"Murder is only an extroverted suicide." —Graham Chapman

Chapter 4

Everything Tastes Better With Python (aka "The Silly Chapter")

Within a few more weeks, Sherlock Brain was a household name and, on a national average, the only phrase uttered more than "Sherlock Brain's done it again!" was "Honey, can you unclog the toilet for me?" But even Brain knew that it would be hard to beat that second one, and so didn't begrudge the populace for it.

Every magazine had his picture on the cover, from Time (congratulating themselves on naming him "Person of the Year 2006" before anyone knew he existed) to Cosmo Girl (discussing the fact that megalomaniacal nerds were coming back into fashion) to Better Homes and Gardens (wherein Sherlock Brain deduced exactly which fertilizers actually worked). The History Channel was broadcasting a six-hour documentary on him, the Biography channel had serialized a TV show based on his exploits starring Andy Griffith and the spiritual incarnation of Don Knotts, and MTV was holding commemorative concerts for him, even to the point of lowering themselves to playing the hit showtunes of Frank Sinatra and Fred Astaire. Only Kids' WB remained stubborn, instead continuing to pump out that atrocious cartoon about mice trying to take over the world.

[Legions of fans: If only...if only...

Now that you've been given this graphic description of the rise in fame of Sherlock Brain, maybe you'll understand why the great detective was trying desperately to barricade his office door with a sixteen-ton weight.

"Push harder, Pinky!" Brain wheezed shrilly (if you can imagine such a thing), squeezing his eyes shut and throwing all three ounces of his body composition against the block of metal. "They've almost made it inside!"

"I'm—NNNNNGH—pushing, Brain! Zort!" Pinky gasped, his tiny chest heaving so rapidly that it looked like a malfunctioning air pump, then removed his fake mustache and mopped his forehead with it before clumsily sticking it back underneath his nose.

Voices were raised outside, and the wooden door warped as people attempted to force their way inside.

"Oh, Sherlock Brain, find my dog!"

"Sherlock Brain, I have a wart on my toe and want you to find out how I got it!"

"Mr. Detective, could you tell me where my car keys are?"

"YOU IN THERE, OPEN UP! I NEED FUNDING FOR MY SILLY WALK, AND I SHALL KICK THIS DOOR OPEN IN A VERY RIDICULOUS MANNER IF YOU DO NOT COMPLY!"

There was a small pause, and the chaos momentarily died down.

"Oh, you'll want the Ministry of Silly Walks then," a voice piped up from beyond the wall. "That's just across the street."

"Huh?" inquired the "Silly Walk" voice. "...Oh, all right. Sorry to be a bother."

After this incident, the chorus of voices raised again, everyone trying to knock down the door and get at the great detective. But Brain had fortuitously used the previous confusion to securely block the door with the sixteen-ton weight, and now leaned panting against it.

"They're—they're shut out, Pinky," Brain gasped, gulping air like a goldfish out of water and fanning himself with his deerstalker. "You may—you may cease pushing now."

"Just—nnngh—one more—Troz—PUSH!" wheezed Pinky with an obvious strain in his voice. Then he let out some sort of war cry and another scraping sound was heard. "It's a'right now, Brain, I've done it!"

Brain's nose twitched in sudden perplexity, and he rubbed his aching temples. "...Please revert to the events of the past for a parasecond. What in the name of aerodynamic sheep are you talking about?"

Opening his eyes, the great detective saw Pinky seated across the room from him, leaning against a wicker basket full of peaches that was now wedged against the corner of the room.

"...Pinky," Brain began slowly, quaking in annoyance and exhaustion, "...why were you moving that casket of peaches when my situation clearly necessitated assistance over here?"

Pinky inhaled massively, scurrying madly away from the basket and accidentally falling face-forwards just in front of Brain's feet. "Oh, Brain," he breathed, clutching at the hem of Brain's cape, "it was for OUR OWN GOOD!" Pinky glanced back over his shoulder fearfully, as if the peach basket was huddled in the shadows, waiting for him to let his guard down. "There's nothing more dangerous than fresh fruit! 'Cept a giant hedgehog named Spiney Norman."

