Mr Mumble Investigates: The Case of the Perforated Vowel Collection Detective Inspector Mumble awoke one morning to find himself getting intimate with the floor. “Mmfcuse Me!” Said the carpet, who was feeling rather bewildered. “What? Oh- err…. Sorry about that, carpet. My head’s not quite where it used to be these days.” And he was quite right, too. For Mr Mumble’s head had become detached in a housing accident involving many lawyers and a nasty estate agency, and now it was attached - by the lower left earlobe - to the side of the poor man’s severed neck. Jumping up, Mr Mumble inspected his bedroom. All seemed well. So he walked into the kitchen. Despite the fact that the oven was playing poker with the microwave, everything seemed normal there, too. But he had a bad feeling. Approaching the door of the bathroom with care, he twisted the handle slowly. Twist….. Twist….. Twist….. Creak……. “HOLY COWS ALMIGHTY!” For there, in Mr Mumble’s beloved toilet; there was a hole. A big, Black, Hole! “HOLEY TOILET BOWL! JIMINY CRICKET! THE BOGINATOR IS BACK!” {At this point an orchestra drew back the shower curtain and used their instruments to make a string of sounds that vaguely resembled “Dum dum Dum!” and then disappeared down the plughole.} The Boginator. Mr Mumble’s old arch-enemy. The Boginator was a small, hairbrush-shaped robot about three feet tall. It was armed with a deadly Toilet Plunger 3000, and a Whiskmatron Black Hole maker that formed black holes wherever it whisked. In other words, an encounter with the Boginator was deadly. It liked to sneak up the sewage systems and into toilet bowls, where it used its toilet plunger and whisk to create portals to another galaxy, one so far inside out that anyone travelling through one of these black holes would instantly develop ten extra arms and a liking for Celine Dion. And then, in the space of 0.3687525 milliseconds, they were blasted back to our universe with the power of sixty-four rocket launchers set on ‘Destroy’. Shocking. And it was all controlled by the little guy who lived inside the Boginator’s brain: Terence, the kamikaze penguin. Anyway, back to Mr Mumble. “BRILLIANT BASKING BARNACLES! FREAKIN’ ESCALATORS OF JESUS CHRIST WHO CAN’T BE BOTHERED TO WALK UP A FEW FLIGHTS OF FREAKIN’ STAIRS TO HEAVEN! THE BOGINATOR HAS RETURNED!” Yeah, we get the point. “I should have known! I should have known when I saw the guy juggling ten apples and whistling “My Heart Will Go On!” I should have known when someone opened my bathroom door noisily last night and I thought it was just a breeze! I should have known when I asked the breeze its name and it replied “Terence the kamikaze penguin!” I’m done for! I’m ruined! I’m -“ “Now you’re being ridiculous,” said Felicia Tongueswat-Mumble, Mr Mumble’s wife. She was a bit of a weirdo, but then with a name like that it’s not surprising. It’s practically her duty to be weird. “breezes don’t talk, idiot!” “I resent that!” Said a passing breeze, before exploding. “What are you raving about now, you crazy old goon?” Asked Felicia. “Nothing, dear, go back to your channel surfing.” Replied her husband “Okay, you nutter of a bloke you.” “You are so sweet!” Suddenly, Mrs Tongueswat-Mumble shot upwards as the TV she had been surfing on swallowed her surfboard, and she was flung five-hundred feet in the air towards the bathroom. “AIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!” She screamed, as the force of the TV caused her to plummet forwards at the rate of 500 million Gigametrics which is a lot faster than - a very fast thing. There was a splash of tidal wave proportions. “Shi….itake mushrooms!” Cried Mr Mumble. For his beloved wife had just fallen into the black hole. However, luckily for her, her fat thighs had become completely stuck to the rim of the toilet bowl, and now her upper body was in one reality while her lower regions still existed in another. But this caused a major Code Mongoose within the time-space continuum of the expanding realms, causing an extraordinary light show formed by an unfortunate oxygen reaction. In layman’s terms: Her rear end exploded. Loudly. Mr Mumble arose from behind a luminous cabinet. Debris were scattered everywhere, glass lay in pieces on the sulking carpet and the grass on the trees was readily joining Al-Quaeda. It was utter chaos. Stepping slowly into the bathroom, he spotted his wife’s legs sticking out from behind a cupboard. They had become green and slightly rat-scented. Fearing the worst, Mr Mumble closed his eyes for a second as he pulled on the door handle behind him, so as to reveal his combusted wife. And when he opened them, he received a big shock. Mrs Toungueswat-Mumble lay unconscious on the floor. Her hair was spiky and overcrowded, her nose was even more out of joint than usual and her false teeth had become radioactive. The seat of her pants was on fire, her tongue stuck out at a very un-natural angle, her eyes were crossed; and