(Vegetables) Chapter Thirty Six: Here Come The Cavalry

Twenty eight minutes later, the front door opened quietly, and a small human figure crept silently in. It ghosted through the house quietly, checking all the rooms, flattening itself against walls and generally acting as if it was entering hostile territory. Sweep completed, it walked to the open front door, and turned on the hall light switch.

“Not here,” said Felindre to Richard, who’d been keeping watch outside.

A loud and irritating buzzing came from the kitchen. Looking at each other, the human, and the something or other, walked into the kitchen to find Morwen’s phone vibrating so hard it was skidding around in the cherry juice on the counter.

“You two took your bloody time,” snapped Sissy.

“We got here as quickly as we could,” replied Richard.

“Yeah, whatever,” said Felindre. “Quickly, what the hell happened?”

“Morwen and Rosa have been kidnapped by Horace van Twaddle, a bald guy called Stewart with too much nose hair, and our favourite not-policeman and cheese grater candidate, who rejoices in the boringly normal name of Dave. They were forced to make a recipe from that damn book, and even though it didn’t work quite as advertised, it worked enough so that they’ve been taken off who knows where to do who knows what! And I’ve been stuck here for ages waiting for you two to show up so we could go find them! And introduce them to the business end of a cattle prod!”

Sissy was really pissed off.

“Where have they gone?” asked Felindre.

“I don’t knoooow!” wailed Sissy. “And I’ve no way of finding them!!”

Richard opened his hand to reveal the ladybird.

“Don’t worry,” he said calmly. “As long as Morwen still has her necklace on, this little bug will track her down. I put a homing device in the chain – otherwise, what’s the point in it coming to get me if it can’t take me to her?”

“Well, I never,” said Sissy in tones of surprise. “That, sir, is cunning and devious.”

“Why, thank you,” replied Richard.

“Don’t get too cocky, metal boy,” said Sissy. “We still have to find them.”

“If you two have finished sniping,” interrupted Felindre. “It’s time for us to go find our friends.”




Richard drove too damn fast down the country lanes, turning and weaving according to the movement of the buzzing ladybird flying head first against the inside of the windscreen, as if it was pushing the car from the inside.

“Careful!” snapped Felindre, as she was thrown around the front seat after a particularly sharp turn.

“Sorry,” said Richard, in tones that he was anything but. “I programmed the ladybird to take the shortest direction to the target, but that doesn’t really work with the road network.”

“So next time equip it with SatNav!”

They swerved off the country lane onto a dirt track running between two tilled fields. Richard stomped even harder on the accelerator.

“Slow down!” yelled Sissy. “According to my maps, there’s nothing up ahead except an old barn.”

“Could be their secret headquarters,” said Richard, easing up on the engine. “Could be nothing.”

“Let’s be cautious,” said Felindre. “Park up and we’ll sneak around first. We don’t want to tip our hand.”

“But if it’s not the place,” said Richard, his knuckles white on the steering wheel, “we’ll have lost time.”

“Pull over!” yelled Sissy. “Quick!”

Richard yanked the wheel and drove the car off the track into the field, bumping it over the uneven ground until it came to a stop beside a hedge. He killed the engine and the car lights, mere moments before a tractor came rumbling slowly round the corner and down the track.

There was silence in the car for a long moment.

“Hey,” said Sissy. “Did you hear the one about the magic tractor? It drove down the lane and turned into a field.”

There was another long moment of silence. Richard took a deep breath. Felindre looked at him.

“You really love her,” she said.

He looked at her and cracked a faint smile.

“Look who’s talking,” he replied.

“Alright,” said Sissy, “now we’ve sorted out who loves who, can we get on? I may not be in love with any of you squishy folks, but that doesn’t mean I’m not fond of you all. And I don’t want anything horrible to happen to Morwen and Rosa.”

Richard opened the car door, and the ladybird promptly disappeared out into the night.

“Damn,” he said. “Knew I should have put a pause on that thing.”




Felindre and Richard crept across the fields towards the barn, which was dark and silent. Felindre moved like a ghost, Richard less so, especially after he’d stood in a particularly deep and muddy puddle. To put it mildly, he squelched. He stopped muttering about it when they got closer to the side of the barn.

“Can you think of any reason why there’s a load of shelves and boxes laid out in the field?” Richard asked Felindre.

She gave him a look, and hissed back “Focus!”

