Once upon a time, dear readers, there was a lowly Llama.
She was lowly mainly because she had been born with very
small legs. This made her ideal to be the librarian of a small town in the valleys
called Llanthickpizzle Major, which was just to the left and up a bit from all
the abandoned pits and slag heaps.
But wait, I hear you say.
Surely, being lowly, she would not be able to reach the
books on the top shelf?
Not a bit of it, my dears. On the contrary, she was perfect
for rearranging those books on the bottom, saving many an aching octogenarian
book hunter’s back into the bargain. Her name was Lindy Loveslace, and she was
very pleased with it, thank you very much.
Now, being a librarian meant that she was wise. All that
reading, you see?
Well, fairly wise – it did depend, of course, on the sorts
of books she curated. But, by and large, she was respected by the citizens who
most often went by names like Taff, Toss and Binty and were either slugs,
crustaceans or invertebrates.
And also, she was very old. Like a donkey. She had seen a
lot of most of everything.
For example, one day, a snail called Morgan Lookyew, came rushing
into the library in what can only be described as a state of high dudgeon.
Gouts of blood were fair making his face crimson – except, being a snail they
weren’t, really – but I’m trying to convey to you his extreme frustration,
aren’t I?
His antennae were bobbling about like deely-boppers, so
excited was he. What? Oh, look it up.
“Lindy, Lindy, come quick,” he shouted, leaping onto her
desk with admirable athleticism, given he wasn’t a flea, a frog or any other
sort of hopping creature – or even had anything resembling legs, for that
matter.
With a sigh, Lindy took a tissue and cleared the speckles
of slime from her spectacles. She put her book down, reluctantly. “What is it,
Morgan?” asked she.
“Jones the Traffic has introduced a 20 miles per hour speed
limit over the valleys,” he cried, in horror. “Even now, Clwyd the Binbag is
taking away all the 30 miles per hour signs and putting them into his trailer!”
Adjusting her spectacles, Lindy looked at the snail. “Do
you drive?”
“No,” admitted Morgan, who found clutch and gas pedals
something of a hardship, having nothing in the way of legs. Or indeed, nothing
in the way of the legs he didn’t have.
“And are you capable of reaching speeds of thirty miles per
hour?”
“Don’t be silly. I’m a snail, aren’t I?”
“Well, I shouldn’t worry too much then. In any case they’re
always doing it. It’s so that the companies that make signs have – well – new
signs to make. Next week they’ll either reduce it to ten or put it back to
thirty. You can read it in the local rags.”
And with that, Lindy took a handily placed lettuce leaf
which had become dislodged from the rest of her lunch, placed Morgan upon it
and flung him back outside.
She was always being interrupted.
Why, later that very same day, a shrimp called Clifford
Bach happened to be passing by and popped his head round the corner of the
fiction section. “Yo, Lindy!” he cried, loudly, because he fancied himself as
something of a cool dude, as far as shrimps go. “How’s it hanging? What’s
occurring?”
He was carrying one of those glossy magazines you buy for
30p in all good supermarkets in his claw mandible. The sort of magazines that
have half naked, balloon-boobed overweight pouting, pudding head celebrities
pasted all over their fronts, usually from Essex.
They’re either always on hopeless diets or their boyfriends
have been naughty with one of their friends. No, I don’t know why they bother,
either. Probably there are some very, very stupid people in the world.
Anyhow, Clifford skipped up onto Lindy’s desk, waving his publication
in front of her.
Taking a tissue, she frowned and dabbed at the patches of
seawater he’d sprinkled all over her blouse. “Well?”
Clifford tapped the front cover in a
most animated fashion. “It says here that Katie Jordan is taking revenge on the
infidelity heaped upon her by a ‘The Only Way is Stratchclyde’ dude by never
visiting Paisley ever again. Or any dudes. And then she’s having a rude and
expensive operation that this dude must pay for.”
“So?”
“Also, she will never visit the valleys in case a ‘The Only
Way is Valleys’ dude is unfaithful to her as well, don’t you know?”
Lindy snatched the magazine from Clifford. She quickly
flicked through it and her eyes narrowed. I have to tell you that what she
noted was neither pleasant or should be put into a story like this, so I won’t
mention it. “It doesn’t say any such thing,” she announced, after a couple of
minutes.
“Doesn’t it?”
“No. Tell me, Clifford, can you actually read?”
