[RLacey]

***


As he backed the paramedic car out of the hospital car park, Don Kapek switched on the sirens. He knew it was illegal to do this except in an emergency, but for him this was emergency enough. In his mind one thing was now certain.

He had to reach the Statue of Liberty within the next twenty minutes.


***


The corners of Squinky's mouth had turned upwards. She was trying hard not to smile. After all, her pizza now had some plaster on it to go with the pineapple.

As she trotted over to one of the window seats, Squinky glanced back at the handsome man standing over the woman who had been at the counter but was now lying on the floor. He looked like a film star, and she felt herself swooning. Then she glanced to the right of the man, and caught sight of Helium Boy again. Turning back to her pizza, she shuddered. Then she took a knife, removed all of the pineapple, and began to eat, trying very hard not to think about the hideous monstrosity standing to one side of the restaurant.


***


Patrick Stewart stood in the restaurant at 11 Penton Avenue, New York, a concerned look on his face.

"Are you alright?"

The woman's eyelids flickered momentarily, and then slowly opened.

[AFGNCAAP]

***

"Why did you let the restaurant open already?", Donald Dalton inquired, "Isn't this what you cops call 'a situation' or sumthin? What if sumbuddy gets hurt? With all the guns around..."

"Don't worry about that. We know our job.", answered a young officer with a smirk.

"I hope you do. Cuz if your negotiator isn't back with the Thread™ in the next..." - he consulted his watch - "...six minutes, the Pip Boy's gonna arr-eye-pee".

Spiwak shuddered.

"Mister Lacey is a professional.", replied the officer, "I am sure he'll drop-"

The three men almost jumped. Something had just fell through the restaurant's roof.

Spiwak, noticing his captor was temporarily disoriented, took immediate action.

[Panthera]

"Help me, somebody help me" Spiwak screamed before he wet his pants. The kidnapper, not scared by Spiwaks escapeplan, hit him in the head with his gun.

The officers ran into the resturant, and was greeted by a not so horrific, but very strange sight..

[AFGNCAAP]

They hurried towards Lacey.

In the other corner of the restaurant, Patrick Stewart was helping a stranger stand up. The actor caught himself thinking that she is quite attractive. The woman gave him the most flirtatious smile - she had beautiful, pearly-white teeth.

***

Mister Caap, the head of AFGNCAAP AVIONETTE, INC., was trying his best to understand his nephew's blabber.

"Let me get this straight, young man: you wake me up in the middle of the night to ask me for the fastest of my planes?"

"I know it's an odd request to make", explained Kapek, "but this is a case of utmost importance. I must get to New York, like, now."

"You intend to illegally cross the US border? And all of that because some policeman ended up in your hospital?"

"Not just some policeman!", cried Kapek desperately, "Weren't you listening? His name was Manolay!"

"Doesn't ring any bells, I fear."

Kapek groaned. There was no time for explanantions.

[AFGNCAAP]

"I'm sorry, but I can't allow it to end like this.", he said.

[Squinky]

"Well, then, how would you rather have it end?" asked Mister Caap.

"I don't know; I'm not the creative type. But ending it here just feels... wrong somehow. Anticlimactic. There needs to be some sort of final epic battle, or over-the-top Bollywood-style musical number, or significant character growth, or something."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. The Hero's Journey, and all that. I guess we'll just have to wait, then."

***

Squinky finished her pizza and watched Patrick Stewart take the perky cashier's hand and lead her to Happily Ever After™. She sighed. "Oh well," she thought to herself. "I was always more of a Richard Gere fan, anyway."

[samIamsad]

Chapter 2 - We're still going strong

Two weeks earlier.

On a hill there stood a tree. Yet it wasn't normal tree. It got chopped down to half earlier that year, when the owner of the hill it was standing on decided it was time to cut it down. Why said owner did this, he did not tell, but he sure had his reason to.

On the hill there stood the tree. And its owner next to it. It was SSH. SSH, who decided it was time to cut the tree down earlier that year. Why he did, he didn't tell yet, but we can assume he had his reason to. You know what? Why don't we ask him? And so we took a step closer.

