MZ II: The Return of the Wombat

Once upon a time, in a parallel universe not far from our own, there lived a wombat called Migglezimblatt. In these unenlightened days before the Cannon Hill Convention accorded equal rights for wombats, Migglezimblatt (also known as Miggy) was living in the city of Broom, studying at the university there. Unfortunately, due to the ravages of the Undergraduate Tax recently imposed by the evil dictatoress, he was having to supplement his meagre grant by trying to sell drugs he grew in the windowbox of his hovel in High Hall.

Suddenly, one sunny morning Miggy (also known as That Homicidal Drug Pushing Maniac) found himself being ejected from his cosy hovel, by a squadron of formidable looking ladies bearing an array of formidable looking cleaning equipment. Miggy barely had time to empty the contents of his windowbox into a satchel before he was bundled out into the painfully bright sunlight. As he stood amongst a stream of other students (some driving away in their cars, others taking cardboard boxes off to sleep in doorways), he thought:

'F*ck me, the summer vac! Two whole months of freedom before my resits!'

It was then that a seminal thought struck Miggy... where better to try and raise some cash but Amsterdam?

'It looks like a little holiday is in order,' thought Miggy aloud, and so, putting on his shades, he set off down Eggbasket Park Road...

...unfortunately for Miggy, the station was in the opposite direction, so, to avoid truning* round, he opted to catch a buzz.

So Miggy waited at the bus stop opposite the fire station, when suddenly...

*Truning round: The way you turn round so as to make it appear you always intended to go that way, and hadn't in fact got your directions wrong.

A buzz arrived. More precisely, a large bee flew down the road, and landed next to Miggy.
'Hello,' buzzed the bee. 'Where to, mate?'
'Hello there,' said Miggy,'what's happened to the buses on this route?'
'Public transport's been hived off,' said the bee.
'Oh, I see. Erm, I'm going to Amsterdam. Better take me to New Street.'

Miggy climbed aboard and they flew off. As they flew down the road, they saw...

...an abysmal scene of desolation, miles and miles of slum housing and derelict building sites.

However, this was Broom after all, so this was nothing surprising really.

The bee dropped Miggy off on New Street, Miggy paid his fare, and the bee buzzed off on its own buzziness.

Miggy then went into the station and went to the international travel window. The being behind the window said...
'Orroight, c'noi elpyew loik?'
'Uh?' thought Miggy.

...and fainted. [This is a Miggy saga after all!]

Miggy slowly picked himself up. And said, in the best broomoi accent loik he could give,
'I dunnoi moi son. Loik d'yoi sell us some dope loik?'

The broomoi behind the window was falabbergasted!* He had never had anyone understand him before.
'Well, d'yoi want first class or second loik?'

*Falabbergasted: To be excessively surprised and pissed off. Derived from Falabbergast the Fourth, killed accidentally by a suicidal elephant which threw itself off a cliff, below which he was walking. Falabbergast's last words were 'Oh shi-'.

'Err, second I suppose'
'Orroight, silver standard, standard, or substandard loik?'

Miggy checked his change and replied 'Substandard loik.'
'Smoking, non-smoking, drinking, non-drinking or eating travellers-fare food?'
'Smoking and drinking please,' Miggy answered immediately.
'Orroight that's forty-two pound loik mate'

Miggy thought this was pretty cheap for BritRail plc, so he handed over the cash (mostly in small change), took his ticket and went down to the platforms. It was only then that he looked at his ticket and discovered...

...that he'd bought a ticket to see Broom City play at home.
'Bugger this', thought Miggy, and went back to complain. When he arrived back at the ticket window, the broomoi had been replaced by a penguin.
'Who are you?' asked Miggy.
'I'm the ticket salesbird,' said the penguin (who was wearing a very fetching bow tie). 'The broomoi was the captain of Broom City - he was desperate to get someone to go and see them play.'
'Oh, alright then. Can I swap this for a ticket to Amsterdam please?' The penguin took the football ticket, and gave Miggy a half-fare ticket (wombats not being terrible large) to Amsterdam.

Four hours later Miggy was sitting in a train, staring at the brick wall of the tunnel just outside New Street Station, where the train had stopped almost immediately after leaving the platform. Miggy decided to go and investigate.

He wandered down the train to the guard's van, where he found another penguin. This one was reading a magazine about fish. It had a peaked cap on its head.

'Can I help you?' said the bird.
'How long are we going to have to stay here?' asked Miggy, expecting a time measured in units longer than hours.
'That all depends,' said the penguin, 'on...'

'...on how long my mate gets his marmite sandwiches. He left them in the BR canteen, and thinks they may have walked off.'
'Oh', said Migggy, and wandered back down the train in the direction of the buffet car.

Half an hour later, he was still battling through the masses of people sitting in the aisles and made it to the buffet car. It was at this point he noticed that it was closed.

'Bugger me', said Miggy, 'I'll just have to opt for...'

'... a biccy.' So he pulled a penguin biscuit out of his satchel and unwrapped it. Then he paused a moment, trying to work out what it reminded him of. Then he ate it.

Suddenly, the train lurched and everyone standing up was thrown to the floor.
'Wahey' thought Miggy as the train grundled* slowly along 'we're moving at last!' Just then, however, the train reached the next signal along the line and lurched to a halt again, and everyone who had just stood up again was thrown to the floor again.

Just then, Miggy spotted a seat, so he hurriedly sat down in it. He was next to a studenty-looking person with a rucksack on his lap (the luggage rack being full), a monkey reading The Guardian, and a woman casually smoking in the non smoking appartment. Naturally this is pretty normal so Miggy happily settled down to sleep for a few hours.

When he woke up...

*Grundled: Descriptive of the way a BritRail train moves. Sort of a combination of 'grumble' and 'trundle'.

...he saw a strange scene. The student was working! Miggy was so shocked he fainted.

Eventually he came round again. The student had got off, so Miggy relaxed. The monkey turned to him and said,
'Excuse me, I've been stuck with this crossword for hours. It's this clue here causing the trouble. 8 down, four letters, "High-flying fizz". Any ideas?'
'Coke?' offered Miggy. The monkey slapped himself on the forehead.
'Brilliant,' said the monkey. 'I'm called Simon, by the way. Where are you going?'
'I'm off to Amsterdam,' said Miggy.
'I'm going to a rock concert,' said the monkey. He did not realise that the gig was to become one of the major events of the summer. It would not be remembered for the quality of the music, but for something entirely different.

We interrupt the narrative here to explain why the gig should be so important. Somewhere in the Midlands, in the BritRail plc. Operations Room, a top secret meeting was in progress.

'Right, people, things aren't looking good. We're not wasting enough of peoples' time. We must come up with some new delays immediately. I've called you in because you're the best we have. Only true genius could have come up with "the wrong sort of snow", "leaves on the line" and of course the immortal "frozen points" excuse last July. Now, any suggestions?'

There was silence for a few minutes. People hummed, and toyed with paperclips. Then a lone voice spoke up.

'How about holding a rock gig near a busy junction, and causing it to blow all the fuses in the switch boxes at the junction? That should cause total mayhem.'

There was a terrible ghastly silence. Then smiles started to appear on the faces of the persons around the table. The smiles became positively evil grins.

Hours later, bleary-eyed planners staggered out of the room, tired but happy. They'd really done it this time. The gig would not only delay nearly every train in the country, but also cause power cuts, traffic jams and a small crime wave as well. Christmas bonuses and promotions all round were inevitable. Britain (and Broom in particular) wouldn't know what had hit them.

'Who's playing?' said Miggy.
'Loads of bands,' said the monkey, and handed Miggy a flyer for the show. 'What's even better is I can get in for free - I know a way through the fence. Want to come along?'
'Oh, go on then,' said Miggy. The prospect of a free gig was too good to miss. Little did he know what would happen....

...the first thing being that the story line was held up at the next junction by 2 months. The traion* then proceeded down the line to where the gig was to be held, in the vicinity of Milton Keynes.

Simon the monkey got off the train at the back and proceeded to get out of the station by jumping over a fence (so as not to hand in his ticket, so he could use it again). Miggy followed, as his was a ticket to Amsterdam.

They started to wander around.

'Where's the gig?' Miggy asked Simon.
'Um, hang on, I think it's in London, not here!'

Miggy then started to get angry with Simon. He could have stayed on the train for another two months before someone remembered him and gave him something to do. Miggy then decided to let Simon go to the gig. He needed a fix, and Amsterdam was going to provide it.

*traion: This is a relative of the tachyon (as used by time travellers everywhere). This particle travels along metal rails, and is used by BritRail PLC to ensure that your connecting train leaves the station two minutes before you get there.

So Miggy climbed back over the fence onto Milton Keynes station. To his surprise, a train came almost immediately so he got on it. Then he went to sleep again.

Luckily, it happened to be a through train to the continent (through the channel tunnel). Through day and night the train sped on. The customs ossifers didn't even wake Miggy up to look at his passport, because they assumed he was someone's cute'n'cuddly furry soft toy. This was not surprising because someone else on the train actually did have a cuddly stuffed wombat, but that's another story. And so the train emerged from the channel tunnel and zoomed on across northern France, and Miggy had already travelled further in one paragraph than he had in the previous 11 chapters put together.

Finally he woke up when the train came to a stop once more. Rubbing his eyes, he saw that it was in a station... PARIS GARE DU NORD. It was very noisy and hot.

'Gosh' thought Miggy and stood up.
'Scrrrrawk' went Miggy's fur which had been stuck to the seat leather by sweat and was now pulled free.
'Ouch' said Miggy.

Picking up his satchel, Miggy put on his mirror shades and went out through the door of the train.
'Where's the platform' thought Miggy as he hovered in mid air for a moment, having discovered that continental platforms are not where you expect. [f/x splat] 'Oh... (ouch) here it is. They must be tall, these continentals.'

However, wandering through the station people did not seem to be much taller than usual. Gradually...
[makes a change from suddenly!]

...his spine returned to the length it had been before he fell onto the platform. He made his way out onto the street, where there were lots of people all milling around, looking up at the sky. Miggy looked up. He saw a pair of orange-coloured elephants flying down the street. This was nothing unusual as far as he was concerned, so he shrugged and walked on, thereby missing something extremely important concerning the aforementioned tangerine airborne pachyderms (TAPs for short) which will no doubt end up as a loose end later on in the saga...

What the TAPs did was this. They landed, and wandered into a bar, came out with a large amount of alcohol, and took off again. No-one argued with them, mainly because those who argue with elephants are soon incapable of arguing with anyone except Certain Death.

Further down the street Miggy was encountering yet another strange happening...

Miggy had that awful feeling that one gets in foreign parts when the shadow of TAPs pass over you and in front of you: ie, said foreign parts get wet. Miggy stopped still, wondering if anyone had noticed his reaction. A pause, then Miggy felt his mishap had gone unspotted, so instead he got angry.

'What the hell do yoi think yoi are doiing, yoi big fattois?' he shouted into the sky in a rage. But the TAPs were not in sight. All the people looked at Miggy with fear in their eyes, as if Miggy had spoken of the unspeakable. Miggy decided to quicken his pace and walked on, deeper and deeper into darker and smaller streets, the hours passing by and our hero getting more and more worried and seeing fewer and fewer friendly faces.
'Oh dear,' thought Miggy, 'I hope I'm not lost.'

It was at about this time each evening that certain elephants from Holland would recall the events of the day (after several barrels of pastis) in moments when their skin looked more pink than orange -pastis is a fussy colour.

Once the sun had started sinking into the horizon, the TAPs would find secluded bars in the 23rd district and drink them- selves pink. Under a large willow in a small, almost empty square were nothing but a pile of empty bottles and a pair of ex-TAPs lying on their backs either side of the round table.

