Search Results for 'replied'

Forums Search Search Results for 'replied'

Viewing 20 results - 221 through 240 (of 457 total)
  • Author
    Search Results
  • #3836

    “Cheers!” said Bea, batting her eyelashes at Gustave while trying to suppress a grimace at another round of cackling coming from the contest in the function room. The combined effect was an alarming expression sensation saturation, and Gustave took an involuntary step backwards. He bumped into Linda Pol, who was wrapping her luscious lips around an authentic straw and sucking up voraciously the glowing rainbow cocktail.

    Linda! Fancy seeing you here!” Gustave exclaimed, trying to suppress a cackle at the sight of the rainbow cocktail running from Linda’s nostrils as she tried not to choke.

    Gustave! What on earth are you doing here with that old slapper!” she replied in between coughs and splutters, with a dismissive glance at Bea.

    Fortunately Bea was cackling so loudly at the sight of Linda choking that she failed to hear the remark.

    Not for the first time, Consuela, dolled up to the nines behind the bar in a purple wig and elaborate make up, wondered what it was about humans that they found it so amusing when people choked.

    #3825
    TracyTracy
    Participant

      Gustave jumped when the phone rang, his heart hammering unpleasantly. Get a grip! he told himself sternly. Hesitantly he answered the call, expecting to hear an ear grating cackle.

      “Can I speak to Leonora, please? It’s Bea here,” the voice requested.

      “Er, sorry, I think you have the wrong number,” replied Gustave, feeling like a fool as he tried to calm his shaking hands.

      Leonora Butterworth?” insisted the voice calling herself Bea.

      Startled, he said “Ah, Butterworth’s the name, but I’m afraid I don’t know anyone called Leonora,” and then, astonished, he heard Bea start to sob and mumble incoherently.

      “I’m so sorry, was it urgent?” he asked, already feeling a responsibility to help the unknown woman. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

      “It’s the cackling,” Bea answered with a sniff, “It’s driving me mad. I thought a chat with Leo might help take my mind off it, but I haven’t seen her since the fiasco in Spain and I don’t know where she is, I was hoping this Butterworth number would be her and…..” her voice trailed off disconsolately.

      “It’s driving me mad too,” Gustave was surprised to hear himself say. “I say, er, Bea,” he cleared his throat, “Would you fancy meeting for a drink in the Spotted Dick Inn? To, you know, take our minds off it?”

      Gustave had regained his scientific composure somewhat, and was considering the benefits of an unexpected opportunity to research the effects of the cackling on the ordinary population.

      Bea readily agreed, old tart that she was, and said she would be there in half an hour.

      #3820
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        “Oh Patty, you naughty ratty!” exclaimed Bea, as she trundled into the kitchen to make her morning coffee. “I left you your marie biscuit on top of the microwave as usual and you haven’t even touched it. But look at my banana!”

        The banana had been dragged from atop the bowl with the oranges, across the kitchen counter to nestle between the greasy gas cooking rings, the skin neatly opened in a perfect square cut.

        “I was going to have that banana on my toast this morning,” Bea grumbled crossly. “You are overstepping the line now, Patty Ratty.”

        “But Bea,” replied Patty, “I’m a new age ratty, a healthy ratty and a global warming conscious vegan ratty, and I do prefer a nice banana to a lousy factory made cheap biscuit, don’t you know.”

        At least, that is what Bea imagined the rat might say, if it could speak. Everyone knows rats don’t speak. And notwithstanding, the rat had retired for the day and wasn’t in the kitchen anyway.

        “I’m a raw food vegan gluten free health food rat!” shouted Patty from under the wood pile just outside the kitchen door. “You’re trying to kill me with that crap food!”

        Momentarily speechless at the audacity of the uninvited guest, Bea struggled quietly with her roles and responsibility beliefs. Should I serve the food the uninvited guest prefers? Or should the gatecrashing rat be grateful for the food it was given?

        #3818

        Evangeline Spiggot admired her long crimson polished nails before pressing the button for the Noise Control Officer, Ed Steam. He answered the call with a muffled “hwellflow?”

        Ed, are you eating peanuts again? Vangie here, just had a call from Muffin Mews, another complaint about the cackler, over in Cakltown this time.”

        “Cakltown! I say, she’s frightfully efficient, she must have finished Bunbury already, I must see the boss about giving her a bonus.”

        “Oh, I don’t think Bunbury’s finished yet, Ed, you know these freelancer chancers, they don’t usually stick to the plan. Hedging her bets, I expect, covering her trail. Most of Tartlett Terrace has been insantizied, but I haven’t had a single call from Croisssant Crescent in Bunbury yet, nor Pieman Park.”

        “This mission is taking a good deal longer that I imagined,” replied Ed. “Might have to see if we can insantitize en masse at the bake sale next week at Lemoine Meringue Hall.”

        #3771

        In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

        TracyTracy
        Participant

          “Ah, well. There was a slight problem with the Flexibility Factor,” replied Finnley 22. “The technology is sophisticated ~ but to put it in the simplest of terms, the staff are, well, a bit simple. Simpletons, you might say.”

          Eb waited patiently for Finnley to furnish further facts on the flexibility factor, but no further facts were forthcoming. “Er, so…” he prompted politely.

          “Some dingbat down at the lab put the flexibility factor into the structural skeleton instead of the memory banks, Eb, it’s as simple as that. We had planned to use them on other missions in the future, with adjustments to the memory banks. But unfortunately now their memories are fixed, so at the end of this mission they will all have to termitated. It’s such a waste ~ that flexibility factor doesn’t come cheap!”

          “Oh dear” replied Eb. “Is there any way to fix the bending? I mean, look at them.”

          They turned to watch the monitor. The blue creatures were tying themselves in knots, joining themselves together in myriad shades of linked limbs like a chain. It was a most peculiar sight.

          “Well, there is an antidote, but that doesn’t come cheap either. We can dose them all up with Rigidity Receptors, but the dosage is tricky. It could go horribly wrong.”

          “It looks like it already has,” replied Eb.

          #3744

          In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

          ÉricÉric
          Keymaster

            Prune was listening to Maya and Yz, not daring to talk, much less to disagree.
            Yz was back to the planet from her maintenance drill on the mothership, and had found their remote outpost overloaded with new clueless settlers.
            Now, even Maya, who was always the understanding one was fuming at the vexing situation and couldn’t help but complain about the new Mars settlers’ manners (or lack thereof). The matter was of importance, but somehow Johnny couldn’t help but find it hilarious.

            Johnny! Stop laughing, it’s not at all funny!”
            “I’m sorry, it’s the nerves!” he replied “I didn’t want to poke fun at your horror story, Mum.”
            “You damn right, it IS a bit of a horror story. Well, I don’t know what kind of a story it is. These new settlers that moved here are disorganized conflict and chaos all the time. And now nobody has a permit for sand scooter but me. So everything I do takes me 6 times as long with everyone else… and its hot!”

            She paused a little, smiling at Prune, then turned to Yz, who seemed equally annoyed by the recent mess.

            Prune ventured a word “But you really love the idea of cooperative community sharing, don’t you.”
            Maya nodded, then continued “but it sucks! IT SUCKS!… and it’s all a bit weird too. It’s a daily juggle with what I’m willing to say yes to, and where I draw the line and say no.”

            She sighed. “But some of it is fun, obviously. But much of it isn’t. I think everyone is struggling with finding themselves disconcertingly in a totally new place.
            The new place for me is never being alone to do anything, where before I almost always was, and really wanted people to do things with. But they are LATE and I can do things on my own easier.
            I prefer being a hermit while preaching about community. And doing things my own way while pushing for cooperation!”

            It didn’t help that Maya had agreed to help organize the event for Mother Shirley (though the party had changed the event location to the nearby fancier townlet of Romars without notice, instead of their rugged but peaceful village).

            The event had attracted the usual throng of nuts and illuminated sycophants, which would have dissolved just as well, if not for an unusual occurrence: Mother Shirley had claimed to have a divine vision by merging consciousness with the AI of the ship. She had seen floods and rains. Image that! As if water on Mars, was not ludicrous enough, now floods!
            All of a sudden, all hell broke loose and the religious nuts managed to create a panic, and had loads of people rush for the higher ground… Well, you guessed, to their previously quiet outpost.

            Of course, she had said nothing of the water-rocks she and John had found. Better not to encourage the nutters.

            Strange new place, indeed…

            #3743
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              “There are times when only complete nonsense will do, Percy,” stated Elizabeth with an air of triumph as she leaped out of her chair and started pacing the room. “Praise plastered particles pinched primly, pointedly, pairing plump parrots in pink painted plantpots!”

              Striking a pose by the fireplace and pausing dramatically, she continued, “ Hail heavy heart handling harpsichord harpies home; hell bent high water, high hopes, heaving half hanging helplessly, hunkered and hungry.”

              She sunk to the floor, overwhelmed with emotion.

              “Sing softly,” she whispered, rising. “Sail slight, slanting sun shadows, sand sifting surrender, oh softly, so softly,”

              Elizabeth swept over to Percy with outstretched arms, imploring, “Swill silkily slithering serpentine whispers waft willowy, willingly, winsomely waywardly west.”

              “Quite,” replied Percy succinctly.

              #3742
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                “It’s not hard, you know” said Finnley. “I don’t know why it bothers you so. You simply knock on her door and politely explain that you are doing her a favour by removing the cat from her patio before it dies and starts to smell. What’s the worst thing that can happen?”

                “She will glare at me with her hateful beady eyes, and purse her lips and snort a bit,” replied Liz with a sigh.

                It was Finnley’s turn to snort. “Why you rebel you. You fearless revolutionary, afraid of a sour old woman.”

                “It’s pretending to be nice that’s the hard part! Smiling and pleading to be allowed into her patio, while all the time I’d like to knock her down and say You decrepit old boot, haven’t you heard it crying for 3 days? And then there’s the worry that i won’t be able to catch it anyway, and the battle trying to change my energy…”

                “Would you like me to come with you, dear? Moral support?” asked Finnley in a moment of kindness.

                Liz beamed gratefully at her friend. “Well if you’re going there anyway, there’s no need for me to come with you, is there?”

                #3738
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  “Well, here we all are again!” Liz beamed, after a momentary pause in which she considered snorting. Not finding that snorting was consistent with her mood, notwithstanding the sparkle in the air of anticipated unexpected impishness, she beamed, and beamed again as she looked around the room.

                  No one spoke. There was a sense of suspended animation for a few moments, or was it longer? A bit like holding ones breath while easing into a hot bath. Or perhaps not a hot bath, thought Liz, delicately mopping the sweat dripping down her cleavage with a paper towel.

                  Finnley, have you seen my reading glasses anywhere?” Liz asked on impulse.

                  Finnley’s sunny beam shifted as she rolled her eyes and replied, “I saw them in a dustbin on Brighton Pier.”

                  “My god, it’s started already!” Godfrey exclaimed, although he wasn’t at all surpised. “ Have you seen the new dragon tree in the park?”

                  #3737

                  In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

                  “When I suggested you didn’t encourage fluffy words, Blather, I had something a little more subtle in mind,” replied Medlik, “Something in the nature of an elegant panache, a light but swift and decisive flair, that sort of thing.”

                  “I didn’t say a word!” replied Blather, astonished.

                  Medlik looked disconcerted for a moment. “Ah!” he said, “Not yet you haven’t.”

                  “That’s meddling, you could get fined for that, old boy. Struck off the Time Slip register. Under Now arrest.”

                  #3720
                  TracyTracy
                  Participant

                    “I knew you’d have something to say about that Godfrey, but hear this: no comments at all doesn’t count much for a manuscript either,” Elizabeth snorted. “Pass the tissues please, Godfrey, I seem to have snorted a bit too much.”

