Destruction of the Metraboomatron

Destruction of the Metraboomatron

The dragon was black with tall spikes protruding out from the top of
his head. He had a long, hairy chin and his face, if that is what you
can call it, was rough with black, scaly boils covering it. He rested
on the on the top of the cliff, breathing heavily and loudly, making
his wide, fat body heave in and out as if someone was pumping him up
and down with an industrial sized foot pump.
Joseph cowered behind a nearby rock and he too was breathing deeply,
but quickly and through fear and weariness. He was shaking all over and
his lips were pressed tightly together to stop himself from screaming
out as he could feel the noise slowly building up in his throat. The
pressure was immense.
The dragon made himself comfortable. He sat down next to Joseph's
rock, circling his long wide tail around his back and folding in the
two red wings which grew from his bony shoulders, back into place. He
scratched his face with a scaly finger and sighed heavily.
"Do you know why I'm here Joseph?" the dragon said in a deep, thunder
like voice. Joseph closed his mouth even tighter while his shaking
increased. He remained silent, not quite believing that the creature
knew he was there.
"Even if you don't know, it makes no difference. I have to take you to
Patula and that's that." Joseph stayed where he was. He didn't want to
go anywhere, even if it was important. He wanted to run back down the
cliff, through the forest and back home where he could bury himself
under his duvet and start the day all over again.
The dragon turned around on his bottom so that he was facing Joseph's
rock. He could clearly see the boy, squatting and shaking behind it but
still he did not move. He shut his eyes like toddlers do when they are
trying to hide, and think that they can't be seen because they can't
see you. The dragon sighed once more and tapped Joseph on the head with
a claw.
"You don't have to be afraid boy. I like to eat bigger things than
you." Joseph turned his head up slowly and saw the boily, black face of
the dragon leaning over him, so closely that his chin hair was nearly
touching him. The dragon smiled, but it had the reverse effect on the
boy. The sight of the creature's long, yellow, sharp teeth made him
faint and he fell like a doll on the rocky ground. The dragon chuckled
and shook his giant head. Humans were so strange.
*
The air up near the clouds was cold and cutting and it swept through
Joseph's blonde hair as if a fan were pointed towards him. He lay limp
across the dragon's back, still unconscious but not in danger. The
rough bumps of the dragon's scales stopped him from sliding off but
even if he did, the creature could swoop down and catch him. They flew
high above the cliff, which they took off from and they crossed the big
river and the fields of every shade of corn, so high that they looked
like rivers of gold. The dragon flapped his wings, up and down, up and
down, cutting through the air like a whip. He pushed his neck out,
reaching forward, urging them faster. He had to take the boy to Patula,
and quickly. Ever since the boy had pushed back the purple curtain in
the village hall, his fate had changed and only the priestess could
help him.
Joseph knew none of this and in his sleeping state he dreamt of his
mother and the high, green fields behind his house that were bright all
year round and soft on bare feet.

Earlier that day Joseph left his home and wandered towards the centre
of the village. It was a warm day and the sun highlighted the golden
branches which were weaved into the dragons' nests. They lined the rock
face of the cliffs near Joseph's house. He looked at them as he walked
passed. They were placed in the holes of the rock that the moles had
made for them. Before summer every year, the dragons would scale the
open fields and swoop down to collect the creatures in their claws.
They then put them down on the rock ledge and set them to work. Knowing
the stages of the food hierarchy, the moles rarely complained. They dug
their sharp claws into the rock and burrowed away, letting the sparks
from the cliff shoot up into their face. Their blindness made it
easier. As a reward to the moles, the dragons agreed to leave them in
peace for the rest of the year. It was a good deal to both parties
involved.
The nests had been completed by the time Joseph walked down the lane
beside them. From the interwoven branches, Joseph did not move his
eyes. He looked out for any movement that might come from them as the
dragons terrified him, even the babies. His mother usually took him to
the village if he wanted to go. He would shelter under her delicate,
loving arm and keep one eye on the rock at all times, shaking but safe.
This time however he was on his own and even though he knew the dragons
would be down at the lake, he still shuddered to think about their
black, scaly faces and yellow teeth.
