Wildmouth, frustrated with merely being a member of the audience, jumped up on the stage to join in. He leapt around like a maniac and grabbed a microphone and started bellowing into it. GRAAGHHH! B-B-BWAAAGHHH! His tail swung around crazily, knocking over the drumkit and tripping up Ivan Crab, who fell over with a loud, discordant BWLANGG!
“Oh, no!” cried Miss Wu.
Skates stopped plucking the banjo, and Ron stopped shaking his marracas, and Ivan and the rest of his band dizzily crawled off the stage.
“Wildmouth, you nincompoop!” shouted Tusks.
And so, the concert came to a chaotic end. Ron and Skates jumped down from the stage.
“Come on, guys!” cried Wildmouth, obliviously. “Let's play another song!”
“Wildmouth!” shouted Tusks, angrily.
The audience were now bunched-up around the exit, trying to get out as quickly as possible; they weren't going to hang around with a mad lion in the auditorium!
“Thank you! Thank you!” said Wildmouth. “You've been a wonderful audience!”
“Get off!” shouted Tusks from the back of the auditorium, where he had located the abandoned lighting booth. He flicked a switch and the spotlight went off, leaving Wildmouth in darkness on the stage. Tusks then lowered the thick, velvet stage curtain and switched on the house lights, and Miss Wu, Capt. Cookie and the other hotel regulars, who were used to Wildmouth's over-the-top antics, walked out to the sound of the lion’s muffled cries.
“We must get going!” said the captain, looking at his timepiece and remembering he was behind schedule.
“Aye, sir!” said Winterbottom. The steward got all the passengers together and they headed down to Aerobot's hangar-stomach, where the airship was parked.
It was decided that now that the celebrations were over, the newly-wed couple, Temples and Singsong, would resume their roles on the airship as co-pilot and flight attendant respectively. The abductees would be dropped off at their homes on the way, except for Chops, the dinosaur, whose habitat of seventy-one million years ago was no longer there.
Miss Wu, who had grown fond of Chops, despite having had to feed it with the prize produce of her vegetable garden insisted on taking it with her. Along with Skates, Tusks and Ron (and Wildmouth, although Tusks felt like leaving him behind) they were to go back to the hotel on Admiral Spicerack's yacht. Everyone said goodbye and boarded their designated craft. And then everyone gawped as the gigantic hangar doors opened and they saw the enormous sky above and below them again.
The airship went first, gliding out of the hangar slowly. Capt. Cookie blew his foghorn: Parp! Parp! Then the admiral steered the yacht out into the air. He looked through his telescope at the airship, and he could see Capt. Cookie and Lieutenant Temples in the cockpit, setting a course for the Far North.
“Right!” said the admiral. “Let's get back to the Kola Nut Hotel! It's nearly cocktail time!”
© David Severn 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment