The Lord is Kidnapped
Fredestaire, exausted [sic], came to a small house and went in. Another archaeologist sat at a table, and another lord and lady were reading magazines. [Note--oh. I guess I should say now that this story is SUPPOSED to be taking place in the Twenties...even though Ed, Fred, and the rest show up in the King Kuts series set in the late Eighties/early Nineties...and there are numerous anachronisms throughout all of these writings. I never bothered trying to explain this. Recall I was just a kid and time made no sense. Based on my Manitou Island writings, I guess time STILL makes no sense...]
The archaeologist, whose name was Petrie, put his magnifying glass down and yawned. [Note--it looks as if "whose" originally read "who's." Took me ages to figure that one out. Petrie is loosely based on Egyptologist William Matthew Flinders Petrie, of whom I know practically nothing, I just thought his name was nice.] The lord's and lady's names were Lord Dufferin and Lady Coventry. Lord Dufferin believed in ghosts and Lady Coventry was very vain about her looks. [Note--based on the stories I had read about them--see the introductory note.]
Coventry fluffed up an ear and looked in her silver mirror. [Note--this is written in much darker pencil than the text above--hinting at a slight passage of time between both parts. I used to write whenever I could catch spare moments--in school, at home, on the bus. Sometimes when my writing gets really degraded and shaky, I can tell that I was attempting to write on the bus.] She looked back at Fredestaire.
"Well, Freddy, have you found anything?"
Fredestaire hated it when people called him that. "Yes, yes, yes, I gave them to that antique [sic] dealer."
"Yo, Fred," Petrie called, whose full name was William Matthew Flinders Petrie, "come look at this." [Note--ugh--the anachronistic language begins! Petrie, BTW, is the sensible one of the group.]
Fredestaire went over and peered down at the artifact that Petrie had been studying lately.
"Where's it from?" Petrie said.
"Why, it looks like it's, it's--"
"Egyptian?"
"Yes!"
"Wherever did you get them?" Dufferin asked, coming over and seeing Petrie take out another one.
"Here, in England. It's amazing, is'nt [sic] it? Finding these in England!"
Everybody oohed and ahed [sic], and Fredestaire looked it over carefully.
"From about the 30th dynasty, around Cleocatra's time. [Note--yes...Cleocatra was one of my characters. Bad pun. All the dynasties were mashed together in my writing so Cleo was good friends with King Kuts who was good friends with King Zoser etc. etc....if you're up on Egyptian history, you'll see exactly why this makes no sense. I'm not going to explain it.] Where exactly did you find this, Petrie?"
"Near Stonehenge."
"I'm going over there tonight, then."
Fredestaire did'nt [sic] know that Lord Carnarvon was going there, also. Not many people had heard about Petrie's tablets and Edmond was one of the few that knew.
Edmond--excuse me, Lord--Carnarvon was taking pictures of the monoliths when Fredestaire arrived. Seeing him, he turned around, put the camera away and asked him, "Are you the one I saw earlier? With that Babylonian tablet?"
Fredestaire bowed at the waist in reverence. "It probably was me, your Lordship." [Note--way out of character, for the Fredestaire I know now...even though I don't write about him now...]
Lord Carnarvon was flattered. "Where will your next trip be?"
"To Egypt."
"Have you a companion to go along on the trip?"
"Not yet, but I might bring my friends."
"Would it be alright [sic] if I went along?"
"For what? Are you an archaeologist too?"
"I have been, for several months now."
"That's very nice."
"I could help finance for the trip."
"Could you?"
"Of course I could, old bean!" Lord Carnarvon went over to the other side of Stonehenge.
Fredestaire started to take a picture when he heard a shuffle and a scream, quickly cut off. He turned around to see a truck, belonging to humans. Lord Carnarvon was in the back. Those nasty humans had kidnapped Carnarvon! [Note--ah yes..."nasty humans." In King Kuts and its followups, you'll quickly see how in my early "furry" writing I used to separate the anthro animals from the humans, the latter of whom were usually of bad intent. Over time the humans kind of "faded away" out of my writing, being totally replaced by the animals, which makes more sense seeing as, in my writing worlds, it is animals who are the "humans." (Though this has lately changed in the Manitou Island series--protagonist Charmian is and always has been 100% human--the older characters such as Stick-In-The-Dirt and the other native characters were once meant to be animals.) This, and the fact that I eventually tried to erase every hint that I was in fact writing about animals and not humans, ensured that I would stop separating the two. How seriously would you take the D Is For Damien novels if you were to know that you're reading about a bunch of talking dogs?]
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