These particular pink earth-bound pachyderms (PEPs) addressed each other as "High Income" (Huiey) and "Low Income" (Louis) and were getting upset about a little abuse hurled at them as they had been flying around the 3rd district trying to get the humans to recognise their existence - Parisiennes do not generally like to admit that they have seen TAPs, for fear of sounding like that nutter Hubert de Horrible.

Of course, Hubert de Horrible wasn't crazy at all, nor was he horrible. Many, many decades before Miggy's time, Hubert used to grow vines on the Southern coast of France and would welcome many a pachydermic visitor from Holland to sample his produce.

Hubert was called Hubert de Nice at this time, and would fly atop his visitors on trips throughout the region until the rather unfortunate accident when a whole squadron of TAPs exploded over a village just to the north of Avignon causing it to be coloured tangerine for quite some time.

The event had shocked Hubert so much that he was sent to an asylum outside Paris where the remaining TAPs would visit him to try to get an explanation for what had happened to their friends on that fateful day. The alcohol and worry took their toll on both Hubert and the few TAPs - Hubert died soon afterwards, muttering, in his madness, about cuddly animals with familiar accents.

Miggy wandered around yet another corner - this one, however, led into the PEP-occupied square just as Huiey and Louis smashed their glasses down in an attempt to fly off to find the voice that had cursed them that afternoon.

Their eyes locked with Miggy's and the PEPs blurted, in a cross between Dutch and French, 'Could this be the long-lost high-flying fur-featured accent-accredited accident-prone beast of our lore!'

Miggy thought he fitted the description, mostly, and having not seen a friendly face in hours, opted for the nodding approach...

Miggy wandered over to the creatures, and thought he'd introcude* himself to them.
'I'm a drug crazed wombat' he said to them.

The PEPs looked at each other again.
'Yes,' they said, 'He is the long-lost high-flying fur-feathered accent-accredited accident-prone beast of our lore,' they repeated.
'Can you offer me some accomodation, warm towels, hot water, food, drink, coke (and not the drink), and sex?', asked MIggy in a hopeful manner.
'Sure,' replied the PEPs, 'just step into our parlour'.

Miggy then followed them. As they flew, he had to take a long snort of coke to float with them. They flew for a few miles, towards a mish-mash of iron which is usually called the Eiffel Tower, then the flew eastwards towards a large building entitled, 'Gare de Lyon'.

Miggy had a funny feeling that they were getting him out of town...

*introcude: to initiate inter-species sex with.

Whilst floating high above suburban Paris the airborne pachyderms began to relate to our pharmacalogically assisted aerial wombat the strange tale of their lost central African civilisation, the once majestic towers rising above the forests, the slender pinnacles of breathtaking architectural daring, the debates that would flow for hours like the ebb and flow a great sea across the floor of the oldest paliamentary institution in the world, the tecnological, artistic...

Miggy watched the ground sail by, oh, a good, well, quite a long way down anyway, and thought hard about not letting it get any closer.
'Coke,' mused he, 'certainly is the Real Thing'.

After a while the PEP's conversation grew more animated, and Miggy heard a few familiar words mentioned, most of them adjectives, and most of them referring to him. He decided that now was probably a good time to pay attention, for the semi-ballistic psychedelic herbivores were speaking of The Legend....

As far as Miggy could make out, The Legend was the name of a small cafe in a village just to the north of Avignon.
'There's only one thing for it,' said Louis (or Huiey, it was difficult to tell them apart), 'We'll have to take him there'.

'Hey, you guys,' Miggy called to the Pink Airborne Pachyderms (PAPs), 'I hope we're not going far, because I've nearly run out of substances that would keep me airborne.'
'Well, it's a long way to Avignon, but you could always follow us by train,' replied Huiey (or Louis).
'OK,' said Miggy, and gently floated down to the Gare de Lyon.
'See you at Avignon station,' called the Pink Airborne Pachyderms, and flew off to the south, completely ignored by all passers-by.

'Wibble' thought Miggy, and jumped onto an orange TGV train which was going to Marseilles, which seemed to be more or less the right direction.

Some time into the journey, the bloke next to Miggy turned to him and said:
'Hello. My name's Alfred Fring. Would you like a Bovril sandwich?'

Miggy fainted.

When he came round, he found himself surrounded by similar blokes (Bovril Liking Oddball Krazies Eating Sandwiches) and being menaced by a nasty looking lump of what was once bread and beefy yeast product.

'Now, tell us all you know about the Finger of Suspicion,' said the menacer, in a voice which suggested that the menacee could be in for a good Bovrilling if he didn't comply.
'I don't know what you're talking about,' said Miggy confidently. He was confident because he did indeed know nothing of the Finger of Suspicion.
'It is said that the Finger of Suspicion often points at you,' said a second bloke, 'and we want it.'

Miggy thought for a few minutes. Then he said, 'You're all nuts'. The blokes looked at each other, then back to Miggy, then went into a huddle. Muttering could be heard, and the overpowering smell of Jerry Hall's favourite drink filled the air.

The blokes turned towards Miggy, and as one, leapt for him, intent on filling his fur with Bovril. Miggy had prepared for this. He had had in his pouch an Oxo cube, which he could sell to students who didn't know better for cash if he was a bit short of cash. He brandished the foil-wrapped cube at them, and they shrank away in horror. Miggy backed out of the compartment, closed the door and ran. He leapt into another compartment to discover...

...he discovered that the train was already in Marseilles station.

'Coo, that was quick', Miggy thought to himself. But then, the TGV is not like BR anyway.

Miggy wandered out of the station, looking for somewhere to eat. A posh restaurant was nearby, so Miggy thought he'd go in and have some frog legs. He'd always wanted to try them, but never picked up enough courage to order any, opting for pizza or omlette at the last minute.

Miggy went into the restaurant and wited* to be seated (it was really posh). The waiter (garcon) came up to him and said,
'I'm sorry, but we cannot serve you without a tie. However, we do have a few available for use for guests who forget to wear one'. [This was all in French, but as my french is appaulling*, its not going to be!]

Miggy was given a tie and seated. He then was given a menu and wine list to peruse at his leisure. Miggy spotted the frog legs on the menu, and was convinced, this was notthe time to buy them. He then looked through the rest of the menu, and thought about what he was going to eat.

*wited: Pretended to be white (this is Le Pen country after all)
*appaulling: Paul Ling was infamous (and excommunicated) for the gaffe he made in front of the Queen of West Germany in which his linguistic skills failed him when he called her a "dialectically-materialistic doughnut" by accident.

As he riffled through the menu, he also surreptitiously looked over the top of it as he planned which of the waitresses he would most like to sleep with. It being a really posh restaurant, all the staff were drop-dead gorgeous.
'I know,' he thought, 'I'll sleep with whichever one serves me.'

Meanwhile, he decided that the next best thing to frogs legs was probably the snails. Apart from that he chose the soupe du jour and the cheapest wine on the wine list; after all, he was a student. He also managed to knock a wine glass gently off the table and into his satchel as a particularly cute blonde waitress brushed past. He began to warm to the impending evening's gastronomic delights and some serious nookie to follow.

The sun was setting over Marseilles, the evening air was warm, and the pink elephants were not due to catch up with Miggy for at least another three or four chapters. Miggy sat back in contentment.

The garcon came up to Miggy.
'Would you like to order now m'sieur le wombat?' said the garcon.
'Fuck me!' thought Miggy and...

...gulped as he spotted the outline in the garcon's lower clothing,
'I'll have that!.' Miggy was pointing at the trouser bulge and drooling.

The garcon blushed.
'Zat eez nert ern zee menu, m'sieur,' he smirked, but it was too late, Miggy had decided that if he didn't have it he would have to go elsewhere to get one as satisfying-looking as that.

'What time do you knock off then?' prompted Miggy.
'Een uh 'aff un 'our, werd m'sieur care for sermting a little stronger to dreenk while 'e eez wetting?' At this point the garcon winked and gave Miggy a glass of wine from the next table, which Miggy accepted with a shrug and he also accepted the garcon's recommendations from the menu.

'Cor...' thought Miggy, 'copped on in Marseille, of all places, with a French waiter.' He was going to have to be patient through the meal.

It was unfortunate that the woman on the next table had also been eyeing up the garcon, whose name was Jean-Jacques, and had noticed not only the certain way that he and the pair of ears that stuck up above the next table had connected, but also that she was losing wine to the fur ball behind the table. It was a special wine full of aphrodisiac-herbs and normally banned in such hot climates.

The woman, who will remain nameless for a moment ... Helen ... clicked her fingers and Jean-Jacques responded immediately. They whispered together for a moment and then Jean-Jacques approached Miggy.

'M'sieur, zee leddy wiz ze wine 'as ask'ed you to join 'er. She werz saying zat she 'eard your lervly aksont and wishes to share 'er wine.'

Miggy looked Jean-Jacques up and down, looking rather like a baby who has had Father Christmas tell him that the cuddly teddy he wanted will only be a Matchbox car - a Lada.

Jean-Jacques quickly added with a glint in his eye, 'Ees okay m'sieur, ah weel see you again, you can be sure erve zat. For I also werk in La Legend and 'ave 'eard of your arraval wiz ze creatures from Paris. You may call me JJ, as only close friends may. Zees eez ze tam we 'ave been wetting for, for search a learng tam...'

'Cor,' thought Miggy, I'd better try and speak the lingo a bit better or they won't understand me around here. After all, I don't understand them.' He followed JJ over to Helen's table.

'Good moaning,' he attempted bravely.
'It's all right,' said Helen, 'I find all those thick accents very hard to read, don't you? My name is Helen, by the way.'
'Migglezimblatt the Wombat'
'Do you like my wine?' Miggy blushed under his fur.
'Err, yes, it's very... err...' Not being used to wine, as he normally stuck to vodka or Diamond Green, Miggy was at a bit of a loss what to say. 'It's a lot nicer than Guild wine anyway...'
'It's a special wine full of aphrodisiac-herbs and normally banned in such hot climates.'
'Ah, I see.' Miggy sipped it thoughtfully. 'I knew there was something I liked about it.'

Miggy ate a pleasant gourmet meal with Helen, who (due to the effects of the wine and his own hormones) became gradually sexier and sexier in his greedy little eyes, until he had no more thoughts left of moving on to Avignon that night. By the end of the evening, he was virtually drooling. Helen casually paid the bill with her Amex^TM card and stood up.
'Now, come with me,' she said.
'Oh, I do hope so!' slobbered Miggy. Pausing only to pick up his precious satchel, he followed at Helen's heels as she strolled out into the cobbled square.
'Now, I'm a space alien and I want to kidnap you.'
'Sure,' quivered Miggy, 'whatever turns you on!'

Helen opened her powder compact and spoke into it briefly. Suddenly a shimmering yellowy sort of wibble descended from the sky where a flying saucer had been hovering discreetly. Miggy felt himself being sucked up into a dark orifice on the underside of the crockery-shaped spaceship, which served only to heighten his excitement.

Several green aliens with three of everything grabbed Miggy as he entered the depths of the ship, bound him with tight leather straps and bundled him down a tube-shaped corridor.
'Coo,' thought Miggy, 'steady on, this is getting seriously kinky!'

Miggy was pushed into a room, and the door closed behind him. It seemed to be a small galley cabin. He hopped through an open doorway and found an even smaller kitchen.

Through a porthole, Miggy looked down into the square, only to see Helen talking with Jean-Jacques who seemed to be using his whole repertoire of gallic shrugs, arm-waving and pouting.

