The Leaning Tower of Buttercream The Leaning Tower of BuTTercream Thanos KaLamidas a ci PercivaL whimsy mysTery Thanos Kalamidas Ovi ebooks are available in Ovi/Ovi eBookshelves pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. For details, contact: ovimagazine@yahoo.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the writer or the above publisher of this book An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C The Leaning Tower of Buttercream The Leaning Tower of Buttercream Thanos Kalamidas A CI Percival Whimsy Mystery Thanos Kalamidas An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C The Leaning Tower of Buttercream It was a bright and gusty afternoon in Tiddlebury-on- the-Wold, the kind of English village where hedgerows gossip and postboxes have opinions. In the village square stood a cake, no ordinary cake. This was a six- tier, buttercream-bejeweled, fondant-fortified marvel. It leaned to the left like it was whispering secrets to the lamppost. E nter: Chief Inspector Percival Whimsy, cravat fluttering, monocle barely hanging on his face like a frightened limpet, and a trench coat flapping behind him as though it too wanted nothing to do with him. Thanos Kalamidas “Stand back, you crumb-footed amateurs!” he bellowed, tripping over a daffodil planter. “This cake is a crime scene!” A small crowd had gathered, murmuring like agitated bees. Mrs. Penelope Coddle-Hump, who ran the village pâtisserie, was in visible distress. Her arms flailed like windmills and her hat, decorated with two plastic ducks and a tea strainer, wobbled dangerously. “It was perfect, I swear on my sponge tins!” she cried. “And now look at it! Leaning like some buttercream Pisa!” Inspector Whimsy crouched before the cake, squinting at it with all the focus of a man trying to read a menu in Klingon. “Notice the tilt. Observe the slip of the marzipan buttress. Note the twig... yes, the twig! ” He whipped it out dramatically like Excalibur from the ganache. “This, my dear flan-fanciers, is sabotage! ” Gasps rang out. “Who would commit such a heinous act?” asked Mr. Harold Trout, the town’s professional umbrella tester. The Leaning Tower of Buttercream “Only someone with icing on their hands,” Whimsy muttered darkly, sniffing the twig. “Eucalyptus. Hmm. Indigenous only to the park. Our saboteur is... a koala?” There was a long, confused silence. “Or perhaps,” he corrected himself quickly, “someone in the park ! To the Whimsy-Mobile!” Unfortunately, the Whimsy-Mobile was currently being used to store surplus cardboard ducks for the village fête, so he instead borrowed a tandem bicycle from two startled nuns and pedalled furiously (and lopsidedly) toward Tiddlebury Green. Halfway there, he collided with a milk float, apologized to three cows, and finally skidded into the park like a wheeled flamingo on ice. There, beneath the gazebo, he spotted a man. Dishevelled, panicked, and smelling faintly of buttercream and regret: Reginald Spottle , the local cake delivery driver. “Ah-HA!” Whimsy pointed. “Your trousers are smeared with passionfruit curd, and your soul drips with guilt!” Thanos Kalamidas “I... I tripped on a hedgehog!” Reginald sputtered. “The cake toppled! I tried to fix it! I... I propped it up with the only thing I had! A twig!” “You tampered with evidence!” Whimsy howled. “That twig could’ve been a structural load-bearer! That cake could’ve collapsed into a soufflé chasm!” “I was only trying to help!” “By disguising your crime in arboriculture?!” Whimsy grabbed him by the lapels, which unfortunately weren’t there because Reginald was wearing a hoodie, so he just sort of pinched him awkwardly by the shoulders. Moments later, back at the scene, Whimsy reconstructed the entire incident using a set of salt shakers, a pinecone, and three macarons. “As you can see,” he explained to the villagers, who were now mostly there for the free cake samples, “the cake leaned because of a tragic encounter between foot and hedgehog. Spottle panicked and inserted the twig— a noble effort, if misguided . He is guilty only of possessing the clumsiness of a stunned platypus.” Relieved gasps. Reginald sobbed into a croissant. The Leaning Tower of Buttercream “And thus,” Whimsy declared, climbing onto a milk crate and promptly falling off it, “I have solved the Case of the Precariously Pitched Pastry. Justice is served ideally with a scoop of vanilla.” As the crowd applauded politely and began to disperse, the cake, neglected, disillusioned, and possibly insulted by the platypus comment, finally gave up and collapsed in a slow-motion explosion of sponge and sugar roses. The entire front row was frosted instantly. Whimsy turned, dramatically dusted icing sugar off his monocle, and declared, “And now... it is a trifle matter.” He attempted to bow, caught his foot on a rogue éclair, spun once like a drunken ballerina, and disappeared into a catering tent full of meringues. THE END Thanos Kalamidas The Leaning Tower of Buttercream A CI Percival Whimsy Mystery Thanos Kalamidas Ovi eBook Publishing 2025 Ovi magazine Design: Thanos The Leaning Tower of Buttercream Ovi ebooks are available in Ovi/Ovi eBookshelves pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. For details, contact: ovimagazine@yahoo.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the writer or the above publisher of this book An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C Thanos Kalamidas The Leaning Tower of BuTTercream Thanos KaLamidas a ci PercivaL whimsy mysTery Thanos Kalamidas , a multipublished writer, cartoonist and illustrator; born and grew up in a picturesque neighbourhood on the moun- tainside of Hymettus in Athens, Greece. Then his life took him to Berlin, Germany and to London, UK for studies. After a brief stay in Yorkshire he moved his life to Paris, France while working in Tokyo, Japan and in Cape Town, South Africa. In the last 25 years he became a permanent Scandinavian resident and recently, in his glorious sixth de- cade, he moved to a scenic village in the Växjö area.