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

Hypatia looked at her watch. She decided to give MI-5 another 10 minutes then e-mail them again. If a reconstituted Pingu wasn't enough to get their attention, then she didn't know what was.

At that moment six black Jaguars pulled up and surrounded her jeep. She was starting to feel a bit intimidated when she saw her contact alight from one of the cars. She unlocked her jeep walked over to join him.

"It's about time. You wouldn't believe the...erm...creatures I've had to deal with. Insanity! Pure insanity."

Hypatia is busy talking to, it seems, Jack Nicholson.

Meanwhile, back in her Jeep, there is the familiar whirring of a hard drive in action ...

'Dictionary of English Improvements':
_____________________________________
PREDOPOLY : A role-play game in which to win participants must indulge in plunder, robbery and predation.
_____________________________________

***

Pingu stands in Codrington High Street watching busy Britain bustle by. Pingu is learning the art of aggravated alliteration.

With deft dexterity, he uses his stunted wing flippers to fashion the top of his plasticene head into the shape of a motorcycle patrol cop's helmet. But, momentarily feeling a rush of intense pleasure whilst stroking his head, he realizes quickly that this is not the kind of helmet he'd intended and quickly adjusts himself.

Happy now with his appearance, which he views reflected in the window of an adjacent building society, Pingu marches into the middle of the busy thoroughfare and raises one wing-flipper ... "STOP" ... toward the front of an ostensibly oncoming bus. Fortunately, perhaps more so for both the bus and the human cargo within, traffic is practically gridlocked, and although the driver reacts, it cannot decelerate any further without going into reverse. Although red, this bus is not a RouteMaster. Pingu marches around to the concertina passenger door and, finding it open, boards.

"Pingarello, Clapham Highstreet Patrol", prevaricates the plasticene penguin, holding up a hastily fashioned facsimile of an identity card. "Disembark NOW", with which Pingu partially dismembers himself, and with the omnipedal skill of a flamingo aims the instant amber submachine gun at the overwhelmed operator.

"Alliterate or Obliterate?" asks Pingu, somewhat rhetorically, "Go ahead, make my day." But by now, the driver has vaulted over the dwarf door that demarcates his private space and is rapidly de-bussing. Having first reestablished the sphenisciform form, Pingu picks up and dons the driver's discarded cap. Then, sitting comfortably behind the wheel, Pingu takes control of the bus.

***

Lithesome and lovely, leggy Lucy Lynch's lower limbs, one straight, one crooked at the knee, both finished at one end in black stiletto and at the other in black stocking top are portrayed horizontally from hip to toe in two flat dimensions on one side of more or less every bus in the capital ... hosiery chic and sheer is evidently de rigeur.

But one bus, being revved impatiently in Codrington High Street, no longer carries the Trade name of the product being marketed ... instead, above Lucy's legs, but instead, in the same font ...

but instead, in the same font ...

Vote For The Centrist Slightly Right Socialist Liberal Democratically All Colours Of The Rainbow Vegetarian But Tolerant Of Meat Including Fish Eaters Monarchist Republican Party. You Know it Makes Sense.



A small boy stopped suddenly and stared, stuck to the spot. Simon's mother sighed "stop that straight away! You know you can't keep it konstant. Cee!"

----------------------
Rewind
----------------------

The small boy stopped abruptly (again) and gawped, rooted to the spot. His open mouth and bulging eyes rapidly displaced by a beam of joy;

"PINGU! PINGU.......!!"

He tried to rush towards the bus but his mother too, had seen the penguin at the wheel. The fixed stare of his expressionless eyes unnerved her, she cringed back, pulling the struggling child with her. The child's struggles were half hearted, the beam was crestfallen.


"Pingu?"



"...Pingu...?"



He stretched out a hand towards the oblivious creature, his mouth pouted and if he'd been a girl...

A chill blew over his world, he was shaken. He didn't understand. He took the allsorts his mother offered to comfort him, of course, but they didn't help.



