Expedition Diary – Extract 4

This is a personal account of the remarkable journey undertaken, by myself and the Old Monkey, to investigate the strange anomaly within the Lost Clinkers Cooling Tower. Expedition Diary – Extract 4 We passed through the anomaly only to discover a topsy-turvy world where Beaver Hateman rules over Homeward. The Old Monkey and I have met our alter egos, living a dissolute life at Badfort, waging a constant battle with Beaver to overthrow his regime. Cowgill is also here – but it turned out that he was just another doppelganger of the real Cowgill. His brain was as astute as our own Cowgill’s, however. We explained to him how we had come to be in his world. “You say that you passed through an anomaly?” he asked and we nodded our heads. He continued “This would suggest to me that you passed through some kind of gateway from your parallel universe or alternative reality. A self-contained separate reality coexisting with our own. This is a potentially a very dangerous situation and my advice to you would be to return immediately. From your description of the storm taking place prior to your journey, I would suggest that you wait for similar conditions in the hope that the event will replicate itself.” “That is all well and good,” I said “but the problem is that our helicopter is on the roof of the Great Hall at Homeward. I cannot see Beaver Hateman allowing us to just walk in and fly off in it.’ Uncle 2, who had been sitting in a daze of confusion, suddenly jumped up and interjected “look I can’t say that I understand all this, but from what you say, your life, in your place, has been a great deal more successful than mine. It is my duty to help myself get back to running Homeward. That has always been my dream. An elephant in need is a friend indeed. I shall do all I can to help you retrieve your helicopter. We were planning to mount an attack on Homeward, anyway.” “Thank you. You are an elephant after my own heart, after all.” I replied, heartened to see the self-pity gone from his demeanour. We spent the evening planning our attack on Homeward – I even forced myself to imbibe some of the Black Tom that was offered to me by my gracious host. He insisted on me telling him of my rise from lowly beginnings to respected pillar of the community and owner of Homeward. I saw the tears in his eyes as he contemplated this future that could have been.