Chapter 27: Who's That Girl?

I was led to my room, mind racing behind my drugged and impassive face. Here I was, in what was obviously an enemy stronghold, and Miss Smallbone, the legendary Teacher, whose real identity was known only to me and David Tennant, and who the enemy were desperate to identify, was wandering around, cool as you please, dressed as a maid. For the first time I thought to myself that the enemy were sensible to be afraid of The Teacher, who they still thought was a man. On the other hand, it made me more nervous of their leader, the equally anonymous Master.
Also, I was exhilarated to know that I was about to be rescued. I had only spent one day being drugged, but I can tell you that there is nothing like being an alert mind trapped in a body you can’t control for making you feel helpless and hopeless. Suddenly, I was not alone, and the enemy were not all-powerful. But as I sat in my room, my body having been clearly instructed not to leave my bed except to go to the toilet when I needed, I started to have doubts. How could Miss Smallbone possibly be here already? I left her in London four days ago (was it really only four?). I’d flown to Los Angeles in Johnny Depp’s private jet, and then spent two days at his mansion before I’d been kidnapped, and poor Vanessa Paradis and Ewan McGregor had been killed. That was yesterday, and today I’d been paraded around LA by Victoria Beckham and Matt Damon. The enemy were convinced that the Beckhams and Damon, as well as Harrison Ford, whose mansion this was, had not been identified as demons until Victoria’s stupid actions. They thought that the good guys would only be learning today where I might be being held, and yet the Teacher was already here. How could that be? How could she already have a job here? Was she twins? Was one of them an evil twin? If so, was it a trick that she winked at me? Was she actually The Master? If you think this sounds paranoid, you try being told you’re the Chosen One in a War for the Fate of the World, and then having to watch your friends being killed, and then finding yourself stuck as a dumb mind in a disobedient body.

I wished Miss Smallbone would come and explain away my fears, but nothing. The hours passed, and darkness fell. I hadn’t had this evening’s dose of the drug that kept me imprisoned, and I was beginning to hope they would forget. I was almost more frightened by the thought of trying to escape on my own initiative than I was of being drugged again. Still, I started trying to control my fingers, just as something to do. I don’t know if I had begun to succeed when the door clicked open. My stupid body didn’t turn round to see who it was, but I was certain it must be Miss Smallbone at last. I was certain.

‘Turn round, dumbo,’ said Victoria Beckham. ‘I don’t mind calling you dumbo, because as soon as you understand you should be on our side, you’ll find all of this funny and forgive me. And if you never understand, we’ll be torturing you anyway, and being nice would have been a waste of time. I want to show you something cool.’ She was holding a very small laptop computer, and she sat next to me on the bed, and pulled up the BBC news website. ‘You’re the biggest story in the world,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d get SOME column inches, but this is GREAT!’

The headline ran, ‘Who’s That Girl?’ The story underneath it, with pictures, ran as follows: ‘Police around the world are looking for Mary Sue Park, 30, a barrister from West Hampstead in north London, who seems to be the key to a sensational round of slayings involving some of the world’s biggest celebrities.

‘On Monday, Miss Park was visited in her office in Gray’s Inn’s South Square by David Tennant, who, moments later, was seen to murder Miss Park’s estranged husband. Before Miss Park could be questioned by the police, she disappeared. In seemingly unconnected news yesterday, the Scottish actor Ewan McGregor and the French pop singer Vanessa Paradis were gunned down in the LA home of Paradis’s partner, Johnny Depp. Police were treating this as the work of intruders, but astonishing pictures received by the BBC today show a heavily disguised Miss Park arriving in Los Angeles with Depp, McGregor and Paradis three days ago.

‘As if this weren’t enough, further stories are emerging about the previously anonymous Miss Park. She was seen shopping with Victoria Beckham, and as these pictures show, the pair are clearly bosom pals. But Miss Park seems even closer to Matt Damon, this photograph shows teh couple in a passionate clinch in Damon's eco-jeep.

‘Miss Park’s friends claim to be astonished by these stories, and say that this behaviour is completely out of character. Her family decline to comment. David Tennant, incredibly, still insists that she is his lawyer, and will represent him when his case comes to trial next week.’

Victoria Beckham beamed at me proudly. ‘Isn’t this great!’ she said. Isn’t it totally hilarious! And you haven’t seen the best bit – the comments sent in by the public are…’ There was a discreet knock on the door. ‘Yes,’ said Victoria impatiently. ‘What is it?’

The door opened, and in came Miss Smallbone. ‘Excuse,’ she said, in a heavy accent. ‘Have this for you. Mr Ford say is time for you give this to guest, no?’ She handed over the leather wallet which held the syringes of Somnus B, the body-control drug. Victoria Beckham gave me my injection, and Miss Smallbone said, ‘Mr Ford say he want to see you, Miss Beckham.’ Victoria Beckham left. As soon as the door was shut, Miss Smallbone said, ‘Well, Miss Park, I don’t know what to do with you. I could have switched drugs, and given you back control of your body, but on the whole, at the moment, I think that would be a bad idea, don’t you? I don’t want you getting frightened and trying to escape.’