Introducing Chapter CDLXXXXV of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, Violet Crepuscular writes, “The reader will surely remember, a few hundred chapters ago, how a man with one buttock came to Scurveyshire and was taken for an oracle of bad things to come. Well, this man, Sir Charles Squole, has since–”
STOP! I can’t stand it! What about Constable Chumley hanging from the cliff’s edge by his fingertips? You can’t just start babbling about some guy with one buttock!
“This is what being the Queen of Suspense is all about,” adds Ms. Crepuscular. One of these days she’s going to go too far.
It seems Sir Charles Squole has invented a backyard trampoline and has been looking for a place to set it up. People don’t like his funny walk, so he tends to favor places like the Cliffs of Doom, where there’s not likely to be anyone about to bother him.
This time he should have looked up to the top of the cliff, but didn’t. Instead, he goes ahead and sets up his trampoline at the base of the cliff–
Just as the last of Constable Chumley’s strength gives out and he loses his grip, and plummets screaming toward the jagged rocks below–
But he lands on Sir Charles’ trampoline, bounces straight back up the way he came, and has the presence of mind to land on top of the cliff. Saved!
[Audience boos vociferously. People demand their money back.]
“I see I’ve offended the dullards out there,” writes Ms. Crepuscular. “Well, tough nooggies for them! I’m writing romance here,” she exsanguinates, “not a fossing physics textbook!”
I am not going to ask about the lisping knight who turned out to be Constable Chumley’s mother.