Sprout Mask Replica by Robert Rankin Read Free Book Online

with you. What would you
say to a helping of untold worth?’
    ‘I’d
say thank you very much indeed.’
    ‘Well,
there’s treasure chests all over the place, why not fill your pockets?’
    ‘Can I?’
Norman’s mouth dropped open and his eyes grew rather wide.
    ‘Least
I can do for you, old man. After all, if you’d never suggested that I eat my
motorbike, I would never have formulated my theory about iron, been visited by
the fairy folk and come to gain all this.’
    ‘No,
you’re right,’ said Norman. ‘You’re absolutely right. Where are the treasure
chests?’
    ‘Well,
there’s a big pouch of jewels over there,’ said my uncle, pointing. ‘The
fairies only delivered it today, I haven’t got around to opening it yet. Help
yourself, dig in.’
     
    Now there are some among
you, and you know who you are, who just know what’s coming next. And
churlish of me it would be to deny you your triumph. I could simply leave a
space at the bottom of the page for you to write it in yourself, but then that
would be to deny the others, who hadn’t seen it coming a mile off, and who
might cry, ‘Cop out ending!’
    So here
it comes.
     
    ‘This pouch here?’ asked
Norman, spying out a large furry-looking purse-like thing with silver
attachments.
    ‘Yes,
that’s the one.
    And of
course it was.
    Norman
opened up the opening bit and peered inside.
    ‘Emeralds,’
he cried. ‘Emeralds the size of tennis balls.’
    And in
he delved, most greedily.
    And
then he said, ‘Hey, these aren’t emeralds, these are sprou— And snap went the
sporran of the Devil, gobbling him up with a single gulp and concluding with a
huge highland hogmanay of a belch.
    ‘Baaaaaaeeeeeuuuuugh!’
by the sound of it.
     
    Uncle
Brian reclined upon his couch, blew upon his fingernails and buffed them on his
robe. ‘That will teach you, you bastard,’ said he. ‘Revenge is sweet, oh yes
indeed. Are my dancing girls there?’ And he clapped his hands.
    Clap-clap.
    And he
brought on the dancing girls.
     
    This is
not, of course, the end of the story, but it’s all there is for now.

 
     
     
    MURDER
IN DISTANT LANDS
     
    A captive tribesman told to me
    How many ships that went to sea
    Wound up on ancient coral reefs,
    Their crews devoured by wild beasts.
    I used to lie awake and wonder
    If what he said was true.
     
    A captive tribesman said he saw
    A twenty-masted man-of-war
    Sail out from fair Atlantis Isle.
    He said he stood and waved a while.
    I used to sit for hours and wonder
    If what he said was true.
     
    A captive tribesman told me when
    He and his fellows lived on men
    They found washed up upon the shore.
    He said he’d eaten five or more.
    I used to gasp, my mouth wide open,
    If what he said was true.
     
    My father said the man was mad
    And though I really trusted Dad
    I thought about those pointed teeth
    And how those sailors came to grief
    And I am still inclined to think
    That what he said was true.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    3
     
    THE
ALPHA MAN
     
    ‘Caricature
is the tribute that
    mediocrity
pays genius.’
    OSCAR WILDE
     
     
     
     
    WHEN YOU ARE YOUNG AND
FOOLISH YOU BELIEVE THE THINGS YOU are told. And why
should you not? You have yet to learn the terrible truth that most adults lie
most of the time.
    Whether
the captive tribesman who lived in our shed told all of the truth, I do not
know. Certainly the tinker I sold him to, in exchange for five magic beans, was
not being altogether honest with me.
    I
recall my dad saying that the tribesman was easily worth six.
    My
Uncle Felix told all of the truth. And it got him in trouble. He wasn’t my real
uncle, because his surname was Lemon. [8] And ours wasn’t (or isn’t). But we called him Uncle, because those were the
days when children called adults Mr or Mrs or Uncle or Aunty, and would no more
have thought of using their Christian names, than telling a lie.
    Uncle
Felix, or just plain Felix, was a much-copied man.
    ‘Look
at that,’ he would cry, as he stared