Casper Candlewacks in the Time Travelling Toaster (6 page)

The last Casper saw of him as he was whisked away into the courtyard, was Lamp spelling the letters of his name out in the air with a grubby finger. “L-O-N-P,” he said, “spells ‘Lamp’. I could write it down for you. Actually, I probably couldn’t.” And then he was gone.

The doors slammed shut and Casper found the rest of the factory looking at him.

“What?” he challenged.

One of the workers, a toothy chap numbered 12748, handed him a box full of navy blue lids and pointed to an empty station by a conveyor belt.

Casper frowned. “Sorry, I’m not meant to be here…” He looked around, but there was nobody to help him. A hulking guard with a truncheon the size of a fully grown badger stepped forward threateningly.

“All right!” Casper cried, scuttling away to the conveyor belt. This was ridiculous. Next time Briar appeared Casper would confront him, but he might as well play along until that time. He didn’t want another
BZZT
again anyway.

Casper’s role on the factory floor was to screw the tops on bottles of
Essence of Nobility
. The conveyor belt carried the filled bottles over to Casper’s station at a terrifying rate, and if he spilt a drop or fell behind, he’d get a
BZZT
so tickly it felt like his funny bone would drop off. The workers around him screwed tops at a dizzying pace, their fingers twizzling so fast that the lids practically melted on. Most of them could do two bottles at once, one with each hand, but a big proud chap with a
BEST BOTTLER
badge on his overalls jammed on a third with a flick of his nose.

As the hours went by Casper got into a rhythm and the
BZZT
s came less often. In fact, the process had become so automatic that he could let his thoughts wander to magical worlds of dragons and vampires and vagons and drampires, until
WAANG, WAANG, WAANG.

The conveyor stopped. An alarm sounded from a klaxon above a large brushed-steel vat one station up from Casper. Until now, little frothy drops had been dripping from this vat, topping up each bottle as it passed.

A door swung open across the warehouse and three pointy-nosed figures in black suits, flanked by burly bodyguards, strode through. They’d come back! Casper steeled himself to confront Briar.

“WHAT’S GOING ON?” roared Briar,
BZZT
ing nearby workers with his remote as he strode through the factory.

Casper’s heart beat faster. Anemonie and Chrys were with him, but there was no sign of Lamp.

A little woman stuck up her hand. “Please, sir,” she squeaked.

The remote swung towards her and hovered there. “Yes?” snapped Briar.

The poor lady shivered like a shaved duck. “Umm, it’s the spit vat.” All eyes followed her quivering finger as she pointed upwards. “We need your… donations, sir.”

“Ah,” Briar said. “Good work.” He turned on his heels, leading Chrys and Anemonie up a flight of metal stairs that led to the top of the vat, pointing over his shoulder to
BZZT
the little woman anyway.

The whole factory waited as the three Blights leant over the rails and got spitting. And my, oh my, what a lot of spit they had. Perhaps they’d been drinking milk, or maybe the upper classes just own super-productive salivary glands, but within five minutes they’d rained down pints of the stuff. Once or twice Anemonie ‘missed’, flobbing great gobs of goop over the side to land on the head of a worker.

Slowly, Casper melted away from his station and walked towards the bottom of the stairs. It’d be madness to confront the Blights up there. What with his Tickle Tag and the low metal rails he’d probably end up in the spit vat, and cleaning that stuff off his clothes would be less pleasant than camel burps. No, he’d wait for them to come down and then, calmly, sort something out.
Casper still held a glimmer of an iota of a slice of hope that this was all a bad joke. Or maybe it was some big mistake. Perhaps one lucky worker had been given Casper’s room by mistake, and woken up this morning in a golden bed with velvet sheets surrounded by performing monkeys and hand-peeled grapes. But most likely, one cruel word from Anemonie in Briar’s ear had sentenced Casper to a lifetime of slavery in a factory in the future, producing bottles of watered-down spit. Yes, that sounded much more likely.

BZZT.

“YAHAHA!” Casper tumbled to the floor in a pile of giggles.

Briar put down his remote, took the stairs in twos and stepped over Casper like he was a mangy dog. “Outta my way, slave.”

“Yeah, slave,” giggled Anemonie, who’d saved up one mouthful of spit for the back of Casper’s head.

The three Blights strode away and the
BZZT
ing stopped, but Casper felt no less humiliated, lying there on the floor with the active ingredient in
Essence of Nobility
soaking into his hair.

Chrys shuffled behind the other two, snarling back at Casper, but at the click of Briar’s fingers she was trotting to catch up again.

And then the conveyor whirred back into life and Casper found himself scrabbling to get back to his station before he could be given another
BZZT
.

That night, Lamp returned to his cell at what must have been close to midnight, collapsed on to his bed and fell asleep straight away. He was gone again before the round of
BZZT
s that woke Casper and the rest of his corridor
.

