'Busted' by Jackie Sullivan

 

Once upon a time I was blasted from the land of nod by the cacophony I’ve learnt to my cost portends disaster.
I rushed outside, down the path to our secret cove and there, in a pool of moonlight, was Marshy, wiping spectacles hanging from her sheet metal body with its froth of pink net poking out.

Our inaugural flight was hair-raising. Clutching on as she dodged shooting stars wasn't easy.  I’ve got a bad feeling about this, I thought.
"I wish we were anywhere but here," I whispered.

"That wasn't clever, wishing out loud!", she hissed.

"I wish I was clever enough to get out of this!" I hissed back.
"Oh you want to be clever, do you?”

Abruptly I found myself in an auditorium packed with people hanging on my every word. Perched on a stool, leg-like things crossed, sat Marshy in intellectual mode.
There was nothing for it but to bluff. Glancing down at the opening page of the document I read: ‘Westphalian Reservoir Analysis: Ad-lib lecture to Postdoctoral groups’ and fainted.

On reviving I found we’d been rumbled, and worse, Marshy dousing me with water.
"I've seen humans do that," she whispered, adding "we'll escape in masterly disguise!"

 “I wish I was home!" I yelled, trembling. 

I was still trembling back on the beach, having evaded capture.
But we’d been captured by iPhone

"Look!" Marshy said ecstatically. "We're in the papers! Only no-one will know it was us!"
I admitted she was probably right; our disguise wasn’t pretty. The headline read, "Imposters with club feet escape on a tandem".                                                                                     
What was strange was, the image of me riding pillion seemed to have vanished in a puff of fairy dust.