#6 With Treadwell and guns and guns and Treadwell, hurroo, hurroo 27/06/11

I was standing outside a police station with the shark, Kieran, a set of 9 stainless steel kitchen knives presented in an oak briefcase and myself locked up, somewhere inside the building. I wanted to say something epic to rally the troops but I couldn't think of anything and missed the moment. Welcome to The Treadwell Mysteries.

The breakout idea was simple. I would go in through the front door causing mass confusion and panic. In the midst of all that Kieran would transport the shark to the cells where he would bite the guards head off, take the keys and unlock my cell. Meanwhile, I would put the 5 lessons of karate I had when I was 10 into good use and beat up anything between 15 and 45 police officers. I would then drag them to the cells two at a time and once they were all locked up I would toss their chief of police a 50 pence piece and say 'don't waste your one call on the police, chief of police'. It was no surprise at all that the plan worked perfectly. The only problem I had was that the cells had steel doors rather than bars so when I flicked the coin, it just bounced back and hit me in the knee. It hurt a little bit, but I didn't say anything. Welcome to The Treadwell Mysteries.

I decided it was best that the four of us walk slowly out of the police station. It was busy and I didn't want to draw any unnecessary attention to ourselves. We left through the front door and cautiously started to make our way towards the curb so we could cross the road. I knew straight away that something wasn't right. A little girl, bouncing through the rotations of a skipping rope headed towards us full of life. Nothing about her seemed right. She was crammed into a summer dress and her pig tails looked almost like straw poking out of an ill-fitting red beret. Her skin was see through yet moist. My eyes were particularly drawn towards the gun she held in her right hand. How was she holding a gun and skipping at the same time? Why did she have so many arms? Why didn't any of her arms have fingers? From around 10 feet away, she lifted the gun and fired a single shot, right between my eyes. Welcome to The Treadwell Mysteries.

It all happened so fast. I remember the look in her eyes and the blast from the gun. I froze as it went off, realising I was about to die, here, on the side of a road, wearing no trousers. The shark had obviously recognised the girl's intentions earlier than I did. He ran towards me and screamed my name. He got it wrong but it seemed like an awkward time to correct him. My eyes were still fixed straight ahead. He managed to tackle me to the floor, doing his best to cover me completely with his own body. The bullet went straight into his back and lodged somewhere inside him rendering him unconscious. My immediate thought was 'I definitely won't mention my knee injury now'. Welcome to The Treadwell Mysteries.

'Why?' I said, crying for the second time that day and the ninth time that week. I had the shark in my arms, his blood gushing on to my naked, white legs and his eyes becoming more and more distant. 'Why would she do that?' I screamed. Kieran pointed out that it probably wasn't a little girl at all and was in fact an elaborate disguise by that Darren fellow that had made an attempt on my life earlier. What he was saying was utterly obvious and I was a little embarrassed. Welcome to The Treadwell Mysteries.

'We have to get him home, you have to transport us'. It seemed like our chances of leaving inconspicuously had evaporated. People seemed to notice that a giant jelly fish dressed as a little girl had just shot a shark in the middle of a busy high street. We also weren't helped by the wanted posters on the wall of the police station behind me that had a large, if rather blurred, picture of myself underneath the caption: 'Wanted: The No Trouser Tickler'. I resented the subjectiveness of the word 'tickle'. Apparently there was a fine line between a handshake and a tickle and at some point, I'd crossed it. Welcome to The Treadwell Mysteries.

Amongst the furore of the public and the odd lame attempt from people to catch up with Darren we slipped away. There was genuine anger from the crowd that despite all this commotion directly outside a police station there wasn't an officer in sight. I offered my opinion that they were all bastards and people's attention turned towards police incompetence rather than anything else. It was all up to me now. Would I be able to save the Shark's life? Would Darren try and kill me at my own flat? And had I left my keys in the van? Welcome to The Treadwell Mysteries.