The Monster's Surprise Party

© 2013 David Jasmin-Green

“It's a happy day at castle Frankenstein, Master, or at least it ought to be,” Igor said.

“Why?” the Baron said from behind his newspaper. “Are we having a takeaway? I could murder an Indian or a Chinese. Has the milkman accidentally left a huge tub of fresh cream on the doorstep? Have I won the Bavarian lottery?”

“I can only answer with a big, fat 'no' to all of those questions, Master. It's your monster's eighteenth birthday today, that's why I feel that the dicky birds should be singing gay hosannas, if they're that way inclined..... I haven't seen young Sheena all day. She's been off on the razzle, I suppose, she's been slaughtering countless innocent peasants, p'r'aps, but I've baked her a lovely cake for when she decides to lurch aimlessly home as only your more pitiful creations are capable of lurching.”

“I clean forgot that it was my monster's birthday, Igor,” the Baron said. “I'm glad you reminded me – how monstrous of me to forget. I don't check my infernal diaries as often as I should these days, I'm afraid. I bet Peter Cushing never forgot his monster's birthday..... Let's hide in the hallway and surprise her when she gracelessly bursts through the front door demanding an assortment of alcoholic refreshments.”

“Good idea,” Igor said as he put the finishing touches on Sheena's cake with an icing gun. “She likes surprises.....”

“Happy Birthday!” Igor and the Baron roared in as near as damn it perfect unison as the monster turned the key as quietly as partly humanly possible in the front door of the darkened castle shortly after the clock struck midnight. “Surprise! Happy eighteenth birthday to the nearest thing to a little sister I ever had,” Igor added.

“Shut it, syphilis lips, and get me a god-damned drink, I'm absolutely parched,” Sheena muttered, slamming the door behind her.

“What time do you call this, Madam?” Frankenstein said, drumming his fingers impatiently on the time-worn casing of the grandfather clock in the hall while Igor lurked in the background grinning like a chimp expecting a tea party.

“I call it time to wander home and go to beddy-byes in a drunken stupor after a refreshing birthday drinkie-poohs with my best buddies in the whole wide world,” the monster gurgled, “but you can call it whatever time you like, old timer, it's a free country. Don't worry, I'm only ever so slightly tipsy and I'm not about to throw up on the carpet or smash this sorry looking joint into glorious pieces..... I've been to a club in Stuttgart, and it was well sick, man – there were some right weirdos boogeying the night away in there, I'll tell you that for nothing. What are you two tossers doing hanging around in the cold hallway in the dark, anyhow? Were you waiting for me? Anyone would think you were my sodding parents.”

“I know Sheena's curfew is eleven thirty and you're normally very strict about it,” Igor whispered in the Baron's ear as he surreptitiously deposited a large, sticky bogey beneath the innocent nostril of a dusty bronze bust of Charles Darwin, “but you could give her a bit of leeway seeing as it's her birthday. Surely she deserves to blow the candles out on her cake while she makes a wish, surely she deserves a nice present to unwrap in pleasant surroundings instead of the vicious beating you usually dish out before chaining her to the wall of the deepest, dampest, coldest, most cockroach infested dungeon in the castle without any supper apart from the odd sleepy rat.”

“You paint me as a callous, thoughtless, rather wicked Master, Igor,” Frankenstein whispered back, but he was the noisiest whisperer in the world and it was impossible not to overhear him. “But I'm not half as evil as you think. For your information I've set aside a hefty gift for Sheena's birthday. I've been paying into a trust fund week in and week out ever since I created her, and from tomorrow morning she has access to the funds that I've scrimped and saved to amass. Apart, of course, from the odd fiver I've taken out now and then to pay the electricity bill – the staff at MPower wear Dick Turpin masks as they shamelessly rob me at gunpoint. I bet there's nearly twenty quid in that account by now.....”

“Twenty fucking quid?” Sheena spluttered. “Is that all you think a hulking great monster of my distinction is worth? Twenty quid won't pay for a chiffon scarf in the New Year sales or a single size eighteen steel toe-capped boot, it won't pay for a half decent night out, what with the extortionate increase in alcohol prices and the rise in the rail fare to Düsseldorf or Berlin. I'm sick of boozing in the Winking Pig, the only pub in yonder cruddy village, because it's as good as dead and all they have on the Jukebox is Chaz and Dave and Showaddy-sodding-waddy. Well it's completely dead now, because on the way home I ripped off the barman's head and tore the last few villagers frequenting the pathetic shit-hole limb from limb in a fit of mindless pique because they failed to buy me any birthday cards.”

