Wednesday, January the 1st, 2003
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There are seven ponds. Their names are Brink, Cramped, Dribble, Lamont, Presumption, Ravenous and Unholy. In a lead box at the bottom of one of the ponds an Icelandic Fontoon lies sealed against the elements. But which pond? The Fontoon is made of wolfram, and it has a long history. A number of learned tomes have been devoted to pondering its existence, location, significance, colour, smell, incontrovertibility and malevolence. Its value is incalculable. A facsimile made of petrified dough was sold by the Museum at Hoon for an undisclosed sum. The identity of the buyer was also undisclosed, at the time. Now, this shadowy figure has the true Fontoon almost in his clutches. He has booked in to an hotel just four hundred yards away from the ponds.
The major domo at the hotel stared out of the dining-room window. The sky was overcast. Soon the drizzle would begin. It always did. He hooted, once and once only. He was afraid of sheep, baffled by corkage, continually muttering about the gasworks, defiant in the face of adversity, elegantly ragged, fulsome in his loathing of snow, grotesquely carniverous, helpless when confronted by starch, ignobly sodden, just dying to shake hands with the lion tamer, kept waiting for hours by guests late for breakfast, lascivious yet deaf, mistakenly shot at by poachers, nerve-wracked, overcoated, palpably grieving, quite likely to hoot for a second time, risibly bemuffed, still awaiting a voyage around the world, tempestuous every Thursday, unbelievably festooned with old sacking and netting, vigilant, weak, xerophilous despite the rain, young enough to know better, and zestful at the prospect of nightfall. Nobody knew his name. He hooted for a second time, much louder. The hotel was fully occupied. Among the guests were anthropomorphic beings, bauxite miners, cartographers, dribbling thugs, elk fanciers, Fontoon hunters, genuflecting dolts, heroic chefs, idiots savants, jugglers, kaolin quarry workers, lopsided people, marionettes, nautical curmudgeons, old besmirched gravediggers, pond dredgers, quicklime spreaders, ruffians, sink bashers, taloned maniacs, untidy throwbacks, vinegar brewers, waxen image igniters, xylophone construction experts, yellow-bellied burblers, and zinc inspectors. Watching them gobbling down their breakfast porridge, the major domo tried to guess who was who. An altercation was brewing at the centre table. An aged couple, white-haired and with frenzied gleams in their eyes, were raising their voices at a sallow wretch dressed enyirely in foul-smelling rags. This man was Professor Waldemar Crunlop, implacable seeker of the Icelandic Fontoon. His antagonists were a cartographer and an idiot savant. Their names were, respectively, Eileen and Wolfgang Hollyhock.
Professor Crunlop did not realise that for over forty years the Hollyhocks had also been on the trail of the Icelandic Fontoon. Their interest had been ignited by Eileen's discovery of a tiny zinc Fontoon in the Serengeti in the early forties. It appeared to have talismanic properties. Wolfgang had catalogued these properties, dividing them into seven main groupings: elemental, dishevelled, yellow, crimped, congruent, dismal and vagabond. Among their luggage, the Hollyhocks carried the fruits of years of research. Eight hundred ledgers and a voluminous card index system contained information on all manner of Fontoons, Voils, Wesniod Slabs, Forensic Triumphs and Strobs. A parallel compendium of enticing facts about flags, pennants, bunting and ullage had fallen over the edge of their raft some years ago, or been lost in a gigantic swamp. After the altercation at the breakfasr table, the Hollyhocks realised that Professor Crunlop was, like them, on the verge of discovering the submerged lead box containing the Icelandic Fontoon. They were filled with consternation, and immediately set out in the drizzle to drag the ponds. They wore horrifying mackintoshes. When they reached Brink, the closest of the seven ponds, Crunlop was already there, equipped with a thrilling colection of nets, poles, metal detectors, rotating tharbins, crimping irons and bait. The major domo stood at the dining room window, peering out through the drizzle towards the ponds. A fight had broken out among three of the guests. Mackintoshes had been removed and boxing gloves donned. At first, only noses were bloodied; then, there were gunshots and wailing. Before long, all three guests had managed to drown each other, and all in the same pond. But which pond? And was it the same pond that contained the lead box? And the Icelandic Fontoon? The major domo turned away, hooting quietly. He trudged into the kitchen and made a start on the porridge-encrusted bowls. The wind was coming in, and he had work to do.
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