The Big Over Easy

“Hey,” said Pandora, “tough break on the three-pigs case. I’m a committed holier-than-thou-meat-is-murder-bore-the-pants-off-all-and-sundry vegetarian, and even I thought they should have been served up boiled with new potatoes, peas and parsley sauce.”

“Well,” replied Jack, taking a swig of beer, “we thought we might have got Gerald—that’s Little Pig A—to squeal on his elder brothers for a lesser sentence, but he wouldn’t play ball. How’s school?”

“I’m nearly twenty, Dad. I don’t go to school anymore. It’s called uni-ver-sity, and it’s good. Can you help me with my quantum-particle homework?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. Here’s the question: ‘Solve the Schrödinger equation explicitly in the case of a particle of mass m in a constant Newtonian gravitational field: V=mgz.’”

Jack thought for a moment.

“Definitely B.”

“Eh?”

“Box B, unless the previous answer was box B, in which case it’ll be box C. This is multiple choice, yes?”

Pandora laughed. “No, Dad. Particle physics is a little more involved than that.”

“Box A?”

She slapped him playfully on the arm. “Dad! You are so no help at all!”

The local news came on. There was a piece about Chymes and the Peabody case, of course, and more about the Jellyman’s visit on Saturday to dedicate the Sacred Gonga Visitors’ Center. There was also a bit about the Spongg Footcare Charity Benefit, live from the Déjà Vu Ballrooms. They both craned their necks to catch a glimpse of Madeleine in her red dress and saw her lurking in the back of a shot where Lord Randolph Spongg, the CEO of Spongg Footcare PLC, was doing a piece for the live broadcast.

“…as well as representatives from Winsum and Loosum’s and QuangTech, we’ve seen a galaxy of Reading celebrities tonight,” said the handsome peer cheerfully, “in order to help us raise funds to replace the outdated and woefully inadequate St. Cerebellum’s mental hospital. We are very grateful indeed to Mr. Grundy, Mr. Attery Squash, the Blue Baboon, Mr. Pobble, Lola Vavoom and of course the Dong, who so generously agreed to entertain us with his luminous nose.”

“Ah, yes, Miss Vavoom,” said The Toad reporter as he crossed to the retired star of screen and stage, “so good to see you out in Reading society again. How do you react to the epithet ‘formerly gorgeous’?”

“Like this,” she said, downing the reporter with a straight right to the jaw. There was a cry, a flash going off, and they cut the live broadcast back to a bemused anchorman who hid a smile, told a heartwarming story about the efforts of the fire service to rescue a kitten stuck in a pipe, then introduced Reading’s favorite weather-girl, Bunty McTwinkle.

“Reading will once again experience a cloudy day with little sign of sunshine,” said Bunty without much emotion, “a bit like living inside Tupperware.”

Pandora keyed the remote, and the TV went silent.

“I was hoping I might make the local news this time,” said Jack despondently, “even if it was to be trashed.”

Ben finally drifted in at eleven and made a little too much noise. A light switched on in Mr. and Mrs. Sittkomm’s bedroom, which was always a bad sign. Jack beckoned him in as quickly as he could.

“Have you been drinking?”

“To excess. I had two shandies.”

“Almost an alcoholic. How did it go with the harpist? Did she like your anvils?”

“Oh, her,” he sniffed, taking off his parka and chucking it in the cloakroom. “She’s going out with Brian Eves, who plays the tuba. She says it’s the sexiest instrument in the brass section.”

“Oh, Ben,” said Jack, “I’m so sorry!”

“Shit happens,” he replied, making his way toward the staircase, his room and the welcome oblivion of low-alcohol-induced lovelorn unconsciousness. “Yes indeed, shit happens.”

Jack went to bed at midnight and was awoken in the small hours by Madeleine, who came to bed smelling of champagne, canapés and hard work.

“Guess what!” she whispered, not at all quietly in his ear.

“The house is on fire?”

“No. I snapped Lola Vavoom slugging a journalist. It’ll be on the front page of The Mole and The Toad tomorrow. She packs quite a punch—they had to wire his jaw!”

Despite the feisty and provocative talk earlier about the red dress’s having to be torn from her body, they both fell fast asleep doing nothing about it. Besides, it was rented.

3.The Fall Guy