DRAGONSHELF AND THE DROVER XXIV

     “Grobble grobble grobble.”

     “Hey, grumblin’ grobbles!  Getcher big baggy shoulders outa my way!  How many we got?”

     Bott looked the newcomer over.  A low gray oval with deep black eyes and long grey teeth was toddling through the forest, paying no attention to the glittering trees.  Tufts of red hair over the sunken eyes waggled as it spotted the Klamathans.

     The grumbling grobbles were frontline Imperial cannon fodder.  Bred by the thousands, they were of little practical use, but they were low to the ground and easy to replace.  When they did reach a target, they liked to bite things.

     The grobble paused.  “Grobble grobble grobble,” it grumbled.  Bott knew it hadn’t stopped because it was outnumbered.  Grobbles didn’t know when they were outnumbered because they could count no higher than two.  Bott understood, and reached into his satchel for a grenade.

     The chief weakness of a grobble, outside of a tendency to twiddle its toes at the height of massed battles, was a cleft at the back of its skull.  Bott put the grenade away.  Even at the cleft, the skull was hard enough to set off the grenade (if the grenade could be set off that way) and bounce it back.  He put a hand on his harmonica, squinted, and let the instrument fly just as the grobble started forward again.

     The harmonica struck with a clong and bounced back.  Putting out a hand, Bott snared the instrument as he jumped over the startled grobble.

     “Well, as I hopes ta lay square eggs!” cried the green Klamathan.

     “A man!” exclaimed the blue.  “A man wit’ a harmonica!”

     “Careful,” commanded the gold, sucking in her lips.  “He may be Imperial.”

     “I’d take a Imperial,” the green replied.  “While he lasted.”  She stuck out a hand as Bott bounded toward her.  “Howdy!  I’m Louba Bobari Bomar!”

     “You’re not!” snapped the gold, with a stamp of one foot.

     The big green head turned to consider her.  “I am, y’know.”

     The gold-sandaled foot stamped again.  “You are nobody until your betters have been introduced!”

     Klamathans had one of the most conservative, most stratified social systems in the known universe, though casual observers might not notice.  Even as the gold scolded, she was smoothing her robe and approaching Bott on tiptoe.  The blue casually flipped back one side of her coat, the better to show she was wearing nothing underneath.  The green twisted her torso, bringing her buttocks into sharper prominence in the silhouette of her overalls.

     Bott could feel the glow radiating toward him from among dimples and pillowy cheeks.  Or perhaps it was just the body temperature of four very large women: even the gold was taller than he was.

     Safest to keep cool, he thought, by sticking to business.  “Where can we go?”  he demanded.  “That grobble’s probably the scout for a whole company.”

     Dimples flattened a bit; the Kalamthans regarded each other.  There was an edge to the gold’s voice as she replied, “I fear our only choice is to double around and use the other exit from our dining room.”

     “Laughin’ boy’s dining room,   At’s a great idea, I don’t tink.”  She reached out and dealt the nearer denim-covered buttock a resounding thwack.  “Better jus’ tell Broadbeam Baby hear ta lie down over alla them blowholes.  She’d get a trill outa it.”

     The green, apparently not resenting the thwack, set her fists on her hips.  “It’s MY day fer queenin’ it an’ I says….”

     “burblebobblebibblebubblebeeblebobbleboo!”

     A long red slot cracked open in the floor of the forest.  Dozens of short, square combat grobbles grumbled forth, teeth shining bright in long red mouths.  These teeth were neither terribly long nor remarkably plentiful: they were grinding teeth.  As usual, the troops were armed with long black forks and knives.

     “They’re coming,” said Bott, more to brace himself for the assault than because he thought the Klamathans hadn’t noticed.  “We…..”

     “Barbecued bugballs!”  The big green smacked one fist into the palm of her other hand.  Bending her legs, she launched herself into the mass of grobbles.

     “Wait for baby!”  The blue dove into the air to land atop another column of grobbles.  Her technique, once she had landed, seemed to consist mainly of grabbing the nearest grobble and biting it on the forehead.  This strategy was, Bott noticed, singularly successful.  The grobbles paused in confusion: weren’t THEY supposed to be doing the biting?  The pause made it all the easier for the green to pick them up and punt them back into the crevice from which they’d emerged.

     “They can’t take all of them that way.”  Bott reached for a grenade.  “Too many grobbles.”

     The gold was standing next to him now, rubbing her left hip against his side in an absent-minded manner.  “I know,” she sighed.  “They simply will not learn to coordinate their efforts for proper impact.  Excuse me.”

     A venturesome grobble had approached far too near.  Taking it by the nose, the aristocrat hauled it up and yanked it forward against her own collarbone, stunning it either with the impact or by covering its breathing apparatus in the bosom it found itself mixed up with.  As it struggled, she got a grip on its chest hairs and then tossed it over her shoulder into the golden river.  The grobble sizzled and went under, not to return.

     The combat prowess of the three women was no great shock to Bott.  One did not make the mistake, twice anyhow, of assuming any Klamathan was slow, stupid, or quiescent simply because she was big.  Still, as he had mentioned, there were quite a few grobbles: too many for three Klamathans and one pirate, particularly if any of the enemy remembered those weapons.

     Further, someone had apparently given the horde instructions.  The grobbles were spreading to the left, blocking any approach to the door through which they had all come.  Soon, the only escape would be across a bridge which obviously did not crave to be crossed.

     He bounced the grenade in one hand.  That white powder, whatever it was, might be too fine to clog the fiery blowholes in the bridge.  But it would make for a diversion, and anything which distracted the enemy from its goal (and meal) would be welcome.

     “The loonies are that way, Luv,” said the gold, as Bott pulled the pin and threw the grenade behind himself.

     “Watch this,” he replied.

     With an explosion like the bursting of a large bubble, the grenade dissolved into an expanding ball of blue goo.  This splintered and fell across the bridge in a thick blue rain.  The blowholes spouted flame under the first impact, but there were too few blowholes and too much goo.  A smell of cooking oprianas filled the air: really old oprianas, the ones with red spots.

