Chapter Helen

Bobolous couldn't sleep that night, for sheer terror and a burning desire to run to Carver's room to see if his poor friend was alright. The ravaged, desperate sound of Carver's voice had horrified the whale shark, but he had taken heed of his words and fled to his own room, purely because of the respect he had for Carver, and how he knew that Carver would not say such things unless he had an exceedingly good reason.

Throughout the night, Bobolous turned over and over in foilbed, trying to get to sleep, when he began to taste a very strange taste in his mouth. It tasted almost...sour, as ridiculous as that sounded. Bobolous smacked his fish-lips and tasted more directly - yes...it WAS sour, citrussy. A bit like a really strong lemon. But the thing that came after the strange taste nearly paralyzed him with growing dread.

The draining, depressed atmosphere was swarming around him once again, just like what had happened in Somerset, and Bobolous, not wanting to believe it, was forced to conclude that the pizazz-draining forces were emitted from his dear Carver. The very thought made his eyes well up with fishy tears; the idea that someone who had made him so happy could involuntarily make the rest of the world miserable with his very life essence. Bobolous sighed, before resigning to the disgustingly miserable forces surrounding him, and his last thought before he drifted into a heavy slumber was how utterly pointless life, the universe, and everything was. He couldn't believe Douglas Adams had been wrong.

Ben and the man baby were sleeping together in their magnificent (and due to reasons not suitable for this novel, it's audience, or the competition it is intended for, very battered) double bed, during Bobolous' dreadful realisation. Diglet was sleeping between them, much to the annoyance of the man baby, but Ben didn't seem to mind. As more of his memories had come back, he had remembered that poor Diglet had maintained a life long fear of the dark, so he had snuggled her until she dozed off, and most fortunately, her protective psychic influence combined with his own shielded the three of them from the evil pizazz-draining forces surrounding them. Diglet had informed Ben of these forces that Bobolous had encountered before she went to sleep, but she had not explained why. He had certainly wondered, but had come to learn that it was best not to ask Diglet too many questions if she felt like she shouldn't tell you something. However, she had, before giving him his goodnight nibble, assured him that the forces would be gone by tomorrow morning, and she would proceed to give him a biology lesson after breakfast. Now the dormant Diglet lay snuggled up against his shoulder, sniggering in her sleep (clearly she was having a dream about men), her breathing light and slow. Ben reached over her inconveniently ample cleavage, and squeezed the man baby's hand, to remind the man baby that his beloved husband was in fact still alive. The man baby squeezed his squeezing hand in return, and (with some subconcious complaint from the sleeping psychic individual) rolled over Diglet onto Ben's side of the bed. Note, dear reader, the brackets earlier in this paragraph, talking about how some things are not suitable for this novel, it's audience, or the competition it is intended for. Well this is one of the things. Sorry.

Now, back to some slightly serious business concerning the rambling quality of this novel. See, this is what happens when two people four time zones apart are writing alternate chapters. It involves much discussion of the happenings in the novel, and the plots, side plots, characters, and such like. It may well be that you are completely lost by now, or that you have simply just given up on the fact that you might find out what is causing the mysterious pizazz-draining forces slowly creeping all over the world. Well, unless you were born yesterday (in which case, welcome to the world little baby, and congratulations on learning to read so early in life. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Lemony Snicket for that particular chunk of sentence.), you would have guessed that the mysterious pizazz-draining forces had something to do with Carver. You are, in fact, completely wrong. Allow me, as the writer, to use the word "OWNNNNEEEEED" for a second. There, that's done. If you are slightly more clever (or have forced the answer out of myself or my counterpart), you will have guessed that it is not the real Carver who is causing this unfortunate circumstance. That's all I'm saying, ere my counterpart kills me.

The next morning, Carver was his normal beautiful self again, and indicated to Bobolous to join him for a long walk to the Choithrams supermarket, past all three of the perverts, and past the vast squadrons of stray cats. During this little decision made by the two youngsters, Ben and the man baby were listening intently to Diglet explaining to them about the menstrual cycle. At least, they were listening intently when they weren't laughing hysterically at the concept of a period. Before carrying on from last lesson, Diglet endeavoured to beg Ben and the man baby never EVER to repeat last night's events while she was sleeping so closely to Ben EVER again, for as long as all three of them lived, for it was a truly harrowing experience for a psychic such as she. After getting this matter into the open, which was received by understanding, guilty nods from Ben and the man baby, she resumed her explanation.

