Classic novels with one letter changed
So last year, I drew pictures of Christmas carols with one letter changed. They proved surprisingly hard to guess. This year, I wanted to do classic works of literature with one letter changed, but felt like a change from drawing, so wrote them instead. I kind of got carried away, especially with some of them, which almost ran out of control. I rather doubt that anyone will have the stamina to work through 15 mini stories in an attempt to guess which classic work of literature they don't quite represent, but here they are, anyway.
(e.g. Hard Tomes, The Turn of the Shrew, Sons and Levers, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Vest, and so on - but not actually including any of these.)
ONE
"Gather round, little larvae," said Great-Aunt Musca, "and I shall bestow upon you the wisdom of our people. For it is ancient wisdom, and-"
"How ancient?" asked the oldest larva, who was beginning to metamorphose and was therefore prone to impertinence and self-importance.
"Very ancient," his Great-Aunt said quellingly. "Some of it even dates back to last Tuesday."
But the oldest larva refused to be quelled. "Then what use is it? I'm going to be a pupa soon, and when I emerge, I'll do whatever I like, and nobody can stop me. I… I'll stay out all night on seedy dunghills! I won't need the silly wisdoms of last Tuesday."
"Young man," said Great-Aunt Musca sternly. "Do you think you are the only foolish child who has thought himself immortal? The tales tell of so many like you. All came to sticky ends, some of them literally. Listen to my words, and I will tell you of foolish cousins now long dead who scorned all warnings of the Great Swat. I will tell you what words to whisper when you vex a dog. I will tell you rituals and I will tell you warnings. I will tell of heroes and I will tell of villains. I will sing you the ancient chants that must be sung o'er the bed of a sleeping human. So gather round, little larvae, and I will bestow upon you the wisdom of our people."
"Oooh!" gasped the other larvae, as the oldest larva glowered and tried to stamp his foot, only to be somewhat hampered by the fact that he had not yet developed any. But he said nothing, and Great-Aunt Musca spoke on, as day turned slowly to night in the bin bag.
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TWO
"Coo!" Paul looked around in amazement. "We don't have houses like this in Trafalgar Square."
"Make yourself at home." His cousin waved a lordly wing at the towering circles of chambers. "A thousand rooms, don't you know? It's been in the family for years. Of course," he added with a sigh, "things aren't what they used to be. Time was, these rooms were heaving with life, back in the glory days of the landed ornithocracy. We even kept a duke, don't you know? Put him up in the mancote out in the grounds, but we had to let him go. Got the National Trust in there now. They've set us up a tea room to provide us with tasty crumbs. Not as good as keeping a duke, of course, but needs must."
"Yes," Paul agreed, trying to look as if he understood.
"So it's just me and Myrtle now," Paul's cousin said, "with all these thousand rooms. Mind you, we don't let them go to waste. Come! I'll show you what use we've made of the lowest circle: my cellar, I call it."
Paul fluttered after him. Every chamber in the lowest circle had been filled with something, he saw. Perches, he thought, but when he tried to settle on one, he found himself slipping, claws scrabbling for grip.
"They call them bottles," his cousin explained, his chest puffed with pride. "Our duke used to keep them in the lowest roosts of his mancote. This one's called Beaujolais, and this one's Burgundy."
"But why?" Paul shook his head. "And how did you get them here?"
"The same way as olive branches, of course." His cousin waved a wing over them. "And this one's Sauvignon Blanc and this one's Rioja. Come closer," he said, "and I'll tell you all about them."
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THREE
"Isn't cheese exciting?" gushed Mickey. "Wensleydale! Cheddar! Stinking Bishop!"
"It used to delight me once, cheese," said Jerry, slumping into a sigh, "but it does no longer. Caerphilly leaves me cold. Life is like Swiss cheese, full of holes. Happiness has slithered away like an ripe Brie left out on a radiator."
"Um," said Mickey. "Well." He exchanged a quick look with the others. "Oh!" he said, snapping his fingers in sudden inspiration. "Our techies have cracked the newest type of traps, so that's one less thing to worry about. That's good. Isn't it?" he added hopefully, when Jerry failed to look up.
"There will always be a bigger trap," Jerry said. "Crack one, and there will be another, and so it will go on until every one of our kind is eradicated. Life is a trap. Hope is a cold wire."
"But you had a good run of it with Tom," Mickey reminded him. "All those runnings-about and the clever tricks. You always came out on top. That's good, surely?"
"But he just kept on coming," Jerry moaned. "No matter what I did to him, no matter how I hurt him, he just kept coming back. They always do. What is the point? Nothing has a point."
"Except claws," sniggered Hunca Munca, as her brother stifled a giggle.
"Well," said Mickey. He considered for a moment, but some people, it seemed, refused to be helped. Smiling, he turned back to the others. "Cheese!" he said. "Double Gloucester! Camembert!"
Jerry gave a heavy sigh, and slumped there, his head sinking into his paws.
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FOUR
(Don't be misled by the reference to Phileas Fogg. This is not a pun on Around the World in 80 Days.)
"Are we nearly there yet?" asked Bob, not for the first time.
Tom sighed. "No, we aren't nearly there yet," he said. "We are endeavouring to emulate Phileas Fogg, as well you know, because it was your idea. Thanks to you," he said, for he was never one to make a point only once when it could be made a second time, "we're committed for eighty days."
"It seemed like a good idea at the time," said Bob, still working the pedals. "After all, neither Phileas Fogg nor Michael Palin ever tried to do it in one of these before, so we're bold pioneers whose names will go down in history." He patted the side of their vessel, attempting to make the pat a fond one. "Anyway," he said, "are we half way there yet?"
Tom looked at the calendar and scratched his head awhile over the charts. "It'll be forty days tomorrow, so going by time, we're almost halfway there."
"And going by distance?"
Tom cleared his throat. "Anyway," he said brightly, "it's time for dinner."
"Dinner," said Bob sadly. Dinner was a sore point. Neither of them, it turned out, could cook, and they had entirely forgotten to consider the little issue of food as they had piled out of the pub and embarked on their bold adventure. At the last moment, Bob had popped into a corner shop by the park entrance, and come out with several bulging bags of tins. Hungarian Goulash, some of them grandly called themselves, while others gloried in such names as Boeuf Bourguignon, or had labels that waxed lyrical about tender morsels marinated in hand-raised wine and enrobed in artisan carrots.
