Flash Fiction – prompt is Stag/Hen do
The policeman doesn’t like me. I don’t blame him I don’t particularly like me much at the moment either. I can’t believe I have spent the night in the police cell, it is utterly unlike me. I’m usually quite popular with constabulary. I have an innate tendency towards excessive helpfulness when faced with the law. However today this appears to be annoying PC Stoat rather than assisting him.
“Do you want to tell me about the sheep now, sir?”
“Yes of course, Flossie_.”
“Flossie?”
“Yes, Flossie,” I nod my head with an overenthusiasm that sets off a ponding beneath my left eye. My hand goes up to it, feeling the swelling.
“Was it Flossie that did that to you, sir?”
I think he’s being sarcastic or maybe he’s just being extremely thorough, I can’t tell, something I put down to my lousy night.
He flips over a page of his notebook, “Let’s get back to the sheep, name of Flossie. Where did you come across this Flossie.”
“She, I’m supposing she was a she I didn’t get a chance to examine her. Not that I go around examining sheep as a habit or a hobby even. I live in London, there aren’t any sheep.”
“I suspect that’s a good thing, sir. Now Flossie?”
“Was with the Hen party.”
“And you were with this hen party?”
“No not really. I sort of happened upon them and I sort of became in their midst I suppose you’d say. They sort of swarmed me.”
“Does that happen to you a lot sir? Women swarming all over you?”
Definitely sarcasm, I’m not exactly George Clooney. My friends reliably inform me I most resemble that slightly fey one off Antiques Roadshow.
My very British desire to be helpful leads me into an overshare as I burst out. “I’m a homosexual!”
He notes this down in the notebook, either he has a knowledge of shorthand or he’s used a far shorter, more succinct word to describe my sexuality.
“So these hens swarm around you and then what happened?”
I’m not sure I want to say. There was a great deal of squealing from the hair extensioned, false lashed, faked tan gang of girls. My bottom was squeezed at least five times and given a couple of slaps. Frankly I’d been terrified fearing an imminent de-trousering, it was prep school all over again.
“Is this the time to mention they were dressed as I guess what you’d call sexy bo-peeps?”
“It’s as good a time as any, sir.”
A pause.
“Well they were dressed as sexy bo-peeps and one of them had a sheet under her arm.”
“And this would be Flossie?”
“Yes,” I confirm pleased with my answer. “Flossie was with Tricia, I believe that was her name was and then that’s when the stag party approached.”
PC Stoat looks up with interest as we finally get to the meat of the story.
“And Jack Evans was one of this party?”
“So you’ve told me. I just know him as the bully who ripped Flossie from under Tricia’s arm.”
“And how did Flossie respond to this?”
Sarcasm I deduce, so I move back to Jack and Tricia. “He was holding Flossie out of her and her friend’s reach. And he and his mates were laughing. It really wasn’t very nice.”
“Would this be when you got the idea that you would rescue Flossie?”
Actually my idea had been to slope away whilst nobody was looking at me. “I’m not sure I really had the idea, it was sort of pressed upon me. “ By ten squealing girls in bonnets and dresses short enough to show off their frilly knickers.
“They’d hired the costumes and they were worried they’d lose their deposit if they returned their outfits without the sheep, sorry Flossie.”
“How very noble of you, sir.”
“And then, well then I sort of ran at him.”
“Ran?”
“Into his stomach, head first.”
And nearly knocked myself out in the process not expecting Jack to have such hard stomach muscles.
“And this would be when Mr Evans called you a,” he consults his notebook. “A total knobhead and punched you in the face.”
“Yes that would be the moment.” My hand goes up to my sore eye again.
“And Mr Evans came about his injuries how, sir?”
“It was self defence!” I protest. “I was lying in the gutter and Mr Evans is towering over me with his hand ready to punch me again and I just grabbed the nearest thing to hand.”
“Which was Flossie?”
“Yes.”
“Who you proceeded to use to beat Mr Evans about the head with?”
“Yes,” I lower my head in shame.
“At what point did you realise that Flossie wasn’t an inflatable sheep but rather constructed out of fibre glass?”
“I think it was when he started to bleeed. What kind of fancy dress shop hires out fibreglass sheep – one run by Damien Hirst?”
“That would be assault, sir.”
“Yes I guess it would be,” I hang my head down again.
The door of the interview room opens and a woman PC enters, she whispers something in PC Stoat’s ear that makes him sigh with exasperation.
“You can go,” he tells me.
“I can?”
“Yes. Please do so.”
I enter the foyer to be greeted by ten squealing girls in sexy bo-peep outfits who envelope me a huge hug declaring me their hero.
It turns out they’d filmed the whole incident on their mobiles, threating Jack that they’d make the footage of his assault by Flossie public.
