Chapter Thirty-One

Directory of Humor Blogs

The Mud Monster Meets Its Darling Mummykins


Muffin and Wambledy-Jane rode in silence for some time, enjoying their newfound freedom and the warm rays of the sun as it shone down upon their faces. Underneath them, their steeds (true natural heirs to The General’s mighty wolfhounds that they were) moseyed contentedly here and there in the dense and sodden undergrowth, snuffling nature’s scents in the many nooks and crannies, happy as ferrets in a basketful of chickies and tasty mousicles .

Presently, Muffin sighed very deeply. “I simply cannot go on like this,” she said.

Wambledy-Jane looked at her, puzzled. Slightly flustered, she turned around as far as she could (almost falling off Brutus-Louise in the process) and looked at her sister. “B… b… but Muffin,” she gulped, “I don’t want to go back to H… H… Herself…”

“I don’t mean that,” replied Muffin, more downcast than before. “Whatever happens, I don’t mean that,” at which point she sighed some more. “What I was trying to say was that I was extremely thoughtless a few minutes ago, and I can’t live with it.”

“Thoughtless?” interjected Wambledy-Jane, “you have always been the least thoughtless boot I’ve known, and I’m not saying this because you are my older sister.”

“That is very kind of you, Wambledy-Jane, and I appreciate you saying it,” replied her sister, “but the truth is I have been dreadful. Simply dreadful.”

“That’s just being silly,” cooed Wambledy-Jane.

“I’m not being silly,” snapped Muffin, becoming increasingly impatient, “and will you please refrain from the usual reassuring twaddle? And,” she added before her sister could get a word in, “while we are about it, kindly permit me to finish a sentence!”

Whereupon Wambledy-Jane burst into tears, drew a large, embroidered, lace-edged linen handkerchief from her pocket and blew her nose. “I wasn’t…”

But before she could speak, Muffin roared at her. “Don’t tell me what you were or were not doing! I am apologising to you, and if you dare interrupt me, or contradict me, again, I shall smite you with my mighty left bunion!”

Wambledy-Jane fell silent, and a single glimmering tear trickled down her left cheek.

“That is better,” boomed Muffin, now much more cheerful. “As I was saying before you interrupted me, it is my duty to apologise to you, apologise profusely and sincerely. The fact that your daughter, the lamentable Delphinium Bedroom-Slipper, is a dolt and a squeamish harridan is beside the point. She is still your beloved daughter. What is more, she was thrown over the wall by Sturdge, at the bidding of Herself, Miss Havering Ma’am, and has never been seen since. As a mother, you have every right to grieve, though, personally, why you should want to waste your breath and energy on that piece of fried sheep’s manure is quite beyond me.”

“B… b… but Muffin,” ventured Wambledy-Jane, “it wasn’t her fault, it really wasn’t, that episode with the pig’s unfortunate present and Miss Havering Ma’am’s nose. Old Mister Snort had delivered my darling dimpledums not two minutes before, and was in the process of exchanging her twin sister, Noodles, for a more attractive colour when Herself came storming out of the house and tripped over her own ingrown toenail. It had nothing to do with little Delphinium, honest! In fact, if it wasn’t she who was fast asleep in the new vessel what lived under Miss Havering Ma’am’s bed, I don’t know who it was.”

“Then whose fault was it?” Muffin demanded to know.

“Erm,” murmured Wambledy-Jane, and then again, erm…”

“Well?” trounced Muffin. “Out with it!”

“Oh, Muffin dear,” sobbed Wambledy-Jane, waffling in an irritating manner. “Does it really matter? It is such a long time ago, and so much has happened since then.”

“Since then, my dear sister,” declared her sister, “we have been exiled to The Mud Room, that is what is the matter! The Mud Room! After a life of selfless service and a comfortable bed by the dining room fire, because of your daughter we were condemned to an eternity in The Mud Room!”

“Oh dear, oh dear,” waffled Wambledy-Jane, “oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!”

Muffin sighed a great heaving sigh and wrapped herself around her sister in a warm semblance of a hug. “Come here, you great snoot, give us a hug. Cheer up. We’ve escaped from Herself. We’ve got the great orangey hairy things to carry us about. Perhaps we’ll even find ourselves a home. A home, Wambledy-Jane! Of our own, Wambledy-Jane. That is something we have never had before, Wambledy-Jane.”

