Sixathon fic!
At last! My effort for the 2009 sixathon.
Title Field Trip
Author lost_spook
Rating All ages
Word Count 5269
Characters Sixth Doctor, Peri Brown, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright. And half of 1F.
Summary Ian and Barbara encounter an unexpected danger on the school trip. Luckily, the Doctor is there to come to their rescue. In a manner of speaking…
Written for infiniteviking who requested Ian and Barbara, chaperoning a dozen kids on a school trip, encounter an alien menace and are rescued by Six. Unfortunately, getting out of danger is easier than getting back to civilization. Cue thirty hours trapped on a TARDIS that refuses to go where it's told, during which the Doctor and his increasingly amused companions have to entertain a group of scared ten-year-olds. The sillier, the better! The youngest they could be was eleven and I haven’t counted out the hours, but hopefully this is silly enough to amuse. I know it was 3rd prompt, but once I’d seen it, how could I possibly write anything else?
Thanks to persiflage_1 for kindly doing the beta-reading. Any remaining errors are therefore All My Fault.
Field Trip
*
It was an idyllic summer’s day. A light breeze rustled the leaves in the trees that edged the green field and small white clouds chased the sun in a blue sky. However, the relative peace of the English countryside was broken by the noise of a rough crocodile of children making their way down the dirt track, headed by two of their teachers.
*
“Barbara, look at this.”
She wrinkled her nose in slight distaste at the sight of what looked like a dead squid. “Must I?”
“I think it’s alien,” said Ian in an undertone.
She threw him a glance. “That’s impossible. We’re on a field trip.”
“I suppose nobody warned it that 1F was coming.”
Barbara drew herself up, ignoring his moment of flippancy. “It does at least seem to be dead. Shall we take the children back to the road and see if the coach has returned?”
He hesitated.
She put a hand to her arm with a small smile. “Then, of course, you can come back and have a better look, provided of course, that you don’t go without me. You might get into trouble.”
“I’ve fought off Daleks, Aztecs, Saracens, all sorts,” he returned with a grin. “What’s to worry about?”
Barbara dusted down her skirt. “Plenty. There really ought to be someone in authority we can tell about these sorts of things.”
They both turned back to gather up the first years, only to be confronted from something similar to the small, squid-like alien at their feet, but this one very much larger and distinctly alive as it rose out of the small river waving thick tentacles about wildly.
She gripped his arm. “Ian -.”
“Yes, I can see,” he murmured, pulling her back along with him. “It’s massive.”
Barbara started. “It’s got Julia Dickinson!”
“Good luck to it, then,” he said, even though he shouldn’t, but he was reaching out for the nearest weapon at the same time, trying to find a decent sized stick that wasn’t rotten.
While he did so, she strode fearlessly forward.
“Put that child down at once!” she demanded in her most teacherly voice. Ian couldn’t help glancing upward, expecting it to do as it was told despite all reason to the contrary.
It didn’t, but on the other side of the river, where half of 1F was stranded, there came a sound that neither of them had ever expected to hear again. Although, Ian thought as he finally got his hands on a suitable stick, he should have known that if he did it would be in a situation like this.
*
“Doctor, you said this was Earth.”
He stopped to stare at the scanner. “It is. 1967, Sussex. Ah, the gentle English countryside, the rolling hills, the -.”
“Stinging nettles, the midges and the cowpats,” said Peri. “And giant squid, too. Great.”
He stopped, about to tell her not to be ridiculous and then caught sight of the monster on the scanner screen. “What? What’s that doing there?”
“It’s simple,” said Peri, folding her arms. “As usual, you’ve landed us in the wrong place. Let’s get out of here before we’re swallowed.”
He dashed to the controls, elbowing her aside. Peri sometimes thought that if she was standing on the completely wrong side of the console to be in his path, he’d go the long way round just to make a point. “No - this is Earth. And that should not be there!”
“Doctor, it’s got a kid - a girl!” said Peri, widening her eyes, as she registered more detail. “We’d better do something.”
*
Peri raced out into the field, finding herself in the midst of a dozen eleven year olds too shocked to do anything to help. She swallowed and pushed the nearest children away. “Get back, everyone!”
The Doctor emerged, in the meantime having armed himself with what looked like an improbable harpoon. “Peri, best get them in the TARDIS. I’ll see about that thing.”
One of the nearby girls started sobbing. This started off a chain reaction of tears along the group.
“Peri!”
She sighed and did as she was told.
*
The Doctor raced over to the monster. “You there! Yes, you with the tentacles. Put that child down at once and pick on someone your own size.”
It roared up in visible anger, but, to his surprise, dropped the girl suddenly. The Doctor abandoned the weapon to hastily drag her out of the water, a shaking and dripping mess, but too shocked for tears.
He frowned and looked across the river to see that someone was attacking the creature with a stick while a dark-haired woman threw stones. He held onto the unfortunate Julia Dickinson and smiled like a proud father as he watched their efforts.
*
“Someone’s got her - oh, do get back, Ian,” ordered Barbara. She paused. “I don’t know who it is. Maybe it’s a farmer.” Then she stared again. “Although, in those clothes - maybe there’s a circus somewhere nearby?”
He whacked the creature in the face again - or what he assumed was the face. “Not the Doctor, then?”
“No,” she said, puzzled. “Although I can see the TARDIS, Ian. Really, the TARDIS!”
*
“Ian, Barbara,” said the Doctor, striding across to meet them. “Well done! I knew you two wouldn’t be fazed by a little thing like that.”
Barbara was still gasping for breath. “A little thing -?!”
He smiled. “I think we’d better get the children out of here before it recovers itself, don’t you?”
She said, “Who are you?”
“I’m the Doctor,” he returned, immediately assuming a hurt expression that she had needed telling.
She stared back at him, looking him up and down as Ian put his arm through hers. “You can’t be!”
“I most certainly am,” he said. “Dear me, after all we’ve been through, is a small matter of appearances going to be such a stumbling block? If a police box, standing in a junk yard can go anywhere in time and space, surely its owner can change his aspect? And if I’m not the Doctor, then what am I doing with the TARDIS - and how did I know who you two were?”
“That’s a very good question,” said Barbara, raising her chin in a manner that came back to him as a dangerous sign. He looked at Ian for assistance. “Now, Chatterton, you must be able to work it out. You’re a scientist.”
The impasse was broken - before they could get onto the matter of the children being inside the TARDIS - by Peri emerging. She had a distracted look on her face and a girl hanging onto her hand. “Doctor, are you coming? Because these little - these kids aren’t gonna stand around here waiting, and you don’t want to see what they’ve done to the ship -.”
“On my way,” said the Doctor, speeding back over the wooden bridge, leaving the two bemused teachers with no choice but to follow if they wanted to see their class again and avoid the monster if it resurfaced fully.
“It could be him,” said Ian as they hesitated at the entrance. “It’s incredible, but you know how he is - was.”
