DAY 6,574

Our Little Girl

Matilda

"I drew you," Matilda Smith-Jones said to the big, pink salt-shaker sharing her glass room. Her hands covered in ink from various felt-tip pens, she held up a large sheet of paper with a squiggly likeness of the salt-shaker etched onto it. She was sitting on the floor in a circle of toys and soft-furnishings, with more salt-shakers visible on the other side of the glass observation wall. She did not know what they were, but they were very loud and shouty.

"THIS IS SUB-PAR," the one in her room said.

"Don't be mean, Pinkie."

"MY NAME IS NOT 'PINKIE'," it screeched.

"But 'Pinkie' sounds cute."

"I AM NOT CUTE."

"Why are you pink but all of your friends are boring-colours?"

"DALEKS HAVE NO CONCEPT OF FRIENDSHIP, WE ARE SOLDIERS."

"Soldiers can make friends," Mattie said knowingly.

"WE KNOW ONLY WAR."

"That sounds sad." Pinkie did not say anything more, merely stared at her with its vacant eyestalk, looking at the wonky drawing she had done of her new babysitter. Mattie dropped the picture and jumped to her feet. "Can I do an experiment, please?"

"WHAT EXPERIMENT?"

"I want to make slime. I got a slime-making pack for my birthday. Today's my birthday. Can we make slime?"

"FOR WHAT PURPOSE?"

"It's fun."

"DALEKS HAVE NO CONCEPT OF FUN. IT IS A WASTE OF TIME."

"You won't let me do anything!" she whined. It was worse than when Esther babysat her, Esther wouldn't let her have any fun, either. "There's only girly stuff in here." There was a doll's house, a plastic tea-party set, more teddies than you could shake a stick at – but nothing to make slime or do anything cool.

"OUR SCANNERS INDICATE THAT YOU ARE A FEMALE OF THE INFERIOR SPECIES, AND THESE ARE ACTIVITIES WHICH FEMALES ENJOY." Mattie glared at the salt-shaker.

"Can I watch TV, please?"

"THERE IS NO TELEVISION, SOURCES INDICATE THAT TELEVISION MAY HAVE ADVERSE EFFECTS ON THE BRAIN FUNCTIONS OF SOME MINOR SPECIES."

"No TV!?" It really was worse than hanging out with Esther. "You're boring, too. You think you're not boring because you're pink but you're still boring. Please can I go home now? I like seeing space outside but this isn't very fun."

"YOU MAY NOT LEAVE, YOU ARE NECESSARY TO THE CONTINUATION OF DALEK-KIND."

"But I want to go home."

"OUR HOME WAS DESTROYED IN A WAR. YOU MUST REMAIN TO ENABLE US TO CREATE A NEW SKARO."

"But I don't want to. I don't even know what that is. How am I meant to do something when I don't know what it is? You haven't even got Nutella. I don't want to help people who won't let me have Nutella."

"IT IS NOT A MATTER OF WANT: YOU WILL HELP US, OR YOU WILL PERISH." Matilda scrunched up her face and began to cry. "DO NOT MAKE THIS NOISE." She continued to cry, covering her eyes with her hands and sitting down on the floor; she just wanted to go home. "STOP THIS. THE INSUFFERABLE SOUND SERVES NO PURPOSE, CHILD. EMOTIONS ARE USELESS." It was to no avail; Mattie did not stop crying.

Over an intercom system, another salt-shaker addressed the room.

"IF YOU CANNOT CONTROL THE SPECIMEN YOU WILL BE REPLACED WITH A NEW NANNY-DALEK," it warned.

"CHILD-CARE IS MUCH HARDER THAN INITIALLY SUSPECTED," Pinkie argued, "YOU SHOULD TRY TAKING CARE OF A CHILD."

"DALEKS DO NOT HAVE YOUTHS; IT IS WHY WE ARE SUPERIOR."

"I AM PERFORMING AN UNDERVALUED ROLE IN DALEK-SOCIETY. SURROGATE PARENTHOOD DOES NOT COMPUTE WITH PRE-PROGRAMMED DALEK RULES AND PERAMETERS."

"YOUR REPLACEMENT IS IMMINENT. MAKE IT CEASE THE NOISES."

Pinkie did not scare Mattie. None of the funny salt-shakers scared Mattie, they just upset her when they wouldn't let her leave. But it was part of the way through the comm-based arguments that a monster exploded through the wall. The solid metal door was blown to pieces which flew across the room on the other side of Mattie's glass window, and in came another salt-shaker, but three times the size and crawling on six legs like a robot spider. Remarkably, this didn't scare Matilda, either: she kind of liked spiders, and thought robot spiders were especially cool.

