Doctor Who_ Earthworld - Jacqueline Rayner [19]
Fitz lay back on the desk again. He didn’t remember signing a contract when he started travelling with the Doctor, but he reckoned he must have done, and that one of the clauses he’d failed to read was, ‘Will get captured by mad bint every three months’.
The Doctor thumped the wall. ‘I hate being locked up!’
Anji looked at his face, and saw a flash of an expression that could have been despair. It shocked her.
Perhaps she had imagined it.
‘It’s an electronic lock,’ she said. ‘Couldn’t you fix it with your sonic screwdriver?’
His eyes gleamed. ‘The sonic screwdriver! Of course!’ He produced it from a pocket. Anji decided it looked a bit like one of those torches doctors use to see inside your ears. But the Doctor just stared at it.
Then he turned to Anji, and looked at her reproachfully, as if it were her fault. ‘Now I don’t know what to do. I have to not think about things! It’s like. . . ’ He seemed to struggle for an analogy that might mean something to her. ‘It’s like when you go in the wardrobe looking for the strange land. You History’s What You Make It
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never find it. But if you just happen upon it, you find yourself in the middle of wondrous adventures.’
Wondrous adventures. Oh yes.
She took the screwdriver from him. ‘I think what you actually mean is, don’t worry about things and they’ll just pop into your mind. Let your subconscious do the work.’
‘Oh yes,’ he said, a bit disappointedly. ‘That’s better. Not as picturesque, though. A picture paints a thousand words, you know. I once knew a man who slightly misinterpreted that. He just sat and painted a thousand words. Used the dictionary as his inspiration. He started at “a: singular indefinite article”, and it took him all the way to “albumen: the white of an egg”. Each word was a slightly different shade of blue. You have to admire someone who can create a thousand different shades of blue, don’t you?’
As the Doctor talked, Anji was leading him, step by tiny step, towards the cell door. They halted in front of the locking mechanism.
‘Even sky-blue pink?’ Anji asked. The Doctor looked quizzical. ‘It’s a sort of joke. A thing kids say. A mythical colour, because it can’t exist. If something’s pink, it can’t be sky-blue.’
The Doctor smiled. ‘But sometimes the blue sky can be flushed with pink.
It can be quite beautiful. Maybe that’s what it means. Not everything’s black and white, you know. Although the sky can be black or white, of course.’ (Anji handed him the sonic screwdriver.)
‘. . . or red or gold or sky-blue pink,’ said Anji, with a smile.
‘. . . or purple, or green. . . ’ continued the Doctor, pulling the front panel off the lock.
‘That’s taking it a bit far. Far away from Earth?’ Anji asked, eyes fixed on the Doctor but gesturing with her left hand to let the boys know that any ‘Earth is rubbish’ distractions would not be appreciated at this point.
‘Mm. I remember a place where the night sky was burnt orange and the tree leaves were silver. Beautiful. I would lie on the hillside gazing at the stars and putting the world to rights.’ (The sonic screwdriver was making buzzing noises as the Doctor began to pull wires out of the lock.)
‘What world, Doctor? Is this your home planet? Tell me about it.’
There was a loud click, and a buzz from the door. ‘What world?’ The Doctor paused. And then to Anji’s horror he shot her a look which froze her stomach.
His eyes suddenly seemed dead. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Way to distract the guy!’ called Beezee. Anji wanted to hit him.
‘I’m sorry, Doctor,’ she said, softly.
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EarthWorld
The look vanished as quickly as it had appeared. ‘No no,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘Nothing to be sorry about.’ And to Anji’s extreme surprise, he gave her a big hug.
The sonic screwdriver hit her in the small of the back and she gave a grunt.
The Doctor let her go and looked at the screwdriver in some