She remained stubborn, merely giving a small shake of her head and then she put a hand to the TARDIS. “Ian, I don’t think I can. Not again -.”
“Well, either that, or we have to explain how we lost a dozen children on a field trip,” he said. “And while to lose one child might be counted a misfortune, to lose twelve -!”
Barbara gave him a small push in response to his inevitable joke and they exchanged another look, took deep breaths and followed this new Doctor inside.
*
The Doctor closed the doors behind them. “I’ve set the co-ordinates for a mile or so east of here - you should be able to make your way back to your starting point from there.”
“You can do that?” queried Ian.
He nodded. “Oh, yes, no trouble at all, if -.” He stopped, letting his voice trail away. He put his head down and then crawled under the console. “Young man, whatever your name is, you can come out from there and leave that alone! You could get us all into considerable trouble. Especially me,” he added in an undertone.
“I still don’t see how you can be the Doctor,” said Barbara. “Where is he?”
Peri stepped in. “He is. Did you know him before, then? It’s all true. I saw him change right in front of my eyes. He -.” She cut herself short and then shrugged. “It wasn’t fun, but, yeah, he can change - and he is the Doctor.”
“But how?” said Barbara, before momentarily turning aside to one of the girls. “Pamela, please stop crying - and use your hanky; don’t sniff. It doesn’t help.”
The Doctor smiled at her. “Oh, I couldn’t possibly go into the details. But it is I, indeed - the one and only - if not quite the original.”
“Then I’m sorry, Doctor.”
A nearby, brown-haired, freckled, short boy looked across. “Do you know Mrs Chesterton?”
“Oho,” said the Doctor, grinning at that piece of information. “Yes, I do - and please stop doing that, thank you. There is sensitive wiring behind those roundels, so I’d appreciate you not pulling them off the wall.”
*
Anne looked around Peri’s room, where she had taken a handful of them, since the Doctor seemed likely to murder some of them if they all stayed in the console room. “Can I try on your lipstick?”
“Go right ahead,” said Peri, feeling slightly desperate.
Gary sucked at a gobstopper. “Is that man your Dad?”
“No!”
He took another suck and absorbed this information. “Oh. Is he your boyfriend, then?”
“No,” she said and glared. “That thing’ll rot your teeth.”
Anne looked worried. “Then who is he?”
“A friend,” she told them both. “Not that it’s any of your business, thanks.” She glanced at the quiet, fair girl who was with them. “You okay, Jennifer?”
She nodded, too overcome by shyness to speak.
*
“It was a sea monster,” said Neville, pushing his glasses straight. “We all saw it, didn’t we?”
David glared. “It couldn’t have been a sea monster because there aren’t any such things as sea monsters. It must have been some sort of giant squid.”
“Well,” said Barbara, “giant squid probably were what the sailors reported as sea monsters.” She eyed the man who insisted that he was the Doctor with wariness, because she could not believe he suddenly had such control of the TARDIS as he claimed and the idea of being trapped on another long voyage through time and space, this time with the better part of 1F, was turning her hair grey even as she considered it.
Ian watched him. “We can’t leave whatever it is there to terrorise whoever comes along next. The other half of the class must be somewhere around with Miss Thomas and Dr Hethersett.”
“We’ll take the children back to safety and then we’ll go and deal with it,” promised the Doctor, shouldering the harpoon. “If you would mind not talking to me while I set the controls, Chesterton, I’d appreciate it. We don’t want to arrive before we left and cause a temporal paradox, do we?”
“Presumably not,” said Ian wryly. “Janet, touch any of those controls and you won’t be out of detention until you’ve left school. If any of us ever get back there. That goes for you, too, James.”
*
“Right,” said the Doctor. “Here we are, exactly the same point in time, a mere matter of yards away from our starting point.”
Ian grinned. “I’ll believe that when I see it, Doctor - and not before.”
“It will have to be,” said Barbara, watching the scanner. “What will their poor parents do if it isn’t?”
The Doctor yanked James away from the controls again, slapping the boy’s fingers as he moved one of the switches. “Be thoroughly grateful, I should think.”
He opened the doors.
*
They all stared as a thin green strand whipped into the room and back again, dragging a yelling Carol Lloyd with it.
“Doctor,” said Barbara, as Ian raced after it.
He stared after them. “It seems to be quite the day for tentacles.”
“Is she dead?” asked John, a small, dark-haired, dark eyed boy, looking very pale. “Oh-h.”
Graham, a robust, sandy-haired, bigger boy standing next to him rolled his eyes. “He’s pathetic, sir. What was it?”
“Stay here,” ordered the Doctor. “None of you move or I’ll do something horrible. Or Miss - Mrs Chesterton will. I’ll go see if I can be of assistance.”
*
He stepped out into an alien jungle. He recognised the type with a sinking heart. It was one of those that had strange noises, oppressive, wet heat, thin, straggly trees with purple leaves and an unreasonable number of plants that ate the unwary one way or the other. There seemed to be an inordinate amount of them around on quite disparate planets.
He hurried across to join Ian, as he hacked away with his Swiss army knife at the vine that had wrapped itself firmly around the ginger-haired Carol, who was too stunned to protest. It was part of a plant that had a distinct resemblance to a giant Venus Flytrap. He could have sworn the thing was somehow smirking at them. “Somehow, I don’t think this is Sussex, Doctor.”
“No,” he agreed. He fished around in his pocket and pulled out a salt cellar. He wasn’t sure how it had got there, but it was exactly what he needed. He removed the top and threw it into the plant’s ‘mouth’, at which it instantly wilted. The vine went limp, letting Carol fall against Ian with a squeak.
“Well done, Doctor,” said Ian, helping the girl to her feet. “Carol, are you all right?”
She nodded, still breathless from the squeezing. “Wh-where are we?”
“On another planet, but don’t worry,” said the Doctor, striding on ahead of them, back to the TARDIS. “Next stop - home!”
They reached the TARDIS and the console room only to find it had become even more crowded. The Doctor directed a reproachful look at Peri.
“Sorry,” she said. “They wanted to know what was going on - and so did I.”
The Doctor shut the doors. “Well, that’s that. Are we all here?”
Ian said, “Good point. Let’s make sure: Barlow, Briggs, Dickinson, Field, Johnson, Lloyd, Marks, Oliver, Price - Price?”
“Oh, it would be Gary,” said Barbara.
*
“A man eating jungle?” said Peri, following the Doctor out and keeping close. “Hey, how original.”
He frowned. “When have I ever taken you to a place inhabited by carnivorous plants? And I should have thought you of all people would have appreciated it.”
“I may be a botanist, but that doesn’t mean I’m keen on things that try to have me for lunch. And two days ago. In fact, I think it was this jungle. You know, I worry about your short-term memory sometimes.”
The Doctor stopped. “That explains a lot. That dratted boy - the same one we’re looking for here - meddled about with the connections under the console. Or, of course, it could have been that other undersized wretch who keeps pressing buttons he shouldn’t.”
