Switchback Fair

At the Switchback Fair medical tent, Dr Galaxy was preparing to be engulfed with swine flu false alarms. At 8 in the morning the first patient arrived, looking anxious and mildly unwell.

‘Please take a seat,’ said Dr Galaxy.

The man looked, panicked, at the seat, but a reassuring smile from the doctor persuaded him to sit down. He couldn’t quite face the full sit-down, though, and ended up hovering about a centimetre above the seat. Then he sneezed.

‘I’m so sorry doctor!’ he said. ‘I couldn’t find a face mask anywhere in the house.’

‘Never mind,’ said Dr Galaxy. ‘You’re worried that you have swine flu, I imagine?’

‘That’s right!’ said the patient. ‘It’s the H1N1 strain, I’m sure of it!’

‘What makes you think that?’ asked Dr Galaxy.

‘Well, I was watching a travel documentary about Mexico last night, when I started to feel a bit ill. Then I realised that I’d had a bacon sandwich for lunch, and I’d been to tea with mother, and she’d just come back on a flight -’

‘From Mexico?’ said Dr Galaxy.

‘No, Tenerife. But they speak the same language, don’t they? It all adds up!’

‘You’ve got a cold,’ said Dr Galaxy. ‘Don’t worry about it. If a pandemic hits the fair you’ll be the first to know, I promise.’

The patient looked disappointed and left, muttering to himself.

Next door to the medical tent, a new stall had been hastily put up. A handwritten sign declared:

SWINE FLU EVALUATION AND TREATMENT CENTRE

The patient’s eyes lit up. He ran up to the stall.

‘I think I’ve got swine flu!’ he said.

‘Hold out your hand,’ said Old Granny Marlowe. ‘Ah yes, I see. You’re right, you do have swine flu. You’ll be dead in 24 hours without medical intervention. But you’re in luck – I’ve got just the pills you need.’

‘Tamiflu?’ said the patient.

‘Way better than that mush,’ said Old Granny Marlowe. ‘This is Marlowe’s Famous Patented Flu Remedy. Tried it on a dead pig yesterday, it was resurrected within the hour.’

‘I’ll take it!’ said the patient.

‘A very wise choice,’ said Old Granny Marlowe. ‘A dozen doses should do the trick. That’ll be two hundred and thirty pounds, please.’

For five months the Lucky Drover Inn had lain empty. The previous owner had tired of the pub game and was looking to turn the building into upmarket flats, but he was eventually dissuaded by a depressed rental market and – perhaps more decisively – a mob of enraged regulars wielding pitchforks.

Hopes were high, then, when rumours went around that the place had been bought. Wild stories grew about Russian billionaires and Middle East investment funds. Investigative reporter Digsby Troutwhistle camped out for weeks in the woods behind the inn, watching patiently for movement through a telephoto lens. But the only thing he ever saw was a badger, who found a way into the cellar one night and came out in a drunken stupor. Troutwhistle sold the shot to a badger-centric spinoff of Heat magazine for £500.

His frustration grew until one night, when he was startled by a tap on his shoulder.

‘Got a light, mate?’ said the tapper.

‘Sure,’ said Troutwhistle. ‘If you’ve got a story.’

‘Urm -’, said the tapper. ‘Not really. I’ve bought the pub here, that’s all. Need a light for my celebratory cigar.’

‘You bought the pub?’ said Troutwhistle. ‘Are you a Russian billionaire?’

‘No,’ said the tapper.

‘Middle East investment fund?’

‘Sort of,’ said the tapper. ‘My family owns one anyway. Zakiy Ziyad, pleased to meet you.’

‘I knew it!’ said Troutwhistle, shaking his hand. ‘You didn’t look Russian at all.’

‘Listen,’ said Ziyad. ‘I’m organising the gala re-opening for next week. If you agree to get the story on the front page of your paper I’ll give you one of these fine cigars.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ said Troutwhistle, picking out a cigar from the box offered to him. ‘Word of advice, first thing you need to do is proof the cellar against celebrity badgers.’

In a wood-panelled room deep within Switchback Castle, cigars were being smoked and whisky was being supped.

‘This is a fine one indeed,’ said Lord Switchback. ‘Give us another dash, will you?’

‘Certainly, sir,’ said the butler.