“Well, there wasn’t much call for reading in shrimp
school,” Clifford answered, “Mainly we just learned stuff about paella
avoidance, the mistake of taking a hot tempura bath and why Chinese mixed meats
special fried rice is never as tasty as it sounds.”
“Did you, indeed? Kindly go back to your pond, if you would
be so kind. And take this trash with you.” And she hurled the offensive reading
material back at the shrimp.
Clifford protested. “But I’m a sea faring shrimp. I mainly
hang about around sewerage outlets. Not ponds.”
And, upon hearing that, Lindy felt it was only fair to help
her little friend by scooping him carefully onto some tissue paper, depositing
him in her library lavatory and using her hoof to perform a mighty flush.
After all, she reasoned, it would be rather like a visit to
Blackpool Pleasure Pavillions with added popcorn for Clifford.
Anway, her days proceeded rather like the ones I have
described for you, dear readers. A quick shufti and dust of the bottom shelves,
followed by mostly interrupted reading, dispensing wisdom and summary justice
for those who messed on her clothing or face.
It was a satisfying life. Quiet, but satisfying.
Until one day, as invariably happens in stories like these,
something occurred to turn her world entirely upside down.
For a bit.
This oncoming storm was foreshadowed by none other than
Taff, Toss and Binty, three deaf slugs who were often to be found by the wet
paving stones outside the cement factory that had been turned into a coffee
shop for the hard of hearing, wetting the paving stones.
“Lindy, Lindy,” they shrieked, as loudly as slugs were
able. “Something woeful is happening, just up the street by the tumbledown
steel mill.”
As they hurried into the library, Lindy laid her book aside,
switched off her reading light, pursed her lips and glared. “What is it this
time?” And her hoof scuttled like an crab towards a salt cellar upon her desk
she kept handy for dipping her celery into.
Her other hoof smacked the first. Reluctantly she put the
salt away.
After an hour or so, the slugs had managed to heave
themselves up to the top of the desk where Lindy’s elbows propped up her chins.
She scrunched up her eyes, pretending to be interested. “Why, it’s Boff, Chip
and Clitter, isn’t it?”
The three slugs shook their respective heads. “No. We are
Taff, Toss and Binty. Boff, Chip and Clitter are brown slugs. We are black
slugs. We don’t mess with the likes of Biff, Chip and Clitter. They are too
tough for the likes of us.”
“I see,” replied Lindy, already feeling a tad bored.
One of the slugs, possibly Binty, but it could have been
Taff or Toss for all she knew, pulled itself erect and stared her right into
the eye. “Do you? Do you really understand?” And his voice conveyed a sadness,
a despair – as if his days had been wasted and only now was he truly beginning
to see.
But Taff or Toss, or maybe Binty, stopped Binty or maybe
Taff or Toss. “No time for that now. Danger. Deadly danger!”
“What danger?” Lindy asked. A fair enough question, for
outside the library it was a fir and sunny sort of morning.
“The Minister is here. The Minister for Books. And he’s
coming right now. To this library.”
“Oh, poppycock,” snapped Lindy. And with that, she took our
three friendly slugs by the horns and chucked them into the garden, where they
were never heard of again.
Something of a relief, I think you’ll agree.
But, as she returned, Lindy was accosted by three severe
looking personages who were stood to attention in front of her desk.
“What can I do for you three…gentlemen?”
She cast her critical eyes over them in an instant, summing
them up. One was a stoat, dressed officiously in a suit, with a waistcoat and
watch fob, a handkerchief triangle foppishly protruding from his breast pocket
and a monocle screwed onto his right eye.
The other two, dressed in striped jerseys, were probably
woodworm; it was difficult to be certain. They were having difficulty staying
still, as – in all probability – they had been commanded to by the stoat.
“Allow me to present my credentials,” he pronounced,
grandly, and offering an I D card.
“Bill Ford Haven.” Lindy read, aloud.
“No, no. Not Bill Ford Haven,” the stoat replied. “Bull Feurdeuven”.
You don’t pronounce the ‘H’, don’t you know?”
“Dipthong, eh?”
“There’s no cause to be rude, dear lady. May I present my
assistants, Bodger and Todger?”
“Not Beurgeur and Teurgeur?”
“No, no. Quite definitely Bodger and Todger. We are,” he
continued, “From the Ministry of Education.”
“Of course you are.”
“And why did you say that?” Bill Fordhaven had the
irritating throaty whine of someone who had been through an expensive school.