                    “At least there is the possibility of a random daily quote sync, I suppose,” replied Godfrey, while averting his eyes to Elizabeth’s chin. “Which is not to be, er, sniffed at.”

                    #3716
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      “Do you ever wonder what happens to your people when you’re not there, Dan?” Elizabeth asked, still drowsy from spending the morning lolling around on the bed, reading and napping.
                      “Why, yes, I do” he replied, which surprised Elizabeth somewhat.
                      “Do you make them do things, and then wonder if they really wanted to do that? Like when you send a blacksmith out to the forest because you need more firewood, do you wonder if he resents that?”
                      Dan sighed. “I know what you mean.”
                      Elizabeth had started patting his shoulder kindly when she asked about his people, when he said a few had starved to death because he didn’t provide enough food, or when a tornado flattened his people’s houses.

                      #3710
                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        “Baby? What baby?” asked Liz. “I thought that baby had been dealt with in the last chapter, it seems ages ago. Has anyone been feeding it, do you think? What happens to all the characters when nobody writes about them? Are they glad of it, happy to do what they want? Or are they bored and frustrated at having nothing to do? Do they like being plucked from whatever they were doing once in a blue moon, and flung into an improbable scenario, and then left there, with no way out even imagined yet?”

                        “You only have to ask,” replied Aunt Idle, pushing the bowl of peanuts over to Liz.

                        #3709
                        TracyTracy
                        Participant

                          Aunt Idle:

                          Why was Mater going on and on about Trout? I scrutinized her face, but she looked innocent enough ~ perhaps it was just a dream, but I couldn’t help feeling it was a sign, or a clue.

                          “Oh, I say, Finley, look at the sunlight streaming through those cleaned windows now!” I exclaimed, distracted by the difference to the room a bit of window cleaning made. “What a good job you’ve done!”

                          “Nothing a bit of elbow grease and buffering with a soft cloth won’t do,” she replied, “Buffer buffer buffer, that’s what I always say, to get everything ship shape!”

                          Why was the cleaner going on and on about buffering, I wondered. And surely the word was buff, not buffer?

                          #3695
                          TracyTracy
                          Participant

                            Haki, did you find that baby a good home?”

                            “I left it at the shrine, madam…”

                            “Please, call me Liz!”

                            “I left the baby at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Yellow Burden, Liz. It’s a busy shrine, I’m sure someone will pick it up and look after it.”

                            “Well, perhaps you could pop back and check tomorrow, just in case it’s still there, Haki.”

                            “I think the thing with shrines, Liz,” Godfrey butted in, “Is not to keep revisiting them.”

                            “Don’t be daft, Godfrey, people flock to shrines all the time.”

                            “Precisely,” he replied.

                            #3687

                            Aunt Idle:

                            “Don’t look so grim, Idle, we’re not staying,” Liz said, “We only came for a mince pie. We’ll be off in a minute but first I must have a word with Godfrey in private.”

                            What a relief, I can tell you! “I’ll go and get him, shall I?”

                            “No, I think I’ll have a word with him in his room, if you don’t mind,” she replied. “I think he has something to show me.”

                            Curiosity over ruled any shreds left of anxiety, and I had to bite my tongue not to ask straight out, not that she’d have told me. Always full of enigmatic little secrets, she was, always had been. It was never a hundred percent clear if she knew what she was talking about and was very clever, or if she hadn’t got a clue what was going on and was winging it. Anyway, the main thing was that she wasn’t staying long, so if we got through the next half hour without any more confusion ensuing, we’d be laughing. Feeling more inclined towards gracious kindness than previously, I beamed magnanimously at her and politely ushered her down the hall to room 8.

                            “Mr, er, Cornwall,” I didn’t know whether to call him Godfrey, and decided against it. His bill was in the name Crispin Cornwall, and I wasn’t about to have him flitting off with Liz and her entourage without paying it. “Elizabeth would like a private word, if you wouldn’t mind.”

                            “Bloody Liz Tattler’s the last person I wanted to see,” he said. “Trust her to just happen to land on my secret hideaway.”

