DOCTOR WHO AND AN UNRULY CHILD

CHAPTER 3
Inside The Spaceship

 
 Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton stood gazing in front of them in 
disbelief, their brains refusing to take in the evidence of their eyes
and ears.  Before them stood Susan Foreman completely naked!




 

 They SHOULD have noticed that they were not in an enclosed cupboard-sized
space - but they did not.  Instead they oggled Susan as she ran about the
room looking for a towel to cover herself up with.  So entranced were
they by her that they didn't notice that they were standing in a vast,
brightly lit control room.  They didn't even notice how the control room
was dominated by a many-sided central structure which seemed to consist
of a number of video monitors arranged around a transparent central
column that moved up and down seductively.   They stared gaping at Susan
as she hid behind various antique clocks and chairs.  Ian and Barbara
didn't notice the incongruous objects dotted about here and there unless
Susan was hiding behind them.  A number of old-fashioned chairs and a
statue of some kind of bird on top of a tall column annoyed them as
they covered up more of their favorite pupil.  Susan looked at them
in utter amazement.  

 Ian blinked incredulously, his mind filled with a wrenching sense of 
unreality.  In the back of his mind he could swear he heard a disco beat
playing softly in the backround.  Over this he heard the old weirdo say 
calmly "Close the door, Susan.  And for goodness sake girl what have I told 
you about running about in the ship naked?!"

 Susan touched a knob on the central console and the ship started to hum
in joy.

 The old weirdo took off his cloak and hat, and tossed them onto a chair.
The clothes beneath were even more eccentric (check trousers with high
heels, a kind of frock coat, the same tacky t-shirt as earlier, and his
his trusty sock puppet hand).  The general effect was that of raving loony
from some forgotten Monty Python sketch.  Like the statue and the bean bag
chairs, the old man looked strangely out of place in this ultra-technological
setting.  

 He was obviously at home here as he reclined immediately and unzipped his 
trousers.  Lighting up a joint he looked disapprovingly at the two pathetic
trespassers.  "I believe these idiots are known to you, Susan?"

 "They're two of my school teachers.  I've tried to kill them, but so far
I have proved unsuccessful." Susan seemed almost as astonished as Ian and
Barbara.  "What are you two perverts doing here?"

 "Presumably they followed you," Said the Doctor acidly. "Those ridiculous
bastards!  I knew something like this would happen if we stayed in one
place too long.  I wanted to travel around and play the field!"

 "But why should they follow me?"   
   
 "Well running around half naked and listening to music from the future as
you threaten to kill everyone might have aroused suspicion my dear."  He
turned away to study a row of chocolates he'd left absent-mindedly on the
console.
 
 Barbara finally looked around the astounding room then back at Susan.
"Is this place really your home Susan?  Wow!  What's the rent for one
of these babies?"

 "Yes...well, at least, it's the only home I have now."

 The old man looked up. "And what's wrong with it?"

 Susan got instantly angry. "It's a mobile home grandfather!  You just 
pack up and leave whenever.  YOU have so many stupid rules - 'Susan 
don't blow up the equipment', 'Susan remember to be home by the 22nd century',
'Susan take out the trash'. 'Susan don't enslave mankind with the mind probe'.
How am I suppose to have ANY fun grandfather!?!?!"

 Ian rubbed his eyes and blinked - but nothing changed, she was still nude.
"But it was just a police box."

 The old man smiled at his sock puppet hand. "Oh Mr. Sock Puppet, he
says it was just a police box.  Or maybe to him it looked like a police box!"
He said condescendingly.

 Barbara stared at Susan, then the strange old man. "And this is your 
grandfather?"

 "Yes."

 Barbara turned to the old man. "So you are Doctor Foreman, the Porn 
Merchant!"
 
 The old man smiled. "Doctor Who?  Not really.  The name was in this 
pornographic magazine I had about the place, and I borrowed it.  I
was going to choose Dr. Anonymous or Dr. Lovemachine but I thought these
might seem suspicious.  It might be best if you were just to call me
Lover Boy."

 "Hell no."  Replied Barbara.

 "Oh well, then just call me The Doctor and I'll call you Nurse."

