Muddle and Win (7 page)

The
Sally. The central idea of Sally. The Sally who always would be Sally, no matter what changes happened to her in the outside world. The person who had made this mind of arches and statues and golden letters what it was.

Muddlespot wouldn’t have been surprised to find that the Inner Sally had a head the size of a beach ball – or possibly a small planet. But she didn’t.

He wouldn’t have been
that
surprised if he had found that the Inner Sally was a fierce little woman about a hundred and fifty years old, with sharp eyes and a face that only ever smiled when the very last grain of dust had been swept off her floor. She wasn’t.

He wouldn’t have been totally astonished to find that she was really a fire-breathing dragon. She wasn’t.

The Sally he saw here looked exactly the same as her outer self. Which should have meant that she was entirely happy with the way she was.

But there was just one little difference.

Her ankles were tied fast to the chair. Round her waist ran loop after loop of rope, pulled so tight that it must have been horribly uncomfortable. Her arms were free, but only so that she could turn pages and write things. Her mouth was stopped with a great white gag, and muffs were clamped fast over her ears.

Muddlespot squeaked with dismay.

She did not see him coming because she was intent on the page. She did not hear him because of the muffs. Only when he reached her and started tugging at the
knotted
ropes did she realize he was there. She turned her head to him.

‘Mmmm! Mmmm! Mmmm!’ she said through her gag.

‘Coming!’ gasped Muddlespot. ‘Won’t be a moment!’

The knots were very tight.

‘Mmmm! Mmmm! Mmmm!’

‘Just as  . . . soon as I can!’ said Muddlespot, working frantically. ‘There!’

‘
Mmmm! Mmmm! Mmmm!
’

‘Oh, sorry!’ He pulled the earmuffs away and loosened the gag. It dropped to her neck.

‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?’ yelled Sally.

‘I  . . . er  . . . freeing you?’

‘And who
asked
you?’ She rose to her feet. She towered over him like an emperor over some poor subject. This lasted for half a second before her ankles, still tied to the chair, tripped her up and she had to sit down with a bump. The chair teetered, tipped and sent her sprawling.

Muddlespot scratched his head. The gag in his hand was definitely a gag. It didn’t look at all nice to wear. He couldn’t think of any reason why anyone would want one. But it was dawning on him that (however odd and crazy it seemed) things were the way they were inside
the
human mind for a reason. And the reason was that humans really did like their minds to be that way. They had got used to it. Maybe they couldn’t think of anything better. Anyway, they weren’t going to thank anyone who just came along and changed them.

‘I didn’t know you had to ask,’ he said lamely.

‘See?’ said Sally, righting herself awkwardly. ‘You come in here, thinking you know best  . . . What did you want, anyway?’

What did he want? Muddlespot focused on the question.

Ah. Yes. And he’d better get on with it – before the Sleepless Watch came back to their bunks.

‘Ahem! Do I have your full attention?’

‘You’ve as much as you’re going to get,’ she said. ‘And it’ll be less every second.’

He took a deep breath. ‘I’m here to get you to come over to
our
side,’ he said, with as much confidence as he could muster.

She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘And how will you do that?’

‘By offering you all the nations of the Earth.’ Out of his sack he pulled a long, long scroll of what might have been cured skin, written with many comforting-looking mystic spiky characters in ink that might have
been
distilled from molten bone marrow. ‘All you have to do is bow down and worship me. Sign here, please.’

Sally gave him another thoughtful look. One of her eyebrows lifted slightly, as if she detected that his origins might have been a bit on the warty side. ‘Could I worship Johnny Depp instead?’ she asked.

Muddlespot hesitated. ‘Er  . . . that might be all right. Let me check.’

Out came the book bound in black marble, followed by sounds of frantic rustling as Muddlespot searched for guidance.

‘Forget it,’ sighed Sally. ‘I’m not interested.’

‘What about wealth?’ asked Muddlespot hurriedly, still leafing through his book.

‘No.’

‘Fame?’

‘No.’

‘Beauty?’

The eyebrows lifted again – just a little.

So
much can be said in just a little.

‘I mean – I mean
amazing
beauty,’ gabbled Muddlespot. ‘Beauty
even
more beautiful than you’ve got now. You know – crack-the-glass sort of beauty  . . . um  . . . What about it?’

‘You can’t take a hint, can you?’

‘Apple?’ said Muddlespot, producing one.

‘No thanks.’

‘Don’t you want
anything
?’ cried Muddlespot desperately.

‘I want you to tie me up again,’ said Sally, holding out her bonds. ‘Get to it.’

‘Tie you up? You
want
to be tied up?’