Her sister snuffled into her handkerchief and smiled a wobbly smile. “Any more of that,” she said, “And I shall burst into song.”

“If you have quite recovered, then, let us be off,” replied Muffin in a resolute tone of voice.

With that, the two sisters (no longer quite so evil since escaping from the clutches of Miss Havering Ma’am) smote their panting steeds (one of whom, Bountiful, had his nose stuck in a nice fragrant pile of steaming brown from an anonymous donor) and sped away down a theretofore-uncharted bohereen. Muffin was, of course, much the superior rider, and had a truly elegant seat. As Bountiful leapt over the shrubberies and bogland greenery and splashed through the streams and ponds, she looked in all respects a professional equestrian, and had she not been a Wellington boot of a certain age and inclination, one might have said she’d have been at home at Burghley or Badminton or at a vintage Horse of the Year Show (before it was exiled to the flattened vowels and unfortunate food of the midlands). “Zooks and zounds,” she trumpeted, “away and avast!” And within a nonce, she was out of sight over the nearest hillock, and all that remained was the scarlet ribbon, formerly binding her ancient and fizzy hair to her head, and which had come loose in all the excitement and decided at the last moment to stay behind.

Unlike the more athletic Muffin, her twin sister, Wambledy-Jane, was hardly what one could call ‘at home’ when mounted upon a steed. “Eeeeew,” she was known to squeal whenever presented with a saddle, under which some quivering monster or other was chomping at the bit. “Eeeeew! My legs are short or none at all, and I shall fall off and into the mud. Give me a book, a mug of beef tea, and a basket of rugs and leave me, leave me be!” In fact, so insistent was she that she should not be forced to take up riding (she had an equally adversity to all other forms of exercise, as well, which may or may not stemmed from an early encounter with Miss Havering Ma’am’s aromatic right foot when she was but young and impressionable), that she wrote a song just for the occasion (using, as a leitmotif, the gentle, impassioned words she was already spoken):

Wambledy-Jane’s Lament

I was a baby bootie, sitting in a cake,
And all those standing ‘round the room
Thought I was a snake.

Then came along a horsey, and a tennis ball
He trod on all my footies and ate my new best shawl.
He threw me in a bucket and washed me with a sponge,
With lye and pickled onions, the juice of an orunge
And said I smelt like conger eel and elephanty grunge.
(chorus)
My legs are short or none at all,
I hate that sloppy mud.
I want a book and toffee pud
And warm and fluffy blankies,
Feed me tea and curdy cheese
And kindly give me spankies.
(Repeat twice every Sunday
But omit on Tuesdays)
Kindly let me be oh be
Kindly let me be.
I’ll stay home and never roam,
So kindly let me be!

Brutus-Louis is not at all my type,
He is so very tall.
He loves to roll in smelly mud
And rub himself in tripe.
He licks me up and down, he does,
It isn’t very nice,
But when he goes and sits on me,
He gives me all his lice.
(chorus)
My legs are short or none at all,
I hate that sloppy mud.
I want a book and toffee pud
And warm and fluffy blankies,
Feed me tea and curdy cheese
And kindly give me spankies.
(Repeat twice every Sunday
But omit on Tuesdays)
Kindly let me be oh be
Kindly let me be.
I’ll stay home and never roam,
So kindly let me be!

Brutus-Louise he runs so fast,
And does not have a brain.
He thinks a pickled onion
Is rather like a train.
If only he were nicer
And called me ‘My Dear Mum’
I’d never think of beating him
Or saying ‘You Nasty Scum’.
O! My darling daughter,
If only you was here,
You’d tie him to a fiery spit
And serve him up with beer.

Whereupon, reminded of her sweet daughter, the long-lost Delphinium Bedroom-Slipper, Wambledy-Jane quite forgot to sing the penultimate chorus and the final verse.

“Honestly,” chortled Muffin, who had slowed down and allowed her sister to catch up, and who was, by now, exasperated and preparing to flick her sister with her embroidered riding crop (filched from Miss Havering Ma’am when the latter was deep under the influence of her stewed prunes). “What are you blubbing about now?”

