The Huvark Experiment

Chapter 4

We drove for another hour, exchanging bad jokes like, "Why did the brick fall out of the house? Because someone pushed it." And, "A man fell into the cold sea. He said," Brrr, it's cod in here!".
We did that until we came across a village. It was 2:15, so we went into the inn to cook our pie. We were hungry.

Steve asked the barman, a tall middle-aged cleanshaven man with square glasses, "Parlez-vous anglais?" because he was more likely to speak French than English.
"No, I speak Latin," he said in a Liverpool accent.
"potest vestra microwavum utimur?"

[Can we use your microwave please?]

"Go ahead. I'll take you in, otherwise you won't be allowed. Wait, what are your names?"
"I'm Henry, he's Steve."
"Derek."

Steve and I followed him into the kitchen.

"Blublubluh Arabic. Blubluh Steve, Blubluh Henry. Blubluh microwave."

"Blubluh OK."

Derek cooked our pie, gave us some free broccoli and sat down with us.
"So, what are you doing in Chad on your own?
I explained about Mrs Latin, George and Steve.

"Do you know, I did see a convoy of Citroën 2CVs with trailers pass through the village a couple of hours earlier, they had 100 aardvarks altogether? They had 'Huvark Laboratories Ltd' on the trailers. That would probably tell me that Huvark isn't a type of cheese..."

Steve said,"What, you thought it was cheese?!"
"About that...maybe... I like cheese, OK?"

Derek disappeared and came back 5 minutes later with (As Derek would say) a croissant of doom (a croissant with 'doom' written on it in icing. Derek's special recipe!).

At this point, I realised that we probably should sleep here, since it was 3 already. Steve must have had the same thought, because he asked Derek if they had any rooms left.

"Yes, we do. There definitely isn't any Stilton in the beds because I put it there as an April fool's joke and forgot to take it out, either.
I paused to think this through (Derek seems like the sort of person who would put Stilton in a bed) before taking a risk and saying,"How much for one night?"
"Since it's for a good cause, I'll give you a discount... 45 Chad dollars for the 2 of you?"
Steve got the wallet out and took 45 dollars out.
"Thanks Steve. I'll show you to your room."
We followed Derek to the room on the first floor.
"Here's the key," he said, "bathroom's over there. The safe is behind the picture of me and the left bed is most comfy."
He left us.

Derek was true to his word; there was no cheese in the bed. After we'd checked the beds for cheese, Steve bagged the comfy bed by flopping and starfish-ing on it. I noticed that the posh painting of Derek had a French-style moustache on drawn on in felt-tip and signed 'Derek I of Derekdom'.

Fifteen minutes after we got to our room, Steve went to have a shower, but there appeared to be cheese in it, as I could tell by the squealing and shouts of "Stilton!" from the shower and evil cackles from outside the room.

Had Derek really been waiting there for fifteen minutes?

Apparently so.

After finding Boursin in the sink, we went to bed.
I explained the master plan to Steve.
"We get up at five thirty, leave at six and drive. Hopefully we'll arrive at the Huvark camp at seven thirty or eight, when they're sleeping or eating breakfast. We go around the camp, opening all the trailers. We can find Mrs Latin and go home."
"Are you sure that'll work?"
"No, Steve, it'll probably fail miserably."
"Meh. I'm going to sleep now.

* * *

We went downstairs at five thirty. As I'd arranged, Derek was waiting. We ate croissants of doom for breakfast.
I was going towards the door when a thought hit me.
"Derek?"
"Mm?"
"Do you want to come with us? It would significantly improve our chances of success."
"I would, Henry. I really would, but the holiday season has just begun, and I'm running low on money. I'm needed here. Sorry."

We thanked Derek for the food and stuff and left.

7:45. A group of cars appeared on the horizon.