Chapter 5 (The Best Laid Plans...)
The Doctor had removed his cap and taken the pillow from the down the front of his overalls. He had made sure nobody was watching and then disappeared into the bushes behind the stalls. He made his way through the trees and to the corner fence and then threw the bag down.
He opened the bag and took out one of the devices. It was a claw-like device with a circuit board attached to the top. He stuffed it down the front of his overalls, took another quick glance around, and then began to shimmy up the tree.
Once he was at the top he pulled out some string from his overall pocket and began tying the device to the tree.
Once he was certain it was secure he shimmied back down the tree, grabbed the rucksack, and headed over to the next corner. The next tree he needed to be up was a little more exposed. It was beside the pathway leading into the park and beside the river than ran along the side. He made sure nobody was coming down the path and then quickly climbed the tree, attaching the second device.
He was about to shimmy down when he heard some laughing from below. A young couple were walking hand in hand into the park. He stayed up the tree, hidden by the branches and held his breath. Once he was sure they had passed he slipped back down and grabbed his rucksack.
He jogged along the path beside the river, saying “hello,” to the couple as he passed them and headed for the third corner.
This was going to be a little more difficult. There were no trees here as it was beside a road and the highest point was a house roof.
He took a small football from his rucksack and threw it up at the house roof. It hit the chimney stack on top and slowly rolled down before resting in the gutter.
The Doctor grinned and then ran around to the front of the house, knocking on the door.
“Yes?” came a young woman’s voice as she opened the door. She looked a little surprised to see the Doctor stood there in full Super Mario get-up.
“I’m afraid my little boy’s just kicked his ball up and it’s landed on your roof. I was wondering if I could get up there and bring it down?”
The woman came out and walked to the back of the house with the Doctor. “He’s got a very good kick!” she said.
“Yes, I know,” said the Doctor.
The woman looked around. “Where is he now?”
The Doctor looked flustered. “His mummy took him back to the bouncy castle.”
The woman sighed. “Okay, but be careful.”
“Thank you,” said the Doctor.
She let him in the back garden where he proceeded to climb the wall, onto a flat roof and then haul himself up the roof beside the guttering. He grabbed the ball and threw it down towards the woman.
When she turned away to get the ball that was rolling towards the river, the Doctor quickly placed the device on top of the guttering. As it was small the guttering managed to obscure most of it. Then he climbed back down, thanked the woman and headed towards the fourth and final corner.
This one was as simple as the first. He climbed the tree, affixed the device and then went back down. Satisfied with himself, he headed back towards the stalls.
By now nearly all the cakes had gone.
Holly turned to the Doctor as he came jogging up. “Everything go okay?”
“More or less,” said the Doctor. “Although I did have to just invent a son and wife.”
“What?” said Lilly.
“Never mind,” said the Doctor. He looked around. “I need to be in the centre to do this,” he said, grabbing his sonic screwdriver and walking away.
“Wait a minute,” said Lilly, grabbing his hand, “what do we do when the alien appears?”
“Grab him,” said the Doctor.
“Just like that?” said Holly nervously. “Just grab him?”
“Yep. He’ll be so disorientated he won’t know what’s hit him. Then we’ll make our excuses and leave.”
“Okay,” said Holly, nodding and feeling the adrenaline pumping. “Good luck.”
“You too,” said the Doctor.
The Doctor pushed his way through the throng of people until he reached the bouncy castle. He took a deep breath, held up his hand and pressed down on his sonic screwdriver.
There was a high-pitched whine from each of the four corners and the crowd of people looked around frantically.
And then there were four small explosions from each corner of the park. The whining stopped, absent mindedly the people glanced at the tiny explosions, and then all was forgotten as they continued to mill around.
“What happened?” said Lilly, running up to the Doctor followed by Holly who was lifting her skirt up so as not to tread on it.
“They blew up. It didn’t work,” said the Doctor dejectedly. “All this planning and it didn’t work.”
The fundraiser had been a success for the Scouts, but not for the Doctor. That evening he sat on the bench outside in the back garden, a glass of cool water in his hand. He took of a sip from it and stared blankly at the garden fence.
Holly stood at the kitchen window, her arms folded as she watched him.
“Come and sit down,” said Lilly from the front room. “He’ll sulk like that for a bit now.”
Holly sighed and headed back to the living room. Lilly had the TV on and was watching the original Star Wars film.
“Enjoying it?” said Holly.
“Aye,” said Lilly. “It’s a good one.”
“The second one’s even better,” smiled Holly, sitting down next to her. Holly rubbed her eyes. “Do you reckon we should give up?”
“What?” said Lilly, looking away from the screen. “No. Why?”
