crispina kemp

Continuing the story of Thredwyl’s adventure. Read it all FOR FREE on Thredwyl’s very own site

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Thredwyl needed to head for the road Daisy had drawn in red. She’d said that at some place along there, and at some time between midnight and two a.m., Jason and the Anthropology Geek Dwayne would find him. But that drawing was now amongst the ashes of Thredwyl’s prison cell. That didn’t unduly faze him; he preferred it. He didn’t want Jason and friend to find him. It would only result in twisted voices as each demanded where they should go. Thredwyl wanted to go to Trinity Hall, where Professor Angelus Margev resided. Jason would assume Thredwyl was after revenge and would try to stall him. But nay, his intention was education.

The grass was soft beneath his bare feet. However, despite Daisy had said this was summer and summer was hot and dry, the night air was decidedly chilly and getting up breezy around his nether bits. He needed clothes. Oh Daisy, why didn’t you think to bring me Teddy’s green and yellow suit? He’d even settle for Griselda’s flowery dress.

And it wasn’t only the cold. His naked body, shining blue-white in the blue-white light of the moon – wow, the moon, what a mesmerising sight – was sure to snaggle someone’s eyes. This mightn’t be a busy area late at night, but he was headed to town. Even without the map he knew he was heading in the right direction for ahead, above the buildings, was an orange glow. He’d learned from the moving pictures on Daisy’s magic Information Box that town centres always featured this strange glow. But first, as a pressing priority, he needed clothes.

The roadside array of impersonal blank-windowed buildings gave way to flower-spread gardens and sleepy houses. And lo, after deserting him, Grandma now was looking after him, for some of those houses grew poles in their gardens. And around those poles, hung in open display, he could see a whole medley of clothes.

But Thredwyl grunted. Fine, if he could find clothes of a diminutive fit. Yet he found just that at the fifth house along – Grandma truly was watching.

He cast a smart look round to make sure he’d not be seen, then he charged in, crunching on gravel that drove into his feet. I’m a cat if any should hear me. He even let out a passable yowl.

But…problem. How to reach the clothes, all arrayed in delicate shades of pink? Even on tiptoes he couldn’t as much as fingertip-touch them. Frantic, he searched around for something to stand on.

There, across the garden, four chairs and a table were set on a paved pad. He ouched at the chair’s metallic scrape as he dragged it off the paving and onto the grass. Had his efforts been heard? He couldn’t blame this on a cat. He waited, his body curled into the shadow beneath the chair. No lights flashed on. No one spoke. No yell to get the hell out. All remained quiet.

With the chair positioned beneath the clothes he heaved himself up and, in rapid-quick time, purloined a selection of pretty pinks.

Back out by the road, in the dark of a hedge, he examined his haul. Drats, not one pair of breeches – or trousers as Daisy had called them, all dresses like Griselda’s. But clothes were clothes and even a dress would be better than hitting the town naked. Though maybe that pink would stand out a bit? Might be better if he grubbied the fabric first; dull it down some, make it more resemble a thing thrown away.

Satisfied that he now resembled a discarded ‘Griselda doll’, Thredwyl resumed his run.

If this was the red road as marked by Daisy, then that car now slowing behind him could be Jason. Daisy hadn’t told him what car, van or what-have-you her brother would use. Or it could be Dwayne. Perhaps it was the School of Anthropology’s van?

It was a car, it was red. Or was it black? Not easy to tell in this orange light. It had a driver, male, and no other beside him. It wasn’t Jason. And neither was there a convenient hedge to provide Thredwyl with cover.

What to do, dart across the next garden, or race on? If he stayed on the pavement the car might follow him.

Fast decision. He dashed across the ornamental garden, swearing at the thorns that lay thick around a bed of roses. Shoes, that was the next priority.

The car stopped. A door opened. And slammed shut. Then pounding feet came chasing after him. By the Nixies’ snaky bums, this wasn’t going well. Where to hide?

Quick, there, a small windowless house. He snuggled behind it, held tight by a sweet-smelling hedge, and held his breath.

A fool place to hide. His pursuer soon found him, squeezed in, stretched out his arm, strained his long-fingered hand to close around him.

Thredwyl ran out the other end just as those fingers touched him, leaving his pursuer wedged between hedge and shed.

