©2002, 2008

not by Enid Blyton

Chapter One

Noddy tucked into a bow and arrow for breakfast, then washed it down with a glass of curdled rat milk. He wondered what he might do that morning. Perhaps he would paint fiendish faces on the sky with a very long brush. Or a finger on the moon. Or instead he might lie outside on his back with his mouth open and wait for it to rain custard (he wasn’t sure what ‘it’ was, mind you). He rubbed his little pink nose as it was sore because Conor kept biting it off — when not tossing him in the garbage. Then he untethered his miniature yak and rode off on his tricycle, the yak galloping along behind.
He’d had a little car but smashed it into a tree because he’d put oil all over the windscreen instead of in the engine. That was an experience even worse than when he’d thrown a non-returning boomerang and it had whizzed all the way round the world and hit him in the back of the head three weeks later. He was in hospital for eight days in both cases, having lots of injections in his bottom and drinking foul medicine (although he liked that when Conor put the spell on him). With the spell on him he disdained custard and gobbled up horse manure, band-aids and weey straw, but at other times he liked normal foods such as bacon and ice-cream, fried mice, and chocolate on toast.
He jammed on the brakes and flew over the handlebars. The yak skidded into the back of the tricycle hee-hawing horribly (it thought it was a donkey) and both it and the tricycle disappeared into a stormwater drain. (They were later rescued by a Norwegian freighter off the coast of Nepal.)
Noddy picked himself up (which isn’t easy) and crawled out of the stormwater drain. He didn’t have the spell on him and the green greasy water tasted a bit like that of the River Limpopo after they built the fertilizer factory near it. He spat it out and decided to get something to eat. He went into a nearby shop and asked the shopkeeper for a fig sandwich.
“Have you got any money, Noddy?” asked the shopkeeper beneath his beetling brows.
“No.” said Noddy sadly, pulling out the linings of his pockets to prove it.
“Then you’ll have to sweep my floor instead for thirteen weeks.” His beetles browed too, possibly because his name was Bob.
“What about a slice of tomato cake? With raspberry icing on the top?”
“Sorry, Noddy.” said Bob the shopkeeper, grimacing. “I don’t stock that.”
“Oh bother.” said Noddy, turning to go. As he left he shouted back, “You big fat b-” But before he could get the last word out along came Conor, and Noddy broke into a squelchy run.

Noddy fell in the stormwater drain again at that point. It was almost as bad as being tossed in the garbage. But he was still hungry. Conor put the spell on him and he dived down and munched through three canisters of nuclear waste before he felt full.
Then he realised that the oddly absent tricycle was no good — what he needed was a … motor scooter! He could join the Fast Speed Tribe in Tokyo. Perhaps he could even read the works of Leon Trotsky and take out Public Liability Insurance.

Chapter Two.

Noddy slouched out of the British Museum and hailed a taxi. A hailstone hit him on the bell as he did so. The streets were wet and rainbowed like the silver side of a CD. The sun was as dim as a Toc H lamp. He jumped in beside the driver and sat amongst the luggage.
He had come all the way to London to read up on motor scooters, but there was nothing in the British Museum these days but skulls and botanical specimens. This is why he was travelling by taxi. What he forgot, though, was that you needed money to travel by taxi. (He’d only managed to get to London in the first place by stowing away on a blimp.)
The cab dropped him by a toyshop. After arguing with the driver (he even threw in Fermat’s Last Theorem) he ran into the shop and disguised himself as a Noddy doll.
He pressed the corner of his eye and made everything go sideways. The taxi driver had driven away cursing, using the Egyptian Cursing Litany. Noddy had a quick pee out the window and confronted the shopkeeper.
It was the same one.
He was red in the face and dripping wet. He’d been standing under the window.
“Hello.” said Noddy. “I didn’t know you were in London.”
The shopkeeper spluttered. His beetles browed again. It took him a while before he could speak, and Noddy watched him open-mouthed.
“But — but — but — this isn’t London!”
Noddy was struck dumb. But then he decided to confuse his adversary by singing loudly, “Mr Dobalina Mr … BOB Dobalina.”
“This is the same place you were before — my SHOP to be precise. And you still haven’t paid for that fig sandwich!”
“Er …” said Noddy, because he couldn’t remember anything about a fig sandwich. He pulled out the linings of his pockets to show that he had no money.
The shopkeeper, of course, was ‘trying it on’.
“Mr Dobalina Mr BOB Dobalina!” went Noddy.
The shopkeeper, a clever (if severely balding) man whose brain had been honed to a 4H pencil point by doing two sets of books for so many years, responded almost in kind:

Ah don’t care if it rains or freezes
Long as Ah got mah plastic Jesus
Ridin’ on the dashboard of mah car —

as Ernie Marrs et al turned in their graves.
“Will you stop singing!” cried Noddy. “Or I’ll get my brother Neddy to bash you up. On the oval half past three — put up your dukes — come over here and say that!” Noddy danced around like Mike Tyson, a bit futilely. But then the shopkeeper by a miracle caught his tie in his own cash register drawer. Noddy felt like the canary who’d got the cat.
Noddy riposted, “That’ll stop your brows beetling!”
“Errrk errrk errrk …” riposted the shopkeeper. His faith in The Market flashed before his eyes, and he thought of moving to Majorca. A few more grey filaments hit the deck.
The shop began to move through a green Sargasso swell of plastic. Teltikols appeared all around them.
“Oy Gott!” said Noddy, flaunting cheekily and adverbially with the idea of not being ‘in character’.
“I’m halal myself.” said Bob bin Laden, a bit green.
“I’m seasick.” said Noddy.
The good Poujadist had easily released himself as his tie had a trick knot. It was useful in the cutthroat world of business.
Noddy let fly a stream of green spew over the side.
“Every little helps.” said Bob, and did the same.
“Shiver me timbers!” yelled Noddy, getting into the role, though not a grant. He thrust his cutlass into a dead rat which had failed to escape, poked it into the Greek Fire emanating from a passing English man’o’war, and ate it.
“Bloody Greeks.” said the shopkeeper, who had voted for Harry Potter.
“But you’re an Afghan.” said Noddy.
“I’m not a bloody Philistine.”
Noddy didn’t answer that.
The ship ploughed through the weedy water and cabbages sprang up on all sides.
So did two technicolour yawns.
But the ship, of course, was sinking.

Chapter Three.

Indigestion is a terrible thing. So thought Noddy as he woke and realised he was dreaming. The ship’s hammocks made him feel worse — he had tried every one before settling down for the night — especially when Bob woke him up by asking him to ‘show a leg’. He had shown a finger, stuck unfortunately in the neck of a Chinotto bottle like a ship.
“Yew need sasparilly!” trilled Bob, irritatingly doing down-home accents at four in the morning.

[TO BE CONTINUED]