Llama Who Episode Four

 

It was another dark and stormy night down in Townhouse and everyone was sleeping in Townhouse nursery. But not Laila, because Laila didn’t like sleeping like everyone else. She was a night owl who also stayed awake during the day. What she was searching for is leftovers, like cupcake wrappers, leftover cake (because when its people’s birthdays like Lana’s people eat lots of cake and feel fit to bursting and still have some left over). ‘When its night-time I will eat all that cake’ said Laila, hungrily. She did her best not to get caught, but one day she got caught and she hated the consequences. She never wanted to get caught again. It was Kylie’s birthday today and to her relief she didn’t get caught, she was perfectly fine. However this same night, as she sat up in bed eating part of Kylie’s birthday cake, Laila saw this creepy creepy person and it looked like a member of staff but it wasn’t. Laila got scared so she started crying, so all the nursery staff turned on the lights and they rang Dr Llama Who.

‘2-9-8-1-9-9-6-2-2-5-6-6-1-Llama!’ They had to ring Dr Llama twice because he wasn’t in the first time, he was busy saving the planet Mughorn from the ravenous bugbatter beast of Trawl. But he answered the second time and came straight away, after asking where they were of course. Hannah, one of the nursery staff, said: ‘Dr Llama, Dr Llama, Leila saw this creepy person who looked like one of us, but it wasn’t, she got really scared and started crying, we didn’t know if it was an alien or whether she was just faking it!’ Dr Llama says ‘I’m on my way, but you need to tell me where you are!’

Meanwhile, it was a really bright and sunny day full of rainbows and invisible fluffy unicorns dancing on them on the other side of the planet, but The Death didn’t know that. Because The Death was lurking in his giant underground laboratory which he had named ‘The End Of Times’. He had wondered when he was naming it if he was going a bit over the top, but The Death didn’t think so. After all it was beige and ugly and old and had tattered wallpaper on the windows, which was enough to put him in a bad mood even if he hadn’t been born a psychopathic genius. The only bright colour came from all the colourful llamas that were being kept imprisoned as ornaments. Sometimes they weren’t colourful enough, so The Death made them some of them radioactive to make them glow in the dark. He was a meanie like that but, he thought, what was a baddie to do? I mean his mum and dad had given him this name ‘The Death’. They’d been called Gertrude and Ethelred. It wasn’t his fault he had turned out a little bit monkeynuts in the cyborg circuits with a name like that.

The Death surveyed his collection for the 20^th time that day. Then he nipped into space for a space McDonalds (with a free Llama Who toy that regenerated when you pulled its tail). The Doctor Llama, he had a bright and colourful scarf and there just happened to be a gap in his collection. The Dr-Llama grinned as an idea formed in his space-helmeted mind. But not for long because a fly kept buzzing round his head. ‘Stupid fly!’ purred The Death to himself, ‘Get lost in China…now!’ Raising his top hat with one tentacle and scratching his space helmet with the other, The Death wondered how he would be able to trap Llama Who. While he was waiting he got a job as a telephone operator, which was really boring because most people used mobile phones these days and didn’t need an operator. However, while he was working one day he happened to listen in to a call and heard the Townhouse nursery asking for help from Llama Who. At last, The Death knew where his villainous foe would be and could set a trap for him. Moving his peg-legs as fast as they would carry him and hitching up his skirt, The Death rushed off with his evil plan forming in the part of his mind he kept reserved for plans. However, he couldn’t just turn up to The Townhouse Nursery looking like this. I mean, he was 70 foot tall and wouldn’t have been able to fit in the door. Plus most of him was green. What he needed was a stooge, somebody who looked just like the ugly humanoids who walked planet Earth and if he couldn’t find one he would have to get one.

