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Come with me now, to a parallel existence where the impossible is possible (you still can't get a decent cup of tea in the average cafe though, what do they wash the cups in? I mean, it's not difficu..
<< Get on with it! >>
OK, just let me out of these brackets.) That's "Ed" by the way, you'll recognise him by his intolerant attitude! << I'm not intolerant, I just want you to get on with it! >>

Right, so here we are in this parallel existence, it's much the same as ours, nothing good on telly on a Saturday, but it does contain a remarkable man, a man known as "Captain Wozzo". This is his story. Well a story about him, if it goes well, I'll make up some more.. there could be books, a TV series, the sky's the lim..
<< I said, get on with it! >>

The day dawned bright and sunny, birds twittered in the trees, cats languished in the morning sun, the distant hills..
<< bit flowery this, isn't it? >>
Err, yes, OK. Anyway it was a nice day, alright?

Inside Captain Wozzo's lab however, it was dark and gloomy, and a bit smelly, in fact it was very smelly. What a pong! Blimey, the stench was unbearable, poo-ya! What the heck was going on?

The Captain was preparing a new invisibility potion. He'd tried this before but had only succeeded in making his clothes invisible, well actually they rotted away and fell off, leading to his embarrassing arrest for indecent exposure in Crigley High Street. "But I am invisible" he had protested as they hauled him away, a strategically placed Policeman's helmet covering his embarrassment.
<< His embarrassment? That's a bit twee isn't it? >>
Oh, OK, his wobbly bits.
<< Much better, we'll make a literary genius of you yet! >>

I've often wondered whether the policeman put his helmet back on afterwards, I don't think I'd like to.

This was going to be different, Safeco had a toy sale and the "Junior Arsonists Super Chemistry set with Real Explosions!!" (note the two exclamation marks, it must have been really good!) was on special offer at 25 quid. So there he was, beavering away with tubes and bubbles and all the stuff that mad inventors are supposed to have but mostly don't.

As we peer into the lab it seems that he has had had a success! Well, he must have had, he's nowhere to be seen! Amazing! Invisibility at last, the holy grail of modern alchemy! Oh, hang on a minute here he is, he'd just popped out to get a spoon from the kitchen.. << sigh...>>

"Hubble bubble, dum diddly dee" he sang as he added more blue stuff to the greeny-yellow stuff and created.? the inevitable brown stuff. "Um, looks like brown sauce, I wonder what it tastes like?" he mused, dipping his finger into the bowl. "Ooh aaaah! Flippin Eck!, Blast!, Bother!, Fart!" This is not the kind of behavior we expect from a top scientist and Super-Hero. It is, however, exactly the kind of thing we have come to expect from Captain Wozzo.

"Flippety floppety friggin' fooo! That's hot!". He removed the bunsen burner from beneath the bubbling potion and let it cool a little. "Poo-ya, it smells a bit too.
<< A bit? That's an understatement. Even my uncle Arthur's socks aren't that bad! >>
Did anyone ask for your opinion?
<< No. >>
Right well then, I'll continue.

The Captain was having a little trouble with his potion, now that it had cooled it had set rock hard. "Bother, how am I going to try it out?" The simple idea of hitting it with a hammer occurred to him, this simple idea often occurred to him, especially when things weren't going too well. BAM! Bits of potion flew all over the room, skittering across the floor like, errr, well actually, it looked like treacle toffee!

"Hmm, perhaps if I suck a piece it will have the desired effect?" He popped a small bit into his mouth. "Mmmm, unngh, earrrgh, mummf" he chewed. An expression of puzzlement crossed his face, turned left at his ear and ran down the back of his neck. It was replaced by a pained look and then a large exclamation mark appeared above his head. "OOOOH Dear!" he cried and took off at high speed towards the toilet.

Some time later, a little paler and a lot lighter, the Captain returned to his lab and picked up all the pieces of his potion. He placed them carefully into a brown paper bag and labelled it "Super strong Laxative". Most of the Captain's best discoveries happened this way, happy accidents he called them, but on this occasion he didn't seem too happy.

