"What can be left for us to do?" asked Fanny thoughtfully. "You have already covered several of the most important genres."
"I wish you hadn't already done most of the action-packed ones before I got here. I doubt that there's anything interesting left!" said William discontentedly.
I sighed and attempted to come up with something, but to no avail. We were just about to give up when suddenly the telephone rang.
"Who would know this number?" I wondered. (We were still at the hotel)
"Have either of you been watching a cursed videotape?" inquired my brother-in-law. "Maybe it's that odd little girl that murders people!"
"I hope not!" said Fanny nervously.
"Don't worry- horror was two chapters ago." said I.
All three of us stared at the telephone, but nobody moved. For my part, I would have been more than happy to answer it, had I known how to. At long last, William picked it up. As he listened, he began to turn very pale, and for some mysterious reason a saxophone began to play softly in the background. After he hung up, he turned to me and said with a little more drama than was strictly necessary:
"That was the hospital- they said that your mother is in a coma and that you must return home at once!"
I gasped and was just in time to catch Fanny, who promptly fainted.
It was only after my wife had been revived that I noticed that the appearance of all three of us had changed somewhat. Fanny, who was rather slight and pale before, had abruptly become very buxom and was now wearing carefully applied makeup and a low-cut dress. Likewise, the other two of us now resembled the heroes of some cheap romance novel with a title like "The European Billionaire's Tahitian Mistress".
"This is even worse that I thought!" said William with a groan. "We're in a soap opera!" (Insert dramatic music here)
I found my mother in a sterile, cold-looking room at the Mansfield Regional Medical Center, about a mile from our house. No sooner did I enter, but that annoying "Musak" began to play again, and I wondered if I would ever be free of it. She was lying on the bed with Pug snuggled up beside her (she rarely went anywhere without him), and wore a tranquil smile on her face. I had only been seated next to her a few minutes when she opened her eyes and yawned.
"I was not asleep, Edmund!" said she. "I was just resting my eyes- (looking around confusedly) what am I doing in this hospital room?"
It appeared that my mother was in no danger at all, but why she had been put in the hospital in the first place was still a mystery to me. I was beginning to contemplate this, but was interrupted by a gunshot and a loud scream in the hallway adjoining. Pug hopped off the bed and ran out barking, and I followed. Imagine my horror when I saw Fanny lying on the floor, and my Aunt Norris standing above her with a revolver in her hand!
I have taken a lot of criticism for not adequately defending my cousin from the viciousness of our aunt, and it is not an uncommon reader who considers it a 'cop-out' that I was "too angry to speak", but I assure you that I was not too angry to hit my aunt over the head with a bedpan, and that I may have had a little more pleasure in doing so than was considered quite proper. The pan struck her with a satisf-- um… horrifying clunk, and she went down in a heap, thankfully not discharging the revolver, which I swiftly relieved her of.
Of course, my next action was to rush over to poor Fanny, who was clutching her leg and lying in a pool of blood. I called loudly for a doctor, and, since we just happened to be in a hospital, several came. As they assisted my wife, I asked one of the nurses to summon the police, who arrived in time for my Aunt to regain consciousness and start screaming at me at the top of her lungs.
"You haven't seen the last of me!" she cried, and I began to have the nasty feeling that indeed I hadn't.