plotting | Silence Killed The Dinosaurs

(Part 1 in full here, or just read the recap at the start.)

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Previously on Lucy’s Evil Sadistic Egg hunts …

My partner this guy (arrow pointing to) comic of my partner and I this person (arrow pointing to) comic of me have a tradition of messing with each other via chocolate eggs these delicious fuckers (arrow pointing at) easter eggs . Two years ago, I came up with a Cunning Plan this face (arrow pointing to) comic of me looking cunning mid-hunt. Phase 1, two years ago, was to set up a small lockable cabinet in his mind as a VERY IMPORTANT HIDING PLACE that must be checked at all costs this fellow (arrow pointing to) cabinet with lock . Phase 2—last year, 2020, the year of constant terrible things—involved locking every last easter egg in that cabinet and then hiding the key this guy (arrow pointing to) a key by taping it to the back of the clock. It … didn’t work out. He got a riddle wrong, leading him to the key early. I was disappointed like this (arrow pointing to) me screaming and melting into a puddle . But that wasn’t the whole plan this face (arrow pointing to) me looking EVIL . This year was time for Phase 3. Something that had been living in my head for three years without me breathing a word to him. Something that had evolved in the wake of the 2020 hunt disaster. Something I had thought through every last inch of and ironed into perfection. But sometimes real life gets in the way …

So yeah. When I originally came up with the Cunning Plan, I did not expect that for Phase 3, the most important phase, the climax, the culmination of years of mildly-sadistic daydreaming, the bit that involved a lot of heavy lifting, that I would be …

… pregnant.

I realised early on in the pregnancy this would be an issue, and set about working out how to handle it. I considered trolleys and skateboards, odd pulley systems or just risking some lifting and climbing, but when running all this past a friend, she very sensibly pointed out I was being ridiculous and she would be delighted to come around and do all the significantly physical bits.

Me, standing and waving. Friend is popping in from the side of the frame saying 'hello!'

Big thank you to her for making all this possible.

Are you ready? Did you read the recap at the top? Do you know all the key pieces in this game?

Good.

Here we go.

Easter Sunday dawned, and my partner hid all the eggs set aside for me. Credit where credit is due, he did his best job ever this year. He even used tape and twine to make things extra interesting.

6 panels. Panel 1: an easter egg balances on top of a coat rack. Panel 2: an easter egg is tapped to the inside of a pendant light shade. Panel 3: an easter egg is taped to the top of a fan blade. Panel 4: an easter egg has been tied with twine so it hangs from the handle of a watering can into the body of the watering can. Panel 5: an easter egg has been tied with twine so that it hangs from a curtain rail between the window and the curtain. Panel 6: I have removed a bowl-light shade from the ceiling and am taking one easter egg out, another is still in the light fitting.

And he really could have been cruel about it and put them all in places pregnancy made tricky or completely impossible for me to access, but he didn’t. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had, not after the previous year. But he’s a sweetheart.

Unlike me.

No eggs appeared for him that morning, but later that afternoon, when he returned from an errand …

3 panels: Panel 1: my partner sticks his head in the door and says 'heeeeeelllloooo? I'm home! Just a head's up in case anyone is still hiding anything ...' Panel 2: I pop out improbably from behind the coat rack and say 'oh, hi!'. Panel 3: my partner says 'Should I ... Look for things?'

1 standard panel and 6 small panels. Panel 1 (standard): From behind the coat rack, I say 'I would not presume to tell you what to do.' 6 small panels begin. 1/6: My partner looks around, hopeful, and I peek out from behind a couch in the background. 2/6: partner looks around, still hopeful, while I peer from behind a potted plant. 3/6: Partner is starting to look concerned. I dangle from the ceiling to watch. 4/6: Partner walks past something on the floor, it is a key on a note. 5/6: Partner stops and looks at the key and note. The tiniest top part of my head begins to appear at the bottom of the panel. 6/6: My partner notices there should be something large where the key and note are (glowing space with lines around it). My head is a little higher.

1 standard and 1 large panel. Panel 1: My partner says 'The whole--' as I rise higher from the bottom of the panel. Panel 2: I pop up looking very over-exciting yelling 'THE WHOLE CABINET IS GONE!!!' and my partner is rightly startled.

That’s right, I hid THE WHOLE MOTHERFUCKING CABINET. You remember the cabinet, right? It was in the recap.

This fellow (an arrow pointing to a cabinet)

You got it. That fellow.

This was something I had been planning for three whole years. First step, establish the cabinet as important for hiding things. Second step, hide ALL the eggs in the cabinet and then take the key, replacing it with the first in a string of riddles, and hide it. Third step, HIDE THE WHOLE MOTHERFUCKING CABINET.

Seriously, this plot took me years to pull off, please appreciate the moment. I sure did.

Close up of my face. I am glowing pink with sparkles and clapping with delight.

