The Trouble with Polly Brown (47 page)

Uncle Boritz took a long sip of tea from his cup before continuing on. Meanwhile, Aunt Mildred began sobbing most pitifully into an orange-and-cream striped handkerchief that bore her very initials in red embroidery on the left-hand corner of the handkerchief as she continued to tearfully moan out loud, “Oh, this is so very, very shameful that it is making me feel horribly ill, so much so that I can hardly bear to hear anymore.”

“Oh, how I hate stinky Polly Fester, for she will most likely break up the family,” Toby Trotter sniffed.

“Yeah, well I hate her much more then anybody else, for if Aunt Mildred has a breakdown and gets carted off to the funny farm, well then, it's all over for the lot of us,” Gailey Gobstopper loudly commented. “It's time we got rid of the cross-eyed leper for good before she wrecks everything for the rest of us.”

“I don't know about you, Gailey, but my buttocks are as numb as numb can be,” Toby ruefully admitted as he wriggled back and forth.

“Mine too,” Gailey whispered. “We've been sitting here for hours.”

“Oh, do calm down, darling dearest one, for I am about to read Mr. Batty's personal comments, and then we can move on. So have patience, my dearest sweet pea, please,” he begged. “Right. Here goes.

“‘After reading all the teachers' comments, I can only come to one conclusion, and this is that Polly Brown is a very troubled soul who is in dire need of the sort of help that, alas, we at this school are not only unable but also quite unprepared to give. I am therefore of the opinion that she should be temporarily suspended until such a time as medical reports confirm that she has succumbed to a complete and very much needed reformation, which might allow her to join normal society again. I have to say that her exclusion gives me no satisfaction whatsoever, but I believe the warning bells have been ringing for some time, and therefore I feel it is my duty as headmaster of this school to act on behalf of all the other pupils and teaching staff, as well as for Polly's own benefit. I therefore wish Polly all the very best regarding her future.' Signed Mr. E. Batty, Headmaster. Hons. Dip. Dop. Dab. Dab. Dop.”

Uncle Boritz then deliberately went silent as he very slowly laid the report to rest on the table in front of him in a manner that might suggest it were a very dangerous offensive weapon. He then carefully removed his glasses and produced a hanky to mop his sweaty brow before closing his eyes and sighing deeply, as if to express he had no idea whatsoever as to where to go from here. The tension in the room, which had been continually mounting, was now at an all-time high. Pitstop, clearly sensing the uncomfortably eerie mood, began to ferociously growl.

“Children, may I have your complete attention!” Uncle Boritz solemnly stated as he wearily got up from where he was seated and moved across the floor, heading for where Polly and a few other miserably loathsome miscreants still stood, all heads, without exception, hung low in the deepest shame.

“I was going to keep this one all to myself, but in the light of this cripplingly disgraceful report, I feel it would be best if instead I seek to share my heart and my deepest concerns with you all. There are certain things about to happen, and Mildred and I feel it is in the best interest that none of you are left in the dark. Sadly, I have completely run out of all reasonable options where Polly is concerned, for it appears that no amount of time spent on ROPE brings forth the changes one would hope for. It would also appear that no amount of harsh admonishments break her unruly spirit either, and so it seems pointless to extend her punishment by adding further weeks and months, for all this will indubitably take her well into next year.”

There was an awkward, hushed silence as all the children listened intently to all Uncle Boritz had to say.

“As well as her expulsion from school, there is a little matter of a valuable ring that she has stolen from somewhere. If all this was not enough, she has been most careless with the truth when owning up to how this ring came to be in her possession, choosing instead to make up the most fanciful stories imaginable in her quest to keep the sordid truth hidden from us all, stories that would have us believing she has climbed some of the world's highest mountains with a gentleman going by the very suspicious name of Sir Eggmond Hoolari. She also claims to have climbed an unknown mountain that she wishes us all to believe leads directly to a magical kingdom named Piadora,” Boritz stated while trying to keep a straight face. “One cannot even begin to consider what other stories she will come up with as she attempts to further nourish and embalm our already vivid imaginations.

“Yes, she even expects us to believe that she visited a princesses' school of training and then attended a banquet where she was encouraged to eat all that her heart desired.”

Boritz suddenly broke out into a nervous titter that very quickly turned into loud, uncontrollable laughter, and this caused the nervous children to join in. Before long, they were all howling pitifully like a pack of extremely hungry wild dogs.

Polly still stood silently with her head hung low, the floor speckled with tearstained spots that belied her truest feelings, as Uncle Boritz did his usual best to incite and whip up the crowd of baying wolves into a deliberate frenzy.

“Tee hee hee. She also tells us that at this banquet she was invited to sing a song that she personally made up, titled ‘Give, Give Me Love, 'Cos That's Just What I Need.' Ha ha.” Uncle Boritz threw his head back as he continued to loudly laugh along with the children.

At this point Uncle Boritz produced his handkerchief to wipe away the first genuine tears he had shed in years, which were now streaming down his reddened face as he sought and failed to bring this sudden bout of hysterical laughter under some sort of reasonable control.

“And the worse lie of all must be that she says she was given a standing ovation and applause that continued for some time, and then—wait for it—they all rushed over to hug her. Ha ha ha. The girl is clearly a mental case, for her imagination has now completely run riot,” he snorted as he wiped away more tears and struggled to bring some sense of order to the general hysteria that he was personally guilty of creating.

