Chapter 25: We All Want Some Figgy Pudding.

Upon my arrival back on earth, I found my space capsule entangled in the canopy of an exquisite specimen of Victorian architecture, on a tree-lined street in what I took to be either London or the sound stage of a Disney musical. By and by I freed myself from the awnings and climbed down to examine my surroundings and shag someone senseless.

The sign outside the premises declared the building to be the admissions office of Miss Spankpenny's School for Wayward Ladies, dedicated to the twin propositions that 1890 never ended and that all problems could be resolved satisfactorily with a sound caning. Intrigued and slightly drunk, I wandered inside to sign up, for I would need lodging anyway, and a sound caning might help sobriety arrive more quickly.

Miss Spankpenny was delighted to have a new student, especially one carrying rolls of large denomination West Belgian currency in her underthings. She asserted that I was to be her master project, proof that if I could be made a proper lady, anyone could. Opposing her in this idea was the esteemed Dr. Mycroft von Doohickey, who ran the prep school down the road and wagered a balloon trip around the world that she would fail miserably and that I would die of tuberculosis in a gutter by the end of the fortnight, or be disemboweled by the serial killer who preyed upon the student body as a mischievous prank. I myself placed several thousand West Belgian EuroPesos on the good doctor being correct.

And so my training in becoming a proper lady began. I was instructed in the finer art of balancing books upon my head while descending staircases and holding a ginger root in my anal cavity, a sport known as "figging". Proper ladies, after all, frequently hold objects in their anus for sport and leisure. After high tea with the queen, who was also figged up, we played croquet with flamingo mallets (plastic, for we are not barbarians, after all) and planned an invasion of the Falkland Islands. In all, my first day was quite productive and I felt myself becoming more of a lady with each passing moment. I celebrated by shaving my pits.

Beginning with day two, my ambitions seemed to be thwarted on every level. It all started when the class was assigned to come up with our own Spice Girl names. I wanted ever so much to be "Posh" but the other girls insisted upon labeling me as "Bitter Ho-Bag Spice". For this, I ripped out wads of their hair and smashed a Grecian urn upside their heads. As punishment for my naughty deeds, I was to be drawn and quartered, but a last-minute reprieve came from an international human rights agency and the sentence was reduced to a figging and and appearing as a contestent on "The Weakest Link." I was the winner, earning two pounds, the largest payout ever.

But it seemed I would never become a true lady. I had too many ribs, my fainting needed work, and when faced with an employment application I persisted in checking off "male" on the paperwork, probably due to my gross illiteracy. Miss Spankpenny took me aside and tried to console me, in the manner that only she could.

"Now now, Katrina. Tish tosh. Steak and kidney pie. Tut tut tut. What's all this about now, then," she asked. I had no idea what she was saying, for my English was not as good as hers. "Stiff upper lip, remember that, Katrina," she continued, slightly clearer. "I'm sure someday you'll get your wish to become a real lady, but for now, just keep up at it then. What say we have ourselves a caning, followed by a paddling and some branding after that, no?" And I smiled. She proceeded to chase me back and forth across the campus, wielding a branding iron and balancing books upon her head. Sometimes she let me chase her, or we both let a gorilla and some police officers chase us. It was all very fun, if quite confusing.

That night, in the infirmary for severe burn wounds, I was visited by the Good Fairy, who turned me into a real lady. Later, I was told I had also been hospitalized for an acute wormwood overdose from downing seven quaffs of absinthe in ten minutes, and the latter part of my recollection may have been a hallucination or near-death experience.

Dr. von Doohickey, having lost his wager, took the the air in a hot-air balloon, determined to travel the world as he promised on condition of his loss. He ran out of luminiferous ether at the 10,000 foot mark and plummeted back to earth, spattering his earthly remnants across the county, where the larger portions were collected and turned into some kind of disgusting English pie. Those people made me quite sick with their backwards customs, but it was damn good pie. I found a timepiece in my slice.