My partner probably would have been more impressed if, at that same moment, he hadn’t peeked through the neighbouring door to the spare bedroom and seen …

3 panels. Panel 1: my partner ignores the key on the floor to peek through a door to the spare room. There is a suspicious cabinet-shape under the covers, which is glowing with lines around it because it's so suspect. Panel 2: Closer view of my and my partner (the door is still visible in the background with the suspiciously glowing cabinet shape in the bed). My partner says ' ... Can I look in here?'. Panel 3: my partner and I. I say

3 panels. Panel 1: my partner says 'It's just ... Last year I jumped to the end, and this year I'd like to do it properly.' Panel 2: I say 'If you jump to the end, you aren't breaking the rules. You just win.' Panel 3: my partner says, 'if you're sure.'

See? Sweetheart. Bless him.

2 panels. Panel 1: the cover is pulled back from the bed to reveal a pile of books arranged in the rectangular shape of the cabinet. There is a note on top that reads 'LOL psych.' Panel 2: my partner stares at the note. My head is viisble in the bottom corner. I am so delighted that I am glowing pink with sparkles.

I’m not totally evil. You may have noticed that along with the key to the missing cabinet, I left a note.

A note with a key. The note reads: Where does today come before yesterday? WRONG ANSWERS ONLY'

Or maybe I am.

See, this was the riddle he got wrong last year. The correct answer is the dictionary. The very obviously erroneous answer is the clock. Which, unfortunately, happened to be where I hid the key. Hence, he got a short-cut to the end. As I melted in disbelief and anger, I was already brainstorming how to twist the tragedy not only into the next phase of the Cunning Plan, but figuratively into him like a sharp, stabby—and again completely figurative—revenge knife.

So, this year …

2 panels. Panel 1: The dictionary with a note that reads: 'Oh, NOW you can get this riddle right. Too bad I said WRONG ANSWERS ONLY.' Panel 2: The clock with a note that reads: 'Correct! I mean incorrect! Which is correct because this is a wrong answers only quiz! What must be broken to be used?'

Another riddle from last year. The correct answer last time was eggs, and the next riddle was in the egg carton in the fridge. This year …

Egg cartoon containing a note which reads: 'Again, wrong answers only.'

… the ‘right’ answer was actually in the freezer.

A tray of ice with a note that reads: 'Yes! Something about breaking the ice probably! That almost makes sense. What has a head and a tail but no body?'

Last year the answer was coins.

A piggy bank wearing sunglasses with scattered coins. There is a note that reads: 'Don't you get how this works yet?'

This year, that was not the answer. He spent a lot of time hunting, in which he became he was delightfully frustrated. He is very entertaining when he is frustrated. And very productive. He found all sorts of other things.

3 panels. Panel 1: my partner walks past an open door, through which can be seen a suspiciously cabinet-y shape behind a curtain. Panel 2: my partner peeks into the room at the now-glowing-suspisciously shape and says 'That isn't the cabinet either, is it?'. Panel 3: I pop out from a large decorative pot, startling my partner, and say 'You'll have to look!'

2 panels. Panel 1. The curtain has been pulled back to reveal a cardboard box the shape of the cabinet. A note is taped to it that says 'Haha. No.' Panel 2: My partner looks disappointed. I, still in the large decorative pot, can be seen in the bottom corner of the panel looking so delighting that I am, again, glowing pink with sparkles.

But after an hour, even I was getting a bit frustrated. I mean, I had been waiting for the revenge-riddle pay-offs for a whole year and some of the bigger pay-offs for three whole years.

3 panels. Panel 1: my partner stands in a room with several pieces of furniture including a bookcase, a potted plant and a coffee table. A cat sleeps in a cat-bed on the floor. My partner says 'Help me out here, cat ... where should I look next?' Panel 2: I sweep aside the books from the bookshelf, revealing that I have folded myself up to hide there. I say 'Would you like a hint?' My partner is not impressed. He says 'Yes.' Panel 3: still in the bookcase, I say 'you just asked the right person.'

With that little tip, he got there in the end.

A box of beaten up cat toys. There is a long note, the cat is peeking out from behind it. The note reads: 'Well done! A head, a tail, but no body--probably something the cat disembowelled! Hence, this is with the cat toys. Look, this doesn't have to be a good answer because the point is it's WRONG. See how annoying it is when people come up with nonsensical solutions to riddles? FINAL ONE: What has many keys but can open no locks?'

The right answer from last year was the piano.

3 panels. Panel 1: in the middle of a room filled with a cupboard, a lamp, too pictures (one of my dinosaur friend, one of the cat licking it's bum), and two large potted plants, my partner stands and calls out 'Should I bother checking the piano?' Panel 2: I pop out from behind his back (he looks suitably alarmed) and say 'At this point, I think you can guess how that will go.' Panel 3: The piano keyboard. Sticking out of the sheet music is a note that reads: 'Masochist.'