He made it though. No flying creature attacked him on his way to the
village. There was no blood, no fires and certainly no teeth, just the
warmth of the sun and the fear in his chest. He passed the pub on his
right, which looked full to bursting. Laughter and shouting rang out
from its open door and there were people sitting on the benches outside
with pints of beer precariously balanced near the edges of the wooden
tables. Joseph recognised Mr and Mrs Pittle sitting on the first bench.
They sat opposite one another with a glass in their right hand and
large rosy cheeks, which puffed outwards, making it look as though they
had large apples in their mouths. They were singing a song, The Jaunty
Dance, which had a catchy tune. They were loud, the couple were not shy
about raising their voices. Every now and then Mrs Pittle would stand
up suddenly, teetering on drunken feet, and hold her glass up in the
air to emphasise the chorus.
Neither of them recognised Joseph but he didn't expect them to.
Although they were his closest neighbours, they lived in the high
hills, a few miles away from the village centre, so they rarely paid a
visit. They did however drop round baskets of apples for him and his
mother, from time to time. They owned an orchard but get sick of
apples. Most of their time was spent in The Silver Horse. They disliked
work but they liked their drink. It wouldn't have surprised Joseph if
they were the ones who had persuaded the villagers to leave their work
and pick up a glass instead. They liked company, especially drunken
company.
Joseph kept his distance from the building, walking on the far side of
the path, as he did not want to be pulled into the madness. He heard
someone pick up a violin inside and that always meant dancing. He
didn't feel like dancing and certainly not on his own, which is what
would have happened. His school friend, George, would be in there but
he never spoke to Joseph out of school. Jo was a friend of convenience,
nothing more. He was someone to copy homework from someone, to talk to
the girls on behalf of the boys, but he wasn't a friend, he wasn't
fun.
As he continued down the path, the noise from The Silver Horse
gradually became quieter. He breathed a sigh of relieve, glad to be on
his own with his own thoughts. These however were interrupted by his
independent eyeballs which instinctively flickered from the ground in
front of him, to the sky. He hadn't seen any dragons yet that day, but
that didn't mean he should get too comfortable.
A few yards down from the pub was where the houses started. There were
rows on either side of the path, each with its own white fence
surrounding the small garden in front. The gardens of the houses
varied, as did the houses themselves. Some contained vegetables, some
flowers, some had the best of both worlds and leeks and potatoes shared
beds with daffodils and chrysanthemums. Most of the houses were two
storey ones with thatched roofs but there was one house which was a
bungalow. In the windows in this house the curtains were always
drawn.
It stood at the end of the left row of houses. Its garden was
overgrown and very, very green, but not with flowers, with weeds. The
path down the centre of it was barely visible but as Joseph walked
passed, he looked at it and saw that it was once a pleasant pink gravel
path, with stones that looked like they had been quarried from the
nearby Candy Pit. His own path at home was blue. It was his mother's
way of letting everyone know that he was born a boy. Ivy crept up the
walls of the bungalow reaching out like fingers towards the dusty,
broken windows at the front of the house.
Joseph pulled a face as he passed it, wrinkling up his nose so that
his freckles turned into lines instead of spots. He disliked this house
and the man who lived in it. Bernard Stickleback was his name. He had
lived in the village longer than anyone remembered. He rarely came out
of his front door, but when he did, he oozed hatred and meanness to
everyone he met. When Joseph was young he crept through Bernard's gate
and up the path, which had been visible then. George had dared him and
the other boys, Peter, Neville and Jeffrey, grouped round George,
egging Joseph on, wanting him to peer in through the hole in the right
window and tell them what he saw. Bernard had been seen in the village
earlier, so Joseph thought he would be safe. It didn't work out that
way.
As Joseph approached the window and was about to reach in and draw the
curtain, the jeers and shouts from the boys stopped. Joseph turned
round and was faced by Mr Stickleback.
He towered over the boy wearing a dark, tattered cloak, which covered
his body and was pulled up over his head, despite the warmth of the
weather. He smelt of smoke and cleaning fluid. The wrinkles on his face
looked like the side of the cliff face near Joseph's home. They
streaked down his face and neck of which the top was visible, and
feathered around his thin, purple lips. Joseph couldn't see his eyes
but he was glad of that. He shuddered, imagining that the man had no
eyes, but only black sockets, rimmed with bone and tattered skin. He
imagined too that the man had no hair, but was completely bald apart
from the veins which were visible through his thin shin, and which
bulged under it so that you could squash it under a finger. All this he
imagined as he stood in front of the man waiting for him to speak. He
didn't for a while but continued his invisible stare through the cloak
and into Joseph's skin and then he said,
"Get, out, of my, garden." Joseph tried not to breathe in the man's
sour breath, which stank like vinegar, but he did notice his sharp
yellow teeth.
