Day 42

Dear Diary,

I didn’t tell you about the conniption fit Missus Milly Da Fardle had when it turned out Finian Da Fabricator wasn’t never gonna come back outta The Bank of Old Wanger Nose with her suitcase full of blackmailed bingo winnings. She jumped up and down, or at least she would’a if her zimmer hadn’t got stuck in a crack and fell over with her under it. Poor old dear (not that she’s a dear, more like a fart wots got out after someone’s eaten broccoli), she hit her head something terrible and looked dead as a slab of beef wots been left out in the sun. At least that wot I suppose she looked like, but you’ve gotta understand they don’t see no sun to speak of here on the island, but you get the picture. Mostly it’s cold and wet and even all the maggots’ve immigrated. It’s depressing to think that nothing much happens here when meat is left out except smell, but wot with locals not bathing much on account of it’s sinful to take off your clothes and let water touch your intimate unmentionables, visitors can’t tell the difference between the living and the dead, and that’s even before they talks to ‘em.

But back to Missus Milly Da Fardle thwacking her head on the pavement and looking deader than the sisters Purdy did before they were regenerated (as they say) into Special Exotic Siamese-Flavoured Deluxe Luxury Cat Food. Well, a coupl’a strangers (wot could’a been Arnie Pizzlepod and Maybelline Dorcus O’Brien, only nobody’s ever seen them before in the daylight, so you couldn’t be sure) ran up from nowhere and checked her pulse and also stole the money from her purse, which was the acceptable thing to do. After they decided she might be alive, all appearances to the contrary, one of ‘em, probably Arnie Pizzlepod, on account of he was already holding his mobile phone in his left hand, phoned the police to tell ‘em all about Missus Milly Da Fardle lying on the pavement with her head all bashed it. Or at least he thought twice about phoning ‘em. Unfortunately, on account of wot he did for a living at Bump ‘n’ Grind Lap-o-Matic down on the other side of the island, where all the sophisticated and worldly people live, he said to hisself it weren’t such a good idea. He might be accused of doing her in for her money, and since it was already in his pocket, even the best lawyer on the opposite end of the world from the island (where all the best lawyers live in big houses with locks on the doors and swimming pools instead of bathtubs) wouldn’a been able to get the case throwd outta court. For that reason, as well as him not knowing the phone number of the police on account of it not being on his speed dial, he only pretended to make the call. As a consequence, Missus Milly Da Fardle lay there for several hours without moving (and also without the money from her purse, on account of Arnie Pizzlepod and Maybelline Dorcus O’Brien having taken it all and gone into Gerald Da Britch’s Drink ‘Til You’re Blind Pub and Wedding Party Rooms to drink it all away). Finally, Miss Cabbage and Mrs. Emily Da Onion woke up from their naps, all overcome by an urge to open the spigot on their bladders. Seeing as how they’d already ruint my upholstery and made it wetter’n a bowl of water, they decided the only thing to do (especially since Finian Da Fabricator wasn’t around to yell at) was to go into The Cute Little Spring Flower Tea Shoppe and pee on the floor before they’d reached the toilets. It took ‘em a time to unlock their seatbelts, on account of Finian Da Fabricator having taken the keys to the padlocks with him, but eventually they cut their way out with the garden secateurs they always carries in their purses for emergencies such as this. Well, Dear Diary, they eventually climbed outta the bus (being me), in spite of the best efforts of their zimmers to get stuck in the door and scrape off all my lovely classic paintwork, and found Missus Milly Da Fardle lying there where she’d fallen and bashed in her head. The first thing Miss Cabbage said to Mrs. Emily Da Onion was, “looky here, Miss Cabbage, wot do you think that is lying there like a loaf of pumpernickel,” and Miss Cabbage answers right back, “I left my specks back on the bus, Mrs. Emily Da Onion. How the feck should I know.” Well, right then and there Miss Cabbage’s starts in a’twitching this way and that like it always does when she smells something rotten to tell the other biddies at Beryl’s Hair Parlour for Old Women. “You know something?” she says to Mrs. Emily Da Onion. “I smell Missus Milly Da Fardle somewhere around here, and I’d say she forgot to put on a double pair of knickers over the old ones.” “Harrumph harrumph,” harrumphed Mrs. Emily Da Onion, “and wasn’t Missus Milly Da Fardle saying to us only this morning how much better she was than the rest of us!” “That’s right,” replied Miss Cabbage, shaking her head and tutting to beat the band. “That just goes to show, don’t it?” Mrs. Emily Da Onion took out a hanky from her sleeve and honked her nose in it. “Well,” she said with the sort of tone she uses when talking about members of the Woman’s Institute on the other end of the island, where they knows how to make jam, and who banned her for life from applying for membership. “All I can say is that’s the last time she’ll ever spread rumours about how dirty my windows is! Her who is so uppity uppity’s been caught going out without new knickers on a day she’s planning on falling down dead by a bus.”

Miss Cabbage was about to say a whole lot more that was incendiary and full o’lies and scandal, but I’m sorry to say it’ll hafta keep ‘til later. I’m gonna hafta leave you with a cliff-hanger ending, Dear Diary, but Widow Fartie Da Whistle’s just turned on the hose and is squirting me right up the tailpipe. My wheels has gone all wobbly and I’ve blasted right in her face. The thing is, she’s smiling in that way certain and my whole life’s flashing a’fore my eyes. Before I faint entirely, I’m going to hide my pen and say, if not for the first time, so endeth the last moment before I don’t know what.

Day 41

Dear Diary,

I’m dying to tell you why Finian Da Fabricator isn’t hear soothing me with his lovely hands, Dear Diary, but unless I finish up about Missus Milly Da Fardle and her doings I’ll lose track of ‘em myself, and then you’ll never know for yourself. I’d hate to think you’d have to rely on gossip when I know the truth of what’s what. The nicest thing about being a community bus is everybody tells you everything nobody else is supposed to know.

‘Course, I hinted around about how Missus Milly Da Fardle was blackmailing Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu and Misther Patchouli Da Fanny over selling all the deceased corpses that comes into Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s ‘Wash ‘n’ Wake Funeral Parlour for a Beautiful Goodbye’ to The Gnu Fanny Perpetual Eternity Luxury Delicious Cat Food Company. It had occurred to Misther Patchouli Da Fanny that perhaps they should get rid of Missus Milly Da Fardle by stuffing her into one of their shiny black plastic body bags and have her mashed into a coupl’a tins of ‘Parsnip and Dainty Dead Sparrow-flavoured with Slugs and Walnuts’ Premium Kitten Pâté, but Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu, who’s got more’n half a brain, told him if they did that Ol’ Missus Milly Da Fardle’d come back from her grave (or, in this case, from her tin of cat food) and haunt ‘em into next year. ‘Course Misther Patchouli Da Fanny, whose destiny is cooking up failed schemes to attract tourons to his pink falling down flatpack building, said in that case couldn’t they just build a genuine ancient traditional haunted touron site and dim the lights and put up a lot of loudspeakers blaring out horrible haunty wailing away noises? They could advertise it over the internet as The Sweet Haunted Heart of Sweet Mary Molly Malloy of Da Sunshine-Shamrock wot got put through a duck press by her stepfather, The Baron Devilt-Egge, on account of she was as sweet as sweet sweet potatos cooked in the sweetest sugar and she was driving him crazy with her ‘Lovely Sugary Tone Pomes to her Dearest, Sweetest Daddypoo’. According to what Misther Patchouli Da Fanny said, The Baron Devilt-Egge finally snapped like wot sugar brittle does when it’d dropped off of a cliff, and kilt Ol’ Sweet Mary Molly Molloy of Da Sunshine-Shamrock so’s his head wouldn’a explode like a haggis wot’s been boiled for two hours. Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu went an raised his hand to object and he called Misther Patchouli Da Fanny an idiot enclyclofant, as well as a very bad storyteller to boot, when Misther Patchouli Da Fanny reminded him that tourons believe everything they read on the internet, on account of their schools using Wiklepodium instead of textbooks. Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu, who went to an actual school where they learned stuff wot had footnotes wot could be checked, said he’d lived on the island his entire his life from beginning to now, and had never once heard of Sweet Mary Molly Malloy of Da Sunshine-Shamrocks or, for that matter, of The Baron Devilt-Egge. Naturally, the two of ‘em got into a terrible row and went back and forth and back and forth, and that was when Missus Milly Da Fardle made up her mind they was both stupider’n a dry rock wall, and any businesses run by them would be better off if’n she did the ordering about. She told the two men right then and there in the secret stainless steel body-stuffing laboratory of Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s ‘Wash ‘n’ Wake Funeral Parlour for a Beautiful Goodbye’ that she was putting herself in charge and they was to do everything she said. And because she had such an obnoxious voice and a look wot could frighten a barnacle off a boat, they bowed down to her (which wasn’t easy, on account of her being shorter’n a toad and both of them having rheumatics in their corpuscles). That was when they agreed to give her a cut of all cat food sales and all the leftover fake money wot Misther Patchouli Da Fanny makes in his pink falling down flatpack building. Also, on account of Missus Milly Da Fardle knowing that Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu secretly owns the bingo parlour - even though it was advertised as a community service for old ladies wot chain smoke and need to be got out of the house occasionally so’s their children can have sex with anybody they can find – she told ‘em right then and there she wanted one hundred fifty percent off all the winnings.