"Bother and blast!" he muttered, rummaging through an old chest "I needed that invisibility potion for my next mission. I'll just have to make do with my impenetrable disguises". He dragged out a tatty-looking suit made of some kind of plastic with wires sewn into it. It was labelled simply "chameleon suit".

The principle was simple..
<< Oh dear, not a scientific explanation pleeease! >>
no honest, it's dead simple. The suit was made of luminescent polymer << I knew it, complete gobbledygook.. >> which would glow in different colours depending on how the various layers were switched on. So if the Captain stood beside a red wall, he just twiddled the controls until the suit took on the exact shade of red of the wall, and he merged into the background. Simple eh?
<< Absolutely marvellous. Now get on with the story, my cocoa's getting cold. >>

The Captain packed his suit, his intergallactic thunder ray (range, one metre), his toolkit and a large plastic box of cheese and pickle sandwiches. "To infinity and a bit further" He cried, getting it wrong as usual, and opened the garage door.

Inside the garage was one of the Captain's more successful inventions, a high powered hover-car with a very tasteful stripe down the side and a "GLX 16V" badge on the back that he'd found in a car park. This car was capable of 150 miles per hour and would do 0 to 60 in 3 seconds. I say "capable of" and "would do" advisedly as such performance would require; a: a competent driver and; b: a high standard of maintenance.
It had neither.

"Crang crang crang!" went the starter, "pop pop pop!" went the engine, "wibbly wibbly wibbly" went some other bit that wasn't supposed to make a noise at all.

After a while a sort of "chuga-chuga" theme became the dominant note. "Marvellous" marvelled the Captain "sweet as a nut" << Appropriate, that, really. >> Shut up, you're spoiling the story!

The Captain snicked the gearlever into first, pressed a button on the dash and.. "Fiddly fuddly foo!" he cursed as the garage door shut in front of him. He pressed various buttons, the lights came on, changed colour and went off again, a strange brown smell pervaded the cockpit. "Faddle daddle!" jab jab poke press mutter. "BANG!!" The car shot forward, the garage door was thrown aside like, err well, like a garage door being thrown aside really..
<< Pathetic. You're not too good on simile today are you? >> No, but that's not important right now. The Captain was on the road and at the start of a new and dangerous mission. The Crigley one-way system and beyond!

It was a beautiful day. The sun shone like a big yellow ball.

<<Do big yellow balls usually shine?>>

There’s no poetry in your soul is there?

<<No. I trod on it.>>

Well the sun was shining anyway, and Captain Wozzo was feeling cheery. He whistled a happy tune, it was good to feel the wind in his hair.. err.. well it would have been in his hair if he had any, but you get the idea.

Just then the Captain’s hyper-ether-radio crackled into life “Blasted thing!” he complained, “always crackling, I must mend it.”

“Supreme President (Solar System) here Wozzo, are you listening?”

“Eh?” the captain exclaimed, veering all over the road as he twiddled various hyper-ether knobs, “Come again?”

“It’s the Supreme President! Pay attention!” boomed the voice.

“Ooh aah. Yes, err.. hello?” The Captain selected Jazz on the equaliser to see if that made the Supreme President sound cooler.

It didn’t.

“Ah yes, that’s Wozzo alright” the Supreme President (Solar System) continued

<<Can’t we shorten that a bit? If he’s going to keep appearing it’ll use up far too many words.>>

Too many words? Is there a shortage?

<<Not when you’re telling the story…>>

OK, OK, we’ll call him SPOTSS from now on, is that short enough?

<<SPOTSS?>>

Supreme President Of The Solar System, we can’t do brackets in an abbreviation.

<<Oh alright.>>

“It’s the Pretavians again Wozzo, they’re on the war-path. I want you to deal with them.”

“P P Pretavians?” Wozzo stammered. He didn’t like the Pretavians, the last time he’d come across a Pretavian it bent his hat!

“Where are they when they’re at home?”

“Pretavia of course you idiot! The problem is they’re not at home. They’re in Crigley!”

“Bu Bu Bu Bu Bu Bu But..” gibbered our intrepid hero.

