Casper Candlewacks in the Time Travelling Toaster (12 page)

Forcing back the bubbling in his throat, Casper clambered up the wooden steps to the gallows and cleared his throat. “Hey!” he shouted. “Who wants a fight?”

“WE DO!” roared back a good chunk of the village.

“Great! Then follow me!”

And they did, with cleavers, ropes or buckets of slop, shouting foul Tudor obscenities and singing tavern songs.

30 May 2013, just before supper time

Julius Candlewacks stuck a finger in his vat of soup and sucked it. “What does it need?” he asked, partly to himself and partly to Cuddles, who had been taped to his kitchen wall.

“TATATA!” screamed Cuddles.

“It needs something.” Julius racked his brains. “A little… fishiness. That’s it.” He always kept a mackerel in the freezer for such occasions.

But on turning round, he found that there were three more people in his kitchen, one of them being his son. Julius didn’t keep up with Casper’s schoolfriends, and he certainly didn’t remember the names of these two, so he smiled amiably, but directed his speech towards Casper.

“Casp! Hi, chief.” Julius gave Casper a rough little head-scratch, and found his fingers stuck.

“Hey, Dad. Can we take Cuddles? We need her for… erm…”

“Hard disk space,” said a chunky girl with one hell of a nose.

That sounded like a computer thing, so Julius nodded sagely. “You kids and your Wi-Fi. Go on, take her off my hands.”

And like that, they’d grabbed her and gone.

9 July 3781, Consumption Protocol 2

“Now this is the
real
future.”

Casper stepped off the holographic kerb just as a sleek silver hover-board hummed past. Its driver, a skinny woman in a skintight jumpsuit with a full UV face mask, turned to Casper and shrieked, “Malware scum!”

Flanella was trying to log on to the postbox, but she needed a password.

The statue in the centre of Corne-on-the-Kobb’s neon village square had a television for a head, screeching out blindingly vibrant adverts for the latest must-have products: Terrabyte-Pops and HD Donuts.

“Here, look, Casper,” called Chrys. “Flanella’s hacked it.”

The screen of the postbox now read: D
O YOU WANT TO SUMMON THE
P
EACE
P
ROTECTION
S
QUAD
?

The moment Flanella pressed Y
ES
, possibly even a moment before, six men in full polymer body armour zapped out of thin air and saluted.

“Your request, ma’am?” said the one with a red stripe on his helmet. Casper guessed he was in charge.

“We got a giant robot being a baddie, mister,” said Flanella. “In the past.”

“This sounds like a job for –” the other five men joined the first to point to the sky and shout – “PEACE PROTECTION SQUAD!” Then rockets fired from their feet and they shot off into the sky.

Casper faltered. “Are they coming?”

“I guess we’ll meet them at the bus stop,” grimaced Chrys.

16 December 2014, gone lunchtime

“Mum, you there?”

Amanda looked up from her knitting and gasped. “Caspy! You look so young!”

Maybe it was the hair, or how flushed his face was, or the fact that he was with girls and probably showing off, but Casper had lost a good two years from his face since she saw him this morning. “Er… yes,” he said, his voice suddenly going growly and low. “It’s the light. Anyway, where’s Cuddles?”

“In her room. Eating a puzzle. Do you need her?”

She never got an answer. Casper and his friends flew upstairs, grabbed Cuddles and dragged her kicking and screaming from the house.

Within hours, well, minutes, well, centuries, depending on how you measure time and stuff, the Candlewacks kitchen was full to bursting with hundreds of willing rebels from the past, present and future of Corne-on-the-Kobb.

Mayors, mayoresses, butchers, butcheresses, bakers, three different versions of Cuddles Candlewacks and an angry-looking goat shouted their support for Casper’s cause and stamped their feet on the poor kitchen floor.

“Excuse me!” shouted Casper as loudly as his lungs would let him. “Could you all be quiet for a minute?”

“Hear hear!” shouted Audrey Snugglepuss.

“Quite agree!” agreed tiny Mitch McMassive.

“Not at all!” roared Mayor Rattsbulge. “We should be loud!”

“I cannot-a hear de boy!” The Great Tiramisu tried to hush his yelping walrus.

“Anybody seen my goat?” shouted Sandy Landscape.

And then the place descended into chaos for the third time this minute.

Casper stood down from his chair and sagged.

“You’re doing brill!” said Flanella. “Malcolm detects a seventy-two per cent rise in motivation since you stopped speaking.”

“It’s going terribly, and you all know it.” Casper surveyed the sea of faces with despair. Half of them didn’t know who he was, one or two were demanding cash-in-hand payments, and a group in the corner thought this was a package holiday to Malaga. It was a nightmare.

WHEEEE-SPACKK!

The crowd screamed and ducked for cover as Betty Woons let off one of her firework-flavoured jelly beans.

“Lishten ter the boy!” the old woman croaked.

When they looked up again, Casper was back on his chair.

“Now listen,” he began, his heart drumming out a samba rhythm on the inside of his ears. “I can tell you’re all excited. And that’s good. But let’s save it for tomorrow.”

The crowd nodded. He’d finally got their attention.

“This may not feel like your village. It’s probably seen better days, to be honest. But that’s why you’re all here. Because this
is
your village, or at least it’s supposed to be. Corne-on-the-Kobb’s supposed to be a place of freedom and fun, and most of all, idiocy.”

At the word ‘idiocy’, the crowd all nodded solemnly.

“But Briar Blight’s not letting it be that way. Briar’s not letting us be idiots. And we won’t have it!”

“We won’t have it!” cheered the crowd.

“Tomorrow, we’re going to take that factory down and free our friends. But it’s easier said than done. You see, they’ve got this, how do I put it... They might have a giant-ish robot.”

