GRISELDA UP AND AWAY

It's time to find away to breakfast and out of the Whitehouse....

Griselda looked around her and cackled with glee when she saw the range of domestic appliances stacked on shelves in the broom cupboard.

“We need to get out of here,” she hissed at Bumptious, “I reckon he’s about to press that big red button, and it isn’t the one that flushes the toilet.”

The big red button looked important enough to strike fear in Bumpy, and he nodded his head. They both looked around what wasn’t much more than a small and somewhat intimate broom cupboard with, incongruously, a golden toilet at one end, a toilet on which the President was still perched, stroking an angry cat.

“I’m the greatest, as you’ll know already,” that august gentleman said in quite conversational tones. “I tell everyone because it’s the truth. Oh, I know there’s fake news floating around, newspapers and television networks that ought to know better, but I’m in the best position to tell you. There never was a President with a higher I.Q. than me. And so I know that if I press this glorious red button a whole army of guards armed to their teeth will descend on us and fill my little bog here with heavy fire, making sure they miss me, of course. And, you know, I might do that at any moment. Yes I might...” as his fingers moved restlessly towards the red button.

“See that Hoover?” hissed Griselda at Bumptious pointing at a dusty and geriatric vacuum cleaner from the second world war years (or earlier). “It’s just the job! I always did like the more modern flying machine when there aren’t any besoms at hand! Now be a sweet boy and push open the door a squeak while I check there’s fuel in the tank...”

“What are you blathering on about, woman?” asked the President, still stroking his p***y cat. “that’s one of our prize historical pieces, that is, they say it was used by Abe Lincoln himself when he spilt his oats on the boardroom floor! I’m going to have it coated in gold and mounted in a cabinet where all can see it, when I get round to it, but meanwhile it’s a joy for an American President to soak it up with his eyes while he’s taking a dump, a reminder that we’ve always been a great vacuuming nation...”

Bumptious, without making it at all obvious what he was doing, pushed the door open an inch or two, creatying a gap which he hoped Griselda would interpret as a squeak.

“We Americans know a thing or two about technology,” continued the President, his eyes half closed as he examined the ceiling with the other half. “The good old U.S. of A. is king when it comes to domestic products,” he continued, almost chanting as though from a hymn sheet. “We make the best and always have,” he added, a tear dribbling down his cheek.

“Quick! Climb aboard!” hissed Griselda to Bumpy, and with astounding alacrity for a lady of her advanced years she sprung onto the cleaner they were looking at and, seeing that he had no other safe choice, the Parish Councillor followed behind her, his heart as low as it could get and still be able to beat.

“There’s a label here that says Made in the United Kingdom,” Griselda told the President, and then before he could respond she proceeded to shout “Whoo-ee! Off we go!”

And off they went, she and Bumptious, perched rather precariously on the handle of the elderly Hoover machine, she with a look of intense concentration on her face and he struggling to remain upright.

The door, the one that Bumptious had opened, flew outwards as Griselda kicked it, and they were off, down the dark corridor as though they were being pursued by devils. Behind them the President’s plaintive voice begging to see the label that implied that his knowledge of domestic manufacture was somewhat faulty could be heard, loud and clear, declaring that the sign on the machine was clearly as fake as CNN and that he knew it was a fact because facts were what he dealt in, real facts not fake facts.

There was a sudden and deafening wailing as sirens sounded and mechanical voices through loud speakers could be heard issuing orders to anyone in earshot, though the words vacuum cleaner weren’t amongst them. Apparently, it seemed, the Whitehouse was under attack by aliens from another continent, though which continent was unclear, and they were to be shot dead on sight or, and this may have sounded a little contradictory, apprehended and questioned under torture.

To Bumptious matters were getting a deal too serious, and a knot in his stomach warned him that vomit couldn’t be too far away. As a councillor he was fond of putting lesser people under pressure and yet not so good at handling pressure himself. Politicians are often like that.

Griselda perched on her antique machine and with a frightened passenger clinging on for dear life just behind her, passed several armed guards, but for some reason they were all unprepared for what they saw and by the time any of them reacted the two hurtling along just below the ceiling and at break-neck speed were long out of both sight and range.

“I need breakfast!” squawked Griselda, “and I smell cooking!”

“J-just get us out of here!” stammered Bumptious, “it’s n-not safe!”

“We’re all right up here, near the ceiling,” squawked Griselda, and as she spoke her words were shown to be of dubious reliability as a bullet whined passed her head.

“Right!” she shouted at everyone and nobody, “that's quite enough of that!” and she spun the broomstick round and faced the single marksman who was alert enough to be ready to take a second shot at her.

“You!” she shrieked in an almost imperious voice, “pull that trigger and it’ll be the last thing you do!”

Invader alert! Invader alert! Armed invaders must be shot on sight or apprehended and taken to the dungeons, barked a loud speaker, and it was echoed by others throughout that wing of the Whitehouse.

The marksman hesitated. The situation was totally incongruous and he couldn’t believe the evidence of his own eyes. He was on the point of deciding that an army of old ladies on vacuum cleaners was taking over the President’s headquarters and that he had better surrender or become a cauliflower, a possibility that gained more than a touch of credibility when his fingers developed green and white fluffy extrusions and he dropped his semi-automatic weapon and started weeping cauliflower tears.

“There, there,” murmured Griselda, sounding very much like a mother comforting an upset toddler, “Diddums, my pet! Soak them in boiling water or, if you prefer, eat them raw while they’re still crunchy! Yummy!”

“What have you done to me, ma’am?” asked the man. “I’m in the most responsible army of guards protecting the President, and he’ll give me the sack if he thinks I’m a cauliflower! He’s a hard man, is the President, he’s always telling us that he’s the hardest man we’ll ever meet...”

“Now, my sweet young man,” squeaked Griselda, grinning broadly, “you’ll be perfectly all right if you leave that nasty gun of yours on the floor and watch us as we fly off. We’re test-pilots checking the President’s latest range in hand-to-hand weaponry and he won’t be best pleased if we’re interfered with.”

Then she turned to face the way she’d been going and the vacuum cleaner and its passengers swooped off while she squawked “Breakfast time!” at the top of her voice.

Bumptious sighed and shook his head when he saw the sign just ahead of them, the one indicating they turn right for the private dining room, and bile rose into his throat when they turned right…

© Peter Rogerson 26.02.18