     Of course, Bott realized, watching with wide eyes, a grenade salesman would naturally pack an assortment in a sample bag for customers, each with its own bang.  Best to pretend he had expected this.

     “This won’t hold forever,” he said, “Better call the others.”

     “Oh, why?”  The gold put an arm around his waist and a hand behind his belt.  “With my brains and your weapons, we could leave this place more quickly…and more amusingly, too, without a lot of….”

     “Looka dat!  She’s takin’ off with alla goodies!”  Leaping onto the head of a grobble, the blue skipped along a row of them toward the bridge.

     “Calls ‘at piggy,” noted the green, kicking her feet up and flinging a couple of grobbles wth each kick.  “Piggy an’ unpolite and downright downheartening.”

     Bott wondered for just one second whether it might not be safer to try swimming downstream in the burning river.  Then one blowhole popped free of the goo with an opriana-scented squeal.

     “Let’s go!” he shouted, charging out onto the bridge.  The goo was not slippery, but it was hardening, blackening.  He heard the surface crack under the feet f the following Klamathans,and the blue called “At’s one corn I won’t hafta burn off meself.”

    But all four reached the far end to look back.  The footprints left by the Klamathans were glowing in the hard black crust.  Just as the grobbles realized their assignment included pursuing the foe, these footprints broke open in a wild calliope symphony, accompanied by a smoke of burnt vegetation.

     “Grobble grobble grobble,” grumbled the leaders of the pack, seeing their path blocked.

     “Ya done it!”  The blue nearly sent Bott into the river with a congratulatory swat on the back.  “Yer gonna be useful, what wit’ allada grenades!”

     “Knew he’d be useful afore I saw any grenades,” countered the green, licking her lips.

     Danger followed danger in this maze.  “The door,” Bott said, pointing.  “Before the grobbles try the bridge.  Some would be bound to make it across the bodies of the others.”

     “Masterful, too,” said the gold, leaning down to pat the back of his pants.  “That’s so cute in a man.”

FICTION FRIDAY: Walking Into a Barmecide

     The knock on the door of the unlikely little shop was thunderous.

     “Good afternoon, sir.  How may I….”

     “Remember me?”

     “Certainly, sir.  You are Galliga of Coyne, who set off to defeat the Dragon of Mount….”

     “You sold me the magic tablecloth of Queen Clothilde.”

     “True, sir.  An excellent way to make sure you have enough provisions to cross the Fiery Wastes of….”

     “I want my money back.”

     “Well, technically, sir, it ceased to be your money when you took possession of the….”

     “The magic tablecloth is supposed to provide a massive feast when I spread it out and say ‘Feed Me, Genie’: roast meats, sparkling wine, fresh bread, and everything I could desire.  But it doesn’t work!”

     “Well, sir, you understand the old legends….”

     “You told me the old legends were true!  But all I see when I perform the spell if a bowl of boiled beets!”

     “You must understand, sir, that the legends always leave out the boring parts.  Queen Clothilde’s seventh son, Frackward, rode out and battled the Goblins of the Green Pit, but his legend never mentions it took him nearly a year to ride that far to the south.  The queen’s ninth daughter tricked the wizard Horripilis by climbing his castle wall, but nowhere does HER legend discuss the fingernails and toenails she cracked in the process.  It’s a part of storytelling that balances events against the attention span of an audience.”

     “My attention span is not extensive.  Tell me at once what you’re talking about.”

     “The legend of the magic tablecloth leaves out a great deal of biography.  Queen Clothilde was the mother of thirty-seven heroic offspring, who went out and performed mighty deeds which freed people from suffering and extended the Queen’s realm.  She raised them with as much care as she ruled her kingdom and formed her magic spells, and a little of her personality is included in each of her artifacts.”

     “Meaning?”

     “You WILL get your roasts and baguettes and delicate baked meringue desserts, sir.  But you don’t get one mouthful of those things until you finish every bit of your beets.”

They May NOT Be Out There

     I hang out with a number of Luddite intellectuals: that is, these are people who still read books and watch television, and wonder about some of the things they learn in these places.  But since they do not believe in allowing the Interwebs into their homes, they then tell these things to me, knowing I have access to a world of answers.

     The trouble with getting your answers on the Interwebs is not so much that you find ten times as many false answers as true, as that there is no answer, right or wrong, which cannot be made much longer if you keep looking.

     For example, one of these ladies asked me, “Why do people cry ‘uncle’ when they give up?  Why not cry for mommy?  Is it related to ‘Who’s your daddy’?”

     Now, there IS a short answer to that question.  That answer is “Well, nobody knows, exactly.”  But if you work on it, you will find that researchers have found possible answers, all possible, all as likely to have been provided after the fact, just to answer the question.  There’s the ancient Roman game where kids would punch each other until one called the winner “my best of uncles”, or the ancient Irish version, related to the word “anacol”, meaning refuge.  And you can always take on the fine old joke about the man who strangled his parrot because it wouldn’t say “Uncle”, tossed the supposedly dead body out the window, and next morning found all his chickens had been killed by an angry parrot that kept screaming, “Say ‘Uncle’, you filthy beggar!”  Up to you.

     Another day, the inquiry was “Do we call ‘em oyster crackers because people ate them in oyster stew, or because when they’re floating in the soup, they look like oysters?”

     The short answer to that is that “No one knows”.  A longer answer is that either of her suggestions may well be true.  (Or not.)  If you want a deeper die into oyster waters, you find that they are especially connected with a city in Pennsylvania or another one in New Jersey, and are sometimes called “water crackers.”

     Before you ask, the “soda cracker” was called that shortly after the invention of baking soda made their manufacture simpler.  And there are roughly half a hundred different derivations for “cracker” as an ethnic label, from the use of “crack” to mean “brag” and the use of cracked corn in the diet, though I kind of like the one that traces it to the loafers who hung around the cracker barrel in the general store.