Someone for whom things had fallen into place and he’d never had to do much in
the way of work other than creating forms for people to tick and sign.
Before Lindy could answer, Bodger and Todger could contain
themselves no longer and started to bounce vertically as though they were on
springs. “Can we start, can we start?” one, or the other, was chanting, with
extreme impatience.
“Yes, off you go lads,” replied Fordhaven, with an
indulgent smile.
And before you could say ‘oily tick’ they were up and at it,
scuttering down aisles, tearing through shelves, burrowing into books.
Lindy watched, nonplused. “What are they doing, Mr
Fordhaven?”
“Ah, Feurdeuven. Well, it’s
like this, my dear Ms Loveslace. Your library has been reported. To us. For
having lewd and rude words in the books.”
“Really?”
“Yes. There’s been an outbreak of bad language in The
Valleys and it is my job to root out the rot.”
“And may I know the worse that may befall me in this case?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What will you do if you find any rude words?”
“Ah, well, Bodger and Todger are trained in all the rude
words known to man.” proclaimed Fordhaven. “And should they find them, they
know what to do.”
“And what is that?”
“Why, eat them, of course!” The stoat smirked, as if
everybody ought to know that this was precisely and exactly the fate that all
rude words should suffer.
“Eat them?”
“Yes. And, of course, shut down the library.”
“But this is the best library in The Valleys,” Lindy,
protested.
“Not if all your books have holes in them, it isn’t.” And
with that, Bill Fordhaven strutted off in pursuit of his two underlings, to
assess the state of affairs.
Lindy followed him, interested to see what was happening.
“Is ‘bum’ a rude word?” one of the woodworm was shouting,
head stuffed inside some corrugated papers.
“That would depend.”
“On what?”
“Well, read the sentence, Bodger, and let’s hear it,”
snapped Bill Fordhaven, Presumably, this was a conversation he had most days,
given the nature of his job.
Bodger cleared his throat. “Ah…Ben Broadbent was a cheery
old bum, and used to eat his lunch off fags.”
Bill Fordhaven’s forehead furrowed and he stroked his chin.
“Doesn’t seem too rude,” he admitted after careful thought. “I’ll consult the
Ministry’s Book of Forbidden Words.” He read some of these aloud, but as some
of them were pretty darned rude, I’ll certainly not type them here in the
middle of a children’s story.
Bodger waited for the result, his tummy growling like a
wolf.
“Wait, wait.” Fordhaven looked up. “Yes, ‘bum’ in the same
sentence as ‘bent’ and ‘fags’ can be considered rude…but the real problem here is
‘cheery’. It’s too much like ‘cherry’.
“What’s rude about cherry?” Lindy asked, perplexed.
“Don’t you remember that 60s hit single ‘Cherry Cherry’?
Very dodgy. Very dodgy indeed.”
Lindy scowled. “No, I don’t remember that particular tune,”
she snapped, as Bodger started eating the offending sentence, leaving some
unpleasant looking evidence behind him.
“Oh yes,” continued Fordhaven. “Notorious, he was. And let’s
not forget ‘Crouch, Bent and Duff. Or was it Muff?”
“Crouch, Bent and Muff?”
“Why yes. The manager of some football team or other made the mistake of putting them on the same team sheet. Well, it was chocks away for young Bodger and Todger here. And that manager’s feet never touched the ground. Cancelled immediately and whisked off to some lower league, overseas – Arabia, I believe.”
“Really?” Lindy’s voice was dripping with venom, but it
made no difference. Hardly a moment had passed before Todger piped up from the
Medical Section. “Mr Feurdeuven. I’ve got a breast here.”
“Well done, my boy. I’m utterly fed up with those. Do the
necessary, will you?”
“Certainly, sir.” And Todger was up and at it, chowing down
heartily on the offending ink and paper.
“But it’s a medical encyclopedia,” protested Lindy.
“Quite so. An absolute menace. Full to the brim with
unhealthiness. What if our youngsters set their eyes on that?”
And so it continued. But what made it worse was that every
time they found another rude word, and believe me, they found plenty, Mr
Fordhaven wrote it down on a large form he had, attached to a clipboard and,
every so often, Lindy would have to sign it.
“I will be asking you to type all these up later,” he
declared, in such a manner that suggested it was not up for debate.
“But your eliminating words from the book and replacing
them on the form,” Lindy pointed out. “You’re creating a much worse lexicon
than the ones Bodger and Todger are destroying.”
