Patchee and the Blue Tentacle

Hello again, Imogen here, with part eight of Molly Whiskers and the Blue Tentacle.

We ended the last episode with Patchee rummaging around the army base where not so long ago, a football squad’s worth of hamsters were locked in cages. Meanwhile Molly’s found the note Patchee wrote about her, which doesn’t seem to have gone down well with Fogsworth’s private detective.

What will happen when Patchee meets the blue tentacle? I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound good, so we’d best get a move on. But before that, two things need to happen. Firstly, we need some music, and then we need to talk about lunch.

It’s early afternoon, and Roscoe’s having lunch. He takes a tray from the stack and thinks over what’s on offer.

“Cheese and potato pie, or cabbage soup?” says the badger behind the heated glass counter. Roscoe casts a glance over his left and right shoulder to make sure his partner isn’t around. “Pie, please.”

“We’ve no peas left”, warns the badger.

“No problem”, smiles the big cat, “more room for the cheese.”

The badger doesn’t think this makes sense, but knows better than to question the people who work here, as most of them carry handcuffs and unpredictable personalities.

Plonking his tray down and levering his body down to the bench, Roscoe grinds salt and pepper onto his pie, takes a sip of sweet tea, picks up a nearby rolled-up copy of the Fogsworth Daily and unfurls it with a brisk shake.

“Fresh-Faced Boffin Set to Fox Mayor in Town Hall Ding-Dong”, reads the big headline on the paper’s front page, along with a drawing of a debate due to happen tonight between Professor Fritz — an incredibly clever inventor who also, yes, happens to be a fox — and the Mayor of Fogsworth, Lady Bindle.

A debate is a type of performance that mixes arguing and queuing. In a debate, two or more people get to speak — only one at a time, unless the debate is very badly run — and in which each player must speak as many words as possible in the given time, without ever answering the question they were asked. It’s a little bit like a game you might play with friends, where the object of the game is to say as little as possible while still speaking.

Phrases like “I put it to you”, or “what the gentleman to my right would have us believe”, or “the people just want us to get on and do the job they hired us to do” are very useful in debates, as they give the speaker plenty of time to think of the next thing to say.

The best way to win a debate is to not turn up, as it means that, no matter how many other people are debating with you, the audience won’t stop talking about why you’re not there.

Tonight, Professor Fritz will debate the current mayor. Fritz is young but, according to the article Roscoe is reading, has always wanted to sit in the mayor’s seat. Mayor Bindle has kept her position for as long as Roscoe can remember, and although he doesn’t think much about politics, he quite likes her.

“Is this seat free, um, taken?” A timid voice interrupts Roscoe’s reading.

“Mmm hmm, yep”, says Roscoe, taking another sip of tea and continuing to read the paper.

“Oh, OK, sorry.”

Looking up in confusion, Roscoe sees that tall monitor lizard from the lab — Po? Was that her name? — walking away with her tray.

“No, I was saying it’s free”, says Roscoe, a little too loudly for his own liking. Shyly she walks back to the table and, blushing (insofar as lizards can blush), says “thanks.”

The pair eat their lunches in silence, Roscoe washing down big forkfuls of cheese and potato pie with gulps of sugary tea, and Po taking long, slow sips from her bowl of cabbage soup.

“Will you be watching the debate tonight?” asks Po once she’d finished, dabbing her thin mouth with a napkin.

“No, I wouldn’t have thought so”, replies Roscoe, as he drags a meaty paw across his mouth. “My diary’s full up with absolutely anything else”, he adds with a smirk.

Po laughs, for about a second longer than she normally would. “Well, if you’re at a loose end”, she says, running her finger along the rim of an empty tea cup and not looking at the big black cat opposite, “I’ll be at the tavern from around eight o’clock tonight, waiting to hear the results of the debate.”

A few seconds go by, and just as Roscoe is about to open his mouth to answer, a paw lands on his shoulder.

“We’ve got to go”, says a hurried Bailey, who has suddenly appeared by Roscoe’s side. “There’s been a hamster sighting near Guinea Crescent.”

Roscoe’s chair gives an upset squeal as it scrapes across the floor and has to deal with not having a large cat’s bottom on it anymore.

Taking a look at Roscoe’s empty plate, smeared with gravy, Bailey says “Still looking after your health, then?”

Sheepishly, Roscoe cuts in “No no, I was just… finishing it off for Po here… isn’t that right?”

Bailey looks at Po with a sideways glance as if to say “are you going to support this nonsense?”

Po says nothing, afraid to say the wrong thing to the wrong officer.

“Yeah, no, I love…”, Roscoe begins, looking at Po’s empty bowl, and then up to Po, and then panicking, “…whatever that soup was.”

“Mmm hmm”, says Bailey, in that voice she uses when interviewing difficult witnesses, “I see.”

Back in the office, Roscoe is straight to business. “What’s going on?” he asks, plopping into his chair and picking bits of grated cheese out of his teeth with a claw.

