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NEW AUTHORS SHOWCASE |
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Synopsis of Count Vladimir and the Robots Count Vladimir B———, vampire and inventor, lives in an isolated manor in North Wales. His household includes his human daughter Anna aged eight, Wayne Brown the unreliable gardener, a dragon and his robot dog Zoltan. Count Vladimir longs to return to living as an eighteenth century aristocrat while Anna wants to be allowed to go to school with friends her own age. Anna and her friend Dewi get into trouble when they feed the dragon junk food and are caught spying into the secret laboratory where the Count is completing the first of a staff of servile android servants. Dewi is banned from the manor. When he sneaks back to have a second look at the android he gets stranded in the manor. Zoltan helps him to escape through a secret passage. They don’t realise that it contains a hidden treasure that the Count, Wayne and a ghost have long been looking for. The android servant causes more problems than it solves for the Count. Zoltan is jealous and runs away taking with him the cryptic message which holds the clue to the treasure. It is only when Anna and Dewi find Zoltan that the Count can get the treasure, and be compelled to reward Anna and Dewi. “Come on, Fifi, just a little way to go! Anna urged the dragon. ‘Hey, Dewi, didnt you say you wanted to have a look at Dads silly old laboratory?” “If he’s in there, will he see us?” Dewi avoided the vampire Count and Dowager Countess as much as possible. When he visited the manor he kept to the wing where Anna’s rooms were the frightening Count and Dowager Countess didn’t seem to come there often. Anna assured him, “No, he isn’t likely to see us through the windows, because they’re so dirty. They haven’t been washed since Dad had to pay off the last window cleaning company after one of the men saw something that scared him in the laboratory, and he fell off the ladder. Anyway, when Dad’s working on his inventions he’s in another world. As Anna forced Fifi to fly against the wind and rain up to the side of the manor where the laboratory windows looked out over a sort of ravine, Dewi hoped that he himself wouldn’t see anything terrifying enough in the laboratory to make him fall off the dragon. His heart raced with excitement as they approached the windows and he peered in the windows, through the grime of years and the uncertain light. At first glimpse, he found it very much as he expected. There were benches, scientific apparatus, jars of chemicals stacked on shelves, diagrams of electrical circuits pinned up on the walls, shelves of books. and a lot of flies full of jumbles of notes strewn about the place. Anna had often complained about the Count being such an old fogey that he tried to be a traditional, eighteenth century vampire in the twenty first century, but Dewi saw that he had a P.C. Then Dewi gave a violent start, and he did almost fall of the dragon. What he hadn’t expected to see was the apparently human figure lying stretched out on the workbench, completely still, its arms hanging down at either side, its eyes wide open and staring, its mouth agape. Anna steadied him. “Carefull You’re not much good at balancing, are you?” Dewi stared in at the figure. It seemed to be a man and it reminded him of someone he knew, yet it couldn’t be alive, with its eyes open and staring like that. The horrible idea came to him that he might be looking at one of the Count’s victims. Then he realised what he was looking at. “I’m sure that’s an android!” he gasped. “What’s that? Where?” Anna shuffled up the dragon’s back towards it’s neck to see in the windows herself. “I can’t see a thing through these filthy windows. What’s an and whatsit?” “A human looking robot. There, on that workbench!” In his excitement, Dewi let go of Fifi’s harness and pointed. “Oh, that!” said Anna, without much interest. “Dad’s been working on those robot things for ages, and that silly time machine. I think that’s it, in the corner.” She pointed to what looked like a photographic booth in the corner, draped with red velvet curtains. “Have you ever been in there?” “No, you’re kidding. It’s all meant to be top secret. Dad always locks himself in and that’s why he has the laboratory here, where no-one can spy in. Hey, that robot things face reminds me of someone, but I can’t see properly-” At that moment, the laboratory door moved and they thought they saw the Count’s figure in the doorway, almost hidden in shadows. They had no time to think about it because at that moment, the dragon suddenly made a gurgling noise and started to lose height quickly. Dewi and Anna were forced to cling on to her as she dropped like a stone. “Fifi, up!” bawled Anna, tugging at the harness, but the dragon made another strange bubbling noise and went on sinking down the ravine. Fifi landed on her feet perhaps a hundred metres below the laboratory window. They had come down into a sort of cave formed by the steep slope and the wall of the manor. Fifi fell on her side, so that Dewi and Anna were flung off and tumbled farther down the ravine, yelling in alarm. “Yeeouch!” shrieked Anna, grabbing hold of a thick root and hanging on to it. It made a tearing noise, but didn’t uproot. Dewi thumped to a stop beside some saplings which had taken root in the crumbly soil. He shouted, “You OK, Anna?’ “Yes, how about Fifi?” Anna shouted back and they both scrambled up the slope to the dragon, who was still lying on her side, hissing heavily. Some flames were showing about her teeth, and they had a strange blue greenish tint. “Oh, perhaps she’s dying!” wailed Anna. Dewi had never seen her look so upset. He was upset himself. They both stroked the dragon, who looked very dismal and was getting very wet, as the saplings didn’t provide much cover. ‘But why did she conk out so suddenly?” Dewi wondered out loud. An awful idea came to him. Perhaps feelings of guilt about secretly eating junk food made him think of it. “D’you think that Factoryburger I gave her had something to do with it?” Anna looked horrified. “And that bun that whingey girl gave her! Gran’s said before that a dragon’s digestion is delicate. I never thought, though!” “One of us will have to stay with her while the other goes to get help.” Dewi said. It only occurred to him later that it was a strange thing to do, going for help to a vampire household. But where would you go for help for an ill dragon? A normal vet wouldn’t be likely to know much about them. “You go and I’ll stay with her.” Anna gazed tearfully at the dragon. It raised its head to give a mournful snorting noise, and then let it fall. Dewi started to drag himself up the long slope. This was a slow and painful business. There were a lot of loose pebbles on the slope, and it was difficult to get a foothold. He had to use the branches of such bushes as had managed to grow in poor soil to haul himself up. A couple of these uprooted as he hung on to them, and he slid halfway down the slope again. Every few moments Anna shouted up. “Oh, hurry up, Dewi!” as if he was being slow on purpose. He was nowhere near the top when a shadow seemed to fall over them. Glancing up. Dewi let out a yell, a mixture of alarm and relief. A long, thin and erect figure, which could only be Count Vladimir. was standing at the edge of the slope in the uncertain light. The Count’s face was in shadow, so it was impossible to tell what expression was on it. As always, the sight of him made Dewi shiver nervously. So the Count had been at the laboratory door, and Anna had been wrong in supposing that he wouldn’t see them peering into his secret laboratory. “What have we here?” asked the aristocratic vampire in the weary, drawling tone he always used... |
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Count Vladimir and the Robots by Jessica Holsgrove |
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11-03-04 P8 6M |