Suddenly, the unmistakable shadow of an elephant flitted across the square. Within instants, the yellow beam was sucking up Helen and JJ into the disc.

'Bastards,' thought Miggy. But within moments, JJ appeared at the doorway, with torn clothes and bound in leather like himself. The aliens thrust him through the door, and closed it firmy*.

'Oh merde!' exclaimed Jean-Jacques in dismay 'zey 'ave captured ze cute wombat as well? Zen zere ees no 'ope.' But Miggy's face had lit up like a pinball machine when you get Special in a multi-ball.
'There is ope,' he said, 'quick...'

*To close firmy: As in the manner of the Official Receivers, shut something with the promise of further nasty things (usually financial) happening later.

'... wave at the elephants! Maybe they'll help!' said Miggy. So they waved out of the porthole, and sure enough, an elephant flew over.
''elp! We are trapped in zees flyeeng saucerre!' shouted JJ, his accent even more badly spelt than usual. The elephant nodded, and disappeared upwards. Shortly thereafter there were funny spluttering noises, and then the flyeeng saucerre declined to remain airborne.
'Aiiieeeee!' screamed Miggy and JJ in unison.

There was a horrible ghastly crunching noise, followed by the sound of hundreds of bicycle wheels spinning gently. Miggy and JJ struggled from the wreckage.
'Fuck me,' said Miggy, 'we landed on the Tour de France!'
'Oh buggerre,' said JJ, 'I don't zink ze crowd is verrai 'appy...'

The assembled and annoyed hordes of French cycling fans closed in...

The crowd closed in on Miggy and JJ, only because the french 'ero was underneath the wreckage.
'Where eeis Jean Jacques Claude Montpelliere,' they separately shouted in unison. 'Zee 'ero is squeeshed'.

Miggy and JJ saw this as a chance to escape. They pretended they were dead (Miggy had a premonition that he'd get used to being dead), and waited till the crowd were seaching for JJCM. Then they scarpered quickly over a bush.

All of a sudden they heard: 'Zees wombat 'as keeled zee 'ero with zee spacesheep. Lets geet the sun of a beech.'

Miggy and JJ were a little pacnicked. They then decided to run over the field they were in. They they had a stroke of good luck. The Italian border came into site. They ran down to the border, and reached the border post. Zee frenchies were steel following 'im.

The border guard looked at the two travellers and said:
'Canna I seea your passaportes ?'

Miggy and JJ looked in their pockets, and Miggy then in his pouch. He couldnt remember where he had put it, or if he had brought it in the first place.

With zee frenchies coming towards them, and the border guard waiting, they were in a little bit of a pickle. Brown Sauce comes to mind.

Then Miggy had an idea.
'Would you like a cigarette while I look for my passaporte?' he asked the boreder guard.
'All righta, whya not,' he agreed. Quickly Miggy made a roll-up from various substances he found in his satchel, including some very dodgy fluff from the bottom. He lit it, had a puff, and gave it to the guard with a sigh.

The guard gave Miggy the sigh back, but took several long drags at the ciggie, and his eyes began to go all distant.
'Now, canna I seea your passaporte please?' asked Jean-Jacques.
'Sure, isa right here,' said the bored guard and pulled his passport and identity papers out of his top pocket, and gave them to JJ.
'Those are quite in orderre, merci,' said JJ after glancing at them. 'You can go now.' And they watched as the guard strolled happily down the road into France, where he would soon be met by the crowd of cycling spectators.

'Quick!' said Miggy, 'this way!' He and JJ ran down a hill and into an orchard, where they found the spagetti harvest in full swing.
'Let us 'ide under 'ere until it ees darkerre,' suggested JJ, and they both crawled under a large bush of unripe tortellini.

Underneath, it was so dark you could hardly see.
'I am so ot,' said JJ, 'I theenk I must tek off my shirt...'
'About time,' thought Miggy.
'All righta, hanga it ona da brancha,' said a quiet, earthy sounding voice.

'F**k me!' thought Miggy and fainted.

The little white stars swam prettily around Miggy's head as he blurrily regained conciousness. His eyes opened slowly, saw something totally improbable and closed again in surprise.

'Gosh, what a totally improbable thing,' thought Miggy.

He opened his eyes again, and saw a large blue whale sitting next to him underneath the bush.

'Gosh, you're a blue whale aren't you' asked Miggy, who was obviously an expert in subaquatic mammaleology (or something).
'Yes' replied the blue whale.

This was obviously going to be a rather dull conversation.
'Ummm...' btwed Miggy 'my name's Miggy btw'
'Mya namesa Way and I'm not really Italian, but I only speak this way because I can't pwonounce my awws pwopewly' wepwied Way.
'Umm so your err... Whale Way then are you?' intoned Miggy, who had finally managed to drag the not-very-good punchline out of the plot.

Way the Whale gwimaced slightly.
'Umm so what are you doing under this bush' queried Miggy trying to think of something to say (after all, what would you say to a whale under a bush?)
'I'm hiding.'

After this bodyblow, the plot decided to wander off somewhere else for a moment.

Meanwhile, in a large gothic-looking building sitting high up on top of a dyke, somewhere near Amsterdam, a large group of Indigo Masonic Pachyderms (IMPs) were sitting around a large black-and-white checked table wearing aprons and traingular* pointy hats on their heads.

'By the the seventh ringpull of the sacred coke can, we meet here in a time of great crisis. Grand Inquisitor, how will you guide us in this our hour of need?'

The Grand Inquisitor looked grave for a moment, removed a king-size silver trowel, and said, slowly and solemly...

*trainguilar: descriptive of the shape of the front of a BritRail PLC 125 Intercity locomotive

'Remind me not to sit on that again. Now, you must seek out -' and here the Grand Inquisitor paused for effect, '- the Stoned Wombat of Broom, and bring him and his companions here, where they will reveal to us the secrets of the Stoned Ones!'

Having digressed and set up a nice little subplot, the plot returned to the whale and Miggy.

'What are you hiding from?' asked Miggy, pulling out a spliff and lighting up (he needed to recover from the unfortunate pun in the previous chapter).
'Them,' intoned the whale, gesturing with a flipper towards a Very Peculiar Sight Indeed^TM. Over a hill came a large lorry, loaded with a group of crazed Japanese fishermen, waving a large pointy harpoon.
'I'll fix them,' said Miggy helpfully. He stepped out from the bush as the lorry pulled up. It should be noted at this point that, for plot reasons, all the Japanese are very shortsighted.
'Prease, have you seen a brue whale?' asked one of the Japanese, squinting homicidally and waving his harpoon suggestively.

Miggy looked round and saw a mob of angry French charging towards them. He pointed at the mob. The Japanese all saw a large moving object, and charged in. There was a Horrible Nasty Occurrence (also ^TM ), after which both problems had solved each other.
'That was easy,' said Miggy.

Then a second Horrible Nasty Occurrence^TM occurred...

...Way began to drown.
'Oh f**k,' said Miggy, 'let's get Way into water.'

Miggy began gesturing frantically to JJ in an effort to attract his attention, for JJ was still puzzled at the effectiveness of and ease with which Miggy had sorted out the previous trademarked incidents.

'JJ!' exclaimed Miggy as he spotted a lake lower in the valley, 'Whale, water... Water, whale!'
'Ah, oui, M'sieur,' said JJ in a somewhat distracted manner. 'Ah shall get zee Yapaneez lorry as tranzpert, if eet eez steel werking.'
'Good idea, JJ, make it snappy,' said Miggy, as Way began to splutter over the two nearest villages.

Little known to our hero, the border guard had actually stopped one of the cycling crowd, prior to the crowd 'meeting' the lorry. The Italian had engaged a certain rider called Dostoyevsky. This had certainly saved the Russian's soul, if not his life. The topic was visa requirements.

Dostoyevsky was trying to explain that the insistent guard did not require such documentation to journey any further along the road. Further, he was afraid the situation may degenerate if he then went on to explain that even if the bye-laws were so strict, that a cycle-less Tour de France rider was probably not the person to show such a Visa to.

Before long, fortunately, they had begun to share the fumes of satchel fluff (etc) and were sitting on the alpine slopes, back-to- back, sharing intimate details of encounters with cavity searches.

When they saw a whale of approximately ninety tonnes appear to float out from behind a small bush, and onto the back of a lorry, which then rolled down the valley in a seemingly less than entirely controlled manner, they smiled.

However, when two figures were left silhouetted against the late morning sun - two figures whose karma appeared initially to be somewhat less than entirely mellow, figures who were strikingly physically different, yet figures that were soon in unison with big sighs of relief when a loud, long splash echoed around the valleys - our orifice experts smiled even wider.

'Did you notice how that lorry acted briefly like a surfboard, Jean-Jacques?' enquired Miggy, hypothetically. Miggy passed the spliff over.

JJ took a drag, thinking how amazing and happy whales can look when they feel their enemies have been vanquished and they have finally acheived nirvana (by surfing on the spoils of the conquered).

JJ merely nodded. Miggy had agreed with every word. The border guard was wandering towards them. Dostoyevsky was wondering where his next spliff was coming from...

Dovtoyesky and Miggy saw the border guard approaching, and decided that he would provide their next spliff.

JJ wondered around, and decided he better get back in the Tour de France before anyone noticed he was missing. As the border guard was approaching them, JJ realised he wouldnt need a visa to get back. So he quickly ran off, getting through the border whichout* any problems.

Miggy started smiling - he was ready for a fix.
'Hey Mr. Border Guard,' he said, 'Canna i havea a spliff si?'
'Beea quieta youa stupeed monkey', he said. He knew it was coke, but only wanted hashish. 'I am tha borda guarda, I makea the rules.'

Miggy and Dovtoyesky were a little disappointed to say the least, and decided not to follow up this proposition. They decided they wanted to see more of the country, after all, they were interrailing, and quickly made a consensus to go to Napoli, to get beaten up by Maradona fans.

Down in the valley below, they saw a Whale Way, but they wanted a Rail Way, so they had to look elsewhere. Over the horizon, they could see some smoke from a choo choo, so they started running.

Miggy lost his footing and fell down a slope on the way, but due to the effects of the spliff he had had earlier, he forgot to hit the ground and started flying, like a hangglider. He beckoned Dovtoyesky to follow suit, and he duly did. They reached the chuff chuff in no time, and landed on the coal wagon. Then they discovered that it was the Orient Express, bound for Istanbul via Venice.
'Ooooh goody', thought Miggy, 'expensive spliffs on their way'.

*whichout: describes method by which somebody can achive something with the lack of an object which would normally be essential to achieve such an thing eg. the burgaler stole computers for the lab whichout any regdard to the expensive security system installed.

Miggy and Dovtoyesky arrived in Venice, having got stuck with the plot, on the Orient Express [OE^TM] for well over a month. During the journey they had managed to con their way into a 1st Class compatment of the OE. [How they did it is another story - perhaps someone else could exlain?]. This was slightly more comfortable than the coal wagon where they had boarded (or more correctly landed on) the train. As the OE pulled into Venice station the Guard entered the compatment*. Unknown to Miggy and Dovtoyesky the Guard was an IMP, which was plain to see for anyone who knew what one of these was as he had one trouser leg rolled up. Unfortunately for the Miggy and Dovtoyesky were unaware of this fact. To their supprise** the Guard did not ask for their tickets, but told them that due to an Unexplainable Occurence (NOT ^TM ), but related to several Nasty Occurences (which are ^TM), the OE would be stopping in Venice for a few days. Miggy thought 'Great we'll get a chance to...'

Miggy stopped in mid sentence. What would he have a chance to do? All he could remember was that Venice had lots of water. He got out of the compatment* in the train and unfortunately for him, didn't look where he was stepping.

