Day 12

Dear Diary,

Well, the deed’s been done (more or less). After taking a good long look at myself in the mirror which Finian Da Fabricator held up for me and seeing my classic coachwork all pink and chartreuse, I must’a gone into a swoon of some sort, for everything came over all blurry with horrible treacly music with grating off-key syrupy tenor overtones of the kind wot stobs you in the eye and make you cry. And when I opened my headlamps, I was engulfed in a pink and chartreuse cloud and Finian Da Fabricator was dressed in a painter’s smock, looking like something out of a pseudo-Edwardian romantic drama on the telly, and with an irritating smirk on his spotty face. Out of the blue, Finian Da Fabricator (who I always thought was my friend, even though he was human) came floating over to me tootling on a piccolo, and then locked the door and patted me in a private place (which I won’t tell you about in case your old man is looking in and doesn’t understand), and twinkled in a suspicious manner. He said he’d locked the door in case Floozie Da Swamp-Rat and Precious Jewel accidentally on purpose come in and criticise and maybe tell him to paint a turd where my forelock would be, if only I was a ‘boots’ and not a classic bus. And after this, he patted me on the behind again, which set me to wishing very hard that this was a dream and not some cruel joke. Whatever it was, he followed this up by blowing in my ear (so close I could smell the garlic kedgeree he’d had for breakfast). “I tell you what I’m gonna do,” he said to me real nice. “I’m gonna use my injinooty.” It took me a second or two to figure out what he was trying to say. What with him being so inbred and all, and first cousin to everybody else on the island (excepting at the other end, where people know how to read and write and think for themselves, which means they come from somewhere else), he can’t talk so proper. Anyway, he fluttered his eyelids (which I noticed had globs of glittery mascara running down on to his nose and getting confused with his nostril driblets). “We’re gonna run away,” he simpered, “and earn our keep tango dancing in Marcela Da Splodge’s Fancy-Prancy Club behind the Women’s Institute.” I then knew all hope was lost, and even living a hundert years in a single room wit not-so-owld Fergal Da Fecker might be better for my health.

Fortunately, I woke up about then, and the first thing I did was clock Finian Da Fabricator to see if he was actually wearing any of that glittery mascara in his nose hair. And he weren’t. There was only the usual brown stains from snorting tobacco, just like you’d find in all real men with testosterone in their corpuscles. I can’t tell you, Dear Diary, how relieved I was, and now nice it was seeing him standing on the other side of the garage drinking coffee and cleaning his paintbrushes and flexing his muscles. I came to the conclusion then and there that he’s got a heart as big as a whale’s scrotum and I’d marry him in a minute if he asked me (as long as I didn’t have to talk to him and as long as he foreswore the glittery mascara). What the dream was about, I’ll probably never know, and I hope never to find out.
A few minutes later, after setting his polystyrene cup carefully on the self, he came over and painted gold letters on my sides and front and bottom, which I’m sorry to say tickled dreadfully. I’m glad Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelly and little Miss Candee Da Smelley-Fanny weren’t looking on when I giggled and snorted accidentally through my pipes. It might have given ‘em the wrong idea. When I finished giggling like a little girl, I looked in the mirror and saw what all the fuss was about:

Da Smelley-Fanny Community Bus

…..was painted all over my sides and back and front, just like Floozie Da Smelley had instructed. In perfect, straight lines, as well, and with no smudges. I must say I was really impressed. He’d caught the spirit of Da Smelley-Fanny family to a “T”, but at the same time made it tasteful, so even Miss Cabbage from down the hill (a regular Community Bus passenger) won’t talk about me in the wrong way when she’s having her hair permed and purpled in Beryl’s Hair Parlour for Old Women. From what everybody says, Miss Cabbage can be a real prune, so when I finally meet her I’ll have to be on my best behaviour.

I don’t know what Floozie Da Smelley Fanny and Misther Patchouli Da Fanny will have to say about my paintwork (and I don’t care about little Miss Perfect Future Crumpet’s reaction, on account of her having no more taste than fried pigeon poop), but as far as I’m concerned, seeing as how I’m the only one forced to wear it, they can whistle outta their whatsits for all I care. Not after seeing where they live and all, which I’ve gotta tell you about before things get busy and I hafta put away my pencil and notebook.

Oh, oh… the door’s opening and I can smell Floozie Da Smelley’s special-made perfume, wot she boils up for herself on the stove. I gotta pretend to be asleep. So….. I’m hiding my pencil. As the poet said, so endeth another day.