The Reluctant Vampire Omnibus. Eric Morecambe
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he said even louder. ‘Do as your Father tells him, not asks. I am the Kink ant you all do as I command. All off you. Unterstant?’
Vernon and the King of the Vampires looked at each other. The air in the room crackled with electric hate. Vernon backed down under his father’s gaze. Victor, knowing he had beaten his son, gave a smile that could freeze two flames together. He looked around the room, his gaze resting on his other son, Valentine.
‘Very vell, you take the others out through the front door.’ He looked at the Doctor and the servant. ‘I vould take you out that vay mineself, but I’m afraid I don’t know vere the front door is.’
With that he gathered his wife and Vernon close to him, put his hand inside his cloak pocket, bringing out the ex-mayor of Katchem, and put him on his shoulder. He led them to the window, saying before they all jumped.
‘Ve vill see you in the main street, in the doorvay off Motherscares, ya?’
It took Ronnoco Sed a little while to come round fully. The three of them then made their way to the door. Then Valentine looked round and saw Igon huddled in a corner of the room with tears of sadness welling up in his eye.
‘Come on,’ Valentine called. ‘We can’t go without you, can we? You are the only one who knows the way.’
Igon wiped the tears away from his eye with his sleeve and ran after his hero, Valentine.
It took them forty minutes to get to the front door and that was at speed. It took Igon forty seconds to get to the same door. He had found a shortcut. To be perfectly honest, the shortcut found him.
He was leaning against a wooden panel along the corridor, trying to get his breath back, when suddenly the panel opened and he fell straight down, landing on the stone flags below, just outside the front door.
Lady Luck continued to be with him that night and luckily the fall was broken by his legs. He didn’t cry out in pain, having been taught from the beatings given to him by his lovely and much-missed Mummy to be impervious to pain. He always used to say she had the best left hook he had ever felt and she could have been the world champion heavyweight boxer if she hadn’t been disqualified in the tenth for consistent butting.
Igon lay there, thinking of Mummsy and what the other lads would think of him being there before them. They were quite surprised.
Meanwhile, King Victor, Queen Valeeta and Prince Vernon stood in the doorway of Motherscares, sheltering from the rain. They were huddled together, trying very hard not to attract the attention of Wilf the Werewolf who was across the street, also sheltering from the rain in the doorway of Boots the Cobbler, whose son was in England learning to be a chemist. Of course, everyone wondered what good that would do him.
Wilf stood there, leaning near the window, loudly eating the last of his smokey bacon crisps. It was two in the morning and the rain was still pouring down. Wilf normally wasn’t bothered about rain but tonight he wasn’t too happy as it was affecting his hard pad and as most of you realise, there’s nothing worse for a werewolf than a wet hard pad.
A lonely, huddled figure walked nervously along the pavement. Wilf squeezed back against the shop doorway, trying to press himself against it so as to be almost invisible.
The lonely figure looked round to see if it was being followed and as it passed the entrance to the shop where Wilf was hiding, a parcel fell on to the ground. The figure stooped down to pick it up at the same time as Wilf sprang out to grab the figure.
Victor, Valeeta and Vernon all watched Wilf sail over the top of the bent figure and land in the middle of the road. In all his years (over two hundred of them) Victor had never seen a werewolf with such a surprised look on his face. Its face had the same look a midget would have who had just been told he had won the long jump in the Olympics.
The huddled figure stood up and looked across the road to see Wilf sprawling in the gutter. Instead of running off while it had the opportunity, it walked towards Wilf and helped him out of the road.
‘Are you all right, Wilf?’
‘Fine thanks, Mum,’ Wilf answered back. ‘I didn’t know it was you. What are you doing out at this time of night?’
‘Well dear, I thought you would be about the village, what with it raining so hard and your corns …’
‘Hard pad, Mum.’
‘Oh yes. Well, like I was saying, I thought you’d be around on account of the rain. I thought you wouldn’t be going off into the woods and all that scaring the children stuff …’
‘And grown-ups as well, Mum.’
‘Of course, dear … in the pouring rain.’ Wilf’s mum smiled at her son. ‘So I’ve brought your favourite; a toasted cheese sandwich.’
‘Aw Mum. Who ever heard of a werewolf eating a toasted cheese sandwich? I mean to say, Mum. Couldn’t you have brought something like a pork chop?’
‘A pork chop? Why, Wilf Igrate.’ She called him by his full name. ‘You don’t like pork chops. You always say “I don’t like pork chops” and here you are in the middle of Katchem, actually asking for pork chops! Well I never. Wilf, you worry me the way you never know what you want. Lord knows, I’ve accepted the fact that you’re a werewolf, although what your father would say if he ever came back I shudder to think. But I honestly cannot get used to your not knowing what you want.’
‘I tell you what, Mum,’ Wilf said, trying his best to get back into her good books. ‘I tell you what.’
‘What?’ she said sharply.
‘Leave the sandwich and I will eat it, I promise. Cross my heart.’ He drew a cross on his body.
‘That’s your liver, you big oaf.’
‘Well, you know what I mean, Mum.’ He put a paw around her ample body and tried to lick her face. She pushed him away gently, saying:
‘Stop that, you big soft thing. I’m going home now so if I don’t see you, be a good boy and don’t forget when you come home I want a loaf. Fresh, mind you.’
Wilf nodded and gave his Mum another quick lick. She walked back up the street, glad she had made the effort and seen her boy.
All through this mother and son reunion the royal family of Vampires stood stock still and watched them from the doorway of Motherscares. Wilf had no idea they were there, and the Vampires were happy to keep it that way, especially Valeeta who really didn’t like Wilf on the rather selfish grounds that he could grow his own fur coat, while she had to beg and pray to her husband to get her one. In all fairness he did so, even though the first time she wore it two dogs chased her up a tree.
Wilf would never have seen them at all if it hadn’t been for Ronnoco, Doctor Plump, Valentine and Igon coming noisily down the street and stopping in front of Motherscares.
He limped across the street to them, kicking his rolled-up smokey bacon crisp packet in the style of Gotcha’s most famous footballer, Cruft, whom Wilf had a tremendous admiration for. Valeeta spoke in a vicious whisper to Victor.
‘Get rid of him.’
Victor looked at his wife in surprise. ‘Eh?’
‘Get rid of him.’
‘Who?’
‘Him.’ She nodded towards Wilf playing football in the middle of the road.
‘Vilf?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Vilf … I mean Wilf.’
‘You mean kill him?’
‘If you have to.’
‘But I can’t do that.’ He spoke quickly and softly out of the corner of his mouth. He always found this difficult to do on account of the rather