By the fourth day, Bob had stopped asking what this evening's brown mush was actually supposed to be. The flies were similarly non-discerning, and flocked hungrily to their dirty tins. Washing-up liquid, too, had been forgotten: not something that either of them had ever bought before, or seen as the glorious thing that it actually was.
"Um," said Bob, after a few minutes spent rummaging beneath the seat. "About dinner? It's a funny thing, really. It, er, seems that I, er, only bought enough for almost half the journey." He raked his hand through his hair, laughing nervously. "But who needs food? To be properly endurancey and manly, we can… um, we can take nourishment from remembering past meals." He rummaged in the waste pile and pulled out a tin. Flies buzzed away from it in a cloud, and he tried not to breathe too much as he smiled. "We had this one on day one. Do you remember the braised steak? Ah, the braised steak…"
But Bob had stopped pedaling and the swan-headed peddalo was already drifting towards the reeds. "That's it. I've had enough. Feel free to reminsience over five and a half week's worth of brown sludge. I'm wading to shore and getting the number 9 bus home."
"And this one was brimming with the exuberance of tender mushrooms," said Tom, doggedly lost in his memories. "And this one… Ah, the lamb! The lamb!"
___
FIVE
"It's rather challenging, this lettuce position, or whatever it's called," whispered Minnie. "I'm not sure this is designed for creatures like us."
"The teachings are for everyone," intoned the teacher, grey of fur, and, it turned out, unexpectedly keen of hearing. "Dismiss the distractions of your body. Concentrate on your breathing. Let your thoughts flow through you and pass away without interference."
"Ah," sighed Mickey, his mouth watering. Catching the saliva with his tongue, he tried to convert it to an "Om." The grey-furred sage cast him a look of placid approval. "I was thinking about cheese," whispered Mickey. "I'm not sure we're supposed to."
"We must eschew the allure of Wensleydale," whispered Minnie. "The path of understanding lies not in Stilton."
"I think I've accidentally tied my legs in a reef knot," said Hunca Munca in an urgent whisper. "Ah. No. That's better. Oh. No. Where's my front left paw? Oh, there it is!"
"But what about the cats?" asked Mrs Frisby. "This meditation thing is all very well, but it doesn't keep the cats away."
"The cats are finding their own path to enlightenment," said the teacher, paws folded serenely in his robes. "They are even now swearing never to dine upon their fellow four-footed creatures-"
"That's too bad for the sparrows, then," said Mickey.
"-or any creature that shares this earth. Or the sky," said the sage, with just the faintest ripple in his serenity. "Or water. No matter how many legs it has. Or to toy with them, either. They sit curled on their mats. Meditating," he said, with a quelling look at Mickey, who decided not to take the hint, and whispered, "Napping," out of the corner of his mouth.
The teacher continued undaunted. "This is the future, my children. Walk this path with me, and we will find enlightenment."
"What does that taste like?" asked Stuart Little.
"Like the beauty of a ripple of a leaf falling on a mountain pond," said the teacher. His pupils looked blank. "Or maybe like Camembert."
___
SIX
"Is everyone here?" said Pride, who had, of course, claimed the seat at the top of the table. "I'll preside, of course."
The others paid little attention. Each according to their natures, they were busy with other things: piling a paper plate far too high with vol-au-vents, perhaps, or ogling the waitress; snoring on the tablecloth, or muttering about the injustice of being stuck with a plate of sausages on sticks when some people had taken all the vol-au-vents for themselves.
"Excuse me," said Pride, adjusting his medals (bought on eBay, although he would never admit to it.) "I declare our annual meeting o-"
Sloth opened one eye. "I don't think we're all here." The last word degenerated into a yawn. He began to reach for a canapé, but decided it really wasn't worth the effort. "We're still waiting for-"
He was interrupted by the crashing of the door. The latecomer stormed in, his cheeks blazing. "What a year I've had!" he growled. He slammed a fist on the table, almost scattering a bowl of Twiglets. ("Careful, old bean," said Gluttony, scooping the Twiglets into his mouth, purely for their own protection, of course.) "Everywhere I go, I'm plagued with rude, unmannerly idiots."
"The unmannerly ones can be the most fun," said Lust with a leer.
The newcomer grabbed a handful of crudités. "Let me give you an example. Last January - it was round about the twenty-second, I think - I went to a coffee shop and asked for an Americano, and do you know what they said? They dared to tell me that they didn't have any semi-skimmed milk! And when I expressed my entirely reasonable and polite disapproval with this oversight, they were quite rude. And when the police came, they had the effrontery to blame me. The firefighters did, too. And the SAS."
"Um, are you going to eat that cauliflower floret?" asked Gluttony. "Because, if not…"
"And then, a week after that," the newcomer went on, jabbing at the air with a blade of raw carrot, "I received such terrible service at the Post Office that I wrote a letter to the local paper to complain. You aren't paying attention!" he shouted suddenly, causing even Sloth to sit to terrified attention. "Listen!" he bellowed. "I'm going to tell you all about it."
And he did. Oh, how he did!
___
SEVEN
"Ouch!" said a voice from the vicinity of my armpit. "Keep your elbows to yourself, you oaf."
"It's not my fault, George." The voice was positively fragrant with innocence. It was such a voice as might belong to a martyred nun, destined to sing anthems with the angels, had the nun been a strapping chap of twenty-nine, whose saintly voice was muffled by wool. "I've been stuck in the left sleeve for years past enduring."
"Otherwise known as twelve minutes," I said, pretending confidence. It was my turn to have use of the collar, but I paid for the freedom that my head enjoyed by surrendering both sleeves to the other fellows. Both hands were immured in woollen darkness, or pinioned in prison vile, as the poet would say. I could see my pocket watch, but could not draw it out to view the time.
"Oh, it must be almost half an hour by now," said my armpit in the voice of George. "It must be time to swap positions." He had the right sleeve, and he moved his hand blindly, groping for the pocket watch that he could not read.
"Oi, stow it, old chap." I tried to repel the flailing hand with the force of my chin gestures.
