Prompt: Unusual Location

This was another prompt short story swap - the prompt was to write a story set in an unusual location.

Marla and Dave stood in the entryway of their new home. Well, ‘new’ being a completely relative term of course. It hadn’t been new in over a hundred years, and possibly hadn’t even been anyone’s home for nearly a decade.

“It would have been nice if they’d cleaned it a little.” Marla sighed.

“Well, they did remove that junk pile from out the front.”

“True.”

Marla looked around the vast foyer. The setting sun cast dull orange patterns on the floor and highlighted every dust mote swirling through the room. The tendrils of musty uninhabited cobwebs dangled eerily from the architraves. They wandered further into the house.

“Oh, I love this.” Marla whispered gleefully. She skipped to the doorway of a storage cupboard built under the wide staircase. “This is so cute; we could pretend we’re in Harry Potter.”

“What?” Dave furrowed his brow in confusion.

Marla rolled her eyes. “You know, Harry Potter lived under the stairs.”

“I thought Harry Potter lived in Hogsbreath.”

“No, silly, that’s Hogwart’s but before that, he lived under the stairs.”

“Oh, how silly of me.”

Marla smiled cheekily.

“Let’s go in.”

“I really don’t think that’s a very good idea. I’m going to need an antihistamine just from standing here.”

Marla yanked open the door with all her strength. It made a loud groan of defiance, then swung out suddenly. The air in the dark space was cold and stale, and considerably less dusty than the rest of the house. The jagged edges of the staircase’s underbelly formed the steep ceiling and three empty shelves adorned the opposite wall, which was unpainted, unpapered and about four feet in front of the door. She took Dave’s resisting hand and pulled him in.

She reached out and pulled the door closed; it clicked back into position without a struggle.

“Oh, wow, it’s so dark in here. I can’t even see my hand.” She could feel the movement of the air as she waved her hand in front of her face. “If I ever become a vampire, I could totally sleep in here during the day.”

Dave sighed. “Remind me to make you a list of books you should read.”

“Why? I’ve got plenty of books.”

“I’m talking about ones that aren’t stupid.”

“This room is so cool. I want to make it into something really fun – but if you don’t watch out – it might just become your bedroom.”

Dave leaned over and kissed Marla in apology. He missed his mark slightly in the dark, and in landed on her eyeball, but the intention was clear.

“Alright, let’s get out of here before we suffocate.” Dave reached for the door handle; Marla could hear his hand sliding around on the wood as he searched for its location. She heard the metallic rattling as he grasped the knob. Then she heard a thump and clamour as the knob came loose and clattered to the floor.

They both crouched wordlessly to the floor hands sliding around in pursuit of the door knob. Twice they banged their heads together and at one point, Marla tried to pick up Dave’s foot , but eventually, Dave found the old hardware and spent what seemed like another stretch of eternity trying to find the hole it came loose from.

“It’s not working.” He finally said after about ten minutes of swearing, grunting and thumping on the door.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I can get it back in the hole, but it won’t catch – I can’t make it turn properly.”

“Can’t we just break the door down?” So that tried that for a few minutes, to no avail.

“Maybe this was where they kept the naughty children.” Marla joked.

“Maybe it’s where they stored the dead bodies.” Dave replied grimly.

“Wow, and you think I’m the one who needs to read some new books.”

Marla felt her way around the room, getting a few painful splinters in her fingertips in the process.

“Hey.” She said suddenly, “there’s something loose here.” She felt around the rectangular panel in the tallest wall of the room.  “I think it’s got hinges.”

Marla and Dave poked, pulled and wiggled the loose panel until it silently swung away from them revealing a space that was much narrower than a hallway, but wider than the space between two walls has ever needed to be.

It was dustier than the cupboard under the stairs, but less so than the rest of the house. There was a small amount of visibility, on account of the cracks in the upstairs floorboards. Marla slid into the gap sideways and shuffled along until there was room enough for Dave to join her. Although Dave was twice as heavy as his wife, the space was wide enough to accommodate him – not comfortably, but enough that he could shuffle alongside her without fear of becoming stuck.

“What are we doing?” Something about the area made a whisper seem more appropriate than his regular speaking voice.

“Well, we’ll follow this along until we find a way out.”

“And if we don’t?”

“Well, I’m sure when we find the killer’s lair, there’ll be a shovel or a pitchfork or something and we’ll hack our way back into the house, Mr Eternal Pessimist.”

