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Re: A maynard Dilemma
http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=8316

Author:  Anne [ Fri Aug 27, 2010 12:52 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

First two posts deleted to save board space.

Link to original drabble here.

Elle with Mod Hat on.


It was the morning after Mary-Lou’s arrival in the house and she was blissfully unaware that there had been three attempts on her life during the night. The producers were beside themselves with excitement over the likely effect on their viewing figures and had been hard at work editing the footage of the assassination attempts to show during prime viewing time since very few viewers would have been watching the live footage during the early hours of the morning when the incidents occurred.

The first attempt had taken place at 1.07am when the house was in darkness. A solitary figure was captured on one of the upstairs cameras, drifting along the landing, arms outstretched and eyes wideopen. Unfortunately, Con’s sleep-walking impression was spoiled when she tripped over Bruno and used some very unladylike language before catching herself and resuming her act. As she drifted into Mary-Lou’s room the glint of a shiny object was clearly visible in her right hand. She approached the bed where Mary-Lou lay sleeping peacefully but before she reached it, a small hand, unseen by Con but clearly visible to the cameras, reached out from underneath and yanked the rug away causing Con to crash to the ground with a yell of fright. As Mary-Lou sat bolt-upright in bed, Con just retained the presence of mind to kick the knife under the bed and throw herself across Mary-Lou weeping and asking for advice in relation to an entirely made-up incident relating to an entirely made-up sibling (guessing correctly that Mary-Lou would be entirely too busy ingratiating herself with Joey to follow the matter up the following morning). After she had endured a lengthy lecture on her habitual tactlessness and an even lengthier speech about how Mary-Lou would have handled the situation so much better, Con was finally able to escape back to her room. Unfortunately, the camera swivelled to watch her go and the identity of the under-bed lurker therefore remained a mystery.

The second attempt took place at 2.15am, shortly after Mary-Lou had sunk back into sleep following her tiring efforts to improve Con’s moral fibre. An outside camera picked up movement on the roof and focussed in on the source of the disturbance, the camera operator suspecting an attempted break-out. Instead, Adrienne and Erica were discovered perched on the edge of the roof lowering Damien on a rope towards Mary-Lou’s window, two floors below. Damien was wearing a very unconvincing disguise consisting of a long auburn wig and a badge saying “I’m Len” (the three plotters having decided that it might be possible to kill two birds with one stone) and brandishing a pistol that was later found to have been liberated from Jack’s study. As Damien reached Mary-Lou’s window he was seen to take careful aim but before he could pull the trigger an arm emerged from an upstairs window and slashed the rope with a kitchen knife that bore a strong resemblance to the one last seen being kicked under Mary-Lou’s bed by Con. As Damien crashed to the ground 15 feet below the gun went off, effectively waking the entire household. Len immediately took charge and, assuming they were being attacked by dangerous criminals (as she often did in moments of crisis as some innocent hikers in Tyrol could confirm) she mustered her siblings to defend the house. The unfortunate Damien found himself on the receiving end of a fairly vicious assault and managed to drag himself out through a gap in the head as pots, pans and other assorted household objects rained down on him. Adrienne and Erica were noted to be in the thick of things, having decided to cut their fellow conspirator loose, mainly because it was so much more fun to throw things at him. After crawling for a considerable period of time with a broken back Damien was picked up by a passing lunatic who nursed him back to health in a breathtakingly beautiful cave under the mountains. Damien later moved to Dorset and became an estate agent.

