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Inspector Riley & the chup list CH 3&4

by riley 

Posted: 13 August 2005
Word Count: 1227
Summary: chapters 3 & 4


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Chapter 3
The real beginning

On the way back to the station Johnno raced hard and had beaten the twins who arrived, breathless, as he was being briefed by Inspector Riley. “Well done you two,” he said to the cadets who so wanted to be a part of tonight’s operation.

“There has been a tip off” started Inspector Riley, “and we must act quickly, it appears that the elusive Dr ‘G’ has surfaced again at an address we have been given, 36 Yateley Crescent”. “That can only mean bad news” said Sergeant Johnno; close to them were the twins overhearing what Riley had said, they both shuddered as a look of dread crossed their faces. “Who is d, d, d, Dr g, g, G” asked Smudge, whose stuttering had just got worse. Tufty quickly told him that Dr ‘G’ was the most evil criminal in the animal world and would stop at nothing to get what he wants, Smudge shuddered again.

Inspector Riley called his team together, it consisted of himself, Sergeant Johnno, the jack russell and his good friend, Bobby the bumble bee from the flying squad. He who would be the ‘eyes in the sky’ and twelve patrol dogs, hand picked by Johnno would be the main force of the action. Flash the snail, an ace communications expert had already left to set up radio links at the target house. Flash was an unusual character, he was a wealthy snail who had a winter shell and a summer shell, each shell cleverly disguised a huge array of surveillance equipment and gadgets which could track anyone anywhere, anyone except Dr ‘G’ who had eluded Flash for many years.

The scene was set, Flash was stationed in the bushes of the garden of the next door house, No 38 Yateley Crescent. Bobby and his own team were in the air passing information to Flash, who in turn passed it onto Inspector Riley and his team on the ground…they were ready & waiting.

The tip off was that Dr ‘G’ planned a straw raid on No 36, to steal the latest & largest batch of straw which was in the wooden shed at the bottom of the garden, the time of the raid was 4.00am and it was now 3.55am. As the seconds ticked by Inspector Riley and his various teams lay in wait for Dr ‘G’ to make his move. 3.59am, one minute to go, all the members of the pawlice force were tensed, ready to pounce on the target and put an end to Dr ‘G’s reign of crime. 4.00am, “All teams ready?” whispered Riley into his small microphone to the other teams, “Roger” came Flash’s reply, “Ready on your word” came from Bobby and his flying squad, “In position” from Johnno and the pawlice dogs hidden around the garden… the trap was set.

4.01, 4.02 and nothing, 4.15am and still no raid or any movement at all in the garden of No 36. At 5.00am Inspector Riley radioed the others that the tip off must be wrong, Dr ‘G’ must have found out about their plan and called off his own raid on the straw deposit. Yet another time Dr ‘G’ had got away from Inspector Riley, but he vowed he would not give up. One day Dr ‘G’ would make a mistake and he would be there to catch him once and for all.

The tip off had originally come from Dixxy, she was a beautiful model rabbit who was known to spend time with Dr ‘G’, she also had a ‘thing’ for Inspector Riley. She passed on the odd piece of information which normally led to a crime being stopped or a gang being caught so she was useful, but not on this occasion. ‘I will find out what happened eventually’ Riley thought to himself as he walked back to the station.


Chapter 4
Dr ‘G’

