CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: GOODBYE SCRUMBLENOSE

Griselda gains her qualifications at University the easy way

It was noon next day before Griselda (back in her archaic and natural form, because that's how she felt most comfortable) rose and faced the day.

She knew what she had to do.

Scrumblenose University most certainly was not for her. That was as clear as the rather hooked nose on her craggy face. But she had come to the place for a purpose, and that purpose was still relevant to her. She needed a piece of paper that proved she had studied to become a priestess, and that was what she was going to get. The Right Reverend Ian Nigel Thybottom back in Swanspottle still needed sorting, and the day she knocked on his door as a priestess allocated to his church would be the day he got sorted. She was looking forward to it. She was almost puce when she thought of how an expression of almost total horror would cross his perverted sallow face. If she was lucky he might even have a fatal heart attack there and then, and rid the world of a monster. If not, he would almost certainly turn to at least one of the McMudd sisters for a bit of carnal sympathy.

Having concluded that she needed the aforementioned slip of paper (a certificate would suffice, especially if it looked sufficiently learned and educated) she marched to Professor Stroggleoff's office, rapped on the door and marched in without being invited.

He was there, all right, and he was just about to allow his naked body to descend onto the equally naked flesh of Miss Damienne Bustthruster, the Mistress of Comparative Religion, when he caught sight of her out of the corner of his eye.

“Now what?” he groaned. “Can't I have a bit of privacy?”

“Put it in hard!” gasped Miss Damienne Bustthruster, unaware of Griselda's presence due entirely to the intensity of an unusually concentrated hormonal surge.

Professor Stroggleoff climbed off his lover and faced Griselda, who sniggered when she saw the, to her, inadequate dimensions of his wedding tackle.

“I've got a spell that would help you with that,” she murmured. “It's a good spell, quite foolproof and capable of generating quite a lot of extra excitable flesh if that's what's wanted.”

“Get out of my University!” shouted Stroggleoff. “Everything was lovely before you came here, and now everything's horrid!”

“All in good time,” chided Griselda. “First, you mentioned there were a hundred and one of you, all neatly cloned and waiting for you to die. That seems rather a lot ... so where do you keep them? It isn't fair of you to have so many chances in a life you've already made a mess of.”

“I don't, you foolish woman. I was boasting and bragging and … that's what I was doing! I wanted to scare the living daylights out of you and your toady chums! I wanted you to believe in my omnipotence! But the truth is there's only the one of me and I'm here in front of you and doing my best to administer carnal pleasure to this wonderful woman here!”

Griselda thought for a moment. It all made sense, though why the stupid man hadn't made clones of himself for future use she couldn't fathom.

“But why...?” she asked.

“Why not? Think of it, woman! The only person capable of bringing a clone of me to life would be me myself, and if I needed to do that I'd probably be incapable of doing anything, a gibbering idiot in the depths of senility. Quite unaware of what to do with anything let alone something as complex as the complicated business of re-lifing a clone. So instead I do have a wonderful tincture that provides very long life to those who swallow it, though I wasn't going to waste any on that silly Boleyn woman. It's very precious and getting even more precious as my supply shrinks.”

“That makes sense,” murmured Griselda. “Right then, Prof, no doubt you need my silence...?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, querulously.

“I know a lot about you and this " er " establishment. In return for my absolute and guaranteed silence I want something from you.”

“You do?”

“Of course I do! I want a piece of paper that guarantees that I have completed my course of learning and am qualified to be a priestess any time I like!”

“Oh, that? Is that all?” asked Stroggleoff, his mouth open wide. “I'd have thought...”

“Phooey to what you'd have thought!” snapped Griselda. “I came here for one thing and if I get that one thing you can fly off and be Pope. See if I care! But remember " Popes aren't allowed to go around shagging, and if I make that rather ridiculous willy of yours a few inches bigger in both length and girth, then you might not be quite so keen on Popery!”

“Oh, please...” whimpered Miss Damienne Bustthruster

“I've always wanted to be Pope,” sighed Stroggleoff. “It's always been a dream of mine … all the wealth … all the power … all of everything....”

“Do it, then, Stroggly. Follow your dream. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to follow my dream,” sighed Griselda. “That's what life's all about. Right then, Prof, the certificate " and I'll be out of your hair and far away before you can say Jack Robinson.”

“Why would I want to say that?” asked Stroggleoff.

“It's just a saying...” sighed Griselda. “You are out of touch with reality, aren't you?”

A naked and ridiculous (to Griselda's eyes) Stroggleoff walked with an unbelievably silly and very naked walk to his desk, opened a drawer, removed a sheet of paper that had ornate scrolls and printing on it, signed it with an almighty flourish and handed it to Griselda.

“Take this!” he growled. “And may it do you good!”

“It will,” sniggered Griselda. “You can bet it will.”

ooOoo

She left the Professor with the woman in his life as she grabbed him by his tenderest parts, pulling him towards her with the sort of violence that can make men weep, and made her way to where she knew Constable Lockemup would be, in Lucifer's room and probably fast asleep still. It had been a wearying few days and the good policeman almost certainly needed his rest.

She was right. She opened the door quietly and went in. He was lying head-to-tail with the student, and they were both snoring loud enough to waken the dead in Targon Woods.

She rubbed one of his shoulders gently, and he opened first one eye, then the other and finally both of them, and sighed a rather weary sigh.

“What is it?” he hissed.

She put one finger on her lips. “Sshh!” she hissed. “Come on " we're off! I've got what I came for, so that's that.”

“What about Spotty?” asked Lockemup, looking at Lucifer who was still sleeping peacefully, his dreams a million miles or more away.

“He'll forget it all,” replied Griselda. “Our life is too complicated for a simple soul like him, and anyway, you'd find him competition in the bedroom department! Now come here. We're going home, and I'll give you a lift!”

And she produced her broomstick from, it seemed, nowhere. She sat on it and pulled Constable Lockemup onto the wooden shaft behind her.

“I hate broomsticks, “ he muttered, “they're just not safe.”

“You could always walk,” she told him.

He sighed again. “It'll have to be the broomstick, then,” he muttered. “Just as far as my car, that is. I'll drive the rest of the way.”

“The trouble with you is you've no sense of adventure,” she admonished him. “Climb on board and I'll send your car home on its own. I feel that I might need a bit of company and the road's not that long.”

“I can't win, can I?” he asked.

“Not really,” she smiled, and “Right!” she said. “Swanspottle!”

And they passed through the glass window of Lucifer's room without so much as cracking the glass, and into the afternoon air.

Down below the world was peaceful. Nobody looked up to see a witch and her passenger in flight, but if they had they would surely thought it was a bird racing with unbirdly speed across the pale blue skies of a world that felt like Heaven.