3. Skratch and the Shaking Stairs

The day was hotter than expected. It was only April but it seemed like a scorching day in August. So Skratch the Cat went in search of air conditioning. "Where else but the cinema?" he thought. He wandered down Via Nizza and strolled into 8 Gallery at Lingotto. It was very quiet and Skratch smiled to himself. "Excellent," he murmured. But when he reached the sales desk there was no-one there. "Afternoon break," he thought and prowled on. As he made his way down to the auditoriums, he could just hear movies playing above the rumble of the escalators. "I'll pay on my way out," he meaowed. Although the atmosphere was electric, he met not a soul. The place was as empty as the devil's heart. "I must be in a  film." Skratch hissed. His purring increased along with his heartbeat. "This is so weird," he growled. He adopted a crouching posture, just in case. Then the escalator lurched and the whole cinema began to shake, pitching him forward. Amid the chaos, the escalator kept going but with enough noise for three. Perspex panels vibrated and tiles fell from the ceiling. Skratch sprang forward and out of the way as the escalator stairs groaned, coiled and collapsed behind him. He twisted in mid-air, landed on his feet and looked back. Then he grinned. "Good thing I'm a cat..."

2. Lapinette and the Construction Site

Lapinette hitched a lift on the hoist of a building site. She knew the Wabbit needed wood for his shed and a friendly contractor had promised as much as she wanted. The crane operator lowered her down. "Bit to the left, bit to the right," she yelled. Lapinette sniffed the air. Something wasn't right but she didn't have a clue what it was. Something fell and the load shook. She looked up but the operator was no longer there. The load swayed outward and tilted. Lapinette clung on to the chain as it swung back and glanced down. It was a long way to the ground. A plank fell from the roof and missed her by a centimetre. A link broke on the chain, followed by another. Lapinette looked at the scaffolding and calculated the distance. Then she jumped, clung on and clambered inside the scaffolding as the load dropped to the street. But the scaffolding shook too and the bolts that attached it to the framework of the building began to pop. First one, then a second, then all of them. The scaffolding sagged and dropped with Lapinette on board. She jumped again and rolled along the sidewalk in a cloud of dust. Behind her, the scaffolding folded like a concertina. Metal struts fell around her like rain. She picked herself up but the ground under her feet trembled like a leaf. She looked for cover but every building warped to and fro. Then the noise and the shaking suddenly stopped. Now Lapinette found herself listening to the loudest silence she'd ever heard ...

1. The Wabbit and the Tram Stop

The Wabbit waited at the tram stop a long time and eventually he got bored. It was so long that he wondered whether all the trams were cancelled. Things seemed too quiet, but it occurred to him that it had already been a busy year for mild peril, in which he'd encountered Tremor worms, monster fish attacks and bad dragons. Maybe it was OK to be quiet for a while. He hopped up and down the platform, hoping his radio would crackle into life. Nothing came through. He studied everything intensely, but eventually he found himself reduced to counting fence posts. "May as well walk," he thought. It was then that he spotted the yellow box and he was uncertain why he'd never noticed it before. He looked it up and down. It had a red button and a loudspeaker so he stretched out a paw. It lingered over the button. "To press or not to press?" he mused. He looked at the arrow that said stop. "What's the worst that can happen?" he murmured. It was a short jab but it was effective. The speaker shrieked with a deafening alarm and voice spoke. "What would you like stopped?" The Wabbit covered his ears and yelled, "Stop the alarm please." The alarm stopped and the loudspeaker barked. "Anything else you'd like stopped?" The Wabbit thought of lots of things, few of them practical. "I'd like a tram to come." The speaker barked again. "It's not my job to start things, only stop them." The Wabbit considered. "Maybe you could stop me being bored." The speaker chuckled in a malevolent tone. "No problem, Commander Wabbit ..."