Dr ‘G’ hadn’t always been evil, he used to be the same as any other pet gerbil. Playful, always hungry, slept a lot and many other things that ‘ordinary’ gerbils do. Then one ‘ordinary’ afternoon ‘Fluffy’, as he was called then, accidentally discovered the power of the wheel,…his wheel,…in his cage! The cage was very old and had been home to many other gerbils and small animals before him and there were quite a few rooms with tunnels connecting them. There was a couple of bedrooms, a lounge, food area and some store rooms. There was also some very dark corners that he would not go into, not for all the sunflower seeds in the world. That one particular afternoon he got on his wheel and ran; he ran faster and faster until he was going faster than he’d ever gone before. Breathless he jumped off the wheel, but just as he did he heard a strange ‘clicking’ noise coming from one of the dark corners, then there was the sound of some metal that was moving, he looked towards the sound in the dark corner and it was not dark anymore, it was flooded with light. The wheel was still spinning and at first he was scared but his curiosity got the better of him and he edged towards the corner to see what had happened. As he got there he could see that a completely new tunnel had appeared in the floor which seemed to go on forever and right at the end of this tunnel he could just see hundreds and hundreds of ants moving together from one tunnel to another. He thought ‘this must be an escape tunnel’, he had heard stories when he was very small about an ancient cage that was built by a magician that concealed a myriad of secret tunnels. These tunnels could take a small creature to any part of the town that they wanted…’but this was surely a made up story for baby gerbils’ he thought…but here he was, in that very cage looking into a tunnel that had not been there a minute ago.

The wheel slowed and he heard the same mechanical ‘click’ sound again, with that the tunnel hatch began to close and within a few seconds was completely shut without leaving a single trace that the tunnel had ever been there.

Over the next two days ‘Fluffy’ ran for all he was worth and found no less than 17 different secret tunnels leading out of the cage. The last one, number 17 tunnel opened more quietly than all the others and he was at the entrance before it had even fully opened. He peered in and just as he did so a strange breeze full of dust came through the tunnel and coated his face with a fine spray. He sneezed but couldn’t help but breathe in the fine dust which had an incredible effect, it made him feel strange but somehow good…. He took another sniff, then another until he felt incredibly strong and unafraid. He took one last sniff and then he saw the ants again at the end of this tunnel…and they were all staring at him. With the thousands of eyes upon him he felt a bit uneasy but then they all started to shout, “It’s the Doctor, the Doctor has returned to us”, he was now totally unafraid and ventured through the tunnel which slowly closed behind him.






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Comments by other Members



Luisa at 12:29 on 13 August 2005  Report this post
Again, I loved the ideas and the characters in this story. I particularly liked the story of Fluffy's transformation into Dr G!

There's something about the tone of the writing that makes me think the story is too matter-of-fact. I think what I mean is, I didn't feel the full drama of Fluffy's story. I wonder if you need to break it down a bit into shorter sentences and shorter paragraphs, possibly even with one thing happening per paragraph. I'm not sure if this makes sense... I would just like to see the drama unfold more slowly, I think, because it seemed to be happening a bit too quickly for me and I think I was missing the real impact!

One tiny, nit-picky thing: I think I would write this
“Who is d, d, d, Dr g, g, G”
like this
“Who is D-D-D-Doctor G-G-G”

Luisa

riley at 23:14 on 14 August 2005  Report this post
Comments accepted, so you think the chapter should be longer, stretch it out more...Right Ho.

regards rge stuttering test, good point, will do.

thanks very much

Riley

riley at 23:13 on 15 August 2005  Report this post
Thanks, and I mean it.
The comments coming back are useful and all seem to say a similar thing. The idea's great but it tries to cram too much into to small an amount of words. So pad it out I shall...might take some time as work is going balistic at present.

I am really glad you think the concept, the story has potential and once the re-write is done then maybe a publisher could have the same thoughts.

this has been a really useful experience so far and I shall continue.

Riley

Sascha at 19:18 on 01 September 2005  Report this post
Thought I commented on this awhile back, but don't see it, maybe I emailed you? Anyhoo, again great idea goin' on, trying to wrack my brain at the mo' because saw a new book out with a Cat as a spy trying to avoid the long Paw of injustice something or other that was on a new list for some publishing house, it will come back to me...

I liked the eye in the sky bee bunch and the idea of the characters in the team, but (broken record time) too many too quickly as you already have heard. Maybe even instead of tossing them all in the one paragraph you can say that the team was in action and then describe the action in detail and in that part let the characters come out as they would naturally instead of doing a setup kinda thing. I found the minutes noted to be distracting a bit.

Great story again, keep with it, I am sure these issues can be resolved.


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