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Ptomaine Street by Carolyn Wells

C >> Carolyn Wells >> Ptomaine Street




* * * * *

Ptomaine Haul.

Two Petticoats arriving. A happy Warble sprang from the car and seemed
fairly to skim up the steps. She passed, unnoticing, the pantry door,
and flew up to her own rooms which had been done over to suit her new
slenderness.

"Beer," she cried, "look at me!"

"Maddum!" cried the astounded Beer. "What done it?"

"Unrequited love and pickles. I can wear sport clothes now!"

"Maddum can wear anything or nothing!" declared Beer triumphantly.

That night, Warble, her hands behind her, wafted into Petticoat's room.

He sat on the edge of his bed, running lingerie ribbons in his underwear.

"I'll stay, always," Warble said, sidling up to him. "And I'm happy.
But..."

"Look out! Don't let the cat get that bolt of ribbon to play with!"

She smoothed his pillows and patted his sheets, while Petticoat glanced at
her a little suspiciously, from under his gabled eyebrows.

"But I don't say that Butterfly Center is worth the ground it's built on. I
don't admit that Ptomaine Street is as useful as a Hoboken alley. I don't
admit that Art is any good at all. I've fought like a tiger and I didn't
make a dent on the Butterflies--but, I _have_ grown thin!" "Sure, you bet
you have!" said Petticoat, threading ribbon into his gold bodkin. "Well,
kiss me good night--here you--I see you! Don't you put those caterpillars
in my bed!"

THE END

John Crace digests A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell

My English teacher is wearing a barrister's wig. He turns and points towards me as I sit trembling in the dock. "Members of the jury, I put it to you that this man, Tom Robinson, is innocent," he says, rather lugubriously. I want to protest. I want to shout that no, I am not Tom Robinson, but yes, I am innocent! But the words won't come out.

Then I wake up. It's another literary dream – one that's troubled me ever since I studied Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird for GCSE.

Most of the time I'm disappointed to leave my literary dreams, waking to realise that I'm not really ensconced with with the boozing Welsh pensioners from Kingsley Amis's The Old Devils or haven't really been thrashing Harry Potter's Quidditch team. I remember with fondness a skiing trip with William Shakespeare and the delightful discovery that Don DeLillo was serving drinks behind the bar in my local pub.

It's not all sunshine, though. Tom Wolfe once ruined a trip to New York, shouting at me across Fifth Avenue: "You're not even familiar with my work – get outta town, asshole!" But that's nothing on Howard Jacobson. I spent a summer discovering his novels during my waking hours and bumping into him in my sleep. I'd see him in a local restaurant and tell him how much I was enjoying his novels. "Oh right," he'd snap, "that old chestnut, huh?" When I met him for real last year he was, in fact, charm personified. I didn't tell him about the dreams.

But enough about my subconscious, what about yours? It's Friday: forget about work and tell me all about your literary dreams. Don't hold back – it's not like we'll read anything into it.

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