‘No, Egor, you just have short legs.’
‘I do not have short legs,’ Egor said, as he crossed his arms and pouted.
‘Yeah well, every bar stool in this city seems to disagree with you, now be good and go look after your sister.’
Louis Vansk gently shooed his large, but admittedly short legged, brother out of his path and then made his way to the bar.
‘Five shots of whiskey please barman.’
‘You’ll rot your guts,’ said the stout bar owner, ‘take my advice and stick to pints, much better for you.’
‘Just as you say, five pints of whiskey it is,’ Louis blithely replied as he slammed a fifty pence piece down on the bar and stuck a cigarette in his mouth.
‘It’s no smoking in here.’
Louis raised an eyebrow and gave the empty room a scan.
‘Why, is that what all your last customers died of?’
‘You’ll also find that this,’ the barman said as he picked up Louis’ proffered fifty pence piece, ‘won’t get you very much.’
Louis was about to protest his treatment in as strenuous a way as he could manage when a woman approached the bar and sat herself on the stool next to him.
‘It’s Ok Frank I’ve got it,’ she said as she slid a credit card over to the ruffled barman with one hand and lit Louis’ cigarette for him with the other.
Louis flashed his saviour his most dashing smile, which in all fairness was very dashing indeed, and was about to thank the woman when she fixed him with a steely expression that looked dangerously professional and spoke first.
‘Elsa Bates,’ she said with a sharp nod, ‘I couldn’t help but notice you guys come in, who are you?’
‘We, my dear, are the three greatest professional failures of the century’s most dynamic, if impractical, scientist. You’ll have to excuse us being a little rusty on our social graces but we’ve never before ventured into the outside world.’
‘Professional failures?’
‘Dad, um, Professor Vansk, made us in an attempt to become a world famous inventor,’ Egor piped up from across the room, ‘but tonight, after a terrible fire, the castle we have always lived in burned to the ground and well, Da-, the professor didn’t make it.’
‘So your father, this professor Vansk, he died in the fire did he?’
Egor turned a very deep shade of red, ‘not exactly,’ he murmured.
After a few moments of awkward silence Louis let out a long sigh and called the barman over. Elsa swallowed nervously as she watched her credit card get handed over again, this time in exchange for four bottles of champagne.
‘The thing is Elsa my dear,’ Louis said as he decanted champagne into an empty pint glass, ‘that our father, as so many single and over worked professionals are wont to do, ate mostly cold food stuffs directly out of the tin with a spoon. This evening, whilst enjoying cold economy tomato soup from the can he tripped over Schrödinger the cat, slit his throat on the rim of the can and subsequently bled to death in his laboratory.’
‘It’s always a mistake to think you can rise above pre accepted standards as regards dining etiquette,’ Egor said with a very serious expression on his face, ‘they are there for a reason.’
‘Tragic,’ whispered Elsa, ‘and the fire?’
‘Hmm? Oh yeah, the fire, that was my bad,’ said Louis, giving his case of cigarettes a tap, ‘I can’t deal with a crisis without a nicotine hit.’
‘I didn’t think you could burn castles down,’ Elsa said, ‘aren’t they made of stone?’
‘You’re forgetting that Professor Vansk made the stone,’ a deep and mysterious female voice said from the shadows.
‘Oh, right,’ Elsa murmured, as she frantically scribbled on her jotter pad, she strained her eyes in the direction of the strange voice but she couldn’t make out anything more than a tantalising outline.
Across the bar the large and ungainly Egor’s attention was transfixed by an ornate tank of exotic fish.
‘Nice fishys,’ he said happily.
‘Er, Egor,’ Louis called apprehensively, ‘you might not want to-,’
‘Cute fishy fishys,’ Egor said, he raised one finger to tap lightly on the glass.
Louis let out a resigned sigh just before the glass of the tank shattered under Egor’s touch and left him stood in the same position, staring ahead with one finger in midair, but with a pool of water and rapidly expiring fish around his feet.
