Doctor Who_ The Forgotten Army - Brian Minchin [5]
Sure enough, several helicopters were passing overhead, news crews and armed police all heading for the New York Natural History Museum.
The Doctor gazed up at them. 'Think we can thumb a lift?'
Amy shot her arm out in front of a yellow cab and yelled,
'TAXI!'
The car screeched to a halt, and Amy opened the door. "Thank you. Very important business. My man has my credentials.'
The Doctor stood dumbstruck.
'Come on, dumbo.' Amy waggled her fingers.
22
THE FORGOTTEN ARMY
'The papers...'
The Doctor twigged, and passed her the psychic paper.
She waved it at the driver, who jumped out of his car, saluted clumsily, and held the door as Amy got in.
'I've always wanted to do that,’ Amy murmured happily as the Doctor clambered in beside her. 'Looks pretty happy to be helping the Empress of Scotland, doesn't he.'
'What does that make me?' the Doctor asked.
Amy smiled. 'You're my bag carrier, of course.'
Sam's day was still going very, very badly. After the screaming crowds had fled, he had stayed behind just long enough for the heavy doors to be sealed again. Now he was alone with a prehistoric animal, and he was feeling very scared. He had hidden himself in the cloakroom, and was peering out from behind a row of Puffa jackets, watching the mammoth pacing the Museum's Grand Hall.
As it moved in slow circles around the room, the mammoth growled in frustration at each locked door. It was looking for a way out, Sam realised, wondering what it would do if it stayed trapped for much longer. Frustrated by its captivity, the creature had already smashed the reception desk with a casual flick of its leg, and then set about destroying the priceless Barosaurus skeleton with sharp stabs of its tusks.
23
DOCTOR WHO
Sam felt responsible. He had spent months of his life tending to the mammoth, and he knew every inch of its furry body. He was aware of an unnerving instinct telling him this was a faithful pet that would recognise him and do as he said.
But the more the mammoth roared and stamped on its surroundings, the less Sam believed he could have an influence on the savage beast.
Nothing he had learnt about biology had prepared him for this. Sam couldn't get over how impossible it all was. The mammoth had been frozen for thousands and thousands of years. There was no way it could have come back to life.
He tried telling himself that the mammoth was probably as scared of him as he was of it, and that it didn't want to harm anyone... All he had to do was give it what it wanted, and it would calm down. But a sinking feeling told him that what the mammoth wanted was feeding, and at the moment Sam was the only food in the room.
There was something else, too - some nagging detail. Sam was sure that when the creature had first roared, he'd heard a strange high-pitched noise, like the precise clicking of a thousand tiny cogs. He was the only person close enough to hear it but, to Sam, it had almost seemed as if someone, somewhere was laughing...
24
Chapter
2
As their cab zoomed past Central Park, Amy quizzed the Doctor. 'What's the diagnosis, then? Is this an alien cloaking itself as a mammoth to hide its true evil features? Or maybe some evil life force has possessed an innocent mammoth and brought it back to life?'
The Doctor looked stern. 'If we're lucky...'
'What does that mean?' Amy asked. 'If we're lucky...'
The Doctor didn't answer. Something was clearly troubling him.
Amy pressed him harder. 'We're here to protect it, right?
Stop any trigger-happy cop killing the poor thing.' She punched the Doctor lightly on the arm. 'Oi! I'm talking to you here!'
25
DOCTOR WHO
The Doctor turned to Amy. 'I've travelled light years to see new species before, and there's something wrong with this...
Why is this white mammoth even alive? I mean, whoever heard of a white mammoth, anyway? And why is it here now?'
They reached the corner of Central Park West and 79th Street and leapt out into a scrum of gawpers and onlookers.
As he pulled away, the cab driver yelled, 'I'm honoured,