Meanwhile, back in the house, it was a good hour before everyone calmed down and returned to bed. Joey in particular was very difficult about going to bed as she thought the night’s events would make a super storyline for a new book and was anxious to write them down. Jack had to become quite firm and manly and threaten to give her something to make her sleep before she could be persuaded back to bed. Eventually all members of the household were sleeping peacefully and at 4.23am the final assassination attempt took place when Margot walked quite openly into Mary-Lou’s room and heaved a large paperweight at her head. Her aim was good (she had had plenty of practice in the past) and Mary-Lou was only saved from certain greyness-and-to-all-appearances-deadness by Cecil emerging from the wardrobe clutching a rolling pin and batting the paperweight back at Margot who ducked just in time. The paperweight sailed through the window with a mighty crash, thus waking the entire household for the second time that night. As everyone crowded into the room of the by now slightly worried Mary-Lou, Margot showed remarkable presence of mind by immediately throwing herself into her father’s arms and wailing that her devil made her do it. She was immediately forgiven following short speeches from Joey, Len and Mary-Lou which no-one could understand because they were all speaking at once, and despatched to her room to pray.

In the confusion, no-one noticed Cecil lurking in the corner and Mary-Lou was too excited about her new reforming Margot project to remember what had happened. Cecil was therefore able to slip quietly away to her own room to consider her next steps. Cecil had immediately recognised the potential advantages of Mary-Lou’s presence in the house. It was inevitable that Mary-Lou would be nominated by every housemate at the first possible opportunity since she was an overbearing, fundamentally irritating little madam, but it was equally inevitable that Joey would refuse to have her evicted. She would therefore remain in the house being aggravating and keeping the attention of the housemates and the public firmly focussed in her direction leaving Cecil free to pursue various other little schemes of her own. She had therefore decided to make sure that Mary-Lou’s stay in the house did not come to a premature end as a result of foul play…..

The fourth week in the house began with a spell of bad weather, driving rain and plummeting temperatures keeping the housemates firmly indoors. Len and Mary-Lou competed to come up with entertaining and educational activities for the younger children, mainly involving crepe paper, pillow-cases and a jigsaw machine. These activities came to an abrupt end when Mary/Mark and Louise/Louis were caught sewing Poppy into a pillow case and attempting to drop her down the laundry chute. As a punishment they were forbidden from taking part in the sale of work which Joey had dreamed up for later in the week. The producers, having long ago realised the futility of arguing with Joey or attempting to introduce any sense of reality into her schemes, acknowledged defeat and announced that the sale of work would form that week’s task. Housemates were to produce items for the sale and the staff from the school would attend to purchase them. The two housemates who made the least money would automatically face nomination that week. No-one quite picked up on the fact that exclusion from the sale was therefore a huge advantage for Mary/Mark and Louise/Louis who retreated to their room sniggering and remained there playing cards for the next 3 days, despite intermittent visits from Mary-Lou and Len who were anxious that they should apologise, be forgiven and take part in the sale. After Mary-Lou was hit on the ear by a well-aimed shoe thrown by Louise and Len had become sick of having raspberries blown at her, the twins were left in peace.

Meanwhile, the majority of the housemates were preparing for the sale of work while thinking unmentionable things about Joey for dreaming up this particular little gem of a task. A large bag of materials had been delivered and most of the house spent the next few hours picking morosely through the ensuing pile of junk and trying to work out if there was any way of making decorative pin-cushions out of old white sheets and some pieces of plywood. Con surprisingly brightened up at this point and after whispering to Margot, the two of them left the room clutching a can of paint and looking shifty.

Felicity also looked suspiciously cheerful and was seen to remove a tube of superglue from the pile of materials before wandering off sniggering.

The remaining housemates were considerably more apathetic and by the evening very little work seemed to have been done. The exceptions were of course Len and Mary-Lou who had spent the afternoon trying to see what the other one was doing while pretending to be completely absorbed in helping others. Len had been forced to stop pretending to teach the precocious septuplets to knit when one of them stabbed her through the hand with a knitting needle. A complaint to the producers came to nothing when, as usual, the guilty party could not be identified due to their lack of names. Despite this set-back Len had managed to produce an exquisite china tea-service, moulded from clay dug out of the garden during a break in the weather, baked in the kitchen oven (Anna was thinking murderous thoughts about the eldest Maynard over the state of her stove), and painted with delicate flowers using homemade paint created from crushed petals from the garden. Mary-Lou, determined not to be outdone, had gathered some of Bruno’s moulted hairs and woven them into a beautiful rug using a loom constructed from plywood and string. Adrienne was the only other person to have produced anything at all and she rather felt that her papier-mache balloon-cover was lacking a certain je ne sais quoi.