Walking back into his ‘death room’ (it’s like a living room, but for baddies who like dishing out a lot of death), he walked straight up to the fly who was still buzzing round his head. ‘What’s your name?’ The Death roared at his victim. Not being able to talk, the fly shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, I’m going to call you…Harry Tootmorsel!’ ‘Why?’ the fly thought to himself, but he didn’t want to be squished or sent to China so he merely watched as The Death brought in a strange looking gadget. It looked like a watering can but at the end of the nozzle was a tissue decompression extender eliminator that when The Death pointed it at the fly made him grow HUGE! ‘A bit too big!’ said The Death, talking to himself as he realised the fly was now bigger than he was and standing there with his wings folded glaring at him, ‘I don’t want to get squished, that would never do when I told all my friends down the baddies club. That Davros (part human, part Dalek, all llama, no heart) would just laugh at me. Again!’ Pressing a few more buttons on his gadget The Death finally made Harry Tootmorsel into an ordinary 5”10 humanoid who could pass himself off as one of the carers at Townhouse Nursery. Pushing the confused former-fly into his Dardis time machine (a present from his mum: Death and Relative Dimensions In Space, which was currently disguised as a pusheen) The Death stopped at the threshold and cackled an evil laugh: ‘Now Llama Who, soon you shall be…mine! Wahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!’ He then laughed so hard his space helmet came off and he had to hold his breath until he could reach out a tentacle and put it back on again.

It was a dark and stormy day at the Townhouse Nursery, with a touch of frost, but winds were light to variable, so that was something at least. Maybe The Death wouldn’t need a coat that day? Going back in time and walking out the Dardis, Harry Tootmorsel walked through the nursery, trying to scare the children as his boss wanted him to. But he was a very kind-hearted fly who was the type of person who wouldn’t hurt a fly and the type of fly that wouldn’t hurt a person. The Death, however, was a different matter. Harry Toot thought to himself how he could get help for the children, while he was he was looking at a particularly well-behaved baby named Leo. What he needed was a particularly bright humanoid who would understand his plan, but Eevee wasn’t there now she was old enough to be at school. He had to settle for a girl named Laila instead and slipped her a note asking her to call Llama Who, along with a ‘secret message’ on the back that he read out in a high-pitched fly voice that could only be picked up by Llama Who’s faithful robotic assistant Llama-9.

‘Affirmative!’ said Llama 9, reading the signal out loud to the astonished Llama-Who and Eevee. ‘This must be a divergent time track!’ said The Dr-Llama out loud to his companion. ‘What we need to do is pretend that we are going along with this trap just to see where this underground lair is where all these llamas are being held captive and release them. And then we must go back in time to the end of our last adventure and pretend to let The Death capture us as he did at the end of episode three in a fake cliffhanger, but unbeknown to the viewers last week that was just us forward in time presented to the audience out of context in a wibbly wobbly Steven Moffat type way!’ The Dr-Llama seemed to be talking gibberish, so Eevee just nodded. ‘But first…we need an alien McDonalds!’ So The Dr-Llama took Eevee to the planet Neptune at the start of their third ice age where the food was very cold but exceptionally cheap and she got a new pusheen toy with five heads for her collection. They then answered the telephone call from the nursery and promised they would be there soon, if not sooner, because they had a time machine. The Dr then phoned up The Death and told him that he didn’t need to go to the nursery at all and that in fact he was still waiting patiently in Eevee’s school where he had been since episode three.

The Dr and Eevee then travelled to the end of episode three, on a dark-brown and cloudy night with bursts of drizzle, where they watched the credits roll and pretended that they were in danger, but really they weren’t. ‘Oh no!’ said Eevee singing her ‘Temporary Quest’ song. The Dr-Llama joined in with ones of his favourites ‘Doctorin’ The Tardis’ by Ford Timelord which had got to #1 in the charts in 1989, the same year the show was taken off the air for being ‘too unpopular’ (what on Earth or Gallifrey were you thinking BBC? This still hurts thirty years on!!!!) Suddenly, just as The Death (who, by the way, had shrunk himself with his own decompression unit to fit through the door) was beginning to think he’d cracked this baddie thing and his parents were going to be so proud of him came a knock at the door. ‘Come in!’ said Llama Who, trying to keep a straight face. ‘What is the meaning of this Doctor?’ said The Death, his tentacles starting to turn a deep shade of green. ‘Why don’t you go to the door and find out?’ asked The Dr-Llama while Eevee tried to stifle a giggle.