Elsa timidly waved her credit card at Frank who snatched up the much abused plastic and then stormed off to take a much needed Valium. Elsa didn’t have too much time to worry about her credit card however because the mysterious voice again drifted out of the shadows.
‘Don’t cry Egor, come here.’
Sniffling softly Egor picked his way through the mine field of fish towards the voice. When he was near enough a graceful hand darted out from the darkness, took hold of his and gave it a comforting squeeze.
‘So,’ Elsa said to Louis, ‘you said that you're professional failures, what’s the full story there?’
‘It’s a sad fact my dear that none of Vansk’s experiments went all that well. Everything seemed to have a fundamental flaw and we, whilst being the three most successful experiments, were no exception to the curse which dogged the Professor’s work.’
‘Well, what are your flaws?’
‘My brother Egor over there is the eldest of the three of us. He was built to be incredibly strong and he was going to be sold to the army.’
‘But?’
‘But he’s a pacifist.’
‘Right, I can see why that might be an issue. What about your mysterious sister?’
‘My sister Wera, loitering in the shadows there, is incredibly beautiful and alluring. The result of splicing aristocratic DNA with that of well loved celebrities. She was going to be sold to the fashion industry but she’s pathologically shy.’
‘Which aristocrats and celebrities?’
‘You’d have to see the Professor’s notes, they in the castl-, oh, there’s no way to know which actually.’
‘What about you?’
‘Me? Why quite clearly I’m dizzyingly charismatic and destined for showbiz,’ Louis said, he winked smoothly at Elsa as he scooped up his pint of champagne with an elegant flourish.
‘And?’
‘And?’ Louis echoed seductively, leaning forward towards Elsa.
‘And what’s your fatal flaw? You said that you all have fatal flaws.’
‘Oh, er, yes, I did say that didn’t I? Well, I have a drink problem, my fatal flaw is that I have a drink problem.’
‘That’s it?’ Elsa asked, somewhat dumbfounded, ‘your fatal flaw is that you have a drink problem?’
‘It’s a very extreme affliction,’ chirped Louis, he dived forward and deftly snatched up a bottle of sambuca from behind the bar, smashed the neck over a tap and poured the contents down his throat.
‘That’s insane,’ whispered Elsa, awestruck.
‘It’s very harrowing,’ Louis mumbled as he crunched shards of broken glass between his teeth and grimaced before swallowing them.
‘My friends,’ Elsa said looking around at her new acquaintances, ‘welcome to television.’
***
‘The Nation’s Favourite Weirdos,’ Louis read out loud from the leaflet in his hands as Elsa bustled around the five star hotel suite she had ensconced her new reality TV stars in, ‘what does “weirdos” mean?’
‘It’s, er, “characters” misspelt, accident with the printing.’
‘Oh I see. Well anyway, I’m going to go and have my bath,’ Louis said. He grabbed hold of one end of the nearby drinks trolley and wheeled it towards the bathroom.
Egor traipsed after his brother, ‘what are you doing Louis?’ he asked uncertainly.
‘Keeping up appearances,’ Louis said under his breath. He emptied the contents of the various bottles into the bath, adjusted his leopard print swimming trunks and hoisted himself into the swirling pink cocktail he’d created.
‘Pass me those straws Egor, there’s a boy,’ Louis said.
Egor did as he was asked and then sat down on the edge of the bath while Louis stuck a straw up each nostril and proceeded to suck the bath cocktail up through his nose with a blissful expression on his face. Wera came and leant delicately against the door frame.
‘We all alright in here?’ Elsa asked as she slipped into the room and went to sit in the sink, notebook at the ready, ‘there’s a huge crowd outside the hotel right now, they’re going wild for you guys.’
‘Wera, why can’t I touch things without hurting them?’ Egor asked sadly, ‘I just want to make some friends, I wanted to be friends with the cute fishys but I ruined everything,’ Egor sniveled and promptly dissolved into tears again.
‘Oh Egor sweetheart,’ Wera cooed as she cast a pleading look at Louis.
