Chapter One
When the Doctor gets something stuck in his mind, it’s not easy to get it unstuck. He redefines focus. It was Tegan, not the Doctor, who noticed that something was wrong.
“That guy really likes you,” she noted, after we left the cobbler’s shop in downtown Salfra.
We’d materialized in Salfrararara, the second largest nation on the planet Shellaran, and, according to the Doctor, the home of one of his favorite urban settings in the universe. The architecture, he said, is inspirational. It has its own perception filter, or transmitter – he wasn’t sure which was the better word for it – and becomes whatever we need it to be at any given moment. Of course I was interested in this so we walked through the streets of Salfra watching structures change style before our eyes.
It was so dizzying that I eventually had to take the Doctor’s hand, which startled him. He stopped to look at me, and I guess that’s how he happened to see that a small woman was chasing a large man and the man was running right at me. The Doctor pulled me out of harm’s way and backed up into Tegan, who was slammed against a door, and yelled. Chagrined, the Doctor let go of me and reached for Tegan. “Are you allow!”
“What?” Tegan was holding her upper arm, but now she reached out for the Doctor, whose face was scrunched up in pain. For a moment he couldn’t speak, but he held up his palms at both of us and waved them a little, which meant he was fine. He was obviously not fine for a few moments, after which he sat down on the pavement and removed his right shoe.
“Oh, look at that!” he said, quite annoyed. “Two eyelets are broken. These are my favorite trainers, too!” He removed the bright red sock and gazed sorrowfully at the bruise atop his foot. “I banged it pretty well, I guess.”
“Let me see, Doctor.” I squatted down in front of him and took his bare foot in my hand, which made him laugh.
“Ticklish,” he explained, trying not to giggle.
“You have a little scrape there. It stings, doesn’t it?”
“Not so badly. I was just surprised, that’s all.”
“Doctor,” objected Tegan, “you looked more than surprised!”
“It’s nothing,” said the Doctor, gently pushing my hand off of his foot and putting his sock back on. “But my shoe will need a little attention.”
We walked along on the commercial lane, much as we had been except that the Doctor now limped on one shoe and one shoeless sock, now looking more at signs than at style. We passed a bakery, a soothsayer, a pet clinic, a spa, a vomitorium, a restaurant and, finally, we found a cobbler.
As soon as we walked in, I spotted the loveliest pair of boots, tall and glittery. I picked them up and admired the sheer artistry that had gone into their creation. Tegan nudged me. I gave her an inquiring glance and she tilted her head slightly, directing me to where the cobbler was examining the Doctor’s shoe. Well, he wasn’t just examining the shoe. He kept looking up and examining me.
“I am half-unshod,” the Doctor told the cobbler, swinging his red-stockinged foot up onto the counter. “Will it take long to fix the shoe? Can we wait while you do it? Can you make it match the other one?” He swung that leg down and swung the other up. “This is the other one. Obviously. How much will it cost? What’s the current currency here anyway? Sorry, we’re strangers here. We have many questions!”
“I have one,” I said, approaching the counter. “Why are you staring at me?”
“I’m not,” protested the cobbler, looking down at the trainer in his hands.
“You’re not now but you were. I would like to know why.”
At this the Doctor looked up at me, as if he were surprised not only that I was speaking but that I was there at all. “What’s wrong, Nyssa?”
“Nothing.” I backed off.
Tegan wouldn’t let it go. “Hehasbeen staring at her! Come on, Nyssa. Doctor, we’ll be waiting outside.” She half-dragged me out of the shop, back onto the pavement.
“It’s not that important,” I sighed, looking around at the lovely shapeshifting buildings. “I wouldn’t want to live in one of these, you know. How would I ever know if I was in my own home or in someone else’s?”
The Doctor had to wait 25 minutes for his shoe to be repaired. Tegan and I didn’t wander far; we didn’t want him to worry about us. From the cafe patio where we settled for a cup ofagze, which resembledhorchata(we had been to Mexico quite recently andhorchatawas my most delightful discovery there), and a bite ofagnara(which defies description), we could still see the cobbler’s shop, with a gigantic shoe in the window and little plaster-of-paris people (an old woman and at least a dozen children, set all over it, as if the shoe were their home and the children were climbing all over it. “Do people live in shoes here too, I wonder?”
“Old Mother Hubbard,” said Tegan. ’That’s odd. That’s an Earth story. No, not Mother Hubbard. The old woman who lived in a shoe. Old Mother Hubbard was someone different. She had… a bare cupboard. No bone for the dog.”
I was confused by this but had long since learned not to ask about things that confused me unless they seemed important. Otherwise, I would be overwhelmed by even more things that only someone steeped in a certain culture could understand, and might even find myself unable to concentrate on my scientific studies. Therefore I nodded and looked across the street to see if the Doctor had come out of the cobbler’s yet. My intuition was good; he was just coming out. As Tegan followed my gaze, the Doctor looked left and right and left again, didn’t see us, lifted his arms and let them flap by his side, straightened his coat and began to lope down the street, back the way we’d come. He must have thought we’d gone back to the TARDIS without him. “Doctor!” I called after him, and Tegan joined me in the call. We slapped some money onto the table and ran after the Doctor, calling him until he reached the corner and turned around, saw us and waited for us to catch up.
“He fixed your shoe,” said Tegan, a bit out of breath.
“It’s not an exact match,” rued the Doctor, “but it’s very close. If no one stares at my shoes it will pass.”
“Why,” I asked, “would anyone stare at your shoes?”
“Good question, Nyssa, which reminds me, why would the cobbler be staring at you? You’ve never been on this planet before, right?” I nodded. “And I doubt he’s been offworld himself. He is but a humble cobbler.” I had to smile at that. “Oh,oh!”
“What is it, Doctor? Does your foot hurt?”
“No, well, yes, but no, I just had a thought. I should have asked him to do both shoes! Then they’d match perfectly!”
“Oh no, we’re not going back there are we?”
“No,” said the Doctor, slowly, “I… I can live with them as they are.” We began to walk back to the TARDIS even though we had planned to be out and about for longer than we had been. “I guess.” When we were at the TARDIS door (our having landed in an alley, next to a dumpster), he added, “Probably.”
“Doctor, are you pouting?” Tegan was amused.
“Not at all!” The Doctor affected shock, then smiled brilliantly.
“What’s pouting?” I asked Tegan. She pulled a long, sad face, the same face the Doctor had made before Tegan teased him. “Ah, I see!”
“Well, are we going in?”
“Yes, of course. No, I….”
The Doctor rushed back down the street and we looked at each other, shrugged and set off after him.
