‘What on Earth are you doing, The!’ exclaimed Lucy, although it was pretty obvious that what The Journalist was doing was undoing the buttons of her pinstripe power-suit as fast as he possibly could, whilst at the same time apparently trying to see how far into her ear he could stick his tongue. ‘The!’ cried Lucy. ‘Stop it!’
‘No! No! No!’ moaned The Journalist. ‘Once we Blerontinian males have been aroused by a female, it takes us many many years – sometimes a lifetime – to get de-aroused vis-i-vis that particular female.’
‘What are you saying, The?’ cried Lucy.
‘Marry me, Lucy!’ cried The Journalist, burying his face in her now exposed bra.
‘Oh yes! Yes! Yes! The!’ she cried.
‘Squawk!’ cried something else.
‘We can get engaged and have a white wedding and a wedding cake and Dan can give the best man’s speech and we’ll have a honeymoon!’ exclaimed The Journalist.
‘Squawk!’
‘Darling The!’ cried Lucy, tears in her eyes. ‘What am I doing? What am I saying?’ Part of Lucy’s legal training had suddenly started to reassert itself. It was something on the lines of: don’t commit to anything that you may later regret. ‘But I’m getting married to Dan! We’re going to run a hotel! What was that squawk?’
‘Squawk!’ said the thing that was squawking. ‘It was that!’ exclaimed The Journalist, and suddenly a large parrot flew out of the dark recesses of the room and landed on The Journalist’s shoulder. It was at that moment that Lucy screamed, and as she screamed, as luck would have it, she had inadvertently put her hand down on one of the ship’s intercom buttons, with the result that her scream was relayed all round the Starship Titanic.
‘Squawk!’ said the parrot. ‘Bloody genius!’
Back on the Captain’s Bridge Bolfass pricked up his ears. ‘What did that parrot say?’
‘BLOODY GENIUS!’ screamed the parrot over the intercom.
‘Parrot!’ yelled Captain Bolfass. ‘What are you telling us?’
‘Bloody genius!’ repeated the parrot.
‘PARROT!’ Bolfass yelled into the intercom. ‘We’re looking for the missing central intelligence core for Titania’s brain – do you know where it is?’
There was a silence.
‘PARROT!’ yelled Bolfass, but Lucy had removed her hand from the intercom button and was now using it to caress The Journalist’s face as if his smooth features were a fortune-teller’s crystal ball.
‘Why’s Captain Bolfass so interested in what a parrot says?’ Nettie had turned to Corporal Inchbewigglit.
‘In Yassaccan tradition,’ whispered Corporal Inchbewigglit, ‘parrots are the messengers of truth. We have a saying: “From the mouths of babes and parrots”.’
Lucy, meanwhile, was wondering why she had said yes to everything The Journalist had just suggested. She thought she had probably made a terrible mistake, If only she could see the future in those strange orange-coloured eyes of his. ‘You’re crazy!’ she said.
‘Ohhh!’ moaned The Journalist, and he chewed her bra-strap with his teeth.
‘Ahh!’ said Lucy.
‘Haaaa!’ murmured The Journalist.
‘Oh-uh!’ replied Lucy.
‘Oooooh!’ he said.
‘Oh! Uh! Ooh!’ added Lucy.
‘Ya! Ha! Haa?’ asked The Journalist.
‘Uh!’ confirmed Lucy.
‘Uh?’ asked The Journalist again.
‘Uh!’ repeated Lucy.
‘Uuuuuhh!’ The Journalist was almost lost for words at this point. But Lucy carried on the conversation:
‘OH!’ she sald.
‘Ah?’ He wondered how she could be so certain.
‘AH!’ She nodded. She was absolutely certain now. ‘AH!’
And at that moment the entire company from the Captain’s Bridge burst into the side chamber off the Grand Axial Canal, and stood riveted to the spot while they watched a highly qualified lawyer from Wilshire Boulevard and an under-achieving member of the Blerontinian press corps doing the sort of things to each other that give inexpressible delight and pleasure to the participants, but which only tend to provoke ridicule from casual observers, and about which, therefore, I will not go into detail. Suffice it to say that the moment the Bridge party burst into the room, the parrot gave the loudest squawk it had given to date, and Lucy fell off the table onto The Journalist’s face.
‘LUCY!’ exclaimed Dan.
‘Parrot!’ yelled Bolfäss. ‘Where is the missing intelligence core for Titania’s brain?’
‘Bloody genius!’ squawked the parrot.
‘Don’t talk rubbish!’ shouted Bolfass.