Penny felt the familiar rotation as the Time Ring began to spin them out of reality on their way to somewhere new.  Their arrival back at Gallifrey didn’t surprise her too much but the sight of it run by thin orange skinned people dressed in gaudy clothes was a shock.  There were signs all over the place: NICE; HAPPY; JOY and LOVE.  She looked at the equally shocked Haana.  “Your planet’s been invaded by alien Hippy’s I think.”

“What the Other is going on?”  Haana demanded from the first Time Lord she found.

“It’s a great day.  A day of peace and love.”  Porbindwaltonfop smiled.  “How can I help you?”

“You can get a life.”  Penny commented acidicly.  “This place is starting to scare me.”

Haana was given a choice of brightly coloured sashes to wear.  Carefully she picked one out that suited her.  She slipped it on over her neck and let Penny admire it.

“Well it’s the truth at least.”  Penny smiled at the pink sash with the word GAY written on it in big blue letters.  “Lets so somewhere a little less colourful.”

Haana headed towards Romana’s office.  “Claire wouldn’t have like this much.  She was such a Goth, all black clothes and white face paint.”  Haana paused outside of the President’s office and knocked on the door before entering.

“Haana!”  Romana squeaked.  “How simply scrummy to see you.  Love the new sash.  Do you like the new decorations?  Some old friends popped by and now everything’s so much nicer.  It gets into my groove.” Standing up Romana showed off her odd fishnet stockings.  One was bright orange and the other bright green.

Penny felt like throwing up on the seemingly senile Romana.  “What happened?  Who are these old friends of yours?”

Romana grinned at Haana’s silly friend Penny.  “They help people to feel good about themselves.  Here, have some blue lemonade.  It’s blue and it’s lemonade!”

Penny took the offered glass and smelled it.  It had a strange chemical odour.  She pretended to drink some before putting the glass down.  Then Romana put a garland of flowers around her neck and shook her hand.  Could things get any stranger?  Penny asked herself.  Romana’s office was decorated in white and orange swirls and all the paintings of past Presidents had been replaced with smiley faces.

“When can we meet these nice, helpful people?”  Haana asked, sitting on the edge of Romana’s desk.  “I would love them to help me brighten my room up.”

“Of course you would.”  Romana agreed.  “I’ll have a chin wag with them and see when one of them is free from doing the good work.”

Penny lay on her bed looking up at the ceiling while Haana looked at a number of swatches.  “Who are these people?  What do we know about them?  Where do they come from?  I like that green.”

As if by magic one of the bald orange skinned people appeared in the middle of the room.  “Ah what would two such beautiful ladies like you like?  This room has such potential.  How about we get rid of this bland look and go for bright pinks and oranges?  Your hair would look so much better if you dyed it purple and yellow my dear.”  The Helper ran his fingers through Penny’s mop of red hair.  “I know just the most delightful dress for you.  The rich neon colours will simply suit you to a tee.”

“What about me?”  Haana asked excitedly.  “I need a wardrobe to go with my sash.”

“Of course you do my dear.”  The Helper smiled at Haana.  “How about a really clingy one piece outfit in greens and blues, with a nice big happy yellow belt?  We can dye your hair a nice green and give you pink highlight too.”

“Ooh.”  Haana squealed.  “I’d love that so much.  My room is next door.  I was thinking of having everything a bright vibrant pink with a touch of yellow here and there.”

The Helper started to cry.  “It’s so rare that I meet two people as eager to accept out ways as completely as you.  We really just want to you both so happy.”

Haana waved at the Helper as he went to inspect Haana’s room.  “Right, that’s him distracted.  Now how do we sort this mess out?”

“No idea?  Get all the guns we can find and shoot everyone?  I’m against massacres normally but this is a justifiable exception.”

“No, we can’t kill everyone.”  Haana said slowly.  “It’s tempting thought.  What we need is someone who knows what they’re doing.  Some one who can beat these clowns at their own game.”

“The Doctor?”  Penny asked.

“I don’t want to keep running back to her every time there’s a problem.  No, the person we need has his own little Dark Tower in the country.”  Haana started to shift some of Penny’s discarded clothes to one side to reveal a transmat pad.  “This is what we need.”

“I thought that was the laundry machine.”  Penny admitted.  “They came back a few days later washed and ironed.”

Haana programmed the controls for the Dark Tower.  Technically the information was not public knowledge but Haana had been there before and remembered them.  They stepped onto the pad and it activated.  A fraction of a microsecond later they were inside the Dark Tower.  However the gothic look had gone.  The whole place had been redecorated in yellow and blue.  They found Rassilon’s body had been redressed in a purple and gold suit.  His solemn face had a smile painted on it and his eyes had been given pink eyeliner and green mascara.  “He’s not going to like that.”  Haana muttered.

“So what happens now?”  Penny wondered out loud.

An image formed over Rassilon’s body, the face of the long dead ruler of ancient Gallifrey, solemn and demure.  “This is the game of Rassilon.”  The image of his face blurred and he resembled Krusty the Clown!  “And what great fun it is too!”  He added to the previous statement.  “Lady Haana and guest, how lovely to see you both.  I just adore that sash, it’s groovetastic baby.”

“They got to him too.”  Haana whispered to Penny.  “Now what the Other are we going to do now?”

Rassilon looked down at Haana and Penny “The first girl to answer this question gets one wish of her choice.  How many Time Ladies does it take to change a light bulb?”