"Yay! Mummy!" Mattie's crying stopped almost immediately as she bounded over to the glass, seeing her mother enter the room in the wake of the monster. Martha shouted something, but no sound came through from the other side of the glass. "Aunty Rose! Uncle Jack!" Martha came up to the glass: Jack had an enormous gun and when one of the salt-shakers flashed at him he shot it. It exploded. "Cool!" She put her hands on the glass. Behind her, Pinkie was shouting. Martha carried on making sounds Mattie couldn't hear, then Rose said something, and then Rose disappeared.

"Get away from her," Rose had, in Mattie's eyes, magicked herself from once place to the other and was glowing slightly gold. She held out a hand to threaten Pinkie, though she wasn't holding a gun like Jack was. "Matts, c'mere, sweetheart – are you okay?" Rose crouched down as Matilda ran over and hugged her, Rose still glaring at Pinkie, who didn't say a word. "Did they hurt you?"

"No, but they wouldn't let me watch any TV," she complained, "And he said I did a rubbish picture." Mattie pointed at her drawing on the floor.

"I think it's a brilliant picture," Rose said, picking her up and holding her with one arm, watching Pinkie carefully. "Are you going to stop me from taking my goddaughter home?"

"That's Pinkie, he's my friend, even if he's mean."

"DALEKS HAVE NO CONCEPT OF FRIENDSHIP," Pinkie repeated.

"Do you have a concept of who the Bad Wolf is?" Rose asked darkly, "Because that's who you've crossed. Not the Doctor, he's not here, but I am. If you stand in my way, or I found out you've hurt Matilda, you'll pay."

"OUR ORDERS WERE FOR THE SPECIMEN TO REMAIN UNHARMED," Pinkie said. Rose magicked them again, vanishing from inside the glass and reappearing with the robot spider and Mattie's mother and uncle, and now she could hear what was going on. Jack was threatening the large group of salt-shakers.

"Oh my god, Mattie," Martha took Mattie out of Rose's arms and hugged her tightly, so tightly Mattie thought she might be squashed. "We were so worried about you, baby, we've looked everywhere for you. Are you okay? Did they hurt you?"

"Why would they hurt me?"

"They're cruel," Martha told her, "They're called Daleks, and they're evil. Do you understand? They kidnapped you from us."

"Where's daddy?"

"I'm driving the big robot, Matts, I'm right here," her dad spoke in a metallic tone from within the big machine; she thought it was even cooler now.

"C'mon, give it up," Jack said, brandishing his gun a mutant little thing in a blue tank. Mattie thought it looked like an octopus with one eye, floating in the liquid with wires attached to its wrinkly skin. "It's over. Tell us what the 'harvest' is and why you took this little girl away from her family." Martha stepped underneath the mech and kissed Matilda on the top of her head, while Matilda wriggled and tried to see what was going on.

"That's icky," she mumbled. Martha smiled the tiniest amount, holding her close.

"WE NEEDED A TIME LORD," the crusty one in the tank answered, bubbles rising to the top of the liquid, lights above the tank flashing when it talked just like on the rest of them. "THE YOUNG ONE HAS HAD NO REGENERATIVE CAP IMPOSED YET. SHE WILL BE ABLE TO HEAL THE DALEKS FOR GENERATIONS IF THE ENERGY IS HARVESTED."

"Immortality of the Daleks – a little bit boring, don't you think?" Jack remarked, "I'd expect something a bit wackier from Degradations such as yourselves. Instead you've kidnapped a kid while you cower behind the moon. It's pathetic. Time was, you guys would've had the whole universe running in fear."

"AND WE WILL AGAIN, CAPTAIN. YOU CANNOT STOP THE PROCESS OF THE HARVEST; THE CHILD BEIND ALIVE IS PREFERABLE, BUT NOT NECESSARY. ONE SHOT AND SHE WILL BE FORCED TO REPAIR HERSELF."

"You can't do that!" Martha shouted in horror, "She doesn't know how!"

"You even try and I'll kill you all with the photon cannon," Mickey threatened.

"What?" Mattie asked, "Killing people is bad. Daddy can't say things like that."

"Martha," Rose hissed when Martha was at a loss for what to say to Matilda, "We need to get her away from here. We know this isn't going to end with anything a child should witness. I'll take her home."

"Take her to the TARDIS," Martha decided, "They won't be able to get her on there."

