From: (Clive May) Subject: The Frog, The Dog, The Dragonette and the Fairy. 1/1 Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2003 20:46:11 +0000 (UTC) The Frog, The Dog, The Dragonette and the Fairy. A Fifth Doctor story. by Clive May (clive@cj4386.demon.co.uk) The copyright of all things Dr Who is the property of the BBC. This is a work of fanfiction written solely for fun; no infringement of the owner's copyright is intended. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "They do so!" Lucy exclaimed. The little girl was near to tears, her bottom lip trembling. Tommy, a whole three years older than his baby sister, was scornful. He no longer believed in kid's stuff like Father Christmas, or fairies. "You're telling fibs." he told her, looking down with grown up disdain from the lofty height of his seven years. Tears shimmered in his little sister's brown eyes. "I'm not. I'm not," Lucy cried, stung by her adored brother's accusation. "They really are there. Please, Tommy, come and see. They're having a party....Please do come and see!" "There's no such thing as fairies," Tommy declared. "That's all just silly stuff for baby girls." "There is so," Lucy affirmed in rising indignation. "Is not," Tommy shouted back. Lucy was angry now. "Alright!" she cried, "I'll show you!" She grabbed her brother's arm and began hauling him along the gravel path between the immaculate lawns towards the narrow strip of rough trees which had been known as "The Forest" since the Jenkin's Clan had settled in the comfortable suburban house in the ancient times, when Lucy and Tommy's grand parents had bought it. "Oh, Tommy, do come along," she cried urgently. "They're having a party...Right now...In The Forest." Tugging on his arm, Lucy hurried her brother as much as she could. Tommy went, dragging his heels. In truth, his resistance was only token, "just for the look of the thing". Nothing could have stopped him from going along so that he could say: "I told you so" when there was nothing there. At thee edge of the trees, Lucy paused and turned to him. She put a finger to her lips and made exaggerated shushing sounds. Then she moved quietly into the tiny strip of woodland, past the "camp" her grandmother had built out of scraps of wood and abandoned sheets of tin. In the thickets just beyond, she knelt down, motioning for Tommy to join her. The horrid little boy made no attempt at being quiet. He trampled through the leaves and leant down. He certainly wasn't going to get his new jeans all messy by kneeling in the dirt. Careful to avoid the thorns, Lucy drew aside a tangle of wild roses, and peered into the tiny dell beyond. They were there alright, just as she'd seen them a few minutes earlier. Tommy deigned to look...And froze. It was a defining moment in his life, which would blight his happiness forever. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Master frowned. It was certainly a "video nasty", no question about that, but not quite what the Doctor ordered. The black suited villain stroked his goatee musingly. What had become of his carefully worked out tape of mind rotting programming, he could not fathom? The broadcasting of the tape would have reduce the world to a state of mindless quivering jelly, ripe for his proposed conquest. On the monitor, Julie Andrews was belting out a rousing rendition of "The Hills Are Alive". Now, if only he'd stumbled on this first, he might have saved himself hours of having to view mind rotting material, plus tedious editing of same, whilst preparing his tape. He tugged thoughtfully at his goatee, smiling an evil smile. Still, "The Sound Of Music" would serve just as well. A strange noise came from outside, which he could only describe as the sound of a giant space hopper screeching to a halt, accompanied by a tinkling bell. He frowned, got up from the desk, and went to see. Peering around the drawn curtains, he saw in the garden a platoon of UNIT soldiers looking a trifle bemused as they dismounted from a giant Space Hopper, very properly done out in army camouflage green. Before the giant hopper, the Brigadier was disentangling his long legs from an over-sized baby's trike. Gaining his feet, the Brig snapped out orders to his puzzled platoon. Strange? The Master thought. He went back to his chair. He was not in the least concerned by the advent of the soldiery, no doubt bent on his capture. The door was a super reinforced, energy shielded affair, which would hold off a Cyberman strike force for a century; and, just as soon as his fiendish tape was transmitted, the minds of every discerning person in the world would be utterly destroyed. He'd barely