 "Very well then - Doctor.  Why didn't you tell us who you were.  Why didn't
you tell us you were Susan's grandfather?"

 "I don't discuss my private life with strangers.  Also I think I get more
chicks if they don't know I have grandchildren."  said the Doctor haughtily.

 Ian was still struggling to look away from Susan and figure out this mystery.
"But it WAS just a police box.  I walked all around it.  Barbara, you saw me.
I mean Doctor I don't know if anyone has pointed this out before but it's
bigger on the inside than on the outside."

 "Of course my dear boy, that's only natural.....OHH!!! You mean my ship!!!
Well you don't deserve any explanations."  Said the Doctor pettishly.  "You 
pushed your way in here, uninvited and unwelcomed to get a look at my
granddaughter with her kit off."

 "Now, just a minute" said Ian doggedly. "This is just damned wacky!  I 
walked all the way around it!  I just don't get what's going on."

 The Doctor was fiddling with a knob. "Look at this, Susan," he said 
querulously.  "It's stopped again.  I've tried to repair it but I think
I'm going to have to use proper glue instead of chewing gum."  He broke
off, holding his sock puppet to Ian's face.  "No, of course you don't
understand.  You're a secondary school science teacher!"

 "But I WANT to understand!" Shouted Ian.

 The Doctor waved him away. "Yes, yes...By the way, Susan, I managed to
find a replacement for that glowy light that kept going off telling us
we were in danger.  It was quite a job to make the christmas lights 
blink in the right sequence but I think it'll serve."

 Ian reached out his hands at Susan's chest. "They're illusions, they must
be."



 

 The Doctor sighed. "What is he whining about now?"

 "Ian, what are you doing?" whispered Barbara.

 "Isn't that a bit obvious?" said Ian helplessly.

 The Doctor smiled maliciously at Ian's confusion.  "You don't understand,
so you find excuses for yourself.  Illusion indeed!  See here, young man.
You say you can't get fit a large space inside a small one?  So you couldn't 
get a sexy large busted woman inside of your sitting room?"

 "No," said Ian.  "No I couldn't."

 "But you've invented television by now, haven't you?" said the Doctor.

 "Yes."

 "So - by showing a pornographic film with a sexy large busted woman on
your television screen, you can do something you said was humanly impossible,
can't you?"

 "Well, yes, in a sense." said Ian doubtfully. "But all the same, what
the hell does that have to do with anything?"

 "Oh nothing!  I was just wondering if you had any pornographic films with
sexy large busted women.  Always looking for those." The old man cackled
triumphantly. "Not quite clear am I?  I can see by the expression on your
face that I'm fucking with your mind.  You don't understand a thing I'm
saying.  I know you wouldn't.  Piss off."  The Doctor seemed positively  
delighted by Ian's lack of comprehension.  He fiddled with the control
console, muttering to himself. "Now, which switch retracts the disco ball?
This one - no, this one."  He looked up at Barbara and Ian.  "The point
is not so much whether or not you understand what has already happened
to you, it's what's GOING to happen to you.  You could tell everyone about
my sock puppet and my ship - and we can't have that."

 "Ship?" asked Ian, who decided to oggle Susan some more. 

 "Yes, ship," said the Doctor sharply. "This thing doesn't roll along on
wheels, you know."

 "You mean it MOVES?" asked Barbara.

 Susan jumped up and down proudly. "The TARDIS can go anywhere in time AND
space, but especially on earth."

 "TARDIS?  Isn't that one of those Swedish automobiles, Susan?"  

 "Well, I made the name up, actually.  There was a big 'name the time
capsule contest' back home and my name won the grand prize!  I got
all the ice cream I could eat.  Anyway it's TARDIS, from the initials.
Time And Relative Dimensions In Space.  Don't you understand?  The 
dimensions are different from those outside."

 Ian drew a deep breath.  "Just let me get this straight.  A thing  
that looks like a police box, standing in a junk yard that
can move anywhere in time and space!?  It's ridiculous, like a bad
children's show on BBC!"

 "Yes." said Susan.

 "Quite so." Confirmed the Doctor briskly.