Penny gasped.  “What the hell sort of question is that?”  She shouted.  “It’s stupid.”

Haana thought about it for a second.  “Six.  One to replace the broken bulb and the other five to say how pretty it makes the room look.”

Rassilon smiled at Haana.  “Lady Haana is today’s lucky winner!  She gets the television set, the car, the stereo, the food processor, a years subscription to Playboy and the holiday to sunny Acapulco!”

Haana jumped up and down screaming YES very excitedly.

“However our runner up gets this special consolation prize, a free set of egg cups!”  Rassilon’s image faded away.

“Egg cups, not bad.”  Haana congratulated Penny.  “Now lets get out of here.  You should try and play along though otherwise they’ll suspect something’s up.”

Romana grinned when her two favourite girls of the week came back into her office.  “There you are.  I’m so happy to see you again.”

“I was taking Penny to see old Rassilon.  We just love what you’ve done there.  We won some great prizes didn’t we Penny.”

“Egg cups.”  Penny muttered.

“Brilliant.”  Romana said.  “Are you both ready to get your hair done?”  She grinned when the nodded.  “I’m getting mine done too.  They finally decided what would suit me the most.  I’m having it braided and each braid will be a different colour.  Isn’t that just the best?”

Penny nodded, remembering to play along.  “Hey I’ve just had an idea.  We should have a big party to celebrate our friend’s arrival.  When did they arrive here?  We can have a huge cake and you can burst out of it and sing Happy Birthday to them.”

“Yes.”  Romana smiled.  “They’ve only been here four days and yet they feel like they’ve been here forever.  I wonder what sort of outfit I should wear?”

“A skimpy bikini.”  Haana advised.

“A dress like the one Marilyn Monroe wore.”  Penny said quickly.  “You’d look great in that.”

Penny looked at her hair in the mirror.  She still couldn’t believe she’d gone through with it, bright purple and yellow streaks.  At least they were more tasteful than the dress she was forced to wear.  The neck was lavender, the bust was green, the midriff was orange, the hips were blue, the top of the legs were pink and the hem was purple.  On top of that the word LOVE was embroided across the bust for everyone to stare at her chest, especially Haana.  Well she was used to that but everyone else?

Haana loved the way they had embroided LOVE across the bust of Penny’s dress.  Her own outfit was really nice and clingy in all the right places.  Her sash really complimented the greens and blues nicely and as a special gift they had given her bright pink boots that came up to her knees.  Her hair was bright pink with cute little pink streaks.  After this was all over she thought about keeping the outfit, especially the GAY sash.

They both marvelled at Romana’s hair.  It was a riot of colours and she swirled the braids around for added effect.  “I’ve given a lot of thought to the party and I’m having invitations made right now.  It’s going to be such a nice time.  Better go now, lots of lovely work to get back to.  I’m just so excited to help people.”

They went back to Haana’s room.  Everything had been painted a bright pink colour as she had asked.  Penny banged the same knee against a chair, the desk and a hat stand before they found the bed.  Haana slipped the Time Ring our from under the sleeve of her outfit.  “It’s almost a pity in some ways.  I quite like a more liberal Gallifrey.  However it’s obvious that the Time Lords wouldn’t accept this given a free choice so take a hold Penny and lets go to work.”

Romana sat behind her desk across from the orange skinned alien.  “I know your people all too well.  You attempted to change the course of the Earth’s future with your meddling.  The answer’s no.”

“Our people are without a past or a future.  We are stuck inside a single spot of time.  All we want to do is help people and make them happy.”

Romana gasped as Haana and Penny burst into the room dressed in the most outrageous outfits.  “I see you haven’t even waited for permission.”  She took out her own personal staser and shot the alien in the chest.

“I guess that means I don’t have to ask you not to allow those guys here in the first place?”  Haana asked the baffled President.

“You broke the first rule again Haana?”  Romana asked.  “This time we’ll let you off though.  Nice sash by the way.”

Once the last of the Orange Skinned aliens had been ejected from Gallifrey, back into their redundant time stream, Haana and Penny slipped back into the future so that they didn’t meet their past selves when they arrived in a few days time.  Penny couldn’t wait to change out of the dreadful dress but found that all her clothes had been replaced by identical dresses.

Haana felt the time stream correcting itself and it washed over her like a wave.  Only the clothes she had worn and her hair resisted the new timeline as they had already been exposed to the vortex.  Reluctantly pulling on something more ‘sensible’ from her wardrobe she went next door to see how he best friend Penny was doing.  She found Penny with her head over the shower frantically shampooing her hair, trying to get the dye out.  “Use the stuff in the green bottle.”  Haana advised.  “It works wonders on the hair.”  Seeing that Penny was otherwise occupied Haana poured a dab of shampoo on her friend’s hair.  “Claire used to love me doing her hair you know, yours is really nice and silky.  It’s working you know.  We’ll have that purple out of there in no time.”

“Thanks.”  Penny said.  “I’m just glad that nightmare’s over.  I thought I was going to end up like one of those mindless zombies or worse.”

“When we’re through here how do you fancy a trip to somewhere in Earth’s past?  Lots of big strong partially clad men there for you to gawp at.  It’ll be such fun.  “She paused for a few seconds.  “On second thoughts make that educational.  I think we’ve had enough fun for now don’t you?”