Day 11

Dear Diary,

All I can say is that today has been like a box of bonbons. A shed load of joy ruined by the one pilchard eye-jelly stuck in the corner.

It all started so nice. The day started early, just about sunrise, or at least I think it must have been about then, only the doors to the garage were closed nice and tight, making it as dark as a baboon’s bottom inside the red lightbulby posterior, and it weren’t possible to see anything at all. However, I heard the ewes waking up about the same time, and since they always get up with the sun, I said to myself it was about that time. A coupla minutes later I heard someone talking to the sheep, nice and softly, and not like little Miss Candee Da Smelley-Fanny, who’d a voice which’d even make her mother smother her. “Sooooo-Eeeeee”, she used to screech at the sheep, no doubt thinking if it was good enough for pigs then the ewes wouldn’t know any different. “Sooooo-Eeeeee.” Over and over and over yesterday afternoon, every time some innocent kid handed over its father’s hard-earned money (and real money, too, not like her own Da’s hand-baked pretend Italian lira) for the pleasure of petting old Murgatroyd-Louise (who already was the favourite), little Miss Candee Da Smelley-Fanny’d screech out, “Sooooo-Eeeeee!” Poor Murgatroyd-Louise, who was probably trying to hide behind the shed so she could chew her cud in piece, would then be hauled out and paraded up and down. I really felt for her. It was bad enough being sprayed all over pink gloss and have her wool wound into sausagey curls, but to have her cud breaks interrupted ever other minute musta driven her mad. Certainly, by the time little Miss Candee Da Smelley-Fanny went into the house for her tea and fish finger meringues around about four, Murgatroyd-Louise was so fed up she did the unmentionable right in the middle of little Precious Jewel’s ornate gilt and pink throney chair. If it’d been up to me, I’d have done a whole lot worse, but that only goes to show that sheep are better behaved than buses. In case you hadn’t caught on, ‘Precious Jewel’ is what her ‘daddy’ calls her when he thinks no one is watching.

As I was saying, before my mind wandered and I started thinking dark thoughts about little Miss Candee Da Smelley-Fanny, I woke up the minute I started hearing someone talk all nice and sweet to the ewes. “Hmmm,” I h’mmmed to myself. “Someone is trying to steal the sheep.” I then weighed the pros and cons of sounding the alarm, and wondered if the sheep mightn’t be better off stolen, even if it meant being sent to the abattoir. After all, it wasn’t exactly a picnic in the park having little Miss Precious Jewel screeching at them every two seconds and interrupting their lunch breaks. I was still thinking about this when the garage door opened and Finian Da Fabricator came in, all bright and cheerful and wearing a nice white overall. He said, “G’morning, Mr. Bus,” in a nice soft voice and I tootled at him outta my pipes. A quick, cheerful whistle, nothing more. I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.

He turned on all the lights (but only one at a time so I wouldn’t get blinded), then looked at me up and down and walking round me several times, all the time drinking coffee out of a large polystyrene cup. Of course, if it’d been not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker or even owld Fingus Da Flatulator the cup would’ve had potheen in it, and it woulda been more like a tankard and about three times as big.

Finian Da Fabricator eventually finished his coffee and placed the cup on a shelf for later, not tossing is on the ground for me to drive over and bruise my tyres. I think I’m in love, only I won’t count on it being reciprocated or even being acknowledged. Humans always let you down in the end, I find, even worse than sports cars. That’s why humans always drive sports cars too fast and end up driving them over the cliff and getting kilt. Love does terrible things to you when you aren’t very bright.

After Finian Da Fabricator had finished putting his cup up on the shelf and was about to stick tape over my chromey bits so they wouldn’t get all painty, the door flew open and who do you think stood there ruining the light but little Miss Candee Da Smelley-Fanny and her scrawny mummy, Floozie Da Smelley. I’d not really had a good look at the mother the day before (I suspect she’d been inside ruining the milkman’s day), but what I saw now made me glad I’d not yet ate my breakfast. I don’t know where she digs up her clothes from, but I’ve seen neon signs with better taste, and she musta cornered the worldwide market for gaudy sprinkles and cheap-looking paste. Went real well with her greasy multi-coloured hair. I wished she not tried to roll up her hair in sausagey curls, cuz she only had about enough for one at the back and one on her forehead. I wonder how one of Jane Austen’s heroines woulda dealt with her in one of her stories. Darcy would’a kilt himself on his wedding night rather thank face the swamp, after which everyone would’a moved up to Yorkshire and changed their name to Bronte. Or they would’a wrote to Dracula and offered her neck for free. Either that, or they would’a paid him a million bucks just to take her away and dump her over a cliff.

She started screeching at Finian Da Fabricator about something or other, only I was so busy imagining what it’d be like to run over her some dark and stormy night, that I forgot to listen. Mind you, after I finished imagining I wished I’d something to flush out my mind. And then I apologised to my tyres to putting them through that particular horror. Even pretending, one can give tyres nightmares, and they have enough to put up with in real life, what with cats and bunny guts spreading themselves over the roads they way they do.

Floozie Da Smelley and her skanky brat screeched some more and then left in a huff, leaving Finian Da Fabricator sighing a lot and no doubt thanking his lucky stars that he didn’t marry her back when he had the chance.

After a few minutes, he sighed again and came over and patted me on the shoulder, just in front of my door. “Well, ol’ Matey,” he said apologetically, “I’m gonna hafta spray you pink and chartreuse after all. She wants you to match her new hair colour.” He sighed another time and rubbed the place my forelock would’a been had I been a peasant instead of a bus. “Ain’t nothin’ I can do about it, neither.”

Finian Da Fabricator then went back to taping my chromey bits and I tried to resurrect from my subconscious what she’d said when she’d screeched at him. Hopefully I’ll remember my tomorrow so I can repeat it and make fun of her.

Anyway, so endeth another day.