“How on Earth can you expect me to be an optimist in the circumstances?”

They shuffled awkwardly further towards the rear of the house and came upon an intersection; the only option, however, was the path to the left. The path to the right, (aside from being almost entirely occupied with cobwebs) was only about six inches wide; so they manoeuvred themselves clumsily around the right-angle. As they followed this path along, and the light outside faded, so too did the light in the passage.

“Marla, stop.” Dave suddenly reached out his right arm and grabbed Marla left shoulder. “I can’t even see you anymore. I think we should go back. Who knows where we are.”

“I think we’re behind the kitchen.”

Just as Marla turned to face Dave, there came a thump that rattled the walls around them.

“What was that?” Whispered Dave.

“The back door?”

Now she could hear what sounded like heavy boots walking across the floor alongside them. It sounded as though about three of four men had walked into the kitchen through the back door.

The men must have been barely six feet in front of where Marla and Dave stood. The voices sounded muffled and distant, but were loud enough to be understood clearly.

“So where is this stuff?”

“Dunno, Ray said it was inside the house somewhere – start looking.”

“You sure no one’s here?”

“ ’Course I’m sure – I told you the new owners are supposed to turn up in the morning.”

Marla and Dave were supposed to arrive the following morning, they’d planned on spending the night in a motel in town and arriving at first light to assess what work needed to be done. Since they’d checked into the motel earlier than expected, they decided to go for a walk through the tiny township and have a quick glimpse at the house, before finding somewhere affordable to eat dinner.

At the thought of food, Marla’s stomach growled at her but all she could think was thank goodness we didn’t leave the car out front. That was followed by a more horrible thought.

“Did we shut the front door?” Her whisper was barely a breath, but Dave had obviously heard her, since he shrugged his shoulders uncertainly.

They could hear doors slamming around the kitchen and some of the footsteps moved to other areas of the house. They could hear at least one set tramp its way upstairs.

Marla and Dave both jumped, startled when a voice shouted from directly in front of them.

“I found the guns.” The sound of heavy fabric being pulled along wood sounded as though it was right under their feet.

A distant muffled voice from upstairs yelled back something that sounded like “Keep your voice down you idiot.”

The men stomped around the house opening and slamming doors of all sizes, some opened easily, some sounded as though they were resisting the assault of the intruders. The few large pieces of furniture that remained were dragged out of their positions and rummaged through. A deafening bang directly above their head told them that the enormous wardrobe in the master bedroom had been tipped over.

The men molested the house for over an hour. At no point did they indicate the discovery of the room beneath the stairs. As the time passed, Marla and Dave both began to shift uncomfortably, their ankles, knees and backs burnt with the agony of standing still for so long. They didn’t dare move an inch, though. The conversation between the men was scant, but when they did speak, the tones became increasingly more tense and aggressive.

Eventually, they could hear mumbling on the first floor. The men must have been in the entryway, or the living area off the foyer. Marla and Dave could not hear the words, but they could hear the tension in the voices increase until all four shouting voices drowned each other out.

The voices stopped abruptly at the deafening sound of gunshots. Marla felt the blood run from her body and she became icy cold. After a few minutes she inhaled deeply and wondered whether she’d been holding her breath the entire time.

Just when the silence was becoming unbearable, the thumps around the house resumed, someone was walking laboriously back and forward between the back door and the front room.

The sound of a car engine starting brought the couple back into reality and Marla realised her face was saturated with the clammy moisture of sweat and the salty wetness of tears.

“What do we do?” She whispered.

“We have to go back.” Dave replied.

“We can’t, they didn’t open the door; we have to keep looking for a way out.”

They kept on the way they were going, the floor suddenly began to descend and wind steeply until they realised they were well below the floorboards of the house.

“I can’t see a bloody thing” Dave whispered hoarsely.

“The walls are gone now; we must be in a room of some kind.”

“Maybe there’s a light.” They both felt around the walls near where the hallway ended until Dave kicked his toe on an old dolphin torch.

It still worked, barely; but the dirty, dim orange light was enough to see around the tiny room. The walls seemed to be bare packed earth, the ceiling was not the floorboards above as they’d expected, but rather, more compacted dirt; and the dimensions were about half that of the average bathroom. Sitting boldly in the middle of the room was a dusty old suitcase, probably navy blue, but it was hard to tell in this weak light. Beside the suitcase was a dirty step ladder and in the middle of the ceiling, a wooden square that could only be a trapdoor.

