“Ok, this wasn’t part of my plan.” Confessed Jonty.

“DAMNIT JONTY!” Shouted Hank, in what was fast becoming a kind of catchphrase for the series. We found ourselves chained up in what can only be described as a stereotypical dungeon. It was dark, it was cold, it was a dungeon. There was maybe an old, dead, shrivelled parsnip in the corner. I don’t know, just imagine a stereotypical dungeon and you’ve basically got what I’m thinking of.

“Soooooo… anybody got any ideas?” Said Carl, more out of hope than expectation.

“Ain’t no point tryin’ to get out o’ here!” Said a voice we hadn’t heard before.

“Who are you?” Said Alan, unable to turn to face the voice as he was too busy hanging upside down.

“The name’s Old Man Radish! Been here for so long I can’t even remember anymore!” Said the Radish.

“You know, you sound surprisingly like you come from Texas.” I said.

“Darn tootin’!” Said the Radish. “Would you like some barbecue sauce?”. He’d fast become an entirely different character to the one I originally envisioned.

“I’m not sure that’ll help right now, but you know, maybe later I suppose…”

“Sure thang! I’ll be branding cattle if you need me!” Said Old Man Radish, as he began to hum the theme tune from Dallas. Solitary confinement had obviously driven him crazy. This would probably happen to us in time. Maybe we’d all be Texan in a month, we just didn’t know. We would have to keep our minds active somehow.

“Does anybody fancy a game of twenty questions?” I said.

“I suppose may as well, doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere.” Said Hank.

“Ok, ok, I’ve got one.”

“Is it a mineral?”

“Nope.”

“Is it a vegetable?”

“Yep.”

“It’s a radish isn’t it?” Sighed Carl.

“IT IS! YOUR GO!”

Before we’d had chance to move onto round two however, the dungeon door swung open. “That one.” Said a voice. Two mushrooms came in and began to unchain Jonty.

“What’s going on?” Said Carl. The guards didn’t respond. “What are you doing with Jonty? Jonty! JONTY!” Jonty was taken down and dragged away. The dungeon door slammed again. We hung in silence for a while. Nobody really wanted to ask what might be happening to Jonty. Apart from Alan that is.

“What do you think might be happening to Jonty?” Said Alan, almost as if he’d been reading the previous paragraph. There was a silence. Hours passed. We began to suspect we were never going to see Jonty again. Then the door crashed open again. In the light we saw the silhouette of Jonty being dragged back into the dungeon and chained back up. Then the mushrooms left.

“Jonty, what the hell happened?” Asked Hank. There was no reply.

“Jonty?” Said Carl. There was still no reply. Then we managed to turn our heads just enough to find out the horrfying reason why.

“JONTY’S GOT NO MOUTH! WHAT THE HELL HAVE THEY DONE WITH JONTY’S MOUTH?!” I screamed. Jonty was obviously unable to respond to this, since his mouth had disappeared off his face completely. He looked somewhat strange, sort of like an uncomplete Mr Potato Head. The mushrooms had even given him a bowler hat to add to this look. The scoundrels.

“We’ve got to get out of here. First they steal Jonty’s mouth for who knows what, then what? They’ll take Hank’s eyebrows? Where does the horror end?” Said Alan.

“Ain’t no way out o’ here!” Shouted Old Man Radish again. Adding a yee-haw before he clicked his spurs.

“What was that?” Said Carl.

“If I’m not mistaken, that was the distinctive sound of some spurs clicking.” Said Hank, who was familiar with such a sound. Hank line-danced every Wednesday night. He once owned a shop that specialised in cowboy boots. He wrote a musical entitled ‘The Sound of Spurs Clicking’. In short, he knew what spurs clicking sounded like. Then, the idea hit us.

“We’ll use the spurs to pick the locks!” Shouted Carl.

“It’s easy to say that Carl, but I think it’s a hell of a lot harder in practice.” I said.

30 seconds later, we were all free from our chains.

“Ok, I suppose I was wrong.” I admitted. “But now what?”

“Now we gon’ have ourselves a rooting tootin’ barbecue sauce party!” Said Old Man Radish, as he put his boots back on.

“You’re really not going to let that go are you?” Said Alan.

“Darn tootin’!” Replied the Radish.

“Ok, well, you stay here and have a… ‘rooting tooting barbecue sauce party’ was it? We’ll go look for a way out.” I said.

“Darn tooti-”

“Shut up.”

“Ok.”

We approached the dungeon door, opened it as slowly as possible, and peeked into the corridor. It was a long corridor, full of doors. An unremarkable corridor, with lots of doors. There were many doors, and not much that stood out about the corridor. It was the kind of corridor that in retrospect, probably shouldn’t have been described in text. It was however, empty. We began to slowly creep down the corridor, afraid that at any moment we could be ambushed by mushrooms. We figured the door at the end was the exit. It was larger than the other doors, the oak wood that it was crafted from was noticably worn around the edges, the handle had taken on a much duller tone, almost as if it was used more frequently than the other doors. All these were signs that suggested that this might be the exit. The green exit sign above the door was also a clue of sorts, but detecting this wasn’t quite as Poirot-esque. We would have to sneak past several other doors to get to this exit, many of them ajar. Were these rooms full of mushrooms? Who knew? Should we gamble?

“GAMBLE!” Shouted the studio audience, who, up until this point, we’d been completely unaware of.

“I think we’re going to gamble Vernon.” I said, to rapturous applause from the assembled berks who were always going to recommend we gambled because they had nothing invested in the story. We continued to slowly creep along, passing door after door. In one room, there seemed to be a party going on. I recognised the sound of the cage dropping onto the mouse in Mouse Trap. I’d once written a musical called ‘The Sound of the Cage Falling Onto the Mouse in Mouse Trap’. Between me and Hank, we’d written a number of wildly unsuccessful musicals. No wonder we were so hideously poor. As we approached one door though, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Jonty. he was pointing to his mouth, and then to the door. “What is it Jonty?” I said. I suddenly felt like the boy from Lassie. Then I realised. This was the room where Jonty had been taken. A chill spread across my body. What was in this room? Surely it was only wise to take a look?

“Andy! Come on!” Whispered Carl, as he and the rest of the group reached the exit door, but it was too late, I’d already begun to inch the door open. As I peered through the gap, nothing could have prepared me for the horror that I saw.

And that’s where it ends for today. Many people would say ‘Wow Andy, well ended on a cliff-hanger there, it’s almost as if you got to that point and then hadn’t actually thought about what you saw and needed time to go away and maybe think about what it was that you saw’, to which I would reply ‘Well that’s a long sentence. And yes’. Anyway, I have other things that need finishing. This story may even end one day. Who really knows anymore?