Flushed Away, the characters and settings therein and all related material are the property of the genius-type bods at Aardman Animations and DreamWorks. I ask for their forgiveness for my (mis?)use of their wonderful creations in this piece, which I submit in tribute and with the fond hope that one day this site will have a dedicated Flushed Away subsection...
The Jammy Dodger II's thrusters rippled the water as Rita jockeyed to keep it stationary againt the current. The prize was astern of them, snagged against a twist of sharp but rusting wire that threatened to foul her propellers if she got too close. There had been a time- not long ago either, she reminded herself- that she would have been over the moon with such a find. It might have been enough to support her family for a week or more. But that was no longer a concern. For the first time in memory, the Malone family's future was secure. The reason for this windfall was hanging off the back of the Jammy Dodger II in a bosun's chair, taking enthusiastic but inexpert swipes at the prize with a boathook in between trying to keep his balance.
Roderick St. James of Kensington had entered Rita's life in the strangest circumstances imaginable and within ten minutes of their first meeting had come close to ending it as well. Trust didn't come naturally to Rita, particularly in regard to oddly-dressed strangers who nearly get her killed, but necessity had forced them to work together and it turned out that each one held the key to the other's goals. She had navigated their way back to Kensington, although it cost her the Jammy Dodger to do it. Once there, Roddy had answered all her prayers in two simple gestures, handing her the jewels which had changed her life. She no longer had to work the drains to get by, but the habit of a lifetime was hard to beat. Besides, it was much more fun now than it used to be, because Roddy had decided to abandon his above-ground life and stay with her in the aftermath of the Toad's attempted genocide. That was a few weeks ago now, and Roddy was proving to be a fast learner. His dinner suit was handing below, drying in the heat of the engines, and he was wearing clothing more suitable for a scavenger- simple but hard-wearing- but Roddy could make a luminous tartan kilt look stylish, right up until the point where he tried to do anything else with it. Rita leant on the cockpit rail for a moment and regarded her companion as he took another wild swing at the prize.
The prize was a wallet, and old one clearly dropped by some hapless human through the grate above them. It must have been some time ago, however, as the black leather was coated with a generous layer of slime which meant that anything short of a direct hit with the boathook would skim off like oil on water. Roddy's latest attempt was considerably short of a direct hit, and he overbalanced and fell in with a splash. He surfaced, spluttering. Rita shook her head, shoulders shaking with silent laughter, and activated the boat's mechanical arm to fish him out. He hung for a moment in the air, held up by his collar and spitting out water, before he looked up and met Rita's eyes. He grinned sheepishly.
"Blimey you cause me a lot of trouble, Roddy," she said. "You know you spend almost as much time in the water as the boat?"
"It's called method," said Roddy, defensively. "I am becoming one with the thing. It's called sophistication."
"It's called doing it wrong," said Rita.
"Oh, really? I thought that last one was rather good myself." He wrung out his shirt onto the deck, prompting Rita to suspend him so far outboard
that the boat began tipping slightly.
"Not on the deck! Not on the deck! You know that means I have to mop it up!"
"You mean make me mop it up, don't you?" Roddy grinned.
"Delegation is what captains do. And around here, that means me, right?" She cocked an eyebrow with mock seriousness. Roddy drew himself to as much attention as he could when being suspended by his collar and saluted.
"Yes sir, captain, skipper thingy!" He couldn't wipe the grin off his face as he repeated those last three words- the first ones he had said to Rita when they first met.
"That's miss captain, skipper thingy to you," shot back Rita, who remembered it just as well. "Now do you want to come back on board and I'll show you how it's done?"
She brought him back and lowered him onto the after deck before checking the thrusters again. The boat still had its hydrofoils, although the hydraulics were playing up again. The great outboard fans had been removed after Roddy had narrowly avoided being filleted by one. Rita didn't mind- they were large and noisy, two things which did not lend themselves to the delicate business of prospecting, and the fuel consumption was beyond a joke. Thanks to Roddy, money wasn't the worry that it once was, but Rita was too much one of her family to change that easily. Save and survive, that was her motto, although not necessarily in that order. She eyed the controls and made an adjustment so minute that only a skilled pilot would have noticed it before going aft with a second boathook. Roddy watched her as she took up position on the rail, exquisitely balanced and as sure-footed as a leopard.