Dave pulled the ladder directly below the hatch and banged on the door with the outside of his fist, covering his eyes to avoid having them fill with dust and debris. The door gave way and opened upward, banging on the ground above. Dave pulled himself through the gap, then laying on his stomach, reached down into the room. Marla passed the old suitcase up before climbing out of the hole herself.

They found themselves in an old shed behind the house; they took a brief look inside the suitcase and walked out of the building into the night. The stars were bright and the moon was full, and although there were no street lights in this part of town, compared to where they’d been for the last few hours, they squinted against the brightness.

They walked back to their motel, hand in hand agreeing to go straight to the real estate the following morning to put the house back on the market.

And while they waited for it to sell, they would be able to live quite comfortably on the suitcase of cash in Dave’s left hand.

Muffin, Cousin, Cliff

In the interest of keeping this page active, here is another mystery micro-fiction, using the words Muffin, Cousin and Cliff

I sat on the edge of the cliff, with my legs dangling over the side. I stared out towards the ocean, not really seeing it. Someone mentioned later that there had been a pod of whales playing in the waves, but I didn’t notice any. I wasn’t looking, I was mentally and emotionally distracted, to say nothing of the flood of tears that would have obscured my view if I’d been interested in looking at all.

“Oi! Matilda!” I heard my cousin, Sienna calling out behind me. Please go away, I begged silently.

“I thought I’d find you up here. You don’t think you overreacted back there?”

“No.”

“Oh. Well, Craig thinks you did.”

“Craig’s a pig.”

“That’s true on so many levels.” Please please go away.

“Listen, Tilly, I know you were close to Gran, but it wasn’t that big a deal.”
“Listen, Sienna. Gran’s blueberry muffins were one of the most special memories of my childhood. She specifically made exactly twenty-four because she knew she was dying soon. She made enough for one each for her children, children-in-law and grandchildren.”

“I know that.”

“Craig knew that too.”

“Of course he did, everyone knew that. We’ve been listening to her talk about death for days now.”

“I’ve been listening to her for years, Sienna. I looked after her.” It was the first time I’d said those words out loud and I immediately felt bad for sounding ungrateful; my Gran was the whole world to me.

“I know that too, Matilda, we all know how much you sacrificed.”

“It wasn’t a sacrifice. I wanted to spend my time with Gran.”

“Ok.”

“He ate my muffin!” I heard my scream echo down the cliff and my cousin leaned back in shock.

“I know honey, but you didn’t have to knock him out.”

Mystery Micro-fiction: boot, photographer, mountaintop

Yet another mystery micro-fiction. The parameters - write a story of between 250 and 300 words based on the three words: boot, photographer, mountaintop.

It had taken over four hours, but Eliza had finally reached the summit of Mount Warning; she’d left at 2am to be there in time to see the sunrise, and pulled herself up the last hundred metres with the chains that were bolted into the rock face. She knew she wouldn’t be disappointed and she was right. The view was more breathtaking than she’d imagined, and for a moment, she forgot all about the resentment she felt for Charlie, who’d told her she could never do it. It was that anger that had fuelled her determination to work so hard.

Charlie had never believed in her, he'd laughed when she said she wanted to be a photographer, rolled his eyes when she said she wanted to make a book of mountain-top sunrise photos and shook his head when she spent five-hundred dollars on a pair of hiking boots. Well, she’d shown him alright.

She sat on the precipice, camera in hand, boots resting by her thigh to allow her aching feet to cool, wriggling her toes in the breeze, amazed that she was looking down at birds in flight. She reached behind her for a drink of water. As she brought the water bottle to her mouth, her arm knocked a boot and sent it falling into the bush below. Her body’s reaction overtook all thought and she instinctively jerked forward to catch the falling boot. She felt her heart jolt in the same way as it does when you lean too far back on your chair, when your equilibrium tilts too far the wrong way.

Eliza’s arms scrambled to find something to hold, some way of regaining that equilibrium. She remembered something a friend has said the day before.

“It’s always faster coming back down than going up.”