That was why she was on the way to The Bank of Old Wanger Nose to put some of her leftover money in the secret vault they’d built for her under the executive toilet. It goes without saying she didn’t trust Old Wanger Nose further’n she could spit into the wind, but after there wasn’t more room for any more ugly conservatories to be built round her concrete bunker bungalow and she’d filled up all her mattresses, she had to do something with it. Of course, she could’a followed Howard Donald Da Fardle’s suggestion and given some of it to him, on account of all his hair’d blowed off from racing back and forth in the pretend sports car (wots actually a white van he cut the top off of), and he wanted to get a new transplant. At least that’s wot he said, but I heard otherwise from Ms. Doctor Belinda Mary Da Gnu-Factory, who’s Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s sister and the only qualified medical surgeon on the island wot’s actually got a genuine mail-order degree wot she downloaded off the internet and printed out on antiqued, recycled plastic parchment and stuck in a frame on her wall. I know she was only talking to herself when she confided in me, on account of I’m only a bus wot isn’t supposed to have ears, but she said wot Howard Donald Da Fardle really wanted was a new jumbo sized penis wot was originally growed on an elephant. At least that wot she said. However, I will swear up and down and blind if he already had the operation, then it must’a fell off, cuz he’s got even less down there than he had before. I peeked once (even though it was impolite and a sin and I’ll probably go to Hell for it, occurring to Ol’ Fungus Da Filcher’s aunt, Sister Mary Flatulina of The Weeping Madonna of Naples, who knows all there is to know about such things) and I can swear up and down Ms. Doctor Belinda Mary Da Gnu-Factory must’a thought he said ‘mouse’ and not ‘elephant’. ‘Course, Howard Donald Da Fardle never did have luck when it comes to getting wot he ordered.

I got so carried away writing about everything wots came into my head that I’ve run outta time. Misther Patchouli Da Fanny’s hired a new version of Finian Da Fabricator, someone called Widow Fartie Da Whistle to take care of me and The Pink American Convertible, and she wants to take me out and wash me, even though we’ve never met. I’m gonna hide my pencil good, unless she sees it and wants it for herself. I’ll let you know what happens, Dear Diary. That is, supposing I survive. So, until next time, so endeth whatever it was I was talking about.

Day 40

Dear Diary,

Poor ol’ Miss Milly Da Fardle’s in a right sheep’s quandary. On one hand she’s stuffing all the mattresses in her concrete bunker bungalow with money she’s raking in from The Gnu Fanny Deluxe Cat Food Company. I figure she gets about three euro for every tin of cat food wots been flavoured by all them ‘nearest and dearest dearly departeds’ wot’d paid good money (or, in the case of Patchouli Da Fanny’s relatives, money wot ain’t worth the price of the bulk-bought toilet paper it’s prints on) to have their bodies stuffed and painted-up and hairdressed and eternal-rested in the ready-dug holes wot’ve been dug in The Cut-Price Saints Bliffet and Salmagundi Pay-By-The-Month Cemetery and Creamery. You might not know where it is, on account of it not being on the touron maps, but if you look real hard, you’ll find it in the vacant lot behind Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s Special Prized Collectibles Market. Behind the rusty corrugated fence. Until a coupl’a years ago, it used to be the island’s favourite illegal dumping site, but then Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu found this more politically correct use for it and now the Save The World types are as happy as the politicians wot used to get pestered and demonstrated against. ‘Course, he still tops up all the holes with toxic waste, on account of something’s gotta fill up the spaces where the bodies should be going, but aren’t. Between you and me, Dear Diary, everybody and their uncles knows about what’s going on, but nobody says anything. Once something like this gets out, the politicians might find out where the island is and try to improve it, and the first thing you know all the biddies’ll be packed off to a old people’s home in Bratislava and a whole lot of golf courses’ll be built for Rich American tourons. Not even Misther Patchouli Da Fanny or Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu want that, and they’re in favour of anything that’ll bring ‘em shitloads of money. I guess they figure that once politicians and, even worse, civil servants, get involved they’ll put in a real bank, which’d spell trouble for all the locals wot are used to the ways of The Bank of Old Wanger Nose. Old Wanger Nose sorts likes Patchouli Da Fanny funny money, on account of he can sell it off at a premium to countries no one’s ever heard of and make fat profits outta the starving masses. That suits everyone on the island. Could be without it they couldn’a afford to run a community bus, and then where would all the biddies be when they wanted to go for bingo or to Beryl’s Hair Parlour for Old women?

But back to Missus Milly Da Fardle, which is where I was when I started out a few minutes ago. As I was about to say, she’s been crowing to beat the band about the sixteen cheap plastic conservatories she’s built on her house on account of she’s ‘careful with the housekeeping’. ‘Course, everyone (especially Miss Cabbage and Mrs. Emily Da Onion) can’t help but remark on how much they looks like carbuncles, but unless your house burns down around you and burns to death your granddaughter, nobody’ll say nothing nice about anybody around here. Personally I’d prefer to have my conservatories laughed at than have my granddaughter burnt up like a marshmallow, but then again, even though I’m only a bus, I’ve gotta heart, which is more’n I can say for most of the biddies, Missus Drain being the one exception.

As I also was about to say, Missus Milly Da Fardle is in a quandary, and it has to do with wot some folks might call a ‘Conflict of Interests’ (they don’t call it that here, but nobody uses word of more’n one syllable). It seems her favourite Lithuanian sister-in-law, Bettinka Spalinka Da Fardle, widow of her brother Breezy Barry Da Fardle, up and choked on a radish yesterday and was laid out in the secret stainless steel body-stuffing laboratory in Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s ‘Wash ‘n’ Wake Funeral Parlour for a Beautiful Goodbye’ just as though it was anybody Missus Milly Da Fardle didn’t care about. For your information, Dear Diary, Ol’ Breezy Barry Da Fardle met Bettinka Spalinka (before she’d thought to add Da Fardle on to her name) when he was being transported around the continent by Golden Twilight Years Tours. By coincidence, both of ‘em was first cousins on all three sides of Parvl Da Snood, Pergulla Da Splatta’s illegal Lithuanian chef at her authentically quaint peasanty all-you-can-eat restaurant, The Golden Twilight Years All-You-Can-Eat Restaurant and The Best Flush Toilets In Eastern Europe. ‘Course, they didn’t know this when they first ‘did it’ behind the sweatshops where the souvenir T-shirts was made and where she worked, which is why they had to get married. ‘Doing it’ in a pile of new unsold T-shirts was frowned up when single folks were the ones doing the ‘doing’. From wot I heard, it were a marriage made in Heaven, which must be the first for someone from the island. Probably had something to do with her being a passionate Lithuanian and knowing how to cook something besides boiled and soggy roasted and chipped potatoes morning noon and night. She fatten him right up with her special chicken paprika recipe and paraded around in tiny T-shirts wot couldn’a contain the size double ‘Z’ boobles she were so proud of. Made him a happy man, she did. It’s a shame he died after a couple of days from exhaustion and a surfeit of chicken paprika. ‘Course he might’a lived a month or so longer if they’d stopped ‘doing it’ long enough to cook the chicken before shovelling it into his mouth. You never can tell when passion is involved.

Phooey. Dear Diary, I was just about getting to the point where I talked about Missus Milly Da Fardle’s quandary, but it seems there’s some sort of ruction goin’ on and I hear ol’ Finian Da Fabricator’s name being screamed and yelled and took in vain. I’ll put my pencil away and find out wot’s going on. In the mean time, I’ll say, so endeth a few more minutes.

Day 39

Dear Diary,

An interesting night last night. Wot you could call an eye-opener if you had eyes. Seeing as I’m a bus (not an ordinary bus either, but a classic Daimler CVD6 with Burlington 32-seat custom coachwork), I have headlamps, instead. For the sake of accuracy, therefore, I should really write, “last night was a headlamp opener,” shouldn’t I? Hope you had a good laugh at that, Dear Diary. Never let it be said buses got no sense of humour.

But back to last night. No sooner had I put away my pencil and closed my headlamps, but the door to the garage opened and little Miss Candee Da Smelley-Fanny waltzed in, turning and twirling and ever so pleased with her tarty little self. I could see immediately the resemblance to Floozie Da Smelley, and thought to myself that the world (especially the male part of it) was in for a bumpy ride when her hormones get going, which by my reckoning’ll be in a coupl’a years at most, if not next month.

I was just about to decide whether I should pretend to sleep and hope she doesn’t see me, or to roll back over her with my back wheels and save the world a whole lot of bother. I was spared all the fuss of making such an important decision, however, when, wot do you know, but she came straight over to me and gave me a big old wet kiss on the centre of my nose, right on the ol’ badge. She threw her arms around me, as far as they’d go and snuggled right in like I was the most important person in her life. After a minute or so of this, she drew back, sat cross-legged on the floor in front of me and beamed up this great big goopy smile. And big old tears actually spurted outta her eye-sockets and streamed down her face, smudging the Next-Big-Underage-Sexpot-Pop-Sensation makeup the stylists had plastered all over her face and making her look like Dopey The Clown. She then snorted up the nose stuff wot’d dribbled down her front and into the drain in the centre of the garage. I shouldn’t say this, but she sounded like a great ol’ hog wot’s found truffle stink under his favourite tree.

I was just about to ask her if there was anything I could do to ease her pain (I remembered this term from when Finian Da Fabricator had the television on one day and was watching one of them big American chat show presenters wot loves to ease pain and think outside the boxes) when she said she was gonna move in with me, on account of there wasn’t enough room in the world for both her and her folks (being Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley) on account of all they wanted was to sell her off and get richer’n a dot.com billionaire.

