Agatha Leviathan, the seventh queen of Blackbean.

Agatha Leviathan, the seventh queen of Blackbean, sails gracefully into the Bay of Lemons. She stands on the prow of an undermanned sixareen, balancing out the cargo of dessert spoons and meringue nests that spill out over the back of the boat and queue up in the vessel’s wake like a collection of powerfully unwholesome lily pads. Her jowls trail behind her in the breeze. She has in her left hand a bunch of barely ripe bananas; in her right, a solid silver truncheon.

Jonathan, dodging from starboard to larboard, handles the solitary oar.

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30/7/2008

Vernon had his tongue out when the girl’s reflection sidled in at the seventh floor. He reeled it in politely enough, but he was fairly miffed. He’d been waiting all morning for a squint at his potentially engorged tonsils.

After nine floors of cloying silence, the doors slid open at neither of their stops to reveal precisely no-one.

‘Wonder what happened to them!’ said Vernon. It seemed the appropriate thing to say. The girl didn’t laugh. Vernon couldn’t much blame her.

‘Well, she’s there, isn’t she,’ said the girl, flatly, nodding into the emptiest corner. Vernon laughed, considerably too loudly.

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