Barnaby Butterfield, a lawyer whose life was as dull as his beige suit, died unexpectedly. His will, read aloud by a surprisingly cheerful solicitor named Ms. Periwinkle, was, to put it mildly, unusual. “Firstly,” Ms. Periwinkle announced, adjusting her spectacles, “Barnaby leaves his entire collection of rubber ducks – a staggering 347 – to his nephew, Edgar.” A ripple of polite murmurs went through the assembled relatives. Edgar, a burly man who looked like he’d rather wrestle a bear than cuddle a rubber duck, shifted uncomfortably.
Ms. Periwinkle continued, her voice gaining a curious lilt, “Secondly, his prized possession, a signed photograph of a llama, goes to… the first person to correctly identify the breed of llama in the photograph.” A collective gasp. No one knew anything about llamas.
Then came the pièce de résistance. “And finally,” Ms. Periwinkle declared, a mischievous twinkle in her eye, “Barnaby leaves his entire estate, his considerable fortune, to… the person who can make me laugh the hardest.” She paused dramatically. A pin could have been heard dropping.
Edgar, emboldened by the llama mystery, blurted out, “Did he leave any instructions for *how* we should make you laugh?”
Ms. Periwinkle smiled, a slow, knowing smile. “He did, indeed. He stipulated that the attempts should be made only after his funeral… and only while dressed as a rubber duck.” The room erupted in stunned silence, then, slowly, uncontrollably, into laughter. Even Edgar, clutching a suspiciously familiar yellow rubber duck, couldn’t help but chuckle. The race for Barnaby’s fortune, it seemed, was going to be far more entertaining than anyone had expected.
