Chapter Four: Dinosaur Rampage – The Movie Of Choice
In which Johnny retreats to the cinema – bassoons and their uses – the runaway glove
"Let's go to the cinema – look I've got a few bob, let's splash out," Johnny droned monotonously and Millicent observed him worriedly.
"Are you okay?" she fretted, his blank face staring ahead along the street periodically lit by streetlights. Johnny shrugged, then shook his head, his eyes blearily blinking as he dragged his thought's together.
"I don't know, Millicent. I've just had enough of today – what the hell's going on, you know? I need some fantasy film to drag me away from this madness before I lose it. Today has just been… oh, come on. My treat if you have no money," Johnny blathered and Millicent decided it was best to just do what he said and nodded, then followed his seemingly aimless wandering.
It turned out Johnny was heading to the cinema and they arrived to an old fashioned movie theatre with a dusty interior and equally dusty looking ticket seller, who was old and grey, in a grey suit that gave the overall impression of an inanimate object before them.
"Uhh…" Johnny pondered and Millicent tapped his shoulder and pointed excitedly at one of the films listed on the board behind the dusty looking man.
"Oh, oh! Can we go see that one! I've wanted to see that one for ages!" she asked him eagerly and Johnny relented, not really caring what film they saw, just as long as they temporarily escaped reality. He gave her a nod, making Millicent bounce up and down for a moment and Johnny turned his attention to the man behind the counter.
"Two tickets for… Dinosaur Rampage, please," Johnny told the man, who obliged by slowly producing the tickets and directing them to the screen, though there was only three screens in the whole cinema.
All in all, Johnny couldn't understand what the film was about. From what Millicent had told him – "My friend saw it – it's like an action, horror, adventure, musical comedy!" – it was about dinosaurs escaping from their hiding place in South America and rampaging, while people ran and screamed in fear, while a few broke out in song as the hero rescued the female interest in the film. Johnny vaguely wondered who had paid to make this movie and why Millicent had been so desperate to see it.
"Psst! I heard that this is the best bit – tap-dancing!" she whispered and Johnny watched in horror as the dinosaurs stopped rampaging and instead looked on in wonder as the people they had previously been eating were now avidly tap dancing and singing along to music that came from the local record store, which was partly smashed by said dinosaurs.
Johnny became convinced that he had in fact finally gone mad and began to curl himself into a ball, drawing his knees up to his chin and resting his forehead on his knees. Queasiness hijacked his stomach and Johnny gave a quiet moan as his head throbbed.
"I don't want to be mad," he faintly whispered to himself in an effort to convince his mind what he claimed was true. It was hard to say whether he was lying or not since he was curled up and muttering to himself. Even Millicent glanced at him but shrugged, too engrossed in the film to care.
The movie had ended in such a peculiar way, Johnny felt shattered just from watching it. The doubt of madness had passed, leaving him feeling both drained and unfeeling. And uncomfortable. Curling up into a ball hadn't been the best idea considering the small cinema chairs. His legs hurt.
He had been given some time to think and during that time, Morris Glanz and his desire to torture Johnny and eschew him every single time the two encountered one another. Anger burned.
"I'll show Glanz," Johnny found himself growling and Millicent pouted, gently scuffing her shoe on the curb. Her small brown eyes tried to widen as much as possible in the dim light the streetlights provided, making her look like a mad horse rolling its eyes.
"You can't!" she whined, "That would be mean!"
Johnny sighed. She didn't know Glanz at all and he wished he could be bothered to tell her about the myriad of mean things Glanz had done to him.
"He's not the nicest man in the world, Millicent." Johnny said dully, his hand reaching to rub the freckles on his nose. He forced it into his pocket, though and grit his jaw tight, grinding his teeth together unpleasantly.
"I'm going to my office, Millicent," he said levelly, "Do you want to come?"
Millicent hopped from foot to foot in indecision like a child, her face furrowed with irresolution and her mouth opening and shutting like a fish. Johnny almost wanted to laugh, but he knew she'd probably go nuts and try and kill him if so much as a chuckle escaped his lips.
"Um… okay. But if we get in trouble… I'm blaming you!" her voice grated his ears as usual, but he found himself (to his horror) actually getting used to it.
"Well…" he began, then halted his plan to lecture her on keeping quiet and not drawing attention to them, "… come on, then."
The two of them faded into the night.
It was a silent walk, to Johnny's relief. When they arrived, all was silent and the two of them slipped into the office block with no problems. Now they stood in front of his locked office, Millicent nervously peering about and occasionally shifting from one foot to the other. Her face was pale and Johnny noted the spooked look with sympathy. Perhaps he should have taken her home.
With a heavy sigh, Johnny wrapped his all purpose trench coat around his arm and punched the pane of glass with all the force he could muster, which made the pane merely shatter, but not, as such, break.
With an annoyed sigh, Johnny punched again. This time he achieved what he had originally intended and the pane gave way under the reapplied force, allowing Johnny to put his coat back on and reach in, opening the office door.
"I can't believe you did that. That's illegal," Millicent whispered anxiously and Johnny shrugged, making Millicent pout.
"I don't care. Glanz is a bastard who deserves this kind of treatment," Johnny declared and stepped into his dark office, but turned to face Millicent.