There was a loud 'SPLISH' as Miggy fell head first into the canal. Miggy wasn't quite big enough to make a 'SPLASH!' (Quite what he was doing getting out of the train head first I don't know but these wombats have strange habits!)

The IMP hadn't told them that the main reason that the train would be stopping in Venice was cos the Nasty Occurence^TM had been that the train had forgotten which way the track went and headed off towards the nearest canal cos it was hot and needed a drink of water.

Dovtoyesky, fortunately, did look where he was stepping and still managed to land in the canal with the only difference being that he went in feet first, which is of course the more normal way if you are stepping off of something.

In the meantime...
Miggy slowly sank down and down in the water. He looked up (or what he thought was up) and saw only this mucky stuff that he assumed had been nicked from the River Thames.

Miggy tried to shout for help but all that came out was 'glub glub glug'

After what seemed like a week but was indeed only 30 seconds Miggy reached the bottom of the canal. Standing on your head on the bottom of a canal isn't easy, especially when your head lodges itself in the old tyre that is always in a canal.

Miggy managed to propel himself until he was standing on his feet. What he hadn't done was got rid of the tyre from round the top of his head.

He looked around and to his suprise** saw...

*compatment: animated discussion between friends.
**supprise: astonishment to the level where you nearly bring up your supper. [alternative spelling: suprise]

He saw a shopping trolley. 'Well, what a suprise', Miggy said to himself, 'These trolleys have multiplied very well.'

Miggy started wresting with the tyre from around his neck. It didnt suit him, he wasn't one for necklaces. Eventually, he enlisted the help of the shopping trolley who was pleased to be of service.

Miggy thanked the trolley, and said he'd have to get back. Back where, he didn't know, but it was a good excuse anyway.

During the while that the tyre had been on, Miggy and floated downstream through the canals of Venice. When he finally pulled himself out, he came out at St. Marks square. As he pulled himslef out of the water (sludge) people saw him covered in Green stuff and Black stuff from the Canal. Thinking it was a monster from the Blue (ok, Green and Black) lagoon, they immediately called the cops.

Miggy had quite a reception on arrival...

Yes, it was quite a reception, with champange, sausages on sticks, and those little pastry things. The reception had been laid on for the Pope, who had been due to open the new branch of Sainsway's in San Marcos square, but he hadn't shown up, and the venetians thought the Thing From The Lagoon was the next best thing to a real celebrity they were going to get. So they helped Miggy out of the water, and led him to the booze, which he happily poured down himself while some beautiful italian girls towelled him off and manicured his claws.

The only bad point of the function was that the band had not turned up, so the organisers pulled some busker off the streets - the busker turned out to be Pual Wbee who stood on a desk and sang a song about disembowelling himself with a spoon, while pretending he could play the electric guitar.

Actually Migglezimblatt quite liked the sound, but everyone else hated it so he pretended not to.

It was not until that night, when he was tucked up in a VIP hotel room overlooking the Grand Canal, that Miggy began to take stock and feel sober and lonely. He started to wonder where the italian girls had gone, then began to think back to Dostoyevsky's tight black lycra cycling shorts with increasing nostalgia...

...so he was quite pleased when said shorts, containing (oddly enough) Dostoyevsky, hauled themselves out of the canal. Miggy opened the window, and called to him.

A few minutes later, Miggy and Dosty were in the bathroom. They

[Owing to the extreme tastelessness of this scene, it has been removed and replaced by soothing music and a picture of a fluffy bunny. Thank you for your cooperation. We now return you to your chapter. The Management.]

'I feel better for that,' said Dosty. Miggy didn't reply; he'd fainted.

The next morning, Miggy and Dosty set off to explore Venice. They were walking down the street, when a large fish climbed out of the canal, and said...

'Thanks for doing that opening for me last night.'

Miggy smiled, rarely receiving thanks about his sexual exploits from aquatic life forms. Dosty both blushed and smiled as only Russians know how.

'No, no,' continued the fish, 'not your Russian friend here, but that branch of Sainsways last night.'

Miggy's face dropped. Dosty thanked Miggy anyway, in a reassuring way. The fish carried on regardless and introduced herself:
'I am Silly the Fish. cough! Future generations of fish have a better life to live thanks to the interest in the oceans that you have generated by standing in for the Pope last night. It is too late for a poisoned mother such as I, cough but the plight of those of us who suffer in the polluted waters of this planet are now known to the entire Catholic world...'

Miggy looked disparagingly at Silly, causing the fish to pause and cough a few more times for effect.

'...and beyond!' continued Silly, 'It's true! The Papal Office has gone on record to ask people to stop using condoms, because they are environmentally unsound and cause much of the precious life on this beautiful planet to die from asphyxiation.'

Silly fell over, her gills flapping about. Dosty looked on sympathetically. Miggy was about to say something when the fish continued imploringly, in a weaker and sadder voice:
'I have been ordered by the Vatican to present myself as papal image consultant, but I am poor and my legs are weak, my neck is stiff, cough cough...'
'How much?' interrupted Miggy in a knowingly cynical manner.
'2000 lire?' ventured the fish.

Dosty found some Italian currency in his pockets and threw it at the fish, who could, by this point, be heard muttering about the lack of decent punters on the streets these days; how difficult it was for a poor little fish with a husband and two hundred little mouths to feed and, worse, that mammals dressed up as submarine monsters were now taking the only decent job that fish had ever had besides being food, which, by the way, never really had many perks.

The wombat wasn't listening to Silly's mumblings, but was preoccupied with trying to figure out how come he hadn't noticed the pocket in Dostoyevsky's tight shorts. Silly found another tourist and started another tale of misery.

Unfortunately for Miggy, Dosty had asked him to try and find the other three pockets within the shorts, and he had not noticed the square shadow that now fell ominously upon them...

The shape loomed omniously above Miggy and Dosty. It was actually a shadow that covered them. Miggy looked around from searching the rather tight shorts of Dosty and fainted. Was it because of what he found in those rather alluring pair of shorts?

Dosty just had to look around to check to see if it was him or whether it was the shadow that made Miggy faint. He looked and could see nothing.

Miggy came round and rolled over just as the Ptardis* landed on Dosty. He fainted again.

By the time he came round again he found himself inside what he thought was a flying telephone box. Someone was peering at him through little green coloured goggles. He thought about fainting again but realised that twice in one chapter was quite enough.

He sat up and the little man with green goggles spoke.
'Hello strange creature, I'm Dr. What.'
'Dr. who?' Miggy replied.
'No not Dr Who, he's my cousin and people are always confusing us. It's Dr. What'
'Oh' said Miggy.

Miggy looked around in the Ptardis and saw lots of bottles of white powder. His brain went into overtime thinking of what this white powder could be. Could it be what he was searching for?

He stood up and sauntered in the direction of one particular jar. He looked at the label and because Miggy is dyslexic he thought it said 'Cocaine'. He took the top off and took a large sniff.

Of course the label had actually said 'Ocacine' which as you all know is a hair restoration chemical.

Miggy stood there as his fur started to grow. It grew and grew and grew until Miggy looked as though he had been thrown into a pile of hair fresh from the hair dressers floor.

Dr What laughed an evil cackly type laugh and turned into...

*Ptardis: This is exactly the same as the Tardis as used by Dr. Who. It isn't called the Tardis as Dr. Who has the copyright on the name and Dr. What didn't want to pay his cousin the loads of money he wanted for use of the name.

...one of those taxidermists we had earlier in the saga. A TAP.

'Ho Ho,' it said, 'Now we have you in our power.'

Miggy was imobile. He was weighed down by the masses of hair he had acquired. The TAP pressed a button and sent the ptardis into the air, looking for a decent place to land. They chose the beautiful little town of Rostock in Germany, just as a bit of racist violence was starting...

A family of immigrant opossums was fleeing from their house which had just been set on fire by a bunch of native german foxes. Miggy could only watch from under his hair as the foxes closed in on a small band of opossums and aardvarks who were wondering why they had come to the country most famous for the Third Reich in the first place...

Meanwhile, back in Venice, a wombat stepped out of the railway station - his train, unlike Miggy's, had decided to stop in the conventional place. This wombat was called Jimblewix, and he looked a lot like Miggy, since he was in fact Miggy's brother, on holiday from Australia.

He had only got as far as buying a postcard, when a hunky young man in lycra shorts leapt on him and hugged him.
'At lyast, you are back comrad wombyat!' said the cyclist in a russian sort of accent, and gave Jimblewix a big kiss [f/x smooch]

Jimblewix was beginning to think this was slightly odd, but changed his mind when two purple elephants (also known as IMPs) stampeded towards him shouting 'There he is!'

Jimble decided that this was odd, not to mention dangerous-looking, so he jumped into the nearest gondola.
'Greasy-hippyville, please gondolier... err... what am I saying?' But the gondolier had got the idea, and started paddling away from the canal-bank.

The IMPs jumped into the gondola behind, shouting 'Follow that gondola!' but only got as far as 'Follow -' before, predictably, sinking beneath the surface along with the wreckage of the gondola.
'Phew!' thought Jimblewix. But just as he thought this, the gondolier threw off his cape to reveal the uniform of an italian border guard/customs ossifer.
'Nowa, I want to aska you a few questionez...' in that way which, in combination with subtle stroking of one's uzi, really means 'I want to have fun brutally interrogating you.'
'Eek!' thought Jimbles, when suddenly a harpoon whizzed between himself and the border guard, making them both stumble backwards and fall into the Grand Canal. As he fell, Jimble saw a motor-boat zooming towards him full of crazed short-sighted Japanse fishermen.

'Ohmigodohmigodohmigodohmigodohmigod!!' thought Jimblewix, and swam underwater as fast as he could for the shore, then ran at full tilt for the airport - Europe was not as relaxing as the bastard in the travel agents had promised him, he thought.

Meanwhile, back in Rostock...

...the gang of German brownshirt foxes had been joined by a group of Nasty Sadistic Dayglo Airborne Pachyderms (NSDAPs) [f/x pun] who had a deep and profound hatred for all things foreign, especially anything vaguely antipodean. One particulary brutal skinhead elephant landed in the midst of the group of fleeing oppossums, squidging them horribly.

Seeing this horrendous carnage, Miggy dived into the cuddly toy shop of one Mai Croavit Go-Ping, a Chinese-Albanian-Bosnian refugee who had fled his newly independent country of the kitchen of flat 8/58 Acacia Avenue, Sarajevo when his flatmate from the republic of the living room of flat 8/58 etc etc had decided to illegally annexe the kitchen etc etc.

Miggy found himself hiding in a pile of cuddly dragons, and wondering why the shop owner was named after the activitities of a domestic appliance, when suddenly...

...Miggy had had an idea. He started to roll towards the foxes, building up speed as he went. He crashed into them, and they got all tangled up in his hair. Owing to a little-known side-effect of Ocacine, his hair had become very weak at the roots, and so it all fell out. This left the foxes immobilised, and Miggy free but nude. Then the TAPs started chasing Miggy again, and so...

So miggy truned* around and said to the TAPs approaching, 'Take me here!'

The TAPs were quite astonished. They had never done it with a wombat before.

Meanwhile, back in Venice, Jimblewix was heading towards the airport. Unfortunately he couldn't remeber where it was, and so had to ask someone for directions.
'Excuse me sport,' he said to the nearest female he could find, 'could you tell me the way to the airport and nearest bar that sells fosters?'
'Si, senor, c'est over ici, si,' said the rather confused person whom Jimblewix had grabbed. They couldnt work out which language he was talking in, so gave a mixed response to his question.

