Everyone knows that if you want a job doing properly, you
just have to get on and do it yourself. And by now, the Wicked Poo of the West
is at the end of her short tether.
‘Right!’ she says. ‘I have no choice. I have to employ the
Golden Cap.’
At this point, Magno would generally respond with, ‘Oh no,
not the Golden Cap,’ but he is no longer here, so after an embarrassing silence
during which the Wicked Poo of the West realises she is well and truly on her
own, she says to herself, ‘Yes, the Golden Cap,’ and makes a note to buy a cat
so she has something to talk at in the future.
( N.B Those of you, like me, who went through childhood
believing that the film ‘The Wizard of Oz’ was just that, a film, perhaps might
not know that a novel came first. I mean, I was aware of it being a book as I
became an adult, but until that point it was a film in Glorious Technicolour,
full stop. And it was during the not inconsiderable research I did before
starting the writing of this epic adaptation (ha ha) that I discovered there
are several discrepancies ‘twixt aforesaid book and film. Which is why there
might be some elements you recognise and some elements you don’t. These are
commonly referred to as ‘the elements in the room,’ and one of them might be
‘The Golden Cap.’ I thought a Golden Cap was a type of fungus, and thus the
image of a giant toadstool sitting on top the Wicked Poo of the West’s head has
been indelibly fixed in my mind…..sigh….)
The Golden Cap is the Wicked Poo of the West’s last resort
in defending her domain against Dorothy Miggins and her gang. For, like all
magical items in stories such as these, the owner is allowed only three wishes
from their possession, be that a genie, lamp, ring, golden cap or enormous
pantaloons. And the Wicked Poo of the West has already used up two wishes, one
of them being a rather ill-advised wish for pizza delivery. She is, of course,
working on a way to re-install the Cap to its default setting, but there is no
time to think about that now – the last wish has to be used.
The Wicked Poo of the West places the Golden Cap upon her
head and begins to chant.
‘Oh Monkeys, hear my magic wish,
I’m really in a flap.
I need your help and that is why
I wear the Golden Cap.’
(The author would like to apologise for the flimsy and
simplistic nature of the rhyme, but wants you to be aware she spent a long time
on a different version wondering if she could get away with rhyming ‘urgent’
with ‘sturgeon.’ She decided she couldn’t.)
In a flash, the Golden Cap lights up and makes a sound not
unlike the TARDIS landing after negotiating a particularly choppy wormhole. And
in another flash, because we need to move along now, quite enough waffle in
this chapter, thank you very much, a band of flying monkeys appear led by the
infamous Bob Frapples. (Those of you who’ve read my inaugural novel, ‘Duck When
The Boom Swings’ will know exactly how infamous he is.)
‘Yes, oh Queen of the Golden Cap?’ says Bob Frapples. ‘How
would you wish to spend your last wish? The very final wish? The wish of all
wishes? The expiry wish?’
‘Yes, all right,’ snaps the Wicked Poo of the West. ‘Don’t
rub it in. I want you to go to the castle gates and capture Dorothy Miggins and
her little, er enormous, dog Toto, and the cat pretending to be a lion and
bring them to me. And unstuff the Scarecrow and give the Tin Man a good
denting. That is my wish.’
‘Your last wish,’ emphasises Bob Frapples.
‘Maybe…’ says the Wicked Poo of the West.
‘Definitely,’ says Bob Frapples.
And in a flurry and whirr of monkey wings and tails, he
leads his troupe into the skies and very
soon is returning with a furiously struggling Dorothy Miggins, a howling Toto
and a rigid with fear Bambino Bobblion. The captives are dropped to the floor.
The Wicked Poo of the West cackles.
‘And the Scarecrow and Tin Man?’ she says, rubbing together
her hands.
‘Unstuffed and dented, as requested,’ says Bob Frapples, and
in a flash, he and his monkey band are gone, safe in the knowledge they will
not be called upon to serve this evil witch ever again.
The Wicked Poo of the West uses her high resolution
telescope to survey the castle gates and there, sure enough, is a very deflated
and immobile Tancrow Pete and a very dented and already rusting Ptolemy
Ptinman. It’s a very sorry sight indeed. She turns her attention to her
captives.
‘You,’ she says, pointing at Dorothy Miggins, ‘will be my
slave. Your stupid hen/gnu/dog will be set to guard the castle gates and your
stupid cat…’
‘Lion…’ says Bambino Bobblion.
‘Whatever,’ says the Wicked Poo of the West. ‘You will
become my pet. All evil villains need a cat to sit on their lap to stroke in a
passive aggressive manner. It’s the law.’
She sets her captives to work immediately. She begins to
plot how to remove the ruby slippers, that once belonged to her beloved sister,
from the feet of Dorothy Miggins.
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KJ