Oscar and the Magi: Prologue
It was a cold and misty December night and Big Ben was chiming thirteen.
A man standing on Westminster Bridge was trying to set his watch to the right time and at the thirteenth strike he looked up angrily at the bell tower.
At this the hands of the clock face curled up like a pair of sinister moustaches and the two and the ten narrowed meanly, and the whole tower bent down to glare at the man on the bridge.
The man stood for a moment, paralysed with fear, as the tower loomed down over him, menacingly. Finally he dropped his head and saw that all the numbers on his watch had budged round and a new 13 had appeared at the top.
The man set his watch to thirteen o’clock and, head still bent, hurried away across the bridge.
The clock straightened up and then, just for laughs, struck half past thirteen.
And all across London, above the dark and glistening roofs, all the other clock towers and belfries replied, each one striking a completely different time.