‘What did you say this was again?’ said Lord Switchback.

‘Turpentiddich, sir,’ said the butler. ‘Less than a tenner at Tesco, it was.’

‘Keep it down, man!’ said Lord Switchback. ‘Not in front of the guests!’

‘My apologies, sir,’ said the butler. He proceeded to the other end of the room, where five people were hunched over a pile of papers. They all refused a top-up of Turpentiddich.

‘I say, Charlie!’ said Lord Switchback. ‘What are you up to over there anyway?’

Charlie Fip, head of PR at Switchback Fair, stood up and gathered the papers together. The others followed behind him towards the grand old armchair were Lord Switchback was sitting.

‘We’re at war, Joe,’ said Charlie, pushing some of the paper in Lord Switchback’s direction. ‘Revenues are down 50% year on year. We’ve had 10,000 fewer people visiting.’

‘Why’s that then?’ said Lord Switchback. ‘Those funny adverts of yours not working?’

‘Those adverts were very successful,’ said Charlie, curtly. Switchback Fair had been advertised on television for the first time ever a couple of months ago, with the campaign masterminded by Fip. It featured a pigeon dancing to Saturday Night Fever, with the tagline ‘Fair Enough?’. It won the bronze medal at the 2009 Wilfully Obscure Advertising Awards.

‘So what’s the matter then?’ said Lord Switchback.

‘It’s the credit crunch, Joe,’ said Charlie. ‘People are too busy selfishly saving money to visit fairs. There’s only one way to get back on track, and that’s to crush the competition.’

‘Barnaby Fair, you mean?’ said Lord Switchback.

‘Absolutely,’ said Charlie.

‘Well don’t be too mean on them,  old boy,’ said Lord Switchback. ‘I went to Winchester with Basher Barnaby, wouldn’t want to make him miffed.’

‘Of course not, sir,’ said Charlie.

‘Anyway, I’m off to bed. Night all!’

After Lord Switchback had left the room, Charlie gathered round his minions again.

‘Right, ideas for the first spot. Start softly, I think, maybe just imply that visitors are mentally ill if they go to Barnaby? And let’s get in a comparison of their site to a cesspit, only with more pickpockets…’

Poppy Stubbs put down her guitar and gathered up the change from her peaked cap. It was starting to rain, and she could afford a coffee.

It was mid-afternoon and the coffee tent was already bulging when the rain refugees joined them. Poppy waited patiently in the queue, humming softly to herself.

‘Never take the trees for granted!’ she said when she reached the bartender.

‘I won’t, I promise,’ he replied, unperturbed. Poppy was a regular customer. ‘What can I get for you?’

‘An espresso,’ said Poppy. ‘Blacker than the night, hotter than the sun. And a piece of rocky road, please.’

‘Rockier than the moon?’ said the bartender.

‘Moonier than the rock,’ said Poppy.

She sat down on a bean bag and began strumming absentmindedly.

# Take the cake and leave the pie, twenty dead dogs and no one asked why #

A couple of lines later, she felt someone tap her shoulder. She turned to see the coffee shop’s manager.

‘I’m afraid you can’t play in here, miss,’ he said. ‘We don’t have a performing license.’

‘I’m composing, not playing,’ said Poppy matter-of-factly.

‘That makes no difference. I’m afraid you’ll have to stop or leave the tent,’ said the manager.

‘Fine,’ said Poppy. ‘You’re the man. Did you know that? The man!’

She drank the espresso and carefully wrapped up the uneaten rocky road in a serviette to take with her. But as she got to the entrance to the tent, her way was blocked by a mysterious shepherd. His clothes were sodden and he carried a shotgun.

‘We’re under attack!’ said the mysterious shepherd. ‘A pack of wild dogs in the fields – sheep on the run or ripped to pieces – I had to get up a tree – damn lucky I had my gun – got about a score of them, rest ran away – bloody hell!’

‘There, there,’ said Poppy. ‘Get this rocky road inside you, you’ll feel much the better for it.’

Burt von Jam looked nervously at his revenues for the last financial year.

‘Latvia’s dead,’ he muttered.

‘I told you no good would come of it!’ said Mrs von Jam.

‘The wholesale trade has collapsed, too. Chinese industrial jam demand is down 35% this year.’

