day fifty-seven and identical tins

Ron woke up with a start, and flung away the recipe book which had somehow closed shut on his neck. He stood up and looked around the Soup Shack. The wind was howling outside, but there was no wolf.

“What are you looking at?” he said to the spiders who were all standing on the table looking at him.

“You were screaming!” said Fred.

“You had your head in the recipe book!” said Sir Wellington Moonboots.

“Yes, well, I had a bad dream, that’s all!” said Ron irritatedly. “Go back to sleep.”

“We’re all wide awake now!” said Sir Welly. “We’re going to have a game of spider-crackit!”

“Do you want to play?” said Fred.

“No, thanks. I’m going to bed,” said Ron yawning. He went to the little  back room and climbed into the hammock, where he soon went to sleep to the sound of the spiders cheering and jeering as they got engrossed in their game.

The rest of the night passed without incident...

.... until Ron found a secret passageway and had a strange encounter....

It was so strange that Ron thought it was another dream. He had been asleep for a while - a few hours in fact, as the spiders had finished their game - when he woke up and remembered something odd he had seen in Benny’s Big Book of Recipes. It was a recipe called  “Soup for A Secret” and it had just one instruction: “Take two tins of egg powder.”

“Yuk!” Ron remebered thinking at the time. Even I, who can only make burnt toast, know that you can’t make soup with egg powder! And anyway, it’s not like Benny to leave something incomplete like that - very un-policebirdman-like!

Ron knew there was no egg powder in the kitchen because he had searched everywhere in there when he finally found the tomato sauce and the spaghetti (which the wolf scoffed). And he was sure he hadn’t seen any in the box delivered by the grocery blimp the day before. Then Ron remembered the tiny room where they had been briefly imprisoned by the Spy before she escaped. The pantry! Ron went to the pantry. The doorknob was still missing after Benny had blown it off with the dangerous spice-mixture. Ron looked along the shelves: mustard - glue - quick-setting cement - Benny’s old policebirdforce bicycle clips - drawing pins - pickled cabbage - pickled cucumbers - cocktail sticks x 1000 - candles - fish-food - egg powder! This is it! “Take two tins of egg powder!”

Ron took the tin of egg powder from the shelf, and sure enough there was another identical tin behind it. Ron took that and looked into the space. There were no more tins, but there was a switch. Ron put his wing-hand in and flicked the switch....

© David Severn 2012

day fifty-seven and a crane at the door

Ron and Benny had three bowls of potato and carrot soup and two bowls of leek soup each with crackers. The spiders caught some mountain flies. 

Then, after a short snooze, Benny got in the autogyro and screwed the joystick back into place.

“I’ll be back tomorrow morning on the airship!” he shouted to Ron, as the autogyro rose into the air. “You’ll have to get some soup ready for the passengers. Follow the recipes in the book - you can’t go wrong!”

“Right!” shouted Ron, as confidently as he could.

Benny opened the throttle and set off, but a few seconds later he came back and hovered above the Soup Shack.

“Not too much pepper!” he shouted.

“Right” shouted Ron.

Benny set off again, but was back half a minute later.

“Don’t let it boil!” he shouted.

“Right!” shouted Ron.

“And keep the door closed tonight. Don’t open it for anyone - whatever they say!”

And then Benny was gone.

Ron sat down at the table and opened Benny’s Big Book of Recipes, but before long reading the recipes made him feel sleepy and he nodded off with his head on the open book.

He was woken by a tapping at the door. 

“Oh, please let me in! I’m a poor crane who has got lost in the mountains and it’s terribly cold, so can I just come in for a while to get warm and then I’ll be on my way!” said a voice.

Ron remembered what Benny had said. He went to the door and listened.

“Please let me in, “ said the voice. “There’s a terrible icy wind blowing and it’s going through my feathers!”

Ron didn’t know what to do - the crane must be freezing out there. “Oh, please, please!” said the voice. 

Ron heard the sound of the wind VHOOOOHH! and he couldn’t stand it any longer. He opened the door and the wolf ran in snarling and grabbed Ron’s neck in it’s jaws.

© David Severn 2012

day fifty-seven and the last laugh

“She’s getting away in the autogyro!” shouted Ron.

“Mmm, I don’t think so!” said Benny, producing the autogyro’s joystick from his pocket. “I had an idea she’d do that!”

Ron and Benny, and the spiders, who had jumped onto the window-sill, watched as the Spy, realising she couldn’t fly the autogyro, jumped out and hurriedly clambered aboard the airship. A few seconds later it took off. They continued watching until the airship was out of sight.

“Well, she’s gone!” said Ron.

“Yes, and I don’t think we’ll be seeing her again for a while,” said Benny.

“Surely you’ll bump into her at the Imperial Palace, won’t you?” said Ron.

“Maybe not. Once I’ve returned the autogyro I’ll be coming back here,” said Benny.

“But what about your job? You’re the head-chef in the Imperial Kitchen!” said Ron, confused.

“I suspect that was just to get me out of the way” said Benny. “I think the Emperor wanted the Spy to locate S.M.I.R.K. and scare him off.” 

“.....Nnfh....” said Ron.

“Anyway, the mission was accomplished - in a roundabout way,” said Benny.

