Part 1
After he left the Kola Nut Hotel,
where the giant creeping plant was temporarily subdued,* McCluskey, in
the grocery blimp, flew on towards the Imperial Palace with his cargo
of lettuces. He took a short cut through the Chilly Peaks to make up
for lost time, but suddenly a magnetic storm blew up and he lost his
bearings. McCluskey looked anxiously at his goldfish compass, which
wasn’t lined up to north as it should have been. He saw the hands
of his clock switching from one random time to another;
five-past-two... ten-to-five... half-past-twelve. The needles of the
dials on the grocery blimp’s dashboard also flicked from
side-to-side erratically. He thought he could navigate by the stars,
but when he looked out of the blimp’s window he found the sky was
obscured by swirling clouds. The windscreen wipers did an elegant but
squeaky tango across the front window.
McCluskey tried to turn around, but he
found the magnetic storm had affected the wire connecting the
joystick to the rudder, which swung from left to right. He tried to
switch off the engine, but that didn’t work either and the
propellor kept turning steadily.
So, powerless to do anything, he sat
and watched as the blimp zigzagged forward, getting further and
further off course into a region of the Chilly Peaks he wasn’t at
all familiar with.
McCluskey was wondering what would
happen if he was late with the lettuce delivery, when he saw two
narrow parallel beams of light ahead, like the headlights of a car.
He jumped when he saw that the beams were being emitted from the eyes
of a night-flying condor. The gigantic bird had seen the blimp and
was now gliding towards it. McCluskey could see it’s long, wings
with their broad, purply-brown feathers like the fingers of a giant
glove. He could see it’s pink, shaved-looking head and it’s
fluffy collar of white feathers. He could see it’s terrifying,
meat-eating beak as it got nearer and nearer. Although McCluskey knew he
could never outrun a hungry condor, he instinctively grabbed the
joystick. The blimp still did not respond, but it rocked and creaked
as the condor flew right up and perched on one of its landing skis.
The condor flapped its wings to balance itself, and the blimp’s
basket was filled with bright light as it looked in through the
windscreen, salivating.
