THAT'S RIGHT; IT'S A PROSE STORY, BITCHES!
“I can’t believe you’ve got us working on Christmas.” Complained Jacob, trudging through the snow behind Rowan.
“Ah, quit complaining;” replied the latter, “we get paid triple. Besides, I thought you weren’t really into Christmas?”
“’Course not! It’s not like I’m gonna miss the food, the drinking and the family togetherness;” Jacob said with a tone of bitterness suggesting that despite his inflated claims of apathy, he did indeed mind missing Christmas “I’m just worried that we’re gonna learn some ‘heart-warming’ lesson or something, and you know I’m allergic to that crap.”
“You got your anti-allergy meds?”
“Yeah,”
“Then we’re sound.”
“I really need to join some sorta union. So what’s the deal here?”
“Some rich guy…”
“How rich?”
“Rich enough to hire the only detectives who’ll work Xmas (at quadruple rates) in order to find out who stole his spoilt son’s Christmas presents. Anyway, he…”
“S’alright, you just explained in your aside. Actually, that’s the other thing I’m worried about: that there’ll be a ‘shocking’ twist where it turns out you set all this up and stole the presents so we could get paid.”
“Eh,” Rowan replied, with alarming nonchalance “money’s money.”
“Your seduction by and fervent support of the patriarchal industro-capitalist ideology sickens me, Rowan.”
“Uni’s changed you Jacob.”
“Go play with lights, worst-boy electric!”
The two sunk into a nicely familiar silence of animosity. A suitably festive metaphor would be a cosy Christmas stocking that’s been in the family for years and is adorned with the knitted likeness of a scowling Frankie Boyle stabbing a reindeer in the eye with a syringe. They trudgingly trudged onwards through the snowy snow and this sickeningly, self-consciously ‘ironic’ badly written sentence.
The two (Alexandra and Elliot being absent for reasons so hilarious I’ve had to withhold them for fear I might be sued by grieving families for literally one case of terminally split sides) reached the door, and Rowan rang the bell. A few moments later the pair saw something that made them instantly forget their quarrels, for the young maid who had answered the door had cleavage so deep that, diving into it (as so many longed to do) one would be unsurprised to find the wreck of the titanic nestling at the bottom. It would, however, be chauvinistic not to describe the rest of her too.
The half of MI_UK present were shown into a large living room. In one corner was a MAHOOSIVE Christmas tree with a noticeable lack of presents underneath, and above the fireplace hung empty stockings – though none bearing the countenance of Scottish comedians famous for their dark humour. Of course there weren’t – that was an overwrought metaphor, remember?
Even more noticeable than the lack of presents was the man awaiting them, resplendent (and as Douglas Adams has taught us, the word ‘resplendent’ is hilarious used in certain contexts) in a solid gold dressing gown and top hat.
“Great;” muttered Jacob to Rowan upon seeing Shiny McShine (which in his head he had instantly nicknamed the man) “another eccentric! At least this one isn’t a fucking Cluedo character!” Then, turning to the screen “That’s the game known as ‘Clue’ to any Americans reading, since someone in marketing decided that a portmanteau of ‘clue’ and ‘ludo’ would spin you out so much you’d all go on high school shoo---mmph!” {At this point Rowan wisely covered Jacob’s mouth.}
Shiny – who apparently follows the conventions of Shakespearian theatre and had not noticed the aside – began to speak. He had the kind of voice you’d expect from someone wearing a solid gold dressing gown and top hat:
“Ah! So you must be the unorthodox detectives I…”
“With the greatest of respect;” interrupted Rowan “save it. We’ve heard the brief and you’re not paying us for manners.”
With that, Rowan headed over to the stockings and Jacob to the tree. After some close examination of the floor around the tree Jacob discovered an unusually coloured hair. He picked it up, sniffed it, licked it, and then wrote a 2000 word essay to confirm his thesis. He held it up to Shiny and Rowan:
“Green. Grinch hair. You can probably get them sprayed for or something. That’s where your presents have gone. Mystery solved, let’s go get pissed.”
“And,” chipped in Rowan “since its Christmas, we’ll only charge you quintuple our usual rate!”
“But aren’t you going to find my very expensive and valuable stolen presents?” inquired McShine, taken aback.
“Look;” said Rowan bluntly “we solve mysteries. We don’t solve mysteries.”
“Besides,” Jacob added “when a Grinch nicks your presents you’re supposed to learn” {he shudders} “an important lesson about what’s really valuable at Christmas time.”
Eventually, McShine (or whatever his real name is) managed to haggle MI_UK down from five times their normal rate to 3.9 times their normal rate seeing as half of them didn’t show up, the half that did show up where half-hearted and half of the half that showed up given half a chance spent half their time hitting on the maid (who it turned out disappointingly lacked a French accent).
Elliot, however, never quite fully recovered.
END
Ok, here's the Christmas picture I promised - a reindeer eating pizza drawn by Kirsty Judge, who is excellent at drawing reindeer eating pizza and an even better writer. (And if it seems like I didn't ask permission to use it, well I'm sure that's just because the message got lost in the ether of the internet's tubes.)
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