"Can't we unfasten the buttons, at least?" asked my left breast pocket. "Although I still have a lean and hungry look, old George there is a sturdy fellow and-"
"A gentleman is never unbuttoned," I said, summoning a dignity that might have evaded many men in a situation such as mine, but I am made of sterner stuff.
A sudden to-do interrupted my contemplation of my moral fibre. It involved yapping, and the utterance of ungentlemanly words from various parts of my clothing. "It's a dog!" said George. "Oi, you brute! Let go of my trouser leg!"
"Discretion, etcetera," said my left breast pocket, trying to run in a certain direction. George attempted another. I vacillated for a crucial moment.
The result was as predictable as it was uncomfortable.
____
EIGHT
"Lo!" quoth the archbishop. "How the commons do flock into the town, drawn by my preaching! See how they jostle each other, cheeks aglow with the flame of inspiration! Hark, how they cry aloud to each other, suffused with the sweet, sorrowful joy of drawing nigh to the shrine of my martyred predecessor."
"Um," said the archdeacon.
The archbishop pressed his hands together in holy delight. "See how yonder goodwives do wrestle each other to the ground in their eagerness to set foot in the holy sanctuary!"
"Um, Your Grace…" The archdeacon shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. "I believe that they are drawn instead by Hob the Grocer's stall. He's got a great deal on marrows. Huge marrows," he added, when the archbishop seemed not to believe him. "And Nan the Knitter is offering something new and exciting, newly introduced from Italy. She calls them… socks. If you buy two, you can get a third for free."
"And the common folk?" asked the archbishop. "My flock? They came here for… this?"
"Oh, every year," said the archdeacon, "just after Christmas. And they've started doing it at the end of November, too, although I'm not sure why. They're calling it Ye Fryday Blakke. Oh! Look! They're fighting over bodkins." He punched the air with his fist. "No, they're fighting with bodkins. Fight! Fight! Fight!"
But the archbishop was already rushing away, patting the pouch at his belt, and muttering something about cut-price lampreys.
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NINE
After entering her friend's house, it took Melissa an extraordinarily long time to regain the power of speech. "Er…" She opened her mouth and closed it again. She moistened her lips. "That's a lot of hosiery."
"I collect it," said Abigail proudly. "Come on into the kitchen and I'll start the tour. No, don't worry about taking your shoes off. There's nowhere to put them, anyway."
Melissa had privately hoped to be offered a cup of tea, but one glimpse at the so-called kitchen told her that this was unlikely to happen. It there was a kettle, it was entirely hidden by the filmy legs that were draped over every surface. "This is where I keep the fishnets," Abigail said. "Seventy five pairs, at the last count. This is my favourite pair. I bought them from a market stall in 1988."
"Um… Very nice," said Melissa.
"And now to the dining room," said Abigail, leading Melissa into a room that might have held a table, but might equally had concealed a lost tribe or a pharaoh's burial chamber, so heaped was it with fabric. "40 denier and above," Abigail explained. "These ones are an excellent example of Marks and Spencers classics, circa 1962, long discontinued. Great-Aunt Gladys was wearing them when I invited her to visit in 1996. She was… persuaded to part with them."
"Um," said Melissa, glad that after some deliberation, she had chosen to wear trousers and socks. "I think… er, I've suddenly remembered that I've got to be… somewhere, doing… something."
"But there are six more rooms to see," said Abigail, "not to mention the Loft of the Ladders."
"How many pairs have you actually got?" Melissa couldn't resist asking. "A different pair for each day of the year?"
"Oh, more than that," said Abigail proudly. "Enough for well over two years, not that I'd ever wear them. I've just passed a milestone, actually. Now I'm aiming for two thousand, and then three, but why stop even at that? Come on!" She grabbed Melissa's hand and pulled her towards the stairs. "Let me tell you all about them."
___
TEN
When dinner was over and the port had been passed around to the satisfaction of the company, Sir Cuthbert Worthington found a way to drop his cabinet into the conversation. It was a very new cabinet, but he was aware that any gentleman with intellectual pretensions - and he was most certainly such a man - had to possess such a thing.
It transpired almost as he would have hoped. They took the bait, and questioned him about his cabinet. Pretending insouciant relucance, he led them to the room that housed it, and unlocked its lacquered doors, revealing the wonders within.
There were gasps, although not quite as loud as he had wished. "First we have a Whitby snakestone," he told them, "and here is some coral."
"What's that?" said Ffoulkes, his finger jabbing a little too close.
"More coral," Sir Cuthbert had to say, and as the moving finger travelling on, "and more coral and more coral, but this…!" He pulled it out reverantly. "This is a fly in amber, a relic from antediluvian times."
But Ffoulkes and the others seemed curiously uninterested. They were sniffing, noses wrinkling in a manner that Sir Cuthbert considered downright rude. Ffoulkes moved this way and that, his nose questing like a bloodhound's, before homing in on the compartment at the bottom right. "What's that? It reeks."
"That," said Sir Cuthbert quellingly, "is the remains of an ancient Roman cut of pork. It was dug up at Bath. From it we can derive many… er, conclusions." He faltered just a moment, realising that he knew very little about either Romans or conclusions, but he concealed his hesitation faultlessly. "About things," he said. "Roman things. About their diet. Scholarly conclusions. About pork."
"That's not Roman," Ffoulkes scoffed. It was possible to go off a fellow, Sir Cuthbert decided, over the course of a few minutes. "By the stink of it, it was eaten last week."
"It is Roman." Sir Cuthbert wrapped himself in dignity. "It was dug up by an eminent Oxford scholar and sold to me by a reputable agent." Well, a rather disreputable looking one, he thought, but decided not to say that out loud. "It's ancient and it belongs in my cabinet, and there it's staying, so there." He slammed the door shut, and locked it at the third attempt.
Yes, he told himself afterwards, when they had gone. I kept my dignity throughout. He took the bone out of the cabinet and cherished it gingerly. It is Roman, he told himself. It is.
