Very thank!
it was very good!
So hard too!
If you can tell easy and very short stories and jokes again!
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Very thank!
it was very good!
So hard too!
If you can tell easy and very short stories and jokes again!
THE BURGLARS FRIEND
it was 3 o'clock in the moning when four-year-old Russell Brown woke up to go to the bothroom.
His parents were fast asleep in bed.but when he heard a noise in the living room and saw a light was on, hewent downstairs.
There he found two men. they asked him his name and told him they were friends of the family.
Unfortunately, Russell believed them. they asked him where the VCR and TV were. Russell showed them and said they had a stereo and CD player, too.
The two men carried these to the kitchen. Russell also told them that his mother kept her wallet in a drawer in the kitchen, so they took that. Russell even gave them his packet money.
They finally left at 4 A.M .
They said, Wil you open the back door while we take these things to the car, because we don't want to wake Mommy and daddy, OK? so Russell held the door open for them.
He then went back to bed.
His parents didn't know about the burglary until they got up the next day. His father said,"I couldn't be angry with Russell because he thought he was doing the right thing."
Fortunately, the police caught the two burglars .
Little Red Riding Hood
Once upon a time . . . in the middle of a thick forest stood a small
cottage, the home of a pretty little girl known to everyone as Little Red
Riding Hood. One day, her Mummy waved her goodbye at the garden gate, saying:
"Grandma is ill. Take her this basket of cakes, but be very careful. Keep to
the path through the wood and don't ever stop. That way, you will come to no
harm."
Little Red Riding Hood kissed her mother and ran off. "Don't worry,' she
said, "I'll run all the way to Grandma's without stopping."
Full of good intentions, the little girl made her way through the wood, but
she was soon to forget her mother's wise words. "What lovely strawberries! And
so red . . ."
Laying her basket on the ground, Little Red Riding Hood bent over the
strawberry plants. "They're nice and ripe, and so big! Yummy! Delicious! Just
another one. And one more. This is the last . . . Well, this one . . . Mmmm."
The red fruit peeped invitingly through the leaves in the grassy glade, and
Little Red Riding Hood ran back and forth popping strawberries into her mouth.
Suddenly she remembered her mother, her promise, Grandma and the basket . . .
and hurried back towards the path. The basket was still in the grass and,
humming to herself, Little Red Riding Hood walked on.
The wood became thicker and thicker. Suddenly a yellow butterfly fluttered
down through the trees. Little Red Riding Hood started to chase the butterfly.
"I'll catch you! I'll catch you!" she called. Suddenly she saw some large
daisies in the grass.
"Oh, how sweet!" she exclaimed and, thinking of Grandma, she picked a large
bunch of flowers.
In the meantime, two wicked eyes were spying on her from behind a tree . .
a strange rustling in the woods made Little Red Riding Hood's heart thump.
Now quite afraid she said to herself. "I must find the path and run away
from here!"
At last she reached the path again but her heart leapt into her mouth at
the sound of a gruff voice which said: "Where ' . . are you going, my pretty
girl, all alone in the woods?"
"I'm taking Grandma some cakes. She lives at the end of the path," said
Little Riding Hood in a faint voice.
When he heard this, the wolf (for it was the big bad wolf himself) politely
asked: "Does Grandma live by herself?"
"Oh, yes," replied Little Red Riding Hood, "and she never opens the door to
strangers!"
"Goodbye. Perhaps we'll meet again," replied the wolf. Then he loped away
thinking to himself "I'll gobble the grandmother first, then lie in wait for
the grandchild!" At last, the cottage came in sight. Knock! Knock! The wolf
rapped on the door. --~ "Who's there?" cried Grandma from her bed.
"It's me, Little Red Riding Hood. I've brought you some cakes because
you're ill," replied the wolf, trying hard to hide his gruff voice.
"Lift the latch and come in," said Grandma, unaware of anything amiss, till
a horrible shadow appeared on the wall. Poor Grandma! For in one bound, the
wolf leapt across the room and, in a single mouthful, swallowed the old lady.
Soon after, Little Red Riding Hood tapped on the door.
"Grandma, can I come in?" she called.
Now, the wolf had put on the old lady's shawl and cap and slipped into the
bed. Trying to imitate Grandma's quavering little voice, he replied: "Open the latch and come in!
"What a deep voice you have," said the little girl in surpnse.
"The better to greet you with," said the wolf.
"Goodness, what big eyes you have."
"The better to see you with."
"And what big hands you have!" exclaimed Little Red Riding Hood, stepping
over to the bed.
"The better to hug you with," said the wolf.
"What a big mouth you have," the little girl murmured in a weak voice.
"The better to eat you with!" growled the wolf, and jumping out of bed, he
swallowed her up too. Then, with a fat full tummy, he fell fast asleep.
In the meantime, a hunter had emerged from the wood, and on noticing the
cottage, he decided to stop and ask for a drink. He had spent a lot of time
trying to catch a large wolf that had been terrorizing the neighbourhood, but
had lost its tracks. The hunter could hear a strange whistling sound; it
seemed to be coming from inside the cottage. He peered through the window ...
and saw the large wolf himself, with a fat full tummy, snoring away in
Grandma's bed.
"The wolf! He won't get away this time!"
Without making a sound, the hunter carefully loaded his gun and gently
opened the window. He pointed the barrel straight at the wolf's head and . . .
BANG! The wolf was dead.
"Got you at last!" shouted the hunter in glee. "You'll never frighten
anyone agaln.
He cut open the wolf's stomach and to his amazement, out popped Grandma and
Little Red Riding Hood, safe and unharmed.
"You arrived just in time," murmured the old lady, quite overcome by all
the excitement. ~
"It's safe to go home now," the hunter told Little Red Riding Hood. "The
big bad wolf is dead and gone, and there is no danger on the path.
Still scared, the little girl hugged her grandmother. Oh, what a dreadful
fright!"
Much later, as dusk was falling, Little Red Riding Hood's mother arrived,
all out of breath, worried because her llttle girl had not come home. And when
she saw Little Red Riding Hood, safe and sound, she burst into tears of joy.
After thanking the hunter again, Little Red Rldlng Hood and her mother set
off towards the wood. As they walked quickly through the trees, the little
girl told her mother: "We must always keep to the path and never stop. That
way, we come to no harm!"
This is written in one of interchange work books. In fact, It's a true story. credulous Russel!:happy:.dنقل قول:
نوشته شده توسط behnam karami
Isn't it our SHENEL GHERMEZY?!:Laughing:. Y this story is different everywhere?! In persian, The story is a bit different. I don't remember any hunter! :cool:نقل قول:
Once upon a time . . . in the middle of a thick forest stood a small
cottage, the home of a pretty little girl known to everyone as Little Red
Riding Hood. One day, her Mummy waved her goodbye at the garden gate, saying:
"Grandma is ill. Take her this basket of cakes, but be very careful. Keep to
the path through the wood and don't ever stop. That way, you will come to no
harm."
Little Red Riding Hood kissed her mother and ran off. "Don't worry,' she
said, "I'll run all the way to Grandma's without stopping."
Full of good intentions, the little girl made her way through the wood, but
she was soon to forget her mother's wise words. "What lovely strawberries! And
so red . . ."
Laying her basket on the ground, Little Red Riding Hood bent over the
strawberry plants. "They're nice and ripe, and so big! Yummy! Delicious! Just
another one. And one more. This is the last . . . Well, this one . . . Mmmm."
The red fruit peeped invitingly through the leaves in the grassy glade, and
Little Red Riding Hood ran back and forth popping strawberries into her mouth.
Suddenly she remembered her mother, her promise, Grandma and the basket . . .
and hurried back towards the path. The basket was still in the grass and,
humming to herself, Little Red Riding Hood walked on.
The wood became thicker and thicker. Suddenly a yellow butterfly fluttered
down through the trees. Little Red Riding Hood started to chase the butterfly.
"I'll catch you! I'll catch you!" she called. Suddenly she saw some large
daisies in the grass.
"Oh, how sweet!" she exclaimed and, thinking of Grandma, she picked a large
bunch of flowers.
In the meantime, two wicked eyes were spying on her from behind a tree . .
a strange rustling in the woods made Little Red Riding Hood's heart thump.
Now quite afraid she said to herself. "I must find the path and run away
from here!"
At last she reached the path again but her heart leapt into her mouth at
the sound of a gruff voice which said: "Where ' . . are you going, my pretty
girl, all alone in the woods?"
"I'm taking Grandma some cakes. She lives at the end of the path," said
Little Riding Hood in a faint voice.
When he heard this, the wolf (for it was the big bad wolf himself) politely
asked: "Does Grandma live by herself?"
"Oh, yes," replied Little Red Riding Hood, "and she never opens the door to
strangers!"
"Goodbye. Perhaps we'll meet again," replied the wolf. Then he loped away
thinking to himself "I'll gobble the grandmother first, then lie in wait for
the grandchild!" At last, the cottage came in sight. Knock! Knock! The wolf
rapped on the door. --~ "Who's there?" cried Grandma from her bed.
"It's me, Little Red Riding Hood. I've brought you some cakes because
you're ill," replied the wolf, trying hard to hide his gruff voice.
"Lift the latch and come in," said Grandma, unaware of anything amiss, till
a horrible shadow appeared on the wall. Poor Grandma! For in one bound, the
wolf leapt across the room and, in a single mouthful, swallowed the old lady.
Soon after, Little Red Riding Hood tapped on the door.
"Grandma, can I come in?" she called.
Now, the wolf had put on the old lady's shawl and cap and slipped into the
bed. Trying to imitate Grandma's quavering little voice, he replied: "Open the latch and come in!
"What a deep voice you have," said the little girl in surpnse.
"The better to greet you with," said the wolf.
"Goodness, what big eyes you have."
"The better to see you with."
"And what big hands you have!" exclaimed Little Red Riding Hood, stepping
over to the bed.
"The better to hug you with," said the wolf.
"What a big mouth you have," the little girl murmured in a weak voice.
"The better to eat you with!" growled the wolf, and jumping out of bed, he
swallowed her up too. Then, with a fat full tummy, he fell fast asleep.
In the meantime, a hunter had emerged from the wood, and on noticing the
cottage, he decided to stop and ask for a drink. He had spent a lot of time
trying to catch a large wolf that had been terrorizing the neighbourhood, but
had lost its tracks. The hunter could hear a strange whistling sound; it
seemed to be coming from inside the cottage. He peered through the window ...
and saw the large wolf himself, with a fat full tummy, snoring away in
Grandma's bed.
"The wolf! He won't get away this time!"
Without making a sound, the hunter carefully loaded his gun and gently
opened the window. He pointed the barrel straight at the wolf's head and . . .
BANG! The wolf was dead.
"Got you at last!" shouted the hunter in glee. "You'll never frighten
anyone agaln.
He cut open the wolf's stomach and to his amazement, out popped Grandma and
Little Red Riding Hood, safe and unharmed.
"You arrived just in time," murmured the old lady, quite overcome by all
the excitement. ~
"It's safe to go home now," the hunter told Little Red Riding Hood. "The
big bad wolf is dead and gone, and there is no danger on the path.
Still scared, the little girl hugged her grandmother. Oh, what a dreadful
fright!"
Much later, as dusk was falling, Little Red Riding Hood's mother arrived,
all out of breath, worried because her llttle girl had not come home. And when
she saw Little Red Riding Hood, safe and sound, she burst into tears of joy.
After thanking the hunter again, Little Red Rldlng Hood and her mother set
off towards the wood. As they walked quickly through the trees, the little
girl told her mother: "We must always keep to the path and never stop. That
way, we come to no harm
really thanks dear Reza, it brought me some new words.
Good Luck
still remember it as if it were yesterday. The day I ended the life of my best friend. The sound of her voice begging me to slow down will haunt me till the day I die but after what I did, I can truly say that I deserve that and more. I will never forgive myself. -Flashback-
"Jesse, slow down, we're going too fast!" "It's all right Amber, I can handle it. You know I would never do anything to hurt you." "Jesse, please stop. I am scared. “She cried.”I won't let anything happen to you." -End of flashback-
But I did hurt her. I was drunk and didn't notice how fast I was going. A kid, that's all I was. A sixteen-year old boy who thought he could handle anything. I used to be so happy. I had the perfect life and now I get to cry myself to sleep thinking about how I hurt the only girl I ever loved and will ever love.
One year earlier
"Come on Amber, no one cares about what you wear." "Speak for yourself! What about this shirt Jess?" "It's fine, now can we go?" "I'll be there in a minute." "Girls." Jesse mumbled rolling his eyes. "I heard that!" Amber said from her bathroom. To her I was just like a brother. It was the same for me until three years ago. I don't know what happened to me. One second she was like my sister, the next I had fallen in love with her. Every one knows how I feel except for Amber. Now, she's the love of my life, the only one for me but of course I haven't told her yet. I will someday but not right now. When we're older and she's ready to hear it, I'll tell her. We were finally on our way to the party. We had the music blasting and we were talking, laughing and singing like we always did. I had finally convinced her parents to let me take her. I promised to take care of her. They knew I would die for her if it came to that and she would do the same for me. We've been friends since the day we were born. Same day, same hospital and two hours apart, me being the oldest. Our parents had been old friends from high school. The four of them had been inseparable just like Amber and I. As I parked my car a few houses away from the party, Amber started getting a little nervous seeing as she had never been to a party like this before. So I took her hand and gently pulled her to the door. Inside, we met some friends and decided to dance when Terry, a guy from our school, offered me a beer. Amber told me not to but I told her that I would only have one. So she let me. The only problem was that one turned into two and two turned into three. We were still dancing by then, I started to get dizzy and Amber noticed. "Jess come sit down a bit, I think you've had enough to drink." she said removing the bottle of beer from my hand and replacing it with a bottle of water instead. I never did have a high tolerance for alcohol. Feeling a little queasy, I laid my head on Amber's shoulder since she had seated herself next to me. Soon enough I fell asleep. About a half-hour later, I woke up still with my head on Amber's shoulder. When I stood up to go back to the dance floor, my head felt as if someone had hit it with a baseball bat a few times but I told Amber I was fine because I didn't want to worry her. When Amber left to go to the washroom, I decided to have another beer. That was a big mistake. When she got back and saw that I could barely stand on my own two feet, she knew right away what I had done. "Jesse! Don't tell me you had another drink!" I had never seen her so mad at me before. "Okay then, I won't." I replied. "Don't you get smart with me!" "Jeez, now you sound like my mother." "I'm going to go call Brady so that he can pick us up." "Don't bother your brother. I'll be fine." With that I headed out the door and to my car. After managing to open the door, I got in and rested my head on the steering wheel when Amber banged on the window. "What the hell did you do that for!?" "Jesse open this door right now. You know you can't drive like this." "I'll be fine Amber." I insisted. "Then I'm coming with you. There's no way you're going alone." She said as she got into the car. She tried to grab the car keys but the second her door had closed I drove off. I started off at 100 km per hour and quickly reached 160. "Jesse, pull over and we'll call my brother. You can come get your car tomorrow." "It's OK. I'm fine." "Jesse, slow down we're going too fast." "No we're not." "What do you mean! You're doing 160!" She shouted. "It's all right Amber, I can handle it. You know I would never do anything to hurt you." "Jesse, please stop, I'm scared." She started crying. "I promise I won't let anything happen to you." "JESSE! WATCH-" I turned my attention to the road when I saw another car slam into mine. I threw myself on Amber but her head hit and smashed the window of her door. I woke up a few hours later in the hospital with a few scrapes, scratches and bruises. "Amber!" I yelled. A nurse came running in. "Where's Amber!? Tell me!" I yelled louder. "Calm down young man" The nurse said as she attempted to take my pulse. "No! I want to see her!" I insisted, getting out of bed. The nurse desperately tried to push me back into bed but I was stronger then her so she gave up and told me where I would find Amber. With my whole body aching, I made my way to her room. When I entered the room, I saw Amber lying in bed with machines plugged all around her. It was as if someone had just stabbed me in the heart. Then I saw her parents by her side, crying. They looked up and saw me. "I'm sorry, " I said crying " I... I..." I couldn't speak. Her mother ran over to me and instead of hitting me or yelling at me like I expected her to, she took me in her arms and held me tight. Her father did the same. I knew they forgave me but I could never forgive myself. I sat myself in the chair next to her bed and took her soft gentle hand into mine. I refused to move until she came back to me. Everybody told me to get some rest but I didn't care about myself. So they just left me by her side. Two days later, as I still sat next to Amber's bed, she started to wake up. I was about to call a doctor but she told me not to. You're awake!" I practically yelled crying. "You're ok." She said quietly, smiling. "Yeah but I would trade places with you in a heart beat. Do you know how much it hurts me too see you like this?" "Jesse?" "Yeah?" something in her voice worried me. "I love you" "I love you too but-" "Tell my parents and Brady I love them and promise you'll never forget me." She said crying. "WHAT? NO! YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME!" I screamed crying. "I love you Jess." She cried as she closed her eyes. "NO! DON'T GO!" I yelled louder. Her dad ran in when he heard me as the heart monitor went flat. I ran out of the way and into his arms as doctors and nurses rushed to Amber's side.
One year later
The doctors did everything they could that day to save Amber but it was hopeless. We had lost her forever. She was gone and would never come back. To this day, people still tiptoe around me, scared of what I might do if they mention her name and to tell you the truth, I don't blame them. It's exactly one year today since Amber died so I lay here on my bed tears rolling down my cheeks looking at a picture of Amber and I as a song on the radio caught my attention.
Although you're so many miles from me
I just want you to know I could never forget you... Sitting here in my room alone
Got the radio on
And it's playing our song
I keep your picture beside my bed
And as I hold it so close
I keep hearing you saying
"I love you, and wherever I am, I'm thinking of you"
So until you come back to me... (Chorus)
I'll send my love to you straight from the heart
Baby I miss you, baby I miss you
I feel you so near though we're so far apart
Baby I miss you, baby I miss you Tears like rain falling from my eyes
As we said our good-byes
I could feel my heart break
Only emptiness filled my soul
I was half not whole
... I promised her that I wouldn't let anything happen to her and I broke that promise. But one promise I'll never brake is the one of never forgetting her cause she's the one person I'll never forget.
:rolleye: Once there were three trees on a hill in the woods. They were discussing their hopes and dreams when the first tree said, "Someday I hope to be a treasure chest. I could be filled with gold, silver.I could be decorated with intricate carving and everyone would see the beauty.Then the second tree said, "Someday I will be a mighty ship. I will take kings and queens across the waters. Everyone will feel safe in me because of the strength of my hull." Finally, the third tree said, "I want to grow to be the tallest and straightest tree in the forest. People will see me on top of the hill and look up to my branches, and think of the heavens and God and how close to them I am reaching. I will be the greatest tree of all time and people will always remember me." After a few years of praying that their dreams would come true, a group of woodsmen came upon the trees. When one came to the first tree he said, "This looks like a strong tree, I think I should be able to sell the wood to a carpenter" ... and he began cutting it down. The tree was happy, because he knew that the carpenter would make him into a treasure chest. At the second tree a woodsman said, "This looks like a strong tree, I should be able to sell it to the shipyard." The second tree was happy because he knew he was on his way to becoming a mighty ship. When the woodsmen came upon the third tree, the tree was frightened because he knew that if they cut him down his dreams would not come true. One of the woodsmen said, "I don't need anything special from my tree so I'll take this one", and he cut it down. When the first tree arrived at the carpenters, he was made into a feed box for animals. He was then placed in a barn and filled with hay. This was not at all what he had prayed for. The second tree was cut and made into a small fishing boat. His dreams of being a mighty ship and carrying kings had come to an end. The third tree was cut into large pieces and left alone in the dark. The years went by, and the trees forgot about their dreams. Then one day, a man and woman came to the barn. She gave birth and they placed the baby in the hay in the feed box that was made from the first tree. The man wished that he could have made a crib for the baby, but this manger would have to do. The tree could feel the importance of this event and knew that it had held the greatest treasure of all time. Years later, a group of men got in the fishing boat made from the second tree. One of them was tired and went to sleep. While they were out on the water, a great storm arose and the tree didn't think it was strong enough to keep the men safe. The men woke the sleeping man, and he stood and said "Peace" and the storm stopped. At this time, the tree knew that it had carried the King of Kings in its boat. Finally, someone came and got the third tree. It was carried through the streets as the people mocked the man who was carrying it. When they came to a stop, the man was nailed to the tree and raised in the air to die at the top of a hill. When Sunday came, the tree came to realize that it was strong enough to stand at the top of the hill and be as close to God as was possible, because Jesus had been crucified on it.
The moral of this story is that when things don't seem to be going your way, always know that God has a plan for you. If you place your trust in Him, He will give you great gifts. Each of the trees got what they wanted, just not in the way they had imagined. We don't always know what God's plans are for us. We just know that His ways are not our ways, but His ways are always best
:sad: :sad: [COLOR="DarkOrchid"]The story goes that some time ago, a man punished his 3-year-old daughter for wasting a roll of gold wrapping paper. Money was tight and he became infuriated when the child tried to decorate a box to put under the Christmas tree. Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift to her father the next morning and said, "This is for you, Daddy”
The man was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction, but his anger flared again when he found out the box was empty. He yelled at her, stating, "Don't you know, when you give someone a present, there is supposed to be something inside? The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and cried, "Oh, Daddy, it's not empty at all. I blew kisses into the box. They're all for you, Daddy."
The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little girl, and he begged for her forgiveness.
Only a short time later, an accident took the life of the child. It is also told that her father kept that gold box by his bed for many years and, whenever he was discouraged, he would take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the child who had put it there.[/COLOR
]
In a very real sense, each one of us, as humans beings, have been given a gold container filled with unconditional love and kisses... from our children, family members, friends, and God. There is simply no other possession, anyone could hold, more precious than this.
Hi, dear friends
I have an mid-term exam tomorrow and this is my short story.
Please check it and let me know if you find anything wrong in it.
thants a million
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Thorn Bird
Maggie was 49 years old when she lost her son, Dayn. He finished priest school and wanted to spend his holiday in Greece but he drown when he was trying to save some people. In Greece happend a revolution so Maggie couldn't bring his body back to Australia. At first she asked help from bishop Ralf but he refused so she had tell him the truth.
Maggie and bishop Ralf first met eachother 40 years ago, when Maggie was 9 years old. Despite Ralf was about 20 years older than Maggie they loved eachother since they met, but they couldn't marry. When she was 15, he went to the Cindney and after 5 years, she married. Her husband loved his work more than his wife even after their first baby girl was born. Maggie didn't tolerate his unkindness and went back home.
Ralf transfered to Rome, so he wanted to say goodbye to Maggie, but she never told the truth to Ralf that Daye was his son.
