Chaper 2

The Strange And Twisted Saga of the Sisters Welliffomething-ffomething
and Are They Really There Or Not?

***

In the local Lending Library, Peveral Murkin, Ermentrude Pinkley and daff Maud Bunkum were in a right state. Weighed down with all the books in the world (except for those best kept under lock and key by Mrs. Dafarge, the redoubtable Librarian and Wit), it had taken them the best part of a day to find a table big enough to accommodate everything, a task made even more difficult by their insistence on providing their own silver tea service and sandwiches. In the few minutes remaining before being ushered out the door at closing time (and Mrs. Dafarge was nothing if not a firm believer that, whenever a bell tolled, one was duty-bound to do half a dozen things promptly and simultaneously), they were unable to locate so much as a single reference to the improbably important family known as Welliffomething-ffomething (not even when they had referenced it in larger, Improbably Important Print, as in Welliffomething-ffomething). Nor did the intrepid researchers have any more luck in their search for ‘the set of vile and scloppy twins’ known as ‘Muffin’ and ‘Wambledy-Jane’. Hindered as they were by an education acquired from one of the better local comprehensives, they had not learned the alphabet, except by counting it off on their fingers. As a consequence, they were weak when it came to spelling (as well as geography and math and history). And having never seen the sisters’ names actually written down, they had no idea what they should look for or where they should start - a disadvantage when it came to looking up the names in reference books. Not wishing to give up, however, they set about trying every available variation. And after exhausting that avenue, they continued using all the other known alphabets (or at least all those they could think of). It really was the most desperately arduous task, and one that provoked no small amount of stress!

***
To the east of The Bog, beyond the crumbling boundary wall and its rotting-though-and-through and picture perfect stile, the real-life vile and smelly sisters, Muffin and Wambledy-Jane, were unaware they were not to be found among those of sufficient privilege to be accorded a place in Reference Books of Note. In fact, they probably assumed that to be the case, for to be caught dead in such a place as a book or periodical showed a low moral character. As their late, lamented mummy pointed out ad nauseum, to bandy one’s name hither and thither where the great unwashed could see it was an unpardonable breach of etiquette. A name, after all, was for one’s personal use, an asset shared sparingly with the select few. To possess a name was a privilege granted under sufferance; that others should be allowed to know it was indeed an honour most rarefied. But to know was not to own the power of expression. In other words, only those of the most exalted rank would be empowered to utter the fragrant syllables of a name. Let “everyone” get hold of it, and not only could they take it in vain, but they might (knowing ‘them’) take it just about anywhere else. Into the gutter; into the drains; into the tabloids; into the hideous front ‘lounges’ of God Only Knows What. And once God Only Knows What has your once proud name sliding round his or her filthy gullet, you might as well have been born common. For that reason, the sisters had never given consent for their names to be included in ancient back-issues of The Daily Bogdirt, not even under births or deaths or notable spring weddings. Nor were they to be mentioned in the dark and lurky corners of the dustier magazines of time immemorial. No matter how hard you looked, you’d never find them in any paper pages, not even if you were the smartest person on earth and hired several detectives at the same time. Plainly, to them, it was not who the they were that mattered, but for whom their personal who should be unobtainable.

Many years previously, during their formative years, The Vile Sisters Welliffomething-ffomething had been stored in a cupboard with only a scrap of malt bread and a volume of philosophical essays as company. The bread, quite naturally, was the first to be committed to their digestive systems, quickly followed by the book (a first edition, bound in Moroccan Leather), but not until the opus had been read (aloud, with the sisters taking turns). Read a page, eat a page, read a page, eat a page, for months and months on end. Of course, neither of them, and especially not Wambledy-Jane, understood a single word, but that did not prevent ‘existentialism’ and ‘existentialist’ from becoming their by-words. There was also the unrelated phrase, “The Dog It Was That Died”, but neither remembered whence that had come. “I exist, but are we philosophically indistinguishable from The Dog It Was That Died?” became the questionable reply to every argument, at least until they were released from the cupboard and found other issues more relevant to their needs.

“We exist and in that existence we define ourselves; the Dog It Was That Died also exists and in that existence defines itself. Ergo, The Dog and Ourselves Exist, but are they we and are we they?” Unfortunately, if loud opinions confirm existence, such arguments inferred that The Sisters Welliffomething-ffomething did, indeed, exist. Most indubitably so, though not, perhaps, in any recognisable form. Nor could it be proven that they were, in fact, existentially alive. At least not in the light of day on a lovely summer’s afternoon. They were, you see, far too devious for that. It was not for nothing they’d perfected horrible and nefarious deeds and doings, the latter being most excellent smoke screens, perfect for concealing one’s everyday weaknesses. If they hadn’t been elevated socially (and born into a stratum where the state of being diabolical, sneaky and underhanded were considered delightful assets) even their own family might have found them extremely objectionable. As it was, given they were sublimely elevated, no one said much of anything (at least not in their presence).

The secret to their success (and also to their woes) lay in the fact that The Vile Sisters Welliffomething-ffomething happened to have been born nothing more or less than a pair of extremely ugly, but supremely well-crafted Gum Boots. It was a physical condition that enabled them to live their lives in a state of near invisibility. Like servants, they were seen but not seen. Also, like servants (and this they resented very much indeed) they were functional. Unlike servants, however, Gum Boots did not inhabit a station which gave them a professional and respectable status. They were, to put it bluntly, there to be trodden upon, and that made them very angry indeed. So angry that their rubbery bile foamed up and consumed their souls. So angry that they became delightfully evil. Delightfully and invisibly detestable.

Sour and bitter and utterly awful, The Sisters Welliffomething-ffomething went about their way lives, being trodden upon by a unseen (to them, for their eyes were pointed outwards and not upwards) mastodon with stinking socks and grandiose bunions and an unpleasant, shrilly voice. And when they were not being trodden upon, they vented their spleen and wreaked their havoc. It was a talent they had perfected over the years and decades, a talent only a pair of extremely plain and ugly (and handcrafted) Gum Boots could possess. So invisible. So undetectable. So unexpected, unsuspected and, well, un-suspectable. They were, quite simply, there all the time, unmoving, simply there. How fun it was that no one ever noticed one’s presence until it was too late. At which point, because it was too late, there was nothing to be done.

That was the way of things most days, and on this particular day, the day in which things happened, because they’d been standing around all quiet like, and for so very long, not a soul suspected that they might or might not be there at all, or even if they’d ever been. It was the way of the world for The Wellington Sisters.

***
Copyright 2007 JA Weeks