|
|
 |
| |
|
Print Blog |
| 9. Perfect launch pad for a goose who can't take-off. |
 |
Edna was giving Ben Madigan a guided tour of the castle.
She dusted off the collection of garden tools that I - Lord Sidney Dunlambert - had assembled over the years. Tools she had no idea how to use, but which Ben had only ever dreamed of.
Ben studied the picture of me above the fireplace in the trophy room, the year I was mayor of Rockfergus. My chain of office around my neck and glasses on top of my white hair as I judged the entries in the town's annual vegetable competition.
The professor turned to see why the dog with no name was barking. She laughed as she realised Fergus was leading him on a merry dance. Weaving left and right as the dog bounded after him around the castle grounds. Flapping his wings every now and then to get a bit of height.
Then a strange thing happened...
As they both raced towards the trophy room, it was clear Fergus couldn't stop. He flapped furiously to get enough height to get over the building. The dog slid to a sudden stop, wagging his tail happily, his good ear raised.
Ben and Edna looked at each other. Then they looked to my portrait, and back at the dog... the dog with greyish-white hair; the dog with a dark, spectacle-shaped patch on top of his head; the dog with a dark chain-shaped mark on his chest.
'Hmmm,' sighed Ben.
'Hmmm indeed!' added the professor. 'My Uncle Sidney was deaf in one ear too.'
And from that moment on, the dog with no name, would always be known as 'UNCLE SID'.
But equally strange, was that as Ben and the professor were agreeing on the dog's new name, Fergus the goose was sliding down the wall. Seeing stars. He hadn't quite made it over the top.
'What on earth...?' Ben began.
'Oh dear,' the Professor sighed, 'I did wonder about that.'
'About what?' asked Ben.
'About whether his wings would have enough strength for lift-off.'
'Why's that then?'
'Well you see when body parts get bashed and broken, even if they can be fixed, they're not always as good as before. All of which leaves me with a bit of a launching dilemma. Fergus the Goose CAN ACTUALLY FLY, but how can he be a superhero if he CAN'T GET OFF THE GROUND in the first place?'
*
Ben tidied up the dead and dying fruit and vegetables, while Edna tried every goose-launching method she could think of;
The CATAPULT.
The TREE HURL.
The GLIDER.
The CANNON.
None of them was quite right.
'How about a special goose-sized BOOSTER PACK?' suggested the professor.
Fergus loved that idea. But how to fuel it was the problem.
Aeroplane fuel would be expensive and very smelly. And definitely bad for the environment.
'Hold that thought!' shouted an excited Ben Madigan from deep inside one of the castle's many store rooms.
'What is it?' Edna asked.
'Fuel,' Ben replied. 'High-pressure fuel, that's what you need, isn't it? The sort that will go "whoosh" and send Fergus skyward? But won't harm the planet, or leave a nasty smell?'
'Precisely!' the professor replied.
Ben hurled a mixture in her direction: three apples, two pears and a handful of strawberries - all rotten.
The others ducked as the mixture hit the castle's thick stone wall, exploding in a mass of colour. Filling the air with a gorgeous, fruity smell.
'There you go,' said Ben. 'There's your fuel!'
He led the professor into a storeroom, and to the mountain of rotten fruit and vegetables he'd spent all day clearing up.
'You see the thing is, Prof, if you want your garden to grow, you can't go leaving all this rotten stuff lying around in it. You have to keep it tidy. But in the meantime, there's no shortage of fuel to go "whooosh" and propel Fergus upwards.'
Ben filled a large oil drum full of rotten fruit and carried it out into the garden. What they needed now, was something to make it go 'boooom' in the first place.
Outside, Uncle Sid was scraping away at the grass with his front paws. And when he got through the grass, he scraped away at the soil beneath. Finally he lay down and began chewing on a piece of rock, his tail wagging away happily.
'Give me that, you silly dog,' Ben muttered. 'You'll break your teeth on it.'And off he went towards the kitchen.
Uncle Sid came bounding after him. Barking.
'In you go then,' said Ben as he held the door open for his one-eared friend. And as he stepped inside himself, he flicked the stone over his shoulder and closed the door.
Probably just as well, too. For as the stone landed with a splash in the
steel drum, there was an almighty 'BOOOOOMMMM!!!!'
A multi-coloured flash lit up the entire castle and drops of fruit juice rained down from the sky.
All four of them rushed outside as the last drops fell.
The air was heavy with a sweet smell like a fruit-and-veg stall at the market. And as everything slowly settled back to normal, a stone fell from somewhere above, landing at the professor's foot. And suddenly it all made perfect sense.
Uncle Sid had found a piece of stone from the huge step that had been buried inside Stepminder Castle hundreds of years earlier. The step which was supposed to hold magical powers.
It had once been a stepping stone on the Giants Causeway, many miles away to the north of Rockfergus. The spot where Fergus had crash landed on his daring escape from the police aeroplane.
An ancient king had ordered its removal from there, simply because it was a different colour and much bigger than the rest. Of course he hadn't known of its magic then. Not at first anyway.
And when he did discover its powers, he had the castle built around it to protect it from the many armies who would try to invade this land in years to come; armies who would have taken the magic away to their own lands if they could find a way.
It had long since become overgrown, buried deep within the castle grounds. Until now, that was.
And when Ben Madigan finally uncovered the WHOLE step, everyone agreed, it was the perfect launch pad for a little green superhero called 'Fergus'.
Watch out for the next BLOG....coming soon.
|
| Back to Blog |
|
|
|
|
