The Sock and Bucket
The first UNOPOBL Live moot has been mooted and at the special request of
grace_poppy, the mooters (
snakey,
des_pudels_kern,
latin_cat,
sharpiefan, and
tootsiemuppet under the watchful eye of
esteven) have written a story together.
It turned out to be a mysterious tale full of angsting doctors, bewildered lieutenants, lustful handkerchiefs and ... socks.
It turned out to be...
The Sock and Bucket
“Stephen!” Jack cried. “What the Devil are you playing at?”
“Would you believe me if I said cricket?” said Stephen, putting the hurley stick down guiltily.
“Cricket.” Jack scowled, clearly not believing. “Pray tell me, which rules include these?” He pointed at the small animals scurrying around the doctor.
He noticed the wombat and frowned. The wombat looked guilty and hid behind Stephen. “I have never heard of any game of cricket that one can play with a wombat; for all love!”
The wombat gave Jack an accusing look and skulked off to hide under the captain’s desk. Jack scowled at the creature, convinced it was in some way making game of him, then picked up the ball which had so treacherously struck him from behind.
Whereupon the wombat exploded.
“Jack, you have exploded my wombat!” Stephen cried, seeing with a glance that there would be nothing left to dissect.
Jack’s gaze wandered from the (seemingly perfectly normal) ball in his hand to the bloody, gory remains of the wombat, while the captain tried and failed to understand what had just happened.
“I didn’t mean to?”
But, convinced that Jack had intended to get rid of the wombat the moment he brought it aboard, Stephen merely looked at him with hurt in his eyes and turned to leave the room.
The cabin door opened to admit Killick holding the coffee pot. He placed the pot on the table and, before Stephen could leave the room, pulled the hurley stick from his hand and attempted to straighten his neckcloth. “Which you’re covered in dirt and it’ll never get clean,” he said disapprovingly and sniffed.
Whereupon the hurley stick exploded in Killick’s hands, sending Stephen’s wig flying across the cabin, smacking into Jack’s face.
“Stephen!” Jack cried, deeply wounded, clapping his hands to his wounded nose. Perhaps he had exploded Stephen’s wombat - albeit quite without meaning to, and by some mysterious process which currently eluded him - but this unanticipated and utterly unprecedented violence wounded him intensely.
Upon hearing his friend’s voice, Stephen, who had just been about to sneer at Killick for touching his things when he had told him time and time again not to, turned to face Jack and immediately went into full doctor mode.
“Are you all right, for all love?” Stephen cried, whipping a very stained and sticky pocket handkerchief from his sleeve. Jack flinched away, more because of the smell than the pain of Stephen clapping it to his injured nose.
Killick tutted and started grumbling, picking up a piece of the shattered bat. “I dunno; exploding bats, treading bloody wombat into the carpet… never get the stain out, never! Next there’ll be hammering nails in with the silver…” Then all of a sudden the steward took on the form of a small pot of apricot jam.
After a moment of stunned silence, Jack said, “I know I’d said he’d been spreading himself a bit thin lately, but…”
“Pardon?” Stephen never looked up from attacking Jack’s bloody nose with his handkerchief-gone-sentient-being.
“Killick, he turned into… preserved Killick.”
Stephen frowned and stopped in his efforts to relocate several layers of dirt from the handkerchief to Jack’s face. Then he glanced towards the door, expecting to see a grumpy manservant. Instead he saw a pot of jam (it did look grumpy though). Upon being dropped, the handkerchief quickly slid away and hid behind the desk.
Jack peeled a sticky piece of… something from his cheek and watched the handkerchief quivering next to the stain the wombat had left on the deck.
“Pass the word for Lieutenant Pullings!” Jack cried, picking up the jar of preserved Killick and depositing it in the pantry to his best silver salver.
“I should not put him there, Jack,” Stephen said, taking half an Italian salami from his pocket, cutting a slice with his scalpel and proffering it to the quivering handkerchief, hoping to entice it out from under the desk. “The midshipmen’s birth may decide to substitute their rations with something better and to think apricot jam a fitting sauce for rat.”
“You are right,” said Jack, taking Killick back out of the pantry and placing him in his desk drawer, pausing for a moment to consider, then dropping in a silver fork next to the jam before closing and locking the drawer.
Unobserved by Jack, the handkerchief sidled towards Stephen and engulfed the proffered salami. Encouraged by the offering, and by the familiarity of Stephen himself, it shuffled its slow way up his arm and nestled itself under his chin.
“There, honey,” Stephen said, petting it absently with the back of one finger and wondering what a dissection of the ambulatory handkerchief would reveal. Jack, turning away from his desk, suppressed a little surge of jealousy that the handkerchief’s familiarity with his surgeon.
