Free The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag by Robert Rankin

it’s
important that you get it back?’
    ‘More
important than anything else in the world. You see, the bag holds power, great
power. When I said that you can use it to travel from one place to another, I
didn’t mean ordinary places. The bag allows you to travel between the worlds of
the living and the dead. To enter the spirit world and return safely.’
    ‘Hm,’ I
said.
    ‘Don’t “Hm”
me, you little shit.’
    ‘Did I
say Hm? I meant, of course, Yeah, right!’
    ‘The
bag has been held in safe keeping by my family for four generations. We are its
guardians.’
    ‘But I
thought you said it was only a copy.’
    ‘Look,
it’s the only copy, all right! Just look upon it as something precious that’s
been lost.’
    ‘Stolen,
surely?’ I said. ‘I mean you didn’t just mislay this precious object, did you?’
    ‘It’s
gone missing, that’s all. A policeman called Inspector Kirby came to see me
about Billy’s disappearance, and he got involved with the handbag and then the
handbag went missing.’
    ‘The
policeman nicked it?’
    ‘No, he
didn’t. It’s just gone missing, OK?’
    ‘If you
say so, but I really don’t understand any of this.’
    Mrs
Barnes made little sighing sounds. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you
everything. But it’s a tale of terror. Of gruesome deeds and eldritch horror.
Once you know the full story you will understand why the handbag must be
returned to my family. And you will know things that few living men know and
fewer still wish to know.’
    ‘I’m
all ears,’ I said.
    ‘Then I
must whisper.’ And she whispered.
    And I
listened.
    And
then she whispered some more. And I listened some more.
    And
then she did a bit more whispering. And I threw up all over the floor.
    ‘That’s
a nasty bit, isn’t it?’ she said. And I agreed that it was.
    And
then she whispered a whole lot more. And then she finished.
    ‘And
that’s it,’ she said.
    ‘And I’m
very glad to hear it,’ I replied.
    And
then she made me solemnly swear that I would not mention a word of anything she’d
told me to anyone else.
     
    ‘Trust me,’ I said. ‘I won’t
mention it to another living soul.’
     
    And I have, of course,
remained true to my promise.

 
     
     
    Maladroit Mal
     
    Down the busy shopping street,
    Tripping over two large feet,
    Frightening babies in the pram,
    Sneering at the traffic Jam.
    Maladroit Mal,
    Nobody’s pal,
    Taking a chance in the open.
     
    Over local village green,
    Geeing up the beauty queen,
    Yelling great and profane oaths,
    Making bakers soil their loafs.
    Maladroit Mal,
    Nobody’s pal,
    Taking a chance in the open.
     
    Up the cut and down the dells,
    Followed by unsavoury smells,
    Ambling,
    Shambling,
    Crawling and
    Gambolling.
     
    Strolling,
    Rolling,
    Tripping,
    Bowling.
     
    Stumbling,
    Bumbling,
    Twitching,
    Tumbling.
     
    Maladroit Mal,
    Nobody’s pal,
    Taking a chance in the open.

 
     
     
    6
     
    The quality of weirdness has always been high.
    BOB
RICKARD
     
     
     
     
    A True History of Billy Barnes
     
    The child that is truly
different rarely ever looks that way. It has always been instinctive in the
herd to drive off the ‘different one’, no doubt to ensure the purity of the
species. This is definitely the case with mankind. Children learn early to mock
the fatty, or the thin kid, or the one with the ginger hair, but they’re not
taught to, it’s instinctive, they can’t help themselves. They just do it. But
the child that is truly different, the individual who will one day grow up and
change society, alter the direction of the herd, this child often has a
defensive camouflage. This child looks like all the rest.
    But he’s
not.
    Billy
Barnes looked like all the rest. He looked a bit like Dave Rodway, with those
dark eyebrows. And a bit like Norman Crook, with that snubby nose. And he had
Peter Lord’s shoulders, and Neil Christian’s knees and Peter Grey’s feet and so
on and so forth. In fact he looked pretty