.....the ceiling appeared to be patterned by a series of black and white dots, which, as the whole thing descended with a hideous metallic clanking and grinding, I recognised as tiny newsprint.
I glanced to my right. The hand-written sign "Arrivals Lownge" and the portrait it concealed were vanishing with a splintering of wood and glass.
I glanced upwards again. I could now decipher the letters.
There were only three, repeated in a relentless pattern that had a strangely dazzling, yet hypnotic effect on my eyes. BUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMB
BUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMB
BUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUM
Despite my appalling predicament viz a viz the ceiling that was about to flatten me into some kind of awful Spam, and although I sensed that I'd be saved if only I could find out what BUM meant, or stood for, I felt my eyes grow heavy and the idea of having forty or indeed fifty winks became irresistible.....
"Tuppy! TUPPY! WAKE UP!"
"Wh-what?" I muttered thickly, "Oh good! has this all been a horrible dream, after me having over-eaten my supper-time cheese on toast again? Am I really at home, by my own fireside, tucked up by a roaring blaze with my favourite rather smelly but cosy tartan knee-rug and a glass of steaming Madeira? Pass me the Black Bogey and a - "
"No," snapped Geoffrey ,(for it was he), " It's all true, and real, and here I am, come to rescue you. I managed to wedge the space doors open with a crowbar and hacksaw my way into the Arrivals Lownge - if you're quick - "
"Geoffrey!" I sobbed.
"No time for that now," said Geofrey crisply. "I know you're naked, and shocked and everything, and I know this isn't your particular forte, but Keep it Together Tuppy. Come on - follow me."
But to where - and how? And where was Tuppence, the cause of my doom? And what did BUM stand for? More Later.