“Stop doing motor-boat impressions Wozzo. I want you to track the blighters down and get rid of ‘em. Got it?”

The Captain was just approaching a road sign which indicated “Crigley” straight on and “Other Routes” to the left. He wasn’t sure where “Other Routes” was but he was seriously considering going there anyway…

“And don’t go bunking off down that side-road, I’ve got you on GUTS.”

“GUTS?” queried the captain.

“Geo-Universal Tracking System. You must have heard of it?”

“Oh, ah, hmm, yes, guts, marvellous!”

Of course Wozzo had no idea about GUTS, he’d been far too busy in his lab inventing much more useful systems like LASOWS, the Liquorice Allsorts Special Offer Warning System. This scanned the stock-control systems of all the major retailers looking for price reductions on his favourite sweets.

Or CRAP, the Coconut Rejecting Automatic Process which would remove the nasty coconut allsorts from the newly opened bag and chuck them out of the window.

“Go get ‘em Wozzo” said the SPOTSS and the radio crackled out of life again.

There was nothing for it then, SPOTSS’s GUTS would follow him wherever he went. He headed for Crigley and the Pretavians. At 23 miles per hour..

After five minutes a thought occurred. The Captain’s thoughts often occurred quicker than that but he was a little stunned by the news that his old enemy was back. He wondered what could have brought them here again? Surely the fright he’d given them with PONG (Pretavian Oppilative Nerve Gas) should have kept them away for good. There must be something here they really wanted, if only he knew what it was..

Now, you may be wondering what Pretavians look like?

<<Oh yes! I’m really-really interested in what Pretavians look like. Do they wear trainers or boots? And do they wear bobble-hats or baseball caps? I’m dying to know.>>

Stop taking the mickey. This is serious!

<<That’s obvious, can’t you put a few more jokes in?>>

I’m doing my best but Pretavians are nasty things. They are very difficult to see on account of them being so small, and they travel by getting into people’s shoes.

<<Sorry I was just dozing off there. I thought you said “in people’s shoes”?>>

Yes, you know? When you’re just having a nice walk, your shoes are comfy, all’s well with the world and then suddenly it dawns on you that there’s something in your shoe.

<<Your foot?>>

Apart from that! Something small and hard like a piece of grit.

<<Surely it is a piece of grit?>>

Nope. It’s a Pretavian.

<<You amaze me! What a load of b..>>

Shhh! It’s their ultimate weapon you see? No army can march for miles with grit in their boots, then the Preatvians can attack!

<<From inside someone’s shoes? Pretty difficult I’d have thought.>>

No! They wait until the wearer takes off his shoes to empty out the grit, then they attack! They get into people’s eyes so they can’t see properly and they steal their sweets. Bounty-bars usually.

<<They don’t put the little cardboard tray in those anymore. I miss the little cardboard tray..>>

Shut up!

The Captain knew all this of course and so had designed PONG so that it rendered the Pretavians allergic to chocolate and odour-eaters.

<<Mmm! Chocolate and Odour-Eaters. My favourite supper!>>

They could no longer travel and they couldn’t eat Bounties so they disappeared. The Captain got an OBE for that, he can now sign himself Wozzo MDMscProfOBE.

<<Profobe?>>

Medical Doctor, Batchelor of soup, <<You mean Science, surely?>> Oh yes, where was I? Bachelor of Science, Professor and OBE.

What a man!

“What a Wally!” muttered the Captain. He was stuck behind a man on a tricycle with a little box on the back labelled “Brian’s delicious coconut snacks”.

As you may have guessed, the Captain hated coconut.

“Get out of the way!” He shouted and pooped his horn… well it wasn’t really a horn, it was WATTS, (Wozzo’s Amplified Traffic Terrifying System) and it was seriously loud.

The man on the tricycle leapt at least a foot out of his seat and careered into the ditch whereupon he started wrenching off his boots and then began rubbing his eyes!

The Captain’s blood ran cold.. Pretavians!

He had found them...

<< "Dot dot dot" again eh? I suppose we're going to have to wait another 3 years for the next chapter are we? >>

Um, well... no actually...

