“Oh…could things get any worse?” the professor said and plopped down in the nearest hair.

 

“Oh, I’m sure they will, sir….as soon as the evil villians and the rest of the characters in this story find out what we did,”

Robin said and patted the professor on the knee. “Great!”

“Don’t worry, ma’am, I’ll explain everything.” Rudolf said, sitting down beside the dusty road.

 

“Great.” Frankie squeaked, still shocked that a teddy bear was talking to him – no one ever talked to him!

 

“Well, you’re actually Goddess Marina of Vacuumland. Which, by the way, is a place on the flipside of where we are now – Earth. It is a land formed of bad puns which come from this side to the other.” Rudolf rhapsodized.

 

“Anyway, a couple of years ago, Murdock came to Vacuumland and saved us all from the giant bunnies and Barneys. Uh, and last year he saved us from giant bunnies, a toilet, a German word seeking a meaning, several clones of himself, a Giant Man-Eating Cabbage and a sheep who wanted us to play five-a-side football.”

 

“Uh huh.” Marina said. “So how come I don’t remember any of this?”

 

“Well, the evil Esmerelda sent you to Earth so that Vacuumland would start becoming too normal.” Rudolf said. “You see, she’s thousands of years old and was imprisoned in a cage of bad puns millennia ago. Now she’s trying to break out by weakening the bad puns! We must get back to Vacuumland somehow!”

 

“You’re crazy.” Frankie said.

 

Rudolf raised a furry eyebrow. “You talk to Russian teddy bears all the time, do you?”

 

“Absolutely!” Frankie said.

 

“Good.” Rudolf smiled. “Then we know where we stand.”

 

“Wahhh!!!” BA screamed as he looked out of the window. “We’re in a PLANE, man!!”

 

“Ah.” Jackson looked out too. “Yes we are.”

 

“Hang on, weren’t we in a cupboard before?” BA asked.

 

“No, that was just a dream.” Jackson, who was still wearing only his boxer shorts, affirmed.

 

“Ah. Anyway WE’RE IN A PLANE AND IT’S GOING INTO THE OCEAN!!!!!” BA screamed.

 

Jackson grabbed two parachutes and handed one to BA. “Looks like the pilot already jumped ship. Come on – there’s land below us.”

 

“NO WAY AM I JUMPING AAAAAAARRRGGGGHHHH!!!!” BA yelled as Jackson chucked him out of the plane.

Chris Columbus sat unhappily on the deck of the big ship he regularly sailed between Vacuumland and the balmy shores of

Logarithmland. They hadn’t yet been attacked by any massive bottles of hand cream and he hadn’t thrown up in weeks. The normality he had read about in the Vacuumland News was obviously spreading. Actually, that had been obvious from the fact that someone had thought to produce a newspaper about it. They had set off from Vacuumland yesterday, where Chris had met with Beethoven and Christina. The normality was truly shocking – Beethoven was again going deaf and Christina had been wearing clothes! Albeit a skimpy bikini, but still – clothes!!! Chris sighed. The attempts to rescue the Goddesses from Earth had failed – the Murdock and his allies had been turned into peanut butter by Esmerelda, everyone feared.

 

There was truly no hope.

 

Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, a large rhododendron appeared on the foredeck. Chris shrugged. Well, *almost* none.

The man was straight out of a clich»d mystery novel, as he crept, hiding his face in a darkened overcoat, towards Carter The Cool Cucumber’s Evil Plan Shop on the outskirts of Vacuumland.

 

“Hey, dude!” Carter said, from behind him, dressed in a wetsuit and carrying his dripping board. Off, the jar of mayonnaise,

stood purposefully beside him.

 

Marvin jumped out of his coat with surprise. “Argh!!!”

 

“Oh.” Carter said dismissively. “It’s you.”

 

“Me? Of course it’s me!” Marvin jumped about. “Am I not good enough for you, my dear sir?”

 

“Huh?” Carter asked, frowning in the way cucumbers do.

 

“Oh, fine! I want an evil plan, and not one that’s written in a language no one can understand!” Marvin sighed.

 

Carter beamed. “Okay. Come on, Off.”

 

The three marched into the shop. Carter presented Marvin with a form to sign.

 

“What’s this?”

 

Carter shrugged. “You have to sign it to say that in the course of this evil plan, you won’t do anything to my shop, me, Off or

my board. Anything else is fine.”

 

Marvin sighed and signed it.

 

“Right.” Carter turned to his evil-plan making machine, which also made pizza and picked up Channel 5. “World domination?

Revenge? What?”

 

“Er, both.” Marvin said.

 

“Okay. Number of heroes likely to go against you?”

 

“Uhhh…” Marvin counted on his fingers. “Probably about ten.”

 

“That’ll be extra.”

 

“Well, it isn’t my fault!” Marvin sulked.

 

“Right, and you need a get-out clause for the hero, so he has a chance of defeating you.”

 

“Awww!!!” Marvin said. “Oh, okay.” He grinned. “How about this…”