A Disruption at Poppycock?

“I’m afraid I need to be off this afternoon, I’ve got another long lunch with the Vikrams!” Maude tossed over her shoulder as she breezed out the front door of the Poppycock offices, winking saucily at a befuddled Mr. Periwinkle who was on his way in.

“Who on earth are the Vikrams? Some new rock and roll band, no doubt,” he said, placing equal handfuls of mail on both Professors desks, adding to already precariously teetering inboxes.

“Seth and Chandra,” Professor De Busque said, trying to clear a tunnel through the stacks of letters before her. “More Indian novelists desperate to be seen with Maude before her memoir comes out next week.”

A phone was heard ringing in a muffled manner from somewhere on Maude’s desk (an exquisitely spindly desk carved from mangrove, a bequest from the estate of Rabindranath Tagore). “She’s not here!” shouted a harassed-looking Professor P’ohlig, who then swiftly went back to grumbling “What the.....?” under her breath and shuffling papers like someone who has no idea what they are doing.

“My word, she has been quite the social butterfly lately,” said Mr. Periwinkle in a distracted fashion, but perking up as he seemed to remember something, continued hopefully, “Speaking of butterflies, it’s such a chilly day out, mightn’t this be a good moment for a bit of....hot buttered rum?”

The Professors exchanged glances over the stacks of paper separating them, then both jumped up at once. Mr. Periwinkle tipped the Trollope, as all three dashed for the secret door to the house, and he shouted, “I’m bringing my mail bag, so we can pretend like we’re working!”

***

Two goblets of hot buttered rum (apiece) later, and the professors had begun to be a little more charitable about Maude’s new-found popularity.

“She’s a young girl, she should be out enjoying herself instead of always answering our phones and our correspondence,” Molly said, thoughtfully nibbling a fingernail and adjusting the volume on the “Brideshead Revisited” soundtrack. “Although if she’d paid a little more attention to detail we might have another book on the shortlist this year, instead of just the three.”

“Precisely!” Emily shouted in a voice a bit louder than usual, which startled everyone including Emily, so she motioned for Mr. Periwinkle and Molly to come closer so she could continue (it took a minute, but they eventually gathered around). “The thing is....we are not receiving manuscripts in a timely manner anymore, because someone isn’t opening the mail when she should.”

Molly and Mr. Periwinkle gasped. For Emily, this was tantamount to an accusation of murder.
“You could garnish her wages?” Mr. Periwinkle suggested, sloshing the tiniest bit of rum onto the rug (which had belonged to Thomas Hardy’s secretary/wife Florence) and promptly sitting on it so no one would notice. Molly and Emily shook their heads.

“We don’t exactly give her wages, Mr. Periwinkle, so we can’t exactly garnish them,” Molly scolded, hitting him over the head with a brocade pillow that had belonged to a very great Turkish writer who had lived a good many years ago whose name no one could quite remember, not even the Turkish writer’s group that had made a fuss over giving it to Poppycock. It was very good for hitting people over the head with, in any case.

“We must stop all this,” Emily said sternly, if a little slurrily. “She is our Maude and that’s the way it shall stay unless something happens to tell us otherwise.” Molly and Mr. Periwinkle looked duly chastened. “Now, let’s get down to this mail.”

Molly sighed and thunked down next to Mr. Periwinkle, who sighed and handed her the first letter from the top of his stack. He handed one to Emily, kept one for himself, heaved an immense sigh, and they all commenced tackling the mail as, just like in all the best BBC miniseries, the rain outside began to rain with great force and gloominess.

***

Two hours later, the mail had been read through, more buttered rum had been drunk, the rain was still drenching, and Emily and Mr. Periwinkle were sprawled in front of the fire. Emily was trying to work up the enthusiasm to begin reading Volume 1 of a modern retelling of “The Remembrance of Things Past” by Hanif Kureishi, but she thought perhaps the idea of setting it in a laundromat was a little ahead of its time. Mr. Periwinkle was idly wondering whether he should tell the professors that the electric company had sent another letter reminding them that the bill was past due, but decided maybe he’d have a little more rum first. Molly was standing holding an intricate-looking letter in front of her, clearing her throat repeatedly, waiting to be noticed. It took a minute.

“What’s that letter?” Emily said, raising an eyebrow, “I do like the look of it from here.”

“I think you might be quite impressed by the sound of it as well,” Molly said, and began to read. “Dear Esteemed Professors De Busque and P’ohlig, I send you greetings from the blistering summer of far off Carolina of the North. Allow me, kindly, to introduce myself. My name is Kiran, and I am a marvel of a twelve-year-old. I prefer to spend my days wrapped in intellectual and artistic pursuits, although I also play a mean game of Guitar Hero. My dilemma is this: Middle school is not exactly providing me with the stimulation I require. I would very much like to open up a restaurant in which you order not food, but a book, and the book arrives with a meal created by a collaboration between a master chef and a librarian, a meal that will complement and enhance the reader’s experience of the book. However, after making the initial inquiries, it seems that no one will grant a twelve-year-old a restaurant license.

And so I turn to you, Poppycock. I am enquiring whether you might be in need of an intern. I am exceedingly well-read for my age, and can answer phones and correspondence with a professionalism that belies my years, to an almost alarming extent, in fact. No task is too small, neither is any too large. I have followed your dazzling work with great interest and would be honored to join, as an apprentice, the hallowed, venerated offices of Poppycock Enterprises, Ltd.

I await your reply with nearly breathless impatience.

Yours, ever,

Kiran”

There was a stunned silence, after which Molly fairly collapsed to the rug with the others.

“Twelve?” Emily squeaked. “That’s the vocabulary of a twelve-year-old? She sounds....”

“Wonderful,” Molly breathed, patting the letter reverently.

“Do you think she’d find bringing in the drinks cart beneath her?” Mr. Periwinkle said, in a purposefully offhand manner. “She did say no task was too small.”

“But there’s not possibly room for two apprentices,” Emily said, looking around the spacious library, then adding, “At least not in the office. It’s tiny.”

“Oh dear me no, there’s certainly not room for two,” Molly agreed hastily, then wistfully looked at the letter again. “So accomplished.”

A hush fell, during which nothing was heard but the cracks and pops from the fireplace. Everyone was thinking the same thing, but no one wanted to be the one to verbalize it. Maude had been dreadfully inattentive to her duties as of late, and everyone was worn out with picking up the slack. Emily and Molly had daily arguments over who would answer the phone, and who would carry the thesaurus across the room. Mr. Periwinkle was at a complete loss for new places to file incoming mail, and the stacks were threatening to overwhelm the tiny office. Agatha the cat had nearly been lost forever under a stack of manuscripts.

Just then, as everyone was in danger of slipping into a guilty reverie of the wonderful calm which someone like Kiran would no doubt restore to the office, Maude popped her head around the corner of the door. Three fire-warmed faces turned towards her and the smell of cooking which now wafted towards them.

“I canceled my meeting with the Vikrams to make you all lunch instead. I’m sorry I’ve been so scattered lately, my new-found fame has quite gone to my head. I am going to spend the whole week catching up and returning everything to it’s proper order.” And she darted back to the kitchen.