He ran so fast that he thought his legs would drop off. He looked
around for the other boys, but they had already vanished. Mr Bernard
Stickleback was renowned for his fierceness.
That had been the first and last time Joseph had seen him. As he
walked passed at that moment the house looked much the same but was
just more unkempt. He wondered whether in fact Mr Stickleback still
lived there. It didn't look like it, but then who could tell?

The village hall stood not far from Mr Stickleback's home. The path
twisted and turned passed the village church, the rectory and the dark
wood, which Joseph used to play in when he was younger. He was always
on his own though. However to him it didn't seem like it because in his
head he always had company.
The village hall was next to the wood. It stood behind an enclosure of
thick black iron bars that acted as a fence. Inside the area was a
building, which was once white, but now a dull grey. Paint was flaking
from the sides of the walls and the windows were black, from neglect.
Like Mr Stickleback's garden, the grass here was overgrown and filled
with nettles and other weeds, hiding the path and warning off anyone
who thought just for a minute to enter the premises. No one tried to do
so.
It had once been used for weekly village meetings, a nursery for kids
under five, a place for committees to meet and argue, but now all of
that was forgotten. Those activities were now held in the church much
to the happiness of the vicar. Father Bumble was ecstatic about the
influx of people into the house of God, even if it was just because
there was nowhere else to go. He fluttered from pew to pew, ensuring
that everyone was comfortable and enjoying themselves, completely
missing the point of the exercises. No body liked meetings. They would
rather be down The Silver Horse or doing some gardening, than listening
to Norman Thistlethwaite, the village moaner, drone on about the state
of the pathways and the noise of the nearby dragons, but these things
had to be done.
The village hall was closed after some unknown person had bought the
building and surrounding lands. There was a fuss about the situation,
particularly by Mr Thistlethwaite who considered it a personal insult
that 'his' building should be taken away from him. After a while though
the mutterings and gossiping about the new owner had died down and
people began to forget the village hall was even there. The small white
fence, which originally surrounded the hall, was replaced with the
large black one there now. The garden was left to grow and grow and
nothing was done to the place. It was left to its own devices and no
one had seen anything of the new owner. Nothing was known about the
person. He wasn't ever seen in the place or heard of. It was
puzzling.
This had all happened before Joseph had even been born but he had
heard snippets of information about the place from adults who were
either vague about the details or not particularly bothered by them.
But Joseph was curious. He had often walked down beside the iron gates
and stared through them, concentrating on any movement that he saw,
willing himself into believing that something strange was going on in
those four walls. What it was he did not know.

On the morning before his flight to Patulla, Joseph continued his walk
passed Mr Stickleback's home, passed the wood and, as he had done so
many times before, he stood at the gates and looked at the hall. For a
few minutes he stayed completely still, staring through the blackened
windows, squinting his eyes to try and focus and see what was going on
in there, if any thing.
He was about to leave after about ten minutes when he heard something.
He heard a screeching noise ring out into the air and it had come from
the hall. He turned back quickly and stared at the building then looked
around him to see if there was anyone nearby that could verify what he
had heard but he was alone, and now scared. Joseph's curiosity however
got the best of his fear and he decided to investigate what the hell
was going on in the run down old building.
He tried to push the gates open but they were locked by a chain and a
rusty padlock. He walked up and down the fence, while the noise inside
the building continued, and he pulled the bars to try and find a weak
one. He did, so he pulled it, bending it out of shape so that there was
enough space to squeeze through. His head only just got through but it
worked and he wondered why he had never tried this before.
