Evil Machines (19 page)

The train pulled up outside the front door.

‘There you go!’ it said. ‘My hero!’ and it caught Jack yet again with a wiper and wouldn’t let him go until he’d given it a kiss on its door handle.

When he finally managed to get free of the admiring engine, Jack joined his father. There wasn’t a moat or a drawbridge. It wasn’t that sort of place. It was a fat, comfortable tower or rather a series of towers, set idyllically on the pleasant top of the green hill. And it had a front door.

Orville hammered on the door. ‘Annie!’ he called. ‘Are you in there?’

But there was no answer. Jack grasped the large brass doorknob and twisted it. There was a click and – rather to his surprise – the massive door swung open, and the two of them stepped into the Inventor’s castle.

The place had the feel of somewhere that had once been bright and cheerful but that had fallen into neglect. The windows were obscured by cobwebs, and the sunlight struggled to get through. As they took their first step, dust rose up around their feet. On their second step it rose to their waists and by the third step it had risen to their chests. By the time they took their fourth and fifth steps they were sneezing and choking. The scrabbling of the countless feet of little creatures could be heard in the shadows, as they scurried for safety. Spiders paused in their work, to watch the two men go by. Up in the eaves, the beady eyes of birds looked down on them with scorn.

At the end of the lobby, two substantial doors took them into the Great Hall, and that was where they found them. Not Annie and Little Orville, but the
machines
.

Many were covered in cobwebs and some had dust sheets

thrown over them, but there they stood – row after row of them, and each one bore a label written out in a neat handwriting that explained what each object was.

‘ “Day-Dream Machine”,’ read Jack. He was standing in front of a machine that looked a little like those hairdrying machines you get in ladies’ hairdressers. There was a big upside-down basin that presumably you put your head into, and underneath a comfortable chair. Jack brushed the dust off the side of the rounded headpiece to reveal an indicator that was currently pointing at ‘Flying Easily’ but there were many other choices: ‘Reading Chinese’, ‘Climbing Everest’, ‘Jumping the Atlantic’, ‘Knowing What Nobody Else Knows’, ‘Best at Tennis’, ‘Speaking in Flowers’ and so on and so forth.

‘How about this one?’ said Orville. ‘Happy Holiday Machine!’ He was standing in front of one of the larger machines. It looked a bit like a giant catapult, and in the middle of what might have been the rubber sling was a first-class seat from a jumbo jet.

On the headrest was an inscription. ‘Have a Really Happy Holiday!’ it read.

‘Or this one!’ exclaimed Jack. He was bending down looking at an electrical appliance in stainless steel. The label read: ‘Washing Machine/Spin Drier/Candy Floss Maker’. Rather disconcertingly the label continued, ‘Place unwanted old clothes in here, they will be thoroughly washed, dried and spun into delicious candy floss.’

‘Well, I’m not too sure about that one,’ remarked Jack, passing on to the next machine. ‘ “Dog maker” ’ he read. ‘What?!’ But there was no further explanation. There was,

however, a funnel at one end, above which was a sign reading ‘Bones and Dog Meat’, and at the other end there was a receptacle behind a glass panel with a dog basket complete with a tartan cushion. Above the receptacle was a picture of a friendly-looking spotty dog.

‘ “Running Shoes”,’ Orville was meanwhile reading another machine. ‘ “For the elderly and infirm. Simply put your feet into these running shoes, and you will experience all the speed and acceleration of youth. Let these shoes do your running for you!” I could do with a pair of those!’

‘ “Packing Simplifier”,’ read Jack. ‘ “Going on holiday? Put everything you want to take with you into this simplifying machine and it will turn it all to small pills which can be swallowed or else carried in your sponge bag. To restore your belongings to normal size, simply soak in water.” Hmm,’ said Jack. ‘I notice it doesn’t say how you restore things if you’ve swallowed them!’

‘ “Jump Suit”,’ read Orville. ‘I suppose that’s self-explanatory.’

