This is probably something you should remember, in case a rhinoceros wakes from hibernation and goes on the warpath in your town.
Introducing Chapter DCLXVIII (we’re pretty sure we’ve got those Roman numerals straightened out) of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, Violet Crepuscular, “The Queen of Suspense,” confides in her readers, “This is probably something you should remember in case a rhinoceros wakes from hibernation and goes on the warpath in your town.”
The quick wits of Ms. Crepuscular found the solution that saved Scurveyshire. The high-kicking June Taylor Dancers literally kick the rhino out of town.
Too many kicks even for a rhino!
The crisis having passed, Lord Jeremy Coldsore climbs down from the tree in which he’d sought refuge.
“This would be cowardice in anybody else,” states Ms. Crepuscular, “but in Lord Jeremy it is only another kind of bravery. Besides, he has always been afflicted with rhinophobia. It’s not his fault. There will be no cure for rhinophobia until 2023.”
[“Rhinophobia? Wouldn’t that mean ‘fear of noses’?” asks the editor who is about to be fired. Editors are a dime a dozen. Queens of Suspense are hard to come by.]
CONTEST! A tin of toothpaste cookies to any reader who can form a convincing and really cool theory of how the June Taylor Dancers wound up in this story.
The June Taylor dancers kept getting left out of Byron’s TV Listings, so in a fit of pique they took a quick time-travel jaunt to Scurveyshire. There. Now, where are my toothpaste cookies? 😁