Crazy Plots

This was another swap - the rules were to use a writing prompts site that brings up random prompts and write a short story...
this was my prompt:

Tired of a monotonous day job, a biker with a flat tire gets drunk with a stranger

Stella Marshall lent against the bar inconspicuously; she eyed the pale track where the wooden floor was worn from foot traffic. If she hadn’t seen it nearly every day for the last three years, she could almost imagine she’d worn it down herself that afternoon trekking between tables and the kitchen. Her back ached, her feet throbbed and she had a mere ten minutes left on her shift, but she knew it would feel as long as the last seven hours and fifty minutes.

“Miss?” She sighed. Really, she thought I should just change my name to ‘Miss’ and be done with it.

She put on her customer face and bounced back to the man who’d called to her from table seven.

“How can I help you, sir?”

“When I ordered my burger, I asked for no onions.”

“Yes, I remember – I made sure to highlight it on your order.”

“Oh, well, there are onions on here, and…”

“Oh, I am so sorry.” Stella apologised sincerely. That moron Tyrone can never get the simplest order right.

“Don’t be sorry – it’s not your fault. I wouldn’t say anything except that I am allergic to onion.”

“You have every right to say something; I’ll take that back to the kitchen and get them to make you a fresh one. I’ll get you a complimentary drink while I’m there – you were drinking lemon squash, right?”

“Thank you.” The man smiled, he was clearly used to surly, grumpy waitresses who took every complaint personally; Stella couldn’t blame him; she was used to them too.

While she was in the kitchen reminding Tyrone clearly that the next burger needed to be sans onions, she grabbed a dishcloth and returned to the restaurant floor. She wiped down table eighteen for what had to be at least the fifteenth time that day. Table eighteen had a view of the pond, was out of the draught from the entry door and somehow managed to avoid the blinding sunlight that filled the restaurant with an orange glow around sunset; and so, was almost always occupied, even on slow days.

Stella sighed at the notion that she knew such inane details about a table, wiped it down and glanced out the window to notice storm clouds approaching. She took a drinks order from the couple who sat at table eighteen before she had so much as a chance to straighten up.

By the time she’d taken the drinks to table eighteen and taken a lemon squash and onionless burger to the man at table seven, her shift was over and she felt slightly more buoyant as she untied her apron in the staff room. She changed out of her uniform and into her riding gear. She pushed her hand through the visor of her helmet so she could carry her handbag and the garbage from the kitchen.

She deposited the garbage bag in the skip bin behind the restaurant and made her way to the car park. She looked at the dark clouds and wasn’t sure whether or not she imagined a rumbling noise in the distance.

“Great.” She muttered to herself as she approached her bike. “An hour ride home in a storm.”

“Pardon?” She spun around in alarm to see the from table seven looking at her.

“Nothing, I was mumbling to myself.”

“Oh, sorry. I thought you were speaking to me.”

“No, just wondering if that storm will hold off long enough for me to get home.”

“I don’t like your chances.”

“No, me neither.” Stella smiled an awkward smile and straddled her bike. She pushed her helmet over her head and kicked the starter motor.

She was barely three minutes down the road when the rain began to belt down. She could barely see the road ahead of her and began to wonder whether she should pull over and wait until the storm passed. But it didn’t look like it was going to pass for a while. And she really just wanted to get home. So she rode on for another quarter of an hour.

The rain was getting heavier and visibility poorer; Stella decided she would stop at The Mermaid Beach Tavern, which was about five more minutes down the road.

Just as she made the decision, she felt a jolt and the rear wheel of her bike skidded sideways, spun around and threw her to the ground. Without the presence of mind to let go of the handlebars and unable to stop herself, Stella slid along the wet road until she and her bike lost momentum and came to a stop. A car coming along the road behind her screeched to a halt just short of hitting her and the driver leapt out.

“Are you hurt?” A voice shouted.

“Um, I don’t think so… not badly at least.” The driver ran to her side to check her.

“You don’t sound too sure.” She pulled her helmet off and immediately recognised the driver as the man from table seven – the one who was allergic to onions.

“Um, ok, let’s see… I can wriggle my toes and my fingers. And… yep I can sit up. I don’t feel concussed. Hmmm, my pants are torn, but not badly. Ewe, my knuckles are bleeding.”

The man laughed “Well, bleeding knuckles doesn’t sound life threatening; you must have some pretty good quality gear.”

“The best.”

“How about we get this bike off the road and I drive you down to The Tavern so you can call someone to come and get you?”

