"Quick, stop it! The Choosing Toque is eating that kid's head!"

"Oh, sit down and shut up. It's just giving him a haircut. Don't you know anything."

Further down the table, a visiting physicist from Jodrell Bank was asking,"Okay, you say all these people, male and female... and that, um, person over there with the Exxon product in his hair, are 'wizards', right?"


"Yes," said Emililia Periwinkle Black, the new Protection Against the Seductive Arts and Infomercials Instructor.

"Then," said Professor Aerial Bloon, "What are witches and warlocks?"


"Ah," said Emililaia. "That is a delicate question. No one I know has had the guts to peer down their knickers and find out. Not that lived to tell about it. Though we did have this Uncle once that we were not quite sure about..."


"Oh," said the physicist. "I see. Whom is that boy with the halo, the welding goggles and what looks like a drunken stag party of fingerless ghosts hanging about him throwing conkers and whizbangs at that yellow haired boy over there who looks quite miserable and put upon?"

"Ah?", said Emolululu Persimmon Blanc, peering about with her rose-painted glasses.
"Ah, that is Osprey Ratter, the resident messiah of the
WarMarts School For Children Who Should Have Been Home-Schooled But Can't Be By Parents Who Are Either Dead Or Trying To Take Over The World, Or Like A Bit Of Free Time In Their Busy Decade And Would Otherwise Farm Out The Children To Equally Unsuitable Relatives Or West End Theatrical Booking Agents.

That other boy, the blond with the dimple and the blood running into his soup,


is Puddlelicious Boytoy, the resident son of the resident meany of the piece. Well, the visible meany.
The invisible meany is over there, hiding behind the Headmaster's Chair, playing with an Anaconda and mouthing malicious sweet nothings to himself in Celtic Pig Latin.
The invisible meany is called Farmersamart and he's died a few times recently."

"Ah," said the physicist. "Any particular ailment? Any particular cure?"

"Ah?", said Lelilolu Placesetter Bloing. "Ah. For the first, simple stupidity. He did something very bad fifteen years ago and was severely damaged by a baby.


He's tried many times since then to get the now growing child to kill him in more and more hideous ways.

He always manages to get resurrected by people stupider than himself who don't have enough sense to seek power on their own.

Why the whole lot just don't give up and go harass the Muddles, I don't know.

Enough of this chitchat. Fancy a bit of crumpet?"

"Well, I am a diabetic. Might that affect me adversely?"

"Not the first through third times. The fourth might be a bit of strain on your heart..."

"Ah, then this is an activity, then? A bit like swimming?"

"Mmm. Could be. I hadn't thought of it that way. Let's go and see."

Meanwhile, a Peruvian Condor named Fluffy lands on the table next to Osprey Ratter and farts in morse code...