Raiders Of The Lost Car Park Part 38

'Sorry,' said the big green thingy.

'Ha ha,' went Arthur Kobold. 'The open road. Home and free. Rio here we come.

'Faster,' said Tuppe.

'It won't go any faster,' said Cornelius. 'We're losing them,' went the king. 'Ha ha ha.' 'No, that's still reverse,' said Terence Arthur Mul-ligan.

'What's that up ahead?' cried Arthur.

'It looks like a taxi reversing across the road,' said the king.

'It is a taxi reversing across the road.' Arthur went for the brake. 'Oh no.'

'Oh no!' cried the king.

'Oh no!' cried Terence Arthur Mulligan, covering his face.

'Sorry,' said the big green thingy.

'They're slowing down,' said Tuppe. 'Overtake them.'

'I will,' said Cornelius. 'And I'll do it on the inside, just to make it more exciting.'

'As you please.'

'More brakes,' cried the king. 'More brakes.'

'I don't have any more brakes.' There was a kind of thud. The kind of thud that brakes make.

When they break. 'I don't have any brakes,' said Arthur.

Anna preferred a brief chance to certain death. She climbed out of the serving window and jumped for her life.

Right onto the bonnet of a streaking silver car.

Was that lucky or what?

The silver car shot right past Mulligan's Ices with only a bit of swerving, but not enough to dislodge Anna from the bonnet. The ice-cream van just couldn't swerve. Some silver car had cut it up on the inside.

'Ohhhnoooooo!' went Arthur and the king and Terence and the big green thingy. All at the same time.

And then it was KAPOW!

It was a significant explosion, in every sense of the word. The mushroom cloud billowed into the sky. Those few who saw it, and there were only very few, agreed that it was a curious mushroom cloud.

So red in the middle and so white all round and about with the smoke. It was almost like a big red laughing face surrounded by a great white beard. A bit like...

Cornelius brought the silver car to a gentle standstill. He jumped from the car and helped Anna down.

She held up her face to his.

They kiss.

Lovely.

'Vom-it,' said Tuppe.

And that was all that he said for quite a long time. Because there came to his small and exceedingly sh.e.l.l-like ear a rustling behind the driver's seat.

'Could someone help one up here?' said the voice of Her Majesty the Queen. 'One seems to have fallen a.r.s.e over t.i.t.'THE AFTERWORDS The travellers have now gone from Star Hill. They hung around for a few days, to make as much of a nuisance of themselves as they possibly could. But then they got the word from the BBC that they were expected in Harlech, where a Mr Doveston was organizing a festival in the grounds of the castle. So they moved on.

Polly Gotting did not marry Prince Charles. She, like her sister, harboured a secret pa.s.sion for balding ex-musos with beer bellies and bad breath (well, anything's possible) and she moved in with Mickey Minns.

This didn't upset Mickey's wife, because when the Minns got home from the gig on Star Hill, he found a note saying that she had gone off to live in Spain, taking the contents of Minn's Music Mine with her. She had apparently absconded with a Mr Patel who ran the shop next door.

Inspectre Hovis did get his knighthood, but not for solving The Crime Of The Century. He got the one Prince Charles had promised, for his delicate handling of that certain little matter regarding an heir to the throne, a h.o.m.oeopathist called Chunky and a Dormobile named Desire.

Cruel fate, as ever conspiring against the great detective, saw to it that he did not become Lord Hovis of Kew. This t.i.tle apparently being held by a gentleman called Rune. The Inspectre became Lord Hovis of Brentford.

The Queen remained kidnapped for two long weeks. Which might appear strange, seeing as Corne-lius had delivered her straight back to the palace. But by then it would seem that the various big-wigs had signed so many lucrative contracts, and the world's sympathy for the poor kidnapped Queen had already grown so great, that it was considered prudent she remain kidnapped for just a bit longer. It was also suggested that she might care to be kidnapped on a yearly basis, to further increase her popularity.

Tuppe was interested to note that when the Queen was finally 'liberated', it was from a traveller's caravan on Hampstead Heath. And that the 'kidnappers' turned out to be the very same fellows who had engaged in the skirmishes with the police outside Gunnersbury Park. He even thought he recognized at least one ex Blue Peter presenter amongst their number.

The BBC hold exclusive world rights on the 'liberation'.

The lead singer of Gandhi's Hairdryer never did get to announce his retirement. After the holocaust on Star Hill, the band split up, due to 'artistic differences'. Some unpleasantness then occurred re-garding the loss of all that uninsured stage equipment, the record company sued for breach of contract and the Inland Revenue joined in the hue and cry and stung the lot of them for three years' unpaid income tax.

The lead singer now works as a guard on British Rail. He's never been so happy. His chums at the depot call him 'Smiley' Colin.

The world has yet to discover the truth about the denizens of the Forbidden Zones. Certain grey-bearded experts of the archaeological persuasion, who examined all that remained of the great hall (which wasn't much after the travellers had stripped it of its fixtures and fittings), declared it to be a folly.

Probably the work of the Reverend Kemp. This was the local cleric who was buried on the very top of Star Hill, standing on his head, so that when Judgement Day came and the world was turned upside down, he would be the first on his feet. Well, it had to be his really, didn't it? It being upside down and everything.

You can still visit the ruins. The local guide, a Mr Omally, is to be found at The Flying Swan (eight hand-drawn ales on pump, snacks available at the bar, unrestricted parking in the Ealing Road). He's there most lunch-times, and he'll be happy to show you around. For a small remuneration, of course.

Naturally there are some loose ends that just can't be tied up. The present whereabouts of Chief In-spector Brian 'Bulwer' Lytton, for example, last seen leading an abortive police charge against the travellers on Star Hill. His file remains open, it reads 'missing presumed eaten'.

Terence Arthur Mulligan still drives a cab, although not the one his brother's ice-cream van crashed into. Terence had managed to leap from that in the very nick of time. Which was lucky for him.As to the big green thingy in his cab and the occupants of the ice-cream van, nothing is known. No bodies were recovered. It was almost as if they'd vanished into thin air.

But what of Cornelius and Tuppe and Anna? And what of the enigmatic Mr Hugo Rune?

Cornelius Murphy now lives for part of the year in Miami, Florida. That's when he's not on his yacht, or at one of his English country residences. He lives with his girlfriend Anna, his best friend Tuppe, and a succession of lady friends that the small fellow keeps bringing home after parties. They are, as the expression goes, of independent wealth.

The tall boy made his first of many millions auctioning off the automotive contents of a certain king's private car park.

And, of course, if you happen to be the Stuff of Epics, and possess a reinvented ocarina, there are many other lucrative openings to be found in and around London.

As for Hugo Rune, what can be said? There are those who suggest that, like Father Christmas, Rune never really existed. But there are others who swear that they have seen him water-skiing with the Sultan of Brunei, arm-wrestling with the Pope and frequent-ing the sw.a.n.k offices of a certain ill.u.s.trious West London publis.h.i.+ng house. There may possibly be some substance to the last of these supposed sightings, as the word is out, in literary circles, that Rune is seeking to publish his memoirs.

If this is indeed the case, and it probably is, then the world has not yet heard the last of Hugo Rune, guru's guru, master of the arts magickal, reinventor of the ocarina and self-appointed scourge of the fairy folk.

There are twenty-three really wonderful things in this world.

Hugo Rune knows all of them.

And then some.

THE END.