HOPPING MAD

The conclusion to the story begun in 'LIVING A BOY'S ADVENTURE TALE'!


"Tell me, friend - are you John Barrowman?"


The bandaged man suddenly shouted "look!" and pointed at the telly.
Boris and the boring pillock turned to see what he was pointing at. Nothing particularly exciting seemed to be happening, so they returned their attention to the bandaged man - only to find that he was no longer there.
"He's getting away!" cried the boring pillock, leaping out of bed towards the door. He grasped the handle and heaved with all his might, but the door had been locked from the outside. The boring pillock - who suddenly did not seem so boring anymore - hammered on the door in frustration and cursed loudly in Norsk.
Boris looked on in both amazement and confusion.
What is going on? he wondered.
The not-so boring pillock was now back at his bed, fumbling about in his bag and wincing a bit too. Clearly he was still not well enough to be jumping about. A moment later he pulled out a mobile phone and made a call.
"This is Agent P," said the pillock, speaking fluently in the native tongue. "Barrowman is loose. Repeat: Barrowman is loose." Then he slammed the phone down on the bed and half-leaped, half-hobbled back to the door, which he continued to pound on.
"Somebody open this door!" Agent P shouted in frustration. Then he rested his forehead on the door, closed his eyes and muttered, "Barrowman will be halfway to the Hopping Championships by now."
Boris finally found his voice. "What's going on?" he asked.
Agent P turned and looked Boris in the eyes. Then he came to a decision.
"I'm an agent employed by the Norwegian Secret Services," Agent P explained. "I've been following John Barrowman for some time now. We have reason to believe that he wants Norway's greatest secret for himself." And with that he turned to look at the television, on which one of a-ha was grinning away.
Boris frowned. "Norway's greatest secret?" he repeated, confused. "You don't mean... a-ha?"
The agent shook his head. "Look again," he said, pointing at the pop star on the screen. "Look more closely. A-ha first got together in the 1980s..."
"...and yet they've hardly aged a day," Boris realised.
"Exactly," the agent agreed.
A lightbulb appeared above Boris's head. "Norway has the secret of eternal youth!" he declared excitedly.
"No, Norway doesn't...but a-ha do," the agent corrected. "And Barrowman wants it for himself."
"We've got to stop him!" Boris cried, forgetting his aches and pains, leaping from the bed on his one leg and grasping the door handle. "If Barrowman gets the secret of eternal youth, there'll be no stopping him. Ever!"
The agent agreed. "He'll be like Sir Cliff Richard, only much more dangerous."
Just then there was a noise out in the corridor. The door opened and a bemused looking nurse appeared. The agent rose to his feet and made to push past her, but Boris held him back.
"No. Let me," Boris said, looking down at his one leg. "I'll be much faster."


On the podium at the Norwegian Hopping Championships, Lars Larsen of Trollstigen was about to receive his winner's trophy from one of a-ha.
"So, which one of a-ha are you?" Lars whispered conspiratorially, as they shook hands and he took possession of the trophy.
Suddenly there was a commotion in the distance and everybody turned to see what was going on. Something was mincing towards them exceptionally fast. It looked like roadrunner, only a bit gay.
And behind it was something else, also closing fast.
Was that...a one legged man?
The crowd began to part as the two human bullets bore down on them.
The ex-member of a-ha up on the stage suddenly looked very nervous. He had every right to be.
"I'm not really a member of a-ha you know!" he blurted out. Nobody was listening. "I'm just a stand in! Look!" He pulled off a mask to reveal the man underneath - Sir Bruce Forsyth! "The real a-ha are being experimented on in a secret underground bunker..."
But it was too late. Barrowman had leapt up on to the podium and floored him.
And yet, Barrowman had little time to do anything else. Behind him, in the centre of the gathered crowd, in slow motion and with a loud cry of "nooooo....!", Boris Tattersall boinged high into the air on his one leg, landed in front of Lars Larrsen, grabbed the Norwegian Hopping Championships winner's trophy and clobbered Barrowman over the back of the head with it.
Lars Larsen fell back and Sir Bruce gasped as Barrowman's face suddenly took on a fake, rubberlike hue and fell away like the mask that it was. The man who had been disguised as John Barrowman climbed to his feet and turned to face the audience. There was a huge collective gasp as they saw that he was, in fact, Sir Cliff Richard!
Norwegian authorities leapt up on to the stage, grabbed Sir Cliff and began to drag him away. "Give us a twirl," said Brucey, dusting himself down. 
"I would have gotten away with it," Sir Cliff shouted defiantly, "if it hadn't been for you pesky, meddling, one-legged nobodies!"
"Oh, wasn't that a shame..." Sir Bruce waved with more than a hint of sarcasm as Sir Cliff was bundled into a waiting car. "Nice to see you, to see you..."
Elsewhere on the stage, Boris offered the winner's trophy back to Lars Larsen.
"No, friend," said Lars, refusing to take the trophy. "You keep it. You deserve it." He pointed at the trophy. "Besides which, it's bent."
Boris shrugged, turned to face the crowd and lifted the bent trophy. Everybody cheered.
Sir Bruce put his arm around Boris's shoulder and hollered, "Didn't he do well?"
The Norwegians had no idea what he was on about but cheered again anyway.


A few minutes later, Boris hopped off the podium to find Agent P standing beside a taxi and holding the door open for him. Boris climbed in and Agent P joined him on the back seat.
"Well done," said Agent P, with genuine gratitude. "You've averted a terrible disaster."
Boris shrugged. "You realise the real John Barrowman is still out there somewhere?"
Agent P nodded. "Yes, he is. But so is Sir Bruce Forsyth. And he has a vested interest in protecting the secret which Barrowman so desperately wants."
"A vested interest...?" Boris waited for Agent P to elaborate, but he did not. 
Agent P smiled, then changed the subject. "So. After all this excitement, I bet you're quite hungry. Shall we get a bite to eat?"
Boris grinned. "Oh - now you're talking! As a cockney might say, I'm Hank Marvin!" he said, laughing.
Agent P laughed too.
In the front of the taxi, the driver pulled his cap a bit lower. 
"Driver, take us to an expensive restaurant!" Agent P declared.
The driver was in the shadows. 
"As you wish sir," he said. 
He really was Hank Marvin.