Chapter Twenty Seven: In Which Ralph the Timid Goes A-Travelling Once More.

Ralph the Timid, Ginger McSporran and Mad Pete all stared at the sandwich.
It was disgusting. It smelt disgusting. It smelt - Ralph couldn't think of any words to describe how bad it smelt. It smelt worse than anything he had ever smelt in his life. Ginger McSporran thought it smelt pretty bad too, right up there with the worst smelling things he had ever come across, and some pretty rank smelling things lived down in the deepest part of his caves. Like the Incredibly Flatulent Deepest Cave Dwelling Glowworm of Doom, which, fortunately, was extremely rare. It was not that hard to find though, because if you were in a very deep cave and you could smell something that seemed to be rotten cabbage mixed with sour yoghurt and manure, and then left in the back of the fridge for three months till it went even more off, you knew you were pretty close.
This sandwich smelt pretty close to that bad. It looked worse. At least the Incredibly Flatulent Deepest Cave Dwelling Glowworm of Doom looked pretty. Well, it looked pretty from a distance, all twinkly and sweet and star like in the darkness. Up close it was a fairly unprepossessing bug much like any other, but no one ever got up close because it smelt so bad. This sandwich, however, was very close to both the nose and the eyes of the three observers.
Twinkle was now soundly sleeping, eyes shut and snoring peacefully, but the eyes of Ralph the Timid, Ginger McSporran and Mad Pete were all watering from the smell of the sandwich, and Ralph's stomach - normally capable of ingesting anything without the hint of upset, even overly green wormy apples - was lurching in a dangerous way, like a tiny rowboat far out at sea in the midst of the worst hurricane in living history. He thought it was the sliminess of the sandwich that did it. It glistened in an oozy way, and bread in Ralph's experience was never shiny. Ever. It was wrong.
They stared at the sandwich a moment longer, then Ginger McSporran shook his head disgustedly. "Wrap it back up, Mad Pete, you daft potato," he said gruffly, moving even further away from the repellent foodstuff. Well, erstwhile foodstuff is probably more accurate. It seems unlikely anyone would want to eat that sandwich in a hurry. "So the parcel was a washout. Now what?"
Mad Pete quickly folded the wrappings back up around the sandwich. It helped a bit, but the smell was free now. It lingered in the air like an exceptionally persistant flying salesman. Ralph the Timid moved back to his windows and opened them all as wide as they could go. He leaned out of one to breathe the fresh air.
Ethel warbled happily. She was a bit bored out in the garden by herself.
"Just be glad you're not in here," said Ralph the Timid darkly. "It smells terrible."
Mad Pete moved to the library door holding the sandwich which was now rewrapped, saying "I'll be back in just a tick!" He nipped out, closing the door behind him. He was back in a trice, this time without the sandwich. "Thought I'd throw it away in the bin out there," he said in a confedential manner. "No sense in smelling the whole room in here out, is there?"
Ginger McSporran snorted in his typical black beast of the cave way but forebore to point out that the room they were in still smelt and now the rest of Mad Pete's house would smell as well. Come to think of it, perhaps it was deliberate. But there, that is an uncharitable thought. It is far more likely that he merely wanted to get things moving.
"Well, Mad Pete," he said as he stroked Twinkle who was still oblivious to any goings on, "Now what? How are we going to know if young Ralph here is the boy you were looking for? Though of course we know you're not, don't worry there Ralphie baby!" this last was directed at Ralph the Timid who was still leaning out the window sucking in deep breaths of clean fresh smelling air.Ralph the Timid ignored this, or maybe he just didn't hear.
"Not to worry," said Mad Pete. "I'll just look it up on my file!"
Ginger McSporran gave him a flat cold stony look as if to say "I really can't believe how completely and utterly annoying you are." but out loud merely said in an even expressionless tone. "Well that does seem like a good idea now doesn't it."
So Mad Pete went to another of his shelves that surrounded the room, rifled for a moment, then emerged with a sheaf of papers that he leafed through rapidly. "Ah, yes, here we are!" He pulled one free of the rest and scanned its contents. "Well, well, well. Xanadu, they were King and Queen of, " he said with more factual accuracy than grammatical soundness.
"Where's that?" asked Ralph, who did not know much geography beyond the mountains.
"It's a couple of days from here going cross country - you need to go from the Low Plains over the Wide Flat Plans, and then you get to Xanadu. It's just where the hill country starts."
"Well, I suppose i should go and meet my parents," said Ralph the Timid with a decided lack of enthusiam. "Found my purpose now, I guess. That was what I came to do, after all."
"Cheer up!" said Ginger McSporran, clambering up from the floor by Twinkle and lumbering over to clap Ralph encouragingly on the back with a hand the size of a small child. (Not a small child's hand, mark well, a whole small child.) Ralph nearly fell over, but did not seem cheered up.
"It might never happen!" said Ginger McSporran, encouragingly. "We won't know until you meet your parents - if they're actually your parents, I mean. And I don't think they are!" he added stoutly.
Mad Pete said something under his breath which was probably disagreement, though he did not choose to repeat it out loud.
"All right!" said the black beast of the cave, with false heartiness. "Let's get this show on the road! I'll get this cat back in the bag, and you, Mad Pete, fetch your birdie. We're going to Xanadu!"
And thus it was that Ralph the Timid charming adventurous youth seeking his purpose turned evil twin, Ginger McSporran the black beast of the caves, Mad Pete the once celebrated chartmaker known as Boris Blockoff, Twinkle an enraged cat, and Ethel, a chirpy Unexpectedly Large Warbler, set off over the plains to Xanadu.

(Word Count: 37998)