Then a polite knock announced Pullings. Upon Jack’s “Enter!” the young lieutenant opened the door, causing the handkerchief to hiss at the intruder and snuggle closer to Stephen. As Jack watched his friend coo at the creature in an effort to calm it, he absent-mindedly pondered ordering Stephen to dispose of this doubtlessly highly dangerous creature.
Then his gaze fell on the cricket ball in Pullings’ hand.
“Beg pardon, sir, but I found this ball behind the scuttlebutt and presumed you would want to have it back,” Pullings said.
Jack rubbed the back of his head, which was still rather tender and took the ball from Pullings, placing it in the same drawer as the jar of Killick.
“And I’m afraid that I must report, sir, that Mr Mowett…” Here Pullings paused and looked uncomfortable.
“Well, Tom, Will has done what?”
“Oh, he’s not done anything, sir,” said Pullings quickly. “Only he’s… turned into a bucket.”
A thick silence descended upon the great cabin, punctuated only by the sound of the handkerchief purring contently.
“Well, that’s somewhat unusual,” said Jack, astounded.
It was at this point that the desk exploded as Killick broke out of the drawer restored to his true form once more, the cricket ball bouncing across the floor and coming to rest against Jack’s hat, which immediately turned into a rather dazed wombat.
Jack, wondering precisely how he was supposed to wear a wombat on his head - quite leaving aside the question of whether it were more fashionable to wear one’s wombat athwartships or for-and-aft - looked at Stephen in mute appeal. Stephen, however, was peering into the eyes of a rather dazed Killick and encouraging the handkerchief to permit itself to be used for wiping wood dust from Killick’s face.
Unfortunately the dust cause the handkerchief to sneeze so violently that it flew across the room and landed on Jack’s shoulder.
Temporarily distracted from his wombat-problem, Jack tilted his head, afraid what Killick would say to his having such a dirty handkerchief on his good uniform.
“Which the handkerchief is eating your epaulettes, sir!” With a - of course, very manly - shriek, Jack went to pull at the happily munching handkerchief, trying to get it off his shiny, golden epaulette.
“Jack, Jack, calm yourself! You are scaring it! You might be hurting it!”
“Hurt it be damned,” Jack said. “He’s a pocket handkerchief, not a -“ He was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Yes?” Jack said, finally detaching the handkerchief, which leapt into Stephen’s arms.
Bonden’s head appeared around the door, followed by the rest of him. “Beg pardon, sir,” he said, looking from Jack to Pullings and back. “Which the marine sentry by the scuttlebutt has gone and can’t be found and this was a-sitting there next to his musket.”
Four pairs of eyes goggled as he produced a red snooker ball and passed it across to Jack.
Jack took the snooker ball and looked at it thoughtfully, weighing it cautiously in his hand.
“Who gave you the cricket ball, Tom?”
“Why, William, sir,” Pullings blinked. “And Tompkins handed it to him.”
Jack was about to make a reply when all of a sudden he disappeared and his place was taken by a yellow silk handkerchief which gently fluttered to the deck. The snooker ball dropped heavily and rolled across the deck, clicking against the cricket ball and turning back into a rather dazed Tompkins.
Stephen, his own handkerchief peering anxiously from his arms, bent and picked up the Jack-kerchief. It flapped anxiously and clung to Stephen’s hand. “Never worry, joy,” he said to it soothingly, tucking it in his pocket. “We shall have you back to your own self soon enough.”
Stephen’s handkerchief, blending a becoming shade of pink, began to make its stealthy way down Stephen’s coat towards his pocket.
“What a unique opportunity! Killick, paper and pencil, now. Pullings, out!”
With that, Stephen turned his attention back to the handkerchief that was slowly but determinedly inching towards Jack-kerchief.
“But, doctor, the captain… Are you sure this… that…” Pullings gestured at the now decidedly red handkerchief.
Stephen tucked his own handkerchief back into his sleeve and folded his arms, cautiously keeping them both apart
Tompkins, meanwhile, still puzzled as to how he had managed to get from his station at the scuttlebutt into the great cabin, shot a nervous glance at the doctor, the first lieutenant and the place where the cabin had been standing before retreating to the cabin door and leaving through it. There was a surprised shriek, hastily cut off, from the marine sentry on the other side.
Ignoring the agitated wriggling of his sleeves, Stephen raced outside to the lower gundeck, closely followed by Pullings, to see Tompkins standing stock still, white with fear.
“What is it, Tompkins?”
“Me… me muskets, sir!” stammered the marine. “I picked it up and…” He pointed to the floor, to where a black shiny snake was slithering, somewhat bemused, towards to companionway.