He raced across the ornamental lawn, back to the road, crossed it and dashed into a garden on the far side where he crouched low beneath a dense hedge – and waited for his puzzled pursuer to give up and leave.

Though exhausted, foot-sore and sweaty, Thredwyl had survived his first night of freedom. But as the orange lights blinked out to reveal a sky beginning to pale into day he decided it unwise to walk through Cambridge during the day dressed like a discarded ragdoll. He needed a place to hole up for a while. That wasn’t a problem. Cambridge, a maze of houses, colleges, churches, shops and offices, provided a host of secret cubbies where a Kupie might find secure slumber. True, he’d still to reach his destination, but that must wait till he’d slept. Which he promptly did.

The sky still reflected his own precious blue, and the orange lights hadn’t yet sparked into life, when the absence of bustle woke him. He took a deep breath; it was time to seek his desired destination. Trinity Hall.

Nay and nix, think a while, Heroic Thredwyl. Must it be that hall? Wouldn’t any tall building serve?

It would, but….

Forget the professor.

Thredwyl bit his lip. It wasn’t for revenge, or even comeuppance, he just wanted to show the professor the truth of Grandma’s Creation. He sighed and agreed, any tall building would do. So, a church maybe, with a tall tower?

Daisy had tried to explain to Thredwyl about churches. But, as she’d said, it was the blind leading the blind since she’d never been in one either, and apart from scenes on TV and in movies didn’t know what happened in there.

But whatever Man and His Unkind Kind did in them, most churches did have high towers. That made it easier to find one even though he’d not a notion of where in Cambridge he was.

With due caution he crept out of his makeshift cubby. A stretch of his arms and legs and a flex of his back refreshed his body. And now he needed something to eat. Seeds. Hugging the buildings, he went in search.

And just beyond the next corner, he laughed when he saw what lay hidden down an alley.

Some might call it garbage. Daisy would cluck her tongue that he even looked at it. But to Thredwyl what sat proud upon that pile of papers and boxes and slimy remains of fast-food burgers was a veritable feast. Blessed Grandma, she had provided a huge transparent bag full of seeds. Seeds, the very thing to fill his empty innards.

He sat atop the rubbish and noshed, all thoughts now for his belly, all eyes for the seeds, no thought given that anyone passing might glance down that alley and see.

Continuing the story of Thredwyl’s adventure. Read it all FOR FREE on Thredwyl’s very own site

* * *

Out of the door Thredwyl dived and dodged to the back of Night-Shift Louisa’s squeaky white shod feet. No time to punch the air in celebration, he raced down the long narrow passage that Daisy had called a corridor. Before the alarm sounded he’d already rounded its far end corner. Annoyingly loud in his ears, that alarm’s rising, falling, piercing wail shook his body and filled his head with painful needles. He crumpled into a ball. But that gave no relief, and anyway Daisy had stressed how he must leave the building ASAP. “Down the stairs,” she’d said. “Down the stairs, don’t use the lifts.” Well, he’d not be using one of those contraptions – as if he could reach the buttons.

He reached the stairs just before the lighting failed. But that wasn’t a problem, he’d already seen them cut into the corridor wall. Down, down, down they flowed, granite-hard with none of that textured stuff to soften them, each with a riser that reached to his groin. In the utter darkness he turned around, fell to his knees and knee-shuffled backwards until he felt an absence of granite beneath his toes. Another diddy push backwards. Then to lower himself down.

Thus he descended: down, lower, down, lower, landing on his feet only to kneel yet again and again to shuffle back, all the while feeling his way.

His overworked legs trembled more with each step taken. And that wretched siren! What’s more he was getting unquestionably wet. At first a fine mist – rather refreshing after his desperate race along the corridor – it had started just as the lights failed and his first negotiation of the first flight of stairs in that all-encompassing concentration. But the mist had now become a shower of notable strength. It was making him slippery. Worse, the tiny trickles that slicked his back and his chest had found a way to seep beneath his padded pants and that padding could only absorb so much. His padded pants grew rapidly heavy and rapidly slipped from his hips to hitch back up with every slither-down step.

He wasted long ticking seconds staring up at the stairs he’d just descended. Why hadn’t he seen Night-Shift Louisa as, panicked, she zipped past him? She must be able to run faster than him, she had longer legs. Yet he hadn’t heard as much as a squeak from her.