"So wait, Diglet!" Ben asked, attempting failingly to keep a straight face," if you were in the middle of an exam or something, and it started then, wouldn't you be completely screwed?"

"Oh dear lord Ben... I think I have to start remembering that you're not a woman. All right, you understand the mechanics of it now, but it doesn't just all burst out like some immensely disgusting upside down volcano."

"...it doesn't?"

"No. It doesn't. Also, why the hell do you keep calling me Diglet? That's something my two old music teachers used to call me. For the love of god call me Helen."

The colossally unexpected statement that just occurred at the end of the previous paragraph caused Ben and the man baby to be silent for a very long time, trying to figure out why on earth she had been referring to herself as Diglet, why she had not previously objected to anyone calling her Diglet, and most importantly...why all the papers had called her Diglet before her banishment. Though they supposed that she had the right to decide what she would go by, and if she decided to go by Helen, then Helen she shall be in their hearts for all eternity.

In the meantime, Bobolous and Carver had set off to Choithrams to buy large amounts of highly unhealthy fizzy drinks, in order to resume their incessant Halo playing during the long eons of not going to school, and having various other things to do. It was a delightfully cool day for Dubai, with a slight breeze ruffling their hair and chocolate flakes (Bobolous had been growing his flaked mullet for some time now, and was washing it with Pantene Choc every day). Eventually, when they had reached the end of the road, about to turn a corner, Carver began to explain.

"Ever since the whole Phillip Pullman theorem was discovered, weird things have been happening to me. You may have noticed, in the past, how partial I am to...lemons," Carver shuddered and sucked in his mouth after speaking the word "lemons", as if a sour taste filled his mouth at the thought, "Well, there's been this second presence in my life ever since that strangely familiar womanly friend of your dad's was banished. Like...another me. Except he's not me, I can tell he's not. He doesn't have my eyes, you see. I know you've always had a thing about my eyes, I'm rather perceptive really - annoys people quite a bit. Surely you noticed that my eyes weren't the same as his, when he took my place for all those weeks in Somerset?"

"I did notice that, yes...But I assumed that was because of the pizazz-draining forces I told you about"

"An easy assumption to make, I suppose. Well no, it wasn't the real me. He was close enough to the real me to be able to mimic me fairly well, but he lacked my flair, my rather spontaneous quirkiness, and most importantly...my pizazz. Did you not notice that it all came back after I returned? I know it went away again last night, that's because he tried to subdue me again, and take my place. But something here frightened him, and believe me, if I knew what had frightened him badly enough to retreat on taking my place again, I would certainly tell you my suspicions. Most unfortunately, however, I don't know."

They spent the remainder of their walk discussing the possible whereabouts of that ghastly Patricia, and how to plan Bobolous' errand-run to the airport in order to retrieve his special delivery of foil clothing, which had been detained when the flying awesome looking limousine had reached the landing strip, as the three (four if you include Carver) were passing through security.

Meanwhile, Helen, happily reunited with her proper name, was gaily playing the piano part of a thousand miles, stating in a rich melodious voice that if she could fall, into the sky, did Ben and the man baby think time, would pass her by. Because they know, she'd walk a thousand miles if she could just see them...tonight. But of course, she didn't have to walk a thousand miles, because they were kind of there already. Adding to this, she didn't particularly want to see them tonight in too close a proximity, after the horrific events that took place the previous night.

