Mr Landen Has No Brain

‘It means you can’t come in till you let me marry my bunny.’

‘Marry it?’ She frowned at the door. ‘That bunny’s a boy bunny. Since when have you liked boys?’

‘I don’t care. I love my bunny and won’t let you take him off me.’

Lepus called out, ‘Help me, female! Help me! He makes me eat celery.’

She watched the door, non-plussed.

Just to make her morning complete, Landen called, ‘Help me, Dr Llama! Help me! My bunny’s just sat on me.’

‘Lepus, stop sitting on Mr Landen,’ she sighed.

‘Not unless he lets me out.’

‘He can’t let you out unless you get off him.’

‘I don’t care. I’m not getting off him till he lets me out.’

But how’d she done it? How’d she got away? Madam Tallulah hadn’t been able to escape masking tape, and Sally hadn’t bound her with half the vigour she’d used on Teena. And yet, when Sally’d found the tape, its sticky side had collected so much fluff it must have been unpeeled from her flesh for hours. She must have got free as soon as Sally’d climbed into the bottom bunk.

And why’d she escaped? Didn’t she realize Sally was trying to help her? And if there’d been a certain pleasure in seeing Teena in discomfort, a sense of revenge for her rabbit antics, that was just a bonus and shouldn’t in any way be viewed as a major part of her reason for doing it.

She tried to put Teena to the back of her mind and concentrate on her work, sticking another square of foam rubber in place.

‘What’s the hell’s this?’ asked Cthulha, to her left, watching Daisy.

Sally took the final square from the box to her right, unrolled it then pressed it in place. She ran her palms along its edges to make it stick, pressed its centre then stepped back to admire her handiwork.

It stood before her, magnificent, Wyndham’s first ever caravan to be completely covered in foam rubber. You could throw yourself at it all day and never get hurt. Not that the two hippy geeks staring out of its window looked like they wanted to throw themselves at it. They looked like they wanted to throw her at something. But to do that they’d have to leave the caravan and, when she’d called round the other day, they’d refused to do so, pushing the rent out through a slot in the door. The sign on the doorknob might have said WYNDHAM FINISHING SCHOOL FOR DAINTY YOUNG LADIES but, to Sally, they were just two geeks.

She said, ‘Cthulha meet Daisy. She’s helping me make the camp safe.’

Hands in tuxedo pockets, cigarette in mouth, Cthulha eyed Daisy from a distance of nine inches. ‘It’s flying.’

‘Floating,’ Sally beamed.

‘Jesus.’

Daisy floated tethered to the caravan door, chewing a foam rubber square Sally’d given her to keep her entertained. The cow gazed at a pink sports car parked ten feet away. Open-topped it stood so low you’d have to lie down to sit in it.

Hands in pockets, Cthulha leaned forward. Her face now one inch from Daisy’s she too watched the car. ‘Know what that is?’

‘Moo?’

‘That’s my Spooder Yo-Yo.’

‘A Spooder Yo-Yo?’ Sally laughed. ‘What the hell’s a Spooder Yo-Yo? It sounds like someone who got shoved out of an airlock in Star Wars.’

Cthulha attempted a withering stare. ‘For your information, no one got shoved out of an airlock in Star Wars. And the Spooder Yo-Yo was the grooviest car of 1968.’

‘Sure it was.’

‘It was Greek,’ Cthulha protested. ‘The title lost a little in translation. But secret agent Carnaby Soho drove one in all her films.’

Sally frowned. ‘Carnaby Soho?’

‘You remember Carnaby Soho.’

‘I’ve never heard of her.’

‘Everyone’s heard of Carnaby Soho; pink-clad super-spy, righter of wrongs and, in later years, serial thwarter of the evil Mullineks.’

‘Mullineks?’

‘Queen of the mad moon lesbians.’

‘Cthulha, where exactly do you get your videos?’

‘You must have heard of Mullineks. Everyone has.’

‘Like they’ve all heard of Carnaby Soho?’

‘But Mullineks was even hornier than Hudson Leick.’

‘Hudson what?’

Then Cthulha started singing.

‘Carnaby Soho

making all the guys go whoa whoa.

Cruising in your Yo-Yo.

Letting through your hair the wind blow.

Carnaby Soho, do you know what you’ve done?

Having make the room go spun and spun and spun and spun and spun and spun and spun and spun … ’

‘Cthulha, I’ve no idea what you’re on about.’

‘It was Italian.’ She shrugged. ‘It lost something in translation.’

‘Yeah – the audience.’

Her face again inches from Daisy’s, Cthulha told the cow, ‘That car came with my big flash job. Want to know why you’ve not got one?’