Only under great duress did Memiranda and Gorrald slog their sleepy way across a sidewalk astride the sandy skeins of the Atlantic’s dismal approach. Behind them, doubtless armed to teeth with weapons devoutly off display, shuffled the slouch who’d caused their revulsed expulsion, grumbling under his breath as his mind shot dancing slugs at the feet of sugarplum fancies of ransoms to be spent. Before them stood his featureless van, the dismal sight on the curb awaiting its cargo of much-put-upon pilgrims.
“Gorrald,” Memiranda tried again, having grown exhausted of the company available in her hermitage, “this seems drearily unnecessary. I see no reason we couldn’t have simply been kidnapped in the apartment, where there’s drinks.”
Gorrald groaned. “Darling platypus, if we were kidnapped in the apartment, how could this bounder—no offense, of course, I’m sure—deprive some sap of the gobs of dosh he seems to have his little heart set to acquire?”
“Oh, must we? Financials are so tiresome, Gorrald.”
“Tiresome they may be, but they are part and parcel of the process.”
“Which process? I shall eliminate it from the diet, if I must.” Memiranda flipped a hand with carefully calculated careless abandon.
“Why, the process of being kidnapped, oh nabob of puddle-ducks.”
“Then I shall decline to be kidnapped any further.” Memiranda stopped in her tracks. What the process lacked in suddenness, it made up for in lack of subtlty.
“This fellow may have words to say on the subject.”
“Words alone cannot move mountains, O Gorald-mine, and this berg declines to budge. If he means to continue this kidnapping mishegas further, he’ll need to do some quick explaining or we shall simply exeunt.”
“Pursued by bore, no doubt.”
The man behind goggled at their stationary backs. He began to open his mouth, perhaps to protest, perhaps to begin an explanation, when Memiranda and Gorrald whirled as a unit and fixed him with a gaze that doubtless would have chilled a more thoughtful villain to the very marrow. Instead, it merely delayed his faltering tongue long enough that even Gorrald tired of waiting.
“Look, friend, it seems you have this idea of piracy as an avocation—perhaps even a vocation, to you your own. Now, I’d never reign over a farse, much less on a parade, but suppose, just for kicks, we—that is, Dunning-Mug and myself—take the contra-pos, argue the anti- for a brief mo’, see if we can’t get our têtes à portée des têtes, as it were.”
The man continued to goggle before realizing he could just narrow his eyes to get the same effect. “I told yez. Get in da’ van, you and da’ goil, ‘er I’ll pop yez one.”
Memiranda flung a scandalized hand to her brow in mock amazement. “Why, Gorrald! I remember now why we allowed him to do his little kidnapping whatsis. His mangling of the bastard tongue seemed so precious back in the apartment.”
Gorrald quickly took up the thread. “Well, I suppose it did, at that-“
“Where there’s drinks,” Memiranda insisted.
“She’s got a point, old fellow, and not just the cranial extrusion peculiar to the family. What do you say? Shall we retreat to the old homestead, see if we can’t hash out some kind of kidnapping that’s a little more,” Gorrald waggled a hand vaguely, spooling the word from the aether, “pleasant for all involved?”
The man’s eyes, small to begin with and now twice-narrowed, disappeared for a flash as he sought a wicked instrument from the folds of his unfathomable pockets. “Dat’s it,” he said.
He moved with liquid fury and rammed the knife under Gorrald’s chin. The tryptic stood staring in mutual silence for a full moment as nary a brain wriggled.
“Hrrdhhg,” Gorrald managed to gurglingly begin, before pulling the knife, buried to the hilt, from below his jaw and shaking his head. The man took a few steps backward until Gorrald enveloped him and began the slow digestive process.
Memiranda huffed once. She’d have to wait half an hour or more for Gorrald to get finished enough to start walking home, and it would be days until he was decent company again. At least he’d have some new bones for a while. Still, the afternoon was proving frustratingly devoid of drinks. Before she could stop herself, she said, out loud, “well, poo!”
Driven to swear on a public roadway, Memiranda pinked entirely and hid her eyes in performative shame. She made a mental note that next time she’d insist on being kidnapped in a more civilized manner.
| Ruth Gibbs | Reading |
| Ben Gibbs | Writing &c. |