Richard was about to step onto the gravelled area that ringed the barn, when Felindre stuck out a hand to stop him. Quietly she reached down and picked up a clod of earth, then threw it towards the front of the barn.

It landed with a thud, and a light came on, flooding the area with light. They both ducked down as a figure came out of the small door in the main barn door, and squinted around while waving a torch into the darkness⁹⁷.

“That’s the not-policeman!” hissed Richard.

Felindre shoved her muddy hand over his mouth. When Dave the henchman/not-policeman/sound guy went back into the barn, she removed her hand.

Richard wiped his mouth mostly clean on the sleeve of his jacket.

“Thanks for that,” he whispered.

“Yes, that’s cheese grater boy,” she whispered. “We’re in the right place.”

“Now what?” asked Sissy.

“Now we get closer,” said Felindre. “Without setting off the motion detectors.”

Easier said than done, unfortunately. Felindre moved like a ghost and made it to flatten herself against the side of the barn without disturbing anyone or anything. Richard however, tripped over his own feet, splashed through puddles and generally staggered his way through the dark to the side of the barn.

“You’re not good at this sneaking thing, are you?” asked Sissy. “Are you sure you’re a secret agent?”

Richard was breathing heavily, and was mud up to the eyeballs.

“Yes,” he gasped. “But my training’s been a bit more focussed on er… more technological aspects.”

Felindre had been scanning the side of the barn.

“There!” she said, in a tone of satisfaction. “Boost me up.”

“What?” asked Richard.

“There’s a window up there. Boost me up.”

Sure enough, halfway up the wall was a window with a ledge and a wooden frame sticking out of the wall, looking like the sort of thing that might have been used to hoist bales of hay up (or down) from the very top of the barn. The hatch that would have led into the hayloft had been replaced with a dusty window.

Richard made a cradle with his linked hands and Felindre put her foot in it. With a muffled “hup”, he boosted her up and she climbed onto the ledge, clinging for balance on to the window frame.

“What can you see?” asked Sissy. “Pass me up!”

Richard handed Felindre the phone, and turned to scan the darkness around them.

The view through the window was dirty, but the lights inside were bright enough so that Felindre could see in easily enough.

Now, from the outside, the barn looked like, well, a barn. Slightly run down and mucky, with concrete block walls and a corrugated tin roof. Inside, the hayloft had been converted into something that looked like a Seventies’ interior designer’s dream of what an evil genius’ lair cum bachelor pad should look like. All lava lamps, bean bags and psychedelic prints, even complete with a massive aquarium full of fish, a massive television and a large heart shaped bed.

There was no sign of Morwen or Rosa however.

Felindre watched for a few minutes, and was just about to climb back down again, when an interior door opened and Stewart, still sporting the impressive nasal hair, came in, followed by Horace van Twaddle.

“Are they secure?” asked Horace.

Stewart nodded. “Now what?”

“Now I’m off home and yourself and Dave can split the watch between you. We’ll leave the ladies to stew for the night, and in the morning Mrs K will be along to talk some sense into them.”

And with that Horace picked up his briefcase and went out through the same internal door that they’d come in.

Stewart yawned widely and scratched himself, before slumping into a large bean bag. The internal door opened again, and Dave came in carrying two large, steaming mugs.

“That had better be coffee,” Stewart rumbled.

Dave handed him a cup. “It’s going to be a long night. I hope Mrs K knows what she’s doing.”

Stewart grunted at him, taking a long drink from the coffee cup.

“I didn’t sign up for all this illegal stuff, y’know,” said Dave. “All I want is to get my journeyman status and start my own shop.”

“When the Grand Master says jump, you say ‘how high?’,” replied Stewart. “Them’s the rules.”

“Yeah… but…”

“But nuffin.”

They mumbled at each other a bit more, and then played a quick game of rock-paper-scissors. Dave lost, and left the room. Stewart drank his coffee and turned on the tv, flicking past the news (which gave a quick mention of something involving the water armaments thefts) and on to a home and gardens makeover channel. He promptly fell asleep.

Felindre huddled on the ledge for a few more minutes before it became patently obvious that nothing else of interest was going to happen. She took a moment to examine the window carefully, then climbed down.

“We have to get in there,” she whispered to Richard.

“Agreed. But how?”

“Well, I can get us through that window. If you can get up there.”

She didn’t sound particularly convinced that he would be able to.

“I’ll manage,” Richard reassured her. “But first, let’s call this in.”