Louis yanked the straws out of his nose decisively, ‘look Egor, all we have to do is give you some practice, while you guys were ordering drinks for me I read a book someone had left here in the hotel-,’
‘It took us three minutes to order drinks,’ Elsa said incredulously.
‘Well, yes I normally don’t read so slowly but I’m distracted at the moment give me a break huh?’ Louis said while Elsa started frantically scribbling in her notepad and dashed out of the bathroom to find her phone, ‘anyway the point is, this book was called “Of Mice and Men” and it was about a guy who had a problem like Egor here and he just had to learn to control his strength. What we’ll do is get some rabbits and Egor can practice being friends with them and not, well, you know.’
Egor looked up at Louis brightly, ‘so the man in the book, it all worked out for him did it?’
‘Oh yeah,’ Louis said, sticking the straws back up his nose and blowing bubbles through one while he inhaled cocktail through the other.
With a frenzied bleeping of phone buttons Elsa barged back into the room, causing Wera to squeak in fright and hide behind the door.
‘OK!’ Elsa shouted, ‘pep talk time! Now, interest in you guys is already rife, apparently there was an incident involving a double decker bus before you got to the bar …’
‘It had a picture of a duckling on the side,’ Louis said by way of explanation.
‘Right,’ Elsa cast a strained look at Egor, ‘still, our spin department have been working on it and the viewing public have concluded by text vote that they think it was cute. Now we originally had three groups competing at this level of the contest but early yesterday evening the Brown’s were disqualified because it turned out that their son Ewan’s alien pregnancy was a hoax. They went back home after leaving the show to find their house burnt to the ground and a sign saying “Ewan Brown raped television” stuck up on what was left of the front lawn.’
‘I suppose that sort of thing only needs to be said about someone once for their entire life to be ruined,’ Egor commented earnestly.
‘The audience are aware of your story,’ Elsa continued, ‘so in order to win, all three of you will have to overcome your flaws in some way. Egor, in order to appeal to the viewers you’ll need to do something cute with small animals and not crush them into a pulp, Louis, you’ll need to get your drinking under control and Wera will just really have to get on stage in front of the live audience.’
‘G-get up where, d-do what?’ Wera stammered as she peeked out from behind the door.
‘Hey look,’ Louis said, ‘surely there’s room for a little rearrangement of the rules here?’
‘Not doable, the competition creator died in a freak accident trying to clean his toilet with a homemade sodium hydroxide based formula.’
‘Oh God, did he burn himself?’ Louis asked.
‘Oh no, he never got around to the cleaning part, he’d put an antique gas mask on to protect himself from harmful fumes but his neck couldn’t take the weight and he ended up in the toilet bowl where he drowned. Anyway, out of respect for his memory we can’t change the rules or bend them in any way. We can let Wera hide in the wings for the live challenges tomorrow to develop the flaw theme but for the finale she’ll need to be fully on camera. She can manage that can’t she?’ Elsa asked.
‘Course she can!’ Louis said as he leapt out of the bath, ‘just wander over to the window sis and have a look out at the people, nothing to be scared of,’ he said as he gave Wera a little push and looked on proudly as she tottered over to the window.
‘How many people do you think are out there?’ Wera asked.
Louis walked up and glanced over her shoulder, ‘five thousand, three hundred and forty two.’
Elsa looked up sharply from across the room, ‘how the hell can you know how many people are out there? You couldn’t have counted every single-,’
‘Easy,’ said Louis breezily, ‘they all have their hands in the air, so I counted those and divided by two.’
Elsa opened her mouth, but then seemingly thought better of saying whatever she’d planned to and settled for giving Louis a very suspicious look before she gathered up her things.
‘Right, I’ve got to head off, you guys get some rest because tomorrow morning you need to be in studio for the live challenges. I’ll see you guys tomorrow, early start remember!’
***
‘Y-you said it all worked out for him in the book,’ Egor said. His bottom lip trembled and his eyes watered up with tears as he held yet another limp and decidedly dead bunny rabbit out towards Louis.
