Saturday Wordzzle 109

And still I struggle with the words this week. You'd think this would get easier.

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The mini (eggs over easy, lawn mower, forgiveness, cold shoulder, chipper)

This is part of an ongoing story about a young blind seer who has had a vision of danger befalling a young man.  She arranges to anonymously fund a holiday for him - only to discover she's sent him to the place where the danger was supposed to be. She catches up with him and they talk. Suddenly, a car comes careering round the corner of the road and, in his attampt to push the blind lady out of its path, the young man in injured.  He wakes in hospital, having lost his memory. His only visitor thus far has been the seer

The young man speaks:

I'm feeling quite chipper today. Yes, that's definitely the word: chipper. So much so, in fact, that when they brought me my breakfast this morning, I jokingly asked for 'eggs over easy' in a silly American drawl. The Health Care Assistant (I think that's what they call them) just laughed and plonked my tray down. They must hear a lot of nonsense like that from patients with head injuries and so forgiveness probably isn't too hard for them. The blind lady – Irene - is coming in later today, which is great news. She told me yesterday that I have a sister and, as she said this, the image of a little blond girl struggling heroically to push an old and cantankerous lawnmower up and down our back garden, sprang into my head. And, like those strings of brightly-coloured silk hankies that magicians pull out of their sleeves, there came a stream of other memories tied to this one. My life is still hidden behind a fogged-up window but, here and there, little patches have been wiped clear and I can see though. Maybe there's something still hidden that explains why Andrea is apparently giving me the cold shoulder.


The 10-worder (speeding ticket, pedestal, changeling, what we ache for, in demand, carrot soup, powder puff, improvement, shady deal, amplitude)

New to Harold? The summary is here.

Whilst life in the world of men was a definite improvement over the one he had led in the Basement, Harold could not but help being a little disappointed sometimes that things were not more, well, glamorous. He and Teatime found themselves, once again, in a narrow alley. This one was behind the crumbling old building that was supposedly the home of a hi-tech medical plastics company. The alley was a classic of gritty gumshoe movies and hack cop-shows. Rubbish lay everywhere, piles of cardboard boxes labelled McKinley's Organic Carrot Soup were stacked untidily, ready no doubt to be crashed into at any moment and sent flying by a speeding car. There were a couple of dumpsters (with bodies or incriminating evidence in them for sure) and Harold expected at any moment to turn the corner and come across some ill-lit figures conducting a furtive and shady deal of some kind. Yep, definitely not glamorous, but at least he wasn't sitting in his little room at Aunt Aggie's, being bored to tears.

Earlier in the day, Prada had visited the place and had found it locked-up and deserted. Far from being the home of a hi-tech medical supplies manufacturer, the place looked more like an abandoned warehouse. There had been nobody around to ask about it either, so it had been decided that a night-time visit was in order.

"OK, demon," Came Prada's soft voice in the darkness next to him, "time for you to do your thing."

"My, my, what it's like to be in demand, eh, old sock?" came Teatime's amused voice from his shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah," replied Harold, "It's what we ache for, now step back please, ladies and gentlemen." He flexed his fingers theatrically. India rolled her eyes: what a show-off!

Harold placed his hands against the peeling paintwork of the door.

"Ta-daa!" he sang softly, as it clicked open after only a few moments' concentration - he was definitely getting better at this.

They quickly entered the building and Agent Othello closed the door carefully behind them. No point advertising their presence, after all.

They paused for a few moments to listen out for any signs that their ingress had been detected, but the dead stale air in the place was playing it cool and was not being split by the sound of wailing sirens, angry shouting or the thudding of running footsteps.

The humans clicked on their flashlights.

"Mag-lights?" Harold said to Prada, in mock disappointment, "I'd have thought you agents would have had some fancy gizmo like a powder puff that turns into a set of night-vision goggles or something."

"Mag-lights are reliable and cost less," replied Prada.

"Yes, and they're just about heavy enough to make a handy bludgeon as well," added India darkly.

"Focus, people." admonished Mercury.

They were in a narrow hallway. A door led off one side of it and another stood ajar at the opposite end to the one they had come in by. A cursory glance through the side door revealed an empty room.

The door at the far end gave out into a large space which was mostly empty. Here and there, the concrete floor had metal brackets sticking up out of it - presumably once used to bolt down machinery, and the odd wooden pedestal here and there which may once have supported a tool rack or a workbench. Two rows of metal column marched down the room, holding up the corrugated metal roof. The agents played their torches around some more, and the shadows rose in clouds like dust before settling back into place once the light had moved on.

"Well, this looks like a bust." said India, with a sigh "If those records ever came here then they must have been picked up long since."

"Spread out and keep looking," ordered Mercury.

Harold and Teatime wandered over toward the farthest corner, away from the OGS agents and their lights.

"Oh," he said disappointedly when they reached the corner.

"Oh, what?" demanded Teatime, "You know, you could turn on your flashlight, old bean. You might be able to see like a cat but I see like a monkey."

"Oh, sorry, I forgot," laughed Harold. He got his own light out and switched it on. He shone the bean down at the remains of a cardboard box. "I thought I saw something here, but it's just an old box after all."

He knelt down to look more closely. The box was labelled Changeling Electronics Inc – Amplitude Modulation Circuits. Setting down his torch, he lifted the top flaps to see inside.

Behind him, he was dimly aware of Agent Mercury announcing that he found an old speeding ticket, but that was all a very long way away.

The inside of the box was dimly lit by a single red LED, whose sullen light also showed a tangle of wires and a slab of something that looked a lot like Play-Doh, but clearly wasn't.