Mr. Periwinkle heaved himself up off the floor and pulled up the professors. As they each leaned down for their glass, Maude’s little voice came from down the hall, “And you just leave all that, I’ll clean it up later!”

***

Everyone was a bit fidgety during lunch for reasons that they preferred to keep to themselves. During the afternoon, the Poppycock office was humming with activity, and everyone worked hard to make things shipshape once more. Maude was grateful for the excessive amount of hugs and squeezes she received, for she really didn’t feel she deserved them. Everything, it seemed, was back to normal.

***

Late that night, Molly, in a billowing nightgown that had belonged to Emily Brontë (it was heavily ink-stained and in need of mending) crept with a candle down to the office. She could of course have just used the desk in her room and the full benefit of electric light, but this was so much more romantic. She took out pen and paper, and, Agatha purring at her bare feet, began to write.

“Dear Miss Kiran,

We were all quite overwhelmed by your wonderful letter. Your accomplishment is so great, and your years so few. While we of course were immediately desirous of snapping your services up at once, before some rival wordsmithery agency poaches you, we admit that your young age gave us pause. It is true that our current apprentice is of tender age, but she is a poor divorced orphan and must work for her keep. While Poppycock would benefit immeasurably from your presence, we fear it would be to your parents’ detriment.

That said, Miss Kiran, we dearly hope that you will keep us in mind for future employment. Someday, inevitably, Maude will move on, and we shall be greatly in need of an assistant once again. We hope that someday, when your parents can spare you, you will once again consider bestowing upon Poppycock your literary wisdom, wit, and marvelous vocabulary.

Until that day, we remain, ever your devoted,

Poppycock Enterprises, Ltd.”

A Fish Called Stray

If there was one thing that Morton Capgras enjoyed, it was the immutability of routine. Every day ran like a well-oiled machine, and that was because it was a routine that Morton had tweaked and finessed for many years. On Mondays he arose at 7:15 and immediately breakfasted on muesli, orange juice, and black coffee while perfecting the week’s online grocery order. He fed his fish, Stray, and did twenty minutes of exercise with a Jane Fonda VHS tape. The morning was devoted to his work stuffing envelopes for a mail-order dandelion company. A BLT for lunch, and Monday was Bette Davis day, so there was one film right before a nap, and one right after. When the second film finished, Morton Capgras called his mother. Dinner was a frozen tv dinner eaten at the dining room table. After dinner there was reading (new library books were dropped by on Fridays, exchanged for the previous weeks’ tomes) and a classical music record. Mondays were Mozart.

Each day had it’s own specific tastes and flavors: English muffins on Tuesdays with strawberry jam, grapefruit on Fridays, French chanson songs on Wednesdays and strictly musicals on Saturdays. Rain or shine was no difference to Morton, as the shades were closed and covered with posters of English pastoral scenes. A number of lamps for seasonal affective disorder gave him all the light he required, and Morton’s little apartment was its own little world, made by Morton entirely to his own specifications. Everything he needed was delivered, and the only time he stepped outside of his apartment was for his yearly checkup, which he dreaded, but could at least rely on to occur on the first Monday in September every year. And as long as the health food store around the corner kept delivering his vitamins on the third Tuesday of every month, well his doctor said that there was no cause for concern, he was as healthy as a horse.

He wasn’t lonely. He had his nightly call to his mother in her retirement home in Florida, which was close enough for both of them, thank you very much. They were terribly fond of one another over the phone, but the last time they saw each other in person, seventeen years previously, there had been so much screaming that a neighbor had called the police (they were having an argument over who was a worse mother, Mrs. Capgras or Joan Crawford). There were several regular delivery people that he almost enjoyed. When Elaine came from the library, he sometimes stood and chatted with her for a whole five minutes. He carefully pronounced “Hola” whenever Diego came up with his groceries. Once, he even told Nevil from the pet store a joke. Not that there weren’t those he hated with the white-hot intensity of a thousand miles. DaMon, for instance, the postman. And naturally, Morton received an awful lot of mail, so DaMon visited every day but Sunday. Most times, Morton didn’t even remove the chain on the door. DaMon would say he was just a friendly guy, Morton would say that he was just nosy. Asking questions about every single piece of mail that he passed through the crack in the door. Morton often wished that he could live in England, with slots in the door so the mail just dropped to the floor, but when he asked his landlord about it, Mr. DiFazio told Morton in no uncertain terms that mail slots were not allowed. It wouldn’t have really been practical anyway. The dandelion company refused to ship the catalogs he stuffed into envelopes via UPS, so once a month he definitely had to open the door so DaMon could bring in the new boxes and take away the stuffed envelopes. Always tried to get a peek past the foyer too, the little sneak.

But, slight annoyances like DaMon aside, Morton’s life was going according to his plans. He knew early on that the daily rigors of a nine-to-five job, not to mention the commute involved, were too much for a gentle soul like himself. Growing up, he’d suffered terribly from asthma, allergies, and a veritable host of nervous bowel disorders. Since shutting himself off from the world at large, his health had improved by leaps and bounds. Predictability agreed with Morton.

One Thursday in July he awoke at 7:15 as always and smartly shut off the alarm. He checked just to make sure, as he always did, that the automatic coffeemaker had started itself, which it always had. Morton enjoyed a brisk shower, wrapped himself in his pin-striped Thursday robe, retrieved his paper from just outside the door, and settled into Thursday’s breakfast of plain yogurt, muesli, and two bananas. He opened the paper, discarded the sports section, and read the rest, taking particular delight in the day’s “Prince Valiant” cartoon, which involved the introduction of forks to a medieval society that had no knowledge of such things. Morton preferred the non-humorous daily comics, the soap opera-like “Apartment 3G” and the informative nature story “Mark Trail” were particularly good, but the historical “Prince Valiant” was his favorite.

Still chuckling to himself over the picture with forks studding the castle grounds, Morton disposed of his banana peels, rinsed his bowl and spoon, and popped them into the dishwasher, making a mental note that it should be run at 2:30, during his nap. Morton found the hum of the dishwasher quite soothing. He adjusted the knot of his Thursday robe, and padded in his Thursday slippers over to the fishbowl to give Stray his breakfast. He double-checked the calendar, just to be sure, and yes, the last time he’d been fed was Tuesday. Morton made an x in red ink on the Thursday box, and uncapped the bottle of Total Goldfish Flake. He poised his arm above the bowl and looked at Stray, who was just coming around the corner of his little fish castle. Morton squinted and bent closer, then straightened up again. He put the fish food down again, placed a hand on either side of the bowl, and pressed his face against the glass. He could feel beads of sweat forming at the pudgy small of his back, his armpits, other damp unmentionable places with folds and crevasses.

It wasn’t Stray.

Morton, still crouched in front of the bowl, screwed his eyes up tight until he could see little red and green starbursts blossom against the black of his eyelids. He opened them again. He watched the goldfish, who was now weaving little figure eights around the two little men in their diving helmets, just like Stray always did. Morton turned the bowl this way and that, and could see that this goldfish even had the same scar on his right side. Two years ago, Morton had the terrible idea to purchase a companion for Stray, a female goldfish named Piggy. It was a disaster, and after weeks of patient suffering on Stray’s part, Piggy had nipped a small chunk from his side. Stray retaliated by eating Piggy.

