Doctor Who_ The Forgotten Army - Brian Minchin [12]
Amy was flabbergasted. 'There is no way you can steer a mammoth!'
The Doctor leant forward and put Amy's hands on the neck of mammoth. It felt warm and powerful under her hands. 'Just pull to the left and see what happens.'
'You are impossible!' Amy shouted. She'd imagined travelling around New York in style, and here she was trying to steer a prehistoric animal around the New York Natural History Museum.
Amy gripped the animal tight and pulled the mammoth's neck to the left with all of her might. The mammoth wailed in outrage, and spun rapidly to the right. They smashed through the blue whale's tail, sending bones flying through the air.
Amy wasn't amused. 'I think it's trying to shake us off.'
Increasingly enraged by its unwanted passengers, the mammoth was now heading for a replica cave. The top was so low the mammoth was barely going to squeeze through it...
'Can't you steer it away?' the Doctor asked.
7 am so going to get you back for this, thought Amy.
The Doctor yelled 'Duck!' and Amy flattened herself on the animal's back as it galloped through the cave. They made it through to the other side where the mammoth hurtled into a display of penguins, toppling them like dominoes.
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Amy blinked, her mind distracted, confused by something.
'Are there any Nile Penguins here?'
The Doctor stared at her like she was mad. "They don't exist, Amy. That's a myth. What made you think of them?'
Amy wasn't sure. For a brief moment, it had felt like a long-forgotten memory had burst urgently back into her life, but it had departed just as quickly, and she had no idea why she'd thought it was important. 'I just had such a weird feeling of déjà vu.’ she said.
'That's just echoes of memories.’ the Doctor told her cheerily. 'Reverberating down your timeline, nothing to worry about. Unless it's déjà vu of you wetting yourself. You haven't, have you?'
Amy laughed. The Doctor had an amazing ability to make the scariest things feel fun, and the worst times become the best.
She wanted to hug him, but realised they were about to hit another doorway.
Amy and the Doctor ducked down close to the mammoth's fur again. When they sat back up, they were in the glorious light of the Hall of Diamonds. Amy was dazzled. She'd never imagined such enormous jewels existed.
'Maybe this is a robbery?' Amy yelled at the Doctor. 'A very clever robbery...'
'I don't think so...' the Doctor replied.
He was still lying on the mammoth's back, and was listening intently to something. He gestured for 48
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Amy to bend down with him. 'Tell me if I'm wrong, but that doesn't sound like an animal to me...'
Am y couldn't tell for sure but, through the fur and warmth of the animal, she thought she could hear the click-click-click of cogs turning.
The Doctor took his sonic screwdriver out and pointed it at the mammoth's back leg. It whirred and the mammoth's leg gave way with a FATOO M! Amy clung to the fur as, for a second, it seemed like the creature was going to collapse.
With a mighty effort, the mammoth hauled its leg back up.
'That's interesting.' The Doctor was tapping at the mammoth's back. 'This is real muscle and real fur, held on in a real way.' He tugged a bit of white fur loose, and the mammoth wailed. 'See, it really hurts.'
Amy rolled her eyes at him. 'Well, durrr.'
'But underneath this real animal.’ the Doctor continued,
'there's a metal skeleton...'
'So we can switch it off?'
The Doctor looked worried. If the mammoth had been built, then this was going to get complicated... How could he know what was going to hurt the beast? Like a little boy, he desperately wanted to take it apart and see how it worked, but he couldn't be sure how much was machine and how much was animal.
With all four legs working again, the mammoth put on a burst of speed and they crashed past a 49
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giant canoe, arriving back where they'd started in the Great Hall.
The doors had been hauled open, presumably so the Doctor and Amy could lead the mammoth out as they had promised. Seeing its chance to escape,