“A witness says she saw a group of hamsters jump out of a moving carriage and head towards Guinea Crescent”, says Bailey, leaning on the corner of Roscoe’s desk. “Then she says that same carriage came back for them, and”, this she adds with a lowered voice, “a pack of dogs threw them in the back and headed off.”

“Crimson biscuit!” hisses Roscoe, which makes Bailey wince. “When did this happen?”

“Just this morning. What do you think it means?”

“Well, if they’re dogs” says Roscoe, sitting up straight in his chair, “then they’re old army boys. Have you checked with Larry, Harry and Barry to see if they know anything?”

Larry, Harry and Barry work on some of Fogsworth’s stranger cases. Barry is not in fact called Barry, but Susan, however everyone at the station felt strongly that Barry was a better name. Sometimes they were even brave enough to call her Barry to her face.

Recently the team have begun working on a case involving an old pug who retired from the army some years ago, and who might be doing something a little naughty, involving some other dogs. You’ve probably already guessed that Larry, Harry and Barry (Susan)’s office backs on to the police station’s jail cells, and it was in fact their office that Molly saw through the open door.

“I’ve had a word with Ba… Susan, but she won’t give us anything”, said Bailey, moodily.

“Don’t tell me she’s still sore over that birthday card you passed around the office?”

Roscoe was referring to Susan’s last birthday. All the cats took it in turns to organise a card and present for the next birthday on the calendar, so Bailey had collected everyone’s money, bought Susan a lovely bottle of wine, and passed around a card for everyone to write in.

The only problem was that on the inside of the card, the first words Susan would read would be “To Barry”, written in Bailey’s neat handwriting.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if you hadn’t put it on the envelope as well!” chuckles Roscoe, remembering the fury with which Susan had thrown the card at Bailey’s head.

“OK, well let’s go and see this witness of yours —” continues Roscoe, but he’s cut off by the ringing of the telephone on his desk. Roscoe picks it up, and then after a moment, hands it to Bailey. “It’s that rabbit.”

Patchee has been spending quite a while, staring at the pieces of paper in the dark, wet-smelling brick building in Handsome Gardens, and is trying to commit everything to memory.

Sadly, he’s left all his nice pens and paper at the office and he’s worried that if he takes anything, the people who were here might find out, so he’s doing his best to remember all the names — some of which he knows — and to understand what the diagrams might mean.

“Found anything interesting?”

The voice isn’t loud. It’s actually quite soft, but its echoes bounce around the cold walls. Patchee jumps nearly out of his skin, and turns to face a black labrador, leaning casually against the back door and watching the rabbit intently.

“I was just… I mean… I’m going, I just —” stammers the young detective.

“That’s quite alright”, says the labrador, softly. “Now, I don’t know how well this thing works or even if I have it on the right setting, but hopefully you’ll still be alive once I press this button.”

The tall dog takes a small, thin, black metallic object from an overcoat pocket. On one end are two nasty-looking antennae, which is the end he points in the rabbit’s direction. He presses a button in the centre of the box, and within an instant, a long, blue, snaking tentacle shoots out from the object and hits Patchee square in the chest. It wriggles for a second, as if it were trying to find a way through the rabbit’s jacket, but just as Patchee faints to the ground, the labrador releases the button and the tentacle is instantly sucked back into the metal box.

The dog walks over to the rabbit, checks his pulse and mutters to himself, “The current’s perhaps a bit strong, but he’s still breathing.” And with that, he hoists the small rabbit over his back, and heads out through the back door of the army building to where a horse is waiting in the stable.

“Back to the lab”, commands the labrador. “I want to show the boss what his prototype can do.”

Molly has been pacing the floor of her flat for an hour, muttering to herself. Three things are playing on the rabbit’s mind: why would ex-army soldiers want to kidnap a bunch of hamsters, where is her assistant, and why was there a piece of paper, in his handwriting, with lots of mean words next to numbers, and why did it have the heading “Molly Whiskers Irritability Scale”?

This last question — which was really two related questions — was the one that was playing on her mind the most. She found it difficult to trust people at the best of times — she already felt like she was going out on a limb by calling Bailey — and now her assistant, who’d only been in the job two days, was making fun of her!

She thought about this, and then about the phrase “going out on a limb”, which really sums up how she feels. Rabbits don’t typically climb trees, but if they did, venturing from the safety of the trunk and creeping carefully over a branch that might break at any moment, would not be how they’d want to start. But that’s how it can feel to trust someone: you go from the safety of never trusting anyone — because in that way, you can never be disappointed — to the danger of letting someone in who might hurt you, but who might also make your life a lot better.

She liked the shy little rabbit, and thought it was rather sweet that he’d broken all her crockery whilst trying to save her, so she was all the more disappointed to learn that he was secretly quite unkind.

Best to put it out of your mind for now, she thinks, as she begins to pick up the last remaining paper darts from the floor. Bailey will be here shortly, with that other cat, and hopefully she might be able to share her findings with them, and get a little closer to finding Mrs Toggle.