Right then and there I looked at her real close and noticed the scary hairy warty sprout had somehow left her nose, and her skin was as smooth as a peach, only without the fuzz. I asked her about it as politely as possible and she laughed (a nice, clear laugh and not the other one I was used to) and said she’d glued it to her nose on purpose so the cameras’d mistake her for a warty hog. I was about to ask her, on account of I was interested in why, in this day and age, she’d wanted to look like a warty hog, when she up and said said she’d rather die and be boiled up in a mutton scrag ‘n’ liver surprise pies, which was one of Floozie Da Smelley’s signature dishes at her ‘Super Deluxe Self-Catering Accommodation Cabinettes’ (at least before she had to give ‘em back to Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu) rather’n become the Next-Big-Underage-Sexpot-Pop-Sensation. I admit I was floored by this, on account of that’s wot every little blond and perky little girl wants to be before she grows up, but she said she was serious. “I’ve got a mind, Mr. Bus,” she said in a voice extruding character and sensibleness. “I want to be an astrophysicist, not live in Astroturf and dye lambs pink and gold so they can be tortured by small children.” Right away I understood it wasn’t the lambs wot’d run away from her but her wot’d paid the lambs’ fares to the Faroe Islands so’s they could have a better life away from Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley and their money-making schemes. And I must admit I was impressed. But it seems she wasn’t done with telling me stuff, on account of the next thing outta her mouth had to do with her being allergic to the colour pink, especially when covered in it morning noon and night and from head to foot. I said I knew wot she felt like on account of that’s wot they painted me and she apologised over and over, ‘til I had to say “never mind, I’ve got over it.”

I complimented her on her new velvety smooth and intelligently serious voice, and she laughed and said it was her real one, on account of the screechy scratchy annoying one being only an act. I asked she wot she was planning to do next, now that she’d ruint her chances of becoming a Under-aged Singing Pop Sexpot Sensation, and she said she’d applied for a scholarship to a good school as far away as possible from the island, and had got it. “I’m leaving tomorrow morning, Mr. Bus,” she said. I asked wot her folks were gonna do without her, and she said they’d already bought a new little girl from one of them slave-trafficker websites, a little pink and perky girl wot loved pink and wanted all the goodies she’d throwed away. It seems Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley had already forgot all about her and had even told Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu they’d found a new little blond girl, and this time one peachy keeny perfect and without a great horrible hairy wart on the end of her nose. Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu was so excited he wet hisself right then and there, and the first thing he did was he gave Floozie Da Smelley back all her ‘Super Deluxe Self-Catering Accommodation Cabinettes’, complete with newer and better touron smelly leavings. So it looks like everything is settled and hunky-dory, as least as far as Cheap ‘n’ Cheerful Junk-By-The-Tonne and Floozie Da Smelley’s World Famous Pink-O-Drome Family Entertainment Park is concerned. And, of course, now that she’s proved her point, Miss Candee Da Smelley-Fanny’s gonna become an astrophysicist and change her name to C.D. Mellifluous-ffrontbottom and wear beige and let her hair grow mousie brown and speak only in modulated tones. I’ll miss her around here, but of course in a week or so I’ll be living with the Italian Greek God and his Ducati, which means my life’ll be different as well.

I’ve gotta lot to think about, so I’m gonna put away my pencil for a few hours and stare at the wall. Tomorrow is gonna be busy and I’ve still gotta tell you more about Missus Milly Da Fardle and wot happened to Finian Da Fabricator. Until then, so endeth this moment in time.

Day 38

Dear Diary,

Well, I’m back in the garage. When I arrived I saw Floozie Da Smelley’s Pink American Convertible preening herself in one of the windows and pretending to ignore me. I waggled my windscreen wipers at her in a seductive manner, but I guess she didn’t get the hint. Personally, I think she’s got the hots for the arrogant Ducati Spagbol-eater wot’s owned by Signore Malvinio Da Flota-Mota, the part-Italian Greek God Hunk Gigolo wot teaches the tango in his spare time, and who, by the by, paid good money for me, and not merely phoney homemade ionpretend banknotes such as Misther Patchouli Da Fanny’s always passing off as real whenever he buys something. ‘Course, I don’t know how much Signore Malvinio Da Flota-Mota paid for me, and I’m almost afraid to ask in case I gets my feelings hurt. Knowing me, however, I won’t sleep a wink until I find out. I’d hate to think I’m going from one cheap owner, being Fergal Da Fecker, to an even cheaper owner, Misther Patchouli Da Fanny, to one wot embarrasses me to tears. Not that anything can embarrass me worse than Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley and her Cheap ‘n’ Cheerful Junk-By-The-Tonne. Even Fergal Da Fecker had a few redeeming features, or so I’ve been told by his pet duck, Fillmore.

I did find out a coupl’a things the other day from the Pink American Convertible, when we was sharing a coupl’a litres of the bargain-basement oil Misther Patchouli Da Fanny got off of Snooter Da Sphincter’s Easy-In-And-Out Trailer Halting Site’s Nothin’ Over Half A Euro Store. The Pink American Convertible, who’s sweet as sugar but dumb as a brick wot’s took dumb lessons, went on an on about it, as though it was ultra high-grade premium carborator-smootherator, wot had been brewed up special for us. The stuff must’a got her plastered, on account of she claimed it was the best oil she’d ever drunk in her life and must’a cost all of twenty cents for five litres. Sorry she didn’t get more drunk, cuz then I could’a had my way with her out by the tool shed. As it was, she were a sloppy drunk and there’s nothing worse than that in a car, especially in a pink convertible wot’s got to behave like a lady if she don’t want folks to laugh at her. In the end, she drank another gallon, and to get her to shut up about how wonderful her life was, I had to disillusion her about Misther Patchouli buying her favourite tipple at The Nothing Over Half A Euro Store, which is probably why she won’t put out for me any more.

Anyway, as I was about to say, I did manage to dig outta The Pink American Convertible (before she eventually passed out) the latest on little missy perfect Miss Candee Da Smelley-Fanny, who, as you may remember, Dear Diary, got traded to Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu for a coupl’a hundert portable toilets, wot are currently filled up to the brim with tourons. I calls ‘em tourons on account of the type of tourist wot pays to stay in Floozie Da Smelley’s ‘Super Deluxe Self-Catering Accommodation Cabinettes, is about a step and a half below being a moron, if you get my meaning. Imagine anybody with a brain the size of a bean confusing a toilet with a luxury holiday accommodation, and being totally thrilled by its spaciousness and designer-designed, built-in furniture! ‘Course, I realise they’re painted pink and have cute little plastic picket fences and plastic grass and flowers surrounding ‘em, which might fool the sorta folks wot leave their heads at home. Also, I hafta admit Floozie Da Smelley did a bang-up job in advertising the cabinettes on late-night cable television shows. Not only that, but by trading in her worthless daughter like she did and selling the story to the tabloids, she’s got no end of worldwide publicity for her Cheap ‘n’ Cheerful Junk-By-The-Tonne and wot she calls Floozie Da Smelley’s World Famous Pink-O-Drome Family Entertainment Park, which is how she refers to the lopsided pink flatpack building. I’m not sure wot goes on in there, but it must be good on account of the number of tourons flocking in and flashing their credit cards. As I’ve said before a thousand times, it beats me how you can fool all the people all the time.

But back to Miss Candee Da Smelley. It seems as how Mister Doctor Bernie Da Smelley got thwarted in his plans to set her up as a Super Star Baby Pop Diva and lead singer in the latest pop sensation underage little girl band, which is a shame on account of it could’a made him a whole lotta money, and perhaps as much as a fortune. And, of course, it was only reason he traded his toilets for her in the first place. However, in spite of her being dazzling and pretty as a Eckles Cake, and also blond and addicted to pink clothes fresh outta little girl celebrity magazines, it turned out she has a voice like a steam whistle and the personality of a angry potato. Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu could’a worked around all these shortcomings, being an intelligent sort of businessman and used to making silk purses outta sows’ ears, but in this case he was defeated. Apparently, whenever the camera was pointed in her direction, all the lens could pick up was her angry potato personality and a pointy wart on the edge of her nose wot nobody’d ever seen before. The pop gurus and producers wot were working with Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu to develop Miss Candee Da Smelley into the next big underage sexpot pop sensation, immediately asked in not nice voices why he was wasting their time. I won’t quote wot they said, Dear Diary, on account of some of the words they used even make me blush, and I was around in the sixties when bad words was invented.

The upshot was Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu took Miss Candee Da Smelley straight back to the cheap-looking pink flatpack building and threw her outta his car, with a note pinned to her blouse in a place everybody’d see it. Trouble is, she rolled into a puddle a coupl’a cows left behind, and the note got ruint. Nobody ever could read wot Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gun wrote. Personally, I think it said Floozie Da Smelley should return the two-hundert portable toilets in their original condition. If I was Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu, I’d want them loaded down with only the leavings he’d sent ‘em off with in the first place, these being the leavings from valued customers who’s bought ‘genuine antiques of the future’ at his Special Prized Collectibles Market. Yessir, I bet Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu expected Floozie Da Smelley to take out all the newly added touron leavings, on account of he said he didn’t know where it came from and probably smelt like boiled cabbage. At least that’s wot the note could’a said. We’ll find out eventually.

And that, Dear Diary is why Floozie Da Smelley was screaming and yelling like a banshee a coupl’a days ago. It’s bad enough her being left with a World Famous Pink-O-Drome Family Entertainment Park without Deluxe Pink Self-Catering Cabinettes, but she’ll have a field full o’ touron sloppies. And if that’s not bad enough, she’s got little miss perfect Candee Da Smelley-Fanny living in her house again. I’ve a feeling she’s gonna farm her off to a boarding school if she can find one who’ll take her. She already tried half a dozen times to sell her off as a sex-slave on one of them internet auction sites, but there were no takers, just three dirty old men who paid her two euros each to take down the photos on account of they gave ‘em the heebie-jeebies.

