One day, Mr Dalek decided that, as Adam had been such a good boy recently, he would take him on holiday as a special treat.

Adam was very excited and asked to go to Blackpool so that he could go on a roller coaster.

Adam liked roller coasters.

Mr Dalek did not like roller coasters at all and told Adam that they were going to Rome to find Julius Caesar and that was final.

Adam sulked for a little while and tried to trick Mr Dalek into believing that Julius Caesar was dead.

But Mr Dalek knew better and threatened to exterminate Adam if he did not start packing RIGHT THIS MINUTE!

So Adam packed his little suitcase, popped Mr Dalek into his pocket and set off for the airport.

Once at the airport, Adam found Mr Dalek a nice seat next to the window overlooking the runway, and Mr Dalek watched the aeroplanes taking off and landing.

Not one of them so much as skidded, let alone plummeted screaming from the sky in flames and Mr Dalek was very disappointed.

"Oh well," he thought, "There's still time."

Adam was talking to a group of people with odd accents.

"They're Americans," he said when Mr Dalek glided over.

"Shall I exterminate them?" said Mr Dalek.

"No," said Adam, rather firmly, "That would attract too much attention. Besides they have promised to vote for Kerry, so they can't be all bad."

Mr Dalek sulked, his little eyestalk going all droopy and not at all perky and alert as befits a rampant killing machine such as himself.

So Adam promised him that they would go to America next year and Mr Dalek could exterminate Ol' Dubya in person.

Mr Dalek felt a lot better and his eyestalk returned to its usual position - primed and on the look out for danger ...and things to exterminate.

He was staring out of the window, willing the air traffic controllers to make a mistake - the kind that would dominate the headlines for weeks to come - when an annoying sound echoed through the departure lounge.

"BING BONG!" it went.

Mr Dalek did not like the sound at all and his zapper went all tingly with the desire to exterminate something.

"BING BONG!" went the sound, and then a polite female voice went: "I am sorry to announce that flight EJ 2335 to Rome has been delayed by 40 minutes."

She didn't seem very sorry at all, and Adam's face went from excited to cross to sad, and he sighed a heavy sigh.

Mr Dalek did not like people who made Adam sad.

He trundled across the departure lounge to a little booth where the BING BONG! woman was sitting.

She looked like a Barbie doll and had a smile that was so fixed on it looked like she would have been unable to stop grinning even if some one had exterminated her.

So Mr Dalek exterminated her, just to be sure.

After the police had let them go, Mr Dalek was on the plane, perched on Adam's knee, looking out of the window as the ground rushed by ever so fast and the plane took off.

Mr Dalek had never been on a plane before and was very excited.

Adam had been on a plane lots of times and whinged about the uncomfortable seat, the horrible coffee and the boring in-flight magazine.

Mr Dalek pointed out that he could exterminate people at any altitude, so Adam shut up and read about the mating habits of the lesser-spotted mantis.

Then he was sick in a bag and a nice air hostess took it away.

Before long they were flying over Rome and Adam pointed out all the sights they were going to see.

Mr Dalek could not see Julius Caesar's Palace anywhere but was determined to seek him out, no matter how far he had to trundle.

When they had landed, Adam told him the Palace was a total ruin, but Mr Dalek thought he was being over-critical.

We can't all live in posh houses - some are always going to have that 'lived in' look.

Adam was being a snob, so Mr Dalek exterminated him - just a little bit - and trundled off to see Rome alone.

Mr Dalek explored the streets of Rome for a long lo-o-ong time.

Being only an inch and a half high it was very difficult to get any serious sight-seeing done while frantically avoiding being stepped on by tourists.

He had to exterminate quite a few of them before they moved out of the way.

Finally he came to a big, round, ruined building that Adam had pointed out to him as they were coming in to land.

As Coliseums went, Mr Dalek supposed it was OK.

It would have been a lot better if people had still been hacking off each other's limbs in the arena and feeding bits of each other to the lions and tigers and bears...oh my.

Standing outside the Coliseum, Mr Dalek was surprised to see a real live gladiator.

He was tall and well-muscled and wearing a very short skirt and hefting a shiny sword.

Human females kept running up to him for a hug and a fondle, before running away giggling, but the gladiator didn't seem to mind at all.

Mr Dalek decided that if anyone knew where to find Julius Caesar it would be a gladiator.

So he trundled up to him and tried a new thing that Adam had called "being polite".

"Excuse me," he said in his most polite, not at all threatening even though you are a worm and beneath contempt kind of voice, "Can you tell me where to find Julius Caesar...please."

The 'p' word still came unnaturally to him.

Rampant killing machines who are feared as the scourge of the galaxy, rarely say 'please' before wiping civilisations from existence, but Adam had insisted that a little good manners went a long, long way and, although Mr Dalek suspected he was lying through his tight white rear end, he decided to give it a go.

Instead of responding in an equally polite manner that would have spared him pain and mutilation, the gladiator laughed raucously and waved his sword at Mr Dalek, shouting: "Hey! English! DALEK!!" in a very annoying voice.

Then he held his sword against his forehead in a rather cruel imitation of Mr Dalek's proud and perky eyestalk and shouted: "Exterminate! Exterminate!"

So Mr Dalek exterminated him and trundled away while human females took turns in peeking up the thoroughly zapped gladiator's skirt.