<< Stop it, you'll use up all the dots. >>

It's here!

<<Oh goody.>>

Captain Wozzo, savior of the world, defender of the galaxy, mightiest brain in the universe, spoke.

Don't be facetious, this is serious stuff. If he can't use his super-powers to escape from this perilous predicament the whole world is facing unprecedented vicissitudes.

The Captain fumbled in his pocket. If he could activate his chameleon suit he would appear to be invisible and..

<<Hang on a minute, how can he appear to be invisible? If he's invisible he'd disappear wouldn't he?>>

Stop quibbling, I'm trying my best to generate some tension and you keep spoiling it. Now my pencil's broken.

That's better. Now where was I? Ah yes, the chameleon suit. Now, if only the Captain could find the remote control he'd be off in a trice. Or on a bus, whichever was the cheaper. His fingers closed around a small plastic case. He gingerly pressed one of the buttons.. "It's just coming up to almost just past a quarter to three and now here's Sally with the traffic" came a tinny voice followed by some terrible tootling jingle, like this: "doo diddle-dee diddle doo diddle diddly, doo diddle-dee diddle doo diddle diddly.." <<For goodness sake stop, I can't stand traffic jingles!>> he clicked it off again. "Hmm, that isn't it, now where did I.."

After a bit more fumbling the terrible realisation came upon him; the remote control was in the glove compartment of the Wozzo-mobile. Well they tell you to do that don't they? "Lock your valuables in the glove-box" they say and the Captain had done just that. His laser-guided nose-hair trimmer was in there too, and his pack of tiny-teeny screwdrivers for undoing tiny-teeny screws, and the key to his mum's garden shed. What a disaster, she'd need the lawn-mower on Saturday.

After a while he finally managed to open one eye. Nothing! Blackness. Inky gloom. <<OK OK we see, it's dark, right?>> Yes, very.

The Captain's mighty brain had soon sized up the situation. "Futtocks!" he exclaimed, "There would have been no point in the chameleon suit anyway, it's dark!" <<He's sharp as a knife isn't he?>> Yes, you know he's a profobe of soup or something don't you? <<Err. I seem to remember something about soup.. or was it soap?>>

He decided to start walking, he would soon find something if he started walking.
He did.
After two steps he ran into the wall. "Mumph!" he moaned, jumping up and down holding his foot. Crack! went his head on the ceiling. "Oooh!" trying to keep quiet was becoming pretty difficult. Now that he had discovered the wall he decided to feel around it until he found something useful. First he found a damp patch which smelled of mould, then he found a moldy patch which smelled of damp, finally he came upon a bit of pipe which lead down to a switch on the wall. He pressed it.

A deafening siren started to wail "WeeeWaaa WeeeWaaa Weee.."<<Yes, alright, we know how sirens go.>> "Fudge!" muttered the Captain, "I thought it was the light switch."

Just then the door opened and the Captain felt himself being lifted, ever so slightly, off the ground and carried along a still dark passage towards a dimly lit door. <<Bit spooky this, isn't it?>> Shhh! This is dramatic tension.

The door creaked open as they arrived, revealing a large boot festooned with multi-coloured socks. The throne of the Chief Pretavian!

A tiny voice spoke. "Welcome Wozzo, to the mighty throne of the head of the glorious Pretavian expeditionary force!"

"I said: Welcome Wozzo, to the mighty throne of the head of the glorious Pretavian expeditionary force!"

"Nope. Still not getting it. Hang on a jiffy." The Captain took the radio out of his pocket and flipped open the case, he re-connected a couple of wires and held the set at arms length and pointed it at the chief Pretavian's boot.

"I said: Welcome Wozzo, to the mighty throne of the head of the glorious Pretavian expeditionary force!"

"Be quiet, you miserable malefactor, you will do my bidding or die! Ha ha ha ha!" <<What's so funny?>> He's not laughing at a joke he's laughing maniacally! <<Bit of a looney is he?>> Power crazed I reckon, he is the chief Pretavian after all. <<I wouldn't have thought that being the chief of the sock-grit clan was something to be all that proud of.>> We all have our place in the grand scheme of things. <<Very philosophical.>>

"I have a plan to conquer your world Wozzo, and you will help me do it! Ha ha ha ha!" Cackled the chief.