Now that I’ve told you why Floozie Da Smelley was so fired up the other day, I’m gonna go to sleep. Hopefully they won’t put Miss Candee Da Smelley-Fanny out in the garage with me like she was a dog. The prospect of having her sleep on my upholstery’ll does awful things to my nervous system.

Anyway, Dear Diary, if I’m still alive in the morning, I’ll tell you more about Missus Milly Da Fardle and her blackmailing schemes and wot happened to Finian Da Fabricator, and why he’s not here with me. As always, I’ll close by saying, so endeth another day.

Day 37

Dear Diary,

I hafta admit I’ll be more’n happy to get back to the garage tonight. It’s been a long day of sitting around and waiting for Finian Da Fabricator to come out of The Bank of Wanger Nose with Missus Milly Da Fardle’s luggage. Around about now, I wouldn’t mind spending a few minutes or hours alone with Floozie Da Smelley’s pink American Convertible, if you know wot I mean. I’ve also gotta tell you my pencil is practically wore out. If Finian Da Fabricator’d hurry up and get back, I could borrow one from him. Either that or ask him to buy me one at Meetle Da Rancid’s Magazine Stall up the street. It’s getting increasingly difficult to write, Dear Diary, when I’ve only got but a tiny broken stub of lead left.

Miss Milly Da Fardle somehow managed to get herself new batteries for her mobile phone, plus she must’a bought about ten hours worth of time, cuz all she’s done since returning from the toilet is complain to the call centre about Finian Da Fabricator not rescuing her luggage full of bingo winnings. That and gossip back and forth with Miss Cabbage and Mrs. Emily Da Onion. Their voices are wearing me out. If only I was deaf, I could turn off my hearing aid.

For once in my life I’m gonna try to ignore ‘em, and fortunately I’ve still got enough pencil left to continue where I got interrupted a half hour ago. I’m pretty sure you haven’t forgot what I was talking about, Dear Diary, but just in case you have, I was revisiting the day when Miss Milly Da Fardle caught Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu selling off the bodies wot comes into Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s ‘Wash ‘n’ Wake Funeral Parlour for a Beautiful Goodbye’ for cat food. Seeing as how they didn’t seem to mind in the least being blackmailed, she turned her attention to ogling the corpus delicious of the Misses Purdy, who, in case you’ve forgot, was three conjoined triplets. Only they preferred to be called Siamese Triplets, even though some considered the term offensive and un-PC (which means you mightn’t get elected to public office if you says it too loud and without a spin-doctor). Anyway, the Misses Purdy thought Siamese Triplets made ‘em sound more sophisticated and well travelled, so if it’s good enough for them wot are conjoined, I guess it’s good enough for me.

While Missus Milly Da Fardle was looking at wot was left of the Misses Purdy and trying as best she could to figure out which part went with what and whom, and admitting to herself that one of the sisters looked about twenty years younger than the others and could’a been quite attractive under different circumstances, it occurred to her she didn’t rightly know if they had proper individual Christian names such as normal folks do what’ve only got one body. She asked Misther Patchouli Da Fanny about this straight out, but he was so busy writing out a blackmail cheque to her and serving her tea and buttered brak that he didn’t hear her right, and asked what she was talking about. Right then and there she decided Misther Patchouli Da Fanny was even stupider’n a boiled trout, and asked Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu if he had an answer for her. He replied that, according to the death certificate he’d wrote out hisself, him being the coroner as well as owning most of the other businesses on the island, the Sisters Purdy was called Walpurga, Millpond, and Aardvark. “How’d they get them names?” Missus Milly Da Fardle wanted to know, on account of she thought they was uglier’n Miss Cabbage’s new dress she’d bought wholesale from the ‘From the Sweatshop to the High Street’ easy-buy online catalogue. “How’d they get them names?” asked Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu, like he hadn’t heard what she said or didn’t understand good English. “That’s what I asked, Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu,” she said, thinking to herself that he was almost as dumb as Misther Patchouli Da Fanny.

“Well, Missus Milly Da Fardle (but may I call you Susan on account of you’re blackmailing me which makes you practically a first cousin?),” said Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu after giving it some thought. “I had to write something down where it said ‘forenames’, and since nobody seemed to know what the Sisters Purdy were called, and being that they was beyond giving me instructions, I put down the first thing wot came to mind. It just so happened I was reading a story by Florescence Austen, Jane’s forgotten older sister (and a better writer, but being as she’d dumped out a dozen children or so, she didn’t have time to get famous and write a load of movies and appear on ‘Celebrity Dance Your Feet Off’ like Jane did). The story, wot was called ‘The Paribellum Sweetmeat’, had in it, by coincidence, a set of lovely Siamese triplets wot were after being married off to a Mr. Biggerstaff and his Uncle Mort. Well, just as I was about to write ‘unknown’ where it used to say ‘Christian Name’ in the old days when folks said wot they meant and didn‘t hafta pretend they weren’t better’n everybody else, I thought of Florescence Austen’s lovely book and her lovely conjoined Siamese Triplets. And who cared that the Misses Purdy never found anyone named Mr. Biggerstaff and his Uncle More to get married off to. If I wrote down Walpurga and Millpond and Aardvark, they’d be lying in their tins of cat food thinking about being lovely and getting married instead of ending up anchovy and cheese flavoured.”

“But which one is which?” Missus Milly Da Fardle demanded to know in her screechy voice.

Fortunately, about this time, before Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu had to perform drastic surgery on Missus Milly Da Fardle to make her shut up and forget about the Misses Purdy, Howard Donald Da Fardle came in through the sliding door and said he’d brought the triple wide lorry in case they’d got the Misses Purdy ready to be took to The Gnu Fanny Deluxe Cat Food Company. Missus Milly Da Fardle dove into the entangled limbs and bits of the Misses Purdy so Howard Donald wouldn’t see her and wonder wot she was doing in the secret stainless steel body-stuffing laboratory before she was actually dead, and Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu, realising an opportunity when he saw it, said to take the corpus delicious right away. “Wot about the viewing?” asked Mister Patchouli Da Fanny, who’d not caught on to wot was happening. “Wot about the viewing?” repeated Missus Milly Da Fardle from within Millpond’s fragrant spot, and without waiting another second, Howard Donald Da Fardle fainted dead away.

There’s not much more to say about this particular incident, Dear Diary, just a lot of loose ends to clear up, on account of I’ve not yet got around to explaining about all the bingo winnings in Missus Milly Da Fardle’s discount bargain-basement luggage or about the special discount she gets from Floozie Da Smelley’s bargain tables at Cheap ‘n’ Cheerful Junk-By-The-Tonne or about the homemade banknotes she gets from Misther Patchouli Da Fanny whenever they’re so bad not even a blind man’ll accept ‘em. ‘Course, it goes without saying the Misses Purdy was put on display in a new dress Ms. Billy Bob Da Rubble’d made special for ‘em and all the biddies wot came to see her went away happy has little kids wot stole the sweets and got away with it, saying “isn’t her frock a treat it’s a shame she didn’t see fit to dress like that in real life and isn’t her hair lookin’ a treat.” All without taking a breath, which is their way of talking when they gets excited. My pencil just broke in two, so I’m gonna close, Dear Diary, and get back to you after I’m back in the garage. As I always find myself saying to you, so endeth another few minutes of life.

Day 36

Dear Diary,

Well, here I am again, and let me say straight out it was a waste of time getting all jumpy-jivey with excitement over the opening up of the front door at The Bank of Old Wanger Nose. All that happened was some secretary or other came out and walked over to The Cute Little Spring Flower Tea Shoppe, which is especially popular with tourists on account of it looks wot a genuine olde fashioned tea shoppe ought’a look like, even if the scones is bought frozen by the tonne from Fungus Da Filcher’s SuperMarket, just up the road from Beryl’s Hair Parlour for Old Women, where the biddies go to have their hair purpled and frizzled in little old lady curls. No more than three minutes later she returned to the bank carrying a polystyrene container of American-style latte with pretend real foam.

While I was distracted looking over at the bank, what should happen in the other direction but all the farmers coming back from their potheen break at Gerald Da Britch’s Drink ‘Til You’re Blind Pub and Wedding Party Rooms. They crawled on board their tractors and within a moment or two’d untangled the tractor-jam down the centre of the street. Not only that, but the minute they’d gone, Brick Shithouse started up Old Wanger Nose’s black limousine and drove off. Without even letting me know what’d happened or if Old Wanger Nose had died or was asleep or had evaporated through the roof like gas from beans on toast. Perhaps I’ll never know what was what, although if I start enough rumours between now and tonight, I’m bound to get some feedback. I’ll let you know.

As if all this isn’t enough, I’ve just spied Missus Milly Da Fardle coming back to the bus, scraping her zimmer along the street like fingers down a blackboard. From the satisfied look on her face, I’d say she made the trip to the toilet successfully and didn’t pee down her legs like she usually does. I wonder if she still remembers that her luggage was snatched and taken into The Bank of Old Wanger Nose and that Finian Da Fabricator is in there trying to get it back from Elmer Da Snog?

Talking of Missus Milly Da Fardle, you’ll be recalling that, when I ended the last diary entry, Dear Diary, the old biddy was on the verge of jumping out from behind the big old eavesdropping screen in the secret stainless steel body-stuffing laboratory in Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s ‘Wash ‘n’ Wake Funeral Parlour for a Beautiful Goodbye’, when she came down with a sneezing conniption fit. Of course, I hope I don’t hafta remember you that all this took place some weeks ago, way before I was even bought by Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and turned into a community bus. I thought I should’a mentioned this, in case anyone reading this diary suffers from a short-term memory loss and is confused about Missus Milly Da Fardle coming back from the toilet just a few minutes ago.