"You're trying to hook into it," she said. "You gotta look at it differently. Make its shape work for you. You see that corner where the stitching is coming away?" She pointed to the far corner of the wallet where the leather was fraying. Roddy nodded. "That's your target. That's where the hook will catch. Like this-" Rita struck with snakebite speed, leaning far over the side of the boat, lashing out with the hook before straightening again, and was pulling the wallet towards the boat before gravity could work out what was going on. She climbed back to the deck, never losing her grip on the hook, and Roddy joined her to pull the prize aboard. It landed with a wet splatter, dripping water over the deck.
"You're not worried about that water?" asked Roddy.
"Nope," replied Rita. "'Cause I can just tell you to mop it up, remember? Besides, this is worth money."
"And I'm not?" said Roddy, feigning injured pride. Rita flicked his ear fondly.
"Oh, no, Roddy. You're priceless. I wouldn't pay any money for you."
It took Roddy a couple of seconds to realise the backhanded swipe that apparent compliment had contained but any chance for a smart response had passed by then and Rita was using the sharp edge of her hook to cut open the leather.
"It's cards," she said. "Just those plastic cards that humans seem to use so much. What good are they?"
"I think they're instead of money," said Roddy, cutting open a pocket. "Apparently they're more useful."
"Not to us they aren't. I call it inconsiderate."
"Hang on, I think I might have something here!" Roddy peered excitedly into the pocket as Rita joined him. "Oh...wait. Maybe not." The thing he fished out had probably been a twenty-pound note at one point, but the water had not been kind and had turned it into a vaguely slug-shaped multicoloured pulp. Rita slapped him on the back. "Roddy, I'll make a scavenger out of you yet. Come on, lend a hand here."
She knelt and began fishing around in the wallet, extracting three discs of metal which she passed to Roddy, who stacked them neatly.
"Two pound coins," he said. "And one twenty pence piece." He held up the oddly-shaped coin, which had once been silver but was now a disconcerting shade of green.
Rita nodded with satisfaction. Not the best haul she had ever got out of a wallet, but not to be sneezed at either. And once they scraped the slime off, the leather itself was in remarkably good condition. She began cutting it up into sheets to sell, passing each one to Roddy who hung them from a cable rigged from the stern to the cockpit. It ran over the engine's main heat sink and was therefore a good place to dry things.
"Rita," he said. "You can really leave this to me. Shouldn't you be driving the boat or something?"
"You don't drive a boat, Roddy," she said. "You steer it, sail it or pilot it. Your vocabulary isn't bad but there's a long way to-"
She stopped and realised that he had a point. She'd forgotten to check the thrusters that had been holding them steady. Dropping her hook, she ran to the cockpit just in time to see a glass bottle be carried past by the current. It struck the Jammy Dodger II a glancing blow, but that was enough to knock it off station. Rita slammed open the throttle in an attempt to avoid the inevitable. The boat lurched- behind her, a brief yell and a splash indicated that Roddy had fallen overboard again- and then the engine stopped with a horrendous scraping noise. The propeller had caught on the tangle of wire and stopped. The current pushed the boat around until it was stern-on to the water despite Rita's efforts with the rudder. Desperately, she hit the throttle again and to her surprise the propeller cut its way free of the wire- it had worked! She brought theboat around to where Roddy was hanging onto the wire.
"Permission to come aboard, Captain?" he said, waving.
"Permission granted," said Rita graciously. Roddy clambered back on as she turned the boat and made for home. Even to Roddy's inexpert ears, something was wrong. The propeller was making a scraping noise which suggested blade damage and a lot of it. Rita found herself forcing on left rudder in order to stay straight. It wasn't crippling damage but it was going to make life any easier. Roddy went below decks to check the engine space and poked his head back through the deck with a nervous smile.
"Um, Rita? You know how you were worried about the water on the deck?"
"Yes?"
"Um...I don't think the water on the deck is the water we should be concerned about."
"I've had worse," said Rita as the water swirled about her legs. Most of it was draining out of the scuppers as it should have been, but there was rather more of it than they could handle. The level was rising slowly- they were sinking. Once the water reached the engine, however, it all be academic since without engines, the Jammy Dodger II's pumps would stop.
"Really?" asked Roddy, surprised.
"Not really, no," said Rita, after a moment's thought. "But it probably looks worse than it is."
Roddy stared. "There is water pouring into the boat, the propeller sounds worse than your grandmother's singing voice and the engines are about to drown. How bad should it look?"
"The water isn't 'pouring' in," said Rita. "Look, it's not rising that fast."
"I don't care if it's pouring in, seeping on, soaking in, entering or reverse-egressing," said Roddy, a little hotly. "This is a boat! The water stays on the outside!"
Rita thought for a moment. "All right, I know a trick that'll get us to port. Come on, I'll need your help with the wallet."
