To assemble Part 3, insert Tab A into Slot 6 and fold along the broken line.
The story so far:- Biggles, Algy and Ginger have encountered hostile ME109's, and in the ensuing dog-fight Algy dropped the secret experimental seagull out of the plane. It landed (undamaged) in a field and was purloined by our bird-watching hero, Martin Blojobski. Elsewhere, two lost and perplexed aliens have stolen an ISDN phone, and unwittingly collected a human flea. They have been spotted by James Bond, who is now in hot pursuit. He, in turn is being followed by the evil one-eyed spy Boris Adidoff, disguised as sexy Mangy Azadinuf, after having failed an attempted poisoning. The much talked about Avon supplies have yet to be delivered, Jean doesn't fancy Jim and Roger Red Hat has fallen out of the boat again. Ian has made a bad job of defrosting the refrigerator and the Elephants still have Big Ears, despite Noddy paying the ransom money. There is no sign, as yet, of the much promised dog with brown boots and no significance to the lack of hairdressers or much of a plot.
The Sopwith banked out of its steep dive as it turned into
level flight, and coasted towards a freshly swept field.
"Flaps Down!" ordered Biggles.
"Lower the wheels," replied Ginger, in-between licking
envelopes for Algy to obey Biggles last order.
"Why," queried Biggles, pondering the intricacies of a
fixed undercarriage bi-plane.
"Otherwise they won't touch the ground!" hissed Ginger.
Biggles cut the power, pulled the stick back to make the plane
hop over a hedge, before allowing the wheels to make their first
contact with the clean field. Then he beat the plane's port wing
with the stick until it landed properly. Biggles applied the
brakes as the ancient single seater fighter bumped across the
field towards the opposite hedge. 20 yards before a potential
disaster, the plane stopped.
Biggles climbed from the cockpit, easing his stiffened joints as
he surveyed the battle-torn plane.
It was habit that worried Ginger: flying aeroplanes and smoking
joints. Why did they become stiff during the flight? he mused to
himself, cracking a brazil nut. His private thoughts were
interrupted by a major din, as he chewed the kernel.
"It's Pilot Officer Algy," said Captain Biggles,
marshalling his thoughts away from the field and pointing in the
general direction of the cockpit. "He is still worrying
about that rank-smelling seagull."
Together, the chums placated Algy, with hardly a commissioned
struggle, and all three set off in separate directions to search
for the missing experimental bird.
Meanwhile, our story continues as James swung the speeding Aston Martin into Calais, down to the Eurostar tunnel and into the train. Closing the sunroof, he settled back as, further back in the carriages, Boris Adidoff argued with officials. The officials were quite nice about it, were more than keen to accommodate the black Mercedes with the cigar smoking woman, but some people just like to argue. Eventually the doors closed and the train slipped gracefully away from the station platform and erotically entered the channel tunnel, still gathering speed. On the cliffs above, a teenage boy clutched himself and looked away. If only he had kept looking, he may have seen the dog. But he didn't, so we can't mention it.
As the train slipped into the tunnel, and high above the
channel, our simple yarn proceeds as a two alien UFO looked down
at a ship, equipped with a large funnel.
"Kuqwe875 !PO£tpt in#poi Qeroti qLkj qkewjotQiort EOrgi*)(&£,"
said the first alien. Loosely translated into English, he had
pointed out that there was a funnel in the channel over the
tunnel. Surprisingly it rhymed in the alien language
"S$£KJ(&^@{KJGY KJHYNo iuiu7 ]]0t9 f.,m'/./? odfgk afdu83
4'*&* &ks djvij" ("Oh - a poet and I didn't
know it") replied the second alien, simultaneously
scratching its second and third shoulders with its first and
second arms. And the back of its fifth thigh with the seventh
finger of its third arm.
The flea was having the time of its short, but irritating, life.