‘Well it did sort of,’ Louis said as he dragged a hand down his face, ‘I mean, I didn’t read to the end or anything.’
Wera rolled her eyes.
‘Right, how are we doing here?’ Elsa’s shrill voice rang out.
Louis snatched the deceased rabbit from Egor’s outstretched hand and threw it to Wera who put it behind her back and stepped deftly to the side to block Elsa’s view of the overflowing waste-bin. Elsa, however, only had to take one look at Egor’s tear stained face to accurately assess the day’s progress.
‘Guys, guys. Final show is tomorrow, you really need to get cracking. How come Egor has never damaged either of you?’
‘We may not be as strong as Egor but we’re considerably stronger than the average human being,’ Wera replied.
‘Well you need to get yourselves ready for tomorrow, you’re down to one set of opponents now, the third family of contestants died on screen during the live challenges, something to do with unadvisable amounts of stress. I’m told that the Director General of the BBC took it rather badly, he’s spent the last three hours smashing up his office and using a memorial painting of the competition creator as a dart board, except he’s been using glass bottles instead of darts.
Are you feeling alright Louis?’ Elsa asked suddenly.
‘Mmm, wonderful. Why?’
‘You don’t have a drink and I thought-,’
‘Oh yeah!’ Louis exclaimed as he leapt across the room and pounced on the drinks trolley.
‘To be fair Elsa,’ Egor ventured, ‘I didn’t think we quite deserved to get a points total of zero for our live challenges.’
‘Neither did I Egor,’ said Elsa blankly, ‘but it was the lowest score we could give you.’
‘Well exactly-, hey!’
‘Unless you get your act together you guys are going to lose,’ Elsa commented dryly.
Egor sat down and tucked his knees up to his chest, staring dejectedly at his boot laces while his sister made herself a large, potent cocktail from Louis’ trolley.
‘So what if we lose?’ Louis asked.
‘You get no money and will probably be hounded by the media for at least ten years until you’re utterly forgotten,’ Elsa explained.
‘That’s not good, right? Hounding isn’t good,’ Egor whimpered, his bottom lip began to tremble.
‘The problem here Elsa,’ Louis said blithely, ‘is that in our case hounding will be less about paparazzi and scurrilous columns and more about pitchforks and blazing torches.’
‘Well there you are then,’ Elsa said as she slammed her phone to her ear and headed towards the door, ‘you’d better sort something out!’
‘Alright, this calls for authoritative action and strong leadership and, well, I’m the next best
thing,’ Louis said. He sprang onto a coffee table and shook his fist at the sky.
‘We’re buggered,’ Wera whispered.
‘Nonsense!’ Louis shouted, ‘Wera you need to go to your room and practice talking to the mirror.’
‘How will that help anything?’
‘I want you to smash it first, that way it will feel like you’re facing up to a crowd of people because you’ll see so many reflections of yourself.’
‘Hey, that’s not a bad idea!’ Wera cried, she eagerly wrenched a leg off a nearby chair and scampered off to her room.
‘Egor, you and me are going to ensure that you can snuggle and cuddle a cute animal by tomorrow night!’
‘But Louis, h-how? We’re out of bunnies.’
‘Bunnies are no good to us!’ Louis yelled, he leapt off the coffee table and booted the waste bin out of his way as he marched over to Egor, ‘we require something a little more specialised.’
‘Oh no,’ Egor whispered, ‘Louis, you shouldn’t.’
‘Nonsense Egor, you know I’m only keeping up this alcoholism charade for the viewing public, whereas we know that my true gift is my talents….. AS AN INVENTOR!’ Louis threw back his head to laugh as flashes of lightening suddenly appeared in the sky.
‘N-no, no, no, flaw, Louis, it’s your fatal flaw.’
‘Enough nonsense Egor! Tonight, we create LIFE!’
***
Louis awoke groggily the next day and looked up to see Egor’s macrocephalous outline framed by the morning sunlight as his brother loomed over him.