The Wabbit at his Adventure Caffè

It was fun and games at the Adventure Caffè. Wabsworth produced a vial and told everyone it was full of bad dragon drops. No-one believed him and they all pushed the vial around. The Wabbit laughed and laughed. "But what sort of adventure was that what we just had?" he asked. Skratch leaned back and draped a paw across the back of his chair. "I'd say it was irreal." Wabsworth draped his paw in exactly the same way. "As opposed to unreal?" Lapinette poked the vial again. "Dragons are real enough and symbolic too." Skratch meaowed long and hard. "Then your story was but a structure of signification." Wabsworth was now quite excited. "A concept signifies - but a thing is expressive and a dragon is a thing." Lapinette span the vial round and round. "That's Metz. And he would want to know what kind of dragon thingyness you mean." Skratch butted it. "Your story sequence of images is a horizontal fluid discourse in which thingyness occurs." The Wabbit rapped on the table and the flask jumped up and down. "Therefore our episodes present a sequence of discontinuity which mobilises discourse through construction." Lapinette shook her head because it was beginning to spin. She was getting thirsty and felt in need of a drink. "Wabbit, sometimes you go to far." The Wabbit looked at Wabsworth. "I take it that vial no longer contains bad dragon drops." Wabsworth snatched it back and grinned. "Well I wouldn't recommend drinking it!

5. The Wabbit and the Last Bad Dragon

The Wabbit wandered through a strange landscape, clearing up bad dragons. Without their leader they were a spent force and the 400 Rabbits took care of most of them. But an enclave remained in Lingotto and since the Wabbit was especially fond of the area, he'd gone to supervise. With a happy heart, he slung his Snazer gun over his shoulder and whistled a merry tune. The atmosphere was yellow with dragon fumes but now it was clearing and that's how he came to see the shadow. With a terrible roar, a shape loomed over his shoulder breathing fumes. The Wabbit didn't bother to turn. With his paws behind him he pulled the laser's trigger and it fired a salvo that blasted a dragon to shreds. Bits dropped all around him and all over the car park. The Wabbit found himself looking down as a severed head with a tongue that continued to snake in and out as it tried to speak. The Wabbit shrugged because he was tired of bad dragons. "Any last words?" The tongue waggled to and fro. He nudged the dragon head with a foot and it rolled back and forward like a football. The Wabbit sighed. He took the Snazer from his back and pointed it. The head lurched forward and its tongue moved once more. This time it spoke. "We'll be back." The Wabbit leaned forward to look it in the eyes. "And on that occasion, we'll be ready." The eyes closed. The tongue lay still. The Wabbit shrugged again. "I hope .."

4. The Wabbit and the Dragon's Ointment

The Wabbit and Lapinette racked their brains for a way to defeat the dragons. They scoured the Internet and unearthed ancient tomes to locate a suitable method but they came up with nothing. Lapinette looked up. Dragons of various hues circled the skies but there was one bigger than the rest and he seemed to be in charge. She pointed. "We have to bring that one down." The Wabbit held up a paw. "I think I have it. Dragons are impervious to magic, but can't stand ointment." Lapinette rummaged in a drawer and clutching a new tube of ointment, hurried to the hanger where Susan the Biplane was ready to take off. Susan circled just below the ferocious dragon. It batted it's giant wings and flew straight towards them but Susan was nimble as only a biplane could be. "What's that ointment for?" asked the Wabbit. "Eczema," snarled Lapinette. "That'll peel its scales," chuckled the Wabbit. Lapinette scrambled onto a wing and unscrewed the cap. Susan hung in the air and waited. "Here it comes," yelled the Wabbit. The dragon's tongue snaked towards Lapinette's head and it was just the moment she'd been waiting for. The tube spat ointment on the dragon's chin and into its mouth. A cry of anguish rose to the heavens. The dragon's neck twisted and thrashed but it couldn't get rid of the ointment. Then its wings drooped as it it turned tail and fell screaming to the city below. "Flew in the ointment?" laughed the Wabbit.
[Dragons (except for Terni the Food Dragon) are courtesy of http://clipart-library.com/dragon-clip-art.html ]