     Another of the crew amazed themselves when I noted that a strange product name at least made you look at them, by exclaiming, “Made you look, you dirty crook: stole your mamma’s pocket book.  Turned it in, turned it out, turned it into sauerkraut.”  What startled them was how rhymes can be handed down for decades on the playground, but I wondered where the (what’s the opposite of a nursery rhyme?) came from.

     Well, the short answer is “Um, nobody knows”.  But MY, the playground has evolved since I was there being dared to walk up the slide the wrong way.  For one, thing, the earliest citation of the poem online (at least where I was looking) traces it all the way back to 1977, when I had reached an age to be dared to go over and talk to that cute sophomore girl at the bowling alley.  Another claimed the CORRECT version, traced all the way back to 2001, is “Made you look, you dirty CHOOK”, and the verse ends with “Stole a dime and bought some wine and now you look like Frankenstein.”

     About the only information I found which can really be regarded as solid fact is that pocketbooks make crummy sauerkraut.  Now, if everyone will leave me to my own devices, I will return to my ongoing struggle to find out why movie gangster slang made “Roscoe” a word for a gun.  I suspect Fatty Arbuckle is involved, but the Interwebs continues to hide the True Facts from me.

DRAGONSHELF AND THE DROVER XXIII

     “Where is she?” Bott demanded, pulling the gold card out of his pocket.

     “You know the rules, lummox.  I can tell you only where the Dragonshelf is.”

     Bott glanced around the little yellow room again for impending hazards, and then demanded, “Can you tell me if I went through the same door she did, anyhow?”

     “That’s privileged information.  Maybe a big bad pirate like you can steal it somewhere.”

     The pirate rapped the card against “Bunny Bunk and the Purple Pillow,” even though he knew this wouldn’t hurt the slave ship.  “So you can’t tell us a thing and at the same time you’re telling His Imperial Worship every move we make.”

     “He can watch for himself on the monitors,” the ship replied.  “We don’t chat.  All he’s said to me personally so far is that I’d look better with racing stripes.”

     “You might, at that.  Now tell me I have bad taste and see what His Imperial Worship does to you.”

     The tone in the computer’s voice was one Bott knew well.  “Pirates.  Gantlets.  All this cumbersome inelegance.  The gantlet you are running is one of my most inelegant functions.”

     “Is it?” Bott inquired.  “How about the slave pens?”

     “Slave hold, pirate: slave holds.  And well-crafted holds.  But even you, a numb-thumned apprentice pilot with piratic tendencies, must see that this zoo of bogey beasts is irrelevant.  I could do the same job much more efficiently without them.”

     “There are more of those things?” Bott asked.  “How many?”

     “One could contrive so many more delicate dangers.”  The computer was just about sighing over this.  “Now, if you had walked into one of the rooms with broadcast walls…why, then I could show everybody what I can do on my own.”

     Bott didn’t believe he cared to watch the Drover show off in that way.  “What do those rooms look like?”  He looked around again.

     “Most will be big square chambers with very light yellow, almost translucent walls.”

     “Um,” said Bott.  “Um, this is a big square room with yellow walls.”  He wasn’t sure about ‘translucent’.

     “Why, so it is.”

     Then the walls were yellow no longer.  The room went black for one heartbeat.  Then colors and sounds filled it to the farthest corner.  To Bott’s right was Strey Ectet, once his first mate, being compressed in a questioning device by Imperial Police.  To his left was a swirling remfmonster from “Hand on Mouth”, one of his home planet’s most famous horror movies.

     Before him was a man strapped to a standing rectangle, flames consuming his clothes.  Bott didn’t turn around.  Above the screams, the crackle of flames, the splintering of bones, and the jibber of the monster, a calm voice was explaining, “I am afraid your test results are not everything that could be desired.”

     There had been a door at the far end of the chamber, straight ahead; he was sure he remembered that.  He started forward, eyes closed.  Then it occurred to him that the Drover was limited to audio or visual torments.  Best to be alert.

     The pictures had changed into outsized close-ups.  Stery’s head was giving in to the pressure: fporty foot screens made every symptom of the bursting discernible.  Ahead of him, the victim’s face was obscured by smoke, but he could see the smoking, curling skin and oozing fat.  The burning eyes and turning teeth of the monster loomed on the left; that movie had always left him quivering.  This must be why the Drover had such exhaustive information about comics and shows: the Drover could more easily torment victims with full access to the popular culture of their home worlds.

     The volume rose.  Stery’s voice was round, liquid monosyllables, but still recognizable as that of the voice that always said, “Gio get ‘em, Captain!”  The remfmonster rattled and roared.

     Bott had no idea when he started running.  He did know he was screaming “Turn it off!”, even though he couldn’t hear himself.  Surely he was close enough now to the far wall to be seeing that door, but the flames around the man on that wall were bright enough to be blinding.  He reached out to feel for a handle, jerked back as he felt heat, and cursed himself for being so gullible.

     “You have,” a deep, calm voice informed him, “Perhaps the worst scores in the history of this examination center.”

     The door handle was nowhere.  The pictures started to twist around each other, brighter and brighter, as Stery’s twisting mouth threatened to swallow the monster that was biting at the burning man.  He jammed the gold card and Nubry’s book into his satchel, taking out another random grenade as he threw his back against the unforgiving wall.

     And then he was out.

     “Ho ho ho ho ho!”

     He had apparently thrown himself against the door, which had dropped him into a cold, blue spherical room that echoed to a bass voice.  “Ho ho ho ho!”

     Bott sat up, shivering.  Had it really been that hot in the room with broadcast walls, or was it just projected flames?

     “Ho ho ho ho ho!”

     “Quiet!” Bott shouted.  “I have to think!”

     Two doors showed uphill from where he had landed.  The red one on the left seemed to be ajar.  He stumbled forward.

     Frowning, he paused to look down at what had made him stumble.  Four plates and three cupssat on the cold, blue floor.  He sat down next to them.

     “Ho ho ho ho ho!”

     One plate was clean.  The others held remnants of mashed lumpucks.  The cups were wet inside.

