Episode 11: Sascha Martin's Great Ungoo Part One

Episode 11 is upon us, listeners, and yonder all before us lie deserts of clotting Gobbly Goo that grew and grew and that won’t do, but have we yet a clue to who among the crew might have the woo to verily undo the goo?

We haven’t yet, but may.

It’s still that day, and Sascha has manoeuvres up his … no, his sleeve is gone, so maybe not.

But let us join him on the spot, in Sascha Martin’s Great Ungoo: The Return of the Nakey.

NB: Should none of this have rung a bell (they’re gone as well), I recommend a quick review of Teasers One and Three, and Two.

Sascha Martin’s Great Ungoo may yet have come to nil, but for outside help, a deus ex machina, if you will.

Yes, the hero’s meant to save himself, by using what he’s got, but we must make some allowance when the world has turned to snot.

You’ll recall how Sascha introduced his class to Gobbly Goo, how it started doing things he never meant for it to do, how the greedy monster gobbled, how it swelled with all it ate, reaching hideous proportions at a rude and rapid rate, a rapacious, putrid, pestilential pustule of demands, far too big for its inventor to contain it with his hands.

It escaped, and gobbled everything, but always wanted more, and it wouldn’t eat the living, but it savoured what they wore.

So the laughing, undigested kids, and adults with a frown, were forever flying upwards and forever falling down, until the unexpected happened … well, it happened once again, when the Gobbly Goo stopped eating from a cause unknown, and then became a snotty, clotty, greeny-yellow sea of great extent, with coagulated islands where the bare survivors went.

We rejoin our snotty heroes on the rotty, clotty shore, in the very same predicament we left them in before: not a sail upon the distance, not a craft upon the air, just a castaway community with nothing much to wear; and the one who should have saved them, who’d marooned them with his goo, sitting, puzzled, on the mucus, at a loss for what to do.

‘I, I, I shall have to contact Aisha.’ Sascha breathed it, barely so.

But across the clotted distance came a shrill and angry, ‘No-o-o-o-o!’

Sascha started. Mary-Alice had the hearing of a bat, and the memory of an elephant for every little spat, and was thundering towards him at a beeline-making rate, in a fashion statement stating all the fashion it could freight, for she wore a sheath of clotted snot (inspired by Dior), dressed in which, she’d just been sneering at the worms the others wore.

Right in front of him she stopped, and stamped, imperious, aflare, flashing slitty, bitty eyes beneath her snotty, clotty hair.

‘You will not invoke that creature. I’ve excluded her. She’s out! She may never more be spoken to, but only talked about.’

In his effort not to listen to the things she had to say, Sascha carried on with doing what he’d planned to, anyway, excavating snot and mushing it to monotone and bland. Then he wet it with saliva, and he smoothed it with his hand, and continued spitting, smoothing, till the surface, clear and bright, showed the snotty shore reflected in the hot and showy light.

Mary-Alice caught the promise of reflection, when it gleamed, so she moved around the mirror, gazed upon it, and she screamed.

‘A-a-a-a-a-a-h-h-h-h-h! I withdraw my ban on Aisha. I include her. I excuse. She’s a pain, but oh my god she has some gadgets I could use. Summon her! She’ll have an armistice, a licence to attend, and I’ll even reinstate her as a second-level friend.’

Author’s note: We mention Aisha from an earlier affair, but her story isn’t published, so the memory isn’t there. She’s in ‘Sascha Martin’s Visitor’. It’s written, set to go. If you’d like to hear me tell it, get in touch and let me know.

Now, where were we?

Ah, with Sascha, and the mirror and the scream, on the snotty desert island of a nightmare, not a dream, where, beneath the glare of Mary-Alice, Sascha faced the sun, flashing snot as he related what he’d do and what he’d done.

‘There’s a cloud of nano-gateways, just above us, not too far, always holding to a line between our planet and our star.

‘Every gateway’s transdimensional (it’s easier that way), and entangled with another in her bedroom, far away.

‘So, with shiny goo, I simply flash a message at the sun, and it lands in Aisha’s inbox instantaneously. Done!

‘What’s her answer?’ Mary-Alice said. ‘Is Aisha on her way?’

‘No reply. I left a message.’

‘Oh my god!’ she turned away.

But as she did, a doorway opened, in between them, in the air, and a face peered out suspiciously, its frame of raven hair all tossed and tumbled in the sunlight, flashing highlights, though at rest … an unearthly introduction to a person who was blessed with clothing. Proper cloth apparel! She emerged upon the strand with a look of cold severity, a blaster in her hand.

But the sight that met her eyes produced a giggle.

Then some more.

All those nakey, bakey people on the snotty, clotty shore.

‘It’s not funny, Aisha!’

Luca spoke in tones of great reproof.

‘Well, the relay works,’ said Sascha to the girl, ‘and you’re the proof.’

Aggie clutched her brontosaurus, fashioned beautifully from snot.

‘Well, I hope you’ve brought some books,’ she said.

The other said, ‘I’ve not.’

Mary-Alice, though, had seized the moment fiercely in her grip.

‘Oh my god you took forever! Where’s your maker … Where’s your ship?’

Just a glance informed her Aisha’s flying saucer wasn’t there. But, ‘Aha!’ she said, and started for the doorway in the air.

Aisha closed it, and it vanished.

Mary-Alice paused to stare, and a sudden sense of menace filled the snotty, clotty air.

‘You’re on thin ice!’ Mary-Alice hissed, and marshalled such a frown.

‘Incorrect. This isn’t ice we’re on,’ said Aisha, looking down.

‘Oh my god it’s Sascha’s mucus. I was swallowed, Aisha. Whole! If I don’t get something nice to wear, I swear I’ll lose … control!’

Aisha raised one perfect eyebrow, like a humorous aside. Then she opened up the door and said, ‘You’d better come inside.’

Mary-Alice rushed in first, for that would always be her right.

Aggie wandered in with Snotty Bronte, cuddled tight.

Sascha, finally, and Luca, went, abuzz at what they’d find.

Aisha followed, when they’d gone before, and closed the door behind.

That was it.

Our heroes went without a dingle or a dong.

Shall we pause?

Perhaps we should, before the episode’s too long.

As for what awaits our heroes, well, a wardrobe would be best, ’cause adventures, as you know, are always nicer when you’re dressed, but Aisha tends to have adventures clothed in danger, and surprise, so, the naked going with her … well, perhaps it wasn’t wise.

But the door has closed, and left us with our questions, and the goo. So, for now, we have to say, to be continued, and it’s true.