"You coming?" he asked, offering a hand to help her step over the glass, but she shook her head and looked a bit more like the old snooty Millicent he remembered as a teenager.
"Nu-uh. I'm not getting involved in this criminal stuff. I'm going to go to the bathroom and freshen up," she informed him and then looked about with an expression of confusion.
"Uh, where is the bathroom?" she enquired and Johnny sighed, then pointed down the corridor.
"Around the corridor, the third door on the left," he told her and she nodded her thanks and disappeared down the corridor, leaving Johnny to turn around and enter the shadowy office.
Looking about, Johnny felt an eerie silence descend around him and he involuntarily gulped, as if he felt a disturbing presence in his midst. He warily looked about again, to once more find nothing and relaxed.
In one swift movement, the bassoon cracked the side of Johnny's skull and he slumped to the floor, his head ringing from the impact and his eyes fluttered and saw the vague shape of a giant shadowed creature towering above him. As his mind slipped away into a warm, but painful void, he could have sworn he heard the creature made a strange clucking noise before disappearing and leaving him to fall unconscious.
Millicent sat with Johnny's head in her lap as she pressed the cold wet mess of toilet paper to his throbbing head. To preserve her precious gloves, she had neatly placed them beside her on the floor and mentally grumbled about the lack of a sofa. Johnny looked strangely peaceful considering the wallop he had sustained and she occasionally patted him on the shoulder, hoping he would wake up and she wouldn't have to have her legs crushed by his damn weight.
What she didn't notice was that one of her gloves was gone. When Millicent had heard the attack from the toilets, the glove had realised it was in danger and had planned its escape. As soon as Millicent had removed her gloves, the glove had quietly snuck away as she had tended to Johnny. Millicent did not know the properties of her left glove and of its purpose in the world, nor did she care. At that point all she cared about was-
a) Not getting her gloves ruined.
b) Making sure the person who knew where they lived and had the keys to the flat was alright to get home.
c) Making sure after Johnny had come to, to get him off her so her legs weren't permanently crushed.
d) Lastly, making sure her hands were thoroughly washed after touching Johnny's slightly blood strained – though only a little – head.
Just when she was about to turn to her gloves in order to carefully pop them in her handbag, she was distracted by the shadow that fell across her. Warily she raised her large eyes to figure.
"What the hell is going on here?" Morris Glanz growled, standing in the doorway menacingly and Millicent squeaked in fear.
"W-who're you!" she asked fearfully and Glanz set his jaw.
"I'm the landlord and this pane of glass is broken, not to mention this office has been reclaimed by me, since the tenant missed his rent payment. Who are you?" he retorted and Millicent frowned, as if he had hurt her.
"I am Millicent Altruist Hilton-Deale, my Mummy named me. And this is Johnny Theremin, who I live with because Daddy wouldn't pay for my flat and so I found Johnny and he let me live with him, so then I-" she explained, but Glanz cut her off with a concentrated glare and she fell silent, her eyes wide.
Glanz glowered for a moment and then looked down on the fallen figure, who he finally recognised as Johnny. They remained silent for a minute and then Glanz thought of a question to ask.
"What happened to the little rent skive?" he growled and Millicent shrugged, then remembered that she had been dabbing at Johnny's head and so continued to do so.
"Well… Johnny had to pick up something from the office, so I went to the bathroom to freshen up and everything was quiet for a while, but then there was a crash and I ran out of the bathroom and into the office and Johnny was lying on the floor and the bassoon case was lying open with the bassoon on the floor. I suppose he tripped over it and hit his head on something, maybe," she took a breath, feeling light-headed from the incessant talking and Glanz's face darkened.
"So, he caused property damage too. Well, well, well… it isn't looking good for Theremin at all," he grinned and examined the bassoon. The mouthpiece had a definite bend near the top and he grinned even wider, if that was possible. His teeth gleamed disturbingly and Millicent became angry at this man's spite towards Johnny, her only hope of survival.
"That's mean!" she shrilled so nearby windows gently rattled and stood, letting Johnny's head bump on the floor and stepped forward over Johnny's prone body, squeezing the wet toilet paper in her hand tightly, "You just don't like Johnny and want to get him in trouble, but I know law and things because my Daddy knows those things and it's against the law to withhold people's possessions like that! So Johnny was sort of right to smash your stupid pane!" she retorted inanely, but there was a base of truth to it and Glanz couldn't help but acknowledge it with a flash of surprise in his grey eyes.
"Fine. I'll call it quits with Theremin. But he can get his stuff out of here and then he can forget about coming back into this office until he pays up," Glanz conceded and Johnny finally cracked his eyes open to find himself on the floor with both the back and side of his head throbbing.
"Ow," Johnny managed to croak and Millicent spun around, realising what she had done. Instantly regretful, she knelt beside him and reapplied the ball of tissue on Johnny's head.
"You're awake! Sorry I dropped your head on the floor-" she was about to continue, but paused in her speech, her face draining of colour and her eyes fixed on the floor next to Johnny.
"Ahh! Where has my glove gone!" she screeched at an ear shattering volume and Johnny cringed, his head hurting even more.