"Put these boots on and we will go to your laboratory." Commanded the chief, fixing Wozzo with a fierce stare. Unfortunately, with the chief being so tiny, the fierce stare went unnoticed.

"They aren't my style." Complained Wozzo, he never wore kicker boots, only sensible black shoes specially adapted to carry essential supplies such as licorice all-sorts. Thinking about his shoes gave him an idea.

"Ha ha ha ha!" Cackled the chief. "Your PONG mostly had short-term effects, we survived and have now grown stronger. We are no longer allergic to chocolate and can eat whole bars at a time. Ha ha ha ha!" <<This bloke's getting on my nerves, can't Wozzo do something?>>

"Ahem. Well, yes we don't like those, but fortunately most people just have smelly socks and we love smelly socks! Ha ha ha ha! Now take off your shoes."

Wozzo refused and hordes of tiny Pretavians swarmed around him, they started to tug at his shoes but then backed off. He wondered what they were doing, he wasn't wearing odour eaters like his mum had told him and his socks were certainly smelly, so they should have liked his shoes, but they obviously didn't. They were retreating, coughing and choking.

"This is chemical warfare!" Shouted the chief. "We will return!"
Then all the Pretavians, the big boot, the colourful socks and the slight smell of feet, were gone.

"Good gracious!" muttered the Captain, "What on-earth caused that? Must be something about my shoes." He groped about in the secret compartment in his left shoe and found some half-chewed gum, a coupon for a free tube of mustard, some self-tapping screws and an old gramophone needle which stuck into his finger. "Eeek! can't be any of that. Let's see what's in the other side." Then he remembered. Liquorice all-sorts, complete with the coconut ones. He hadn't had time to run this packet through CRAP after he'd bought it so he'd put it in the shoe compartment for later.

It all made sense now, the coconut snacks man had been attacked but they had left his sweets alone. PONG must have had another effect that the Captain hadn't planned, they could no longer stand coconut. In their hatred of it the Pretavians and the Captain were on the same side!

It was dark again now that the Pretavians had gone so the Captain started walking. He found the wall.
"Ouch!"
Then the ceiling. Crack!
"Aargh!.. Futtocks!"
Then some stairs.
"Aaaaaargh.. Ooooh.. . . . . Bother!"
The stairs were going down, and so was the Captain, rather faster and more uncomfortably than he would have liked. He arrived at the bottom with a thump, a couple of bruises and a black-eye. When the stars flying round in front of his eyes faded away he noticed a crack of sunlight. It must be a door to the outside.

He picked himself up slowly, checking that all his arms and legs worked properly

He tried the door, it wasn't locked, he went outside and looked around to see where he was. The concrete carbuncle that he had emerged from looked familiar.. it was the Crigley water-tower! That explained why he'd had to go down-stairs to get outside. But where had the Pretavians gone? <<Chuffed if I know.>>

Well, what was going on at that moment was that he was wondering where the Pretavians had gone, then he had an idea. They must have gone back to their ship, but where would they have parked it? A Pretavian battle cruiser sounds impressive but actually looks like a shoe-box. Usually in a nasty shade of green. They would have chosen somewhere nice and clear of long grass, trees and other tangly stuff that would stop it landing and taking off. The flat top of the water-tower would be ideal!

The captain fumbled in his pockets again and pulled out a small telescope. He started to extend it, it got longer and longer until it almost reached the top of the water tower. He put it to his eye.
"Ah-Ha!" he said. <<A-ha? Aren't they a Swedish group from the 80's?>> No, they're Norwegian, but that's not important right now, the Captain had spotted the ship, on top of the tower, just as he had suspected. Time to call for backup!