“ (Sob sob, blub blub) M… m… my p… p… poor D… D… Delph… ph… ph… in… n… n… ium B… B… edroooooom-S… S… lip… p… er” (sob sob snivel glug), sobbed Wambledy-Jane. “Sh… sh… sheeee is g… g… gone and I sh… sh… shall n… n… never” (sob sniff) “s… s… see her ag” (sneeze drizzle cough snort) “ain.”

Wishing to hear no more of this drivel, Muffin clouted her sister with the whip, and they both tumbled off their mounts and into an extremely unctuous and phosphorescent pile of mud. They rolled around, screaming and yelling, subjecting each other to extreme noogies, and being fairly abusive to each other for a good three minutes. At that point, several passing strangers waded into the foray, threw a bucket of tuna putrescence over them and caused the two to be separated.

Muffin, struggling and spitting and coughing and hurling invective at the interlopers, shook herself free. Her eyes were quite completely red and fumy by this time. And she drew herself up to her full height (which, being a gumboot, was abnormally tall by bog standards) and glowered until the strangers, thinking that perhaps the boots might be dangerous, backed away to a safe distance, where they remained, hovering in a curiously irregular semi-circle.
Presently, all drew deep breaths, calmed down and shuffled their feet in the mud and dust, after which Mr. Peveral Murkin (the first among The Interlopers), being excessively polite, introduced himself and his four friends to the mud-splattered Gumboots. “Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Peveral Murkin, and these”, he said, indicating Ermentrude Pinkley and daff Maud Bunkum, who were standing on his right, “are my very best friends, Ermentrude Pinkley and Maud Bunkum, known to everyone as daff Maud, though you should never capitalise ‘daff’, at least not when she’s in the room. On my left are Miss Libbedy Spider, who is so small you might not see her (please watch where you are putting your feet, which are rather large and might accidentally trod upon her head), and The Mud Monster, who is not really any such thing, but who is, for reasons best known to herself, incognito.”

“How do you do, Mister Peveral Murkin,” replied Muffin Welliffomething-ffomething, with a slight and formal nod of the head. “I am Miss Muffin Wellinffomething-ffomething and this is my younger twin sister, Miss Wambledy-Jane Wellinffomething-ffomething. We have escaped The Big House (for reasons which are of no concern of yours) and seek refuge in your beautiful bog.”

“Nonsense!” interjected Wambledy-Jane. “We never escaped! We were taken up in a flying machine by Miss Havering Ma’am and then ejected for being too fat.”

“And who are these two enormous and stupendously gorgeous and slightly stupid creatures you have been riding?” asked teeny Libbedy Spider in a very loud voice, projected in such a fashion that The Gumboots might hear her clearly.

Muffin whapped the dogs with her whip and made them lie down on a mound of grass (home to seventy-five families of carpenter ants, all of whom suddenly decided to decamp for their summer hols in a disagreeable holiday camp). “These are Miss Havering Ma’am’s famous mongrel settlers, direct descendents of The General’s Borzois,” she announced in an important voice. “They, too, were ejected from the flying machine by our mistress, who wished to enjoy the view untrammelled by inferior beings. You may call them Bountiful and Brutus-Louise, but I should advise against calling attention to yourselves if you are edible.”

Before Muffin Welliffomething-ffomething could say another word, The Mud Monster froze in its tracks (not that it had been going anywhere important), and for no apparent reason, sang a little lullaby in a sublimely sweet voice.

The Mud Monster’s Little Lullaby

I was a little tunnyfish
A’sittin’ on a chair
Eating chocolate bunny tails
And darning underwear.
Along came Mister Twuzzle Fugg
A’smokin’ his cigar
Playing on his accordion
And polishing his car.

O! My Sir, I begged and asked,
You do look such a treat
All round and fat and fully packed
I bet you taste too sweet.
He said to me, he said he said,
You are a gorgeous lass
I’d love to take you home with me
And make you mow the grass.
(Chorus)
A wuzzle fuggy in the bag
It wasn’t very nice
An octopus has got eight legs
And sleeps on bags of rice.
Aa-ooooo, Aa-ooooo.