On the high street the traffic moved, Pingu clattered in the clutch and drove on. Somewhere deep inside there'd been a flicker of response, but it fell between two synapses and was gone. He had picked up the tell tale trail of imagination gone amok. Pingu was locked in on target.

The lammegeier'd been quiet for a while. She felt distinctly out of sorts, out of all sorts of sorts, had done ever since the sound of the Exclaymation. They'd set a chain of events in hand without any idea of the consequences. Where was Pingu? He'd be on the move by now. He'd be following a programme in that brain washed mind of his. Question was, what programme? The Speak Your Weight Machine had said Pingu would find Pinniped 'without fail'. What did that mean? Was Pingu after Pinniped? Or looking for him for orders? Then there was Cleo.

She looked over at Cleo, she was making peace cranes out of the bus tickets. As though she had to keep her mind on something. She seemed oddly detached. It was almost as if in guarding the plasticine so long she had started to come under its influence. Were those leaflets a diversion or a part of some deeply laid plan?

"erm, Cleo? what....

There was a yell from the top deck.

ding-ding ...

The bus stopped with a jolt and hurled her backwards. Scrabbling at the slippery metal of the luggage rack with her claws she flapped frantically to regain her balance and caught the sheep a clip about the ear. "Baaaaaaaaa!!!!" (Well if he didn't deserve that here, he was sure to deserve it somewhere, sometime. For slave driving in a parallel universe, something like that.) Boots skidded backwards " Baa" "Woof, woof, w w woof" down "woof" the "baa aaa aa" aisle "WOOF woof!!" "Baa, beeeaaahaa!" and collected the Conductor "@**!#!!8" as he "baa aaa" "!!**@*@%%!**" "Woof" "Baaa" went.

The bus driver gave a quiet grin of satisfaction. It didn't last long.

MoG came crashing down the stairs, Jazzme and the Trout close behind, very close behind. "Pingu! Pingu! I saw Pingu!!!"

"Follow that bus!" MoG screamed at the driver. "No, not this bus, that bus!"

There was a slight bump as the chasing bus went over a lying in the road. For a short while the impression remained on the revolving tyre.
'I don't think that bookmark will be relevant for long' thought Jodan shivering despite his bebadged sheeps kin beside him.

'Oh for goodness sake! How many buses are there?'

Hardly the sort of book the girl had expected at bedtime.

She quite liked the characters though. Waz the caring predator flying high above and keeping watch, swooping into egos to pluck out hidden oysters.

Trout. The fish obsessed with the sexual. Strange hobby for a fish. But then so was politics but he did have rather a good turn of phrase and could always be relied upon to introduce the unexplained and he did keep it moving.

Hypatia, well that was obvious. One had to have a chef how else would Pinniped's army be fed. But why was she muddled up with MI5? Surely she wasn't the one in the crimson dress and stockings? Perhaps she Waz?

The sheep was definitely there for the ride. For a sheep he was surprisingly bright and his coat was kept remarkably trim, no doubt he had a good barber hidden on the bus.

Jazzme and Mog. The fish referred to them as 'the witches' and 'old'.
They didn't seem old to the girl. They seemed more energetic than Pinniped in fact. Now he was a strange one attracting the oddest friends. THE speak your weight machine a close confidante no doubt, and Pingu? A penguin? A nun impersonating a penguin? The good? The bad? Oh no! I'm not going there that's Awix' baby.
He'll probably turn up at some point if only to criticise the lighting.

She was glad that Cleo had joined the bus and now a lettuce had appeared.

Hold on you started with the bus... No - buses - plural.
Oh it would be so much easier if it were potatoes.
One potatoe
two potatoe
three potatoe
and a couple of buses.

'You'll get told off for that' said the dog.
'For what?' Why was she even talking to a dog that didn't exist?
'potatoe' replied the dog. 'The folk from across the pond will have something to say about that.'

'This is too ridiculous!' said the girl. 'You're not real, you're in my story.'

'That so?' said the dog climbing over the sheep back onto the bus.

