Working for Big Audrey

What great shows you put on last week Kid! If the five great shows next week, are as good as the five great shows last week, then we are in for another week of great shows. After a week of great shows, Tommy my cat and I like to chill out at the weekend. We wash our smalls, cut each others hair and generally just hang loose round the hood. People come up and say.

"Hey, what's happening man?" And either Tommy or I will reply, "Nothing much dude. Just hanging. Loose as a goose and slick as a rattlesnake."

Then we go into a routine of high fives and fist bumping, that takes between forty and forty five minutes. There are two main gangs in our neighbourhood, The Crips and the Bloods, but Tommy and I have our own gang called the Cripes and Be-jeekers.

Saturday morning was different. On Saturday morning Tommy and I were woken early by an urgent knocking on our pyjamas. It was big Audrey, mother of the renowned Tubby Nolan.

"Listen up punks," said Big Audrey, "and listen good. My son, Tubby--I mean-Steven is out of town. I want you two punks to babysit his house, until-Tubby--I mean, Steven returns.

Do a good job and I'll make it worth your while."

Big Audrey went to my purse and said, "I'm gonna pay you up front. Here's two pounds and seventy four pence."

"Oh thank you Mrs Tubby!" yelled Tommy.

That utterance got the unthinking feline a back hander across the puss.

With a feeling of apprehension and slight nausea Tommy and I stepped across the thresh hold of Nolan Manors. I felt a chill run up my back and a rivulet run down my leg.

Tommy boaked and cried, "I'm going to be sick!"

"No you're not Kid,"I replied. "Think nice, pleasant thoughts.Think, Dana, Wendy Austin and the Pips, Frank Mitchell's wee grey trousers."

Tubby's mansion was, as the song says, Cold As Ice.

The walls were painted matt black. The only furniture was a heavy, custom-made Lazy Boy reclining chair and a footstool. The chair and footstool were pulled up close to a gigantic fireplace. The only decorations were a few Sonys scattered around the floor. On every wall hung a massive portrait of Tubby. Tubby face on, Two profiles of Tubby and above the massive fireplace a large portrait showing, in graphic detail, the back of Tubby's massive head. Each portrait was signed by the great Russian portrait painter, Boris Slapiton.

Over in the shadows, in a corner, stood a large trunk. The trunk must have weighed a ton. Tommy looked at me and whispered, "Tubby's drawers. Shall we have a wee peep?"

"Are you mad?" I hissed. "The lid of that chest is probably spring loaded. If we open it, we will be engulfed in a sea of drawers."

"Good thinking, Window Woman," said Tommy.

"It's WONDER Woman!" I yelled,"Not Window woman."

Tommy and I made good use of the Edgar Allen and decided to take a little nap in Tubby's chair.

"While wewere napping, suddenly there came a tapping. Someone was loudly rapping, at Tubby's big front door.

I skipped to open the door, thinking it was big Audrey. But NO! A man stood there. A big pink, fat, naked man wearing nothing but a large nappy.

"Oh hello!" he said, in a Charles Hawtrey kind of way. "My name is Peregrine, I am Tubby's good friend and neighbour. Will you please enquire if Tubby wants to come out and play Sumo wrestlers?"

"Sling your nappy fat boy," I yelled. "Tubby Nolan has left the building." And I slammed the door on his big, round, fat, pink face.

Oh, the things that go on in suburbia.

"I need a drink!" I yelled. "Follow me Tommy and we will raid Tubby's wine cellar."

We stood before a massive steel door. We could hear the low hum of a generator.

DO NOT ENTER, warned a big sign on the door.

"Ulster/Scots knickers!" I yelled and I flung the big door open.

Tommy and I stood there, mouths agape. We found ourselves in a big hangar, not filled with wine, but filled with Tubbies, mechanical robotic Tubbies.

"The Tubbies are going to take over the world!" I yelled."Send for Matt Baggott and his invisible men."

Then I stopped and yelled, "NO! Stall the wedding. These robots might make a better job of running the country, than the robots we have up in Stormont NIGH!"

All this and more have I seen, as Lynda Byrons and I played, Pass The Orange, with an onion outside her hen house. Later the crumpets-UUUUUM! Melt in the mouth. They just melt in the mouth.