Miraculously, as Helen played, a guitar, bass, drum, and orchestral track seemed to be conjured from the very sounds of the wind and background noise, adding a rich texture to the song. Ben and the man baby were performing a truly bizarre dance involving much waggling of backsides and rubbing of chests. Helen stopped playing, just after the third verse, indicating for Ben to sit down and carry on, as a test for his psychic powers. Wondering how this would use his psychic powers in any way, Ben sat down and continued the piece. Sure enough, as soon as he himself began singing the song, the other disembodied disinstrumented tracks were seemingly magically conjured out of the air. Helen then began to shake what she called her "ghetto booty", with some strong objections by the man baby about whether it was large enough to be called a "ghetto booty". Helen thanked him for the compliment, but generally found the statement rather amusing, as it was most certainly not true. Dear reader, let me take this moment to emphasize the fact that it's not true. Helen does indeed have a large backside, and she is aware that she needs to do something about it, to this very day. She does love to hear compliments, naturally, but I'm sure she would prefer it if you didn't just outrightly lie to her about the size of her arse.

As Bobolous and Carver returned, they were delighted at the discovery of the strange atmosphere-music that seemed to dominate the air when Helen or Ben played the piano (sadly, the man baby's heavily syncopated retrograde inversion of twinkle twinkle little star did not achieve the same kind of ethereal effect). Carver darted upstairs briefly, before bringing down an electric guitar. Nobody on this earth yet knows where the flying jesus Carver got that guitar, but the point is, he had it at that moment in time. He began a frantically fast, slightly acoustic sounding riff, before the unmistakeable several tracks of Through the Fire and Flames began resounding in the air, once Helen had begun to play the keyboard part. The merry five then proceeded to air guitar (or in Carver's case, real guitar), well into the night.

Well, I say well into the night, but Bobolous of course had to leave for a couple of hours of this little rave of theirs, in order to run his errand which you, dear reader, would have read about if you had been reading our dear little story properly. As he reached the airport and made his way to security to retrieve his foil garments, a plane rather inconveniently crashed through that awesome gadget shop in Dubai Duty Free (Helen had sensed this as it happened, and burst into tears at the thought of never hearing that singing robotic sheep ever again, as she had explained to an extremely concerned Ben while sobbing uncontrollably into his shoulder. He soon let go of her after he heard the reason, needless to say, before realising just how adorable it was that she was in such pain over a little singing sheep, and decided to hug her some more.)

 

As I was saying, after being heavily interrogated by just about every single person in the airport at the time, the pilot confessed that a piece of paper had blown into the windscreen of the plane, thus rendering him unable to land properly. The accused piece of paper rather handily floated in front of Bobolous' fins. In a sudden spur of spontaneous action, he felt an uncontrollable urge to pick up the piece of paper, for a tingling sensation of the utmost importance of that little piece of paper shuddered it's way up his dorsel as he picked it up. He decided to keep it to himself for now, and eventually tell his dear Carver about it, once he had looked at the piece of paper himself. He discretely put the paper in his pocket, and hurried out of the cacophonous airport, full of very annoyed, very multicultural Dubaians.

Later in the evening, the inevitable happened. Helen and Ben got extremely drunk, and spent most of the rest of these few hours about to be described hugging, and taking hilariously bad pictures of each other. Their shrieks of laughter resounded throughout most of the equatorial region. Bobolous, Carver and the man baby listened to their laughs with warm, aww-so-cute smiles on their faces. To think that those two had been so cruelly separated, thought the man baby, no wonder Ben had been acting so bizarrely for the past few weeks before the rather unexpected reunion with his friend. The man baby leaned back in his deckchair, sipping a dangerously strong Bloody Mary which Helen had stumblingly insisted on concocting for him several minutes before she and Ben disappeared into the back garden to take underwater pictures of nibbling each other in the swimming pool.

Soon after this fleeting thought of the man baby's, drunken bouts of singing echoed from the swimming pool. "VOULEZ-VOUS COUCHER AVEC MOI, CE SOIR?" echoed particularly resoundingly to the man baby's ears, and he very nearly replied to Ben's calling, before Bobolous and Carver firmly lowered him back into his deck chair, for the man baby was also rather intoxicated. As well as this fact, they certainly didn't want Helen hysterical while she was drunk. It was bad enough that she laughed at every living and non-living thing, and danced compulsively.

After Helen had been put to bed, still hiccuping, Ben was carted into the mysterious padded room under the stairs to "laugh it off" The man baby assured Bobolous and Carver that this was how to deal with a drunk Ben. He needed to laugh it off.