'And I thought this was Ben's story. You Ben then?'

Jazz was reading a newspaper he'd founf upstairs on the bus.

DEATH OF THE JABBERWOCK. he read-
Young John has slain the Jabberwock - severed it's head and, gallumping, brought it back for proof. His old father, William was reported to have shouted Calloo Callay and stood on his head. Now only the frunious bandersnatch disturbs the tulgey wood.

LOST AND FOUND

One seal, long out of water, could be very smelly by now.

Two sanitys, one male, one female suspected of being together as male known to be rather partial to intelligent librarians.

Two red buses last seen in Westminster possibly heading towards the abbey in search of Saint Either.

Reward for any reader assisting in location.

Dear Thpeak...

(thays the note)

...I have dethided to go and athitht Pinniped and hith friendth. They're all in a theriouth meth now that the penguin ith on the loothe.
If I thwim ath fatht ath pothible, I gueth I'll get there thometime on Thurthday.
It wath very nathty of you to trick them into releathing Pingu. They probably don't realithe that the world ith now going to end, and I'm thure they'll all be very upthet when that happenth.
Thinth I'm a Nemethith mythelf, it'th probably up to me to thave Hugh Manatee.
Love and kitheth (even though you're a big meanie)
Orchid
xxx

The Speak-Your-Weight-Machine shakes his head sadly.
All this is very well, but the Poet hasn't been seen for days.
They probably need some of his inimitable guidance, a little bit anyway.
With some reluctance, he scoops up the receiver and returns it to the cradle.

Brrrrr Brrrrrr

'Too soon, too soon' He snarled into his coffee.
'You'll wake the baby if you rock the cradle. I only said you needed guidance, when did the time scale get set?
hello and no! I'm not ready yet.'

'But there's been a sighting. I'm replying to the lost and found the one that says

LOST AND FOUND

One seal, long out of water, could be very smelly by now.

Two sanitys, one male, one female suspected of being together as male known to be rather partial to intelligent librarians.

Two red buses last seen in Westminster possibly heading towards the abbey in search of Saint Either.

Reward for any reader assisting in location.'

'I know what it says but no one expected a reply.'

There was a pause.




A long pause.


'Well if you're not interested in the location....'

The pause sounded almost offended.

'Go on.'

***

Trout Montague kicked the punning lettuce back under the seat from whence it had emerged.

"Let us just say that that's enough of that ...", he said, picking a loose leaf from his pedal-fin, "... cos it's just the tip of an iceberg." Meanwhile, but ahead, the Pingu-driven Daimler Fleetline roared recklessly out of sight.

"Now Driver ...", said Trout Montague through clenched teeth, "... it would help us immensely if you'd engage one of the forward gears instead of reverse ...". Trout Montague was clearly still smarting from the surprise of having momentum propel him to the back of the bus during the emergency stop manoeuvre, an event which had been contrary to at least one of his principles. He reached up, and without even the faintest whiff of double entendre tugged the bell-line ...

"ding ding"

... Mnurrrr Mnrrrrr ...


***

Headstrong and willful, and possibly running away from the familiarity of home, young Ben sat on the top-deck of the RouteMaster; familiarizing herself with her new surroundings.

She liked the look of the pseudo-plaid of the seats, but the nap set her teeth on edge; it was like sponge-foam, or the sound of polystyrene ... it was the lukewarm bland bluntness of the sensation that appalled her. She preferred sharp defined things, the cold steel of rapier wit, clicks not hums, corners not bevels; sharp things were focused; sharp things described the line that existed between black and white; yin and yang; dog and cat; fact and fiction. She could not abide the indeterminate, the loose, the unstructured, the unplanned. And this strange new world was most certainly all of those things.

Now, like the Alice in her books, she was surrounded by creatures weird and wonderful. The kindly old Jazzme seemed most familiar, as if he'd been there with the grinning cat and the clock-watching rabbit. But even he, like the others, was only distinguished from a headless chicken by the fact that he was neither headless nor fowl.

