“Scout’s honour.”
The monster thought about it for a while. “Can I get you to sign a receipt?” he asked. “Just for the books, you understand.”
“Sure,” said Asaf.
“Deal!” The monster cried, and it reached down into the bowels of the earth. A moment later its hand reappeared holding a parchment, a quill pen and a bottle of ink. “So much more sensible this way,” it said.
“Quite.”
“So if you’ll just sign here…”
“Where your finger is?” asked Asaf, unscrewing the ink bottle.
“That’s it. Goodbye, idiot!” he added. “See you in Hell!” And, so saying, it grabbed Asaf by the scruff of the neck, squashed him head-first into the ink bottle and screwed down the cap.
And vanished.
Meanwhile, the small frog that was Kevin, the insurance broker, had filed his report. It made interesting reading.
Only a genie of Force Seven or above could have deciphered the pattern of nibble-marks on the my-pad, and known that they read:
Rivet-rivet-rivet-rivet-
RIVET-RIVET-RIVET-RIVET!!!!!-RIVET!!!!!!
Only a genie of Force Eight or above, fluent in frog, could have translated the message and grasped its terrible significance.
Only a genie of Force Nine or above would have the authority to take the necessary remedial action.
Only a genie of Force Eleven or above (or God, at a pinch) would have the necessary technical knowledge and basic common sense required to put that remedial action into effect.
Fortunately, the report found its way on to the right desks, was understood and taken seriously. The necessary action was proposed, approved and set in hand.
As for the frog that was Kevin, it found itself coming to terms with its new lifestyle rather more quickly than it had originally anticipated. Not only were the hours better and the pressures less; the inhabitants of the pond were remarkably receptive to the idea of insurance and he was doing excellent business when a heron, new to the area, swooped down and ate him.
Regrettable; but, that’s nature for you, and it’s a comfort to reflect that his last conscious thought must have been relief that his loved ones would be adequately provided for by a comprehensive insurance package specially tailored to his needs and circumstances.
Or would have done, if he’d had any loved ones, and if the policy hadn’t contained a special no-herons clause. But it’s the thought that counts.
A scrumpled ball of paper looped through the air and added itself to the small pyramid on top of the waste-paper basket.
Philly Nine yawned. It was late, he was tired, and he wanted to go to bed. Giant ants…
He got up and prowled round the room. Nobody to blame but himself, of course; he’d chosen giant ants of his own free will. He could have had anything he liked, but no, he had to be clever.
Ants, for pity’s sake.
He sat down on the arm of a chair, closed his eyes and raffled his thoughts. What, he demanded of himself, do ants do?
Well. They build nests. They run around aimlessly. They get into picnic baskets and scamper about over the boiled eggs. This, Philly had to admit, wasn’t exactly the stuff of Armageddon.
They chew things up. With their snippy little mandibles, they make mincemeat out of old dry timber. They dig. When you pour boiling water on them, they die.
He looked up at the clock on the wall, and shuddered. Would it be possible, he wondered, to claim a typographical error and instead have a plague of giant aunts? More scope there, he felt sure; something you could get your teeth into…
Nah. It’d be just his luck to get found out; to annihilate humanity and then have the whole thing set aside on a technicality. Long gone were the old, free-and-easy days of his imphood when near enough made no mind. These days, you had to be precise. No good putting a princess to sleep for ninety-nine years, three hundred and sixty-four days, twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes. You could bet your life there’d be some weasel-faced little sod with a clipboard and a stopwatch somewhere, just willing you to foul up.
Ants. Harmless, industrious, ecologically-friendly ants. Bastards.
He snatched another piece of paper out of the packet and started to scribble.
An anthill, he wrote, so big that it cuts off the light from a major European city. Giant ants undermining Beijing, so that it falls down to the centre of the earth. The New York subway system infested with giant ants…
Scrumple. Whizz. Flop.
He stood up again, and then sat down. Giant ants. Yes. Perhaps.
Giant ants, he wrote. What causes giant ants? And whose fault would it be?
Pay dirt. Ideas started to flood into his mind like water through a breached sea-wall, and he scribbled furiously. So furiously in fact, that it was half an hour before he realised he was writing on his best white linen tablecloth.
Giant ants. Yes. Yes indeed.
What do you call it when a genie has a really good idea?
Genius.
It was late. Even Saheed’s, which is never empty, was down to its last hard core of residual customers; a few sad types sitting at tables, two more playing the fruit machine, and one very sad customer with his foot on the brass rail.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” murmured the barman.
Kiss scowled at him. “Not yet,” he grunted, and pushed his empty glass back across the counter. “Yogurt. Neat. No fruit.”
The barman shrugged. He was, of course, only doing his job, and it was none of his business; but the idea of a Force Twelve wandering about with an attitude problem and five quarts of natural yogurt under his belt wasn’t an attractive one. He filled the glass and shoved it back.
Time, he said to himself, to start a conversation. More goddamn unpaid social work.
“What’s up, mac?” he enquired softly. He assessed the symptoms; it wasn’t difficult. “Trouble with your girl?”
Kiss nodded.
“You could say that,” he replied.
The barman nodded sympathetically. “Found herself another guy, huh?”
“No.”
“I see. Just plain not interested, you mean?”
“Far from it,” Kiss sighed. “That’s the problem.”
Well, thought the barman, it takes all sorts. “You mean,” he said, “you can see it’s all over between you, but you can’t figure out how to tell her? That’s tough.”
“No,” Kiss yawned, “it’s not that. We’re in love. Head over heels in bloody love.” He snarled. “Made in heaven, you could say.”
“Ah.” The barman shrugged. “But there’s some reason why you can’t get together, is that it?”
Kiss lifted his head and looked at him. “What is this,” he asked, “some sort of blasted sociological survey?”
“Just passing the time, mac. Talking of which…”
“Put another one in there,” Kiss said. “With a cream chaser.”
“You’re the boss, mac.”
“And stop calling me mac.”
“You got it, chief.”
There was a frantic chiming from the direction of the fruit machine and suddenly the floor was covered in oranges and lemons, tumbling out of the pay-out slot and rolling around on the floor. One came to rest beside Kiss’s heel. He stood on it.
“I mean,” he said suddenly, in the general direction of the barman, “it’s not my fault, is it? I never asked to be the one to save the world.”
“Yeah,” said the barman. “Have you seen what time it is, by the way?”
“I don’t give…” Kiss leaned over, picked up an orange and squashed it into pulp between his thumb and middle finger. “I don’t give that for the world. None of my damn business.”
“You said it, chief.”
“But it’s my damn responsibility!” Kiss scowled horribly, and then looked down at his hand. “Hey, have you got a towel or something?”
“Just a second.”
“So why,” Kiss continued, wiping his hands, “does it have to be me? Go on, you tell me, it’s your stinking planet. Why me?”
The barman shrugged. “Somebody’s got to do it?” he suggested.