He felt as if he was being watched. He began to shake all over and his
breathing was shallow and laboured but he carried on through the
overgrown nettles and other weeds. He still couldn't see anything
inside the building. As he neared it he realised that the windows were
not black through years of neglect but because someone had painted them
black. He could see the paintbrush marks. He was now close enough to
touch the wall, which he did. The wall that he had never touched before
but had seen so often that he felt that he could traced its cracks and
bumps as if it were his own skin. He pushed himself against the wall
and waited for a few moments. The screeching noise had stopped and he
did not want to be caught trespassing if the person inside came out the
front door.
The feeling of eyes on his body began again and he looked up at the
sky to see a dragon circling around and around in the air, directly
above the hall. This scared Joseph more than any strange person that
might be inside at that moment so he took a deep breath and ran along
the wall to the back of the hall where he knew the back door was. To
his surprise it wasn't locked but standing slightly ajar so he pushed
it gently and slipped inside, away from the dragon and any danger that
he might meet.
It was dark inside. The painted windows prevented any light from
outside to penetrate, but once Joseph's eyes got accustomed to the
darkness, he noticed that the main room, which he could see through
another open door, was lit, ever so slightly by red, high candles. As
soon as he had controlled his breathing, he knelt down on the cold,
tiled floor and crawled towards the room, stopping before he entered to
view what was inside. The room was surprising empty. Thin-legged chairs
lined the walls as if waiting for a country-dance to begin and the
walls were bare. For some reason Joseph expected to see children's
paintings on the wall, like they had in the church, and a sandpit in
the corner of the room. There was none of that. Just the red glow from
the candles around the walls and the feeling of being blocked in.
Joseph found it hard to breathe.
He rested against the doorframe, feeling foolish for coming in to this
empty place. He should have had more important things to do with his
day than trespass in uninteresting buildings. He could hear his mother
in his head, twittering away gently but forcefully. He shook his head
at the thought and prepared himself to leave, but just as he was about
to stand, a loud, piercing noise rang out and made Joseph hold his head
in pain. The screeching noise had begun again and it sounded like
someone was dragging a piece of rusty metal over another. Joseph fell
back down to the floor and looked into the room once more when the
noise had stopped. He had not noticed the curtain at the bottom of the
room. It was dark there but he could just make out a purple drape
pulled across the entire width of the room. It was from here that the
noise was coming from, and again it sang out its horrible song once
more and Joseph was forced to take a look.
He crawled down the right hand side wall and pulled the curtain
slightly, making sure not to disturb it too much. Tall white candles
were placed on a shelf that lined the end wall and their light
highlighted the large machine, which was placed in the centre of the
curtained area. The machine was red and stood about seven feet tall
from the ground. The base of it was square and had sharp, spiky corners
and out of the top of it stood a large, torpedo shaped piston, which
was rising and falling silently. Joseph frowned in confusion. He didn't
understand what he was seeing and he didn't know what had been making
the noise until the piston stopped moving and a disc appeared out of
the middle of it and turned slowly, anticlockwise causing the noise to
pierce Joseph's skull once more so that he had to hold his head and
close his eyes to try and block it out. After about ten seconds, the
disc stopped moving and disappeared into the central column once more,
and the room was once again silent.
Joseph opened his eyes and his attention was drawn towards a door that
stood to the left of the machine. It was opening and Joseph panicked.
He pulled the curtain back and ran down the hall to the porch from
which he had entered, slamming the door behind him as he ran out into
the open air. He wasn't thinking about being quiet now, he just wanted
to leave this place and not think about what he had seen. It wasn't to
be. As soon as he had squeezed through the gate he noticed that the
dragon that had been circling in the sky before he had entered the
hall, was still there, and it began to chase him.
Joseph let out a wail and began to run, pumping his arms and legs so
fast that they felt independent from his body. He looked back every few
seconds and the dragon's black shadow remained fixed on his, but he
stayed at the same distance away from him, he did not come closer.
Although Joseph did not have time to think, it did cross his mind as
odd why the creature hadn't just swooped and caught him in his claws.
He could have done had he wanted to, but Joseph thought he must want
the chase. He wasn't going to give in easily. He sprinted all the way
passed Mr Stickleback's house, passed the rows of houses on either side
of the path and passed the pub, which was still packed full of skivers.
Few people noticed him flash passed. Mr Pittle saw him through blurred,
drunken eyes and he raised a hand, shouting out a slurred hello. When
he didn't get a reply his hand was lowered back down to his pint.