Young Ben wished she had her poetry book ... she'd write some of this down. And she'd give it a proper ending. Or at least she'd hand them a map ...

The six black Jauguars and the Jeep followed the bus. Agent Bunwarmer/aka Wolfgang (D.D.) Dandelion, was driving Hypatia's jeep, much to her consternation. "I can keep up with those guys as good as you can," she fumed. "And you took your own sweet time getting here."

"Let's just say I was diverted."

"Let's just say you were lost!"

"Stop whining. I'm here now." He took a curve a tad faster than Hypatia liked, which threw her toward the door and banged the knee of her peed upon leg. "Now, tell me what the tarnation is going on. And don't leave out anything. You never know what is going to be important."

The vulture, the sheep and the hound, had resumed their watch for Hypatia. Sat in a row, facing out of the rear window, they watched the Jeep in the distance, with 6 Jaguars in tow, dodge first one potatoe, then the second potatoe, then the third. The Jeep made an unecessarily big deal of it and Jaguars 2 and 5 narrowly missed a verger and a cyclist respectively.

The hound hung her head. The bird and the sheep both looking at her, made no comment. They didn't have to.

The dog thought she'd change the subject.
"What's with Trout this morning?" she whispered.

The vulture rolled her eyes and the sheep shrugged.

"Oh" said Boots, and tried another topic.

"So, that's Ben then...?"

There's a killer whale at the bus-stop.

And there's a message in Trout's voicemail, advising (ahem...) that she may be a big girl, but she's still under-age, so watch it...

The bus driver tried his best not to stop. He put up a valiant fight, but not even the invocation of St Camione, patron saint of bus drivers was enough to overcome the years of indoctrinations, reinforced by habits. St Camione wasn't a very effective patron saint, it has to be said. His heart wasn't in it. It hadn't been his fault that a glitch in heavenly timekeeping had led to him missing several scheduled appearances at his allocated Shrine of the Patiently Waiting, ( at De'Po, in the Florentine hills for those interested), and had then appeared in triplicate before an easily impressed goat herd.

He probably wasn't even listening when the driver sent up his plea for help.

Not stopping would have been like walking under a ladder. The driver couldn't do it. At the last minute he slammed the brakes on. The bus shuddered to a halt and the doors opened.

The whale hauled herself aboard and looked at the assembled passengers. The assembled passengers looked back. It was kind of a non plus situation.

'Which bus are we trying to catch up with?' Wolfgang asked, as the Jeep tore past the stationary vehicle that more and more was coming to resemble a singles ark.

Ahead of Hypatia and Wolfgang the other bus was starting to weave across the road erratically.

'Why do you ask?' replied Hypatia, craning around to look behind, and wondering how any of them were going to be able to get out past the bulk of the orca.

Pingu disembarks from his commandeered Daimler Fleetline, somewhat involuntarily and via a penguin-shaped aperture in the windscreen. Bouncing a couple of times down some mosaic-tiled steps, the psychotic bird adjusts his egg-flap and dusts himself off in the concourse of Holborn tube station, the big bus wedged firmly in the main High Holborn entrance above and behind him. The autochthonous colony of flower-vendors and purveyors of fruit and fresh veg are distinctly disdainful ...

"... an' I bet 'e 'asn't even got a proppah job ..."

Pingu has no time for such sentiment, and vaults the barriers ...

"Oi you, birdy, 'ave you got a tickit ..."

... before descending into subterranean London, sliding on his belly (as is a penguin's natural wont) on the shiny steel shelf that exists between the escalator tracks.

***

Pinniped is a trifle concerned. The story is in dangerous territory ... a mere one stop away from Covent Garden ... and Soho ...

***

Pingu hurries through the white-tiled labyrinth; it feels almost homely ... the walls are lined with an array of colourful messages, including some wan Monet-backed poetry ...

_____________________________________
GMK I

A Sham Wan Curry,
Always seems in a hurry,
To rush through my digestive tract.
A magic ingredient,
Makes passing expedient,
An hour's all it takes - that's a fact.