“Well, this alien hasn’t done anything wrong, has it? It’s obviously just wanting to live out it’s days in peace.”
“It attacked the Doctor.”
“Only because it was threatened.”
“Look, Dangerfield,” said Lilly, her hard edge returning, “you’re new to all of this. Believe me, when an alien is hiding in a town disguised as a Human being, it’s not hiding for any good reason.”
“Okay, okay,” said Holly. “I’m sorry. I just don’t see how we’re going to track it down.”
Lilly closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I snap all the time.”
“Actually,” said Holly, “you’ve not been doing it as much. Maybe you’re getting used to me being around.”
Lilly laughed. “I’ll never get used to having you around, Dangerfield.”
Holly turned and looked at her. “Do you feel ready to tell me yet about yourself.”
Lilly looked blankly at her.
“I mean, not everything. Just…well, I’d like to get to know you better.”
“I’m not ready,” said Lilly.
“That’s fine,” said Holly, “but like I said before - I’m here for you if you need to talk. Okay?”
Lilly nodded. “Thank you.”
“Right,” said the Doctor, clapping his hands together and walking into the living room. “I have a plan. This time we’ll catch him.”
“Oh no,” groaned Lilly. “Another plan.”
“What plan?” said Holly.
“We’re going to do the four-corner thing again, but this time on a bigger scale. We’re going to put them on the outskirts of the estate. It’ll create a field within the area which will expose him.”
“How do you know it’s going to work?” said Lilly. “It didn’t last time.”
“Because this time,” said the Doctor. “I’m going to use the TARDIS escape pods.”
“The TARDIS has escape pods?” said Holly.
“Plenty of them,” said the Doctor. “We position each one at each corner of this estate and then activate them and we expose him for what he is.”
Lilly nodded. “It might just work.”
“Good,” said the Doctor, “because I’m starting to go a little bit stir crazy staying in this one time and place.”
Day 14
Holly was sat up in bed with the diary open. It was early morning and she hadn’t been able to fall back to sleep after she had heard two cats fighting outside, so had instead opened up the mysterious diary for another look. She still felt guilty doing this behind Lilly’s back, but she had to try and make sense of something about her past.
Dear Diary,
What an absolutely terrible day we’ve had. We were going to visit the Ruins of the Night Fortress on Capa-Sol, but Lilly was nowhere to be seen. We checked every where in the TARDIS and ran scans for her and she was nowhere on board.
Finally we realised she’d taken one of the escape pods. We managed to track her progress through the vortex and discovered that she’d landed on Earth in 1973. She was sat in an East London café eating a full-English breakfast.
She said she couldn’t remember taking the escape pod, but she was happy to go back with us. It was weird. But what was weirder was that when we got her back she burst into tears again. When I tried to comfort her she pulled out a knife on me and slashed by arm.
Luckily I was patched up, but Lilly spent the rest of the night in her room, crying herself to sleep.
I don’t know what we can do with her. She scares me. It makes me wonder how much longer I can go on travelling with her on board.
Holly closed the diary and looked straight ahead. Lilly had clearly been troubled. She tried to join the dots together. Lilly and her brother had obviously lived apart. The brother had a better upbringing with his real family, whilst Lilly had been driven mad by her abusive family.
The Doctor had obviously decided to start travelling with the sibling and then gone on a rescue mission for Lilly which had resulted in her getting shot at some point. The three of them had travelled together for some time, but the sibling had left at some point with Lilly denying that she had ever travelled with anyone other than the Doctor.
So what had happened?
Holly flicked through the diary. There weren’t many more pages. She could sit here and read them now. Maybe it’d all become a little clearer.
There came a knock at the door and Holly slipped the diary back under the covers.
“Come in,” said Holly.
Lilly popped her head around the door. “Just me. The Doctor asked if you want scrambled eggs or soldiers?”
“Scrambled please,” smiled Holly.
“You alright?” said Lilly, noticing Holly’s nervous smile.
“Just had a funny dream,” lied Holly.
“Nice one,” said Lilly. “See you downstairs.”
They just finished up breakfast when three separate ring tones went off. All three of them went to their pockets and pulled out their mobiles. The only number showing was the single digit 0.
The Doctor looked to each of the girls and then answered his phone. “Hello?”
The other phones stopped.
He put his on loud speaker and the same, high-pitched, rasping voice came from the device. “I have already warned you once.”
“And I haven’t listened to you. I can’t listen to you.”
“You will leave this please immediately.”
“I will not.”
There was silence.
“Speak to me,” said the Doctor.
“I have warned you once. If you do not leave then one of you will die.”
The phone clicked off. Holly and Lilly looked at the Doctor, Holly concerned more than the other two.
“We need to find this creature now,” said the Doctor darkly.
To be continued...
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