*
Eventually, they returned, still minus Gary, only to find that he had been found, wandering around in the corridors, asking how come the box was so much bigger on the inside.
“Well,” said the Doctor. “If we’re all here now, then I shall whisk us off somewhere a little safer so that I can recalculate and then I shall gladly - joyfully, ecstatically - take the whole lot of you home.”
*
The TARDIS materialised in a vast open stretch of field, the grass - if grass it truly was - orange and the sky bluish-pink.
“Here,” said the Doctor. “I shall work out the co-ordinates needed to return to our previous location and you can take these infernal children out of the TARDIS while I work. You can’t lose any, because you’ll be able to see them for miles.”
Barbara nodded. “We will, Doctor. And I don’t think you should call them names when you’ve just kidnapped them. I think they’re doing very well in the circumstances.” She paused. “Oh, Pamela, do stop crying.”
“Worse things happen at sea,” Ian added, earning himself a glare from his wife.
*
The Doctor chewed on his pencil and worked out the co-ordinates manually (given that he was so much cleverer and more reliable than any machine, even the TARDIS). He was absorbed enough in this not to notice the approach of David.
“Do you want any help with your sums?” he asked.
He turned, ready to snap, but reminded himself that it was considerate of the child. “No, thank you. You may not realise this, but I am something of a genius.” He continued noting down numbers until another thought occurred to him. He coughed. “Don’t you want to go out and explore the alien planet with your friends?”
David sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall and pulled out his own notebook. “It’s completely impossible for us to go from one point in time and space almost instantaneously like that, so what’s outside can’t be real, only some sort of trick. There isn’t much point in it, is there?”
The Doctor opened his mouth and then shut it again and thought some more. “And how old are you?”
“Eleven and three months, sir.”
He could only stare at him. “What do they teach you at that school?”
“Not very much,” returned David, shutting up the notebook, on being approached on a sensible subject. “But the library is good and it’s better than the other school.”
*
When he was ready, he called for Peri to bring everyone back in. Once she had, he glanced at his two former companions. “And are we all here this time, pray?”
Ian checked off his list again and then paused. “I’m not sure about Anne, Janet or Carol.”
“Oh, they’re here,” said Peri. “I showed them the wardrobe. Trust me, they’re okay.”
The Doctor narrowed his gaze. “Those are all genuine costumes from all sorts of times and places - they are not to be played with!”
“Well, they didn’t like the worms,” said Peri. “And Carol was still a bit upset about nearly getting munched.”
“Munched?” he said, his voice rising. Then he stopped. “Worms? What worms?”
Barbara stepped in. “There were some rather large, blue worms. They didn’t seem to be harmful, but some of the girls -.”
“They screamed,” announced Julia. “They’re silly. Peri screamed, too.”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow.
“They were three feet long! With spots.”
He said, “Despite all these distractions and the repeated attempts of David to help me, I have wired in the co-ordinates and I will now proceed to return us to Earth.”
The TARDIS was in flight yet again.
*
Moments later, he faced Ian and Barbara with a sheepish expression on his face. “Well, it is Earth, you have to grant me that much.”
“Doctor!” Barbara would never admit that she had missed this, but while she had a sneaking suspicion it was true, she could not really enjoy a return trip with twelve children who belonged to other people. What was more, there were certain times and places, it was never wise to be and this was one of them.
He glanced at the scanner. “But think of it - a free trip to the Tower of London. As a history teacher, you must admit that it’s an opportunity to bring the past to life in a way that -.” The look that she was now directing at him could easily have slain him on the spot had he been a lesser mortal. He decided to give up gracefully.
“Very educational,” agreed Ian with a grin. “However, I think we’d better leave before someone loses their head.”
“Ian, that is not funny!”
Graham was staring at the image on the scanner. “What is it? Is it a film? It’s in colour.”
“Yes, it’s a film,” said Barbara hastily, lying shamelessly.
Gary said, “But the other stuff was real. Why isn’t this? Are you sure?”
“I said,” put in David, with a huge sigh, “none of this is real. We’re having an hallucina- hallucin - very odd dream.”
Graham said, “They’re going to chop that lady’s head off like -.” He paused and his eyes grew round. “That was amazing. They don’t normally let you see those parts.”
“Anne Boleyn?” said Ian, looking as if he would have liked to do something if it were possible and he weren’t shut in the TARDIS, watching something twelve eleven year-olds should not be watching. And if it wouldn’t be interfering with history.
John turned pale and sank to the floor.
Barbara knelt beside him, but couldn’t stop herself. “No - Catherine Howard at a guess.”
Peri took mercy on them all. “Doctor, don’t open that door whatever you do and get us out of here right now! Anywhere else will do.”
*
“Except here,” she finished.
Ian looked at Barbara. “Yes, we don’t want to be back in the arena.”
“Are those lions outside?” asked Julia, getting the chair and standing on it to look at the scanner properly. “Can we go and see them?”
Graham pulled her down by her plait. “Yes, let’s - we’ll feed you to them!”
“Yes, sorry,” said the Doctor, operating the controls again. Then he frowned. “What do you mean, back in the arena?”
Barbara said, “Well, you’d know that if you’d listened at the time, so I suggest you simply take us somewhere else at once.”
*
“Are we safe?” asked Ian.
The Doctor said, “Need you ask me that? Here in the TARDIS we are completely protected from any exterior disturbances. Well, most things. Certainly, anything of this nature.”
“That means no and we should get out of here now,” said Peri.
He paused. “These children have been interrupted on their field trip. I think viewing a volcanic eruption up close should make up for it.” He moved towards the scanner and said, “Now, if you watch as the magma and hot ash -.”
David put up a hand.
“Yes?”
He said, “Do you think this one is caused by convergent tectonic plates coming together or pulling apart? Or is it a non-hotspot intraplate volcanism effect?”
“Do you know,” said the Doctor, “I think the temperature is rising. Peri is absolutely right - we can’t hang around here all day when you’ve got homes to go to! Presumably,” he added, with a dark glance at David. There was always the possibility that one of them might be some sort of alien spawn planted by the Master. In fact, maybe all of them, he thought.
*
“Aha,” said the Doctor. “See, right back where we started - as promised.”
Barbara gave a slight frown. “Doctor, I believe you said you were going to take us a short distance away so that we wouldn’t run into the alien again.”
“Yes,” he said. “I did.”
She said, “And yet I can clearly see it moving about in the river out there.”
“A change of plan,” he told her, with a smile. “I shall go and get rid of the thing while you all watch from here in perfect safety. Now which one of you is coming along to give me a hand?”
*
Peri sulked as she followed him. “Well, if you meant ‘Ian, please help me kill the monster’ you should have said so. I wouldn’t have volunteered, but those kids are freaky. Way more than some old alien.”
“Well, hold the harpoon and don’t get in the way.”
*
John had his hands over his eyes as he faced the opposite direction to everyone else, while they stayed glued to the screen on the wall. “What are they doing? Are they okay?”