Jimblewix decided to go in the opposite direction, but immediately fell over a loose stone. He ripped his airline ticket which he was going to use to get back home.
'Damn', he thought, 'I'll have to get it mended.'

He went up to the next lady, and asked, 'Excuse me, do you have a roll of durex, I seem to have ripped it'.

The lady raised her hand to hit Jimblewix, when suddenly...

...it got caught in the mouth of a passing albatross, which bit it off and flew on almost without noticing it. The woman chased off after it, on foot. Jimblewix shrugged, and assumed that the hand would turn up sooner or later, and anyway there was nothing he could do about it. So he got on with finding the airport.

Meanwhile, one of the TAPs had decided to take Miggy up on his offer, and threw off it's masonic apron.
'Ulp' ulped Miggy, as he discovered just how big an elephant erection is... 'Sorry guys, I don't think I have an orifice that'll stretch that far,' he said, then realised that they could probably see that, now that he didn't have any fur.

Quickly, Miggy made a dash for it back into Mai Croavit Go-Ping's cuddly toy shop. He ran straight past the pile of cuddly dragons, and into the backroom. Fortunately Mr. Go-Ping was out, so Miggy was able to rummage around until he found an unfinished baby shunicorn*, which hadn't been stuffed yet or had the eyes sewn in. Miggy carefully climbed inside, and scampered back out of the shop past the pile of cuddly dragons.

Just then, Miggy never knew exactly what happened, maybe a shaft of light just happened to glance off a beady eye, but one of the cuddly dragons caught Miggy's eye. It was near the bottom of the heap, looking rather squashed, but seeming to peer out in that helpessly cute way that only soft toys can. Miggy decided to liberate it, and stuffed it inside the shunicorn with him (it was lucky it was already squashed, really).

Miggy sauntered out of the shop past 6 elephants, who were hanging about waiting for a nude wombat to come out, but weren't interested in a shunicorn foal.

Miggy wandered off down the hill to the railway station, and when he got there...

*shunicorn: cross between a shetland pony and a unicorn, now extinct. For the history of the shunicorns, see "The Saga of Tuesday the Shunicorn".

Jimblewix truned^TM a corner. He came across a bizarre, grotesque and strangely amusing sight.
'Throw back the herring,' called one of the participants, 'we can't win the game without it. Oh, and pour some more cream over the sofa please.'

Jimblewix did as he was asked, and went on his way, still not entirely sure what they'd been doing with the llama and the ironing board.

Eventually, Jimblewix found the airport. There were some people standing outside it, waving placards. The placards said...

...Miggy realised he couldn't move the zip. It seemed he was stuck. There was only one thing to do - Miggy got stoned.

Some moments later, a small wombat-shaped-shunicorn drifted across the sky. He was blown by the winds for a while, until eventually he landed in a Secret Government Research Station.

He trotted happily into a building, not noticing the sign which said:

              Transmogrifier Unit - Keep Out!

There was a blue flash from inside the building. When Miggy reemerged he was no longer a wombat. He was a Shunicorn in a wombat suit.

'Hmm,' thought Miggy, 'this is going to be difficult to explain...'

'Especially as I don't know what has happened myself...' in fact, Miggy started to pour so much brain effort into trying to work out how to explain something he didn't understand, that he fainted.

When Miggy came round he was in such a daze that he wandered back into the building. There was another blue flash. Miggy staggered back out again looking like wombat in a shunicorn suit again.

'Hmmm' Miggy thought. 'Hmmmmm'

Miggy tried to make sense of thoughts but all he managed to work out was that he kept thinking 'Hmmmm' all the time. He would have wondered why he kept thinking 'hmmm' but of course he couldn't cos he could only think 'Hmm'.

Because he couldn't work out the complexities of the matter he took the easy way out and fainted again.

Meanwhile at the airport...

The placards said... 'SAVE THE AUSTRAILIAN WOMBAT'

'My luck seems to be in' thought Jimblewix. He sauntered up to one of the people holding a placard.
'G'day Sheila' Jimbleiwx said lecherously after sidling up to a female and leering at her. 'Are you going to save me?'

The woman looked at Jimblewix and screamed 'An Australian wombat!'

Everyone turned round and looked at Jimblewix.

'Nah Sheila, thats not an Australian wombat!' said one bloke.
'G'day sport' said Jimblewix anxious to prove that he was indeed an australian wombat.
'Geez Sheila! It is an australian wombat!'

The crowd started to advance on Jimblewix chanting...

...tie the wombat down
chain him in a gown
get him in a cage for London Zoo,
don't let him sit in poo.
Keep him alive,
find him a mate,
get his dinner on a plate.

'Hmm, i think i may like this. I wonder who they'll get as my mate?'

Meanwhile, Miggy was still in a daze. He wandered a bit more, and found a nice place to sit down on some grass. He sat down, and promptly went to sleep.

SUddenly, Miggy was woken by a loud explosion, and the transmorgrifier unit exploded. It transformed the area around it into a large industrial estate. Through the doorway of what was the unit, Miggy could see green grass.

'Coo,' thought Miggy, 'it's turned the whole area inside out.'

Miggy inflated further and further, and then there was a huge
B A N G ! !
with bits of fur and lumps of cannabis resin flying everywhere. One of the disgusting splodges of sticky fur hit Mavis on the nose.
'Fuck me!' thought Mavis and fainted.

Meanwhile, the people with the placards had fed Jimblewix and were taking him off to his cage. When they got there, he saw that they had already found him a mate. She was an australian singer, and as they approached, she was just tuning up her guitar and singing:

'He used to give me wombats
I wish he'd stuck to flowers
Cause the wombats were all druggies
And used to smoke for hours

In the window, the sun still shines
And the rain makes spots
Watering the marijuana plants
In their window box'

'Hello' said Jimblewix, eyeing her up.

For some reason, she made a little 'eek!' sound and backed away.

Back in Germany, Miggy stood feeling dazed, surrounded by little shreds of the shunicorn suit, which (having exploded) was lying all over the place covered in fur and sticky with sweat.
'Hmm' hmmed Miggy, 'I wonder why it did that?'

He glanced over at Mavis. Mavis was standing staring blankly. He picked her up, and discovered that she was all soft and floppy. The shock of thinking that Miggy had exploded, had turned her back into a cuddly toy.

'Oh well,' remarked Miggy, and put Mavis in his satchel before heading off back to the station where he had been before, only stuck in the shunicorn fur.

This time he got there without further misadventure, and got straight onto a shiny electric train to...

...have a pee, a kip and maybe eye up some of the more attractive passengers, and possibly have some coffee, do the Sydney Marsupial Times crossword and munch on some hash flapjack.

Unfortunately, Miggy accidentally did the first two at the same time due to the suprising pressure he'd been under recently.

Jimblewix was having a bad time. He had just discovered that the EC standard size for a Wombat cage was just slightly smaller than he was. Although Jimble didn't mind the odd bit of S&M, this was ridiculous. He particulary didn't like it when the well-meaning Save-the-Wombat activists kept feeding him mashed up worms and slugs. Still, it was all worthwhile, as he glanced longingly at his mate-to-be, the gorgeous, the delectable Tasmin the Tasmanian hairy-nosed wombat (she'd shaved her nose hair off to make herself look more attractive). Tasmin was busy singing a selection of well-known Aussie soap theme tunes (rather badly) but Jimble didn't mind because all this tight restraint was turning him on.

Miggy woke up feeling uncomforably damp and smelling rather funny. He wondered why everybody else in the carriage was sitting right at the far end with their faces screwed up in the way that means that there's a nasty smell that isn't their responsibility and must be something to do with someone else (which it was). Miggy tried eyeing up some of the attractive fraulines, but they seemed strangely unresponsive.

It suddenly struck Miggy that (a) he'd wet himself and (b) the train was pulling up at Berlin Central station when suddenly, a nasty ticket collector appeared and started collecting tickets.

This was a problem as Miggy (a) didn't have a valid ticket and (b) the ticket collector was armed with a verrrrry evil-looking machine-gun.

Miggy reviewed his possible options. There seemed to be two main courses of action that he could take from this point, namely a) go to pieces and panic or b) panic and go to pieces. He was trying to decide between the two when the nasty-evil ticket collector strode up to him, stuck the gun up his left nostril, and asked him very politely for his ticket.

'I don't have a ticket' replied Miggy, smiling pleasantly.

'Zen you are nozsing put a petty criminal' intoned the collector, slowly caressing his long, black German gun.
'Crook, me?' said Miggy, and fainted.

The German, seeing the hapless marsupial powerless before him decided, quite decently to blow his brains out for the sake of efficiency. He slowly queezed the trigger...

B A N G ! !

...went the machine gun as it miraculously backfired. The force of the explosion blew Miggy straight through the train window, out across the Berlin shunting yards, and straight into a waiting cargo train.

What happened to the ticket collector is undiclosed, but you can bet it was (a) very messy and (b) made him even more unattractive to the fraulines than Miggy was.

What happened to Miggy was that he found himself in a westbound cargo train, in a wagon mysteriously marked 'Oxo' - mysterious because (a) Berlin is not famous for the manufacture of stock cubes and (b) because Miggy is about to have some fun when he tries to make gravy from them...

Miggy found himself in a large railway carriage. There were several crates lying around, all labelled 'Ostdeutscher Export Operations'. Miggy winced at the horrible mixing of languages, and opened a crate. Inside it he found a very strange thing. It appeared to be small, blue and duck-shaped. It was wearing a pair of shades and a badge with the letter 'T' on it. Miggy was very confused.
'Duck Vee,' he said, and fainted.

Jimblewix realised that, if the cage was smaller than he was, and Tasmin was already in it, there wouldn't be any room for him at all. Reality realised this a second or two later, and made the cage just big enough for two wombats to perform the activity which wombats like more than any other...

Miggy woke up. He saw before him a large number of small blue ducks. They were all wearing badges, with letters on them. Some of them were standing in a line. The badges spelt out the words:

WE HAVE ELVISES BRAIN STOP SURRENDER NOW STOP

'How odd. Telegraphic azure shade-wearing ducks,' thought Miggy. 'I wonder what they want?'

Jimblewix was enjoying his time in the resized cage. He and Tasmin had a lot of room for some rumpy-pumpy he thought. Tasmin was a bit unresponsive to him as he flashed his eyelids and strutted his stuff.
'Tasmin,' he said, (how he should know her name was a mystery), 'are you a virgin?'

Tasmin threw herself at Jimblewix, knocking him to the ground. She was rather put out by the question. Jimblewix, being the strong and masculine wombat that he was managed to overpower her and she just trembled with the thought of such a hunk. She was willing to let herself go - she had found the wombat.

Jimblewix and Tasmin consequently started have a good time on the floor of the cage, much to the amusement of all the save-the-wombat activists outside. Some of them would have even paid to watch.

Meanwhile, Miggy was still in the railway carriage.

'Do you mean ELVIS'S?' asked Miggy, succinctly, after having paused for some considerable thought to wonder if the ducks were using poor syntax, or just improvising in the absense of badges with punctuation.

The badges shuffled about a bit - being rather large relative to the ducks which carried them - rearranging themselves, and Miggy read the response.

'Oh,' said Miggy, 'I'm glad to hear it, I was beginning to wonder.' He shrugged, not sure how he could be involved in this intrigueing incidence, so he picked at his belly button for some fluff and lit up his bong immediately.

Jimblewix and Tasmin were having such a bonking session that the heat generated was causing the bars of the cage to expand. The cage had obviously now got a habit of expanding, and decided to carry on getting larger since no one was paying attention to her anyway - her contents seemed to be the crowd-puller.

