The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse

5

Jack awoke to find himself in strange surroundings. As this was now becoming a regular habit, rather than a novelty, he merely groaned and blinked, rolled onto his belly and eased himself up on his knees.

He was in an office, a definite improvement on the death pit or the alleyway, but hardly the five star accommodation he'd been hoping for when first he entered the city. The words 'how did I get here?' came almost to his lips, but he withheld them. He had vague recollections of the latter part of his night out with Eddie. It had involved much beer, and later, much vomiting. Then there had been much staggering along streets, much climbing of stairs and then much floor and much oblivion.

Jack stretched himself, fretted at the clicking of his joints, ran gentle fingers over his pulsating forehead and said 'never again' in a whispery kind of a voice.

Underage drinking. Jack shook his head and regretted the doing thereof. Where was the pleasure in underage drinking? Jack tried to recall the pleasure.

It wasn't easy.

'Still,' whispered Jack, 'you have to keep at it. Overcome the miseries of the vomiting and the whirling pit. Pay your dues and work towards the real rewards of big-time adult drinking. Something to look forward to.'

Jack's knees buckled under him.

For now he needed a quiet sit-down.

Jack gave his surroundings a bleary perusal and took in what he could of them. An office, that was for certain. And yes, he recalled, the office of the now legendary Bill Winkie, fictional detective. Jack sniffed at the office. It didn't smell too good: musty and fusty and tainted by the smoke of many cigarettes.

But, for all of its overloaded atmospherics, here was an office that owned to a certain 'lack'.

There was a hatstand that lacked a hat to stand on it and a water cooler that lacked anything to cool. The filing cabinet lacked a bottom drawer and the desk, lacking a leg, was being supported at that corner by a large alphabet house brick (lacking a corner).

Jack eased himself carefully around the desk and settled down onto the chair that stood behind it. The chair lacked comfort. Jack turned gently around on it to face a window that lacked a pane of glass. He turned back, took in a ceiling fan that lacked a blade and a carpet that lacked a pattern.

Jack turned once more towards the window and raised his eyes, which pained him no little bit.

A Venetian blind, no doubt lacking a slat or two, was fastened in the up position. But, strung to the cord at ceiling height and dangling by the neck, was Eddie Bear.

'Oh no!' cried Jack, leaping from the chair and shinning onto the desk.

The desk that lacked a leg had a top that lacked support. It gave with a hideous crack and Jack fell through it.

He was only slightly dazed this time and his eyes soon reopened to find a big round face looming at him once again.

'What did you do that for?' asked Eddie. 'The guvnor will be very upset when he returns to see what you've done to his antique desk.'

'You were trying to hang yourself Jack beat away bits of desk, getting splinters in his fingers. 'I was saving you.'

'Ah,' said Eddie, de-looming his face. 'Ah no. I was sobering up. I hang myself in the upright position, then rely on natural seepage, through the feet. Stone cold sober again. Doesn't work for you meat-heads though, does it?'

'You might at least say sorry.'

'Why? I didn't break the desk.'

'Oh, never mind.' Jack climbed once more to his feet. 'I have such a hangover,' he said. And, looking up once more, 'How did you manage to climb up that cord in the first place?'

'Practice,' said Eddie. 'You need a drink.'

'No, I need breakfast. And the toilet.'

'The joys of the human digestive system. You should have a drink, though. Bill's hangover cure. His own special concoction. There's some in the desk drawer. Well, what's left of it.'

Jack rootled about in the desk drawers and finally unearthed a sinister-looking green bottle.

'That's the kiddie,' said Eddie. 'You have a swig of that.'

Sighing and muttering by turn, Jack uncorked the bottle, sniffed at the contents, made a face of displeasure, then took a swig.

He looked at Eddie and Eddie looked at him.

'It takes a minute or two,' said the bear. 'I'd sit back down, if I were you.'

Jack sat back down. 'Would you say that I had a good time last night?' he asked.

'Certainly,' said the bear. 'You had a good time last night.'

'Did I? Really?'

'No,' said Eddie. 'Of course you didn't.'

'Then why did you say that I did?'

'Because you asked me to. What a strange young man you are.'

'I'm seriously thinking of going home.' Jack rubbed at his forehead. 'I don't think city life agrees with me.'

'It doesn't agree with most folk.' Eddie sat down at Jack's feet. 'But then, if you're poor, what kind of life does?'

'I came here to seek my fortune.'

'Then I hope you'll share some of it with me when you do. I ran up a bit of a bar tab at Tinto's last night. He wrote it down, in case he forgot about it.'

'Humpty Dumpty,' said Jack, and he groaned as he said it.

'Fat and dead.' Eddie plucked bits of fluff off himself. 'In that order.'

'No. Humpty Dumpty. That was why I got so drunk.'