     Bott rose, holding the clean plate.  Nothing had followed him out of the broadcast chaber; these must be connected with somebody ahead of him.  Might the librarian be there?  She might have declined a meal, having eaten recently, but in that case, whose were the other dishes?  After another look at the other plates, he tucked the clean one into his pack, and strode toward the two doors.

     “Ho ho ho ho ho!”

     The door on the left had been braced open with the fourth cup.  It might be Nubry, exploring a little ahead, and leaving signs for him to follow.  What might she have seen on those tormenting screens?

     “Ho ho ho ho!”

     “Wish we’d’a let that whistleding door shut.  I can still hear laughin’ boy.”

     “Yez c’d go back anytimes ya like.  Getting’ tired a’ yer bellyachin’.”

     “Ah’d’s lief go back to the cells, anyhoo.  Getcher lumpucks at reg’lar hours, at least.”

     “If the two of you could leave off arguing for three seconds, we may find a way across this brighteye bridge.”

     Bott tucked the plate a little farther down, and looked over the grenade he had taken from the satchel.  Then, moving up, he eased the left door open just a little.

     A dazzling black and gold forest stretched out before him, a cold sharp breeze dismissing the last of the heat and sweat from his face.  He took two steps in among the feathery gold leaves and then, whipping around, caught the door before it could latch.  Whoever was ahead of him had had the right idea; he adjusted the cup in the doorway and let the door rest against this.

     “Hear ‘at!  What was it?”

     The forest was quiet, except for the voices.  As a professional, Bott was annoyed that he had allowed door and cup to make that little clonk.  As Bott, he shivered with glee at the thought of having mystified someone.  It would be no trouble to hide among these trees if they came looking.  He glanced upward.  Unless the trees were hungry.

     “Let’s work on the main problem.  If the bridge won’t play along, we’ll need to double back.”

     “Mus’ be sumpm good ahead.  Gotta be a reason ‘at door’s so hard ta get ta.”

    The solid black dirt was hard and solid underfoot, with no broken branches or plumy leaves to crackle as he moved.  Bott slid quickly forward to find the object under discussion.  A black arch stretched over a swift golden stream.  On this side stood three women, all on tiptoe, considering the arch.  As he watched, one of them set an experimental toe on the arch.  Gold flame shot from openings all along its stretch.

     They were Klamathans, and the worst assortment possible.  A fold woman, her robe and turban covered with question marks, stood with hands on hips as she frowned over the arch.  A much larger blue woman in a long tan coat stood with one hand on the rail.  The woman who had attempted the crossing was a massive green Klamathan in blue overalls.

     Bott had served on crews with Klamathans, whose home planet was one of the most recent, and troublesome, of the Free Imperial State’s acquisitions.  They could be jolly companions, but if you had a varied group of them, it was best to mingle the sexes as well.  He wondered how three women had made it this far without killing each other.

     The blue women stepped over and dealt the green one a resounding slap on one bare arm.  “Gwan!  Yez gots sa much flesh it ain’t gonna matter dips if some melts offa yez.”

     The green woman nodded, with a slight smile at this rough encouragement, but withdrew from the attempt.  “Thanks.  Druther make a canoe outa me crotch hairs an’ see if it floats down ‘ere.”

     The gold minced forward, still on tiptoe.  “Of course you’ll try it.  Think of the common cause.”

     The green nodded.  “Course!  Musta lost me head!  I’ll go.”  And she started down the bank of the river.  Bott slipped a little closer.

     “Looks rough,” she called up to her companions.  “But coon’t we cut down a tree mebbe and try boatin’?”

     “Gross green grunter yez sits on’d sink it,” the blue told her.  “Mebbe we t’rows yez in and floats over like ‘at.”

     Bott didn’t believe he wanted to be seen by this group.  Being enlisted into their cause might be the biggest danger of the maze.  He turned to go.

     A second little clonk drew everyone’s attention.  “We must see what’s making that….” The gold began to say.  Her mouth dropped open.  “Lala!”

     “Fripplepletz!” the blue woman cried.

     The green, slapping her hands together, shouted “Flallop!”

     Bott peered through the woods to find what had inspired their responses.  “Sprockets!” he whispered.

Old Joke Archaeology

     The problem of dealing with archaic humor is that you often run into jokes which are amusing primarily if you know the context, and know something about the times.  That joke about why Santa Claus won’t bring you a television because he has so much trouble with antennas on the roof isn’t quite the same nowadays; the same goes for stories which involve getting tangled in phone cords, cranking your car to start it, and being amazed you’re overdrawn when you still have checks left.  (If I ever throw caution to the winds and do my columns on stand-up comedians of the past, called “Is This Still Funny?”, we will cover this issue more thoroughly.)  The problem is compounded when you are dealing with a catchphrase (meme, for the young’uns) or, as we will discuss today, a line from a once-popular song.

     Let us, for example, consider this line from Bert Williams, perhaps the greatest comedian of his generation, whose songs were so popular that their titles were lifted and reused for anything the lleast bit related…or totally unrelated.  We have mentioned THIS classic before.  The song itself was another one of his ditties about how tedious it is to be broke, and finances where everything is going out with nothing coming in.  Seasickness postcards abound using this title, but the most notable theft…I mean homage, was when the Cascarets company took the phrase as the official slogan of its popular laxative.  All these connections are lost, and the joke loses much of its punch, in a world which has forgotten both song and singer.  (And even the laxative, for that matter.)

     With this postcard you do get a fighting chance, since it gives you a few lines of the original, just enough to hint that what was meant by the original song is NOT about a loving couple as depicted here.  You do need to assume that someone would refer to a man as Josie, but our ancestors didn’t feel we’d be spending a LOT of time on the gag, reckoning without a generation of bloggers.

     The song referred to here is almost utterly forgotten, and I’m not terrifically surprised.  I have heard two or three recordings of it without ever quite feeling an urge to sing along.  But it was published in 1880, before audio was reliably recorded, and maybe there was something about it I’m missing.  But in its day, it was a huge success, sung and enjoyed for a generation, producing dozens of jokes, many of which I have been seeing for some time, without seeing a connection.