The next two days saw very little progress in respect of the sale of work. Charles made a half-hearted effort and produced homemade plantpots by taking the lids off old jam-jars and filling them with soil, and Steven persuaded Anna to instruct him in the art of making her miraculous cream buns. Unfortunately for him, Anna had not yet got over the oven incident and, feeling generally malicious, made some subtle adjustments to the recipe that she gave to Steven. The resulting cod-liver-oil flavoured buns did not go down well with the housemates who sampled them and Steven retreated to his room to sulk.

On the third day the housemates were assembled to display their sale items in advance of the arrival of the school staff. Len’s tea-service and Mary-Lou’s rug were greeted with cries of joy from Joey who was clearly highly over-excited about the whole thing. She was slightly more muted about Adrienne’s balloon cover but Adrienne could not muster the energy to take offence to Joey’s audible aside to Jack about “Adrienne’s strange hat”. Charles’s plant-pots also failed to send her into transports of delight but Charles was well accustomed to lack of parental interest as he had been identified as the most boring Maynard at a very early age, although had anyone been able to remember little Constance/Margot/Helena/Felicity/Cecil for any length of time, he might have had a challenger to his title.

Joey was looking a little crestfallen at the lack of effort that her sale had invoked when Felicity entered dragging a large blanket-covered item behind her. At about the same time, Con and Margot came down the stairs, also bearing a large covered bundle and looking innocent. Felicity was the first to unveil her offering and she whipped away the blanket to reveal the remaining quads Jane, Joan and Jean, still not recovered from their separation-induced catatonia, posed in a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil pose. Felicity’s assertions that she had created a unique modern “installation” were fruitless since her father soon discovered that she had superglued the quads’ hands into the correct poses and they could not be detached. Proceedings were held up while Jack arranged for an ambulance to take the unprotesting trio to the san for de-gluing. No-one was quite sure what happened to them after that, but no-one was particularly bothered.

After Felicity’s efforts, Joey and Jack turned with some trepidation to Con and Margot’s offering and were surprised and delighted when the covering was removed to reveal a beautiful dollshouse with white walls and a red roof, containing many cleverly crafted items. Con and Margot smirked appreciatively at the exclamations of delight over the craftsmanship. Unfortunately for them, Len eventually recognised it as one of the houses won by Con at a school fete and painted white in a poor attempt to disguise it.

Since the sale of work now consisted of a rug, a tea-set, a strange hat and some jars of soil, Joey hastily called the school to cancel much to the secret relief of Miss Annersley who did not think she could last through one more display of bad schoolgirl work without breaking down and admitting that it was all rubbish. The producers went into a huddle before announcing that Con and Margot would be up for nomination due to their dishonest behaviour. At this point Con discreetly lifted her top in the direction of the chief producer who remembered that his viewing figures probably owed a good deal to Con’s topless sunbathing exploits and hastily withdrew her name and replaced it with that of Felicity, citing her callous behaviour towards the quads as justification. Joining Margot and Felicity as nominees would be Adrienne whose papier-mache effort was generally agreed to be beyond rubbish, and Mary-Lou because the producers had already developed a healthy dislike for her.

Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Fri Aug 27, 2010 2:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

I've just read through all of this and it's hilarious! Oh, my. Thankyou so much for reviving it! Is it too soon to start a chant for more?

Author:  Anne [ Fri Aug 27, 2010 3:40 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

When the votes were counted, Adrienne was the unfortunate evictee. The general consensus amongst the production team was that she was neither annoying enough to be entertaining or topless enough to be popular. Adrienne immediately decided to join her distant cousin in a convent, thus saving Joey and Jack from having to drag her around a series of young doctors’ house parties in the hope of marrying her off.