Tasmin evetually got squeezed through the bars by Jimbles's impressive hip movements - the entangled couple bouncing along the pathway oblivious to the watching crowd. It was then that Tasmin got a view of Jimbles's left flank and commented, 'impressive hip, lover.'

'Why are you wearing shades?' asked Miggy.
'TO PROTECT US FROM THE BADGES' they replied, in shuffled formation. Miggy looked none the wiser. They shuffled in sympathy: 'THEY DRAG ON THE FLOOR AND HIT US IN THE FACE' Miggy thought about that and took another long drag...

Miggy awoke, and realised that he must have got a bit too mellow and fallen asleep (he couldn't think of any other reason why he would be waking up). Looking around the carriage, he noticed that the crates had gone - presumably with the ducks in them. He searched the carriage, but Elvis's brain was nowhere to be found either. He sat down, and a sullen silence fell.

Miggy noticed the silence. The silence studiously ignored Miggy.

'Silence... that means we must have stopped!' thought Miggy. So he slid back the door of the carriage, and lo an behold, saw a station and beyond it... a canal. 'Oh no, not Venice again...' he thought, and set off to explore.

However, if it was Venice, they seemed to have converted all the glassware shops into toyshops selling rather odd looking toys. There weren't even as many canals as before. Finally it dawned on the wombat that this was not in fact Venice but Amsterdam.
'Woo!' thought Miggy, 'made it at last! Now all I need is somewhere to sell my stuff and make a bit of cash!'

Just then, he noticed a large gothic-looking building sitting high up on top of a dyke some distance away.
'That looks like a good place to start,' he thought, so he put on his mirror shades and headed towards it.

On his way, five or six young men tried to sell him all kinds of things, so as he didn't have any money he did some trading and ended up with a completely different set of drugs to those he started out with. He also kept getting distracted by a number of young ladies who seemed to have got stuck in shop-windows without their clothes and be signalling at him to help, but he couldn't work out dutch sign language yet so he decided to get on with his mission.

Eventually he reached the gothic-looking building, and climbed up the steps to the front doors. He knocked on the doors. There was a hollow booming sound. For a while he hung around, getting that feeling you get when you stand around and you know people are watching you.

Just then, the door opened with a long, slow creak. To his surprise, Miggy found himself suddenly entangled in a long indigo snakelike tube which wrapped itself round him, lifted him off the ground and whipped him inside. The door slammed ominously shut behind him.

Meanwhile, back in Venice, Jimblewix and Tasmin had bonked each other dry, and thought it would be rather nice and romantic to go on a honeymoon. Jimbles looked through his rucksack, and in a rather blatant plot device found a tourist leaflet extolling the beauties of Amsterdam.

So they got on the train to Holland. When they got to Amsterdam...

...they got off the train and looked around. There were hundreds of English soccer fans(?!) everywhere, on a rampage. The best thing was to get out of the station, and away from the trouble.

The first place they came to, after a greasy chip seller was a museum.
'Hmm, a good hideout,' Jimblewix said to Tasmin, so they popped inside, hoping to get away from the rampage outside.

Then they realised they had gone in the Amsterdam Sex museum.

Meanwhile, Miggy was tangled up in another web of deceit.

Having been whisked inside the gothic building, he was momentarily stunned by a heavy object, called a 'floor'. This allowed his captures to tie him up and chain him down.
'ooo err', thought Miggy when he awoke. 'Chains!'

He then bent his head around to see who was there. It was none other than that person who we havent seen in the plot for a long time.

It was...

...Simon the Monkey.

'Well, tie me up and hit me with a hessian sack full of whitebait!' exclaimed Miggy (well, it makes a change from 'Fuck me!')

So Simon the Monkey did, causing Miggy to faint again.

By some bizarre chain of events, Jimblewix and Tasmin had found themselves locked in the Amsterdam Sex Museum after closing time. They were locked all alone in a gallery with all sorts of weird and wonderful things in it, most of which require batteries. Jimblewix and Tasmin, being very much in love, tried to experiment with some of the more unusual and energy-guzzling appliances, but they found that they just couldn't become ahem.. romantically inclined unless they were being watched by two dozen conservationists.

Just then, nothing happened. Then it happened again. Things were getting pretty scary, so Jimblewix decided that they were going to have to make a break for it. Jimble was a late-night TV addict, and a fan of "MacGuyver," so he built an escape pod using a 12-foot "Blue Whale" multispeed dildo, sixteen litres of curry-flavour lubricating jelly, a deep-sea diving suit (in black with a rubber internal harness and additional access flaps), an EZ-stretch oriface expansion kit and a very large signed photo of Mother Theresa. However, Tasmin found this such an interesting device, it was a further six hours before they got around to escaping..

'Fuck me!' groaned Tasmin.
'I'll have to wait for the blisters to go down a bit first.'

Miggy woke up. He was lying on the floor in a huge, wood-panelled office with his tounge stuck to the carpet. His head ached with the sort of migraine you only ever get after being hit with 5 kilos of baby herrings in a bag.

Miggy groaned, at which point, a elephant in an apron ripped him off the carpet and plonked him in a leather chair in front of a vast oak desk.

Miggy groaned again, as he had left about half his tongue still stuck to the axminster.

A svelte-looking pachyderm was sitting on the other side of the desk, with Simon sitting next to him.
'You must be the long-lost high-flying fur-featured accent-accredited accident-prone beast of our lore,' remarked the svelte pachyderm.

This was obviously going to be one of those conversations. Miggy decided to play cool...
'Yeeeeaaaargggghhhhhhh! Lemme go!' screamed Miggy, spitting out bits of his own tongue as he did so.
'We want you to tell us the secret of the Stoned Ones" replied the elephant, casually brushing the blood from his face.
'Oh... that!' said Miggy, just as there was a crash, a tinkle, and a strange smell of curry...

The cacophony of "hundreds of English soccer fans on the rampage" ^TM filled the room. They looked as though they had reached item number three on their daily goal list. (The three items being 1: Get pissed; 2: Have a curry; and 3: Have a fight).

The soccer fans descended upon Miggy, Simon and the Svelte-looking pachyderm. There never really were any prizes for guessing who would come off worst from this 'discusion,' (allegedly started by one English soccer fan enquiring of Miggy as to why Miggy was looking at him), the soccer fans being by far the largest force. Miggy, Simon and the SLP realised this and immediately ran for the nearest door.
'Sod the Secret of the Stoned Ones' said the SLP in a dramatic change of socio-political idealism 'Let's get the f*ck out of here!'

Running for the nearest door proved to be a mistake for two reasons:

1. The nearest door wasn't big enough for a Svelte-Looking Pachyderm; and
2. The handle was all-slimed-up with bits of Miggy's tongue.

So a sickening thud was heard as all three of them piled into the door, unsuccessful in their attempt to open it. "Hundereds of English soccer fans" ^TM were still pouring in through the window. One (only one!?) of them noticed the hessian sack of whitebait lying on the floor and shouted:
'Wai-eye man! Hoos fer a fish supper then lads eh?'

The unprovoked attack on Miggy, Simon and the SLP was immediately called off in favour of more food. So the sack got attacked instead. This gave Miggy time to clean the door handle and open it. Simon and Miggy ran through it, closely followed by a second sickening thud as the SLP unsuccessfully negotiated the exit.

By a sheer stroke of chance/luck/fate/karma all rolled into one they miraculously found the main entrance and ran outside. It was raining mallards.
'Duck me!' said miggy and fainted.

Simon the monkey also fainted through the sheer crassness of the last line.

Meanwhile Jimble and Tasmin got under way again in the "vibromobile" and tunnelled their way out of the Amsterdam Sex Museum. (Exactly how the vibromobile was powered remained a secret, but later rumours linking this vehicle to the famous pope-mobile of the 80's were strongly encouraged).

They tunnelled in a generally southwesterly direction for a good two hours, when suddenly they broke into water with a dull splash. The vibromobile started to disintegrate due to the water reacting with the curry-flavoured lubricating jelly.
'Quick!' shouted Jimble, 'the diving suit!'
'But there's only one of it!' wailed Tasmin.

The two on them stared at each other with increasingly desparate thoughts in their hearts as they realised the magnitude of this statement, and that water was now gushing in through various parts of the vibromobile.

There was only only one thing they could do...

...which was to both get inside the diving suit, as wombats are only small, and the diving suit was quite big. They decided to try to swim for it, which was difficult enough, but not as difficult as when they managed to get ashore and tried walking. Jimble was working the legs, and Tamsin was trying to work the head.

The effect was about as co-ordinated as a student after about 5 pints of Diamond White on an empty stomach. Eventually, all the heaving about made Tamsin heave up all over the inside of the diving helmet. Bits of sick dribbled down the inside of the suit, dripping onto Jimblewix's fur. Oddly enough, Tamsin's sick contained no carrots whatsoever, despinte the fact that they had had carrot soup, followed by carrot casserole, followed by carrot suprise (as in 'Gosh. It's carrots, what a surprise') for lunch. This was due to the little-known effects of carrot-space, a hitherto undiscovered area of physics that would make interstellar travel habitable, stop Tippex going mungy and make John Major the person voted most loved by the inhabitants of the planet P'thoiee, a small blue-green planet some 50 million light years from earth (but that is another story) (in fact it's the saga of 'John Major, Interplanetary Tippex Hero').

Eventually, they managed to stagger up to a large, gothic looking building, where they tripped over Migglezimblatt sitting on top of a pile of rubber ducks.

'Evenin' said Migglezimblatt

hooligans, a pachyderm council of war was meeting.
'We must know the secret of The Stoned Ones' said Grandmaster Bates, the chief masonic elephant.
'But how can we do this? The flea-filled fiddling furball of our folklore has fooled us again!' replied another.
'Well, we can...'

At this point the plot decided not to pick up on the suggestive tag line and jumped to the scene outside the large gothic building.
'Evenin' replied Jimble, 'What happened to your tongue?'
'A very expensive carpet liked the taste of it' snapped Miggy.
'Well there's too many bloody elephants around here for my liking' said Tas, 'Let's get the f*ck out of here.'
'Agreed,' agreed Miggy and Jimble simultaneously.

The three of them grabbed a rubber mallard each (for luck: mallards are considered lucky in certain parts of Amsterdam, but exactly which parts remain a mystery), and set off in the general direction of the station.

Meanwhile much heated debate was raging in the dark towers of the gothic building, but the plot anoyingly decided not to focus on it at this time.

Arriving at the station after a surprisingly short walk Miggy decided that he was thirsty. Very thirsty. In fact he would drink anything. As luck would have it there was an extremely dodgy-looking tea machine on the platform. Miggy approached the machine with trepidation (these things are renowned for their demonic unsociability after all). He perused the options available. They were:

• Black coffee
• Black coffee with sugar
• Black coffee with extra sugar
• White coffee
• White coffee with sugar
• White coffee with extra sugar
• Extra white coffee
• Extra white coffee with sugar
• Extra white coffee with extra sugar
• Tea
• Tea with sugar
• Tea with extra sugar
• White tea
• White tea with sugar
• White tea with extra sugar
• Extra white tea
• Extra white tea with sugar
• Extra white tea with extra sugar

Staring in wonder at how easiliy the manufacturers can make two drinks seem like a multitude of choices, Miggy realised he had no change. This was not a problem however as he knew from experience that tea machines can usually be persuaded to spit something out, the amount of cash tendered rarely making any noticeable difference. He then noticed the FREE VEND light lit up, so he pushed the correct combination of numbers for Extra white tea with extra sugar. Miggy was temporarily lulled into a false sense of security by the ingeniusly deceptive your drink is on its way message, but would soon come to understand that being within 50 yards of this machine was a cardinal error.

