Thirty-three minutes later, Ms Featherington-Smythe had checked in and was in the queue for security checks. Fortunately for her, all of this took place before the days of 150ml-maximum-liquids-in-clear-plastic-bags; unfortunately, as we have already seen, the bizarre array of items she had packed were never going to go unnoticed. If she had been watching, as one sometimes does, the face of the man who scrutinises that little screen behind the x-ray machine, she would have seen his left eyebrow raise about an inch; she would have seen him turn and whisper something to his colleague. However, oblivion being her natural state, she noticed no such thing. She walked on calmly through the body scanner, and when it beeped (of course it beeped) she put on her best ‘old lady puzzled by modernity’ face.
‘Hullo dear!’ She said to the security lady who had taken her aside for a good frisking. ‘I suppose I’m in the dog house, am I? I can never understand all of these machines.’ She whispered the word ‘machines’, as though it was rather a naughty word to say. The security lady, having only found odd metal tidbits such as bottle tops and farthings, gave a weak, piteous smile and said ‘Don’t worry, nothing serious. That’s a … lovely scarf, madam.’
‘Yes, he is rather lovely isn’t he!’ She said, giving the sleeping ferret a little stroke.
‘Is he real?’
‘Well yes, I should think so!’
‘Riight. Could you come with me for a moment madam?’
And she brought Ms Featherington-Smythe over to the bottom of the conveyor belt, where a security officer was waiting with her valise.
‘Would you mind opening this for me, madam?
‘Why certainly!’ She complied.
‘Some… strange things to bring on holiday, wouldn’t you agree?’ He said, picking up the gas mask whilst his colleague rummaged further, eyeing Mr Biscuits’ shoebox rather suspiciously. ‘Would you mind showing me what’s in the box, madam? It appears to be lined with foil, so we were unable to see the contents on the x-ray.’
‘Of course, dear. I’m going to see my sister, you see. These are some gifts I’m bringing her - she likes antiques. This is my parrot, Mr Biscuits.’ She opened the box to reveal the poor dead bird, ‘dignified’ in death, glued to a gnarly wooden perch, his eyes replaced with beads. The man looked thoroughly disgusted, which he masked very badly. Suddenly, her old camera flashed – it must have been set off with all the rummaging – and he was blinded. Rubbing his eyes and sighing, he shooed away her old fogey apologies and let her off. Blasted old crone.
Ms Featherington-Smythe made her way through to Duty Free, where she enjoyed a carrot juice from a shop with shiny tables and a fancy French name. She then paid a visit to the toilets, which shan’t be described (one has to show respect for the elderly), and headed for her gate.
Once aboard the plane, Ms Feathington-Smythe needed a little help getting her case into the overhead storage, but she soon settled in to her seat on the aisle. Good fortune had it that no one was sitting close enough to her to enjoy her pungent vicinity. There was, in fact, no one else in her whole row. Others in her line of sight occupied themselves with reading, sleeping, or shushing small children.
However, if anyone had been paying attention, they would have seen her begin to behave very strangely. Very strangely indeed! Once the plane had taken off, the old biddy removed a small jar from her pocket. She opened the lid, and stuck a finger inside. Every time a hostess passed, Ms Featherington-Smythe would wipe this finger on the hem of their skirt, leaving a little pinkish smear. No one noticed, of course.
After half an hour or so, she stood up and started trying to get her case down from over her head. This is when things began to get queer; however, the events which next took place happened in such quick succession that even if someone were paying her any attention (which they weren’t) they would have had trouble recounting what had occurred. But an omniscient narrator always knows. This is what happened.
As she reached up to pull down her suitcase, the old woman’s scarf, a rather ghastly ferret-skin, suddenly came to life. It jumped down from her neck and ran up a nearby hostess’s legs; she screamed and fell to the ground. The ferret scurried across rows and down aisles, terrorising each stewardess, tearing ladders in their nylon stockings, running up their skirts. The entire plane was in a state of hysteria; poor Hermes only wanted to chase the rabbit whose smell, he was certain, was coming from these high-heeled, bun-haired women’s smart blue skirts.
Meanwhile, Ms Featherington-Smythe took no notice. She pulled on her suitcase, and, in coming down, it fell open. The contents toppled to the ground. Let us watch in slow motion. The first to land was a large, pale, round, object, like a giant egg. When it hit the ground, it burst open like a solid balloon, and a large cloud of white powder rose up, smelling like babies and old people’s bathrooms, obscuring everything from sight. Next was a small bag, from which marbles exploded onto the navy carpet and scuttled down the aisles, under seats. Passengers who had begun to stand, to escape the choking powder were soon floored with great force as their feet slipped from underneath them. In the meantime, a third bomb had fallen; this time, a glass perfume bottle. Eau de Chévrefeuille. Not empty but filled with some kind of liquid. As it shattered, slowly, shards of glass rising from the ground in suspended time, the liquid quickly became gas which rose and was breathed in by 73 pairs of lungs. And if anything was visible, which it wasn’t, and if anyone now was still awake to see, which they weren’t, they would have seen an elderly woman wearing an old gas mask, taking an ivory letter-opener and splitting open the belly of a stuffed parrot. They would have seen her pull out a small pistol, a Derringer perhaps, and walk calmly towards the cockpit. The shuffling gait of someone avoiding standing on marbles, or maybe just the shuffling gait of old age. They would have seen the pilot, wearing a mask of his own, hands raised as a harmless old dear held him at gunpoint. They would have seen her sit him back down at the front of the plane and whisper quietly in his ear. And then they would see the last thing they would ever see. They would see, obscured by thinning clouds of talc, buildings rearing up in front of the windscreen like great beasts from the deep, so sudden, even in slow motion. Then they would see metal and concrete and fire. And then nothing.
But no one saw anything. No one saw that old woman pour her talcum powder into an ostrich egg, in that toilet cubicle. No one saw her put rabbit paté in her pockets to later wipe on the skirts of unsuspecting stewardesses. No one saw her pour strange chemicals masquerading as sun cream and insect repellent into her Eau de Chévrefeuille. No one saw Mr Fishwick stuff a small grey parrot with a small grey gun. No one, for that matter, saw that her scarf was in fact a living ferret. And no one saw it coming.
But perhaps they should have. For you see, Ms Phyllis Featherington-Smythe was quite, quite, mad.
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