The Embarrassing Relatives... 2

This is my first go at a fanfic in humon's captivating "Scandinavia and the World" idiom. Humon's art and ideas get under your skin. She's really good at engaging the imagination – I've been living and breathing her stuff for two solid days now. It'll settle down after a while, I know, but while my head is buzzing with SatW I've got to write about it. Haven't felt quite this way since I discovered Terry Pratchett...

"I'm so glad you could all visit!" Sister England declared, as she poured tea for the Nordics. Denmark looked dubiously at his cup. The concept of a drink that contained no alcohol whatsoever was absolutely foreign to him. He felt like a traitor to his bottle of beer, which sat on top of the coffee table, as if silently reproaching him for infidelity. Sweden shot him a meaningful glare. Denmark steeled himself, lifted the cup to his lips, and sipped, repressing a shudder.

The drawing room at the Englands was small but tastefully furnished, with antique furniture going back several hundred years, and the walls painted and modelled in the Regency fashion. The five of them, two hosts and three visitors, were sitting around the coffee table, upon which sat the huge silver teatray and the ornate tea service. The Englands had brought out their very best china, delicate and fine with gold tracery. A cake-stand and a platter of afternoon tea sandwiches, impeccably presented on doiley'd salvers, completed the display. It was a shame Denmark's beer bottle and Norway's pet fish had been put down on the same tabletop, which rather detracted from the look of the thing.

I'm jolly glad!" Sister England repeated. "Finland couldn't make it?"

"He felt a need to go to the border and stare menacingly at Russia for a while." Sweden explained. "He gets these moods from time to time. And Sister Finland had to look after her swan lake."

"Oh, I never knew she was into ballet!" Sister England exclaimed, clapping her hands joyfully. "How cultured!"

"Swan Lake? Oh yes...Tuonela." Sweden said, weakly. It is said that a grown swan can break a man's arm with one buffet of its wings. The swan of Tuonela has heard about this. Being a Finnish swan, it scorns arm-breaking as being strictly for wimps. Similarly, Sister Finland doesn't just stand at the lakeside throwing old stale bread. Oh no. This is feeding the birds for Finns.

Brother England adjusted the fit of his monacle.

"Shame Iceland isn't here." he said. "But then, we haven't quite seen eye-to-eye since that unfortunate business over the cod a few years ago."1(1)

"No." his sister agreed. "Jolly uncomfortable."

Sister England. She is comfortably dressed and of an age to be extremely comfortable in her own skin. While her teeth are slightly irregular, her skin is still pale complexioned and her elegant clothes, in a red and white motif, are set off by the double string of pearls around her neck. She is partly Emma Thompson, partly Margaret Thatcher. 2(2)

Brother England, by contrast, is a Bertie Woosterish figure. Were he on this phase of the planet Earth with us, and not just an avatar of the English people as seen from outside, living in their own world that overlaps ours just enough for the two to resonate in harmony, then he might well combine Stephen Fry with David Mitchell. People mistake his slightly diffident prone-to-babbling persona for inneffectuality. They would be wrong.

"Sandwiches OK, old man?" he asked Norway, who had lifted the top slice of bread off a cucumber sandwich and was examining it forensically.

"Well," Norway said, "You English have made a good start here. The bread, then the layer of cucumber. Good start. Good start. But for good Smørrebrød, you need marinerede sild, pickled herrings thinly-sliced cheese in many varieties; tomato and boiled eggs; leverpostej, which is pork liver-paste; thinly sliced meats, gravadlax, or smoked fish such as salmon; mackerel in tomato sauce; pickled cucumber; boiled egg, and rings of red onion. Mayonnaise, of course, and..."

"The sandwiches are exquisite!" Sweden said, hurriedly. He hissed through the corner of his mouth: "Norway, this is how the English do it!"

"And rødgrøt med fløve, of course." Denmark said, innocently.(3) 3

"sorry... rothgrurd.. rethgrod moyeth..." Sister England floundered. She reddened slightly under Denmark's innocent scrutiny.

"Denmark, behave!" said Sweden, without looking round.

And then the noise started. It was an argument. Far away, indistinct as words, but two people having an argument nonetheless. Brother and Sister England looked at each other. Sweden, Norway and Denmark caught the worried look.

"Is this a bad time?" Sweden asked.

"No, no." Brother England assured him. "It's... family."

"Family?" asked Norway, who, despairing of the smørrebrød, had begun on the cake. He said it indistinctly, through a mouthful of crumbs.

"Do you think we should tell them?" sister England asked, as the shouting got closer and nearer.

Her brother arrived at a decision.

"We should. " he said, steeling himself visibly as if to discharge an unpleasant duty. "At the very least, Denmark has a right to know."

"A right to know what?" asked Denmark, curiously. He reached for his habitual beer bottle. He frowned. As he was in England, it had turned from Carlsberg into Carling Black Label. He shrugged. Ah well.

Sister England looked at him with compassionate eyes.

"It's to do with the nature of our family. And the fact a greater Britain has been around now for nearly five thousand years. Please listen to my brother."

And brother England related a story that held the attention of all three Nordics...

That's it for now... England's family secret will be revealed tomorrow or at such time as I can get back to the PC again. What is the secret? Who's making the noise? What has it got to do with Denmark and why will it be a stupendously bad idea for him to find out? It is plotted. It will be written. Watch this space.

1 International relations between Britain and Iceland soured in the 1970's over the issue of access to the fishing grounds around Iceland. Iceland excluded all fishing boats apart from their own, Britain refused to accept this , the navies of both countries got involved, things got heated... an Icelandic patrol boat, btw, once damn nearly sank a Royal Navy frigate three times its size, which says to the world "Do not piss off people of Viking descent. However sparkly they are." Relations have improved since.

2 But nicer. Much, much, nicer.

3 This is a common Danish bloodsport at the expense of foreigners. Getting them to pronounce this phrase brings endless moments of quiet joy.