[RLacey]

On SSH's forehead there were some lines. The tell-tale sign of anxiety.

Watch him cut the tree! The saw slides through the wood, and the tree comes thundering down!


***


Sitting in his impressively decorated offices in Central Oxford, Robert Lacey stared across his desk at the man. He was shaking slightly, and Lacey noticed a couple of beads of sweat beginning to slide down his forehead.

"I think it was... good."

The man's face lit up. Bounding to his feet, he ran to the desk and grabbed Lacey's hand firmly.

Extracting himself from one of the most painful handshakes he had ever experienced, Lacey composed himself.

Here comes the hard bit, Robert.

"However..."

The man's jaw dropped.

"However... what?"

"It could do with a little more work. Why is the main character named after me? Why does he suddenly start floating off into the sky? The Manolay subplot is good, but it doesn't actually seem to be going anywhere yet. And why does your prose style suddenly become so terrible at the beginning of Chapter Two?"

The man stood up, tidied his papers and walked over to the desk.

"Thanks for nothing, Mr Lacey."

As Dale Baldwin strode towards the door, Lacey couldn't help regretting that he'd just lost another client.

They all hate me.


***


Standing outside in the corridor, Dale Baldwin fixed a determined look on his face. He walked towards the door, pausing only to give his phone number to the attractive receptionist who was busy filing her nails behind a large mahogany desk.

I'll finish this story anyway, he thought. I'm getting out the typewriter as soon as I get home.

[SSH]

Cutting the tree felt good. It reminded SSH of those halcyon days when he would chop down dozens of trees a day with his mighty axe. "I never wanted to be a telephone network customer assurance monitoring system tester," he pondered, "I wanted to be a Lumberjack!"

[Panthera]

SSH pondered this for a while, before he started to sing:

"I'm a lumberjack, and I'm okay.
I sleep all night. I work all day."

Suddenly ten forest rangers came running towards him, formed a choir, and joined the song:

"Mounties :
He's a lumberjack, and he's okay.
He sleeps all night and he works all day.

I cut down trees. I eat my lunch.
I go to the lavatory.
On Wednesdays I go shoppin'
And have buttered scones for tea.

Mounties:
He cuts down trees. He eats his lunch.
He goes to the lavatory.
On Wednesdays he goes shopping
And has buttered scones for tea.

Chorus :
I'm (He's) a lumberjack, and I'm (he's) okay.
I (He) sleep(s) all night and I (he) work(s) all day.

I cut down trees. I skip and jump.
I like to press wild flowers.
I put on women's clothing
And hang around in bars.

Mounties :
He cuts down trees. He skips and jumps.
He likes to press wild flowers.
He puts on women's clothing
And hangs around in bars?!

Chorus :
I'm (He's) a lumberjack, and I'm (he's) okay.
I (He) sleep(s) all night and I (he) work(s) all day.

I cut down trees. I wear high heels,
Suspendies, and a bra.
I wish I'd been a girlie,
Just like my dear Papa


Mounties :
He cuts down trees.
He wears high heels,
Suspendies, and a bra?!

Chorus :
I'm (He's) a lumberjack, and I'm (he's) okay.
I (He) sleep(s) all night and I (he) work(s) all day.

Yes, I'm (He's) a lumberjack, and I'm (he's) ok-a-y.
I (He) sleep(s) all night and I (he) work(s) all day."

[SSH]

SSH then wondered why he kept saying I (He) all the time. Then he realised... everything he said was being cut-and-pasted from some internet lyrics site!

[Squinky]

"Oh well," he muttered to himself. "As they say, always look on the bright side of life."

[UPtimist]

Ironic, really, that he should say it when he did.

[AFGNCAAP]

"Why?", asked someone from behind.

SSH turned around and saw a stranger eyeing him with amusement.

"Eh?", he replied. (I am afraid SSH has never been a master of intelligent conversation. Not with a good-looking person of the opposite sex around, at any rate.)