“Fhuur...” said Ron, his eyes rolling around as he tried to comprehend everything.

“Let’s have some soup!” said Benny.

“Yes, I’m starving!” said Ron, recovering at the thought of some nourishment. “Not beetroot, though!”

Ron and Benny and the spiders all laughed.

© David Severn 2012

day fifty-seven and take-away

“Thanks, Benny!” said Captain Cookie a few minutes later. “I’ll have a coffee to take out, please!”

As usual, this was the signal that it was time for the airship to get going again, and all the passengers started to leave the Soup Shack. Benny got the captain’s coffee and he took it away with him to the cockpit of the airship, where he switched the propellor back on ready for take off.

“What happens next?” said Ron.

“I’ve got to go back to the Imperial Kitchen to make dinner!” said Benny. 

‘I’m going back to the Imperial Palace too!” said the Spy.

“Wait a minute!” said Ron. “You were shooting a harpoon at us just a while ago!”

“Did I hit you?” asked the Spy.

“Well, no..” said Ron.

“Exactly! I know what I’m doing, you know -  I told you I’m a double-agent!” said the Spy.

“Err... “ said Ron. “So what are you going to do now?”

“I’ll go back to my job as courtroom stenographer. And I’ve decided to train to be a judge.” said the Spy.

“Pffllhhhh!” said Ron, dismissively.

“Goodbye, stork...” said the Spy, running out of the Soup Shack. “Goodbye, souperintendant!” she shouted to Benny. 

Ron and Benny went to the door and saw the Spy jump into the autogyro!

© David Severn 2012

day fifty-seven and phew!

Just then there was a voice. It was coming from somewhere up in the air.

“No need to panic!” said the voice.

“I know that voice!” said Ron. “It’s Captain Cookie!”

Yes, it was Captain Peters Cookie, piloting the airship which regularly flew the Far North route via the Chilly Peaks. With delicate handling of the controls, the captain brought the airship alongside the autogyro and the stewardess opened the door and threw out a rope, which Ron was able to reach out and grab. Benny was careful to keep the autogyro’s rotorblades away from the airship and soon Ron and the Spy were able to get onto the airship. 

Benny regained control of the autogyro and went as fast as he could to get back to the Soup Shack. The airship would be stopping there for lunch and the passengers would be expecting a choice of soups, at least two anyway.

When he got back, he soon got the pans on and chopped and peeled furiously. His recent experience as head-chef in the Imperial Kitchen, cooking for visiting moose dignitaries and large banquets for a hundred-and-seventy penguinterbottoms, now stood him in good stead.

So, when the airship arrived at the Soup Shack and tied-up on the ledge, everything was almost ready. Benny got Ron and the Spy busy straight away laying tables , taking orders and serving. Fred and his spider friends tried to help, but mostly had to avoid being squashed by soup spoons or salt and pepper pots. 

Some time later, the airship passengers all had a bowl of soup and Benny and Ron and the Spy had time to take a deep breath. 

“Phew!”

© David Severn 2012

day fifty-seven and Boof!

Somehow, Benny, Ron and the Spy all got a part of their bodies in the autogyro’s single-seat cockpit and held on to the outside with other parts. Benny opened the throttle and the autogyro shot out of the slit in the mountain-side and out into the bright morning sky.

They looked back at the mountain a few seconds later when they heard a muffled Boof! as the exploding soup exploded, and were surprised to see the octopus escaping in a small flying capsule from a spot higher up the mountain.

“S.M.I.R.K. got away!” shouted Ron above the sound of the engine.

“Phew! I’m glad about that - I didn’t think he would actually make the exploding soup!” shouted Benny.

“I didn’t fail, by the way! I’m a double-agent working for the Emperor,” shrieked the Spy.

“What...!” Benny and Ron started to shout, but were interrupted by an awful noise from the engine, which was over-heating with the strain of the extra weight. The autogyro started spinning around like a terrible fairground ride and spiralled downwards. 

“Aaaarrggghhhhh!” they all shouted together.

© David Severn 2012

day fifty-seven and scramble...

"We're rumbled!” said Benny. 

“Erk!” said Ron.

The octopus looked towards the door, where Ron and Benny were still watching through the two centimetre gap. The Spy also turned to look, and seeing Ron and Benny's four eyeballs, fired the harpoon-gun at them. The harpoon whizzed through the gap in the door, but luckily went between the second and third eyeballs.

“You have failed, Agent 246,” said the octopus, looking at the mixture in the pan, which was starting to fizz and bubble. “This is not beetroot soup!” 

Benny burst into the room. “Get out of here!” he shouted.”It’s going to blow up!”

Ron yanked the harpoon rope and pulled the Spy out of the room. The octopus was mad and slithered towards Benny, brandishing various dangerous-looking kitchen utensils in it’s tentacles.

Benny hastily left the room and closed the door behind him. He took the harpoon-gun from the Spy and jammed it under the door-handle. They could hear the octopus cursing on the other side of the door as they scrambled down the staircase to the hangar. When they got there, the Spy flicked a switch on the wall which opened the slit to the outside and they all tried to squeeze into the autogyro... that is, the single-seater autogyro.

© David Severn 2012