Billy
swept Molly into his arms. He was very good at sweeping for Billy
was a broom. In fact, he was so very good a sweep that when his
eyes swept the room even the dust felt that it had been cleaned.
"Oh, Molly," he crooned.
"Oh, Billy," Molly sighed.
The moon sniffed, it liked a nice bit of romance. Then it remembered
that it was day time and quickly snuffled out of the scene. Molly
gave Billy a great big kiss. A huge kiss. For Molly was a vacuum
cleaner and she really knew how to make a kiss, hiss. It was the
sort of kiss that sucked Billy's lips out and out and out. When
Molly let go, they sprang back with so much vigour that his thwacked
teeth began to vibrate in E minor.
"What's that music?" Molly asked.
"My lipretto," Billy replied through numb lips.
"Oh, you young rake," Molly said coquettishly.
"What!" Billy exclaimed with confusion, his head ringing
like Big Ben at midnight. "Are you seeing Ron the Rake?"
"Never," Molly replied indignantly. "Oh, Ron the
Rake's a sharp one, he is. What's he been saying about me?"
"Has he got his teeth into you?" Billy said jealousy.
"And I want the tooth, the whole tooth." Molly shook
her head in puzzlement. In a fury, Billy brushed past her and
into the garden. "Ron," he warned, "I want a word
with you. And it's not a word you'll find in Scrabble."
Ron was raking when Billy bowled out. "Get off of my gravel,"
Ron said sharply. He always had a tendency to be sharp. Ron gritted
his teeth. Well, he had no choice, they were full of gritty gravel
anyway.
Billy skidded to a halt and looked at the calligraphic marks that
he'd made. With the total opposite of self-awareness, Ron the
Rake fancied himself as a zen monk. The courtyard was his expression
of this fancy. But he lacked zen calm and at his words, Billy
the Broom bristled belligerently. Ron the Rake rose rapidly.
"I abhor alliteration," he said.
"And I don't like garden tools," Billy declared.
They went nose to nose. Or, in this case, tines to bristle. Billy,
who had once seen West Side Story, said, "Looks like there's
gonna be a rumble."
"Er, sorry," Ron muttered. "That was my stomach."
At this sign of nervousness, Billy suddenly lunged out at Ron.
Molly, who couldn't stand the sight of violence, violently sucked
in her breath. It was not a good move. For nature abhors a vacuum,
especially in a vacuum cleaner. Though Molly would be the first
to admit that as a vacuum cleaner she had never actually cleaned
a vacuum. Never even met one. So when Molly breathed in so deeply,
Billy and Ron were drawn off their feet. Like two feathers in
a gale, they were sucked into Molly's hose. Their struggle turned
into an embrace. A close embrace. Instead of trying to get to
grips with each other, the two macho men now fought not to touch.
"Get your hands off me!" Billy squeaked.
"Get your knee away from there!" Ron squealed.
"Ow, your fork is in my bristles!" Billy gasped.
Their muffled complaints made Molly laugh and their restricted
struggle tickled her. In one snort of laughter, she expelled them
rapidly so that they both flew out. As he tried to regain his
feet, Billy's brushes swept the gravel off the path and into the
courtyard. Ron's teeth swirled into it, creating a burst of zen
calligraphy which he'd never been able to achieve before. They
gazed at the patterns in awe.
"We should do this more often," Ron remarked, prepared
to suffer his reputation for his art.
"Not likely," Molly retorted. "Yous two really
get up my nose. As well as in my hose. Anyway, I've met someone
more like me."
"Who?" Billy said agressively.
"A big fellow," Molly replied, putting her hose akimbo.
"An industrial vacuum cleaner. So there."
Billy hung his head. The moon shed a tear. But Ron clapped his
new-found friend on the back. "Don't worry, I've got a young
sister," the Rake said. "Her name's Rakette."
"I think I've met her," Billy said vaguely. "A
bouncy person."
"That's right, knocks balls around."
“Tennis?”
“That, too.”
Billy brightened. The sun shone. The birds trilled. The moon went
all gooey. Once again, romance was in the air.
*******
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