     The original song deals with a bar where one customer likes to hang out, argue with the other patrons, and mooch until the proprietor tells him to “Go Way Back and Sit Down”.  The indigent soul has his day in the sun when he bets on a horse at a hundred to one, wins, and drives to the bar in an automobile (which makes me question the 1880 date for at least this verse.)  Somehow, melody and lyrics were used as sources for parodies and occasional songs (songs for special occasions.)  I can see where it would have excelled for, say, retirement parties, and in this postcard it becomes, I guess, a temperance message.  But there is one very popular use I was aware of but did not understand, being ignorant of the song.

     See, I had read this line about a dozen times, because a friend of mine collects miniature chamberpots.  (Yeah?  What are you doing with your life that’s so much better?)  And many of these, several of which also have an eye painted inside the bottom, include this admonition.  So I owe to this postcard the understanding of THAT old joke.  I didn’t know I was yearning to know this but (and I use THAT word with some trepidity) I do know a little more about what happens when the song is over and the melody DOESN”T linger on.

THE MIGHTY ARREN, R.N. AND THE IMPEDIMENT MONSTER

     “She’s back!” whispered George, one of the male nurses on night shift.  “She’s back!”

     Whispers became cheers as the tall, iron-thewed warrior strode along the corridor, her starched uniform rustling to attract her followers.  One by one they fell in behind their mighty hero, knowing she could not fail a second time.

     Suzanne ignored them.  The legends of Arren were of no concern to her.  All that mattered was that procedure be observed, prescriptions filled, and patients preserved, come what may.  She readied her clipboard; tiny bolts of lightning leapt from the pages, inducing louder cheers from her followers.

     But these fell silent, and clustered near the exit as Nurse Arren strode into the operating room.  Dr. Allyn was on the floor, his eyes shut.  Dr. McGraw clung to a monitor, breathing heavily but flailing out with her pen to force the beast away from the table.

     The monster was mumbling not raising its tone on any syllable.  Feelers of red, like toxic worms, reached from beneath its iron-clad suit to clutch at interns and nurse practitioners alike.  Dr. McGraw lunged, but fell forward as another red tendril latched onto her ankles.

     “Stand aside!”  Suzanne’s voice echoed in the room as she readied her clipboard.  “You shall not impede our work!”

     As the beast turned, its growl interrupted not at all by her appearance, Nurse Arren sailed a sharp prescription into its face, followed by six pages of X-Rays.

     She ducked as the prescription sailed toward her eyes, and was caught in the throat by am esophageal X-Ray.  Of course, the overgrown Insurance Beast would not fall so easily.  Her counterattack had been ready before the prescription flew, and she now drew out….

     My editor looked up from the page.  “What is this?”

     I shrugged.  “You said you wanted to see a story based on….”

     Her fist thumped the desk.  “I said NORSE Mythology!”

DRAGONSHELF AND THE DROVER XXII

     Bott had heard of the Biereyen, but this was the first time he’d been in a  Imperial compound rich enough, and large enough, to keep a herd of them for the torment of prisoners.  Immense lugubrious beasts, they watched with hollow eyes as the mining boat rolled toward them.

     Their long horns clattered together, their furry sides thumping into each other as they jostled for position in the ravine.  Omnivorous, the Biereyen were always hungry due to a hopelessly inefficient digestive system.  Prey were swallowed alive, to emerge alive and breathing some thirty minutes later, just a bit corroded by the journey.  Bott knew tales of Imperial prisoners eaten and excreted and eaten over again for four years before finally dying.

     He looked left and right, checking the walls of the tunnel for any possibility of surviving a jump.  Nubry was studying the walls and floor of the mining boat.

     “If this is a boat, where’s the anjor?”

     “The what?” Bott demanded.

     “Something to make it stop,” she shouted back.  “A weight on a chain or something?”

     Bott could see nothing in the corridor for an anchor to catch on, so he checked instead for any tabs to control the boat. Mining boats seldom had more than three of these, so he didn’t have to hunt for long.

     “Here!” he cried, reaching down.

     “No, wait!”  The librarian grabbed his arm.

     He would have asked her about that, but just then the boat sailed off the end of the track.  Five massive heads banged together, each trying to get its mouth in the right position.

     “Now!” Nubry shouted.  Bott lurched forward to jam a thub on the tab.

     The hooked weight sailed out behind them.  He turned to Nubry.  “Why….”

     Then he landed on top of her as the boat jerked to the end of its chain.  “This way!”  Throwing her arms around him, she rolled to the left.

     The boat swung down.  Bott braced his feet on a wall of the boat, forcing himself to stay against the floor, which was coming up to become a wall itself.  The five monsters in the ravine bellowed, with complete surprise, “”Huwinch?”

     “Ackth!” said Bott, as his face tried to embed itself in the ball of hair on his partner’s head.

     “Eep!” she replied, her feet sliding as the boat swung upside down.

     Twisting, clutching, turning, the prisoners managed to stay in the boat until it came to rest.  The vessel still rocked a bit, but seemed to be standing on its forward wall.

     “Where are we?” Bott demanded.

     “Ssssshh1” she told him.  “Take a look.  But be careful.”

     Bott opened his eyes slowly, and found four other pairs of eyes staring into his.  It took him one second to realize where the fifth pair must be.

     “We’re on top of the big one’s head!” he said, pulling back into the boat.

     “Ssssshh!” the librarian said again.  “They may forget we’re here.  They’re not supposed to be very b-r-i-g-h-t.”

     “What?” said Bott.

     But now the boat jerked again, to an echoing “Skwee whee whee whee whee!”  It was a clear cry of pain.

     “The oil!” Nubry guessed, correctly, as she flew into the air.

     Bott, who had been no more securely braced than she when the big beast leapt away from the searing liquid, flew after her.  The wall they were headed for showed eight different ledges, each with its own marked door.  They hit the sixth one down, rolling end for end, Nubry in the lead.

     The librarian landed hard against the door.  With a loud “Crack!”, it spun and swallowed her whole.