"Okay, if you're sure," Rose said, taking Matilda again.

"I'm eighty now. I can stand up, you know," she argued, still squirming, disliking being handed around like a baby. "What's going to happen that I can't 'witness'? What's 'witness'?"

"Something you shouldn't see, you're too young," Rose said.

"I'm-"

"I'll make sure she's okay," Rose interrupted Matilda to address Martha.

"What? No, I want to stay with mum!" Matilda protested, but Rose did not care what Matilda wanted, because she was one of those grownups who thought she knew best, even though Matilda was an adult now. She was eighteen.

She nearly began to cry again as the world disappeared around her, turning gold, then nothing, then gold again, then something brand new. A place she had never seen before. The inside of an engine or another machine with a vivid purple glow about it, silver chrome finishings, flashing buttons, a balcony high up and a lot of passages and bookshelves. The colours amazed her and the new world hummed slightly in the background. Rose did not seem happy, however.

"Urgh – this is the wrong one…"

"Matilda!?" her aunt Clara exclaimed from atop the balcony, almost falling out of a very large armchair which had initially had its back to the rest of the room. "Oh my stars, are you alright? Is she alright?" Clara, too, could magically move from one place to another, only she did not turn gold but made plumes of black smoke behind her. First she was on the balcony, then she was in front of them, as Rose set Mattie down on the ground again.

"Daleks took her," Rose explained quickly, "I meant to go to my Doctor's TARDIS, but – you'll make sure she's safe here, won't you?"

"I – well – I mean, yes, of course we will, the Doctor's just in the next room, Matts will be fine here – but I thought Martha doesn't want her on the TARDIS?"

"A TARDIS is the best place right now," Rose said, "I have to get back, they can't face all those Daleks without me, we just didn't want Mattie to see what…"

"See what?" Matilda repeated pointedly, changing Rose's unfinished sentence into a question.

"Yeah, no," said Clara, "Go, hurry up. We'll watch her, she'll be fine." Rose disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving Matilda alone with Clara, who she did not see nearly so often as Aunty Rose and Uncle Jack. "Are you okay, sweetheart?" Clara stooped to talk to her.

"You don't have to lean down, you're short already," she said. Clara didn't react for a second, and then laughed.

"That's a good point. You'll be taller than me soon, I'm sure," she straightened back up, then held out her hand for Matilda to take, which she did, "Come on, the Doctor's through here. She went to make us some tea. Is there anything you want?"

"I want some Nutella, please, if there is any."

"I'll tell you a secret," Clara whispered, "We've got loads of Nutella. You can have as much as you want, sweetheart. It's still your birthday, after all." Mattie beamed as a set of doors opened in front of here, to reveal another purple-themed room. The girly Doctor was there pouring milk into mugs. "Look who just showed up out of the blue."

"Huh?" the Doctor looked over, then she dropped one of the spoons on the counter in shock. "Matilda!"

"Rose just brought her here, we're to watch her and keep her safe."

"Are you alright, Mattie?"

Mattie pouted, "Why does everyone keep asking me that? I'm fine. If I wasn't fine I'd just say that I'm not fine." She let go of Clara's hand and crossed her arms.

"We're just worried about you, Matts, that's all," Clara told her softly, "Come on, let's go sit at the table and the Doctor will get you some Nutella, won't you?"

"It would be my pleasure," the Doctor smiled, picking the spoon back up to resume making her tea.

"What is it that people don't want me to see?" Matilda implored Clara once she was sat down.

"Uh…" Clara faltered, "They're just going to make those Daleks go away, that's all."

"Daddy said he would kill them if they hurt me. But killing is bad. Isn't it? And Uncle Jack had a gun. He blew one of them up."

"Did you say Daleks?" the Doctor asked, "They're the ones who took you?"

"They said they needed 'energy' and to 'harvest' me and that they didn't need me alive."

"Oh, sweetheart…" Clara sighed, the Doctor setting tea in front of her, "Daleks are… they're not nice. They're like wasps, they're just cruel and will hurt people for no reason, and they'll never change. Your dad's just very worried about what they might have done to you, do you understand? You were in terrible danger, but it's okay now. They can't get onto the TARDIS, they've never been able to get on here. Nothing bad can." The Doctor retrieved a jar of Nutella from one of the cupboards and a spoon, giving these to Matilda and then sitting down next to Clara.

"They're monsters, designed to kill anything that isn't one of them, built by an evil scientist."

"I didn't think they were scary. They let me draw pictures."

