Free The Great Brain by Paul Stafford Page A

life to drive me to lunacy with your brainless, inane jabberings.’
    â€˜Please, sir. Sorry, sir. Tell me what to do, sir,’ begged Dandyline. ‘How can I change? Tell me what’s wrong with my personality, sir. Tell me how to improve it so I won’t infuriate you, sir.’
    â€˜What’s wrong with your personality?’ scoffed Grimsweather. ‘We’d save a lot of time if I just listed what’s right with it. But, if I was forced to evaluate your particularly warped, low-grade character, I’d say that you, Dandyline, are very close to a complete idiot.’
    Dandyline smirked. ‘Should I move back, sir?’
    Sparks shot from Grimsweather’s eyes like volcanic eruptions, but the sound from his iniquitous black mouth was abnormally calm and satisfied. ‘I know how to improve your character, Dandyline. I know exactly how to remove your most irritating feature. It’s easy, Dandyline. Guillotine. Lunchtime.’



The trouble started (as it often does in spongy, brain-degenerating stories like this) with a young zombie gent of staggeringly low intelligence (on a bad day even lower than yours, I’ll warrant), an unwinnable, smarts-based bet with a brainiac school teacher and a poorly planned burglary that ended up causing grief to him, me, the school and everyone I know from your Teletubby-shaped aunt withfarcical facial hair to Queen Elizabeth’s least favourite scone baker.
    Everybody suffered.
    And, just quietly, Albert Einstein paid pretty profoundly, too.
    Â 
    It was Sunday dinner at the Living-Dead household and a fine sumptuous roast took pride of place at the table. Mr Living-Dead was carving the delicious smelling brain, and his razor-sharp carving knife slid through the glazed, golden brown tangle of cranium cables like it was a ball of rancid butter.
    â€˜Cooked to a turn, dear,’ commented Mr Living-Dead to his wife, his mouth watering in anticipation. ‘As usual. I didn’t just marry you for your good looks.’
    Mrs Living-Dead smiled proudly. She was a drop-dead cook. Aside from the roast brain, there were honey-glazed eyeballs, stuffed ears, baked Adam’s apples, cute little individual Yorkshire puddings made from freshly minced Yorkshiremen, and other highly palatable scran.
    Delish.
    Yet, despite this veritable feast, Mick was playing with his food, preoccupied. He was usually pretty good on the fang, but not tonight. Tonight he dawdled over his delectable dinner, body-swerving the bounteous banquet, vetoing the virtuous victuals.
    â€˜Eat your greens, dear,’ commanded Mrs Living-Dead. ‘They’ll make you smart.’
    Fat chance, Mick’s sister, Kim, thought to herself, grinning across the table. Mick was as thick as a telephone book – A-K and L-Z stacked together – and no amount of greens was going to alter that. But she didn’t say it.
    â€˜Yes, Mick, chop chop,’ said Father sternly. ‘Your mother went to a great deal of trouble preparing those greens, so eat up.’
    It was true. Mick’s mum had gone to a great deal of effort with the dinner prep, spending more than two hours trapping, restraining, dismembering and cooking the Green family.
    The Greens had scattered like steroid-enhanced Olympic athlete rabbits when cornered and took ages to catch, so they were obviously physically healthy – and probably organic. And they were good for the intelligence, or at least you’d assume so; Professor Green was a Nobel prizewinning scientist, Mrs Green was a nationally renowned mathematician with two doctorates, and the two Green kids were grade A students with awesome IQs and authentic nerd credentials.
    Now here’s the thing. Eating these Greens may have been highly beneficial for the rest of the Living-Dead family’s intelligence, but it had sod-all effect on Mick. He could’ve eaten brains till the cows came home, had their afternoon snack, did their