“And you should be a little bothered Sid,” she fumed at him. “You’ve forgotten our anniversary haven’t you. Swanning around, saving the seven dimensions with old la-de-da Arthur and you can’t even be bothered to come home to see me! On our anniversary!”
“B-but I...” he began, but didn’t have time to finish.
“No buts, you know I don’t like buts,” she sat there with crossed arms.
“Now then Author,” whispered Sid to me, “you know perfectly well that I got that puttlewhack in good time for our anniversary. It’s you messing around that has got me into trouble.”
“So you think I should do a time freeze, set the clocks back and put a smile on Gwinda’s face?”
“At least.”
So I did.
Sid stood there, “Come on then Author, stop the time freeze, I’ll catch my death of cold.”
“It’s not a literal freeze,” replied I.
“A literal freeze, that sounds a bit like a professor of Literature in the ice compartment of a fridge.”
So he wouldn’t try to make up any more jokes I put a smile on Gwinda’s face, put the clocks back, and set things going again.
“Ooh Sid, it’s our anniversary!” she smiled.
“I know, I have a present for you,” he handed her the puttlewhack.
Her smile dropped a little as she looked him in the eye, “It’s a bit small.”
“You said you liked small things, that’s why you married me!”
She opened the puttlewhack, “What is it?” she asked as she looked at him with eyes that could melt steel.
“That description makes her sound like Cyclops from the X-Men.” But still he ducked in case red lasers did appear from her eyes. “It’s a puttlewhack. They send them to the end of time then bring them back again so they can say that our love will last to the end of time.”
“They?”
“The people who make them.”
She softened a little, but not as much as melted ice cream. “Well, I suppose it is a little romantic.”
“A little romantic,” mused Sid, “could it be a small facial twitch suffered by Julius Caesar?” He then did a funny little face to keep her smiling.
Gwinda gave the puttlewhack to Gwindolene, “Put this on the mantelpiece for me,” she asked.
As Gwindolene placed the puttlewhack on the mantelpiece she rhymed, “Momma had a puttlewhack she also had some ants, she put them on the mantelpiece to see if they would dance...”
They all laughed.
Gwinda forgave him (though she shouldn’t really have held anything against him because she couldn’t really remember) after all it was the end of the story.
The Joke
While Sid and Arthur were in the queue for snacks the king of the Britons asked the dwarf a question, “What’s black, white and red all over?” asked Arthur.
“A newspaper, sunburnt penguin, nun with a knife in her back or a panda with scarlet fever...” replied Sid thinking that he had listed all of the variations he had heard or made up.
“No, a zebra with...” but he couldn’t think of anything that could make a zebra red.
“A blushing zebra?” tried to help out Sid.
Arthur got angry, “I could have come up with that Sid, why did you have to say it, I am funny you know.”
“Yeah, as funny as a peach in pyjamas,” derided the diminutive dwarf.
A Story in a Sentence
“A story in a sentence,” postulated Arthur.
“You can’t do a story in a sentence, it’s more like a statement,” replied Sid.
“Dark and wild was the moor upon which the Jabberwocky died,” tried to write a short story in a sentence Arthur.
“You haven’t proved your point. Maybe you could write a short story in a sentence if you didn’t use any full stops.”
“But you couldn’t tweet it, 140 characters or less.”
“But at least in a tweet you can use a full stop.”
“I think that’s what we need to do now.”
“What?”
“Come to a full stop.”
Mooncash coffee
“This coffee is rubbish,” moaned Arthur as he sat in the Mooncash coffee house that had been created especially for the Arth series characters on precinct 11.
“Some like it hot,” replied Sid.
“Are we doing film titles now?” Arthur asked.
“If you think you’re funny enough.”
“That’s a website for comedians isn’t it?”
“Yes it is, but you still haven’t replied to my film title yet.”
“The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”
“I’m the good, you’re the bad, who’s the ugly?”
“The coffee was bad, you’re the ugly.” Arthur waited for Sid to both calm down a bit and say another film title that might be funny in some way.
“The Fast and the Furious.”
“That sounds a bit like you running after me with your battle axe.”
“What I want to know,” wondered Sid as he handled his battle axe, “is why you are getting all the punch lines and not me?”
“Maybe the Author wanted you to chase me with your axe as a bit of light relief.” said Arthur as he ran away from the axe-wielding dwarf.
“I’ll give you a bit of light relief, I’ll relieve your head from your shoulders,” shouted Sid as he chased the king while brandishing his axe.
The last short story.
“This is the last short story,” said Arthur quite wrongly.
“You’re quite wrong,” Sid mirrored the Author, “there’s at least one more.”
“Seeing the Author in the mirror would be quite disconcerting really.”
“Disconcerting,” mused Sid, “sounds a bit like a man called Ing doing a concert and somebody commenting on it.”
Spoonerism
“The Lord is like a shoving leopard,” spoonerised Sid.
“That’s one of Reverend Spooner’s spoonerisms,” corrected Arthur.
“So, so is ‘Here are my nephew and niece Steak and Kidney’.”
Arthur groaned a, “Kate and Sidney you mean.”
“A roonerspism is a spoonerism of spoonerism.”
“Say boodgye.”
“But we aren’t finished yet?”
“I am I’m tired, after all it is 12:45 am on January the 1st.”
“But now it is 12:46 as this is being typed in.”
“Teing byped in?”
“That’s not a good or funny spoonerism.”
“What is a good and funny spoonerism then?”
“Bappy hirthday?”
“Funny, not.”
“Tube Rude?”
“No.”
“Ing Karthur?”
Arthur shook his head.
“I know.”
“Go on then, don’t leave us in suspense.”
“Nappy You Here.”
“That’s not funny!”
“It is now the Author has dressed you in a nappy!”
And I had. Happy New Year everyone!
(This should only really be read near or just after New Year.)
Read Sid and Arthur’s other stories:
The Arth Series
The Crying Pennant
The Sitting Duck
Up and Away
Ground Hog War
The Detective One
Romancing the Drone
A DaVinci Co-Ed
The Time Backwater: The Time War
War in the Precincts
Factory of Androids
The Goblin Adventures
Sid and Arthur’s Steampunk Adventure
IPP Time Code Field Guide
Visit my blog https://www.stephenjennisonsmith.blogspot.co.uk
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