Hi buddyنقل قول:
I noticed the following mistakes in the text:
He finished_He had finished
priest school_religious school
drown_drowned
when he was trying_while he was trying
In Greece happened a revolution_A revolution had happened in Greece
at first_at first,
she asked help from bishop Ralf_she asked bishop Ralph for help
Ralf_Ralph
she had tell him_she had to tell him
Despite Ralf was about 20 years older than Maggie they loved eachother since they met_ Despite Ralf was about 20 years older than Maggie, they loved each other since they had met
the Cindney_Sidney(do you men this city?)
didn't tolerate_couldn't tolerate
Ralf transfered_Ralf was transferred
Daye was his son_Dayn was his son
FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
THE ANGEL
by Hans Christian Andersen
"WHENEVER a good child dies, an angel of God comes down from heaven, takes the dead child in his arms, spreads out his great white wings, and flies with him over all the places which the child had loved during his life. Then he gathers a large handful of flowers, which he carries up to the Almighty, that they may bloom more brightly in heaven than they do on earth. And the Almighty presses the flowers to His heart, but He kisses the flower that pleases Him best, and it receives a voice, and is able to join the song of the chorus of bliss."
These words were spoken by an angel of God, as he carried a dead child up to heaven, and the child listened as if in a dream. Then they passed over well-known spots, where the little one had often played, and through beautiful gardens full of lovely flowers.
"Which of these shall we take with us to heaven to be transplanted there?" asked the angel.
Close by grew a slender, beautiful, rose-bush, but some wicked hand had broken the stem, and the half-opened rosebuds hung faded and withered on the trailing branches.
"Poor rose-bush!" said the child, "let us take it with us to heaven, that it may bloom above in God's garden."
The angel took up the rose-bush; then he kissed the child, and the little one half opened his eyes. The angel gathered also some beautiful flowers, as well as a few humble buttercups and heart's-ease.
"Now we have flowers enough," said the child; but the angel only nodded, he did not fly upward to heaven.
It was night, and quite still in the great town. Here they remained, and the angel hovered over a small, narrow street, in which lay a large heap of straw, ashes, and sweepings from the houses of people who had removed. There lay fragments of plates, pieces of plaster, rags, old hats, and other rubbish not pleasant to see. Amidst all this confusion, the angel pointed to the pieces of a broken flower-pot, and to a lump of earth which had fallen out of it. The earth had been kept from falling to pieces by the roots of a withered field-flower, which had been thrown amongst the rubbish.
"We will take this with us," said the angel, "I will tell you why as we fly along."
And as they flew the angel related the history.
"Down in that narrow lane, in a low cellar, lived a poor sick boy; he had been afflicted from his childhood, and even in his best days he could just manage to walk up and down the room on crutches once or twice, but no more. During some days in summer, the sunbeams would lie on the floor of the cellar for about half an hour. In this spot the poor sick boy would sit warming himself in the sunshine, and watching the red blood through his delicate fingers as he held them before his face. Then he would say he had been out, yet he knew nothing of the green forest in its spring verdure, till a neighbor's son brought him a green bough from a beech-tree. This he would place over his head, and fancy that he was in the beech-wood while the sun shone, and the birds carolled gayly. One spring day the neighbor's boy brought him some field-flowers, and among them was one to which the root still adhered. This he carefully planted in a flower-pot, and placed in a window-seat near his bed. And the flower had been planted by a fortunate hand, for it grew, put forth fresh shoots, and blossomed every year. It became a splendid flower-garden to the sick boy, and his little treasure upon earth. He watered it, and cherished it, and took care it should have the benefit of every sunbeam that found its way into the cellar, from the earliest morning ray to the evening sunset. The flower entwined itself even in his dreams- for him it bloomed, for him spread its perfume. And it gladdened his eyes, and to the flower he turned, even in death, when the Lord called him. He has been one year with God. During that time the flower has stood in the window, withered and forgotten, till at length cast out among the sweepings into the street, on the day of the lodgers' removal. And this poor flower, withered and faded as it is, we have added to our nosegay, because it gave more real joy than the most beautiful flower in the garden of a queen."
"But how do you know all this?" asked the child whom the angel was carrying to heaven.
"I know it," said the angel, "because I myself was the poor sick boy who walked upon crutches, and I know my own flower well."
Then the child opened his eyes and looked into the glorious happy face of the angel, and at the same moment they found themselves in that heavenly home where all is happiness and joy. And God pressed the dead child to His heart, and wings were given him so that he could fly with the angel, hand in hand. Then the Almighty pressed all the flowers to His heart; but He kissed the withered field-flower, and it received a voice. Then it joined in the song of the angels, who surrounded the throne, some near, and others in a distant circle, but all equally happy. They all joined in the chorus of praise, both great and small,- the good, happy child, and the poor field-flower, that once lay withered and cast away on a heap of rubbish in a narrow, dark street.
THE END.
by GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ
Monday dawned warm and rainless. Aurelio Escovar, a dentist without a degree, and a very early riser, opened his office at six. He took some false teeth, still mounted in their plaster mold, out of the glass case and put on the table a fistful of instruments which he arranged in size order, as if they were on display. He wore a collarless striped shirt, closed at the neck with a golden stud, and pants held up by suspenders He was erect and skinny, with a look that rarely corresponded to the situation, the way deaf people have of looking.
When he had things arranged on the table, he pulled the drill toward the dental chair and sat down to polish the false teeth. He seemed not to be thinking about what he was doing, but worked steadily, pumping the drill with his feet, even when he didn't need it.
After eight he stopped for a while to look at the sky through the window, and he saw two pensive buzzards who were drying themselves in the sun on the ridgepole of the house next door. He went on working with the idea that before lunch it would rain again. The shrill voice of his elevenyear-old son interrupted his concentration.
"Papa."
"What?"
"The Mayor wants to know if you'll pull his tooth."
"Tell him I'm not here."
He was polishing a gold tooth. He held it at arm's length, and examined it with his eyes half closed. His son shouted again from the little waiting room.
"He says you are, too, because he can hear you."
The dentist kept examining the tooth. Only when he had put it on the table with the finished work did he say:
"So much the better."
He operated the drill again. He took several pieces of a bridge out of a cardboard box where he kept the things he still had to do and began to polish the gold.
"Papa."
"What?"
He still hadn't changed his expression.
"He says if you don't take out his tooth, he'll shoot you."
Without hurrying, with an extremely tranquil movement, he stopped pedaling the drill, pushed it away from the chair, and pulled the lower drawer of the table all the way out. There was a revolver. "O.K.," he said. "Tell him to come and shoot me."
He rolled the chair over opposite the door, his hand resting on the edge of the drawer. The Mayor appeared at the door. He had shaved the left side of his face, but the other side, swollen and in pain, had a five-day-old beard. The dentist saw many nights of desperation in his dull eyes. He closed the drawer with his fingertips and said softly:
"Sit down."
"Good morning," said the Mayor.
"Morning," said the dentist.
While the instruments were boiling, the Mayor leaned his skull on the headrest of the chair and felt better. His breath was icy. It was a poor office: an old wooden chair, the pedal drill, a glass case with ceramic bottles. Opposite the chair was a window with a shoulder-high cloth curtain. When he felt the dentist approach, the Mayor braced his heels and opened his mouth.
Aurelio Escovar turned his head toward the light. After inspecting the infected tooth, he closed the Mayor's jaw with a cautious pressure of his fingers.
"It has to be without anesthesia," he said.
"Why?"
"Because you have an abscess."
The Mayor looked him in the eye. "All right," he said, and tried to smile. The dentist did not return the smile. He brought the basin of sterilized instruments to the worktable and took them out of the water with a pair of cold tweezers, still without hurrying. Then he pushed the spittoon with the tip of his shoe, and went to wash his hands in the washbasin. He did all this without looking at the Mayor. But the Mayor didn't take his eyes off him.
It was a lower wisdom tooth. The dentist spread his feet and grasped the tooth with the hot forceps. The Mayor seized the arms of the chair, braced his feet with all his strength, and felt an icy void in his kidneys, but didn't make a sound. The dentist moved only his wrist. Without rancor, rather with a bitter tenderness, he said:
"Now you'll pay for our twenty dead men."
The Mayor felt the crunch of bones in his jaw, and his eyes filled with tears. But he didn't breathe until he felt the tooth come out. Then he saw it through his tears. It seemed so foreign to his pain that he failed to understand his torture of the five previous nights.
Bent over the spittoon, sweating, panting, he unbuttoned his tunic and reached for the handkerchief in his pants pocket. The dentist gave him a clean cloth.
"Dry your tears," he said.
The Mayor did. He was trembling. While the dentist washed his hands, he saw the crumbling ceiling and a dusty spider web with spider's eggs and dead insects. The dentist returned, drying his hands. "Go to bed," he said, "and gargle with salt water." The Mayor stood up, said goodbye with a casual military salute, and walked toward the door, stretching his legs, without buttoning up his tunic.
"Send the bill," he said.
"To you or the town?"
The Mayor didn't look at him. He closed the door and said through the screen:
"It's the same damn thing
Count Eriq Gwevare looked over at his uncle, Dre. Dre held himself regally, powerfully as he lifted the snifter of brandy to his lips and took a small draught. Eriq watched the wind sweep over his uncle's features: feathering his cape and pressing his exquisite, noble clothes against his taut, lean body. Dre's hair ruffled and Eriq watched him reflexively groom it. Since Eriq had last seen him, Dre had let his hair grow enough that he could put it back into a ponytail. That ponytail now rested peacefully, protected from the wind by the barrier of Dre's body.
Though Dre had not changed, could not change, since he had taken his unlife, his powerful shoulders droop like some unrelenting weight hung on them. Eriq stepped out of the shadows, letting the eerie moonlight hit his body. This action drew Dre out of his reverie and he turned to meet his nephew.
"Ah, Eriq!" Dre said holding his hand up to beckon Eriq to his side. Eriq strode forth, his own powerful presence radiating confidence and proper demeanor. Having grown up a noble, he found it befitting that he should only present like a lord.
"Uncle, I am sorry if I have disturbed you..." Eriq said. Dre held his hand up, cutting his sentence short.
"Nonsense, it is not everyday that my one and only nephew may join me as I look over my majestic landscape."
Eriq drew by his side. It was dark in the valley and he could see very little. His Uncle beamed with admiration as he remarked, "Look at it young man, does it not fill you with pride!"
Eriq looked out across the expanse. The moon had been obscured by overcast and he could see nothing, other than silhouettes against the horizon, the twinkle of lights from the village, and the battlements on which they stood. He knodded his agreement out of respect.
"It definitely is large," Eriq said, too young and naive to appreciate his Uncle's expropriated boundaries. Dre had won them in combat. He had not inherited them like his young Nephew one day would. In fact, Dre had already bequeathed his entire dynasty to his nephew in the event that he was ever "removed" from power. No one else knew of this, save Dre's secretary. No else would find out until the appropriate time came. It would disturb power within the realm, because it was believed Dre had no known charitable heir.
A gentle, summer breeze swept over them. It felt good to momentarily escape the heat of the night, yet Eriq reflexively shivered. Dre turned to him and grinned. Dre grabbed the hem of his cape with either of his hands, rolling the hem between thumb and forefinger.
"I see you have not completely acclimatized," Dre said turning. Eriq turned with his uncle.
"That's not it," Eriq said as Dre cocked an eyebrow, "I hunger, and when I am hungry I get chills."
"You hunger, eh?" Dre said. At a shadow past nine in the evening Dre was starting to get hungry also, however he usually didn't dine until much later. "Very well, we shall dine early tonight."
"Very well," Eriq said as they stopped.
Both men made their way through the castle and soon came to the front door. Walking out into a small courtyard, they crossed the rickety draw bridge. It tensed at their passage and Dre had been meaning to get the rotted draw bridge replaced; he had simply forgotten about it in the last two hundred years.
A strange, dry rot covered the beams. It could barely hold a carriage, however there were still a few areas that held strong wood. Dre had once experimented with molds and rots, and the malignant rot covering this bridge also covered the lowerwalls of the moat. An experiement that had gotten out of hand, Dre knew it was harmless to most objects, save celluloid objects such as wood.
Dre led his nephew over the strong sections and soon they came to the end of the North Beget road. A large clearing led to the treeline about a quarter of a kilometer away from the edge of the embattlements.
Progressing slowly down the Beget road, their black attire blended in with the night. Their white cuffs and ruffles contrasted in heavy flashes as they disappeared into the treeline.
*****
Both wolves traveled through the woods at a breakneck pace. Their hearts pounded in their ears as they followed the scent given off by the deer. It was sweet nectar to their nostrils; like a beacon in the pitch black night. Branches and shrubs tugged at their furr as they dashed about agilely. Their long, thin legs kept them up to speed.
Eriq and Dre watched as the wolves dashed past them, across the path. Dre smiled wickedly and then suddenly fell to all fours. His body shifted and contorted and soon he stood as a massive, black wolf. Another black wolf stood before the first, and both turned and bounded after their quarry.
They followed the wolves until another scent entered their nostrils. Both of them halted as they tried to pick up the direction of the scent. Sniffing in the air, the wolves found the trail and then bounded off in its direction. Their huge stature was lost to the night once more.
Dre watched as his nephew jumped over a log and dashed ahead of him. Dre caught up. The scent was stronger now and Dre looked around to get his bearings. They were nearing Vakona, and Dre hadn't realized how far they had strayed from the castle.
They came to the edge of the town. They slowed to a trotting pace and crossed the backyard of a citizen's homestead. They were winded, and warm clouds snorted from their snouts, as their tongues wagged over savage canines. Both were monstrous, horrendous beasts of terror. No one in their right mind would bother venturing outside after dark, at least not unless it was absolutely, life threateningly necessary. There were dark and sinister things in the Dalewoodian nights, things left to fable and myth.
Their breath snorting before them in white clouds, they followed the scent down the alley, until it lead them around a corner. Their claws clicked on the cobbles as they approached the corner, their lupine forms stood on their haunches and changed back into Eriq and Dre Gwevare. Both men used their latent senses to keep following the sweet scent.
Dre had smelled this particular scent before and he knew it could've only been the menarche of a virginal soul. They were the easiest to pick out, because their changing pubescent bodies carried many heavy, distinctive fragrances. The scent lead them down several streets until they came to where it was the strongest. They came to the front door of a house.
Dre looked down the street and saw no one. He then stepped to the side of the house and grasped it with his palms and feet. Sticking firmly, he started to scale the side of the sheer vertical wall. Dre was halfway up when he looked around and couldn't find Eriq. He looked down at the ground and didn't see him either.
"Behind you uncle," Eriq said. Dre twisted his body around to see Eriq hovering in the air. "The dark powers are different for each."
"As I can see," Dre acknowledged. "now, how about flying over to that window and telling me what you see."
"Very well," Eriq said willing himself to the window.
Dre scaled the rest of the wall. He peered inside the top story window and saw a master bedroom that held a bed, dressers, mirrors, and the such. Within the bed, a man and a woman slept peacefully. This was not what he was looking for. Suddenly his nephew hissed at him.
Dre drew up beside his nephew and turned to face him. Eriq turned to him. His fangs had protracted down from his gums, his eyes had glazed over a pupilless white and his features were gaunt and paleish white. The effects of the hunger affected each of their kind differently. Dre's eyes blazed crimson red and glowered against the pane of glass.
"Look inside, both sleep tenderly," Eriq smiled evilly. Dre looked in and saw his own reflection in the pane of the glass. Failing to see Eriq's, he looked past himself and saw both of the young women nestled in their beds. Dre smiled and then began to open the window. He did so silently and soon he had it open enough for him to fit through. Once inside he turned to Eriq.
"Well, are you coming?" Dre asked.
"I cannot," Eriq said. "I have not been invited."
"In that case, I invite you." Dre said. Soon both of them were standing in the middle of the room. Their body position denoted which of the two they had chosen.
Dre looked down at his meal. She appeared no more than thirteen; very pretty and carried about herself an innocence which Dre had not known for over a thousand years. Her blankets had pulled away, and underneath her thin nightgown Dre could see that she was well endowed for a girl of her age. He sat in the bed beside her and stroked her hair. He heard her murmur and then her eyes flitted open. She looked up into his eyes with terror; a scream frozen in her vocal chords.
"Calm yourself," he said without communicating any words. His simple will was enough to calm her. He smiled pleasantly at her. "This will not harm you at all."
She smiled and relaxed as he bent over her. Pulling her wrist up to his mouth, he made a careful incision across the artery with his razor sharp fingernail. She quipped and relaxed when he put his mouth to the wound. He drank greedily of her life essence, careful not to spill a drop. Caught inecstatic reverie, the young teenager floated closer and closer to death.
Dre found he still had to suck to purge the liquid out of her faster. Within seconds her anemic, almost dead form lay in her bed. He passed his hand over the wound in her wrist and it healed itself over, leaving nothing but a very fine line. He tucked her back into her bed with an ironic paternal love and then stood. Eriq had just finished.
"Did you take her life?" Dre asked.
"Nay, I am no fool," Eriq said. "Is there not enough of us in this fell land?"
"You learn well, young Eriq." Dre said looking down at his nephew's dinner. She was older, maybe eighteen. She was beautiful, if not more than her sister. There was something about her pale, anemic form that made Dre feel a slight twang of self pity and selfishness.
"Regardless, even if they do die, they are both ours to command," Eriq said.
"Aye, you are correct, however to have too many slaves only breeds rebellion." Dre said cautioning his much younger protege. "I prefer to keep one or two, preferably female. Remember, we are much like their parents, and they are our children. Children are born and bred to eventually overturn their parents. If we wish to continue our existence, we cannot let them grow old enough to do that."
"I feel sated," Eriq said a moment later, after digesting what his uncle had said. His complexion was flushed and vibrant. His eye teeth had retreated and his eyes had returned to their normal, pale blue. Dre was also flushed, however he was still energized from the feeding and his harrowing features had not disappeared.
"Shall we return," Dre said. "Dawn approaches."
"Aye," Both stepped out of the window, one behind the other. Transforming into bats they fluttered off toward the castle.
Dawn came an hour after they returned. Eriq retreated to his coffin, hidden well within the catacombs of the castle. Dre needed rest and he retreated to his personal chamber and slumbered in his bed until about mid-morning.
*****
I woke to see the full radiance of the sun cast through the picture windows of my bedroom. Squinting up painfully at the sun, I experienced no trembles, no searing pain...nothing. I had long since grown immune to the effects of the retched sun.
Rising I began a myriad of daily chores to prepare me for yet another day of existence. Though my body, strong, powerful, and youthful, was dead, I produced no normal human excretions. However I still washed and prepared myself as I had in my mortal life. It was a habit that had continued on through my afterlife.
Once groomed to my satisfaction, I headed out on my personal terrace. From my vantage point, I could spy upon the village far below me. The fools were running about, doing this, doing that, getting here and going there. I was glad I had left that way of life many, many years ago. Almost over a millenia ago. I walked back into my room and hefted a dark, heavy object.
Its well anointed bindings creaked with the sound of fresh oil. This was my only prize, my only true possession. It held all my secrets, all my hopes, my dreams. It embodies all that is dear to my life and to my being.
Flitting absently through the pages, I came to a fresh entry and went onto the terrace with my quill and ink and sat upon the beautifully polished embattlement. It harrowed me not that there was a thousand foot drop directly below me. I could survive the fall, and this book could too. It was just a matter of finding it. It had been lost once, and the land had known no wrath quite as strong as mine, until, of course, it was found. As I began my entry, something passed my nose and I paused.
I could smell their stench. It was more than the rotten stench of broken garbage and refuse. It was the stench of fear, of uncertainty. They lived in a harsh land, which was very unforgiving. And all of them knew this. It was the way I wanted it, liked it...wished it.
I wasn't a monster, but neither was I candy stripper, righteous in my beliefs and thoughts. I was far from perfect, and as a result, even I made mistakes and wasn't always right. But that didn't happen very often.
Having once been human, I still brought that human weakness of love into my heart everyonce in a while. But it wasn't love as you human's would regard love. It was the thrill of the hunt. The feel of draining a Victim, and having his life giving blood run through me was better than any drug you could imagine. It was more intoxicating than wine, more addicting than heroin, more caustic than acid. Yes, caustic. Blood is an amazing body, and as soon as its mixed with my own brackish blood, it becomes the bane of all life. This very thing that brings life to so much in our world, can take it away just as easily.
I pondered my thoughts for a moment, then began my entry:
I'm no sadist, I do not allow my victims to be tortured or hurt, unless they have slighted me. The Victim I fall in love with can be female or male, it makes no difference. Loving me carries its price: life. It is my selfish need that has sent many to the Nine Hells, without chance of retribution. Those that I leave alive do not live pleasant lives. They have the same thirst I must control, but they are young, arrogant, and cocky. They are hapless in their dealings and will kill all. They are a liablility to my secreted existence, and I may only create one every couple hundred years. Man or Woman.
I am not here to judge sexualities, not at least while I am Nosferatu. I am a vampire, and with such I may cling, or discard, the values, morals, and organs of my previous life, but my need for blood outweighs any petty, superficial hang-ups one would have about his, or her sexuality. I do not have --- with my Victims, so what does it matter that I may find a young lass attractive, while I may turn around the next moment and sup upon the lovely neck of a beautiful man. It is wet, it is red, and it all runs amongst our veins. At least human veins.
I've been accused of being beautiful, eccentric, and sometimes egostistical. I revere all those remarks, and show them for what they are worth. They are the truth. I am beautiful, eccentric, and egotistical. You do not survive as long as I do without being all those things. And survive it as a vampire nontheless.
Some believe eternal life is a jewel, a prize; something which every person seeks, yet finds unattainable. I will admit that I foolishly sought it, and I am one of the few in my world that has attained it. You could say I have achieved something that is impossible, something that is locked in mythology. But I assure you, it is nothing of the sort. Yet, the voyage of immortality at first seems beautiful, some could say fun, I have changed. In my human life I was not a lot different than I am now, but the years have eroded away my naivety. Yes, even the most scholarly of wise sages enters immortality with a certain naivety. Where in their previous life they have driven and risen the road of wisdom, having enjoyed the trip, and finally tasted the fruits of their accomplishments, they have no idea how much they truly do not know.
My arrogance is quite apparent, but I do not care. I know what I speak of, and if you do not believe me, I dare you to enter immortality. I need something new to tantalize my senses, something which I may share laughter with, someone to enjoy the thrill of the hunt with, and someone other than my Victims for me to interact with. I need a new protege. Someone that will hold me in the highest regard, until he too reaches that plateau of immortality...the Awakening of his existence. Someone I can mold, shape, and create. Then finally crush.
Reflecting upon my words, I paused to look at the village and felt an evil warmness enter my heart. I could feel my wickedness etch a smile upon my face.
*****
As the moon howled silently overhead, both Eriq and Dre stood by the drawbridge, embracing. "Well, I will definitely miss you," Dre said feeling disappointment at his nephew's departure.
"As I," Eriq said. They separated and Eriq told him he would probably visit in another couple years. Dre knodded his approval. Soon Eriq disappeared inside the carriage.
A black, highly polished coach gleamed in the moonlight as its side door closed. Its driver waved to the count and then cackled an order to the four steeds. Their unearthly whinny echoed into the night as the Night-Mares stamped fire and sparks, their nostrils exuding gouts of thick acrid smoke.
The sinews and muscles of the jet black steeds bulged and rippled as they trotted the coach around so that it pointed properly down the Beget Road. Soon they issued forth, their hooves sparking, and Dre lost sight of them a moment later. Dre turned back to his home.
He was alone once more. As he had been for the last three hundred years. Being the patriarch of the land was very harrowing, especially when one was a vampire. He felt a small piece of his lonely soul twinge as he looked up at the dreary mortars that he called home.