Nervously The Death went to the door.  ‘Kissogram!’ said a voice. It was Davros-Llama, sitting in his bath chair, with a bunch of mistletoe above his head. ‘I’ll pay you for this Doctor!’ said Davros under his breath as he wheeled himself into the school hall. ‘Wha…what’s going on?’ asked the confused Mr Death, scratching his space helmet behind his left ear and shifting on his peg legs the way he did when he was anxious. ‘Ask the Doctor’ sniffed Davros. ‘It seems I owe him a favour in the year 2572 when he saves me from certain death at the hands of my creation The Dalek-Llamas!’ ‘But you’re that nice Mr Davros from down the baddies club!’ said The Death. ‘I’d know your delicate features anywhere! You said you were the greatest baddy of all time only last week’. ‘Yes, well’ stammered Davros, ‘I am the greatest baddy. It’s just that Llama Who is the greatest goody and he always wins. It’s not fair! He’s got so many regenerations, I mean couldn’t he just let me exterminate him just once, to see how it feels?’ ‘I know how you feel’ said The Death, ‘All I wanted was a nice glowing radioactive llama to brighten up my hallway. These heroes just don’t understand the meaning of décor anymore’.’Ooh I know’ said Davros, warming up to his theme. ‘I mean have you seen the latest version of The Tardis, all swirling lights and coral reefs? I keep thinking someone is about to launch into song every time The Doctor goes inside’. ‘You’re so right love’ said The Death, ‘I mean there he goes dashing about the universe trying to solve intergalactic crime and right wrongs, but has he ever thought to himself that he might himself be wanted by the fashion police? I mean there we are, beings of great beauty, he just doesn’t understand our genius!’ ‘Well’ said Davros, ‘If I was dressed like the Doctor was I’d consider getting cybernetic surgery. All those scarves and fezes and bowties, they’re just far too…cute!’

This was not going the way The Dr-Llama had planned it. ‘Back away!’ he whispered to his companion and he and Eevee slipped out the room to run down a corridor for absolutely no reason because there was a door outside close by. ‘What do we do now Doctor?’ asked Eevee, panting. ‘I think I know just how to put this right’ said The Dr-Llama, puffed. ‘But first, do you fancy an alien McDonalds?’ Eevee did, so they both went to the planet Zigorous 3 where the kindly local clandusprods gave them both extra chips in return for helping them out once in the year apple/z/alpha/ccx/2. They even had pudding, which was a sort of like a chocolate ring doughnut, only instead of having a hole the middle part was filled with delicious butterscotch. After eating The Dr and Eevee felt better so they wondered outside to the planet surface. It was a fluffy pink night and it was raining green and blue marshmallows. Luckily there was a décor shop and an outfitters open so the Dr and Eevee went inside and bought lots of things to wear and put up on the walls. First The Dr went to The Death’s underground lair, where he released all of the llamas, dosed the radioactive ones in a sort of decontaminating paste that tasted of pizzas which meant that they all licked each other and were safe again in no time and The Dr and Eevee got to work painting all the walls pink. The Dr also met Harry Tootmorsel and waved his sonic llama-screwdriver at him, turning him back into an ordinary fly. The Dr also handed him a teleportation console which he could use the next time The Death got naughty.

He and Eevee then went to Skaro, the planet of The Daleks and Davros, and painted the entire planet pink. He also hid Davros’ spare tunic and swapped it for a very fetching pink model with a bow and pink laces. The Movellans and The Thals, who also lived on Skaro, seemed to approve of these changes and being big fashion idols themselves waved their dreadlocks/blonde hairdos at The Dr and Eevee in approval. ‘Our work here is done’ said The Doctor to Eevee, ‘Let’s go home’. Which they did, stopping off at Kentuchy Fried Clawbitzes on The Moon on the way back because they both wanted a change from McDonalds (they had a Tmelord bucket between them, which was enough for 13 entire generations, because they were very very hungry after all their decorating).