Another day in the factory, then. Soon Casper settled into the routine: countless hours of bottle-topping with a ten-minute ‘activities’ break, where the activities on offer included running laps of the courtyard or getting a
BZZT
. Time was saved in the afternoon by providing lunch and dinner in the same sitting, in the same bowl. Today’s lunch was rice, while dinner was rice. Great to have a variety.

In the evenings, locked up in his cell, Casper was encouraged to have some ‘educational time’. Sitting on his chipped plasterboard bedside table was a fat book called
Blight – A History of Violence
, which listed every member of the Blight dynasty and the length of their noses. Lights-out never came soon enough, even though the nights that awaited Casper were cold, lumpy and full of bedbugs. Then –
BZZT
!– the morning tickle and an ominous threat of porridge followed, before it was time for work again.

Talking was forbidden, so making friends was tricky unless you were one of those French mime artists, and Casper wasn’t one of those French mime artists. But on the fourth day, or the fifth (or possibly the sixth – Casper was losing count), as he screwed the lid on his thousandth spitty bottle of the day, he saw the short, blond-haired boy to his right casting him a funny look.

“Hi,” whispered Casper, before looking furtively around to see if he’d get a
BZZT.

The boy (or 25227 as he was known) took a couple of screws of his bottle to decide if he’d answer back. When he did, it was hardly audible over the hum of the conveyor belt. “You… Casper?”

Casper nodded.

25227 gasped, took a step back and received a
BZZT
that made him squeak like a piglet and fall over. He got up without looking at Casper.

The whole exchange could only have taken ten seconds, but it confused Casper greatly. How did the boy know his name? Nobody within the factory had even spoken to Casper, let alone asked him who he was. But from then on, Casper noticed slight changes in how he was treated.

At breakfast, he would find people dropping an extra spoon of porridge from their bowl into his. 25227 and the other workers round Casper’s station would bottle faster so that he could rest his wrists from time to time without getting a
BZZT
. When Casper grazed his knees after falling to the gravel during the activities break, the stocky bloke called 84192 gave him a piggy-back for the rest of the lap. Then the next day, kindly old 26057 handed him a bandage woven from pillow fabric when the guards weren’t looking. It was nice that they’d help a total stranger, but Casper couldn’t puzzle out why they’d bother. It was all a little baffling.

More baffling, though, was Warehouse 3. Warehouse 3 was off limits. Casper knew that from the enormous W
AREHOUSE
3
IS
O
FF
L
IMITS
sign painted on the front of Warehouse 3. But over the past few days, and increasingly often, Casper had been hearing booms and bangs, crashes and splats echoing from Warehouse 3’s insides. Was that where they were keeping Lamp? And if so, what were they making him do?

The Blights rarely visited the factory floor, apart from the times when the spit vat ran dry. They had more important things to do, like counting their money and putting it in stacks. A little more often than he saw the other Blights, Casper saw Chrys sitting alone up in the glass pod above the factory floor. She’d sit for hours, watching the workers from on high with that nasty scowl of hers, like a lion watching a herd of antelope. Often she’d bring something to fiddle with, like a strip of bubble wrap or one of those squishy stress balls. Whether it was his imagination or not, Casper couldn’t help feeling that Chrys was watching him in particular, though every time he looked up she’d be looking in another direction.

One night as Casper sat reading, the lights went out just as he was approaching his favourite page – the one about Lord Barrington III of Blight (1677–1748), who demanded that the whole of Britain be put to death after the local wine merchant ran out of good claret. Luckily, his messenger caught quite a few plagues on the carriage to London so when he got there, all boily and green, nobody took Lord Blight’s order seriously.

With a sigh, Casper put his book away. It had been a long day. Well, all days were long in Warehouse 2, but this one had dragged on for ages. Like a leap day, or something. Sleep came easily, until suddenly –

Click.

Casper sat up with a start. Did he dream it?

Creeeek.

“H-hello?”

A soft voice rasped from a crack in his door. “Casper?”

It had been at least a week since Casper had last spoken. He tried to respond, but all that came out was, “
Gth?
” His mouth felt fluffy, and somebody’s tongue kept getting in the way. He suspected it was his own.

The light flicked on, so blindingly bright that Casper had to cower under his scratchy blanket.

“Get your things. We’re going.”

“All I have is this book,” said Casper. “Where are we going?”

“Out. Away from here. Whatever’s in Warehouse three, it’s… we need you out of here.”

Nobody had even called him Casper for at least three weeks. He was more used to 34128. But someone had come to free him! Someone who knew his name! “Who are you?” He dared to peek out from behind his blanket.

There stood a girl in a pair of black pyjamas. She had a pointy nose, short spiky hair and a scowl…

Casper gasped and hid behind his blanket again. “Chrys? I-I’m so sorry.” Why was
she
here? Surely she’d never free her own slaves?

“Shut up,” said Chrys. “Get up, cos we haven’t got long before it comes back on.”