Soon after, he came to another, much more rubbly ruin with hardly any pillars sticking up at all.

Voices approached and he saw a tour guide leading round a group of pink humans who were weighed down by far too many cameras.

With the skill and stealth of a trained assassin (made in Taiwan) Mr Dalek innocently joined the group and listened carefully for any vital information.

He really needed to find the Palace of Julius Caesar.

Only a warrior of Caesar's standing would be a worthy ally in his on-going quest to take over the world.

He had tried speaking to the Pinky and the Brain dolls back in Adam's bedroom but they were far too squeamish to actually kill anyone - prefering instead to drop anvils on them or poke them off cliffs with sticks marked 'Acme'.

No, the only person in the world that would do was the mighty Julius Caesar - if he could only find his Palace.

"...and this is the ruin of Caesar's Palace," said the tour guide.

It really was a good job that the humans all started snapping pictures at the same time because Mr Dalek said some terribly rude words.

He bounced around on his little castors, too furious to even exterminate anyone, letting forth a volley of awfully, awfully naughty words.

There wouldn't have been enough soap in the whole of Rome to wash out his mouth.

All of a sudden he saw one of the smaller humans standing in front of him.

Adam had stressed the importance of not exterminating small humans.

He had called them 'children' and had used diagrams to demonstrate to Mr Dalek exactly what he would do to him if he ever caught him exterminating one of them.

The diagrams had been extremely graphic and Mr Dalek had no desire to see his eyestalk inserted anywhere like that, thank you very much, so he allowed the small human to approach unscathed.

She had annoying big blue eyes and long brown hair and was sucking noisily on her thumb.

She picked up Mr Dalek by the plunger and peered at him.

"What's the matter?" she drooled round the moist thumb.

"I am looking for Julius Caesar," said Mr Dalek, frantically fighting down his natural instinct to maim, destroy and rend limb from limb.

The small human pulled her thumb from her mouth with a wet slurp and pointed across the ruin to a statue, "That's 'im."

Mr Dalek wiggled his eyestalk, "That is a statue. I wish to find the real Julius Caesar."

"Oh," said the small human with a shrug, "Dunno."

"Who would know?" growled Mr Dalek menacingly.

The small human frowned, "Daddy says the Pope knows a lot of stuff. You could ask the Pope, or Tony Blair - he knows a lot of stuff too. Or Tinky Winky. Cos he always knows where the Noo Noo is and how to make tubby toast just right with no black bits."

Mr Dalek whirred his castors until the small human put him down, "I will ask the Pope," he said, and trundled away across the ruin.

The Pope lived a long, long, long way away, all the way across the city.

Poor Mr Dalek was ever so tired when he finally found him.

By the time he arrived at the Vatican he was not in the best of moods. He had trundled a long way and his little castors positively ached.

He had been directed to the Sistine Chapel with the helpful direction to "look for the painted ceiling".

Seven thousand, six hundred and twenty-eight painted ceilings later he found who he was looking for.

The Pope was sitting on a chair in the Sistine Chapel playing eye spy.

"Excuse me," said Mr Dalek, trying to be polite.

"Shh..." said the Pope, "I'm guessing....hmm....something beginning with D...that's tricky..."

"Dalek," said Mr Dalek.

"Damn," said the Pope, "You ruined it."

Mr Dalek trundled forward, his tired little castors squeaking with the effort, "I have a question", he said, "And if you give me the wrong answer I will exterminate you."

"That's a bit rough," said the Pope, adjusting his sceptre and straightening his long white gown, "You can't just exterminate me. I am the Pope, you know."

"I don't care," said Mr Dalek, "I have been polite all day long and have got nothing in return except laughter, abuse and sore castors. You will tell me where Julius Caesar is and you will tell me now!!"

"He's dead," said the Pope.

Mr Dalek set his zapper to its super dooper, ever so high, makes you so sore you can't sit down for a week setting and let rip.

The Pope raised one eyebrow, not at all exterminated.

"Was that it?" he asked.

"Yes," said Mr Dalek, feeling rather embarrassed that his zapper had failed to rise to the occasion. He had heard stories about how it had happened to other Daleks, but not him...never him...he was in his prime...

"My turn," said the Pope, standing up and hefting his sceptre to shoulder height.

"Excommunicate!" he yelled and opened fire.

Mr Dalek tried to trundle away but his castors had finally given up the ghost. He tried desperately to blink at the bolt of holy light streaking towards him, but his eyestalk wasn't designed for blinking, no matter how primed or perky it was.

The bolt hit him full on and he vanished in a puff of sparkly light.

The Pope sat down again and placed the sceptre carefully at his side, "Right," he said, "Your turn."

"OK," said God, "I spy with my little eye something beginning with P."

"Paint."

"Bugger. Your turn."

*

Back in Adam's bedroom, Mr Dalek blipped back into existence with a faint POP!

Pleasantly surprised to be alive and trundling, he zoomed up and down the shelf, his castors back to their zippy best.

He wiggled his eyestalk back and forth and sucked things with his plunger.

He felt good!

Spying the mystery machine toy at the end of the shelf he zipped up and peeked through the window.

Shaggy, Fred, Daphne, Velma and Scooby dolls were all fast asleep inside.

So he exterminated them thoroughly and lived to fight another day.

After all, there is always someone bigger and tougher and more omnipotent out there that it would be silly to take on.

The End