The marine looked away from the snake for long enough to glance at the newly-fortified convulsions of one of the doctor’s sleeves. It seemed that Jack-kerchief could sense the reptilian presence on its ship. Stephen, seeing the marine’s look, clamped a firm hand over his squirming sleeve and bent to pick up the snake. The snake, disorientated, cold and deeply confused by the fact that, until a moment ago, it had been a musket, followed its reptilian instincts and headed straight for the dark warmth of Stephen’s sleeve.
As soon as it reached the black safety, though, a yellow something flashed out. Jack, who in his normal form, would rather face an enemy armada than a single snake, went with flailing corners to confront the black snake and make sure Stephen never touched said snake (because then surely he would want to keep it).
Within moments both snake and Jack-kerchief were wrapped around each other, locked in a bizarre wrestling match.
Tompkins backed slowly away from the doctor and his wriggling coat, feeling for his bayonet as he did so. He bumped up against the scuttlebutt, which suddenly seemed to shrink, causing him to fall backwards at Pullings’ feet. Running in mad circles around Stephen was a small, very excited terrier…
…only to see, seconds later, Pullings take the form of a thick woolly black sock.
“Ah,” said Stephen, looking at the chaos. “Um.”
Then he shed his coat (which was made easier by the fact that the doctor hardly ever buttoned it up) and dropped the whole mess of coat, snake, hand-, and Jack-kerchief on the floor.
The marine scrambled to his feet as a sailor came running from the direction of the captain’s cabin. He looked around in bewilderment and decided to address himself to the doctor, as the captain’s particular friend and a scientific gentleman. Besides, he had no idea where lieutenants Pullings or Mowett were.
“Beg pardon, sir, but Oakes - that’s the captain’s sentry, sir - sent me to say as there’s something moving around in the cabin, like, as shouldn’t be…”
Stephen rolled his eyes, snatched up his writhing coat and headed aft. Tompkins looked at the sailor, shrugged and tagged along, followed by the terrier.
As the doctor opened the door, both the marine and the sailor caught sight of a giant tortoise lumbering around the cabin.
Bewildered, Stephen approached the tortoise. It seemed real enough, anatomically correct; but, judging from the sudden absence of Jack’s desk, only moments before it had been a piece of furniture. Turning to look for the wombat (now sleeping on the stern lockets), his eyes caught sight of the cricket ball, resting benignly against the bulkhead. Stephen frowned, watching it uneasily.
Surely it couldn’t be… But wait, it had touched the desk… and Pullings, and the scuttlebutt, and poor Mowett-turned-bucket, and of course Jack… Cautiously he picked up his hurley again and prodded the ball cautiously towards the center of the floor. He’d had his suspicions and had been about to investigate the matter when Jack had interrupted him with such tragic (or perhaps absurd) consequences. He carefully freed his own handkerchief from the mess of coat and snake, letting it curl around his fingers to reassure itself, and wrapping it around his hand he reached cautiously for the cricket ball.
And a moment later found a taxidermical sloth hanging from his arm. With a concerned frown he wondered whether the handkerchief would turn back unharmed, after all, he hadn’t got around to subjecting it to scientific researches, but let out a relieved sigh when he saw the cricket ball securely lodged in its mouth.
Then the small terrier caught his attention.
Or rather the black sock it was playing with.
“No! Put Pullings down!” Stephen practically threw the armful of coat onto the stern lockers and lunged at the terrier. Big mistake. He managed to grab the sock and the dog immediately began a game of tug-of-war. Stephen dropped the sock as though it were on fire.
“Killick! A hand here, if you please!”
“What now?” the stewart grumbled, poking his head through the cabin door. The silk Jack-kerchief quivering on his shoulder, then looked in surprise at the tortoise.
“Damn you, Killick, the scuttlebutt is unravelling Pullings! Stop it!”
Killick, plainly convinced that the doctor’s sanity had finally abandoned him, looked between Stephen and the terrier. Stephen pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on. “The sock,” he annunciated. “Remove the sock from the dog.” Killick, grumbling, picked up the terrier and pried the saliva-sodden Pullings from its jaws.
“Which it has lathered a perfectly good sock,” he muttered, holding it at arm’s length.
Face screwed up in true Killick fashion, he then looked around for a way to dispose of the sodden sock, and threw it into the Mowett-bucket, in which it landed with a decidedly wet splash.
He then put the terrier down in front of what had once been a desk, the small animal seemingly content to bark at the unimpressed tortoise.
Feeling that he had wasted enough time humouring the doctor, he plucked Jack-kerchief off his shoulder and smoothed it carefully, constantly muttering under his breath about silk and how easily it wrinkled.
Stephen looked around for the cricket ball and saw it resting on the deck near the stern lockets. Gently pulling the snake from his coat he put it down near the cricket ball. It hissed at it, attempted to bite at it, and turned back into Tompkins’ musket. He took the weapon and returned it to the bemused marine, and bade him wait near where the scuttlebutt normally lived, before retreating back into the cabin.