     The pirate hit the door next.  A thud followed the impact, but the door’s appetite appeared to be satisfied.

     Not waiting to catch his breath, he jumped to his feet and threw a shoulder against the door.  This did the door no harm and his shoulder no good.  He kicked the door at the base, left and right, trying to recall which way it had spun.  It still showed no desire to swallow him.

     He turned to study the ;ledge, wondering if Nubry had hit some switch he hadn’t seen.  There was a white square on the ledge, but this turned out to be her book.

     “Hey!” he shouted at the door.

     “Hwink?”

     Bott turned to find a shaggy head regarding him.  “You keep out of this!”  He ordered.  Snatching an antique grenade from he satchel, he armed this and let it fly.

     The animal watched it come, a great furry mouth opening to welcome it.  The vintage weapon burst just seconds before becoming a canape, exploding in complete silence.

     Bott and the beast watched the white powder filling the air.  Then the head drew back, scrunching its features, and sneezed.  Bott pulled back.  Then he ran forward.

     “Sooheeeee!” he shouted, getting a handhold in the fur of the shaggy head.  “I can ride anything when I’m sober and I haven’t had a drink in three days!”

     The beast took a long, wheezing breath and sneezed again.  Bott sailed backward and hit a wall.  He sat down hard on the ledge.

     Then he sneezed.  The five shaggy heads were now all sneezing together.  This bewildered them, but Bott found his own head clear.

     “That last bit,” he told himself.  “Not exactly sane, was it?  No sense going crazy just yet.”

     He turned to regard the door, which had a different symbol on it than the one that had resisted him.  Either the ship had changed symbols on him, or he had been sneezed onto one of the other ledges.  After a glance at the sneezing beasts behind him, he gave the door a good hard push.

     He swung to the side as spears sailed past him from each side of the door frame.  Then he rolled under a third spear coming from the top.  The door swung shut behind him with a click, and he pulled himself up to look around the room.  “So!  I did that pretty well.”

     “Don’t give up your night job, lummox.”

Monday Holiday

     Of course, Presidents’ Day is now a holiday for honoring Calvin Coolidge and Benjamin Harrison and other great men, but it was originally a means of saving us from the horrors of having two holidays within two weeks of each other.  Those of us who lived in ancient days celebrated the birthday of Abraham Lincoln on February 12 and that of George Washington on February 22 (though HE always marked his birthday on February 11.) 

     These two were often held up as the ultimate in U.S. Presidents, and their pictures hung in many a one-room schoolhouse.  My grandfather, who felt NO nostalgia for his old school, noted that no one ever explained to him who the people on the wall were, and always assumed this was the President of the School Board and wife (the one with the long white hair and no beard, see.)  For some years, in fact, it was the custom to send cards (and postcards) to your friends on Washington’s birthday.  (Lincoln was still too recent; the market for Lincoln postcards was notably low below the Mason-Dixon Line.)  There were all kinds of other Lincoln/Washington merchandise: silverware, shaving mugs, school tablets, and cookbooks.  (Historians have cast doubt on the chocolate cake long advertised as Abe’s favorite, but the custom of making cherry pie for George’s birthday continues to this day.  That poor tree never knew how famous it would become.)

     AND there were jokes.  Some of these were told in the day of their subjects, and more were invented as time went by.  So here is a holiday revival of your joke quiz, with some fine old jokes you should have gotten tired of by the time you were in Middle School.  Punch lines, as usual, are tucked away in the ANSWERS section. Neither George nor Abe went as far as Middle School, so they can be excused for not having heard these.  You get no such pass.

     JOKES

     J1.The amazing thing about the story of George Washington throwing a dollar across the   Potomac River is

     J2.An old woman in Washington D.C. was asked whether she thought the North or the South would be victorious in the war.  She replied, “The Confederacy is sure to win, for Mr. Jefferson Davis is a praying man.”  The questioner pointed out that Abraham Lincoln was also a praying man.  She replied

     J3.What’s the difference between George Washington and a duck?

     J4.Abraham Lincoln was walking along the street in Washington with two of his sons, who were crying and screaming.  A passerby stopped and said, “What’s wrong with those two?”  Lincoln sighed and said,

     J5.George Washington was considered a hero for crossing the Delaware, but that was a long time ago.  I’d like to see him try

     J6.Legend claims that when Lincoln was a young lawyer, he was stopped on a street in Springfield by a man who drew a gun and said, “I always swore I’d shoot the first man I saw who was uglier than I am.”  Lincoln looked down at him and said, “Am I uglier than you, friend?”  “You are!” roared the man.  Lincoln nodded.

     J7.The day after Halloween, Tommy’s dad asked him, “Were you one of the boys who tipped over the outhouse last night?”  Tommy looked his father in the eye and said “I cannot tell a lie, Father.  I did it.”  His father threw him across one knee and started to spank him, whereupon Tommy cried out, “When George Washington admitted he chopped down the cherry tree, his father didn’t whip HIM.”  “True,” Dad said,

     J8.Avraham Lincoln was always ready when a rival politician or opposing lawyer called him two-faced.  “Not true,” he’d reply, “If

     J9.Every president is asked for a forecast of what’s coming for the country, and these predictions run a little worse than fifty-fifty on coming true.  But it is said that both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln assumed that one day their faces would be on our coins.

ANSWERS

A1.How much farther a dollar would go in those days

A2. “Yes, but the Lord will think Mr. Lincoln is telling a joke.”

A3.Washington has his face on a bill and a duck has a bill on its face

A4.The same thing that’s wrong with the country; I have three oranges and each boy wants two

A5.Crossing Main Street at rush hour

A6.”Then go ahead and shoot.”

A7.But George’s father wasn’t in the cherry tree at the time

A8.I had two faces would I be wearing this one? A9.And they were right on the money

Metal Millinery

     This blog does not really concern itself with current events.  I’m going for material with long-lasting value, not observations on the passing scene.  What’s that?  You feel my observations on butt jokes on vintage postcards is material which will live on for the ages?  Thank you; perhaps it will last at least as long as you spend in detention.