This year …

A bowl full of keys and other pocket odds and ends. There is a note that reads: 'The key bowl! It has many keys, but can't open locks. BECAUSE IT'S A BOWL. Unfortunately, one of the keys has got confused and wandered off to be with others like it...'

The garden shed key was missing, and it didn’t take him long to follow the clue back to the piano and find it taped to the bottom of the stool.

So finally, after a long, exhaustive hunt throughout the house, he went out into the garden to the shed to find the missing cabinet.

I followed close behind.

1 standard panel, 3 small panels, and 1 more standard panel. Panel 1 (standard): my partner walks down the garden path holding two keys toward a padlocked shed. He looks very pleased with himself. 3 small panels. 1/3: My partner is walking on the path, I pop up from the bottom of the panel. 2/3: I slither along the path (still pregnant, btw). 3/3: I slither off the path, toward the bottom of the panel... Final panel (standard): I slither down from the last panel to watch from a distance as my partner unlocks the shed.

1 panel (standard), 3 small panels, 1 more panel (standard). Panel 1: my partner has opened the shed to reveal the glowing cabinet. He is clearly delighted. Small panels. 1/3: my partner moves the cabinet toward the shed door, something rattles in the cabinet (this is shown through use of the word *rattle* written around the cabinet). 2/3: my partner moves the cabinet out of the shed as it continues to rattle. He says ... 3/3 'I can hear the eggs!' The cabinet is on the grass and he is putting a key in the lock. Final panel (standard): he opens the top draw of the cabinet, which glows around him.

3 panels: my partner pulls and handful of rocks our the draw and says 'rocks?'. Panel 2: He reaches back in the draw, there is something white visible inside. Panel 3: It is a note, which says: 'Did I ever actually say the eggs were in the cabinet? Happy hunting!'

3 panels. Panel 1: my partner yells back toward the house 'But I've already looked everywhere!' Panel 2: I slither from the other side of the panel. He looks at me, unimpressed. Panel 3: He has turned his back to me and is ignoring me. I slither-levitate from the ground behind him, obviously delighted,

1 huge panel. My partner is in the foreground, ignoring me. In the background I am a huge monster of delight. I glow and sparkle. It is unclear if I look threatening or happy.

Now the riddle portion of the hunt was over, I could relax. It had all gone smoothly. He could no longer do anything in the wrong order. And it had been magnificent. I was satisfied.

He was not.

Days passed. Every now and then, I would come across him fossicking in some unlikely place.

My partner stands in front of a ransacked room. There is an empty bookcase with books and boxes scattered around it (the cat does remain on the top shelf though), a couch with the cushions removed and the stuffing exposed

Of course I’m not. What an abominable suggestion.

If I went that route, I would have eaten his eggs, not thrown them away.

I have to confess that after the disastrous 2020 hunt, I did consider doing just that. Only for a moment. At the end of the day, I’m not that sort of evil. The point of all this, as much as I might pretend otherwise, was for him to have fun. And, though he might pretend otherwise, he was having fun.

Close up of my partner, arms folded, standing in front of a huge pile of ransacked stuff (including books, a tipped-out board game, a cat in a box, an electrical cord, a lamp with no shade). He does not look like he is having fun.

No really. It’s obvious if you know him well. There’s a little twinkle he can’t quite hide.

3 panels. I lie in bed in the dark, clearly I have been asleep. My partner bends over me saying 'can you at least tell me if I should actually be looking outside?' Panel 2: I look at him in concern, he is looking a bit frazzled. Panel 3: I say 'Urhh ... okay. I am willing to confirm the eggs are inside the house.' He looks pleased.

See? He was really keen to do the hunt.

Besides, I knew it wouldn’t take him too long to find them. Not in the big scheme of things. We had been doing some house improvements, and thanks to a few recurring chores, I knew before long he would have to accidentally stumble on them …

1 large panel, 3 small panels. Panel 1: My partner is on a ladder, underneath an open manhole in the ceiling. He is holding a bag of sparkling green easter eggs and saying to me (I am reading a book on a couch with my back to him) 'In the CEILING?' Small panels. 1/3: close up of the back of my head as I sit on the couch and read my book. 2/3: My neck begins to twist. 3/3: my neck is definitely twisting exorcist style.

1 huge panel. My neck has twisted the whole way around. I am glowing pink with delight.

3 panels. Panel 1: my partner stands, holding the eggs, saying 'I don't know what to say. Panel 2: he looks at the eggs. Panel 3: he looks back forward and says 'I'm really impressed.'

As he should be.

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Whew. That was a lot of illustrations. And a lot of work. And a lot of planning. I hope you enjoyed the write up. I would have made this hunt even if I didn’t have a website to share it on, of course. Plotting is fun.

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