‘What are we going to do with the bodies Louis?’
‘What bodies?’ Louis whispered quietly as he put a hand to his throbbing head and closed his eyes.
‘The bodies of all the people that got killed by the monster.’
Louis snapped one eye open, ‘what monster, Egor?’
‘Oh, you said that the only way we’d win is if I could make friends with a cute animal and cuddle it on TV, so you had to engineer a cute yet incredibly tough animal. So then you asked me if we had a laboratory and I said, “no, we have a kitchen”, and then you said if dad could do it so could you. You had an awful lot to drink and you stayed in there all night long, right after you got me to bring you a frog and a gallon of WD40.’
Suddenly a tear ripped open in Louis’ mind, a searing memory of swaying around the kitchen and looking down at the WD40 in his right hand as he tried to get the gin bottle in his left up to his mouth for another swig.
‘Louis, Louis are you listening to me?’ Egor asked.
Suddenly the door slammed open and Elsa stormed into the room.
‘What the HELL did you do?’
‘Nothing!’ Louis squeaked.
‘Tell me Louis, or Egor will cry.’
‘No I won’t!’ Egor protested huffily.
‘Yes you will,’ Elsa said darkly, ‘I’ll hit you, you will cry.’
Louis raised his hands up shakily in defense, ‘look Elsa, all I did was make a cute animal for Egor to snuggle on the show today, what’s so bad about that?’
Elsa held a newspaper up in front of Louis’ face that showed a giant frog gleefully smashing up buildings around the city and, in one inset picture, juggling unfortunate members of the public, Louis swallowed hard and made a bee-line for his drinks trolley, for once, in earnest.
‘Is this thing going to get any bigger?’ Elsa asked.
‘It’s possible.’ Louis replied as he moved over to the settee with his first drink of the day, ‘the experiment has never been undertaken before. However if Egor followed my instructions to the letter regarding which type of frog to bring me, then everything should be perfectly fine and the frog will eventually regress back to his normal size and strength.’
‘And the more likely end result will be?’
‘That he grows larger and eventually destroys the planet.’
‘Eventually what?’
‘Eventually destroys the planet.’
‘Was there a specific reason that you thought this extremely stupid course of action would be a good idea, Louis?’
From his position on the couch Louis scooped up and brandished an empty bottle of whiskey with one hand whilst pouring himself a second breakfast vodka with the other.
‘Louis is an evil genius,' Egor explained, ‘he drinks a lot but it’s not really a problem as such, the problem is if he invents anything, like with dad it always ends up going wrong somehow.’
‘Well if you’re a genius Louis can’t you think of a way out of this mess?’ Elsa snarled.
‘Errrm, nothing springs to mind to be honest.’
Egor picked up the newspaper and looked down at it, ‘I don’t want anybody to hurt him,’ he said sadly as big tears rolled down his cheeks and plopped onto the pages.
‘Well Egor old buddy, I really think he’ll give as good as he gets,’ Louis said.
‘That isn’t the point!’ Egor shouted, he stamped his foot heavily, denting the floor in the process.
‘Well then Einstein, what do we do?’ Elsa demanded of Louis.
‘Einstein? Funny you should mention him,’ said Louis, as he groped under the settee and pulled out an unopened bottled of Cristal, ‘he said that the area of darkness increases with the circumference of light. In other words the more you know, the more it becomes apparent that you don't know.’
‘What?’ Elsa asked with a very dangerous edge to her voice.
‘Well,’ Louis laughed nervously, ‘I may be a decent enough smart arse to genetically engineer a frog to become a super species intent on destroying all life on the planet but, erm, I would never be sufficiently smart to know how to, shall we say, undo such a thing.’
Elsa screamed and lunged at Louis. Egor sighed, leaned out of the open window and stared miserably at the view, all of a sudden the renegade frog jumped up onto the roof of the opposite hotel and croaked at him. Elsa froze with her fists still tightly wound up in Louis’ lapels.
‘He says he’s getting very hungry, Louis,’ said Egor quietly.
