Speccie Hard Boiled Blyton by 5th Feb
 

This is better but still no poetry. I think our best men will win here which isn't me. But I'll have bash. Mike Hammer I think. Really nasty.
No. 2835: hard-boiled Blyton

You are invited to submit an extract from a classic of children literature of your choice rewritten in the style of hard-boiled crime fiction (150 words maximum). Please email entries, wherever possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 5 February.

(OK, I admit it - I got a head-start by looking at the Spectator website before John posted it here. I think Lucy has lost count - it ought to be Competition No. 2834, since the previous one was 2833, but who am I to quibble?)

I sized up the opposition. We were heavily outnumbered. They were going to be a tough bunch to crack, but we’ve seen worse, and I knew we could do it.

The leader stared at me. I stared back, stroking my whiskers with a menacing air that never fails. In the end he looked away first, just like they always do.

My partner was testing a chisel on the edge of his thumb. “Waddaya tink?” he asked me. “I think these suckers ain’t as tough as they look”, I said. I could see that some of the gang were starting to tremble.

“OK”, muttered the leader. “We’re ready to talk.”

“Talk?” I said. “What about?”

The leader looked confused. “Well, anything you like. Cabbages, kings, whatever.”

“We ain’t here to talk”, I sneered. My partner moved forward with his set of carpenter’s tools. “We’re here to chew down some lunch.”

I don't think this quite fits her bill, but nevertheless. What IS the name of the other girl?

Five Minus Two

I looked at the huddled form. Whatever anybody was selling, Julian had unquestionably bought it.
'George, what will we do now?'
'You've done quite enough already.'
'He was horrid to the dog.'
I looked at the other huddled form. Somebody had certainly been horrid to the dog.
'So I hit him.'
With a five iron. Good. If you were going to rub someone out golf-wise it was undoubtedly a five iron shot.
'Why did he do it, George? It wasn't like him.'
I had to agree. Julian was a Grade A prat. But kind to animals. 'I think we can postulate some mind-altering drug unknown to Science.'
'George, what will we do now?' Her script was lousy.
'Get the hell outa here. There's a tent in the garden. Hustle, baby.'
'Oh George, you're so masterful.'
'You ain't seen nothing yet.'
I gave her bottom a proprietorial pinch.

ROFL, John. But tough crime fiction has earned the reputation of being a repository for masculine wish-fulfilment. Is this a peek into your fantasy life?

You mean I'm a lesbian in my fantasy life. Could be, Bazza. Particularly if I can sleep with the young Gwyneth Paltrow dressed as an Elizabethan man.

Charlotte's Web
 

‘Hey, bud,’ a voice whispered from above me. I looked up to see this arachnid broad hanging from the rafters by a thread.
‘Hey yourself,’ I said. This little lady was hot stuff all right; legs up to her abdomen. Eight of ’em. Yeah, I counted.
‘The Zuckermans mean to rub you out, huh? That’s too bad.’
I shrugged. ‘I guess.’
‘Ain’t you scared of being turned into bacon, mister pig?’
‘Me, scared? I ain’t scared of nothing, sister.’
‘Name’s Charlotte.’
I nodded. ‘Wilbur.’
‘So you don’t want rescuing any, Wilbur?’
I snorted. ‘What are you planning on doing, honey? Spinning me a rope so I can crush out of this can through the goddamn window?’
She gestured over at a web with one of her perfectly formed pins. ‘Get a slant on that, wiseguy.’
‘SOME PIG,’ I read. ‘Now where did you pick up a trick like that?’

Anne, I think.

You're right. I looked it up. That's where I got Dick from which was just too good to miss. I never read a Famous Five novel I am glad to say.

I woke at my desk with an empty bottle of hooch on my lap. My head was throbbing mimsily and outside my window the city was brillig. The wabe was full of gimbling toves, frightening the nearby mome raths. It was one of those days.

The phone rang. My old man. "Son, I owe spinach to the Jabberwock. He’s coming after you. Beware! "

On cue, the doorknob started to rattle. I slid open my drawer and pulled out my roscoe, which is a good thing since I like breathing, a hobby I’d have given up if I hadn't been ready to plug the Jabberwock on its beezer as it broke my door into splinters. Pop, pop, one, two! He was zotzed.