Most of Wozzo's equipment was still in the car but he did have the radio. He would call the Supreme President and get some commandos here in a jiffy.
"Frrrt, buzzz, weeeeooooo." Went the radio as the Captain twiddled it to high-security encryption and the super secret international crime-fighting frequency.
"Hello, Wozzo calling base, come in base."
"Ello! A1 mini-cabs, where d'you wanna go mate?" Came the reply.
"I don't wanna, err, want to go anywhere. I want backup. Get off the channel!"
"You gerroff the channel if you don't wanna cab, I got 15 cabs to control 'ere and your jammin' me out."
"Now look here, I'm on the international... err... oh bother! Sorry, it's 151.2574 not 161, bye for now!"

Wozzo re-programmed the radio. "Wozzo here. Help, send backup!" He yelled into the mike.
"Stop yelling Wozzo, we know you're in trouble I've got you on GUTS."

Wozzo had forgotten about the Supreme President's GUTS, but this was good news. Help would be on the way.
"Ah well, I'm afraid it's Wednesday Wozzo."
"Wednesday?" Spluttered Wozzo. "Is it early-closing or something?"
"No no, that would be silly. All the commandos are on a management training course to comply with new good business practice regulations. If they don't do it we'll be closed down."
"But but but"
"You're doing that motor-boat thing again Wozzo. Pull yourself together! "
"But I've got the Pretavians in my sights and I need backup!"
"Sorry Wozzo, earliest I can do it is tomorrow morning. Bye!"

The radio went dead. "Bum!" Said Wozzo. The Pretavians weren't going to hang about on top of a water-tower all night. He had to get some help. He twiddled the radio again.

"Hello, A1 mini-cabs are you there?" Called the Captain.
"Yes mate. Waddya want?"
"Do you collect take-aways." He enquired...

The Captain's plan was in place, unfortunately his false teeth weren't "Mumph bovver, urgh, ah! That's better, now all I need is that delivery to arrive."

It had taken a little while to find a Thai restaurant in the Crigley area, he was using FART
<<Oh no! Not another amusing acronym? What is it?>>
It's the Captain's own app for his O-Phone, the Fully Automated Restaurant Tracer, works a treat.
<<Hmm, ingenious. And the "O-Phone"?>>
That's just his Old Phone, he's got 3 months to go before he can get an upgrade.

Anyway, there were plenty of Balti places, loads of chip shops and a Peruvian bistro.
<<A Peruvian bistro?... sounds awful.>>
It is, their Papa a la Huancaina tastes like sick and smells of socks, but that's not important at the moment - it's Thai food the captain needs - a nice coconut chicken curry should do the trick, all sticky and coconutty.

While he waited for the delivery he began setting up a rather spectacular catapult arrangement. His car had been towed away due a slight lack of tax disk and due to its being parked in a ditch, so he'd had to improvise. He had fashioned a few pieces of wood into a frame and his braces provided the elastic. He was ready. The radio crackled again, "Damn thing! Still crackling!" muttered the Captain standing up to fetch it. Unfortunately, due to a deficiency in the brace department, his trousers fell down. "Doh! Ooh, blast it!" he cried falling into a cow pat. He got up, quite quickly, having discovered a thistle where a thistle really shouldn't be.

"Oh blast it!" The Captain twiddled all the dials three clicks to the left, some of them two clicks to the right and the last one came off in his hand. "That's torn it!" He moaned, although to be strictly accurate it wasn't torn at all.
<<Look this is all very interesting but can we get on with it, all this talk of curry is making me hungry and it's nearly tea-time.>>

A1 mini-cabs couldn't find the water tower. They couldn't even find the Thai restaurant.

Jim (Mr A1 mini-cabs) had been lucky to find his way to work that morning. Things weren't going well, and some mad bloke kept blotting out their radios with demands for curry, well he wasn't going to trick Jim into taking curry to a water tower on a Wednesday, that's for sure.

Three hours later and the Captain was getting worried
<<I'm getting slightly perturbed myself, this has been going on for ages and there's no solution in sight! I want my tea...>>
Ah but there is a solution!
<<Go on then, amaze me..>>

The Captain had given up on A1 and was heading back down to the road, in the mean time he had radically redesigned his trouser support arrangements with the aid of some hairy string he'd found in a hedge. As he approached the road and the place where the Wozzo-mobile had been he looked around carefully.. and there it was!
<<What?>>
Don't be so impatient, I'm going to tell you.

