Or “Amy et Clarence Vacances chapter IV”

Or, alternatively, “Little ‘n’ large do Sicily”

Amy begins…

“As the front of our 7 euro diary proudly bellows to the world, ‘Doubt grows with knowledge’. And so, Amy et Clarence shall go out into the world in search of knowledge and eternal truths and humanity and vitality, smiteing the waysayers along the way and cultivating the intellectual doubt that has haunted and propelled so many great men.”

Our story begins on a rainy day somewhere in the Kirdford region of West Sussex. A sleeping figure with a mass of curly brown hair stirs, picks up the phone next to her bed, and bolts upright, panic setting in fast…It’s 4:50 am. Our heroine’s flight leaves in an hour and a half and it takes 45 minutes to get to the airport, not even taking into consideration the terrible flooding that has recently hit the region.

She suddenly runs from the room and into the one beside it, hurling abuse at her unsuspecting and rather lovely brother. WE HAVE TO GO, NOW.

Amy pictures Clarence, arriving at Palermo, walking through passport control beaming even more brightly than the Sicilian sun, looking around, and failing to see her short, if slightly superior friend. Amy imagines Clarence bursting into tears and cradling herself on the floor in the foetal position as she is tended to by kindly Sicilian nuns. Amy sees news headlines flash before her eyes, “English girl abducted in Sicily, abandoned by friend” and the sacks full of hate mail being pushed through the door. Something must be done.

Amy dresses in 30 short seconds and lunges her backpack over her shoulders. She runs to the door, but James is nowhere to be seen. He is in the kitchen drinking juice. Within 30 seconds they are in the car, James driving with the speed and agility of a getaway driver through the lakes of murky water that bury the country lanes. Whilst driving over a flooded bridge, swans can be seen having a happy splash on what was once a public footpath.

They near the airport. As James pulls into Departures, Amy jumps out before the car has even come to a stop, praises her brother for his strength and virtue and runs. She runs. And she runs. Then she stops for a bit because there’s a fat woman in a leapord-print maxi abomination blocking the moving walkway – then she runs some more. She ignores the haters at security who tell her to repack her liquids, but of course – OF COURSE – she sets off the metal detector. A brisk frisk ensues. Then she runs some more. Gate 34 “GO TO GATE”. Time: 5:48. GATE CLOSES AT 5:50.

I ran and I ran an’ I kept on a runnin and finally, through a mass of bovine Brits headed for Magaloof, she sees it. Gate 34, “Now Boarding”.

She catches her breath, and decides that there is a god.