3. Lapinette and the Dragon on the Roof

Not far from Wabsworth's laboratory, Lapinette was looking out a window when a dragon swooped across the rooftops. It dived straight at her and picked her up. Lapinette struggled valiantly. Even though her feet scraped the tiles she somehow managed to pluck an edged weapon from her frock. She struck out once and missed - but the second swipe caught the dragon's foot. He let out a terrifying bellow as blood sprayed on the roof. "Let go, you monster!" yelled Lapinette. The knife flashed again to some effect. The dragon let out a roar and shook her to and fro, but it dropped her. She rolled down the roof and slid over the edge. The street looked a long way down so she clung on with a single paw. With the other she lashed out at the dragon. Snapping teeth moved closer. Jaws opened and clamped up and down close to her face, but only snapped off a few tiles. Lapinette swung along the edge of the roof, searching by touch for the open window. At last her feet found the ledge and with one paw she tried to swing in. The dragon's teeth were razor sharp and raked along the roof edge, making a good grip impossible. But she struck again with the knife and this time she got lucky. The dragon's nose spurted blood. It shrieked as it recoiled and lifted from the roof. Lapinette dived inside and lay panting on the floor. She covered her ears from the deafening sound of the dragon crashing down on the roof again and again. Tiles flew everywhere. The ceiling bulged. Lapinette rolled and leaped up to make for the stairs and the street ....

2. Wabsworth and the Sudden Shake

Wabsworth returned to his laboratory and extracted the flask from his fur. This he did alone - just in case. He was an android and generally remained unaffected by poison, germs or magic drops of any kind. Nonetheless he took a lot of care. Wabsworth watched a significant amount of television from the sixties and he hummed "Puff the Magic Dragon," as he worked. But just as he got to the end, he felt the building shake under his feet. The laboratory tipped to the right and then tipped to the left. "Earthquake," growled Wabsworth. He dived for the flask, but it slid along the counter top, hit another flask and shot into the air. Dragon drops slopped around and frothed, then the cap detached just as the flask cracked down the side. Something came out. Wabsworth lurched back as an aftershock hit the lab. He scrabbled for a grip as he slid down a cabinet. The thing emerged with a faint hissing. Now it was much bigger. It spread its wings dragon-wide and then took off - plunging through the reinforced glass windows of the lab without pausing. Wabsworth watched it vanish down a corridor and felt in his fur for his walkie talkie. The radio hummed and crackled but failed to connect. So he hit it just like the Wabbit. A faint sound emerged so he shouted, "Code Red, Creature Loose. Agent in pursuit." He scrambled after it, only to see from the stairway window a silhouette of a dragon against the Turin sky. "Smuckdragon, that's torn it!" he gasped.

1. The Wabbit and the Falling Droplets

The Wabbit and Wabsworth, his android double, were on a bit of a constitutional. The sky was the most beautiful winter blue but a sharp sun filtered through, giving warmth to their fur. "We can be Kings of the Castle," said Wabsworth. The Wabbit smiled. "Strictly speaking it's a villa and it used to belong to dragons." Wabsworth's circuits whirred. "I thought dragons were more the cave type."  The Wabbit shrugged. "Even dragons want to be legit." He caught a flash of light from above his head so he looked up and squinted his eyes. Then he heard a roar from the sky. "Get out the way, Wabbit!" shouted Terni the Dragon. "Shouldn't you be in Rome, Terni?" asked the Wabbit. He deftly dodged drops coming from a pipe. Terni dropped lower and lower and roared, "Whatever you do, don't get any of that on your fur." "Any of what, exactly?" The Wabbit could very dense on occasions, but Wabsworth was on the ball and he pulled the Wabbit away from the drops. Terni landed with a considerable thump. His peppery nose breathed fire. "These drops can turn you into a dragon and not a very nice dragon at that." Wabsworth looked curious and pulled a flask from his fur. "Bad Dragon Drops?" He stretched out a paw and collected drops until the vessel was half full. "I'm going to test these in my laboratory." The Wabbit raised an eye. "Are we going into the Bad Dragon breeding business?" Wabsworth smiled in a malicious way that the Wabbit had noticed before. Terni breathed fire again. "Thinking of sowing a few Bad Dragon's teeth?"