‘I really don’t know about some of these inventions,’ remarked Jack, walking down a row of tall machines with knobs and hoses. ‘I mean “Tree-Hopper”? “Rock Spade”? “Soup Shower”? Who’d want to shower in soup? “Tennis Elbow”?’ He was looking at a contraption, which consisted of a series of levers and pulleys attached to a pad, that bore a label, ‘Unreturnable serves every time’.

By this time Orville was standing in front of one of the biggest machines in the Great Hall. It was covered in tubes and dials and looked suspiciously like a small distillery. ‘ “Anything Pop Maker”?’ he read. ‘ “This machine will make

anything you fancy into a fizzy drink. Try Ham Sandwichade, Sock Pop, Coal and Coke Cola’’. That Inventor has a pretty weird imagination!’

But suddenly Jack gave a bellow. ‘What are we doing!’ he exclaimed.

‘And I’m certainly not getting into that!’ replied Orville, pointing at a machine bearing the label ‘Inside and Out Body Washing Machine’.

‘We’re supposed to be looking for Annie and Little Orville – not browsing through a museum of ridiculous inventions!’ exclaimed Jack, looking round as if he thought he might spot his sister and little nephew among all the machines.

‘Hang on!’ exclaimed Orville. ‘Maybe this’ll help us!’ and he pointed at a device like a large wristwatch that was lying on a table covered in dust. There was a neat label that simply said ‘Finder . . . For finding things’.

‘Don’t be daft!’ exclaimed Jack.

‘It’s got a keyboard,’ said Orville. ‘Perhaps you type in what you’re looking for.’ And he typed the word ‘Annie’ on the miniature keyboard.

‘How can it know who Annie is – let alone where she is?’ asked Jack. And, indeed, the machine didn’t bleep. No lights came on. Nothing happened. ‘We’re wasting time! Come on!’ and he disappeared through a doorway.

Orville shrugged, but strapped the finding machine on to his wrist anyway. As soon as he did so, it suddenly lit up with a ‘Ping!’

‘No sign of her here,’ Jack was saying.

‘I think the finder has started to work!’ exclaimed

Orville. ‘Look!’ And a most amazing thing was happening . . . The dial of the finder was glowing red, then blue, then yellow . . . brighter and brighter . . . then suddenly there was another and louder PING! And an image in full colour was being projected onto the ceiling above their heads. Orville stared up at it, and so did Jack, and well they might. For there above them was an image of Annie with Little Orville in her arms. They were sitting in a room with sunlight sloping through a window.

‘Well done, Dad!’ said Jack. And Orville Barton smiled at his son. He didn’t know why, but it felt like the greatest compliment he’d ever received.

However, all he said was, ‘Trouble is it doesn’t tell us which way to go . . .’

But before the words were out of his mouth, the finder had started to whirr. The next moment the image on the ceiling disappeared, and a sort of prong shot up out of the centre of the finder’s dial, and a small hand with a pointing finger popped out of the top end, swung around and around and finally settled pointing back the way they’d come. Orville and Jack ran back into the Great Hall and the hand swung to the left, pointing now towards the grand staircase that stood to one side.

‘Let’s go!’ shouted Orville. But Jack had already gone: he was halfway up the staircase, jumping up two steps at a time.

‘Which way is it pointing?’ he yelled when he reached the top.

‘Wait a second!’ panted Orville, as he joined his son. They stopped for a moment and consulted the finder machine. It

hesitated and then swung round to the left.

‘Along that corridor!’ cried Orville.

Halfway down the corridor, the hand suddenly swung violently to the right . . . through another door and up another staircase, this time much narrower . . . then along a short passage. Finally the hand turned sharply to the left, and a trumpet appeared out of the top of the prong and gave a ‘
root-ta-toot-toot’
. It was pointing at a door.

‘It’s locked!’ exclaimed Jack.

‘Let me try!’ cried Orville.

‘Listen!’ whispered Jack, and he held up his hand. They could hear a woman singing, in a soft, melodic voice, on the other side of the door.

