this_wasmr_nobody_and_the_magic_tortoise smoking mirror Mr Nobody had been sitting in the enormous shabby green armchair for over an hour. In all of that time only his eyelids had moved. Even his blinking had got slower and slower until he felt as if he were slowly dragging the flaps of skin across his bulging eyes. Mr Nobody had the widest roundest eyes and the widest roundest moon of a face that anybody who met him had ever seen. Whenever he saw a stranger out of the corner of his eye, if such a round eye could be said to have a corner, he would see them remarking to whoever they were with, something like, “My God, that man has the moon for a face.” Or “Look at the man with the 0 on his shoulders.” For a few minutes he would provide them with amusement but soon they would forget they had ever met him. Mr Nobody didn’t mind. In a world full of freaks he was not significantly more unusual than anyone else. Those that knew Mr Nobody well loved him very much. He never lied, he never stole, he never cheated or belittled anyone and although he never boasted about it, he was the best storyteller in the whole area. Once you had got over its roundness, Mr Nobody’s face was one that made people want to be his friend. With his eyes always so wide open and his mouth, which was also very rounded, almost always slightly parted at the lips, he looked always as if he were about to ask you a question about yourself, and there are few things more attractive in a person than that. Today, however, as Mr Nobody sat, so perfectly still in the oversized armchair, his eyes were screwed into an oval shape and his mouth was clamped shut. He was clenching his teeth so hard, the muscles in his cheeks were bending his face into the shape of a lightbulb. Mongol, the wiry old grey tomcat who sometimes lived in the house picked some stuffing out of the armchair in a vain attempt to grab Mr Nobody’s attention but he didn’t receive so much as a flicker. Getting bolder, the cat jumped up on the arm and sniffed at his face, still nothing. Mongol was a proud cat. His territory stretched for several days walk in every direction and he was not used to being ignored like this. In frustration he sprang from the arm of the chair onto Mr Nobody’s lap and looked up at him with fearsome indignance. Mr Nobody slowly tilted his head downwards towards the cat. They stared at each other in silence for a while. “What the bloody hell is the matter with you?” Said the cat eventually. “Its terrible.” Wailed Mr Nobody. “What is?” “Its horrible.” Hissed Mr Nodody through his teeth. “What is?” Pleaded the cat. “ITS UNBELIEVABLE.” Shouted Mr Nobody grabbing his ears and rocking backwards and forwards. “Now I’m going to ask you one more time what you’re on about and if I don’t get a straight answer I’m off. I’ve no time to be dealing with hysterical irrational foolish spinheads. Now for Pete’s sake TELL ME WHAT’S WRONG.” Mr Nobody took a deep breath and let his hands fall down by his sides. He looked all around the room as if searching for something to smash to pieces. Finally he turned to the cat and in the darkest, lowest whisper, rising to a lungbusting bellow he said “Somebody has taken MY MAGIC TORTOISE.” The cat jumped off his lap, back up to the arm of the chair and took three steps towards Mr Nobody in order to get as close to his face as possible. “NO.” He said, shivering slightly at the thought that someone could even imagine doing such a thing. “Surely not. Its probably just wandered off. It won’t have got far. Those things are hardly jet powered you know. Now stop being such a sulking ninny and lets go look for her. I’ll be able to smell her a mile aw…” But as he said it, Mongol realized, with a shudder, that Mr Nobody could be right. If she was anywhere in the sort of range she would have been able to walk, he would have been able to smell her right now but there was nothing but the lingering residue of scent she had left behind in the house, nothing newer than five or six hours old. You hear about these things, Mongol thought, but you never think they’re going to happen to someone you know. “What are you going to do?” The cat said tenderly, trying to hide his shock. Mr Nobody said nothing. He just recoiled to the tense position he had been sitting in for the last hour. “You know if there’s anything I can do to help.” Mr Nobody nodded about a millimeter or so and the cat knew exactly what he meant and decided not to say any more until Mr Nobody had figured out what his next move would be. Of course if the tortoise had been here he would have known instantly what to do, or at least would have had something he believed in to try, but without her everything was a hundred, a thousand times more difficult. Every idea had a counter argument to knock it down. Every “What if?” had a “Yeah, but.” Mongol couldn’t imagine what was going through Mr Nobody’s mind right now. Secretly, he suspected, he was waiting for Gunhilda to get home and tell him what to do, or at least to suggest a scheme so dangerous and foolhardy that he would have something to work against. Mongol couldn’t fulfil that role because Mr Nobody couldn’t understand a word he said. He could get the general gist, the emotional side of the conversation, but there was no point in them trying to sit down together and form a plan. In any case, Mongol wasn’t much of a planner. He was good at thinking on his feet but any further than his next mealtime was always a bit of a mystery to him. He tuned into Gunhilda’s scent, using a pair of her barkbeast hide boots as a reference point. They were in the other room over ten feet away but he didn’t need to get any closer. Once you were locked on to Gunhilda’s smell there was no mistaking the mixture of blood, sweat, tears and funksmoke she carried around with her. Mongol shut his eyes, which seemed to help with long range smelling. Everybody knew that the best noses in the business were old blind cats who had lived a good number of years navigating by smell alone. Blind and deaf ones would probably be even better but nobody knew because they tended to get gobbled up by fast moving predators like Krillicks and crocodiles coming at them from upwind. As civilized as cats had now become it was still pretty much survival of the fittest out there in the woods. Gunhilda was about half a mile away. Mongol wouldn’t be able to tell which way she was moving for a minute or two but he suspected she was trudging home on foot and would be there in about ten minutes. He looked around at Mr Nobody. He was now sat forward in his chair, cradling his head in his hands. 040804 ... . . 040810 what's it to you? who go blather from