Of all the many nefarious deeds that Sherlock Holmes and I witnessed during our years together, surely none was as terrifying as the case which began when a short telegram was delivered to our Baker Street rooms. “It’s gone too far. We must meet. Tuck.” was all it said.
Holmes was in Dorset, solving the Case of the Pilates Instructor and the Left-Footed Squirrel (a tale for which the world is not yet prepared) but this message was actually for me, so I summoned a cab and hastened to the address given. Down a dark, foreboding alley I found a dark, foreboding doorway, knocked once, and was admitted.
The room in which I found myself was full of familiar faces, and I was approached by a gentleman in a monk’s habit, who extended a hand in greeting. This was Friar Tuck, Chairman of the Sidekicks Union. “Ah, Watson,” he said, “welcome. Our emergency meeting is about to start.” So saying he moved to the front of the room, and a hushed silence descended.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “all of us here are sidekicks to more famous companions, and I think it is fair to say that our role is not always easy.”
“Indeed not”, said Jeeves. “I have devoted many tiring years to caring for my employer.”
“Yeah, but your job’s easy,” said Jane. “I bet you’ve never tried getting lion’s blood out of a loincloth. And you don’t have to sleep with your Mr Wooster. Honestly, Tarzan comes home after nine pints of banana juice, and he’s like an animal. I don’t get a wink of sleep.”
“Sounds heavenly,” sighed Miss Moneypenny.
“Really, Moneypenny,” said Lois Lane, “I don’t know why you stick with Bond. I mean, he must have had about four thousand women by now.”
“Two hundred and forty-two,” said Moneypenny. “Er, not that I’ve been counting or anything.”
“ANYway,” said Tuck, “while our roles could be challenging, they had the advantage of permanence. We effectively had jobs for lives. Now, of course, all that has changed, thanks entirely to Disneycorp.”
A shudder ran around the room. Just as the evil corporation Skynet was a force to be feared in the fictional Terminator stories, here in the real world inhabited by my fellow sidekicks and I Disneycorp were a continual threat.
“When Disneycorp first took over Marvel, the headquarters of crimefighters, they promised there would be no change. We have been monitoring the situation, however, and have noticed a growing number of worrying cases.”
“For example,” said Lois Lane, “the Famous Five now consists of Julian, Dick, Anne, George and Foghorn Leghorn.”
“Doctor Frankenstein’s Igor has been replaced by Donald Duck,” said Jane.
“And Mary-Jane Watson is gone,” said Jeeves. “Spiderman’s girlfriend is now Jessica Rabbit.” There was a silence after this, and I could see mixed emotions on the faces of some of the men. Mary-Jane was one of us, and we did feel sorry for her, but we thought of her querulous voice and constant nagging, and we thought of Jessica Rabbit’s figure, and we secretly reckoned that all in all Peter Parker had done pretty well out of the deal.
“More and more,” said Tuck, “sidekicks are being replaced by cartoon characters. The amazing thing is that no-one seems to notice – not our companions, not our fans, no-one.”
“That’s coz no-one gives a shit about us,” slurred Robin drunkenly. There was an embarrassed silence. Robin was an exception to the “jobs for ever” nature of our lives. A number of years ago a poll of readers voted that Robin should be killed off “because he was a twerp”, and most people, Batman included, believed that he had actually died. In fact, we had sneaked him out of the semtex-filled Batmobile at the last second, and had hidden him away here in Union HQ ever since, but he had never forgotten the insult from the readers, and had turned heavily to drink.
“Well, we’ve learned now that Disneycorp are getting more and more ambitious,” said Lois. “Just this morning the X-Men all came into work and found that Wolverine had been switched. Apparently it was decided that he looked too much like Marcus from Big Brother.”
“Who replaced him?” I asked.
“Bashful”.
“What!? The Dwarf?”
“Indeed. So, as you can see, they are starting on the big guns now. None of us are safe.”
“Well, most of us may not be,” I said, “but I work for the greatest detective that ever lived. There is no way they could switch me without him noticing.”
“Er, have you seen your Agency’s ad in today’s Times?” asked Jane, handing me a copy. I looked at the ad she pointed out.
“Holmes and Dumbo, Private Detectives”, I read. “Well, I must say that’s a bit rude. I know I’m not the cleverest half of the team, but…” my voice faded to nothing as the true meaning of the ad sank in. “They’re replacing me with an elephant?” I said.
“A flying elephant, to be fair,” said Lois. “At least Holmes won’t keep having to rush to catch trains everywhere.”
“But…but,” I spluttered, “they’ll never get away with it. Do they really think Holmes won’t notice the elephant in the room – literally?”
“Watson,” said Tuck gently. “He takes opium. He’s just going to think he’s having a really bad trip.”
I slumped back in my chair.
“Well, if we’re all in danger,” said Lois, “what are we going to do?”
Suddenly I felt a surge of hope. “I’ll tell you what we should do,” I said, “We should all start up in opposition to our bosses. You can become a gentleman, Jeeves. You can rob from the rich & give to the poor, Tuck, and Jane, you can, well, swing out of stuff. I’m going to start my own detective agency. I’ve been watching Holmes for years, it’s pretty easy.”
Robin snorted. “Er, are you sure?” said Jane dubiously.
“Of course I’m sure,” I said. “Look, I’ll prove it. See our new member there, that golden-haired person who hasn’t spoken yet? Just by looking at him I can tell that he’s a Catholic, a vegetarian, and has a ticket for a locker at Waterloo Station in his coat pocket. I surmise that he is the goalkeeper with Melchester Rovers, that wonderful team who do so much of the work for which Roy of the Rovers gets all of the credit.”
There was a short stunned silence.
“Actually,” said Jeeves, “that’s Sweep. As in Sooty and.”
My castle of dreams crashed around my ears.
“We’re screwed,” said Lois.
“Speak for yourself, unfortunately,” murmured Moneypenny.
“But we can’t let them get away with this,” I wailed. Surely we can talk to someone about it.”
“We’ve tried,” said Tuck. “ We’ve gone right to the top. We spoke to Barrack Obama.”
“Really?” I said, filled with hope. “And what did he say?”
“He said ‘meep, meep’”.
Worth Doing Badly 