The crowd stirred.

“How giant-ish?” asked an old-fashioned man with a fluffy collar.

“Let’s not think about that.” Casper laughed awkwardly. “We have a plan to even the field. While you guys draw the, ahem, slightly-over-average-sized robot out from its lair, three of us will scale the thing and take it out of commission.”

“So you won’t be with us in the battle?” cried a girl in a metallic cape and snazzy sunglasses.

“He’s abandoning us!” wailed a man astride a horse.

“We’ll lose for sure!”

“Without him we’re nothing!”

And the place descended into mayhem once more, but more sobby this time.

Casper sighed. “Ah well. I did my best.”

“If we’re going to climb that robot, there has to be someone on the ground,” Chrys grimaced. “Look at them, they need a leader.”

The answer popped into Casper’s brain like freshly toasted toast. “We need to take one last trip in the Time Toaster.”

4 August 1374, second breakfast

“You sure this is the place?” Chrys raised a doubtful eyebrow.

“We got the right year,” nodded Casper. “I remember it from the stories: ‘In 1374, brave Sir Gossamer D’Glaze and his wife established their first settlement beside the River Kobb, which would grow to become the village we now know as Corne-on-the-Kobb.’ It should be right here.”

But even as he spoke, he was beginning to doubt it. Gone was the square and the houses and the looming Blight Manor. This far back, all Casper could see was a small mud hut with a thatched roof, set beside a rippling stream and a cow tied to a post.

“Hello?” called Casper, approaching the hut’s opening. “We’re looking for Sir Gossamer D’Glaze. He’s eight feet tall, muscles up to his eyes and he rides a great black stallion. Do you know him?”

A woman’s voice giggled from halfway up a nearby apple tree.

“Hey!” came a squeak from inside the hut. “What’s so funny?”

A grubby young man emerged from the hut, spotty and lanky like a skeleton in a skin suit. He stood at a funny angle and three gappy teeth poked out between his lips.

“Hi,” said Casper. “Is your dad in? We’re looking for Sir Gossamer.”

“That’s me.” The young man scratched his head and sniffed the finger. “Goss D’Glaze at yer service. But I ain’t no sir.”

“Evidently,” snorted Chrys.

“But this is wrong…”

whispered Casper. “He’s

supposed to be massive and

gallant, and ride a huge stallion.”

“I got this cow,” said Goss proudly. “She’s called Pigge.”

Flanella had wandered over to the apple tree. She gave the trunk a shake and a woman fell out.

“Watch it!” snapped the woman as a dozen apples fell from their stalks and bonked herself and Flanella on the head.

Flanella looked disappointed. “Thought you were a talking tree,” she said.

“Well, I ain’t!” Then the girl turned to the other two visitors, and Casper got to see her face. Wiry and rough, but with a set of sparkling eyes that he seemed to recognise.

And then it hit him.

“Betty?” He choked.

“Aye,” she said with a curt nod. “Oo’s askin’?”

Casper gave a grin. Betty Woons! In the Middle Ages! “I mean, I knew you were
old
, but…”

“I en’t old! I’m four and twenty, not a day over.” Betty clicked her teeth.

“I’m Casper, anyway. And I need to borrow your husband for a battle.”

Betty collapsed in fits of giggles. “Forra battle? ’Im? Knock yerself out!”

The little Sir Gossamer stood timidly by his hut. Casper looked him up and down – and sighed. He’d have to do.

“Sir Gossamer,” Casper began. “Sorry about earlier. We were expecting someone bigger.” He shifted on his feet. “Listen, we need somebody to lead an army into battle. It’s kind of important. We wanted to ask you.”

“Me?” squeaked Goss. “I’m flattered, but…”

“Yeah, thought not,” said Chrys. “Bye, then.” She turned to leave, but Casper grabbed her elbow.

“Wait,” he said. “Can’t we give him a chance? You guys thought I was a hero, but look at me. You can’t say I’m any better.”

The spiky-haired girl surveyed Goss up and down as if he were livestock, then nodded. “Fine. Not as if we’ve got another option.”

Casper turned to face Goss directly. “Do you think you could… I don’t know… beef up a little? Build up some muscles?”

“I could try, I suppose.” Goss spent thirty seconds trying to lift a nearby pot.

“Shall we leave you to it?” asked Casper.

“Could you?”

“We’ll be back in, say, two years. How does that sound?”

4 August 1376, elevenses

“We’re back!”

Betty screamed and dived into the river.

Goss emerged from the hut, surprised to see the visitors again. “How did you do that?”

Casper smiled. “Oh, we took a short cu— WOW!”

Goss frowned. “Wow?”

The two girls nodded. “Wow.”

Goss hadn’t grown an inch, but to say he’d filled out was an understatement. He had perfectly defined biceps, triceps, quadraceps and fiveceps. His glutes were tight, his abs were fab, and he could kill a man with his thighs. Casper, who two years ago had felt like his equal, now shivered in Sir Gossamer’s shadow like a chilly vole.

“Do you still want me for that battle?”

The three children nodded nervously.

“Then lead the way. Betty, Pigge, you shall come too. Ah!” Sir Gossamer’s gigantic arm swept to his flowing hair and flicked it back irritatedly. “I don’t have a sword.”

“You don’t?” This was wrong. Casper knew Sir Gossamer’s famed sword all too well. Big, bejewelled and very stealable. He’d seen it a thousand times as he walked past Sir Gossamer’s statue in the village square. And now it was held in the golden hands of Oleander Blight in the Corne-on-the-Kobb of 2012. Well, it was only right that Sir Gossamer should have it back.

“I know where you can find the perfect sword,” said Casper.