Blinkie’s bottom is so round
It’s made of jam and fudge
And if you poke it with a stick
It makes an awful smudge.
I’d love to sit and sing a song
So tenderly it goes
But then I’d snort an ounce of snuff
And sneeze off half my nose.

My mum’s a mussel, she’s a swell
She likes to swim in soup,
She wears the garlic in her hat
To keep away the croup.
I love you so, my dearest one
And hope you sleep quite dreamy
An elephant’s got into your brain
And made your breath quite steamy.
(Chorus)
A wuzzle fuggy in the bag
It wasn’t very nice
An octopus has got eight legs
And sleeps on bags of rice.
Aa-ooooo, Aa-ooooo.

Wambledy-Jane suddenly grew quite cross, and narrowing her eyes in an aggressive manner, walked over the The Mud Monster and stared straight into its eyes.

“Where,” she demanded to know, “did you get that song?”

“And from whom did you steal it,” pounced Muffin from over her shoulder.

“Steal it?” shrieked The Mud Monster, taken completely by surprise, at which point it burst into tears, sucked its thumbs and curled up into a call. “Mama,” it cried piteously. “Help me!”

“Don’t be presumptuous,” lectured Wambledy-Jane in an unbearably harsh tone. “You stole that song! It belonged to my daughter!”

“You stole it stole it stole it!” interrupted Muffin in an exceedingly loud and irritating sing-songy voice. “And knowing you, you also killed her darling babby girl and ate her for elevenses!”

“I did no such thing!” blubbed The Mud Monster in a two-year-old tantrumy voice, “And you’ve got no right to say so!”

“Yes I do, you impertinent rodent!” screamed Wambledy-June.

“I am not a rodent!” responded The Mud Monster, in a fury.

“Yes you are!” yelled Wambledy-Jane. “You are a stinky smelly rodent who poops on the trifle when nobody’s looking and throws up on the beebleberries!”

“And you’re nothing but a rotten old hag who’s going to die in a minute and vomit black icky stuff all over her shoes,” countered The Mud Monster.

“Well, if I’m a rotten old hag, you must be hippopotamus poop and smelly rotty pig brains!” shouted Wambledy-Jane.

“Well, you’re nothing but rotty stinky smelly fish guts lying in the sun for a hundred million billion years!” screamed The Mud Monster, for all it was worth.

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake,” boomed Muffin and Peveral Murkin and Teeny Tiny Practically Invisible Libbedy Spider, all at the same time.

“This is getting us nowhere at all,” continued Ermentrude Pinkley, in the same vein.

“Can’t the two of you think of a better way to settle the argument?” ventured daff Maud Bunkum, suddenly extremely and utterly wise.

This question was followed by a welcomed silence as everybody thought and thought and thought, and after about sixteen and a half minutes, during which time it scratched its head until a good deal of mud had fallen off, The Mud Monster stuck its finger into the air and said (in a thoughtfully surprised voice), “Ah!”

Every one else looked at expectantly with their mouths open, much like a bunch of quite stupid fish. “Ah?” they echoed.

“Exactly!” said The Mud Monster triumphantly.

“Ah?” they all repeated (everyone except The Mud Monster, who by now was quite determined to solve the problem all by itself).

“If everyone will kindly sit over there,” it said, pointing to a narrow and newly-painted bench underneath a wilted and forlorn-looking rose arbour of ancient lineage, “and be perfectly quiet and well behaved, I shall sing another song I learned from my mother several months before old Mister Snort fully fulled my felt. Should anyone know the words, then I suggest we might have a solution.”

“Either that,” interjected Ermentrude Pinkley, quite despondently, “or we shall have to declare war.”

“Declare war,” mumbled daff Maud Bunkum to herself, nodding happily, “that’s nice. Shall I ask Mrs. DaFarge to pack a hamper?”

“A hamper?” asked Wambledy-Jane, totally confused. “What on earth for?”

“There, there, my dear,” said Mr. Peveral Murkin, softly patting his friend upon her head for a good three minutes (until she had quite disappeared into the ground, after which he sat on what was left, took out a looking glass and long ivory comb, and combed the curly edges of his fringe). Then, feeling ever so much better, he put the implement back into his briefcase, coughed politely and addressed the assembled throng. “You must not fret unduly over daff Maud Bunkum,” he said. “She had to leave early to prepare chocolate marzipan pudding for dinner. I am to speak on her behalf.”

