Monday, 4 May 2020
(Vegetables) Chapter Forty Two: Into The Villain’s Lair
It was a bit of a squeeze, getting everyone back into the car. It wasn’t that the car was particularly small, there was plenty of room for four grown-ups and a ten year old girl. It was fitting the two rabbits and their tuba case in, especially given that they refused to ride in the boot, as they needed to give directions.
The tuba case, for the record, wasn’t. It was a cunningly disguised control booth for both rabbits, featuring hidden cameras, recording devices, a communications system and what appeared to be a small arsenal of vegetable related weaponry116.
Rabbits, as it turns out, aren’t very good at giving directions. Morwen, who was driving, was getting increasingly irritated at the many changes of direction she had to make117. It was also getting late, and dark.
“Oh, look,” said Rosa, staring out the window. “It’s the roundabout with the concrete flamingos again. I’m sure they’ve moved since the last time we saw them.”
Finally they found Mrs K’s secret lair, by the simple process of driving to a supermarket and following one of the marauding rabbits, and when they lost it, following a flock of pigeons who were all wearing bombing harnesses.
They parked around the corner from a building that solemnly declared itself to be “The Most Ancient and Noble Order of Greengrocer’s”118. Not because they were trying to be sneaky, but because there was no parking any closer.
The MANOG building was long, and low, a single storey reminiscent of a mechanic’s garage, complete with large wooden double doors. To compensate, it had at some stage been redecorated by someone with a Gothic fetish, all columns and flying buttresses.
The front doors were shut, and a steady stream of multi-coloured rabbits were hopping down the shadowy alleyway beside the building.
Pinky and Purple squeaked at Megan, indicating that they’d go ahead and scout. They lolloped off into the shadows.
“Do we trust them, really?” said Rosa nervously.
“Hell no,” replied Felindre.
And she was off too, sneaking through the shadows. She was back in five and a half minutes.
“There’s a big yard out the back, where Mrs K is supervising the reloading of the rabbits’ water pistols and stuff. There’s another couple of minions there too – our favourite people.”
“Really?” asked Rosa. “That’s brill! I didn’t know Jen and Dave were back. That’s Dave, as in Jenny and Dave, not Dave, the not-policeman and cheese grater candidate. But how did Jenny and Dave get involved with all this? It’s not like them.”
Felindre looked exasperated.
“I meant Dave and Stewart, the evil minions” she explained.
“Oh,” said Rosa. “That’s a shame. It would have been lovely to see Jen and nice-Dave. Maybe we should invite them around for dinner once all this is over.”
“Anyway, as I was saying,” said Felindre. “Big yard. Big barrels of CS4 in the yard. Production line of bunnies reloading other bunnies, ditto pigeons. Pinky and Purple have disappeared into the building, whereabouts unknown.”
“We need to take Mrs K out, somehow,” said Morwen. “She’s the key to the whole thing, without her the rest of the troops will fall apart.”
Megan looked worried.
“Please don’t hurt Granny. I know she’s not been very nice recently, but she is my Granny.”
The front door to the MANOG hall creaked open, and two rabbit heads119 peeked out the door.
“Looks like we’re in,” said Felindre. “Come on, and try to be quiet.”
Megan shouldered her tuba case, and they all went into the building.
The floor was tiled, the sort of tile that makes anyone walking on it in high heels sound like they’re firing a series of gunshots. Rosa got two steps in before Felindre hissed at her to remove her heels.
“Sorry!” hissed Rosa.
The others shushed her.
“Sorry!” she mouthed.
The front door opened into a little, short hallway120, with doors coming off it leading to the toilets and another dark corridor going along one side of the building. At the other end of the short hallway was another set of double doors, these one very ornate, decorated with carvings of various fruits and vegetables.
The two rabbits stood in the hall, their noses twitching. Light filtered from underneath the double doors, and there was the sound of low chanting.
Morwen looked at the doors, then down the corridor.
“This way,” she mouthed, and led the others quietly down the darkened corridor.
The corridor ended in another, quite boring looking door, which was ajar. There was a light on in the room beyond Morwen and the bunnies listened at the door for any sounds on the other side of it, for eleven seconds, before quietly pushing it open.
The door opened into a small kitchen, and our heroes came face to nose hair with Stewart, who had just made himself a cup of coffee.
Felindre dove at him at exactly the moment he raised his voice and shouted:
“Intruders!”
A lot of things happened at once. The bunnies scarpered. Felindre punched Stewart in his nose hair and he went down like a sack of parsnips. Megan dropped her tuba case on the floor. Morwen and Rosa rushed for the back door and threw it open, right in front of Mrs K. And the double doors of the main hall flew open and people in stupid looking robes121 came swarming into the kitchen.
The humans were outnumbered, and the bunnies were gone. In the matter of minutes, the greengrocers had subdued the intruders122 and dragged them into the hall.