Within mere moments Brain's fist had made contact with Pinky's skull, and the shorter mouse felt reenergized immediately. "Sie sind ja nicht einmal zum Mitskarren brauchbar," he shot off for good measure, dusting off the sleeves of his suit. "While you were defending yourself against fresh fruit, I have shut out all those detestable admirers of mine." Brain snorted, scrabbling up the leg of his hardwood desk and seating himself with a sigh on the desktop. He stretched a little, then rubbed his spine with a hissing intake of breath, after which he collapsed onto his back again. "After all, I've routed out that hidden clan of transvestite lumberjacks, discovered the location of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, shut down that homicidal cult posing as 'The Dangerous Sports Club', deduced the true resting place of St. Brian and even found that missing piece of artwork inside that old woman's stomach. What more can they want of me in a single morning?!"

"Protection against fresh fruit!"

Whumf.

"Mmmmmmmmmmmmaybe not. Narf!"

Brain rolled over onto his side, resting his large head on his palm, and resisted the urge to whack Pinky again. At least the presence of "groupies" meant that his plan was working. However, it was rather irritating to have hordes of people follow you around everywhere in hopes of catching a glimpse of him or demanding some inane services.

He was starting to feel disconcertingly like Britney Spears.

Desperately trying to ignore a mental image of himself without hair, Brain suddenly became aware of a rattling noise coming from a nearby window, and he froze. "Pinky," he enunciated carefully, not moving an inch even as the rattling became louder, "Pinky, you did lock the windows when I asked you to, did you not?"

Pinky stuck his tongue out the corner of his mouth and rubbed the top of his head, making a strange, high-pitched whining sound not unlike a mosquito's mating call. "Yes, Brain," he decided at length. "Yes, I did not."

Still Brain remained stationary, even though the rattling was quite clearly increasing in volume now. "And why not, my ill-born companion?"

"It was the raspberries," Pinky hissed, glancing about as if afraid that they'd hear him. "They were lookin' reeeeal menacin' right then, an'—"

The taller mouse didn't get to finish his thought, as at that moment there was a huge, resounding CRASH and the windowpane shattered, making both mice scamper away as they attempted to avoid the shrapnel. There was a thunk as some heavy footwear collided with the top of the desk, and a sort of whipping sound as a rope of conjoined bedsheets (which the mysterious assailant had obviously used to swing into the room) swayed slowly off in the corner. Sensing that the commotion was over, Pinky and Brain quietly peeped their heads up out of the depths of the peach basket—at which realization Pinky promptly fainted before being rudely awakened by his short companion.

Standing on the desk was a totally indescribable man who was simultaneously short, tall and medium-sized, wearing a full suit of armor and with a dead chicken slung over his shoulder. Removing said armor to reveal a white T-shirt and spandex bike shorts, the two mice could see that he had a rather indescribable head and face, along with blackish-brownish-blondeish hair, and this indescribable face split into a grin as he spotted the pair in the basket of peaches.

"'Ello!" he cried in a decidedly British accent, spreading his arms wide and flapping them like wings as he jumped off the desk. "I'm Eric Michael John Graham Terry Terry."

"Ah...g-greetings," Brain returned hesitantly as he began to clamber out of the basket, but was shortly bowled over by Pinky. This impertinence quickly earned the taller mouse another whack on the head, after which Brain proceeded calmly out of the basket and cocked his head at the tall-short-medium-sized man. "That's...eh...quite an impressive name, my friend. But what shall I call you?"

"Monty," the man answered without missing a beat, flashing an annoying smile at the Brain's obvious confusion. "It was my mother's name."

Pinky, obviously recovered by this time, drew in a massive gasp of breath and clapped both hands to his face. "YOUR MOTHER WAS MRS. NORA EDWARDS OF CHIPPING SODSBURY?!?!!?!?!"

" 'Dr. Pinkston'..." began Brain ominously, but was unable to finish his thought as Monty interrupted.

"You knew 'er then?"

"Natch!" the mustachioed mouse ejaculated nasally, twirling in place a little. "Ohhhhh, she was LOVELY! An' she made SUCH a nice albatross!"

"Pinky, stop this tomfoolery at once!" Brain snapped, shooting a look at "Monty" as if too say "You too." "Now." Planting his feet firmly apart, Brain glowered up at the human man. "What do you want? I warn you, I shall only pursue your case if it interests me sufficiently."

Monty's reply was to nod vigorously, his eyes wide in a ridiculous fashion as he stuffed the dead chicken into his pants pocket. "Oh, oh, yes, it's interestin' all right! I promise, it's interestin'! You won't be-lieve how interestin' it is!"

Plopping himself on the ground with an air of finality, Brain dropped his chin into his hand and leaned his elbow on his knee, his face completely deadpan. "Try me."