Joseph didn't slow down, the dragon didn't speed up. It was as if they
were both joined by an invisible iron bar that would not let either of
them change speed. His lungs seemed empty of air and he tried to
breathe some but it wouldn't go passed his lips. He was tired but he
carried on, determined to get away from his pursuer. After what seemed
like hours, he had managed to climb up to the cliffs behind his home.
On the pathway he looked behind him and could no longer see the dragon,
so he relaxed a little, and climbed over a large rock to hide.
*
On the dragon's back, Joseph stirred and woke. Lying on his front, his
first sight when waking was of fields and hedgerows, hundreds of metres
below him and little wisps of cloud flew past, so close that he could
nearly touch them with his fingertips. The fear returned to his stomach
when he realised what was happening and that he, Joseph, was now riding
on the back of a dragon through the air and possibly hundred of miles
away from home. He began to squirm but the dragon told him to stay
still. He wasn't going to catch him if he fell. Joseph listened to him.
He had no other choice and he did wonder why he wasn't in the dragon's
stomach rather than on his back.

Patula sat on a round red cushion placed in the corner of the room. She
was partly hidden by shadows as the round windows surrounding the top
of the walls were small and the day was coming to a close. The floor of
the room was made of dark wood and there was a blue rug stretching
across it with a silver star embroidered onto its surface. The ceiling
was low, not that it affected Joseph as he was only small but he was
pleased that the dragon hadn't tried to squeeze in. Joseph waited near
the door, nervously shifting from foot to foot, waiting for the
Priestess to speak. She didn't seem to know he was there at all and he
prepared himself to speak first, when Patula stood up and walked across
the room to him. She was tall. Her head just brushed the ceiling as she
walked although it was difficult to tell where her hair stopped and her
head began. Her hair was dark and wiry and it stuck out like a bramble
hedge. She was pale, almost white and her eyes were large and blue and
edged with a thin line of red underneath them. The rest of her was bony
and thin. Her lips were like cracks in the wall and wrinkles were
etched under her eyes and on either side of her nose, even though
Joseph was certain that she was not old. The glint in her eyes didn't
look old. It was the same glint that babies have that is new but
knowing. She was mesmerising.
Joseph remained transfixed looking at her worn, beautiful face and he
would have stayed on that spot forever had she not pushed him towards a
chair on the other side of the room. He sat down and she sat opposite
him, crossing her legs under her blue robe and locking her hands
together. Joseph noticed that her fingers were long, very long and her
nails were even longer. The butterflies returned to his stomach. He
would need a long rest after today.
"So, Joseph, I hear you went into the hall today" she said in a dry
raspy voice "Is this true?"
"Y..Y..Yes" was all he could say. She made him nervous.
"Why?"
"I didn't mean to, it's just that..that I heard a noise" She nodded
her head slowly as he said this.
"What sort of noise?"
"A loud one" he replied. She rolled her blue eyes and sighed.
"That's not what I mean" she said "What sort of noise?" He fidgeted in
his chair.
"I..I don't know how to describe it"
"Never mind. What did you see inside the hall?"
Joseph didn't know what to say. He didn't want to get into trouble but
he knew that he would have to say what he had seen, even if he didn't
understand it.
"Well?"
"There were, err, candles inside the hall. They were red and there was
a purple curtain and a machine"
"A machine?" Patula leaned forward when he said this. She unlocked her
fingers and pressed her palms together, as if in prayer.
"Yes"
"What did it look like?"
"Well, like a machine. It was square and it had a tall bit in the
middle." She leaned forward even further.
"Now Joseph, this is really important, was it moving?" She looked
deeply into his eyes and he felt as though she could see directly into
his brain.
"Yes."
The Priestess closed her eyes slowly and let her head fall between her
shoulders. She stayed like this for a while and Joseph began to wonder
exactly what he had said and why it mattered so much. He didn't
understand. He had thought at the beginning of this meeting that
perhaps Patula was the mysterious owner of the hall and that she was
going to punish him for trespassing, but now he knew it was more
complicated than that.
After a few minutes, Patula sat up and Joseph was certain that another
wrinkle had appeared on her porcelain skin, just to the left side of
her left eye.
She stood up and walked out of the door of the room, leaving Joseph on
his own, confused and tired. To the sound of muffled voices outside,
Joseph's eyes grew heavy and for the second time that day, in another
strange place, he fell asleep.

