Dear Denille,

I have learned a lesson.

I learned it from Miss Bamford, my English teacher, which, on the face of it, is not surprising. But I am not talking about spelling, punctuation and grammatical structure. I am talking about language, laughter and life. Let me tell you what happened…

Actually, I won’t, if it’s all the same to you. I have just written it down for an English assignment and I am tired and can’t face repeating myself. So I’ll cut to the chase (you won’t need reminding that I am making considerable efforts with American idioms). I made people laugh today and it was wonderful. I didn’t intend to. In fact, it wasn’t part of my thinking at all. All I wanted was to make the people in my life a little happier, but for some reason they found my actions funny.

I am NOT, Denille, a funny person by nature.

I cannot tell jokes.

I would not win any talent contests for humour. Actually, I wouldn’t win any talent contests for anything.

Let me give you an example of how my mind works when it comes to humour. Miss Bamford, my English teacher, she of the independently gyrating eyeball, once quoted something to my class. We were doing silent reading and had to bring along our own books (I brought my dictionary) and she said that someone (an American, I believe) had remarked that ‘outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside a dog, it’s too dark to read.’ She laughed in an uproarious fashion. I understood how the joke operates (it’s the two meanings of the word ‘outside’ – literally on the outside of something and ‘apart from’ or ‘excluding’). But some things about the joke bothered me. I would have put my hand up to ask her, but that would have taken too long, so I did what I always do under these circumstances. I ripped out a sheet of paper and began to write.

Dear Miss Bamford, I understand the joke and think it is a clever play on words, but I have a few questions. How did someone get inside a dog in the first place? It seems a physical impossibility. Furthermore, if one accepts that it is possible (which I doubt) then the circumstances of the ingestion would be important. Was the person intending to enter the dog or was it against that person’s will? If the latter, then it is unlikely that the person would a) be carrying a book and b) have the composure to read once he or she was inside the dog (presumably within the stomach)? Even I, who loves reading, would be looking for escape, rather than curling up for a good read. If, on the other hand, the person entered the dog willingly, book in hand, then we would reasonably expect them to have the foresight to be carrying a torch or one of those battery-operated lights that clip on the page.

I know you will accuse me of being too literal, but I can’t stop questions from entering my mind where they worry away at me until answered satisfactorily.

Yours,

Candice Phee

Of course, she only laughed when she read it.

I digress, but only slightly.

You see, it appears I can make people laugh without intending to. I gave my teacher an eye patch to solve the out-of-control eyeball problem. She laughed. I tried to recreate New Orleans in our dining room for my mother. She laughed. Laughter is good. Laughter is wonderful. I often don’t understand where it comes from, but I like the effect it produces.

My family does not have enough laughter in it. All the laughter evaporated when my sister died.

Anyway, I don’t know how I make people laugh, but I want to continue doing it.

The thing is, although laughter might be the best medicine, it cannot cure the cancer that took my mother’s breasts, it cannot cure sudden infant death syndrome, it cannot cure depression and it cannot cure the bitterness within two brothers’ hearts. It cannot move us back in time to when all was well.

I don’t know how to do these things, but I know I must try. The laughter will be a bonus.

There is another problem that has been weighing heavily with me recently and it concerns another friend I have already referred to. Earth-Pig Fish. You may remember that, in a previous letter, I told you my concerns regarding her religious temperament and how she might regard me as a deity on account of my occasional seemingly mystical appearances where wonders are performed (like fish food on the surface of the water – a sort of fishy manna). I do not want to be a god to Earth-Pig Fish. I want to be her friend. What if she is praying to me to grant her immortality? I cannot do that (mind you, neither can God, apparently, but I’d feel guilty, whereas He, it seems, doesn’t). What if she believes that if she does die, she will be brought, in a fanfare of heavenly trumpets, to my bosom and live in eternal bliss when in actual fact she’s almost certainly destined to be flushed down the toilet? I want Earth-Pig Fish to become an atheist.

I do not know how to do this.

It occurs to me I could remove myself from her consciousness by wrapping her bowl in black plastic, but this would also condemn her to darkness (and would she then interpret that as a form of Hell for sins unknowingly committed?) So I have been considering developing an automatic feeding system whereby her granules are dispensed daily but without human involvement. I am not mechanically minded, but I suspect Douglas Benson From Another Dimension, who is a scientist, might help. Of course, this raises another problem. How can I be her friend if she doesn’t know I exist? Maybe I could be her friend regardless – invisible, but doing the right thing by her, looking out for her from a distance, catering for her every need and ensuring her world is comfortable and secure.

The trouble is, that sounds like I am setting myself up as a god, which brings me full circle.

Americans know about religion, I have been assured, so I welcome your theological insights.

Your penpal,

Candice