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Prince Boris’s door burst open. We were rescued!
‘Did someone call for a doctor?’ cried Dr Smith, staggering in. ‘Sorry I’m late, shoulder-charging a locked door, actually a lot harder than it looks.’ He winced, then looked around the room, heroic and mad, and then his eyes settled on me and lit up. ‘Hello Amy! Oh, I am so pleased to see you.’ And he hugged me, right there and then. ‘Goodness me, you smell great.’
I could have kissed him. Actually I did, and then pulled back slightly. ‘Careful, cheeky!’ I protested. ‘I have a husband.’
‘Do you?’ Dr Smith blinked, puzzled for a second. He regarded me, staring right into my eyes until I felt a little uncomfortable. ‘Oh yes, I suppose you do.’
‘So she keeps saying,’ muttered Prince Boris from the bed.
‘Tell me about it,’ Dr Smith yawned and made yap-yap-yap gestures with his hand. ‘He’s a nice enough lad if you like your orange squash very weak.’ He made a face, the rude boy, then turned to Boris. ‘Hello! Who are you?’
Boris looked up and introduced himself.
‘Great,’ I thought. ‘You boys can get to know each other and then have heaps of fun mocking my taste in men. Brilliant.’
I jabbed Dr Smith in the ribs, and indicated Prince Boris.
‘Can you do anything for him?’ I asked. ‘He’s very ill.’
‘Is he now?’ Dr Smith’s tone was instantly fascinated. He peered into one of Boris’s pupils intensely. ‘Hum.’
He paused. It was one of those Simon-Cowell-before-a-result pauses.
He reached for something in his pocket, and used it to depress Prince Boris’s tongue. ‘Say ahh.’
‘Ahhh,’ said Prince Boris, winking at me.
‘Right then,’ said Dr Smith. ‘Odd.’ He pulled the thing out of Prince Boris’s mouth, waving it around. ‘Oh. Blimey. This is not a spatula. What is it?’
I stared at the stubby thing. It looked like the world’s chunkiest novelty gift pen from Chessington World of Adventures. I coughed. ‘That, Doctor, is the sonic screwdriver.’
‘Ah,’ Dr Smith boggled. ‘Right. Is it? Oh dear.’ Another pause. ‘What does it do?’
‘Well… it screws things… sonically. On a good day, we fight off monsters with it.’
‘Monsters, eh?’ Dr Smith nodded gravely and peered at it, as though seeing it for the first time. Then he pointed it at the doorway like a gun and said, hopefully, ‘Pew! Pew! Pew!’ He turned back to me. ‘Like that?’
‘Other way up,’ I said, gently.
‘Phoo.’ Dr Smith plonked himself down next to me on Prince Boris’s bed. ‘Luckily, don’t need a sonic anything to tell you the good news, Prince B. You are cured.’
‘Very pleased to hear it, my dear sir.’ Prince Boris smiled charmingly.
Dr Smith’s face fell. ‘Poor Amy here can barely walk, my brain is like scrambled egg, but oh ho, someone has cured you of tuberculosis. Sorry, not called that for about forty years. But your wasting disease is wasting away. Quite remarkably you are getting better before my very eyes. That’s wrong.’
‘Wrong, sir?’ Prince Boris smiled, but then his eyes shifted slightly.
‘What is it?’ I demanded. I know when a man is trying to hide something.
‘Don’t ask me how… but if I am getting better… it means that Kosov is coming.’ Prince Boris looked alarmed.
‘Who?’ Dr Smith asked.
‘Large, scary, goes grr!’ I explained.
‘Oh, met him.’ Dr Smith waved the idea of him away. ‘But you say that him being near you makes you better? Hmm…’
There was a sound from the doorway. Dr Bloom stood there, with Kosov next to him. ‘Good evening, Dr Smith, Madame Pond. I see my door is broken,’ purred Dr Bloom, his voice as silky as expensive shampoo. ‘Now then, we don’t want Prince Boris over-tiring, do we? Charming company is so very taxing, isn’t it? I’m afraid we must ask you to let poor Prince Boris rest.’
‘No need,’ snapped Dr Smith. ‘He is fine. Absolutely fine! I stake my reputation on it. And guess what… apparently his cure has got something to do with you, Mr Kosov.’ He bounded off the bed, and stood on tiptoe, trying to glare eyeball to eyeball with him. He settled for squinting at Kosov’s chin. ‘Why is that, Mr Kosov? Would you care to explain?’
‘No he wouldn’t.’ Dr Bloom shrugged. ‘It’s been a long day, and I have plenty of work still to do, Dr Smith. Come along, come along.’ He ushered us to the door.
Prince Boris stood up, throwing off the covers. He immediately dominated the room, in the way that only a really posh person can. ‘I think not, Dr Bloom,’ he said. ‘These people are under my personal protection.’ He seemed more awake than normal. ‘What are you planning to do with them?’
Dr Bloom sighed wearily. ‘Kosov,’ he commanded.
The giant manservant turned, ever so slightly, and glanced at the Prince. Puppet. Strings cut. Prince Boris fell back on the bed, blinking weakly.
Dr Bloom turned, sticking his hands in his pockets, and stared at us. ‘Dr Smith and Madame Pond. I don’t think either of you are very well. The time has come to find out what exactly is wrong with you.’ He pulled something from his pocket, a rag that smelt of something really quite remarkable. I can tell you this because he immediately clapped it over my nose and mouth and it filled my brain with a reek like freshly mown grass and wax floors and cheap aftershave.
When I woke up, I was strapped to my wheelchair on the beach. It was night.
I was not alone. A little distance away from me were the empty deckchairs, flapping in the wind. The mist rolled in and around me. I could hear a voice on the sea air, like a song, chanting over and over again, not even a word, just a sound. The mist spread around me, the waves washed into the shore and out. It was freezing and I was very scared.
I tried moving, or getting up, or anything, but the more I struggled, the tighter the ropes holding me to the chair seemed to get. I remembered my lovely little old Dad trying to put up a deckchair on a family beach holiday. It had gone awfully wrong, and Mum said he’d been lucky not to lose a finger. It was that same feeling of helplessness.
Amy Pond. Sat on a beach, surrounded by fog. Come to think of it, fog that glowed, drifting in and out. And still that high-pitched singing noise echoing off the rocks, like the noise that opera singers make when they’re trying to break glass. It was so cold. I was so scared. And I desperately wanted the Doctor to come and rescue me. I thought about just how much I needed him right now.
A little way out to sea, in the green-tinged darkness, a shape started to form. The shape of a man, walking out of the waves towards me…
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