To a man and woman, the residents of Fernilee estate grabbed the nearest weapons to hand – from garden gnomes to fencing posts – and rushed at the assembled forces ranged against them.
If anyone at Fernilee was aware of events on Kinder Scout, they didn’t have time to investigate; they were too busy dealing with their own Apocalypse.
After Prism and her cohorts were wafted away in the sabotaged limo, Wisteria, Gordon and fellow residents poured onto the street, cheering and skipping about in jubilation; and, for a few giddy moments, had a sense of freedom unknown since the destruction of their forest.
“This is like old times!” Gordon exclaimed. But his triumph soon changed to dread as an even greater threat appeared.
From every avenue, menacing figures approached. From the south, burly men in dark trench coats; from the east, men in bullet-proof vests with riot shields; from the west, military troops in purple uniforms; and from the north, most terrifying of all, a horde of screaming women dressed in red and purple robes.
“Nunjas!” gasped Wisteria, her knuckles whitening as she gripped the Kleeny mop more tightly. The skies were darkening and the faint thunder in the distance seemed to echo the beat of her fiercely pounding heart.
“We’re outflanked!” Gordon’s observation was something of an understatement. There were hundreds of them, closing in for the kill.
“What are we going to do?” Wisteria whimpered.
It was Beech who answered with typical aggression. “Do? Do?! We do what we always do!!…
‘Attack! Attacks!” he cried and was already tearing off his tie.
‘Attack! Attacks!” he cried and was already tearing off his tie.
“How can we?” said Horse, willing as ever but a good 4 stone heavier than in his tree-dweller days.
Stirred at the sight of Beech gamely removing his brand-new polyester jacket, Gordon’s highland spirit – so long smothered by a diet of takeaways and satellite TV – began to rise from the depths of his now visibly rotund paunch.
“Well, I for one am not going down without a fight!” he yelled defiantly.
Larch was more prudent. “Look, there’s no need for any unpleasantness. Once they notice the children have gone, they’ll leave us alone.”
This evoked a contemptuous snarl from Beech. “Is that all you care about, sparing your own miserable skin? Have you forgotten what they did to our village? How they murdered our trees? Aren’t you sick of this pointless existence they’ve condemned us to? Just look at us all? Look at how we live! The only green in this hell-hole’s made out of plastic!” And, to demonstrate the point, he yanked up the corner of an immaculate synthetic lawn to expose the cold, grey concrete underneath.
Everyone started murmuring in agreement. “Now, now,” said Gordon, “let’s be sensible about this. Wisteria give me that mop.” Reluctantly, his wife obeyed, and the rest of the assembly sighed as Gordon grasped the offensive weapon.
“Okay folks, that’s enough,” he urged. “Let’s just remember who we are, and….” Raising the mop above his head, he roared, “C-H-A-R-G-E!”
No further encouragement was needed. To a man and woman, the residents of Fernilee estate grabbed the nearest weapons to hand – from garden gnomes to fencing posts – and rushed at the assembled forces ranged against them.
“Someone fetch me a rope!” yelled Gordon, engaging in a furious exchange with two screeching nunjas.
One of the militias fired a smoke bomb, which backfired somewhat, as the wind was blowing in the wrong direction. “Idiot!” cried his commanding officer but was unable to say anything further for coughing and spluttering.
Wisteria handed Gordon her old washing line, swapping it for the Kleeny mop, which she then wielded to great effect against the two nunjas. After all, hadn’t she defeated the Sister Mama of them all, the powerful Prism at her most deadly?
Meanwhile, Gordon had lost none of his skill with a rope. Creating a lasso with one end, he twirled it deftly and threw the loop over a nearby chimney. What he HAD lost, however, was his agility and, despite taking a long run before leaping into the air, he was unable to lift his large body any higher than a couple of feet. Instead of whirling into the air as he once would have done, the ‘Flying Scotsman’, weighed down by months of burgers and fries, smacked heavily into the garage wall with a resounding “Ouch!”
The other residents were also struggling, yet gamely kept the enemy at bay with pebble-dashed masonry, newly-dressed stones, and lumps of asphalt hewn from their driveways. Still dazed, Gordon aimed again for take-off and this time managed to rise a little higher. “Yahoo!” he yelled triumphantly, but the rope gave way and he came crashing to the ground with an almighty thud.
With the alien forces just metres away, Gordon leapt to his feet and hurled his rope again around the chimney.
“I’ll get the hang of this if it kills me!” he swore. It was all or nothing. Gordon summoned every ounce of energy to get off the ground and with a final roar, he took a running jump and started swinging like a pendulum, knocking over a few policemen in the process. Then three of colleagues adversaries grabbed his ankles and pulled with all their might, until Gordon’s considerable weight brought the chimney crashing down, covering them all in rubble.
“They’ve got Gordon!” cried Larch, wishing with all his heart they still had a forest to hide in. “Fall back! Fall back!”
“No surrender!” cried Beech, hurling another piece of masonry at the line of riot shields now steadily advancing. The rest of his friends fought a gallant battle, but eventually, realising their efforts were in vain, were on the verge of giving in.
“We can’t hold them off any longer!” Larch yelled.
And then came a bolt from the blue – literally! A huge thunderbolt bounced down the avenue, scattering nunjas and their cohorts on all sides before hitting one of the armoured vehicles parked nearby and exploding. The shock of this unexpected development gave the tree people time to regroup, and, as they did so, there was another boost to their defences.
“Hi folks!” It was Odi, popping up out of his Dad’s sunroof and waving to his old friends. He would have continued waving, had it not been for his father’s hand dragging him back into his seat with a gruff: “Odi! Sit down!” The Rogers’ vehicle was followed by a convoy of cars, vans and motor homes all hooting their horns, which swept through the estate, causing the enemy to scatter.
In the distance, streaks of lightning could be seen zig-zagging towards the hills and the atmosphere became so charged with electricity, everybody’s hair began to stand on end. This was followed by the sound of whirling helicopters which appeared as dots several miles away, growing larger as they approached the peaks, hundreds of them, searchlights scouring the peaks.
At the same time there was a medley of commands coming from enemy radios. These must have ordered the troops in Fernilee to leave their current positions because, within minutes, they all retreated to their vehicles and set off towards Kinder Scout where dozens of helicopters were circling.
And then they heard shots.