Our Christmas spectacular, Honest Tommy: Curse of the Infernal Euphonia, will be winging its way to Amazon Kindle soon, and to get you into the festive spirit we present an exclusive excerpt from the upcoming story. Here, Princess Victoria has encountered the infernal machine itself, which has impelled a case of sudden seasonal depression in the British royal family. With the Realm and Star Territories under threat, the Princess Royal takes care of her young cousins when she receives an unexpected Yuletide visitor, bearing more than just seasonal cheer….
“Come along. Let’s get you tucked up,” Princess Victoria said, fairly shepherding her three young cousins towards their bunk beds. “Don’t fret, the big nasty noise has gone away now.”
Millicibeth looked up at her with big, shining eyes. “But what if it won’t come out of my head?”
“Well then, you just hum a nice little tune and forget all about it.”
“Was it aliens, Cousin Vic?” This from Glupert, who liked to have the newspapers read to him.
“No, we can’t blame everything on aliens, sweet.”
The last and smallest of the three, Toby, had one slipper-clad foot on the bottom rung of his ladder when he paused, tapping his chin thoughtfully. Oh, boy. Here we go, Victoria thought. “Cousin Vic,” he said after careful deliberation, “is it true that Christmas is a cynical marketing scam by the megacorporations hoping to profit from the traditional values of a repressed population?”
Heaven knew what Toby liked to have read to him. “I think maybe you should stick to the Christmas annuals,” Victoria advised. “Like the one where Lil’ Boy Runch ate so much chocolate he was sickie all in his stocking.”
There was so much wrong here—and honestly Toby’s ever-piqued curiosity at least gave Victoria hope for the next generation. She usually enjoyed wrong, when the universe wasn’t turning properly and she endeavoured to find out why. Not for nothing had England’s darling spent years cultivating a great supply of equipment and allies she could call upon whenever trouble reared its head. Right now however, her Moon fortress felt very distant indeed, and it felt churlish to call her Ladies-in-Waiting simply to help her put three tired children to bed.
It was only then that Victoria realised the Euphonia might have had an effect on her after all.
And it was quite possibly catching.
“Why’s that strange man waving at you through the window, ‘incess Vic?”
She really thought the anxiety would have passed already, and turned to Glupert to point out that hallucinations were simply the brain’s way of reminding us to lie down and stop doing so much thinking for a few hours—but stopped in her tracks when she saw exactly who was standing outside her window.
“Oh,” she said.
“Is that Santa Claus?” Millicibeth asked hopefully.
“Not really, no.” The man on the other side of the frosted glass was definitely not a portly, rosy-cheeked old man who had come to symbolise everything festive about the time of year. He was certainly carrying a sack, though it was too small, and he was far too young and his beard too short to pass as Santa. His hair was wild and his smile radiated a playful energy that Victoria previously believed to be an airborne infection.
All these facts aside, he was also entirely without clothing, save for the purple and green tinsel he’d crudely knotted around his indignants.
“I’m afraid he’s rather worse than Santa,” Victoria added.
Honest Tommy: Curse of the Infernal Euphonia is written by Tom Hutchings with Tom Menary, and illustrated by Raine Szramski, and will be available for purchase on Amazon soon.
Honest Tommy 