Pure Dead Brilliant

Kiss of Death Titus decided that if there were a button to press that would cause his sister to reincarnate as a cockroach, he would push it without a moment's hesitation. He stood outside her bedroom door, seething, as he read the notice taped to the oak paneling: Pandora's Room entry is absolutely forbidden to any of the following: brothers dweebs possessors of smelly pits & dog's breath one-celled amoebas with memory of goldfish smug, rich jerks the terminally plug-ugly the criminally insane and especially the vertically challenged over 12 yrs. Titus, all of the above describe you, so bog off. Yours Cordially, Pandora Strega-Borgia Pandora's Room StregaSchloss Argyll Scotland United Kingdom Europe Western Hemisphere Earth The Universe The Galaxy "Just because I'm about to inherit all Grandfather Borgia's money and you're broke doesn't mean you have to be so aggressive." Titus's voice bounced off the door and down the landing, but brought no answering response from within. He pressed his mouth up to the keyhole and tried again. "Some people just can't handle other people's good fortune, can they, Pandora?" Over his head, dangling from the cornice, Pandora's pet tarantula, Tarantella, gave out an exasperated "Tchhhh." Titus looked up and shuddered. There was something about the scuttling nature of spiders that revolted him. This one in particular, with her swollen abdomen, gave him nightmares. Titus loathed the entire spider race with a deep and abiding passion. Their gross hairiness, their appetite for flies, their-- The tarantula grinned widely, as if reading his thoughts. "Like it?" she inquired, puckering up her lipsticked mouth parts into a pout. "It's a new one. Now, what's it called . . . ?" Tarantella rummaged under her abdomen with one hairy leg and produced a minuscule lipstick. "Let me see . . . 'Blood-Lust.' Mmm-hmm. Come on, Titus, I know you find me irresistible, give us a kiss. . . ." With a barely stifled shriek, Titus fled downstairs. Trembling, he burst through the kitchen door and was immediately assailed by a stench that defied description. The beasts were already at breakfast and, judging by the state of the kitchen, had been eating for several hours. Sprawled across the kitchen table, Ffup, the teenage dragon, had her vast head buried in her talons. "Don't say it," she warned, gazing down at Titus with her vast golden eyes. "Just don't say it, right? I've been up all night with that wee horror, and now he sits there, wolfs down forty-eight Miserablios, three boxes of Ricey Krispettes, and then does a major dump, downloading the lot into his pants. I tell you, pal, I'm not cut out for this motherhood stuff. I hate changing diapers, and . . ." The dragon paused, peered under her baby's high chair, and whimpered, "Yup, just as I thought, it's a shovel job." "Spare me the details," muttered Titus, edging past Ffup and patting her offending infant on his scaly little head. "Phwoarr, Nestor, you stink, don't you?" The baby gazed up at Titus and grinned gummily, clapping his tiny wings above his head and lashing his snake-like tail back and forth by way of greeting. This had the unfortunate consequence of launching most of the contents of his overloaded diaper into orbit. "Stop. Stop. STOP!" wailed Ffup. "Oh, yeurrrch. I can't handle this. . . . Knot! knot? Come on, help me out here." Emerging from the pantry with a sheepish grin, Knot the yeti shuffled across the kitchen to stare hopefully at his fellow beasts. The yeti's perpetually unsanitary fur was clotted with fetid lumps of food that had somehow failed to make the journey to his mouth. He wrinkled up his fur in the general area of his nose, sniffed deeply in sincerest appreciationGliori, Debi is the author of 'Pure Dead Brilliant', published 0014 under ISBN 9780375814129 and ISBN 0375814124.