RATTY NEWS WEEKEND SPECIAL

"The Law is Limp: Dusty Gulch’s Last Stand Against Leafy Leniency"

Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble reports on a town where justice wilted .... and the ducks that brought it back. 

“For too long, justice has been dressed, tossed, and served cold. We’re bringing the heat back.” -  Sheriff Prentis Penjani

Dusty Gulch was once a town where a man could steal a pie, charm a magistrate with a kale smoothie, and be out the door by lunchtime. But no more. The days of salad-bar sentencing are over, thanks to a scandal that has shaken the legal system to its composted core.

This is the story of how a town discovered its courts were in bed with lettuce - and how a rat, a duck battalion, and a retired colonel in camo Crocs are putting the bite back into justice.

Lettuce Be Honest: A Greenwashed Judiciary

It began with whispers.... hushed mutterings in the McFookit Burger queue, behind the scone tent at the CWA, and around the pedal-powered tea urn.

Repeat offenders were getting off light. Real light. Cucumber-on-ricecake light.

Crime was rising, but sentences were… leafy.

Local pie thief Darryl “Two-Tomatoes” McSpindle was handed a 3-hour shift at the salad bar. Cheryl Withers, found guilty of impersonating a librarian and issuing false overdue notices, was sentenced to cos lettuce awareness training.

Even Parsley Pete, the street herb hustler of Upper Gully, walked free after promising to “meditate in a paddock with intention.”

Suspicions grew. Why the sudden soft touch? Why did so many courtroom decisions end with a side of balsamic?

Enter Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble.

 Operation: Leaf Drop  -  A Rat Goes Deep

When our new Sheriff Prentis Penjani ( yes, no one saw that coming ) reached out for assistance in cracking the case, I didn’t hesitate. Armed with a false criminal record (courtesy of Ratty HQ’s forgery department) and a passport identifying me as “Rodney Leafbottom, rogue kale activist,” I went undercover.

Stuffed into a crate of romaine and wheeled into the Greensleeves Judicial Allotment, I infiltrated the very lettuce farms the judiciary had long denied being involved with.

What I found was damning.

Hidden in a box of seed packets: share certificates held by Judge Horace Bunkle and Justice Phillipa Cos-Davies. Next to them, a folder marked TOP SALAD containing:

• Lettuce-backed crypto transactions (code-named “CrispCoin”)

• Minutes from closed-door meetings between judges and the Dusty Gulch Iceberg Lettuce Growers’ Guild

• An “express sentencing template” with tick boxes for “Community Garden Time” and “Reflective Basil Journaling”

• 

 Quackdown: The Deputy Ducks Strike

My escape was almost foiled when I was mistaken for a garnish and nearly julienned. But just as the salad spinner of corruption reached full speed, help arrived.

In burst the Deputy Ducks, trained by Sheriff Penjani himself in the Ratty Hangar HQ. With polished badges, tiny aviators’ caps, and a working knowledge of judicial misconduct statutes, they issued an emergency Quackdown Order under the town’s long-dormant Emergency Quack Protocol.

One judge fainted. Another tried to eat the evidence. A third escaped on a stolen ride-on mower but was later found hiding in a mulch pile quoting lettuce-based poetry.

 The Courts Crumble

Within hours, Mayor Dusty McFookit made the unprecedented move to suspend the entire Dusty Gulch judicial bench pending review.

“The courts have gone limp,” McFookit stated grimly, standing on the tailgate of a ute with a bullhorn and a lukewarm bottle of Emu Brew.

.
“For too long, lawbreakers have been sentenced to nothing more than kale craft and forgiveness smoothies. No more. From today, we will see penalties with teeth. Preferably meat pies with teeth.”

From Hangar to Honour: The Rise of Sheriff Prentis Penjani

Before he wore the badge, Prentis Penjani was known mainly in underground circles: the marsupial whisperer, the duck linguist, the enigmatic figure behind a series of coded transmissions that brought order to the chaos of the Ratty Hangar. The Master of Shapeshifting.  He can be whatever he wants to be, even a Sherriff from " Blazing Saddles. "
 

 

Many dismissed him as eccentric. Others feared his connection to the Wattle Resistance, a defunct organisation known for its pamphlets, possum networks, and daring midnight pie rescues. But Mayor McFookit had seen something else: clarity, courage, and a healthy disregard for lettuce-based jurisprudence.

When the judiciary collapsed like an over-watered salad, McFookit wasted no time. In a dust-blown press conference on the town’s single roundabout, he declared:

“This town needs a sheriff. Not a lettuce. And there’s only one creature with the grit, the gall, and the galloping webbed backup to handle it.”

And just like that, Prentis Penjani was sworn in. With a solemn nod, he donned the badge made from melted down salad tongs, raised his claw in oath, and summoned his elite squad of Deputy Ducks, trained in discipline, silent waddling, and advanced quacklinguistics.

He wasted no time. Within hours of his appointment:

• The Pigbox was operational,

• The court doors were sealed with duct tape and a copy of True Grit,

• And a new poster was hung in the Sheriff’s Office:
  “NO BAIL. NO KALE. NO NONSENSE.”

In a late-night council session, the town passed Emergency Measure 47B:
“All lettuce cultivation within town limits is hereby suspended until the rule of law is restored and the bench is scrubbed of all green leafy influence.”

 Tribunal Time: Colonel Tharpe Returns

With the civilian courts in tatters and lettuce still clinging to the robes of justice, the town turned to its last hope: Colonel Reginald “Grits” Tharpe (Retired).

Veteran of the Great Pastry Skirmish of '87 and former commander of the 3rd Lamington Light Infantry, Tharpe returned from his shed (where he’d been preserving sardines and re-reading Churchill) to oversee Military Tribunals.

The Pigbox Lock-Up was converted into a courtroom. The accused were processed via a modified lamington slicer (non-lethal, allegedly), and sentences were passed swiftly, including:

• 60 hours of pedal-powered community service to power the town’s emergency fairy lights

• Compulsory viewing of Blazing Saddles with interpretive duck commentary

• A fortnight in the CWA's new "Correctional Cake Unit", where inmates were forced to beat butter with a whisk until they begged for redemption

 The CWA Splits the Tea

The Country Women’s Association, long a stabilising force in Dusty Gulch, issued a rare divided statement:

• The Traditional Scone Faction condemned the lettuce ban as a “dietary overreach,”

• While the Hard Yakka & Hand-Crank Caucus proposed that all non-violent criminals be strapped to stationary bikes to power the town’s tea urn and meat pie warmer.

Mrs. Eunice Blatter, CWA President and unflinching guardian of the ceremonial jam spoon, offered this measured warning:

“Justice must be fair, firm, and served with a slice of something that makes you think twice. A good fruitcake can do that. Lettuce cannot.”

Meanwhile, Operation Caesar’s Revenge, a rumoured CWA black-ops garden plot hidden behind the lamington ovens, remains unconfirmed.

 Roderick Reflects

As I sit back at Ratty HQ, scraping lettuce from my tail and sipping emergency brie, I wonder: how many other towns have traded backbone for baby spinach? How many judges in this great land are secretly dressing their rulings in vinaigrette?

Dusty Gulch has drawn a line in the mulch. It has declared that justice is not a side dish. It's a main course — grilled, golden, and with enough bite to remind you: break the law, and you don’t get a salad. You get the Pigbox.

And maybe a stern word from a duck.

Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble, signing off.
No lettuce. Just truth.