Morton ran to the book table beside his recliner and came back clutching a large magnifying glass. It was hard to get the angle right to see properly through a magnifying glass, fishbowl, and water, but the fish eventually was still enough for Morton to maneuver the glass into position. He couldn’t even put his finger on what was wrong. He looked like Stray, he acted like Stray, but Stray he most definitely was not. He just was not.

To say Morton was shaken would be a vast understatement. His world was on the verge of collapse. So he did something he only did in the most stressful of times: He walked into the kitchen and poured himself a whiskey. Yes, it was early in the morning, but, desperate times and all that. He sat at the kitchen table, clutching the tumbler with both hands and jiggling his left knee up and down at warp speed. He tried to take a few calming breaths, but to no avail. He hated to foul up his schedule, but he decided to call his mother. Doing so would necessitate going back in the front room though, so he had a large gulp of whiskey to fortify himself. He shuddered and rose.

He took his slippers off and placed them by the chair, because Stray always turned around at the gentle thwap thwap they made. Heart pounding, he crept along the wall and into the front room. He could see not-Stray’s tail through the castle window, twitching lackadaisically. Morton moved slowly and quietly until he was nearly in reach of the phone, and stretched out a trembling arm. he knocked a pencil onto the floor. He froze, and so did not-Stray’s tail. For a moment, neither moved, but when the tail began to move again, so did Morton. A few millimeters closer and the phone was in his sweaty hand. He retreated the way he’d come, never taking his eyes from the fishbowl. Whoever not-Stray was, he was a clever bastard, pretending that he didn’t notice that Morton had definitely noticed.

Morton heaved himself into the kitchen chair with a sigh of relief. He waited for his heart to slow and pressed #1 on speed dial. She answered on the 2nd ring.

“Morton what’s wrong? Are you hurt? Are you sick? Do you need help? Dear God, what’s wrong?” Each question was louder than the last, like Morton’s mother was running closer to him in his time of need.

“Mother,” Morton hissed in a rasping whisper, “I need you to stay calm. If you aren’t calm, neither am I.”

“Alright, Morton,” she came down a few steps, but her voice was still dancing with panic. “But what on earth is going on? Is it your heart?”

“It’s Stray,” Morton hissed, “Or rather, it’s not Stray.”

There was a long pause during which Morton could hear his mother fumble for the remote control and turn off SoapNet. “I don’t think I heard you right, Morton, say it again.”

“My goldfish, Stray, he’s....he’s not him,” Morton eyed the bottle of whiskey.

“Stray’s not...who?”

“He’s someone else!” Morton picked up the cap. If he’d put the cap back on, then he definitely wouldn’t have anymore. But the cap was still off, so maybe just a little more? He reached for the bottle.

“Morton, have you been drinking?” Morton let go of the bottle, but it was only an inch off the table, so it just made a thud and a little rock back and forth, sloshing about the sides.

“Mother, I-- Mother, the problem is not with me, the problem is with Stray! I think he’s,” Morton lowered his hiss another few decibels, “I think he’s been replaced.”

“Who has?”

“Stray!”

“Who’s Stray?”

“My goldfish!”

“So?”

Morton hung up. He knew she would just call back, and the phone was indeed already mid-ring when Morton silenced it. Bitch. He should have known she would be of no help. He poured himself an even larger glass of whiskey than the first one. Still gripping the bottle in one hand, he wiped his brow, which wasn’t so much bathed in sweat as swimming in it. What on earth was he going to do? How had this happened? He stood up and began to pace, unshod feet clinging stickily to the linoleum. He looked at the clock. 10:37. He looked at the calendar. Thursday, July 14th. Bastille Day. All of a sudden, Morton felt like a prisoner himself. Clutching both bottle and tumbler, he backed himself into the corner of the kitchen between the pantry door and the bookshelf full of cookbooks, and sank to the floor, his robe snagging on the molding behind him so he sat on the floor in just his underpants. Normally, he would have found this incredibly distasteful. But this was not normally.

He could feel the presence of not-Stray in the other room. He knew that the fish couldn’t see him, but he could feel him thinking at him. Could feel the presence of not-Stray’s cold, dead eyes swimming around in poor Stray’s bowl. What was this? Was this hell? Was he being punished for some unknown sin? Had Stray been transported to an alternate universe? Who was the impostor in the next room? A changeling? A dybbuk? The ghost of his father? Morton felt the walls and ceiling of his apartment, of his comfortable cage, begin to crash down upon his head, and he began to scream uncontrollably.

***

Morton had been wrong, it wasn’t the walls and ceiling of his apartment falling on him, it was the latest box of catalogues from the dandelion mail order company. Already resting precariously on the top of the cookbook shelf, Morton’s panicked slide to the floor had dislodged them and they landed smack on the top of his head. Ceiling or dandelion catalogues, this proved too much for Morton. That very evening, acting on the insistence of Morton’s mother harassing them all the way from Florida, two firemen broke down the door of the apartment. Morton Capgras’ body lay slumped in the kitchen corner, eyes staring, lap full of dandelion advertisements.

“Must have had a heart attack, poor guy,” said the burly blond man crouched in front of him, as he closed Morton’s staring eyes with surprising tenderness. “Anyone else here?”

“Nah,” said his partner, ambling about the room. “Wacky set-up he’s got here, huh? Shut-in or something. Wait, there’s a goldfish here.”

The blond firefighter joined his partner, looking down at not-Stray. The partner picked up the bowl. “You want it for your kids or something?”

“Nah, they’d never feed it. You wanna flush it?”

“Yeah,” said the partner, heading for the bathroom, where a moment later, a rush of water was heard, followed by a flush. He came out and placed the empty bowl back on the table, and the two firemen went back to their fire engine to call the morgue.

Not-Stray was gone, but gone too late to save Morton Capgras, who died in a fearful existential agony of such dazzling proportions that one can only hope its like is never seen again.

Poppycock-Approved Apps

Now and then, Poppycock Enterprises, Ltd. has been accused of not moving with the times. One would think that, steeped in literary tradition as it is, Poppycock could be excused from such fripperies as technology. But, one must stay abreast of modern developments in order to bring the reading world the very newest writers, even though we would sometimes prefer just to stick to the old.

So although Poppycock prefers to use a 1915 Stromberg-Carlson candlestick telephone previously belonging to one Eugénie Renouf, a young lady who spurned Joseph Conrad’s affections, well, we understand that young people today would prefer to use an iPhone, a cold, history-less device with no nostalgia or romance about it. Fine. If that’s what they want, they can have their iPhones.