When Joseph woke, a fire had been lit and the light outside was gone,
although the dragon had not. He was still visible through the window.
Joseph stretched and rubbed his eyes then picked up a cup of greyish
tea that had been put on the table in front of him. He looked at it and
pulled a face but sipped a little because he was thirsty. It tasted
like mud. He coughed and put the cup back down on the table, sticking
out his tongue to try and stop the taste but Patula told him off.
"Don't waste it," she said forcefully, "You need your strength so
drink it."
She was sitting back on the red cushion on the other side of the room
and she had an open book on her lap. Joseph hesitantly picked the cup
back up and put it to his lips. He screwed his eyes shut and drank the
liquid down in one gulp. It nearly came back up straight away but he
managed to stop himself.
"Come over here boy" Patula said, not looking up from the pages in
front of her. Joseph did what he was told and sat down in front of the
Priestess but not too close, he still didn't know what to expect.
"You see this here boy?" she said pointing to a picture of a machine
like the one he had seen that day. She didn't wait for an answer. "This
machine is what we call a Metraboomatron and this is what is in that
village hall of yours."
Joseph looked into the Priestess' face, which seemed to have crumbled
slightly since before his nap, and she saw his confusion.
"I can see that you don't know what I'm talking about but I shall
explain. This machine could mean the end of you, and your friends and
family, and the entire area that you call home."
Joseph's eyes became wide.
"What?" he said
"It works very much like a pencil eraser does. When these parts begin
to move," she pointed towards the tall bit of the machine, "a static
charge builds up. When the disc opens out and turns, what it's doing it
saving that charge down in the square part of the machine. Once it
contains enough charge, with just a flick of the red button on the back
of it, everything that is human or man-made will disappear. It would be
as if you or your village never existed. Everything will be
gone."
"Everything?"
"Well, not everything. The trees will remain and all the natural
things like the grass and the dragons but there would be no houses, no
people, and no village. Now, the size of the area that is erased
depends completely upon how much charge has been saved. It might be a
few square feet, it might be the entire earth, but things will
definitely go."
Joseph was bewildered. Had no idea that the thing he could easily have
touched earlier that day was so dangerous.
"Why would anyone want to do that?" he asked.
"Blank canvas." she replied.
"What?"
"Have you ever thought to yourself when doing something like a
painting, how nice it would be if you could just start again, on the
same piece of paper and paint something else, something better?"
"Well yes but.."
"It's exactly the same thing. Whoever owns this machine wants to erase
out all of the bad things around here and start again. They want a
blank canvas."
"But why?"
"I don't know why. It's not my machine is it? All I know is what the
machine does, nothing more."
"But how can we stop it?"
"Ah." The Priestess stood from her cushion and closed the open book
with a thud, before carrying it over to a shelf on the wall and putting
it back in its place. "Someone needs to switch it off."
"Is that it? Well let's go, you can be there and back again in less
than an hour." Patula shook her head. "What?" he said.
"I'm not going anywhere"
"What? Why?"
"It's down to you to switch it off, not me. It's nothing to do with
me. All I can do is advise, not do."
"But why? Don't you care what happens? Don't you care that you might
die?"
"My dear boy" her tone was sweeter, "Of course I care but boy you
don't listen. I said the Metraboomatron would erase all human elements.
I am not human."
The confusion returned.
"I am not of this world and if you didn't even know that, then you're
in trouble."
The wood surrounding the hall was dark and frightening by the time
Joseph and the dragon returned that night. The moon was high in the sky
and mostly hidden by wispy clouds which blew across it every so often,
blocking out the light completely. The hall looked very much like it
had done earlier that day but Joseph noticed that a red glow could be
seen through a tiny chink in the window, where the black paint had
chipped.
While Joseph squeezed through the gap in the bars once more, the
dragon waited outside. It kept watch of the boy as he crept through the
long grass to the door in the side of the building and remained there
in case Joseph needed him. Since Joseph found out what he needed to do,
the presence of the dragon did not bother him too much, but he did
watch the creature intently when he was near him, just in case.