He entered the first entry hall. He leered up at the guardian gargoyles and then headed inside the grande entry. What to do? Dre asked himself. There was nothing for him to do, nowhere to go where he hadn't been already. He couldn't believe it -- he was the lord and master of his own land; he had existed over a thousand years as a vampire! He had nothing to do. He couldn't pillage and torment; that became old hat after the first fifty years. Nor, there was no Victim within his area that sparked enough of his interest to stalk, hung, and finally...kill. He must feed, but he would settle for the mediocrity of a local victim. Even an animal.
Dre skulked as he walked absently around his castle. He hated to be alone. If he had just one person, someone whom he could call his own, he would be very happy. These fleeting visits were fun, but they only reminded him of what he couldn't have; he always knew they would eventually leave. Dre came to an intersection in the hallway when suddenly a grey wolf emerged from around the corner. Dre seemed startled by its presence.
Come here, Dre commanded softly without mouthing a word. The wolf's ears snapped back and it sauntered over to him timidly. Dre kneeled and then began petting the creature. It was not unusual for wolves and bats and the such to roam the halls of his castle, however, this particular grey wolf seemed to spend a lot of his time there. Dre almost considered it his personal pet.
Are you the only one in this land that is truly my friend? He asked it silently. The wolf looked up at him and started licking his face affectionately. Normally, such levels of contact were distasteful to Dre, however, now he lapped them up as greedily as what the wolf gave them.
How can you love me, you surely sense the real creature within me? The wolf just looked up at him. Dre rose and both man and beast continued their walk. Dre chuckled with a thought: Lord and master, a person with great influence in the land, and my only true friend is but a wild dog.
Animal companions were fine, but Dre craved human companionship. He craved once more to come into contact with a woman, someone whom could love him as much as this wolf. But, alas, there was no one in the land that could be deemed worthy of his affections. The burgomaster had a beautiful daughter, whom he had considered on many occasions, however she did not possess a pure lineage. She was a bastard child, dutifully wrought from the burgomasters frequent visits to the brothel. It was just because her mother had died, that the love child lived with the burgomaster. Dre could not dishonor himself by laying with a whore's bastard.
Dre turned a corner and the wolf continued to follow alongside him, never missing a step. Dre rolled the hem of his cape in between the thumb and index finger of each of his hands. It was an old habit he had picked up when he was worried, or when he was thinking too hard.
They passed at a suit of armor that glinted, under the moonlight blazing through the window, in salute. Dre failed to notice it and soon found he was at a dead end. He turned, reached up and grabbed the suit's left arm and pulled downward. There was a scraping and grating sound as a hidden door opened and Dre disappeared, with his wolf cohort, inside.
"Why do I bother?" Dre asked to himself "You, wolf, probably have a more noble reason to exist, than I."
The wolf crossed in front of him and looked back at him inquisitively. The wolf turned back and continued down the passage ahead of his new master. Dre just frowned and sighed when he realized how pitiful the answer was. His eyes glew red in the darkness, and he failed to notice this until he saw the red radiance cast against his hand when he reached up to pull another lever. A door opened. Dre and his companion exited the secret tunnel directly into Dre's study.
"But, how can I end my unlife?" Dre asked himself. "I am a damned patriarch." Dre went to his desk, sat and picked up his diary unspectacularly. There no longer was any flare to his motions. He was simply using it as implement, this prized possession was no more than a shovel to him at this moment. Picking up a quill he began a new entry:
I have confirmed that I grow weary of this life. It is not so much my existence, but the loneliness my existence brings. I have lived over a thousand years, almost two. My exact age was lost to me long ago. I have seen hundreds of generations of the pitiful townsfolk...and I have even come to admire a few of those pitiful souls.
Four distinct societies have risen from the land. Though each succeeded the other, one thing was always certain; their societies were nothing more than passing fads within my lifetime. The current society, dubbed the Gentry, succeeded The Higher Nobility. The Higher Nobility were fine, however overtime their frivolous and ostentatious ways grew tiresome after three or four hundred years. The Gentry is more conservative in their dress, their language, and their beliefs. It had partly something to do with my indirect manipulation of their societal views. I simply attended public functions wearing different clothes, acting different ways, and accepting things while not accepting others. It was subtle, but after twenty years their society suddenly started a shift toward this more conservative approach. That is the only influence, other than Corporeal Law, I impress upon them.
Though I despise my human brethren, I do realize their one advantage: they know they will die, and they prepare for this eventuality. I have already died, yet I live, and I do not know when I will find rest or peace with this evil world.
Who knows, maybe one day I will need their assistance. I highly doubt it. As long as they keep supplying me and my minions with beautiful necks, I will be contented with them.
Who knows, maybe tomorrow I may decree a new rule or law. Maybe one that banes all forms of currency, or maybe I will simply set my wolf packs upon their village. I have done it before, but that was only because of suspected unrest. Bah! Who needs a reason to strike them down with fear! Who knows...maybe I won't do anything, maybe I will just mope around the castle all day griping about my pitiful life. I grow tired of the games.
Count Dre Gwevare
Dre closed his diary, replaced his quill and sat back for a moment. He sighed and then smelled a retched scent assault his nostrils. The ranch smell caused his nose to scrunch up in distaste as he looked at his pet wolf. "Did you flatulate?" Dre asked. The wolf looked up at him and then colapsed back down. "Do not do that again."
Dre stood. Knowing his warning would be of no use, he smiled and beckoned his pet to follow him. He opened the door to his study and was then suddenly confronted by a heavenly image. Her deathly pale body was draped in black linens, and her beautiful face seemed flushed and happy.
"Well, there you are, Hilda." Dre said to one of his servants.
"What do you wish?" the vampiress asked, revealing her eye teeth in subtle defiance. Dre missed the gesture.
"I see you have fed," Dre said, "where did you feed? Not from my personal larders?"
"No, I went into the village," the vampiress hissed, once more revealing her eye teeth less subtly.
"Put those back in your mouth or you will loose them my darling," Dre scolded as the wolf retreated back, baring its teeth and growling at their exchange. Dre calmed the beast and it bounded off into the darkness. "Now leave, go to your sanctuary or wherever you girls go these days."
"Yes master," the vampires said, choking on the words. She was a relatively elder servant, having been with him for a hundred and sixty years. She was by far the oldest servant he had kept, however she was starting to show signs of rebellion. Dre knew within the next couple of years he would have to destroy her, if not within the year.
"Maybe I'll do it tonight," Dre mused to himself as they parted and went their separate ways.
Dre moved through the halls toward the doors that would take him to his necromantic tower. When he made the flight of stairs in the main entryway, which lead to the second floor and continued to the third and fourth, his second servant came running up to him from behind. She grabbed his shoulder and Dre twisted around, seizing her wrist in paranoia. She seemed startled by the action and he released his grip.
"I am sorry Ursula," he started, "I did not realize it was you."
"Dre, there is something happening...Fredric beckons you!
"What could it be?" Dre asked.
"He was fanatical about the fact that he wanted to talk to you,"
"Very well, I shall have a word with dear Fredric," Dre announced as Ursula transformed into a large wolf and bounded off into the darkness.
"Hilda, what have you done?" he said to himself out loud. Frederic was an old prophet he kept in his dungeons. He was blind, mute, and deaf. However, he had an amazing sixth sense of prophecy. If he was agitated, something was wrong. And it was probably Hilda's fault. She had always been careless, never covering her tracks, and Dre was afraid those tracks lead directly to Castle Fatima. "I am an idiot for letting her outside the walls of the castle!"
"Yes you are, my liege," Hilda suddenly said from the shadows. She stepped from them, her body swathed in a beam of moonlight coming from a window high above.
"You! You have done this!" Dre raged, pointing a long, lithe finger at her. "What have you done, you vile slops wench!"
Dre didn't wait for her answer. He used his amazing reflexes and speed to strike out at her. Hilda knew the attack would be coming and in a blinding split second, both had traded places, seemingly without moving. Dre's expression turned gaunt and his eyes blazed crimson. He drew his mouth back into a sneer, revealing his menacing canine eye teeth. He hissed at her as she did the same. They circled around one another, each of them hissing and glaring for control.
Dre found he no longer had the same control over her as he had had. She had effectively cut him off from her mind. When he tried to enter her, all he met was a cloudy fog that he couldn't penetrate.
"You have learned well," Dre hissed, his eyes flaring at each of the stresses in the sentence.
"You are old, Dre," Hilda said. "You no longer have the will you once possessed."
"Rubbish!" Dre said, using another of his latent powers to send a psychic punch against her. He could see her wince in pain and Dre saw a break in the cloud. His will dashed for it and then he felt a sudden sharp, agonizing pain in his own head. The breach had closed as quickly as it had opened and his will slammed into it. He shook his head and then snapped a punch out at her.
The blow was lightning fast and caught her in the nose, the next blow crashed into the side of her skull. Hilda fell back to her knee and Dre was about to grab her when Hilda thrust her heel at Dre's back knee. His back leg had been supporting his weight and when it buckled he fell. Hilda jumped up and was about to jump on top of Dre when suddenly Dre was no longer there.
"Behind you!" Dre warned. She turned around, directly into his grasp. With one fell move, Dre seized her, bending her body over his knee. Sinking his eye teeth into her gorge, he grotesquely tore her throat out. Black, acrid blood exploded out from the tortured wound and Dre dropped her body. She clutched at her throat, as the life giving blood drained from her body. She writhed on the ground and tried to scream, however, each scream only produced a different gurgle of blood. Blood flowed from her mouth and nostrils, and from the hole in her neck. Within half a minute, a huge pool of black, brackish blood had surrounded her lifeless body.
"Foolish wench," Dre scowled, wiping his mouth as he turned and bounded for the parapets, his form transfiguring into that of a huge, black wolf.
*****
Dre opened the chamber door. Fredric was seated, his eyes staring straight forward at the scrying ball. Though they were normally unfocused, he could tell they were intimately locked on the swirling clouds inside the ball. Frederic was mumbling to himself, despite the fact that Dre had long since cut his tongue out.
Frederic was a horrid looking man. What the ravages of time had not taken from him, Dre had. Though born blind at birth, Dre had imprisoned him from the time he was a young man. Dre had cut his ears off, while punching through his ear drum. He had also cut his tongue off so he could not alert anybody to his prescreens. For the last forty years, Frederic had been locked in the small "Sage's Chamber", fed well, and used as Dre's personal fortune telling device.
Frederick could no longer vocalize words, and he could write no better. His gestures were also maniacal, lending the average observer to believe that his sanity had long since departed. However, when he was scrying and a vision hit him, he appeared normal and could write and comprehend as well as any man.
"Frederic," Dre began. Frederic saw it was him and began thrashing at the table, trying to pick up the pencil and parchment that Ursula had given him. Dre looked down to see that his etchings and words were disjointed.
Frederic's frantic motions slowed as his pencil dashed across the parchment. Soon he was done. Dre reached down and tore the piece of paper from his fingers. He looked down and read the only legible writing:
Michael Wolf
I get a kick out of it, you know? No one ever gets onto me, no one that matters, anyway, and I’m making a hell of a living. I perform a live stage show of “talking to the dead,” using a form of sleight‑of‑mind called cold reading. Some of these poor bastards actually believe they’re talking to their croaked grandfather, aunt, puppy, or whatever—and that’s ok. They seem happy. Happy enough to unbend their wallets, so everyone’s prancing in daffodils.
So this girl came on to me after the last show. She was a cute brunette with three short lengths of beaded hair on the left side of her head and a killer body. She learned of my "supernatural abilities" from the television commercials I run before arriving in each town. She couldn’t have been more than twenty‑three, but these were the fruits of being a celebrity. I'm just cruising the profiteering band‑wagon of the '80s. Women just throw themselves at me like I’m a Rock star or something. I have lost count in the last couple years.
She wanted to talk to her deceased brother. My assistants ran her credit card information through the Internet to find the funeral industry had recently bilked her for an extremely expensive burial. Looking through the obituaries of her hometown, they deduced her brother had committed suicide.
My well‑oiled lines for this kind of thing soothed her pleas for details of why he killed himself. She gave me his name and he “spoke to her through me.” He assured her he was in a joyous place surrounded by loved ones at peace with happy memories of her.
Yeah. And all good dogs go to Heaven.
Later, I had her backstage for a private reading. Hey, if the mortuary business can take advantage of her grief, why can’t I? Just when our make‑out session reaches critical mass, she pulls out a condom. Why do they always have those damned buckskins in their purse? So I tell her we’re not going to make it if I have to wear that party favor. She stayed. It’s amazing what a little fame can do for you.
* * *
So now I’m heading to a gig on Texas Highway 37. Out of nowhere, the engine begins making this clanging sound like a monkey wrench in a Laundromat dryer. Dammit. I just dropped a sultan’s salary on this rig.
I need to get off the road so I take the next exit where a bent and shot‑up sign announces the town of Finnigan, Texas. It didn’t say Finnigan was seven more miles off the highway.
By the time I limp into town, the wind is picking up and I’m stuck while the local mechanic—Goober, I could swear his name was—looks at my ride.
I shield my face from blowing sand and see the only place I can wait is a bar named Gary’s. I walk into the place noticing it is like an Army barracks, a lot deeper than wide, but deceptively large. I’m feeling a little nausea lately like I have the flu or something, so I figure I might get something to eat to settle my stomach.
About a dozen good‑old‑boys are lolling in cheap rotting upholstery to the sound of outdated country music. They tended their interests, from dominoes to two tired pool tables and the liquor bar.
A wall of plaques with photographs hanging from them ran to the far end of the building. There, the light bulbs were unlit, leaving the long wall fading down into darkness.
Avoiding a broken stool, I sit. At the other end of the bar is a slight, girlish form in a mocha tan sundress billowing with white flowers. Her back is to me and slight movements reflect a shivering luster off her satin black hair. She is transfixed to a TV wedged above the bar.
I had to see her face, so noticing her empty drink I ask, “Can I buy you a refill?” I puzzle at her flexi‑straw.
“Hi.” She turns and flashes a youthful smile. “You surprised me.”
My surprise far outweighs hers. Her crystal Caribbean‑blue eyes offset by lavish indigo hair staggers me to the core. She is a diamond amongst the dirt‑clods in this drunk‑hut.
“I think I might get in trouble for buying a drink for an underage cutie.” I say, because she is definitely a minor.
She blushes and takes a stool closer to me. “S’ok, I’m eighteen, nobody cares I’m here—I’m just drinking pop.” She glances across the room. “That’s Dale, the chief of police, over there.” She tilts her head toward a chubby, uniformed man absorbed in a game of dominoes.
I motion to the bartender, point to her drink, and look around. “So this is the local hotspot, huh?”
“Hotspot? More like a lukewarm stain.”
I smile and offer my hand. “I’m Ricky. Ricky Peterson.”
She takes it with a cool softness. “I know who you are. I seen your commercials on the TV.”
She pronounces it “Tie‑Vie” but that’s the way they talk around here. I couldn’t help but notice her being a perfect mark for a psychic reading and old enough for some “quality time” with me.
“You look thinner in person.” She says.
I froze. Time to reroute this seduction. “Well, you know television adds ten pounds.” Truth be told, in the last six months I’ve been dropping pounds like loose change, but I’ll gain it back after the stress of the tour.
“What’s your name, farm girl?”
“Amie.”
“Does your Dad work around here, Amie?”
“Used to before he died. Now he’s over there.” She didn’t look up or down but over my shoulder with a sour expression to the wall covered with plaques.
“No, I mean his spirit—his soul,” I say, turning to look at the wall. It showed a variety of small brass memorials. They were all just names with a year inscribed below, mostly men. “What is this, anyway?”
“The Dead Wall,” a baritone voice says from behind me.
I turn to see a tall lean man standing next to Amie, holding a pool cue straight up by his side like a castle guard’s pike. He is dressed in complete Old‑West attire. All black except for silver filigree around the edges. He had an Adam’s apple sticking out like an internal elbow.
“The Dead Wall? You sayin’ that’s where they are? But I had you all pegged for Christians,” I say, “Heaven or Hell, you know.”
“Sometimes Hell won’t have ‘em,” goes the cowboy and spits into a floor spittoon with uncanny accuracy.
Amie snickers sourly, beyond her years. “Besides, I ain’t got a post card or phone call from Heaven yet.” She points her chin up at the trophies. “Up there, that’s something different.”
So I turn around and I’m looking especially at a plaque with borders painted red and blue in the sloppy motif of a toddler. The pictures of four young children and a teenage girl adorn its edges. The inscription is simply “Jim Cadistro,” dated this year. A distant bell rings from the boundaries of my brain.
“This Jim fellow must have been a father or a teacher of some kind,” I say as I reach out to touch the memorial. “You have to admire people like this because—“
When I touch the placard, something wonky takes place. My hand goes into the brass, breaking the skin of the metal like it was perpendicular liquid. Something else happens. Happens to my mind. I am becoming someone else.
Animals. That’s all they are.
Someone who is angry.
Yeah, they’re the future of the world and all that other crap, but to me they’re just life‑enders.
Extremely angry.
I’m in a miserable cracker‑box home a ways outta town with a wife who insists on taking in foster children.
We need the money we get for them. I can’t think of a better solution, so I shut up and sit in the smell of dirty laundry and cat piss enduring the situation. For now.
Always squalling, bawling and needing. They’re like pigeons. Disease infested vermin swimming in bacteria, that’s all they are.
There are five. My two slack‑eyed imbeciles, two booger factories whose names I can never remember, and Courtney, she started it all.
Courtney. So fresh and nubile. Fifteen years old and she don’t have a clue how ---- she is. The way she talks, the way she moves, the lines of her body, all cry for the wild. But when I come to her room at night, she only pushes me away. Why doesn’t she want me? And now my wife is getting suspicious.
Been a long time in the thinking and more than a few beers before I am out in the yard at three a.m., dousing the siding with gasoline. They’re all asleep. I quietly fixed long screws in all the doors and windows, sealing them in.
One match is all it takes for the fire to embrace the house. The screaming comes a few minutes later. I have my gun in case one gets out, but I’m going listen to the shrieks until they stop before I put the barrel in my mouth.
I stand outside Courtney’s bedroom. I laugh while she begs and claws at her window for help.
So I’m there in the light of the fire, thinking of what they’ve done to me, listening to their pleas, when I see the damnedest thing. A huge image of a sitting woman, overlaid on the flames.
The woman’s image competes with the fire for reality. Soon the blaze and the screams are flying away and a different world comes flickering to the forefront.
I’m at that bar. The bar in Finnigan, Texas.
“He’s back,” booms the cowboy, chalking his pool stick in front of himself. He makes a mocking face. “Did you have a ‘ghostly experience’?”
Dizzy and out of phase with plain sight. Covered with the poison film of Jim Cadistro’s insanity, I stumble to the nearest stool and accidentally put my head down in the middle of an ashtray. I raise spitting and batting the butts off my face.
Jim Cadistro. Something important about that name. Jim Cadistro. I shake my head and remember. The girl with the three short beaded braids on the left side of her head. He was her brother.
But we’re a hundred miles from nowhere. This doesn’t make sense, so I point to the memorial and ask, “How did you get a plaque to this guy? Did he live around here?”
Amie shrugs. “New ones appear all the time, and the rest just move back down to the end of the building.” She points to the blackness swallowing the far end of the lengthy room. “We don’t ask questions and we sure as hell don’t touch ‘em like you did.” I watch her and the cowboy bow in private laughter.
“She had a name, you know,” Amie says, who is definitely on the dark side of thirty now, “Do you even remember?”
I turn to her with a stupid grin feeling a cigarette butt fall from my chin. “What?”
“Her name. The girl with the braids. You spent last night with her.”
This is impossible. Amie’s hair is now more pewter‑grey than sable. She is aging before my eyes, and what’s with the mind‑reading routine?
“The girl’s name is Twila Somer,” Amie says into what now looks like a whiskey sour. “She works for a place called Rozer Pharmaceutical. I guess she’s some kind of undiscovered genius. In five years, she’s going to find a cure for AIDS. Well, she would have if you hadn’t killed her.”
“What are you talking about?” This is too much. “I didn’t kill her!” As I speak, I watch Amie age into her ‘90s or even ‘100s. Her skin cracks and I see one of her fingernails fall into her drink. The cowboy by her side, who seemed fine a minute ago, now wears the sagging skin of a dying Basset hound.
“You have AIDS, Ricky Peterson,” she rasps while standing. “Why do you think you’ve been ill lately?”
Smiling nervously, I get the schtick. “Oh, okay. This is some kind of mentalism‑spook show here. You really had me going.” I say, edging away. “You ought to take this on the road.”
Amie grinned at him, a tooth falling out of her wilting face and rattling onto the bar. Her eyes, dancing in the light of youth not a half hour before, were now milky and blind.
I back toward the door as she speaks, her skin falling away in filthy, decayed rags. “In fact you will kill dozens because for the last two years, during the most sexual time of your life, you have been spreading this disease.”
A jolt of 200 proof panic and my wise‑guy image is gone. I crack. Running back to the door, I fumble for the exit. Realizing it had changed to a realistic mural on a solid cement wall, I slumped in disbelief.
I turn and suddenly see living, glistening eyes in Amie’s dead skull. “And those dozens you will kill will also kill others, unaware of their condition. The numbers will keep doubling as they infect more innocents.”
I look to the bartender for help but he is now only a heap of a darkly webbed substance. Frantically searching the room, I see an emaciated woman eating the guts out of a reclining Officer Dale who is unconcerned, like he is pondering his next dominoes move.
The cowboy is standing aside with the meat of his body dropping away, splattering onto the floor in slimy chunks. Now a near‑skeletal form, he says, “Time for his walk, Amie.” He snatches my arm above the elbow.
I try to scream at his cold, wet touch but could only expel a squeaky chirp. Amie’s peeled cadaver quickly moves forward. I try to kick at them, but it is like punching marble statues. In a blink, Amie grabs my other arm.
They drag me toward the far end of the building. Toward an inky howling nothingness. Loose paper flies by into the suction of the icy void. I screech and bawl until my face is a sheet of bubbling snot but they only join in clattering laughter. As they pull me screaming to my fate they stop and briefly point me toward something on the wall.
A plaque inscribed “Ricky Peterson” and today’s date. Attached is a photograph of Twila Somer, smiling with life’s
As a married adult, I've lived and raised our children in six different states. I've made moving arrangements and unpacked more times than I care to remember. The hardest part about moving isn't the physical move, it's leaving the familiar behind. Not only do you have to learn your way around in a strange city, but once you find your way there, you realize that you exist in total anonymity. For some reason, I need proof of my existence, and unless someone recognizes me, how will I know I do? I cried for Sandra Bullock in The Net when some crazed computer hacker erased her identity.
The good news about being a stranger in town is that you can go to the grocery store without makeup or fear of running into your boss. The bad news is that you continue to search for friends even when it's logically impossible for them to be there. I'll never forget the day I made a total fool of myself in a mall at Christmas time. I was pushing my way through the crowds when my heart started to pound. Just ahead of me, or so I thought, was an old friend from high school.
"Hey, Fran," I hollered and waved, trying to get her attention. Thank goodness my daughter wasn't with me or she would have called me a dork and told me how embarrassed she was to be seen with me.
