The Eye of Zoltar

Tralfamosaur Hunt Part 1: Chase and Capture

The Tralfamosaur could now smell the liquorice, and it took a wild bite at the car as we accelerated away. We felt the jerk as a single tooth caught in the bodywork, but a moment later the metal split, releasing us. I glanced into the rear-view mirror as we took off back the way we had come, and could see the Tralfamosaur glowing red in the tail-lights as it chased us with a heavy, lumbering gait. Thankfully, a Volkswagen is speedier than a Tralfamosaur, and we maintained a safe distance.

We took a left at Mordford, then a right over the River Wye, where the Tralfamosaur, now quite hungry, stopped to sniff at the ironically named Tasty Drinker Inn. The Tralfamosaur was so distracted by the smell of citizens hiding inside that we had to reverse almost to within reach of it before the creature changed its mind, and, overcome by the sheer succulence of the liquorice, once again moved after us, knocking over two cars in the car park and demolishing both bridge parapets as it lumbered across.

‘Wow,’ said Perkins, watching the spectacle while hanging out of the window, ‘I think I’ve seen everything now.’

‘I sincerely wish that were the case,’ I said, ‘but I doubt it. You’re new to the magic industry. Pretty soon, stuff like this will be routine.’

After another ten minutes I took a tight left turn into a field. I had left the gate open ready and hung an oil lamp on the gatepost so I wouldn’t miss it. I had to slow down to take the corner, however, and the Tralfamosaur, seizing the opportunity, closed his teeth around the rear bumper. The back of the car was lifted high in the air, held there, and then with a tearing noise the bumper ripped off. Almost immediately the car fell back on to the grassy slope with a thump and bounced back into the air. The Quarkbeast was catapulted off the rear seat to hit the roof, where he became stuck fast when his scales got embedded in the steel.

Undeterred, I put my foot down and aimed the car towards the second pair of oil lamps, positioned where we had removed a length of fencing between the field and the railway.

‘Stand by for SpellGo one,’ I yelled as we drove up the stone ballast and on to the railway track, the tyres bumping noisily across the sleepers. Perkins’ hand hovered over the first of the two spell activation buttons.

‘Now!’ I shouted and Perkins thumped the one marked ‘Bogeys’. There was a bright flash and a buzzing sensation and the Volkswagen’s wheels were transformed into railway bogeys, that is to say, train wheels. They immediately slotted on to the rails and the ride smoothed out. We were now, technically at least, a train. I didn’t need to steer so let go of the wheel, pressed on the accelerator and looked out of the window.

The Tralfamosaur was close – and even more angry. It was snapping at us wildly, driven on by the overpowering smell of liquorice.

And that was pretty much when we entered the Kidley Hill railway tunnel. The Tralfamosaur followed us inside and the engine sound and angry bellows bounced off the tunnel sides to create a noise that I would be happy never to hear again.

‘Right,’ I yelled. ‘Timing is everything for this one. I’m on the SpellGo button, you’re on the grenade launcher.’

‘Right-o,’ replied Perkins, and shouldered the weapon as he stood up in the sunroof and faced, not the beast, but the other direction – the far tunnel opening we were fast approaching.

I accelerated to give us some distance between the creature and us, then came to a halt alongside a single green lamp I had left there earlier. I switched off the engine and flashed my headlights. In the distance a light flashed back at us, then stayed on. Perkins took aim at the light with the grenade launcher and flicked off the safety.

I placed my hand over the SpellGo button marked ‘Float’ and stared out of the broken rear windscreen. I could hear the footfalls of the Tralfamosaur and its panting, but could not see it, and after a few more moments everything went quiet.

‘Now?’ asked Perkins, finger hovering on the trigger.

‘When I say.’

‘How about now?’

‘When I say.’

‘Has it gone?’

‘It’s moved back to stealth mode,’ I whispered. ‘It’s there all right, somewhere in the darkness.’

I peered into the inky blackness but could still see nothing, then had an idea and stamped on the brake pedal. The brake lights popped on, bringing much-needed extra luminance to the brick-lined railway tunnel. It was a good job they did. The creature was less then ten feet from the rear bumper and I could see its small black eyes staring at us hungrily in the warm red glow.

‘Now.’

There was an explosive detonation as Perkins pulled the trigger, and the liquorice rocket flew down the railway tunnel, illuminating the tunnel sides as it went. There was a metallic thang noise as the rocket hit something. It didn’t explode, of course – the warhead had been replaced with liquorice.