___
ELEVEN
"One more bob," Rick said, leafing through the sheets on his clipboard. "Ah, yes. Here we are." He wrote down the woman's name beneath all the others. "That's twenty-three now," he said as he waved her past. "I wonder if we'll get any beehives today. Or mullets. Now, that's a hairstyle I've not seen for a while…"
But Harry was clearly not listening. Instead, he was leafing with increasing urgency through the papers on his own clipboard. "I can't find it!" he hissed.
"What?" Rick whispered. The next few were easy. He did them virtually on autopilot: an entry on the page headed "French plait," two buns, and an unwise comb-over.
"This… gentleman here," Harry whispered, gesturing discreetly at a large man in black leather, whose clothing and person alike was embellished with copious safety pins. Dyed bright red, his hair reared from his scalp like the crest of a furious dinosaur. "I can't find the piece of paper," he hissed. "I can't put his name down. Without the paperwork, I can't let him through."
"Without what piece of paper?" asked the leather-clad gentleman, whose hearing was apparently unhampered by the safety pins that impaled his lobes.
Harry recoiled, clearly expecting violence. He flicked through the papers on his clipboard for at least the sixth time. More calmly, Rick leafed slowly through his own. "Poodle perms," he muttered, "short back and sides, shaved, optimistic toupées… Hmm, we should probably put these in alphabetical order one day. Ah yes!" he cried in triumph. "Here it is!"
"This piece of paper," Rick said, positively vibrating with relief. This recoded, the bepinned gentleman passed through, leaving Rick clutching the paper as if it was a talisman that had saved his life.
Perhaps it had.
____
TWELVE
"There is mud on the carpet, girls!" cried the headmistress. "Mud! Which girl is responsible for this… filth?"
The girls looked at each other and at the floor. Throats were cleared. Hands were clenched and unclenched nervously. At last Fiona, braver than the others, appointed herself spokesperson. "It was the new teacher, Miss Mackay."
Miss Mackay grew several inches, such was the power of her outrage. "Are you daring to accuse a member of our esteemed faculty for your filthy habits?"
"But it was, miss!" protested Fiona, and the others nodded in fervent agreement. "Look! There's her mug on her desk, all covered with dirt. And there are the stains on the back of her chair. And mud, there, where she stands when she writes on the blackboard, and black smears on her cane, and…"
"Enough!" shouted Miss Mackay. "I have never heard such insolence in all my years."
"But it's true, miss!" Fiona insisted. "You must have seen the smears on her face and the black stuff behind her nails and-"
"I've heard enough!" said Miss Mackay, who had indeed seen such things, but could not be heard to admit it. "Just… clean it up, girls." Turning, she swept away, picking her way with outraged delicacy through the patches of mud and the smears of dirt.
"But what's the point?" muttered Morag, as the girls retrieved the well-used cleaning products from their desks. "It will only get mucky again when she turns up to teach us again."
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THIRTEEN
It was a chilly winter's day on the Inner Hebrides, and Jock could no longer feel the hand that gripped his sword. His cloak lashed in an Atlantic breeze that had roared unhindred from distant Labrador. Hamish and Sorlie were eager to retire to the pub, but Jock was adamant that there was more patrolling to do.
"We're swashbuckling heroes," he bellowed, battling to be heard over the wind. "We must be ever watchful for the wily plans of the sinister Cardinal-"
"He means Mr McDougal the postmaster," explained Hamish to Sorlie. Sorlie was somewhat slow, and would not have been Jock's first choice for his band of brothers, but with only a handful of young men on the island, his options had been sadly limited.
"We must be ever ready to defend the honour of fair ladies." It ended in a shriek as he lunged to rescue his feathered hat from the gale.
"If you mean Morag from the CalMac office," Hamish said, "I don't think she wants us to."
"But one day…!" Jock declared. "One day, the people of this island will need us! One day, maybe when the tourists come in next summer, or when the arts festival is on, maybe then they will need the three of us…"
Hamish tugged at his cloak. Jock ignored him.
"…with our keen swords," he went on, "and our true aim and…"
"But that's what I'm trying to tell you," Hamish said. "I've just had a text from Mrs McPherson. Wee Tibbles is stuck up a tree and she wants some nice strapping lads to rescue him."
"A job for us!" Jock whipped his sword from its scabbard, and forced his shivering arms to hold it aloft. "Come on, lads! All for one and one for all!"
Their swords joined his, as best as they could in the howling gale. "All for one and one for all!" they echoed, and then they mounted their the noble steeds and pedalled away to glory.
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FOURTEEN
Then he rode at a wallop till he came to a bridge, and at the end therefore stood a fair castle. And there he did marvel and hold it passing strange, for the castle had pillars of white marble about its door, and it stood not beside a wood but by a grove of olive trees such as had never been seen afore in Camelot.
Then he was ware of a knight came riding from the castle all in white. "Ye be welcome," said the strange knight, and he prayed the knight from Camelot that he would come into the castle and repose him there. "For we have olives," said the strange knight, "and vine leaves stuffed with rice. And we have wine well watered, and we shall sit ourselves on couches and talk of philosophy and play sad songs upon the lyre. And then, when we have slept awhile, we will wake up with the sun and go to the gymnasium where we will practise with the javelin and run races in our armour and wrestle naked while reciting odes."
Then the knight who hied from Camelot did turn his horse around and say that he had suddenly remembered a very urgent appointment elsewhere. "What sort of appointment?" said the strange knight, looking put-out. "Er," said the knight from Camelot. "I must… seek the Holy Grail! Yes, that's it! I'm off to seek the Holy Grail!"
--
FIFTEEN
"How much?" cried Raphael.
"Ten thimbles of nectar," repeated the cherub. "That's for first class. Second class delivery is just seven."
"But takes an eternity longer, no doubt," grumbled Raphael. "We've all seen those messenger doves dawdling as they pass from cloud to cloud."
"They all work very hard," said the cherub stiffly. "If letters are sometimes delayed, nine times out of ten it's because they've been improperly addressed. Some people seem to think that just because they are living in an eternity of holy bliss, they needn't worry about postcodes."
"I have included a postcode," said Raphael, his six wings bristling. "Although, personally, I don't know what was wrong with the old system, when our words were taken by a host of lesser angels who sang them to their recipient in ten part harmony, while a summary appeared in shining letters writ upon the sky."