It wasn't easy, but eventually they manouevred the largest part of the wallet over the side. With Roddy holding it from one side, Rita pulled it across under the hull and attached it to the opposite rail. It wasn't perfect, but the water had stopped rising and once they started bucketing the water out it was clear that they were going to make it safely.
"They used to do it with canvas sails in the old days," said Roddy conversationally as he tipped a bucket over the side. "In the age of sail this was the only way to repair a hull. Those bold mariners knew a thing or two, didn't they?"
"Weren't Captains allowed to shoot people back then as well?" said Rita, smiling sweetly.
"Yes, but they also got on very well with their First Mates and didn't make them bucket out the hold." Roddy winked and disappeared below decks. His voice was muffled by the deck as he spoke. "I say, I can see the hole down here! It isn't that bad after all!"
Rita lowered herself down to join him. The hole was clearly visible now, a half-moon where the bottle had punched in the hull. "We should be able to fix that ourselves," she said.
"With the twenty-pence piece?" suggested Roddy.
"Good idea, First Mate!" said Rita, cheerfully. "But you'll need something to seal it with, and I don't know-" She stopped. Roddy had pulled a bag off the nearby shelf and was holding it triumphantly.
"Instant potato?"
"Calling this stuff potato is an insult to root vegetables," said Roddy. "Trust me on this."
Rita laughed and shook her head. It was easy to forget that Roddy had hidden talents. She had always suspected or known that, even when they'd first met if only because no creature could be that gormless and still be alive, but she still found herself surprised by him. Roddy accepted the unspoken compliment with a small bow and went to work with a pair of pliers, bending the tin hull back around and then sealing the coin over the top with a generous amount of potato. It leaked slightly before the water got into the potato mix and changed it to the consistency of wet concrete.
That didn't solve the propeller, however, and by the time they reached the outer ports of Ratropolis, it was making a noise like fingernails on a blackboard. Every hair on Rita's body was standing on end and her teeth were on edge as she eased the boat into the dock. Roddy, who had made himself earplugs out of potato, was unconcerned, and sat happily at the bows with a lead and line, calling out depth measurements. It wasn't uncommon for docks to become choked with rubbish and they didn't need any more unpleasant surprises.
The dockmaster came out of the shack which served as his office and limped towards them, leaning heavily on a cane made out of a drawing pin with the point filed blunt.
"What can Oi be doing yer for?" he said, leering.
"We need to leave the boat here for a while," said Rita, crossing her arms. "And dry-docking for hull repairs."
The dockmaster eyed the Jammy Dodger II. He seemed to be thinking of something.
"Excuse me," said Roddy, raising a hand. "She said that we need-"
"Oi heard what she said, lad," said the dockmaster in a Mummerset accent thick enough to float rocks in. "Oi was a-thinkin'. It can't be 'urried, you know."
"Pardon?" Roddy remembered to scoop the potato out of his ears.
"Oi says, thinkin' can't be 'hurried! It has to be done slow-like!" said the master, loudly.
"Of course, you might strain something vital," muttered Roddy under his breath. Rita shot him a glance, trying not to laugh. The dockmaster appeared to reach a decision.
"All right, you got it. But it'll cost yer. What's yer names, so's Oi can write 'em down in me book." He pulled a tattered notebook out of his jacket and opened it apparently at random.
"Captain Rita Malone," said Rita. "Jammy Dodger II."
"Now there's a familiar name." The dockmaster scribbled it down and looked at Roddy as if he was some kind of specimen. "Ah! I knew I knew yer! Millicent, it's yerself, ain't it?"
"Pardon?" Roddy hesitated.
"Oi said, is that you, Millicent Bystander?" said the old master loudly. Roddy paused for a moment, and then realisation dawned.
"Yes, yes...Bystander. Millicent Bystander. That's me." He sighed and wondered if he would ever shake off that nickname. Rita clapped a hand over her mouth to stop herself breaking down laughing.
"Well, it's a pleasure to 'ave the two 'eroes of the city in my dock!" The master closed the notebook. "Oi'll be 'appy to fix your tub Miss Malone and Mr Bystander. Oi'll put my best rats on the job. Here, you two, front and centre!" The last sentence was shouted to two figures stacking boxes beside the shed. They looked up and hurried over. Roddy's heart skipped a beat- they were familiar. One short and rangy, one huge and slow.
"S...Spike?" he said. "Whitey?"
"'Ullo, Millicent," said Whitey, amiably. Spike was less friendly and said nothing, but since the last time they'd met the hench-rats had tried to kill them, this was a considerable improvement.