“B… b… Peveral,” stuttered daff Maud from under his foot, “we always pack a hamper when there is a battle to be watched. Why, you prepared the last one yourself, don’t you remember? We ate half a cold goose with Cumberland sauce, cucumber and cress salad, lemon curd tarts and Drumloch, and all the while arrows (not sharp ones, of course, though they were dipped in strawberry jam so one could see who had been hit) were flying this way and that, along with last season’s oranges and apples and barrels of sorghum.”

“I do not wish to be reminded,” warned Ermentrude Pinkley. “I was quite covered with jam and rotten fruit by three o’clock in the afternoon. I did not have time to change my clothes before teatime, and nurse boxed my ears until my toenails fell off.”

Again, the assembled throng fell silent, having run out of things to say. After several minutes of this, The Mud Monster cleared its throat.

“Speaking of teatime, Mrs. DaFarge is baking seedcake this afternoon and has promised to set aside twelve or forty slices for us, but only if we are in time. According to my watch,” it said, pulling a great silver-gilt half-hunter from its waistcoat pocket, dusting it off and squinting at the dial, “we have exactly seven and three-quarter minutes.”

The others immediately looked over their shoulders at a small frog (which was sitting in the afternoon sun quite sweetly and minding its own business) and said, “Ah!” and started, as one, to walk down the bohereen in the direction of Mrs. Eulilie DaFarge’s Tea Cosy & Espresso Bar (under new management, Mrs. DaFarge, proprietress, no capuccini served after 10.30am, scones baked to order, hats and gloves to be worn after 4.00pm, and white tie and tiaras after 8.00pm).

“Wait!” shouted The Mud Monster, in a voice much louder and less polite than necessary (though not intentionally rude). “I haven’t sung my other song!”

“Weren’t you paying attention?” asked Mr. Peveral Murkin, crossly, “If we are late, Mrs. DaFarge will get into a state and donate what is left of the seedcake to the poor.”

“And we all know what that means,” continued Ermentrude Pinkley, looking very serious, but at the same time blushing, lowering her voice and looking around to make sure she was not being overlooked by undesirables. “It is their morals, you know. Seedcake and French onion soup and tennis and barley water play havoc with their morals.”

“Oh,” said Muffin Welliffomething-ffomething doubtfully, then “ah! Well, we can’t have that, can we?”

“Well, I am working class,” piped The Mud Monster, “and so was my mum and auntie Plum…” whereupon Muffin choked on the anchovy sandwich she had found in her pocket (and which she had filched much earlier from the hamper of Miss Havering Ma’am).

“Oh Muffy,” panted Wambledy-Jane, petting her sister on the back, “has someone got a glass of water?”

“”I think I have some water,” said teeny tiny Libbedy Spider, whom everyone had quite forgotten in the excitement. “Only it is in a bottle, not a glass. Will that do?”

“It’s not in the least bit polite!” said Muffin, in the middle of a coughing fit.

“Suit yourself,” replied Libbedy Spider, in a rare breach of manners. “Cough until your nose turns inside out if you’d prefer.”

“PU – LEASE!” screamed The Mud Monster, “won’t everybody stop talking and arguing and choking long enough for me to sing my song?”

“Well,” huffed Missus Ridglet-Grassworm, who happened to be passing on her way to a rubber or two of bridge at The Women’s Institute, “suit yourself, but if you were my child, I would paddle you until the cows had kittens.”

“SHUT UP!” screamed everyone (including Bountiful and Brutus-Louise, who had up until that moment been dozing peacefully in a grassy knoll), causing the singularly unpleasant matron to not only jump out of her skin, but to be blown across the bog pond and into The Community Centre Bingo Room. Having never been inside the confines of this hospitable facility (because of her delicate sensibilities), she was clearly not prepared for the impact it would have upon her emotional balance. She immediately became hopelessly addicted to the game and refused to leave until she could master one hundred cards at one and the same time (the previous record having been held by her daily, Miss Millicent Swanly of Lower Bottomly Lane).