"We have to move with the times, sir," said the cherub. "This is the new system: far more efficient. Now, do you want a stamp or not?"
"At ten nectars," said Raphael, "I should think not."
"Then you should not have wasted my time," said the cherub. "Next!"
(e.g. Hard Tomes, The Turn of the Shrew, Sons and Levers, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Vest, and so on - but not actually including any of these.)
ONE
"Gather round, little larvae," said Great-Aunt Musca, "and I shall bestow upon you the wisdom of our people. For it is ancient wisdom, and-"
"How ancient?" asked the oldest larva, who was beginning to metamorphose and was therefore prone to impertinence and self-importance.
"Very ancient," his Great-Aunt said quellingly. "Some of it even dates back to last Tuesday."
But the oldest larva refused to be quelled. "Then what use is it? I'm going to be a pupa soon, and when I emerge, I'll do whatever I like, and nobody can stop me. I… I'll stay out all night on seedy dunghills! I won't need the silly wisdoms of last Tuesday."
"Young man," said Great-Aunt Musca sternly. "Do you think you are the only foolish child who has thought himself immortal? The tales tell of so many like you. All came to sticky ends, some of them literally. Listen to my words, and I will tell you of foolish cousins now long dead who scorned all warnings of the Great Swat. I will tell you what words to whisper when you vex a dog. I will tell you rituals and I will tell you warnings. I will tell of heroes and I will tell of villains. I will sing you the ancient chants that must be sung o'er the bed of a sleeping human. So gather round, little larvae, and I will bestow upon you the wisdom of our people."
"Oooh!" gasped the other larvae, as the oldest larva glowered and tried to stamp his foot, only to be somewhat hampered by the fact that he had not yet developed any. But he said nothing, and Great-Aunt Musca spoke on, as day turned slowly to night in the bin bag.
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TWO
"Coo!" Paul looked around in amazement. "We don't have houses like this in Trafalgar Square."
"Make yourself at home." His cousin waved a lordly wing at the towering circles of chambers. "A thousand rooms, don't you know? It's been in the family for years. Of course," he added with a sigh, "things aren't what they used to be. Time was, these rooms were heaving with life, back in the glory days of the landed ornithocracy. We even kept a duke, don't you know? Put him up in the mancote out in the grounds, but we had to let him go. Got the National Trust in there now. They've set us up a tea room to provide us with tasty crumbs. Not as good as keeping a duke, of course, but needs must."
"Yes," Paul agreed, trying to look as if he understood.
"So it's just me and Myrtle now," Paul's cousin said, "with all these thousand rooms. Mind you, we don't let them go to waste. Come! I'll show you what use we've made of the lowest circle: my cellar, I call it."
Paul fluttered after him. Every chamber in the lowest circle had been filled with something, he saw. Perches, he thought, but when he tried to settle on one, he found himself slipping, claws scrabbling for grip.
"They call them bottles," his cousin explained, his chest puffed with pride. "Our duke used to keep them in the lowest roosts of his mancote. This one's called Beaujolais, and this one's Burgundy."
"But why?" Paul shook his head. "And how did you get them here?"
"The same way as olive branches, of course." His cousin waved a wing over them. "And this one's Sauvignon Blanc and this one's Rioja. Come closer," he said, "and I'll tell you all about them."
__
THREE
"Isn't cheese exciting?" gushed Mickey. "Wensleydale! Cheddar! Stinking Bishop!"
"It used to delight me once, cheese," said Jerry, slumping into a sigh, "but it does no longer. Caerphilly leaves me cold. Life is like Swiss cheese, full of holes. Happiness has slithered away like an ripe Brie left out on a radiator."
"Um," said Mickey. "Well." He exchanged a quick look with the others. "Oh!" he said, snapping his fingers in sudden inspiration. "Our techies have cracked the newest type of traps, so that's one less thing to worry about. That's good. Isn't it?" he added hopefully, when Jerry failed to look up.
"There will always be a bigger trap," Jerry said. "Crack one, and there will be another, and so it will go on until every one of our kind is eradicated. Life is a trap. Hope is a cold wire."
"But you had a good run of it with Tom," Mickey reminded him. "All those runnings-about and the clever tricks. You always came out on top. That's good, surely?"
"But he just kept on coming," Jerry moaned. "No matter what I did to him, no matter how I hurt him, he just kept coming back. They always do. What is the point? Nothing has a point."
"Except claws," sniggered Hunca Munca, as her brother stifled a giggle.
"Well," said Mickey. He considered for a moment, but some people, it seemed, refused to be helped. Smiling, he turned back to the others. "Cheese!" he said. "Double Gloucester! Camembert!"
Jerry gave a heavy sigh, and slumped there, his head sinking into his paws.
__
FOUR
(Don't be misled by the reference to Phileas Fogg. This is not a pun on Around the World in 80 Days.)
"Are we nearly there yet?" asked Bob, not for the first time.
Tom sighed. "No, we aren't nearly there yet," he said. "We are endeavouring to emulate Phileas Fogg, as well you know, because it was your idea. Thanks to you," he said, for he was never one to make a point only once when it could be made a second time, "we're committed for eighty days."
"It seemed like a good idea at the time," said Bob, still working the pedals. "After all, neither Phileas Fogg nor Michael Palin ever tried to do it in one of these before, so we're bold pioneers whose names will go down in history." He patted the side of their vessel, attempting to make the pat a fond one. "Anyway," he said, "are we half way there yet?"
Tom looked at the calendar and scratched his head awhile over the charts. "It'll be forty days tomorrow, so going by time, we're almost halfway there."
"And going by distance?"
Tom cleared his throat. "Anyway," he said brightly, "it's time for dinner."
"Dinner," said Bob sadly. Dinner was a sore point. Neither of them, it turned out, could cook, and they had entirely forgotten to consider the little issue of food as they had piled out of the pub and embarked on their bold adventure. At the last moment, Bob had popped into a corner shop by the park entrance, and come out with several bulging bags of tins. Hungarian Goulash, some of them grandly called themselves, while others gloried in such names as Boeuf Bourguignon, or had labels that waxed lyrical about tender morsels marinated in hand-raised wine and enrobed in artisan carrots.
