The Players
The Doctor, an intergalactic time traveler.
Frobisher, a shape shifting Wifferdill in the form of a Penguin.
Bob and Bill, workers for the City Council.
A Mysterious Man in a Brown Durby.

        The Doctor awoke from sparkling images racing across his mind.  The dull pounding pain at the back of his head told him he had been hit from behind.  As he slowly made his way off of the floor he notices that he is in a small, windowless room. The walls are of a rough stone type typical of European dungeons of the Middle Ages, complete with metal bars, straw floor and a single wooden bench, which obviously was to serve as a place to both sit and sleep. The only hint however, that this was not the Middle Ages, are the two single light bulbs hanging from the ceiling just beyond the bars, and the events which had transpired just hours ago.  Frobisher was nowhere to be seen.  “Interesting,” the Doctor said to no one in particular.  “What would someone want with a 4 foot tall shape shifting penguin?”  As the clouds further began to clear in his head the Doctor begins a slow and tedious examination of the cell in which he finds himself.  “Very authentic,” he tells himself.  “Right down to the stench.”  Yet to the Doctor’s experienced mind something is wrong here.  “Hello,” he calls out towards the closed metal door just beyond the bars.  “Is any one there?  I’d like to speak to someone about what’s going on.”  He is answered only by complete silence.

        Frobisher also finds himself in a small windowless room. But instead of bars looking him in the face, the unsmiling faces of American Secret Service Agents greet him.  On the gray metal table in front of him stands a microphone and a reel-to-reel tape recorder.  The “hot light” which had been turned on and pushed into his face, caused him to morph a pair of dark sunglasses.  In his right flipper he holds a paper cup.   The words Coca-Cola plainly printed on the side.  In his left flipper, a half eaten hot dog.  Sitting there, Frobisher gave the impression that he was out for a holiday at the beach.  Taking another bite of the hot dog he motions towards the agent guarding the door.  “Thanks,” he says, his beak half full with food.  “I was starving.”  Standing to his right was a rather large and somber looking agent.  He bore all the signs of the stereotypical security agent; black coat, black glasses, black earpiece sticking out of his right ear.  In front of him, sitting across the table and operating the tape recorder sat another agent; however with his jacket off this agent seem absolutely flippant.
        “Okay,” the flippant agent asks.  “Explain to me again why your friend and you wanted to kill the President.”  “Hey buddy come on I told you,” Frobisher protests, “We had nothing to do with that.  We were…”  “Sir,” the agent interrupts, “we found a shell that matches your bazooka inside the President’s head.  Or should I say what was left of his head.”  “Well I know nothing about that.  All I do know is that my friend and I were standing on the corner minding our own business when this guy in a black suit walks up and asks me to hold his bazooka.  I say ‘yes,’ and the next thing I know, the President’s head explodes, and we’re surrounded by cops!”  The Secret Service Agents just stare at Frobisher.  Obviously his story is not going well.  “What?” Frobisher looks around nervously.  “You think I’m making this up?  I happen to be a P.I. you know.  As a rule we don’t go around killing Presidents.”
        Rising from his chair the flippant agent walks over to his rather large and somber looking comrade.  “Looks like we’re going to get nothing from this one.”  The rather large agent in the dark suit glances over in Frobisher's direction.  “He a tricky one all right.  Obviously well trained for this mission.”  The two agents glance once again in Frobisher’s direction, then half turn their backs to him.  “We’ll never get nothing at this rate,” the flippant agent adds.  Looking back in Frobisher’s direction the rather large agent comes up with an idea.  “You know,” he says to his fellow agent.  “We could give him the treatment.”  “The treatment,” a smile quickly spreads across the flippant agent’s face.  “No one can ever survive the treatment.”  Sitting in his seat, the hot dog gone but the soda remaining, Frobisher struggles to hear what the two agents are talking about.  “What!?” “What are you guys on about?” Frobisher’s disposition quickly turns to alarm as the two agents slowly move towards him.

