glowed for the First Floor and then for the Second Floor, the Third Floor, the Fourth Floor, and then the Fifth Floor . . . Montague Du Cann held his breath, and then . . . to his unutterable relief, the light glowed next to the sign that read: ‘Sixth Floor (Executive Suites and Offices Only)’
The lift doors opened, and Montague Du Cann stepped out of the lift, and looked around him. But he wasn’t where he wanted to go at all! He had just stepped out into the courtroom in Albuquerque.
‘There you are at last!’ cried the judge, banging his gavel. ‘We’ve been waiting for you long enough, Juan Gonzales!’
And all the eyes in the court room turned on him . . .
***
Back in Swindon, the evil elevator seemed to have returned to normal. People pressed the button to go to the Third Floor (Ladies Clothing, Shoes, Fashion Accessories and Books) and it took them to the Third Floor. People pressed the button for the Fifth Floor (Television, Hi-fi, Computers, Electrical Goods and Accounts) and they got where they wanted to go . . . But actually . . . the evil elevator hadn’t changed at all. In fact it went on secretly taking people to places they didn’t want to go. For every time the lift took the inhabitants of Swindon back down to the ground floor, they stepped out of the department store and into the streets of Swindon, and so found themselves somewhere they didn’t want to be.
Motorbike Thieves
There were once two motorbikes that had fallen into bad ways. One was an ancient Matchless G3L ex-army bike, and the other was a Triumph Hurricane with three exhaust pipes splayed out in a fan at the rear. They were cheery companions, always making coarse jokes and poking fun at the world, but they were, in truth, both as bad as each other, and that was very, very, very bad indeed.
It was many years since either of them had had owners, and they had grown used to the freedom of the road and to living without moral restraints of any kind whatsoever. For many years they had got by with stealing a little petrol here and there, when they needed it, and robbing the occasional charity shop.
But one morning the Triumph Hurricane found the old Matchless G3L army bike leaning against the wall of the alley in which they had spent the night, looking very sorry for itself.
‘What’s up, Sarge?’ asked the Triumph Hurricane. ‘I thought we was going to run over a few orphans today.’
‘Ha ha,’ wheezed the old Matchless. ‘Very funny . . . But look here, lad, I don’t think I’ve got enough left in me for that sort o’ caper.’
‘What are you talking about, Sarge?’ exclaimed the Triumph. ‘You got miles left in yer tank! Let’s go and hang out by the petrol station . . . you never knows yer luck! Maybe get a chance to fill up on the old spirit!’
‘Nah! Nah! I’m done for, I tell you,’ wheezed the ancient bike. ‘You’re just a young whippersnapper – but I was built in 1942 and my brakes are worn through, my gears are starting to go and – to tell the truth, me old sport, I think me cylinder’s gone and cracked.’
There was a silence, after the Matchless had said this: a cracked cylinder head is not the sort of thing any motorbike can survive without serious mechanical attention.
The Triumph Hurricane looked at his partner in crime for a few moments. ‘You’re going to need a mechanic, Sarge,’ he said.
‘Don’t make me laugh, lad!’ wheezed the Matchless. ‘Mechanics don’t work for nothing do they? They costs money – where are the likes of you and me gonna find enough dosh to pay for a mechanic?’
The Triumph didn’t say anything for a few moments, and when he did speak, it was in a serious undertone. ‘You knows how, like, we’ve always planned to do “The Big One” . . . Well, maybe now’s the time.’
‘Gor blimey!’ The old Matchless army bike collapsed in an explosion of laughter and coughing. ‘You are a caution, you are! “The Big One”!
David Sherman & Dan Cragg
Frances and Richard Lockridge