"Laughs at my hair and proceeds to compare my cologne to a cake, but not one humoured reaction to my jokes . . ." Desmond scoffed. "The nerve of some of these country bumpkins."

No one was listening. Obviously no one was listening. No, everyone instead had their full attention trained on the tree bridge in front of them. Thanks to Button's inadvertent guidance, they at least knew the correct direction to take, but actually crossing such an unstable structure was much easier said than done.

"Maybe that was just the result of one single poor joke within your repertoire," Emmy suggested. Unsurprisingly, she was the only one not clinging to the sides of the bridge for dear life. "Why don't you try telling us a different joke?"

Desmond nodded. "Good thinking. Have any of you heard the one about the Bulgarian train driver?"

"S-stop talking please, Professor," Luke stammered as he gripped Layton's hand. "I need to focus on not falling down these cracks. I'm the . . . whoa, that was close . . . smallest one here."

"But surely Layton's great assistant should be brave enough to cross a bridge all by themselves without holding the professor's hand, no?" Emmy taunted. "Even when it shakes from left," She shifted her weight so that the bridge tilted with a creak, "to right."

Once Emmy was quite finished causing everyone to nearly lose their balance, Luke turned and attempted to scowl at her. "Hey, stop doing that!"

"Why don't you tell us the joke now, Professor Sycamore?" Aurora found herself raising her voice just a little past her usual soft level as Layton's two assistants bickered ahead of her.

"Well, there was once this man in Bulgaria who drove trains for a living," he began. "This man loved his job, it was a job he'd dreamed of since he was young, but you see he was reckless. In fact, it was this recklessness that caused him to crash, with one single fatality-"

"Does this joke have a good ending?" Luke asked.

Emmy hummed a laugh. "Why, Luke? Worried you'll have a nightmare about train crashes?"

He growled. "Shut up, Emmy."

Desmond fought back an eye roll. "I was getting to that, Luke, but I assure you my humour isn't quite that dark. As I was explaining, the man was arrested and, as you can imagine, sentenced to death by electrocution. As his final meal, he requested one single banana. Once this meal was eaten, he was strapped into the chair, yet despite the sparks flying and clouds of smoke, he remained untouched and alive."

"But that doesn't make any sense," Emmy interjected, "because scientifically-"

"Ignore the science, Emmy," Desmond interrupted. "Continuing on, there happened to coincidentally be this old Bulgarian law that said that a failed execution was a result of divine intervention, so this man was let free."

"What kind of law is that?" Luke questioned.

Desmond sighed. "A good one. Somehow, despite his previous experience, this man had his job reinstated and failed to learn from his past errors. He crashed again, this time with two fatalities. Yet again, he was placed on death row and sentenced to death by electric chair. However, this time he requested his final meal to be two bananas. Identically to last time, despite the sparks flying and clouds of smoke, he survived."

"Okay, now your logic is just-"

"Just go with the joke, Emmy!" Desmond snapped. He went quiet for a moment. "My apologies. How rude of me. Please allow me to continue. That same cycle continued once more. The man caused a crash with three fatalities this time, and was sentenced to death by electrocution. Needless to say, he requested three bananas for his final meal. This time, though, the executioner refused, not wanting a repeat of last time. The man was strapped into the chair, sparks flew, there was a cloud of smoke, but yet again, defying all odds, the man survived. The executioner, understandably, was baffled. But when asked how this was possible, the man's response was, 'The bananas had nothing to do with it. I'm just a bad conductor.'"

The group went silent.

"O-oh, uh, is that it?" Luke asked, followed by a short bout of awkward laughter. "That was, er, really funny, yeah . . ."

"Super funny . . ." Emmy said, though her tone clearly lacked conviction.

". . . Get it?" Desmond asked somewhat nervously. "Bad conductor? As in a train conductor?"

"No, n-no, yeah, that made sense with the . . . trains, and the . . ." Emmy gestured randomly, ". . . conductors . . ."

He sighed defeatedly. "Aurora, please tell me I at least somewhat tickled your humour."

"Oh, well . . ." Aurora suddenly slipped, but was fortunately caught by Desmond before she could hurt herself. "Oh, thank you, Professor. Um . . . I believe your joke was very funny. Yes."

At this point, Desmond finally gave into temptation and allowed himself an eye roll. "My good old British humour is wasted, honestly," he muttered.

"But you said the joke was about a Bulgarian man," Aurora countered.

He shook his head. "It was a figure of speech, my dear."

"Well, if it's of any consolation, Professor, at least you smell nice, like a fruit cake," Emmy added.

Desmond winced. "Thanks for the reminder, Emmy."


Please cut me some slack, I wrote this at 2am. Also this isn't my joke, I'm not that funny heheh, but you can probably google it to find the original version.
Thanks for reading!