VANILLA GUSSETT GETS A GOOD RUBBING AND DENNIS HEARS HIS NAME.

A Pie On Words

Being the almost exact dimensions of a medium sized planet and with the amazing ability to be picked up on every radar screen in the country simultaneously, it can be safely said that Vanilla Gussett was a fatty; a portly porker of immense proportions; a fat harvesting freak bordering on the occult, immune from the ravages of hunger and the temptation to wear hot pants. All this, coupled with the fact that she was, what Quasi Modo called after their first and only date, the most grotesque thing never to have been in an accident. It is little wonder then, that she has acquired the personality and acumen to rival that of an old German ss guard or more frighteningly a blind arthritic lollypop lady. A better understanding of her dreadful ugliness can be gained from the fateful incident involving Colin Crompton, the local postman, who, after accidentally catching sight of her through the letter box whilst posting a letter one day, began to instantly foam at the mouth, and then, turning his head towards the moon which was still visible at that hour of the morning, he began to howl fiendishly at it before biting himself on the leg, causing it to drop off three days later.

‘It was ‘Orrible,’ confessed a still delirious Colin from his hospital bed. ‘Bleedin’ ‘orrible. I’m only too glad she didn’t manage to get both eyes looking in the same direction or I’d be a garden statue for sure.’

There was one person, however, who seemed immune from her dreadful ugliness, and that was Dennis Yougoodfornothinglittlemaggot. Actually his last name was Hardlydaringtobelievehiseyes, but Vanilla never called him by his last name, even though Dennis wished more than anything to be called by his full name, if only once. You see, Vanilla Gussett was his Aunt and as long as Dennis lived with her then she could call him anything she liked. How Dennis came to live with his Aunt no one really knows, but live with her he did. And sleep too, in the fridge, wrapped up in an old lettuce leaf to keep warm. It was Dennis’ job to make sure his Aunt Vanilla’s fridge was crammed full from top to bottom with every kind of bun, cake and fresh cream delight that had ever been invented or could fit between her ravenous jaws. But unlike his Aunt Vanilla, who would guzzle and gorge down dozens of these treats each day, Dennis was never allowed even the slightest nibble. Not even the tiniest crumb was ever allowed to pass his lips. And as his Aunt Vanilla grew fatter and fatter, poor Dennis grew hungrier and thinner until one day he came up with a cunning plan to stop himself from starving to death. Dennis, out of sheer desperation had fashioned an old crusty pair of Aunt Vanilla’s knickers into a kind of knife, the end of which was as sharp as any scalpel in any hospital in the whole of England. And with it, Dennis would cut the thinnest of lines into any cake or bun or pie without leaving the slightest trace. Then, into this cut Dennis would insert a straw. Not any kind of straw, mind you, this straw had to be so fine and delicate so as not to leave the slightest trace also, otherwise the game would be up and Dennis would be punished within an inch of his life, or worse. To make this extraordinary straw Dennis used a piece of Aunt Vanilla’s ear wax that had dropped out from one of her ears one day. This was rolled and rolled and rolled into the thinnest of straws, no thicker than one of the hairs on the end of his Aunts chin and then left behind an old stinking piece of cheese at the back of the fridge to harden. After inserting the straw into lets say, an apple pie, Dennis would then place his lips on the bit left sticking out and suck as hard and as fast as possible, gulping down all the delicious innards as he did. The result of this marvellous feat of ingenuity was this: The apple pie looked just as it always had on the outside, mouth wateringly tasty. But on the inside there would be nothing but air and pastry.

 But what about when Aunt Vanilla comes to eat it, surely she will catch poor Dennis out just by taking one tiny bite out of it? I hear you ask. But as we all know, Aunt Vanilla was so enormously greedy and gluttonous that she never took a tiny bite out of anything. In fact she would swallow whatever it was she had in her chubby little fingers whole. Be it a gigantic gateau or a puny profiterole. Down her throat it went without one single chomp from her hobnail choppers.

And so we come to a morning when Aunt Vanilla, who is laid out across the settee like a colossal food eating machine made out of a real life cut"out of herself, and who, by an invention called eating has just polished off her 5^th plateful of cakes ,each plateful comprising of:

 1 strawberry tart:

1 raspberry tart:

1 raspberry finger:

2 jam doughnuts:

2 fresh cream fancies:

1 xl fudge slab:

1 chocolate slice:

1 chocolate gateau:

And all this was washed down with a pint of full fat pouring cream.

