Doctor Who: Nothing O'Clock: Eleventh Doctor: 50th Anniversary by Neil Gaiman Read Free Book Online Page B

in a
     local hotel, although hotel rooms had proved harder to find than
     Mr Browning had expected. Also, he had had to convince Mrs
     Browning, who was a nurse, that they could now afford to stay in
     a hotel.
    ‘What happens if he never comes
     back?’ asked Polly. She was sitting on the stairs, reading a
     book.
    Mr Browning said, ‘Now you’re
     being silly.’
    ‘Don’t call your daughter silly,’
     said Mrs Browning. ‘She’s got a point. You don’t have a name or
     a phone number or anything.’
    This was unfair. The contract was
     made out, and the buyer’s name was clearly written on it: N. M.
     de Plume. There was an address, too, for a firm of London
     solicitors, and Mr Browning had phoned them and been told that,
     despite the silly name, yes, this was absolutely
     legitimate.
    ‘He’s eccentric,’ said Mr
     Browning. ‘An eccentric millionaire.’
    ‘I bet it’s him behind that rabbit
     mask,’ said Polly. ‘The eccentric millionaire.’
    The doorbell rang. Mr Browning
     went to the front door, his wife and daughter beside him, each
     of them hoping to meet the new owner of their house.
    ‘Hello,’ said the lady in the cat
     mask on their doorstep. It was not a very realistic mask. Polly
     saw her eyes glinting behind it, though.
    ‘Are you the new owner?’ asked Mrs
     Browning.
    ‘Either that, or I’m the owner’s
     representative.’
    ‘Where’s … your friend? In the
     rabbit mask?’
    Despite the cat mask, the young
     lady (was she young? – her voice sounded young anyway) seemed
     efficient and almost brusque. ‘You have removed all your
     possessions? I’m afraid anything left behind will become the
     property of the new owner.’
    ‘We’ve got everything that
     matters.’
    ‘Good.’
    Polly said, ‘Can I come and play
     in the garden? There isn’t a garden at the hotel.’ There was a
     swing on the oak tree in the back garden, and Polly loved to sit
     on it and read.
    ‘Don’t be silly, love,’ said Mr
     Browning. ‘We’ll have a new house, and then you’ll have a garden
     with swings. I’ll put up new swings for you.’
    The lady in the cat mask crouched
     down. ‘I’m Mrs Cat. Ask me what time it is, Polly.’
    Polly nodded. ‘What’s the time,
     Mrs Cat?’
    ‘Time for you and your family to
     leave this place and never look back,’ said Mrs Cat, but she
     said it kindly.
    Polly waved goodbye to the lady in
     the cat mask when she got to the end of the garden path.

3
    They were in the TARDIS control
     room, going home.
    ‘I still don’t understand,’ Amy
     was saying. ‘Why were the Skeleton People so angry with you in
     the first place? I thought they
wanted
to get free from the rule of the
     Toad-King.’
    ‘They weren’t angry with me about
that
,’ said the
     young man in the tweed jacket and the bow-tie. He pushed a hand
     impatiently through his hair. ‘I think they were quite pleased
     to be free, actually.’ He ran his hands across the TARDIS
     control panel, patting levers, stroking dials. ‘They were just a
     bit upset with me because I’d walked off with their squiggly
     whatsit.’
    ‘Squiggly whatsit?’
    ‘It’s on the –’ he gestured
     vaguely with arms that seemed to be mostly elbows and joints –
     ‘the tabley thing over there. I confiscated it.’
    Amy looked irritated. She wasn’t
     irritated, but she sometimes liked to give him the impression
     she was, just to show him who was boss. ‘Why don’t you ever call
     things by their proper names?
The tabley
     thing over there?
It’s called “a
     table”.’
    She walked over to the table. The
     squiggly whatsit was glittery and elegant: it was the size and
     general shape of a bracelet, but it twisted in ways that made it
     hard for the eye to follow.
    ‘Really? Oh good.’ He seemed
     pleased. ‘I’ll remember that.’
    Amy picked up the squiggly
     whatsit. It was cold and much heavier than it looked. ‘Why did
     you confiscate it? And why are you saying