“Why is he trying to talk to it?” said Graham, in disgust. “Go on, give it what for! Oh, what a wimp.”
Anne gazed up at the screen. “Peri is really pretty, don’t you think so, Pam? I like her earrings.”
“You can’t see her earrings,” said Janet, fiddling with a dial on the console.
Barbara pulled her hand away. “Don’t do that.”
“None of this is real,” said David. “I’m not going to believe it, but I suppose you lot wouldn’t know any better.”
Neville watched the monster. “I hope it gets away. It’s a real, live sea monster!”
His friend choked.
“And I don’t know how you can say there’s no such thing when there is one, right out there! And it tried to eat Peculiar Julia.”
Julia sat down on the chair and kicked her legs. “This is boring. Isn’t there anything to do in here?”
“Oh, they’ll get eaten!” wailed Pamela and burst into tears again.
Ian turned. “Ssh, Pamela!”
“I c-can’t help it, s-sir.”
Gary said, “Why is there a monster in the river? Is he going to shoot it? What is that thing he’s got?”
“It’s called a harpoon,” said David without looking up.
Graham jumped up and down. “Now, that’s more like it - oh, it missed!”
“I should go and help,” said Ian. “It doesn’t seem right, leaving it to Miss Brown.”
Barbara surveyed the scanner. “Well, she seems to be having better luck with the harpoon than the Doctor - although is that what you’re supposed to do with it?”
“No, but it’s effective enough,” said Ian.
She gave him a smile.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Oh, nothing - only that you’re itching to go out and be the hero, aren’t you?”
He put an arm around her, as the children were still watching the action on screen. “What, me? You must have mistaken me for someone else.”
“Sir Ian of Jaffa,” she whispered. “Another time - but only if you promise to be careful.”
Carol turned and nudged Janet. They both giggled and Barbara gave them her best frosty stare, which served to quash them.
*
The Doctor marched back in, followed by Peri, still carrying the weapon. They were both bespattered with green gunk.
“You killed it,” said Neville, sniffing. “It was the best thing I ever saw and you killed it.”
Peri said, “Well, it was either that thing or us. Did you want to wind up as its mid-afternoon snack?”
“That seems to be that,” said the Doctor to Ian and Barbara. “In the normal way of things, I’d love to stop and chat - ask you if you wanted another trip or two, but as it is, I’d be excessively and eternally grateful if you could deliver these children back to their homes and loved ones. If they have any, which I’m finding increasingly hard to believe.”
Barbara smiled finally. “We will, Doctor. And thank you.”
“Yes,” added Ian. “You haven’t lost your timing - or your piloting skills, Doctor.”
His wife’s expression became demure. “Not, of course, that Ian and I couldn’t have dealt with it even without your help.”
“I’m sure of it,” said the Doctor with generosity. He smiled back at them and decided, still feeling immensely proud, that it was probably the truth.
Peri wiped green slime from her face and gave them a wry smile. “Nice to meet you.”
“I was going to say look after him,” said Barbara, “but I can see that you do.”
*
Everyone was lined up and ready to go, as Ian pulled out the register one last time.
Julia put up a hand. “Please, miss, Jennifer’s not here.”
“Which one’s Jennifer?” asked the Doctor. “Is she the freckled one who got her fingers stuck in the central console or the blonde one who keeps sobbing?”
Barbara thought about this, answering the question almost as an irrelevancy. “No, that was Janet and Pamela. Jennifer is the quiet one who - Doctor!”
“What?”
She laughed. “I think perhaps she’s discovered your library. We might never find her again.”
*
Jennifer was retrieved from the library, a copy of Harry Potter in her hands. The Doctor paused in alarm and swiped it off her.
“Sorry,” she said, almost inaudibly, blinking away a tear. “I wasn’t going to steal it, sir.”
He coughed. “No, no, only - well. You can read it in thirty years time and not before. Now, please go - all of you!”
“Why did that book scare you like that?” demanded Gary. “Is it rude?”
“And will someone,” said the Doctor, drawing himself up and glaring at the boy, “remove this walking question mark from the console room before I do something I regret!”
*
“Thank goodness for that,” said the Doctor. “Has my hair gone white?”
“No,” Peri said. “Hey, where’s my lipstick?”
He sank down in the chair. Peri debated with herself whether or not to mention the abandoned and very sticky remains of a gobstopper he was also sitting on.
“Remind me never to do that again,” he continued, mopping his forehead with a bright blue spotted handkerchief. “No wonder Ian and Barbara adjusted so well to life on board the TARDIS. After dealing with little monsters like that every day, anything else must have seemed a piece of cake. I take my hat off to them.”
“You haven’t got one.”
“Metaphorically. I am going to retire into the blessed sanctuary of the library to recover.”
Peri watched him go. “Great,” she said, under her breath. “I’ll go wash the slime off, then.”
Moments later a cry of anguish echoed through the TARDIS interior.
“Peri,” said the Doctor, as she met him halfway down the corridor, brandishing an ancient looking hardback. “Someone has drawn - drawn! - on my first edition, signed copy of Jude The Obscure.”
She blinked. “Well, that was never gonna cheer you up anyway. As long as nobody went doodling on Shakespeare -.”
“And wrote in the margin,” he said, ignoring her. “They’ve scribbled -. Ah. Oh.”
“What?”
He shut the book. “Apparently, I did that myself. One of my previous selves didn’t appreciate certain passages, it appears. And - wait a minute - you’ve read Jude?”
“I can read the big books without pictures, thanks,” said Peri. “And I tried, but what was with that with the kid and everything? Give me something with a happy ending.”
He paused, seemingly on the brink of either literary criticism, or more likely Peri-criticism as usual, but in the end dispensed with both. “Maybe what we need is a holiday. What do you say, Peri?”
“That oughta do it,” muttered Peri. “Okay, Doctor. The Eye of Orion?”
He beamed. “Oh, I can think of something better than that.”
“Help,” said Peri, and then smiled at him brightly in order to fend off a prospective lecture.
He gave her a hurt look. “I did hear that,” he said, but it seemed to have worked.
*
“How are we going to explain this?” said Barbara. “There’s a dead alien in the river and our half of 1F aren’t going to forget it in a hurry.”
Ian said, “Deny everything. I don’t have any idea what story the children have been making up, do you?”
“That seems a little unkind.”
He looked at her. “Well, in that case, we’ll explain to the headmaster that we were rescued from an alien by a passing time traveller who had a bit of trouble returning us all home again and so we’ve had a quick once around the galaxy and back.”
“Oh, I do realise it’s quite impossible. But what about the alien?”
Ian laughed. “It’ll give people something to talk about when they find it. They’ll worry about unidentified species and so on for quite a while, I should think. Let them have their fun.”
“I suppose it will.” She took his hand briefly, still mindful of the children. “We’d better get back to the entrance and find the coach.”
“Yes,” said Ian. He paused and frowned. “Where’s Gary?”
They exchanged a look.
“Field trips,” said Barbara, shaking her head. “What were we thinking?”