The Wabbit at his Adventure Caffè

The team assembled at the chosen Adventure Caffè. The Wabbit was first to arrive and he hummed and hawed and complained about the lateness of others. But suddenly everyone bustled around him, laughing. The Wabbit leaned towards Lapinette. "Hello Lap, won't ya take a pew?"  Lapinette pirouetted. "What no drinks?" The Wabbit tapped the table. "On their way, they is on their way." Skratch meowed loudly. "Here I am!" Wabsworth sat down and looked at the Wabbit. "What was that for a sort of Adventure we weren't in?" Skratch wasn't about to give up his special position as the analyser of stories. "It was an eco-adventure mobilising an adventurous speculative discourse."  Wabsworth nodded. I completely agree. "It's positioning as a part of contemporary ecological concerns rooted it decisively in historical process." Skratch purred. "Have you been reading my letters to the trade press concerning the postmodern assassins of theory?" "Yes," admitted Wabsworth, "I saw a round robin citing you as a prejudiced dinosaur." "Excellent," growled Skratch. His claws extended and retracted. Lapinette joined in. "Don't you think it's quite disgraceful?" The Wabbit shook his head. "I do but, like postmodernism, disgrace takes us nowhere in understanding the hidden mechanisms of suture." With her paws in the air, Lapinette pirouetted again. "We will therefore continue to hold the line for theory." The Wabbit turned and yelled to a waiter, "But not without a drink!"

11. The Wabbit and the Next Situation

The voyage home was uneventful and as the Lepus slid into port, the Wabbit looked over the side. There was no sign of Akwat fish. "Mission accomplished." The Wabbit was thinking aloud. He heard the sound of a helichopper but merely inclined his head to let Captain Jenny take care of it. He was tired. He heard Jenny on the tannoy and turned. The helichopper tipped a salute and he waved a paw. "Clean-up squad despatched," murmured Lapinette from behind him. The Wabbit smiled. "What next, Lapinette?" Lapinette whistled like a ship's pipe. "Message from the Department, there's a situation." She laughed. "What kind of a situation?" grinned the Wabbit. Lapinette shook her head. "The message wasn't situation specific." The Wabbit considered. "Well, it's bound to be a sticky situation." "Otherwise we wouldn't get the job," giggled Lapinette. "We are the perfect unstickers," nodded the Wabbit. The sound of the helichopper's rotors faded in the distance. "But I'd like to unstick something fairly simple." He flicked imaginary lint from his fur. "Ah, like food from your fur?" suggested Lapinette. "No, something like an envelope," answered the Wabbit. "What about the contents of the envelope?" said Lapinette. The Wabbit thought for a moment. "I could delegate that."  Lapinette thought for a second and asked "Who to?" But she knew what was coming. "To you?" shrugged the Wabbit.

10. The Wabbit and the Polluted Pond

The Wabbit and Lapinette inspected the river until Lapinette pointed and shouted "Look!" A noxious scummy sediment swirled on the surface and clung to the bank. The Wabbit didn't hesitate. He searched his fur and from some dim recess plucked a strange meter. Then he plunged into the river. Lapinette wrinkled her nose but she plunged in too and swam towards something that floated half in and out of the water. It was a baby Akwat. She poked it. "It's quite dead," she shouted. The Wabbit took a water sample and pressed a button. The meter whirred. Then it rang and its monitor flashed information. He gasped and Lapinette looked round. He beckoned and she swam towards him. "The water's full of oxazepram," he said. His brow wrinkled and he shrugged. "Pam," corrected Lapinette. She tried to recall something. "I've read about this. The waste makes timid fish aggressive." The Wabbit laughed. "Good thing you went to that nature night class." Lapinette suppressed a scowl. "It was full of nerdy nerds." Her ears pricked up and she turned. "Something's dripping." The Wabbit gasped again. It had been hidden by branches but now the canister on the opposite bank was obvious. It was leeching pharmaceutical waste into the river. "We'll send a clean-up squad by helichopper," said the Wabbit. "OK. Let's get out of this polluted place now," replied Lapinette. She scrambled up the bank and looked back to the Wabbit. He was still in the river and he grinned. "I was getting to like it."
[Information on pollution and change in fish habits]