     However, a friend of mine, traumatized in her youth by a school which required her to watch a documentary on the making of Reynolds Wrap at least four times, asked me how long wary people have been donning aluminum foil hats.  She declines to have any access to the Interwebs at home, for fear of mind control by people who post cat videos, so I do this sort of research on her behalf.

     Those of you who are my age or even older (yes, there are such people.  Looks like we’ll have TWO corners occupied by members of the class tonight) will realize at once that the question deals with a fairly modern phenomenon.  What we are really talking about is the Tin foil hat: tin foil, for the interested, dates from the 1880s or thereabouts, whole aluminum foil came along around 1910.

     Sadly, the phrase itself comes along eve later, as the wearing of “metal hats” to block mind control is largely traced to a story written by Julian Huxley and published in 1927..There ARE some sources which trace the phrase back to an English group of the early eighteenth century, referred to as the Mad Hatters, who donned tin foil hats to block mind control long before the rest of the world had this idea.  (The problem with this, obviously, is that tin foil didn’t exist yet—unless the Illuminati were covering it up—and the phrase “mad as a hatter” doesn’t seem to have existed until somewhere around 1829.  But that story involves mercury, and neither tin nor aluminum really comes into play.)

     I was hoping for some reference to that fine old conspiracy theory about the dull side of the foil being poisonous, or a connection with other metals which block rays: the silver backing in mirrors preventing creatures without souls to be reflected, or lead blocking Superman’s vision.  But no, all the stories deal specifically with foil hats blocking the sinister mental waves of evil beings.  This gets mixed up with a lot of studies of radio waves and tin foil, which in turn brings up wild stories of people who picked up radio broadcasts on the fillings in their teeth.  A form of tin foil WAS used in filling teeth, so this is obviously NOT a coincidence.  What?  There ARE no coincidences in the world of Aluminum Hattie?  True enough, but if you kids don’t stop interrupting, I’ll run out of corners.

     Reliable studies of the effects of aluminum foil hats are a matter of choice; one which came out of MIT notes that the hats can block some frequencies but AMPLIFIES others.  (And wire mesh is better anyhow.)  That same study went into which STYLE of foil hat does the job best, which was my first exposure to haute couture in the design of mind control.  I was kind of hoping to use a Monty Python Gumby Hat of foil, but this is scorned by all purists.  Anyway, in this modern age, I find that most people define a Gumby Hat as a baseball cap with Gumby on it.  Culture is crumbling, probably under the effect of all the waves from orbiting satellites…or 5G towers…or those micro chips that…..

     Anyway, I hope this at least alerts you to the fact that we are nearing what seems to be the Centennial of the invention of metal anti-mind control hats.  And I can get on with my other research.  The same person who asked about aluminum foil hats also wondered if the dunce cap and the thinking cap are completely separate phenomena, or are somehow related.  (No, as far as I know, no one lines their thinking cap with aluminum.  Go over there: now I have to make FOUR dunce caps.  Put that roll of foil away; you can see we’re out of corners.)

DRAGONSHELF AND THE DROVER XXI

     “Should we try to climb the waterfall?” Nubry suggested.  “Or slide down the drain?”

     A series of rooms in clashing colors had presented no real obstacles beyond an increasing difficulty in reaching the exits.  Bott looked up the big grey rocks to the grey door waiting beyond the tumbling grey water.

     “No, the drain’s got to be too easy.  Besides, isn’t that the next letter you need for your sentence?”

     The librarian had been noting the letters on the doors they passed, marking each lightly on a slip of paper in the back of her book.  The marks, she told him, said “Bow Before His I…” and would be followed, she claimed, by a mountain-shaped letter.  Bott could just make out the M in the mists at the height of the cascade before them.

     “So it’s just a matter of getting there,” she said, studying the water as it flowed into the hole.

     “You could hold your head under the water for a while,” said a voice from Bott’s left hand.

     “Are there hidden stairs, Dassie?” Nubry inquired, as Bott extended one finger to test the water.

     “No, I just thought the lummox could use a shower.”

     Bott pulled his right hand back and shoved it under his vest.  “What I need right now is a hammer.”

     “Ah, yes,” said the Drover.  “He’s going to break a few rocks.  Gets to be a habit after a few years’ imprisonment at Ankinkle.”

     “A hammer, Bott?” asked Nubry, peering at the water.

     He nodded.  “I don’t think that thing by the door is a welcome mat but it could be just as good.”  Bringing the hammer from the kit for emergency repairs, he lifted his head to squint at the height of the falls.  Without warning, he hauled back and let the hammer fly.

     It hit the black mat dead center.  Hammer and black webbing bounced down.

     “A ladder!” Nubry cried, as Bott bent to catch up the hammer and the end of the webbing.  “How did you know it was there?”

     “You must be smarter than the average lummox,” the Crover agreed.

     Bott shrugged with completely feigned modesty.  “My father always said you couldn’t tell how far a flamn can fly by the length of its feathers.  This should be safe.  The only danger I see is if the ladder should break, and that’s not a bad fall if we’re ready for it.”

     “Right,” said Nubry.  Tucking her book into her collar, she started up.  Bott waited, admiring the delicate way she made sure she wasn’t too involved with the webbing, in case it fell.  Then he followed.

     There was just enough room at the top of the tumbling water for them both to stand.  Shaking water from her hands, Nubry took hold of the doorknob and looked to Bott.  He readied a grenade, and nodded.

     “Oh my!” she exclaimed, folding her arms on top of her head.

     “Bilstim ryzores!” Bott agreed, glowering at the white walls and marked doors of the Start Room.

     “They could have built more than one,” said Nubry, stepping inside.  “Couldn’t they?  Yes, they could!  To discourage us, or so not every prisoner starts at the same….”

     Bott pointed to the landing cushion.  A tray waited with two cups, two plates, a pitcher, and a steaming platter.

     “We couldn’t let you starve before the game really started,” came the voice of His Imperial Worship.

     “We measured your feathers, lummox,” the Drover added.  “Welcome back.”

