Once upon a time, in a dusty hospital dormitory in a sleepy town in the
Australian outback, one baking hot morning, while threatening kangaroos
idly kicked a football outside, Nellie Melba1 was born singing!
Soon, she escaped!
Nellie arrived at the quayside: 'I'm eighteen years old, and that's a fact!' she cried. 'Now give me a ticket to Paris or I'll sue!'
The sea captain sighed: 'But lass -' he began.
Nellie struck him on the ankle with Kevin, her ossified koala.
And so Nellie, two years and eight months old, took ship to fair Europe.
'I'm hungry!', said Kevin. 'Bring me a plate of Melba toast!2'
'It's all he'll eat,' said Nellie: 'koalas have very particular guts.
I'll have a Peach Melba, please.'
The American Civil War3 was raging, and even from thousands of miles away,
Nellie could hear the boom of the guns and the screams of the dying; and, to
keep up her spirits, and those of her shipmates, she sang even louder, and longer; mostly
dirty Ozzie sheep-dipping songs she'd learned at the wombat's knee.
And so, soon, the gallant sea-captain, and his hardy crew, were that sick of Nellie's warbling, they keel-hauled her, and forced her to walk the plank; but
she held her breath, and Kevin's, and, after drifting for many days and nights,
subsisting on a meagre diet of plankton and blue whales, they came to shore on Pitcairn Island4!
'Civilisation, by golly!' cried Nellie. 'Come on, Kevin! Forward into the
Universe!'
Nellie and Kevin, squeaking - he'd not been oiled - struck inland; and after an hour's march they came to a river.
'Ferry!' Nellie sang out.
Presently the ferryman appeared, wiping his moustache.
'Your uniform's filthy!' snapped Nellie. 'There ought to be legislation!
Now row me across!'
And Nellie came to Pitcairn City.
'Food, bath, oil, bed!' demanded Nellie; and Kevin smiled mysteriously.
And in the morning, good and rested, Nellie and Kevin uprose, and marched
into the Guildhall, and there were the six Followers of Jesus, all named Fred,
about their business; and Nellie scattered their papers and seated herself in the Mayor's chair:
'I'm in charge now!' she said, 'When's the next ship for Europe?'
'Ooh,' said Fred, 'not until 1924 soonest. Ain't that right Fred?'
'Right,' said Fred5.
'Not good enough,' said Nellie. 'I need to go NEXT WEEK. Send a wire.'
'Ooh,' said Fred, 'can't be done, Missie. Not nohow. We're wireless ere.'
'Well, a pigeon.'
'All dead of the flu, them,'
'I have to get to PARIS,' stormed Nellie: 'And beyond, to unknown lands. I
need to be FAMOUS.'
'Now, missie,' said Fred. 'you ave a nice cuppa tea and a sit down, then
we'll sort you something out, you see. You got any fishing tackle?
Or you can be pantrymaid. Can't she, Fred?'
'Right,' said Fred: 'we been looking for a pantrymaid.'
'Kevin,' said Nellie.
Kevin's red eye opened; and he regarded Fred; and then he put his foot
down, and accelerated time -
'I've lived ere fifty year, peaceful,' whined Fred and Fred and Fred and Fred and Fred and Fred, as their long grey beards turned white and unravelled rapidly and fell to the floor, and all the hair dropped from their heads, and a chill wind whistled through the building; and they slumped suddenly down on their buttocks and their long thin fingers twitched, and all the skin on their bones shrivelled and peeled off and lay on the floor and turned to dust; and they expired, and their ashes were sent to fertilise the land.
So Nellie set the Pitcairn Islanders to work and they built her a rocketship and she came to Europe and settled in gay Paree.
'Now,' said Nellie, 'to business. Kevin, who is the greatest soprano of the Nineteenth Century?'
'I am!' said Kevin the koala.
'Correct,' said Nellie ...
So Nellie sang for her supper; and all the Princes and Prime Ministers fell at her feet in adoration; and she was made Dame of the British Empire etc.
Then one night, driving home from the Opera, through Montparnasse,
Nellie came upon a nuclear bomb, sitting in the gutter, sobbing its little
heart out.
'Stop!' cried Nellie, and the Bugatti6 screeched to a halt.
'What's your name?' said Nellie.
'Digby,' blubbered the bomb.
'What's the matter? Here, come and sit by me.'
'My squeeze7 has dumped me,' said Digby. 'Depopulatrix. And I do love her so.'
'There there,' said Nellie. 'Have a butterscotch. I'm going to sing in
Londres next week, would you like to come with me?'
'I'm blow up!' cried Digby. 'You see if I don't! I'm a doomsday bomb,
I am! I'm a supernova! Look! I'm already in a state of extreme gravitational
collapse! See how my pantaloons sag! I'll destroy all human life if she don't come back to me!'8
Humanity was threatened! But Nellie kept Digby sweet with intravenous Callard
and Bowsers9 and they arrived in London but then the cops got wind and
surrounded the hotel with massive overwhelming shock and awe presence! Inevitable confrontation and escalation to WMD use loomed!
Nellie sent for Sherlock Holmes10. He came through the cordon and she met him in the foyer.
'Mr Holmes, you are the only man who can help me!'
'Rigby!' cried Holmes.
'Digby,' said the bomb.
'Doug,' said Holmes. 'I shall call you Doug.'
'Why?' asked the bomb.
'I like the sound,' said Holmes.
'I dig it,' said Kevin11.
'Now,' said Holmes, 'you're not going to blow up and devastate the Earth are you? Why, Nellie here will song for you! And then you can join the Church and follow Jesus and he'll
give you a reason to live!'
'What does he get out of it?' said Digby.
'Jesus loves you,' said Holmes.
'More than Depopulatrix?'
'Jesus loves you straight,' said Holmes: 'From absolute past
to absolute future, with divine, true, and mathematical ticktock. It's
in the Book. Page 164.'
'Oh, I see,' said Digby. 'You're sure?'
'Quite sure,' said Holmes. 'It's elementary.'
'Oh,' said the bomb. 'Alright then.'
And Digby accepted a pension from the King and got stuffed and exhibited in the Imperial War Museum, and on wet Sundays Kevin would come and sing to him from the music halls, and so the world was saved!
And some decades later, Nellie was out walking with Kevin, and her toyboy beau,
when they came upon a handsome collie dog in the street - but it seemed to be in some sort of trouble! It was slumped against a lamppost, its eyes filmed over, and it was breathing heavily!
'This dog is clearly a dope fiend,' said Beau. 'I strongly advise you to have nothing to do with it.'
But Nellie took the dog home, and nursed it through its cold turkey, and fed it on weak chicken broth, until it was stronger, and she'd run out of weak chickens; and they ate the turkey for Xmas, and she named the dog Churchill12, and it bit the beau, and he legged it.
'You're my dog now!' said Nellie.
'Woof,' said Churchill.
'Are you're not going to take any of those nasty narcotics, are you?'
'Woof!,' said Churchill, and shook his head firmly. 'Woof WOOF!'
'That's my boy,' said Nellie.
And soon afterwards, in 1931, Nellie died, happy and contented; The End; and two years later, Hitler came to power; but Churchill went on to save the world, again!
[Please note that Dame Nellie Melba's life story includes few if any mentions of boot camps for deprived unruly children, or of mad genius android ninjas.]