Fran apparently didn't hear or see me because she just kept walking. I pushed through the crowd, mumbling excitedly about the odds of running into Fran here in Houston when we went to high school in Independence, Missouri. I hollered again, this time loud enough to be heard over the Christmas music.
"Yoo-hoo, Fran. Wait up."
The woman continued to walk but I certainly got the attention of everyone around me! I continued to push through the crowd, but as soon as I caught up with her I wished I could shrink at will and crawl out of the mall unnoticed.
"Am I the person you've been chasing through the mall?" she asked with an irritated look on her face.
It was definitely not Fran. "I am so sorry," I apologized. "I thought I knew you."
I ducked instinctively as she started to swing her shopping bag in my direction, but apparently she hadn't been aiming at me. She was just making a quick left turn and didn't feel the need to tell me I was in her way.
Like grey hair, this state of confusion has been earned. Unlike June Cleaver, I have not lived in the same small town all my life. I have a huge database of friends in my mind. Apparently some small parts of our personalities or looks are fairly generic and God likes them enough that he keeps giving them to other people. In some ways it's very comforting. When you meet a new person who reminds you of someone you already know, you feel like you have a touch of familiarity even if you don't. It's much easier than starting with a blank page.
In Houston, I ride the Metro and like to watch people as they get on the bus. One day after just moving here I saw a career woman in a very tailored suit with hair that had definitely been styled in a chair. A daily blast of hair spray must have kept it in place between visits to the hairdresser. I'm sure the color was a creation of someone other than Mother Nature, too. This commuter was very prim and proper, with a neatly packed briefcase in one hand and purse in the other. She reminded me of the organist at church in Overland Park, Kansas, right down to the glasses hanging on her chest from a pearl and gold plated chain. I suppose there's nothing too strange about that, except that almost every morning a tall, dark-haired man got on the bus who reminded me of the organists husband. They didn't get on the bus together or even acknowledge that they knew each other, but I watched one morning to see if they approached the bus from the same direction. If they did know each other, they were very good at protecting their secret. I wondered if they had any idea that in another city there were clones of their bodies living as man and wife. I was fascinated with the possibilities.
In Kansas City I worked with a young woman named Mary who was the marketing director for a commercial real estate company. Mary was a petite young woman with sparkling eyes and a bubbly personality. She was trying to start a family, but in the meantime she was building a wardrobe that Jacqueline Onassis would be proud to own. She had a wonderful sense of style that included lots of trousers and short jackets to show off her shape. Her clothes all had designer labels that were still intact and hadn't been mutilated on their way to the clearance rack. Mary's style was so predictable, I was sure I could have done her shopping for her. Now I'm in Houston working in the marketing department with a young woman who could be Mary. Kim goes one step further and has a professional seamstress make her clothes! I know Mary would be impressed. If these two women had the opportunity to meet each other, they would become instant friends. It makes me wonder: Is this something they teach in marketing classes? Does this say that women in marketing are typically bubbly personalities who have great taste in clothes? Does this mean I have to have a marketing degree to get into a size 4? With that degree, will I automatically be drawn to designer racks?
I'm not the only one suffering from this syndrome I call look-alike confusion. My future son-in-law, Roger, just recently met my other daughter and thought she had a remarkable resemblance to his brother's wife. Just imagine the confusion at family reunions when Roger will have two sisters-in-law who look like sisters but are only related by marriage, if actually related at all! That presents a question: What is the relationship of two women if one is married to the brother of the man who is married to your sister?
My youngest daughter, Denise, the one who is marrying Roger, has often been told that she looks like Carrie Fisher. People tease her about the doughnuts on her ears in Star Wars. Personally, I don't see the similarity, but thought it was really weird when one day someone at work told me I looked like Debbie Reynolds! Apparently something in Debbie's gene pool has been infused into ours. Maybe I should check my family history to see if Debbie and I are distant cousins. With her connections, maybe she could get someone to read my unpublished novel. Maybe I could get the lead part in The Debbie Reynolds Story. I could be perky...for a price.
The story continues. Eddie, my husband, not to be confused with Debbie's ex-husband or Carrie's father, Eddie Fisher, has a friend named Jeff. Jeff has an uncanny resemblance to our son, Spencer. Both young men are in their late 20s, about 5'10", have dark brown hair and eyes, olive skin, and at the current time, both have goatees. One day I said to Jeff, "I'll bet if people saw you and Spencer together they would think you are brothers."
Jeff said, "No doubt about it. When Eddie and I are out playing golf, people always think I'm Spencer." Now I have never met Jeff's parents, but what are the chances that his father looks like Eddie Fisher?
Wouldn't you know the one time when I wasn't paying attention, the real McCoy was right in front of me! In church one Sunday, a couple stood up and introduced themselves as having moved to Houston from Denver. Big deal. I was sure I didn't know them. After all, Denver is a big city. After church, I bumped into them, and without even trying to make a connection, realized I had known them. We had gone to church together in Colorado and our oldest daughters knew each other. Now I know I cannot totally discount the chance that a friend from Oklahoma City might cross my path in Houston.
I saw a button on a woman in the fabric store the other day and it said, the face is familiar, but I can't remember who I am. It struck me as funny, probably because as I get older and recognize people I have never seen before, it seems entirely possible that one day I will forget myself. On the other hand, maybe I will be in another city, see someone who looks like me, and be excited to see her again
Once upon a time an old man planted a little turnip and said: "Grow, grow, little turnip, grow sweet! Grow, grow, little turnip, grow strong!
And the turnip grew up sweet and strong and big and enormous. Then, one day, the old man went to pull it up. He pulled and pulled again, but he could not pull it up.
He called the old woman.
The old woman pulled the old man,
The old man pulled the turnip.
And they pulled and pulled again, but they could not pull it up.
So the old woman called her granddaughter.
The granddaughter pulled the old woman,
The old woman pulled the old man,
The old man pulled the turnip.
And they pulled and pulled again, but they could not pull it up.
The granddaughter called the black dog.
The black dog pulled the granddaughter,
The granddaughter pulled the old woman,
The old woman pulled the old man,
The old man pulled the turnip.
And they pulled and pulled again,
but they could not pull it up.
The black dog called the cat.
The cat pulled the dog,
The dog pulled the granddaughter,
The granddaughter pulled the old woman,
The old woman pulled the old man,
The old man pulled the turnip.
And they pulled and pulled again, but still they could not pull it up.
The cat called the mouse.
The mouse pulled the cat,
The cat pulled the dog,
The dog pulled the granddaughter,
The granddaughter pulled the old woman,
The old woman pulled the old man,
The old man pulled the turnip.
They pulled and pulled again,
and up came the turnip at last.
A long time ago there lived a King and Queen, who said every day, "If only we had a child!" But for a long time they had none.
One day, as the Queen was bathing, a frog crept out of the water on to the land and said to her, "Your wish shall be fulfilled. Before a year has passed you shall bring a daughter into the world."
The frog's words came true. The Queen had a little girl who was so beautiful that the King could not contain himself for joy. He prepared a great feast and invited all his rela¬tions and friends and neighbors. He invited the fairies, too, in order that they might be kind and good to the child. There were thirteen of them in the kingdom, but as the King had only twelve golden plates for them to eat from, one of the fairies had to be left out.
The feast was held with all splendor, and when it came to an end, each of the fairies presented the child with a magic gift One fairy gave her virtue, another beauty, a third riches, and so on, with everything in the world that she could wish for.
When eleven of the fairies had said their say, the thirteenth suddenly appeared. She wanted to show her spite for not having been invited. Without greeting anyone, or even glancing at anyone, she called out in a loud voice,
"When she is fifteen years old, the Princess shall prick herself with a spindle and shall fall down dead."
Then without another word she turned and left the hall.
Everyone was terror-stricken, but the twelfth fairy, whose wish was still not spoken, stepped forward. She could not take away the curse, but could only soften it, so she said,
"Your daughter shall not die, but shall fall into a deep sleep lasting a hundred years."
The King was so anxious to guard his dear child from this misfortune that he sent out a command that all the spindles in the whole kingdom should be burned.
All the promises of the fairies came true. The Princess grew up so beautiful, modest, kind, and clever that everybody who saw her could not but love her.
Now it happened that on the very day when she was fifteen years old the King and Queen were away from home, and the Princess was left quite alone in the castle. She wandered about over the whole place, looking at rooms and halls as she pleased, and at last she came to an old tower. She went up a narrow, winding staircase and reached a little door. A rusty key was sticking in the lock, and when she turned it the door flew open.
In a little room sat an old woman with a spindle, busily spinning her flax. This old woman was so deaf that she had never heard the King's command that all spindles should he destroyed.
"Good day, Granny," said the Princess, "what are you doing?"
"I am spinning," said the old woman, and nodded her head.
"What is the thing that whirls round so merrily?" asked the Princess, and she took the spindle and tried to spin, too.
But she had scarcely touched the spindle when it pricked her finger. At that moment she fell upon the bed which was standing near, and lay still in a deep sleep.
The King and Queen, who had just come home and had stepped into the hall, fell asleep, too, and all their courtiers with them. The horses fell asleep in the stable, the dogs in the yard, the doves on the roof, the flies on the wall. Yes, even the fire on the hearth grew still and went to sleep, and the meat that was roasting stopped crackling. The kitchen maid, who sat with a fowl before her, ready to pluck its feathers, fell asleep. The cook, too, who was pulling the kitchen boy's hair because he had made a mistake, let him go and both fell asleep. The wind dropped, and on the trees in front of the castle not a leaf stirred.
Round the castle a hedge of brier roses began to grow up. Every year it grew higher, till at last nothing could be seen of the castle.
There was a legend in the land about the lovely Sleeping Beauty, as the King's daughter was called, and from time to time Princes came and tried to force a way through the hedge into the castle. But they found it impossible, for the thorns, as though they had hands, held them fast, and the Princes remained caught in them without being able to free themselves, and so died.
After many, many years a Prince came again to the country and heard an old man tell of the castle which stood behind the
brier hedge, in which a most beautiful maiden called Sleeping Beauty had been asleep for the last hundred years, and with her slept the King and Queen, and all their courtiers. He knew, also, from his grandfather, that many Princes had already come and sought to pierce through the brier hedge, and had been caught in it and died.
Then the young Prince said, "I am not afraid. I must go and see this Sleeping Beauty."
The good old man did all in his power to persuade him not to go, but the Prince would not listen to his words.
Now the hundred years were just ended. When the Prince approached the brier hedge it was covered with beautiful large blossoms. The shrubs made way for him of their own accord and let him pass unharmed, and then closed up again into a hedge.
In the courtyard he saw the horses and dogs lying asleep. On the roof sat the doves with their heads under their wings. When he went into the house the flies were asleep on the walls. Near the throne lay the King and Queen. In the kitchen the cook still had his hand raised as though to strike the kitchen boy, and the maid sat with the black fowl before her ready to pluck its feathers.
He went on farther. All was so still that he could hear his own breathing. At last he reached the tower, and opened the door into the little room where the Princess was asleep. There she
lay, looking so beautiful that he could not take his eyes off her. He bent down and gave her a kiss. As he touched her, Sleeping Beauty opened her eyes and smiled at him.
Then they went down together. The King and the Queen and all the courtiers woke up, and looked at each other with astonished eyes. The horses in the stable stood up and shook themselves. The hounds leaped about and wagged their tails. The doves on the roof lifted their heads from under their wings, looked around, and flew into the fields. The flies on the walls began to crawl again. The fire in the kitchen roused itself and blazed up and cooked the food. The meat began to crackle, and the cook woke up and boxed the kitchen boy's ears so that he screamed aloud, while the maid finished plucking the fowl.
Then the Prince and Sleeping Beauty were married with all splendor, and they lived happily all their lives.
This is an old, old story which my grandmother told me when I was a little girl. When she was a little girl her grandfather had told it to her, and when he was a little peasant boy in Bohemia, his mother had told it to him. And where she heard it, I don't know, but you can see it is an old, old story, and here it is, the way my grandmother used to tell it.
It is called Gone Is Gone and it is the story of a man who wanted to do housework.
This man, his name was Fritzl—his wife, her name was Liesi. They had a little baby, Kinndli by name, and Spitz who was a dog.
They had one cow, two goats, three pigs, and of geese they had a dozen. That's what they had.
They lived on a patch of land, and that's where they worked.
Fritzl had to plow the ground, sow the seeds and hoe the weeds. He had to cut the hay and rake it too, and stack it up in bunches in the sun. The man worked hard, you see, from day to day.
Liesi had the house to clean, the soup to cook, the butter to churn, the barn yard and the baby to care for. She, too, worked hard each day as you can plainly see.
They both worked hard, but Fritzl always thought that he worked harder. Evenings when he came home from the field, he sat down, mopped his face with his big red handkerchief, and said: "Hu! How hot it was in the sun today, and how hard I did work. Little do you know, Liesi, what a man's work is like, little do you know! Your work now, 'tis nothing at all."
" 'Tis none too easy," said Liesi.
"None too easy!" cried Fritzl. "All you do is to putter and potter around the house a bit—surely there's nothing hard about such things."
"Nay, if you think so," said Liesi, "we'll take it turn and turn about tomorrow. I will do your work, you can do mine. I will go out in the fields and cut the hay, you can stay here at home and putter and potter around. You wish to try it—yes?"
Fritzl thought he would like that well enough—to lie on the grass and keep an eye on his Kinndli-girl, to sit in the cool shade and churn, to fry a bit of sausage and cook a little soup. Ho! that would he easy! Yes, yes, he'd try it.
Well, Liesi lost no time the next morning. There she was at peep of day, striding out across the fields with a jug of water in her hand and the scythe over her shoulder.
And Fritzl, where was he? He was in the kitchen, frying a string of juicy sausages for his breakfast. There he sat, holding the pan over the fire, and as the sausage was sizzling and frizzling in the pan, Fritzl was lost in pleasant thoughts.
"A mug of cider now," that's what he was thinking. "A mug of apple cider with my sausage—that would be just the thing." No sooner thought than done.
Fritz! set the pan on the edge of the fireplace, and went down into the cellar where there was a big barrel full of cider. He pulled the bung from the barrel and watched the cider spurt into his mug, sparkling and foaming so that it was a joy to see.
But Hulla! What was that noise up in the kitchen—such a scuffle and clatter! Could it be that Spitz-dog after the sausages? Yes, that's what it was, and when Fritzl reached the top of the stairs, there he was, that dog, dashing out of the kitchen door with the string of juicy sausages flying after him.
Fritzl made for him, crying, "Huila! Hulla! Hey, hi, ho, hulla!" But the dog wouldn't stop. Fritz! ran, Spitz ran too. Fritzl ran fast, Spitz ran faster, and the end of it was that the dog got away and our Fritzl had to give up the chase.
"Na, na! What's gone is gone," said Fritzl, shrugging his shoulders. And so he turned back, puffing and panting, and mopping his face with his big red handkerchief.
But the cider, now! Had he put the bung back in the barrel? No, that he hadn't, for here he was still holding the bung in his fist.
With big fast steps Fritzl hurried home, but it was too late, for look! the cider had filled the mug and had run all over the cellar besides.
Fritzl looked at the cellar full of cider. Then he scratched his head and said, "Na, na! What's gone is gone."
Well, now it was high time to churn the butter. Fritzl filled the churn with good rich cream, took it under a tree and began to churn with all his might. His little Kinndli was out there too, playing Moo-cow among the daisies. The sky was blue, the sun right gay and golden, and the flowers, they were like angels' eyes blinking in the grass.
"This is pleasant now," thought Fritzl, as he churned away. "At last I can rest my weary legs. But wait! What about the cow? I've forgotten all about her and she hasn't had a drop of water all morning, poor thing."
With big fast steps Fritzl ran to the barn, carrying a bucket of cool fresh water for the cow. And high time it was, I can tell you, for the poor creature's tongue was hanging out of her mouth with the long thirst that was in her. She was hungry too, as a man could well see by the looks of her, so Fritzl took her from the barn and started off with her to the green grassy meadow.
But wait! There was that Kinndli to think of—she would surely get into trouble if he went out to the meadow. No, better not take the cow to the meadow at all. Better keep her nearby on the roof. The roof? Yes, the roof! Fritzl's house was not covered with shingles or tin or tile—it was covered with moss and sod, and a fine crop of grass and flowers grew there.
To take the cow up on the roof was not so hard as you might think, either. Fritzl's house was built into the side of a hill. Up the little hill, over a little shed, and from there to the green grassy roof. That was all there was to do and it was soon done.
The cow liked it right well up there on the roof and was soon munching away with a will, so Fritzl hurried back to his churning.
But Hulla! Hui! What did he see there under the tree?
Kinndli was climbing up on the churn—the churn was tipping! spilling! falling! and now, there on the grass lay Kinndli, all covered with half-churned cream and butter.
"So that's the end of our butter," said Fritzl, and blinked and blinked his blue eyes. Then he shrugged his shoulders and said, "Na, na! What's gone is gone."
He picked up his dripping Kinndli and set her in the sun to dry. But the sun, now! It had climbed high up into the heavens. Noontime it was, no dinner made, and Liesi would soon be home for a bite to eat.
With big fast steps Fritzl hurried off to the garden. He gathered potatoes and onions, carrots and cabbages, beets and beans, turnips, parsley and celery.
"A little of everything, that will make a good soup," said Fritzl as he went back to the house, his arms so full of vegetables that he could not even close the garden gate behind him.
He sat on a bench in the kitchen and began cutting and paring away. How the man did work,. and how the peelings and parings did fly!
But now there was a great noise above him. Fritzl jumped to his feet.
"That cow," he said, "she's sliding around right much up there on the roof. She might slip off and break her neck.-
Up on the roof went Fritzl once more, this time with loops of heavy rope. Now listen carefully, and I will tell you what he did with it. He took one end of the rope and tied it around the cow's middle. The other end of the rope he dropped down the chimney and this he pulled through the fireplace in the kitchen below.
And then? And then he took the end of the rope which was hanging out of the fireplace and tied it around his own middle with a good tight knot. That's what he did.
"Oh yo! Oh ho!" he chuckled. "That will keep the cow from falling off the roof." And he began to whistle as he went on with his work.
He heaped some sticks on the fireplace and set a big kettle of water over it.
"Na, na!" he said. "Things are going as they should at last, and we'll soon have a good big soup! Now I'll put the vegetables in the kettle—"
And that he did.
"And now I'll put in the bacon—"
And that he did too.
"And now I'll light the fire—"
But that he never did, for just then, with a bump and a thump, the cow slipped over the edge of the roof after all; and Fritzl- well, he was whisked up into the chimney and there he dan- gled, poor man, and couldn't get up and couldn't get down.
Before long, there came Liesi home from the fields with the water jug in her hand and the scythe over her shoulder.
But Hulla! Hui! What was that hanging over the edge of the roof? The cow? Yes, the cow, and half-choked she was, too, with her eyes bulging and her tongue hanging out.
Liesi lost no time. She took her scythe—and ritsch! rotsch!— the rope was cut, and there was the cow wobbling on her four legs, but alive and well, heaven be praised!
Now Liesi saw the garden with its gate wide open. There were the pigs and the goats and all the geese too. They were full to bursting, but the garden, alas! was empty.
Liesi walked on, and now what did she see? The churn upturned, and Kinndli there in the sun, stiff and sticky with dried cream and butter.
Liesi hurried on. There was Spitz-dog on the grass. He was full of sausages and looked none too well.
Liesi looked at the cellar. There was the cider all over the floor and halfway up the stairs besides.
Liesi looked in the kitchen. The floor! It was piled high with peelings and parings, and littered with dishes and pans.
At last Liesi saw the fireplace. Hu! Hulla! Hui! What was that in the soup-kettle? Two arms were waving, two legs were kicking, and a gurgle, bubbly and weak-like, was coming up out of the water.
"Na, na! What can this mean?" cried Liesi. She did not know (but we do—yes?) that when she saved the cow outside, something happened to Fritzl inside. Yes, yes, as soon as the cow's rope was cut, Fritzl, poor man, he dropped down the chimney and crash! splash! fell right into the kettle of soup in the fireplace.
Liesi lost no time. She pulled at the two arms and tugged at the two legs—and there, dripping and spluttering, with a cabbage-leaf in his hair, celery in his pocket, and a sprig of parsley over one ear, was her Fritzl.
"Na, na, my man!" said Liesi. "Is that the way you keep house —yes?"
"Oh Liesi, Liesi!" sputtered Fritzl. "You're right—that work of yours, 'tis none too easy."
" 'Tis a little hard at first," said Liesi, "but tomorrow, maybe, you'll do better."
"Nay, nay!" cried Fritzl. "What's gone is gone, and so is my housework from this day on. Please, please, my Liesi—let me go back to my work in the fields, and never more will I say that my work is harder than yours."
"Well then," said Liesi, "if that's how it is, we surely can live in peace and happiness for ever and ever."
And that they did.
An Ant was speeding along on its three pair of legs when suddenly, it stopped.
"I'm thirsty," the Ant said aloud.
"Why don't you get a drink of water from the brook?" cooed a Dove perched in a nearby tree. "The brook is close by. Just be careful you don't fall in."
The Ant sped to the brook and began to drink.
A sudden wind blew the Ant into the water.
"Help!" the Ant cried, "I'm drowning!"
The Dove knew it had to act quickly to save the Ant. With its beak, the Dove broke a twig from the tree. Then, the Dove flew over the brook with the twig and dropped it to the Ant.
The Ant climbed onto the twig and Boated ashore.
Not long afterward, the Ant saw a Hunter. He was setting a trap to catch the Dove.
The Dove began to fly toward the trap.
The Ant knew it had to act quickly to save the Dove.
The Ant opened its strong jaws and bit the bare ankle of the Hunter.
"Ouch!" the Hunter cried.
The Dove heard the Hunter and flew away.
One good turn deserves another.
Many years ago there was an Emperor who was so excessively fond of new clothes that he spent all his money on them. He cared nothing about his soldiers or for the theater, or for driving in the woods, except for the sake of showing off his new clothes. He had a costume for every hour in the day. Instead of saying, as one does about any other King or Emperor, "He is in his council chamber," the people here always said, "The Emperor is in his dressing room."
Life was very gay in the great town where he lived. Hosts of strangers came to visit it, and among them one day were two swindlers. They gave themselves out as weavers and said that they knew how to weave the most beautiful fabrics imaginable. Not only were the colors and patterns unusually fine, but the clothes that were made of this cloth had the peculiar quality of becoming invisible to every person who was not fit for the office he held, or who was impossibly dull.
"Those must be splendid clothes," thought the Emperor. "By wearing them I should be able to discover which men in my
kingdom are unfitted for their posts. I shall be able to tell the wise men from the fools. Yes, I certainly must order some of that stuff to be woven for me."
The Emperor paid the two swindlers a lot of money in advance, so that they might begin their work at once.
They did put up two looms and pretended to weave, but they had nothing whatever upon their shuttles. At the outset they asked for a quantity of the finest silk and the purest gold thread, all of which they put into their own bags while they worked away at the empty looms far into the night.
"I should like to know how those weavers are getting on with their cloth," thought the Emperor, but he felt a little queer when he reflected that anyone who was stupid or unfit for his post would not be able to see it. He certainly thought that he need have no fears for himself. Still he thought he would send somebody else first to see how the work was getting on. Everybody in the town knew what wonderful power the stuff possessed, and every one was anxious to see how stupid his neighbor was.