"I asked why should you look on the bright side.", explained the woman, "I'd rather concentrate on fixing something that went wrong. Wouldn't you?" She took a few steps forward. "Wouldn't you, SSH?", she repeated, grinning.

The Scottish lad blinked and tightened his grip on the axe. "How do you know my name? I don't believe I caught yours, Miss...?"

[Squinky]

"Squinky. Call me Squinky."

"Well, all right then, Squinky. See, the thing is, I seem to have this terrible problem. Some things in life are bad, they can really make you mad, er, I mean, I seem to be periodically speaking in Monty Python lyrics."

"Oh. I understand completely," replied Squinky.

[SSH]

"I occasionally lapse into talking in ...

A local boy kicked me in the butt last week
I just smiled at him and I turned the other cheek
I really dont care, in fact I wish him well
cause Ill be laughing my head off when hes burning in hell
But I aint never punched a tourist even if he deserved it

.. Weird Al lyrics myself" she continued, "But my psychologist gave me some pills for it. You can either take the red pill, or the blue pill..."

Squinky held out a hand with the two pills in to SSH. SSH put down the axe, and took the...

[RLacey]

***


Dale Baldwin sat back in his chair. Grabbing a handkerchief from his pocket, he dabbed it across his forehead, and then pulled the manuscript out of the typewriter.

His story, about a paramedic called Don Kapek, was a sensationalist Da Vinci Code rip-off, and he knew it. But Dan Brown must have been on to something, and Baldwin was adamant that he could be as successful.

He glanced at the original pages for Chapter Two that had been slated by his editor earlier in the day. He was filled with hatred at the thought of Robert Lacey, sitting there in his fancy office. Then he realised that everybody hated him, and that it therefore wasn't worth worrying about. He returned to an issue of crucial importance; something that had been bothering him for days now.

What am I going to call this policeman?

Baldwin knew that he was going to kill this character off very soon. That was how Dan Brown liked to work, and he silently told himself off for not having the character brutally murdered within the opening few pages.

Manolay.

Instantly, he knew it was the right name, and suddenly the rewrite took on a life of its own.

Officer Manolay sat at his desk, fidgeting. He hated working night shifts; either nothing interesting happened or there was some crisis that needed immediate attention. Attention that he had no desire to provide.


***


... other hand.

"Squinky," he said, looking her in the eyes. They were caring eyes, and he felt that he could drown in them. He got down on one knee, and, with a flourish, threw his head back.

"Will you marry me?"

Squinky paused for a second. Has SSH really just asked me to marry him? We haven't even been on a date!

She needed to answer. She knew that. And as she opened her mouth to speak, she realised that nothing would ever be the same again...

[SSH]

Suddenly, she realised that she has misunderstood his Scottish accent. He had actually said "Will U. Manolay", which was the name of the police officer standing behind her, whom SSH had just seen. The U stood for Ulysses. The name was also an anagram of "ALUMNI LAY LOW" which was perhaps a clue to unlocking the mystery. SSH was an anagram of HSS, a tool hire company, and Squinky was an anagram of "Quin sky". Perhpas Squinky had 4 long-lost airbourne identical sibilings she knew nothing about!

Meanwhile, Officer Manolay was brutally murdered by an albino psychopath whose name was an anagram of "ERECT BY ORAL"...

[Squinky]

As the gears clicked around and around in Squinky's head, everything suddenly began to make sense. All those older married men falling desperately in love with her seemingly out of nowhere - there was a secret message behind it.

And so, closing her half-opened mouth, she didn't say anything at all, but just ran away as fast as she could toward the one place where she knew she could find all the answers.

Meanwhile, SSH just stood there, confused and bewildered, with his axe at his feet. "Well, ain't that a kick in the head," he muttered to no one in particular.

[SSH]

As Squinky ran into Robert's arms (the one place where she knew she could find all the answers), she gazed deep into his eyes.

"I love the way your dandruff glistens in the moonlight," she said...