“This is a Ministry lexicon.”
“Well, how does that make it good?”
“Shut up. I give these to my superiors. After that, I have
no idea what happens to them.” And he took a few pictures of Lindy on his
camera, printed them out, and attached them to the forms. Occasionally, he was
not totally happy with the results, so she would have to pose – by the shelves,
on the desk and under the umbrella stand.
By the time they were finished, barely a book remained
without some holes in it.
“May I use your office?” asked Fordhaven, grimly. “I have a
report to write.”
Lindy Loveslace sat at her desk, somewhere between
infuriated and depressed, looking at what remained of her beautiful library.
But, as you know, dear readers, she was not one to be beaten down so easily.
You will recall what happened to Clifford, Morgan and their friends Taff, Toss
and Turnip?
Indeed, it was with Clifford in mind that she repaired quickly to the bathroom.
She lifted the lid. “Clifford?” she hissed, hopefully. “Are
you there?”
To her relief, a voice answered. Somewhat shaken, to be
sure, but definitely a voice. “Lindy? Is that you? Somebody tried to flush me
down the bog. I’ve been swimming around here for ages, trying to make an
ascent, but the bowl is way to slippery for a shrimp.”
“Are you alright?” Lindy replied, with as much concern as
she could put into her voice, given her mixed feelings.
“I guess so. One of my mandibles is a bit clogged up with brown
tissues.”
“Grab hold of my hoof, Clifford.” Lindy flinched as she
lowered her limb gingerly into the water.
Clifford hopped aboard. “Cheers, dude.”
“Glad to be of service,” Lindy lied, because the shrimp was
becoming clogged in her fur. And he smelt. She took him back to her desk and
helped him up. “I have a problem of my own.”
“Well, one good turn deserves another, dude,” Clifford
replied, “How can I help?”
Lindy smiled. “Just hop in between these two bread slices,
will you?”
“Sure thing, dude.” Clifford did as he was asked and was
surprised to find that, instead of butter or mayonnaise, the bread was lined
with several signed sheets of very rude words indeed. But before he had a
chance to protest, Lindy had wrapped the bread in cling film and was trotting
towards her office. “Mr Fordhaven?”
The stoat looked up from his report writing. It had taken
longer than he had anticipated.
But then it always did. Bodger and Todger would insist on
eating bits of it as he wrote. “What is it, Ms Loveslace?”
“I…er…thought you might be hungry. I prepared this shrimp
sandwich for you.”
“Why, that’s my very favourite kind of sandwich,” replied
Fordhaven. “I can only say thank you. Thank you very much indeed.” And, unwrapping
the package, took a mighty bite, chewing thoughtfully, before gulping it down. “I
only wish my report was more favourable,” he admitted, perhaps feeling guilty
by her kindness. “But I shall have to recommend closure.”
“Closure?”
“Yes. I’m very much afraid we found every rude word there
was in your library. The whole kit and kaboodle. And connotations a go go” And
he swallowed the rest of the sandwich, thoughtfully. “Closure, it is.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
“You don’t?” Fordhaven frowned, unused to such defiance,
particularly from a lowly llama. “Whyever not?”
Lindy smiled a triumphant smile. “Because that sandwich
wasn’t just a shrimp sandwich. It was also full of those papers. Signed by you.
In fact, you’ve just swallowed every rude word in your book. This makes you
full of more rude words than my entire library, you officious little stoat. You
wouldn’t want me to report that, would you?”
“Oh my God, I’ve just eaten my words!” screamed Fordhaven, “But
nobody saw.”
“We saw,” replied Bodger and Todger.
“Me too!” Clifford cried from somewhere within Mr
Fordhaven. “I saw the whole thing.”
“Damn you, Lindy Loveslace, I’ve been bested.” And with
that, the three officials stumbled out, thoroughly browbeaten. “We’ll be back.”
Bill Fordhaven snarled. But he was fooling no one, was he?
And, to this day, Lindy Loveslace is still chief librarian
of Llanthickpizzle Major. She may be lowly, but she reads every day, and
sometimes, even books with rude words. Her friends Morgan Lookyew and Clod,
Twig and Hopper still pop in from time to time to check out her half-chewed
novels and semi-masticated magazines and she treats them as she always has and
always will.
As for Clifford the Shrimp, you’ll be relieved to know
that, on the fateful day he was chomped, Bill Fordhaven spat him out, along
with some tissue, complaining that he didn’t taste nice.