Now that I’ve clarificated that, I’ll go back to the point where Missus Milly Da Fardle was overcome by a sneezing conniption fit. It goes without say that she lost the element of surprise some, but neither Misther Patchouli Da Fanny nor Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu looked too upset. Seems there was always one or two old biddies and sometimes more hiding behind the screen and waiting to blackmail them for some reason or other. So, much to Missus Milly Da Fardle’s startlement, instead of conking her on the head and taking her secretly to The Gnu Fanny Deluxe Cat Food Company without the benefit of a hallalujah from Father Brady O’ Flanaghan Murnaghan and his ‘Pack’em Up ‘n’ Send’em off Jubilation Hallalujah Chorus’, whose members perform in hoods so’s not to be recognised by respectable folk, Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu and Misther Patchouli Da Fanny whipped out their chequebooks without blinking even once and asked how much she wanted. And there she was, her little portable tape recorder in one hand and her digital camcorder in the other, ready to tighten the proverbial thumbscrews. I’d say it caught her with her knickers down, wouldn’t you?

Being asked so straightforward how much money she’d settle for unnerved her more’n little, so, to buy some time to think the matter over, she asked if she could have a gander at the Misses Purdy all laid out on the three slabs and naked as a plucked chicken. They said “sure thing, Missus Milly Da Fardle, and may we bring you a cuppa tea and a stale buttered brak while you’re at it?” And on account of she was always looking forward to stale buttered brak and a cuppa made outta the tea floor-sweepings wot go into teabags, she said yes.

Missus Milly Da Fardle must’a spent a good twenty minutes examining the bodies of the Misses Purdy. ‘Course, a good fifteen of that was taken up with scraping her zimmer across the floor to the slabs, but that wasn’t her fault, and it wasn’t as though she had anything better to do. However, once she reached the slab, and Misther Patchouli Da Fanny’d hauled over a comfortable chair from which to inspect the corpus delicious and Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’d brought her the cuppa and stale buttered brak (only it weren’t stale at all, but fresh, and Missus Milly Da Fardle almost choked to death on it, on account of she’d never before ate brak when it was edible), she got right down to the task at hand. “One thing I could never figure out,” she said to Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu, “was which was which.” “What do you mean?” asked Misther Patchouli Da Fanny, whose attention was on the part of the Misses Purdy’s anatomy where he’d slopped the tea by accident. “Well, there’s always been three of them, or at least that’s wot their mam said after they’d cut ‘em outta her at birth, on account of there being no room in her down-below place for ‘em to fit without tearing her to shreds.” Misther Patchouli Da Fanny, who was still busy sopping up tea from a tangle of grey bristle wot was located in an unexpected place, answered that he still wasn’t sure wot she was talking about. Whereupon Missus Milly Da Fardle became impatient and scolded him for not listening to his elders, especially to those wot are blackmailing him outta his life savings.

Dear Diary, this looks like a good time to put away my pencil as a good Samaritan Boy Scout type just brung the biddies tea and day-old fish paste sandwiches, which he bought last week from Floozie Da Smelley’s discount table at the bring ‘n’ buy at The Reverend Doctor Paisley Pisser’s storefront church ‘round the back of Bump ‘n’ Grind Lap-o-Matic, in wot used to be the Roman Orgy Plunge Pool before it was shut down by Councillor Derwood Da Sherbert. In case you didn’t know or are from outta town, he owns and operates The Genuine Country and Western Bar and Clean American-style Comfort Stations, right in back of Thelma O’Leary’s little falling down café, which has its own ‘Poke’em Rough ‘n’ Ready Community Baths’ for discerning gentlemen. Guess the good Councillor didn’t want the competition, on account of there not being that many of the right type of folks here on the island. Anyway, as I was starting to say, I gotta stop writing so’s I can open the door and let the Good Samaritan Boy Scout type bring the tea and sandwiches in for the biddies. As I always say, so endeth our time together. I’ll be back to as soon as I can.

Day 35

Dear Diary,

This is turning out to be one of strangest days I’ve had since the day I was built, or at least since the time when I was new and shiny and The South Devon Rural Bus Company, which’d bought me new and sparkling from the Daimler Company, saw fit to rent me out to the By-The-Seaside-Holiday-Camp-and-Family-Fun-Park for a week of special summer spectaculars (as they called ‘em). ‘Course, that was a long time ago and things were different then, which in some ways was for the better and some for the worse, and I promise to tell you all about it later, when I have a spare moment or three. Promise, cross my heart and hope to be taken to Misther Florian Da Blossom’s Discount Used Tyre Emporium and sold for scrap if I don’t.

Since I last put away my pencil, Dear Diary, the tractor-jam in the middle of the street still hasn’t budged an inch, and in the back of the black limousine, Old Wanger Nose hasn’t shifted in his seat, either. ‘Course, he might just be having a nap (he looks old enough to do that on the spur of the moment), and, then again, he could be dead. If this is the case, since he’s been sitting still for an hour or so, he could’a died long enough ago for them wot makes the fun decisions to send him either upstairs or down into the basement. Being a bus, I don’t know much about such things, but if he has died, I’d guess they’ll send for Father Brady O’ Flanaghan Murnaghan of the Church of The Immaculate Septum on the bottom side of the island to get it all sorted out. ‘Course, if they move quick enough, they’ll probably find the vicar at Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s ‘Wash ‘n’ Wake Funeral Parlour for a Beautiful Goodbye’ seeing as how he goes there about ten times a day. Mind you, if they want to bury Old Wanger Nose hisself in that fancy concrete bunker tomb they’ve built for him on top of The Bank of Old Wanger Nose and not just his empty custom-made non-biodegradable plastic pretend marble coffin with the gold-plated plaque saying “Here sleeps Old Wanger Nose”, Father Brady O’ Flanaghan Murnaghan might be advised to put the old man directly in the sarcophagus and avoid any of Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s funerary ministrations. However, knowing folks around here, even if they does know wots going on (or’ve been reading over my shoulder the last coupl’a days) they’ll probably make a party outta taking bets on wot flavour cat food Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’ll make outta the old man’s innards. This is, quite naturally, neither here nor there, on account of I don’t know whether Old Wanger Nose has actually died, or whether he’s just malingering like old people does when they don’t wanna be interrupted by their wives or squalling grandkids.

Finian Da Fabricator still hasn’t come out of the bank, so we don’t know if he’s had any luck in rescuing Miss Milly Da Fardle’s luggage wot was filled to the brim with bingo winnings, or whether Miss Cabbage’s brother-in-law, Elmer Da Snog, has absconded with it out the back door and immigrated. So, in the mean time, I’ll probably fill up the time by going back to wot happened in the secret stainless steel body-stuffing laboratory in back of Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s ‘Wash ‘n’ Wake Funeral Parlour for a Beautiful Goodbye’. That is, unless I get interrupted or something more interesting happens.

As you might remember, Dear Diary, if you was paying attention and not watching daytime television at the time, several things was going on. Wot was left of Miss Louella Da Bunkle and Miss Merideller Da Mento had just been hauled away to The Gnu Fanny Deluxe Cat Food Company by Howard Donald Da Fardle, to be made into ‘Little Old Lady and Pickle’ artificially-flavoured cat food. Missus Milly Da Fardle, who’d been watching all this from behind the special eavesdropping screen in the secret stainless steel body-stuffing laboratory at Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s ‘Wash ‘n’ Wake Funeral Parlour for a Beautiful Goodbye’, was about to leap out and blackmail Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu and Misther Patchouli Da Fanny from here to kingdom come on account of their ingenious body-selling cat food business. But before she could do this and get rich, the back sliding door opened and the triple-wide coffin containing the Misses Purdy was wheeled in. Naturally, on account of Missus Milly Da Fardle having being a personal acquaintance of the Misses Purdy from childhood, and on account of she’d even been seen in public with ‘em when she couldn’t help it, she had a scientific interest in studying wot the conjoined triplets looked like after their clothes was stripped off and they lay on the three slabs wot Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’d pushed together.

It was worth the wait, but with all the arms and legs jutting out this way and that, and with the various bodies starting and ending in different and unexpected places, Missus Milly Da Fardle needed about a half hour to figure out what was going on. Right then and there, Missus Milly Da Fardle made up her mind, after the blackmailing was over and she’d made herself richer’n she already was, to ask Ms. Billy Bob Da Rubble, who everybody says is a lesbian and more open about it than a can of Spam wot’s burst in the sun, and who made up the Misses Purdy’s clothes in a special way so’s they was almost not embarrassing to be seen in public with, how she did it.

Wot happened next was, while Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu and Misther Patchouli Da Fanny was debating wot flavour the Misses Purdy ought’a be, or if there was enough of ‘em to make ‘em into more’n two or three flavours, and if it’d be easier to cut ‘em into more manageable pieces before trying to fit ‘em into the refrigerated meat van (which I admit was in very bad taste, but it’s wot they said), Missus Milly Da Fardle went and had a sneezing conniption fit, right there in back of the secret eavesdropping screen.

Oh-oh, the front door of The Bank of Old Wanger Nose is opening. I’ve gotta put away my pencil and watch wot’s about to happen. I’ll catch up with you later, Dear Diary. Sorry if I’ve left you with your tongue hanging out like I did earlier. As I always say, so endeth the last few minutes at an inconvenient time.

