The Eye of Zoltar

We were all creeping slowly towards our poles when there was a faint crack and a rustle in a nearby hedge. With images of Snork Badger, Hotax and flesh-eating slugs in our minds, everyone ran for it. There was then a scream from the Princess, and I looked back to see her rolling on the ground.

‘My face!’ she yelled. ‘Get it off me!’

I jumped down and ran towards her. She was clutching her face and there seemed to be a trail of glistening slime up her arm, but if it was a flesh-eating slug, it was a tiddler.

‘Hold still, for admiral’s sake,’ said Wilson, who had reached her first, ‘and we’ll get it off—’

‘Wait!’ I yelled, and they both stopped struggling. I pulled the Princess’s hands away and then plucked … the homing snail from her face.

‘There’s no panic,’ I said, ‘I think this was meant for me. But you know, I think it’s really time to turn in before something genuinely nasty finds us.’

There were mutterings of agreement at this and those already halfway up their pod poles continued on, leaving Wilson, the Princess and me on the ground.

‘If you’re okay,’ said Wilson, ‘I’ll be off to bed.’

‘Thank you,’ said the Princess, and clasped his hand for a moment.

‘It was only a snail,’ replied Wilson, ‘barely dangerous at all.’

‘But you didn’t know that when you came to my aid,’ replied the Princess.

He looked at us both without saying anything, and I detected a sad, resigned look in his eyes.

‘I am bound to help wherever possible,’ he said sadly. ‘I was found wanting once. It won’t happen again.’

‘Is that why you’re out here?’ I asked, realising that Wilson probably wasn’t here for the birdwatching after all.

‘Back home, my name is forever linked with cowards and ditherers. I am here looking for a second chance – a time of extreme jeopardy where my intervention can make a difference.’

That can’t be too difficult out here, surely?’ I asked.

‘You’d be surprised,’ said Wilson, ‘simply saving a life is not enough. My act of contrition has to have far-reaching consequences, so that years from now, someone will say: “Without Wilson, all would have been lost”.’

He sighed, then bid us goodnight.

We wished him the same and he scooted nimbly up his pod pole.

‘I feel a fool to have been frightened,’ said the Princess sadly, wiping the snail-slime off her face with a handkerchief, ‘most unregal. A princess should be resolute in the face of danger, and unflinching. I’d be a rotten queen.’

‘Queenliness is a skill that must be learned,’ I told her, ‘and this is the place to do it.’

‘I hope so,’ she said with a sigh, then added, after a pause: ‘I was so obnoxious to you back at the palace. You must think I’m a complete arse.’

‘Don’t even think about it,’ I replied. ‘You and I are both victims of a random chance of birth: you a princess, me an orphan. But we’re both working against it to improve ourselves.’

‘I suppose technically speaking I’m an orphan too,’ said the Princess, ‘or at least, I will be until I get my body back.’

‘It’s the mind that defines the person,’ I said, ‘not the body.’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘looks like I am a princess after all. What does the note say?’

I had been unfolding the message stuck to the shell of the homing snail, and let the Princess read it over my shoulder by the light of the nearest fireberry.

Received your msg, contents noted. Use EVERY EFFORT to secure return of Perkins, then find Rubber Colin. Will be waiting at the conch seven tomorrow if possible, much happening and not any of it good, take no risks with yourself or the handmaiden and carry on search for EofZ with all determination. Raining here in Hereford, Tiger says hi – Moobin.

I read the note twice, trying to figure out what he meant, if anything. There seemed to be something going on that didn’t sound brilliant, and a sense of urgency over our task.

‘He underlined “Every Effort” and capitalised it,’ said the Princess. ‘Do you think that’s an “all other considerations secondary” kind of deal?’

‘I think so,’ I replied, ‘and if I know Addie, that’s the approach she’ll take to get Perkins back. What’s worse, I think I asked her to do it, which makes me responsible.’

‘How does that feel?’

‘Not good. Good night, ma’am.’

‘Laura,’ said the Princess, ‘just call me Laura.’

We climbed our pod poles, but I got quite a shock when I clambered into mine, for I wasn’t alone. Curtis was there, and he smiled in that ‘I’m so cute’ manner that I found so utterly odious. Worse, he was lying on my bed, all sort of stretched out and pretend-relaxed.

‘You’d better have a good reason for being up my pod pole,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ he said with a chuckle, ‘is it yours?’

‘You know it is. Out.’

The smile dropped from his face.