Читать книгу Mr Landen Has No Brain - Stephen Walker - Страница 7

‘Touch your toes, female, and you shall learn what it is to be brought to ecstasy by a supreme master of love making.’

‘Thank you for your generous offer but since I’m an engaged woman and I forgot to give you any genitals, I don’t think I’ll bother.’ Having finally got him back into her mobile home, and out of the wheelie bin, Teena stood Lepus before her. Mr Landen was hugging the rabbit’s right leg. He was four foot tall, his flat head was as wide as his shoulders, and he had no neck. His one huge eye and one tiny eye gazed adoringly up at the rabbit as he stroked its leg a little too fondly for her liking. Still, she should have been grateful that someone was taken with the thing.

And perhaps Sally did have a point about Lepus but the situation might yet be saved. She said, ‘If you’re going to impress Sally into wanting you as a boyfriend–’

‘Oh, no, I don’t want to be her boyfriend,’ said Mr Landen in a voice half Peter Lorre, half childlike, ‘I’m happy with my bunny.’ And he rubbed his cheek against its fur to prove it.

‘I was talking to the “bunny”,’ she said.

‘Oh.’ He stroked on.

She told Lepus, ‘If you’re to be her boyfriend, you’ll have to smarten up your act.’

‘Smarten up–?’

‘No more sexual boasting. And a little more style.’

‘Style?’

‘Young women like style. It shows a man’s more than an animal. And to help you achieve that style, I bought you something to put on your head.’

‘Is it a carrot?’

‘Generally speaking, wearing a carrot on your head isn’t stylish.’

‘In rabbit circles, only the king rabbit gets to wear a carrot on the head. The rest of us must watch in envy as, once a week, he parades before us beneath his carrot.’

‘How quaint. But I think you should settle for this.’ From behind her back, she produced the black fedora she’d been hiding.

He studied it, nonplussed. ‘And what is this?’ He sniffed at it.

‘It’s a fedora.’

He nibbled its edges.

She said, ‘If you want to be a master of the night, you could wear that and a monocle, and perhaps carry a silvertipped cane. Let’s see how it fits.’ She stepped forward, yanked it from him, made sure the nibbled side faced the back and, stretching on tiptoes, attempted to place it on his head at just the right tilt.

‘Run, bunny, run!’ Mr Landen urged. ‘She’s trying to strangle you!’ And, half barging the startled rabbit over he pushed it toward the closet in the far wall.

Teena watched them flee. ‘Mr Landen, you can’t strangle someone with a hat.’

Half pushed, half running, Lepus said, ‘Quiver, female, quiver, for I am heading for a cupboard.’

‘Mr Landen?’ she asked still holding the hat.

They ran into the closet.

They slammed the door.

And she heard them lock it from the inside.

Then there was silence.

She watched the closet door, baffled. If she hadn’t known Landen was Britain’s leading brain scientist – herself excluded – she’d think him a complete moron.

Lepus’ door-muffled voice said, ‘Quiver, female, quiver, for now I am in a cupboard.’

Some days weren’t worth climbing out of bed for.