Next, he picked up the taxidermic sloth, touching it against the ball and immediately it turned back into his handkerchief. Placing it on the sternlocker, next to the sleeping wombat and Jack-kerchief (which Killick had put there in the absence of a desk), he then went to pick up the sock and bucket, but turned quickly as he heard a contented purring, to see the handkerchief laid atop the yellow silk Jack-kerchief.
Stephen stared, unsure whether to take notes (and make sketched) or to pluck the white handkerchief jealously away. He wondered how long they had been like that; judging by Jack’s usual never-mind-the-manouevres approach to life, and the air of smug contentment in the white handkerchief’s purring, the time was entirely too long.
Discretion won over naturalising and jealousy both, and he turned away to allow Jack-kerchief a little privacy. Closing his eyes, he put his hand gingerly into the bucket, wondering how he was ever going to explain this to Mowett.
“Ah, well, as the ship’s physician, I don’t have to explain much of anything, do I?”
Carefully he pulled the slightly unravelled sock out of the bucket, wondering if he should turn Pullings back now or have Killick darn him first. Deciding that the sock wasn’t in that bad a shape and mainly very, well, drooled on, he held it to the cricket ball.
And sure enough, a moment later in front of him sat a dripping Tom Pullings, his hair pointing in every possible direction, and a bleeding scratch on his cheek. Pullings blinked, ran a hand through his sodden hair, and looked around. “What the hell happened, doctor?” he asked, seeing a giant tortoise in the middle of the cabin.
“Dear knows, but it will be sorted out soon, I am sure, for all love,” Stephen said, still trying to decide whether he should attend to poor Mowett, Jack-kerchief or the wonderfully strange example of the Testudo aubreii, which was gazing lovingly up at him.
Deciding to leave Jack-kerchief for a moment longer (and not yet wanting to contemplate the meaning of the pieces of fluff surrounding the two wipers), he turned to pick up the bucket, ignoring Pullings’ confused questions, and stood it next to the cricket ball.
As the bucket turned back into a confused and shaking Mowett, Stephen briefly regretted not taking the opportunity to utilize Pullings as a sock-puppet - and then felt deeply guilty over this unworthy thought.
“Was I just a bucket?” Mowett asked. “Did I just dream that? Or am I dreaming now? Am I still a bucket? And wasn’t there… a sock?” He turned a horrified look on the newly scarred Pullings, and then on Stephen’s hand.
“Where’s the captain?” Pullings asked, turning bright red under Mowett’s gaze and looking away. His eyes fell on the exhausted handkerchiefs and he closed them in horrified denial.
Stephen guiltily hid his hands behind his back.
“Gentlemen, first things first. The captain is fine, at least for the time being. Now, would you hand me that wombat?”
It took quite a bit of impatient foot-tapping and using the Stephen-Maturin-reptilian-deathglare-number-14, but eventually the two officers pulled themselves together and, in a team effort, they managed to get ahold of the surprisingly fast wombat. Only then did Stephen stop his tapping, taking the wombat and pushing its face towards the cricket ball.
Then, without hesitation, he plucked Jack-kerchief away from his own stained handkerchief and dropped him into his freshly returned hat. He then took great care to place the hat as far away from the stern locker as possible.
Maybe it would be best to put the cabin to rights before returning Jack to his usual shape. Thankfully the tortoise was in approximately the right position for Jack’s desk. He tapped the cricket ball towards the tortoise with the largest piece of hurley stick and was gratified to see it turn back into a desk. The terrier watched the rolling ball with interest before pouncing on it and promptly turning back into a barrel approximately half full of stale water, squeezed between the desk and the pantry door.
Finally, ignoring the now quite frankly speechless lieutenants’ terrified expressions, Stephen tipped up the hat, letting the silk Jack-kerchief flutter down to rest on top of the cricket ball. And suddenly Jack was sitting on the cabin floor, blinking and somewhat bemused.
“How are you feeling, my dear?” Stephen asked calmly, walking over to the stern locker and purposefully stroking the now quite distraught handkerchief.
Jack’s eyes followed Stephen’s movements and he flushed bright pink at the sudden recollection.
“Ah. Yes. Very well, thank you, Stephen.”
“Good,” said Stephen, picking the handkerchief up and putting it on his shoulder. The handkerchief, though, jumped down, and scuttled across the deck to crawl into Jack’s lap, from whence it slithered into his breeches’ pocket.
Then, Jack, resigned in his fate, staring at the scuttlebutt, decided that he may be sleeping on the deck for quite a while to come.
The End.
Illustrations to come when I have set up my damn scanner.