Eric Morecambe - The Reluctant Vampire Omnibus

Igon lay there, thinking of Mummsy and what the other lads would think of him being there before them. They were quite surprised.

Meanwhile, King Victor, Queen Valeeta and Prince Vernon stood in the doorway of Motherscares, sheltering from the rain. They were huddled together, trying very hard not to attract the attention of Wilf the Werewolf who was across the street, also sheltering from the rain in the doorway of Boots the Cobbler, whose son was in England learning to be a chemist. Of course, everyone wondered what good that would do him.

Wilf stood there, leaning near the window, loudly eating the last of his smokey bacon crisps. It was two in the morning and the rain was still pouring down. Wilf normally wasn’t bothered about rain but tonight he wasn’t too happy as it was affecting his hard pad and as most of you realise, there’s nothing worse for a werewolf than a wet hard pad.

A lonely, huddled figure walked nervously along the pavement. Wilf squeezed back against the shop doorway, trying to press himself against it so as to be almost invisible.

The lonely figure looked round to see if it was being followed and as it passed the entrance to the shop where Wilf was hiding, a parcel fell on to the ground. The figure stooped down to pick it up at the same time as Wilf sprang out to grab the figure.

Victor, Valeeta and Vernon all watched Wilf sail over the top of the bent figure and land in the middle of the road. In all his years (over two hundred of them) Victor had never seen a werewolf with such a surprised look on his face. Its face had the same look a midget would have who had just been told he had won the long jump in the Olympics.

The huddled figure stood up and looked across the road to see Wilf sprawling in the gutter. Instead of running off while it had the opportunity, it walked towards Wilf and helped him out of the road.

‘Are you all right, Wilf?’

‘Fine thanks, Mum,’ Wilf answered back. ‘I didn’t know it was you. What are you doing out at this time of night?’

‘Well dear, I thought you would be about the village, what with it raining so hard and your corns …’

‘Hard pad, Mum.’

‘Oh yes. Well, like I was saying, I thought you’d be around on account of the rain. I thought you wouldn’t be going off into the woods and all that scaring the children stuff …’

‘And grown-ups as well, Mum.’

‘Of course, dear … in the pouring rain.’ Wilf’s mum smiled at her son. ‘So I’ve brought your favourite; a toasted cheese sandwich.’

‘Aw Mum. Who ever heard of a werewolf eating a toasted cheese sandwich? I mean to say, Mum. Couldn’t you have brought something like a pork chop?’

‘A pork chop? Why, Wilf Igrate.’ She called him by his full name. ‘You don’t like pork chops. You always say “I don’t like pork chops” and here you are in the middle of Katchem, actually asking for pork chops! Well I never. Wilf, you worry me the way you never know what you want. Lord knows, I’ve accepted the fact that you’re a werewolf, although what your father would say if he ever came back I shudder to think. But I honestly cannot get used to your not knowing what you want.’

‘I tell you what, Mum,’ Wilf said, trying his best to get back into her good books. ‘I tell you what.’

‘What?’ she said sharply.

‘Leave the sandwich and I will eat it, I promise. Cross my heart.’ He drew a cross on his body.

‘That’s your liver, you big oaf.’

‘Well, you know what I mean, Mum.’ He put a paw around her ample body and tried to lick her face. She pushed him away gently, saying:

‘Stop that, you big soft thing. I’m going home now so if I don’t see you, be a good boy and don’t forget when you come home I want a loaf. Fresh, mind you.’

Wilf nodded and gave his Mum another quick lick. She walked back up the street, glad she had made the effort and seen her boy.

All through this mother and son reunion the royal family of Vampires stood stock still and watched them from the doorway of Motherscares. Wilf had no idea they were there, and the Vampires were happy to keep it that way, especially Valeeta who really didn’t like Wilf on the rather selfish grounds that he could grow his own fur coat, while she had to beg and pray to her husband to get her one. In all fairness he did so, even though the first time she wore it two dogs chased her up a tree.

Wilf would never have seen them at all if it hadn’t been for Ronnoco, Doctor Plump, Valentine and Igon coming noisily down the street and stopping in front of Motherscares.

He limped across the street to them, kicking his rolled-up smokey bacon crisp packet in the style of Gotcha’s most famous footballer, Cruft, whom Wilf had a tremendous admiration for. Valeeta spoke in a vicious whisper to Victor.

‘Get rid of him.’

Victor looked at his wife in surprise. ‘Eh?’

‘Get rid of him.’

‘Who?’

‘Him.’ She nodded towards Wilf playing football in the middle of the road.

‘Vilf?’ he asked.

‘Yes, Vilf … I mean Wilf.’

‘You mean kill him?’

‘If you have to.’

‘But I can’t do that.’ He spoke quickly and softly out of the corner of his mouth. He always found this difficult to do on account of the rather large teeth on either side. ‘He is von of our biggest tourist attractions. He brinks in thousands of gripples a year. It’s through him that ve haff vater runnink out off the taps.’

Wilf kicked the rolled crisp packet towards them with all his might and shouted ‘Goal’. The ‘ball’ hit Vernon in the face. As it bounced off his face it left a small piece of crisp on the end of his nose which Wilf licked off. Vernon stood there and fumed.

‘Hello everybody,’ Wilf said, offering his paw to be shaken. Valentine spoke first.

‘Hello Wilf. The way you’re playing you’ll soon make the national team.’

‘Thanks Val. I thought you had the dreaded vapours.’

‘No. Er … not now. Doctor Plump cured me.’

‘Well done, Doc,’ Wilf said, walking over to the Doctor and shaking his wet fur all over him. Ronnoco looked at Wilf and passed out on the shop door entrance. Everyone ignored him.

Queen Valeeta was starting to get a little angry with all the noise and the confusion. It was a mite too much for her. She asked rather loudly what the time was. No one had a watch with them and the village clock was broken because someone kept sitting on the long hand at a quarter to twelve every night. But Wilf told her not to worry about the time as he could easily find out for her.

He went over the road and under a closed, curtained window he began to howl at the top of his voice. After about a minute of howling, the window opened and a voice shouted down to Wilf:

‘What are you doing, Wilf? Don’t you know that it’s almost two thirty in the morning?’ and with that slammed his window.

Wilf thanked him and skipped back across the road to Valeeta to tell her the time was two thirty. She was quite impressed with Wilf’s guile.

They all stayed there in the shop doorway until it was almost dawn and then, of course, the Vampire family had to go back to the castle to sleep for the rest of the day.

But Valentine wasn’t happy. He wanted to get away from all this Vampire business and to live a normal life with a pretty wife and roses around the door of a cottage and the patter of little children’s feet, and not the patter of little rats’ feet like at the castle. But, sadly, he thought, ‘That can’t happen. Not for me. I’m a Vampire and that’s it. It’s the old saying of Vampires: “Home is where your artery is.”’ Sadly he pulled down his coffin lid and went to sleep.

Vernon thought of diabolical ways of getting rid of Igon before pulling his coffin lid down for the day. King Victor had a daymare, dreaming of living on blood oranges while Queen Valeeta softly smiled to herself in her dream of Wilf.