There was a pause as the biggish-smallish-medium man sucked in a breath, running a hand through his indeterminately-colored hair. "Well, I suppose to put it simply," he stated, his nostrils flaring slightly as he exhaled, "...it's MURDER."

Brain's head immediately shot up, his ears stiffening so severely that his hat was nearly crumpled between them. "Murder?!" he cried almost ecstatically, leaping to his feet as he thought of the prestige solving a murder would bring him, then remembered that he was supposed to be sulking and coughed embarrassedly, half-turning away. "Ehhhh...I meant, 'oh, a murder.' "

Pinky cocked his head to the side, practically leaning his entire body in that direction as he did so. "Ya sure?" he inquired worriedly, lifting a hand timidly as though he was in school. "Maybe they're not dead, only restin'. Or pinin'!"

Within seconds, though, the taller mouse gave out a cry of pure terror and began to run for his life as he saw a peach rolling rather quickly in his direction.

Nonchalantly descending once more from the large basket, Brain looked back up at Monty and attempted to suppress a triumphant smile in favor of a more professional frown. "Inform me of the details of the...sordid affair. Who was murdered? Where, and when?"

Monty seemed slightly at a loss, taking the chicken out of his pocket and toying with it a little. "I...I don't really...know the where and when..." he gulped, staring at his hands, "I just...woke up and she was...she was dead." At last the man couldn't take it anymore and just collapsed, sobbing, into the human-sized chair behind the desk. "I loved that parrot so much!"

For a second, Brain attempted to articulate a counterthought as his neural receptors processed this new information, and then in a flurry of garbled sounds he mentally exploded. "Your parrot?!?!" he demanded as the author's artistic license momentarily placed him in a straitjacket. "Your PARROT. Parrot. The murder of a parrot. I am the single greatest detective that could ever exist in this or any possible multiple or parallel universes, I who could outmatch Tim the Enchanter for sheer mental prowess, I who know better than to fear fresh fruit—AND YOU COME TO ME WITH A PARROT THAT IS PASSED ON, IS NO MORE, HAS CEASED TO BE, EXPIRED AND GONE TO MEET ITS MAKER?!?! A LATE PARROT, A STIFF, BEREFT OF LIFE, RESTING IN PEACE, PUSHING UP THE DAISIES, RUNG DOWN THE CURTAIN, JOINED THE CHOIR INVISIBLE—AN EX-PARROT?!?!"

After calmly bearing out this tirade, and having snapped out of his grief with inhuman speed, Monty nodded emphatically. "Yes."

There was a moment's pause as Brain practiced his patented deep-breathing exercises, then grumblingly acquiesced. "All right, all right, fine, it's DEAD!" he allowed. "And you suspect—"

Here he stopped short, an expression of horror and revulsion spreading across his face. "Oh no. Nonononono. I shall not say it! It would be utterly degrading."

Monty blinked, only half-comprehending whatever Brain was muttering about. "Well," he offered, "I do suspect—"

"DON'T SAY IT."

Pinky's head popped up from the front of the room, where he had just chucked the peach to the expectant crowd outside the door, who were devouring it voraciously. "Ooooh!! Narf! I know!! I know, Brain!!!!" he squeaked, drawing himself up impressively. "He suspects—"

"DON'T SAY IT!"

At that moment, a stereotypically-attired British police constable poked his head through the broken window, inquired confusedly, "Fowl play?!" and then exploded for no apparent reason.

Brain gritted his teeth, his fists clenching and unclenching at the horrible joke. He narrowed an eye at Monty, attempted to construct a sentence, then, failing that, he threw his hands into the air in a final fling of exasperation. "Oh, for all the—I'LL ASSIST YOU!"

"Oh, jolly good then, old chap!"chirped Monty, then, scooping the two mice up into his hand, he swung back out the window on the bedsheet rope. However, the reader might be interested to know that in moments there was a sharp ripping sound, followed by a rather hard thud and something suspiciously like the crunching of rodentlike bone structure. Rapture. (Or rather, rupture.)

Soon enough the trio was on the road in Monty's carriageish-car, the sounds of horse's hooves preceding them. Clip clop, clip clop, clip clop...

"PINKY! STOP PLAYING WITH THOSE COCONUTS!"

"Fjord! Sorry, Brain."