"Then you're the bravest girl in the whole universe, and everything your parents and your family do is to protect you. You and every other living thing in existence," Clara said, "Because they scare me."

"Maybe you scare easily."

"Well, maybe I do," Clara smiled, "But I still think you're brave."

"Listen, Mattie," the Doctor began, "You know how I'm an alien? I'm from another planet? Just like the other Doctors? And there aren't any more of us left who came from that planet?" Mattie nodded. "The reason for that is because of those Daleks, and a horrible war that threatened to destroy everything in existence. It's… their fault that I'm alone now. You're still too young to know any more than that, I'm sorry, we just need you to understand how dangerous they are."

"…Okay," she said eventually, licking Nutella off the back of her spoon, "If that's what you say."

"Try to forget about today," Clara said, "There's still a few hours left, yeah? You can still have a good birthday. Your parents will be back soon."

"Where are we?" she asked.

"The TARDIS," said the Doctor, "Somewhere you're not ordinarily allowed to be because your parents want to keep you away from all this."

"They tell me stories. Is this the time-machine?"

"Yes, sweetheart, it's a time machine," Clara said.

"Time travel sounds dangerous."

"It can be. So, if you don't want to time travel, what do you want to do?"

"Do you know how to make slime?"

"Slime!?" the Doctor exclaimed, "Of course we can make slime! We can make tons of slime, in every colour. See, you don't even need a slime-making kit, you can make it with regular household ingredients. You just need cornflour and shampoo." She got out of her chair to return to the kitchen.

"Mickey and Martha are going to kill you for teaching her this," Clara advised, then her words caught in her throat, "I mean – not kill – they won't…" Matilda looked at her blankly.

"They don't mind me making a mess as long as I help clean it up."

"Well then, they must be the best parents in the world," Clara said, "Because god knows I'd get sick of the Doctor if she made half as much mess as you, Matts. Although she is rubbish at cleaning up after herself."

"Too busy cleaning up after you, darling," the Doctor quipped as she sorted out a mixing bowl and various ingredients. Mattie was half focused on what the Doctor was doing and half focused on her Nutella.

"Why did you decide to marry a girl and not somebody else?" Mattie asked.

"Great question," said Clara, "She was actually a boy when I married her, though."

"So what do you like more?"

"On the whole, I'd have to say girls have nicer hair. And they smell better."

"That's true," Matilda nodded. "I thought it might be because you don't have to use different toilets. You can use the same toilets and won't have to stop talking or anything, but daddy would get shouted at if he went into the girls' toilet."

"Another good reason," nodded Clara.

"You humans make way too big a deal out of who uses what bathroom," Thirteen said as she returned to the table with a plastic bowl of water, some cornflour and some shampoo – though Mattie didn't understand why they had shampoo in the kitchen (maybe Rose was right when she talked about how they were weird.)

"Everyone should share one big toilet. Like a whirlpool," said Mattie, "Then it wouldn't be as hard to fix for the plumbers."

"The Romans used to have big cesspits, and they'd have toilets which were basically wooden benches with holes cut in them and they'd poo into the hole and it would all go into one big ditch in the ground. In fact," Thirteen continued as she mixed her concoctions, "Cesspits carried on being popular for generations, in the Tudor period they had what were called gong farmers. They were the people who would dig out the poo and take it to the outside of the of the city and dump it. Even worse, the cesspits were built in people's cellars and sometimes they only got cleaned every two years, or longer."

"Did they ever find anything good in the poo?" Mattie asked, enthralled.

"Oh, sure – lost heirlooms, gold, dead bodies."

"Really?" her eyes widened.

"Uh-huh. And sometimes the gong farmers would choke on the fumes and die." Clara eyed Mattie very carefully as she listened to this story.

"Can't believe you're listening to her go on about poo and you're still eating that spread," she said, nose upturned. It didn't bother Matilda in the slightest, however.

"In London, they dumped it in the Thames, and it became such a huge issue that parliament were called to do something about it. And you know what they did? They covered their curtains in potent chemicals to try and mask the smell and ignore it, before the sewage system was invented." She squeezed a few drops of purple food-colouring into the sludge in the plastic bowl.

"Can we go see it? In the time machine?"

"…Maybe when you're older," Clara said unsurely, "Much older. I mean, what if you passed out on noxious fumes? I don't think your mum would be very happy if we let that happen to you."

"In Tudor England they also used to throw poo and wee into the streets out of windows, with buckets. They'd shout 'gardyloo' before they did it, and in fact your mother and I once went to Tudor London and we almost got a bucket of waste thrown at us from a window."