'And there was me thinking that it was all the beer you consumed that was to blame.'

'He was the reason behind all the beer. A nursery rhyme character.'

'Ah,' said Eddie, once more. 'They don't like that term. They prefer "Preadolescent Poetic Personalities".'

'They? That's right, I remember. Miss Muffet, Georgie Porgie, Jack and Jill, the whole sick crew. They're all real people, according to you, and they all live here in the city.'

'They have to live somewhere.'

'Not if they don't exist.'

'Please don't' start all that again, Jack. You went on and on about that last night. "They're not real." "Why not?" "Because I say so." Your conversation became extremely tedious. And very slurred.'

'Agh! Oooh! Ow! Urgh!'

'That's easy for you to say.'

'Aaaaaagh!' Jack clutched at his stomach and fell forward onto Eddie.

'Get off me.' Eddie flapped about. 'You'll have my seams bursting, get off.'

Jack got off. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'but I feel...'

'How do you feel?'

'Actually,' Jack looked all around and about, 'actually, I feel excellent. In the very best of health.'

'Bill's lotion, works every time.'

'Lotion? Don't you rub lotion on?'

'Do you? Well, it's all the same, it worked, didn't it?'

'Yes, it did.' Jack took up Eddie and set him upon the ruins of the desk. 'I'd like some breakfast,' he said. 'And I still need the toilet.'

'Okey doke,' Eddie grinned. 'But we're still partners, right? You'll help me solve the case? Be my hands, and whatnots?'

'Whatnots?'

'We'll not debase our conversation with cheap innuendo, will we, Jack?'

'Certainly not.' Jack had a big smile on. Til give it a go. I'll help you solve your case, mad as it is. I keep my word. We shook hand and paw and we're partners.'

'Jolly good, now help me down, please.'

Jack helped Eddie down.

'I want to visit the crime scene,' said the bear. 'I haven't been able to thus far. The authorities won't give clearance to a teddy. But you'll be able to bluff us in, I feel confident of that.'

'I'm not sure that I do,' said Jack.

'Well I am, because I'll tell you what to say. Now, you did tell me that you could actually drive a car, didn't you?'

'In theory,' said Jack.

'Well, theory and practice are not too far removed. Come on, I'll show you Bill's car. But first we need to clean you up. Get all that blue dye off your face. You smell rank and you could do with a change of clothing and some shoes. I'll kit you out from Bill's wardrobe.'

'So I can play the part of Bill Winkie.'

'So you can be Bill Winkie. Men all look the same to toys. You'll be able to carry it off.'

Jack nodded thoughtfully. 'I'm up for it,' he said. 'But I want breakfast.'

'Do you have money to pay for breakfast?'

Jack patted his pockets and then shook his head.

'Perhaps there'll be something to eat at the crime scene,' said Eddie. 'A bit of boiled egg, or something.'

Now, there is a knack to driving a car. Any car. Even one that is powered by a clockwork motor. There is steering to be done and gears to be changed and this involves clutch-work, and, if reversing, looking into mirrors and judging distances. There are all manner of complications and knacks involved. And skills, there are definitely skills. In fact, the remove between theory and practice is a pretty large remove, when it comes to driving a car.

Let us take, for example, the deceptively simple matter of starting up a car. This is not something that should be attempted in a light-hearted and devil-may-care manner. It's not just a matter of turning a key and putting your foot down somewhere and brrrrrming the engine.

Well, it sort of is.

But then again, it isn't.

Jack considered that it probably was. And, it has to be said, when Eddie led him into Bill's garage and Jack switched on the light and beheld the car, Jack was heard to remark that it would be 'a-piece-of-the-proverbial' to 'burn that baby'.

'This phraseology is odd to my ears,' said Eddie. 'Does it mean that you are actually conversant with the whys and wherefores requisite to the safe locomotion of this vehicle?'

Jack rubbed his hands together and grinned broadly.

'That's not really an answer,' said Eddie.

'I know clockwork,' said Jack. 'I've worked on cars like this.'

'Yes, but driven them?'

'I'm sure I said yes to you last night.'

'You may have,' said Eddie. 'But we were both pretty out-of-it. I definitely recall you mentioning that there was some "unpleasantness" involved.'

'We'll have to wind it up first,' said Jack.

'This much I know.'

'Then we get in and I drive.'

'It all sounds so simple when you put it that way.'

'There's one thing,' said Jack. 'I don't have a driving licence. I'm too young to drive.'

'I don't think we should let a small detail like that stand in the way of the disaster that immediately awaits us as soon as you get behind the wheel, should we?'

'You're a most articulate little bear,' said Jack.

'Don't patronise me,' said Eddie. 'I warned you about that, didn't I?'

'You did,' said Jack. 'So should I wind?’

‘Please wind,' said Eddie.

