under cover goose on the Titanic

Part 1 - Uncle Dunc

'An' we're related,' Dunc said happily. 'Ah'm yehr uncle.'

'My uncle? I gasped weakly.

'By adoption o' course,' Dunc cackled.  'Yehr granda adopted me when I hatched oout.  An' he taught me to speak English.'

I was still gaping. I tried to make sense of what he was saying.   'Wha'. . . what are you doing here?' I stuttered.

He looked both ways again. 'Ah'm wurking undercover, on a mission t' keep yeh safe and locate Murga.'

'Who's Murga?'

'Ah was afraid yeh'd ask that. He's a verra evil character who's trying to find you.'

'And why would he want to find me?'

Dunc hesitated for a moment. 'So that he can extract the secret of yehr special talents from yehr brain.'

'My brain?' This was getting crazier by the minute. 'What special . . . '

I didn't get to finish the question as I was rudely interrupted by a squeal of tires. A car stopped beside me and two tough looking Asian men jumped out leaving the doors open. There were smiles on their faces but they didn't look happy. 'Jeff?' one of them asked but he didn't wait for an answer. He grabbed my arm and clamped a green gloved hand over my mouth.

I tried to remember what to do in case of abduction. Ah, yes. Don't get into the car. Fight back and make a lot of noise. I bit the glove. He didn't make a sound but jabbed me in the face as I tried to kick him. It's really hard to kick someone sideways. Dunc the goose joined the fight, pecking at every ankle in sight, including mine.

But these guys were idiots. They didn't know a skateboard was a lethal weapon under the right feet. I kicked it around and stomped on the end so that it flipped up. Target Green Glove's crotch.

He muffled a squeal and tore the skateboard away from me as the second guy kicked Dunc aside, wrapping an arm around my head so my face was wedged into his armpit and dragged my head toward the car's open door.

Uhhng! He needed deodorant! These guys had obviously never heard of the Geneva Convention against the use of poison gas. Green Gloves was trying to shove my legs into the car while fending off Dunc. The underarm gas must have been affecting my brain. I had a weird sensation of floating.

The Charlie Chaplin man had moved closer but he didn't protest or try to help me. He just watched like this was a TV show. 'Help!' I yelled into the arm pit but he didn't hear me.

I got a foot against the car's doorframe but I was losing the battle when the racket of a motorcycle made Green Gloves hesitate. Someone crashed into him and abruptly I was free, although in the middle of a brawl and in danger of being trampled to death. Dunc stuck his head between the legs, nipped my sleeve in his beak and helped me squirm out of the scrum. My first instinct was to run but I stopped to look for my skateboard. It was nowhere in sight.

My rescuer, a burly man wearing a black leather jacket and a Darth Vader motorcycle helmet, was still wrestling with my assailants. A Harley Davidson motorbike was stopped on the sidewalk nearby. It looked like a police bike. Another heavy guy was sipping at a paper coffee cup near the back of the car as he inspected the mud encrusted licence plate. He didn't look like a cop on account of his shoulder length hair and a short beard neatly trimmed to a point at his chin. A red bandana and shabby leather jacket didn't suggest police either.

He made no attempt to clean off the mud but, instead, slipped something behind the plate, leaned against the motor bike and sipped his coffee cup as he watched the fight.