Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish (12 page)

The lawyers of Chatham, Chitham, and Chump sipped their tea calmly at the boardroom table and discussed the fact that they were filthy rich. They didn't address the point directly, but enjoyed alluding to their great wealth in such a roundabout way that someone who didn't follow conversations easily would almost think they were poor if they hadn’t been smiling so smugly. They would say things like, "It's a shame, you see, because Dorothy wanted to invite the Dutch side of her family on the cruise but the yacht had only twenty bedrooms and we simply couldn't accommodate all of them," or, "The King of Spain wanted us to spend another night with him, but after living in the palace for three months, it felt as if we were imposing."

The lawyers were well off because the firm used its talents for one very rich client. The client was so very rich that they didn't need to have any other clients, and actually turned work down on a weekly basis. The client in question was none other than
Neville Bartholomew Snell Jr III, eccentric billionaire extraordinaire.

The law firm of Chatham, Chitham, and Chump had been founded on Neville's first brush with the law, which happened not long after he'd made his first ten million pounds. Someone sideswiped Neville's brand new Mercedes while traveling along the M6. The large, beat-up sedan that did the swiping belonged to a thirty-something-year-old university dropout who lived a semi-comfortable life as a Shropshire restaurant owner. The restaurant specialized in serving cheap, pre-cooked, frozen for most of its life, food. The restaurant owner was of Greek descent and his name was Erastos.

Erastos liked hitting rich people's cars, as it gave him a sense that he was sticking it to
The Man
, which really wasn't the case and wasn’t a good phrase to use on a regular basis anyway.

Erastos' act of stupidity made Neville realize that he had a severe love for eccentric forms of revenge.

After having his Mercedes repaired, he hired a group of men to hunt down Erastos’ car and steal it. The car found itself shipped to Africa and dropped in the middle of a small, newly built arena. Around the same time that the car was sprayed inside and out with rhinoceros pheromones, a singing telegram showed up at Erastos’ front door and indicated, rather musically, that he'd do well to turn to Channel 3. He did so, along with the rest of England who hoped to catch
Coronation Street. Coronation Street,
for possibly the first time ever in history, was not on. But there was a special documentary about African rhinoceros and the effects of pheromones. In the arena in Africa, Neville's camera crew transmitted live a group of enraged rhinos beating the living hell out of Erastos’ car, and then proceeding to try and have sex with it.

The impending lawsuits from multiple animal rights groups, several avid watchers of
Coronation Street
, and one lawsuit from a Shropshire restaurant owner kept the lawyers of the newly formed Chatham, Chitham, and Chump busy for the following couple of years. They charged ridiculous amounts for their services but had a real knack for tying things up in the British legal system forever.

The lawyers called their respective secretaries and ordered more tea. A large red phone installed on the boardroom table was a direct line from Neville's personal assistant to the lawyers and it came as little surprise when the phone suddenly rang. Neville hadn't had any lawsuits for at least three months, so it was around that time again.

"Chatham, Chitham, and Chump, Charles Chitham speaking," said Charles as he answered the phone.

"Matthew here, Charles. Neville has asked that we move to a yellow alert. We have a possible situation in London," said Neville's assistant, Beatrice.

"Splendid," said Charles, "we will be at the ready," and hung up. He addressed the rest of the boardroom. "Good news, chaps, looks like we'll have a busy month, we're now on yellow alert."

There were several mutterings of approval and just as the great legal minds of Britain began to jump into action, more tea arrived and they all decided there was probably time for one more cup.

Jeremiah the goldfish was at this moment chasing his tail. He didn't remember seeing it behind him before, but had the distinct feeling that something had been following him for quite a while. When he finally worked up the courage to look back, he noticed his tail. The smug way it wiggled at him made Jeremiah feel it was making fun of him, so he decided to chase it. This had been going on for just over three minutes when he stopped, couldn't remember what he had been doing, looked around, and then got the distinct impression that something was following him.

Nigel wandered through the streets of London. Life had been so much simpler this morning, hanging off a building, and then all of a sudden, his once stable life had been taken to with a rather large sledgehammer, destroying reality as he knew it to be. He kicked an empty pop can out of anger and frustration, only to have it hit an unsuspecting seven-year-old boy in the head. The boy burst into tears as Nigel ducked into a nearby alley and continued moping.

He hadn't moped in such a long time that it all felt rather unfamiliar to him. The last time he moped was back in college. Things seemed fairly simple back then, as well.

The early morning sun flung rays that danced from drop to glistening drop of dew sitting atop the grass in front of St Mary's College, Birmingham. As anyone from Birmingham would understand, it was a complete rarity for anything to be dancing across the grass, especially sunlight, as England constantly loses sunlight to nicer, brighter countries like Australia. Ironically, Australia was the place where England sent its criminals. They were caught doing some illegal act in a dreary, dank, and gloomy country where drizzle was a common factor throughout the day, and then they got shipped off to a beautiful sandy beach, very close to the Great Barrier Reef. Punishment was obviously a skewed thought in everyone's mind, back in the olden days. Probably something to do with the rain falling and softening what were obviously already very soft heads.

