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.