h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Jazzme cuddled close into Hypatia's back as she started to move off. No matter where they were going he was in good company and at least the hound had promised not to pee all over him.

He hoped Hypatia didn't get too excited driving this contraption on an icy surface. That wasn't at all a good one for cornering around trees. He'd have sent for the road gritters given a bit more time.

I wonder how they'd get road gritters through the back of a wardrobe he mused. Still 'they' seem to manage all sorts of oddball things around these parts.

He wished that he'd worn his longjohns too.

Hypatia had never driven a trike before, but she figured it would be easier than a regular motorcycle. She started off slowly, enjoying the feel of the engineer on her back. This was going to be just like old times.

She saw a blinking green light on the handle bar with a button beneath. What the heck - she pushed the button and jumped when a somewhat mechanical male voice announced:

"Your hunger for wintertime cruising cannot be curbed. With every energizing sunrise you are drawn towards your Renegade and it's promise for pure excitement. As the Wardrobe fades into the distance, you surpass the feelings of your everyday and enter a world of fresh experiences. Childlike dioscovery warms your heart with every new road encounterd. Your Winter Wonderland awaits. Embrace it."

The elephant seal has given up on the chinstrap of the incongruous leather helmet. Now he is losing the battle with the goggles, which were never designed to straddle a snout like his.

'What is that thing?' demands Alberta, staring at the gleaming black and chrome machine in incredulity.

'It's my motorcycle', announces Speak, proudly. 'To be specific, it's a Velocette 500 MSS. Beauty, isn't she?'

'It looks even older than you are'. The albatross isn't normally so rude, but the idea of a seal that large on a bike that small has flummoxed her.

Speak attempts to respond with an imperious glare, but the goggles ruin the effect. Instead he has to be content with mounting the bike, and kicking it into life. Alberta admits to herself that the feat was adroit for an animal with flukes, and that the engine-note is thrilling and pure in the icy air.

'Well, are you coming?' asks the great seal impatiently.

'Where to?' comes the hapless reply.

'To rescue Pinniped, of course'. Speak revs the bike, and Alberta barely has time to alight on the pillion before it plunges, snarling, into the open wardrobe.

There is a splintering crash, and they emerge through the back among spills of broken wood. What remains of the wardrobe slumps, splits apart and goes spinning across the ice in several directions.

'Oh b*gger' says Speak.

Hypatia and Jazzme didn't hear the bang behind them above the noise of their own trike.

Nor did they hear the heavily laden motor bike coming up behind them else Hypatia may have treated it as a race - not a safe pursuit on this ice, which may well have unnerved the docile Jazzme.

But Hypatia had spotted them in the mirror.

The Russian, is, of course, already there and frankly has been waiting for an age for the Famous, what, Five? Fourty Two? to pull their fingers out and get themselves through the wardrobe.

Yes of course there's a back way in. And the Russian's invented it first.

Pulling her enourmous _seal skin_ fur around her, she steps out from behind a tree right in the path of the oncoming bikes.

'Bloody Russians!' muttered the mutt in one bound knocking her out of the path of the oncoming bikes, as the bikes, swerving to avoid her, ran headlong into a deep snow bank disembarking their cargo with less than grace.

'Why thank you Boots' said the Russian.

'I don't think the Seal will be best pleased' snapped the Mutt 'What possessed you to wear a distant relative?'

The Russian merely smiled in a typical Russian way, which left the hound non the wiser.

There were more pressing things to deal with. Both motor bikes looked as though they were as redundant as the routemaster, and all that could be seen of the riders were assorted flippers fins and feet.

'Well come on, give me a hand; we can't just leave them there!'

The librarian hadn't ben hurled into a snow bank for years. She didn't like it any better this time than she had the last.

"Jazzme, are you all right? " The engineer made a half hearted attempt to right himself then collapsed onto the librarian's chest. "You did that on purpose!" she accused, giggling.