Day 34

Dear Diary,

Well, everything’s going crazy here, but never mind that. If it’s the last thing I do, and even if I’m discovered writing this stuff and my pencil’s taken away and I’m sent to Misther Florian Da Blossom’s Discount Used Tyre Emporium on the other side of the good end of the island to be torn apart and sold for scrap, I’ve simply gotta finish telling you about what happened in the secret stainless steel laboratory in back of Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s ‘Wash ‘n’ Wake Funeral Parlour for a Beautiful Goodbye’.

Picture this if you will. There was Missus Milly Da Fardle standing open-mouthed and speechless (which has gotta be something of a record), hiding behind the purpose-built eavesdropping screen and listening to Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu and Misther Patchouli Da Fanny discussing what flavour cat food they’re gonna make outta both Miss Louella Da Bunkle and Miss Merideller Da Mento, and she says to herself, “Oh My God,” she says, “I just remembered the Misses Purdy, all three of them, died and went to Hell (God rest their souls) this morning, and I clean forgot about it on account of my kettle started in boiling to beat the band and I had to make tea before the water burnt.” And at that very moment, the wide sliding door at the back opened and a triple-wide coffin (no doubt containing the Misses Purdy, who were, after all, conjoined twins - or as they preferred, Siamese triplets, on account of it making them sound more exotic and well-travelled) was wheeled in with the help of an electric motor. Steering it was none other than Missus Milly Da Fardle’s second eldest son, Howard Donald Da Fardle, who just a moment earlier had been taking out the remains of Miss Merideller Da Mento. It occurred to Missus Milly Da Fardle that he’d never worked so fast in his life and wasn’t it a blessing he’d finally found his calling.

Well, the motorised trolley transporting the triple-wide coffin of the Misses Purdy pulled up in the middle of the room. Howard Donald Da Fardle was about to open the lid so’s Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu could see what a special treat they was getting’, when he was told sharpish to finish the other task first, being the one he hadn’t started, in other words, dumpin’ the other corpus delicious (as they called it, on account of the cats’ll eat it up at a gulp and then lick their chops to beat the band) into a black plastic body baggie and taking her out to the meat wagon. Right away, old Howard Donald Da Fardle looked abashed and ashamed of hisself for not doin’ his job properly, which amazed Missus Milly Da Fardle no end, on account of he’d never done any job properly in his entire life and had never before felt ashamed about nothin’. He immediately parked the trolley with the triple-wide coffin to one side of the room and ran out to the van and grabbed another special made black plastic body bag. Quick as a flash he brung it back into the secret stainless steel body-stuffing laboratory and filled it full of old Miss Louella Da Bunkle, warts, sags and messed-up hair and all. He threw the bag over his shoulder, which impressed Missus Milly Da Fardle no end, on account of she’d never seen him lift anything at all in his life, other than a pint of beer or a gallon of not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker’s potheen, what he makes from the secret recipe owld Fingus Da Flatulator left him after he blowed hisself up. Howard Donald Da Fardle then ran it out to the van and threw it on top of Miss Merideller Da Mento, which made both corpses gurgle in an unpleasant way. ‘Course, by now they was both starting to melt and do unpleasant things, but, what the Hell, all cat food stinks nasty after it’s been through a cat and out through the other end, so nobody’ll notice anything they shouldn’t. It’s probably called denial or maybe survival, cuz anyone who’s ever emptied a cat box’ll know you hafta breath through your mouth to avoid being suffocated to death. However, folks around these parts wot keep cats lets ‘em do their thing on the neighbours roses, which is why gardens aren’t so pretty here and don’t go winning the big awards from the National Garden Scheme, or whatever it is wot refuses to inspect wot passes for herbaceous borders over here on the island.

But back to Missus Milly Da Fardle’s dilemma. She was dying, she was, to jump out from behind the special eavesdropping screen and scare Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu half to death, and then to bleed them dry as Miss Cabbage’s never-touched-place with the carefully thought up blackmailing plans she’d hatched especially for them. However, she was dying even worse to see what the Misses Purdy looked like naked and on the slab, and knew if she played all her cards at the moment, that particular wish’d probably never come true. So what she did was bite her lip and tell herself to wait as patient as a caped crow wot’s seen a baby left out in its pram and is biding its time for the mommy to turn her back and fetch herself a nice cuppa tea and leave the baby to its own devices. This happens on this end of the island oftener’n a pub is filled up with gas by closing time. ‘Course, it’s hardly ever reported to the social services on account of nobody wants to lose their benefits, which as everyone knows is their divine rights. Social services don’t understand about the importance of a cuppa tea, especially when the soaps is on the telly. They’re always for putting babies first, which is silly when you think about it. Everyone knows you can always get a new one o’ them, but once the soaps is gone, they’ll never be seen again (at least not until later in the afternoon, but by then the neighbours have already seen ‘em twice and so they’re like yesterday’s news. You know wot I mean, they’re like re-wearing last week’s underwear wot’s been flashed in public at Marcela Da Splodge’s Fancy-Prancy Club behind the Women’s Institute, the time you made it under the piano with Signore Malvinio Da Flota-Mota, the part-Italian gigolo wot teaches the tango in his spare time.

Needless to say, you’ve not heard the last of Signore Malvinio Da Flota-Mota, on account of in real life he’s the Italian Greek God Stallion Hunk with the arrogant Ducati (wot thinks he’s better’n the piss wot comes out of a celebrity, which is stupid cuz nobody’s that good) wot bought me cheap from Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley the other day.

I’m sorry to interrupt, Dear Diary, but I’m gonna hafta postpone how the Misses Purdy ended up as dead as Mrs. Emily Da Onion’s heart and in the special secret stainless steel laboratory in Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu ‘Wash ‘n’ Wake Funeral Parlour for a Beautiful Goodbye’ and wot Missus Milly Da Fardle thought of when they she seen ‘em naked. And it’s a shame she had to go looking at ‘em so critical, on account of it shows the kind of person she is. Anyway, I’ve gotta close for now. As I always say, so endeth these beautiful moments with you.

Day 33

Dear Diary,

Well, ol’ Finian Da Fabricator’s disappeared into The Bank of Old Wanger Nose, and since the tractor-jam trapping Old Wanger Nose’s black limousine in the middle of the street doesn’t look like it’s gonna shift any time soon, and what with all the biddies in the back having dozed off, I’m gonna bring you up to date, Dear Diary, on a coupl’a things I started to tell you about before. Forgive me if I leave out the odd detail or improve on things which were so boring they might’a put you to death, but with a life as exciting as mine, that’s only to be expected.

You remembering my telling you about the day Missus Milly Da Fardle stuck her nose into the secret stainless steel body-stuffing laboratory in back of Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s ‘Wash ‘n’ Wake Funeral Parlour for a Beautiful Goodbye’? And how she’d admired how much better Miss Luella Da Bunkle looked, naked and dead and sagging all over the place on the slab, than she had in her former life as a dinner lady taking ready-cooked meals for €15 per plate to all the retired biddies on the island, whether they wanted them or not? I’d just got to the point where Missus Milly Da Fardle was thinking about covering up Miss Louella Da Bunkle’s more unsightly bits, so as not to offend the Lord more’n absolutely necessary, when she heard Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu approaching the secret body-stuffing room and talking in the sort of important, hushed voices reserved for private business and gossip and doing others out of their life-savings. Well, as I said, she hid behind the convenient screen wot looked to be standing there waiting for her, and took out the tiny portable tape recorder wot she keeps for such occasions. And wot do you know but Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu goes straight to the enormous refrigerator at the back and wheels out wot looks at first glance like a walrus with purple frizzied up hair at the top end. And I’ll tell you right then and there Missus Milly Da Fardle nearly dropped her teeth, on account of she recognised the walrus immediately. It was none other than Missus Milly Da Fardle’s first cousin, Miss Merideller Da Mento, on that trolley, when, according to the advertising poster out front of the funeral parlour, she was supposed to be packed into her luxury inlaid pretend oak coffin up in the second largest chapel of repose, right next door to the biddies’ easy-access incontinence room, and being prayed over that very minute by Father Brady O’ Flanaghan Murnaghan from the Church of The Immaculate Septum, down on the bottom side of the island where it’s mostly bogs and old biddies with mould growin’ out from under their toenails. I say ‘packed into’ her coffin, on account of she was, as they say, a very large woman and the family didn’t want to fork out for more’n a very small coffin, figuring, what the Hell, she wasn’t gonna need extra space for dancing or carrying on where she was going. However, from wot Missus Milly Da Fardle saw, she instantly knew that they should’a saved even more money and bought a shoebox instead, on account of the only thing getting stuck into the ground was gonna be the used clothes the family’d bought special from Mrs. Bertie Da Linnit’s ‘Wear It Again and Again and Again’ used clothing charity shop for Miss Merideller Da Mento to wear for all eternity, but only without her plus-size body to fill ‘em. But never mind. Wot I say, Dear Diary, is at least the clothes weren’t gonna be thrown out again and were gonna find some peace for the first time in their lives, as well as having plastic flowers struck on top of ‘em from time to time, as well as little decent respect. That’s not shown very often to used-up clothes (or to us buses for that matter), which is crying shame and a scandal. But that’s only my personal opinion.

