Doctor Who: Twelve Doctors of Christmas by Jacqueline Rayner & Colin Brake & Richard Dungworth & Mike Tucker & Scott Handcock & Gary Russell

Author:Jacqueline Rayner & Colin Brake & Richard Dungworth & Mike Tucker & Scott Handcock & Gary Russell [Rayner, Jacqueline & Brake, Colin & Dungworth, Richard & Tucker, Mike & Handcock, Scott & Russell, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781405928953
Amazon: 1405928956
Publisher: PENGUIN GROUP
Published: 2016-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

THE GROTTO

* * *

Written by Mike Tucker

Illustrated by Charlie Sutcliffe

Ace took a deep breath and gazed from where she stood on the roof of Macy’s department store out across the snowy streets of New York. To her immense satisfaction, the city looked exactly as she had hoped it would – a forest of towering skyscrapers and skinny tenement buildings, lights blazing from every window, wide avenues stretching out in a neatly ordered grid, echoing with the sound of police sirens. A few blocks away, the lights from Times Square flashed and oscillated in a seemingly never-ending sequence, and the illuminated spire of the Empire State Building lit up the low clouds that hung around it like a shroud.

The entire city was blanketed in a thick carpet of snow, and great mounds of slush and ice were piled on the pavements. Or, rather, the sidewalks, Ace mentally corrected herself.

She was impressed. If this much snow had fallen on London, the entire place would have ground to a halt. Although, come to think of it, if only a few millimetres of snow fell on London, it would still likely grind to a halt.

She watched a couple emerge from a bar on the street below, then hurry off into the freezing night, coats and scarves pulled tight. Huge clouds of white steam billowed from vents in the glistening streets. Ace grinned. It was just like she’d seen in the movies. Cautiously she peered a little further out over the edge of the roof, craning her neck to see if there actually were any cops eating doughnuts on the street corners.

‘Ace!’ The Doctor’s voice rang out from the other side of the roof. ‘Be careful.’

‘I’m only looking, Professor.’

Ace hopped down from the parapet, and glanced across to where the Doctor was hunched over a large grey metal shape, prodding and poking at it with the tip of his umbrella. A gust of icy wind swirled across the roof. Pulling her bomber jacket tight round her, Ace trudged towards him, taking a childish satisfaction in the crunching, squeaking sound that her footfalls made in the snow.

She looked over the Doctor’s shoulder at the thing he was studying.

‘It’s an escape pod, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ The Doctor didn’t look up.

‘Well, that’s good then, isn’t it? I mean, good that something escaped?’

‘Possibly …’

Ace rolled her eyes. The Doctor was obviously in one of those moods where he was going to be mysterious.

They had been in orbit round Earth when they had first detected the spacecraft. The Doctor had set his hearts on showing Ace the aurora borealis from space, so had materialised the TARDIS in hover mode over the northern hemisphere, promising Ace the best Christmas-light display of her life. Then, he had opened up the scanner screen, and tuned the TARDIS receivers into an American radio station that was playing nothing but Christmas music. He and Ace spent a few happy minutes bopping around the console room and watching the incredible display of shifting, shimmering lights wrapping round the planet below.