***
Title Field Trip
Author lost_spook
Rating All ages
Word Count 5269
Characters Sixth Doctor, Peri Brown, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright. And half of 1F.
Summary Ian and Barbara encounter an unexpected danger on the school trip. Luckily, the Doctor is there to come to their rescue. In a manner of speaking…
Written for infiniteviking who requested Ian and Barbara, chaperoning a dozen kids on a school trip, encounter an alien menace and are rescued by Six. Unfortunately, getting out of danger is easier than getting back to civilization. Cue thirty hours trapped on a TARDIS that refuses to go where it's told, during which the Doctor and his increasingly amused companions have to entertain a group of scared ten-year-olds. The sillier, the better! The youngest they could be was eleven and I haven’t counted out the hours, but hopefully this is silly enough to amuse. I know it was 3rd prompt, but once I’d seen it, how could I possibly write anything else?
Thanks to persiflage_1 for kindly doing the beta-reading. Any remaining errors are therefore All My Fault.
Field Trip
*
It was an idyllic summer’s day. A light breeze rustled the leaves in the trees that edged the green field and small white clouds chased the sun in a blue sky. However, the relative peace of the English countryside was broken by the noise of a rough crocodile of children making their way down the dirt track, headed by two of their teachers.
*
“Barbara, look at this.”
She wrinkled her nose in slight distaste at the sight of what looked like a dead squid. “Must I?”
“I think it’s alien,” said Ian in an undertone.
She threw him a glance. “That’s impossible. We’re on a field trip.”
“I suppose nobody warned it that 1F was coming.”
Barbara drew herself up, ignoring his moment of flippancy. “It does at least seem to be dead. Shall we take the children back to the road and see if the coach has returned?”
He hesitated.
She put a hand to her arm with a small smile. “Then, of course, you can come back and have a better look, provided of course, that you don’t go without me. You might get into trouble.”
“I’ve fought off Daleks, Aztecs, Saracens, all sorts,” he returned with a grin. “What’s to worry about?”
Barbara dusted down her skirt. “Plenty. There really ought to be someone in authority we can tell about these sorts of things.”
They both turned back to gather up the first years, only to be confronted from something similar to the small, squid-like alien at their feet, but this one very much larger and distinctly alive as it rose out of the small river waving thick tentacles about wildly.
She gripped his arm. “Ian -.”
“Yes, I can see,” he murmured, pulling her back along with him. “It’s massive.”
Barbara started. “It’s got Julia Dickinson!”
“Good luck to it, then,” he said, even though he shouldn’t, but he was reaching out for the nearest weapon at the same time, trying to find a decent sized stick that wasn’t rotten.
While he did so, she strode fearlessly forward.
“Put that child down at once!” she demanded in her most teacherly voice. Ian couldn’t help glancing upward, expecting it to do as it was told despite all reason to the contrary.
It didn’t, but on the other side of the river, where half of 1F was stranded, there came a sound that neither of them had ever expected to hear again. Although, Ian thought as he finally got his hands on a suitable stick, he should have known that if he did it would be in a situation like this.
*
“Doctor, you said this was Earth.”
He stopped to stare at the scanner. “It is. 1967, Sussex. Ah, the gentle English countryside, the rolling hills, the -.”
“Stinging nettles, the midges and the cowpats,” said Peri. “And giant squid, too. Great.”
He stopped, about to tell her not to be ridiculous and then caught sight of the monster on the scanner screen. “What? What’s that doing there?”
“It’s simple,” said Peri, folding her arms. “As usual, you’ve landed us in the wrong place. Let’s get out of here before we’re swallowed.”
He dashed to the controls, elbowing her aside. Peri sometimes thought that if she was standing on the completely wrong side of the console to be in his path, he’d go the long way round just to make a point. “No - this is Earth. And that should not be there!”
“Doctor, it’s got a kid - a girl!” said Peri, widening her eyes, as she registered more detail. “We’d better do something.”
*
Peri raced out into the field, finding herself in the midst of a dozen eleven year olds too shocked to do anything to help. She swallowed and pushed the nearest children away. “Get back, everyone!”
The Doctor emerged, in the meantime having armed himself with what looked like an improbable harpoon. “Peri, best get them in the TARDIS. I’ll see about that thing.”
One of the nearby girls started sobbing. This started off a chain reaction of tears along the group.
“Peri!”
She sighed and did as she was told.
*
The Doctor raced over to the monster. “You there! Yes, you with the tentacles. Put that child down at once and pick on someone your own size.”
It roared up in visible anger, but, to his surprise, dropped the girl suddenly. The Doctor abandoned the weapon to hastily drag her out of the water, a shaking and dripping mess, but too shocked for tears.
He frowned and looked across the river to see that someone was attacking the creature with a stick while a dark-haired woman threw stones. He held onto the unfortunate Julia Dickinson and smiled like a proud father as he watched their efforts.
*
“Someone’s got her - oh, do get back, Ian,” ordered Barbara. She paused. “I don’t know who it is. Maybe it’s a farmer.” Then she stared again. “Although, in those clothes - maybe there’s a circus somewhere nearby?”
He whacked the creature in the face again - or what he assumed was the face. “Not the Doctor, then?”
“No,” she said, puzzled. “Although I can see the TARDIS, Ian. Really, the TARDIS!”
*
“Ian, Barbara,” said the Doctor, striding across to meet them. “Well done! I knew you two wouldn’t be fazed by a little thing like that.”
Barbara was still gasping for breath. “A little thing -?!”
He smiled. “I think we’d better get the children out of here before it recovers itself, don’t you?”
She said, “Who are you?”
“I’m the Doctor,” he returned, immediately assuming a hurt expression that she had needed telling.
She stared back at him, looking him up and down as Ian put his arm through hers. “You can’t be!”
“I most certainly am,” he said. “Dear me, after all we’ve been through, is a small matter of appearances going to be such a stumbling block? If a police box, standing in a junk yard can go anywhere in time and space, surely its owner can change his aspect? And if I’m not the Doctor, then what am I doing with the TARDIS - and how did I know who you two were?”
“That’s a very good question,” said Barbara, raising her chin in a manner that came back to him as a dangerous sign. He looked at Ian for assistance. “Now, Chatterton, you must be able to work it out. You’re a scientist.”
The impasse was broken - before they could get onto the matter of the children being inside the TARDIS - by Peri emerging. She had a distracted look on her face and a girl hanging onto her hand. “Doctor, are you coming? Because these little - these kids aren’t gonna stand around here waiting, and you don’t want to see what they’ve done to the ship -.”
“On my way,” said the Doctor, speeding back over the wooden bridge, leaving the two bemused teachers with no choice but to follow if they wanted to see their class again and avoid the monster if it resurfaced fully.
“It could be him,” said Ian as they hesitated at the entrance. “It’s incredible, but you know how he is - was.”
She remained stubborn, merely giving a small shake of her head and then she put a hand to the TARDIS. “Ian, I don’t think I can. Not again -.”
