THE CAMEL, THE TOOTH AND THE EMERGENCY DIESEL
Ratty News Special Report
A follow-up to “There’s Gold in Them Thair Hills”
By Roderick “Whiskers” McNibble, Chief Investigative Correspondent
Dusty Gulch Gazette
There are mornings when a reporter knows, before breakfast, that the day is going to be troublesome.
This was one of them.
I was sitting in the Dusty Gulch Gazette office, scratching at my whiskers, when I developed a toothache.
Not a little toothache.
A proper one.
The sort that makes you reconsider every decision you have ever made involving food.
I had already tried Mavis Thomson's comfrey-and-marmalade ointment.
It had done nothing.
The new whiskers were coming back after I sacrificed the old set to the Whiskers Dynamic Propulsion system inside McFookit Peak. They had decided that growing back was best accompanied by severe irritation.
Officially, of course, I saw nothing.
I knew nothing.
I had never been there.
The gold tooth was a coincidence.
I scratched. The tooth hurt more. There are moments when journalism must wait.
I went to see Dr Tooth. Dr Tooth is a goat.
He is also the best dentist in Dusty Gulch. He is also the only dentist in Dusty Gulch.
He looked at the gold tooth twice, then frowned and tapped it. It beeped. He tapped it again. It beeped again.
He put a small instrument against it, listened, and turned the screen towards me.
WARNING. POWER SOURCE LOW.
SEND CAMEL IMMEDIATELY.
Dr Tooth closed the door.
“That tooth isn't merely a tooth,” he said in lowered whispers. “It's a relay from Whiskers Dynamic Propulsion central control.”
The room got quieter.
“When you gave the system your whiskers, it came back online. It still expects to find them. Every time it fails, it turns the scanning power up.”
“How much power?”
“Too much. When the emergency diesel generator goes, the concealment shield goes with it.”
Neither of us needed the next sentence.
If McFookit Peak became visible, Prentis Penjani would see what the survey maps had been told to forget.
Gold. Lots of it. Black gold after that. Then the rest.
“We need diesel,” I said.
“Immediately.”
“Who tells Dusty?”
Dr Tooth looked at me.
“That’s your problem.”
Of course it was.
The problem was not the diesel.
The problem was how to tell Mayor Dusty McFookit that a camel full of it had to leave town for a mountain that officially wasn't there, under cameras Prentis Penjani had put up to recognise every face in Dusty Gulch.
Before I had a chance to recount my tale, Dusty had already solved the camera problem. I had only gotten to the bit where he needed to smuggle diesel out of Dusty Gulch.
He put on a burka.
I did not ask why.
Dusty was Dusty.
He had also loaded a camel into the back of his Hilux.
Yesterday the camel had one hump.
Today it had two, and both were larger than they had been the day before.
To anyone who knew, the extra storage was full of diesel.
To anyone who didn't, the animal had spent the night eating and then invented a second stomach out of sheer optimism.
The engine started.
The humps sloshed, very slightly.
Dusty waved and drove away.
On the number plate were the words:
GULCH 1
Trevor the Wallaby watched the road.
“Mate. It's the mayor's Hilux. Penjani will follow him using the cameras.”
At McFookit Peak, the old Emu took the warning.
The old Cassowary took it too.
“Diesel?”
“On the way.”
“Who is driving?”
“Dusty.”
The old Emu considered this.
“Does he know what the diesel is for?”
“Not yet.”
The old Emu nodded slowly.
“He doesn't need the whole story. He just needs to get the job done. Get to the meeting point and we can take it from there. ”
The old Cassowary reached for the communicator.
“Contact the rolling pin. Dusty is our top priority at the moment. ”
Mrs McFookit stopped what she was doing.
The rolling pin had begun to glow.
Red. Then orange. Then almost white.
She looked down the street.
The Hilux was coming.
The camel was in the back.
The extra hump was unmistakable.
So was the number plate.
And so were the cameras.
Mrs McFookit raised the rolling pin.
“Feline Force Five. Dusty has the diesel. And the camel. He's heading for the mountain. Under no circumstances can he reach the mountain by road. Prentis Penjani is tracking him. Protect Dusty at all costs. You must deal with it.”
The line went dead.
The Feline Force Five were suddenly wide awake.
They knew exactly what to do.
There was only one road out of Dusty Gulch that led anywhere near McFookit Peak.
At the edge of town stood the old marker.
It had stood there for as long as anyone could remember.
Nobody repaired it. Chockers with potholes. Nobody paid much attention to it.
Except the Sixth Cat.
He stood there at night. On his anthill.
The Feline Force Five took up positions.
Two cats across the road.
Two behind the old timber fence.
The fifth sat directly beneath the marker and looked official.
It was a proper roadblock.
The Sixth Cat was not there.
He was being kept in reserve.
Back at the Gazette, the tooth stopped being polite.
It beeped once. Twice. Then continuously.
Dr Tooth read the screen.
POWER CRITICAL.
Outside, Trevor was waiting.
His gold-plated knees hurt. My whiskers itched. My tooth was beeping.
Dusty McFookit was driving towards the old marker in a burka with a two-humped camel full of diesel in the back of his Hilux.
Mrs McFookit had given the order. Stop the hilux. Protect Dusty. Keep the camel.
The Feline Five were waiting.
The Sixth Cat was in reserve.
And inside McFookit Peak, the Whiskers Dynamic Propulsion unit was still hunting a set of whiskers that no longer existed.
I had given those whiskers to save the mountain.
Now the WDP inside the mountain was burning its last diesel looking for them.
Trevor looked at me.
“You coming?”
I took my hat.
We set off into the dust.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Roderick “Whiskers” McNibble
Chief Investigative Correspondent
Dusty Gulch Gazette