 "And Susan runs around naked in this space time machine a lot?"

 "Quite a bit." Susan admitted.

 "Much too often!" Scolded the Doctor.

 "Great!  How do I sign up!"  Exclaimed Ian.

 Barbara piped up. "Oh you can't be serious, Ian!"

 Susan looked in anguish at the old man. "Why won't they believe us?"

 "Well how can we?" said Barbara patiently. "It's so obviously impossible.
I mean young sexy girls who run around in space time machines?  It's like
some bad science fiction porn film from France!"

 Susan stamped her foot in frustration, and the Doctor chuckled.



 

 "Now don't get upset, Susan.  When the first red train saw an 
indian he thought his eyes were an illusion too!"

 "You're treating us like savages," said Ian. "Savages or children!"

 The Doctor gave his infuriatingly superior smile. "Am I?  The children
of my civilization would be insulted!"

 "YOUR civilization?"

 "Yes, MY civilization. All MINE.  I made it!  I tolerate this century, but
I don't enjoy it.  Have you ever thought what it's like to be wanderers
in the fourth dimension, young man?  Have you?  To be exiles!"

 "Well, no."

 "Good!  Good!  I'm always worried about people who do that.  Bunch of 
loonies the lot of them.  You see, Susan and I are cut off from our
own civilization, without friends or protection, but one day we shall
go back. Yes.  We shall go back, but until then we must carry on all
our perversions, all our desires, and show them that we are not wrong
in ours..." He stared into the distance. "Yes, one day...one day..."

 Perhaps the human mind can only take in so much crap at a time.  At this
new revelation, Ian and Barbara exchanged looks of sheer disbelief. 
 
 "It's true," cried Susan desperately."It's all true, even the bits that
sound crazy, which is most of them, but well grandfather is just a weirdo.
You don't know what you've done, coming here."  She turned to the Doctor.
"Grandfather, let me blow them up now, please, they can't harm us.  I know
these people, their minds reject things they don't understand, and these
two never understand anything.  They won't tell anyone if I just take
them back to the school and blow it up.  Even if they survived, no one
would believe them."

 The Doctor's face was suddenly cold and hard. "No."

 "You can't keep us here, well not after Susan gets some clothes on you 
can't." said Ian defiantly.

 "Can't I?" Said the Doctor's sock puppet hand.  Something about the sock
puppet's confident smile made Ian feel very uneasy.

 Barbara went over to Susan and put her arm around her shoulders.
"Susan, listen to me.  Can't you see this is just some game you and your 
grandfather have made up, some fantasy you've been living, like when Ian
and I play baby oil twister!"

 "But it's not a game," said Susan desperately. "It's not.  I love England
in the twentieth century.  I hate your school and want to blow it up sure,
but the last five months have been the happiest of my life..well okay
they haven't been that bad in comparison, but what the hell."

 "You talk as if you weren't one of us," said Barbara. "But you are! 
You look like us, you sound like us...and oh my..you develop like us!"

 Susan's face was solemn. "I was born in another time, another world, long
ago in a galaxy far far away."

 "Now look here, Susan," began Ian.  He gave up in despair. "Come on, Barbara, 
we aren't going to get any, let's get out of here."

 "You can't get out," said Susan. "He won't let you go until you do the
magic thank you dance."

 Ian pushed past her and strode up to the Doctor Who was still standing at
the control panel playing with the blinky lights.  He gazed down at the
maze of switches and dials.

 "Susan closed the door from here, I watched her bend over when she did it.
Now, which is it, Doctor?  Which control operates the door?"

 "Still think it's an illusion, ape boy?" asked the Doctor's sock puppet
hand mockingly.

 Ian glared at the Doctor's socket covered hand. "I know that free moment
in Time and Space is a scientific dream that isn't going to be solved
by a weirdo in a junkyard with a sock puppet for a hand!"

 "You're arrogance is nearly as great as your ignorance, young man!  I
am Fuzzy, King of the Sock Puppets!  I lost my twin brother in the
ancient air dryer of Launderland, but one day we shall be reunited and
both of the Doctor's hands shall serve the glorious sock puppet empire!"

