The Reluctant Vampire Omnibus. Eric Morecambe
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crisp packet towards them with all his might and shouted ‘Goal’. The ‘ball’ hit Vernon in the face. As it bounced off his face it left a small piece of crisp on the end of his nose which Wilf licked off. Vernon stood there and fumed.
‘Hello everybody,’ Wilf said, offering his paw to be shaken. Valentine spoke first.
‘Hello Wilf. The way you’re playing you’ll soon make the national team.’
‘Thanks Val. I thought you had the dreaded vapours.’
‘No. Er … not now. Doctor Plump cured me.’
‘Well done, Doc,’ Wilf said, walking over to the Doctor and shaking his wet fur all over him. Ronnoco looked at Wilf and passed out on the shop door entrance. Everyone ignored him.
Queen Valeeta was starting to get a little angry with all the noise and the confusion. It was a mite too much for her. She asked rather loudly what the time was. No one had a watch with them and the village clock was broken because someone kept sitting on the long hand at a quarter to twelve every night. But Wilf told her not to worry about the time as he could easily find out for her.
He went over the road and under a closed, curtained window he began to howl at the top of his voice. After about a minute of howling, the window opened and a voice shouted down to Wilf:
‘What are you doing, Wilf? Don’t you know that it’s almost two thirty in the morning?’ and with that slammed his window.
Wilf thanked him and skipped back across the road to Valeeta to tell her the time was two thirty. She was quite impressed with Wilf’s guile.
They all stayed there in the shop doorway until it was almost dawn and then, of course, the Vampire family had to go back to the castle to sleep for the rest of the day.
But Valentine wasn’t happy. He wanted to get away from all this Vampire business and to live a normal life with a pretty wife and roses around the door of a cottage and the patter of little children’s feet, and not the patter of little rats’ feet like at the castle. But, sadly, he thought, ‘That can’t happen. Not for me. I’m a Vampire and that’s it. It’s the old saying of Vampires: “Home is where your artery is.”’ Sadly he pulled down his coffin lid and went to sleep.
Vernon thought of diabolical ways of getting rid of Igon before pulling his coffin lid down for the day. King Victor had a daymare, dreaming of living on blood oranges while Queen Valeeta softly smiled to herself in her dream of Wilf.
Wilf stayed in the doorway of Boots and scratched himself to sleep. Ronnoco was left in the doorway of Motherscares, while Doctor Plump went back to his horse and buggy and fell asleep driving home.
Igon sat in the corner of Valentine’s room and thought of his dear, old, kind, generous, heavy-fisted Mother. The wry smile on his face was put there by that same fist!
CHAPTER 4
Valentine’s shocked at his own reflection.
Vernon wants Igon for closer inspection.
Valentine jumped up quickly and hit his head on the coffin lid. Igon awoke instantly and slid over to Valentine’s coffin.
‘What can I do, my Prince?’ he asked through the closed lid.
‘Open the lid, please, Igon,’ came a muffled reply.
‘Pardon?’ asked Igon.
‘Open the lid please, Igon,’ Valentine’s voice said softly but with urgency.
‘I’m sorry Sire, but I can’t hear you properly. I’ll open the lid so that I can hear you.’
Igon opened the lid but hardly more than a crack.
‘Thank you, Igon, but could you just open the lid a little more, please?’
‘I mustn’t, Sire. It’s daylight and it’s dangerous for Vampires to be abroad in daylight.’
‘Just open the lid. It’s too heavy from the inside.’
‘No, Sire,’ Igon was at a loss. Although not a Vampire himself, he knew all the laws and rules of the Vampires’ needs and ways.
‘Igon,’ Valentine nearly shouted. ‘Just for the moment I want you to forget all that rhubarb and list …’
‘You want some rhubarb, Sire? I’ll fetch some immediately.’
‘No, Igon.’ This time Valentine did not shout. ‘Don’t get any rhubarb.’ He spoke very precisely and slowly. ‘Look, the only thing I want you to do is to open my bed lid. That’s all. Just open my bed lid. Now that’s got to be simple, Igon, hasn’t it.’
‘Oh yes, Sire. But it’s daylight and what would your father say if he found out I’d let you out in the daylight? You might die and I definitely would.’
‘I won’t tell him, Igon. Honest, I won’t tell him you let me out,’ Valentine pleaded through the crack of light. ‘Igon, haven’t I always been kind to you?’
Igon nodded at the coffin where the sad voice was coming from.
‘And haven’t I always been on your side and stuck up for you? Haven’t I, Igon?’
Igon blinked as a tear rolled down his left cheek. He also looked at his glass eye to see if that was crying, but it wasn’t.
‘Yes, Sire, you have been the only one,’ he sobbed.
‘So trust me, Igon. Trust me. Lift the lid and I promise you that nothing will happen to me and nothing, my little friend, will happen to you. I give you my word.’
That was good enough for Igon. Not because Valentine had given his word, although that in itself was enough, but because he had called Igon his little friend. And he had called him little friend without putting words like ‘ugly’ or ‘stupid’ in front of it.
Within a few seconds Valentine was sitting up, shading his eyes against the sunlight that was filtering in through the dark, heavy curtains.
‘Open the curtains, Igon.’
‘Should I, Sire? I don’t want you to die, Sire. You are the only friend I’ve got. If you die, Sire, I might as well die too.’ Here Igon looked as sweet as he could, rather like half a lemon that had been squeezed two weeks ago. Valentine gave a smile of thanks and true affection.
‘I promise you, Igon. The daylight will not kill me,’ he said, and at the same time sprang to the floor. ‘Come, let’s get some wonderful hot sunlight into this musty old room.’
Valentine strode boldly over to the curtains and with one swift movement threw them apart. Igon ran around the room like a demented gerbil. The entire room was bathed in hot, bright, beautiful, life-giving sunshine.
Igon covered his eye and face with his hands while Valentine looked down on the village below and watched happily as the heat of the sun warmed his body. For the first time he could remember, he felt not only well but good. He wanted to do someone, somewhere, some good. He wanted to share his happiness with someone. He looked at Igon and, still smiling, said:
‘It’s all right, Igon. I’m still here. You can look at me. I’m not dead. Look at me.’
Igon nervously took his hands away from his face and through a squinted eye looked at Valentine who was fully bathed in sunshine.
‘This can’t be right, Sire,’ Igon said with a shaking voice.
‘Ah, but it is, Igon, it is,’ said Valentine, taking a huge, deep breath.
Igon sat in the middle