With that thought, she hears the flap of her letterbox, and the sound of a wad of paper being shoved through. Today’s copy of the Fogsworth Daily could be just the thing to take her mind off that note.

“Hang in there, Mrs Toggle” says Ms Pickles. “I’m sure this will all be over soon.” Mrs Toggle has been sobbing for the last hour, and the other hamsters have been taking it in turn to try and comfort her (except for old Binky, who hasn’t said a word to anyone).

“Thanks love”, says the plump hamster, rubbing her eyes with her little paws. “I just miss my husband.” And with that, a fresh round of sobs begins.

Ms Pickles pads over to Mr Nibbs, who’s been very quiet since they arrived. “How are you feeling?” she asks, putting a gentle paw on his shoulder.

“Annoyed. Upset. Hacked off, cheesed off, ripped off and worst of all, I’ve had this flipping song in my head for the last hour.”

“What song is that?” asks Ms Pickles, a little amused.

“Oh just some nonsense my little boy sings when it’s his bath-time.” And with that, Mr Nibbs’ shoulders hunch forward and his head lolls. Ms Pickles leaves him there for a moment, hands dangling from knees tucked in tight with his head between them, staring at the floor.

“Listen”, she whispers, “we’ll find a way out of this place… whatever it is.”

“It’s the old Handsome Studio”, says a creaky old voice from the corner.

“What was that, Mr B?” asks Ms Pickles.

“If I have it right, we’re not far outside Handsome Gardens. Roderick Handsome was an inventor of old. He’s the one what brought the telephone into existence.

“He brought a lot of wealth into the area, and a lot of people got good jobs and homes out of his inventions. Even us hamsters did pretty well back in the day, helping run his machinery, but from what I heard, once a fox, always a fox, and foxes ain’t natural friends of the hamster.”

“So you’re saying”, says Ms Pickles, trying to piece together Old Binky’s words, “that this place is some sort of workshop?”

“That’s right, my dear”, confirms the old hamster, hobbling slowly over to the pair. “This here cage is new”, he says, pointing to the thick iron bars that surrounded them on all sides, “but out there is pipes and steam valves and workbenches and pneumatic tubes and all sorts. So if we’re staying here, it’s because someone needs us.”

The cage was in fact, very new, and quite sophisticated. It was fitted with a door that locked automatically, and could only be unlocked with a single key. Given the hamsters’ recent escape, the dogs had spared little time and no expense getting the cage in place. It almost felt, to Mr Nibbs, like the cage had been designed, not simply to keep them in, but to stop them feeling anything like hope for a rescue.

The old man’s speech is interrupted by a whispered “psst, someone’s coming!” from another corner of the cage. Through the thick bars, the hamsters see a tall, black labrador, carrying the sleeping body of a rabbit over one shoulder.

With surprising delicacy, he lifts the rabbit to the ground in front of a small grey terrier and a large, a very large, pug.

“I found this wondering around the old headquarters”, says the labrador,. “I don’t know what it’s for, but I suspect it’s harmless.”

“Perhaps we’d better wake him up, then”, says the terrier. “Go and ask our pair of geniuses for a bucket of water, and make sure”, this he says with a raised voice as the labrador begins to jog towards the far end of the workshop, “that it comes from the cold tap.” Turning back to his boss, he adds in a lowered voice, “we’re not here to make rabbit stew.”

This is perhaps one of the most unkind things a citizen of Fogsworth can say. It might not have escaped your attention that no animal within Fogsworth eats any other animal, so to suggest that one of the townsfolk might be cooked is, well, going a bit far.

“That’s going a bit far”, mumbles the pug, agreeing with your narrator.

“Yes boss”, sniffs the terrier, “sorry boss”. Then, seeming to remember something, the small dog turns his attention to the hamster cage. “What are you lot staring at?”

Three sets of eyes — those of Mr Nibbs, Ms Pickles and Mrs Toggle — quickly slink back into the darkness of the cage.

“What’s a rabbit doing here?” asks a trembling Mrs Toggle.

“Well, he looks like a young lad”, says Mr Nibbs, thinking. “So either he’s been wandering around Handsome Gardens looking for a job —”

—“which seems unlikely” interrupts Ms Pickles.

“Which is unlikely”, confirms Mr Nibbs, “or, he’s with… no, that’s silly.”

“With who?” ask Ms Pickles and Mrs Toggle at once.

“With who” indeed. Or perhaps it’s “whom”, although I’ll be honest with you, I can never tell the difference. Most adults can’t; we just nod and pretend we know.

Anyway, make sure you don’t miss the next episode – If you thought meeting the General and his cronies was unpleasant, just wait until you meet the mastermind of the whole operation. Ooh, and here’s a bit of homework for you: why not see if you can find a photo of a slow loris before the next episode. It might just help you picture someone else we’ll meet rather soon.