“Well, either that, or we have to explain how we lost a dozen children on a field trip,” he said. “And while to lose one child might be counted a misfortune, to lose twelve -!”
Barbara gave him a small push in response to his inevitable joke and they exchanged another look, took deep breaths and followed this new Doctor inside.
*
The Doctor closed the doors behind them. “I’ve set the co-ordinates for a mile or so east of here - you should be able to make your way back to your starting point from there.”
“You can do that?” queried Ian.
He nodded. “Oh, yes, no trouble at all, if -.” He stopped, letting his voice trail away. He put his head down and then crawled under the console. “Young man, whatever your name is, you can come out from there and leave that alone! You could get us all into considerable trouble. Especially me,” he added in an undertone.
“I still don’t see how you can be the Doctor,” said Barbara. “Where is he?”
Peri stepped in. “He is. Did you know him before, then? It’s all true. I saw him change right in front of my eyes. He -.” She cut herself short and then shrugged. “It wasn’t fun, but, yeah, he can change - and he is the Doctor.”
“But how?” said Barbara, before momentarily turning aside to one of the girls. “Pamela, please stop crying - and use your hanky; don’t sniff. It doesn’t help.”
The Doctor smiled at her. “Oh, I couldn’t possibly go into the details. But it is I, indeed - the one and only - if not quite the original.”
“Then I’m sorry, Doctor.”
A nearby, brown-haired, freckled, short boy looked across. “Do you know Mrs Chesterton?”
“Oho,” said the Doctor, grinning at that piece of information. “Yes, I do - and please stop doing that, thank you. There is sensitive wiring behind those roundels, so I’d appreciate you not pulling them off the wall.”
*
Anne looked around Peri’s room, where she had taken a handful of them, since the Doctor seemed likely to murder some of them if they all stayed in the console room. “Can I try on your lipstick?”
“Go right ahead,” said Peri, feeling slightly desperate.
Gary sucked at a gobstopper. “Is that man your Dad?”
“No!”
He took another suck and absorbed this information. “Oh. Is he your boyfriend, then?”
“No,” she said and glared. “That thing’ll rot your teeth.”
Anne looked worried. “Then who is he?”
“A friend,” she told them both. “Not that it’s any of your business, thanks.” She glanced at the quiet, fair girl who was with them. “You okay, Jennifer?”
She nodded, too overcome by shyness to speak.
*
“It was a sea monster,” said Neville, pushing his glasses straight. “We all saw it, didn’t we?”
David glared. “It couldn’t have been a sea monster because there aren’t any such things as sea monsters. It must have been some sort of giant squid.”
“Well,” said Barbara, “giant squid probably were what the sailors reported as sea monsters.” She eyed the man who insisted that he was the Doctor with wariness, because she could not believe he suddenly had such control of the TARDIS as he claimed and the idea of being trapped on another long voyage through time and space, this time with the better part of 1F, was turning her hair grey even as she considered it.
Ian watched him. “We can’t leave whatever it is there to terrorise whoever comes along next. The other half of the class must be somewhere around with Miss Thomas and Dr Hethersett.”
“We’ll take the children back to safety and then we’ll go and deal with it,” promised the Doctor, shouldering the harpoon. “If you would mind not talking to me while I set the controls, Chesterton, I’d appreciate it. We don’t want to arrive before we left and cause a temporal paradox, do we?”
“Presumably not,” said Ian wryly. “Janet, touch any of those controls and you won’t be out of detention until you’ve left school. If any of us ever get back there. That goes for you, too, James.”
*
“Right,” said the Doctor. “Here we are, exactly the same point in time, a mere matter of yards away from our starting point.”
Ian grinned. “I’ll believe that when I see it, Doctor - and not before.”
“It will have to be,” said Barbara, watching the scanner. “What will their poor parents do if it isn’t?”
The Doctor yanked James away from the controls again, slapping the boy’s fingers as he moved one of the switches. “Be thoroughly grateful, I should think.”
He opened the doors.
*
They all stared as a thin green strand whipped into the room and back again, dragging a yelling Carol Lloyd with it.
“Doctor,” said Barbara, as Ian raced after it.
He stared after them. “It seems to be quite the day for tentacles.”
“Is she dead?” asked John, a small, dark-haired, dark eyed boy, looking very pale. “Oh-h.”
Graham, a robust, sandy-haired, bigger boy standing next to him rolled his eyes. “He’s pathetic, sir. What was it?”
“Stay here,” ordered the Doctor. “None of you move or I’ll do something horrible. Or Miss - Mrs Chesterton will. I’ll go see if I can be of assistance.”
*
He stepped out into an alien jungle. He recognised the type with a sinking heart. It was one of those that had strange noises, oppressive, wet heat, thin, straggly trees with purple leaves and an unreasonable number of plants that ate the unwary one way or the other. There seemed to be an inordinate amount of them around on quite disparate planets.
He hurried across to join Ian, as he hacked away with his Swiss army knife at the vine that had wrapped itself firmly around the ginger-haired Carol, who was too stunned to protest. It was part of a plant that had a distinct resemblance to a giant Venus Flytrap. He could have sworn the thing was somehow smirking at them. “Somehow, I don’t think this is Sussex, Doctor.”
“No,” he agreed. He fished around in his pocket and pulled out a salt cellar. He wasn’t sure how it had got there, but it was exactly what he needed. He removed the top and threw it into the plant’s ‘mouth’, at which it instantly wilted. The vine went limp, letting Carol fall against Ian with a squeak.
“Well done, Doctor,” said Ian, helping the girl to her feet. “Carol, are you all right?”
She nodded, still breathless from the squeezing. “Wh-where are we?”
“On another planet, but don’t worry,” said the Doctor, striding on ahead of them, back to the TARDIS. “Next stop - home!”
They reached the TARDIS and the console room only to find it had become even more crowded. The Doctor directed a reproachful look at Peri.
“Sorry,” she said. “They wanted to know what was going on - and so did I.”
The Doctor shut the doors. “Well, that’s that. Are we all here?”
Ian said, “Good point. Let’s make sure: Barlow, Briggs, Dickinson, Field, Johnson, Lloyd, Marks, Oliver, Price - Price?”
“Oh, it would be Gary,” said Barbara.
*
“A man eating jungle?” said Peri, following the Doctor out and keeping close. “Hey, how original.”
He frowned. “When have I ever taken you to a place inhabited by carnivorous plants? And I should have thought you of all people would have appreciated it.”
“I may be a botanist, but that doesn’t mean I’m keen on things that try to have me for lunch. And two days ago. In fact, I think it was this jungle. You know, I worry about your short-term memory sometimes.”
The Doctor stopped. “That explains a lot. That dratted boy - the same one we’re looking for here - meddled about with the connections under the console. Or, of course, it could have been that other undersized wretch who keeps pressing buttons he shouldn’t.”