                            My hand flew to my mouth. “Did you say Tattler?”

                            #3674

                            Corrie:

                            I was offering the plate of mince pies to Mr Cornwall, who had been coaxed out of his room for the first time in ages and was sitting next to the gum tree sapling that Aunt Idle had strung with fairy lights in lieu of a Christmas pine, when they arrived. We were all surprised to hear the taxi hooting outside, that is, except Bert. I heard him mumbling something about “She bloody meant it, the old trout,” but I didn’t remember that until later, with all the commotion at the unexpected guests.

                            “Here, take the lot,” I said, shoving the mince pies on the old guys lap, as I rushed to the door to see who it was. A tall autocratic looking woman swathed in beige linen garments was climbing out of the front seat of the taxi, with one hand holding the pith helmet on her head and the other hand gesticulating wildly to the others in the back seat. She was ordering the taxi driver to get the luggage out of the boot, and ushering the other occupants out of the car, before flamboyantly spinning around to face the house. With arms outstretched and a big smile she called, “Darlings! We have arrived!”

                            “Who the fuck it that?” I asked Clove. “Fucked if I know” she replied, adding in a disappointed tone, “Four more old farts, just what we bloody need.”

                            “And a baby!” I noted.

                            Clove snorted sarcastically, “Terrific.”

                            Suddenly a cloud of dust filled the hall and I started to cough. Crispin Cornwall had leaped to his feet, the plate of mince pies crashing to the floor.

                            Elizabeth! Do my eyes deceive me, or is it really you?”

                            Godfrey, you old coot! What on earth are you doing here, and dressed like that! You really are a hoot!”

                            “Why is she calling him Godfrey?” asked Prune. “That’s not his name.”

                            “He obviously lied when he said his name was Crispin Cornwall, Prune. We don’t know a thing about him,” I replied. “Someone had better go and fetch Aunt Idle.”

                            #3673
                            TracyTracy
                            Participant

                              “Who else is coming? Don’t remind me, I can’t bear it,” Elizabeth said fretfully while Norbert opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish.

                              “I have an idea!” she announced suddenly, standing up and crushing a mince pie that had rolled under her desk. “Gather round, come on, come on!”

                              Arona Haki shuffled in with the dustpan and mop, as Finnley blew her nose loudly and wiped the tears from her eyes. Norbert stood silently, waiting.

                              “It wouldn’t matter WHO came,” Liz paused for effect, “If none of us were here!”

                              “But we are here, aren’t we,” remarked Finnley. Norbert and Haki murmured in agreement.

                              “We are now!” replied Liz, “But we could be gone in an hour! We could go and visit my cousin ~ third cousin twice removed, actually ~ in Australia. They have an old inn and it’s sure to be half empty, it’s in the middle of nowhere, and,” she added triumphantly, “It will be lovely and warm there!”

                              “Blisteringly hot, more like,” muttered Finnley, “And would they like unexpected visitors for Chri, er Kri, er, that date on the calendar?”

                              “I’m sure they’d be delighted, “ replied Liz, crisply. “Not everyone is as curmudgeonly about Chri, er, Kri, er that date on the calendar as we are. And anyway,” she added, “If I write it into the story that they are delighted, then they will have no option but to be pleased to see us.”

                              “If you bloody lot are coming to the Flying Fish Inn, I’m buggering off to Mars for the holidays” said Bert.

                              Elizabeth spun round, saying sharply, “Bert! Get back to your own thread this instant! The bloody cheek of it, thread hopping like that, really!”

                              #3659
                              TracyTracy
                              Participant

                                “Just ignore her, Clove,” replied Corrie. “She’s only a maid, she can’t tell us what to do.”

                                #3642
                                ÉricÉric
                                Keymaster

                                  “Madam?” Norbert asked sheepishly “where shall I put the hundred pots of clematis you had Haki order yesterday?”
                                  Liz replied with a hint of exasperation “with the pergola, of course. Geez, Norbert. I thought you would have built and affixed it, by now…”

                                Viewing 20 results - 221 through 240 (of 457 total)