I thumped the SpellGo button marked ‘Float’. There was another buzzing noise and the car lurched upwards. Not to the roof of the tunnel, of course, as that would not have allowed us to escape, but into one of the three ventilation shafts that connected the railway tunnel to the world outside. The shaft was quite large but even so the Volkswagen bumped against the sides as it rose, eventually pitching forward into a nose-down attitude that offered a good view looking straight down. The car’s headlights now illuminated a confused-looking Tralfamosaur below us, standing on the shiny railway lines. It pondered us for a moment, then followed the trail of liquorice scent left by the grenade launcher. As soon as it vanished, we looked at one another and smiled. We were, for the moment at least, safe.

We bumped and scraped up the ventilation shaft to finally emerge into the early morning light. Moobin was waiting for us as planned, and a dozen men deputised from the nearest town placed hooks around the bumpers of the now lighter-than-air Volkswagen. The men heaved on the ropes as the car swung around in the breeze, and after a lot of grunting the floating car was tied to the front of two heavy tractors. I breathed a sigh of relief. It had been an exciting and dangerous night. As we sat there for a moment reflecting upon recent events, the Quarkbeast fell from the roof of the car back on to the rear seat with a thump.

‘Are all our dates going to be like that?’ said Perkins.

‘I hope not,’ I replied with a smile, ‘but it was quite fun, wasn’t it? I mean, it’s not like we were killed or eaten or anything, right?’

‘If your idea of a good date is not being killed and eaten, you’ll never be disappointed.’

And he leaned towards me. I think I may even have leaned towards him, but then a voice rang out from below:

‘Are you coming down from there?’

It was Moobin.

‘Another time,’ I whispered.

A ladder was placed against the car and we climbed down to join Moobin, who congratulated us both before we walked down the hill to the tunnel entrance. A shipping container had been reversed up to the portal, and the Tralfamosaur, urged on by the liquorice grenade fired into the back of its new prison by Perkins, had swiftly been contained. We could hear the sound of contented chewing through the thick steel of the container; we had left several slabs of bacon in there for it, as well as half a bison.

The third part of the plan was soon completed; the floating Beetle had been hauled down the hill and anchored to the shipping container with self-tying string. The Tralfamosaur was now fast asleep and snoring, pretty much worn out after the night’s excitement, something that could be said for most of us.

‘A fine job,’ said Once Magnificent Boo in a rare moment of congratulation, although you wouldn’t know it from looking at her – her mood seemed as dark as normal.

She then climbed the ladder to the Volkswagen, gauged the speed of the wind, slammed the door and ordered the ladder away.

‘Ahoy, Moobin and Lady Mawgon,’ she called out, ‘I need Jenny’s car to be another fifteen tons lighter.’

The two sorcerers complied, and with a straining of wires and creaking from my car, the Volkswagen lifted the container into the air. Within a few seconds the breeze had caught the strange flying machine and it was over the treetops and drifting away in an easterly direction. I joined Moobin and Lady Mawgon, who were also watching my VW rise rapidly into the dawn sky.

‘She’s a bit high for just going to the zoo,’ I said.

Moobin and Lady Mawgon said nothing, and I figured out then what was happening.

‘She’s not going back to the zoo, is she?’

‘No,’ said Moobin quietly, ‘she’s carrying the Tralfamosaur across the border to the Cambrian Empire. They have wild Tralfamosaurs there and it can do … whatever it is Tralfamosaurs do.’

‘I’m not sure the King will be pleased,’ said Perkins. ‘The Tralfamosaur was a valuable tourist attraction for the Kingdom and one of his personal favourites, even after the Queen insisted he stopped feeding his enemies to it.’

‘The Queen was very wise to do that,’ Moobin replied, ‘but I don’t believe Once Magnificent Boo gives two buttons for what the King thinks.’

And with the dawn sky lightening, we watched the Volkswagen with the shipping container slung below it drift high into the early morning. Pretty soon it was high enough to catch the sun, and it was suddenly a blaze of orange.

‘I’m going to miss the Volkswagen,’ I said.

‘Don’t be so sentimental,’ said Lady Mawgon, ‘it’s only a car.’

But it wasn’t just a car. It was my parents’ car. The one I had been abandoned in. Wizard Moobin turned to Perkins and myself and smiled at us in turn.

‘Good work, you two. Come on: breakfast is on me.’