"Wow! She never told me that."

"I wonder why…" Clara said quietly.

"Why did they say 'gardyloo'?"

"It comes from the French, gardez l'eau, meaning 'mind the water.' It's a Scottish phrase, really." She carried on mixing.

"It's beyond me why you people are so interested in all this gross stuff," Clara muttered.

"Well, Coo, it's all to do with a guy called Sigmund Freud, who had a couple of ideas about-"

"NO!" Clara shouted at her, "No Freud! She's absolutely not hearing about Freud."

"Who's that?" Matilda asked eagerly.

"Mattie, listen," Clara told her seriously, "The longer you go not knowing who Freud is, the better." Matilda didn't have the opportunity to question them further, however, as the Doctor proceeded to lift out a mess of purple slime and plop it on the table in front of Matilda. "Do you see my point about the mess?"

"You love me really," the Doctor flashed her a smile. Mattie pushed the Nutella jar aside and lifted up the slime to play with: it was really lining up to be one of her favourite birthdays ever. It was made even better when, some ten minutes of her playing with her new slime later, her parents, Rose and Jack returned. Jack still had the big gun. Her father ran over to hug her immediately, and she got slime on him by accident.

"We looked everywhere for you," he said, kissing her head, which she still thought was gross. Much more gross than poo and slime. "They didn't hurt you, did they? The Daleks?"

"No, I drew some pictures," she answered.

"Does she seem alright?" Martha asked the Doctor.

"Oh, yeah. No worse for wear, surprisingly. Soon as she got some Nutella."

"What's all this?" Mickey asked, realising he was now covered in sticky, purple hand prints.

"We made slime with shampoo," Matilda answered with a grin, "And then the Doctor told me about real poo."

"Real poo?" Martha asked, "How exciting for you. We had a burst colostomy bag earlier this week on one of the wards. The nurses said it was one of the worst bursts they've ever seen. Went everywhere."

"Did they take any pictures?"

Martha bit her lip, "Sadly not. Sorry. Next time I'll tell them I have a little girl who's just dying to find out all the gory details of the medical profession and would love photos of every nasty thing. Had to remove an infected toenail last night, you know."

"Eurgh, do you have to?" Rose asked, quite disgusted.

"I agree with Rose, this is grim," said Clara as Mickey let the struggling-Mattie go from his arms so that she could carry on toying with the sticky slime.

"Oh, come on," said Jack, "She wants to be a surgeon! She's got a healthy appetite for blood and guts."

"Literally no such thing as a 'healthy appetite' for blood and guts. That's why cannibalism is illegal," Clara commented.

"In the Siege of Leningrad loads of people resorted to cannibalism," said the Doctor.

"That's true, they used to dig up corpses and eat them," Jack added.

"Cool!" said Matilda, "Really?"

"I think you've had enough excitement for the day already," Mickey said to her.

"What happened to Pinkie?" Mattie asked.

"To…? Do you mean the Dalek?" Rose frowned. Mattie nodded. "…They're gone."

"Gone where?"

"Away. You don't have to worry about them anymore."

"I wasn't worried about them anyway," she mumbled. She wasn't scared.

"Well we were," Martha said, "Which is why we're moving again."

"But we only moved a few months ago!" Matilda protested, "I like the new house!"

"I know, Matts, but it's necessary," Martha controlled her, but tears formed in her eyes. It was the worst birthday she had ever had.

"Why do we have to move so much?"

"I'm sorry," Martha said, "One day, you'll understand that it's for the best."

"Why does everyone always say that? 'One day' I'll understand. 'One day' I'll be old enough. I'm old now-"

"I know, baby, but-"

"How old is old enough? I'm going to be an old lady before anybody tells me anything."

"Matilda," Martha said sternly, "I promise we're doing what's best. We don't like moving either."

"Then why do it?" she continued to argue while everybody else watched, Martha crouching in front of her and taking both of her slimy hands.

"Because those Daleks just stopped time and came in and took you. It's not safe."

"But you said they're gone."

"There's… a lot of things out there, people, that want to hurt you."

"Why?"

"Because you're special, sweetheart. You're very special. And that means you're in a lot of danger, but mummy and daddy and all of your family are doing everything we can to protect you," Martha said, "And we didn't do enough, so we'll have to move and try again. One day you'll see that this is all for the best."

One day, Matilda thought to herself, unable to quite work out if she actually believed them…

AN: Just to clarify: YES, Matilda will be back in a big way later on, when she's older and a teenager.