We do hope, however, that there are some conscientious young people who, while plunging into the frightening, somewhat devilish world of technology, would like to keep one foot firmly planted in the past. Poppycock has always done its best to bridge the gap between past and present, and yes, even delve a tiny bit into the future as well. Which is why today we bring you Poppycock-Approved Apps. Unfortunately, these are not actual apps which can be purchased as yet, as Poppycock obviously doesn’t know the first thing about programming or any of those other things. But, should some enterprising young soul care to invent them, why, we will be more than happy to endorse the following:

1. Middledarch: Do you love Middlemarch? Or course you do, lonely girl! Connect with other Middlemarch lovers with this app that alerts you to all lovers of George Eliot’s finest within a 5 mile radius. Never again spend a lonely evening wistfully wishing you were debating the virtues of Will Ladislaw versus Tertius Lydgate, or just why Rosamund is such a simpering idiot. What are you, Mr. Casaubon?

2. PR Generator: That doesn’t stand for public relations, that stands for Pre-Raphaelite! This nifty little app requires just a few simple photos of yourself to be uploaded, and then prepare to have your lovely face inserted into all your favorite Brotherhood portraits! Do you fancy yourself as Ophelia or more of a Proserpine? Do you like the fellow in The Hireling Shepherd, or is it the Knight Errant you fancy? Pop yourself in the painting and find out!

3. Lonely Publet: Care for a drink at your local, but don’t feel like dealing with your fellow clientele? The Lonely Publet app finds bars and restaurants in your area where you can get a drink and read your book in peace. Bonus: Purchase of this app comes with a complimentary “Do Not Disturb” sign to hang around your neck.

4. The Petticoater: Are you going for a shapely Victorian nanny look or heading to Shibuya for the afternoon? The Petticoater will determine just how many petticoats that outfit requires.

5. Fantasy BBC Miniseries: Mix and match your favorite costume drama regulars with your favorite classic authors and historical characters in this literary take on fantasy sports leagues. Compete against other players: your epic yet staid Rossetti family biopic starring Shirley Henderson and Rufus Sewell as Christina and Dante could be pitted against a radical retelling of “Jude the Obscure” with Cillian Murphy and that girl from “North and South” as desperate hipster cousins with nowhere to turn in modern-day Williamsburg. So choose wisely.

6. Cranford: A near-genius app. When used in conjunction with a heart monitor, your phone will be able to recognize those pulse-raising situations in your life which merit an audio clip of “This is Cranford!” A less important situation may merit an Imelda Staunton or Eileen Atkins, but for key moments in your life, only Judi Dench will do.

7. The Bravery Substitute: A little shy, are we? Suffer no more! Next time some rude peon on the subway tries to stand where you’re already standing, this app will have your back, and loudly proclaim, “Excuse me, good sir, but if you do not remove your man-bag from my kidney area forthwith, I shall have no other recourse but to give you a hearty shoving.” Other situational responses are included for line butters, cat callers, and middle-aged ladies on public transport who stare for no reason whatsoever.

8. Brontë Death Match: Lonely Girls like video games too. In this laudanum-fueled frenzy, it’s every Brontë for themselves as a quiet Haworth sitting room turns into the sort of bloodbath that can only result from sibling rivalry. Watch out, Bramwell has a switchblade.

9. The Budget Japanifier: I won’t even ask if you’ve always wished you were Japanese, I’m already pretty sure that’s the case. Living, dressing, eating, and playing like a Japanese girl has never been more expensive, but this app will help you find that Commes des Garcons frock for less, where to buy smoked squid in bulk, and precisely which minimalist salon will give you the sharpest razor cut-bangs for your buck.

10. AromaKindle: Poppycock doesn’t take the kindest view of the Kindle, although we admit that you can get an awful lot of books on that thing. But you cannot deny that it is missing one key element which gives the traditional book its romance: book smell. This nifty little app diffuses a subtle perfume from your phone, depending on the genre and era. Your Hemingways will be dusty and your Forsters with a touch of gin; Sir Walter Scott will make you sneeze and Jane Austen will smell of the libraries of your childhood. We can’t do anything about the cover though, or the fact that there is no lovely feel of pages, so we still recommend you just read a regular ol’ book.

Twenty Six Things to Worry About

It is once again time for the Poppycock Institute for Tropical Maladies to release a comprehensive, A to Z list of the most obscure, yet highly devastating diseases, syndromes, and neurological disorders on the face of the planet. Our team of researchers have scoured the corners of the globe for the tiniest microbe that you, Poppycock Reader, could be in danger of. Please, if you find yourself suffering from any of the symptoms mentioned here, seek help immediately. And pack plenty of books, because you’re going to be in the hospital a long, long time.

Acute Pepysm: a mental deficiency leading one to believe that one’s inner thoughts are of the utmost importance, and must be recorded for posterity. Sufferers are likely to be found scribbling on receipts, bookmarks, and other scraps of paper which they will be reluctant to part with.

Blue blush: Lonely girls are highly susceptible to Blue blush syndrome, which comes as a consequence to repeated embarrassing situations. Instead of blushing an attractive pinkish hue, the patient will turn a deathly pale blue. Don’t call an ambulance, she’s just sad. Unfortunately, the only effective treatment at this point is total seclusion.

Cranial madidus: Literally, boiled skull. The most recognizable symptom is a soft, squishy spot on the back of the head, caused by too much reclining against a variety of soft pillows, generally while reading epic historical sagas.

Dissociative bibliophilia: Characterized by an intense devouring of books, to the extent that the sufferer will read the same book over and over, unaware that it has been read numerous times already (while inconvenient at times, may not actually be a detrimental syndrome, just a time-consuming one).

Eglantine sensitivity: A pervasive allergy to roses and all products made thereof, especially bouquets of one dozen red roses presented to the sufferer in lieu of romantic creativity. Sufferers are often heard to remark that roses “smell bad”.

Febrile foot: Most often occurs in quiet, bookish girls placed in an uncomfortable situation. Instead of being able to merely extricate herself from said situation, the girl in question goes into a trance-like state, with all energies poured into a constantly moving, and subsequently feverish, left foot. May be exhibited through bobbing, tapping, jiggling, shaking, etc.

Galloping Wolfism: A hereditary tendency to over-dramatize the teensiest little thing, like, say, a simple trip to a lighthouse, or the events of a day before a garden party. Outbursts of histrionics are not uncommon, and patients often romanticize certain of their physical features, a large proboscis.

Hebridean mouth: A peculiar branch of Tourette Syndrome, wherein the afflicted hurl insults and obscenities with a pronounced Scottish accent.

Ichthygenufidelia: The persistent belief that one has fish-like knees. Intense psychotherapy is necessary to convince patients that their knees are not covered with iridescent scales.

Jujube syndrome: A little understood dental affliction which results in the slow sticky-fication of teeth until they are merely little white lumps melting down the gums.

Kimchispiritus: Chronic pickle-breath.

Lawrence’s dilemma: A particularly nasty form of depression. Involves a lot of mooning about in nature, leaning one’s head against trees in despair, and muttering the word “loins” to oneself.

Moby’s lament: Male pattern baldness, accompanied by a perverse desire to be clad only in tracksuits and be pretentious. Irreversible.

Netherfield pull: The all-consuming desire to live on a 19th-century English estate. Sufferers will result to any means necessary, often resulting in complete bankruptcy, followed by total nervous breakdown.