Once again the door was open. He snuck into the porch and waited for a
few minutes to see if he could hear anything going on inside. The
building was silent, not even the noise of the machine could be heard
which worried Joseph. As long as it was saving charge, he knew that it
wouldn't be activated, but now that it was silent, the red button could
be pressed at any time and that would be him, and everything else he
knew, gone. If he only knew who was behind it, it might help. He might
have been able to see why, to understand, but he couldn't think of
anyone who it might be, apart from maybe Mr Stickleback, and Patlla
didn't know either which worried him even more as if she, the
Priestess, didn't know then surely there was no hope. She was supposed
to be all wise, all knowing, but she wasn't this time and that was all
Joseph could think about. What if she had got it wrong? What if she
didn't know anything about the machine and what it did? What if she was
the one behind it all? She may have employed Joseph to turn the machine
on, not off. She did say that she wouldn't be affected. And neither
would the dragons, so maybe they were both in it together.
These thoughts swam through his head as he crouched in the porch and
doubt crept in like a fog across his vision. He didn't know what to do.
If he did stop now, and not fulfil his promise he might save his world
or destroy it. There was no way for him to know. He ran a hand through
his hair and closed his eyes for a moment to try and figure out what to
do but as he opened them again he heard a noise coming from inside the
main hall. It was footsteps, but they were not walking towards him,
they seemed to be pacing, around and around in circles. He leaned
towards the door frame and peered into the room, being careful not to
be seen by whoever was inside.
The red candles were still burning and they didn't look as though they
had burnt down at all even though they had been lit all day. He turned
his head towards the purple curtain and saw instantly where the
footsteps were. The curtain was still drawn but he could the shoes of
someone on the other side of it, pacing up and down from wall to wall.
The machine still made no noise. He decided that he couldn't just sit
there. He had to believe in Patula otherwise he didn't know what was
going to happen. The feet didn't look like women's. It certainly wasn't
her who was on the other side.
He stood up, stooping over and tiptoed towards the curtain. The
footsteps stopped and he thought he had been discovered, but he saw the
footsteps disappear into the adjoining room, so he set to work.
He quickly drew the curtain back and looked the machine over to try
and find the handle which he needed to pull. The machine was still, the
movement had stopped and it glowed blue. Joseph was confused but he
didn't have time to think. He knelt down and felt frantically
underneath the metal until he found the handle, which Patula had said
would be there. He pulled it but it would not move. He put his feet
against the metal and tried to push with them while pulling the handle,
but still it would not move. He was running out of time, the person in
the next room would come through any minute but he needed to stop the
machine before the button was pressed, but it was no good. He had run
out of time.
"What the hell are you doing!" Joseph froze and looked up slowly at
the doorway. Father Bumble was standing there, his brow frowning and
his fists clenched. Joseph stared at him.
"Father! W..Why are you here?"
"You are asking me that?" he walked up to the boy and grabbed the
collar of his shirt, pulling him to his feet. "How did you get
in?"
"T..The door was open"
"And what were you doing when I walked in?"
"N.n..nothing sir"
"Liar! You know exactly what you were doing. Who told you about the
Metraboomatron?"
"No one"
"It was that bloody Priestess wasn't it. I knew I should have slit her
throat a long time ago. Damn woman!" The vicar lifted Joseph a little
higher off the ground and threw him back to the floor. "Well there's
not much you can do about it boy, not now"
Joseph couldn't believe it. The village's own Father Bumble, plotting
to wipe them all out.
'But he was always so kind' Joseph thought while he watched the man
continue to pace up and down the floor with one hand behind his back
and one scratching his head. As soon as the path was clear, Joseph
lunged forward and grabbed the handle but it still wouldn't move.
Bumble laughed behind him.
"She didn't know about this then" he chuckled and held up a large
metal square which reflected the candle light straight into Joseph's
eyes. "Fool. She's too old fashioned you see. I bet you thought all you
had to do to save everyone was to pull that tiny little handle, and
everything would be okay. Not anymore boy. Safety measures must be
taken these days, to protect citizens like myself from thieves and
trespassers like you."
When he said this he leant down to Joseph so that their faces were
level and pulled his hair back.
"You never did come to church much did you Joseph?" he chuckled "Never
mind, it won't matter soon." He let go of Joseph and the boy, not
wanting to die without pleading, eventually found his voice.
"Why are you doing this? What have we ever done to you?"