        Back in the cell the Doctor carefully listens as Frobisher spins the tale of the last hour and a half.  His nervous waddling around the perimeter of the cell was quickly getting on the Doctor’s nerves.  Finally the Doctor can take it no more.  “Can you please stand in once place!”  Frobisher is oblivious to the request.  “And then they kept insisting that we were part of some plot to kill their President.”  The Doctor, realizing the Frobisher is never going to sit down just begins to nod his head followed by the occasional “hmmm.”  “But that wasn’t the worst part Doc,” Frobisher went on.  “Not believing my story they closed on me and subjected me to something called,” he hesitates for a moment, as if the memory of the past half hour is too much for him to take, “holiday slides!”  Frobisher rushes up to the Doctor and grabs him by his lapels.  “It was horrible!  Hundreds and hundreds of photographs of fat ugly people and their fat ugly kids!  All of them playing and running and jumping on the beach!  I didn’t know how much more I was going to have to take, when suddenly, they switched off the projector and brought me back here.”  Frobisher finally finished, and with that he plops himself down on the bench/bed exhausted.
        The Doctor ponders for a second, and then a second more.  “Interesting,” was all that slips from the Doctor’s mouth.  “Interesting!”  Frobisher was back on his feet standing toe to toe with the TimeLord.  “You just don’t seem to get it!  They’re gonna make us watch more holiday films!” The horror in his voice was unmistakable.  “I can't go through that again.  I won't go through that again!"  Frobisher was at the point of tears.  "All that fat!  It’s inhuman.  What kind of people are these?”  “What kind of people indeed,” the Doctor questions. “I don’t get it?” Frobisher’s face, being in the shape of a penguin, always looks distorted when he makes the puzzled look that he does so often.  The Doctor looks around him carefully.  “Think. You are brought in for questioning by the American Secret Service.  You are questioned, interrogated, brow betted and brought to the point of tears by their so called holiday pictures.”  “Yea, I know.  I was there,” Frobisher adds.  “Well you’re the great private investigator.  Did it never occur to you that they had no problems questioning a 4 foot tall talking penguin?”  Suddenly, as if the light, which made up Frobisher’s mind was switched from dim to bright, it dawned on him.  “Hey that’s right.  Not once did they ask me about being a penguin.”  "And the fact that American Security Agents had no problem questioning a penguin set off no alarms in your mind," the Doctor asks.  “There’s something wrong here,” the Doctor says.  “You’re telling me?”  Moving towards the bars the Doctor begins to examine the lock, and the rest of the room beyond.  “We have to get out of here and back to the TARDIS."  Noticing a set of keys hanging on a peg just beyond reach next to the room's door, the Doctor turns towards Frobisher.  "Quickly, morph into something small and squeeze through the bars.  We have to get out of this prison cell.”  Frobisher looks down at the floor sheepishly, one flipper twirling on its toes.  “Sorry Doc.  But you know I can’t morph on a full stomach.”  The Doctor throws his gaze towards the air, as if to ask the great sprits, which ran the universe, why he was being punished?  “Then we’ll have to think of something else then.”

        Forty-five minuets later Frobisher and the Doctor find themselves at the front end of a very large chase.  Secret Service agents swarm the streets as squad cars patrol each intersection.  The fugitives are forced to keep to the shadows and back streets as they slowly make their way to the corner where they think the TARDIS is sitting.  “I can’t believe that worked,” Frobisher says as they round yet another corner.  “Well just be happy that the guard had a fondness for Marlene Dietrich movies,” the Doctor replies as he checks that the coast is clear.  “But you were marvelous,” his companion continues, knowing full well the effect it was having on the Doctor.  “I really think you missed your calling.  Time traveling, sime traveling.  You should have been…”  The Doctor quickly spins around to face Frobisher.  “Look!  The situation was desperate!  Now let’s never talk about it again.”  Frobisher was about to continue when the sound of a siren makes both of them look up.  Quickly looking around the Doctor spots an acceptable hiding place.  “Quick, in there,” he shouts half dragging half pulling his companion.  Looking in the direction the Doctor had pointed Frobisher's face turns to one of alarm.  “Ah no Doc, you must be kidding.  Anything but there!”  But before he could protest further the Doctor drags Frobisher inside.