When Adrienne had finally made her escape, having been extensively delayed by Joey who kept calling her back to give her yet another message for “my precious Robin”, the remaining contestants were left eyeing each other thoughtfully and wondering who would be next. Eighteen housemates now remained – Len, Con and Margot, Steve, Charles, Cecil, Mary/Mark and Louise/Louis, Poppy, the still unnamed septuplets, Erica and the one and only Mary-Lou. A slightly worried production assistant did a rapid re-count at this point as he had 18 names on his list but his records showed that there should be 19 contestants remaining. His re-count failed to reconcile this numerical oddity and he put it down to poor maths skills, possibly as a result of hanging around the notoriously algebraically-challenged Joey for too long.

“Right, bed for me, I think” announced Len, with a pointed look at her triplet sisters who both immediately gazed at the ceiling and out of the window to avoid meeting her eye and being summonsed for a pre-bed lecture about their recent conduct. Unfortunately, while sidling away from Len, Margot’s eye was unfortunately caught by Mary-Lou who managed to convey with a series of slightly alarming facial contortions and bobbing eyebrows that she wanted a word. Con was wiser and kept her gaze firmly fixed on the ceiling-rose until Margot was forced to trail out of the room after Mary-Lou without the support of her sister. No-one ever found out exactly what Margot said to Mary-Lou, but shortly after their departure from the salon, Mary-Lou returned to the room scarlet to the tips of her ears, and one of the sound engineers was heard hissing to the producer “well if you think you can hit the bleep button faster, maybe you should try it next time”. As a result of this episode, the show received so many complaints that the production team immediately decided that Margot, like Con, was a sure-fire ratings winner and agreed to fix the nominations if necessary, to avoid losing her over the next few weeks.

Author:  Emma A [ Fri Aug 27, 2010 4:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

I'm so glad you've updated this, Anne - I did enjoy this when it was in the archives! Loving how manipulative and sneaky everyone is getting, and how Len is still determined to be a proper CS girl! :D

Author:  Liz K [ Fri Aug 27, 2010 6:21 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

Anne wrote:
Unfortunately, while sidling away from Len, Margot’s eye was unfortunately caught by Mary-Lou who managed to convey with a series of slightly alarming facial contortions and bobbing eyebrows that she wanted a word. Con was wiser and kept her gaze firmly fixed on the ceiling-rose until Margot was forced to trail out of the room after Mary-Lou without the support of her sister. No-one ever found out exactly what Margot said to Mary-Lou, but shortly after their departure from the salon, Mary-Lou returned to the room scarlet to the tips of her ears, and one of the sound engineers was heard hissing to the producer “well if you think you can hit the bleep button faster, maybe you should try it next time”.


Excellent, absolutely excellent, as is all of this drabble.

Author:  cestina [ Fri Aug 27, 2010 7:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

This is fantastic. Hard to pick out any particular bit but I did love this: "She searched for her for all of two minutes before forgetting who she was looking for and striding off to check that Con and Margot weren’t ruining their lives in the half hour she had been away from them." So very Len :lol: :lol:

Thank you so much for reviving it......

Author:  Abi [ Fri Aug 27, 2010 10:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

I missed this the first time around, owing to being off the board at the time - it's hilarious! Can't wait to see more of it. :lol:

Author:  Naomila [ Fri Aug 27, 2010 11:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

I'm laughing so much I can hardly type this. :rofl: :wink:

Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Sat Aug 28, 2010 11:04 am ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

Thanks for another update :lol: :lol: This is fabulous!

Author:  Lesley [ Sat Aug 28, 2010 11:57 am ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

Wonderful to see this again. :lol:

Author:  charli [ Sat Aug 28, 2010 2:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

This is very funny. :D :D Thank you

Author:  Joanne [ Sat Aug 28, 2010 10:47 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

It's great to see this continued - I had read it in the archive and regretted the fact it wasn't finished. I hope you find the time and inspiration to keep going! :D :D

Author:  Mia [ Mon Aug 30, 2010 3:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

Welcome back.