‘I’m good with it. Keeps me focused.’

‘No – hang on. This can’t be right  . . .’

‘It’s
my
mind, isn’t it?’

‘But—’

‘DO IT!’

Hands trembling, Muddlespot began to wind the bonds around her. He was thinking, I shouldn’t be doing this. I’m letting her win. I should be saying something, talking her over  . . . Corozin will spread me all over his ceiling if he hears about this  . . . I’ve got to say
something
. Even if it’s only  . . .

‘Er  . . . how’s that?’

‘Tighter,’ growled Sally, picking up her pen.

And Sally was thinking, There’s no time for this. To get the History essay done properly was going to take another hour. Then there would be dinner, and after dinner a chance to put in half an hour on next week’s Physics homework, do some reading (
Paradise
Lost
) and get all her things ready for tomorrow. Mustn’t forget that washing-up too  . . .

Cheek! Coming in here and starting to chat her up when she was already busy! And dumb. What had he
thought
she was going to say?

Quite cute though. That air of helpless bewilderment made her want to pat him on the head and say, ‘There, there, don’t mind so much. You’ll be better at this when you’ve had – er – quite a lot of practice  . . .’

He was still fumbling with her bonds. She wished he would hurry up. For his sake as well as hers. It couldn’t be long before the  . . .

 . . . guards came back.

A STRANGE MURMUR
filtered down crystal corridors. Beneath the arches the air trembled. The music wavered. In their alcoves and on their plinths, the heads of blank-eyed statues bent to listen. It was a sound they had not heard in a long, long while.

The mind of Sally Jones was undergoing a mild disturbance.

‘THERE HE GOES!’

(Mild, but nevertheless unusual.)

‘Gold fifteen! Intruder is on the stairs! Cut him off!’

‘DIE, scum! Yay verily!’

Muddlespot flung himself over a balustrade, skidded round a corner and frantically reversed direction at the sight of four more angels advancing, instruments
in
hand. He dived for cover behind a plinth. Trumpets blew and trombones blasted. The notes sang past his ears and wrote themselves in little quartets all over the wall behind him. He threw a tar bomb and didn’t stop to see where it went.

Down another corridor, feet pounding, pursued by cries. The six-sided chamber with the pointing statue. The exit ahead of him  . . .

Angels in the gallery above!

Something small, hurtling through the air!

Ears ringing, Muddlespot skittered sideways. The air was full of a horribly sweet-smelling smoke. It stung his skin. He pounded on down the last corridor. The way out into the world was ahead of him. From behind came the sounds of rushing wings and running feet, and cries of ‘
He’s getting away
!’ (which sounded good) and
‘Don’t miss!’
(which didn’t sound good at all). He groped in his sack for another tar bomb. There weren’t any.

He found the trident, which might have worked at close range, except that right now close range was very much where he didn’t want to be  . . .

He found the parachute, which he had stuffed back in his sack earlier  . . .

He ran out of Sally’s ear canal like he was running full tilt out of a cave in a mountainside  . . .

He was falling, the air rushing up past him. He was shaking the parachute desperately with one hand  . . .

And
WHACK!
For a second time the parachute opened into a beautiful, comforting curve above his head. His mad descent seemed to stop in midair. ‘So long, suckers!’ he called cheerfully to the angels who crowded at the lip of Sally’s ear, pointing arms and weapons down at him.

TARATARATARATARATTARATAAAA!
went the trumpets above him. Golden notes flew through his canopy and ripped it to shreds. Muddlespot’s eyes bulged in terror.

Then he was falling again.

He fell a long way.

A long, long way.

And the ground rushed up to meet him. And it went on rushing, expanding madly as he got closer and closer and closer to it until  . . .

‘Ooo-ooh!’ groaned a dazed Muddlespot.

‘Muddlespot?’ said a voice he knew, somewhere nearby. It wasn’t one he particularly wanted to hear.

‘Muddlespot? Are you receiving me?’

Muddlespot opened his eyes. He was lying on his back in a heap of brown goo, surrounded by what seemed to be a smooth silver wall that rose up in a circle all around him. Looking down on him out of the sky was a huge face.

It was round and covered in black hair. It was topped with two huge triangular ears. Its mouth was a short, straight line that looked as if, when it opened, it could open very wide indeed and be full of red tongue and sharp white teeth. It had a small black button nose that twitched suspiciously, and two huge yellow eyes with slit pupils that peered down upon him as if trying to make out what he was.

(Shades, the Jones household cat, lived by a few very simple rules. One was ‘Dinnertime Is Anytime’. The following scene will illustrate  . . .