Burgeonitis

Doctor Frink, she had a think
And poured herself her stiffest drink.
"This isn't going as I'd planned.
Martin! Quickly! Lend a hand!"

She picked an axe up off the floor
As he burst in through the door
"Sorry Doc, was in the loo.
Is there something I can do?"

She waved a hand up in the air
Martin stared. "There's nothing there.
Are you pointing at the wall?
I can't see anything at all."

"No, you cretin, look at me!
My hands, they're budding, like a tree!"
He stumbled backwards, mumbling "Crumbs,
One two three five umpteen thumbs!

And fingers, well, let's call it plenty."
(He couldn't count to more than twenty.)
"Dear oh dear oh dear oh dear.
What the hell has happened here?"

Frink sighed deep with head in hands
"You never were a clever man.
It's Burgeonitis, a disease
That's caught from dirty Lavva Trees.

I brought one back from Katmandu,
Potted it, and it grew.
I just came up to do some work
And found the thing had gone berserk

Growing like I don't know what
It even climbed out of its pot
And went and turned the telly on
To shake its fronds at Monty Don

From its mouth some fur it spat
I think it must've ate the cat
I thought it couldn't get much worse
Until I got the secateurs

I chopped its leaves, its trunk, its roots
And as I hacked to bits its roots
It squirted sap upon my wrist
Oh, who would be a scientist?

And now look what a state I'm in.
Woe is me! Pass the gin."
(She shouted words I can't repeat
When Martin asked to see her feet.)

---

She ditched her job and rang the press
"I want a million, nothing less!"
They got her story anyway
Her face in papers for a day

"Her words-per-second are second to none,
She's Flipper Girl," said the Sun
Paraded briefly as a freak
The press forgot her by next week

To earn a crust she measured horses,
Tapped out simultaneous Morses
Played some minor roles in panto
Had some tests done by Monsanto

Played duets on the violin,
Battered Tyson in the ring
Scuba dived without the flippers
Taught England's finest wicket keepers

But couldn't settle down until,
One day she fingered, from a till
A wad of readies worth around
A thousand pounds; and so she'd found

Just the job that suited her.
The underworld recruited her:
For Knuckles and his shifty band
She counted stolen money, and

Cracked open safes in record time
"Fingers Frink," Queen of crime!
And there it would have ended but
In the end the law caught up

She's in the nick, this former queen
(Too many dabs left at the scene.)