Stella accepted the offer and grimaced at the scratching sound as the man pushed the bike off the road. She climbed into his car gratefully and they continued down the road to the tavern. The trip was just long enough for the man to inquire about Stella’s wellbeing three or four times before they pulled into the car park of the tavern.

He followed her inside as she pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket (conveniently, not the side that had scraped along the bitumen). She found the number at the top of her ‘most dialled’ list and put the phone to her ear. The man watched cautiously as she spoke.

“Hey, I’ve got a flat tire and I’m stuck in Mermaid Beach, can you come and get me? No, well it’s not just a flat – I kinda crashed it. I don’t know, I didn’t check. I had to get it off the road and get out of the rain... Oh, well how long will that take? Well, I’ll just wait at The Tavern until you can get here. I’m fine, by the way.” She flipped the phone shut and slumped into a nearby booth.

“I’m going have to wait here a while.” She told the man.

“I can wait with you if you like.”

“That’s ok, really, thank you so much for helping me – but I don’t know how long I’ll be waiting for.”

“I’d actually feel better if I waited with you – I wouldn’t want you passing out from blood loss in your knuckles.”

“Thanks.” Stella smiled.

“I’m Joshua by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, Joshua. I’m Stella.”

“I don’t know much about these things – but that seemed like a pretty sweet bike.”

“Yeah - it’s a Triumph Street Triple R.”

“Oh – that means nothing to me.”

“It’s pretty awesome anyway.”

“It doesn’t really seem like the sort of bike you could buy on a waitress salary. Sorry – that’s none of my business!” Joshua flushed with embarrassment.

“Don’t worry – it’s actually not – I have a very generous boyfriend.”

“Oh.” Joshua tried in vain to hide the disappointed look on his face. “So you have no idea how long he’ll be?”

“No, he has a friend with a tow truck – but they’re all… busy, could even be a couple of hours knowing that lot.”

“In that case, would you like a drink?”

Joshua and Stella sat for an hour, talking and drinking.

“Don’t you have to drive home?” Stella asked after drink number four.

“I only live around the corner – I’ll walk home.”

“It’s been an hour, I’d better call Ben again.” She took out her phone and called again.

Just as Stella thought she was going to get diverted to voicemail, Ben answered.

“Stella, I’m in the middle of something, right now.”

“Sorry, just quickly – I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t forgotten about me – do you know how long you’ll be?”

“I have no idea. Me and the boys will be up there when we can.”

“Okay – see you then.”

Stella rolled her eyes; The boys - great.

“Another hour if I’m lucky.” She told Joshua, “you really don’t have to wait with me –if you have somewhere you need to be.”

“I’m happy to wait – you wanna play some pool?”

So Joshua ordered some more drinks while Stella set the pool table up. She beat him four games to one before they both realised another hour and a half had passed. By this time, the tavern was starting to get busier with people coming in for some post-dinner entertainment and a local band began to play on the other side of the room.

“I’ve had enough pool for now.” Stella announced as Joshua offered to buy another round of drinks.

“Ok, I’ll meet you back at the booth.” He said.

Stella made her way back to the booth, bumping into another woman in the process. When she reached the table, she pulled her heavy riding jacket off, wondering why she hadn’t done so earlier.

Joshua returned to the table with a tray of four drinks.

“I figured I could save time and get two rounds at once. Wow.” He stared at Stella, who was now wearing a black figure-hugging singlet. “Nice tatt.” He gestured at the bold design that was tattooed around her upper arm.

“Oh thanks,” She said shyly.

“Does it mean something?”

“Yeah.”

“What?”

“Um. Nothing.” They laughed.

When the door opened next, Stella heard the loud voices of the men who entered and she stiffened.

“Thank you so much, Joshua – um, my boyfriend’s here, I’ve gotta go.” She got up and tried to make her way directly to the door quickly. But Ben had already spotted her and he and his three companions converged on the booth.

“Hey , baby.” Stella smiled.

“Who’s this?”

“This is Joshua – he helped me when the bike crashed this afternoon.”

“Helped you? I bet he did.” Ben took hold of Joshua’s jacket firmly. “You’ve been ‘looking after her’ have you?”

“I just wanted to make sure she wasn’t hurt.” Joshua answered shakily.

“You think I can’t look after my own girlfriend?”

“Well, she’s been waiting for you for three hours.”

“I’ve been in a … business meeting.”