Optic Selleckaphilia: A hallucinatory disorder characterized by constant visions of Tom Selleck in one’s everyday life. Generally affecting women, victims have been known to put themselves in highly dangerous situations, i.e. walking across train tracks, jumping into open elevator shafts, in the attempt to speak to one of these phantom Tom Sellecks.

Pantomorbidity: Exceedingly rare, but lethal, pantomorbidity is every single disease at one time. All of them. All at once. There’s nothing you can do for that.

Quivering limb: A nervous condition brought on by minor stress, resulting in twitching, bird-like movements of all limbs, although it is most concentrated in flapping hand gestures.

Rushdian egomania: A belief that one’s talents are infallible. The onset of the disorder is difficult to pinpoint, as the afflicted present such a sweet, sleepy-eyed countenance that any bragging is initially overlooked.

Sea salt hysteria: A digestive abnormality in which the stomach cannot process sea salt in foods, instead reacting as if the body were drowning. In the event of a sea salt hysteria incidence, perform CPR, place the victim in a life jacket, and wait for the sea rescue team to arrive.

Toxic tender foot: A skin sensitivity leaving the top of the foot, rather than the bottom, susceptible to tickling. Most worryingly, this is generally paired with an overactive set of reflexes, and has resulted in several unsuspecting ticklers being kicked in the face.

Umbrellamnesia: The inability to remember to bring an umbrella when leaving the house, or to retrieve on that has been left elsewhere. A more serious ailment that one would think, as it may result in an increased number of colds resulting from hours spent in wet clothing.

Varius capillus: A head of both straight and curly hair in one, sometimes the straight and curly bits will change places with no notice at all, making hairdressing a trial.

Winnow-fidget: Another nervous disorder, evidenced by the compulsive peeling of labels, stickers, decals, tape, etc. from any item that presents itself. Is more annoying to those around the sufferer than to the actual sufferer.

Xerophobia: Fear of donuts.

Yeats’ delusion: A mental affliction in which the patient believes that for many years of one’s life they have been wildly in love with an unattainable Irish woman named Maud.

Zimmerconsistence: Related to the Japanese phenomenon Hikikomori, this is the German version of the malady wherein reclusive young men retreat from society, eventually regressing through varying degrees of isolation until they refuse to leave their bedrooms. Unlike in Japan, German sufferers can usually be lured out after two or three hours by their mother’s wienerschnitzel.

Nine Too Many

After getting my ninth tattoo, it was time to find a job. I spiffed up my resume and sent it all over the state. After a few weeks, I had an interview lined up.

I woke twenty minutes before my alarm, having only slept sporadically the night before. Interviews turn me into a quivering mess, even though I’m usually a very confident person. I’m just not very good at self-promotion, I prefer to let my work speak for itself. I showered quickly and stood in front of the closet in my underwear, pondering its contents. I’d laid out a smart, understated dress the night before, but was having second thoughts. In the line of work I’m pursuing, suits aren’t really the way to go, but on the other hand, neither are jeans and tee-shirts. After rifling through several options, I decided that maybe the dress was the best option after all.

After moisturizing thoroughly, I slicked my long hair back into a bun and put on just a dusting of makeup, waiting to put my dress on until the last minute so I didn’t nervously sweat all over it like a circus strong-man. Not that they usually wear dresses to sweat on. Even my metaphors were nervous and confused. I sat on the edge of my bed for a moment, willing myself to calm down. Good opportunities in my field were rare, and this interview could really make or break things.

I was finally ready to go. I hopped in my tiny car and willed myself not to speed. Parking wasn’t too bad, and I arrived with five minutes to spare. The interview was being held in one of those big beige trailers that they use for overflow for the really poor kids in shitty public schools; the kind of trailers that always look dirty, no matter if they’re brand new.

The door creaked as I went in. Three women looked up from a line of metal folding chairs. A bored guy who sort of looked like he was dying was shuffling some papers at a cruddy desk next to a door leading to the rest of the trailer. He didn’t really look like he was in charge, but he was the only one with a desk, so I walked over to him and waited patiently until he looked up.

“I’m Naomi. I have an appointment at ten?”

“Is that a question?” he sneered, and I could see that his yellow teeth matched his jaundiced skin, beneath which you could faintly see blue veins and just the hint of gray bone.

“Um....I have an appointment. At ten.” Not off to the best start then.

“Yeah, well, take a seat,” he said, going back to his papers and waving a skeletal hand towards the chairs.

I paused, thinking about asking him if there were any forms to fill out, but no one else seemed to have any, so I went and sat in the only empty chair, which teetered slightly as I sat. The room was quiet and empty, and I hadn’t brought a book, so the only thing to do was try and steal surreptitious glances at the other three applicants. The one on the farthest end kept getting up and pacing, so she was easy to see. Tall and slender, she would walk three steps then rise up on her toes, then back down, and repeat. Next to me was an enormously fat woman. I could tell this without looking at her, as part of her thigh was in my seat, and she breathed the phlegmy, wheezey breath of the enormously fat. I couldn’t see the woman next to her, for obvious reasons, but I could see the giant rolling suitcase that she’d brought with her.

The inner door opened and we all looked up, and then readjusted our gaze downwards about three feet.

“Naomi?” the tiny lady said in a tiny voice. “Would you like to come in?”

I hastily gathered my things and stumbled over to the door. Was I meant to bend over and shake hands? Wave? Just say hello? Luckily, she made the decision for me, brightly saying “Good morning, close the door and let’s have a seat.”

I shut the door and shuffled over to my chair. The tiny lady climbed a stepstool to hers, which had a stack of pillows to raise her to my height.

“Naomi, I’m Louise,” she trilled. “That’s a very impressive resume you have there, schools and training and internships. You’re very accomplished for being so young.”

“Thank you,” I said, nibbling at my lip a little bit. “It, um, it helps to have a family in the business.”

“And such a well-known family at that.” It was hard for me to concentrate, because I felt fairly hypnotized by the voice, which was so high that it was almost hard to hear. “But I’d like to be sure, Naomi, that you can perform on your own merits, and not just rest on your family’s laurels.”

I nodded vigorously. “Of course, of course. Is there anything I can--”

“You can start by removing the dress so we can take a look.”

“Of course,” I said, and pulled it off over my head. The tiny lady, Louise, I supposed I should call her, slithered down off her perch without bothering with the stool.

“Now, tell me about your legs first,” she said, coming right up to the left one.

“The right leg is the mystery of the Marie Celeste, with the boat drifting in the sea.”

“Mm,” she said appreciatively, walking around my calf, “I like the rope trailing down to your ankle.”

“The left is the legend of the Flying Dutchman, with the mirage boat suspended over the other.”

“Of course, of course,” she murmured. She skibbled across the room to drag the stepstool over. “And your tummy?”

“That’s Lord Carnarvon opening Tutankhamen’s tomb.”

“Delightful detail, here, is that the mosquito? Oh, wonderful!” she clapped her tiny hands together and motioned for me to turn around. “And the back is...wait, let me guess...the wandering Jew! Beautiful, look at that beard! Arms next, please.”