     Bott jammed the gold card deep into his pocket and slouched over toward the cushion.  “Should we eat?  Or do you suppose they’ve poisoned it?”

     Nubry joined him.  “They wouldn’t poison lumpucks, would they?”

     Bott looked over the steamed lumpucks, the most common root vegetable in the galaxy.  Perfectly flavorless and uninteresting, they were the model institutional food.

     “They would not.”  He sank down next to the tray, legs folded under him.

     He reached for a plate as Nubry came to sit next to him.  Then he set it down, feeling very lummoxlike.  The librarian had closed her eyes and raised her prayerstone to her forehead in some pre-meal ritual.  He noted the dark stains under her arms again.

     Her eyes opened before his could turn away.  Her arms came sharply down and she slid a little away.  “I’m sorry.  I know what I must smell like, after all that running and climbing, and jumping over those pits in that fourth room.”

     “I didn’t notice.”  Bott shrugged.  “That’s nothing I worry about, with the slave ship always telling me what I smelled like.”

     The minimal nostrils wiggled.  “I don’t notice anything.  Well, dirt maybe, but dirt like in the garden ship in our fleet.  Clean dirt.”

     “It’s the jacket.”  He fingered the tattered lapel.  “It always smells like that, no matter what else happens.  We usually use the cloth for ceremonial clothes.”

     Nubry nodded, and spooned a couple of lumpucks onto her plate.  “You said those were your father’s clothes.”

      “And the jacket was his father’s, and goes back to many fathers before that.”  He tucked the lapels under the jacket, for fear of lumpuck juice.  “I wanted to save it for some future father, but I wanted it by me, too.  It gets more and more torn; doesn’t look anything like when my father wore it.”

     The librarian chewed a bit of lumpuck—lumpucks didn’t require much chewing—and asked, “Was he a government official?  A religious leader?”

     “Both; the title was Elder.”  Bott tried to savor the heat, at least, of the lumpucks, but lumpucks defy savoring.  “He went into town more often than the others.  You could tell by the way he talked and the things he said.”

     “He sounds like the right person to be an Elder, then.”

     Bott tipped his head back.  “He knew everything worth knowing and had done everything worth doing.  He was what I wanted to be.  Anything more was a waste of time and anything less was failure.”

     Nubry was chewing the lumpucks far more than necessary.  “What did he think of you being a pirate?”

     Bott poured a glassful from the pitcher, knowing that whatever it was would be perfectly lukewarm and flavorless.  “He never knew.  I was ten years old when he was arrested and burned.”

     “Oh!”

     “Everyone in town had to be there to watch.  Some people fainted.  I stayed to the end.  I figured that anything I could do to make things worse for the Free Imperial State would be just deserved.”

     Nubry had risen to her knees.  “So you became a pirate.”

     He shook his head.  A bit of lumpuck seemed stuck in his throat, but lumpucks always stuck in your throat.  “I was going to be a computer technician first class, so I could do real damage.  But I flunked the exams.” He swallowed the lumpuck, assisted by another gulp of nothing much from the glass.  “Funny.  If I ever have nightmares, I don’t see my father burning.  I see the examiner, him with the little mustache, coming tot tell me I flunked.”

     She was reaching across the food toward him, but he pulled away.  “Is there a letter for Nubry?” he asked, looking at the marked doors.  “Maybe we’ll be luckier if we start with that.”

     “Well, yes.”  Her voice was small, as if forcing itself past a crawful of lumpuck.  “But we could start the same place we did before but choose different doors along the way.  Every pit had a different….”

     Both heads went up at the rumble coming from somewhere above them.  “Sound effects?” she demanded.

    Bott rose as liquid started to bubble up around the cushion.  It touched a bit of lumpuck that had fallen from his plate; the lumpuck teistrd and dissolved.

     “Oil,” he said, sniffing the air.  “They want us to….ow!”

    Hot oil was dripping from the ceiling as well.  Nubry came to her feet and jumped over the growing pool on the floor.  “This way!”

     Bott followed, more interested in dodging the hot downpour than asking how she’d picked this exit.  Behind the door she’d chosen was a step, and then a long corridor that slanted down, interrupted only by low half-walls on the floor.  The walls on each side were close, and the ceiling was low.

     Bott didn’t like the look of it, but he disliked the glance behind him more.  The hot oil was falling harder now, and hotter, and a groove was opening in the floor to channel the oil in their direction.

     They started running together, and leapt the first barrier in unison.  “Will that slow the oil down long enough?” Nubry demanded.

     “Long enough for what?”

     They cleared the second hurdle.  “This has to open out somewhere.  Hasn’t it?”

     Bott knew it didn’t, and knew she knew.  But there was nowhere else to go just now.  He could hear the oil sputtering as its heat increased.

     “Hey!”  Looking downhill, he spotted a low box two barriers farther along.  “Jump in that!”

     “The oil’s going to be too deep,” Nubry told him.  “We….”

     :It’s a mining boat!’  They made it over a roadblock a little higher than the last one.  “They use them on Odeoda for sailing down the streams of lead!”

     They made the jump at the next barrier and landed in the boat.  Bott grabbed at the side too late, and fell to the bottom, Nubry landing on top of him.  On Odeoda, they did not attach the boats to wheels, or set the wheels on rails.

     Their vessel shot down the slope, picking up speed as the angle increased.  The refugees pulled themselves up to the edge.

     “It’s fun!” Nubry exclaimed.

     “Wait ‘til we reach bottom!”  Bott imagined them coming up against a blank wall and cooking slowly as the hot oil raised the boat to the ceiling.  They had not been provided with mining suits.

     “There!” Nubry shouted.

     Bott saw the blank wall he’d been dreading first, but his eyes widened as the ravine in front of the wall did the same.  This was the best they could hope for, he supposed.  If the boat was sturdy enough to survive the fall, and they were strong enough to survive the crash, there might be a way out of the ravine before the oil started pouring into it.  He felt in his vest for anything that might serve as a helmet.

     Then he saw the first head.