"I will send my faithful old minister to the weavers," thought the Emperor. "He will be best able to see how the stuff looks, for he is a clever man and no one fulfills his duties better than he does!"
So the good old minister went into the room where the two swindlers sat working at the empty loom.
"Heaven help us," thought the old minister, opening his eyes very wide. "Why, I can't see a thing!" But he took care not to say so.
Both the swindlers begged him to be good enough to step a little nearer. They asked if he did not think it a good pattern and beautiful coloring, and they pointed to the empty loom. The poor old minister stared as hard as he could, but he could not see anything, for of course there was nothing to see.
"Good heavens!" thought he. "Is it possible that I am a fool?
I have never thought so, and nobody must know it. Am I not fit for my post? It will never do to say that I cannot see the stuff."
"Well, sir, you don't say anything about the stuff," said the one who was pretending to weave.
"Oh, it is beautiful! Quite charming," said the minister, looking through his spectacles. "Such a pattern and such colors! I will certainly tell the Emperor that the stuff pleases me very much."
"We are delighted to hear you say so," said the swindlers, and then they named all the colors and described the peculiar pattern. The old minister paid close attention to what they said, so as to be able to repeat it when he got home to the Emperor.
Then the swindlers went on to demand more money, more silk, and more gold, to be able to proceed with the weaving. They put it all into their own pockets. Not a single strand was ever put into the loom. But they went on as before, pretending to weave at the empty loom.
The Emperor soon sent another faithful official to see how the stuff was getting on and if it would soon be ready. The same thing happened to him as to the minister. He looked
and looked, but as there was only the empty loom, he could see nothing at all.
"Is not this a beautiful piece of stuff?" said both the swindlers, showing and explaining the beautiful pattern and colors which were not there to be seen.
"I know I am no fool," thought the man, "so it must be that I am unfit for my good post. It is very strange, but I must not let on." So he praised the stuff he did not see, and assured the swindlers of his delight in the beautiful colors and the originality of the design. "It is absolutely charming!" he said to the Emperor.
Everybody in the town was now talking about this splendid stuff, and the Emperor thought he would like to see it while it was still on the loom. So, accompanied by a number of selected courtiers, among whom were the two faithful officials who had already seen the imaginary stuff, he went to visit the crafty im]postors. They were working away as hard as ever they could at the empty loom.
"It is magnificent!" said both the honest officials. "Only see, Your Majesty, what a design! What colors!" And they pointed to the empty loom, for they each thought the others could see the stuff.
"What!" thought the Emperor. "I see nothing at all. This is terrible! Am I a fool? Am I not fit to be Emperor? Why, nothing worse could happen to me!
"Oh, it is beautiful," said the Emperor. "It has my highest approval." He nodded his satisfaction as he gazed at the empty loom. Nothing would induce him to say that he could not see anything.
The whole suite gazed and gazed, but saw nothing more than all the others. However, they all exclaimed with His Majesty, "It is very beautiful!" They advised him to wear a suit made of this wonderful cloth on the occasion of a great procession which was just about to take place. "Magnificent! Gorgeous! Excellent!"
went from mouth to mouth. They were all equally delighted with it. The Emperor gave each of the weavers 'an order of knighthood to be worn in his buttonhole and the title of "Gentleman Weaver."
The swindlers sat up the whole night before the day on which the procession was to take place. They burned sixteen candles, so that people might see how anxious they were to get the Emperor's new clothes ready. They pretended to take the stuff off the loom. They cut it out in the air with a huge pair of scissors, and they stitched away with needles without any thread in them.
At last they said, "Now the Emperor's new clothes are ready. The Emperor, with his grandest courtiers, went to them himself. Both the swindlers raised one arm in the air, as if they were holding something. They said, "See, these are the trousers. This is the coat. Here is the mantle," and so on. "They are as light as a spider's web. One might think one had nothing on, but that is the very beauty of it.
"Yes," said all the courtiers, but they could not see anything, for there was nothing to see.
"Will Your Imperial Majesty be graciously pleased to take off your clothes?" said the impostors. "Then we may put on the new ones, along here before the great mirror."
The Emperor took off all his clothes, and the impostors pretended to give him one article of dress after the other of the new clothes which they had pretended to make. They pretended to fasten something around his waist and to tie on something. This was the train. The Emperor turned round and round in front of the mirror.
"How well His Majesty looks in the new clothes! How becom¬ing they are!" cried all the people. "What a design, and what colors! They are most gorgeous robes!"
"The canopy is waiting outside which is to be carried over
Your Majesty in the procession," said the master of ceremonies.
"Well, I am quite ready,- said the Emperor. "Don't the clothes fit well?" Then he turned round again in front of the mirror, so that he should seem to be looking at his grand things.
The chamberlains who were to carry the train stooped and pretended to lift it from the ground with both hands, and they walked along with their hands in the air. They dared not let it appear that they could not see anything.
Then the Emperor walked along in the procession under the gorgeous canopy, and everybody in the streets and at the windows exclaimed, "How beautiful the Emperor's new clothes are! What a splendid train! And they fit to perfection!" Nobody would let it appear that he could see nothing, for that would prove that he was not fit for his post, or else he was a fool. None of the Emperor's clothes had been so successful before.
"But he has nothing on," said a little child.
"Oh, listen to the innocent," said its father. And one person whispered to the other what the child had said. "He has nothing on—a child says he has nothing on!"
"But he has nothing on!" at last cried all the people.
The Emperor writhed, for he knew it was true. But he thought, "The procession must go on now." So he held himself stiffer than ever, and the chamberlains held up the invisible train.
People from many lands live on the island of Trinidad. If you lived there, your friends and neighbors might be Negro, East Indian, European, or Chinese.
There are five streams flowing near the village in Trini-dad where Sam lived when he was a little boy. People used the crystal-clear water for all purposes.
Those five streams were as much a part of the village as the huts and the people and the tracks they called streets. That was why the settlement was known as Five Rivers.
At that time, they didn't have any school or police station or electric lights. Sam used to walk about five miles to the nearest school, carrying homemade bread and salted fish in his satchel to eat for lunch.
Every morning Sam waited for Popo, the little Indian boy who was his best friend. Sam was nine years old and Popo was seven, and because he was smaller than Sam, Sam used to make Popo carry his books for him. Many times Popo argued with Sam about this, but in the end Sam usually got his way when he promised to allow Popo to play with him and the older boys at school.
Until school closed for the August holidays, the children didn't have much time to bother with what was going on in the village. Coming back from school that last day, Popo was full of excitement. He said to Sam, speaking in the kind of broken English they were used to, "Plenty holiday, we will have time to do plenty things."
"Plenty things, yes!" Sam told him, "but I warning you in front, that I don't want you hanging around me all the time. You still a little boy."
"I won't do anything." Popo held Sam's hand. "I just want to be with you, because you always doing brave things. And I getting big now."
Sam flung Popo's hand away. "Ah, you too small to have any sense, you always making noise, or starting to cry and say you want to go home."
"I promise you I won't make any noise." Popo walked backwards in front of Sam, so he could talk to Sam's face. And Popo continued walking that way as they went home, trying to convince Sam that he would be no trouble.
Well, to tell you the truth, Popo really wasn't. They hunted squirrels and birds, and bathed in the streams or went rambling in the bush. There were many things to do. One of their favorite pastimes was to tease More Lazy, but in his laziness he ignored them so much that they soon tired of that.
Popo was the only one who still found this amusing, perhaps because More Lazy was a coward and Popo could say or do anything to him without fear.
But it was Popo who caused Sam's greatest adventure that holiday. One morning Sam was going out to fish with some of the older boys when Popo ran up and drew him aside.
"I have a big secret!" he said.
"Ah," Sam said, "you never have any good ideas. I going to fish, and I don't want you to come."
"But listen, this is a good thing! Is to look for treasure!" "Treasure!" Sam said, "who would have treasure in Five Rivers, where everybody so poor?"
Popo was so excited that he kept jumping up and down.
"This is a good secret! More Lazy say that Jagroop have treasure! He say all we have to do is look for it!"
Everybody knew that Jagroop had hidden his money somewhere, but the trouble was to find out where. He boasted that no one would ever discover his hiding place, and this was taken up as a challenge. No one wanted to rob the old Indian, but saying they could never find his money was a dare that couldn't go unanswered.
"I ain't have no time for that," Sam said.
"And besides," Popo went on, "Jagroop have a mango tree in his garden. You ain't notice it? Is the only one that bearing now!"
Well, that was true, anyway. All the fruit trees in the valley were bare except for this one, which looked as if it had sucked all the life from the other trees, for it was in full fruit. From a distance, Sam and Popo could see the mangoes dangling on their stems.
Sam thought it was a better idea to go after Jagroop's mangoes than to fish, because it was the dry season, and the five streams around the village were mere trickles. So Sam decided to go, and of course Popo went with him.
They went up the hill. The dry leaves and twigs crackled like shells under their feet. There was no sign of Jagroop, and they managed to get behind his hut and right under the mango tree.
Sam hoisted Popo up and when he was safe in a fork of the tree, Sam went up after him. Soon they were feasting on the fruit.
They had filled their pockets with mangoes and were just about to climb down when Popo grabbed Sam's arm and pointed.
Below them the bushes were so thick they couldn't see anyone at first. Then they saw the bushes shake. It was Jagroop!
He was walking in a kind of half-crouch. With one hand he clutched a cutlass and tin to his chest while his other hand cleared the way of brambles. He stopped where one of the streams crawled through his land. Glancing around, he sat down on the bank, wet his cutlass, and began to sharpen it on a stone.
The boys could see him clearly now, and it appeared to them that he was only pretending, or "playing possum." For all the time he kept watching the bushes, like a deer which had smelt man but wasn't sure where he was. The boys were scared, for it looked as if Jagroop knew they were up in his mango tree, and it looked, too, the easy way he was sitting, that he was only waiting for them to climb down to give chase with his cutlass!
The boys scarcely dared breathe, and you can imagine what a state Popo was in! He was squeezing and relaxing his fingers on Sam's arm.
"You think he see us?" Popo's whisper was hot in Sam's ear.
"We just have to wait and see," Sam whispered back.
Half an hour passed. Jagroop was humming a Hindi song as he moved the cutlass to and fro on the stone. The cutlass must have been as sharp as a razor, yet he went on. He struck it lightly at a hanging bamboo leaf. Then he tested the blade again by shaving an inch or two of hair off his leg. That seemed to satisfy him, for he got up at last.
Near a large slab of rock which jutted out from the bank, he stood for a minute. Then muttering to himself, he gathered stones and dammed the thin trickle of water with them, digging earth from the bank and packing the wall. When the water ceased to flow, he began to dig in the bed of the stream itself.
The boys could see beads of perspiration glistening on Jagroop's dark skin as he dug and dug, stopping at sudden moments and cocking his head sideways as dry leaves rustled or a dove flew noisily in the bush.
Then Jagroop stopped digging and reached into the hole with his hands.
He brought out two tins and he sat down and opened them.
The sunlight fell on silver. Hundreds of shillings and half crowns. They glinted, and the boys heard them ring as Jagroop let them trickle through his fingers and fall back into the tins. They had never seen so much money in all their lives.
Now they knew why no one was able to discover Jagroop's hiding place. Who would have dreamed of digging in the bed of a flowing stream? Now, all the Indian had to do was bury the money, fill the hole firmly with stones and earth, and break the dam. The water would flow over the spot and keep his secret forever.
It was too good. It was too clever. Sam and Popo couldn't contain themselves. They were bursting to tell the secret.
Scrambling down the mango tree, they began to shout loudly to give themselves courage and, flinging mangoes left and right from their pockets, they ran down the hill to the village.
Nearly half the people in Poland are farmers. The farming villages are small, and few have so much as a movie theater. You can imagine, then, how excited Celka was when she heard that a movie was to be shown at the firehouse.
Celka lived with Grandma in a house at the very edge of the village. There were only fields beyond the house, and beyond the fields, a blue ribbon of trees.
In order to reach the center of the village where the store and the firehouse are, you have to walk behind the barn that leaks, go past four green cabbage beds and the water pump that squeaks, follow the edge of the meadow to a pond for ducks, cross a bridge, and then turn left behind some beehives. Only then will you see the store and the firehouse. Are they near or far? Well, let's see!
Celka did not like it very much when Grandma sent her to the store. She often made excuses whenever they needed salt, sugar, or soap. And Grandma, whether she liked it or not, had to go to the store herself.
Today, Grandma was very tired. She had a lot more work to do, and there was no salt in the house.
"Celka, go to the store and fetch some salt. We don't even have a pinch!"
"Oh, Grandma, it is so far," complained the little girl. "You have to walk behind the barn that leaks, go past four green cabbage beds and the water pump that squeaks, follow the edge of the meadow to a pond for ducks, cross a bridge, and then turn left behind some beehives. All that, before you get to the store. It's so far, so far, Grandma! I'll never get there. My feet hurt already!"
"All right, what can we do instead?" asked Grandma. "If you don't go, I guess we'll just eat supper without salt."
Maybe Celka would not have gone to the store this time if her black dog, Zuczek, had not barked and grabbed her apron. Maybe he was angry because she did not want to play with him. Maybe he was urging her to go for a walk with him.
Celka dragged her feet past the barn that leaked, the cabbage patch, and the pump that squeaked. Then she came to the edge of the meadow. After she had walked for nearly a mile, she stopped on the bridge to look at the stream below and the sky above. Walking was something Celka did not enjoy.
Zuczek had followed her. He jumped and barked gaily when he caught up with her.
"Why are you so happy, silly dog?" wondered Celka. "Your feet probably don't hurt the way mine do."
Celka finally arrived at the store and bought the salt. On the way back home, she met three girls, Basia, Kasia, and Sabinka.
"You know, Celka," said Basia, "this afternoon there's going to be a movie at the firehouse. The firemen are arranging the benches right now. Anyone can come and see the movie."
"Me too?" asked Celka.
"Of course, you too. But you should go there right away. The movie starts soon."
Without even saying good-by to the girls, Celka ran home. Zuczek ran after her, barking loudly.
"Here is the salt, Grandma," said the girl, a little out of breath. Then, quickly, "Please let me go to the village once more. They are going to have a movie at the firehouse this afternoon."
"Really," said Grandma. "And your feet won't hurt? The firehouse is next to the store, and that is very far away."
"Oh, what are you saying, Grandma?" protested Celka. "It's near. You only have to walk behind the barn that leaks, pass four green cabbage beds and the water pump that squeaks, follow the edge of the meadow to a pond for ducks, cross the bridge, and turn left behind some beehives, and you are at the firehouse. It's not far at all!"
"All right, all right, you can go," Grandma said.
Celka ran out of the house followed by Mruczek, the cat. Mruczek was lazy. He liked to lie in the sun or sit by the warm stove. Therefore, Celka wondered why Mruczek suddenly wanted to go for a walk.
"Mruczek, let's go faster! Or maybe your feet hurt?"
The cat looked at the path, then sat down near the gate, curled up, and fell asleep. In the meantime, Celka ran toward the village. She ran very fast, kicking up her heels, her pigtails flying.
In a flash she was past the barn that leaks and the four green cabbage beds. The water pump squeaked and the girl sang. She followed the edge of the meadow to the pond for ducks, crossed the bridge, and then turned left behind the beehives.
Basia, Kasia, and Sabinka were sitting in the firehouse when Celka arrived. The movie started right away.
When it was over, Celka returned home and said, "You know what I am thinking, Grandma?"
"You want to see the movie again," guessed Grandma.
"No, I wasn't thinking about that. I was wondering whether the firehouse and the store are near or far from our house."
"Yes, indeed," nodded Grandma, "are they near or far? What did you decide?"
Celka thought for a while. Then she said, "uczek followed me to the store. He ran and barked and jumped. He wanted to go to the store with me. Mruczek only got as far as the gate when he meowed and complained and fell asleep. For Zuczek it was a short way, but for Mruczek the way was too long. For me? Sometimes it's long and sometimes it's short."
Marmots have fat bodies, short bushy tails, and tiny ears. They eat plants. They live in the ground under piles of loose rocks on the slopes of mountains.
Little Raimund, whom everyone called "Raimi," sat in the velvety green grass and looked after Farmer Holz's sheep. The sheep, quietly grazing, were no trouble at all. Once in a while a big stone rolled down the mountainside with a loud "pjuuu, pjuuu, pjuuu." Then the frightened sheep scattered in all directions. But they soon came back. Raimi looked after the sheep every day from early morning till nightfall. But he was never bored. In these mountains, no matter where he looked, there was something interesting to see.
For instance, he could see piles of stones under which fat, brown marmots built their caves. Sometimes the marmots came out and wrestled with one another or sat on their hind legs nibbling the juicy grass. But as soon as Raimi moved toward them to get a better look, they disappeared into their caves.
One lovely summer morning, Raimi lay in the grass watching the marmots. How he wished he had a pair of shiny black binoculars like those his friend the forest ranger wore around his neck. Every time the forest ranger let Raimi look through the binoculars, Raimi was amazed at how close faraway things could look. If he had binoculars he really could get a close look at the marmots. But there was no use in even thinking about it. To buy binoculars, Raimi would have to save all the money Farmer Holz paid him for three years.
Suddenly the marmots began to make loud, piercing sounds such as Raimi had never heard before. He was startled out of his daydream. Faster than he could blink an eye, the marmots disappeared into their caves.
Raimi saw an enormous gray-brown shadow swoop down over the exact spot where the marmots had been only a moment ago. He jumped to his feet and began to wave his arms while he shouted as loudly as he could. Now he saw what had frightened the marmots. A golden eagle soared above him. Raimi's shouting and arm waving drove it away. The eagle circled a few times and then disappeared behind a mountain peak.
In his bare feet, the soles of which were as tough as leather from walking barefooted all summer, Raimi ran over stones and pebbles to the marmots' caves. There, on a pile of stones, lay a tiny, bloody bundle, too hurt to run away.
For the first time, Raimi got a real close look at a marmot. This one was very small, hardly as big as a young rabbit. The marmot looked at Raimi with anxious black eyes, and bared its teeth. Quickly, Raimi wrapped it in his handkerchief and, as fast as he could, he ran to the farmhouse.
When the stable boy saw the injured marmot, he said to Raimi, "You had better kill it."
Raimi was furious. "I'll make it well, you blockhead," he shouted, and ran on.
In an old basket, Raimi made a nest of hay and put the marmot into it. Then he fed the marmot warm milk. And wonder of wonders, after two weeks, the marmot was completely well.
At night, the marmot slept at the foot of Raimi's straw bed. Mornings, Raimi took the marmot with him when he went to watch his sheep. There, in the pasture, the marmot feasted on the juicy green grass. Raimi gave it as much warm milk as it wanted and some bread and grains of white corn. Once in a while on Sundays, Raimi gave it a piece of raisin cake.
By the time autumn appeared, the marmot was half-grown and very lively. It wandered about the house nibbling on chair legs and table legs. It gnawed holes in the farmer's boots. It even ate the strings of the maid's apron.
One day after the marmot had torn a hole in the big puffed-up feather bed, the farmer's wife said, "Tomorrow, you must lock it up in the rabbit hutch."
Raimi was miserable. All night, he lay awake thinking. What should he do? He simply could not bring himself to put his marmot into a cage with rabbits. Finally, he had an idea.
Early the next morning, long before anyone else was awake, Raimi carried his marmot out of the house. First he climbed to the sheep pasture, now a pale misty gray in the first light of morning. Then, he climbed still higher till, in the rocky side of the mountain, he found an empty cave. There, his marmot would be safe from the teeth of wild marmots.
Raimi set his marmot free. It scampered into the cave and began to burrow deeper and deeper. Soon it disappeared from sight. Sadly, Raimi returned home.
The next day Raimi visited the cave. He called to his marmot. But, already, it had become shy and watchful. It would not let Raimi come near it.
Not long afterward all the marmots crawled deep under the earth for the long sleep of winter.
It was not until late in April that they finally came out of the caves. Because he could not get close to them, Raimi was unable to see whether or not his marmot was among them. That made him sad.
One day the forest ranger came to the farmhouse for a short visit. "Raimi," he said, "I have something for you." He put a small, worn leather case on the table.
Hesitating, Raimi picked up the case. At first he couldn't believe his eyes—it was a pair of binoculars!
"I don't need these old things right now," said the forest ranger. "You can borrow them for a while to observe your marmots. You are a brave lad, and good to animals."
Raimi laughed out loud. He was so excited, he didn't know what to do first. Then he ran as fast as he could up the rocky slope above the sheep pasture and waited. Soon the marmots came out to eat and play. Raimi looked at them through the binoculars. There, apart from the others was his marmot! Even though they were quite faint, Raimi could see the scars that the eagle's claws had made on the marmot's back.
At that very moment, not even the richest man in the world could have been as happy as Raimi.
An elephant trainer, or mahout as he is known in India, teaches elephants to obey commands. When an elephant disobeys, the mahout pokes him with a stick that has a sharp metal point. But, as this story shows, everyone would do well to remember that there may be some truth in the old saying, "An elephant never forgets."
Everybody called him "Raja." It was not his real name but he liked being called "Raja." He lived with his Grandfather and Grandmother. They were his guardians. Raja's mother died when he was young. His father left Raja with his grandparents, who brought him up.
Grandfather was a tall, strong man. He always spoke in a loud voice. He knew everyone in the village. People respected him. They came to him for advice and help.
Grandmother was kind and gentle. She took good care of Raja. She would follow him like a shadow, saying, "Drink this milk" or "Eat your food" or "Have your bath" or "Go to bed." Raja did not like this, but still he loved his grandmother very much.
At home Raja did not have any friend to play with. Grandfather did not like Raja going out to play with other children. He believed that Raja would be spoiled if he did so. Other children did not like to come to the house because they were afraid of Grandfather.
Yet life with Grandfather was not dull. Raja liked his home and the very large garden all round it. There were many trees in the garden: coconut trees, mango trees, and other kinds of trees. There were birds, butterflies, and honeybees. There were many tanks, with plenty of fish in them. Kingfishers, storks, and other water birds came to the tanks to catch the fish.
In a corner of the compound was a grove, where trees, shrubs, and creepers grew wild. Jackals, mongooses, wildcats, and owls lived in the grove.
Raja's grandfather owned many cows, bulls, and bullocks. Little calves played and ran about in the garden.
Raja liked to play with the calves. He liked to watch the birds in the garden. He looked for jackals coming out of the grove. He ran after mongooses. He caught butterflies and reptiles.
Once Raja's grandparents had a big guest at home. It was Lakshmi, a young cow elephant. She belonged to a rich relative. The relative wanted Raja's grandparents to keep the elephant for some days. Grandfather did not like the idea very much. It was costly to feed an elephant, even a young elephant. But Grandfather could not refuse the request of a relative.
Raja was excited when he heard Lakshmi was coming. Raja asked people how he should welcome the elephant. Grandmother told him that elephants loved sugar cane and that he should keep some for Lakshmi.
One evening Lakshmi arrived with her mahout, Kittu. Everybody in the house came out to welcome her. She was a beautiful young elephant.
Kittu said, "She is young. She is hardly eight years old. She is intelligent and learns things quickly. She is very loving and likes to play with people."