By the fourth day, Bob had stopped asking what this evening's brown mush was actually supposed to be. The flies were similarly non-discerning, and flocked hungrily to their dirty tins. Washing-up liquid, too, had been forgotten: not something that either of them had ever bought before, or seen as the glorious thing that it actually was.
"Um," said Bob, after a few minutes spent rummaging beneath the seat. "About dinner? It's a funny thing, really. It, er, seems that I, er, only bought enough for almost half the journey." He raked his hand through his hair, laughing nervously. "But who needs food? To be properly endurancey and manly, we can… um, we can take nourishment from remembering past meals." He rummaged in the waste pile and pulled out a tin. Flies buzzed away from it in a cloud, and he tried not to breathe too much as he smiled. "We had this one on day one. Do you remember the braised steak? Ah, the braised steak…"
But Bob had stopped pedaling and the swan-headed peddalo was already drifting towards the reeds. "That's it. I've had enough. Feel free to reminsience over five and a half week's worth of brown sludge. I'm wading to shore and getting the number 9 bus home."
"And this one was brimming with the exuberance of tender mushrooms," said Tom, doggedly lost in his memories. "And this one… Ah, the lamb! The lamb!"
___
FIVE
"It's rather challenging, this lettuce position, or whatever it's called," whispered Minnie. "I'm not sure this is designed for creatures like us."
"The teachings are for everyone," intoned the teacher, grey of fur, and, it turned out, unexpectedly keen of hearing. "Dismiss the distractions of your body. Concentrate on your breathing. Let your thoughts flow through you and pass away without interference."
"Ah," sighed Mickey, his mouth watering. Catching the saliva with his tongue, he tried to convert it to an "Om." The grey-furred sage cast him a look of placid approval. "I was thinking about cheese," whispered Mickey. "I'm not sure we're supposed to."
"We must eschew the allure of Wensleydale," whispered Minnie. "The path of understanding lies not in Stilton."
"I think I've accidentally tied my legs in a reef knot," said Hunca Munca in an urgent whisper. "Ah. No. That's better. Oh. No. Where's my front left paw? Oh, there it is!"
"But what about the cats?" asked Mrs Frisby. "This meditation thing is all very well, but it doesn't keep the cats away."
"The cats are finding their own path to enlightenment," said the teacher, paws folded serenely in his robes. "They are even now swearing never to dine upon their fellow four-footed creatures-"
"That's too bad for the sparrows, then," said Mickey.
"-or any creature that shares this earth. Or the sky," said the sage, with just the faintest ripple in his serenity. "Or water. No matter how many legs it has. Or to toy with them, either. They sit curled on their mats. Meditating," he said, with a quelling look at Mickey, who decided not to take the hint, and whispered, "Napping," out of the corner of his mouth.
The teacher continued undaunted. "This is the future, my children. Walk this path with me, and we will find enlightenment."
"What does that taste like?" asked Stuart Little.
"Like the beauty of a ripple of a leaf falling on a mountain pond," said the teacher. His pupils looked blank. "Or maybe like Camembert."
___
SIX
"Is everyone here?" said Pride, who had, of course, claimed the seat at the top of the table. "I'll preside, of course."
The others paid little attention. Each according to their natures, they were busy with other things: piling a paper plate far too high with vol-au-vents, perhaps, or ogling the waitress; snoring on the tablecloth, or muttering about the injustice of being stuck with a plate of sausages on sticks when some people had taken all the vol-au-vents for themselves.
"Excuse me," said Pride, adjusting his medals (bought on eBay, although he would never admit to it.) "I declare our annual meeting o-"
Sloth opened one eye. "I don't think we're all here." The last word degenerated into a yawn. He began to reach for a canapé, but decided it really wasn't worth the effort. "We're still waiting for-"
He was interrupted by the crashing of the door. The latecomer stormed in, his cheeks blazing. "What a year I've had!" he growled. He slammed a fist on the table, almost scattering a bowl of Twiglets. ("Careful, old bean," said Gluttony, scooping the Twiglets into his mouth, purely for their own protection, of course.) "Everywhere I go, I'm plagued with rude, unmannerly idiots."
"The unmannerly ones can be the most fun," said Lust with a leer.
The newcomer grabbed a handful of crudités. "Let me give you an example. Last January - it was round about the twenty-second, I think - I went to a coffee shop and asked for an Americano, and do you know what they said? They dared to tell me that they didn't have any semi-skimmed milk! And when I expressed my entirely reasonable and polite disapproval with this oversight, they were quite rude. And when the police came, they had the effrontery to blame me. The firefighters did, too. And the SAS."
"Um, are you going to eat that cauliflower floret?" asked Gluttony. "Because, if not…"
"And then, a week after that," the newcomer went on, jabbing at the air with a blade of raw carrot, "I received such terrible service at the Post Office that I wrote a letter to the local paper to complain. You aren't paying attention!" he shouted suddenly, causing even Sloth to sit to terrified attention. "Listen!" he bellowed. "I'm going to tell you all about it."
And he did. Oh, how he did!
___
SEVEN
"Ouch!" said a voice from the vicinity of my armpit. "Keep your elbows to yourself, you oaf."
"It's not my fault, George." The voice was positively fragrant with innocence. It was such a voice as might belong to a martyred nun, destined to sing anthems with the angels, had the nun been a strapping chap of twenty-nine, whose saintly voice was muffled by wool. "I've been stuck in the left sleeve for years past enduring."
"Otherwise known as twelve minutes," I said, pretending confidence. It was my turn to have use of the collar, but I paid for the freedom that my head enjoyed by surrendering both sleeves to the other fellows. Both hands were immured in woollen darkness, or pinioned in prison vile, as the poet would say. I could see my pocket watch, but could not draw it out to view the time.
"Oh, it must be almost half an hour by now," said my armpit in the voice of George. "It must be time to swap positions." He had the right sleeve, and he moved his hand blindly, groping for the pocket watch that he could not read.
"Oi, stow it, old chap." I tried to repel the flailing hand with the force of my chin gestures.
"Can't we unfasten the buttons, at least?" asked my left breast pocket. "Although I still have a lean and hungry look, old George there is a sturdy fellow and-"
"A gentleman is never unbuttoned," I said, summoning a dignity that might have evaded many men in a situation such as mine, but I am made of sterner stuff.