“Ben,” Stella interrupted “Joshua helped me off the road and then I didn’t want to wait by myself. Nothing’s going on. Let’s just go home.” Stella tried to grab Ben’s shirt and pull him away, but he swatted her off him. She stumbled back and fell to the floor.

“Hey!” Joshua tried to go to Stella’s aid, but was held back by two of Ben’s companions.

“Go and wait in the truck.” Ben ordered.

“Ben. No, please, let’s just go home.”

“Go.” He growled. Stella ran outside to the car park. The storm had passed but the rain still drizzled and Stella slipped as she ran to the truck, re-opening the wounds on her hands. She fumbled in her pocket for her phone. Her tears and the rain made it hard to see and her bleeding hands and drunkenness made it hard to hold the phone properly, so she gave up making the call and climbed into the truck instead. She watched the door of the tavern and noticed several small groups of people leaving in a hurry.

A few minutes later, Ben and his friends came out the door. From the truck, she could see that Ben’s knuckles looked as bloodied as Stella’s. But she knew without doubt that the blood was not his own.

Thank goodness

I finally found my missing USB device just as I'd begun to think I'd never see it again. Of course I was very quick to back up my story in about four different places and combine my work with the parts I'd written in its absence. It also gave me renewed enthusiasm and my first draft (minus the epilogue that will be probably 20 times longer than any epilogue really should be) is pretty much complete.
So I'm through with my sulking and back to flexing my writing muscles...

Over before it began

I can't believe I let this little project slip away so quickly; I will be adding to it shortly, but I had a minor hiccup in my writing:
My 2 novels (lifelong projects it would seem; I have been working on both since I was about fifteen) were being stored on a usb thumb drive (yes! I know I am a stupid stupid woman - I do have several backups of these files, but none even remotely recent - I had done so much writing recently that I got well over 30,000 words ahead of the last back up).
For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to save another inconsequential file on that same thumb drive - I needed to print out this third file and my puppy had chewed through our printer cables. I took the thumb drive to my Mum's house to use her printer, which I couldn't do anyway because I had saved it in the wrong format and Mum's computer couldn't read it. I then went to the post office to post some parcels.
Now it is gone... the thumb drive, that is. I have searched my house and my Mum's house; turned both places upside-down looking for it. I need to call the post office next and hope they have it sitting in one of those weird 'lost and found' boxes you see in the cartoons. I am so upset for having lost it that I couldn't bring myself to do anymore writing.
I have finally plucked up the courage to write some more scenes for my main novel (it felt so wrong writing them in a blank file - without my other 55,000 words sitting above) and yes, backed it up in 3 different places! Now all I need to do is find that darn thumb drive, or my life will never be the same.

Mystery Micro-fiction

This was for another "Mystery Micro-fiction Swap"- the task was to write 250-300 words based on three words randomly assigned to me my mystery words were: Monkey, Groom, Office.


Beatrice carried her coffee back to her office, set it down on her desk and picked up the phone.

“Simon. That wedding party are in the memorial garden having their photos now. Can you take Sarabi down there as soon as you have a chance? Thanks”

Beatrice’s friends were always shocked to hear how many wedding parties came into the zoo to have their photos taken, especially when they paid extra to have Sarabi, the two-and-a-half metre long jungle python in their photos. It didn’t surprise Beatrice, though; she loved her job in administration, but some days longed to be out handling animals all day (or cleaning up manure all day, as most keepers would have her believe).

The phone rang.

“Admin. This is Bea.”

“Bea, I need you to get security down to the kiosk, they aren’t answering my calls.”

“Sure, what’s up?” Beatrice asked as she grabbed her mobile phone in the other hand. If security weren’t answering on the zoo phone, she’d have to call Jim on his mobile.

“Ratu is out. She’s terrorising… oh no, she’s heading for the memorial garden.”
Beatrice hit the ‘call’ button on her mobile as she ran out of the admin building. As she swung the door open and ran into the sunshine, a frightened couple ran up to her.

“Excuse me, but a monkey has escaped, and…”

“Ratu is NOT a monkey,” She interrupted fiercely; “she is an orang-utan.” Then she quickly put on her ‘public relations face’, added “don’t worry, she isn’t dangerous,” and ran in the direction of the memorial garden, “usually.”

On her way, she bumped into Simon, carrying the enormous python.

“Don’t go to the garden!” She warned him.

“Too late,” Simon grimaced “I think Ratu has a crush on the groom.”