Kittu said so many good things about Lakshmi that Raja thought Lakshmi could have been Kittu's own daughter.
Raja had a piece of sugar cane with him and he wanted to give it to Lakshmi. But he was afraid to go near her. Kittu saw Raja holding the sugar cane and took him near Lakshmi, saying, "She loves children." Raja offered the sugar cane to Lakshmi and she took it and ate it.
At night Lakshmi was chained to a tree in the courtyard. Raja sat there for a long time watching her. He would have remained there longer but Grandmother came out and said, "Now, Raja, you go to bed. You can watch the elephant in the morning."
Raja woke up early next morning and went out. Lakshmi saw him and she waved her trunk as if welcoming him. He was still afraid to go near the elephant. Lakshmi tried to come to Raja but she could not as she was chained to the tree.
Kittu came in the morning. He took Lakshmi out for a bath. Raja had never seen an elephant bathing. So he followed them to the tank. Lakshmi first went into the water alone. She played in the water. She took water in her trunk and poured it over her body several times.
Then Kittu went in and asked her to sit down. She filled her trunk again with water and looked at Kittu. Kittu said, "Don't, don't do it." But Lakshmi would not listen. She spouted all the water on Kittu.
Kittu did not get angry. He again asked Lakshmi to sit. But Lakshmi again filled her trunk with water. Now Kittu showed her his stick and warned her not to repeat
the mischief. This time Lakshmi did not pour water on him but threw it backward with force. Raja was standing just behind and the water fell all over him. It was great fun. Lakshmi was only playing.
Kittu pulled Lakshmi by the ear and ordered her to sit. She obeyed. He then scrubbed her with a piece of stone and cleaned her all over.
On the way back Kittu gave Raja a ride on Lakshmi. Raja was thrilled. When they reached home, Grandfather, Grandmother, and all the others were waiting outside to see Raja riding an elephant.
Kittu had told Raja that Lakshmi liked ripe bananas better than sugar cane. Raja waited for an opportunity to give her some. As soon as Grandfather was out, Raja quietly went to the cellar and took half of a huge bunch of ripe bananas. He took the bananas to Lakshmi. She ate them with great relish.
Later, Grandfather noticed that some of the bananas were missing. He asked everyone about it and found out that Raja had taken the bananas. Grandfather did not like anybody taking anything without his permission. He took a long cane and called Raja.
Raja knew Grandfather wanted to beat him. He ran. And Grandfather ran after him.
Lakshmi was not chained to the tree at that time. She saw Raja running and Grandfather chasing him. She immediately came to Raja's help. She rushed towards Grandfather with a wild cry.
Grandfather was very frightened. He turned back, ran into the house, and bolted the door. Raja went to Lakshmi and patted her.
After a while Grandfather came out, holding in his hand the other half of the banana bunch. He asked Raja to take it and give it to the elephant. Raja did so, and both Grandfather and Lakshmi were happy. So was Raja.
Far out in the deep Pacific Ocean lie the beautiful islands of Polynesia where people today still tell stories about Maui. They say he was part man and part god, born long ago with eight heads, and tossed into the sea by his mother who thought he was dead. They say the sea god saved Maui, who later lost seven of his heads. The head that remained was so full of tricks and magic that sometimes Maui angered the gods, and made people wonder what he would do next.
Before he brought the gift of fire to warm the people and to cook their food, they say he set the world on fire. They say he pushed up the sky so that people could stand instead of crawl. They say he lassoed the sun god and beat him with a club, forcing him to move more slowly across the sky so that people could have more time to plant and harvest.
They say he caught a giant fish at the bottom of the ocean, changed it into the islands of Tonga, Rakahanga, Hawaii, and the North Island of New Zealand, and placed them where they are today.
They say Maui did these things and a thousand more when he was fully grown, yet even as a boy, he played a magical trick that people still tell about.
On the island where Maui came to live with his mother and four older brothers, people could hear chirps and whistles. They could also hear the flutter of wings. But, they never saw any birds. Indeed, they did not even know such creatures lived.
Once, Maui's brothers asked, "Mother, who whistles and chirps as the sun comes up? Who fans the air and touches our cheeks so softly when we play in the forest?"
Their mother answered, "Perhaps the gods are pleased with my children, so they make pleasant sounds and caress you."
Maui grinned at his mother's answer, but said nothing. Of all the people on the island, Maui was the only one who could see and hear the birds. They were his only real friends, and for him they sang their sweetest songs.
One stormy day at sea, the winds swept ashore an outrigger canoe. It came from a faraway land. Aboard was a man who looked down his nose at the people, their clothes, and their houses. He even turned up his nose at their food.
"How unfortunate I was to be forced ashore on this miserable island," he complained. "In my country, the earth is greener. The sky is bluer. The people are better looking, and they are richer. We have fine houses and better food. How can you people live in such a dreadful place?"
He talked on and on about all the wonders to be found in his country. He made the people feel ashamed. They had nothing grand to show their guest; nothing that would please him or make them proud of their land.
Maui listened to the man until he could stand it no longer. He sped into the forest and called to the birds.
"My friends," he said, "I need your help to make the people as happy as they were before the stranger arrived on this island." "We will do whatever you wish," said the birds.
"Then follow me," said Maui. "When I clap my hands, sing as you have never sung before.
The birds lifted their wings with a great flutter and, flying overhead, followed Maui to the place where the people sat listening with lowered heads to the stranger.
Maui clapped his hands, making a sound as loud as thunder. At once, the birds began to sing in a chorus of thousands. The music was so unexpected, so thrilling, and so beautiful that the stranger stopped talking for the first time since his arrival. Even the people were surprised. Never before had they heard such melodies. They raised their heads and began to smile.
When the birds became silent, the stranger said, "I can see nothing around here that could possibly make such sounds. I have traveled in many lands but never have I heard anything to compare with what I've just heard. How proud I would be if I could say that such sounds could be heard in my country. Where did that wonderful music come from?"
Before anyone could answer, Maui leaped to the center of the gathering. He was determined that never again would the people be ashamed of their land. He raised his arms toward the sky and in a loud, clear voice that echoed for miles, he began to chant a magic command that only the birds understood.
Suddenly, all around them, the people saw feathered creatures flying and twirling, spinning and soaring, looping and dipping. They saw the creatures perched on every branch of every tree and on the thatched roof of every house—birds of colors as brilliant as the golden sun and the jeweled sea. Never had the people seen such color—red birds and yellow birds, blue birds and green birds, pink birds and purple birds. Everybody saw every bird there was to see on the island. Each bird warbled or whistled, chirped or chittered, singing as it flew, filling the air with music and color.
The people looked in awe at the birds, and then they looked in awe at Maui. Now they knew that he was more than a boy who liked to play tricks. He was surely part god. They whispered, "What a wonderful thing it is that Maui is one of us. If he can make such magic now, what will he do when he's fully grown?"
In the years that followed, Maui's many magical deeds gave them their answer.
Little Brother™
By Bruce Holland Rogers
30 October 2000
Peter had wanted a Little Brother™ for three Christmases in a row. His favorite TV commercials were the ones that showed just how much fun he would have teaching Little Brother™ to do all the things that he could already do himself. But every year, Mommy had said that Peter wasn't ready for a Little Brother™. Until this year.
This year when Peter ran into the living room, there sat Little Brother™ among all the wrapped presents, babbling baby talk, smiling his happy smile, and patting one of the packages with his fat little hand. Peter was so excited that he ran up and gave Little Brother™ a big hug around the neck. That was how he found out about the button. Peter's hand pushed against something cold on Little Brother™'s neck, and suddenly Little Brother™ wasn't babbling any more, or even sitting up. Suddenly, Little Brother™ was limp on the floor, as lifeless as any ordinary doll.
"Peter!" Mommy said.
"I didn't mean to!"
Mommy picked up Little Brother™, sat him in her lap, and pressed the black button at the back of his neck. Little Brother™'s face came alive, and it wrinkled up as if he were about to cry, but Mommy bounced him on her knee and told him what a good boy he was. He didn't cry after all.
"Little Brother™ isn't like your other toys, Peter," Mommy said. "You have to be extra careful with him, as if he were a real baby." She put Little Brother™ down on the floor, and he took tottering baby steps toward Peter. "Why don't you let him help open your other presents?"
So that's what Peter did. He showed Little Brother™ how to tear the paper and open the boxes. The other toys were a fire engine, some talking books, a wagon, and lots and lots of wooden blocks. The fire engine was the second-best present. It had lights, a siren, and hoses that blew green gas just like the real thing. There weren't as many presents as last year, Mommy explained, because Little Brother™ was expensive. That was okay. Little Brother™ was the best present ever!
Well, that's what Peter thought at first. At first, everything that Little Brother™ did was funny and wonderful. Peter put all the torn wrapping paper in the wagon, and Little Brother™ took it out again and threw it on the floor. Peter started to read a talking book, and Little Brother™ came and turned the pages too fast for the book to keep up.
But then, while Mommy went to the kitchen to cook breakfast, Peter tried to show Little Brother™ how to build a very tall tower out of blocks. Little Brother™ wasn't interested in seeing a really tall tower. Every time Peter had a few blocks stacked up, Little Brother™ swatted the tower with his hand and laughed. Peter laughed, too, for the first time, and the second. But then he said, "Now watch this time. I'm going to make it really big."
But Little Brother™ didn't watch. The tower was only a few blocks tall when he knocked it down.
"No!" Peter said. He grabbed hold of Little Brother™'s arm. "Don't!"
Little Brother™'s face wrinkled. He was getting ready to cry.
Peter looked toward the kitchen and let go. "Don't cry," he said. "Look, I'm building another one! Watch me build it!"
Little Brother™ watched. Then he knocked the tower down.
Peter had an idea.
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When Mommy came into the living room again, Peter had built a tower that was taller than he was, the best tower he had ever made. "Look!" he said.
But Mommy didn't even look at the tower. "Peter!" She picked up Little Brother™, put him on her lap, and pressed the button to turn him back on. As soon as he was on, Little Brother™ started to scream. His face turned red.
"I didn't mean to!"
"Peter, I told you! He's not like your other toys. When you turn him off, he can't move but he can still see and hear. He can still feel. And it scares him."
"He was knocking down my blocks."
"Babies do things like that," Mommy said. "That's what it's like to have a baby brother."
Little Brother™ howled.
"He's mine," Peter said too quietly for Mommy to hear. But when Little Brother™ had calmed down, Mommy put him back on the floor and Peter let him toddle over and knock down the tower.
Mommy told Peter to clean up the wrapping paper, and she went back into the kitchen. Peter had already picked up the wrapping paper once, and she hadn't said thank you. She hadn't even noticed.
Peter wadded the paper into angry balls and threw them one at a time into the wagon until it was almost full. That's when Little Brother™ broke the fire engine. Peter turned just in time to see him lift the engine up over his head and let it drop.
"No!" Peter shouted. The windshield cracked and popped out as the fire engine hit the floor. Broken. Peter hadn't even played with it once, and his best Christmas present was broken.
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Later, when Mommy came into the living room, she didn't thank Peter for picking up all the wrapping paper. Instead, she scooped up Little Brother™ and turned him on again. He trembled and screeched louder than ever.
"My God! How long has he been off?" Mommy demanded.
"I don't like him!"
"Peter, it scares him! Listen to him!"
"I hate him! Take him back!"
"You are not to turn him off again. Ever!"
"He's mine!" Peter shouted. "He's mine and I can do what I want with him! He broke my fire engine!"
"He's a baby!"
"He's stupid! I hate him! Take him back!"
"You are going to learn to be nice with him."
"I'll turn him off if you don't take him back. I'll turn him off and hide him someplace where you can't find him!"
"Peter!" Mommy said, and she was angry. She was angrier than he'd ever seen her before. She put Little Brother™ down and took a step toward Peter. She would punish him. Peter didn't care. He was angry, too.
"I'll do it!" he yelled. "I'll turn him off and hide him someplace dark!"
"You'll do no such thing!" Mommy said. She grabbed his arm and spun him around. The spanking would come next.
But it didn't. Instead he felt her fingers searching for something at the back of his neck.
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Bruce Holland Rogers lives in Eugene, Oregon, and writes genre fiction and literary fiction. His stories have won two Nebula Awards, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Pushcart Prize. Rogers recently edited an anthology, Bedtime Stories to Darken Your Dreams (IFD Publishing). He has two short story collections due out this year: Wind Over Heaven (Wildside Press) and Flaming Arrows (IFD Publishing). Bruce's previous appearance in Strange Horizons was "Estranged." For more about him, see his Web site; for more about his work, see the Panisphere site.
Stan has traveled 29.3 kilometers from his home in Toronto to the home of his friend in a Mississauga high-rise. Before he gets out of his car, Stan puts on a surgical mask, leather gloves, and sunglasses.
Stan wears the mask because he is worried about Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, a disease which has a global case fatality rate of between seven and fifteen percent -- estimates vary. He is also worried about Ebola haemorrhagic fever, which has a global case fatality rate of about 90%. Two nearly-recovered patients with SARS are presently 47.2 kilometers away from Stan in Toronto General Hospital. The nearest Ebola patients are in Africa, 12,580 kilometers from Stan.
Stan is not worried about Mrs. Imelda Foster, who is cleaning a penthouse apartment. If Stan even knew about Mrs. Foster, he would appreciate her enthusiasm for bleach as a disinfectant. Mrs. Foster's eyesight is not what it used to be, and she compensates by going over the same surface repeatedly.
Stan wears gloves because he is worried about spider bites. The only venomous spider in Ontario is the northern widow, Latrodectus various, which produces venom fifteen times as toxic as the venom of a prairie rattlesnake. Although the spider injects much less venom than a snake with each bite, nearly one-percent of L. various bites are fatal. Fatalities are concentrated in the very young and the very sick. Stan is thirty-seven years old and in good physical condition. Still, he does not put his hand where he cannot see, and he wears gloves just in case.
Stan is not worried about Tanya Scott, the four-year-old girl who lives in the penthouse apartment where Mrs. Imelda Foster is cleaning. If Stan knew of little Tanya's existence, he would appreciate Mrs. Foster's diligence with the vacuum cleaner everywhere in the apartment, even on the balcony. There are zero spider webs in the penthouse apartment.
Stan wears sunglasses. The sun is expected to radiate peacefully for another 5 billion years, but in the course of that time its luminosity will double to a brilliance that Stan finds alarming.
Stan does not worry about a glass swan figurine weighing 457 grams. Yesterday Tanya Scott moved the swan from its place on the coffee table to the balcony railing where she could see it in the sunlight. Tanya left the swan on the railing. Mrs. Foster does not see the swan when she brings the vacuum cleaner out to tidy up the balcony. She knocks the swan from the railing with the vacuum cleaner wand.
At the moment that the swan begins its descent, Stan is 38 meters from a point directly below the falling swan. He is proceeding toward that point in a straight line and at a steady pace of 3.2 kilometers per hour. A falling object accelerates at the rate of approximately 10 meters/second/second. The railing is 112 meters above the sidewalk.
Question: Is Stan worrying about the right things?
About the author:
Stories by Bruce Holland Rogers have won two Nebula Awards, the Bram Stoker Award, and a Pushcart Prize. Some of his work has been published in over a dozen languages. His short-short stories are available by email subscription at [ برای مشاهده لینک ، با نام کاربری خود وارد شوید یا ثبت نام کنید ] . Rogers lives in Eugene, Oregon.
In the middle of the day, the frogs held a council. “It’s unbearable,” said one. “The herons hunt us by day, and the raccoons prey on us at night.”
“Yes,” said another. “Either one is bad enough, but both herons and raccoons together mean that we never have a moment’s peace.”
“We should demand that the herons leave the pond. Banish them!”
“Yes!” all the frogs agreed. “Banish the herons! Banish the herons!”
All this noise drew the attention of a heron who was fishing nearby. “What was that?” she said, approaching. “Banish who?”
The frogs looked at her beak, which was like a sword for stabbing frogs.
“The raccoons!” chorused the frogs. “Banish the raccoons!”
“That’s what I thought you said,” said the heron. She went back to fishing.
“The raccoons!” the frogs sang. “Banish the raccoons!”
With the policy decided, there arose the matter of who would inform the raccoons of their exile. One frog after another was nominated for the post of sheriff, and one after another declined it. Then the bullfrog was nominated. “Of course! He’s the biggest! He’s the very one for the job!”
“I don’t know,” said the bullfrog, who had been silent all through the deliberations. “I am big, but raccoons are bigger. I am one, but they are many.”
“Well, then,” volunteered another frog. “We’ll come along with you!”
“Yes, we’ll come along!” agreed the frogs. “We’ll all come along!”
“And you’ll stay with me, no matter what?” said the bullfrog.
“We’ll stick to you like your shadow,” said one frog.
The other frogs agreed. “Like your shadow.”
The bullfrog was still reluctant. The others had to pledge their faithfulness all afternoon. Finally, they had repeated so many times that they would stick to him like his shadow that the bullfrog agreed to lead the delegation.
The sun set. The herons flew to their roosts above the pond. In the twilight, the bullfrog said, “The raccoons will be coming soon. But you’re all going to stand by me like my very shadow, right?”
“Like your shadow! Like your shadow!” chorused the frogs.
The sky turned purple. “Even if five or six raccoons appear together?”
“Like your shadow! Like your shadow!”
Stars shone in a moonless sky. It was very dark. There was just enough starlight to see the raccoons when at last they emerged from the undergrowth. There were five of them, a mother and her grown kits.
The bullfrog hopped onto the shore. “Villains!” he cried. “Be gone! Raccoons are outlawed at this pond! Away with you! You are banished!”
“Indeed?” said the mother raccoon. Her kits sniffed the bullfrog, who trembled but held his ground. “On whose authority are we banished?”
“On all of ours!” the bullfrog said. He expected a chorus to back him up. There was only silence. He turned and saw, just before he was eaten, that he was the only frog ashore.
The help of most allies falls short of the mark,
For even your shadow slips off in the dark
The Black Cat
Edgar Allan Poe
For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not - and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified - have tortured - have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror - to many they will seem less terrible than barroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place - some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.
From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure. To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.
I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We had birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat.
This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point - and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered.
Pluto - this was the cat's name - was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets.
Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my general temperament and character - through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance - had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease grew upon me - for what disease is like Alcohol! - and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish - even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.
One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.
When reason returned with the morning - when I had slept off the fumes of the night's debauch - I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.
In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart - one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself - to offer violence to its own nature - to do wrong for the wrong's sake only - that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; - hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; - hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; - hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin - a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it - if such a thing wore possible - even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.
On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains of my bed were in flames. The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the conflagration. The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair.
I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of facts - and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception, had fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed. The plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the fire - a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion of it with very minute and eager attention. The words "strange!" "singular!" and other similar expressions, excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous. There was a rope about the animal's neck.
When I first beheld this apparition - for I could scarcely regard it as less - my wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd - by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown, through an open window, into my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which, with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture as I saw it.
Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, it did not the less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat; and, during this period, there came back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse. I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal, and to look about me, among the vile haunts which I now habitually frequented, for another pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance, with which to supply its place.
One night as I sat, half stupified, in a den of more than infamy, my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or of Rum, which constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking steadily at the top of this hogshead for some minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the object thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my hand. It was a black cat - a very large one - fully as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto had not a white hair upon any portion of his body; but this cat had a large, although indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the whole region of the breast. Upon my touching him, he immediately arose, purred loudly, rubbed against my hand, and appeared delighted with my notice. This, then, was the very creature of which I was in search. I at once offered to purchase it of the landlord; but this person made no claim to it - knew nothing of it - had never seen it before.
I continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to go home, the animal evinced a disposition to accompany me. I permitted it to do so; occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded. When it reached the house it domesticated itself at once, and became immediately a great favorite with my wife.
For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me. This was just the reverse of what I had anticipated; but - I know not how or why it was - its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided the creature; a certain sense of shame, and the remembrance of my former deed of cruelty, preventing me from physically abusing it. I did not, for some weeks, strike, or otherwise violently ill use it; but gradually - very gradually - I came to look upon it with unutterable loathing, and to flee silently from its odious presence, as from the breath of a pestilence.
What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the discovery, on the morning after I brought it home, that, like Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of its eyes. This circumstance, however, only endeared it to my wife, who, as I have already said, possessed, in a high degree, that humanity of feeling which had once been my distinguishing trait, and the source of many of my simplest and purest pleasures.
With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend. Whenever I sat, it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon my knees, covering me with its loathsome caresses. If I arose to walk it would get between my feet and thus nearly throw me down, or, fastening its long and sharp claws in my dress, clamber, in this manner, to my breast. At such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing, partly by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly - let me confess it at once - by absolute dread of the beast.
This dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil - and yet I should be at a loss how otherwise to define it. I am almost ashamed to own - yes, even in this felon's cell, I am almost ashamed to own - that the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me, had been heightened by one of the merest chimaeras it would be possible to conceive. My wife had called my attention, more than once, to the character of the mark of white hair, of which I have spoken, and which constituted the sole visible difference between the strange beast and the one I had destroyed. The reader will remember that this mark, although large, had been originally very indefinite; but, by slow degrees - degrees nearly imperceptible, and which for a long time my Reason struggled to reject as fanciful - it had, at length, assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was now the representation of an object that I shudder to name - and for this, above all, I loathed, and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster had I dared - it was now, I say, the image of a hideous - of a ghastly thing - of the GALLOWS! - oh, mournful and terrible engine of Horror and of Crime - of Agony and of Death!
And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere Humanity. And a brute beast - whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed - a brute beast to work out for me - for me a man, fashioned in the image of the High God - so much of insufferable wo! Alas! neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of Rest any more! During the former the creature left me no moment alone; and, in the latter, I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight - an incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to shake off - incumbent eternally upon my heart!
Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole intimates - the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind; while, from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas! was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.
One day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the cellar of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit. The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness. Uplifting an axe, and forgetting, in my wrath, the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of my wife. Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan.
This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body. I knew that I could not remove it from the house, either by day or by night, without the risk of being observed by the neighbors. Many projects entered my mind. At one period I thought of cutting the corpse into minute fragments, and destroying them by fire. At another, I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar. Again, I deliberated about casting it in the well in the yard - about packing it in a box, as if merchandize, with the usual arrangements, and so getting a porter to take it from the house. Finally I hit upon what I considered a far better expedient than either of these. I determined to wall it up in the cellar - as the monks of the middle ages are recorded to have walled up their victims.
For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. Its walls were loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered throughout with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the atmosphere had prevented from hardening. Moreover, in one of the walls was a projection, caused by a false chimney, or fireplace, that had been filled up, and made to resemble the red of the cellar. I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye could detect any thing suspicious. And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crow-bar I easily dislodged the bricks, and, having carefully deposited the body against the inner wall, I propped it in that position, while, with little trouble, I re-laid the whole structure as it originally stood. Having procured mortar, sand, and hair, with every possible precaution, I prepared a plaster which could not be distinguished from the old, and with this I very carefully went over the new brickwork. When I had finished, I felt satisfied that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest appearance of having been disturbed. The rubbish on the floor was picked up with the minutest care. I looked around triumphantly, and said to myself - "Here at least, then, my labor has not been in vain."
