Look Who's Talking Storytime!
Kate Crackernuts.
Part 2

NARRATOR:
Where were we? Ah, yes, Kate and Anne set off to seek their
fortune. They travelled a long way, with Kate picking and
opening hazelnuts for them to share, until they came to
another castle, which was the home of another king. And was
therefore, presumably in another kingdom, but again the story
doesn't actually say...

ACE:
Oi, if we're not allowed to editorialise, how come you are?

NARRATOR:
Just knock at the gate, will you?

[ACE does so. The gate opens to reveal the SEVENTH DOCTOR]

ACE:
Professor! Uh, I mean, I have come with my sick sister seeking
lodgings.

SEVENTH DOCTOR:
Greetings, and welcome to the castle. I am the doorman. The
king will allow you to stay here, but he has grave worries.
One of his two sons suffers a terrrrrible sickness. He wakes
more tired than he goes to bed. Any who stay in his bedchamber
to watch his sleep disapear. The king has offered a peck of
silver to any who stay in the room and find the reason for his
ailment.

ACE:
Sure, I'm up for that. And if you could show my sister to a
pasture...

ROSE:
Baaa!

NARRATOR:
It does *not* say that.

ACE:
Sorry, won't happen again.

[ACE goes to the Prince's bedchamber. The Prince is the TENTH
DOCTOR, dead on his feet]

TEN:
[In Tennant's normal Paisley accent, as much as can be heard
past the yawning]
Ah... #yawn# ...you're here to find out... #yawn# ...what's
happening to me? Well, I'll be turning in soon. Best of luck.

[And he collapses on the bed]

ACE:
Right. Now what?

NARRATOR:
Now you wait for midnight. For on the stroke of twelve...

[It strikes twelve. TEN jumps up]

...the Prince, without seeming to notice Kate, got up and
dressed, and set out of the castle. Kate followed him. As she
didn't know where he was going, or how long he'd be, she
picked some hazelnuts as she went. Eventually, they came to a
green hill.

TEN:
[without the yawn in his voice]
Open, Green Hill, and let in the young prince!

[A doorway opens in the hill, with a strange wheezing,
groaning noise. TEN goes inside, and ACE slips after him]

NARRATOR:
Looking round at all the noise and dancing, Kate realised she
was in Elfland, the home of the fairies.

**********

"FAIRIES???" a significant proportion of the playgroup (half
the girls, and all the boys except Jamie) chorused in disgust.

"No' the fairies ye get nowadays wi' the wings," Jamie
explained, "*Proper* fairies. Shapeshifters an' changelings
an' unseelie redcaps an' sich. *Scary* fairies."

"Cooool!" the same group chorused.

"Well, maybe not *that* scary in this version," admitted Izzy,
with one eye on Victoria, "but basically Jamie's right."

**********

[Elfland. There's a lot of dancing going on. The fairy
fiddlers appear to have been replaced by the BEATLES and
COURTNEY PINE.]

NARRATOR:
I suppose we should be grateful Seventh's been cast elsewhere,
so there's no spoons.

ACE:
Oh, God, yes.

[The dancers, besides TEN, include the fairies from Torchwood,
the Sidhe from the NA novel "Cat's Cradle: Witchmark", the
different Sidhe from the EDA novel "Autumn Mist", and various
aliens of sufficient quirkiness that they wouldn't look out of
place in a Richard Dadd painting. Oh, and the Nac Mac Feegle,
just because.]

ROB ANYBODY MAC FEEGLE:
Ach, stick it up yer trakkens!

NARRATOR:
You know, I'm not sure their language is suitable for...

ROB ANYBODY:
Dinna fash yersel aboot that. We're *frae* a kiddies' book, ye
ken.

NARRATOR:
O-kay. As Kate watched, the Prince joined in the dance, which
got steadily faster.

ACE:
Which is why he's knackered every morning. Got it.

NARRATOR:
Remembering previous watchers had disappeared, Kate did not
try to awaken the prince, as this might have alerted the other
dancers to her presence. As dawn broke the prince returned to
the palace, and Kate followed him.

[They head back. TEN gives a big yawn and settles down to
sleep. And, of course, when TEN goes to sleep... Sorry, wrong
story. I blame the Master]

NARRATOR:
When the royal family entered the room, the prince was fast
asleep, and Kate was sitting by the fire, cracking nuts.

[SEVENTH enters the bedroom, followed by the King and Queen
(SIR ROBERT and LADY ISOBEL MACLEISH) and the younger prince
{JAMIE)]

NARRATOR:
There you are Jamie, you *are* in it.

JAMIE:
Is it jist me, or is there a wee streak o nation-based
stereotyping goin' on here?

