GRISELDA SEEKS A REFUGE

Griselda and Bumpy are lost in a maze of corridors and rooms deep inside the Whitehouse.

“Quick … down here!” urged Griselda.

She and the parish councillor Bumptious Tiddles were rushing along a seemingly endless corridor inside the wonderful Whitehouse in the United States, and all the time they were aware that there was the padding of feet behind them, in hot pursuit of what they may have seen as two desperate intruders, not that either Griselda or Bumptious looked remotely desperate. In fact they didn’t look anything at all because they were totally invisible …. unless you count the shadows cast by the many lights that illuminated that windowless corridor. They might have been completely invisible but they were casting shadows all right.

She led her confused companion down a second corridor, one that was narrower than the first and, to her mind, probably less important. There were doors off to the left and the right, doors that, when considered casually, seemed to be of very little importance. They were numbered, of course. Whenever there are loads of doors they’re usually numbered, thought Griselda irrelevently.

But she didn’t have time to waste contemplating the purpose of doors. Behind them and echoing down the corridor was the sound of voices following them. They were being pursued, and she knew instinctively that their pursuit was armed and dangerous. They were, after all, in the most secure building on planet Earth and if they’d somehow breached its defences they must be in considerable danger.

“Let’s look in here,” she whispered, and pushed a door open. Inside was a small office, its walls lined with books that looked as though they might have been there since long before the building was erected.

“Smells musty,” whispered Bumpy.

“So would you if you were as old as some of these,” replied Griselda.

She picked a book off the shelf. “War of the Worlds she muttered, H G Wells. And a first edition by the look of it. Must be worth a pretty penny. I wonder if they know it’s here?”

“I’ll bet it’s recorded somewhere,” Bumptious told her. He was in local politics and he was well aware that most things are recorded somewhere, possibly even in triplicate.

Bumpy looked at another tattered old book. “The Old Testament,” he grunted, “in Greek,” he added, though he didn’t know Greek from Latin, which is what it had been inscribed in by medieval monks in another land.

The little office was depressing and gave the impression it was where some lowly servant laboured away with a quill pen and sheets of paper, copying, maybe, Presidential decrees before they were stashed away for eternity in some vast library, never to be seen by mortal man again.

“Come on!” hissed Griselda, “there’s nothing for us in here, and certainly no breakfast.”

“Is that all you think of … food?” demanded Bumpy.

“You would if you were burning up as much psychic energy as I am at the moment!” snapped Griselda.

They returned to the passageway. They could still hear the distant mumble of voices, amplified by the length of the corridor and consequently quite indistinct.

“They’re coming this way!” snapped Bumpy after they’d passed a dozen or so numbered doors.

Griselda paused and nodded after trying to focus her ears on barely audible sounds. “We’ll have to get out of the way,” she hissed.

Griselda pushed Bumpy towards a door and wrenched it open. To anyone inside the room it would have seemed that the door merely opened and closed and as it did so two dim shadows flickered through it, mysterious and fleshless, like ghosts in a dark place.

“Huh. A broom cupboard,” sighed Bumpy, “why are we hiding in a broom cupboard?”

“We need to get out of sight,” muttered Griselda, “it’s all I can manage, keeping us invisible this long. It’s draining me, and I didn’t have any breakfast to fortify my psychic system.”

“Sorry, but I’m not sure what you do and how you do it and how long it lasts or anything like that,” replied a confused Bumptious.

“Invisibility is difficult,” she said frankly, “it means I have to keep tabs on every molecule of our bodies. Just relax and I’ll switch it off.”

“But...” began Bumpy.

“Just shut up!” she hissed, and he had to. He felt himself tingling all over as every one of the molecules that made up Bumptious Tiddles relaxed into a more natural position.

“I can see my hand!” he mumbled.

“And I can see mine, which I’ll wrap round your neck if you don’t give me a bit of peace!” almost snarled Griselda. “What you don’t seem to appreciate is that we’re fugitives in what is probably the most closely guarded building on the planet, one filled with armed guards ready to shoot anything they don’t recognise on sight. So keep that mouth of yours shut before someone hears us...”

There was, indeed, the sound of scuffling outside the broom cupboard as the speakers they were hiding from drew ever closer. And as they approached at last their conversation could be heard as words rather than an indistinct rumble.

“I didn’t see the devils, but I did catch a glimpse of their shadows,” they heard one voice say. “I can’t say that I’m keen on shadows. I can’t say it’s right for a shadow to be there and not a person to cast it.”

“That’s spooky. And I’m thinking the same things,” replied a second voice, shaking with either fear or nerves.

“It’s as if they were ghosts. Two of them,” said the first voice darkly. “Maybe this part of the house is haunted. I did hear there were some haunted rooms where the ghosts of dead Presidents linger until they’re called for...”

“Do you believe in ghosts?” asked his companion.

“I didn’t think so until now,” shivered the first, “and now … what sort of creature has no body but a big brash shadow? And what kind of shadow moves in silence down this corridor?”

“We’ll know when we find ‘em.” The second voice tried to sound confident but was clearly failing as a kind of nervous shudder entered its words.

“And if they’re ghosts there’s no telling what they’ll do to us,” warned the first voice. “They might use magic...”

“There’s no such thing as magic! Look, if there’s anything down these passages that shouldn’t be here it’s the work of the President’s enemies. He’s got plenty of those, you know, and every day he seems to be getting more.”

“So if we see something or someone it’s shoot first?” queried the first speaker.

“And shoot straight,” agreed his companion, “fill ‘em full of lead and then we’ll see what they’re made of!”

The voices faded as the speakers slowly passed down the corridor.

“That was close,” hissed Griselda. “Come on, let’s see what there might be in here to help us.”

She reached for a light switch and in an instant the cubby hole they were in was flooded with brilliant light.

There were all manner of domestic appliances on shelves all around them, some looking as if they might have been there since the year dot, but it wasn’t those that made both Griselda and Bumpy almost jump out of their skins.

Directly in front of them and perched majestically on a gold-plated armchair, stroking a black and white cat that was purring on his lap, sat the distinctive figure of the President of the United States, his comb-over quivering as he stared, open-eyed at them.

“Sweet little Tiddles,” he murmured, “Darling little p***y Tiddles...”

© Peter Rogerson 24.02.18