The car was an Anders Faircloud: pressed tin in the metallic blue of a butterfly's wing. It was long and low and highly finned at the tail, the way that every good car should be (apart from the short stumpy sports ones that go like poop off a scoop and generally come to grief on late night motorways with a celebrity (though rarely a Preadolescent Poetic Personality) in the driving seat). It had pressed tin wheels with breezy wide hubs and big rubber tyres. It was a blinder of an automobile and its all-over glory gave Jack a moment's pause for thought.

'Eddie,' said Jack.

‘Jack?' said Eddie.

'Eddie,' said Jack. 'This is a superb automobile.'

'Bill's pride and joy,' said Eddie.

'So herein lies a mystery. Why would Bill Winkie not take his car when he went off to wherever he went off to?'

'What are you suggesting?' Eddie asked.

'Nothing,' said Jack. 'I was just wondering why he would have gone off and left his precious car behind.'

'I don't know,' said Eddie. 'Perhaps he didn't take the car because it is such a noticeable car. Perhaps he has gone off somewhere to be incognito. Perhaps he's working on the case, incognito. Is that enough perhapses for you?'

'Perhaps,' said Jack.

'Wind the car up,' said Eddie. 'Let's go to the crime scene.'

'Yes,' said Jack. 'Let's do that.'

Well, there is a knack to driving a car.

And Jack didn't have it.

No doubt he'd get it, given time, like he would getting drunk. But these things do take time, even the getting drunk thing. He was okay on the winding-up part of the procedure, though. There was no doubt about that.

'No!' howled Eddie as Jack backed out of the garage at speed, before the garage door was actually raised.

'Stop!' screamed Eddie, as Jack performed a remarkable handbrake turn in the middle of the traffic that moved (quite swiftly) in the street beyond.

'We're all gonna die!' bellowed Eddie as Jack tore forward on the wrong side of that street.

'I'm getting the knack of this,' said Jack, gronching the gears and clinging to the steering wheel. 'These things take time. I have the measure of it now.'

'No you don't!' Eddie ducked down in his seat. Even lower than he already was.

'Piece of the proverbial.' Jack spun the steering wheel, which at least took him onto the right side of the road. 'Does this car have a music system fitted? One of those music bow wheel-pin contraptions?'

'Forget the music.' Eddie covered his face.

'Easy-peasy.' Jack put his foot down somewhere. It was the brake; the car did a bit of a spin; Jack took his foot off the brake. 'What about that?' he said.

'You don't even know where we're going.'

'Do you?'

'Yes, the wrong way.'

'Well, why didn't you say so?’ Jack spun the wheel again. The Anders Faircloud moved from the on-going lane back into the other-going lane, causing much distress amongst the other-going-laners.

'Got it now,' said Jack. 'Out of the way, fellas!' And he honked the horn.

'Well, you do know where the horn is.'

'Do you know what?'

'What?' said Eddie.

'I'll tell you what,' said Jack, 'this is great. Do you know that? Great! I'm driving a car. Do you know how great this is for me? This is...'

'Great?' said Eddie.

'As great as,' said Jack. 'As wonderful as, in fact. Marvellous. Incredible. I'm enjoying this so much.'

Jack took a sudden right turn, cutting across oncoming traffic and causing much sudden braking from it and much shunting of one car into another.

'And why did you do that?' Eddie asked from beneath the pressed tin dashboard.

'I don't know. Because I could, I suppose. Where would you like me to drive to?'

'I'd like you to stop. In fact I'd love you to stop.'

'Well, I'm not going to. So where would you like us to go?'

'Okay.' Eddie climbed out of his seat and peeped over the dashboard. 'Turn left at the next road and... Jack, do you feel all right?'

'I feel incredible,' said Jack, 'full of power, do you know what I mean?'

'It's the lotion.' Eddie covered his face as Jack put his foot down again. 'Bill's lotion, the stuff you were apparently supposed to rub on, rather than drink. I'd never actually seen him doing the actual rubbing in. I sleep late as a rule. I think it's pumped you up rather and... Oh my...'

Jack went 'Weeeeeeeeee,' and then he went 'Oooooooooooh!' and then he went 'Oh!' and 'Damn.' And then he said, 'We've stopped.'

'The clockwork's run down,' said Eddie. 'You put it under — how shall we put this? — certain strain.'

'What a rush,' said Jack, sitting back in the driving seat. 'Did I love that? Or did I not? I loved it. I did. It was wonderful. It was..."

And then Jack passed from consciousness once more.

'I think this is going to be a very emotional sort of a relationship,' said Eddie, to no one other than himself. 'But let's look on the bright side. By sheer chance, or coincidence, or a force greater than ourselves, which guides our paths and moulds our destinies, we have stopped right outside Nursery Towers, the home of the late and lamented Humpty Dumpty.'