to top it all off: She was singing “My heart will go on.” Loudly. Through her ARM. “Oh dear,” said Mr Mumble. “This is not good.” Grabbing his coat and a passing hat, he ran out of the door (well, the hole where the door had once been. It was currently floating through the galaxy somewhere whistling “The first time ever I saw your face”). Jumping into his five-wheeled van, which he had purchased cheaply due to it being a combination of a three-wheeled car and a bicycle, he pedalled Flintstones-style up the street. I’ve got to stop the Boginator, he thought, before that evil Terence does something we’ll all regret! He shuddered at the thought of it. It could be anything…… Pavarotti, Shania Twain, even - no, he wouldn’t be so cruel - would he? Mr Mumble quaked with fear. Even……………. THE CHEEKY GIRLS???? He pedalled faster towards his office, knowing that he needed assistance from his assisting assistant, a sister of his assistant, Bert Hogg. Bertarina Hogg, as was her name, was a little eccentric. No wait, that’s an understatement. She was more eccentric than George Bush is stupid, not to mention the fact that she was also thirty-four, two feet tall and green. Oh, and she wore a hat shaped like a pineapple. Mr Mumble parked his five wheeled beauty and hopped into his office on one leg, simply for the irony of it all. “Good morning.” Said the reception desk. “What?” “Oh, sorry,” Bertarina climbed up onto her swivel chair, so that she was just about visible “good morning, Mr Humble.” “No, my name is Mr Mumble, not Mr Humble!” “Right you are, Mr Bumble.” Did I mention that Bertarina was also a little hard of hearing? Mr Mumble sighed. Oh well, he thought, at least she’s better than Bertie.* He quickly filled his assisting assistant in on the matter at hand, and then he told her what had happened to his wife. The matter at his hand was actually a small wooden frog with carrying handles, who refused to be carried and instead just floated centimetres away from Mr Mumble’s left arm at all times. Bertarina was thoroughly shocked, but as always she had a plan. Pulling out a pencil and a sheep, she tied the pencil to the sheep and then used it as a sheep pencil. Using the sheep pencil, she wrote down one sentence: Dear David attenborough, we have a small penguin problem. Please come immediately and bring bush, blair and a few cheerleaders. Yours sincerely, Mr Fumble “But my name is - oh, never mind. Mr Fumble it is.” She tied the message onto the sheep and hit it with a banana. It made a sheep-noise and then ran away. “Sheep post,” Bertie said, “much more efficient than the Postal Service. The Postal Service is so…….. postal service.” “Whatever. Anyway, how are we going to get Terence?” “I thought we’d just decided that.” “I know, “replied Mr Mumble, “but I meant how are we going to get him really, not just in your imaginary way.” “But- but - the letter!” “Bertie, I would like to point out that you have never met David Attenborough and neither have I. You just posted it to your own house, like you do with all your letters.” “Oh.” Bertarina looked dejected. “Now, have you ever heard of a place called Cranberry Crust….” * His ex-secretary, Mr Bertie Lang. A confusing business, really, as Bertarina was called Bertie for short but Bert was called Bertie for long. “AHA.” Said Terence, Kamikaze Penguin. “THE BOGINATOR AND I ARE BACK. TOGETHER WE CAN RULE THE WORLD, EH, BOGGY?” Boggy nodded in agreement, as much as a hairbrush-shaped object can nod, anyway. “FINALLY I CAN ERASE THAT MR MUMBLE FROM THIS UNIVERSE FOREVER! IF I CAN JUST GET TO THAT PERFORATED VOWEL COLLECTION BEFORE HE DOES…..” “Perforated vowel collection?” Asked John Prescott, who happened to be there, punching each photographer who happened to be within a few metres of him. “HAVE YOU NOT HEARD OF IT? IT IS A SACRED COLLECTION OF VOWELS THAT ARE PERFORATED. IT IS VERY USEFUL FOR THE ART OF SPELLING HOLY WORDS.” “Whatever.” *Punch* “ONCE I HAVE IT, I CAN RULE OVER EVERYONE’S LAVATORIES.” “Where exactly is this perforated vowel collection?” *Punch* "IN THE SMALL YET LARGE ANCIENT MODERN TOWN, HIGH IN THE LOWLANDS OF GING-GANG-GOOLY: CRANBERRY CRUST." “Erm….. Ok then. Just one question.” “GO ON.” “Why are you speaking in capitals?” “I WASN’T AWARE THAT I WAS.” “Well you are.” John replied. *Punch* “WHAT? OH, DAMMIT. SOPHIE?” “Yes, random story character?” “TURN OFF THE BLOODY CAPS LOCK!” “Oops. Sorry.” “Thankyou.” Of course, it has to be said, neither John Prescott nor George Foreman (who happened to be there) asked why the penguin was talking at all. But then again, some people just aren’t very observant. Mr Mumble, Bertarina and a few hobbits piled into the five-wheeled van and shot off towards Cranberry Crust. It would take a long time to get there normally, but a vehicle with five wheels has a certain mystical quality that allows it to travel at the speed of spite. That is the second fastest thing in existence, the