Turn we now unto one of the chapters skipped over by Violet Crepuscular in her mad rush to Chapter CCC of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney. Constable Chumley, with Lord Jeremy Coldsore, the American adventurer Willis Twombley, and Johnno the Merry Minstrel peering over his shoulder, at the start of Chapter CCXCIII, is picking the lock so they can search the attic of Coldsore Hall for the missing Marquess of Grone, Lord Cromleigh or whatever his name is. Sheesh, what a sentence!
“Yeer, us’ll see now,” Chumley mutters, “that’s a fithul bricken yairst…”
Click! The door is unlocked. The constable begins to turn the knob–
“By Jove, the attic’s the only place where we haven’t put in any antimacassars to fend off the spirit of Black Rodney,” Johnno is about to point out. But before he can admonish Chumley to be careful, a tremendous explosion nearly hurls the whole group back down the stairs. “Kaboom!” writes Ms. Crepuscular. “I have always found, in describing an explosion, that ‘Kaboom!’ is preferable to ‘Blasto!’ or ‘Boom!'”
When the smoke clears, the door is hanging from a single hinge and half the roof of Coldsore Hall has been blown off. Lord Jeremy, briefly contemplating the cost of repairing it, faints. Twombley just manages to grab him before he tumbles down the appallingly long flight of stairs.
“We never put any antimacassars in the attic,” Johnno remarks.
“A little late for that, ol’ hoss!” parries Twombley.
The constable’s helmet has disappeared, his uniform is in tatters, his hair disarranged, and his face awash with soot. “He looks rather like Wile E. Coyote after one of those Acme sticks of dynamite blows up in his face,” writes Ms. Crepuscular, in an intimate aside, “but of course I can’t mention that because it would be an anachronism.”
The attic is now in considerable disarray. If the missing peer is there, does he still live?
“I shall divulge that in the next chapter, breaking off here to heighten the suspense,” writes Ms. Crepuscular. She has forgotten that this has already been divulged by her writing Chapter CCC before Chapter CCXCII. So there’s no suspense to speak of.
I find great satisfaction the Wile E. Coyote has made his appearance in this book. It’s a singular mark of great literature. 🙂
I wonder how many companies named “Acme” had to change their names after the Wile E. Coyote series became popular? 🙂
I hate to say it, but I sometimes found myself rooting for poor old Wile E., even though I knew he would always lose — or maybe because I knew he would always lose.
Having met both roadrunners and coyotes face to face I can state confidently that if there was a roadrunner/coyote chase, in all likelihood, the roadrunner would be chasing the coyote. Those birds are fierce and fearless. A roadrunner chased my old tomcat and scared the H E double-toothpicks out of him. 🙂
Thought Violet would forgot these chapter. I was wrong.