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clear!’
    ‘What all is that?’ asked best friend Norman, leaning over the garden gate.
    Uncle
Brian sucked upon his new false teeth. ‘Science,’ said he. ‘Now bugger off, I’ve
lots to do.’
    So
Norman buggered off.
    Pressing
family business kept Norman buggered off for almost a month. A television
company researching a documentary about the sinking of the Titanic had
turned up the name of Norman’s granddad, Sir Rupert Crombie, on the passenger
list. The documentary makers were eager to interview Norman about an eye-witness
report that Sir Rupert had been seen on the night of the disaster in the
vicinity of one of the watertight bulkheads which later inexplicably collapsed,
causing the ship to sink.
    This
eye-witness report stated that Sir Rupert was ‘eyeing the rivets, hungrily’.
    When
Norman next chanced by at my uncle’s back gate he was surprised to notice that
certain changes of an environmental nature had taken place thereabouts.
    The
little white wicket fence had gone, to be replaced by a huge stockade of
ten-foot telephone poles closely bound with rope. A door of similar stuff took
the place of the gate. On this door was a notice.
    Norman
knocked on the door, then pushed and entered. Entered all-but darkness.
    ‘Back,
back!’ A fearsome figure sprang up before him, a pointed stick clutched in a
filthy mit. ‘Read the notice, then come in again.’
    Norman
beat a retreat and the door slammed upon him. He now perused the notice.
     
    D.M.Z.
    DE-METALIZED
ZONE
    IT
IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN TO
    ENTER
THIS GARDEN WHILE IN
    POSSESSION
OF
    ANY
METAL ITEMS.
    To
wit, watch, money, fountain or
    ball-point
pens, rings, or other jewellery,
    hair
slides, combs, belts (metal buckles),
    braces
(likewise), shoes (metal eyelets &
    Blakeys)
etc. REMOVE ALL and place
    in
the box provided.
    Then
shout ‘ALL CLEAR’.
     
    Norman
pursed his lips and gave his head a scratch. Now what was all this about?
Well, there was only one way to find out. Norman hastily divested himself of
metal objects, belt and braces, shoes and all and popped them into the box
provided.
    ‘All
clear,’ shouted Norman.
    A
weighty-looking length of wood eased out through a slot in the barricade and
secured the lid of the box-provided. A voice called, ‘Enter, friend.’
    Norman
entered, holding up his trousers.
    It was
pretty dark in there, because the out—there which had lately been Uncle Brian’s
back garden, was now definitely in-there. The fences had been raised to
either side and even against the back of the house. Telegraph poles, in
regimental rows, all bound one to the next. The whole was roofed over with
lesser timbers and thatch. The effect was that of being inside an old log
cabin, whilst also being inside the roof of a thatched cottage. It was probably
a bit like one of those bronze-age long-houses that you used to make models of
in the history lesson at school.
    It was
a curious effect.
    It was
also very dark and gloomy. There weren’t any windows.
    ‘Whatever
have you done to the garden?’ Norman asked. ‘I mean that is you there,
isn’t it, Brian? I mean where are you anyway?’
    ‘I’m
here.’ Uncle Brian loomed from the gloom.
    ‘Cor,’
said Norman. ‘You don’t half pong.’
    Uncle
Brian sniffed at himself. ‘I can’t smell anything. But what do you think,
Norman? Is this something, or what?’
    ‘Or
what?’ Norman strained his eyes. Light fell in narrow shafts between the raised
timbers. Some of it fell upon Uncle Brian. ‘And what have you got on?’
    ‘It’s a
sort of smock,’ Uncle Brian explained. ‘I knitted it myself with two sticks. It’s
made out of dry grass.
    ‘It
looks very uncomfortable.’
    ‘Oh, it
is. Very.’
    ‘Then
why are you wearing it?’
    Uncle
Brian tapped at his nose. The finger that did the tapping was a very dirty
finger. It quite matched the nose. ‘I will tell you if you’ll stay awhile.’
    ‘Well,
I can’t stay long. I have to see my solicitor, my family is being