Part one of my Doctor Who Christmas story can be found here.
Now for part two!
Loving the Alien: A Christmas Story.
Part Two
CHAPTER SIX
Flimbleby stared at the Old Man with the Crooked Face. He was amazed. No-one had ever understood him before. And Flimbleby had never been able to understand Big Humans talking before. Not even the Big Fat Lady With The Hat.
But he could understand the Old Man. He was called “The Doctroo Aryoo.” Which was a funny name and made Flimbleby snigger.
“What are you laughing at?” said Doctroo, his eyebrows curling up.
“Yor name is funny!” giggled Flimbleby. “Yoo arr called Doctroo! That is not even a name!”
“No – I’m the Doctor. Who are you?” repeated Doctroo. But it was too late. Flimbleby scuttled off across the Big Sparkly Room, giggling.
“Yor name is Doctroo. It is yor name! It is what yoo arr called!” Flimbleby ran around the room, gazing at all the lights and colours. It was like a room made of Christmas. Everything was glowing or twinkling and some of it was mysterious.
Suddenly he was being scooped up and lifted through the air. Two bony hands placed him on the console and then there was Doctroo’s face, right next to him.
“Now then, Flimbleby. You need to calm down. This is my TARDIS and there’s no giggling in my TARDIS.”
Flimbleby gulped. Doctroo looked very serious. He stopped giggling and put on his most listening face.
“That’s better,” said Doctroo. His face was stern, but not angry or unkind. “Now I’m going to ask you some questions, alright?” Flimbleby nodded. He liked questions. Except ones about sums – they were stupid and made of poo.
“Question one – how did you get on my TARDIS?”
“Um, what is a TARDIST pleez?”
Doctroo waved his arm about. “This. This is my TARDIS. It’s a spaceship and you’ve got inside it. How?”
“Oh, Rite. Well, yoo no the place wherr therr was all the trifle and all the pikturs and they all got broke?”
“The art exhibition? You were at the exhibition?”
“Yess. I did a brilyatn drawing of a diningsor and I had a bit of a sosij. And then lots of Big Humans came and they were all like ‘Oh no! Someone has broken all the pikturs’ so I did a hide. And then yoo came and yoo looked at my drawing and yoo had an interesting face and a Big Bloo Box that made a noise like a monster singing. So I decided to come wif yoo.”
Doctroo blinked. He straightened up. Flimbleby shuffled about on the cold metal of the console. He hoped that the old man would let him stay. He was funny and had an exciting nose.
“Second question…” said Doctroo.
Suddenly, with a thump, the TARDIST stopped. The lights steadied their pulsing, the gentle hum of the engines ceased. Doctroo looked up. “Ah – we’re here. Come on Flimbleby.”
And Doctroo sprang towards the door to the outside. Flimbleby bounced off the console and scampered after him. “Wherr arr we going, pleez?”
Doctroo grabbed the door handle. “To meet the most evil creatures in the universe!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The TARDIS stood on the roof, high above Glasgow. A beautiful old building of stone and glass, standing proud in the middle of the busy city.
The doors flung open and out strode The Doctor, with Flimbleby bobbing along at his feet. The Doctor looked around for an entrance, and spotted a door to the stairs.
“Where are we please?” wondered Flimbleby as they headed for the door. The Doctor whipped out his sonic screwdriver and zapped open the lock.
“This is the Glasgow School of Art. Some of the greatest artists of the future are students here, right now.” They entered the building and descended the staircase, Flimbleby hopping down a stair at a time.
The Doctor banged through a set of double doors into a large open corridor, lined with half finished sculptures and paintings. “Tonight, this building catches fire, destroying work that would be invaluable to the history of art. Early works by artists that will change the way the human race sees the creative process.”
“Um, I do not really know what that means.”
The Doctor stopped by an open door, peering through. A vast hall, full of workbenches and easels stretched out before them. There was no sign of human life.
“It means that all the pictures made by these people will be gone forever.” He walked slowly, reverentially into the room, past tables piled with papers, brushes, masking tape and jars.
“They will be all sad?” Flimbleby bounced along, looking about in wonder at all the beautiful things.
“They’ll be sad, yes. All these ideas – moments of inspiration and passion, gone.” He lifted a roll of canvas, showing Flimbleby. On it was a giant orange stegosaurus firing lasers at dozens of silvery robots.
“Dinosaur!” Flimbleby scampered up onto the table, touching the canvas gently. “Hello Dinosaur! I love you!”
“You should see the things he goes onto create. The most wonderful pictures of dinosaurs the galaxy will ever know. Right now, Flimbleby the Adipose, you are touching the first dinosaur he ever painted.” The Doctor lay the canvas down carefully.
“Why did they get burned?” asked Flimbleby, still gazing at the magnificent beast with its fiery eyes.
“Glasgow is about to be invaded by a small squad of Daleks – refugees from the Time War. They’re a ragtag bunch and they’ll be defeated, but this building gets caught in the crossfire. I always assumed it was an accident. But after seeing the destruction at the gallery, I’m wondering if this is part of the same thing.”
He looked around sadly. There was no way to save any of this. Too risky to mess with the time line.
Then a clattering sound made him turn round. Flimbleby was haring across the hall, leaving little red paint feet marks behind him. The Doctor went back to the painting. A pot of paint was spilled over and the stegosaurus in the picture now had a large red heart painted around it.
“Flimbleby – have you just defaced this painting?”
Flimbleby’s voice came out from behind one of the tables. “It was not even me. You don’t know.”
The Doctor allowed himself a little smile. But then the smile froze. He could smell…
“Smoke. But the Daleks aren’t due yet!” He spun around and broke into a sprint, running down the hall towards the source of the smell. Through an archway, down a corridor, through a pair of double doors…
Smoke billowed out from behind the doors, causing The Doctor to reel back, coughing. He peered through the doors. Sure enough, the fire had started. Paper fluttered through the smoke, crimson edged as it blackened and disintegrated. Flames glowed through the smoke and the crackle of destruction filled the air.
“Too early…” frowned The Doctor. “So this wasn’t the Daleks. Then who…”
Just for a moment, he thought he saw something through the smoke. A human shape, standing among the flames. Not running away. Just… watching everything burn. Then it turned and disappeared into the inferno.
There was nothing to be done here. The Doctor turned back the way he had come. Back down the corridor, into that first hall.
“Flimbleby, we need to go. I was wrong...”
As he entered the hall he stopped in his tracks. There in the hall, among the tables and easels, were three Daleks.
End of Episode Two
Click here for part three
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