Tilebury

They say that heroes come in all shapes and sizes but, happily, that is not true. No hero was ever three miles wide and pie-shaped. Nor am I aware of any heroic triacontakaihexagons (thirty six sides - to save you looking it up).

However, amongst the shapes and sizes of heroes which have been used up, the shape and size of Oble was unusually like a peanut pod. Obviously, a peanut pod with a head and legs and arms and things, and not nearly so wrinkly, but a peanut pod nonetheless.

Now, it is a sad failing of biology teachers (one of thousands) that not everybody knows what a peanut pod looks like. In case you are in that unfortunate class - the unfortunate class taken by the biology teacher, I mean - then the best I can do for you is to explain that if you want to know what a peanut pod looks like - it looks like Oble, except without her head and legs and arms and things.

Well, Oble was a fisherwoman. That wasn't her job - her job was being a nuclear engineer - it was just what she did. She liked fishing and she did it so much that she was a fisherwoman.

She didn't own a boat and she didn't stand in the middle of Scottish rivers wearing waders. She didn't have a big net, a bucket of maggots or a set of hand-grenades to lob in rock-pools. If she had gone swimming with a harpoon she would almost certainly have ended up stabbing herself with the pointy end (which is called the poon. Or possibly the har.)

She was the sort of fisherwoman who has a big picnic basket and a small tent and a medium sized garden chair to sit on while she sipped tea from a chipped enamel mug.

When she went fishing - which was a lot - she would pack a radio and a bobble hat and a thick paperback full of stories about Snufflebums and sometimes a fishing rod. Some of the other fisherwomen said she didn't take the whole thing seriously and were rather sneery behind her back. But no-one took any notice of them because Oble was by far the most successful fisherwoman anyone had ever met.

Assuming she'd remembered to bring her rod with her, she would prop it up on its special stand, attach her hook and dangle the fishing line in the water. Within a minute she would have caught something. This would be true wherever and whenever she fished. She could drop her line into a raging river or a placid puddle or the outflow pipe of the nuclear power plant and she would always catch something. Had she gone fishing in a petrol tank she'd have come away with a school of oily fish.

Her secret was simple. One night, while waiting for the nuclear reactor to go critical so she would have something to do, she had set about designing a fish-hook. She put herself in the position of a fish and tried to imagine what kind of hook she, as a fish, would want to bite. Then she took a paper clip and made it into a hook like that.

Which, when you think about it, is the obvious way to design a fish hook. And, unsurprisingly, it worked. The hook she designed was so fascinating that fish would come from miles around just to marvel at it and then they would try to eat it. Which, of course, is not a clever thing to do if you are a fish. So she would catch twenty or thirty fish an hour and drop them off with a fishmonger she knew on the way home. She made a nice bit of spending money this way and the fishmonger didn't have to get up early to go to Billingsgate Market.

Nonetheless, mere fishy-successfulness, is not enough to make Oble a hero.

The hero bit happened while she was on a fishing trip during her annual holiday from the nuclear power plant. As it was summer, people weren't using very much power so her bosses thought they could take the risk that the uranium wouldn't explode while she was gone. She had given her boss a mobile number just in case, but really, if there had been a possible uranium-exploding issue, and someone had called her about it, Oble's response would have been to head in the opposite direction as fast as possible.

Anyway she took her rod and equipment, including her tent and chair and gas stove and so on, and went to stay in a guesthouse in Tilebury from where she could make fishing expeditions into the nearby river-laden countryside. Each day she moved her compass sixty degrees further around and headed out in a straight line until she came to a river or lake. Then she would fish and read about purple dragons until it was time for dinner.

On the second day (120 degrees from North which, as you know, is sort of east-south-east) she found herself yomping over a high hillside where the grass slanted westerly, dragging behind her a trolley laden with picnic paraphernalia. It was the middle of the morning and both she and the weather had become warm. It was consequently with some pleasure that she passed through a field full of ostriches and came upon a pleasant dingle.

A dingle is a shady dell. And, as everyone who has ever read a fairytale will know, in every dell there are two things: a placid pond with trickling stream and a nymph. In this dingle there was also an ancient well, into which visitors were tempted to throw pennies for some reason known only to themselves. Oble was not much interested in the well or the nymph. She was only really interested in the pond and, incidentally, in the shade. She wasted no time in setting up her headquarters and knocking up a simple snack of sausages, soda bread, muffins, crumpets, Welsh rarebit, French rabbit, biltong, paan with peanut-butter, almonds and lime cordial.

Then she attached the special hook and dangled her line in the dingle's pond. It sank for a few seconds and then the line went stiff. Oble started to reel in her first fish. Unfortunately no fish appeared. Neither did the hook. The line remained stiff but nothing moved. The hook had become stuck, which was something which had never happened before. She jiggled it about but nothing happened. This was clearly a snag.

