Chapter 30
Once Sarah Sergeant had been dispatched from the Many Frogs Hotel, as we Lamberts now call it, back to wherever she had hailed from, the social-media-savvy members of our party (Ree, Toby, and Corinne) explained to the social media dunces among us how the users of many online platforms were being mobilized to save Champ from the wicked machinations of the Gavey clan and their flunkies, a.k.a.
Cambridgeshire Police. I’m sure no one needs me to name the dunces in question, but just in case: I meant Mum and Dad, not Champ, as it would have been impossible for him to have had a better grasp of TikTok, Discord, or Snapchat Spotlight, however hard he’d tried.
My parents, on the other hand… Much as I love them both, I can’t deny that our forward progress as a family was significantly impeded by their failure to grasp the basics of online life that you’d have thought any fool would be able to get to grips with relatively quickly—especially if said fools had Facebook accounts on which they’d sporadically posted pictures of me, Ree, Tobes, and Champ for more than a decade.
Not Mum and Dad, though. As Corinne whispered to us Lambert offspring one night after the digital dimwits had fallen asleep: “Two Facebook accounts do not two astute social media strategists make.”
Luckily, the younger generation of Lamberts had much more flair for the sort of thing that was required.
The strategy of the whole #InnocentChamp operation was devised almost entirely by Ree, while Toby’s wit, charm, sense of humor, and verbal dexterity made him the perfect copywriter and content creator and ensured that the right message was transmitted far and wide: Not only was Champ innocent and immensely lovable, but supporting him was also highly likely to make you more virtuous, popular, happy, and healthy than you’d ever dreamed of being before you stumbled across this worthy cause.
Joining the #InnocentChamp effort, becoming a “Champ Champion,” seemed to offer instant membership to an in-crowd that Toby’s words brought to life in the imaginations of thousands, implying all kinds of far-reaching and life-enhancing perks without actually naming any.
Declaring yourself to be “#TeamChamp” was a life choice and social status upgrade available to anyone with a social media account, at no cost whatsoever.
What’s not to like? as my non-furry siblings say. It was all so persuasive that even I, already a TeamChamp member since day one, found myself wanting to join and feeling mildly frustrated that I couldn’t because I was already “in.”
Once they’d finally grasped what was going on and that it was real and massive, not just a silly made-up game confined to Ree’s and Tobes’s burner phones, Mum and Dad jumped straight from baffled and bumpkin-like to horrified/irate.
It would have been nice if there had been half an hour of “Wow, kids—this is so impressive” in between.
To be fair to them both, they did later say all the right things and apologize for having been slow to get on board.
And I’m grateful to have witnessed their temporary numbskullery too, because it made me ponder some important topics at a deeper level than I otherwise might have.
The conclusion I drew was this: Clever people are more likely than stupid people to be harmfully stupid.
The stupidity of stupid people is rarely dangerous.
It seems mainly to consist of needing to have the obvious endings and meanings of pretty basic movies and TV shows explained to them.
You can tell how many stupid people there are in Level 3 by how easy it is to find full explanations online of film endings that ought to require no clarification.
Try Googling “end of Cinderella explained” and you’ll probably find hundreds of versions of: “What makes the prince realize it’s her is that the glass slipper fits her foot.
He has already been round all the other houses and tried all the other feet, and not a single one was the perfect fit until Cinderella’s; therefore, she must be the one who ran away from him as the clock struck midnight.
” (It would not surprise me at all if you also found comments saying, “However thoroughly the prince thinks he’s searched, it’s just not plausible that he’s succeeded in finding and checking the shoe size of every female in the area. Also, what if she wasn’t local?”)
While the stupidity of stupid people might be a tedious waste of time, it’s generally not capable of doing the worst kind of harm, as long as it remains unmixed with cleverness, because there’s nothing beguiling about it.
(I like the word beguiling. I think this is the first time I’ve ever used it, and I’m definitely going to use it again.) Clever people, on the other hand, dress up their stupidity so that it looks like a fascinating, unusual place that everyone should want to visit—and that’s when the trouble starts.
Apropos that…I often wish my whole family wasn’t so in thrall to Mum’s beguiling yarn about my death, and how I was callously manslaughtered by a litter vandal whom she will one day succeed in hunting down and punishing.