‘What’s going on?’ Wera called out as she sashayed casually into the room.
‘Your brother has just flushed my career down the toilet, that’s what!’ Elsa wailed.
‘Sis, how did the mirror tactic go?’ Louis asked.
‘Great,’ Wera enthused. She beamed confidently at her brother and gave the flabbergasted Elsa a slap on the back, ‘wish I’d tried it years ago, so what’s up with all the screaming in here?’
‘Your brother,’ Elsa seethed, ‘has ruined my career, by making a giant frog and setting it loose on London.’
‘Right, right,’ Wera said with apparent lack of concern as she sat down and began to open the Cristal, ‘I guess that means we’re going to lose the vote now, huh? Do I still get to go on TV?’
Elsa, Louis and Egor all stared blankly at Wera for a few moments.
‘EGOR!' Louis suddenly shouted.
‘What!?’ Egor squeaked, backing up against the window where he was actually blocked from falling out by the monstrous frog who had jumped the distance between the two hotels and perched himself on the balcony.
‘Did you say that frog told you he was getting hungry?’
‘Y-yes,’ Egor stumbled out.
‘You can communicate with him?!’
‘Of course,’ said Egor, ‘he’s my friend, I was talking to him all morning while you were asleep, but then he was too big to fit in the room anymore and so-’
‘HA!’ Louis screamed as he leapt into the air and punched the ceiling, causing a shower of plaster to fall down over his head, ‘everyone knows what a frog needs to make a beneficial transformation!’
‘A… kiss?’ Elsa ventured.
‘A kiss from a princess,’ Louis said smiling widely at his sister, ‘here’s what we’re going to do!’
***
‘Hello and welcome to the final night viewers, I can’t believe it’s all actually over, the final night of Nation’s Favourite Weirdos!’
‘Actually it’s “characters”.’
‘Oh, looks like one of our winners has something to say, what’s that Louis?’
‘The title of the show is actually “The Nation’s Favourite Characters,” there was a mishap with the printing. I suppose only important people got told about it.’
‘HAHAHAHAA, hilarious! This guy slays me EVERY time,’ shrieked “Nation’s Favourite Weirdos” presenter Todd Ryan as he whacked a rather nonplussed looking Louis on the back.
‘So, Wera, you’re looking very lovely this evening.’
‘Thanks doll,’ Wera said without looking up from signing her fourth contract in as many minutes.
‘So where is the reformed amphibian amour of yours?’
‘Oh he’s filming the documentary about his transformation right now so he can’t be here tonight.’
‘Well, what we’re all dying to know is if he’s going to make an honest woman of you?’
‘He’ll do what he’s told to unless he wants to violate contract.’
‘What’s that my dear?’
‘Oh, er, we have a very loving and honest relationship.’
‘Now, isn’t that just wonderful audience?’
A huge chorus of ‘ahhhh’ went up from the gathered crowd and Wera took a moment to flash a dashing smile at both audience and all major cameras before going back to furiously signing multi million pound deals.
‘And how about you Egor? We’ve all seen the pictures of you persuading the huge monster to stop demolishing the hotel and stay still to be kissed by your beautiful sister. You’re quite the hero, what are your plans for after you leave the studio?’
‘I-I’m going to help my brother with his work.’
‘YES!’ Todd loudly shouted, causing Egor to scramble backwards over his chair in a panic and run to hide behind a cameraman. ‘The inventor brother and his work, lets have a round of applause please audience for the baby of the family, who gave us such a great show, Louis Vansk! So Louis, why the alcoholism deception and the crazy unlicensed frog experimentation?’
‘Oh, I’m a genius, which makes me naturally deceptive and rampagingly evil.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, it’s to do with suppression of the super ego, it’s a common trait in the genius formula.’
‘What’s the super ego?’
‘No idea.’
‘But, you’re a genius aren’t you?’
‘Exactly, I have no concept of the super ego.’
‘Of course, silly me! Anyway, join us next year for another "Nation’s Favourite Weirdos!"