I galumphed from the room and called my dad from a pay phone. "That's frabjous," he chortled upon hearing the news. "You're one beamish hombre, let me tell you!”

I was really thinking of the bottom-pinching fetish.

Does an interest in women's bottoms count as a fetish?

I never realised I was a pervert.

Everyone's a pervert. That's one of the things that keeps life exciting.

Rob, I think it just makes you a fetishist. It's having no interest in women's bottoms that would make you a pervert.

hmm
 

Somehow the specific 'proprietorial pinching' element has been elided.

I am standing outside Mindy’s one morning when Jack the Donkey appears. “How are you, Eeyore?” I ask him, for that is his local moniker. “Not so good”, he tells me, “I am losing my tail.” I peer round him, but there is no sign in his snappy suit of even a rudimentary tail. I ask him to tell me more. He explains that he is referring to a piece of tail called Maisie who ditches him after a squabble. “I am sure she comes back to you”, I tell him.“No”, he says, “She informs me yesterday it is over.” “So what will you do?” I ask. “The best I can”, he sighs, and pulls a rod from beneath his coat which he sticks in his ear. “Do not do it!” I say. “There must be another solution. Let us consult Olly Bubo, who is a wise old bird indeed.”

I have removed the Dick.

Does an interest in women's bottoms count as a fetish?
I never realised I was a pervert.

Rob, perhaps in France you would be a culvert.

That's clever

The Gorila of St Custards
 

I'm trying to work up something for N Molesworth but struggling, struggling....

The usual evening murk: Molesworth paused at the dorm door. He didn’t know what was balanced above it, but it sure as hell wouldn’t be nice. Peason was in the San, Grabber, the shit, was having “cocoa” with Grimes: and Foth-Tom was busy with his tadpoles. The daisy’d be gone a good while. He caressed the solid warmth of the Intergalactic Prune-Blaster in his blazer pocket: the theft of the Mrs Joyful Prize for Rafia-work was being pinned on Porridge Court, but Molesworth’s hunch centred on the soppy verse-lover. Big-time. That nature stuff was just the kind of cover they’d swallow whole at St Custard’s and then order seconds. Jamming an extra-strong gob-stopper between pursed lips, he eased the door. The crash of a jar packed with dead tadpoles – there must have been thousands but who had time to count – shattered the silence. That boob couldn’t even fix a trap.

Business was slacker than a boozer's belly. I was sitting at my desk hoping that drumming my fingernails would help to drum up some trade.

And apparently it worked. Three creepy-looking individuals appeared in my doorway: one was dressed in black velvet, the second in some kind of stripy outfit, and the third had a face like a rat. Still, times were tough, so I asked how I could help them.

“We have a friend who keeps getting into trouble, Mr Marlowe, and we’d like you to keep an eye on him.”

I was about to point out that I don’t do baby-sitting unless I’m looking after a genuine babe. But then they mentioned the fee. It would keep me in hooch for weeks.

“OK”, I said, “where do I need to go?”

“It’s a place in England”, said the rat-faced one. “A rather handsome country-house called Toad Hall.”

I’d have had the dame as a dope fiend if it hadn’t been for the bottle of giggle-juice in her hand: ‘Drink Me’, it said. Seemed she’d done just that. She was a dish, I guess. Dressed like a real classy pro skirt anyways, but talked crazy.
‘You’re a caterpillar,’ she said.
‘Sure I am, sweetheart.’ I took a long drag on my juju pipe. ‘And who are you?’
She shrugged ‘I know from nothin’ anymore.’
I’m telling you, this kid was a mess.
‘Being so many different sizes in one day sure makes you jingle-brained, you know.’
I pulled out a couple bags of mushroom. ‘This’ll sort your noodle, kitten.’
She took a glom at the dope. ‘What does it do?’
I jerked a nod at the bag in my right flipper. ‘This one’ll make you high,’ I said. ‘And this one will too.’

Brian, the tale of Eeyore's tail is more than somewhat nicely done but I do not think Damon Runyon counts as a purveyor of the hard-boiled...

Shhh, Gregory - don't tell Lucy!