“Oh dear,” Frankenstein said. “That means we'll have a mob of furious peasants banging on the door screaming for blood as soon as they manage to gather reinforcements. Never mind, such is life.”

“I don't suppose you've set up a trust fund for me, have you, Master?” Igor whimpered. “I'm desperate for some new pyjamas to replace the old piece of sacking I've been sleeping on since I came to work at the castle twenty nine years ago, and I wouldn't mind a mattress and a couple of nice warm blankets. I'm just a poor, uneducated servant, and I get cold and lonely and confused on these long, cold, lonely, confusing winter nights. I haven't even got a teddy bear to snuggle up to.”

“It's mid July, and it's eighty five degrees in the shade, you complete nincompoop! Frankenstein roared. “You're a total pussy, Igor, and if straw bedding and no teddy bear is good enough for the dog it's good enough for you.”

“But -”

“Shut up, Igor, and think yourself lucky! There are thousands of starving beggars wandering the countryside who'd jump at the chance of changing places with you – at least you get an occasional turnip and gruel allowance in return for your tawdry, half-hearted favours.”

“Yes, Master, sorry Master. I guess I'm destined to remain your faithful servant until the day you decide to chop me up for spare parts for your inhuman surgical experiments.....”

“I'd change places with you any time, you scruffy, pointless minion,” the monster said.

“Would you really, Sheena?”

“No, I was lying my tits off just to piss you off, gannet features.”

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“Aah, how thoughtful!” squealed Sheena as she spotted her birthday cake on the dining room table while Frankenstein, Igor and Elsie the sheep from a parallel dimension sang Happy Birthday at the top of their voices. “Where are my frigging presents, then?”

“I, er, I don't have anything for you, Sheena, apart from this brand spanking new American Express Platinum card,” the Baron said. “You can have this sheep that might or might not have come from another world if you want. I'm afraid I'm not as generous a Baron as Peter Cushing according to the assortment of wankers that are at this very moment filming our every move for the delight of the cinema going public. And don't expect anything from Igor, he's just a penniless, insignificant little nobody. Perchance we might throw a party in a while, but I'm a really, really tight bastard, so I shouldn't count on it being too wild.”

“I've made something for you,” Igor said, fumbling in his pockets. “It's only a painted pebble, it took me ages to prepare, but as my dear, sweet old mother used to say, it's the thought that counts. Can you guess who or what it's supposed to resemble?”

“Nope,” the monster grunted, hurling the pebble into the open fire, cutting the cake and helping herself to a humongous slice. “Shut your loathsome gobs while I guzzle, scumbag one, scumbag two and Elsie, who looks a bit like your pathetic pebble, servant. Be a dear, Igor, stop reminiscing about your dear, dead mother and spit-roast that sheep for me, I'm fucking starving.”

“Righty-ho, Hot Lips, a hearty roast mutton from another world supper it is. Oh, I bought you a six pack of Kestrel Super from Tesco.”

“Splendid,” Sheena said. “Hand them over then, you sweaty little tool.”

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“Put some music on, Igor,” Frankenstein said. “I'm sure I invented the gramophone a couple of weeks back. Make it something loud and raucous and gritty, it's not as if we have any neighbours to offend.”

“Will that scratched Black Lace LP that you pinched from Dracula's crypt do?”

“It looks like it'll bloody well have to,” Sheena said, swigging her lager, “seeing as we haven't got anything more lifeless. Why can't you play something by Napalm Death, or my personal favourite band of all time, the Wurzels? Fucking geniuses, they are. I am a cider drinker..... Why can't you invent something useful like Radio Luxembourg, Frankenstein, you shrivelled up old tart?”

“I love this track,” the Baron said, singing along between crammed mouthfuls of cake, “and I could quite happily strut my funky stuff to it all night long.
Agadoo doo doo, push pineapple, shake the tree,
Agadoo doo doo, push pineapple, grind coffee,
To the left, to the right, jump up and down and to the knees,
Come and dance every night, sing with a hula melody.”

“I'm phoning a few of my mates,” Sheena said. “This party needs a serious kick up the arse.”

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