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

We can hide in this very conveniently placed cave.

Anyone got a match?

*Runs into the cave, hoping it is far enough from the beach to avoid the waves generated by hurricane force winds.*

*Scrabbles in her bag for some matches and vainly attempts to light one but the wind keeps blowing them out*

Okay! Anyone got a torch? Coo! Isn't there's a BIG echo in here?

*Gwennie's voice can be heard bouncing off the cave walls*

*alicat produces a torch from her backpack. She shines it around the walls of the cave, illuminating great stalagmites and stalactites. There is an irridescence about them that is quite beautiful. The cave goes on into the darkness beyond the light.*

He...ll......ooooooooooooooooo!!!
I see what you mean about the echo
shazzPRME

Do you hear that?

*spelunk! spelunk! spelunk!*

What, that "spelunk" noise? No, I can't hear it.

*Borrows Alicat's torch and decides to explore the cave*

Yuck! I just trod in something very wet and sticky!

*Shines the torch at the floor which is covered in a green slime which shimmers in the torch light*

I wonder where this came from...

Hope it isn't fewmets that you just stepped in. I sincerely hope that.

*Adroitly hops over green slime, which incidently stinks to high heaven.*

*Laughs as Mari-Rae slips in second, unseen patch of goo and slips on her behind into the first patch*

What's "fewmets" Mari-Rae? *Pinches her nose whilst she awaits the answer and tries vainly to rid her shoe of the stinking substance.

I wonder if bear fur is good for rubbing this stuff off with?

It's Ok everyone Big Al has come to rescue you.

Broken by war and driven back by the fates, with both Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio-you try spelling it ? and Karen Allen repelling his advances for someone called George (C)Looney, he hears their cries and comes dragging a 120 ft motor cruiser-with storm balancers fitted as standard.

He carries the almost lifeless forms of his beautiful virtual comrades, Ok he indulges a little in tickling them to see if they are Ok-and takes them to the peaceful and warmly luxurious rooms of the massive motor launch.

Cloughie helps carry the other lithesome members of the fair sex as he was sheltering behind them and was relatively unaffected by the storm-actually he was listening to YES on his personal stereo and who ( no YES ) could blame him.

So settled in comfort with their hands clasping hot steaming mugs of all sorts of lovely hot drinks tasting like nectar they all drift off to sleep......

Just before he drifts off he looks up fewmets in the Webster Dictionary:-

This is the closest he got:-

Main Entry: fu·met
Pronunciation: fyü-'mA, 'fyü-m&t
Function: noun
Etymology: French, literally, pleasant aroma (of meat cooking), from Middle French, from fumer to give off smoke or steam, from Latin fumare, from fumus
Date: 1906
: a reduced and seasoned fish, meat, or vegetable stock

*Thoroughly enjoying the comforts afforded her, alicat laps at the hot nectar.*

Big Al asks Alicat not to lap so loudly he is trying to sleep.

Alicat then throws a big cushion at him which just misses him and wakes Mari-RAe.

Cor! This is the life!

*Dangles one hand in the water and removes the cushion from the sleeping Mari-Rae with the other*

So where, or should I say who, did you liberate this boat from, BigAl?

And which way is the bar?

*Wakes up with a start.*

I dreamt someone refered to us as beautiful and lithesome. It was a nice dream! *Looks around at the luxurious cabin.* Wow! Are we saved, then? Bigal, I'm afraid I'm making a mess of your cushions with the green smelly goo that I landed in. Fewmets are dragon droppings, btw. I read it in one of the King Arthur books by someone or other. T.H. White, maybe. Anyway, I need a shower and a change of clothing. Please.

Mari-Rae,

That would be The Once and Future King one of my all time favorite books, isn't it about time you returned it, you borrowed it 23 years ago, you must have finished it by now.

Big Al surveys the scene and thinks to himself it is a little like being King Arthur with his court of beautiful maidens, all the silly knights have gone off looking for some mangled bit of a cup or something and I am the only male here-he then spies cloughie climbing out of a high walled sofa in the corner-oh well- 2 to 8 is still a fair ratio.

Then he wakes up- a la patrick duffy in dallas- and realises it's all been a ( very nice ) dream.

Bigal, I think you watch too much TV.

*Shamefacedly hands over a very tattered copy of said book.*

Uh, thanks for the loan. Anyway, do you have something I could slip into?

*Gets jealous because Mari-Rae is getting all the attention*

Yeah! The shower's that way *points to a small cabin door* and there's a change of clothes in this bag *hands Mari-Rae a plastic carrier bag with an itchy old sack in it and smiles sweetly*

Now, Alicat...Did you find out where the bar was dearest?

*Puts her arm round Alicat's shoulders and wanders off in search of the bar and leaves Mari-Rae with a feeling that something's up*