Nothing made sense. “We’re… leaving?”

“Yes.” Chrys’s voice was cranky and curt. “Get up or I’ll
bzzt
you.”

“Sorry. Yes.” Nodding wildly, Casper leapt out of bed and pulled on his overalls. He grabbed the only thing he owned –
Blight – A History of Violence
– and tiptoed out of the room after Chrys.

The corridor was as black as the inside of a box, but straight and narrow, so Casper could feel his way. When they reached the first staircase they went up, not down, up past two floors of identical dark corridors before reaching a large pair of double doors with one of those handprint scanners for a lock. Chrys pressed her hand on the outline and looked around nervously as the machine read it.

“Welcome, Lady Chrysanthemum,” the cheery robot voice said. “And what lovely palms you have. Is that a new handcream?”

“No,” she snapped. “Just let me through.”

The doors swung open.

“It’s cold out,” sang the robot voice. “Did you bring gloves?”

Chrys didn’t answer, pushing through the doors and out into the night air.

It is cold out here
, thought Casper. He made a note to listen to robots in the future. The yard was deserted, which was just as well, because even if Casper told the guards he was sleepwalking, that was forbidden too. Chrys dashed through the shadows towards Warehouse 1 and Casper followed, terrified. They crossed the courtyard in no time, and with a handprint on the scanner and a quick chat about the weather, Lady Chrysanthemum had the steel doors open and was tugging Casper inside.

The sound of rushing water met Casper’s ears.

“The River Kobb,” said Lady Chrysanthemum. “In you go.”

“Erm,” Casper faltered.

“Don’t be a sissy.”

And then he felt a shove and the steel walkway wasn’t holding his feet any more and he was falling and shouting, and then he was under the icy-cold depths and breathing was wet, and he’d dropped his book.

Swim against the flow
, thought Casper. Behind him, the river gushed into the bottling plant and Warehouse 2. In front, at the other end of a blackened tunnel, there was a small patch of moonlight. Another splash from nearby told Casper that Chrys had joined him.

He kicked forward slowly, grabbing a breath at every stroke. Chrys swam faster, breathing less and making much better progress. Why was she helping? Was this some big trick? Would Briar and Anemonie be standing at the other end of the tunnel with the biggest
BZZT
imaginable to punish Casper’s escape attempt?

Their splashes echoed and magnified into the inky blackness. Casper’s legs and arms grew heavy as lead, but still they swam on.

The soft light of the moon glowed up ahead, growing larger every time Casper looked. But the tunnel was long, and the river was flowing in the wrong direction. Every metre he gained, the current instantly took half of it back.

WAANG WAANG WAANG
.

“They’ve noticed!” glubbed Casper.

Ahead, Chrys hung on to a rung built into the side of the tunnel, waiting for Casper to catch up. “Just keep swimming.”

The
WAANG
ing and the splashing filled Casper’s ears, but it was getting brighter, and he could feel a breeze the next time he came up to breathe.

“Here. Climb out this side.” Chrys had grabbed hold of a low root poking out from the left bank of the river.

Casper pulled himself out of the water, up the bank and instantly he could feel the chill of the night against his wet skin.

“We’ve got to run now.”

“THERE THEY ARE!” A spotlight caught the two like rabbits in headlights.

Casper ignored Chrys’s tugging and twisted round. The perimeter fence separated him from Blight Manor, the spotlight blaring from the top of a watchtower. “We’re out,” he muttered.

“YOU COME BACK HERE, CHRYS.” The roar, furious and bloodthirsty, came from Blight Manor itself. It was the voice of Lord Briar Blight. “YOU BRING HIM BACK.”

Casper swallowed hard. This was no prank. This was an escape, a prison break, and Chrys had betrayed her brother.

“Hurry!” urged Chrys. “He’s got spare batteries, we don’t have long.”

“RIGHT!” roared Briar. “FULL POWER. FEEL THIS ONE, CANDLEWACKS. RIGHT BETWEEN YOUR TOES. HA!— Oh.”

Casper ran, cold and bewildered, across the lawn of Blight Manor. Briar should have
BZZT
ed him by now. Why was there no
BZZT
?

“WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS THING? WHY WON’T IT…”

The trees thinned and Casper found himself turning right on to a street with tumbledown houses and the river flowing down the middle of the road.

“Keep running,” said Chrys. “He’ll send guards.”

Back at the house, Briar was screaming with rage. “BATTERIES! SOMEONE BRING ME BATTERIES! I’LL GET YOU, CHRYS. YOU TRAITOR! YOU’RE NO BLIGHT. CURSE YOU! WHERE ARE THOSE BATTERIES?”

The sounds of the mansion faded into the distance until all he could hear was two sets of hard footsteps and the running water of the river. This road twisted to the left and brought them out in a large cobbled square, cut in half by the river that ran through its centre.

“I
know
this place,” said Casper. “It’s my village square. But it’s so different.”