"What have you done to me?" the vicar stood up straight and looked
like a giant to Joseph who remained on the floor. "I'll tell you what.
This village has been the bane of my life ever since I came here. You'd
think people would want to follow God in a place like this. Simple
place, simple values, but no. You'd all prefer to be down the pub, and
I'm sick of it! I'm going to change it all and start again, the place
will be a blank canvas."
"So it was you who bought the hall?"
"Of course it was me. Who else did you think it was? It was a way of
getting people into the church but that didn't even work. People just
stopped going to the meetings."
"But won't you be erased too if you do it?" Joseph really was pleading
hard.
"Ahh. That was another thing that Patula didn't know?" he laughed
again "Oh dear. It doesn't work that way now. Whoever presses that
button stays as they are, fully alive and breathing. Now boy I want you
to shut up because I have some work to do."
He smiled at Joseph and walked around to the back of the machine. He
was going to press the button, but Joseph lunged at him and knocked him
to the floor with a crash. They struggled and Joseph tried to rip the
square from his hand but the vicar would not let go.
"Give it to me!" Joseph shouted while he tried to twist the man's arm
behind his back. Bumble screamed out but Joseph did not let go until
the square came out in his hand, then he rushed over to the machine to
try and get the handle pulled, and the madman stopped. But the vicar
wasn't going to give up that easily. He hobbled over to the boy and
just as he was about to hit him around the face, someone got his.
A large plank of wood came flying through the air and hit Father
Bumble clean on the side of his head and he fell to the floor, nearly
crushing Joseph in the process.
Joseph's heart was beating so fast that the thought of dragons at that
moment was very attractive to him. He looked around the room bewildered
at what had happened and that's when he saw Mr Stickleback. He was
standing in the doorway, just next to the machine, cloaked in a dark
grey robe. He looked at Joseph and gave him a nod. He didn't say
anything but waited for the boy to nod back and then turned and
left.
Joseph remained on the floor, staring at the now empty doorway and
then it occurred to him that he'd better stop the machine and stop it
quick, before the father woke up.
He managed to find a small square hole on the underside of the
Metraboomatron so he pushed the metal square into it and then pulled
the handle. This time, it moved and it moved quickly. Joseph shot back
across the floor, handle in his hand and he banged his head on the
floor.
What happened next, he decided later, was either real or the vision of
a strange, concussed dream. His vision fogged and tiny lights appeared
around the Metraboomatron and it began to dissolve from the top of it,
all the way to the bottom. It crumbled like a sandcastle and when the
dust from it fell onto the floor, small holes appeared in it, as if the
metal had been made of acid.
When Joseph had shaken his head and stood up, the machine was gone and
the only evidence of its presence was a hole in the floor and the
handle in his hand. Father Bumble lay at his feet, unconscious but
breathing and an overwhelming sense of relief swept through Joseph's
body, not at the thought of the vicar in pain but the knowledge that he
had stopped him. Well, himself and Mr Stickleback. He had something to
be proud about. He could smile inside and he did. From that day he
always did.

Patula took care of Father Bumble. The dragon flew him to her and he
was never seen again. The villager's were never explicitly told about
the happenings of that evening and the disappearance of their vicar.
Most of them were just happy that they didn't have to go to church, at
least for a while until the next one was sent for.
There were some changes though. The village hall was put back into
use. The hole in the floor was filled in and boarded over, the candles
removed and the tables and chairs from the church were put back into
the hall and meetings and playgroup was resumed. Joseph's fear of
dragons had diminished, though it hadn't entirely disappeared. He still
kept an eye on them when walking from his house, but he no longer
flinched when he heard a noise in the sky.
Although people would never have suspected Joseph's involvement in
such adventures, they began to treat him differently nonetheless.
Peter, George, Jeffrey and Neville stopped making him the buck of their
jokes. In fact they began to forget about him, which may seem like a
bad thing but Joseph wouldn't have wanted anything more. At last he
blended in and even earned some respect when he walked straight into
Bernard Stickleback's garden and waved at him through his window. The
man never came out after him of course but if he passed him, now and
then in the village, Bernard would glance at him and give him a wink
and sometimes even a smile. Joseph always kept their secret though. It
was theirs and theirs alone.

Megan Bradbury