CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: THE GURGLING JAR

In the dark of night Griselda sees the jar of her memories as well as Professor Stroggleoff and the teacher of comparative religions in bed together...

The first thing that Griselda noticed when she crept furtively in the dead of night into Professor Stroggleoff's office was the large camp bed against the wall on the opposite side of the room to the door, and the second thing she noticed was the fact that he wasn't alone, but next to him and snoring loud enough to alert the residents of the nearest town fifteen miles away, was a huge and white-headed personage with the kind of breasts most women would fight to possess.

There was only one person it could be, and Griselda couldn't help but giggling silently to herself. Professor Stroggleoff was sharing his boudoir with none other than Miss Damienne Bustthruster, the mistress of Comparative Religions. And that august female was lying on her back with her nose protruding into the air, and she was snoring like none other. Griselda wondered how the diminutive form of the professor could get any sleep at all with all the noise going on until she noticed the rather large pair of emerald ear plugs tucked into his elf-like ears.

That helps me quite a bit, she thought. If I make any sounds barging around in this room he'll stand no chance of hearing me, so I should be safe enough. Yippee!

There was very little light in the room, but she could just about make out the major details. Where she was standing, next to the door, there was little of note, but the camp bed with its two snoring inmates was under the window directly opposite, and the whole lot was illuminated by the thinnest shaft of starlight sneaking through a gap in the curtains.. That left roughly half the room to her left and a wall against which there was a wardrobe and a chest of drawers to her right.

The far side of the room, the half to the left of the bed, was mostly in darkness and she could make out very little of what might be in it with the exception of something gurgling and twinkling almost visibly in the night-black shadows.

Most interesting, she thought. I wonder what that might be, though I reckon I can guess.

She slowly tip-toed from the door to the darker half of the room. A second sliver of moonlight found its way past the heavy curtain that hid the window above the camp bed and touched the floor where she walked, almost promising to guide her, like a finger of light showing the way.

Eventually, and making no unnecessary noise, she found herself standing by a strange looking glass jar, and it was that jar that emitted the gurgling and twinkling effects she had noticed from the doorway.

I wonder if I dared risk a little light, she asked herself. I'd like to see exactly what's going on here.

She glanced back in the direction of the bed. The gross shape of Miss Damienne Bustthruster was heaving itself on to one side and snorting even louder than her previous snores had sounded. Professor Stroggleoff tossed and grunted and lashed out with an involuntary sleeping fist and caught his bedmate full on the end of her nose. The Comparative Religions lecturer shouted out in her sleep as he struck her, sat bolt upright for a moment before sighing and falling back to a snoring repose. It was like a scene from a comic opera!

Just a little, then, decided Griselda, and as if by magic (well, actually by magic if the truth was known) the room glowed eerily as if a false dawn was heralding a brand new day, and she could see quite clearly what the glass jar was doing.

It was three-quarters filled with a liquid that was shining with a light like no colour Griselda had ever seen, as if a brand new chrome hitherto unseen by human eyes had been created in that weird office by the eccentric professor, and the light from it was what had attracted her attention as the gurgles were all accompanied by a luminous twinkle.

But strange as that jar was to look at it by no means surprised her as much as the hand-written (or scrawled, rather) notice by it.

entwhistle life strands

it read, and Griselda shivered.

Suddenly she knew what the strange sensation in her had been when she had woken up. Suddenly she knew that by some spell or incantation the repulsive professor had drained her memories and copied them, and there they were, in that jar, gurgling away. Her memories: her life, everything she had done, every little thought she had ever mulled over, the innermost secrets from the depths of her being. She was certain that she was right, and she was angry.

Nobody has the right to do that, she thought, nobody has the right to steal another person's past! And anyway, why would they want to do it? What could the purpose possibly be? Why would anyone want to make a copy of what goes on in my head? My secrets are my secrets, and that's the way I want them to stay!

She stood there, still dressed in her most seductive clothing and with her young long legs spaced apart, and frowned. Something very evil was afoot, and for some reason the lousy professor had poked fingers of thought deep into her and extracted her identity bit by bit, and there it was, at that moment, in a glass jar and bubbling away as if it was the creation of a mad scientist from the world of macabre films.

She wondered what she should do. Was the stuff poisonous if she were to do the wildest thing, and drink it? After all, it was her, the innermost parts of her being, and she had every right to it. Or should she spirit it away and decide at a later time what to do when she had pulled herself together and thought through the problem?

There was one thing that was obvious to her, though, and that was something had to be done, somehow, here and now, before the wretched old professor woke up.

Her thoughts were broken into by the low and apparently sexy voice of the no-longer snoring Miss Damienne Bustthruster, and her heart gave a lurch.

“So what little pretty have we here for the lovely teacher to caress and cuddle and be loved by?” she asked, and Griselda remembered that first impression she'd had of the woman, of a butch creature in pursuit of an endless parade of young females in her search for what she probably saw as love.

“And what is the pretty little thing doing here anyway, with that naughty skirt and those lovely breasts tormenting a poor old woman whose dreams are so sterile these days she has to sleep with the old farting Stroggleoff or die alone of boredom in her own cot? Is she after something, maybe? Does she want to snuggle up to her little Damienne under silky sheets? Does she feel the need to hold me tight and close … does she? Please, oh please, say she does!”

She might have continued along that vein, but her sleeping companion woke up at that moment, and rubbed his eyes. Professor Stroggleoff pulled a bright green set of earplugs from his large ears and smoothed that long and uncontrollable beard of his with one casual hand.

Then, when he saw what was going on, “It's Entwhistle!” he howled, and with remarkable agility he leapt out of bed. “It's Entwhistle, you sex-starved fat fool, and if she gets her hands on that gurgling glass of magic we're done for!”

“I'll see to it then, Strogglykins,” boomed Miss Damienne Bustthruster , and she leapt towards Griselda.

And Griselda had no choice. In that instant she knew what she had to do, what was the only thing she realistically could do. In that instant she grabbed the gurgling, glittering jar and held it to her lips.

Barely pausing to think, she tipped it back and drank deeply of it.

“For Cretin's sake, stop her!” bawled the Professor. “It'll be the ruination of us if she drinks that!”

“Are you calling me a cretin?” demanded the Damienne creature, turning to face him with a look of total rage on her face. “Calling me a name like that, and to think I let you shag me!”

“Any port in a storm,” leered the professor, distracted for long enough to allow Griselda to swallow the remainder of the jar that allegedly contained the essence that was she.

And the feeling that suffused her whole being after she had initially delighted in the sweetness of the fluid was one of such total euphoria she felt she could combat the world, all the nonsense that was Stroggleoff and his silly University, and win. She was suddenly aware of her own power, and the feeling was good.

And she might have done just about anything but for the sudden entrance of Anne Boleyn, Spotty and the good Constable Lockemup, all of them bedraggled and clearly as weary as weary can be.