The Monster Munch Crisis

Tuppence has been ill with a mysterious fever ever since we busted him out of gaol.  The symptoms include 'ennui', extreme 'lethargy' and an inability to eat anything other than ham sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and huge amounts of pickled onion flavour Monster Munch.  He's been tucked up with four hot water bottles and a Lem-sip drip, and bundles of spiral-bound notebooks containing his Gaol Diaries.  He's been entertaining himself and fighting off the 'ennui' by reading them to us as we sit solicitously by his sick-bed.

'Here I am, stuck in gaol.  Or what passes for gaol in this godforsaken place. It's a cave, right at the bottom of the cliffs, with an iron grille across the entrance to prevent my 'egress'.  As if! They obviously don't know me.
Only half an hour ago I was chained to the wall - all four legs, shackled and padlocked together by a gang of sniggering rats.  The very same gang of rats who used to pedal bikes to power up my moog synthesiser during gigs at the Puff Inn, and who cheered me along during numerous nefarious-style adventures (see e-books for details).
Fortunately they're so dense that they failed to guess that I happened to have a miniature Swiss Army knife hidden between my teeth and my cheek.  As soon as they left I manoeuvered its saw attachment to the front of my mouth and in a trice I was free.  The rusty iron crumbled under the fine Swiss-made steel of the saw, and...'

'Oh DO hurry up and get to the bit where we burst through the iron grille with a carefully-calculated charge of gelignite!' Geoffrey interrupted.

'No.  Not until you fetch me some more Monster Munch.  There's only one bag left and if I don't get a constant supply I'm likely to relapse.'

Geoffrey and I exchanged glances.  We had obtained our Monster Munches from Stormy Petrel along at the Puff Inn.  'That's your lot chaps,'  he'd said.  'All I've got left are some dry roasted nuts and some scampi fries.'
'Till when?'  we'd asked,  aghast.
'Till the next lot comes in to the tunnels of course.  You two know where I get my supplies.'

Of course we knew.  We knew only too well....smuggling,  and shipwrecks....and...

'Tuppence might have to make do with Val Nark's sesame snaps and yogurt 'n' goji berry flapjacks till the next high Springs,' gasped Geoffrey,  'And I don't think he'll like it.'

'Who would?'




More on this later...