Turning Over A New Leaf: Episode 2 – ‘The Days Of Discount Tent’

2 August, 2013

Yeah, as if you didn’t know, lambchop.

Nookling Junction? Hold the phone, are you and your brother the oily little skeets that run the Nookling Discount Rail Fares website which got me into this mess?

Coming straight over, I’ve a bone to pick.

Sure, I might only nail one of each of your bollocks to the table for fitting me up like a toff, you shifty little furbag.

I’m Mayor of this lump of scrub, and I’m not even entitled to a credit account at the shops.

Thanks for the warning you and Lambchop are in cahoots. First rule of survival, know your enemies allies.

It’s the ‘I know who you are’ that says most in this one-sided conversation. Never trust a duck. Especially a French, Quebecquoi or Walloon duck. She’s probably in charge of the local secret police keeping tabs on outsiders like me.

This place was a complete waste of time. The one on the sewing machine was about as friendly as a redneck’s rottweiler, and that Labelle would have said ‘that’s not a bad choice’ if I’d tried on a used panty shield for a hat.

Think I’m going to give these Able Sisters a berth for now. Besides, a new outfit’s not going to get me out of here. Unless it’s one I can pretend to be a station porter and sneak on board after shoving that monkey bound and gagged into the storage lockers after coshing him a few times – plus one for luck.

That sounds like the beginnings of a cunning plan. I must make notes.

In the meantime, I need my space. When’s this house of mine going to be ready, you shifty little skeet?

DOWN PAYMENT OF 10 000 BELLS?

Hold the phone, I’m mayor around here!

Come to it, what wage am I getting anyway for running this hovel?!

Oh, I get it now – the sneaky little furry f**kers!

This entire place is set up so everyone else works in service industries and they kidnap some poor sucker off the train and con them into doing all the hard manual work they run off.

Even the local museum is expecting me to provide them with insects, fish, fossils and artwork. Sure bud, stick a broom handle up my butt and I’ll sweep the floor at the same time.

Mayor? Mule more like it, or ass to be even more accurate.

Is this all some sort of Pierre Boule scenario I’ve found myself trapped in? A land where the animals get the humans to be beasts of burden while pretending that they are in fact elevated higher than themselves?

I’m even having to pay for the tools in order to make some cash to make all these little skeets rich. Is there no end to this?

This bobber you’re talking about had better be to do with the rod, because if it’s anything to do with my person you’re getting slapped.

See this half-shut face? I do it a lot.

Shaking the trees gets you oranges to sell on, occasional coins or a piece of furniture (I have yet to find out why the locals go shoving furniture up the trees, unless it’s another of their sick jokes to torment me with – having a good laugh watching me dodge another table speeding towards my head.

But too often it means getting bees in the face, no matter how fast I run or swoop the net at them. I get the hive to sell, but it means walking around with one eye shut in pain the rest of the day.

Fishing however, got that one licked. It’s easy big money when you know how.

Wait until the fish (a dark tadpole shaped shadow of varying size) starts bumping the bobber – the second it goes down with a loud ‘plop’, hit the (A) and keep hold as the fish spins like a whirlpool.

Don’t wait for fish to appear. Walk up and down the sea shore or river banks (never run – it scares the fish away) and cast when you see one. Try to get the bobber as near as possible to the fish without hitting it. If there’s no fish around, go to another area and come back later.

I gave that first fish I caught to the museum. Decided a bit of public spiritedness first might improve my standing around here, seeing as they had a museum with nothing inside it.

It didn’t take me too long to have a whole treasure trove (for them) of items to stock – bugs, fish, fossils (you can find four of the latter a day, think the place is in some sort of fault line that forces fossils to the near surface with X marking the spot conveniently. Maybe it’s something to do with the power from that tree I planted for them?

A turkeyfish and a crawfish. It’s a start. Off to bed.

I even got some sympathy for my bee stung face from Cookie. Maybe she’s not a secret murderous psychotic like the rest? Maybe.

But when I was about to camp down for the night, guess who burst in without so much as a knock (yes, I know you can’t knock the flaps of a tent, but she could have banged sticks or rocks together to make a knocking sound).

Notice how the conversation quickly turns to roasting and burning yet again? I’ve got your number, sunshine. First thing tomorrow, get a stone to sharpen that spade’s edges. If I’m for an appointment with the wicker man, there’s one or two of these furry psychos that will be meeting their Trickster first.