Last time, Brian thought that he saw a monkey in a mirror much to the amusement of the other boys. What he didn't know was that he was part of an experiment of the wizards of the Discworld...
2: MONKEY AGAIN Ponder Stibbons looked at his notes and grinned. Hurridly, he began to make more calculations using hex. It had worked! It had actually worked!
Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully (leader of all known wizardry) stared at the mirror which had been propped up against the wall of the high energy magic building and poked it curiously. A few ripples moved along it’s surface. Only a few minutes ago, there had been a man on the other side of it.
“So Mr.Stibbons, what does this thing do anyway?”
“Isn’t it exciting? We saw into another world! That man was not from the disc!”
“Then where was he from?”
“Another world, another dimension, who knows?”
“What’s the use of that if you don’t know where you’re looking?”
Ponder sighed. It was just like Ridcully not to understand something this important.
“Look Archchancellor, there’s the disc, right? And then there’s - ”
“He was on the disc? Then why did you say he wasn’t?”
“He wasn’t on the disc! I was going to say - ”
“Then where was he from?”
“Another place in the universe!” Ponder shouted in frustration.
“No need to shout,” Ridcully said, while allowing the information to be processed by his brain. “What an odd place it was.”
“No clothes!” the Dean said.
“For heavens sake Dean, calm down!” Ridcully said.
“Was he a wizard too?” the Senior Wrangler asked.
Ponder shook his head. “I doubt it.”
“Then why did he have a magic mirror?” Ridcully said, turning to Ponder.
“He didn’t Archchancellor!” Ponder replied. “This altered omniscope can see into any place. it just happened to see into that room.” Ponder gestured to the huge mirror at the far end of the room.
“Because it had a magic mirror?”
“ANY mirror would do, Archchancellor. Magic or otherwise.”
“Can we have another look?” the Dean asked, excitedly.
“I doubt we’ll ever find him again. The omniscope can see anywhere so the changes of seeing the same place twice are pretty low. We could only find him again if we had a personal object of his, then the omniscope would home in on him,” Ponder said.
“Ook?” The librarian held out a green item with buttons.
“Will that do?” Ridcully asked. “He threw it through the mirror. It was probably his.”
Ponder took it from the Librarian’s hairy, outstretched arm and peered at it curiously. “I suppose this would do.”
“Good! Let’s give it another try!” the Dean said.
“We can’t. Not yet anyway,” Ponder said with a shake of his head. “We need to charge up the dark particles to power the omniscope again and - ”
“We’ll leave it in your capable hands, Mr.Stibbons. I believe it is time for dinner,” Ridcully said quickly. “We will return to the omniscope later.”
The rest of the wizards nodded eagerly and exited the room, leaving Ponder by himself.
Ponder shook his head. anyone would have thought that they didn’t want to hear his impressive talks on the charging of omniscopes…
He turned the green box like object over in his hands and inserted it into the omniscope. When it was charged up again, it would find the same person.
*****************
“Aargh! Brian, help me! There’s a monkey in the mirror!”
Brian came running out of the bathroom. “What?” he asked, urgently.
“Nick grabbed Brian’s arm and dragged him in front of the mirror in the corner of the hotel room. “See?” he said. “Monkey!” he pointed at Brian’s reflection and fell over laughing.
“Oh, very funny!” Brian snapped, pushing Nick over.
Nick fell onto the floor cackling. “Your face when you came out of the bathroom!”
“You’re never gonna believe me are you? I really did see a monkey in the mirror!”
“I see a monkey everyday, his name’s Brian! Ook, Ook!”
Brian’s eyes narrowed and he stomped off back to the bathroom. For a second, he wondered if he should tell Nick that the monkey had his Gameboy… that would wipe the smile off of his face. It would also probably get Brian a punch in the face.
There was a knock at the hotel room’s door. Brian peered around the doorway of the bathroom as Nick opened it.
“Hey, where’s Rok?” AJ asked. “I gotta present for him!” he waved a banana in front of Nick’s face, then he caught sight of Brian. “Does monkey Rok wanna a nice banana?” he said.
“Go away, Alex!”
“Oh, I made it mad!” AJ said, sniggering. “Come on, Brian it’s only a joke!”
“Did you have a reason for coming in my room or did you just wanna annoy me?” Brian asked, coldly.
“Nah, I just wanted to give you this banana!”
“I don’t want it.”
“I’m hurt. You cut me deep!”
“Good. Now go away and take Nicholas with you. I’m going to bed. We have to get up early for rehearsals tomorrow. Goodbye,” he said, lying down on the bed.
“Say ‘ook ook’ and we’ll go!” Nick said.
Brian put the pillow over his head. “Leave me alone!”
“Ook ook!”
“I’m not listening!”
“Ook ook!”
“ALL MY GOD! Kevin, Howie! Get in here NOW!” Nick screamed, suddenly.
“Nick!” Brian snapped, angrily throwing a pillow at his best friend. “Would you just get lost!”
“The mirror!” Nick screeched, pointing at it.
Brian glared at him, thinking it was another joke, until he saw the fear on Nick’s face…
He jumped off of the bed and looked into the mirror. The monkey was back and so were the men. The monkey pointed at them with a long, thin arm.
“Ook ook!” it said, for the third time.
Nick, Brian and AJ all screamed at once and ran for the door. They smacked straight into Kevin and Howie on their way out.
“What the heck is going on?” Kevin asked.
“M – monkey!” they all gibbered.
“You’re not still going on about that are you?” Howie said, rolling his eyes.
“Will all of you just grow up?” Kevin said, angrily. “Get back to your rooms now!”
“B – but m – monkey! M – men!” Brian stammered.
“I mean it, all of you back to your rooms!” Kevin said.
“Can I stay in your room?” Brian begged.
“For goodness sakes!” Kevin stomped into the room. “There is nothing here! No men and no monkey!”
“Eeek, eeek!”
Kevin’s head slowly turned towards the mirror.
“Eeek, ook!” said the monkey.