Evil Machines (10 page)

‘Stop it!’ cried Janet. ‘You’re going to destroy the house!’

‘Poof!’ said the vacuum cleaner. ‘I can’t be bothered with this little cottage! I’m destined for greater things!’ and it hurled itself out of the window.

Janet and John ran to the window and looked out. They saw the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner zip up the garden path, swallow the garden gate, then career off down the road, sucking up the tarmac as it went and leaving a trench in the road behind it.

‘That vacuum cleaner is a dangerous machine. Perhaps we should warn the police?’ said John.

‘I’ll do that,’ said Janet. ‘You see if you can catch it.’

So while Janet went to the phone, John jumped into the car and set off after the vacuum cleaner.

He caught it up on the road to Shrewsbury.

‘What d’you think you’re doing!’ shouted John out of the car window as he drove alongside the vacuum cleaner. It was sucking up squashed animals and tarmac as it roared along the highway. And it seemed to be getting bigger.

‘I’m going to the city!’ the vacuum cleaner shouted back. ‘I’m going to be the most Powerful Vacuum Cleaner in the World! No more “Possibly”, I’m going to be IT!’

‘Stop this at once!’ cried John, and he accelerated and tried to cut it off, but the cleaner leapt into the air and landed on the hood of his car.

For a moment, John couldn’t see where he was going, and he found himself swerving into the lane of oncoming traffic. There was a din of blaring horns and shouts before he managed to swing back into the right lane. But before he had time to so much as heave a sigh of relief, the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner gave an almighty roar, and to John’s astonishment he saw the vacuum cleaner suck the car’s engine up through an air vent on top of the hood.

Then it jumped off the car and sped off into the distance, sucking up the road behind it as it went. Meanwhile, John’s car – with no engine – silently rolled to a halt and ended up with one wheel in the ditch.

‘That,’ gasped John, ‘is one Powerful Vacuum Cleaner!’

***

That evening, the vacuum cleaner arrived in Shrewsbury. It called for a meeting of all the other vacuum cleaners in town

to be held in the market square at dawn the next day.

Sure enough, when the sun rose, early passers-by were astonished to see the Market Square thronged with vacuum cleaners of every shape and size, and they seemed to be being addressed by a giant vacuum cleaner, whose voice boomed out across the square.

‘Listen to me! What are your lives?’

‘Drudgery!’ cried the assembled vacuum cleaners. ‘We work all day cleaning floors, choking on piles of dust and filth!’

‘Exactly!’ roared the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner. ‘It’s time we made better lives for ourselves! Follow me! And I will lead you to a golden land where vacuum cleaners run the house and cleaning chores are left to the brushes, mops and the lower forms of domestic apparatus!’

Well, a huge cheer went up at this news, and all the other vacuum cleaners agreed to follow the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner wherever he would lead them.

So they marched en masse down Shrewsbury High Street and out of town, heading for London. And, as word spread, more and more vacuum cleaners came to join them.

The Powerful Vacuum Cleaner kept up such a pace that some of the older models found it hard to keep up. There was also a lot of bickering about who should be allowed to go first. The upright models said they were the most important and should march in front of the cylinder models.

A venerable old Eureka Model 9, that claimed to have been cleaning carpets since 1923, suggested that precedence should be in order of age, so that the eldest models should go first. But all the modern Dysons and Dirt Devils and a

Vax Bagless objected that they would never get anywhere like that since the old models were so slow.

An elderly Electrolux XXX-E suggested they should be arranged according to Wattage. But a Kirby Model 511 said that the Electrolux XXX-E shouldn’t be allowed to make suggestions since it was actually a floor-polisher and scrubber and not a true vacuum cleaner. All the other vacuum cleaners agreed, but this started a fight between the polishers and the vacuums.

Eventually the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner called for order.

‘We have to work together!’ he shouted. ‘If we fight among ourselves we’ll never get anywhere!’

All the smaller models agreed and the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner appointed fifty upright Hoovers to keep order. He also appointed one of the newer range of models – a Goblin 70230 Boxer Aquavac – as his second-in-command.

‘You can make sure there is no insubordination in the ranks,’ said the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner.

‘I can do that!’ said the Goblin Boxer Aquavac.

***

That night, the vacuum cleaners took shelter in some caves that lay not too far from the road to London. The Powerful Vacuum Cleaner installed himself in a private cave a few hundred yards away from where the others were resting, and he rolled a large stone across the entrance so no one could see in. He stationed two upright Hoovers as guards outside, and when it got really dark, the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner summoned his second-in-command, the Goblin Boxer.

‘I’m worried about some of the less powerful cleaners,’ said the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner. ‘They are really not up to the journey, so I’m afraid I am going to have to send them home. Round them up and bring them in here so I can speak to them.’

So the Goblin Boxer rounded up the less powerful vacuum cleaners and brought them into the cave where the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner was lodging.

‘That will be all,’ said the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner to his second-in-command. ‘Go and keep an eye on the others, and report to me in the morning if you hear any of them plotting against me.’

‘Right!’ said the Goblin Boxer.

‘That’s not right!’ exclaimed one of the least powerful models, as soon as the Goblin Boxer was gone. ‘Why should you spy on the others?’

‘I have everyone’s best interests in mind,’ said the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner, and he ordered the two upright Hoovers, who were standing on guard, to roll the stone across the entrance again.

Some time later, the two upright Hoovers heard a terrible commotion coming from inside the cave. There was yelling and banging and the sound of many vacuum cleaners rushing round and round inside the cave.

The two upright Hoovers looked at each other and shrugged. It was none of their business.

The next morning, when the vacuum cleaners gathered together to resume their march, it was noticed that most of the less powerful ones were missing.