*
Eventually, they returned, still minus Gary, only to find that he had been found, wandering around in the corridors, asking how come the box was so much bigger on the inside.
“Well,” said the Doctor. “If we’re all here now, then I shall whisk us off somewhere a little safer so that I can recalculate and then I shall gladly - joyfully, ecstatically - take the whole lot of you home.”
*
The TARDIS materialised in a vast open stretch of field, the grass - if grass it truly was - orange and the sky bluish-pink.
“Here,” said the Doctor. “I shall work out the co-ordinates needed to return to our previous location and you can take these infernal children out of the TARDIS while I work. You can’t lose any, because you’ll be able to see them for miles.”
Barbara nodded. “We will, Doctor. And I don’t think you should call them names when you’ve just kidnapped them. I think they’re doing very well in the circumstances.” She paused. “Oh, Pamela, do stop crying.”
“Worse things happen at sea,” Ian added, earning himself a glare from his wife.
*
The Doctor chewed on his pencil and worked out the co-ordinates manually (given that he was so much cleverer and more reliable than any machine, even the TARDIS). He was absorbed enough in this not to notice the approach of David.
“Do you want any help with your sums?” he asked.
He turned, ready to snap, but reminded himself that it was considerate of the child. “No, thank you. You may not realise this, but I am something of a genius.” He continued noting down numbers until another thought occurred to him. He coughed. “Don’t you want to go out and explore the alien planet with your friends?”
David sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall and pulled out his own notebook. “It’s completely impossible for us to go from one point in time and space almost instantaneously like that, so what’s outside can’t be real, only some sort of trick. There isn’t much point in it, is there?”
The Doctor opened his mouth and then shut it again and thought some more. “And how old are you?”
“Eleven and three months, sir.”
He could only stare at him. “What do they teach you at that school?”
“Not very much,” returned David, shutting up the notebook, on being approached on a sensible subject. “But the library is good and it’s better than the other school.”
*
When he was ready, he called for Peri to bring everyone back in. Once she had, he glanced at his two former companions. “And are we all here this time, pray?”
Ian checked off his list again and then paused. “I’m not sure about Anne, Janet or Carol.”
“Oh, they’re here,” said Peri. “I showed them the wardrobe. Trust me, they’re okay.”
The Doctor narrowed his gaze. “Those are all genuine costumes from all sorts of times and places - they are not to be played with!”
“Well, they didn’t like the worms,” said Peri. “And Carol was still a bit upset about nearly getting munched.”
“Munched?” he said, his voice rising. Then he stopped. “Worms? What worms?”
Barbara stepped in. “There were some rather large, blue worms. They didn’t seem to be harmful, but some of the girls -.”
“They screamed,” announced Julia. “They’re silly. Peri screamed, too.”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow.
“They were three feet long! With spots.”
He said, “Despite all these distractions and the repeated attempts of David to help me, I have wired in the co-ordinates and I will now proceed to return us to Earth.”
The TARDIS was in flight yet again.
*
Moments later, he faced Ian and Barbara with a sheepish expression on his face. “Well, it is Earth, you have to grant me that much.”
“Doctor!” Barbara would never admit that she had missed this, but while she had a sneaking suspicion it was true, she could not really enjoy a return trip with twelve children who belonged to other people. What was more, there were certain times and places, it was never wise to be and this was one of them.
He glanced at the scanner. “But think of it - a free trip to the Tower of London. As a history teacher, you must admit that it’s an opportunity to bring the past to life in a way that -.” The look that she was now directing at him could easily have slain him on the spot had he been a lesser mortal. He decided to give up gracefully.
“Very educational,” agreed Ian with a grin. “However, I think we’d better leave before someone loses their head.”
“Ian, that is not funny!”
Graham was staring at the image on the scanner. “What is it? Is it a film? It’s in colour.”
“Yes, it’s a film,” said Barbara hastily, lying shamelessly.
Gary said, “But the other stuff was real. Why isn’t this? Are you sure?”
“I said,” put in David, with a huge sigh, “none of this is real. We’re having an hallucina- hallucin - very odd dream.”
Graham said, “They’re going to chop that lady’s head off like -.” He paused and his eyes grew round. “That was amazing. They don’t normally let you see those parts.”
“Anne Boleyn?” said Ian, looking as if he would have liked to do something if it were possible and he weren’t shut in the TARDIS, watching something twelve eleven year-olds should not be watching. And if it wouldn’t be interfering with history.
John turned pale and sank to the floor.
Barbara knelt beside him, but couldn’t stop herself. “No - Catherine Howard at a guess.”
Peri took mercy on them all. “Doctor, don’t open that door whatever you do and get us out of here right now! Anywhere else will do.”
*
“Except here,” she finished.
Ian looked at Barbara. “Yes, we don’t want to be back in the arena.”
“Are those lions outside?” asked Julia, getting the chair and standing on it to look at the scanner properly. “Can we go and see them?”
Graham pulled her down by her plait. “Yes, let’s - we’ll feed you to them!”
“Yes, sorry,” said the Doctor, operating the controls again. Then he frowned. “What do you mean, back in the arena?”
Barbara said, “Well, you’d know that if you’d listened at the time, so I suggest you simply take us somewhere else at once.”
*
“Are we safe?” asked Ian.
The Doctor said, “Need you ask me that? Here in the TARDIS we are completely protected from any exterior disturbances. Well, most things. Certainly, anything of this nature.”
“That means no and we should get out of here now,” said Peri.
He paused. “These children have been interrupted on their field trip. I think viewing a volcanic eruption up close should make up for it.” He moved towards the scanner and said, “Now, if you watch as the magma and hot ash -.”
David put up a hand.
“Yes?”
He said, “Do you think this one is caused by convergent tectonic plates coming together or pulling apart? Or is it a non-hotspot intraplate volcanism effect?”
“Do you know,” said the Doctor, “I think the temperature is rising. Peri is absolutely right - we can’t hang around here all day when you’ve got homes to go to! Presumably,” he added, with a dark glance at David. There was always the possibility that one of them might be some sort of alien spawn planted by the Master. In fact, maybe all of them, he thought.
*
“Aha,” said the Doctor. “See, right back where we started - as promised.”
Barbara gave a slight frown. “Doctor, I believe you said you were going to take us a short distance away so that we wouldn’t run into the alien again.”
“Yes,” he said. “I did.”
She said, “And yet I can clearly see it moving about in the river out there.”
“A change of plan,” he told her, with a smile. “I shall go and get rid of the thing while you all watch from here in perfect safety. Now which one of you is coming along to give me a hand?”
*
Peri sulked as she followed him. “Well, if you meant ‘Ian, please help me kill the monster’ you should have said so. I wouldn’t have volunteered, but those kids are freaky. Way more than some old alien.”
“Well, hold the harpoon and don’t get in the way.”
*
John had his hands over his eyes as he faced the opposite direction to everyone else, while they stayed glued to the screen on the wall. “What are they doing? Are they okay?”