'Mirror!' she gurbled, sucking out the last bit of chocolate gateau from her tonsils and pointing across the living room to a full length rickety old mirror set up on four rickety old castors. 'Get me my mirror Yougoodfornothinglittlemaggot!' she gurbled again, this time pointing at it with more urgency.

'Dennis, who was just scrambling to his feet after falling over a large chunk of his Aunts earwax that had somehow dislodged itself from her ear and fallen at his feet, demolishing a nearby coffee table on its way, did as he was told.

'There you go, Auntie,' he said,  turning the mirror towards her so that she could see every flabby fold and beauteous bulge in the reflection opposite.

Vanilla sat motionless for a moment, as if she was ogling some priceless piece of art, and then, with the gusto of a famous opera singer she suddenly burst into song:

I am me!

I am beautiful greediest me!

I'm quite simply gigantic, enormous, colossal- bigantic!

I'm huge I'm not small I could fill Albert hall -

What a beautiful thing to be me.

 

I can eat a cake shop in one sitting

Forty boxes of chocs without quitting,

If I had half a mind to-

I could well be inclined to

-Start over again, food permitting.

 

They say I've no stomach to diet.

'Lazy lummock!' they scream. 'You must try it!'

I just laugh from my belly

Till it wobbles like jelly,

'Come on then,' I say, 'come and fry it!'

 

It is said I'm too lazy to chew.

It's an art, It's not easy to do.

I just open my gob

And with a flick and a lob-

Down the hatch, tallyho, toodaloo!

 

The next sound Vanilla made was that of air rushing into her gaping gob as she inhaled sharply, and then it rushing back out again as she screamed at the top of her lungs,

'reeeeemove it- at once! Yougoodfornothinglittlemaggot!'

Vanilla's eyes were no longer ogling on a priceless piece of art, but bulging on a horrible nasty stain. And if it wasn't for her fat eyelashes getting in the way then her eyes would have popped out of their sockets completely and rested on her chubby scarlet cheeks.

'I want rid of that nasty stain - immeeeeediately! You'll pay for this Yougoodfornothinglittlemaggot - see if you don't!'

Dennis shrugged his shoulders innocently and then peered into the mirror to see what his Aunt was raving on about.

'Uuuuggggghhhh!' he winced, taking a step backwards in alarm and narrowly missing another piece of earwax that had just dropped out of his Aunts ear. For there, on the very mirror itself, ingrained in the glass was the most unsightly stain Dennis had ever seen. Its cause, Dennis realised instantly was his Aunts horrible reflection.

'Don't worry Auntie,' he said, suddenly remembering something his great great Grandfather had brought over from Ireland on a four leaf clover during the great Leprechaun famine of 1842, I'll get rid of it.'

Dennis thrust his hand deep into his trouser pocket and fished out a small glass bottle. On the front scribbled in ink it said: 'POWDERED LIQUID’. Dennis flipped it over in his hand and under 'DIRECTIONS FOR USE' Dennis read: 'JUST ADD WATER'.

'I'll have it gone in a jiffy, Auntie,' assured Dennis, mustering all the spit he could. And then, after quickly removing the bottle top, Dennis deposited the contents of his mouth into it and waited to see what happened next. He didn’t have to wait long. In no less than 10 seconds the 'POWDERED LIQUID' began to fizz and foam and little sparks of lightening could be seen bouncing off the inside of the glass.

'Are you watching Auntie?' said Dennis, giving the bottle a little extra shake for luck before splashing the mixture all over the mirror. And then, using the sleeve of his tatty old jumper he began to rub at the stain. All at once the unthinkable became thinkable. The unimaginable became imaginable. The unmoveable became moveable, and slowly but ever so surely the stain began to fade and disappear. But that wasn't the only thing that began to fade and disappear. With every rub Dennis’ Aunt Vanilla Gussett began to get smaller and smaller and thinner and fainter, until finally, the only thing that was left of her was a huge dent in the settee where not a moment earlier she had been sat.

'WOW!' said Dennis Hardlydaringtobelievehiseyes.