“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” one of the younger ones shouted out.

“Polly Brown, Polly Brown, biggest liar for miles around,” another young voice screamed in her direction.

“No, the biggest liar in this town,” Gailey Gobbstopper bleated.

“Cut out her tongue,” one of the children began to morbidly chant over and over.

“Children, children, do please calm down. Yes, we must all calm down,” Boritz gently ordered, as he was now becoming less light-headed and therefore back to being more serious.

The children immediately stopped all chanting and laughter. Boritz had taught them better than to disobey him.

With the room once more in a deathly hush, he finally felt capable enough to continue on. “Now then, where was I? Ah, yes. As a result of her failure to come clean, we have been left with little choice other than to seek help from outside the usual sources. It is with this in mind that we chose to contact our American friends and brothers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, better known as the FBI, to seek their assistance in this rather delicate matter. As a result, two men from this special bureau have hopped on a plane and are on their way here as we speak.”

“Wow, all the way from America!” one overly excited child cried out.

“How amazing is that?” Hugo Huggins gasped.

“You are quite right, Hugo dear, for these men are specialists when it comes to getting people to reveal the whole sordid truth. I'll have you know that they have been involved in many top investigations that smelled very fishy.”

Suddenly the telephone rang, and shortly thereafter Uncle Boritz was forced by Aunt Mildred to cease all conversation, as she needed him to take over and have a few words with the rather irate person on the other end of the line. This sudden, unexpected intermission allowed the children the freedom to wiggle around a little in their pitiful efforts to ease their numbed bottoms, oh, as well as start up a few conversations.

“Quite what is a ‘fishy'?” Abigail Crumble asked, a confused look on her face, as she gave Tommy Pulleyblank a friendly dig in the ribs, for it was a well-known fact that if anyone could answer such a question, then it had to be Tommy. He was, after all, something of a genius, who knew everything about everything.

“Well, Abigail, I'm glad you asked, for it has a lot to do with someone trying to get away with something very devious, and when these special and very clever American detectives begin to delve deeper into the crime, they quickly realize that all is not well. So the whole thing smells very suspicious, if not just a little pongy.”

“Then what does
pongy
mean?”

“Gosh, you girls are so unbelievably dumb. Just think of Bertha's sweaty socks in the wash basket on a hot summer's day, and then you'll understand what
pongy
really means,” he sniffed.

“Oh, yes, her socks really do honk something terrible, but not as much as Toby's shoes, for they really reek high of rotten old cabbages.”

“Hmm. Well, anyway, if there is a huge crime that is being covered up, the president calls in the FBI, and they will be ordered to leave no stone unturned in their determination to get to the bottom of it. They all leave the White House wearing dark pinstriped suits with matching dark glasses and pretend mustaches, as well as oversized trilby hats, and they drive 'round town in cars with blacked-out windows.”

“Why are the windows blacked out?” a clearly mesmerized Cordelia interrupted.

“Come on, girls. That should be perfectly obvious to all, for it is of the utmost importance to go completely undercover in an operation such as theirs. And let me tell you now that what they don't know at the beginning of the investigation, they will certainly know by the end. Trust me on this one.”

“Wow!” Cordelia muttered as she gave great consideration to all she was hearing.

“Yes, the FBI are so incredibly clever when it comes to finding out all sorts of things, in fact, everything. They bug telephone lines in hotel rooms, and they are like vicious little Rottweilers, who having bitten into the flesh of an ankle, hold on for their life and will not give up until they have the gotten all the answers they are searching for.”

“What's a rotten-weeler?”

“It's called a Rottweiler, stupid! But as you ask, it is a very savage and snappy dog that lives and breathes to sink his razor-sharp gnashers deep into your ankle. Try as you may, even with all the agonized screaming in the world, you will not be able to shake him off, for once he has his razor-sharp teeth sunk deeply into your flesh, he will hold on forever.”

“Golly gosh, how absolutely awful,” Abigail Crumble exclaimed, her face now looking very pale and drawn as she pictured herself in a similar plight to the one being so dramatically and gruesomely depicted by Tommy.

“Please don't tell me any more, for I do declare that I am now feeling terribly queasy,” she despairingly announced.

“All right, then. I'll say no more, for you're really nothing but a load of stupid old wimps. Anyway, I find your constant questions very irritating. So put a sock in it, and just understand when I say these men are really thorough. What they don't find out by their own determined efforts, well then, the aliens that are still held at Area 51 tell them the rest.”

“Oh, golly gosh, how fantastic is that!” a very wide-eyed Cordelia gasped.

Boritz, who was still arguing with the person at the other end of the line, was clearly on the verge of snapping.

“Mr. Brewster, what you're proposing here is absurd, if not utterly preposterous. Of course we will be going for punitive damages here, but may I hasten to remind you that what you, my man, are suggesting is utterly ridiculous to say the least, for I believe the defense intends to use
volenti non fit injuria
as the basis of their defense. Now, please don't interrupt me when I'm speaking, for I was about to say that I believe it is succinctly possible that the judge may well lean heavily in their favor if you don't allow me the space and time to consider all our necessary options. That is, if I am to continue to represent you…