“The left arm is Agatha Christie in her hotel room, and over on the right is Amelia Earheart.”

“And who are these charming fellows here, nestled below your collarbone?”

“Those are the princes in the tower, Edward V and Richard--”

“Of Shrewsbury,” she sighed happily. “And now please tell me about the beautiful family portrait on your face.”

“The Romanovs,” I said proudly. “All seven of them. And Anna Anderson over by my ear.”

“Well, my girl,” Louise said, throwing her arms wide, “These are just the most beautiful tattoos I’ve ever seen. Did you know I was an amateur history buff?”

I smiled and shook my head. I was in there. There was no way I was missing out on this job. But then Louise’s face clouded.

“The thing is, dear, you’ve chosen a bit of an obscure subject, historical mysteries. I myself would hire you on the spot, if I could be sure that the audiences were going to be as erudite as either one of us. But I’m afraid that Alan Pinkney’s Freak Shows just don’t attract a particularly bright clientele.”

I stared, my mouth open.

“They’d be confused, dear,” she said gently. “I think you might be better off trying more of a metropolis. There are some very clever circus people in New York.”

She thanked me for my time and I left. I couldn’t bear to look at any of the three women or the skeleton man on the way out, so I just walked straight to my car, got in, and wept. Nine tattoos and my life savings. All for nothing.

Poppycock Press Release

Poppycock Enterprises is proud to announce the upcoming trilogy of completely unrelated novels by an exciting, avant-garde, as-yet-to-be-named debut novelist. The trilogy starts with a bang with the fast-paced crime thriller, A Doge Alone. Museum guard Isabella Guardalaluna takes her job as second-in-command of security at the Doge’s Palace in Venice very seriously. So when a famous relic (the golden pointer belonging to disgraced and beheaded doge Marino Faliero) goes missing, she’s on the case. Unfortunately, her hypervigilance comes under suspicion when her notes on the laziness of certain security team members are discovered. To clear her name, Isabella must turn detective and ferret out the secrets that are hiding in the darkest, dankest chambers of the palace, and she finds that the doges aren’t the only ones with something to hide.

The second book in the trilogy is a psychological exploration of loneliness, A Fish Called Stray. Morton Capgras works from home stuffing envelopes for a mail-order dandelion company. He has his groceries delivered and orders all other necessities online. He keeps phone calls to a minimum, rarely speaking to anyone other than his elderly mother. His constant, faithful companion is a goldfish named Stray. Morton has gotten the routine of his life down to perfection; there are no surprises and no questions, and that’s just the way Morton likes it. Until one Wednesday. He rises at 7 o’clock as usual, fixes his Wednesday breakfast of orange marmalade on 7-grain toast, puts on a Mozart cd and goes to feed Stray. But this is no ordinary Wednesday, and Morton is blind-sided by the realization that Stray has been replaced with an impostor. He looks like Stray, he swims like Stray, but Stray he most certainly is not. And what began as an ordinary Wednesday descends into an existential hell.

The series finishes with a novel destined to become a future classic, Everybody Thinks I’m Pretty. The unnamed protagonist of this mind-bending work has a serious problem: she’s starving to death. Every day she looks into the mirror with trepidation, for what she sees are bones about to poke through her skin, dull hair falling to the floor around her, eyes surrounded by shadows. The reader is drawn into a world of panic as she eats to excess, trying desperately to gain weight. But suddenly we are introduced to a view from the other side of the mirror, revealing that the woman we think we know is actually morbidly obese, suffering from reverse Body Dismorphic Disorder. Will she seek help in time, or will she erroneously gorge herself to death?

These are just a few of the ground-breaking new works to be introduced by Poppycock Enterprises in the coming year. They can be purchased at discerning bookstores everywhere, or just try the doorbell at Poppycock and see if Mr. Periwinkle answers!

Poppycock Takes a Tenant

“Room to Let. Inquire within. Writers only please,” Mr. Periwinkle read one bleak midwinter morning, from a hand-lettered sign in the lace-curtained window of Poppycock Enterprises, Ltd. He shook his head in confusion, dropping a large, heavy box from a descendant of Leo Tolstoy on his foot in the process. This had the effect of making him temporarily forget the question he had for the professors when he first entered the office. In fact, he didn’t bring it up until several hours and half a bottle of gin later, by which time the lovely scythe-shaped marble bookends (inscription: “Thank you for making Anna Karenina a much better book by removing Anna Karenina entirely”) were propping up a number of books in Poppycock’s home library. Ensconced in a large, comfortably battered leather chair, Mr. Periwinkle was enjoying a fairly dull game of pinochle with Maude when Professor De Busque was heard to remark to Professor P’ohlig,

“You see, if Helen Graham had been unattractive, there would have been no scandalous rumours about her at all. No one would have cared! And that’s the fatal flaw of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.” Emily sat back in her chair, looking very satisfied indeed.

“Really?” Molly sniffed, tucking her feet up under her. “I thought the fatal flaw was how deadly boring it was.”

“Girls!” Mr. Periwinkle shouted, upsetting the card table and making Maude look terribly cross (she’d been on the verge of winning). “I’ve forgotten to ask - what’s all this about a room to let? You aren’t in trouble....financially, are you?” (Mr. Periwinkle had a horror of all things financial, and often made Mr. Denning promise not to mention the word in the Poppycock offices.)

Emily smoothed out a pretty damask skirt over her pretty knees. “Of course not, dear Periwinkle. We’re doing it as sort of an experiment, you see. Sometimes things can get the slightest bit dull around here, and we’re always looking for new ideas. We would like to help a fledgling writer, you know, a genteel sort of girl that we can help along.”

Maude looked up from collecting the cards. “And if she’s any good, she can work on things the professors would, ahem, prefer not to deal with.”

The two chief members of Poppycock studiously avoided each others eyes. Neither of them were particularly fond of doing the dishes.

“It’s that, it’s that we just like helping people, Mr. Periwinkle,” Molly said, not sounding all that sure. “Anyways, Maude has taken ever so many calls, and we’ve got appointments set up tomorrow.”

Mr. Periwinkle raised a ginny eyebrow, but remained silent. Any interference into Poppycockian experiments generally turned out even worse than the experiments themselves, if that was possible.

***

“Yes, thank you, Miss Pringle, we’ll certainly keep you in mind,” Maude said, squeezing the effusive Miss Pringle back out the door. “Oof. I didn’t think we’d ever get rid of her!”

“Preposterous!” Molly shouted, handing Miss Pringle’s giant sheaf of papers over to Emily. “She writes romantic nursery rhymes, who ever heard of such a thing?”

Emily drooped. They had seen ten prospective tenants so far, each more unsuitable than the last. One wrote Star Trek fan fiction (Mr. Perwinkle had seen her to the door with nary a word), one wrote limericks. One had been working, for the last 25 years, on a new interpretation of Ulysses. From a female perspective. The main character was named Leah Poled.

“Girls, I’m just not sure we’re going to find anyone up to your standards,” Mr. Periwinkle said tentatively, knowing that if the girls thought they’d come to such a conclusion on their own, there would likely follow a very tipsy afternoon while the professors ranted about the state of serious literature, and Maude and Mr. Periwinkle could get in a game of Parchesi and then a nap.