“Why is he trying to talk to it?” said Graham, in disgust. “Go on, give it what for! Oh, what a wimp.”
Anne gazed up at the screen. “Peri is really pretty, don’t you think so, Pam? I like her earrings.”
“You can’t see her earrings,” said Janet, fiddling with a dial on the console.
Barbara pulled her hand away. “Don’t do that.”
“None of this is real,” said David. “I’m not going to believe it, but I suppose you lot wouldn’t know any better.”
Neville watched the monster. “I hope it gets away. It’s a real, live sea monster!”
His friend choked.
“And I don’t know how you can say there’s no such thing when there is one, right out there! And it tried to eat Peculiar Julia.”
Julia sat down on the chair and kicked her legs. “This is boring. Isn’t there anything to do in here?”
“Oh, they’ll get eaten!” wailed Pamela and burst into tears again.
Ian turned. “Ssh, Pamela!”
“I c-can’t help it, s-sir.”
Gary said, “Why is there a monster in the river? Is he going to shoot it? What is that thing he’s got?”
“It’s called a harpoon,” said David without looking up.
Graham jumped up and down. “Now, that’s more like it - oh, it missed!”
“I should go and help,” said Ian. “It doesn’t seem right, leaving it to Miss Brown.”
Barbara surveyed the scanner. “Well, she seems to be having better luck with the harpoon than the Doctor - although is that what you’re supposed to do with it?”
“No, but it’s effective enough,” said Ian.
She gave him a smile.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Oh, nothing - only that you’re itching to go out and be the hero, aren’t you?”
He put an arm around her, as the children were still watching the action on screen. “What, me? You must have mistaken me for someone else.”
“Sir Ian of Jaffa,” she whispered. “Another time - but only if you promise to be careful.”
Carol turned and nudged Janet. They both giggled and Barbara gave them her best frosty stare, which served to quash them.
*
The Doctor marched back in, followed by Peri, still carrying the weapon. They were both bespattered with green gunk.
“You killed it,” said Neville, sniffing. “It was the best thing I ever saw and you killed it.”
Peri said, “Well, it was either that thing or us. Did you want to wind up as its mid-afternoon snack?”
“That seems to be that,” said the Doctor to Ian and Barbara. “In the normal way of things, I’d love to stop and chat - ask you if you wanted another trip or two, but as it is, I’d be excessively and eternally grateful if you could deliver these children back to their homes and loved ones. If they have any, which I’m finding increasingly hard to believe.”
Barbara smiled finally. “We will, Doctor. And thank you.”
“Yes,” added Ian. “You haven’t lost your timing - or your piloting skills, Doctor.”
His wife’s expression became demure. “Not, of course, that Ian and I couldn’t have dealt with it even without your help.”
“I’m sure of it,” said the Doctor with generosity. He smiled back at them and decided, still feeling immensely proud, that it was probably the truth.
Peri wiped green slime from her face and gave them a wry smile. “Nice to meet you.”
“I was going to say look after him,” said Barbara, “but I can see that you do.”
*
Everyone was lined up and ready to go, as Ian pulled out the register one last time.
Julia put up a hand. “Please, miss, Jennifer’s not here.”
“Which one’s Jennifer?” asked the Doctor. “Is she the freckled one who got her fingers stuck in the central console or the blonde one who keeps sobbing?”
Barbara thought about this, answering the question almost as an irrelevancy. “No, that was Janet and Pamela. Jennifer is the quiet one who - Doctor!”
“What?”
She laughed. “I think perhaps she’s discovered your library. We might never find her again.”
*
Jennifer was retrieved from the library, a copy of Harry Potter in her hands. The Doctor paused in alarm and swiped it off her.
“Sorry,” she said, almost inaudibly, blinking away a tear. “I wasn’t going to steal it, sir.”
He coughed. “No, no, only - well. You can read it in thirty years time and not before. Now, please go - all of you!”
“Why did that book scare you like that?” demanded Gary. “Is it rude?”
“And will someone,” said the Doctor, drawing himself up and glaring at the boy, “remove this walking question mark from the console room before I do something I regret!”
*
“Thank goodness for that,” said the Doctor. “Has my hair gone white?”
“No,” Peri said. “Hey, where’s my lipstick?”
He sank down in the chair. Peri debated with herself whether or not to mention the abandoned and very sticky remains of a gobstopper he was also sitting on.
“Remind me never to do that again,” he continued, mopping his forehead with a bright blue spotted handkerchief. “No wonder Ian and Barbara adjusted so well to life on board the TARDIS. After dealing with little monsters like that every day, anything else must have seemed a piece of cake. I take my hat off to them.”
“You haven’t got one.”
“Metaphorically. I am going to retire into the blessed sanctuary of the library to recover.”
Peri watched him go. “Great,” she said, under her breath. “I’ll go wash the slime off, then.”
Moments later a cry of anguish echoed through the TARDIS interior.
“Peri,” said the Doctor, as she met him halfway down the corridor, brandishing an ancient looking hardback. “Someone has drawn - drawn! - on my first edition, signed copy of Jude The Obscure.”
She blinked. “Well, that was never gonna cheer you up anyway. As long as nobody went doodling on Shakespeare -.”
“And wrote in the margin,” he said, ignoring her. “They’ve scribbled -. Ah. Oh.”
“What?”
He shut the book. “Apparently, I did that myself. One of my previous selves didn’t appreciate certain passages, it appears. And - wait a minute - you’ve read Jude?”
“I can read the big books without pictures, thanks,” said Peri. “And I tried, but what was with that with the kid and everything? Give me something with a happy ending.”
He paused, seemingly on the brink of either literary criticism, or more likely Peri-criticism as usual, but in the end dispensed with both. “Maybe what we need is a holiday. What do you say, Peri?”
“That oughta do it,” muttered Peri. “Okay, Doctor. The Eye of Orion?”
He beamed. “Oh, I can think of something better than that.”
“Help,” said Peri, and then smiled at him brightly in order to fend off a prospective lecture.
He gave her a hurt look. “I did hear that,” he said, but it seemed to have worked.
*
“How are we going to explain this?” said Barbara. “There’s a dead alien in the river and our half of 1F aren’t going to forget it in a hurry.”
Ian said, “Deny everything. I don’t have any idea what story the children have been making up, do you?”
“That seems a little unkind.”
He looked at her. “Well, in that case, we’ll explain to the headmaster that we were rescued from an alien by a passing time traveller who had a bit of trouble returning us all home again and so we’ve had a quick once around the galaxy and back.”
“Oh, I do realise it’s quite impossible. But what about the alien?”
Ian laughed. “It’ll give people something to talk about when they find it. They’ll worry about unidentified species and so on for quite a while, I should think. Let them have their fun.”
“I suppose it will.” She took his hand briefly, still mindful of the children. “We’d better get back to the entrance and find the coach.”
“Yes,” said Ian. He paused and frowned. “Where’s Gary?”
They exchanged a look.
“Field trips,” said Barbara, shaking her head. “What were we thinking?”
***