A sudden to-do interrupted my contemplation of my moral fibre. It involved yapping, and the utterance of ungentlemanly words from various parts of my clothing. "It's a dog!" said George. "Oi, you brute! Let go of my trouser leg!"
"Discretion, etcetera," said my left breast pocket, trying to run in a certain direction. George attempted another. I vacillated for a crucial moment.
The result was as predictable as it was uncomfortable.
____
EIGHT
"Lo!" quoth the archbishop. "How the commons do flock into the town, drawn by my preaching! See how they jostle each other, cheeks aglow with the flame of inspiration! Hark, how they cry aloud to each other, suffused with the sweet, sorrowful joy of drawing nigh to the shrine of my martyred predecessor."
"Um," said the archdeacon.
The archbishop pressed his hands together in holy delight. "See how yonder goodwives do wrestle each other to the ground in their eagerness to set foot in the holy sanctuary!"
"Um, Your Grace…" The archdeacon shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. "I believe that they are drawn instead by Hob the Grocer's stall. He's got a great deal on marrows. Huge marrows," he added, when the archbishop seemed not to believe him. "And Nan the Knitter is offering something new and exciting, newly introduced from Italy. She calls them… socks. If you buy two, you can get a third for free."
"And the common folk?" asked the archbishop. "My flock? They came here for… this?"
"Oh, every year," said the archdeacon, "just after Christmas. And they've started doing it at the end of November, too, although I'm not sure why. They're calling it Ye Fryday Blakke. Oh! Look! They're fighting over bodkins." He punched the air with his fist. "No, they're fighting with bodkins. Fight! Fight! Fight!"
But the archbishop was already rushing away, patting the pouch at his belt, and muttering something about cut-price lampreys.
__
NINE
After entering her friend's house, it took Melissa an extraordinarily long time to regain the power of speech. "Er…" She opened her mouth and closed it again. She moistened her lips. "That's a lot of hosiery."
"I collect it," said Abigail proudly. "Come on into the kitchen and I'll start the tour. No, don't worry about taking your shoes off. There's nowhere to put them, anyway."
Melissa had privately hoped to be offered a cup of tea, but one glimpse at the so-called kitchen told her that this was unlikely to happen. It there was a kettle, it was entirely hidden by the filmy legs that were draped over every surface. "This is where I keep the fishnets," Abigail said. "Seventy five pairs, at the last count. This is my favourite pair. I bought them from a market stall in 1988."
"Um… Very nice," said Melissa.
"And now to the dining room," said Abigail, leading Melissa into a room that might have held a table, but might equally had concealed a lost tribe or a pharaoh's burial chamber, so heaped was it with fabric. "40 denier and above," Abigail explained. "These ones are an excellent example of Marks and Spencers classics, circa 1962, long discontinued. Great-Aunt Gladys was wearing them when I invited her to visit in 1996. She was… persuaded to part with them."
"Um," said Melissa, glad that after some deliberation, she had chosen to wear trousers and socks. "I think… er, I've suddenly remembered that I've got to be… somewhere, doing… something."
"But there are six more rooms to see," said Abigail, "not to mention the Loft of the Ladders."
"How many pairs have you actually got?" Melissa couldn't resist asking. "A different pair for each day of the year?"
"Oh, more than that," said Abigail proudly. "Enough for well over two years, not that I'd ever wear them. I've just passed a milestone, actually. Now I'm aiming for two thousand, and then three, but why stop even at that? Come on!" She grabbed Melissa's hand and pulled her towards the stairs. "Let me tell you all about them."
___
TEN
When dinner was over and the port had been passed around to the satisfaction of the company, Sir Cuthbert Worthington found a way to drop his cabinet into the conversation. It was a very new cabinet, but he was aware that any gentleman with intellectual pretensions - and he was most certainly such a man - had to possess such a thing.
It transpired almost as he would have hoped. They took the bait, and questioned him about his cabinet. Pretending insouciant relucance, he led them to the room that housed it, and unlocked its lacquered doors, revealing the wonders within.
There were gasps, although not quite as loud as he had wished. "First we have a Whitby snakestone," he told them, "and here is some coral."
"What's that?" said Ffoulkes, his finger jabbing a little too close.
"More coral," Sir Cuthbert had to say, and as the moving finger travelling on, "and more coral and more coral, but this…!" He pulled it out reverantly. "This is a fly in amber, a relic from antediluvian times."
But Ffoulkes and the others seemed curiously uninterested. They were sniffing, noses wrinkling in a manner that Sir Cuthbert considered downright rude. Ffoulkes moved this way and that, his nose questing like a bloodhound's, before homing in on the compartment at the bottom right. "What's that? It reeks."
"That," said Sir Cuthbert quellingly, "is the remains of an ancient Roman cut of pork. It was dug up at Bath. From it we can derive many… er, conclusions." He faltered just a moment, realising that he knew very little about either Romans or conclusions, but he concealed his hesitation faultlessly. "About things," he said. "Roman things. About their diet. Scholarly conclusions. About pork."
"That's not Roman," Ffoulkes scoffed. It was possible to go off a fellow, Sir Cuthbert decided, over the course of a few minutes. "By the stink of it, it was eaten last week."
"It is Roman." Sir Cuthbert wrapped himself in dignity. "It was dug up by an eminent Oxford scholar and sold to me by a reputable agent." Well, a rather disreputable looking one, he thought, but decided not to say that out loud. "It's ancient and it belongs in my cabinet, and there it's staying, so there." He slammed the door shut, and locked it at the third attempt.
Yes, he told himself afterwards, when they had gone. I kept my dignity throughout. He took the bone out of the cabinet and cherished it gingerly. It is Roman, he told himself. It is.
___
ELEVEN
"One more bob," Rick said, leafing through the sheets on his clipboard. "Ah, yes. Here we are." He wrote down the woman's name beneath all the others. "That's twenty-three now," he said as he waved her past. "I wonder if we'll get any beehives today. Or mullets. Now, that's a hairstyle I've not seen for a while…"
But Harry was clearly not listening. Instead, he was leafing with increasing urgency through the papers on his own clipboard. "I can't find it!" he hissed.
