adventures

mad world. Not quite as dramatic as finding that somewhere here there was a villain from her
past with a big base and a vast cine projector, but if it worked, then what the hell? She clapped
her hands together and addressed her new audience. 'I was wondering if you, ah, might be interested
in singing a song with me?'
'They won't be, you know,' murmured the Fairy.
'I thought you said –' Bernice began. But her voice was drowned out by a great shout from the
audience. 'Oh yes we are!'
'Oh no you're not!' called the Fairy.
'Oh yes we are!' called the audience.
'Well, that's fairly definite,' Bernice tried again. 'They're largely in favour, so –'
'Oh no they're not!' cried the Fairy. He turned back to Bernice as the audience shouted back
again. 'Sorry. I love that bit. I could go on like that for days.'
'But you aren't,' Bernice told him. 'Because we're just going to sing this bloody song and then
I'm going to hop into that audience –'
'Hop in? You didn't mention hopping anywhere!'
Bernice was silent and still for a moment, containing herself. 'Another wish, then, if that's what
it takes.'
'Another wish? It's your last one, you know.'
Bernice looked at him levelly. 'I have to get out of here. Do it.'
With a little glance skywards, he did so, bouncing the wand off her shoulders once more. There
was a flash. 'But do take the sweets,' the Fairy advised.
'Yes.' Bernice nodded, eager to get this over with. 'If you want. And then I'm going to find the
exit, and I'm going to go home. So. Music, maestro, please!'
From nowhere, a band, a bit heavy on the brass and slightly off key, began to play. Bernice
grabbed her broomstick and pointed out each word on the piece of paper as she and the Fairy
Godfather sang the song.
Surprisingly, the audience sang too.
Row, row row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.
Bernice glanced back to the horse as she started the second verse. She couldn't quite believe
that she was doing this.
A crowd of academics, summoned by Stokes's cries, had arrived to encircle him, and watch an
alien sit astride his chest, eating a sandwich, utterly ignoring those around him.
'I'm fine,' Stokes assured everyone, though none of them had asked. 'Odd-looking sort, isn't
he?'
Stokes's perspective, looking up the creature's nose, wasn't ideal, but even from that angle, he
could tell that this wasn't a species that humans had encountered before. Although basically
humanoid, the thing was blue, for a start, and had six multi-jointed fingers on each hand. It had
no toes, although the pads of its feet looked very flexible and plastic. It wore only a rough loincloth
made of rags and its chest showed a slight drift of white fur over a complicated, crisscrossing
ribcage. It had high cheekbones, sharp teeth and piercing and intelligent, if feral, green
eyes. From the back of its lobed head straggled a long twisted mass of white hair.
It finished the sandwich and licked every spot of it from its fingers. Then it looked around itself,
as if suddenly aware of the presence of others. It cried out in a series of guttural syllables, a chain
of sounds that moved incredibly fast.
'A highly complex language,' murmured Otterbland. 'Could this be –?'
'A Perfecton!' Wagstaff giggled. 'A living Perfecton!'
'That's impossible!' Owl whispered. 'After all these centuries?'
The academics started to argue again, and several of them produced recording devices, moving
to try to get a good holoshot of the creature. 'Excuse me!' called Stokes. 'Hello?'
They ignored both him and the increasingly frantic arm motions and jabberings of the creature.