“Oh, maybe you’re right, Periwinkle,” Molly sighed, crunching one of Miss Pringle’s dreadful rhymes (“Jack and Jill, They split the bill, Since Jack was such a bounder. Jill met a man whose name was Stan, Their love would never flounder.”) into the trash as Maude wearily went to answer yet another knock on the door. “Maybe--”

Mr. Periwinkle’s tipsy afternoon was not to be. Maude, who had a funny look on her face, was followed back into the room by what could only be described as a tall, handsome, young blond man. Maude gave a little giggle and said, “Everyone, may I introduce Eilert.”

“Yes you may,” Emily sighed, not quite under her breath, as she shook his hand. Eilert had the good breeding to pretend not to notice. Molly jumped up from her chair so quickly that she banged her head on a dangling lamp from the set of an old Tennessee Williams film that very few people had actually seen. Once again, Eilert smiled and shook hands as if nothing had happened.

“Eilert,” Mr. Periwinkle said, wrinkling his nose. “What kind of a name is that?”

“It is Scandinavian,” Eilert said, with a lovely accent and a smile just full of straight white teeth. He fumbled (if something so elegant could be called fumbling) in his leather satchel for a slim folder. “I brought my work, liked you asked.

“May I ask...what is it that you write?” Maude said, experimentally batting her eyelashes, which just looked like she had a cinder in her eye.

“Poetry, Miss Maude. In the style of Rilke.”

Needless to say, Poppycock had found their tenant.

***

To say it was a disaster from the start would be uncharitable. It wasn’t that Poppycock didn’t try hard to make young Eilert at home, but that they tried far too hard.

It began the day he moved in. Emily, Molly, and Maude escorted Eilert to his new room, which looked much different than it had the day they’d shown it to him: simple, but with the usual feminine frills. In short, it had been a tastefully decorated and cozy room, in muted shades of yellow and gray. In the two weeks since they’d seen Eilert last, however, the room had been made unrecognizable. The walls were a very dark red, and nearly every item of furniture was leather (including Mr. Periwinkle’s leather chair, the removal of which had miffed him to no end). The still-life paintings of flowers and ladies’ gloves had been replaced by hunting scenes. Lying on the bed, which was covered with a giant cowhide, was a silk paisley smoking jacket. And a mahogany pipe. And a pair of slippers.

They looked at him expectantly. He took it with remarkable good grace. “Ah yes, this looks...this looks just how I imagined a real English home.” The girls relaxed, smiling at each other, and left the room to prepare dinner.

“Don’t forget to put on your dinner clothes!” shouted Molly over her shoulder, “They’re in the closet!”

Most young men, upon finding a rather ill-fitting and certainly well-worn tuxedo waiting for them in the closet, would turn tail and run. But not our Eilert. He appeared on the dot of eight, where the girls were nervously fidgeting in newly-bought finery, trying not to bump into the copious amount of candles threatening to set fire to every surface.

“Emily made the venison stew,” Maude said, appearing at his left elbow.

“Maude made the oxtail soup,” Emily said, showing up at his right.

“Rum and coke?” Molly said, holding one under his nose.

“Why, yes, lovely, those are all my favorites,” Eilert said.

Dinner was survived, just, with the girls changing subjects as fast as possible, from polo to water polo to water guns to hunting rifles to the Raj to cricket to what exactly happens when you cut an earthworm in half. Each had spent several days cramming in a variety of typically male topics, but unfortunately, not much had stuck, so they had to skip around quite a bit.

After dinner, they poured him a massive tumbler of port and left him in front of a roaring fire in the library. Touching up their makeup in the powder room, giggling hysterically and elbowing each other for the best angles, they were startled by a knock on the door. A collective breath was held, stray tendrils of hair were patted down and slips were tugged, and Maude opened the door. The collective breath was let out.

“Mr. Periwinkle, whatever is it?” Emily said, hands on hips.

“My dears,” he looked uneasily from one of them to another, “Just don’t forget, you’ve asked him here to help him with his writing.”

“Well of course, we have!” Molly hissed. “Whatever would make you think anything else?”

And the three flounced off to find the dance cards they’d had specially made for the occasion.

***

(The following morning.)

“Not so much as a goodbye!” moaned Emily, thinking how very Wuthering Heights the whole thing was.

“Not even a note!” groaned Molly, who was still looking for one, although all she could find were endless reminders from Mr. Denning about the cost of coal.

“We’re the worst landladies ever,” proclaimed Maude.

“Now now,” Mr. Periwinkle said, and the girls realized with a slight brightening of their spirits that he was bearing a tray of egg flips for Emily and Molly, and hot cider for Maude. “I’m sure that’s not the difficulty.”

“Well why else would he have packed up so suddenly? In the very middle of the night?” asked Emily, perplexity adding a sweet sad look about her eyes.

“He didn’t even take the tie I knitted for him. Knitted especially, Mr. Periwinkle,” Molly said hopelessly, stroking said tie and vaguely wondering if such a thing would be beneath Mr. Denning.

“We tried so hard to be manly,” Maude mumbled, tiny tear rolling down her cheek and landing with a desultory splash in her cider.

“Nonsense,” said Mr. Periwinkle. “He obviously just didn’t have the imagination necessary to see the romance of the situation. I’m sure he’ll never amount to anything. I mean, Rilke, I say, that’s a bit rich, isn’t it?”

Mr. Periwinkle kept making chummy little jokes all through the day, and soon the girls were right as rain. And Mr. Periwinkle’s prediction came true, and Eilert Gustaffson was never heard of again.

Poppycock Goes Clubbing

Pete Postelthwaite was dead, to begin with. And that, of course, put the ladies of Poppycock into a dreadful funk.

"Well, I'm completely at a loss as to how to improve our spirits, girls," Mr. Periwinkle sighed and took a rather indelicate gulp of sherry.

Maude, drooping sadly by the television set, couldn't even muster up any words, but sadly pointed at poor Mr. Postlethwaite as he appeared onscreen in Martin Chuzzlewit, which was being screened in the Poppycock home office for the third time that day.

Professor De Busque lay her head down on a battered Complete Works of Shakespeare and said disconsolately, "Maybe we could switch to "Last of the Mohicans"? Or "In the Name of the -" no, certainly not, too violent for Maudie."

Maude sat up indignantly. "I was the only one who would work on that new edition of "A Clockwork Orange"!"

"Yes, yes, I know, dear, but as Mrs. P'ohlig says, it's much different on screen," Emily made a little fussing sound and ruffled Maude's hair, which made her feel a little better, but not very much. Professor P'ohlig's mother always had very good advice, even if it didn't improve one's mood at the time.

"I've got an idea," Professor P'ohlig said, making everyone jump. She'd only gone down for her nap a little while ago, saying she had a lot of work to do on the next Jonathan Franzen, if anyone was going to give two figs about it.

"Well, what is it? Out with it, girl!" Mr. Periwinkle said, with a little more exasperation than usual. Martin Chuzzlewit always made him a bit peevish. He always fancied himself as a bit of a Tom Pinch, and was always hurt when everyone failed to comment on the resemblance.

