Page 114 of Break Out the Girl

They don’t head our way.

But that doesn’t mean we’re safe.

Not by a long chalk.

42: LONDON

We’re in the home of Miss Bernadette.

Miss Bernie, Gurney, bern-is-dead.

RIP.

Such a shame, I think we would have been besties. She had spectacular taste.

Even in the dim gloom of the storm, her double-wide trailer shines like the fanciest prize at the funfair.

You know what I’m talking about?

The things you win when you hook a little duck: a framed mirror which is etched with a puppy, or gold-key chains with sparkly dice attached. Dreamy.

Not that I ever got to strut my stuff at a midway, but really, Miss Bernadette missed her calling. She could have had a carnival stall to end all carnival stalls, filled with crocheted dollies, porcelain poodles, and figures made out of acorn-shells—the punters would have flocked.

Flocked, I tell you!

“Put that down, London,” old Shivery commands, like he’s the commander of this house-of-wonders. I ignore him and continue trying to fit the elephant foot over my hoof. I tossed out all the umbrellas first, I’m not a complete heathen.

Dear Burt is solving the chilly-factor. He’s got his handyman-burly-thing going full tilt. After clicking a button a billion times, the flame and gas finally whoosh in unison. “Lovely job,” I tell him, hobbling in the elephant’s foot to the tiny straw hat display.

“It’ll take the edge off,” Burt grunts. “Is anyone else hungry?”

“Yep.” Basil pushes his goggles on and off his face several times.

He and Skylight are trying to finish up the jigsaw puzzle that was half-done on the little table. All the sheep have been put together already, so they’re having to fit together five hundred pieces of green grass field.

The largest jigsaw puzzle ever had over half a million pieces, but Miss Bernadette’s has only one thousand.

Kitten is standing next to the large sack of spuds that Mum-Bevan gave us. “You’re English,” she says to me. “What’s your best thought for all these potatoes?”

My heart swells. Not only is she asking my advice, she’s aware of the famous British potato-pride.

There are so many choices. “Chips or mash? Or we could do jackets?”

Kitten looks at the sack of brown beauties, seeming a little intimidated. No need. “Allow me. I shall whip up a batch of the finest jackets this little oven can supply.”

That really is the tastiest way forward in my humble opinion.

Old Bernie has some veggie oil in a sticky bottle, so I get to coating the spuds, sticking them with a fork, then tossing them in the oven that our handy-wolf already got preheating.

Now…fillings. Personally I’m partial to cheese and onion, but the pantry pickings are a little on the slimbo-side.

Ooh, tuna!

Chicken of the Sea.

Hmm, so does that mean tuna is the fish of the land?

What a topsy turvy world we live in, and it’s not even opposite day.