The Eye of Zoltar

Yawns are, oddly enough, quite infectious. Once one person in a room yawns, then others are likely to follow. And since we were only pretending to yawn and not actually yawning, I figured the spell would not affect us. The question was: would the Tralfamosaur join in the yawn we had started?

The answer was ‘not really’, and as we opened our mouths and pretended to yawn in a manner that would win no amateur dramatic prizes anywhere but would win gold in the ‘Desperate Measures Challenge Cup’, the Tralfamosaur peered at us hungrily and rose on his toes ready to lunge. It was a long shot, obviously, and we were beginning to think of instigating Plan B, which was pretty much along the lines of ‘run like stink and hope for the best’. It was always prudent – and I give you this information for free as it might come in useful one day – when being attacked by a hunger-crazed carnivore the size of a bus to remind yourself that it has immeasurably higher mass, and that it cannot speed up, slow down or change direction as quickly as something considerably smaller – such as us. It was said that lively jumping, dodging and jinking could postpone the inevitable for at least a minute before brute force and speed across rough terrain finally ended the sorry spectacle. Even for the unskilled, the first bite could usually be avoided if you kept your eye on the beast.

So I fixed my eyes on the Tralfamosaur’s, and as I watched, the jaws opened as a precursor to a lunge. I paused, wavered, then shifted my weight as I waited for it to make the first move.

But the move never came. The mouth opening had actually been a vast yawn, complete with the foul stench of rotting carcasses, and the Tralfamosaur had changed instantaneously into a dark granite statue that shimmered subtly as it was caught by the last dying rays of the sun.

‘Ook,’ said Ralph in a relieved tone.

We all looked at one another and burst out laughing – out of relief, I think, and not because it was funny, which it wasn’t. We moved past the now-silent beast without talking and made camp in an abandoned armoured scout car. We found some fireberries and ignited them by twisting the stalks to the left sharply, and settled down for the night. It wasn’t easy. There were snufflings, scratches, clicks and whistles as the nightlife of the Empty Quarter went about its nocturnal business. Thankfully, some distance away.

‘Anything to eat?’ I asked as hunger was beginning to gnaw.

‘Ralph had a hunting look in his eyes as he left the camp,’ said Gabby, ‘but if he comes back empty handed or fails to come back at all, I have a Snickers somewhere.’

Thankfully, Ralph did return, and with a skinned swamp-rat. By using some scrap steel as a frying pan we soon had it cooked, and the rat was about as welcome as any food could be. Wilson and I settled down for the night, huddled in the wreckage of the armoured car with a large blanket of dried grass and heather pulled over us. Gabby sat separate from the pair of us, filling in a report in a leather-bound ledger.

‘Paperwork,’ he explained when I asked. ‘The top floor wants to know everything we get up to down here.’

‘I know the feeling,’ I said, as the magic industry was a stickler for paperwork. As I stared up at the stars, which were bright and clear in the night sky, there was a screeching noise and a homing snail arrived hot and sweaty on my chest. It was muddy and bruised, one of its antennae was missing, and several scratches on its shell spoke of a narrow escape from a predator. It was past seven and since my communication with the conch hadn’t happened – the conch was still in the half-track – Moobin and the others had sent a snail instead. I plucked off the message and read it by the light of the fireberry. The previous evening’s message had been written in a neat hand, but this one seemed more hurried.

Jennifer,

Couldn’t raise you on the conch so hoping all well. Eye of Zoltar more important than ever, and keep a close eye on the Princess. Tell Perkins from me that all other considerations are now secondary, and Kevin says that if you ever find yourself on the shoulders of giants and need to take a leap of faith, go for it.

Moobin