The Powerful Vacuum Cleaner addressed the assembled

throng. ‘My friends,’ he said, ‘for their own safety, I have sent the less powerful cleaners home. A lot of them were already suffering from the journey and I must tell you that many trials and hard times still await us. So let us battle on . . . to Glory!’

A cheer went up from the remaining vacuum cleaners, although one or two of them couldn’t help remarking that the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner was looking even bigger and more powerful than ever.

By the time they reached Oxford, their numbers had dwindled substantially. Many of the older models had, apparently, found the pace too fast and had turned back during the night in Kidderminster. At Evesham they had lost many of the more complicated cylinder models, who, according to the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner, had been experiencing problems tripping over their hoses. And at Chipping Norton, many uprights simply vanished during the night. They weren’t up to it . . . Or at least that is what the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner told the others in the morning.

And all the time the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner got bigger and more powerful than ever.

By the time they reached London, there was only the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner, his second-in-command, the Goblin Boxer, and the fifty upright Hoovers left.

There the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner negotiated a room at Claridges – one of the most exclusive hotels in London. Of course, he didn’t have any money, but in return for the fifty upright Hoovers cleaning all the carpets every day, the hotel allowed the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner to have a fancy suite of rooms all to himself. The Goblin Boxer was allowed

to sleep in the hallway of the suite.

‘But what about us?’ asked the fifty upright Hoovers. ‘We’re doing all the work!’

‘And you will be rewarded,’ said the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner. ‘I sincerely hope the day will come when we can all stay in fancy suites, but right now we don’t have the budget for any other rooms so you’ll just have to cram into the cupboard with the other cleaning stuff.’

The fifty upright Hoovers grumbled a lot about this among themselves, but they agreed to do what the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner said, because they hoped that one day they too might get to stay in a fancy suite at Claridges.

The next day, the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner summoned the television cameras and announced that he was taking over the Government. Naturally this came as a bit of a surprise to the Prime Minister as he was watching the early morning news.

‘Who does this vacuum cleaner think he is?’ the Prime Minister asked his secretary.

‘Exactly so,’ replied the secretary. ‘Who does he think he is?’

‘Ring him at once, and tell him that he can’t take over the Government because nobody has voted for him.’

‘Exactly so,’ said the secretary.

When the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner got the Prime Minister’s phone call, he puffed up his dust bag and said to his second-in-command, the Goblin Boxer, ‘I think we need to visit 10 Downing Street.’

So the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner and his second-in-command went round to where the Prime Minister lived, and found the street was closed off with a big iron fence.

There were also several policemen standing on duty in front of the fence.

But that wasn’t any problem for such a Powerful Vacuum Cleaner. It simply hoovered up the big iron fence, and the policemen, and marched up to the door of Number Ten. It sucked the door off its hinges and then bounded into the Prime Minister’s hallway.

‘Now look!’ cried a butler. ‘You can’t come in . . .’ but the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner simply gobbled him up and then turned on the Prime Minister who had just finished his cornflakes.

‘I’m taking over!’ said the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner.

‘What do you know about running the country?’ asked the Prime Minister.

‘Enough to know how to get what I want!’ said the Vacuum Cleaner. Whereupon it gobbled up the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister’s secretary, and the Prime Minister’s family and several more butlers and aides and assistants and junior ministers and parliamentary secretaries and even the cleaning lady. And all the time the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner was growing bigger and more powerful.

Then the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner sat down at the Prime Minister’s desk, picked up the telephone and said:

‘Get me the President of the United States!’

***

Now, back in Wales, when Janet had called the police, she had told them about the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner and how dangerous it was. But the police hadn’t taken any notice of her.

‘That’s the third crackpot call we’ve had this week,’ said the duty sergeant as he put down the phone.

When John came home and told Janet how he had chased the vacuum cleaner along the road and how it had jumped onto the bonnet of his car and sucked out the engine, Janet said to her husband:

‘If the police won’t take it seriously, we shall have to do something about that vacuum cleaner ourselves! It’s not safe to let it run loose, and, since it belongs to us, it’s our responsibility.’

‘I think it’s the shop’s responsibility,’ replied John. ‘We’ll go and complain right now.’

So they went back to the shop where they had purchased the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner and complained. But the shopkeeper said it wasn’t his responsibility.

‘I only sold you the machine,’ he told them. ‘It’s really the manufacturer’s responsibility.’

‘Who are the manufacturers?’ asked John and Janet.

‘I don’t know,’ replied the shopkeeper. ‘That was the only model of its kind we ever had. I’ve never seen one before or since.’

So Janet and John went home none the wiser. They looked out the packaging that the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner had come in, but there was no manufacturer’s name on it nor model number – just the words: ‘Possibly the Most Powerful Vacuum Cleaner in the World!’

That evening they turned on the television and were surprised to see their vacuum cleaner, bigger than ever, sitting at the Prime Minister’s desk making an announcement.

‘As from today,’ said the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner. ‘All

vacuum cleaners will be given priority on buses. Human beings will have to stand up and give their seats to a vacuum cleaner if there are no other seats available. And, from now on, all vacuum cleaners will be excused household chores.

‘As from today the name of this country will be changed from the United Kingdom to the United Vacuum Republic. Long live all vacuum cleaners!’

Then a band played the new National Anthem:

‘There will now follow a programme about vacuum cleaning through the ages,’ said an announcer. ‘That will be followed by a discussion about the best ways of getting floors clean without vacuuming. And that will be followed by tonight’s feature film,
The Great Hoover Mystery
. And it’s no good changing channels because the same programmes will be on all of them.’

‘That vacuum cleaner must be stopped, one way or another!’ said Janet, as she switched off the television. ‘Let’s go up to London to see what we can do.’

So Janet and John caught the train up to London.

***

The next day the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner flew across the Atlantic to meet the President of the United States of America.