Mini Ep. 3: Ford's Focus

Catherine Ford happily walked along the street, looking around at the weaving trees and clouds. She headed up the path to Beth Grant’s house, and knocked on the door. A few seconds later it opened, and Mr Grant appeared.

“Oh, hello Catherine,” he smiled. “Is the doorbell not working?”
“I forgot you had one,” Catherine replied. “Is Beth there?”
“Just a second,” Mr Grant said. “Beth!! Catherine’s here! Come on in, do you want a cup of tea? I’ve got to dash off; you know where the kitchen is? Actually, perhaps I’d better show you, it’s been a few days since you were here last.”

He showed her to the kitchen, before heading out of the house. Beth grinned and thumped down the stairs, entering the kitchen.

“Catherine!” she beamed. “What are you doing?”
“Making Ribena,” Catherine smiled.
“You make it with water, not milk,” Beth said helpfully.
“Oh.”
“What do you want to do today?” Beth asked. “I figured we could go shopping with Kaylie and Hayley Smit, the Dutch girl.”
“I don’t remember a Hayley,” Catherine frowned.
“She’s your partner in Biology,” Beth said, rolling her eyes. “You tried to speak Dutch to her once and ended up insulting her in Welsh.”
“Oh Hayley!” Catherine realised. “I thought she was from Swindon.”

Beth poured Catherine’s Ribena down the sink, and pulled out her phone. She dialled Kaylie’s number and began to talk to her.

“Yes. Yes. No. Yes. Really? Have fun! Kaylie can’t come,” she said sadly. “Zac decided to take her to that new romantic comedy at the cinema.”
“I thought that was supposed to be rubbish?” Catherine asked.
“Yeah,” Beth agreed. “They want to sit at the back and make out.”

Catherine thought this through as Beth led her out of the house and into the sunlight. Fifteen minutes later they met Hayley at the park.

“I don’t want to go shopping,” she said with a slight accent.
“Oh. Great.” Beth sighed.

She didn’t like Hayley, but put up with her for Catherine’s sake.

“Why don’t we stay here?” Catherine asked. “Dôs adra i farw i'r gath gael bwyd!”
“I don’t know what that means,” Hayley said. “But I imagine it’s Welsh. I’ll have to ask Mrs Davies – the Welsh teacher.”
“Actually, I’ll ask Conner next time I see him,” Beth smiled. “He took Welsh for his GCSE. Got an A* too…”

She mostly mentioned this to annoy Hayley. Everyone in the school knew that if Conner belonged to anyone, it was Beth, and Hayley couldn’t stand it. She had an obsession with Conner that appeared healthy on the surface, but was slightly strange if you looked deeper. Most of her books had C.B. or Conner written over them, and she screamed at anyone who spelt his name as Connor.

“It’s C-O-N-N-E-R!” she would yell. “It means wolf-lover in Celtic, you stupid English fool!”

Catherine glanced sideways at Beth, who had just snorted.

“It means wolf-lover you stupid English fools!” she whispered.

Catherine laughed, not fully understanding what was going on.

“Anyway,” Hayley continued. “I think we should stay at the park and meet with Gareth Daniels and Hattie Simpson. I am going to show them proper Dutch cigars – you stupid English don’t make proper cigars.”
“You can,” Beth snapped. “Me and Catherine are going back to my house.”

She grabbed Catherine by the hand, and pulled her away. As they were walking back, Beth received another phone call. It was Bradley Taylor.

“Hey Bradders,” she smiled. “Did you want to speak to Catherine?”
“Hiiii Bradley,” Catherine shouted, leaning over to the phone.
“He says hi,” Beth grinned. “He’s too embarrassed to talk to you. What was that? Shut up Bradley. Really? I was gonna come, but I was too hung over.”
“What’s that?” Catherine asked.
“Hattie Simpson’s party,” Beth explained. “He put mirrors on his shoes? To look up Hattie’s skirt? I suppose Eric Newton is a bit weird. Who invited him anyway? Oh. Yeah well we all know Liam Fairway secretly loves chess. So what did Hattie say when she caught him?”

Beth suddenly burst out laughing. Catherine looked at her strangely.

“What did Hattie say when he tried to look at her knickers?” she asked.
“Well joke’s on you cos I’m not wearing any!” Beth laughed. “Trust Hattie. I can actually believe that. I heard… After the turkey baster thing… Bye Bradders.”
“So who was that?” Catherine wondered.
“Bradley…”

When they reached the house, Beth made Catherine a new Ribena and they sat in front of the sofa.

