Alistair Raven and the Stormtrooper in Stilettos (Book 1)

Part 1 - Chatter 10

"And that's when I bolted," mumbled Alistair.

"That's insane!" Robert gasped, before seething. "I can't believe they hit you like this." He continued sifting through a number of archive boxes for something he could not find.

"It's not really a case of allowing them," Alistair promised. "I just seem to take their fancy."

"No matter," Robert answered with his head stuffed in the closet. "I really wish you would tell me their names so I could at least make their parents and the school aware of their nasty habits."

Shifting in his seat, Alistair sniffed, his nose blocked with crusty blood-snot and numb from the icy compress. His uniform was torn and wet and he just felt ever so despondent.

"Ta-dah!" Robert exclaimed with a touch of triumph, holding up a printed T-shirt.

"Def...Leppard?" Alistair read aloud, not exactly enthusiastically.

"It was either this or Geri Halliwell's dress," Robert derided, hoping to have elicited a more positive response. "Regardless, this t-shirt is a design classic!" Robert tossed the shirt to the boy and Alistair caught it, thinking he should be a little more appreciative.

"Oh," he mustered, tacking on a less than succinct thank you. Alistair examined the shirt, where a contorted Janus face was overlaid upon an exploding Union Jack and on the back shoulder it shouted: HYSTERIA World Tour 1987.

"What an album," Robert trumpeted, humming a few bars of Pour Some Sugar On Me. "Trust me; you'll be walking the sharp edge of fashion...in fact all the swish kids wore shirts like this one. So get out of that damp shirt before you catch a death of cold."

Robert hooked Alistair's uniform jacket over a chair and pushed it next to the heater to dry then left the room so Alistair had privacy to change.

Sighing, Alistair did as he was told and pulled on the Def Leppard T-shirt; it fit snugly over his frame and he flattened the Andie Airfix artwork over his belly, slowly coming around. Kicking off his worn boots, Alistair uncomfortably squelched his toes in his squishy socks. Spread over Robert's bench were more of the architectural blue-prints and schematics; the top one was a Transport for London Underground map, complete with all the Tube lines and their corresponding depths, distances, ducts and entrances and exits.

He traced his finger over the QEII Line then dragged his finger in an anti-clockwise fashion; he counted off twelve stops then home on what was his Bakerloo Line. Listening out for Robert, he cheekily lowered his goggles, switched to camera mode and captured the whole network in high definition. Up until now, Alistair had had no full record of the ghostly Tennant Line but with the assistance of his new images, he now knew its true route and entrance points where he could sneak in.

Stepping away from the desk, Robert returned with a mug of hot tea with a teaspoon of honey stirred in.

"Sip this," Robert said. "It will warm you up."

Politely thanking Robert, he sipped on the hot brew. Robert sat and spread out a blueprint of the Southwark Square, colloquially known as The Birdcage whilst Alistair hovered over the corner of the desk. The Birdcage's lofty height and its intricate, interconnecting steel framework had been an architectural breakthrough that London briefly marvelled over before it was promptly dwarfed.

"Who is King George VII?" Alistair asked innocently pointing out the name printed underneath the three lions seal. Robert didn't answer at first, so Alistair asked him again.

"No...I heard you the first time," Robert replied without looking up. "However, you must remember a lot of what you may see and hear in this room cannot be spoken about."