The hall continued the Gothic architecture meets vegetable and fruit cornucopia theme, and was well lit with freestanding candle sticks, each with the space for dozens of candles. The effect was somewhat spoiled by the fact that all the candles had been replaced by the naff electric ones, the ones with the dodgy flicker.
There was a dais at the end of the hall, on which stood an ornately carved throne, again featuring fruit and vegetables as a prominent decorative motif. On either side of the throne were a pair of particularly large pitcher plants123. On said throne sat Horace van Twaddle, dressed in obviously ceremonial robes, and with a particularly green hat.
Rosa got a fit of the giggles as soon as she saw the hat.
“But it looks like a giant green…” she started, before being shaken into silence by her captors.
Morwen bit her lip to stop from laughing. Megan looked confused.
“It’s a marrow!” snapped Horace van Twaddle, obviously irritated, and waved his golden sceptre in emphasis.
Rosa caught Felindre’s eye, and shook with suppressed laughter.
“Nice cucumber,” said Felindre, completely deadpan.
“That,” said Horace, waving his sceptre around even more, “is a courgette!”
“Enough of this,” snapped Mrs K, as she walked up to the dais, the tapping of her cane sounding like gunshots . She stopped in front of Megan, and stared at her. Megan visibly quailed.
“I thought I told you to stay at home, sweetie,” she said, icily.
Megan started crying124.
“I’m sorry Granny!”
“That’s alright, darling,” she said soothingly. “Where are your bunnies?”
“They ran away Granny,” said Megan.
“I knew we should never have trusted the little sods,” muttered Felindre.
Mrs K sighed.
“I’m very disappointed with you,” she said sternly. “With all of you. Now, what should I do with you?”
She turned to look at the congregation.
“What should we do with these outsiders, who have broken in and profaned our sacred and noble rites? What punishment have they earned?”
It was Stewart who spoke first:
“Deadth!” he called125.
The call was soon taken up by the rest of the grocers126.
Mrs K grinned widely, and turned to face Horace van Twaddle.
“And what say you, Grand Master?”
Horace stroked his chin and thought for a moment.
“Death,” he declared.
“Hang on,” shouted Morwen. “You’re in charge? I thought it was Mrs K here who was the evil genius?”
Mrs K tittered.
“Me? Oh no, dearie. I’m just the secretary. Being Grand Master is no job for a woman.”
“As if we needed another reason to destroy this organisation,” muttered Felindre. “They’ve gone and added sexism to it as the icing on the cake.”
The grocers started grocer-handling the three women and the child up onto the dais. Rosa was the first to get dropped into the pitcher plant feet-first, then Felindre127. Morwen managed to cling to the slippery edge of the pitcher plant for a few moments, before she too landed with a sticky splash into the liquid at the bottom.
Megan was the last one left outside the plant.
“Now dearie,” Mrs K said to her. “You are going to be a good girl from now on, right?”
“Yes Granny,” snuffled Megan.
“Because,” Mrs K continued, “I really don’t want to have to feed you to the plants. It’s not a nice way to go, and your mummy and daddy would be really upset. And you don’t want to upset them, do you?”128
“No Granny.”
“There’s a good girl now,” said Mrs K. “Let’s get you back to the lab and you can make another batch of CS4 before bed.”
Horace van Twaddle raised his voice.
“Ahem. Thus perish the enemies of the Most Ancient and Noble Order of Greengrocer’s!” he declared.
The grocers cheered.
“Now,” he said in conversational tones. “Does anyone have any other business? No? Then I formally declare this meeting closed. See you all next Tuesday.”
___
116 Pinky accidentally sat on the firing mechanism for the potato gun – the resulting shot put a hole in the living room ceiling, and made everyone else a bit nervous.
117 On the plus side, it meant that anyone following them will have got thoroughly lost too.
118 Est. 1976
119 One pink with purple spots, the other purple with pink spots.
120 Possibly a vestibule
121 The bog-standard ones seemed to merely be shapeless sacks in eye-wateringly bright shades of green. The more ornate ones, well, let’s just say that they looked like very expensive and overly embroidered versions of the giant vegetable suits that people wear in parades and to hand out leaflets on healthy eating. The carrot costume was particularly fine, especially the hat.
122 They all put up a fight. Rosa managed to clout the grocer in the celery outfit around the ear with her shoes before they got taken off her. It took several large and burly male grocers to subdue Felindre, and they were going to have bruises…
123 By large, I meant the pitchers were big enough to hold a fully grown human. It was all a bit “Little Shop of Horrors” if you ask me.
124 In the dark shadows of the rafters, something banana-shaped stirred.
125 Well, he was holding his nose to try and stop the bleeding after Felindre had whacked him one.
126 There’s something amazingly chilling about a large group of human sized vegetables calling for your death.
127 But not before she landed another few good kicks on her captors.
128 In the shadows, several somethings that were small and yellow watched carefully, ready to spring into action.
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