fastest being the speed of Elouise falling over after a few bottles of vodka. When they reached the town, Mr Mumble gasped. Clearly they were too late. Toilets were running about the street manically, while women and men alike ran around singing Celine Dion and for some reason doing Ali G impressions in French. It was a shambles. They had to get to that perforated vowel collection, and fast! “Boing!” The crew bounced (again, just for the irony of it) into the nearest magic tree. One hobbit got attached to an iron and fell off. Bertarina, sensing danger, warped a cucumber and went into a battle stance, yelling loudly in Lebanese. Mr Mumble pulled out his defensive attack spoon, spat on it, rubbed it against his shoe and then waited. The attack never came. “It must be safe.” Said Mr Mumble foolishly. “Let’s carry on walking.” When they walked straight into a large trap, only one stray hobbit got away. And he was drunk, too. Terence, of kamikaze penguin fame, watched as his victims struggled and yelled expletives at him. He had only ever wanted someone to call him Terry, but no-one ever had. It was tragic, really. When he got hold of those perforated vowels, he could say his name however the hell he wanted. On a golden pedestal in front of him there lay The Collection, radiating silent power. The evil penguin approached the magic letters, which glistened and sparkled in the light, just seeming to yell “I am important”. Terence reached out to touch one. Finally, after all these years of waiting, the vowels would be his, and there was no two ways about it. “I object to that!” Said a passing two ways. His hand (well, flipper) got closer and closer to the letters. But suddenly…. “And here you can see a very rare species of penguin, namely of the kamikaze variety. It is an even rarer sight away from its natural habitat, but we are lucky enough to see one here today, I….” “OH NO! DAVID ATTENBOROUGH!” Yelled Terence. No, I didn’t make a mistake again; I was just doing capitals for effect. “It worked! See, Mr Crumble, my ideas do work after all,” an excited voice piped up. “Mumble mumble.” Said Mr Mumble, who had a smelly old sock stuffed in his mouth. Terence screeched loudly as David’s words went straight through his head and out the other side, which was definitely somewhat painful. He writhed on the floor, screaming in agony and begging for mercy. That Terence was always a drama queen. A few minutes later, he got bored and mutated into a perfectly normal penguin, had a big craving for tuna and then went to live in Bristol Zoo. “Ah,” mumbled Mr Mumble, “Mmmf mike mall’s mell mat mends mell.” “Mhat? I mean, what?” Asked David Attenborough, removing the smelly sock and eating it. “ I said, all’s well that ends well.” “Ain’t no wells here, old man.” Said George Bush, who had arrived late with sixty cheerleaders who were combing their hair and desperately searching for mirrors. He was holding Tony Blair on a lead. “As I say myself, it’s clearly a well, it gots stuff in it!” “Water?” Tried Bertarina. “Bless you.” Replied Bush. Mr Mumble walked over to the vowels, touched them, and then realised that they were simply a large collection of paper letters that someone had hole punched and spray-painted gold. A large rat was nibbling one. The cheerleaders were busy performing for the hobbits, who were quite entertained. Meanwhile, a few appliances were divorcing; the dishwasher had taken the washing machine to the cleaners and the fridge was settling with just the hob of the cooker (the microwave incident was the last straw). Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the carpet found a girlfriend and lived happily ever after. When Mr Mumble got home, he poured himself a stiff drink and then re-assembled his wife. She was now a 6ft gorgeous blonde with supreme intelligence, even if she did occasionally sing Celine Dion in the shower. Amazing what a few tweaks with a screwdriver can do. It seemed that everything had turned out all right, the toilet was fixed, Terence was non-kamikaze-y, the Happy Anchovy Pies were Happy And Pie-y, the Society for Hapfish In Trouble got donated a million pounds and there was something to do with Peter Pan as well but it got copyrighted by Disney, however think yourself lucky as I too have realised that this sentence is far too long therefore I shall end the story around about here and leave you feeling satisfied yet wondering why the hell this was so bad but you won’t complain because you’re not a mean boring person (unless you are in which case what the hell are doing on my site?) and you wouldn’t want to tell me what you really thought of it because swearing is not acceptable, so that’s the end of that. THE (VERY BAD) END A very confused sheep stood outside David Attenborough’s house, wondering what the hell it was doing there, and why it ever volunteered to be in this stupid thing in the first place. Oh well, you can’t have everything your way.