My next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause of so much wretchedness; for I had, at length, firmly resolved to put it to death. Had I been able to meet with it, at the moment, there could have been no doubt of its fate; but it appeared that the crafty animal had been alarmed at the violence of my previous anger, and forebore to present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to describe, or to imagine, the deep, the blissful sense of relief which the absence of the detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did not make its appearance during the night - and thus for one night at least, since its introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul!
The second and the third day passed, and still my tormentor came not. Once again I breathed as a freeman. The monster, in terror, had fled the premises forever! I should behold it no more! My happiness was supreme! The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little. Some few inquiries had been made, but these had been readily answered. Even a search had been instituted - but of course nothing was to be discovered. I looked upon my future felicity as secured.
Upon the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police came, very unexpectedly, into the house, and proceeded again to make rigorous investigation of the premises. Secure, however, in the inscrutability of my place of concealment, I felt no embarrassment whatever. The officers bade me accompany them in their search. They left no nook or corner unexplored. At length, for the third or fourth time, they descended into the cellar. I quivered not in a muscle. My heart beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar from end to end. I folded my arms upon my bosom, and roamed easily to and fro. The police were thoroughly satisfied and prepared to depart. The glee at my heart was too strong to be restrained. I burned to say if but one word, by way of triumph, and to render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness.
"Gentlemen," I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, "I delight to have allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy. By the bye, gentlemen, this - this is a very well constructed house." [In the rabid desire to say something easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at all.] - "I may say an excellently well constructed house. These walls are you going, gentlemen? - these walls are solidly put together;" and here, through the mere phrenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom.
But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the Arch-Fiend! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence, than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb! - by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman - a howl - a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the dammed in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation.
Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak. Swooning, I staggered to the opposite wall. For one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next, a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!
One may hope, in spite of the metaphorists, to avoid the breath of the deadly upas tree; one may, by great good fortune, succeed in blacking the eye of the basilisk; one might even dodge the attentions of Cerberus and Argus, but no man, alive or dead, can escape the gaze of the Rubberer.
New York is the Caoutchouc City. There are many, of course, who go their ways, making money, without turning to the right or the left, but there is a tribe abroad wonderfully composed, like the Martians, solely of eyes and means of locomotion.
These devotees of curiosity swarm, like flies, in a moment in a struggling, breathless circle about the scene of an unusual occurrence. If a workman opens a manhole, if a street car runs over a man from North Tarrytown, if a little boy drops an egg on his way home from the grocery, if a casual house or two drops into the subway, if a lady loses a nickel through a hole in the lisle thread, if the police drag a telephone and a racing chart forth from an Ibsen Society reading-room, if Senator Depew or Mr. Chuck Connors walks out to take the air -- if any of these incidents or accidents takes place, you will see the mad, irresistible rush of the "rubber" tribe to the spot.
The importance of the event does not count. They gaze with equal interest and absorption at a chorus girl or at a man painting a liver pill sign. They will form as deep a cordon around a man with a club-foot as they will around a balked automobile. They have the furor rubberendi. They are optical gluttons, feasting and fattening on the misfortunes of their fellow beings. They gloat and pore and glare and squint and stare with their fishy eyes like goggle-eyed perch at the book baited with calamity.
It would seem that Cupid would find these ocular vampires too cold game for his calorific shafts, but have we not yet to discover an immune even among the Protozoa? Yes, beautiful Romance descended upon two of this tribe, and love came into their hearts as they crowded about the prostrate form of a man who had been run over by a brewery wagon.
William Pry was the first on the spot. He was an expert at such gatherings. With an expression of intense happiness on his features, he stood over the victim of the accident, listening to his groans as if to the sweetest music. When the crowd of spectators had swelled to a closely packed circle William saw a violent commotion in the crowd opposite him. Men were hurled aside like ninepins by the impact of some moving body that clove them like the rush of a tornado. With elbows, umbrella, hat-pin, tongue, and fingernails doing their duty, Violet Seymour forced her way through the mob of onlookers to the first row. Strong men who even had been able to secure a seat on the 5:30 Harlem express staggered back like children as she bucked centre. Two large lady spectators who had seen the Duke of Roxburgh married and had often blocked traffic on Twenty-third Street fell back into the second row with ripped shirtwaists when Violet had finished with them. William Pry loved her at first sight.
The ambulance removed the unconscious agent of Cupid. William and Violet remained after the crowd had dispersed. They were true Rubberers. People who leave the scene of an accident with the ambulance have not genuine caoutchouc in the cosmogony of their necks. The delicate, fine flavour of the affair is to be had only in the after-taste -- in gloating over the spot, in gazing fixedly at the houses opposite, in hovering there in a dream more exquisite than the opium-eater's ecstasy. William Pry and Violet Seymour were connoisseurs in casualties. They knew how to extract full enjoyment from every incident.
Presently they looked at each other. Violet had a brown birthmark on her neck as large as a silver half-dollar. William fixed his eyes upon it. William Pry had inordinately bowed legs. Violet allowed her gaze to linger unswervingly upon them. Face to face they stood thus for moments, each staring at the other. Etiquette would not allow them to speak; but in the Caoutchouc City it is permitted to gaze without stint at the trees in the parks and at the physical blemishes of a fellow creature.
At length with a sigh they parted. But Cupid had been the driver of the brewery wagon, and the wheel that broke a leg united two fond hearts.
The next meeting of the hero and heroine was in front of a board fence near Broadway. The day had been a disappointing one. There had been no fights on the street, children had kept from under the wheels of the street cars, cripples and fat men in negligée shirts were scarce; nobody seemed to be inclined to slip on banana peels or fall down with heart disease. Even the sport from Kokomo, Ind., who claims to be a cousin of ex-Mayor Low and scatters nickels from a cab window, had not put in his appearance. There was nothing to stare at, and William Pry had premonitions of ennui.
But he saw a large crowd scrambling and pushing excitedly in front of a billboard. Sprinting for it, he knocked down an old woman and a child carrying a bottle of milk, and fought his way like a demon into the mass of spectators. Already in the inner line stood Violet Seymour with one sleeve and two gold fillings gone, a corset steel puncture and a sprained wrist, but happy. She was looking at what there was to see. A man was painting upon the fence: "Eat Bricklets -- They Fill Your Face."
Violet blushed when she saw William Pry. William jabbed a lady in a black silk raglan in the ribs, kicked a boy in the shin, bit an old gentleman on the left ear and managed to crowd nearer to Violet. They stood for an hour looking at the man paint the letters. Then William's love could be repressed no longer. He touched her on the arm.
"Come with me," he said. "I know where there is a bootblack without an Adam's apple."
She looked up at him shyly, yet with unmistakable love transfiguring her countenance.
"And you have saved it for me?" she asked, trembling with the first dim ecstasy of a woman beloved.
Together they hurried to the bootblack's stand. An hour they spent there gazing at the malformed youth.
A window-cleaner fell from the fifth story to the sidewalk beside them. As the ambulance came clanging up William pressed her hand joyously. "Four ribs at least and a compound fracture," he whispered, swiftly. "You are not sorry that you met me, are you, dearest?"
"Me?" said Violet, returning the pressure. "Sure not. I could stand all day rubbering with you."
The climax of the romance occurred a few days later. Perhaps the reader will remember the intense excitement into which the city was thrown when Eliza Jane, a colored woman, was served with a subpœna. The Rubber Tribe encamped on the spot. With his own hands William Pry placed a board upon two beer kegs in the street opposite Eliza Jane's residence. He and Violet sat there for three days and nights. Then it occurred to a detective to open the door and serve the subpœna. He sent for a kinetoscope and did so.
Two souls with such congenial tastes could not long remain apart. As a policeman drove them away with his night stick that evening they plighted their troth. The seeds of love had been well sown, and had grown up, hardy and vigorous, into a -- let us call it a rubber plant.
The wedding of William Pry and Violet Seymour was set for June 10. The Big Church in the Middle of the Block was banked high with flowers. The populous tribe of Rubberers the world over is rampant over weddings. They are the pessimists of the pews. They are the guyers of the groom and the banterers of the bride. They come to laugh at your marriage, and should you escape from Hymen's tower on the back of death's pale steed they will come to the funeral and sit in the same pew and cry over your luck. Rubber will stretch.
The church was lighted. A grosgrain carpet lay over the asphalt to the edge of the sidewalk. Bridesmaids were patting one another's sashes awry and speaking of the Bride's freckles. Coachmen tied white ribbons on their whips and bewailed the space of time between drinks. The minister was musing over his possible fee, essaying conjecture whether it would suffice to purchase a new broadcloth suit for himself and a photograph of Laura Jane Libbey for his wife. Yea, Cupid was in the air.
And outside the church, oh, my brothers, surged and heaved the rank and file of the tribe of Rubberers. In two bodies they were, with the grosgrain carpet and cops with clubs between. They crowded like cattle, they fought, they pressed and surged and swayed and trampled one another to see a bit of a girl in a white veil acquire license to go through a man's pockets while he sleeps.
But the hour for the wedding came and went, and the bride and bridegroom came not. And impatience gave way to alarm and alarm brought about search, and they were not found. And then two big policemen took a hand and dragged out of the furious mob of onlookers a crushed and trampled thing, with a wedding ring in its vest pocket and a shredded and hysterical woman beating her way to the carpet's edge, ragged, bruised and obstreperous.
William Pry and Violet Seymour, creatures of habit, had joined in the seething game of the spectators, unable to resist the overwhelming desire to gaze upon themselves entering, as bride and bridegroom, the rose-decked church.
Rubber will out.
Madame Nelson, the beautiful American, had come to us from Paris, equipped with a phenomenal voice and solid Italian technique. She had immediately sung her way into the hearts of Berlin music-lovers, provided that you care to call a mixture of snobbishness, sophisticated impressionableness and goose-like imitativeness--heart. She had, therefore, been acquired by one of our most distinguished opera houses at a large salary and with long leaves of absence. I use the plural of opera house in order that no one may try to scent out the facts.
Now we had her, more especially our world of Lotharios had her. Not the younger sons of high finance, who make the boudoirs unsafe with their tall collars and short breeches; nor the bearers of ancient names who, having hung up their uniforms in the evening, assume monocle and bracelet and drag these through second and third-class drawing-rooms. No, she belonged to those worthy men of middle age, who have their palaces in the west end, whose wives one treats with infinite respect, and to whose evenings one gives a final touch of elegance by singing two or three songs for nothing.
Then she committed her first folly. She went travelling with an Italian tenor. "For purposes of art," was the official version. But the time for the trip--the end of August--had been unfortunately chosen. And, as she returned ornamented with scratches administered by the tenor's pursuing wife--no one believed her.
Next winter she ruined a counsellor of a legation and magnate's son so thoroughly that he decamped to an unfrequented equatorial region, leaving behind him numerous promissory notes of questionable value.
This poor fellow was revenged the following winter by a dark-haired Roumanian fiddler, who beat her and forced her to carry her jewels to a pawnshop, where they were redeemed at half price by their original donor and used to adorn the plump, firm body of a stupid little ballet dancer.
Of course her social position was now forfeited. But then Berlin forgets so rapidly. She became proper again and returned to her earlier inclinations for gentlemen of middle life with extensive palaces and extensive wives. So there were quite a few houses--none of the strictest tone, of course--that were very glad to welcome the radiant blonde with her famous name and fragrant and modest gowns--from Paquin at ten thousand francs a piece.
At the same time she developed a remarkable business instinct. Her connections with the stock exchange permitted her to speculate without the slightest risk. For what gallant broker would let a lovely woman lose? Thus she laid the foundation of a goodly fortune, which was made to assume stately proportions by a tour through the United States, and was given a last touch of solidity by a successful speculation in Dresden real estate.
Furthermore, it would be unjust to conceal the fact that her most recent admirer, the wool manufacturer Wormser, had a considerable share in this hurtling rise of her fortunes.
Wormser guarded his good repute carefully. He insisted that his illegitimate inclinations never lack the stamp of highest elegance. He desired that they be given the greatest possible publicity at race-meets and first nights. He didn't care if people spoke with a degree of rancour, if only he was connected with the temporary lady of his heart.
Now, to be sure, there was a Mrs. Wormser. She came of a good Frankfort family. Dowry: a million and a half. She was modern to the very tips of her nervous, restless fingers.
This lady was inspired by such lofty social ideals that she would have considered an inelegant liaison on her husband's part, an insult not only offered to good taste in general, but to her own in particular. Such an one she would, never have forgiven. On the other hand, she approved of Madame Nelson thoroughly. She considered her the most costly and striking addition to her household. Quite figuratively, of course. Everything was arranged with the utmost propriety. At great charity festivals the two ladies exchanged a friendly glance, and they saw to it that their gowns were never made after the same model.
Then it happened that the house of Wormser was shaken. It wasn't a serious breakdown, but among the good things that had to be thrown overboard belonged--at the demand of the helping Frankforters--Madame Nelson.
And so she waited, like a virgin, for love, like a man in the weather bureau, for a given star. She felt that her star was yet to rise.
This was the situation when, one day, Herr von Karlstadt had himself presented to her. He was a captain of industry; international reputation; ennobled; the not undistinguished son of a great father. He had not hitherto been found in the market of love, but it was said of him that notable women had committed follies for his sake. All in all, he was a man who commanded the general interest in quite a different measure from Wormser.
But artistic successes had raised Madame Nelson's name once more, too, and when news of the accomplished fact circulated, society found it hard to decide as to which of the two lent the other a more brilliant light, or which was the more to be envied.
However that was, history was richer by a famous pair of lovers.
But, just as there had been a Mrs. Wormser, so there was a Mrs. von Karlstadt.
And it is this lady of whom I wish to speak.
Mentally as well as physically Mara von Karlstadt did not belong to that class of persons which imperatively commands the attention of the public. She was sensitive to the point of madness, a little sensuous, something of an enthusiast, coquettish only in so far as good taste demanded it, and hopelessly in love with her husband. She was in love with him to the extent that she regarded the conquests which occasionally came to him, spoiled as he was, as the inevitable consequences of her fortunate choice. They inspired her with a certain woeful anger and also with a degree of pride.
The daughter of a great land owner in South Germany, she had been brought up in seclusion, and had learned only very gradually how to glide unconcernedly through the drawing-rooms. A tense smile upon her lips, which many took for irony, was only a remnant of her old diffidence. Delicate, dark in colouring, with a fine cameo-like profile, smooth hair and a tawny look in her near-sighted eyes--thus she glided about in society, and few but friends of the house took any notice of her.
And this woman who found her most genuine satisfaction in the peacefulness of life, who was satisfied if she could slip into her carriage at midnight without the annoyance of one searching glance, of one inquiring word, saw herself suddenly and without suspecting the reason, become the centre of a secret and almost insulting curiosity. She felt a whispering behind her in society; she saw from her box the lenses of many opera glasses pointing her way.
The conversation of her friends began to teem with hints, and into the tone of the men whom she knew there crept a kind of tender compassion which pained her even though she knew not how to interpret it.
For the present no change was to be noted in the demeanour of her husband. His club and his business had always kept him away from home a good deal, and if a few extra hours of absence were now added, it was easy to account for these in harmless ways, or rather, not to account for them at all, since no one made any inquiry.
Then, however, anonymous letters began to come--thick, fragrant ones with stamped coronets, and thin ones on ruled paper with the smudges of soiled fingers.
She burned the first batch; the second she handed to her husband.
The latter, who was not far from forty, and who had trained himself to an attitude of imperious brusqueness, straightened up, knotted his bushy Bismarck moustache, and said:
"Well, suppose it is true. What have you to lose?"
She did not burst into tears of despair; she did not indulge in fits of rage; she didn't even leave the room with quiet dignity; her soul seemed neither wounded nor broken. She was not even affrighted. She only thought: "I have forgiven him so much; why not forgive him this, too?"
And as she had shared him before without feeling herself degraded, so she would try to share him again.
But she soon observed that this logic of the heart would prove wanting in this instance.
In former cases she had concealed his weakness under a veil of care and considerateness. The fear of discovery had made a conscious but silent accessory of her. When it was all over she breathed deep relief at the thought; "I am the only one who even suspected."
This time all the world seemed invited to witness the spectacle.
For now she understood all that, in recent days had tortured her like an unexplained blot, an alien daub in the face which every one sees but he whom it disfigures. Now she knew what the smiling hints of her friends and the consoling desires of men had meant. Now she recognised the reason why she was wounded by the attention of all.
She was "the wife of the man whom Madame Nelson ..."
And so torturing a shame came upon her as though she herself were the cause of the disgrace with which the world seemed to overwhelm her.
This feeling had not come upon her suddenly. At first a stabbing curiosity had awakened in her a self-torturing expectation, not without its element of morbid attraction. Daily she asked herself: "What will develope to-day?"
With quivering nerves and cramped heart, she entered evening after evening, for the season was at its height, the halls of strangers on her husband's arm.
And it was always the same thing. The same glances that passed from her to him and from him to her, the same compassionate sarcasm upon averted faces, the same hypocritical delicacy in conversation, the same sudden silence as soon as she turned to any group of people to listen--the same cruel pillory for her evening after evening, night after night.
And if all this had not been, she would have felt it just the same.
And in these drawing-rooms there were so many women whose husbands' affairs were the talk of the town. Even her predecessor, Mrs. Wormser, had passed over the expensive immorality of her husband with a self-sufficing smile and a condescending jest, and the world had bowed down to her respectfully, as it always does when scenting a temperament that it is powerless to wound.
Why had this martyrdom come to her, of all people?
Thus, half against her own will, she began to hide, to refuse this or that invitation, and to spend the free evenings in the nursery, watching over the sleep of her boys and weaving dreams of a new happiness. The illness of her older child gave her an excuse for withdrawing from society altogether and her husband did not restrain her.
It had never come to an explanation between them, and as he was always considerate, even tender, and as sharp speeches were not native to her temper, the peace of the home was not disturbed.
Soon it seemed to her, too, as though the rude inquisitiveness of the world were slowly passing away. Either one had abandoned the critical condition of her wedded happiness for more vivid topics, or else she had become accustomed to the state of affairs.
She took up a more social life, and the shame which she had felt in appearing publicly with her husband gradually died out.
What did not die out, however, was a keen desire to know the nature and appearance of the woman in whose hands lay her own destiny. How did she administer the dear possession that fate had put in her power? And when and how would she give it back?
She threw aside the last remnant of reserve and questioned friends. Then, when she was met by a smile of compassionate ignorance, she asked women. These were more ready to report. But she would not and could not believe what she was told. He had surely not degraded himself into being one of a succession of moneyed rakes. It was clear to her that, in order to soothe her grief, people slandered the woman and him with her.
In order to watch her secretly, she veiled heavily and drove to the theatre where Madame Nelson was singing. Shadowlike she cowered in the depths of a box which she had rented under an assumed name and followed with a kind of pained voluptuousness the ecstasies of love which the other woman, fully conscious of the victorious loveliness of her body, unfolded for the benefit of the breathless crowd.
With such an abandoned raising of her radiant arms, she threw herself upon his breast; with that curve of her modelled limbs, she lay before his knees.
And in her awakened a reverent, renouncing envy of a being who had so much to give, beside whom she was but a dim and poor shadow, weary with motherhood, corroded with grief.
At the same time there appeared a California mine owner, a multi-millionaire, with whom her husband had manifold business dealings. He introduced his daughters into society and himself gave a number of luxurious dinners at which he tried to assemble guests of the most exclusive character.
Just as they were about to enter a carriage to drive to the "Bristol," to one of these dinners, a message came which forced Herr von Karlstadt to take an immediate trip to his factories. He begged his wife to go instead, and she did not refuse.
The company was almost complete and the daughter of the mine owner was doing the honours of the occasion with appropriate grace when the doors of the reception room opened for the last time and through the open doorway floated rather than walked--Madame Nelson.
The petrified little group turned its glance of inquisitive horror upon Mrs. von Karlstadt, while the mine owner's daughter adjusted the necessary introductions with a grand air.
Should she go or not? No one was to be found who would offer her his arm. Her feet were paralysed. And she remained.
The company sat down at table. And since fate, in such cases, never does its work by halves, it came to pass that Madame Nelson was assigned to a seat immediately opposite her.
The people present seemed grateful to her that they had not been forced to witness a scene, and overwhelmed her with delicate signs of this gratitude. Slowly her self-control returned to her. She dared to look about her observantly, and, behold, Madame Nelson appealed to her.
Her French was faultless, her manners equally so, and when the Californian drew her into the conversation, she practised the delicate art of modest considerateness to the extent of talking past Mrs. von Karlstadt in such a way that those who did not know were not enlightened and those who knew felt their anxiety depart.
In order to thank her for this alleviation of a fatally painful situation, Mrs. von Karlstadt occasionally turned perceptibly toward the singer. For this Madame Nelson was grateful in her turn. Thus their glances began to meet in friendly fashion, their voices to cross, the atmosphere became less constrained from minute to minute, and when the meal was over the astonished assembly had come to the conclusion that Mrs. von Karlstadt was ignorant of the true state of affairs.
The news of this peculiar meeting spread like a conflagration. Her women friends hastened to congratulate her on her strength of mind; her male friends praised her loftiness of spirit. She went through the degradation which she had suffered as though it were a triumph. Only her husband went about for a time with an evil conscience and a frowning forehead.
Months went by. The quietness of summer intervened, but the memory of that evening rankled in her and blinded her soul. Slowly the thought arose in her which was really grounded in vanity, but looked, in its execution, like suffering love--the thought that she would legitimise her husband's irregularity in the face of society.
Hence when the season began again she wrote a letter to Madame Nelson in which she invited her, in a most cordial way, to sing at an approaching function in her home. She proffered this request, not only in admiration of the singer's gifts, but also, as she put it, "to render nugatory a persistent and disagreeable rumour."
Madame Nelson, to whom this chance of repairing her fair fame was very welcome, had the indiscretion to assent, and even to accept the condition of entire secrecy in regard to the affair.
The chronicler may pass over the painful evening in question with suitable delicacy of touch. Nothing obvious or crass took place. Madame Nelson sang three enchanting songs, accompanied by a first-rate pianist. A friend of the house of whom the hostess had requested this favour took Madame Nelson to the buffet. A number of guileless individuals surrounded that lady with hopeful adoration. An ecstatic mood prevailed. The one regrettable feature of the occasion was that the host had to withdraw--as quietly as possible, of course--on account of a splitting head-ache.
Berlin society, which felt wounded in the innermost depth of its ethics, never forgave the Karlstadts for this evening. I believe that in certain circles the event is still remembered, although years have passed.
Its immediate result, however, was a breach between man and wife. Mara went to the Riviera, where she remained until spring.
An apparent reconciliation was then patched up, but its validity was purely external.
Socially, too, things readjusted themselves, although people continued to speak of the Karlstadt house with a smile that asked for indulgence.
Mara felt this acutely, and while her husband appeared oftener and more openly with his mistress, she withdrew into the silence of her inner chambers.
* * * * *
Then she took a lover.
Or, rather, she was taken by him.
A lonely evening ... A fire in the chimney ... A friend who came in by accident ... The same friend who had taken care of Madame Nelson for her on that memorable evening ... The fall of snow without ... A burst of confidence ... A sob ... A nestling against the caressing hand ... It was done ...