"What?" Rick whispered. The next few were easy. He did them virtually on autopilot: an entry on the page headed "French plait," two buns, and an unwise comb-over.
"This… gentleman here," Harry whispered, gesturing discreetly at a large man in black leather, whose clothing and person alike was embellished with copious safety pins. Dyed bright red, his hair reared from his scalp like the crest of a furious dinosaur. "I can't find the piece of paper," he hissed. "I can't put his name down. Without the paperwork, I can't let him through."
"Without what piece of paper?" asked the leather-clad gentleman, whose hearing was apparently unhampered by the safety pins that impaled his lobes.
Harry recoiled, clearly expecting violence. He flicked through the papers on his clipboard for at least the sixth time. More calmly, Rick leafed slowly through his own. "Poodle perms," he muttered, "short back and sides, shaved, optimistic toupées… Hmm, we should probably put these in alphabetical order one day. Ah yes!" he cried in triumph. "Here it is!"
"This piece of paper," Rick said, positively vibrating with relief. This recoded, the bepinned gentleman passed through, leaving Rick clutching the paper as if it was a talisman that had saved his life.
Perhaps it had.
____
TWELVE
"There is mud on the carpet, girls!" cried the headmistress. "Mud! Which girl is responsible for this… filth?"
The girls looked at each other and at the floor. Throats were cleared. Hands were clenched and unclenched nervously. At last Fiona, braver than the others, appointed herself spokesperson. "It was the new teacher, Miss Mackay."
Miss Mackay grew several inches, such was the power of her outrage. "Are you daring to accuse a member of our esteemed faculty for your filthy habits?"
"But it was, miss!" protested Fiona, and the others nodded in fervent agreement. "Look! There's her mug on her desk, all covered with dirt. And there are the stains on the back of her chair. And mud, there, where she stands when she writes on the blackboard, and black smears on her cane, and…"
"Enough!" shouted Miss Mackay. "I have never heard such insolence in all my years."
"But it's true, miss!" Fiona insisted. "You must have seen the smears on her face and the black stuff behind her nails and-"
"I've heard enough!" said Miss Mackay, who had indeed seen such things, but could not be heard to admit it. "Just… clean it up, girls." Turning, she swept away, picking her way with outraged delicacy through the patches of mud and the smears of dirt.
"But what's the point?" muttered Morag, as the girls retrieved the well-used cleaning products from their desks. "It will only get mucky again when she turns up to teach us again."
__
THIRTEEN
It was a chilly winter's day on the Inner Hebrides, and Jock could no longer feel the hand that gripped his sword. His cloak lashed in an Atlantic breeze that had roared unhindred from distant Labrador. Hamish and Sorlie were eager to retire to the pub, but Jock was adamant that there was more patrolling to do.
"We're swashbuckling heroes," he bellowed, battling to be heard over the wind. "We must be ever watchful for the wily plans of the sinister Cardinal-"
"He means Mr McDougal the postmaster," explained Hamish to Sorlie. Sorlie was somewhat slow, and would not have been Jock's first choice for his band of brothers, but with only a handful of young men on the island, his options had been sadly limited.
"We must be ever ready to defend the honour of fair ladies." It ended in a shriek as he lunged to rescue his feathered hat from the gale.
"If you mean Morag from the CalMac office," Hamish said, "I don't think she wants us to."
"But one day…!" Jock declared. "One day, the people of this island will need us! One day, maybe when the tourists come in next summer, or when the arts festival is on, maybe then they will need the three of us…"
Hamish tugged at his cloak. Jock ignored him.
"…with our keen swords," he went on, "and our true aim and…"
"But that's what I'm trying to tell you," Hamish said. "I've just had a text from Mrs McPherson. Wee Tibbles is stuck up a tree and she wants some nice strapping lads to rescue him."
"A job for us!" Jock whipped his sword from its scabbard, and forced his shivering arms to hold it aloft. "Come on, lads! All for one and one for all!"
Their swords joined his, as best as they could in the howling gale. "All for one and one for all!" they echoed, and then they mounted their the noble steeds and pedalled away to glory.
__
FOURTEEN
Then he rode at a wallop till he came to a bridge, and at the end therefore stood a fair castle. And there he did marvel and hold it passing strange, for the castle had pillars of white marble about its door, and it stood not beside a wood but by a grove of olive trees such as had never been seen afore in Camelot.
Then he was ware of a knight came riding from the castle all in white. "Ye be welcome," said the strange knight, and he prayed the knight from Camelot that he would come into the castle and repose him there. "For we have olives," said the strange knight, "and vine leaves stuffed with rice. And we have wine well watered, and we shall sit ourselves on couches and talk of philosophy and play sad songs upon the lyre. And then, when we have slept awhile, we will wake up with the sun and go to the gymnasium where we will practise with the javelin and run races in our armour and wrestle naked while reciting odes."
Then the knight who hied from Camelot did turn his horse around and say that he had suddenly remembered a very urgent appointment elsewhere. "What sort of appointment?" said the strange knight, looking put-out. "Er," said the knight from Camelot. "I must… seek the Holy Grail! Yes, that's it! I'm off to seek the Holy Grail!"
--
FIFTEEN
"How much?" cried Raphael.
"Ten thimbles of nectar," repeated the cherub. "That's for first class. Second class delivery is just seven."
"But takes an eternity longer, no doubt," grumbled Raphael. "We've all seen those messenger doves dawdling as they pass from cloud to cloud."
"They all work very hard," said the cherub stiffly. "If letters are sometimes delayed, nine times out of ten it's because they've been improperly addressed. Some people seem to think that just because they are living in an eternity of holy bliss, they needn't worry about postcodes."
"I have included a postcode," said Raphael, his six wings bristling. "Although, personally, I don't know what was wrong with the old system, when our words were taken by a host of lesser angels who sang them to their recipient in ten part harmony, while a summary appeared in shining letters writ upon the sky."
"We have to move with the times, sir," said the cherub. "This is the new system: far more efficient. Now, do you want a stamp or not?"
"At ten nectars," said Raphael, "I should think not."
"Then you should not have wasted my time," said the cherub. "Next!"