Nigel had been attending St Mary's for the better part of a year already and learnt fast that college was a place to grow. A place where his talents and intelligence were unmatched. A place where he experienced a breakthrough. Everyone, at some point early in life, experienced those sorts of days when everything seemed perfect. Literally perfect. And everyone knew that perfection existed because they had that perfect feeling inside of them. It felt like their best and favorite emotions battled amongst each other, only they were not really battling, they were dancing. Nigel had one of those days when his breakthrough happened.

He woke up in the fourth-floor apartment in the student housing building, much as he always did. He rolled out of bed on the left side, just like any other day. He stepped over an unconscious roommate, just like normal, because there was often an unconscious roommate or two lying around the floor in the morning. Usually a product of a heavy night’s drinking. The kind of heavy night that caused people to wake up to find someone had painted their feet blue and they had a traffic cone glued to their head. Nigel half staggered, half slid over to the full-length mirror that his roommates had bought so they could take naked pictures of themselves, a common practice among British college students. Nigel looked at his reflection and saw how horrible he looked.

He grimaced and wafted a hand dismissively toward the mirror, which subsequently and quite unexpectedly smashed into a million pieces which organized themselves not entirely so neatly on the floor. Nigel looked at his hand, looked at the smashed mirror, then continued on to the kitchen. He rubbed his head and wondered why there was a strange tingly feeling somewhere in his frontal lobe. Then he remembered the night before.

His friends had gone on a pub-crawl, which was traditional on any night of the week that wasn't a Thursday. Thursdays were special. On Thursdays, it was an ironclad tradition to play
Hide the Kipper
, an altogether different kind of drinking game that involved several pints of beer and a few dead fish. The rules for
Hide the Kipper
were as follows:

Preparation: All you needed were two pints of beer per person, per round, a stopwatch, a pen and paper to keep score, and a dead fish. Preferably, a kipper, as that was the name of the game. If a kipper was unavailable, then any dead fish could be used, but the name of the game must be altered accordingly, i.e.,
hide the herring
,
hide the smelt
,
hide the cod
, etc.

The game takes place on the doorstep of someone's house or in front of a student apartment building, otherwise known as
home base
.

Rules:

The participant takes a pint of beer in his/her right hand and the dead fish in the left hand.

A moderator must stand to the participant’s left to observe alcohol consumption and to operate the stopwatch.

A scorekeeper must stand to the participant's right to keep score as directed by the moderator.

At the moderator’s command, and usually a whistle or a good solid
Go!
will suffice, the stopwatch is started and the participant must down the entire pint of beer.

If the participant downs the entire pint without stopping, then he/she is awarded one point. Upon finishing the beer, the participant must throw the glass up over his/her shoulder where the other participants await their turn. The participant who catches the glass is awarded one point.

The participant with the dead fish must then run out into the street, followed by the moderator, and find a passerby, otherwise known as the
victim
. Upon finding the
victim,
the participant must then shove the dead fish down the victim's trousers and then leg it back to the
home base
.

Upon reaching home base, the participant must then down the second pint of beer, where he/she will receive another point if he/she manages to drink without stopping. As soon as the second glass is empty, the stopwatch is stopped.

Points for time are awarded as follows: One minute and under, ten points. Between one and two minutes, eight points. Between two and three minutes, six points. Between three and four minutes, four points. Between four and five minutes, two points. Anything after five minutes is minus one point and the failing participant must drink another pint.

The next person steps up with his/her pint and dead fish and the game continues until everyone has a turn.

Then the second round begins.

Games normally last ten rounds, or until the beer runs out. The points really don't matter; it's mostly to do with shocking strangers by stuffing dead fish down their trousers.

Nigel grinned at the memory of last night's shenanigans. They must have hit about seven pubs in the space of three hours. Probably the reason for the fuzzy feeling in his head. Although, at the moment, the fuzzy feeling in his head was matched only by the gooey feeling in his heart. The reason for that feeling was Harriet.

Harriet was a fellow student, majoring in Biology, and had a love of riding expensive horses that her daddy dearest was all too happy to buy for her. Harriet and Nigel had been seeing each other for a month and Nigel was ecstatic about her, especially since, last night before the shenanigans began, he clearly remembered Harriet telling him that she loved him. What could be better than that, he thought? He'd had a fabulous night out, his girlfriend told him that she loved him, and he had no classes today. Things were going perfectly. To prove the point, he stood in the centre of the kitchen and stretched happily, throwing his arms out on either side. What he didn't expect was exactly what happened next.

The kitchen window exploded outward, the kitchen cupboards splintered into many small pieces, cutlery scattered everywhere, dishes and crockery exploded, and Nigel grasped his forehead as huge lightning bolts of pain threw themselves around inside his head. Gradually, he passed out. First, the kitchen became kind of blurry. Then he saw the vague shape of one of his roommates, obviously one who wasn't unconscious, standing in the doorway of the kitchen with a kind of shocked expression on his face. Then Nigel's world turned to watercolour and everything kind of slipped off the page. And then everything went black.