the weather had managed to find several weak points in the vast building’s aging armour. This resulted in a poor showing of customers for a local pop singer’s al fresco concert…
With his hot dog concession failing miserably, Mister Pong was relieved when Police Constable Salisbury Wilts managed to return safely from his Precipitous Ledge Walking lessons, and (quoting health and safety rules) duly closed the poorly attended concert down.
Others, though, were putting the inclement conditions to good use. They were racing sledges upon the frozen canal that supplied the cooling water for the museum’s Nul-Space power generator…
Naturally Rupert Piles and his huge 3D TV camera were on hand to record the event. But as conditions worsened, the lone-wolf reporter realised that there was a bigger story than some dopey sods risking their necks rushing up and down the canal: this outlandish weather could be a catastrophe in the making. So he got his saucer-pilot girlfriend out of bed; slapped a PRESS sticker on the side of her saucer, and had her fly around the museum, whilst he took pictures and gave a running commentary…
“Maybe this will be the time I finally get a journalistic award.” He said through a smile that he shared with his girlfriend – a sweet End Cap, by the name of Wendy Ledballoon, whose faith in Rupert was total and undying.
However, worsening conditions soon overwhelmed the flight capability of the small sight-seeing machine…
…and Wendy was forced to park it once again. But not before Rupert snatched some long distance shots of neighbouring Ciudad de Droxford, which appeared almost abandoned…
What his camera didn’t spot was the hundreds of desperate earplugs, who even now, at this late hour, were still swarming to the ‘castle’ in the Age of Stone…
K’Plank and Auntie Doris were performing their civil duties by standing beside one of the side entrances and shouting loudly:
“This way: this way. Sanctuary beckons. Come along now: come along now. Stop arsing about and get inside. What are you doing – slipping and sliding around like a total moron? Don’t fall over, you dozy bleeder. Get inside before I give you clip behind the ear – stupid!”
Upon the tower roof immediately above the curator and her beau, Mister Pong’s eldest daughters – Yu-Wah and Wah-Hey – counted the number of earplugs entering the ‘castle’, and were hurriedly calculating the amount of arroz de grano corto they would require to make a huge paella with which they might feed the growing horde.
© Paul Trevor Nolan 2022
Return for the next episode when Erronious and Hellfire make a remarkable discovery. A discovery so remarkable that they’ll still be remarking about it a century from now!
Walking the Fine Line Between Clever and Stupid 
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