The rest of the trip was silent, except of course for the constant vomitings and explosions of a strange man named Mr. Creosote, plus the occasional cry of "BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!" and the sounds of random passerby being turned into Scotsmen. But that's unimportant. Almost as unimportant as the sounds of Brain's strangled cry as, once they reached Monty's front door, the short mouse was catapulted over the building for not answering what his favorite color was. And the more excited cries of Pinky as he pretended to forget his name in order to be catapulted over the building as well. And don't forget the cracking noise as both mice were once again squished by Monty, who hadn't known the average flying speed of an African swallow.

Following this ordeal, the unlikely trio was forced to outrace a giant blancmange from the galaxy of Andromeda in addition to a living house, the former of which was eaten whole by Pinky and the latter threatened with zoning regulations by the Brain. After spotting several larches from quite a long way away, they finally struggled back to Monty's house, which had since been guarded by the vigilance of a rather vicious rabbit, who nearly managed to dismember our heroes until the author mercifully led it over to a pasture of Mary Sues instead. (At last, a useful form of hunting.) Following that, a rude Frenchman attempted to chuck a live cow at them from the top of the building, but the triad managed to hurry inside and lock the door, panting and wheezing.

"I say, ol' chap," Monty began quite calmly, inspecting his nails, "do you ever feel as if you're trapped in a neverending loop of vaguely related stolen gags only written to take up space?"

"Yep!" chirped Pinky, adjusting his mustache while humming complacently.

Brain merely gave them both an evil glare before looking at the interior of the house. It was nearly as bizarre as Monty's appearance, with an ant farm of colossal size in the corner, as well as several suits of armor stacked up in various corners and what looked like a caged tiger by the window. Lots of pictures that seemed to have been cut out of magazines were hanging on the walls, and as well there were many things scattered across the floor which I'd prefer not to describe in the interests of maintaining the current rating. And in the corner was a television, on top of which was seated a large-nosed penguin wearing a red bowtie. But he soon exploded after making a somewhat political comment.

"I hate cameos," Brain muttered, not even remembering (much like the author) that this was the same line he'd used in the Animaniacs skit "Of Nice and Men". He promptly turned to Monty, who was thoroughly inspecting one of the unmentionable items on the floor. This sight made the tips of the stout mouse's ears redden, but he continued with his purpose nonetheless. "Where is the deceased parrot?"

It took a moment for Monty to realize that he'd been spoken to, and when he did he immediately straightened up and innocently hid the thing behind his back. Pinky curiously craned his neck to see what it was, but Brain's foot on his tail abruptly halted this venture.

"Oh—oh yes, the PARROT!" Monty stammered, quickly hiding most of the embarrassing materials on the floor by shoving them under the television. Following this, he shot a quick glance at the two mice to ascertain whether or not they'd seen that, but regardless hurried off to his bedroom and returned, breathless, with a large golden cage in his hand and a blue, feathered lump inside of that. He placed said cage on the ground and opened the door, allowing both Brain and Pinky to cautiously enter.

At the sight of the body, Pinky let out a high-pitched squeak and covered his face, shuddering slightly. Brain, however, wore a very entertaining expression of surprised contempt.

"For all of the innumerable Bruces and the bloodline of Genghis Khan!" he ejaculated in severe irritation, poking the parrot (which was substantially larger than him) in order to completely confirm the reason for his anger. Following this, he turned sharply on his heel to glare up at Monty. "This thing was never animate! It's a STUFFED PARROT!"

"No it's not!" returned the human immediately, shaking his head as his eyes widened. "It's most certainly dead! It was sittin' on its perch last night!"

Brain's eye began to twitch as he quivered with rage. "That's because it was nailed there!" He jabbed a forefinger at the corpse's feet. "You can still see the NAIL stuck in it!"

"Maybe that's how 'e died!" Pinky piped up. His response was a string of incoherent sounds from Brain, which finally terminated in a massively huffy exhale of breath.

"This mystery is far too silly!" the shorter mouse declared, stomping out of the birdcage with Pinky scurrying out behind him.

"D'ya wanna leave it, Brain?" asked Pinky, perfectly on cue.

There was a pause as Brain looked scathingly at Pinky. "What are you talking about?"

Pinky's ears drooped at the botched gag. "Nothin', Brain."

And with the duo's return to Bakery Street, Monty's return to some naughty pleasures and the stuffed parrot's return to the garbage can from whence it had come, the chapter ended...and so did part one of the story.

Dun dun dun DUUUUUN...

"Did you hear something, Pinky?"

"Ohhh...on'y the imagin'ry musical accompaniment to this fanfic, Brain."

"...I thoroughly dislike you."

"Thanks. Zort!"