In reply to your query, we'd really prefer you to link to the archived bit or post a version with no comments on. Your drabble isn't very long so don't worry; but we have hardly any space on here as it is and don't want the board to disappear! Also we can't delete from the archives and will now have two threads the same; again taking up space.

Mia with mod hat on.

Author:  Fiona Mc [ Tue Aug 31, 2010 4:53 am ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

Read this in the archives, so am really glad to read more of this :D

Author:  2nd Gen Fan [ Tue Aug 31, 2010 3:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

Excellent - I have just read this and loved it. Only one problem - have not acheived anything else this afternoon!

Author:  sealpuppy [ Tue Aug 31, 2010 3:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

I can't pick out any one thing that made me laugh - the whole thing is hysterical! If Big Brother could be like this, I'd be tempted to watch it. :D

Author:  Anne [ Fri Sep 03, 2010 8:47 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

The morning after the eviction of Adrienne, the producers called the remaining housemates together in the salon and announced the next task. The housemates were to be divided into two groups and required to stage two competitive nativity plays. The group judged to have followed the traditions of the Chalet School most closely in both the preparations for the play and the play itself, would be safe from nomination for the week. The other group would all be up for nomination. At this point proceedings were interrupted by Len who was unsure at what point the judging would begin and thought it safe to kick things off with the traditional Chalet School response to anything more exciting than a maths lesson.
Leaping to her feet she cried out “Three cheers for the Chalet School! Hip hip….” She was greeted by some half-hearted mumbled hoorays from the boys, something that sounded suspiciously like “whatever” from Margot and a hastily-hidden death-glare from Mary-Lou who was wishing she had thought of it first.
There was a less muted response to the next announcement from the producers, which was that the housemates would be expected to organise themselves into the two teams, with the manner in which this was accomplished forming part of the task and being subject to scrutiny by the judges who were to be the current staff of the school, most of whom had only allowed themselves to be dragged into this in the faint hope that they would see either the practically perfect Len, or the supremely irritating Mary-Lou fail spectacularly for once in their smug little lives.
Left alone by the production team, the housemates eyed each other in dismay. The smarter members of the group were acutely aware of the dilemma facing them – ally themselves with some of the stronger contenders in order to win the competition and risk having to go up against them in the nominations if they lost, or presume defeat and surround themselves with weaker housemates in order to minimise the risk of eviction. A couple of the smarter and more devious members of the group were also turning over in their minds the possibility of isolating the unpopular housemates in one group in order to ensure the eviction of at least one of them. Predictably it was the one and only Mary-Lou who took charge and bustled off to find a bunch of straws to pick. As soon as she was out of the room there was a mad scramble to form teams in the desperate hope of avoiding the unrelenting horror of being bossed around by the OAOML. Upon her return she was considerably miffed to find the room empty but for the septuplets who had been abandoned in the frantic exodus. Gathering them up in a large basket (the accepted method of multiple-baby transportation in the Maynard family) she stomped off to find the other housemates. She eventually tracked down the less well-hidden group consisting of Charles, Con, Margot, Cecil and Mary/Mark following a badly-timed sneeze which had the rest of her group silently vowing to nominate her at the first opportunity should she survive this week’s eviction. After the group was hussled out of their hidey-hole in the log-store, they found themselves with no valid argument against Mary-Lou joining their group as despite their initial assertion that the other group also had five members, namely Len, Steve, Erica, Poppy and Louise/Louis, and that Mary-Lou’s presence would therefore be an unfair advantage, a headcount (after a fairly substantial hue and cry involving several doctors from the san and a few local residents unearthed the second group hiding in a cave in the mountains and trying their best to escape detection by crawling through a secret passage) revealed the forgotten sixth member whose name, as usual, escaped everyone. The first group were therefore forced to welcome Mary-Lou into their number. The production team then divided the nameless septuplets between the two groups bringing Len’s team to nine and Mary-Lou’s to ten.
The first challenge facing the housemates was to identify the main Chalet School play traditions. Neither group had any great difficulty in coming up with the obvious ones. After all, it wouldn’t be a Chalet School Christmas without someone extraordinarily unlikely being assigned the starring role, or without someone falling prey to an unexpected accident or illness, catapulting an equally unlikely and unwilling member of the school into the limelight. After some thought, Margot pointed out that a fairly fundamental feature of the annual nativity play was that the performance should be of the standard usually expected from a long-running Broadway show, or a collaboration between the English National Opera and Sir Lawrence Olivier, despite being performed by a bunch of schoolgirls, including the aforementioned unlikely contenders. Inspired by her teamates’ approval, Margot continued with her run of brilliant ideas by suggesting that Con should be sure to “moon” before waking up and putting in a dazzling performance. Con had never been entirely sure how one went about “mooning” and privately resolved to make some enquiries about the practice. Margot’s final observation was that the play should obviously be written by a member of their family, ideally Joey herself, but Madge would also do at a push. Cecil was therefore despatched to find Joey and smarm a multi-act play out of her. This turned out to be an easy task as Joey had spent the night at her desk, in a state of great excitement, producing a play of dazzling brilliance which she had intended to bestow upon the group headed by her beloved eldest daughter as she had still not entirely forgiven Con and Margot for some of their misdeeds. Unfortunately for her plans, Jack had decided to give her something to make her sleep (as he did secretly on a regular basis in order to get five minutes peace) and, being a bad subject for drugs, Joey was passed out in a dreamless slumber and Cecil was able to pry the finished play from her hand.
Len’s group was doing less well, as the group had less collective experience of the mass hysteria that was a Chalet School nativity play. By the time their opponents had secured their script and were beginning to argue about roles, Len and her cohorts had only identified one possible tradition and Erica’s suggestion that they should set fire to the building mid-play and ask Joey to sing to calm down the fleeing masses, was rejected as being a bit too drastic.