"uugh.....mm....AH LOVES YOU BEN...*snore*" echoed from the spare bedroom

"AHAHAHAHAHA I LOVES YOU TOO SNOOCHYKINS AHAAAHAHAHAHAHA" echoed from the mysterious padded room under the stairs. Ben was laughing it off, you see.

Bobolous took this oppurtunity to away back to his room, before taking out the piece of paper and scrutinizing it for the first time. It read: "Listen to Phillip Pullman. He knows his shit.". Bobolous was unsure of exactly what this was supposed to mean, but he deduced that it meant he should find out more about the Phillip Pullman theorem. It would help him to understand why the world was losing it's pizazz every time this other presence of Carver's was...well, present. It would also help him understand how and why Helen was banished, and could possibly leave a trail to the even more paradoxical answer of why on earth she was referred to as Diglet for so long.

Carver joined him several minutes later, and Bobolous told him of his thoughts.

"Hmm, I think you might have something here, Bobolous my dear!" He put an arm around Bobolous and squeezed him proudly. Bobolous crumpled with a third embarrassment, a third bashfulness, and a third serious arousal, before putting forwards his plan.

"I remember seeing Phillip Pullman's name in that Atlantis place, it was dotted all around the place while all those protests for....Sammy...were taking place. Oh Carver, we definitely have to go back there, it's something to do with Sammy! We need to...er...BREAK HER OUT OF THE AQUARIUM, yes! And then we need to talk to her, a lot, but maybe sort of ease into it...like, maybe dinner and a movie first, before moving onto the Phillip Pullman theorem, I mean, I don't want her to think we're so cheap that we just ask her for her involvement with the theorem. I doubt she's ready to go all the way with that yet" He was about to continue, before Carver slapped him. Quite hard.

"Okay, so you have a crush on the whale shark in the aquarium. I gathered that much. I don't know how whale sharks get it on, so maybe they just talk about stuff rather than having sex. And maybe talking about a certain thing is going all the way, I don't know, okay?! But if you ever start obsessing over a plan like that again I shall worry about you, comrade. A lot." Bobolous graciously agreed, and embraced his companion in apology. Carver accepted the apology, and the two reverted back to their incessant Halo playing. Carver was just too damn good, thought Bobolous. Too. Damn. Good.

Meanwhile, in a cold merciless glass prison, where leering young pudgy faces loomed in on her from all sides, Sammy the whale shark was plotting. Gone were the days when all those environmentalists and marine biologists would complain about her being kept there because she was just a helpless animal. Helpless animal her foot. She could break out of this puny cage any time she wanted, she was waiting for the opportune moment. Trust those idiots not to understand about opportune moments. They were just one of those many things that whale sharks understood so much better than humans.

Sammy took a break from her evil scheming to snap at a nearby guppy, with her large, ironically toothless mouth. The sheer size of the mouth was enough, however. The only word that can be used to effectively describe Sammy's mouth is the word "enormous". Because that's what it was. Absolutely, very and extremely, indubitably, indisputably, uncontrollably, enormous. She liked to use her enormous mouth to this effect, because it gave her a sense of authority in this rather pitiful but large-by-human-standards tank. As for that ridiculous chocolate creation that had gazed at her so wonderingly a few days previously, Sammy would see to his destroyal once the opportune moment for her escape came. No male whale shark, however chocolatey, could stare at her gills like that and get away with it. That was just plain rude. And very sexist.

 

Sammy snapped at another guppy, before swiftly diving down to the bottom of the tank, to read the discarded 7days tabloid on the floor next to the glass. Her keen fishy eyes darted across the page, before she tutted in disgust, and returned to the surface of the tank. She always loathed the metrolife sections. Like people really read all that stuff about celebrities. Upon reaching the surface of her tank, she returned to her scheming. She assumed that the idiotic chocolate whale shark and his irritatingly gorgeous companion would return at some point, to gawk at her, maybe even try and ask her out or something equally ridiculous. There were SO many whale-shark-accessible places in Dubai,  of course, that was for sure. Sammy tutted to herself in disgust again. Who said sarcasm was the lowest form of wit? Sammy made a mental note to gum to death whoever said that sarcasm was the lowest form of wit.