“So I asked Miss Grimes to let me try out for the Hockey team,” Catherine was saying. “But she said she didn’t think anymore hits to the head would do me any good.”
“Bradley’s joined the football team,” Beth said. “Mr Sims says he wants some pretty girls to stand at the side and pretend to be interested. He says it helps them score goals or something. I think it might be like cheerleading, and Miss Grimes could teach us.”
“Is cheerleading the thing with the rackets?” Catherine asked.

Beth shook her head, and stood up to go to the bathroom. Catherine sat whistling happily to herself, when Beth returned. Instead of sitting down, however, she remained stood in the doorway.

“Aren’t you coming to sit down?” Catherine called. “We should watch The Little Mermaid! I never understood that film…”

Beth gurgled, swaying slightly. Catherine walked up to her, and prodded her nose.

“What’s happening?” she frowned. “Beth, you’re scaring me… I don’t understand, what’s going on?”

Beth collapsed to the floor, and Catherine screamed, running out of the house. Suddenly everything seemed darker, more confusing. She looked around, and saw that everyone had collapsed. There was an old lady twitching and gargling on the floor, and her pet cat next to her did the same.

“Mrs Crawford, are you okay?” Catherine called. “I’m so confused… More than usual… And I thought dog sign language was the most confusing thing ever…”

There was a splintering crash, and thousands of flying saucers began to descend from the sky. Catherine fell to the floor, gazing at the saucers, which hovered in mid air, opening up at the hatches. She screamed when the tip of a large brain appeared from the nearest one, and one by one, large brains emerged from the saucers.

“Oh my God!” Catherine cried. “It’s the invasion of the brain… The… Brainandions!”

She screwed her eyes shut as one of the brains floated down towards her. It hovered for a moment, before floating off. Sighing with relief, Catherine dashed back inside the house, almost running slap bang into someone.

“Watch it!” Petr Costravalos complained.
“Who are you?” Catherine asked. “Everyone’s gone funny.”
“I know,” Petr said. “But that’s not my problem. I’m making sure Pippa correctly erased Beth’s memories of her stay with us.”
“Are you a Travelodge?” Catherine frowned.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Petr sighed. “And we took Beth in, towards the end of February. But now I need to make sure she can’t remember what happened.”
“What did you do?” Catherine asked.
“Just asked her some questions,” Petr shrugged. “Do I have to erase your memory too? Actually, I don’t think you’ll remember, you’re too… smart, that’s it, you’re too smart.”
“But what’s happening here?” Catherine cried. “I don’t know what to do. Why didn’t I collapse too?”
“Your brain is special,” Petr announced. “Well, special’s one word for it. Slightly empty are two other words for it. What you need to do is find the main brain and somehow confuse it, or stab it. You can cope with that, right?”

Catherine shook her head. Petr sighed, and wondered how the human race had ever survived with people like her.

“I’ll give you a hint – the main brain is at the Library. You know; the one by the Church?” Petr asked.
“I don’t know where the Library is,” Catherine said sadly. “I don’t know where the Church is either.”

Petr sighed, and took a teleport from his pocket. He slipped it around Catherine’s neck, and she disappeared. A few seconds later, she appeared once more. Petr sighed again.

“Don’t press the button,” he said.
“Sorry,” Catherine replied, vanishing once more.

She reappeared at the Library, behind a bookcase. The main brain glowed blue across the room, emitting a pulse that made everyone stupid. She dropped to the floor, and began to crawl towards the brain. When she was nearing the brain, it shot a ray of blue light out from its side, which lifted Catherine off her feet.

“Let me go!” she screamed, hovering in mid air. “I need to think of a plan to stop you!”

Suddenly, the brain shivered, and dropped Catherine. She screamed and hit the floor, before wondering what had happened. As she thought, the brain creature continued to shiver.

“Me thinking hurts the brain!” she laughed. “Woah!”

It aimed another blue bolt at her, so she dived to the side, landing on a pile of books. Picking one of the books from the pile, she examined it, before throwing it back and replacing it with another book.

“Biff and Chip’s too hard,” she frowned. “Ahh, the Very Hungry Caterpillar!”

She began to read aloud, struggling with some of the words, and the screeching and shivering of the brain increased.

“And the Very Hungry Caterpillar turned into a beautiful Butterfly!” she read.

With one final shudder, the brain exploded. All across the world, millions of brains vanished into thin air. Catherine laughed, and looked around at all the books, and the mess she’d caused.

“So…” she said to herself. “This is what a Library looks like…”

The End