 "You will open the door you crazy old bastard?!?!" Screamed Ian.

 The Doctor and his sock puppet gave another of their mocking chuckles.

 "Open that door or I'll shove your head up your arse old man!"

 The Doctor didn't move.

 Ian looked appealingly up and down at Susan. "Won't you help me, Susie baby?"

 Susan hesitated, then shook her head. "I'm sorry, I mustn't."

 Ian reached out towards the console.  "Very well, than I'll have to risk
it myself."

 The Doctor shrugged. "I could stop you, but this should be a laugh."

 (Only Susan saw the Doctor's hand reach out to the console and flick the
immobiliser switch.)

 Ian started flipping the controls wildly, causing the disco ball on the
wall to retract and go back up again several times.

 As his hand came down, Susan screamed, "Not that one, it's the music switch!"

 It was too late, Ian touched the tasteless switch, there was a crackle from 
the speakers as bad disco music surged through the room, and he was hurled
clear across the room.

 He slumped dazed against the wall, and slid to the floor.  Barbara ran
to kneel beside him.  She looked angrily up at the Doctor.  "What on earth
do you think you're doing putting that switch where any old person could
flip it?  Ian, are you alright?  This disco music is deadly awful."

 "I'm okay.  At least it's not Menudo."

 Barbara helped him to his feet as a song by Bananarama filled the air.  

 Susan was talking to the Doctor in a low urgent voice.  "Grandfather, stop
the music now, PLEASE.  They don't deserve this."

 The old man shook his sock puppet in childish obstinacy.  "By tomorrow
we should be a public spectacle, a subject for news and gossip, almost
certainly doomed to appear on a trashy tv talk show."

 "They'll shut up if I seduce them and ask them to nicely."

 "My dear child, of course they won't!  Put yourself in their place.
They're bound to make some sort of complaint to the authorities or,
at the very least, brag to their friends."  He paused impressively.
"If I do let them go, Susan, we shall have to go as well."

 "No grandfather!  I won't leave the motorbike gang, I won't leave
Johnny, I won't leave cheap booze and getting felt up at the drive-in 
every saturday night, I won't give up Coca-Cola and fast food!
These are the things that make life worth living.  Nothing the
universe can match a good bottle of Jack Daniel's and getting squeezed
by a grimy biker while watching a bad Godzilla flick!"

 "My dear child....what the hell have you been up to?"

 "I want to stay here.  Look, grandfather, they're both good people.
Okay they are two perverts who like to oggle young girls but why
won't you trust them?  All you've got to do is make them promise to
keep our secret."

 "It's out the question."

 "I won't go grandfather.  I won't leave the 20th century." Susan drew a
deep breath. "I'd rather leave the TARDIS - and you."

 It was clear that the old man was badly shaken by Susan's threat.
"I'll buy you a chocolate ice lolly and a sugar puff sandwhich."

 "Do you mean it grandfather?  Oh...okay.  I wouldn't be able to blow up
the school properly with 1963 technology anyway."

 Susan leapt toward the console, jumping on it provocatively.  Her body
squirmed over the controls and she made the central column move up 
and down, flinging the TARDIS into the boundless depths of eternity 
for a laugh.

 "What the hell are you doing grandchild?!  You can't pilot the TARDIS
like that!  It looks naughty!" Insisted the old man, upset that he had
never thought of doing this himself.

 Instinctively, Ian leaped across the control room, and tried to grapple
Susan.  With a mighty effort, Ian managed to drag Susan off the console
onto the TARDIS floor.  Suddenly the Doctor punched him in the face,
again with much more strength than his appearance would imply.
Susan dashed to the console and pulled what was obviously some phallic
looking master switch.  The whole control room spun like a top as the
disco music in the room sped up like a carousel gone insane.
Ian and Barbara were both hurled from their feet and everything went
technicolor acid high fun time...



 

 It was just as well there was no one in the junkyard.  If the policemen
on the beat had paid a return visit to drink on duty at this time as 
usual, they would have seen a most extraordinary sight.

 With a strange wheezing groaning sound the Doctor tried to catch his breath
as the blue police box simply faded away.

 The TARDIS was seriously messed up.


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