Free Moby Jack & Other Tall Tales by Garry Kilworth

was hurt. Mendal was welcome to her. I had a bet with myself that he would get the same treatment within a year. Krystina was like that. Like me in fact. She went through partners like packets of crisps. We were two of a kind, she and I.
    When I was sent home I had to use a stick. A new toe had been grafted on—not mine of course, one that came from the clone bank—but I was still not quite used to it. It didn’t feel right. It was like a rubber toe, with no sensation in it. It was like walking around with a door-stopper screwed onto my foot. I hoped I would soon get to disregard it, just as I did all my other nine toes, instead of constantly being aware of its presence.
    Stepping out of the lift I saw at once that my door had been closed. I knew that had been done the day after I went into hospital. I guessed by that time Sheba would have escaped from the apartment. If she hadn’t she would be so weak from hunger by now she wouldn’t be able to put up a fight and I could beat her death with my walking stick. I wanted to. I had an intense desire to see her brains on my living-room carpet. The she-devil had nearly killed me. I bore her great malice.
    Opening the apartment door I hobbled inside.
    ‘Welcome home!’
    ‘Welcome home, yourself, you heap of wires and chips.’
    ‘There’s a package for you.’
    ‘Where?’ I looked round.
    ‘In the kitchen.’
    I shuffled into the kitchen, wondering why the computer sounded so self-satisfied. There on the kitchen floor was a large box. There was a note on top.
    ‘ Dean ,’ it read, ‘ I’m sorry I was so rotten to you. I’m still with Mendal, but I’m feeling guilty for hurting you so badly. I decide to follow up my advice to you and get you a parting gift. It’s something you’ll like, I know, because you’re always watching those wildlife programmes with savage beasts either bonking or eating each other. Anyway, this is new, this is special, and I hope he’s a companion to you, on these lonely evenings. Sorry about how things turned out. It’s probably all for the best, you know. Krystina.
    The note was dated a week ago.
    I stared down at the box. On one side of it, it said DANNY’S ANIMAL KINGDOM: BONSAI PETS. Underneath these words was a warning. THIS WAY UP. Well it wasn’t that way up. It was on its side, obviously. I quickly upended it, so that it was right and proper.
    It was then that I saw the hole that had been ripped through the far side, the packaging flaring outwards. The word TRY was printed on that side. Try what? Try to be careful with this box? Further inspection revealed a cage that had obviously been mishandled in transit. The bars were bent, one of them seriously out of kilter. Moreover, it was empty.
    The conclusion was obvious: whatever had been inside the carrier had squeezed through the damaged bars and then torn its way through the plastic box. It was now on the outside. The box was a big one, holding a big cage. Much larger than the one which had contained Sheba. Then I realised that it didn’t say TRY at all. These three letters were part of a longer word, which had been ripped in half.
    What they actually read was TYR.
    Quickly, nervously, I scanned the kitchen.
    Something lizardy skipped rapidly across the doorway on two legs.
     

  ATTACK OF THE CHARLIE CHAPLINS
     
    This came from all sorts of directions.
     
     
    When we first started getting reports out of Nebraska that the state was under attack from heavily armed men dressed as Charlie Chaplin, the first thought was that a right wing group of anti-federal rebels was involved, and that they were using irony on top of force to make some kind of point. After all, Charlie was eventually ostracised to Switzerland for having communist sympathies. As more accurate reports came in however, it became apparent that these were not just men dressed as Charlie Chaplin, they were the real McCoy—they were he , so to speak.
    ‘It’s clear,’ said Colonel Cartwright, of Covert