“Seedcakes in thirty-two seconds!” bellowed Mr. Peveral Murkin, unbecomingly, at which point every single one of them, barring The Mud Monster (and teeny tiny rumpus Libbedy Spider, for whom friendship and loyalty took precedence over seedcake). And as they ran down the lane in the direction of Mrs. Eulilie DaFarge’s Tea Cosy & Espresso Bar (under new management, Mrs. DaFarge, proprietress, no capuccini served after 10.30am, scones baked to order, hats and gloves to be worn after 4.00pm, white tie and tiaras after 8.00pm, and children [accompanied by a governess] may be served hot caster oil and Bengers’ providing they are neither seen nor heard), they completely forgot why they had been born in the first place. The Mud Monster, however, was so determined to prove her innocence in the matter of the possibly purloined lullaby that she dug in her heals and sang her other childhood song (as taught her by her darling mummy).

I Love You, Darling Baby Mine
(A lament)
¯
I see a rose upon a bush,
A pretty florabumble,
Insatiably it eats my toes
And sets me all a-jumble.
¯
I want to love you very much,
And bake you in a pie,
Your daddy’s gone and left you here
He never told me why.
¯
My darling dear, please sleep and dream
And snore until tomorrow,
I shall steal into your drawer,
Your toothbrush so to borrow.
¯
A bobble-headed little dear,
You are so quaint to see,
If only you were two foot tall
You’d balance on my knee.
¯
Please darling dear, please do not squirm
And sit upon your potty,
This castor oil will do the trick
And clear out baby’s botty.
¯
I am not sure if you are nice
Or just a little brat,
But I do know if you aren’t sweet
I’ll feed you to a sprat.
¯
(refrain)
Oh, honey bunch, stay in your pram
And do not pine for me,
If you are very, very good
I’ll send you out to sea,
Upon a boat that will not float
Without some scenery:
Two little trees and frozen peas
And twenty ducks plus three.
Oh, darling dear, please keep them near
Or boatie it will sink.
And I shall lose my little lass
A – floatin’ in the drink.

No sooner had The Mud Monster finished the first line of the first verse than Wambledy-Jane stopped in her tracks. All thoughts of Mrs. DaFarge’s lovely seedcake were quite forgotten, replaced by memories of a time, long, long ago when days were happy and filled with light. She remembered preparing a little pram for her expected little ones, due later that afternoon. “I shall deliver them myself by three o’clock myself,” Old Mister Snort had said the previous Tuesday. “Just get yourself ready and when the time comes, I shall knock on the door.”

And sure enough, at the appointed hour, at the very moment she had fluffed the pillows and smoothed the woollen coverlet, there had come a knock, knock, knocking. “Are you there?” Old Mister Snort had called through the rough wooden door. “Oh yes, oh yes,” she had answered as she extended her hand towards the door. And as the old cobbler had entered, hadn’t the foul-tempered Miss Havering Ma’am heaved her bulk into the room from the other door, having chosen that precise moment to air her fungitude in the garden. “Mortimer,” she had shouted over her left shoulder, “bring us our mohair hand warmer and our lined slippers, and tell Edders to fetch the small Phaeton. We shall exert ourselves this afternoon in The Rhubarbery.” At which point she had turned around and spotted Old Mister Snort standing in the door. “What on earth are you doing here, Snort?” she had shouted as loudly as possible. “We informed you last Tuesday by letter that we shall not be ordering new shoes this season. The climate on the estate is both vile and wet, and we find ourselves wearing nothing but gumboots and woollen socks from morning ‘til night.”

“B… b… but Miss Havering Ma’am,” he had stuttered. “I’ve brought these here slippers special, as a gift from The Archbishop.”

Miss Havering wasted no time in snatching the parcel from the kindly little cobbler, ripping off the brown paper and string and examining the lovely slippers sent by His Excellency. The delicate vessels had been fashioned from powder blue velvet and embroidered with exquisite pink, gold and silver forget-me-nots, with soles of the softest, finest doeskin. “How unspeakably ugly,” trumpeted Miss Havering. “How unpardonably personal! How dare The Archbishop insinuate that we are possessed of feet! And this one,” she added, indicating the right slipper, which was half again as long as its mate and coloured a winsomely cheerful chartreuse, “has a sour disposition. Return it to His Excellency at once with without our compliments.”