Anyway, Missus Milly Da Fardle listened and listened to wot the two men were scheming between them, and even put on her long-range glasses so she could see clearer than mud, which was her natural state of affairs. Nothing much happened for a few minutes, excepting she noticed one of the men, Misther Patchouli Da Fanny (may God shrink his wanger down to the size of a peanut so Floozie Da Smelley’ll think he’s undergone on of them sex-change operations and’ll want to be called Rayleen Da Plenty-Fanny and’ll embarrass her to death in front of all her customers at the Cheap and Cheerful Junk-by-the-Tonne), was absentmindedly stroking Miss Merideller Da Mento where she’d never been stroked when she was alive. Just when Missus Milly Da Fardle’s blood started in boiling, two other men came striding into the secret stainless steel body-stuffing laboratory through a door she hadn’t noticed before. They was carrying with ‘em a black plastic zip-up bag with ‘The Gnu Fanny Deluxe Cat Food Company’ stencilled down the front. And it was then the scales fell from Miss Milly Da Fardle’s eyes, just like they did with St. Paul before she changed his name in the Bible, only for a different reason, and she knew in her heart that the meat going into the tiny and elegant little tins of Gnu Fanny brand of Deluxe Cat Food was coming straight from the secret stainless steel body-stuffing laboratory at Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s ‘Wash ‘n’ Wake Funeral Parlour for a Beautiful Goodbye’. Missus Milly Da Fardle watched in horror as the two strangers (who were not so much strangers as her own second oldest son, Howard Donald Da Fardle and Thelma O’Leary’s illegitimate half-brother Hyacinth-David O’Leary-O’Murphy) dumped old Miss Merideller Da Mento into the black plastic bag without so much as a ‘how do you do’ and lugged her out in back, where they had a special-purpose van waiting. Missus Milly Da Fardle remembered seeing the van pulled up behind Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s ‘Wash ‘n’ Wake Funeral Parlour for a Beautiful Goodbye’ every time there was a funeral, which was practically five times a day, on account of dying being the only popular form of entertainment on the island, and recalled wondering why ‘Gnu Fanny Deluxe Cat Food Company Special Refrigerated Meat Van’ was painted on the side, over where Floribunda Da Paisley’s Floral Arrangements and Hire-It-By-The-Week Cold Storage used to be advertised. Those scales still clinging to her eyeballs crashed to the ground in double-time, and right away Missus Milly Da Fardle started in cackling to beat the band. Naturally, she caught the attention of both Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu and Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and they knew by the sound of the cackle they were in the shithouse without a paddle.

Sorry to interrupt myself at a time like this, Dear Diary, but there’s activity in the middle of the tractor-jam, which has woke the biddies and reminded ‘em their bladders is over-flowing. I’ve gotta hide my pencil quick before they see it and ask what I’ve been writing about. I’ll be back as soon as I can. In the mean time, I’ll close by saying, so endeth a couple of hours that was interrupted prematurely.

Day 32

Dear Diary,

Well, about an hour or so has passed since I last put my pencil away, and not a whole lot has changed. The traffic jam in the centre of town has got worse and it’s now like a convention of tractors all stopped this way and that. The farmers talked out the weather, which sometimes happens when we gets the rare day when the seasons don’t change every fifteen minutes or so. They also told each other more about what the politicians ought to do and what should be done about the world, after which they set to right all wot ‘their’ football team didn’t do right in yesterday’s cup final playoff. We’re talking fourth division here, with their team on the verge of being relegated for the fifth time in four years, which seems to be possible here. Say wot you will, you gotta love a town where everyone backs a loser. Takes real talent and determination that, especially when you consider how easy it is to go with the winners, and how much better you sleep at night. I, myself, always back winners, having long ago figured out the best way to pick ‘em. I simply wait ‘til the next day and see which team has won with the highest score, and I support ‘em ‘til just before the next match, when I abandon ‘em until after they win again. Perhaps my system is a little complicated for some, but then again I pride myself on my mathematical genius.

As I was saying, it’s been over an hour since Old Wanger Nose took off like a rocket in his black limousine, and it looks to me he’s still waiting where he was when Old Brick Shithouse had to stop or else plough into the tractors. You can see Old Wager Nose’s plenty upset at getting nowhere, on account of the steam fogging up the car’s tinted-black windows. And, of course, the sirens are getting closer by the minute. At least they should be, what with them having blazed away for as long as Old Wanger Nose’s limousine’s been snarled in the tractor jam. Strange they don’t seem to have got any closer. Perhaps they were coming over on the ferry from the mainland and they blew away with the tides. Might explain it; might not.

While I’m on the subject of the ferry, a few years ago some politician tried to initiate the building of a bridge stretching from the mainland to the island. It’s only about a quarter of a mile or so, which means in this day and age it’d be a doddle, engineering-wise. However, when said politician tried to introduce a bill in parliament to raise the money and make the plans official, he was voted down 147-1. Seems nobody in their right mind on the mainland wanted to face the consequences of the islanders getting off the island so easy. They said it’d be like opening the gates to the zoo. I had to laugh at that, I did. ‘Course, at the time I was trafficking ancient old people around the continent and had no idea I’d end up on the island, myself. Right in the middle of the zoo, down in the end where the baboons multiply.

So, as the situation stands at the moment, Old Wanger Nose is sitting in his car and waiting to meet his fate, whether he wants to or not. Finian Da Fabricator left the bus (being me) about ten minutes ago to buy hisself fresh trousers and socks and underwear and shoes. Even he had to admit what he did in the old ones smelled worse than the two-day-old fish paste pies Floozie Da Smelley bakes to sell at her Junk-By-The-Tonne. He told me before wandering off that he was too tired to breath through his mouth another minute. It’s a relief for all of us. One more minute and I would’a had to burn the driver’s seat, with him in it.

Naturally, since there wasn’t one of the biddies strapped in at the back who still has a sense of smell in her head (unless it involves inspecting a neighbour’s house for cleanliness and spotless windows), and they’re too cheap to put fresh batteries in their deaf aids, none of ‘em knew why Finian Da Fabricator was leaving the bus. “He’s deserted us, the Fecker,” yelled Missus Milly Da Fardle in her usual manner, and the others agreed. And since Finian Da Fabricator had forgot all about buying Missus Milly Da Fardle a new bunch of minutes for her cheap, pay-as-you-go mobile phone, there was no way she could ring the call centre and complain. Fortunately, the others had minutes left and phoned so many times that the call centre decided they’d earned extra holiday time and closed up early.

Personally, I don’t know what Missus Milly Da Fardle has to gripe about. After all, she was the one told Finian Da Fabricator to buy what she calls ‘an intimidating suit’ so he can march right into The Bank of Old Wanger Nose and ‘persuade’ Elmer Da Snog to bring her back the luggage Old Wanger Nose’d snatched from her. I think she had in mind busting his knees, but I doubt Finian Da Fabricator’ll be very good at that.

You may be interested to know what Howard Donald Da Fardle’s been doing all this time. The answer is, I don’t rightly know. We all saw how he failed to grab Missus Milly Da Fardle’s luggage from her and steal all her money. Not that he sees as it’s her money, more like it’s rightfully his, on account of him being young and vital and her being older’n the hunk of fossilised dinosaur poop not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker brought back from South Dakota, in America, way back when he was a kid and wasn’t saving his money for something better, such as a hour at the Bump ‘n’ Grind Lap-o-Matic down on the other side of the island, where all the sophisticated and worldly people live. Howard Donald Da Fardle’s always after money for nothing. So are most other folks. It’s only he’s more ugly and his nose whistles when he whines. I’m not entirely sure whether or not I’ll waste more pencil graphite on him, Dear Diary, excepting, of course, if something bad happens, and then you’ll want to know about it so everyone can praise him at his funeral.

I’ve just spotted Finian Da Fabricator emerge from the Misther Pradesh Da Raddesh’s Fine Discount Men’s Suits and Shoes, all dressed up in a new shiny green suit and looking like a pickle. I’m not sure if he’ll have much luck intimidating Elmer Da Snog, more like he’ll make bust a gusset laughing. I’ll put my pencil away for now and see how things go. As I always say, so endeth the last coupl’a minutes.

Day 31

Dear Diary,

It’s me again, and I’m ever so glad I hid my pencil and paid attention to what was going on around me. While I was scribbling away in your pages, Dear Diary, I got so carried away thinking about Missus Milly Da Fardle in the secret stainless steel laboratory behind Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu ‘Wash ‘n’ Wake Funeral Parlour for a Beautiful Goodbye’ and worrying about what Miss Luella Da Bunkle must’a looked like both dead and naked, that I failed to notice six black cars, each on the size of Detroit (which was where they was born), pulling up and parking in front of The Bank of Old Wanger Nose. One of the drivers, who was especially memorable seeing as how he was about six foot ten inches and built like one of them brick buildings wot lives out in back of not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker’s Petrol Pumps, wedged hisself outta his car and came slouching over in my direction. Naturally, I broke out all sweaty and accidentally made a rude noise, but then I thought the best plan was to pretend to be asleep. ‘Course, Miss Cabbage and Mrs. Emily Da Onion started yelling at him and telling him he couldn’t come aboard on account of his not having rung the call centre for a reservation. He acted as though they wasn’t there (which made ‘em yell all the louder on account of ‘em not appreciating being ignored) and reached into the bus (being me) and pulled Finian Da Fabricator right out of the drivers seat. “Move the Goddam bus,” he said real low and hostile and sounding like an extra from a black and white movie. “Bu…bu…bu,” stuttered Finian Da Fabricator, “I’m waiting on Old Wanger Nose to bring Missus Milly Da Fardle her receipt for her bank deposit.” Right there I could tell that Finian Da Fabricator knew what was what and was a man of the world. Imagine his including two such sophisticated terms as ‘receipt’ and ‘bank deposit’ in the same sentence. Not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker wouldn’a managed it, and neither would owld Fingus Da Flatulator, not even after he’d blowed hisself up and went up to the pearly gates where folks talk fancy and use plenty of ‘thees’ and ‘thous’.