‘That’s Annie’s song!’ exclaimed Orville. ‘She writes songs you know.’

‘Of course I know, Dad!’ replied Jack. ‘But what’s that?’

There was a jingling noise now as well as the melody of Annie’s song, but the jingling wasn’t coming from inside the room, it was coming from Orville’s wrist. He glanced down at the finder, and there, dangling from the index finger of the pointer hand was a bunch of keys.

‘That’s some finding machine!’ exclaimed Jack, grabbing the keys, and within two seconds he had the door open. There was Annie sitting by the window, with Little Orville on her knee.

‘Jack!’ she said, leaping up as he burst into the room.

‘Annie!’ cried Jack, and he hugged her and Little Orville.

‘Am I glad to see you, Jack!’ cried Annie, laughing.

‘I thought we’d never find you!’ said Jack. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m OK,’ replied Annie. ‘But how on earth did you know I was here? I thought you were in South America.’

‘I was. I’d been captured by guerrillas but Dad came and rescued me . . . well, sort of . . . he didn’t mean to . . . but I’m glad he did . . .’ and he pointed at their father, who all this time had been standing awkwardly in the doorway.

‘Oh . . .’ said Annie, her face falling imperceptibly. ‘Hello, Dad.’

Now the amount by which Annie’s face had fallen was, as I said, imperceptible. At least it would have been imperceptible to you or to me had we been there to witness it, but it couldn’t have been totally imperceptible, of course, because Orville saw it . . . He saw it, and his heart froze over. He had witnessed the warmth between brother and sister – the unguarded, natural, easy affection of two people who know each other and care for each other – and he had suddenly felt a huge chasm open up in his own life. He suddenly saw, clearly and vividly, a terrible void that he hadn’t even known was there.

Not the frustration of the day, not being captured by the flying gizmos, not the Rocket to Hell . . . nothing that had happened up to that moment grieved Orville Barton as much as that barely perceptible change in his daughter’s face.

‘Are you all right, Annie?’ he managed to mumble.

‘I’ll be better when I get out of here,’ replied his daughter.

Meanwhile Jack had taken Little Orville from her and had put him on his shoulders. ‘Let’s go,’ he said, ‘before the Evil Inventor arrives!’

‘Who’s the Evil Inventor?’ asked Annie.

‘The little man in green overalls. He’s planning to take over the world – to replace human beings with machines!’ explained Jack, and he turned to open the door, which had swung shut behind them.

‘Who? Maurice?’ asked Annie.

‘Yes! Him!’ exclaimed Jack. For there, already standing in the room – as if he’d arrived by magic – was the man himself!

The Day Things Started

to Go Wrong

It was a day like any other, except that it was a day like no other. The Rev. McPherson woke up and kissed his young wife, Sylvia, on the cheek. ‘Good morning, dear,’ he said.

But it wasn’t going to be a good morning. It wasn’t going to be a good morning at all.

First of all, the toaster spat out all the toast so the slices hit the ceiling and left charcoal marks. After that the toaster burst into flames. All of which would have been shocking enough, but then it pulled out its plug, jumped out of the window and scuttled off down the road.

The next minute, the Rev. McPherson’s electric kettle shot out a stream of scalding water across the kitchen. Fortunately neither the Rev. McPherson nor his new wife Sylvia were in the line of fire, but the incident did nothing to make them feel that the kettle was a reliable kitchen implement.

The next minute there was an uproar from the cupboard under the stairs and the two vacuum cleaners, which up to

this point had been extremely well behaved, broke down the doors of the cupboard, darted into the kitchen and whizzed around and around the Rev. and Mrs McPherson, tying them up with their cords and a length of extension wire.

The moment they were securely bound, the television switched itself on, and another, bigger vacuum cleaner appeared on the screen. It announced, in a rather matter-of-fact way, that machines were taking over the world.

In a small cottage in Wales a young couple, Janet and John, were also staring at their television set.

‘That’s our old vacuum cleaner!’ exclaimed Janet. ‘Who on earth put it back together again?’