The alien life forms had an unusual mixture of chemicals in the
frothy red liquid that sloshed just under the paper thin membrane
serving as a skin. Whilst it consisted of many chemicals, all
having long sounding names and lots of tri's, bi's, anol's and
ide's, all mixed up together, and an even longer series of
chemical formulas, most people would immediately recognise the
taste of pure malt whisky from the wilder parts of Scotland,
matured in an oaken barrel for twenty-one years and consumed from
the finest cut-glass tumbler. In short, the flea was drunk. It
was enjoying itself immensely, not having had such a feast since
the student orgy three months earlier, when it had become stoned
on an incredible cocktail of drugs as it sucked blood from its
busily romping scholars.
The first alien looked carefully at the second.
"Have you checked the milk, today?" it queried in a
friendly alien dialect, trying to get a closer look at the minute
bite marks on its companion's back.
In the meantime, our tale develops, nearly as much as a lemur
with a hormone imbalance. The sea plunges headlong onto the
Aldeborough beach, a stony spit <ting> extending
southwards and parallel to the main shore. It was an ideal spot
for families to spend a weekend at the beach. So they had; all
the world and his brother (it seemed) was on the stony spit <ting>,
bronzing their limbs under a fiery sun putting in a special
appearance due to an unusually hot spell. Pointyxyzzy, the wizard
responsible for the spell was nowhere to be seen, preferring
instead the smooth pavements of the city. He had created the
current hot spell to get everybody OUT of the cities, so that he
could get IN while things were quieter.
But I digress. Martin ran headlong along the stony spit <ting>
with the experimental seagull under his arm. It would be
nice to describe his progress as discreet or uneventful, but that
would be a slight exaggeration. There was hardly enough room left
on the pebbles to spread a handkerchief, let alone erect a
deckchair or lay out a rug. Martin's progress was punctuated by
the angry cries of displaced fathers, the upset sobs of mothers
who have lost their lunch, the delighted cries of the seagulls as
they swooped down to gain another fish paste sandwich and two
expletives from a single parent.
Further down the beach, acne covered teenage boys squinted
surreptitiously through mirrored sun-glasses as teenage girls
struggled with indiscreet towels that flapped enticingly in the
mild off-shore breeze. It seemed strange that the boys totally
ignored the girls' mothers, who exposed voluminous rolls of fat
and earthy flesh in their attempt to improve their appearance by
gaining an all over tan.
Throughout all this cacophony, a lonely cloaked figure sat
peacefully on a deckchair facing the sea. The more observant
reader may, perhaps, have been able to perceive that the
surrounding family did not actually look in the direction of the
cloaked figure. Rather, they were at great pains to look away
from the strangely garbed shape. If the reader had been able,
they would have seen that this phenomenon caused the stranger to
be seated in a clear space, extending some 15 yards in every
direction around him. Even the sea seemed to veer away from him.
An even closer inspection would have revealed the surprising fact
that the deckchair was erected upside down. Buried within the
folds of the black cloth, a thin and bony hand gripped the chair
to (impossibly) maintain it in its uncomfortable position.
Martin, however, was so busy worrying about pursuit, that he
did not notice the figure, nor the space around it, until he
suddenly found himself running on the stony spit <drat!
missed> rather than yet another picnic. He risked a
glance backwards for signs of chase and ran recklessly straight
into the unusual body and its impossibly assembled deckchair.
THANK YOU, BOY.
Unlike most speech, the reverberating voice from within the folds
of the cloak did not bother with all the fuss of vocal chords,
the passage of oscillating air pressure and its resultant effect
on the ear-drums. Rather, the voice echoed nastily directly
inside Martin's head, with tones reminiscent of Vincent Price's
narratives in Hammer films.
"Sorry," said Martin, more than a little inadequately,
as he disentangled himself from the deckchair, its occupant and
the cloak.
I SPENT TWO HOURS ERECTING THAT CHAIR, BOY.
"I am very sorry."
SORRY. YOU WRECK MY CHAIR
AND ALL YOU CAN SAY IS SORRY. DO YOU KNOW WHO I
AM?
Martin peered intriguingly into the inner recesses of the cloaks
voluminous cowl. A gust of wind flapped momentarily at the folds.
Martin felt an icy chill sliding down his back as he looked into
the fixed grin of a skull.
"I don't think that's funny," he said, removing the ice
cube from inside his shirt. "Take your mask off."
Bending and gathering an agricultural implement in its hand, the
cloaked figure struck an impressive pose.
