h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

it was a missing letter "n". The culprits wo stole the sacred scroll must be a roving band of marauding grammar ninjas.

... curiously the item appeared to be a beer mat. She studied it for a moment and put it away on her person. The beer mat indicated that the secret base could be in only one place...

...The House of Flying Elephants. Gloria mentally cursed to herself. Those masters of Drunken Monkey had been smashed long before the martial arts wars.

She thought of her old master Chu Yon-Fat. Perhaps he could...

give her directions to the nearest decent pizza resturant, a pub, or even if there was such a thing maybe even a nighclub. But, then again, maybe Fat would also be the one who'd be able to...

be able to know why the scroll had been taken. She had to go to him. At that moment Jack wandered in clutching his head, and looking painfully embarrassed.

"Gloria, I....

hosanna in excelsis!

()

Gloria slapped him hard across the chops.


Ow! ~* What did you have to go and do that for?

you were talking nonsense, now come on, we've got work to do. she took him firmly by the wrist and led him out of the door....

Where they almost fall over a parrot, which is oddly mute...

'Kea! What are you doing down there?'

The mute parrot had been a gift from Chu Yon-Fat himself, at her wedding to Jack. He'd raised it from an egg he found in the grounds of his sand-walk. He said the silence of the bird had elevated his zen through reminded him to reflect on the infinite mysteries of the cosmos and the interconnectedness of all things.

"Infinite mysteries of the cosmos" in Gloria's experience meant a prodigious hunger for peanuts and a propensity to crap on the carpet, hence the need for the stack of fresh newspaper that were delivered every morning - that was when it came to her! The article in the appear that'd she'd read that morning - where was it?

Wadded up tightly and covering the hole in his left soul.

She'd been at the fish market that morning. 'sushi for supper she'd said..


With one dextrous flick of the wrist, she removed the fish and slapped it down on the counter surface, the with a flick and a small mist of fish-juice she unfurled the damp news paper and turned hurriedly to page 7....

and befold the secret map that must have been put in her newspaper by accident. as she read through though she discoverd that it was a map to the sale at the convinience store down the street.

wait right below it was the real secret map to the ninja lair!

The maps secret was that it was in the form of a layout of tatami. There appeared to be figures lying on some of the mats and these formed an irregular grid. Not just human figures but numerical figures.

Glaoria slapped her forehead "Of course...... SUDOKU" She wiped the slimy residue from her face and put down the fish that was still in her hand.

"But what does it mean? It's page seven, the seventh column but the figure in the seventh position points back. That's seven squared minus seven. That has to be the answer, that's the answer to everything.