By Grandma’s Grimy Knickers, don’t say she’d been burned? Ought he to return, to see, to help? And to find himself snatched up again and again imprisoned? Nix!

Down, lower, down, lower, he continued to descend the dark stairs, his ability to think severely hampered by the din around him. That din rattled through him leaving not a pinch of a pocket in which to think – which saved him the worry of how he’d escape the building once he gained the ground.

Down, down…and now a new ear-piercing wail joined with the other, muffled at first but growing louder. And an eerie blue light swept the stairwell. The heavy rumble of a vehicular engine verbed through the hard floor beneath him. Metallic doors slammed. Sturdy clad feet slapped on stony pavement. Voices sounded, deep and beefy. There were other sounds too that he couldn’t distinguish and he’d no time for puzzling them: several more stair-flights stood between him and his freedom.

A formless hulk, all aglow with yellow stripes, and trailing an oddly-patterned lengthy snake hammered past him at unlikely speed to disappear into the darkness. Another followed. Caught in the sweep of the blue light, he saw that beast was a Man, probably male. The Menacing Men took no notice of him; they probably thought him an hallucination.

Down, down…his foot skidded from beneath him. Splat. That stung. He crawled to the edge of the muddy patch and pushed himself up.

Down, down…splat! Not again. And this time he couldn’t find purchase to push himself up. He scooted back on his belly.

Down, down…slip, slither, skid and tumble. Ouch! Crack, thump, crack, his head and his bum caught on every step.

He recovered his senses at the next turn in the stairs. Naked now, he sat on the hard cold floor, a flood of water sluicing around him. He’d lost his padded pants, finally saturated beyond their holding. But at least now he was clean, the mud he’d picked up rinsed off him. He refused to think of the damage done; what did it matter when set against what he intended? And at least he had only one flight left to descend.

Just in sight was what could have been the Dooley’s lounge – same size, similarly furnished. It was intermittently lit by that now familiar sweeping blue light. The muffled vehicular rumble was louder here. Sharper. And there was an increasingly strong smell, worse than the most putrid encountered in Dolstone’s caverns. Yellow-striped male Men stood in pairs, talking. Others stood with arms wrapped around a huge tube. Tubes, not snakes, he realised now. All very interesting. He regretted he’d never be able to ask Daisy the meaning of this.

He assessed his next move.

One more hard flight for him to knee-shuffle, slither and lower himself down, and hope he didn’t slip as he landed. Then across that lounge. By the feel of the blast hitting his wet and naked body, he guessed there was an open door somewhere, a door that gave onto the chilly summer night air. That would also explain why everything sounded louder here.

His heart was a carbuncle wedged in his throat as he slithered and dropped his naked body down the last of the shiny wet stairs. One eye to the bulky, yellow-striped Men beyond the crystal door, the other to the chairs that, if those Men spied and set up a call, would hide him. He raced across the lounge-like foyer, feet splashing and slipping on the sprinkler-soaked textured floor. And out of that one open door.

But he wasn’t yet safe. He no longer feared those Men would see him; they were busy with their hoses and ladders. Nay, it was their feet he feared. He needed to negotiate the hectic space between building and colossal angrily humming red vehicle – without choking his last on the fumes it emitted – and those Menacing Men weren’t looking at where their heavy shod feet were treading. Imagine one of those boots come collushing down on him. Better to hug the building, stay in its shadows till far beyond that danger. Except now there were lights everywhere blazing, not only that blue sweep from the lamp atop the red vehicle.

He looked left. He looked right. The right seemed the busiest with bodies. He’d go left.

He stayed close to the building but not so close he’d have to run on the gravel-filled gutter that squeezed between the dirt-grey concrete sectioned wall and the lawn that swept down to the road. That grass was sweet on his feet as he ran, ran his absolute fastest. Zoom! There. Gone! If one of those Men did see him they wouldn’t believe it. A diminutive chap, naked and running in the night, no taller than a two-year infant. Hah!

Thredwyl didn’t slow down till he’d cleared his former prison, the Admin Building, and had left all that kerfuffle and commotion behind. Then he stopped. And he turned. And he saw Night-Shift Louisa in animated conversation with one of the black-coated Men.

Nay, Granny’s Grimy Knickers! What if she told them her charge was missing?

Too late to worry. He turned and ran.