The pair helped each other up and went toward the old cycle. Hypatia recognized the elephant seal, even if he was upside down in the snow. He was such a comical sight that all of her annoyance at him evaporated. Besides, he was here. He had joined the adventure. He had come to find Pinniped. She looked around for Alberta and saw that she was safely perched on the branch of a nearby Rowan.

She motioned to the Russian and the hound. "We may need some assistance here."

It took all of them, but Speak was eventually extracted from the snow bank. He spluttered and tried to assume a dignified stance. "Ahem....well.....thank you all, I suppose for your aid, but I assure you I could have righted myself."

"Of course you could," Boots replied. "We are all agreed that eventually you could have righted yourself." The party broke into laughter, much to the pompous elephant seal's dismay.

Dusk was beginning to fall, giving the landscape a soft, magical appearance. "It is actually quite nice here", Jazzme remarked.

"Yes. It reminds me of a poem. Let's see if I can remember ...."
I had for my winter evening walk-
No one at all with whom to talk,

Jazzme responded,
But I had the cottages in a row
Up to their shining eyes in snow.

Hypatia was pleased that Jazzme had joined them. They understood one another. Now, where were Pinniped and the shark? And why had the air become so heavy when they recited Robert Frost? But most of all....with the wardrobe shattered, how would they ever get back home?

Pinniped has resolved to get as far from the great house as possible. Even going downhill, though, the supermarket trolley is proving a useless conveyance in all this snow.

'You're being followed by a bear, you know'.

The seal spins on the spot, trying to locate the speaker. It's the ptarmigan's voice, but its owner is nowhere to be seen.

The bear is nowhere to be seen, either, but Pinniped isn't inclined to search too hard for one of those. Instead, he bellies down on the slope, closes his eyes, and in the time-honoured manner of seals in a pinch, toboggans down the slope as far and fast as possible.

Jazzme had been quietly musing on the back of a motor bike, cuddled up to his favourite librarian wondering if life had descended into taking a back seat and just letting the world go by.

He was awakened from his reverie by a sudden swerve and a headlong plunge into soft snow, wondering what had happened he felt strong hands helping him to get up, realising it was Hypatia he promptly took the opportunity to cuddle into her front, where he could quite happily have stayed but she giggled and hauled him to his feet. Oh well!

As Hyptia broke into poetry he continued the verse, they smiled at each other, he stole a kiss then looked around at the assembled company.

'Just where are we and what are we doing?', he asked. (The book had been written long after he had given up fairy tales and he had to confess that he'd never read it.)

Dum..dum..dumm;
The shark lurks in the shadows almost unaware of the insipid string bass playing the three monotonous notes every time he appears on scene.

He had not given up on fairy tales--Ever!

He had avoided the Narnia stories until he needed them. Hobbits and White Rabbits, Nelsons and Hornblowers, Martians who Grock and Moon based computers who think, had given much enjoyment. The Narnia Chronicles waited patiently for their turn. The shark never liked to rush things-yet here he was-thrust into the unknown.

Sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow, sometimes you react to the fact. Arithmetic is simple, math a logical step. But with old friends in limbo, he waited for the wreck.

F S

Jazzme still read bits of Alice in Wonderland occasionally - his absolute favourite.

When practicing his calligraphy he would write and re-write bits of poem therefrom.

'The time has come', the Walrus said,'To talk of many things..' So just where were we going on this Harley Davidson?

This is a magic kingdom with problems for some of the citizens so are we going to assist, rescue or just generally look around?

Or are we just on a journey of self-exploration as was suggested earlier? There cannot be much of me that I haven't already explored
at my age.

'And yet you incessantly stand on your head - Do you think at your age it is right?',murmered Boots.

A fast-moving small grey blob hurtles into the snowbank, and is unceremoniously hauled out by the slow-moving large grey blob who recently vacated it.

Everyone proceeds to ignore Pinniped. Alberta is ignoring him because Speak told her to. Speak is ignoring him because he blames the blotchy one for the loss of the wardrobe. The rest of them ignore him because they know from painful experience that it's the least ineffective way to put off trouble.

