Pandora's Box: The Deleted Scenes
One
(From Chapter Eight)
"For the last time!" howled Alison. "Will you sit still and stop fidgeting?"
Constance gave a long drawn out sigh and one final agitated paw at her hair before folding her arms crossly, her face the picture of irritation.
"I still don't see," she said pointedly, "why all this is strictly necessary for a night at the pub."
"Honestly," said Alison, rolling her eyes as she began to unwind rollers from Constance's head, ignoring the small yelps that her friend gave on having her scalp tugged in what felt like several opposing directions all at the same time. "Have you learned nothing from all the many, MANY hours I have spent tutoring you in the art of allure? Evidently not. A witch should always look her best, Connie, whether she's going to the ballet or to the local pub."
"But the pub is full of alcoholic septuagenarians with nothing better to do than waste the remainder of their significantly shortened lives by eating pieces of processed pork and attempting to score higher than twenty-six on the quiz every Wednesday."
"Yes, and they wouldn't do that had you not set a precedent by scoring forty-nine out of fifty on the first try."
"That was only because the quiz-master wouldn't accept Gwendolin Pottle as the first woman to travel into space." Constance sniffed emphatically.
"I don't think that Raymond is familiar with legendary broomstick-flying accidents of the eighteenth century," remarked Alison. "That's possibly why he didn't think that Gwendolin Pottle existed."
Constance was not mollified by this and continued to fume quietly over her defeat at the hands of the limits of non-magicians' general knowledge when Alison began spritzing her newly-created curls with hairspray.
"Alison," she began.
"Be quiet," snapped Alison, "I'm concentrating here."
"Alison," Constance continued regardless, "I really don't think that hairspray smells all that healthy."
"Here's your hairspray Ally," called Harriet, another of their flatmates, as she tossed a can through the open kitchen doorway into Alison's hands. "I borrowed it earlier, hope you don't mind."
Alison looked at the can in her hand, puzzled.
"But if that's the hairspray…" She paled, and Constance snatched the offending can from her grasp to read the label and discover just what had been sprayed so liberally over her head. She caught the three letters G-L-U.
Whilst not the first woman in space, Alison Meriweather was certainly the first woman to end up there without any visible means of propulsion…
Raymond is the quiz-master at my local pub. Hi Raymond, if you're reading…