The machine made an agonising high-pitched whine, shuddered violently and then ejected a cup into its receptacle upside-down. Miggy instinctively thrust his paw at the cup with the intention of turning it the right way round. The machine however had learned to play on instincts and with a degree of timing that would make Seiko proud it poured red hot water all over Miggy's paw. Miggy tried to yank his paw back whilst screaming in agony, only to find that the plastic door, (which is supposed to stop scolding-hot water from splashing the user) had come down and locked Miggy's paw in place. Before he could use his other paw to free himself, the machine dropped six spoonfulls of sugar followed by a few lumps of coagulated cheese that had once been milk onto Miggy's trapped paw. When he had finally freed himself, the door flipped open and catapulted the sticky cup into Miggy's groin, whenceupon the damp tealeaves inside immediately stuck to his fur in a particularly hard-to-get-out fashion. The machine made a satisfying grunt followed by a hissing sound as it reloaded for the next unsuspecting customer.

Miggy stumbled back and fainted.

Miggy awoke realising he was lying in a puddle. This was because the tea machine had leaked on the floor directly where Miggy had fainted. Cold, damp, smelly, sticky, burnt and bollocked he decided go somewhere for a good cry.

While Miggy was off sulking, Jimble and Tas were getting cosy.

'So, sweetums, how do you and Miggy know each other?' slurped Tasmin into Jimblewix's ear.
'Well.. it all began a long.. long time ago in a small farm in South East Australia...'
'Just get to the point, eh?'

Tasmin could be awwwwfully persuasive. Especially when she dug her claws in Jimblewix's reproductive organs.

'Errrr...' octaved Jimblewix '...urr we're sort of brothers.'
'And what has Simon the Monkey got to do with it?'
'Ooooaaaaarrrrggghhhh I dunno'
'And what is the secret of the Stoned Ones?'
'Oh, that, oooooooooooooouuuuuch....'
'You know?'
'Yes... now please release me, let me go!'
'OK' replied Tas as she released his dangly bits.
'Why do you want to know exactly?' said Jimble, who had lost all feeling in the most sensitive part of his body, so didn't much care what happened now. Tasmin fumbled a bit, opened a zip hidden in her fur and stepped out of her wombat costume.

'Uh-oh' uh-ohed Jimble.

Had Miggy been around he would have almost definitely fainted.....

Not only did a whistle hoot. but a train came along too. It was bound for Copenhagen, as it had the detination on the side of the train.

'Copenhagen, Sex capital of Scandanavia,' called out the guard, who had appeared from nowhere, and looked, through the rapdily blackening glass like Bob the Hippy.

'Lets go.' said Migglezimblatt. 'I'm sure you elephants need some time away...'

While Miggy was busy with the Killer Pachyderms from the Other Side of the Platform^TM, Jimble had made a truly amazing discovery about Tasmin.

Tasmin the Wombat was not, in fact, Tasmin the Wombat, but was somebody totally unexpected. Jimble's jaw hit the ground (well, a wombat's jaw is pretty near the ground anyway, but I'm sure if even if the ground had been quite a long way away, it would still have hit the ground.) His eyes popped out like they do in the cartoons, and Jimblewix fainted (always a good one that).

Miggy meanwhile had packed the pachyderms on a package trip to paradise as passengers on a ptrain*. He sauntered back along the platform, when he bumped into Simon the Monkey who was attempting to get a choccy bar out of a vending machine, and so was consequently hitting it with a wet haddock whilst playing the disco version of 4'33" on a very large synthiser. (This actually works.)

'Hello Simon,' said Miggy casually, but not too casually.
'Uh hi' replied Simon coolly, but not too coolly.
'Can I ask you a question?' asked Miggy.
'Apparently, yes' replied Simon.

When Jimblewix came around, he found himself looking into the furry features of... himself.

'Hi, I'm Jimblewix' said Jimblewix.
'So am I.'
'What a coincidence' they both said, but at slightly different times.

Simon explained to Miggy about how he had been lured by a lodge of evil masonic pachyderms in Broom into searching for the fun-filled furry creature of elephantine lore. The line that had really persuaded Simon to co-operate with the evil masonic pachyderms was when one of them asked Simon if he would like a cup of tea and some monkey nuts. Simon had replied yes please, although can I have the cup of tea a bit later. The pachyderm had replied, well do you want your monkey nuts now. Simon said, yes please, he would very much like his monkey nuts now.

'They said it was important for them to find the secret of the Stoned Ones' wispered Simon, who had managed to get some chocolate out of the machine.
'I don't know anything about the Stoned Ones' replied Miggy.
'They even gave me a photo, look.'

Miggy looked at the photograph held out in Simon's chocolate-covered paws. The photo did look a bit like him, but it was a bit fuzzy and out-of-focus as the autofocus on the camera had decided to go focus on something more interesting than a little brown furry ball. It had, in fact, focussed on the OzzyPiss^TM Lager factory in Australia, which was a bit odd as Miggy hadn't lived in Australia since he was three years old...

* the train was operated by Egyptian Railways for some bizarre reason.

Meanwhile on the Egyptian train from Amsterdam to Copenhagen Huiey and Louis were busy reading their papers, when their digital watches both bleeped at once.

'Time for the nightly ceremony' said Huiey.
'Is it that time already?' queried Louis, staring in disbelief at his watch.
'Yes.'

They both assumed double-lotus positions (no mean feat for an elephant).

'To remind us of our quest,' begain Huiey, 'we recite the secret of the stoned ones in the original Serbo-Geordie, as we hope that someday it's true meaning may be revealed.'
'Amen.' replied Louis.

They then proceeded to chant the following chant:
THE CHUNK OF HAM
SEEMED TO MERGE
WITH HIS FINGERS
TO FORM A NEW
AND LARGER ORGAN.

A WOODEN CRATE SAT ON
THE REFRIGERATOR. THE
WORD "BONNY" WAS PRINTED
ON THE SIDE.
BONNY HAM?
BONNY'S NEW ORGAN
BONNY'S DEAD
WHATEVER.

This deeply religious moment brought them to their senses.
'I think we are deeply in need of some pink' asserted Louis.

They then heard a slow shuffling noise coming from the corridor...

Meanwhile back on the platform, Miggy was closely scrutinising the photo when he began to feel very strange. At first he thought he may be getting an infection in his tongue, but soon realised it was far more serious. He began to feel very woozy indeed and blacked out.

He awoke to find himself in the middle of Wembley stadium, apparently attending a rock concert. There was a massive fight going on, involving most of the crowd around him. Big Joe the Broom University clock tower seemed to be lying in the middle of the crowd in a not inconsiderable state of disrepair.

'Bloody 'ell a triple-negative!' thought the plot.

A figure who bore a striking resemblence to Gary Glitter was standing on the clock tower. Miggy was impressed by this and was about to say so when he saw himself on stage using a guitar to batter another guitarist around the head!

'Wow!' said Miggy from the crowd, 'What a triffic concert,' and fainted.

'No,' replied Miggy.
'Oh.'

Allofasudden Miggy had a thought.

'Let's have a look at that photo again.'

Simon showed Miggy the photo. Although the photo was very blurry, he could make out that the wombat who looked very much like him was about the same age. So, thought Miggy, we're looking for a wombat who looks very like me, is about the same age and has recently been in Australia.. I wonder who that could be...?

Jimblewix came to, face to face with Jimblewix. Jimblewix was obviously having double vision, as it looked like there were two other Jimblewixes. It then occurred to Jimblewix that there were two other Jimblewixes. At this point four more Jimblewixes stepped out of the shadows. They looked progressively older.

'We have something very important to tell you...' said the Jimblewixes.

Simon and Miggy had got bored and decided to wander out of the station. Just outside in the street, a tent had been erected with a badly-written sign on it saying "Princess Wayhard's Fortune Telling". Because this was an obvious plot device, Simon and Miggy wandered in.

Sitting in the tent, behind a table with what was meant to be a crytal ball, but was in fact a plastic coke bottle that had been highly pressurized so that it ballooned out, sat an attractive female wombat who was trying to wear lots of make up to make her look mysterious and older.

'Cross my palm with your credit card' whispered the wombat.
'I don't have a credit card' mumbled Miggy.
'Well cross my palm with some dosh then.'

Miggy rummaged around in his pouch and found a pair of sunglesses and a rather warm can of Pepsi and no money whatsoever. Miggy handed the can of Pepsi to the fortune-telling wombat.

'It's all I've got, sorry' aplogised Miggy.

The lady wombat tutted and started into the inflated coke bottle, and said...

..something flaggergasting.

'Gasp' gasped Miggy.

Meanwhile, Jimblewix 4 was explaining to Jimblewix the purpose of their secret mission.

'Well,' said 4, 'we were sent back in time by someone we're not allowed to tell you about to make sure that you don't tell Miggy something that we're not allowed to tell you about.'
'No, no,' interrupted Jimblewix 2, 'we can tell you what you're not meant to tell Miggy."
'We are?' asked 6
'Yes.' replied 2
'And what is that exactly?' asked Jimblewix
'You're not to tell him the secret of the Stoned Ones.' said 5
'You see, you're in great danger,' continued 4, 'if the evil masonic pachyderms every find out the secret, then it will be the end of civilization as we know it.'
'Yes,' carried on Jimblewix 3, 'they'll use up so much high-quality dope that the rest of the world will feel all tense and grouchy for the reset of eternity.'
'Which I'm sure you'll see is a reallly heavy thing' said Jimblewix 7, 'and we wouldn't want anything reallllly heavy now, would we.'

Jimblewix scratcghed* his head with his left fore-paw and said 'OK, let's get this straight. You, Jimblewix 2 were Tasmin in disguise, and you were sent by persons unknown to make sure that I don't tell Miggy the secret of the Stoned Ones in order to ensure universal mellowness?'
'More or less, yes' chorused some of the other Jimblewixes.
'So, I've been making love to myself? Urrrgh!' groaned Jimble.
'More or less, yes' chorused the Jimblewixes who hadn't said much yet.
'I think I need a sit down.'

'Lucky for you you can sit down!' said Jimblewix 2, shifting about uncomfortably.

* scratcghed: to hit rather hard in the hope that it will behave like a television, i.e. stop the picture being quite so blurry and difficult to understand for a while.

Meanwhile, Miggy and Simon had had a brief conversation with the fortune-telling wombat and were highly disturbed by what was said. They came running back to the station and interrupted the the Jimblewixes.

Jimblewix 3,5 and 7 all looked at the original Jimblewix with stern expressions.

'Jim-' begain Miggy, but broke off in mid-Jimble as he saw the plethora of Jimblewixes around him.
'Fuck me!' gasped Simon, and fainted.
'Bastard! I was gonna do that' said Miggy.

Just then three more Jimblewixes approached hurriedly (8, 9 and 10).
'It's Okay!' said Jimblewix 9, 'You can tell him!'

Miggy looked down longingly at Simon and thought about fainting.
'Yes!' cried Jimblewixes 8 and 10 simultaneously. 'It makes no difference!'

'It can't be!' complained Jimblewixes 2, 3, 4 and 6, all with slightly different tones of disbelief, at slightly different times.

'Honest!' said Jimblewix 10, 'Believe me. I am the oldest here and my days are numbered. would I have risked time travel if it were not so.'

Jimblewixes 2, 3 and 6 were confused.
Jimblewixes 4 and 7 were not convinced.
Jimblewix 5 fainted.

'Now look here!' demanded Miggy, attempting to get a grip on the situation, and fainted. Jimblewix 4 pulled out a futuristic plasma-pistol from his pouch and pointed it at Jimblewix 10.
'Persuade me.' he said coolly. (But not too coolly).

