Posted By Bizzywig on March 25, 2009

 

My Dear Friend,

Troubling Times.

 

“Who you gonna call?”

Please forgive my recent lack of communication. This last week has been a troublesome one and much as I loathe to lay the blame on the shoulders of any one person, it’s all The Pill’s fault.

Claudine Jessop is quite mad.

As you know, the tent in which my companions (Dervish and Carstairs) and myself have had occasion to sleep recently is not large. At very best it could be described as a ‘three-man tent’, if those three men were very small and more intimately acquainted than is suitable for an upstanding member of a Residents Association. It could not be described as a ‘three-man and one-completely-potty-woman tent’ and yet that was what it became on the day The Pill left her Mother.

Somewhat shell-shocked by our recent addition, I’d watched as Carstairs had re-packed the tent in an offhand way and we soon ‘hit the road’ again.

The Pill behaved like an over-excited toddler. She dashed backwards and forth, running ahead to look at a Pillar Box or a litter bin or a dandelion and then racing back to tell us all in great detail. She skipped. She tripped. She span and squawked at the sky. She tugged an old man’s beard and picked up a very surprised, very snappy, Yorkshire terrier.

Dervish watched with open-jawed fascination. Not one of his eleven sisters had conducted herself in such a freely odd fashion. He lolloped along after her making notes in a small jotter.

Carstairs, who, in addition to the general luggage necessitated by an expedition such as ours, was now also lugging the Pill’s extraordinarily heavy suitcase, fell some way behind and I had to chivvy him on more than once. I gave him a rousing lecture about ‘Backbone and the building of the Empire’, which you’ll remember I’d written for my special guest appearance at the Scout Prize Giving Ceremony of ’99. It certainly seemed to hit the mark as he shouldered his burden with renewed vigour, though I’d have been a little more content if he hadn’t started his ‘under-breath mutterings’ again. I’ve spoken to him about this before. I hope I won’t need to repeat myself.

Despite these obvious irritations, we were making excellent progress. Upon consulting my map, I found we’d exceeded our target distance by almost fifty yards, meaning we’d travelled almost a mile and a half that day. We struck camp in a jubilant mood.

Carstairs rustled up some cheese and piccalilli sandwiches and a hearty soup and we all sat round the campfire, discussing our outstanding achievement.

The Pill, eager to join in the conversation, began to describe, with considerable gusto, some of her latest inventions.

Apparently, she’d spent huge swathes of time alone with her thoughts while her Mother was ‘sleeping’ and used these periods to dream up all sorts of creations. She was particularly proud of her anti-dandruff eyebrow shampoo and roll-on tooth deodorant so she hurried to fetch prototypes from her case.

Carstairs, Dervish and myself wordlessly passed these and other articles between us as she described her plans for mass production and made us examine her eyebrows.

They were indeed free of dandruff.

Eventually The Pill calmed a little and started to nibble at her sandwich before standing up suddenly and dramatically spitting it out again, proclaiming that she ‘doesn’t eat yellow’. At that very moment, I saw the light of love flicker and die in Carstairs’ eye. Dervish snuck his notebook out and scribbled with pursed lips, before returning the paper to his waistcoat pocket.

The Pill then flounced into our tent, leaving us gentlemen to shrug our shoulders and blink at each other.

Dervish examined his eyebrows in a small pocket mirror.

We were soon intrigued by noises from within, for in addition to her usual incessant chirruping, The Pill was clashing and bashing about. After almost a quarter of an hour of these peculiar noises I felt compelled to inquire if ‘everything was in order?’

The Pill’s head poked out from the tent flap. Her face was covered in a thick layer of green-grey gunk and her hair was wrapped in a towel. Dervish gasped and Carstairs had to flap a tea towel to revive him. I can only guess what the green-grey gunk was but instantly recognised the towel as the one Dervish reserves for his feet. He’s very particular about foot hygiene, which is another reason he makes an excellent travelling companion. To see his towel thus abused must have caused him no end of anguish.

“Yes?” The Pill’s head said.

“Erm, is everything all right in there, Miss Jessop?” I asked.

“Of course.” The head said. “Though I did have a little trouble with the partition.”

She beckoned me inside. I’m afraid to say I hesitated, reluctant to enter alone, but one glance at poor Dervish, prostrate by the campfire whilst being comforted by the ever-capable Carstairs, filled me with courage. I bowed my head and stepped inside.

The woman had fashioned a curtain across the centre of the tent, cleanly splitting the space into two. One side was piled high with luggage and sleeping bags belonging to the original expeditionary team; the other side contained the gigantic suitcase, from whence, presumably, a range of impractical travelling accessories had been wrenched. As you know, I like a hat stand as much as the next person, but didn’t dream to bring one with me. And I wear hats!

The Pill sat on her inflatable mattress amid the clutter and chaos she’d created and stared at the curtain.

“I’m not sure of the colour,” she said in a wistful way. “Perhaps a green one would be more restful?”

I took off my hat and scratched my head. She squeaked excitedly and snatched it from me, to place on the hat stand I thought, but no. She filled it with water and put a goldfish in it.

“I was wondering what to do with Oscar!” she beamed. She took a small bobbin of cotton from her dressing gown pocket and with swiftly moving fingers created a tiny harness, which she slipped over the poor fish before dragging it round and round in laps of my poor Pith Helmet. It looked almost as startled as I did.

“He needs his exercise, don’t you Oscar?” she said. The fish did not answer and I thought it better to leave before he did.

My companions and I spent a fretful night, squashed together, sitting upright in half a tent, listening to the terrifying somniloquence from beyond the curtain and the slow dripping of water from my Pith hat.

The next morning, when she scampered off to ‘freshen up’, Carstairs, Dervish and I plotted in low voices.

“She has to go!” I declared. “We’ll use the public telephone and ring for help.” Carstairs lowered his head and nodded feebly.

“Who you gonna call?” he muttered.

“I’ll ring Jessop and see if he has any ideas.”

*

Jessop laughed.

“Good old Pill!” he squelched between snorts and I had to remove the handset from my ear a number of times to preserve my hearing. “She always was a mad as a carrier full of koolahs. Leave it with me.” He rang off abruptly to screams of “Gregory! The Dust Bunnies!”

We waited for two days for help to arrive, which it did in the form of father Jessop, fresh from Kibblesworth, with Uncle Brian and Justine the Labrador. The Pill was delighted to see them and kissed them all madly, asking if they could smell her teeth as she did so.

Humphrey Jessop apologised for not having arrived sooner, but there’d been a rush on for his ‘crusty farmhouse’ and he’d not liked to leave the bakery.

They soon bundled The Pill and her enormous suitcase into the back of their 2007 Subaru Forester, and she was gone from us in a cloud of Labrador hair and wholegrain flour.

It was three-thirty in the afternoon, but my companions and I retired at once to our tent, exhausted, and slept for a full thirty-nine hours, not once disturbed by thoughts of eyebrow dandruff or dust bunnies.

And so, Dear Friend, you will understand the interruption in our communications. Normal service will be resumed shortly.

Oh, and I saved you some of the Eyebrow shampoo. You never know.

Kindest Regards,

B

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Categories: Bizzywig, Gentle Humour, Mad inventions, Short stories
Tags: Bobbin, Dust Bunnies, Eyebrow shampoo, Piccalilli, Tooth Deodorant