6.22: Curious postscript, for our time
A week later, when everyone agrees that the adventure of The Subtle Intents of the Disorder of Catastrophe has finally finished, Lottie arrives at the den trying to pretend that she is hiding a new badge. Of course she isn’t really and Masongill and pTravis spot it immediately, as she’d hoped.
“What’s that?” one of them dutifully asks.
“It is a new badge. A present.”
“Who is it from?”
“It is from a ‘Wee Lesley, of The Sporrans, Smùidton, Jockland’.”
“To you?”
“I guess so. It was ‘Tae th’ blue fish-reptile, wi’ th’ muckle feet, wha strangely reminds me o’ someone’.”
“I guess that’s you. Why?”
“She says: ‘Ah lik’ ‘n’ applud th’ wirk o’ th’ Potting Shed.’”
“That’s nice. What is it?”
“It’s a ‘bit o’ scran’, apparently. Whatever that is. In any case, she adds that it is a “a wee blart of fingeri-fi-s” by which I think she means a ‘fish finger badge’. But I also think I knew that. Apparently, where ‘Wee Lesley’ comes from, wearing a badge representing this particular piece of processed snack food is perfectly ordinary. A badge of national pride. No one bats an eyelid. In fact, other, perhaps more significant, badges often get confused with fish finger badges, such is the latter’s ubiquity.”
“An easy mistake, no doubt. Though I doubt that even a Scotch would mistake the proud insigne of the Order of the Sponge for such a mean national symbol. Unless, perhaps, they had been too early on the ‘Bucky’, as I believe they say... Hmm. It’s a very realistic ‘fish finger badge’... Are you sure it isn’t just a fish finger with a badge attachment… which you’ve now fixed to your precious Order of the Sponge scarf?”
“I had wondered.”
“It may well begin to smell quite soon.”
“I had begun to think that. Already it smells quite realistic.”
“And, especially if she thinks that you are a sort of fish... Are you sure ‘Wee Lesley’ is really a friend of the Potting Shed?”
“Hmm. Now you ask... Gosh: Scottish people are funny!”
“Yes. That’s why we don’t go...”
“North of the border!” the others chime in, together.