SEVENTH:
Don't be prrrrrrreposterrrrrrrrous.

SIR ROBERT:
Kate, ye've survived a night without disappearing. D'ye know
what ails my son?

ACE:
Not as such, no. But I'll give it another night for a peck of
gold.

SIR ROBERT:
Aye, okay.

NARRATOR:
The same thing happened the next night. Since Kate knew the
prince would keep dancing, she left him to it. Instead, she
looked round at all the marvels surrounding her, to see if one
of them would offer a solution. Then she saw a fairy baby
playing with a magic wand.

[The "baby" is a TOCLAFANE. Her nursemaid is CHANTHO.]

CHANTHO:
Chan. Take care of that wand; it has a powerful enchantment
that can remove alteration spells. Tho.

ACE:
Like the one on Anne? Right. So how do I get it?

NARRATOR:
Kate rolled her nuts towards the baby...

ACE:
Which were loaded with Nitro Nine! In the resulting
confusion...

NARRATOR:
No Nitro Nine! The baby was distracted by the nuts, and she
grabbed the wand when no-one was looking.

ACE:
Fine.

[She does so, dawn rises, the dancing stops, and they return]

NARRATOR:
So the moment they returned, Kate rushed to her sister's room,
and used the wand to cure her.

[Anne's room. She's sitting with her head wrapped up, staring
out the window. ACE enters]

ACE:
Do I have to?

NARRATOR:
Ace!

ROSE:
Baaaa!!!

ACE:
Just mucking about. Here we go...

[She unwraps ROSE's head, taps her three times with the wand,
and she's restored]

ROSE:
Finally.

ACE:
And if you can spot three differences between these two
images, send them on a postcard to...

ROSE:
Oi, shut it!

[The royal family enter the room]

SIR ROBERT:
Your sister is all right now?

JAMIE:
Aye, she's mair than all right!

[ACE rolls her eyes.]

NARRATOR:
The king was amazed that Anne was cured, and it gave him hope
that Kate could cure his son as well.

ACE:
Yeah, sure. But if I stay with him another night, I want his
hand in marriage.

SIR ROBERT:
Is that fine with ye, my son?

TENTH:
Eh? Uh, yeah... #yawn#

SIR ROBERT:
Then so be it.

NARRATOR:
So for the third time, Kate followed the prince to Fairyland.
This time she noticed the same fairy child, now playing with a
bird.

[The TOCLAFANE is manipulating what appears to be a very small
frozen chicken]

CHANTHO:
Chan. Please take better care of that than you did with the
wand. Tho. Chan. Three bites of that, and the prince will be
cured of our glamour. Tho.

ACE:
She's a proper exposition machine, isn't she?

CHANTHO:
Chan. It is a point. Tho. Chan. Why am I telling the child
things it must already know? Tho.

NARRATOR:
Because. The. Story. Works. That. Way.

CHANTHO:
Chan. Understood. Tho.

ACE:
Right. Time to roll some more nuts?

NARRATOR:
Yep. And once you've got the bird, you take it back to the
palace.

[The palace kitchens. Which look very similar to the palace
kitchens we saw earlier. Identical, even. ACE watching the
bird spin on a microwave plate]

ACE:
Now all I need is a cardboard bucket...

[TEN enters]

TEN:
#Yawn# What's that smell? It smells... #yawn# ...really nice.

[ACE takes the chicken out of the microwave and passes it to
him.]

ACE:
Breakfast's up!

[TEN cuts into it with a knife]

TEN:
Hang on. There's... #yawn# ...something in here. It's a pocket
watch.

ACE:
Oh, come *on*!

NARRATOR:
[sighing deeply]
I know how you feel. So the prince opened the watch, which
restored him to his former self in a thematically valid, but
probably rather obvious, reference to the series.

[TEN opens the watch, and swirly Time Lord energies surround
him]

TEN:
Mm, new vitality. Weird.

NARRATOR:
So Kate married the prince. And the prince's brother married
Anne, having fallen in love with her at first sight.

ACE:
I've heard about these crofting communities.

NARRATOR:
First sight *once she was cured*, that is. And they all lived
happily ever after.

********

Izzy finished the story and shut the book. "Well?"

"Anne didn't do much, did she?" asked Baby Rose.

"In fact, Kate did not do much," said Baby Leela. "She was
brave, but did not really take action."

"She took more action than the prince usually takes," Baby Ace
retorted, "In Cinderella and Snow White he doesn't even need
to be brave!"

Izzy left them arguing and put the book back on the shelf. It
seemed thicker than it was before.

"I wonder if extending its range beyond the standards was a
mistake?" she thought.


Part One

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