        The National Women’s Auxiliary Leadership Committee Organization for A Better Britain and the World After the War, or N.W.A.L.C.O.A.B.B.W.A.W. as it was called for short, was honoring the passing of one of its founding members; Mrs. Margaret Mary Manson McGuire Frump.  As it was a long honored tradition of the N.W.A.L.C.O.A.B.B.W.A.W., Margaret Mary Manson’s body lay in state in the great meeting hall, as her fellow members rose up one after another to expound the virtues of her life.  All 467 of them!  It was also a long honored tradition of the N.W.A.L.C.O.A.B.B.W.A.W. that after the speeches and salutations were over with, the deceased was honored with a slid presentation of her life.  It was into this atmosphere that the Doctor dragged Frobisher.  “What in the great Sky Gods name are we doing here?”  The agony in Frobisher's voice was hard to conceal.  The Doctor looks around in mild excitement.  “This is perfect,” he says pleasingly.  “We ‘lay-low,’ as Peri liked to say, for a while until the heat is off.”  “I wish Peri was here now,” Frobisher adds.  “At least she would have kept me entertained.”  “Quite Frobisher,” the Doctor cut, “I’m trying to listen.”  “Fine!” Resigned to his fate, he begins to slowly explore the room that he knows he will be his prison for several hours.  He quickly turns back towards the Doctor.  “Well of all the places to ‘lay-low,’ why did it have to be this one?  I mean, I know you’re in love with all things British, but a guy would have to be nuts to hide out in a boring joint like this.”  “Precisely,” the Doctor smiles, and then returns his attention to the services.  Once again the light in Frobisher’s mind was switched from dull to bright.  ‘Of course,’ he thinks to himself, “they would never think of looking for us here!”  As the Doctor is engaged in the speeches and slide presentations, Frobisher continues his examination of the meeting hall.  Slowly, ever so slowly, he works his was over toward the casket.

        Bill and Bob loaded another Police Box onto the back of their lorry.  “How many does this make,” Bob asks.  “Sixty-two,” Bill responds.  “And it’s the last one!”  “Well,” Bob continues, “guess that means it time for a break.”  And with that he sits on the curbside.  Reaching into his pocket he removes a half eaten baloney sandwich and begins to munch.  “Hang on a minuet,’ Bill quickly protests.  “We still have to haul these over to the yard ands secures them.”  Bob looks up from his sandwich, his feeble mind desperately looking for some words that could convince Bill that the rest of their work can wait.  Unable to find any, Bob rewraps his sandwich in its paper wrapping and places it once again into his pocket.  With a heavy sigh he picks himself off the curbside and heads for the drivers seat.

        The Doctor and Frobisher run down the deserted London streets in the direction they had left the TARDIS.  The members of the N.W.A.L.C.O.A.B.B.W.A.W. close behind them.  Even with their lives in danger the Doctor is furious enough to berate Frobisher who’s waddling close behind him.  “How could you do something so stupid,” the Doctor yells!”  “It bad enough we’re wanted by the American Security Agency but you had to go and pull a stunt like this!”  “Hey ease up,” Frobisher protests “I saw it in a movie once and I was curious.”  “Curious,” the Doctor yells, the excessive running beginning to take its toll on his rather large frame.  “Curious!”  “How was I to know that was going to happen,” was his companion’s only answer.  The Doctor stops short in is tracks, causing Frobisher to almost collide into him.  “You knocked the casket over,” the Doctor stated, looking straight into the eyes of his companion.  “Yea, but what was the big deal,” Frobisher replies.  “It wasn’t like she was alive or anything.”  The Doctor just could not believe that his companion did not get the seriousness of their situation.  “She bounced across the floor,” the Doctor states at the top of his lungs!  “Yea.” Frobisher though for a moment.  “That’s what happened in the movie too.”

Story © 2002 John Rocco Roberto.