9. The Wabbit and the Akwat Children

Following a track made by the Strige, Lapinette and the Wabbit found themselves at a river fed by a waterfall. Lapinette gestured for quiet. Above the sound of cascading water, they heard anguished wailing. They waited. From the top of the waterfall, three small Akwats tumbled down the rocks and into the plunge pool where they floated on their side, flapping and gasping. A larger Akwat looked helplessly over the tip. Lapinette lay down her snazer gun. The Wabbit did likewise and they both bent to look. "They're sick," said Lapinette. The young Akwats gasped on the surface of the water. The Wabbit shook his head. "I have antibiotics, but they're back at the ship." Lapinette looked at the woods. "I know some varieties of mushrooms that might work" The Wabbit reached out for an ailing Akwat and drew it towards him. "Go hop around, I'll do my best." Lapinette disappeared into the woods. The Wabbit took an Akwat by the gills and moved them around. When it started to soften, he reached out for another. The Akwat mother drew closer and watched. "No time to lose," said the Wabbit and he nodded in her direction. He grasped the gills of the last Akwat and moved them rapidly. The fish came around and escaped from his grasp. "You don't look as if you need any help," said Lapinette. She set down a variety of fungi and ground them beneath a rock. Together they distributed the medicine in the pool and watched the water bubble as the Akwats ate and played. "Maybe we're in the wrong job," laughed the Wabbit.

8. The Wabbit and the Malignant Myth

The shape shimmered and became opaque. Between a human and a bird, it perched on a rock nearby. Lapinette pointed her snazer. So did the Wabbit. A yellow sun lit the sea and in the distance they saw Akwats leaping across it like dolphins. Waves crashed soundlessly on the rocks.  "Complaints?" asked the shape for the second time. Its voice was treacle. Mutated wings fluttered. Feet skittered on the rocky outcrop. "Are you a mythical Strige?" said Lapinette. The shape nodded gravely and asked, "What is the nature of your complaint?" Lapinette waved her weapon at the sea and snarled. "We're complaining about these Akwats." The Wabbit growled. "Why are they here?" The Strige's face twisted into what must have been a smile. "They came to complain about you." The Wabbit gasped. "The cheek of it! What are you going to do about it?"  The Strige cackled. "You wish me to touch them with my evil wing?" The Wabbit wasn't happy. He poked the Strige with his gun. "What would happen?" The Strige shimmered and nearly vanished. "They'd rot." He reappeared again and Lapinette hopped forward. "They're bad enough already." The Strige whirled round and screeched at the Wabbit. "I can make you into puppets." "You can't," yelled Lapinette. The Strige whirled back, but the Wabbit yelled, "You're a has-been bird." So did Lapinette and they chanted, "Has-been, has-been, has-been!" The Strige whirled so much it bored a hole in the rock and dropped in. "The bird has bolted," laughed the Wabbit.
[Thanks to : Classical Culture and Witchcraft in Medieval and Renaissance Italy Marina Montessano]

7. The Wabbit and the Isle of Complaints

Followed by the Akwats, the Lepus coasted through the fog - but the fog was entirely its own. Land loomed quickly and Jenny threw the Lepus into Emergency Astern. There was a splash as she let the anchor drop into the sea. It was just in time. The Lepus scraped sand and gravel. The Akwats quickly vanished. "Nothing on radar," growled Jenny. "This place doesn't exist." The Wabbit and Lapinette strapped on snazer guns and dropped over the side. "It seems solid enough," said the Wabbit. Murky water washed across his legs and splashed upwards on his face. "Stupid wet gravelly island," he grumbled. Lapinette suppressed a laugh. "Then this must be the Isle of Complaints." Her voice was muffled and there was hardly a sound as they made their way up the beach. No wind, no birds, nothing. The Wabbit scuffed the beach, picked up a rock and threw it in the sea. It skimmed and bounced along the surface with no noise. He shouted and yelled. Lapinette shook her head. She could hardly hear a thing. She leaned close and screamed in the Wabbit's ears. "The island absorbs sound." He gripped her by the paw and together they moved inland. He stopped with a jerk. "I can feel movement." He looked straight ahead. Lapinette could see nothing. "Show yourself," said the Wabbit. Directly in front, the air shimmered as if it was rising from hot tarmac. A vague shape emerged and a quavering voice spoke. "Have you brought me any complaints?"