Molly drew herself up slowly, as if mustering a great deal of courage. "I think we can all say that we've realized today that...well, life may take us at any time. So, perhaps we should do more of the things that we...want to do, but are a bit...em...frightened of, shall we say." She looked about the room nervously.

"Yes?" Maude and Emily said simultaneously, like a tiny duet of baby birds.

Molly screwed her eyes shut and took a deep breath. "We should go clubbing."

***

Four hours later, the four principle members of Poppycock were nervously standing on a dank London sidewalk, eyeing an imperious looking velvet rope which was inconveniently stretched across the doorway they had been hoping to enter. Not to mention the large black-clad gentlemen who stood next to it, arms folded, expression grim. Poppycock took a huddle.

"Maude, you go," Emily whispered. "You look very sweet in that pink dress and I'm sure he'll like you enough to let us all in."

"But I'm underage!" Maude squeaked.

"No you're not," Molly said, fumbling in her imitation Alexander McQueen skull clutch for a small card. "Here. I took the liberty of having this made for the occasion."

The other members of Poppycock leaned in closer. "Molly," Emily said with just a touch of exasperation, "Why have you made her thirty-two? She hardly looks thirteen!"

"Because," Molly said a bit too loudly, resulting in a great deal of shushing, "Because, that's an age no one would lie about. No one pretends they're thirty-two. Who would make up such an awful thing?"

Mr. Periwinkle nervously tapped his hip flask, and then the flask in his breast pocket, and clanked his ankles together so you could hear that flask too. "Let's get a move on, ladies. We need to be back home in time for the premiere of "Downton Abbey"."

That sparked the troops into action, and Maude was shoved towards the menacing bouncer. She looked up at him and smoothed down the flounce in her tea length dress. She handed him the id. He looked at it, looked at her, looked at Molly, Emily, and Mr. Periwinkle biting their lips a few steps away, and jerked his head towards the door. Everyone tried to keep calm and nonchalant as they shuffled in, although Emily nearly got them kicked right out again by saying, "Thank you, sir."

***

To say it was an unfamiliar world would be an understatement. The club was crowded, and very dim, except for random flashing lights that Mr. Periwinkle muttered were sure to exacerbate his glaucoma. Not that he had glaucoma.

Emily spied a corner table tucked away from the dance floor, which was just where they wanted to be. They had been seated only a moment, looking about, wondering what to do next, when that problem was solved. A girl in a tiny cocktail dress came up and handed them drinks menus.

"Oh, just tea for Maude, please, she's only thirteen," Emily explained. The waitress gave her a funny look and Molly dropped her head into her hands. "I mean, well, goodness, I mean that when she's drinking alcohol she sort of acts like she's thirteen, so she...won't....be drinking...you see?"

"A very....dry....sherry!!" Mr. Periwinkle shouted as loudly as possible, then settled back contented into his seat.

"And I shall have...." Molly was making a big show of perusing the menu as she always did, although she generally already knew what she wanted before she opened the menu. "...Perhaps I shall try a....Long Island Iced Tea?"

Mr. Periwinkle opened his mouth and was about to say something, but Molly shot him one of her looks. Then she looked at Emily. "It's a kind of festive tea, I believe."

Emily looked like she didn't quite believe her, but went ahead and ordered a small creme de menthe, "emphasis on the small", she told the waitress.

And so they were left to wait for their beverages. Except for Mr. Periwinkle, of course, who had had a sip from every flask and headed out to the dance floor. He looked around with a pining expression for a few moments (he'd been so disappointed that their gardener Alexx has recently moved away, and had walked about in quite a state for a few days), but soon he was dancing away in a group of pudgy Australian girls who seemed to all be possessed of extraordinarily high self-esteem.

The drinks were delivered. Molly kept hers just out of view for some reason, and Emily and Maude sipped theirs daintily. The three sat in awkward silence, ears battered by the loud thumping music. They were all too well-bred to engage in the kind of shouting you had to do in those places. Luckily, some sort of ballad came on, which was a bit quieter. Emily leaned over to Molly and said, "Um...what do you think of him?"

Molly looked first at Emily, whose face had turned a fetching pink. Then she looked where Emily was looking, at a young man leaning against a column with dashing insouciance. "Emily," Molly breathed, "He looks a bit like Tadzio, doesn't he?"

Emily frowned. The two professors agreed about many things, but Death in Venice was not one of them. Molly made haste. "What I mean is, that he's lovely. And not a clerical collar in sight!" Emily nodded and smiled. She'd had quite enough of the clergy, for the time being.

Maude leaned in. "Why don't you...you know?"

Emily went pink again. "Should I really?"

"Oh, what harm could it do? Anyways, we're being brave, remember?" Molly gave the bashful professor a little nudge and fixed a curl attractively behind her ear.

"I suppose it's now or never, isn't it?" And with a very brave deep breath, Emily sauntered over to the young man as casually as a girl madly in love could be expected to. Maude and Molly watched, on the edge of their seats, Molly now quite gulping from her delicate concoction of vodka, gin, tequila, and rum. Emily leaned against the other side of the column. Nothing. She edged around a bit, but the young man was still staring dreamily into space. It was then she pulled out the big guns. She dropped her lace handkerchief on his foot. Molly and Maude gasped, the young man turned to Emily with a look of wonder, and then things really got exciting. Mr. Periwinkle had jumped on top of the bar and was doing a vigorous yet surprisingly skillful tap dance on the marble countertop. The girls were all set to burst into applause, but unfortunately there were still quite a few glasses on the bar, glasses which began splintering and flying around the club, looking, Maude was heard to remark later, like a lovely storm of flying crystals. Sadly, that was not the view of the group of chubby Australian girls, who, enraptured by Mr. Periwinkle's obvious charms, had made their way right to the front of the bar, where the glass flew about their faces and gave them some not-insubstantial scratches. A ruckus began, and sirens were heard, and Poppycock just didn't know where to turn to get out of this kerfuffle.

Luckily, they didn't have to. The insouciant young man turned out to be the owner's son, and so dazzled was he by Emily's beauty that he escorted them all out the back entrance as the police came in: Emily, thirteen year old Maude, tipsy swaying Molly, and mad Mr. Periwinkle. As Poppycock made a mad dash for the nearest black cab, the owner's son slipped a business card into Emily's hand, and they were gone.

***

"Most successful, I think," Emily remarked the next morning at breakfast, plopping matching ice packs on Molly and Mr. Periwinkle's heads.

"So do I," Maude said, "I think I should be allowed to do more grownup things all the time."

"NO", said the other three in unison.

"Well, Emily, you at least had a very nice time." Molly said in a voice quite enough not to disturb her headache. "By the way, what is that young man's name?"

Emily pulled the business card slyly out her kimono pocket. She looked at the front, and then turn again that lovely shade of pink. "Tadzio."

As Poppycock dissolved into gales of laughter, they decided that they would celebrate Pete Postlethwaite day every year, do something that made them nervous, and hope to always have such a lovely time.