THIS LITTLE PIGGY

“That little piggy is going to turn purple.” Tegan had the Doctor’s left foot in her hand and was probing his pinky toe, which he had just banged against the console. “You shouldn’t kick your girlfriend.”

“She’s not my… well, she kind of… you’re right, I should be careful where I kick.”

“Too right!”

“But,” complained the Doctor, “she’s being so uncooperative.”

“You don’t know how to steer her, and that’s a fact!”

“In the Academy, I was rubbish in navigation,” he admitted. “But still.”

Tegan handed the Doctor his red sock and gently dropped his foot. “Either put your shoe back on or take the other one off. Your choice.”

“No time,” said the Doctor, putting on first the sock, then the abandoned trainer, and standing in one graceful motion. “We have to figure out why we landed here.”

“Because you can’t steer is why!”

“What was the piggy thing about?”

“Don’t change the subject!” It was maddening, thought Tegan, the way he did that. Why couldn’t he just take a bit of ribbing?

“No, I really want to know. I never heard that rhyme before. Is it famous?”

“Every baby knows it. Every young parent knows it.”

The Doctor frowned. “I don’t know it.”

Tegan laughed. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Tell it to me!”

“Okay, take your shoe and sock back off.” The Doctor sat back down on the floor and removed his right trainer and sock. “Oh, the other one hurts now. I’m sorry.” Tegan sat, too.

“It’s nothing. Here,” said the Doctor, thrusting his foot into Tegan’s lap. She took charge of the foot and began with the big toe:

“This little piggy went to market.” She separated the second toe from the big toe. “This little piggy stayed home.”

“It’s a counting rhyme!”

“Yes.” Upon the third toe: “This little piggy had roast beef.” She barely touched the fourth toe. “This little piggy had none.”

“It’s very silly!”

“Quite silly, Doctor.” Tegan grasped his pinky toe and shook it. “And this little piggy went ‘wee wee wee wee!’ all the way home!”

Turlough came yawning through the interior door just in time to catch that last bit. “What are you two doing? Are we there yet?”

“We are somewhere,” explained the Doctor, putting on his sock and trainer, “but we’re not where we expected to be.”

“Oh, that’s different,” sniffed Turlough. “Where did we expect to be and how far off are we?”

The Doctor pointed to the open scanner. “We expected to be on Blaine, to explore the Ivory Castle. If the TARDIS knows what that is, she’s keeping it to herself, but I promise you that isn’t Blaine.”

“Okay,” said Turlough, “I’ll bite. How do you know this isn’t a part of Blaine you haven’t seen? A hidden part of Blaine?”

“Because,” pronounced the Doctor, perhaps just a bit too triumphantly, “Blaine is a planet without color. It is monochromatic. If we were to visit Blaine, as I intended us to do…” (and here he looked decidedly less triumphant) “… we, too, would become, for the duration, monochromatic. It’s really interesting. Everyone should experience it once.”

“And this is not that once,” chortled Tegan. “So where are we, then?”

“Somewhere… quite a bit more colorful,” the Doctor admitted. “Somewhere the TARDIS is unable or unwilling to identify. I wonder if I should be checking her Waypoint Controls?”

“We could just go out and look around,” Turlough pointed out.

The Doctor flashed his brilliant smile, pulled the lever and stepped out into sunlight so bright it gave the Doctor’s smile a good run for its money. Turlough and Tegan looked at one another. “You know what this means?” groaned Tegan. Turlough shook his head. “It means the Doctor has not been checking the Waypoint Controls. Whoa!” Tegan squinted as she stepped out after Turlough, but everything around her was luminously chromatic; this was a high-contrast, full-color world. She turned to go back into the TARDIS and found Turlough ahead of her. “Don’t you take the red ones! I really like the red ones!”

When the two of them returned to the garish outside world, Tegan protected by dark pink lenses set in big red plastic horn-rims she had snatched from Turlough’s very brow, the latter now in polarized green lenses surrounded by stainless steel octagonal frames, they met the Doctor, who had turned back (not immediately) when he realized they hadn’t followed him. He was wearing Cool-Rays. “In my pocket,” he explained.

“Do you know where we are yet?” asked Turlough.

“Not exactly,” admitted the Doctor. “Let’s go find out.”

Now that the three of them were able to see despite the glare of their surroundings, they proceeded down a bright yellow path (“Follow the yellow brick road!” sang Tegan) toward a not-too-distant skyline.

“Is that city on fire?” Turlough lifted his shades, winced and immediately lowered them. “I can’t tell.”

“I don’t think so,” said the Doctor. “I think that’s just what color it’s supposed to be.”

“What about us?” asked Tegan, suddenly.

“What about us?”

“Well, Doctor, you said on Bland…”

“Blaine.”

“… Blaine, everything is black and white…”

“… and gray…”

“… and gray! Fine! Including us, if we visited! So are we all colorful here?”

“Can’t you tell?” Tegan looked down at herself, then over at Turlough, then back to the Doctor.

“Not with these shades on. And I’m not taking them off, either!”

“Then,” advised the Doctor, “don’t worry about it.”