“To who? The police?”

“No, to the Agency.”

Richard patted his pockets, and his face fell.

“Dammit,” he swore. “Left my phone in the car.”

Felindre sighed, ad fished her phone out of her pocket. Then she too swore.

“No signal. Bugger. Sissy?”

“Don’t looks at me,” said Sissy. “There’s only so many laws of physics I can break, and no signal means no signal. We’re on our own for the time being…”

Richard climbed up the side of the barn surprisingly easily, given his purported status as a desk jockey. He and Felindre got onto the hay ledge with minimal noise, and opened the window. It was stiff and squeaky, but Richard, despite having left his phone in the car, still managed to pull out of a pocket a portable tool kit, complete with miniature bottle of oil. Thus lubricated, the window opened with only a few creaks, easily covered by the noise from the television.

Felindre had just climbed down to the room inside when the ladybird made a reappearance, closely followed by a curious Dave.

A lot of things then happened at once. The ladybird flew up to where Richard was crouched on the ledge outside the window, flying straight at his face. He flinched, dodged the ladybird, and lost his balance, falling with a thud into the room.

Stewart woke up with a start at the same moment as Dave threw the door open. Felindre, too far away from either of the minions to launch an attack, dropped into an attack pose.

Our heroes and the two minions stared at each other for a long moment, then Dave fumbled for his gun, looking away from Felindre for a crucial second.

Quick as a flash, she scooped up a floor cushion and threw it at him. It was a direct hit, right in the face. She followed it up with a flying leap at him. He dropped the gun and cowered.

Stewart struggled out of his beanbag, while Richard picked himself up off the floor. The two of them promptly made for each other, Stewart swinging a massive roundhouse punch at Richard’s head.

Richard ducked, and rugby tackled Stewart around the middle, bearing him to the ground. Now, Stewart’s bigger than Richard, and managed to score a whacking great thump on the side of Richard’s head, which did nothing it seems, except to hurt Stewart’s hand⁹⁸.

Felindre, by this stage had Dave in a full Nelson, the gun kicked safely across to the far side of the room.

Stewart was shortly subdued too, by virtue of Richard grabbing his nose hair and pulling.

“Ow ow OW!” yelled Stewart.

All the while the ladybird was buzzing between Richard and somewhere on the other side of the internal door.

“Now we’ve got your attention,” said Felindre, in measured tones, giving a bit of an extra squeeze to Dave for emphasis. “Please would you be so kind as to tell us where our girlfriends are.”

There was the noise of a shotgun being cocked. There, framed cinematically in the doorway was Mrs K, holding said shotgun.

“Oh, don’t you worry, dearie,” she said, pointing the shotgun so it covered everyone else in the room. “We’ll be taking you to them in just a minute, won’t we lads? Seeing as you asked so politely.”

A note of steel came into Mrs K’s voice.

“Now, I’d thank you to let go of my two lads there, and put your hands on your head.”

“What if we refuse?” asked Felindre, who had somehow managed to position herself so that Dave was in between her and the shotgun.

“Well, that would be bad,” replied Mrs K. “I’d hate to have to redecorate.”

Richard and Felindre looked at each other.

“Are you saying that you’d kill your own people as well as us if we don’t cooperate?” he asked.

Mrs K looked cross.

“Yes I am,” she said testily and brandished the shotgun. “Now drop them, or everyone dies.”

“Actually,” said Richard, “looking at the gun you’ve got there I don’t think you’d be able to kill everyone outright with just two shots. Shotgun shells are full of buckshot usually, so a wide spread of shot, which’d hit everyone, but not large shot or high velocity. I think you could probably hit everyone. Seriously hurt everyone, possibly. Kill everyone? Very unlikely.”

Mrs K was looking even crosser by the end of this little lecture. Her finger tightened on the trigger.

Richard noticed, belatedly. He let go of Stewart. Felindre let go of Dave, who rushed over and picked up his own gun.

Thus armed, Mrs K and the two minions escorted Felindre and Richard out of the room.

They were gone for twenty seven minutes. It was Dave who came back to flump in front of the tv this time, wearing the hangdog expression of someone who has been seriously bawled out.

Nothing much happened until an hour before dawn.
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⁹⁷ Given the floodlights, the torch was about as effectual as a water pistol under Niagara Falls. But it probably made him feel better.
⁹⁸ Thereby confirming my belief that Richard had a particularly thick head.