- Trout Montague, 1997
_____________________________________

But Pingu pays no attention, and eventually emerges in some sort of vasty vault. Tunnels to the left, tunnels to the right ... red or blue; Central or Piccadilly. Which way would Ben go, Pingu?

***

Pingu, though, knows a third way ... it's been tried before ... directly ahead, seen and seeable by only those with broadest of imagination is ultra-bluey-white ... The Continental Line. And Pingu's course of course remains straight and true ...

Orchid had half-expected the non-plussedness of her reception. She had even anticipated some of them to be perhaps a little horrified ... her kind had after all been rudely stereotyped in the media. Killer-whales indeed. However, she wasn't prepared for the look now splattered over all their faces ...

"Why are you all looking at me like that? You all look like you've jutht theen the back end of a buth."

The hound gestured with his eyebrows and a slight forwards-inclination of his prick-eared-head at the Holborn tube-station carnage, which trundled past the driver-side windows. They HAD seen the back end of a bus.

Trout Montague looked square at Orchid, and smirking in a manner as close to 007 as he could muster ...

"Shall we get off?"

But before Orchid could protest, Trout had turned away. He looked up at the bell-line, and not without a wince at the irony. One tug was all it would take. Life hadn't been that straightforward since he was 13.

"Ding"

Eager to jettison this cargo, the driver took the opportunity to yet again test his proficiency on the brakes. He'd forgotten about Orchid ...


***
_____________________________________
The Next Train At This Platform ... 18 mins
_____________________________________

Pingu is pacing up and down Holborn tube station, platform Id. He is alone, and the scuffs of his tail-feathers on the raw float-finished concrete are amplified by the tubular void in which he now exists. Trains roar in the deep dark labyrinth beyond the platform ends, direction and distance unknown and undisclosed. Pingu's feathers are ruffled endlessly by the wind. Stealing those sardines from Cleo's fridge was definitely a mistake.


***

The Prime Minister was draped across his olive Chesterfield sofa, clad in a white shirt, black ankle socks and a pair of white Y-fronts. Genuine Jockey. Except that they were on his head. He instructed the crimson poll-girl to flick on the t.v.

_____________________________________
What follows is a Party Political Broadcast on behalf of The Centrist Slightly Right Socialist Liberal Democratically All Colours Of The Rainbow Vegetarian But Tolerant Of Meat Including Fish Eaters Monarchist Republican Party ...
_____________________________________

"How long do you think it will take to find Pingu?" Hypatia asked Wolfgang.

"It's not finding him that will be the problem. It will be neutralizing him."

"Stop!" shrieked the excited librarian. "There he goes! Through a penguin-shaped hole in the windshield. He's heading for the subway. Catch him!" Hypatia was bouncing up and down like an excited long-coated chihuahua.

Wolfgang squealed to a stop, hurled himself out of the jeep and ran toward the subway in pursuit of the peripatetic penguin. One after another the black jaguars stopped behind the jeep and their passengers followed Wolfgang into the subway.

Hypatia, having heard more about Pingu than she really wanted to, decided to remain behind in the jeep. I'd just get in the way, she thought. Best to leave things like chases, machine gun fire and explosions to the proper authorities.

Pingu, in the meantime, was turning himself into a hamadryas baboon with a flame thrower. If Hypatia had known, she would have been disappointed to have missed it. She waved at her friends in the back of the bus and mouthed the words, "Anyone hungry?"

Tulgey Wood Herald and Post.

Would the reader useless hound reporting a sighting last week please contact the editor with further details.

ie has he/she the location of

a) the seal

b) the sanities or

c) the red bus/busses

Large meaty bone reward for correct answer and an A level pass in media studies (well almost everyone else seems to have one!)

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Jazzme stayed on the bus with Hypatia - 'I'm too old to be dashing about like a mad thing' he said ....'now when I was in the war...'but Hypatia had nodded off