“Wha… wha… what should I say to him,” asked Old Mister Snort, who knew from vast experience His Excellency’s proclivities regarding the proper use of the carriage whip, rack and auto da fe.

“Tell His Excellency we shall be expecting him for tea Thursday week,” answered Miss Havering Ma’am reasonably. And with that, she took the other slipper from him and ordered Edders to kick it over the wall and out of her sight. “There,” she said, after he wad carried out her instructions, “One feels a great deal better now. Perhaps we shall change our plans and shoot rabbits instead. Edders!” she shouted, “Bring ‘round the bath chair. Mortimer!” she shouted in the other direction, “We shall not be needing the lined slippers. Assist us with the gumboots and then bring us our blunderbuss and twelve thousand ounces of shot!”

And so it was that not only had Miss Havering Ma’am returned one of Wambledy-Jane’s children as being insufficient and booted the other one into the more distressing reaches of the bog, but she had forced the bereaved mother, along with the doting auntie, the redoubtable Muffin (known by all the children as ‘Plum’) to carry her through the sloppy slops and watch helplessly as she massacred as many rabbits and other furry creatures as possible.

Wambledy-Jane came back from her reminiscence with a jolt and stared at The Mud Monster. “What awful things must have befallen you,” she said, referring to the mud.

“That’s nothing at all,” replied The Mud Monster, “it’s easily rectified.” And with that, it reached for a passing pitcher of water and poured the contents over its brown head. Instantly, the mud evaporated, revealing Oinka The Pig, radiantly clean and squeaky.

“But I don’t understand,” said Wambledy-Jane with a slight quiver in her voice. “With all due respect, you are a pig, and though you may be a most attractive pig, I had in mind something else.”

Oinka The Pig batted her eyes coyly once or twice, then bent over and grabbed a jewelled ring on the tip of her right trotter. Tugging this sharply, a bottom-to-top zipper opened up, the beautifully wrought pink disguise fell away, and an exquisite powder blue velvet slipper, embroidered with pink, silver and gold thread, was revealed.

“My darling Delphinium,” cried Wambled-Jane, simultaneously opening her fat, stubby arms as wide as they would go and smothering her long-lost baby daughter with hugs.

“Mummykins!” sobbed Delphinium Bedroom-Slipper, bursting into floods of happy tears. “I thought I should never see you again!”

At that moment, a very large and portentous jaunting cart, under its own power and transporting an extremely harried and impatient Mrs. DaFarge, came bounding down the bohereen and attached itself to the two setters. Much out of breath, it turned to the two no longer evil twin sisters and asked if it could borrow them. “I promise I shall return them post-haste,” it said quite desperately. “Only, Madam is running late, is quite irate, and we have very far to go.”

“And where, pray tell, is that?” asked Muffin Wellingffomething-ffomething, quite cheerfully.

“An happointment, I hexpect,” it panted, adding, “Madam has a great many of them. So many, in fact, that I get confused and don’t know where to take her.”

“Stop talking at once!” shouted Mrs. DaFarge in an officious tone of voice from her seat on the cart. “I am far too busy to stop and talk with riffraff!”

“See what I mean?” whispered The Jaunting Cart.

“Never you mind,” said the two sisters simultaneously. “You may take the steeds and be gone as long as you like,” adding, for good measure, “it is not as if we were planning to go anywhere, at least not in the foreseeable future.”

While Bountiful and Brutus-Louise were getting settled in the harness, Muffin gave The Jaunting Cart an enormous hug. “You see,” she said, “I have found my darling daughter. First thing tomorrow, after tea and seedcake and a good night’s rest, I shall need to enrol her in the best school possible, buy a pretty uniform, purchase hockey sticks, and make her enough school lunches to last a year…”

“You will vacate the right of way,” barked Mrs. DaFarge, cracking her whip. “and if you are expecting seedcakes during your lifetimes, you will be very disappointed.” Without explaining herself, she puffed herself up, turned front and commanded, “Hye-up, beasts! Trot on!” Whereupon the two orangey setters stopped talking between themselves and trotted off quite contentedly in the direction of The Big House.

Copyright 2007 JA Weeks