I AM DEATH. It said,
its knuckles cracking as it gripped the scythe. Martin felt the
effect was rather spoiled when he glanced at the other hand. It
contained a bottle of Boots factor 25 waterproof sun block cream.
Death glanced down.
I AM ON HOLIDAY. He said, rather apologetically. I ONLY GET ONE WEEKEND EVERY FIVE YEARS.
"Does it mean I am about to die?" asked Martin,
starting to worry for the first time.
NO. YOU ARE LUCKY. I AM
NOT THE DEATH OF THIS
WORLD. I AM FROM THE DISCWORLD.
"The what?" queried Martin.
THE DISCWORLD. STORIES BY TERRY
PRATCHETT. VERY FUNNY, I BELIEVE. I CAME TO AN ARRANGEMENT WITH THE GODS, SO THAT I COULD HAVE
THIS HOLIDAY .
. .
"Doesn't that make you a parody?"
NO. YOU MEAN A PLAGIARISM.
"Oh, well, if there is going to be a plague, you are in the
right place," said Martin, mistakenly.
IT DOESN'T MATTER. JUST PUT
THE DECKCHAIR UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE.
The voice in Martin's head managed to sound full of anguish as
well as reverberating like an echo chamber. Martin handed the
experimental seagull to a hazy figure, cunningly written just out
of view. In ten seconds the deckchair was correctly assembled and
sitting invitingly on the stony spit <ting!>
DON'T SPIT. APART FROM IT
BEING RATHER RUDE, EARLIER ON YOU MISSED
THE SPITTOON.
"Sorry." said the author. "It will soon sponge off."
TELL THAT TO THE CO-OP FANCY DRESS HIRE.
Death turned his attention, with some interest and the author's
relief, back to Martin and the deckchair. IS THAT HOW IT SHOULD BE?
"What - life?" asked Martin.
NO - THE DECKCHAIR.
Martin looked around, a little confused.
WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?
asked Death as he (or it) lowered its bones into the deckchair.
"My bird."
YOU GAVE IT TO THE SPOTTY YOUTH WEARING
TIGHTS
"Spotty youth wearing tights?"
YES. THE ONE WITH THE HAT FESTOONED WITH CORKS.
"Corks? Tights?" Martin's eyes became glazed as he
desperately tried to remember what had happened. Death settled
himself comfortably into the deckchair. People all around started
to take even less notice of him.
HE WENT THAT WAY.
A bony arm rose to point along the stony sp... er beach. As a
dollop of sun cream fell from the bottle clasped in its fingers,
Martin lost sight of Death (and so have we!) and raised his
trusty bird-watching binoculars to his eyes. There! A diminutive
figure wove its way along the beach, not as quickly as Martin had
run, but a lot more inconspicuously.
The further unravelling of this chronicle is taken up by the figure carrying the experimental seagull, dressed in a pair of oversized hiking boots, a pair of tights and a tatty pair of Y-fronts worn outside the tights. The figure, that is, not the seagull. A faded T-shirt carried the words "I am GREAT," poorly scrawled on the back, and a lightning symbol on the front. The face was partially obscured by a large mangled leather hat, the brim supporting an unimpressive number of corks. It was AN AUSTRALIAN! (sorry, or possibly a New Zealander). As he passed one of the larger families gathered on the beach, he skidded on a well-written jam tart and fell heavily on one side. As he rolled to avoid damaging the seagull he cracked his head against the large metal support of a surf- breaking groyne. Apologising to the gentleman with the truss, he jumped up, only to miscalculate the height of the breakwater and trip again. This time, the experimental seagull shot out of his grasp.
Martin watched in dismay, through his binoculars, as the bird skidded on its large flat feet, rotating dizzily, bounced twice across the sea and slipped beneath the waves some 10 yards from the shore. Ten seconds later a small bubble burst upon the surface, 20 yards out, followed by a steady stream of bubbles heading directly out to sea!
There we must leave Martin, James, Biggles and all the chums until another time. Has the secret experimental research gull been lost forever? Will the dog with brown boots ever appear? Why does each episode end in a series of pointless questions? These, and many other dull facts will be left uncovered in the next insipid episode of