She thinks it’s a tragedy that I moved up when I did, even though she’s in no doubt that I’m still with her and feels my presence by her side every day. (I make sure of that.)
It makes no sense to miss me at the same time as knowing I’m still here…until you realize that nearly everyone Mum has ever met believes moving up to Level 2 is the saddest thing that could possibly happen. She’s been groomed from an early age to believe that.
It’s a shame that those in Level 3 can’t get their “what-to-thinks” from those of us who have left it, since we see a much fuller picture.
It blows my mind each time I remember that they don’t know about Everyone Gets Equal.
(I’m sorry, but I can’t explain this one.
We’d be here forever if I tried, and I’m not sure it can properly be understood in Level 3 anyway.)
As soon as I arrived at Level 2, I was shown who dropped the peach stone that moved me up.
It was Tavia Foster, the ex-girlfriend of Conrad Kennedy from Bussow Court’s the Byre.
Tavia wouldn’t normally have dreamed of dropping food remains on the street, but she was a wreck that day.
She’d been in the middle of eating the peach at Conrad’s house when he’d told her it was all over between them.
She left in a hurry and was running through the village in great distress, and when the half-eaten peach dropped from her fingers, she didn’t notice, having forgotten she was holding it.
To my mind, this is entirely understandable.
I keep trying to communicate to Mum that there’s no reason to hate either the stone-dropper or peaches, but I haven’t managed to get through to her yet on that front.
The villain-victim-rescuer model is still her favorite shape of narrative, and she’s still clinging to her belief that there’s a peach-dropping baddie to be tracked down and destroyed.
The truth is, I’m not the victim of a peach stone; I’m the rescuer of Champ. And I needed to be in position, exactly where I was and where I am now, when the Gaveys launched their attack. Everything that happened unfolded exactly as it was always meant to.
I keep trying, gently, to guide Mum toward the conclusion that peaches are not to be hated or feared.
My first attempt to transmit the message was far too clumsy; I managed to smuggle some peaches into her shopping at the big Tesco in Milton, with the help and hands of an oblivious elderly woman who was there at the same time.
Mum acted as if someone had planted rat droppings in her trolley and removed the peaches as soon as she spotted them.
I wanted to yell, “I love peaches! Peaches are delicious! Peaches are innocent!” but I didn’t want to cause a shake-up of all the levels by speaking out loud.
I suppose I should clarify, since I’ve just said the above…
Yes, proper audible speaking is something I could do if I wanted to.
All family-pet spirits could. The ramifications would be seismic if any of us did, obviously, and so none of us will—not, at least, unless and until there’s a crisis to which it’s judged to be an appropriate response.
I’ll admit, it was hard to hear, and to have to accept, that the Gaveys’ persecution of Champ was not viewed as such a crisis.
One day, one or more of us will have to speak and be heard, but that day is at least ten years away, if the rumors are to be trusted.
It’s no wonder I was so thrilled by the emergence of the #InnocentChamp movement, in which tens of thousands of wonderful people raised their voices so decisively.
The sudden and intense power of that tidal wave of support for Champ was something to behold and all the proof I’ll ever need that a huge outpouring of good can overcome the most corrosive evil.
Which brings me to Sarah Sergeant and her Bonnie-sacrificing plan.
Sarah meant well, but to say I was relieved when Mum vetoed her proposal is an understatement.
It would have been quite wrong to tarnish, publicly, the reputation of poor, innocent Bonnie.
And, really, Corinne should have guessed Mum would never agree to save one dog by slandering another.
I knew there were better ways to handle our problem—or rather, I was starting to know and to plot.
Corinne’s poise and confidence were undented by what Mum, Dad, Ree, and Tobes viewed as our temporary stumpedness.
“It’s fine,” she kept saying, and I could tell she believed it.
“I’m already working on an even better plan C—so good that by the time I’ve finished, we’re going to want to rechristen it plan A! ”
I didn’t doubt her and wondered how similar her eventual plan might be to the one I was quietly assembling in my mind.
What I didn’t expect was any input from anyone else—not until a torrent of blasphemous swearing erupted from Ree.
“Mum, everyone,” she said, once she’d stopped spluttering obscenities.
“Listen. No, I mean, really listen. I’ve thought of something massive.
I can’t believe it’s only just occurred to me. ”