First they paid a visit to Davros, who was looking very fetching in his new pink tunic. ‘What have you done Doctor?!?!?’ he bellowed. ‘How can I control the most evil race of llamas in the cosmos when you have me dressed like this?’ ‘I think it suits you Davros!’ said The Dr, grinning. ‘But before you get too cross I know it is your 10,000^th birthday coming up and we’re old friends…sort of…so I got you these’. And The Dr handed over some vouchers which allowed him to buy all the décor and outfits he could ever want in the intergalactic shopping mall on Alpha Centauri. ‘Why Dr, I’m touched’ said Davros, crying. ‘All these years I have been acting like an evil villain simply because nobody remembered my birthday back when I was eight. I’d wanted to go to the park and play on the swings but that nasty bully Stavros exterminated my birthday cake with his ray gun and swiped my party bag and all of my friends were scared of him so they never turned up. I’m really touched, thankyou!’ ‘You’re welcome Davros-Llama!’ said The Dr-Llama and Eevee felt so sorry for him that she even gave him a kiss on his wrinkled bald head.     

However, ‘The Death’ was not in a conciliatory mood and was less friendly than Davros, even after The Dr had also given him a voucher to the intergalactic shopping mall on Zigorous 3. ‘The only thing I loved in life was radioactive llamas Doctor’ he cried ‘and you’ve taken them away from me. What’s more you have turned my beloved underground lair bright pink. And you’ve turned all my torture equipment into balloons. Boohoohoo, I want my nice dark damp lair back again! I shall destroy all life on this planet just because of you Doctor!!!!’ ‘Don’t cry’ said The Dr kindly, ‘and please don’t blow everyone up! This way you can start from scratch and turn your underground lair into anything you choose. Why, if you wanted to you could turn it into a replication of The Townhouse Nursery and make some new friends. With a ballpark and some nice biscuits and a bit of cake for Laila why, you could have the happiest children’s nursery there is in the Western spiral galaxy!’ But The Death would not be placated and he was getting so cross that he began to turn purple and his space helmet began to bulge and he nearly fell over on his peg-legs. In a trice he  lunged for his disintegrator unit that he kept on the mantlepiece. The Dr sighed, knowing that he had no choice. ‘You know what you need?’ said the Dr calmly. ‘I think you need to cool down. How about somewhere where it’s Winter right now? How about you, I don’t know, get lost in China? In about 1300?’

At that word Harry Tootmorsel, now back as a fly, pressed a button on the gadget The Dr Llama had given him earlier and The Death found himself in China. Back in the time of Marco Polo. ‘Noooooo!’ he cried as snow fell on his space-helmet. He was captured and held by the mighty hordes of Kublai Khan (which is a painful place for anyone to be held) and married off to some local tribe where he became the descendent of both Donald Trump and Boris Johnson. Back on planet Earth, though, it was a bright and beautiful night without a cloud in the sky and The Doctor, Eevee and Harry were busy re-opening ‘The Townhouse Nursery II: The End Of Sad Times’. There were so many things to see and do and play on and eat and all the children from miles around were having a really great time. The Dr was also really pleased to see Davros’ mummy dropping off his younger self (back before he became half Dalek), dressed in school shorts and a bow tie. He had a better time than anybody, even if he did accidentally sit on a cake. ‘Our work here is done’ said The Dr to Eevee as they walked back to The Tardis. ‘What about me?’ said a little voice, ‘Can I come too?’ ‘Yes of course you can Harry’ said The Doctor, ‘You are very welcome.’ And the three of them went into the Llardis to explore the universe, right lots of wrongs and eat lots of alien McDonalds. They were having a lovely time until The Dr received a call summoning him back to Llaifrey to meet with his fellow Llama Llords. Ah but that’s another story for another time…