He paced up and down the kitchen, financial summary in one hand, ladle in the other.

‘Is there a future in jam?’ he said.

‘How can you say that?’ said Mrs von Jam. ‘Your family have been making tolerable profits from jam for generations. Do you really want to be the last in the line?’

But before Burt could answer, another voice came from the table.

‘Jam!’

‘What was that?’ said Burt von Jam.

‘Jam! Jam!’

‘Is that you, Apricot?!’

‘Jam!’

‘She’s said her first word!’ said Mrs von Jam.

Apricot von Jam beamed to her audience, while taking the opportunity to bring forward her plans to flick a big dollop of jam onto the floor.

‘You’re right, of course,’ said Burt.

‘What do you mean?’ said Mrs von Jam.

‘I can’t fail the future. If I surrender our jam heritage over one bad year, how will I ever be able to look Apricot in the eye again?’

And with that he moved over to kiss Apricot, but slipped on the jam slick and fell flat on his back.

‘Looks like she’s a master of slapstick as well as speech,’ said Mrs von Jam.

‘This is all very symbolic, but it would be nice if you could help me up,’ said Burt.

Old Granny Marlowe prepared for Easter the same way she always did: by considering opportunities for crime.

‘Here’s the plan,’ she said. ‘We switch the eggs for the egg hunt with our own eggs, which we’ll have injected with a sleep-inducing gas, and then round up the children who find them for ransom.’

But her grandsons, Ricky and Shane Marlowe, were troubled by the plan.

‘Security will be tight around the eggs, grandma,’ said Ricky. ‘Why don’t we intercept the children on the way to the egg hunt instead?’

‘Because I’ve got five hundred decorated eggs and two hundred  kilogrammes of sleep-inducing gas in my basement and I’ve got to start using them up somehow, that’s why,’ said Old Granny Marlowe.

‘Why don’t we intercept the easter bunny and ransom it?’ said Shane.

Sensing the boys were still in need of convincing, she took them down to the basement.

‘Here is an egg,’ she said, holding up an egg between her thumb and index finger. ‘You can identify it by its ovoid shape and pale colour. Now, the eggs you see here are hollowed-out, so you will have to take a small piece of chewing gum’ – she took some gum from her mouth – ‘and use it to seal the hole, before pumping the gas in.’

She pointed towards the cannister.

‘Shane, you can try the gas first. Now bef-’

‘Easy!’ said Shane. He jumped towards the cannister and before her grandmother could stop him, open the valve to full.

Old Granny Marlowe tried to tell him exactly what she thought of him, but they all fell asleep before she could start. By the time they woke up, the egg hunt had finished for another year.

From an early age, Jack Caracas had committed to a career as a prankster. He started small, burying his parents’ front door keys in the garden one day and watching with glee as they searched the house from top to bottom. Extended spells on the naughty step did not deter him and by his teenage years he was engaging in borderline criminal activity. On one memorable occasion he broke into his school at night and redecorated the hall with quotations from Lord of the Flies, for which he was awarded an A for English and expelled.

Jack’s life could have spiralled out of control, but like so many pranksters before him he was saved by the power of the entertainment industry. Three years ago he started presenting a stage show (Jack Caracas Attacks) in the big top. The biggest show each year is held on April Fool’s Day. In his first year Jack announced to the audience that they were glued to their seats, a feat which cost the fair £20,000 in clothing repairs. In his second year he bribed a pilot friend to strafe the big top with chocolate-covered peanuts. Although the high velocity confectionery caused no injuries, one audience member suffered an allergic reaction and successfully sued the fair for £50,000.

It was inevitable, then, that a crack team of lawyers and accountants would be on hand this year to make sure that no more damage was done to the audience, and, more importantly, the fair’s finances. Nevertheless, a brave crowd travelled from around the country in the hope of being victimised, after signing a disclaimer that they could not expect damages.

Half-way through the show, Jack announced that the money saved from his legal indemnity would be released from the roof of the tent. The audience gasped; the accountants panicked. One of them stood up to cancel the show, but the notes were already raining down. Jack looked on with pride. For as long as he made more money over the year than he lost today, he knew they wouldn’t sack him. He had found the secret of sustainable pranking.

Plus he made the banknotes on his computer.