Author:  Abi [ Fri Sep 03, 2010 9:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

Oh, I don't know, I rather liked Erica's suggestion!

Great to see more of this. :D

Author:  Myth Tree [ Fri Sep 03, 2010 10:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

I like Erica's idea too. This drabble has kept me happy during a boring first week back at work. Thank-you.

Author:  Lesley [ Fri Sep 03, 2010 11:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

Think the ones hiding in a cave had the right idea! :lol:

Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Sat Sep 04, 2010 9:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

I think that an excellent suggestion! Thankyou!

Author:  Fiona Mc [ Sun Sep 05, 2010 5:16 am ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

I love it all

Author:  sealpuppy [ Sun Sep 05, 2010 4:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

Fiona Mc wrote:
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

I love it all


Me too! :D

Author:  Minim [ Sat Sep 25, 2010 11:25 am ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

Love this! <3 :rofl:

Author:  shazwales [ Sat Sep 25, 2010 8:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

Brilliant! Thank you. :D :D :D

Author:  Naomila [ Sat Oct 30, 2010 1:41 am ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

*tries to start chant for more*

Author:  Abi [ Sat Oct 30, 2010 8:41 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

*joins in the chant with enthusiasm and a rather nice little drum*

Author:  Minim [ Sat Oct 30, 2010 8:47 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

*Joins chant with enthusiasm*

Author:  janetbrown23 [ Sun Oct 31, 2010 9:03 am ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

Pointy things, fire, now drums, wonders if Abi has gone native. Whatever next?

Author:  Myth Tree [ Sun Oct 31, 2010 3:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A maynard Dilemma

Don't know about Abi but Midge is a sort of combination between an exocet missile and Karen from outnumbered.
*Joins in chant with extremely loud singing*

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