It was the remains of Brian’s delicious coconut snacks tricycle!
<<Hurrah! Coconut! Ideal.>>
Lying in the ditch, largely hidden from view, was the box, still in tact. Captain Wozzo tried the lid, it was locked. Without his full tool kit he was stumped "If only I hadn't given my Sonic Screwdriver to that bloke in the telephone box," Thought the Captain "when I went back for it the next day the whole thing had gone!"

He jumped on the snack box. He hit it with a stick. He hit it with a stone. A small boy looked down at him from the road. "What yer doin' in that ditch mister?" He enquired with a smirk.

"Err, I'm engaged in a mighty tussle with forces of evil." Stated the Captain, hoping the boy would be impressed.

"Looks like you're in a mighty tussle with a box to me, and the box is winning!"

"'Course I 'ave" he said, and presented the Captain with a small tool-roll which he unbungeed from his bike.
<<Unbungeed? Is that a proper word?>>
Well, if you can bungee something onto your bike then presumably you can unbungee it?
<<Well.. OK.>>

The Captain deftly opened the tool-roll and then less deftly dropped the screwdriver into the ditch bottom. "Careful!" scolded the boy, "Them's my best tools."

"Ah yes, splendid quality too. Rust proof I hope?" said the Captain as he retrieved the screwdriver from the mud and started to undo the hinges of the box.

Soon it was open and the delicious aroma of coconut snacks filled the air. "Eaugh!" Spluttered the Captain, holding his nose.

"Don't you like coconut mister?" enquired the boy "neither do I, 'orrible innit?"

"Yes" replied the Captain "'orrible indeed! But very useful. Now help me take it up to the water tower, we have a little shooting to do!"

A few minutes later and the ammunition was loaded onto the catapult, there was no way of knowing whether this plan would work <<Seems pretty unlikely if previous form is anything to go by!>> but the Captain had to try. He pulled back the braces and let go...

"Mooooo!" came the angry cry of a cow as one of Brian’s delicious coconut snacks hit it broadside.

"Oops, a little more altitude I think" said the Captain as he adjusted the catapult.

"Yeah, SOME altitude would be good if you're tryin' to 'it that shoe box." suggested the boy unhelpfully.

The catapult released it's deadly load, into the hedge on the other side of the field. A pheasant rose into the air, clucking. "Blast!" shouted the Captain holding his thumb which had got trapped in the braces. "Fiddly-bum-bum bothery-poo!"

The boy fell about laughing. "Look mate" he said once he'd recovered his composure "If you wanna get them sweets into that shoe box up there, goodness know why, but if you do.. why don't I just go up the ladder on the side, and pop 'em in?"

"Pop 'em in?" repeated the Captain thoughtfully "... just pop 'em.. err, pop them in... yes! Good idea!"

The boy stuffed his pockets with Brian’s delicious coconut snacks and set off up the ladder.

"If you feel a stone in your shoe, don't stop, it's very important!" warned the Captain as the boy neared the top of the ladder.

<<I don't suppose this'll work.>> Don't be such a pessimist, coconut is deadly to the Pretavians.

He crawled towards the shoe box, but just as he got close enough to do a bit of 'popping in', the shoe box took to the air.
<<Ha! I told you it wouldn't work!>>
It rose silently above the tower and then swooped down towards Captain Wozzo on the ground. The Captain started hopping madly round in circles chased by the box, as the boy looked on in wonder, he was trying to get one shoe off.

Soon it was over. The show box lay crushed on the ground, lifeless. Captain Wozzo and the boy sat on the grass near the water tower enjoying the last of the liquorice all-sorts from the Captain's secret shoe compartment.

"Well you may not've used it mister, but you're certainly covered in it!" laughed the boy, referring to the cow pat residue which still adorned the Captain's jacket. "I reckon you should change your name to Captain Cow-Pat."

<<Not likely I'd rather go on the bus! Do you reckon the Captain got a reward for defeating the Pretavians?>>