Robyn Hoodie, the Virgin Diary: Chapter 3, Scarf-face
Created | Updated Jan 27, 2024
Chapter 3: Scarf-face
Early one morning, we were rudely awakened by a crashing sound from Robyn's room. As it turned out, the electric unicycle she built during the pandemic, and which had such good stabilisation protocols that it wouldn't budge once calibrated, had finally run out of battery power and had thus fallen over on top of Robyn's terrarium as a result. The terrarium that had held her pet snake, the existence of which she hadn't yet told our parents about. She had recently told me about it and made me aware of the difference between venomous and poisonous. (Venomous: It bites you, you die. Poisonous: You bite It, you die). This bit of information was rather useless, as Boa Constrictors are only quantum-poisonous (You bite It, you might die of blood loss or suffocation, not to be confused with Suffolkation, which only happens in the Southwestern bit of the UK))
Robyn called her Scarf.
A Boa Constrictor can be a valuable asset when you regularly need something held tightly while you work on it. (My sister secretly calls the snake a Boa Constructor for that reason). The letting go part of construction did take some teaching effort and the gentle application of a rubberised crowbar at times. Scarf is longer than I am tall, but I won't give you the numbers, because I feel taller than that.
Recently we had some close calls when intercepting home deliveries of frozen rat under the noses of our parents.
This particular early morning, Mom, Dad and myself were standing in front of Robyn's closed door in our PJ's, asking if everything was all right, which clearly wasn't the case. My sister tried to reassure us that everything was OK, and that something fell over as she was just retrieving her scarf. Mom wasn't convinced and opened the door for about half a second before slamming it shut again screaming 'SNAKE!'. While Dad tried to calm her down, telling that that would be unlikely, I managed to slip through the door and lock it behind me.
The carnage in the room was even noticeable over the usual mess, which says a lot. Robyn threw me a set of once pink industrial-grade fluffy bunny slippers to protect my feet from the shards of glass that were everywhere. I couldn't help noticing the bite marks on the slippers. When I mentioned those, Robyn reassured me that she fed Scarf only last week, so I shouldn't worry. Our first priority was to capture and hide Scarf before our parents would manage to open the door. Scarf had slipped under the bed as a result of Mom's scream.
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Robyn went to her wardrobe and managed to wrench open the door against all the debris on the floor. After some rummaging she produced a large tube-shaped woollen scarf that she got from our grandmother, Lady Mary-Anne. It was actually meant to be a sock, but gramps had forgotten how to end one. Apart from that, she also mixed up UK and French foot sizes, turning it into more like a full body stocking than just one sock. Scrunching up the tube to resemble a thick ring, Robyn told me to wave my bunny-slipper-enclosed foot behind it. After some initial hesitation, eying it with suspicion, Scarf slid out from under the bed at a speed that was too great for my comfort, focused on my slippered foot behind the woollen ring. Then she lunged (the snake, not my sister).
I'll now reduce my writing speed to recount what actually happened.
As the snake was almost completely suspended in the air, flying at my foot with her mouth open, fangs out, Robyn held on to the leading edge of the woollen tube, while the rest of it followed the snake through surface friction. At the very last moment, Robyn managed to grab the red tail end of the snake, leaving the snapping head so close to my foot that the teeth managed to get a hold onto the outer fur-ish, pulling the slipper off my feet. Hopping on the remaining foot, I tried to put some distance between me and the snake.
Now we can get back to normal speed, actually showing that my heart stoke rate got much higher in the last sentence.
Robyn calmed Scarf by soft rubbing and weird chanting. She eventually threw me back the ravaged second slipper, just before I was about to fall over. She then draped the Scarf-scarf around her neck, said 'Make way for the bad girl!' and opened the door for Mom and Dad, smiling her most innocent smile.
Mom looked her up and down and said: 'I'm glad you have finally grown past that hoodie stage! I may want to borrow that scarf one day.'
'You wish.' Whispered Robyn, only for me to hear it, while trying in vain to force down the end of the scarf mumbling, 'No no no no...' because the snake tried to react when Mom mentioned its name. Seeing that it didn't work out, Robyn gave Mom and Dad a stern look, turning into an evil grin, while saying 'Say hello to my little friend!' as Scarf shook away the scarf and yawned at our parents, fangs out.
After two weeks of being grounded and extensive counseling by Grandma, mentioning the advantages with regard to pest-control, Robyn was eventually allowed to keep Scarf. I wisely avoided touching the subject of the neighbour's cat that went missing some time ago. Robyn buried those bones one afternoon, when there was nobody home. It did save on the frozen rats, though.