gotten himself re-seated, when the UNIT soldiers burst into his command centre. The black suited villain scowled and reminded himself to pay a visit to the door sales man in the not too distant future. He turned to find himself looking up the barrels of several large, polka-dotted carrots held gingerly in the hands of UNIT soldiers. "How did you get past my super strength fortified door?" he asked. "Oddest thing," frowned the Brigadier; "but it turned into a giant bar of Galaxy chocolate. Once we'd got the wrapping off, we eat our way through.... Always been partial to a square of chocolate myself. Now, if you don't mind? we'll just arrest you, and get all the loose ends tidied up, so we can slip off to the pub for a pint - the usual routine." The Brig drew a bunch of roses from his pistol holster, and covered the black suited villain with them. "Ok Chaps! Arrest him!" There followed a disconcerting few minutes while the soldiers tried to fit handcuffs to the Master's wrists. This simple action was complicated by a tendency for the cuffs to keep turning into snakes. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "This is NOT funny!" said the dainty female dragonette, tastefully coloured in the livery of Australian Airlines. "R'deep! R'deep!" agreed the frog, incongruously dressed in green and yellow pyjamas, peeking out from under a badge for mathematical excellence. The frog was perched in a fork of a rowan tree growing in the centre of the console room. "I Do wish you'd hurry up and fix that translation circuit," sighed the Fairy Queen, straightening her tiara, fluttering her diaphanous wings, and shedding a shimmering shower of brilliant rainbow colours. "Fat chance!" sighed the dragonette, little flames of irritation flickering in her nostrils. "He's having far too much fun, Nyssa." The dragonette eyed the dog with two tails, dressed in cricketing gear, as it dashed around the tree, batting with clumsy paws at leaves and berries in an attempt to set the controls. The two tails were thrashing around with such enthusiasm that it was a wonder the dog had not wagged itself right off its feet. "Woof, woof," barked the dog encouragingly and patted a big red berry, which was in the throes of a spirited attempt at mimicking Jimmy Durante's nose. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tommy stared and stared. The little clearing in the forest had become a charming miniature ball room, filled with pixies, gnomes, fairies and elven folk of every cast and kind. Seated on a huge throne was the most beautiful fairy queen he'd ever seen. Further back among the trees was a beautiful coach. Six splendid white mice waited in glittering harness. The whole fantastic assemblage was lit by dozens of fire-fly lanterns in the bushes all about the ballroom. Somewhere, a fairy band was playing a lively waltz on bells pipes and chimes. Many couples were dancing in a gay whirl of legs, wings, wands and antennae before the queen. All of a sudden, the music became a little strained. The enchanting melody took on a discordant, wheezing quality. The magical scene of the fairy ball flickered and faded. The throne became a rock, from which a beautiful Painted Lady butterfly took flight. The splendid coach turned into a battered biscuit tin with streaks of rust at the corners. All the magical fairy folk making merry on the dance floor became insects scurrying for cover. In the next garden, a tall blue box faded out of sight, dragging all the magical wonder of the fairy world in its wake. In the garden of a house across the street, some soldiers were bundling a black suited man into a troop transport under the direction of an officer. For Tommy it was the end of certainty, and the beginning of a doubt which would see him write a dozen best selling novels with a magical theme in a doomed attempt to explain the matter to himself. Dissatisfaction would Harry him even unto his death bed. Even as his haunted eyes were closing on a world that had somehow writhed out of his comprehension on that fateful day, the word "why" was upon his lips. Lucy, on the other hand, had just shrugged when he had turned to her on that fateful afternoon, eyes wide, mouth agape, his mind reaching in vain for both words and the explanation he was destined never to find. For Lucy, it was just "magic" - and there was an end of the matter. She never gave it serious thought after that day; and as a consequence she lived a long and contented life, often telling the story to her children and to her grand children of the day when the fairies had held a ball in The Forest. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The end