Oble's frugal lunch turned to ashes in her mouth, which is a metaphor meaning she felt as sick as a dog, which is a simile meaning she was unhappy. She was not prepared to snip the line and abandon her special hook. It had taken her almost an hour to make it and she'd broken three paperclips in the process. And as we have established, Oble was a hero so she wasn't the sort to hang about. She propped the rod on its special stand, removed her army-surplus boots and Arran sweater and jumped straight into the pond to see what she could see.

And what she saw was that the pond was much deeper than you thought it was when I mentioned it a few paragraphs ago. In fact, the pond was huge. The bit at the top in which Oble had been fishing was like a little hole cut in the top of a mammoth cavern filled with water. Under the surface the pond went down at least twenty-seven leagues and the side walls were so far away Oble couldn't see them. The fact that it was quite dark didn't help.

The second thing Oble saw, with her head under the water and her hair floating around and getting in the way, was that her fishing line and its special hook had got caught on something right at the bottom of the cave. That thing looked like a very heavy box and the hook was wrapped around what seemed to be a handle on the box's lid.

Oble surfaced and thought for a few seconds while treading water. She reached out a long arm and picked up the flask she always carried with her to keep her lime cordial warm. She emptied it on top of a small ant-hill and rescrewed the lid.

With a rather splashy duck-dive, Oble began swimming straight as an arrow towards the box and her snagged hook. A handful of tasty looking trout swam past her nose but, so intent was Oble on retrieving her property, that she only paused long enough to stuff one of the larger ones into the pocket of her, now rather wet, ankle-length skirt.

Twenty three and a half leagues under the surface Oble was running out of air. This was when she paused to unscrew the flask and breathe in the air trapped inside. Thus refreshed, she pressed on for the remaining six leagues. (You may have noticed that the pond was actually deeper than originally stated - this is because water always looks shallower from above).

On close inspection, the box turned out to be a treasure chest. It was half-buried in the muck at the bottom of the pond and was quite slimy. Oble quickly freed her fish-hook and opened the chest.

The treasure inside was in the form of thousands of coins and a small gathering of crayfish. The crayfish looked insulted and most of them evaded being opportunistically stuffed into Oble's flask.

Oble's air was now running out and she didn't have long to ponder. She realised that she could not carry the whole of the chest to the surface as it would weigh too much and she would probably drown. Pure, moral thoughts of the perils of greed crossed her mind and she resolved to write a slightly annoying story on the subject when she had time.

So she took a single coin and started her ascent.

Which is when she noticed the nymph. You'd forgotten about the nymph hadn't you? Well the nymph was actually a mermaid. A special sort of mermaid - known as a Merlynne - who is magical and consequently qualified to apply for the job of Dingle's Nymph which, as you can imagine, is quite a well-paid post with comparatively few responsibilities.

The Merlynne was hovering at about eighteen leagues under the surface waving its spike of office at Oble. Oble got the hint - the Merlynne did not want Oble to take the coin. This was unfortunate, as Oble had rather set her heart on making a hole in the coin and hanging it around her neck so she would have a story to tell at parties.

It seemed pretty obvious to Oble that there would shortly be a battle of wills and possibly some form of underwater struggle in which she, as our story's hero, would have to overcome the Merlynne by wit, guile or strength and rise triumphant to the surface just as her remaining breath gave out.

Likewise, I assume it seems equally obvious to you.

Oble made a dart to the left, but the Merlynne moved faster and cut her off. Oble tried the same to the right but that also did not work. The Merlynne had a huge fish-tail and was a lot more manoeuvrable underwater than Oble could ever be. Oble would have to come up with something cleverer if she was going to escape.

Oble pretended to run out of air and started trying to float to the surface while looking dead. The Merlynne was not fooled and prodded at Oble with her Merlynne spike until Oble gave up.

It was at this point that the Merlynne made a noise like a siren and cast her first spell. Unfortunately, it was a spell to cause a ship to wreck upon concealed rocks and consequently had little relevance in the current circumstances. Merlynnes only have a limited number of spells.

Oble changed plan. She put herself in the position of a Merlynne and tried to think what she, as a Merlynne, would find irresistible. Tartar sauce, flipper-shoes and a waterproof notebook she rejected as impractical.

It seemed to Oble that people mostly want whatever they haven't got and don't want whatever they have lots off. Merlynnes, of course, have lots of water, pond-slime, frogspawn and pebbles. So there was no point offering any of those.

Oble's musings were interrupted by the Merlynne singing a few soulful notes and casting her second spell. This one was a spell to make any man fall in love with a mermaid which, although occasionally useful, didn't take things much further because Oble was not a man. A passing stickleback did, however, get suddenly interested.

