16. FILI-BUSTED PT2, THE ANNOYENING.

As Porque desperately dredged his mind for more and more convoluted ways to say not a lot, our Froggy friend got in touch with her inner princess.

Rosalind had in her life gone through nineteen private tutors, ten boarding schools, two drill sergeants, and eventually even a prisoner the king decided had not suffered sufficiently. (He eventually begged to be sent to the torturer rather than deal with Rosalind for longer, of course, the king being the merciful sort only made him do the job for another six weeks before declaring he had suffered enough. Then hired him as an assistant, knowing that the threat of more study time with Rosalind would thoroughly keep him in check.) So she knew that her throwing a tantrum would not make the windbag in front of her deflate the overinflated ego it held. For that, she would have to thoroughly burst his bubble.

Luckily, over that time, she had become something of an expert in that particular field. So she gave Mibbet her first lesson in the secret art of being a teenager. Step one was not easy; anybody can be bored, but truly looking the part is an art form all its own. It took Mibbet about ten minutes to get it right; at the start, she had just looked constipated. (Human expressions are hard, alright? Especially when you are used to Froggy body language.)

Eventually, though, she truly nailed it, managing to get a successful hybrid of her eyes glazing over, petulant sulkiness, slack jaw, and mind-numbing vacancy. All washed down with the pièce de résistance. The eye roll. Rosalind observed their prey carefully the entire time, mentally grinning when his expression let his irritation show for just a moment before he realised and quickly put the proverbial mask back.

So mission one was a success, now for stage two, the impatient fidget. For some reason, adults who thought far too much of themselves hated when somebody moved too much, it made no sense to Mibbet, but she was starting to see the scheme, so she fidgeted, shuffling in her seat like she was searching for the best spot in for her seat. Then set her restless legs a twitching. At this, Porque's expression became cold, he could barely hide his irritation, and his focus was slipping. But this wasn’t enough.

Next came the first of the dirty moves; she put her arms back spread wide over the backrest and PUT HER FEET UP ON THE EMPTY BENCH IN FRONT. This caused a few mutters of outrage, quickly hushed into whispers for form’s sake; even for a princess, they grumbled; there were limits to being rude.

Unfortunately for Porque, Rosalind was just getting started; she reached into her pocket and pulled out a nail file, giving Mibbet an impromptu lesson on its proper use, taking care to make sure to teach her such tactics as holding her fingers up to the light to check for burrs, in exactly the right way to make it unclear whether she was raising her hand, or checking her nails, every, single, time.

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The veins on Porque's forehead were starting to show now, and he was beet red. He had grown up with servants, and nobody he had met before would dare disrespect one of his rank. The speaker of the house watched on in fascinated horror, wondering what she would do next, and the fuss was drawing their attention.

Then Rosalind reached into her pockets once more, as people watched on aghast (good form dictated one should avert their eyes, but like a carriage crash, the upcoming catastrophe was impossible to look away from.)

As we all know, there is a skill to chewing gum, and such a skill it is. Mibbet pulled out a few pieces of the bane of teachers everywhere, individually wrapped chewing gum. Then with meticulous precision, unwrapped one piece, then another, and another. Taking great pains to ensure that all the paper wrappers crinkled loudly as she did so. Then threw the first piece into her open maw.

As every teenager who has ever been on the wrong side of a teacher could tell you there’s a way to chew gum, with your mouth hanging slack so every smack, chomp, and squelch echoes, and the parliament was built with acoustics in mind, so every single sound was audible throughout the hall. To make matters worse, at Rosalind’s instruction, Mibbet was taking care to open her jaw as wide as possible with every single chomp. Exposing gums, gum, and tonsils to an unprepared world. Then to the disgust of all assembled, she pulled the piece from her mouth, examined it for a moment, then threw it back for further acts of shameless public mastication.

By now, the vein on Porque's forehead was twice its natural size and beginning to throb. But he rallied and tried to continue his speech. As Mibbet pulled the piece of gum from her mouth to his relief, then she pulled an even dirtier move. She reached and stuck it to the back of the bench.

“Indeed we can all agree, *crinkle* that the unfortunate situa" *rustle*........ Porque felt ready to explode, but he had to keep going. His donors were counting on him.

But, next, the ultimate weapon was unleashed, Rosalind had saved the best for last, and Mibbet was about to learn of the dastardly creation known as BUBBLEGUM.

So Mibbet began to learn the skill and technique of bubble blowing, making sure the gum was thoroughly chewed (as loudly as possible, of course). Then she gradually blew bigger and bigger bubbles. Behind her, Sir Humphrey was desperately trying to keep a straight face, but a smirk can only be policed so far. As the bubbles grew larger, it seemed the vein on Porque's temple came out in sympathy, until finally, when a bubble almost as big as Rosalind’s head snapped, so did he.

“It would seem”, Snarled Porque, all pretence of calmness abandoned (alongside his common sense, on the same roadside he ditched his decency on many years ago.) “That the princess is unprepared for parliament, what does she have to say that was so important?”

At that, Mibbet flashed a grin so wide and predatory that Porque gave a gulp (this was the moment he realised he screwed up.). “Oh, I was just going to say that the honourable lady should have a turn to speak too.” She said with a smirk.

Meanwhile, the Honourable lady in question (the agriculture minister) and her friend, the honourable Gentleman Counta, had a few words for him about the agriculture funds, and more specifically, the keyword, embezzlement.

After that, Mibbet returned to sitting like a proper lady, apart from the smuggest grin imaginable.