Jimblewix 2 ran in front of Jimblewix 4 shouting 'Wait! listen to them! it might be tr...'

BANG!

Jimblewix 2 fell to the ground with a dull thud.
The smoke from Jimblewix 8's Smith & Wesson wafted calmly from the barrel.
'I... I... Oops!' stammered Jimblewix 8, just before all the Jimblewixes numbered 3 to 7 disappeared in a puff of logic.

Jimblewixes 9 and 10 realised they should have disappeared too, and ran off dragging a mesmerised Jimbewix 8 with them before they were noticed.

'IDIOT!' shouted Jimblewix 9, when they got round the next corner. 'We could have made them talk!'
Jimblewix 8 was disconsolate.

'It was bloody cramped in there' said the Pink Pachyderm as he pulled off his jimblewix 10 suit.

'Very true' chorused the other two Pachyderms, and they removed their Jimblewix 8 and 9 disguises.

Simon awoke first to see Jimblewix crouched over Jimblewix 2.

'Just as Wayhard predicted' cried Simon, 'After all we went through.'
'All you've been through??'
'I wonder how long you've got' said Simon, 'It could be decades!'
'It could be decades' agreed Jimblewix. 'He does look older.'
'I'm sure you'll have many more adventures before then' said Simon, attempting to cheer Jimble up.
'The real question is' posed Jimblewix, 'Should I tell Miggy the secret or not?'

At this point the Gods were discussing recent events.

'Should we really have let them discover time travel so soon?'
'The problem with time travel it it leaves the occasional unpredictable rift or wormhole lying about, I've got some chunks of dodgy time in the workshop right now that I'm trying to fix!'
'And it'll take them ages to work out the "what-if-I-go-back-in-time-and- kill-my-father" paradox.'
'True enough, but all these things and more^TM can be understood with a sufficiently advanced mind.'

Miggy woke up and saw:

• his satchel
• a dead Jimblewix
• a live Jimblewix
• a photo of Jimblewix in front of the OzzyPiss^TM factory in Australia
• Simon the Monkey
• a rubber mallard
• a discarded wombat suit
• hundreds of English soccer fans^TM pouring into the station on their way home.

Miggy reached into his satchel to find some Rizzlas, and just alongside Mavis his cuddly stuffed dragon, his paw found something hard. Pulling it out, he found a shiny silver tube, with a kind of handle and button at one end, and a telescopic sight along the top. It was stamped NOT TO BE REMOVED FROM TRANSMOGRIFIER UNIT.

'Hmm' hmmed Miggy as he put it back, and took out the wherewithall to make a spliff.

Meanwhile, on the Copenhagen Express, Huiey and Louis listened to the shuffling in the corridor getting louder and louder. For a long time. Eventually, the door of their compartment opened and an old man stepped through.

'Hello, lads' he said.
'Hubert de Nice!' the pachyderms both said at exactly the same time.

Simon and Jimbles wandered over to where Miggy was having a relaxing smoke.
'Hi Miggy,' said Simon
'Mmmm,' mmmmed Miggy, who wasn't quite ready to put a sentence together yet.
'Are you OK?' asked Jimblewix.
'Ahhhh. Yeah. I'm fine. What did all those other Jimblewixes want?'
'Well...' began Jimbles, but before he could go further the rampaging mob of English soccer fans^TM swept past them as they all made a bid to catch the boat-train. For a few moments, all was noise, confusion, beer breath, shouting, swearing and a snatch of Brahms' 8th Symphony (from the one fan who refused to be a stereotype). Then the crowd was past.

'Phew' phewed Miggy.
'That was horrible' agreed Simon.
'Where's Jimble?' asked Miggy.
'Did you notice that three of those soccer fans had grey skin and long trunk-like noses?' asked Simon.
'Yeah.'
'Odd, that.'

'I have a suggestion' suggested Simon.

Night fell suddenly.

The Gods chuckled amongst themselves and Night said 'Oh bugger off!' and grew steadily darker.

'When does this plane land anyway?' asked Miggy, settling into his seat.
'I dunno,' answered Simon, 'Must be eight hours from now at least.'

'Good idea' said Miggy, 'I'm getting fed up with this place anyway.'
'Right. We'll go to Australia then.' said Simon.

'Well if it's gonna be eight hours I'm getting some kip.' said Miggy, and pulled the lever at the side of his chair, making it assume the reclining position.

'Aha!' piped up Simon, 'That's our p...' He paused for a while, with an expression of puzzlement on his face, '...lane being announced.'

Simon suggested that they go to Austalia to try and find the Ozzypiss^TM factory, the logic being that even if they didn't find any answers, they could at least hope for a guided tour and some free lager.

'The airport is this w...' started Miggy, but then broke off and realised that time was no longer following a logical sequence. The rules of cause and effect no longer seemed to apply.

'Qantas flight 128 now boarding at gate 5' said the tannoy.

'Here we are!' said Simon, 'The airport... again!'

'Look this is getting silly!' shouted Miggy, pulling his aircraft seat back into the upright position. 'What is going on?'

Just then both of them fainted.

Meanwhile on the train, Huiey and Louis jumped up from their double- lotus positions simultaneously. Only one window was broken and Hubert commented on this.

'Oh it was nothing, really' said Louis passively.
'I have with me a barrel of pastis!' stated Hubert. 'Let's drink ourselves pink!'
'But you're supposed to be dead!' exclaimed Huiey.
'Ah well,' began Hubert, 'It's like this...'

Miggy and Simon awoke simultaneously to find themselves in what appeared to be a technicians workshop. Equipment was piled on every surface, mixed randomly with paper. Most of the equipment was unrecognisable to either Miggy or Simon.

'Where are we!' demanded Miggy.
'What happened to the plane' queried Simon.
'I'm going to have a look outside' decided Miggy, and tried the door.
It opened freely so he went outside. Simon followed and noticed a sign hung on the outside of the door which stated:

Earth I.G. Dates 145600 - 145600.0012. OUT OF ORDER

They set off for a look around. The corridors had white floors, white walls with no windows, white ceilings with no recognisable light fittings (but it was light nevertheless) and there was a door every few feet or so along one wall. At various points the corridors met other corridors, some straight, some like a maze of twisty passages, all different.

The Gods were arguing, furious at one particular God who had left the door to his workshop unlocked.

'Who knows what havoc they'll cause!' shouted one god.
'Look you know they won't remember anything about this when we return them, just like any mortal' protested the forgetful God.
'That's all very well!' shouted another 'If we catch them soon!'
'Why don't we all stop arguing and find the rascals!' suggested another god.
They all paused for a while, then raced out of the room.

'Can you here shouting?' asked Miggy.
'Err...' started Simon. Miggy was trying every door along the corridor. All were locked.
'OI! YOU TWO!' boomed a voice from around a corridor.
'Quick, in here!' said Miggy as he found an unlocked door.
They both darted into the room and shut the door behind them.

Miggy looked around. There were what appeared to be terminals on benches around three walls of the room. Each one had a big and chunky screen and a big and chunky keyboard. There was a label below and to the right of the screen on one of the terminals, the others each had a sticky patch in the same place.

The sound of an approaching angry mob could be heard outside.

'I think something decidedly nasty is about to happen' said Simon.
'Not necessarily' said Miggy. He had sat down at one of the terminals and noticed the following on the screen:

Current directory is >udd>TIME-WORKGROUP>Bob>

The sound of an approaching angry mob was now right outside the door.

'Do something quick' shouted Jimble.
Miggy quickly typed the following:

sa * rew *.SysDaemon.*

The door burst open and Four Angry Gods^TM* charged into the room.
"NOOOOOO!" screamed one God as Miggy pressed the return key.

* "Four Angry Gods" was made as a sequel to "Twelve Angry Men", but was never released due to overwhelming pressure from religious groups all over America.

Miggy stood staring out across an endless field of wheat, displaying in its ceaseless shifting the lack of direction to a breeze he could not feel. The yellow stalks and heads looked greyish, muted in the constant, all-pervading, but dim light. Looking up, Miggy found the yellow-grey of the wheat reflected in the featureless sky. Unable to focus on it, his attention was drawn back down to a movement off to his left. A figure approached; a tall old man, bearded and cloaked, stepping from row to row toward Miggy. As he advanced, he scattered something from a bag at his hip with one hand, while hacking at the wheat with a hook held in the other. On his shoulder a large bird perched, extending its wings for balance at the more sudden strokes of the hook.

As their diagonal path through the wheat reached Miggy, he made out that the old man was scattering little pieces of green card. They spun in the air behind him, now most disappeared before they touched down, dissolving in a faint pink glow. Miggy found that the pink reminded him of spam. He frowned, suspicious.

The man and his bird passed to one side. He stopped and turned stiffly toward Miggy, the bird squawking. 'I am Cantor and this is Seagull.'

Miggy awoke, profoundly irritated that his unconscious could use such a prophetic and portentous setting to deliver a rather corny joke. 'What the bloody hell was all that in aid of?' he demanded. He glanced round, 'At least we managed to get back on the plane.'
'Well,' replied Simon, 'I think someone was getting bored with the Rankinesque tone of things.'
'Eh?'
'Rankin? Oh, he's this writer, long chase sequences, unlikely characters, running gags, literal deus ex machina, that sort of thing. He likes putting his characters into metafictional situations, too.'
'Um...' said Miggy, suddenly feeling less than entirely secure.
Simon was warming to his subject, 'Actually, that's not a bad idea. Maybe we should get a new writer ourselves. Hey, yeah, if we're going to Sidney we should see Egg Anger. His latest book was really amazing. Called... uh...'
'"To my Tup, in a Trice"?' suggested Miggy.
'No, not that.'
'"Ration my Puce Tit"?'
'I beg your pardon!' Simon looked askance at Miggy over his shades.
'"Pitt: Racy Mountie"?' Miggy went on, blithely.
'I worry, sometimes...'
'"Tin Actor Time"?'
'"Yup!" That was it! You've read it too?'
'No, but it was only a matter of time before I guessed.' Miggy paused, then added, 'Simon, what were the extra quotes for just then?'
'Art, mon petit.' Then, much against his will, he concluded, 'I. U C Y?'
'Yurgh. That was the worst of the lot.'
'Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have mentioned the Green Gag after all.'
'So we're going to OzzyPiss^TM after all?'
'Can't think of anything better, can you?'

Suddenly, the plane stopped in mid air. Miggy and Simon looked outside, but all they could see was a large grey cloud.

Miggy got out of his seat to try to find out what was happening. He wandered down to the cockpit, only to discover that the pilot was a penguin who was reading "Seafish Today".

'Why have we stopped?' queried Miggy.
'Oh, it's the wrong kind of air,' replied the pilot.
Miggy returned to his seat.

'Why have we stopped?' queried Simon.
'Oh, it's the wrong king of air,' replied Miggy.

When allofasudden, the plane decided that it had the wrong kind of laws of physics and it plummeted towards the ground at a trulyhorrifyingrate...

Jimblewix was feeling depressed. It had been a bad day. It was suddenly made much worse by being squashed by a couple of hundred tons of airliner.

Miggy didn't faint. This was a bit of a pain, since he really wanted to. He peered out of the window, but all he could see was a reddish glow of magma. Something very peculiar had happened.

'That's very peculiar,' said Miggy.

Simon sort of stared at the back of the seat in front of him in sheer terror.

The tannoy in the plane bing-bonged into life.
'This is your captain speaking. We are crusing at a speed of three thousand knots at an altitude of approximately minus sixty-thousand feet a