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| 2. Goose on the Golf Course |
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Diabetic Ben Madigan had just finished his mid-morning tea and toast at the roadside cafe. Yesterday he'd been fired as hospital gardener...today he was a secret agent on a mission to locate the missing Moss Abbey goose.
He made a small scratch on his finger and squeezed the tiniest drop of blood onto his pocket-sized gadget. The display told him his sugar level was 6.2. Pretty much normal for him at this time of the day.
He strolled out to the car park where his three-wheeled motorcycle gleamed in the sunshine...not a bike, but a trike; he hated people calling it a bike.
He threw one leg over it and pressed the button on the tracking device. The goose symbol flashed, 19.24 kilometres west.
'Mmmnnn!' Ben muttered. 'Interesting...very interesting!'
He tightened his brown leather flying helmet and pulled the goggles over his eyes. He figured it would probably take around half an hour to get to where he needed to be... a golf course, according to the tracking device.
Slowly he drove out onto the main road with a familiar loud rumble from the engine. So loud in fact, that he didn't hear the barking from inside the cab of the lorry that was just pulling into the car park as Ben was pulling out.
The driver of the lorry left one of his windows slightly open as he headed into the cafe for an early lunch. He looked like the sort of person who enjoyed rather a lot of lunches in a day...most of them involving greasy, fried food.
Still, he'd been good enough to stop earlier and give the poor cold and hungry dog a lift when he spotted him just a mile down the road from Sir Alan Sweetstuff's mansion. And good enough to share his breakfast with him too, even if chocolate and crisps weren't normally part of the dogs diet.
*
Back at Stepminder Castle, the logs struggled to catch light in the drawing room fireplace.
My old friend Maud Pinkerton had come back to the castle well after the party had ended last night. She'd fully recovered from her peanut emergency, but needed someone sensible to keep an eye on her overnight; someone like my niece Edna, the most gifted doctor in all of Ireland.
And after being fired by Sir Alan Sweetstuff, here was the great news:
PROFESSOR EDNA DUNLAMBERT WAS BACK AT STEPMINDER CASTLE TO STAY!
I couldn't help but jump for joy, which created a bit of a ghostly breeze of course. Enough of a breeze, in fact, to send the fire logs into a roaring blaze, and the two women into fits of laughter.
Maud Pinkerton and Edna had lots to catch up on; about old times and plans for the future. Maud would be off on a long nature trek holiday tomorrow, but she'd be back in time for Christmas.
She made the professor promise to teach her lots of first aid tips when she came back. In return Edna could call anytime at Pinkerton Farm to collect the old boat Maud had fixed up after I died; the old boat I used to take Enda out to sea fishing on when she was little.
'I've just the thing for you Maud,' said the professor, 'my uncle's favourite old binocculars.'
They were ever so old, and more than a little tatty, but Maud Pinkerton was deighted with them anyway. And she'd take super-duper care of them, she promised.
*
Back in Scotland, the lorry driver didn't look at all well as he came out of the roadside cafe.
As he climbed up into the cab, he took a sharp breath and held his chest. The dog's one good ear shot up.
It was 11.02 am when the driver pulled a small red bottle from his pocket and squirted two puffs of his special heart spray under his tongue. He waited for a few minutes but didn't look to be getting any better.
At 11.07am he squirted two more puffs of the red spray under his tongue and waited again. Still no better!
The dog began barking at 11.12 am while the driver was still holding his chest, struggling to breathe, and looking very pale.
He barked and yelped for all he was worth through the gap in the open window.
Finally, at 11.15 am, Rachel the waitress from inside the cafe realised he needed help.
A Moss Abbey ambulance crew arrived at 11.19 am.
Luckily Rachel McGinty hadn't moved the lorry driver; she'd just kept him warm, calm and comfortable. But the paramedics knew it was likely he was having a heart attack since the spray hadn't worked, and the pain had lasted for more than fifteen minutes.
Now it was a case of some oxygen, painkillers and a trip to hospital. But no room for a one-eared dog in an ambulance.
He wasn't the lorry driver's dog anyway.
*
Ben Madigan spent the day watching the annual golf competition between the Scottish Fire Service, the Scottish Plumbers and the Scottish Binmen. Now it was over, he hid behind a hedge to watch the closing ceremony.
For the first time in seven years the fire fighters were the winners in every match, all thanks to their new mascot: the familiar little Moss Abbey rubber goose in glasses who'd brought them good luck.
The KIDNAPPED GOOSE!
The plumbers and the binmen weren't best pleased as the goose was held in the air beside the trophy to the sound of sirens and cheers.
Ben Madigan knew he wouldn't get anywhere near the goose this evening; his little friend would be the star of the celebrations that would last throughout the night.
But he also knew, now, exactly where the goose would be tomorrow: star of the show at yet another golf match between the fire fighters and the rather excellent police team. And the fire fighters hadn't beaten those guys in TEN years.
*
At exactly the same moment as Professor Dunlambert was waving Maud Pinkerton off from my castle in Ireland, the lorry driver's wife was waving her very lucky husband off to theatre in Moss Abbey Hospital for a vital operation.
And at that very same moment, Rachel McGinty was leaving work at the roadside cafe to go home...waving at secret agent Ben Madigan as he hurtled past on his own way home.
The one-eared dog was still roaming the car park in search of some leftover food scraps. He recognised the sound of the trike from earlier and barked for all he was worth, but Ben couldn't hear it over the loud rumble.
Rachel stopped at the exit. 'Come on you poor thing,' she said, 'you can stay at my flat tonight, but absolutely no barking! Tomorrow's a whole new day. Let's see what it brings.'
*
Next blog coming soon.
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