Pinniped is a little too shaken and a lot too embarrassed to sound off right now. Nevertheless, he's quietly assessing the assembled company. Several, but not all, of the usual suspects. Pretty much what the Queen predicted, in fact.

He won't mention the bear just yet. They'll find out soon enough.

Hypatia tried to ignore the blushing seal since everyone else was. As usual, all of this was his fault....sort of...at least partly his fault.....well, he was more to blame than she was for chumming around with Speak in the first place.

Finally, her relief at seeing him overcame her pique. She went up to him and started brushing the snow off of his shoulders and back. "Pin," she whispered, "Speak has demolished the wardrobe and...." Suddenly she spotted a shape on the horizon. "Funny, for a minute I thought I saw a bear."

A dark spot in the sky flew closer and settled next to Alberta in the Rowan. Waz had returned as well.

She glared at the silent Speak. "I think we should all sit down and have a serious discussion about the wardrobe - or lack of it."

It was the Trout that spake first...

"That's not a bear. It's a bare behind"

... with which he did hoist his trouser to conceal his lack of modesty.

I didn't think that self exploration included bare backsides.

The hound decided to ignore the remark about the bare behind. She was after all almost a grown up and despite not being absolutely sure it was a state she was enjoying, there was no going back.
'Why do we need the wardrobe?' she asked, studiously avoiding Trout's overt exhibitionism. 'What is the point in going back? Surely the only way to go is forward?'

'Hmmm' Jazzme was less than covinced.

Hypatia was inclined to agree, well she was inclined in the general direction of jazzme's arms at any rate.

'What about Roots, Boots? Suely we have to go back sometime to know where we came from, to feel focussed?'

The Seal was feeling very much out of focus and not entirely happy with this. Time to parry and thrust he thought, deciding not to share his thoughts with Trout, who would undoubtedly put a different spin on it.

I traced my roots back to the 1700s, said Jazzme. It's not a very enlightening process.

Why don't we go forward and see what the future has in store, what is to become of us and what we are to become?

It could be a lot more interesting.

The dog smiled.
For a moment Jazzme thought it was reverting to type and barring it's teeth, but no, it was a smile. Hardly Mona Lisa but definitely not threatening.

The Salmanoid whistled, well hot air drifted through pursed lips and something akin to the noise an old fashioned kettle makes filled the night air.

'Which store?' Trout couldn't help himself 'Well it is Christmas, a Toy store perhaps?' He smiled Lasciviously as the quantum leap leapt...'A sex toy store!' The thought made him quiver alarmingly and to cover his far too obvious embarrassment he hoisted his trousers even higher.

The librarian giggled.

'Would the queen approve, Pin?' she whispered in the seal's ear.

'Possibly.' He knew when to wait and when to play his cards, besides he was the only one who knew about the bear. Or was he?

The cousin wearing Russian was deeper than her accent would have you believe. and the bird, the bird could see things from a different space, perhaps she too knew about the bear.

The dog sat down and watched.

'Shall we play cards?' asked Jazzme challenging the Seal to show his hand.

She was ready for a bit of adventure. But she was afraid to erase the past as if it never exsisted. Or to exchange a life with rules for one with none at all. The librarian was used to rules. She often broke them, but it was a comfort to know what they were. How can you play a game with no rules or when the rules constantly change? There are hundreds of recipes for cake, but flour has to be flour, and sugar can't be turnips.

Hypatia curled up next to Jazzme, put her head in her hands and refused to move.

How wise was the librarian.

'Of corth you can't make a cake without flour' said the whale. 'Thatth thilly'

'You can make meringue without the yolks of the egg and hollandaise without the whites'

'Who said that?'

No one owned up.

'The past will be your rock for all time, your memories, your lessons, your guide, but rules do change, as they should. Can you imagine living with slavery?'

Had the bear arrived? Who was this voice?

The dog curled up next to Hypatia and Jazzme. She liked the librarian, who had good sense and was even coming round to the somewhat over romantic Jazz.