"I don't want them working on our boat!" hissed Rita. "I wouldn't trust them an inch! They couldn't even catch you!"
Roddy glared at her and then realised that she had a point. He turned to the master. "Actually, sir, we'd rather we fix it ourselves. It's...complicated. Just put her in drydock and we'll take it from there."
The master shrugged. "Suit yourselves, of course. All right, lads, close the gates and start the pumps."
The former hench-rats moved to close the watertight gates on the Dodger's dock and attached chains to the rails from an overhead crane. These would hold the boat when the water was drained away beneath it. Whitey took his place at the pump and began working the lever up and down. Spike manned the pump as well but found himself alternately jerked into the air and dumped on the ground by his taller companion's powerful strokes. Eventually he gave up, and slunk off darkly.
"It'll take 'em a while," said the master. "You two should come back in a couple of hours."
They left the dock slowly draining and took the coins and leather into the city market. It was the usual bustle, with rats rushing to and fro on various errands. Boats nosed past each other in the green waters surrounding it. It was every bit like Roddy remembered it when he first found himself there- huge, confusing, noisy, chaotic...and yet excitingly full of possibilities. On the pavement, a chorus of slugs were busking. Children ran through the streets chasing a ball. World Cup decorations still hung from buildings and street signs- England's defeat on penalties was still a sore point for fans. Far away, the great steel of the floodgates formed an impassive wall against the main sewer channel. The nearby control box was darkened, its windows broken. It hadn't been long ago that Roddy and Rita been there as well, but under far less happy circumstances. If he closed his eyes, Roddy could still see it happening- the dreaful rush of water, the slugs screaming, the Toad yelling defiance even as he sent Rita plummeting to certain death and then the flood of liquid nitrogen that had averted disaster at the last second. It had been a close-run thing, but it had worked. The last of the frozen wave had been carved up and taken away but not before most of the citizens had tried their hands at skiing.
Finding a replacement propeller hadn't been easy, even with the coins to trade. The leather had been easy to sell- a tailor had snapped it up quickly and for a good price- but the coins were somewhat harder. They eventually sold them in exchange for a new propeller and a piece of canvas that they planned to rig up over the stern as a deck shade. By that time it was getting late, and they hurried back to the boat. The dock was well and truly dry, but Whitery was still pumping away contentedly. He waved as they clambered down to begin the repairs.
"Funny, isn't it?" said Roddy. "How things turn out. Who would have thought those two would ever become model citizens?"
"Hardly 'model'. But it makes sense. People get by down here and I don't think either of them are really bad. Not as such." Rita found a spanner that fit and set to work, straining against the seal that had built up around the locknut. "Stupid, yes, but not bad. Pass me the oil can, would you? I need it to- ah, blast!" The spanner slipped on the stiff nut and her hand slammed into the side of the propeller recess. Cursing, she brought it into the light and looked at it.
"Rita, are you all right?" Roddy took her wrist and ran his fingers over the hand. It was bleeding somewhat more enthusiastically than either one was comfortable with so he took up a damp rag and washed it. The cut wasn't bad, but he bandaged it anyway. He looked up and his breath caught. Those striking green eyes were locked on his, and the silvery light shining into the dock made them glow softly. Rita's eyes could express more than the rest of her put together, and despite the weeks together, Roddy still felt like they could see into his soul. It had been a busy time since the World Cup and there had been a great many words left unspoken because at the time it seemed unnecessary. Now he was having doubts. It felt like he was running a race in which he hadn't heard the starter's gun. Had he assumed too much about what she thought of him? What she felt for him? Worse, had she made the same assumptions about him?
"Thank you, Roddy," said Rita gently. She flexed her fingers experimentally and gave him a smile which almost stopped his heart. "Good as new!"
He smiled weakly. She turned her attention back to the propeller. The seal had been broken, and it came off quite easily. Once it was laid on the ground, it was plain where the damage was- and entire blade had been caught in the wire and twisted out of shape. It took both of them to move the new propeller into position on the shaft, and Roddy strained to hold it by himself while Rita threaded the locknut back on. It was a perfect fit.
"Not a bad job if I say so myself," said Rita, wiping her hands.
"So can I let go now?" said Roddy, with some difficulty.
"Oh, you could have let go a while ago," Rita grinned. "Once it's on the drive shaft it's perfectly safe."
Roddy relaxed and rubbed his arms. "You couldn't have told me that earlier?"
"Probably, but you seemed to be enjoying yourself. Besides, I have to keep you where I can see you." Rita patted him playfully on the shoulder as she stepped down and went to look at the hull damage.