Day 21

Dear Diary,

It’s like a war-zone here. Ever since Floozie Da Smelley got back from wherever they took her after miss Candee Da Smelley-Fanny blowed her whistle, she and her little Miss Precious Perfect daughter have been going at it hammer and tongs. Screaming, yelling, things being thrown. I’ve noticed that Misther Patchouli Da Fanny is conspicuously absent (as they say), and is letting ‘em get at it hammer and tongs without any help from him. Don’t know where he’s got to, but I suspect I’ll find out sooner or later, like when he staggers back drunker’n a skunk when it’s time to drive me home. One thing you’ve gotta say about the men on this island and that’s they’re allergic to sobriety. I hope we get home in one piece. I hate it when I’m driven into a ditch and they attack my coachwork with hammers to straighten out the bumps. It’s hard being a bus sometimes.

As for Finian Da Fabricator, the minute he’d finished setting up Floozie Da Smelley’s stall, he started in making goo-goo eyes at Myrtleen Da Patootie. Good old Finian Da Fabricator, he wasted no time in getting’ off with her. Don’t blame him none, on account of her looking and smelling like a ripe peach left out in the sun. Dunno where they went, but since they’re not on my back bench seat they must be a van or something, or perhaps in one of the portable toilets that make this special prized collectables market such an alluring roadside attraction. Speaking of portable toilets, I can’t figure out why humans were designed so inconveniently, what with them always having to fill up portable toilets and making disagreeable noises. Not to mention what they do on my seats when they grow into old biddies. On the whole, I prefer busses. Our innards work better. Even sports cars are cleaner, in spite of their other habits.

But back to the ruckus going on between Floozie Da Smelley and her little miss precious scrumptious. The fat security guards with the black aviator glasses let Floozie Da Smelley go after she told ‘em to come round to the pink flatpack building back at her place after dark and she’d make it worth their while. They all busied themselves adjusting their clothing in an interesting manner and humming and hawing and blushing. All except for one who looked like he’d been there before and didn’t want to try it again. Anyway, when Floozie Da Smelley came back to her stall all screaming and yelling, she immediately wrote out a large pink and gold sign, which I knew was important on account of she stuck out her tongue whilst getting the letters right.

For Sale: Cheap. Nine-Year-Old Girl. Blond with Sausagey Curls. Loud mouth. Lazy. Good-for-Nothing. Photogenic.

She tacked up the sign where everyone could see it, and right away no fewer than sixteen enormous black cars with tinted windows pulled up in front of Floozie Da Smelley’s stall. Sixteen men in black suits and dark glasses piled out of their respective cars and all set to haggling and waving fifty euro notes and dollar bills and interesting-looking twelve pound coins in the air. I could’a sworn we were in for a bidding war, when who should put in an appearance but the nine year old girl in question, little miss Candee Da Smelley-Fanny, looking just as cheap as her price tag (about €2.53 by my estimate). Only trouble was the minute her prospective buyers caught sight of her, they not only lost interest, but they fled to their cars, locked the doors so she couldn’t claw her way in, and drove out of here like cats wot’s got their tails bit by a stoat. It seems, as far as nine years olds go, little miss Candee Da Smelley-Fanny’s got a certain reputation. Personally, being a bus and not comprehending the ins and outs of human behaviour, I would say the men were over-reacting. As far as I know, the only thing she’s ever done wrong (other than being Candee Da Smelley-Fanny) is loosing all her sheep in one morning. Not even Little Bo Peep did that, and at least she got hers back.

Naturally, after the men ran away and took their money with them, Floozie Da Smelley was more than a little despondent. She lashed out at her precious little daughter, blaming her for ruining her life (and also for losing the sheep, which were worth a shitload of money and were going to make or break her new barbeque café back at Cheap and Cheerful Junk-by-the-Tonne. Little Miss Precious, who can give better’n she takes, said she hoped her mummy would choke on a biscuit. I couldn’t understand the joke, but then I’m only a bus.

It seems to me they already tried barbequing a ewe out back here this morning and it didn’t work out so good.

About this time, Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu stopped by for a chat. He said a little of this and a little of that and hemmed and hawed a bit, and then asked if Miss Candee Da Smelley-Fanny was still for sale. Floozie Da Smelley said it was a lost cause and that she was taking her off the market. “Such a pity,” is what Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu said. “I’ve got me here a pocket full of freshly printed Rare Italian Liras given me this very morning by your husband, Misther Patchouli Da Fanny.”

Immediately, Floozie Da Smelley, who’d made the money herself in her bathtub, smelled a rat. “Why did he pay you a pocket full of money?” she asked.

Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu hemmed and hawed again and said it was a secret, only that Misther Patchouli Da Fanny’d bought something old and rare for her birthday. “But I can’t tell you what,” he added.

Floozie Da Smelley thought about it for a few minutes, wrinkling her forehead in that unattractive way she has, and decided the last thing she wanted to do was take the money back. By the end of the day, the dye she’d used to make it would’a faded to nothing and run all over the inside of Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s pocket.

Just as the situation seemed hopeless, Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu solved all their problems in one fell swoop. “How about if’n you take all two hundert portable toilets off my hands?” he asked in a real polite tone of voice.

“Full or empty,” she responded.

“Full, of course,” he said, “if they were empty you’d hafta fill ‘em up again, and that’d cost you a fortune.”

“Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu,” said Floozie Da Smelley. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

And that is how Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu took nasty little miss Candee Da Smelley-Fanny off Floozie Da Smelley’s hands and how she got all two hundert potable toilets. Only she calls ‘em ‘ready-made compact luxury sleeping units’. She confided in me (although she thought she was plotting and scheming to herself on account of she don’t know I’ve got ears) that she was gonna put ‘em to use in her New Genuine Deluxe Luxury Tourist Inn, which she was opening right next to the Cheap and Cheerful Junk-by-the-Tonne.

Needless to say, I was floored.

Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Finian Da Fabricator are loading all two hundert portable toilets into my innards. ‘Course, they had to remove all the seats first. I expect they’ll get ‘em back at some point. I do wish they’d emptied the toilets first, but hey, even if they all spill at once, it can’t be much worse than wot the old biddies did to me the other day.

I wonder what Misther Patchouli Da Fanny bought for Floozie Da Smelley’s birthday. If I ever find out, you’ll first to know.

I’m gonna take a nap now. Just in case I don’t have time to continue later, I’ll say, so endeth another day.