“I said ‘move the Goddam bus’,” repeated the tall shithouse-built man, adjusting his sunglasses and smiling a smile I hope never to see again. He tightened his grip around Finian Da Fabricator’s scrawny neck, which made his ears stick out further than a hare’s and his eyes bulge like a pair of poached eggs (but even yellower). I could tell Finian Da Fabricator was on the brink of grovelling on account of the way his poop turned to water and he peed hisself at one and the same time. Of course, Miss Cabbage wasted no time at all in phoning the call centre and complaining how ‘the driver’ (being Finian Da Fabricator) had the runs all over the bus and how there was gonna be a worldwide outbreak of heathens as a result. I’m not sure where she got her education, but the nuns must’a had a good sense of humour.

I thought old Brick shithouse was gonna strangle Finian Da Fabricator then and there on account of the gallons of what they call bodily fluids squirting down his shiny black suit, but then out of the blue the iron front door of The Bank of Old Wanger Noise flew open and who should come out but Old Wanger Nose hisself, and did he look like a frightened rabbit or what. He ran straight to one of the big black cars (the one whose driver was busy throttling Finian Da Fabricator) and got in the back seat. ‘Course, the driver forgot about old Finian Da Fabricator almost immediately cuz he knew on which side of his bread the margarine was smeared. I could tell from the expression on his face that Old Wanger Nose paid his bills and he wanted ‘em to go right on being paid. Probably he had six or seven children by his kept women with sticky-out big tits, as well as a naggy wife with used-up saggy big tits and seventeen spoiled brats of hers to support (which is how they do it in Chicago).

Anyway, Old Brick Shithouse (which is how I’ll always think of him) dropped Finian Da Fabricator like a hot potato and ran to the black car, trying to scrape as much as possible of Finian Da Fabricator’s leavings off his shiny clack suit. He opened the door and wedged hisself in front of the wheel (which wasn’t the easiest thing to do on account of his bulging muscles and the fact that his hands were the size of the hams the biddies like to over-boil for their special Sunday after-mass dinners), and faster’n a rabbit can take off after a beagle’s bit his butt, the car zoomed away from The Bank of Old Wanger Nose and sped down the street. Or at least that’s what would’a happened in the movies, but in movies there’s never any traffic, is there. Unlike here, where wherever you go (and I should know, being a bus) there are always at least two tractors, one going one way and the other facing the opposite direction, both stopped in the middle of the street so the farmers can comment about the weather (in case the other one hasn’t been out in it) and solve all the government’s problems.

Anyway, the big black car couldn’t make its getaway, not like Old Wanger Nose wanted, and they had to sit there like sitting ducks while I could hear sirens approaching from a distance.

Well, we’re all sit here waiting for the cops to swoop in on Old Wanger Nose and take him away to be hunged, which when it happens won’t be all that exciting on account of the town having only two constables (Humbert Da Elephant and his partner Helen Da Barren, who’s what they use to call a ‘woman policeman’ back in the good old days) to do their investigating and arresting. Hanging was done away with way before I was even built, and even if it was still around, they’re too lazy even to hang beef proper down at the abattoir, so I’d hate to think of what they’d do to Old Wanger Nose.

While we’re waiting with baited breath, I’m gonna take a little nap, after which I promise to tell you more about what happened with Missus Milly Da Fardle in the funeral parlour and why she gets to keep all the bingo winnings and why Misther Patchouli Da Fanny gives all his rejects from the homemade money he makes. Until then I’ll wish myself pleasant dreams and say, so endeth another exciting coupl’a hours.

Day 30

Dear Diary,

An hour so has passed since Old Wanger Nose disappeared inside his bank with Missus Milly Da Fardle’s discount luggage, which had in it all her bingo winnings for the last month. For most of this hour, she’s been phoning everyone she knows on her mobile phone trying to organise some kind of insurgents’ uprising to overthrow The Bank of Old Wanger Nose and institute a regime change so she can get her money back. I have to hand it too her, she ain’t gonna be poor for anyone, not even for someone as ugly-faced as Old Wanger Nose.

Missus Milly Da Fardle got about halfway through her speed dial when she run out of minutes. ‘Course she yelled at Finian Da Fabricator (who was having a nap on my back seat and dreaming about what he was gonna do to Myrtleen Da Patootie if she ever talked to him again), and ordered him to run next door to the tobacconists’ and buy her twenty more euros worth of minutes. Miss Cabbage lit right into her and asked how she could be so dumb as to trust Finian Da Fabricator with one of her new twenty euro notes, and Missus Milly Da Fardle answered back and said even if he did forget to buy the minutes and went into the pub instead for a bucket of potheen it didn’t matter none to her. She said it was only one of Misther Patchouli Da Fanny’s rejected homemade banknotes and not worth the paper it was printed on. Miss Cabbage asked her how she got one of them and Missus Milly Da Fardle said it was none of her business on account of she’d only go and tell everyone at Beryl’s Hair Parlour for Old Women next Tuesday. Naturally the two then got into a terrible fight, flinging accusations back and forth and every which way, and it only ended when someone came out of the restaurant across the street and threw a bucket of cold water on ‘em.

Since Missus Milly Da Fardle never did tell Miss Cabbage why Misther Patchouli Da Fanny always gives her his homemade banknotes when they goes wrong, such as having the wrong colour ink or a picture from Snooter Da Sphincter’s Easy-In-And-Out Trailer Halting Site’s pin-up calendar instead of the right one with the old whiskered gent nobody’s heard of. And since she chose to keep the secret to herself (which was not at all neighbourly of her), I’ll tell you myself, Dear Diary. It’s for the same reason why she gets to take home all the bingo winnings: all them buried bodies, wouldn’t you know.

One nice thing about being a bus, especially a classic Daimler CVD6 with Burlington 33-seat custom-designed coachwork, is that I look trustworthy, like butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth. Folks open right up about everything and anything around me and don’t think twice. Naturally, folks’re on their guard (and quite rightly so) in front of a common old Ford Transit on account of there being so many millions of ‘em on every street corner you never know where they’ve been. But when it comes to me, I can only say I’ve got a naturally sincere look to my face. You’ve never know to look at me I spent time with not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker and used to hang out with him at Bump ‘n’ Grind Lap-o-Matic on Saturday nights, as well as the occasional assignation or two at Derwood Da Sherbert’s Genuine Country and Western Bar and Clean American-style Comfort Stations, right in back of Thelma O’Leary’s little falling down café. Derwood Da Sherwood’s brother-in-law Elvis steps out with Missus Drain’s youngest, Floyd, when nobody’s looking. They make for a real cute couple and it’s only a shame they’d be stuffed inside a slurry wagon if anyone found out what they liked to do to each other in the privacy of Missus Drain’s chicken house. This island, especially the parts where folks live, is as ignorant as the grass is green, and it’s just as well for my sake that nobody’s took note of my relations with Finian Da Fabricator or what I get up to from time to time with Floozie Da Smelley’s pink American convertible. I’d probably be sent to Misther Florian Da Blossom’s Discount Used Tyre Emporium on the other side of the good end of the island and put through the metal shredder faster’n you can say your name upside down and backwards five times in a row.

Ah, yes, you thought I was gonna get carried away and forget to tell you all about the dead bodies, didn’t you, Dear Diary. Well, I started to tell you and I’m gonna finish, or my name isn’t Daimler CVD6 with Burlington 33-seat custom coachwork.

It seems that Miss Milly Da Fardle, whose got ears longer’n a elephant’s wanger and twice as sensitive, was eavesdropping at some funeral or other (don’t know which one on account of there being so many) and she overheard two men making what she called desperate plans for something badder’n a monkey’s behind. “It’s out back,” one says to the other. Well, since she had nothing better to do at the time, she got right up out of her seat and pretended to go to the toilet, but instead of going through the door marked ‘biddies’ she snuck over to the other door, the one marked ‘employees only, no biddies allowed’. She’d always wanted to go in there, on account of a room that didn’t allow biddies might have something to hide. And, sure enough, it was the special stainless steel laboratory what they uses for stuffing bodies and painting their faces and curling their hair into tight little old lady purple frizzies. And there on the table was the body of the biddy who was supposed to be in the coffin out in front. Miss Luella Da Bunkle, it was, and she looked nothing if not terrible. Not only was she naked, which was a shame on account of that’s the last thing she should’a been doing where other people could see her, but her hair hadn’t even been done right. In fact, it looked like old Beryl (who does for the undertaker twice a week) hadn’t even messed with her at all. Well, Missus Milly Da Fardle got all huffy and was set to go right over and cover Miss Luella Da Bunkle up, especially the embarrassing hanging down to the floor bits, and run a comb through her hair, when she hears voices approaching the door. Naturally, she hides behind a convenient screen (wot looked like it was put there for that purpose) and takes out her little portable tape recorder wot she always carries with her to record conversations she’s not supposed to hear. And, wot do you know, but in come Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu, who’s also the undertaker when he’s not busy running his Special Prized Collectables Market and touching places wot shouldn’t even be talked about in his proctology clinic, and which I’m not gonna talk here on account of my having scruples about such things.

Oh dear, I’m gonna hafta put away my pencil for a while, Dear Diary, on account of there being some sort of disturbance involving the old biddies. I’ll get back to you and finish up about the dead bodies just as soon as I see wot’s going on. Remember where I was (with Missus Milly Da Fardle behind the screen), in case I forget. As I always like saying at a time like this, so endeth the time between the last interruption and this one.