Having uncovered that our two undercover heroes had infiltrated her unrecoverable meeting, Gumma-Mumma ordered her bastion of whiffy-workers to apprehend the two intruders; the whiffys immediately obeyed, encircling Detective Pilchard and Crumpet-Hands Man within a pen of gum-gnashing, foul-smelling man-fence.

  Alas, dear reader... Alas...The situation seemed hopeless. How could anyone, lest a dork with crumpets for hands or a detective incapacitated by a giant furry hat, possibly fend off more than a hundred burly men who shovelled poop for a living? Indeed, alas...

  But take comfort, ye doubter, take comfort; our resilient heroes had gotten themselves out of worst scrapes and lesser dents, not to mention the most perilous of precarious prangs! (Another of Canterbury's finest blah blah blahs.)

  Not that he was scared or anything (Pfft! Our hero literally ate fear for breakfast!) but Crumpet-Hands Man knew all-too-well that if he was going to escape this beating alive, he needed help. By God (and his supper) he needed Detective Pilchard!

  Yet, due to the aforementioned's oversized overhead disguise, said detective was literally blind to the massing baddies – and even less capable of fighting them off. Therefore, with the workers massing closer, dusting their mucky fists, our brave bread-based hero took the only course of action left available to him; with a mean look in his eye (and a meaner one up his nose) he threw off his gloves, threw-out his arms, threw up altogether–

  And punched the detective beside him in the willy.

  Unsurprisingly, as would anyone who'd taken an unexpected bakery confection to the jollies, Detective Pilchard wailed, winced, staggered around, before finally crumpling to the ground in a heap of groan. But, just as Crumpet-Hands Man had predicted, then the detective stood, became angry – so angry that he bounded headlong into the crowd of sewage workers like a maddened bull through a field of autumnal poppies. (Rather poetic, don't you think?) Those sewage workers momentarily transfixed by the unworldly sight of a charging toon-eyed Cossack swinging his fists were inevitably clipped by said fists, uppercutted bodies flying everywhere. It was a most surreal sight, disturbing even – yet one which Crumpet-Hands Man was quick to take advantage of. While the frenzied Pilchard knocked the whiffys to the ground unwittingly, our hero verywittingly finished them off. All seemed to be going well, punch-punch, kick-kick, all that, our heroes winning this fight; but reinforcements soon arrived.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Reinforcements with mouths swollen with chewing gum...

  The second battalion of workers formed a line, knelt, cocked and loaded their throat cannons; with a hock and snort, they prepared to fire. No stranger to being spat at by a crowd of angry labourers (it's a long story...) our hero was quick to fashion a shield-sized disc of extra-thick crumpet from his hands; this shield he swiftly ducked himself behind just as the workers did spit, the spatted pellets of gum-shrapnel sent ricochetting off his crumpet-shield this way, that way, like woodlice pinging off a dustbin lid. (Again, rather poetic, don't you think?)

  But, prolonging the insect analogy a sentence further, from the mists of rebounding grubs did arrive a proverbial slug – a giant slug at that, the kind of slug you'd probably find clinging to the underside of a continent. Propelled from the indignant lips of Gumma-Mumma, a great double-bubble cannon ball of sticky-stuff came shooting across the cavern at a terrific speed. Before Crumpet-Hands Man had time to brace himself the gum-ball went smash! into his spongy-shield; the shield buckled like a tin foil pie dish, sending the tart of our hero spinning backwards into the nearest wall. Such was the stickiness of said gum, it pinned said hero and said shield to said wall with a not-as-yet-said splat!

  “Detective!” said Crumpet-Hands Man cried out/said. “Detective!”

  “Yes!”

  “Help me!”

  “Yes!”

  “God'dam'it! I said help me!”

  “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

  It was only then that our gum-imprisoned hero came to the terrible realisation that his partner had a stone stuck in his shoe.