Poor Little Miss Muffet!
Arachnophobia
The trouble actually started when Little Miss Muffet was busted for gambling. She was operating under the alias of Wax Liploc. I think she was involved with the Pumpkin Eater prostitution/white slavery ring, but making bets was the only thing we could pin on her. She was out on the street again in less than a year.
My name is Deadbolt, Hasp Deadbolt, and I'm a private eye. I'd been hired by the City on a temporary basis. They'd been short-handed since the Jack Horner debacle. I had the job of seeing that Muffet went straight.
For a while she seemed to be adhering to the requirements of her probation. She spent a lot of time in the library, checking out books on explosives and poisons, and audio-visual items like "Arabic in 4 easy lessons" but I wasn't fooled. She was a pie waiting to spew birds, a shoe waiting to vomit kids.
Then it happened. She was in the park, eating a light lunch on a sort of portable stool she'd brought with her, and I was pretending to sail a small boat in the pond. It was not easy with no wind. I heard a scream and looked up. A wolf spider the size of a small horse was hitting on Muffet. As I ran up I heard it say "Hey baby, how about you fly into my parlor?" It wrapped a few hairy legs around her and sat down right on the tuffet with her. Muffet screamed again and wrenched herself free. She whipped out the umbrella that she always carried with her and she brought it down. Again. And again. And again. I jerked it out of her hand. She was still screaming. I slapped her once, twice, and she shut her mouth with a shudder. She was spattered from head to toe with spider guts. All she would say, over and over again as she was led away, was "I hate spiders!"
Oh yes. She got off on a plea of temporary insanity. If you ask me, that girl is going to be trouble.
The end
This story, and many other tales featuring the redoubtable Hasp Deadbolt, are to be found in Nursery Rhyme Noir. And we do meet Muffet again.
Reviews
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wual/arts.artsmain?action=viewArticle&sid=14&id=1470478&pid=217
http://www.fantastique-unfettered.com/2011/06/nursery-rhyme-noir-hasp-deadbolt-files_03.html
http://www.slothjockey.com/books/bryant_shelly/hasp_deadbolt.shtml
Print book
http://sdpbookstore.com/anthologies.htm
Ebook
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/42875
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3 comments:
I love this! I plan to read it to my nephews, just as soon as they are old enough to be properly demented!
I am so glad you liked this. I am working on two chapbooks of stories and poems I wrote for my daughters when they were very small (between the ages of one and five or thereabouts). One is "The edible zoo," which is a lighthearted approach to carnivory. The other is "Bad Roberta." She is extremely bad. That book is just waiting for two more illustrations from my youngest daughter, who is now grown up. You will hear about it when they become available of course.
Egad! I love this Nursery Rhyme Noir parody stuff! My favorite kind of clever humor.
Cheers!
Amy (Loving SF & F for a life time in NYC)
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