Meanwhile, Oble had gotten busy with the fishing line which was still dangling in the pond. She retrieved the hook at the end and with a rather bubbly sigh bent it into a new shape. Then she attached it to her lime cordial/crayfish flask and with a mighty swing she threw the flask at the Merlynne.

The Merlynne was not very impressed by this ploy. With a swing of her hips she rotated gracefully in the water, past a stickleback which had started hanging around, and with an effortless flick of her tail she sent the flask on its way with a speed far greater than Oble could possibly have managed. If tore through the water like a tiny torpedo (with a hook on the side) and flew out of the pond like a flying fish which had been turned into a flask.

Bursting into the air, it performed a pleasing arc some dozen metres above the pond's surface and then plunged like a rocket into Oble's picnic hamper where the hook fell off. No-one was present to see this phenomenon which is a pity as it would have surprised anyone who had been. A few crayfish were present but they couldn't see anything from inside the flask.

Oble was beginning to feel a tightness in her lungs and her eyes were getting quite bulgy. It was unfortunate that Oble was not designed to hang around underwater while the Merlynne clearly had no problem with the idea.

The Merlynne, followed by a stickleback, did a few laps of the pond to show just how unconcerned she was. Oble did a bit of slow breast-stroke and didn't get very far.

And then, the Merlynne, who was getting a little peeved by the stickleback which was now trying to hold onto her hair, pointed her Merlynne spike, make a cracking sound and cast her third spell. This was a spell to summon a seamonster and had the potential to be altogether more interesting than the previous two spells. There was a rustle among the rocks at the bottom of the pond.

Oble laid her hand on the fishing line which was still dangling in the pond and had, until recently, been attached to her lime cordial flask. She decided that enough time had probably passed so she tugged hard. Something shifted out in the Dingle. Oble pulled again and there was a splash.

A dark shadow moved in the water and a wave of currents ruffled the Merlynne's hair causing the stickleback to lose its grip. Behind the Merlynne, something powerful, large and fishy was coming.

Oble pulled again on the fishing line and whatever had fallen in started sinking towards her. She hoped she'd got it right, otherwise there wasn't going to be much air left to think of another plan. The line and hook continued to sink towards her. The Merlynne was distracted looking into dark corners and caves at the bottom of the pond where something ferocious was stirring.

Attached to the far end of the fishing line was a small blue Tupperware pot. Oble giggled smugly as it fell into her hand. She was glad she had correctly guessed the shape of hook a Tupperware pot would find irresistible.

An aquatic beast swung over the Merlynne's shoulder opening its jaws and beating its tail to propel itself forward at hunting speed like the top predator that it was. In this pond there was nothing to match its deadly carnivorous supremacy or its ability to kill and devour. Its mouth was wide, its speed incomparable, the stickleback didn't stand a chance as the pike swallowed it whole and darted on towards the pond's surface.

The Merlynne looked slightly disappointed. Oble wasn't. She was busy opening the Tupperware pot and watching the water around her turning brown.

At first the Merlynne looked confused and held back from the rapidly expanding brown cloud. Then she tasted something in the water and instantly changed her mind. She smiled. She squeaked with joy and she dived into the centre of the cloud drinking in as much as she could.

It took the Merlynne several minutes to drink up all the coffee which the instant powder in the Tupperware pot had created. She had not had coffee for years. Not since the time she had managed to make a passing hillwalker with a thermos fall in love with her. She loved coffee, and was frustrated by the fact that, as a Mermaid, it was very hard to get to the shops to buy any. She was very excited and spent the next half an hour swimming rapidly around the pond and fiddling with everything she found. For some reason she felt quite energetic.

Of course Oble didn't wait to watch all this. Once the Merlynne was distracted, Oble swam on to the surface, pausing only to grab the tail of a pike which happened to be passing and stuffing it under her rather waterlogged cardigan.

Oble rose triumphant to the surface just as her remaining breath gave out. She sucked in the fresh air, clambered out on onto the bank, rebent her fishhook into its original form, added a trout, some crayfish and a pike to her stock for the fishmonger and collapsed onto her medium sized garden chair.

The coin in her hand was so tarnished and slimy with pondweed that there was no way to know if it was a gold dollar, a moidore, a thrysma or a piece of eight. Consequently it was with some excitement that Oble started cleaning it with the surgical spirit she'd packed, just in case. A few wipes and some patterns embossed on the glowing orange coin began to show through.

A few more wipes and it turned out to be a penny dated 1976, which coincidentally was the year in which Oble had been born. It appeared that the treasure chest had been filled with coins people had thrown down the Dingle's well.

On reflection, Oble had to admit that this made sense. How else was the Dingle Nymph going to get paid?