Months passed. She experienced not one hour of intoxication, not one of that inner absolution which love brings. It was moral slackness and weariness that made her yield again....
Then the consequences appeared.
Of course, the child could not, must not, be born. And it was not born. One can imagine the horror of that tragic time: the criminal flame of sleepless nights, the blood-charged atmosphere of guilty despair, the moans of agony that had to be throttled behind closed doors.
What remained to her was lasting invalidism.
The way from her bed to an invalid's chair was long and hard.
Time passed. Improvements came and gave place to lapses in her condition. Trips to watering-places alternated with visits to sanatoriums.
In those places sat the pallid, anaemic women who had been tortured and ruined by their own or alien guilt. There they sat and engaged in wretched flirtations with flighty neurasthenics.
And gradually things went from bad to worse. The physicians shrugged their friendly shoulders.
And then it happened that Madame Nelson felt the inner necessity of running away with a handsome young tutor. She did this less out of passion than to convince the world--after having thoroughly fleeced it--of the unselfishness of her feelings. For it was her ambition to be counted among the great lovers of all time.
* * * * *
One evening von Karlstadt entered the sick chamber of his wife, sat down beside her bed and silently took her hand. She was aware of everything, and asked with a gentle smile upon her white lips:
"Be frank with me: did you love her, at least?"
He laughed shrilly. "What should have made me love this--business lady?"
They looked at each other long. Upon her face death had set its seal. His hair was gray, his self-respect broken, his human worth squandered....
And then, suddenly, they clung to each other, and leaned their foreheads against each other, and wept.
Once upon a time there was a prince who wanted to marry a princess; but she would have to be a real princess. He travelled all over the world to find one, but nowhere could he get what he wanted. There were princesses enough, but it was difficult to find out whether they were real ones. There was always something about them that was not as it should be. So he came home again and was sad, for he would have liked very much to have a real princess.
One evening a terrible storm came on; there was thunder and lightning, and the rain poured down in torrents. Suddenly a knocking was heard at the city gate, and the old king went to open it.
It was a princess standing out there in front of the gate. But, good gracious! what a sight the rain and the wind had made her look. The water ran down from her hair and clothes; it ran down into the toes of her shoes and out again at the heels. And yet she said that she was a real princess.
Well, we'll soon find that out, thought the old queen. But she said nothing, went into the bed-room, took all the bedding off the bedstead, and laid a pea on the bottom; then she took twenty mattresses and laid them on the pea, and then twenty eider-down beds on top of the mattresses.
On this the princess had to lie all night. In the morning she was asked how she had slept.
"Oh, very badly!" said she. "I have scarcely closed my eyes all night. Heaven only knows what was in the bed, but I was lying on something hard, so that I am black and blue all over my body. It's horrible!"
Now they knew that she was a real princess because she had felt the pea right through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eider-down beds.
Nobody but a real princess could be as sensitive as that.
So the prince took her for his wife, for now he knew that he had a real princess; and the pea was put in the museum, where it may still be seen, if no one has stolen it.
There, that is a true story.
It's a hot day and I hate my wife.
We're playing Scrabble. That's how bad it is. I'm 42 years old, it's a blistering hot Sunday afternoon and all I can think of to do with my life is to play Scrabble.
I should be out, doing exercise, spending money, meeting people. I don't think I've spoken to anyone except my wife since Thursday morning. On Thursday morning I spoke to the milkman.
My letters are crap.
I play, appropriately, BEGIN. With the N on the little pink star. Twenty-two points.
I watch my wife's smug expression as she rearranges her letters. Clack, clack, clack. I hate her. If she wasn't around, I'd be doing something interesting right now. I'd be climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. I'd be starring in the latest Hollywood blockbuster. I'd be sailing the Vendee Globe on a 60-foot clipper called the New Horizons - I don't know, but I'd be doing something.
She plays JINXED, with the J on a double-letter score. 30 points. She's beating me already. Maybe I should kill her.
If only I had a D, then I could play MURDER. That would be a sign. That would be permission.
I start chewing on my U. It's a bad habit, I know. All the letters are frayed. I play WARMER for 22 points, mainly so I can keep chewing on my U.
As I'm picking new letters from the bag, I find myself thinking - the letters will tell me what to do. If they spell out KILL, or STAB, or her name, or anything, I'll do it right now. I'll finish her off.
My rack spells MIHZPA. Plus the U in my mouth. Damn.
The heat of the sun is pushing at me through the window. I can hear buzzing insects outside. I hope they're not bees. My cousin Harold swallowed a bee when he was nine, his throat swelled up and he died. I hope that if they are bees, they fly into my wife's throat.
She plays SWEATIER, using all her letters. 24 points plus a 50 point bonus. If it wasn't too hot to move I would strangle her right now.
I am getting sweatier. It needs to rain, to clear the air. As soon as that thought crosses my mind, I find a good word. HUMID on a double-word score, using the D of JINXED. The U makes a little splash of saliva when I put it down. Another 22 points. I hope she has lousy letters.
< 2 >
She tells me she has lousy letters. For some reason, I hate her more.
She plays FAN, with the F on a double-letter, and gets up to fill the kettle and turn on the air conditioning.
It's the hottest day for ten years and my wife is turning on the kettle. This is why I hate my wife. I play ZAPS, with the Z doubled, and she gets a static shock off the air conditioning unit. I find this remarkably satisfying.
She sits back down with a heavy sigh and starts fiddling with her letters again. Clack clack. Clack clack. I feel a terrible rage build up inside me. Some inner poison slowly spreading through my limbs, and when it gets to my fingertips I am going to jump out of my chair, spilling the Scrabble tiles over the floor, and I am going to start hitting her again and again and again.
The rage gets to my fingertips and passes. My heart is beating. I'm sweating. I think my face actually twitches. Then I sigh, deeply, and sit back into my chair. The kettle starts whistling. As the whistle builds it makes me feel hotter.
She plays READY on a double-word for 18 points, then goes to pour herself a cup of tea. No I do not want one.
I steal a blank tile from the letter bag when she's not looking, and throw back a V from my rack. She gives me a suspicious look. She sits back down with her cup of tea, making a cup-ring on the table, as I play an 8-letter word: CHEATING, using the A of READY. 64 points, including the 50-point bonus, which means I'm beating her now.
She asks me if I cheated.
I really, really hate her.
She plays IGNORE on the triple-word for 21 points. The score is 153 to her, 155 to me.
The steam rising from her cup of tea makes me feel hotter. I try to make murderous words with the letters on my rack, but the best I can do is SLEEP.
My wife sleeps all the time. She slept through an argument our next-door neighbours had that resulted in a broken door, a smashed TV and a Teletubby Lala doll with all the stuffing coming out. And then she bitched at me for being moody the next day from lack of sleep.
< 3 >
If only there was some way for me to get rid of her.
I spot a chance to use all my letters. EXPLODES, using the X of JINXED. 72 points. That'll show her.
As I put the last letter down, there is a deafening bang and the air conditioning unit fails.
My heart is racing, but not from the shock of the bang. I don't believe it - but it can't be a coincidence. The letters made it happen. I played the word EXPLODES, and it happened - the air conditioning unit exploded. And before, I played the word CHEATING when I cheated. And ZAP when my wife got the electric shock. The words are coming true. The letters are choosing their future. The whole game is - JINXED.
My wife plays SIGN, with the N on a triple-letter, for 10 points.
I have to test this.
I have to play something and see if it happens. Something unlikely, to prove that the letters are making it happen. My rack is ABQYFWE. That doesn't leave me with a lot of options. I start frantically chewing on the B.
I play FLY, using the L of EXPLODES. I sit back in my chair and close my eyes, waiting for the sensation of rising up from my chair. Waiting to fly.
Stupid. I open my eyes, and there's a fly. An insect, buzzing around above the Scrabble board, surfing the thermals from the tepid cup of tea. That proves nothing. The fly could have been there anyway.
I need to play something unambiguous. Something that cannot be misinterpreted. Something absolute and final. Something terminal. Something murderous.
My wife plays CAUTION, using a blank tile for the N. 18 points.
My rack is AQWEUK, plus the B in my mouth. I am awed by the power of the letters, and frustrated that I cannot wield it. Maybe I should cheat again, and pick out the letters I need to spell SLASH or SLAY.
Then it hits me. The perfect word. A powerful, dangerous, terrible word.
I play QUAKE for 19 points.
I wonder if the strength of the quake will be proportionate to how many points it scored. I can feel the trembling energy of potential in my veins. I am commanding fate. I am manipulating destiny.
My wife plays DEATH for 34 points, just as the room starts to shake.
I gasp with surprise and vindication - and the B that I was chewing on gets lodged in my throat. I try to cough. My face goes red, then blue. My throat swells. I draw blood clawing at my neck. The earthquake builds to a climax.
I fall to the floor. My wife just sits there, watching
Apples
> A Teacher teaching Maths to a seven year-old Arnav asked him, “If I give
> you one apple and one apple and one more apple, how many apples will you
> have?”
>
>
> Within a few seconds Arnav replied confidently, “Four!”
>
>
> The dismayed teacher was expecting an effortless correct answer (three).
> She was disappointed. “Maybe the child did not listen properly”, she
> thought. She repeated, “Arnav, listen carefully. It is very simple. You
> will be able to do it right if you listen carefully. If I give you one
> apple and one apple and one more apple, how many apples will you have?”
>
>
> Arnav had seen the disappointment on his teacher’s face. He calculated
> again on his fingers. But within him he was also searching for the answer
> that will make the teacher happy. His search for the answer was not for the
> correct one, but the one that will make his teacher happy. This time
> hesitatingly he replied. “Four…..”
>
>
> The disappointed stayed on the teacher’s face. She remembered Arnav loves
> Strawberries. She thought maybe he doesn’t like apples and that is making
> him lose focus. This time with exaggerated excitement and twinkling eyes
> she asked, “If I give you one strawberry and one strawberry and one more
> strawberry, they how many will Arnav have?”
>
>
> Seeing the teacher happy, young Arnav calculated on his fingers again.
> There was no pressure on him, but a little on the teacher. She wanted her
> new approach to succeed. With a hesitating smile young Arnav enquired,
> “Three”?
>
>
> The teacher now had victorious smile. Her approach had succeeded. She
> wanted to congratulate herself. But one last thing remained. Once again she
> asked him, “Now if I give you one apple and one apple and one more apple,
> how many will you have?”
>
>
> Promptly Arnav answered, “Four!”
>
>
> The teacher was aghast. ”How Arnav, How?” she demanded in a little stern
> and irritated voice.
>
>
> In a voice that was law and hesitating young Arnav replied, “Because I
> already have on apple in my bag”
>
>
> Morale of the Story: When someone gives us an answer that is different from
> what we are expecting, not necessarily they are wrong. There maybe an angle
> that we have not understood at all __________________
An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer-contractor of his plans to leave the house-building business to live a more leisurely life with his wife and enjoy his extended family. He would miss the paycheck each week, but he wanted to retire. They could get by.
The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go & asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but over time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end a dedicated career.
When the carpenter finished his work, his employer came to inspect the house. Then he handed the front-door key to the carpenter and said, "This is your house... my gift to you."
The carpenter was shocked!
What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently.
So it is with us. We build our lives, a day at a time, often putting less than our best into the building. Then, with a shock, we realize we have to live in the house we have built. If we could do it over, we would do it much differently.
But, you cannot go back. You are the carpenter, and every day you hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall. Someone once said, "Life is a do-it-yourself project." Your attitude, and the choices you make today, help build the "house" you will live in tomorrow. Therefore, Build wisely!
A man stopped at a flower shop to order some flowers to be wired to his mother who lived two hundred miles away.
As he got out of his car he noticed a young girl sitting on the curb sobbing.
He asked her what was wrong and she replied, "I wanted to buy a red rose for my mother.
But I only have seventy-five cents, and a rose costs two dollars."
The man smiled and said, "Come on in with me. I'll buy you a rose."
He bought the little girl her rose and ordered his own mother's flowers.
As they were leaving he offered the girl a ride home.
She said, "Yes, please! You can take me to my mother."
She directed him to a cemetery, where she placed the rose on a freshly dug grave.
The man returned to the flower shop, canceled the wire order, picked up a bouquet and drove the two hundred miles to his mother's house.
She could almost hear the prison door clanging shut.
Freedom would be gone forever, control of her destiny gone, never to return.
Wild thoughts of flight flashed through her mind. But she knew there was no escape.
She turned to the groom with a smile and repeated the words, "I do"
A woman golfing with her husband and her mother was taken to the local hospital yesterday afternoon. The woman was struck by a golf cart driven by her mom.
Ginger Rogers, 55, was hit by the cart about 2 p.m. at Fairway Golf Course. She was examining her 50-foot putt on the par 5 tenth hole when she heard her mother scream. Ginger turned around just in time to see her mom driving straight toward her. The force of the collision knocked her over, and the cart then ran over her foot.
Her mom, 81 years old, said that a squirrel had jumped up into the cart looking for snacks. She tried to shoo the squirrel away. Instead, it rose up on its hind feet and made a hissing sound. Startled and frightened, the old lady hit the gas pedal.
The paramedics arrived about 15 minutes later and treated Ginger for a broken left ankle. They gave a mild sedative to her mother, who kept muttering, “Vicious, simply vicious.” Then they took Ginger to the hospital. Mr. Rogers promised his wife he would visit her after he finished his round.
John Dean, an attorney for the golf course, said the golf course was not responsible for the actions of its animals. He added, “If the ladies want to sue, they’ll have to sue the squirrel. We’re still assessing the damage to the cart and the green. It looks fairly light; I doubt that the driver will owe us more than $1,000.”
Two soldiers were in camp. The first one's name was George, and the second one's name was Bill. George said, 'Have you got a piece of paper and an envelope, Bill?'
Bill said, 'Yes, I have,' and he gave them to him.
Then George said, 'Now I haven't got a pen.' Bill gave him his, and George wrote his letter. Then he put it in the envelope and said, 'Have you got a stamp, Bill?' Bill gave him one.
Then Bill got up and went to the door, so George said to him, 'Are you going out?
Bill said, 'Yes, I am,' and he opened the door.
George said, 'Please put my letter in the box in the office, and ... ' He stopped.
'What do you want now?' Bill said to him.
George looked at the envelope of his letter and answered, 'What's your girl-friend's address?'
دو سرباز در يك پادگان بودند. نام اولي جرج بود، و نام دومي بيل بود. جرج گفت: بيل، يك تيكه كاغذ و يك پاكت نامه داري؟
بيل گفت: بله دارم. و آنها را به وي داد.
سپس جرج گفت: حالا من خودكار ندارم. بيل به وي خودكارش را داد، و جرج نامهاش را نوشت. سپس آن را در پاكت گذاشت و گفت: بيل، آيا تمبر داري؟. بيل يك تمبر به او داد.
در آن هنگام بيل بلند شد و به سمت در رفت، بنابراين جرج به او گفت: آيا بيرون ميروي؟.
بيل گفت: بله، ميروم. و در را باز كرد.
جرج گفت: لطفا نامهي مرا در صندوق پست بياندازيد، و ... . او مكث كرد.
بيل به وي گفت: ديگه چي ميخواهي؟
جرج به پاكت نامهاش نگاه كرد و گفت: آدرس دوست دخترت چيه؟.
GIFTS FOR MOTHER
Four brothers left home for college, and they became successful doctors and lawyers and prospered. Some years later, they chatted after having dinner together. They discussed the gifts that they were able to give to their elderly mother, who lived far away in another city.
The first said, “I had a big house built for Mama. The second said, “I had a hundred thousand dollar theater built in the house. The third said, “I had my Mercedes dealer deliver her an SL600 with a chauffeur. The fourth said, “Listen to this. You know how Mama loved reading the Bible and you know she can’t read it anymore because she can’t see very well. I met this monk who told me about a parrot that can recite the entire Bible. It took 20 monks 12 years to teach him. I had to pledge them $100,000 a year for 20 years to the church, but it was worth it. Mama just has to name the chapter and verse and the parrot will recite it.” The other brothers were impressed.
After the holidays Mama sent out her Thank You notes. She wrote: Dear Milton, the house you built is so huge. I live in only one room, but I have to clean the whole house. Thanks anyway.
Dear Mike, you gave me an expensive theater with Dolby sound, it could hold 50 people, but all my friends are dead, I’ve lost my hearing and I’m nearly blind. I’ll never use it. But thank you for the gesture just the same.
Dear Marvin, I am too old to travel. I stay home, I have my groceries delivered, so I never use the Mercedes … and the driver you hired is a big jerk. But the thought was good. Thanks.
Dearest Melvin, you were the only son to have the good sense to give a little thought to your gift. The chicken was delicious. Thank you.”
چهار برادر ، خانه شان را به قصد تحصیل ترک کردند و دکتر،قاضی و آدمهای موفقی شدند. چند سال بعد،آنها بعد از شامی که باهم داشتند حرف زدند.اونا درمورد هدایایی که تونستن به مادر پیرشون که دور از اونها در شهر دیگه ای زندگی می کرد ،صحبت کردن.
اولی گفت: من خونه بزرگی برای مادرم ساختم . دومی گفت: من تماشاخانه(سالن تئاتر) یکصد هزار دلاری در خانه ساختم. سومی گفت : من ماشین مرسدسی با راننده کرایه کردم که مادرم به سفر بره.
چهارمی گفت: گوش کنید، همتون می دونید که مادر چقدر خوندن کتاب مقدس رو دوست داره، و میدونین که نمی تونه هیچ چیزی رو خوب بخونه چون جشماش نمیتونه خوب ببینه . شماها میدونید که مادر چقدر خوندن کتاب مقدس را دوست داشت و میدونین هیچ وقت نمی تونه بخونه ، چون چشماش خوب نمی بینه. من ، راهبی رو دیدم که به من گفت یه طوطی هست که میتونه تمام کتاب مقدس رو حفظ بخونه . این طوطی با کمک بیست راهب و در طول دوازده سال اینو یاد گرفت. من ناچارا تعهد کردم به مدت بیست سال و هر سال صد هزار دلار به کلیسا بپردازم. مادر فقط باید اسم فصل ها و آیه ها رو بگه و طوطی از حفظ براش می خونه. برادرای دیگه تحت تاثیر قرار گرفتن.
پس از ایام تعطیل، مادر یادداشت تشکری فرستاد. اون نوشت: میلتون عزیز، خونه ای که برام ساختی خیلی بزرگه .من فقط تو یک اتاق زندگی می کنم ولی مجبورم تمام خونه رو تمییز کنم.به هر حال ممنونم.
مایک عزیز،تو به من تماشاخانه ای گرونقیمت با صدای دالبی دادی.اون ،میتونه پنجاه نفرو جا بده ولی من همه دوستامو از دست دادم ، من شنوایییم رو از دست دادم و تقریبا ناشنوام .هیچ وقت از اون استفاده نمی کنم ولی از این کارت ممنونم.
ماروین عزیز، من خیلی پیرم که به سفر برم.من تو خونه می مونم ،مغازه بقالی ام رو دارم پس هیچ وقت از مرسدس استفاده نمی کنم. این ماشین خیلی تند تکون می خوره. اما فکرت خوب بود ممنونم
ملوین عزیز ترینم ،تو تنها پسری هستی که با فکر کوچیکت بعنوان هدیه ات منو خوشحال کردی. جوجه ، خیلی خوشمزه بود!! ممنونم
John lived with his mother in a rather big house, and when she died, the house became too big for him so he bought a smaller one in the next street. There was a very nice old clock in his first house, and when the men came to take his furniture to the new house, John thought, I am not going to let them carry my beautiful old clock in their truck. Perhaps they’ll break it, and then mending it will be very expensive.' So he picked it up and began to carry it down the road in his arms.
It was heavy so he stopped two or three times to have a rest.
Then suddenly a small boy came along the road. He stopped and looked at John for a few seconds. Then he said to John, 'You're a stupid man, aren't you? Why don't you buy a watch like everybody else?
جان با مادرش در يك خانهي تقريبا بزرگي زندگي ميكرد، و هنگامي كه او (مادرش) مرد، آن خانه براي او خيلي بزرگ شد. بنابراين خانهي كوچكتري در خيابان بعدي خريد. در خانهي قبلي يك ساعت خيلي زيباي قديمي وجود داشت، و وقتي كارگرها براي جابهجايي اثاثيهي خانه به خانهي جديد، آْمدند. جان فكر كرد، من نخواهم گذاشت كه آنها ساعت قديمي و زيباي مرا با كاميونشان حمل كنند. شايد آن را بشكنند، و تعمير آن خيلي گران خواهد بود. بنابراين او آن در بين بازوانش گرفت و به سمت پايين جاد حمل كرد.
آن سنگين بود بنابراين دو يا سه بار براي استراحت توقف كرد.
در آن پسر بچهاي هنگام ناگهان در طول جاده آمد. ايستاد و براي چند لحظه به جان نگاه كرد. سپس به جان گفت: شما مرد احمقي هستيد، نيستيد؟ چرا شما يه ساعت مثل بقيهي مردم نميخريد؟
a talking frog!
An older gentleman was playing a round of golf. Suddenly his ball sliced and landed in a shallow pond. As he was attempting to retrieve the ball he discovered a frog that, to his great surprise, started to speak! "Kiss me, and I will change into a beautiful princess, and I will be yours for a week." He picked up the frog and placed it in his pocket.
As he continued to play golf, the frog repeated its message. "Kiss me, and I will change into a beautiful princess, and I will be yours for a whole month!" The man continued to play his golf game and once again the frog spoke out. "Kiss me, and I will change into a beautiful princess, and I will be yours for a whole year!" Finally, the old man turned to the frog and exclaimed, "At my age, I’d rather have a talking frog!"
پيرمردي، در حال بازي كردن گلف بود. ناگهان توپش به خارج از زمين و داخل بركهي كمآبي رفت. همانطور كه در حال براي پيدا كردن مجدد توپ تلاش ميكرد با نهايت تعجب متوجه شد كه يك قورباغه شروع به حرف زدن كرد: مرا ببوس، و من به شاهزادهي زيبا تبديل شوم، و براي يك هفته براي شما خواهم بود. او قورباغه را برداشت و در جيبش گذاشت.
همانطور كه داشت به بازي گلف ادامه ميداد، قورباغه همين پيغام را تكرار كرد «مرا ببوس، و من به شاهزادهي زيبا تبديل شوم، و براي يك ماه براي شما خواهم بود». آن مرد همچنان به بازي گلفش ادامه داد و يك بار ديگر قورباغه گفت: مرا ببوس، و من به شاهزادهي زيبا تبديل شوم، و براي يك سال براي شما خواهم بود. سرانجام، پيرمرد رو به قورباغه كرد و بانگ زد: با اين سن، ترجیح ميدم يه قورباغه سخنگو داشته باشم.
The Peacock and the Tortoise
The Peacock and the Tortoise ONCE upon a time a peacock and a tortoise became great friends. The peacock lived on a tree by the banks of the stream in which the tortoise had his home. Everyday, after he had a drink of water, the peacock will dance near the stream to the amusement of his tortoise friend.
One unfortunate day, a bird-catcher caught the peacock and was about to take him away to the market. The unhappy bird begged his captor to allow him to bid his friend, the tortoise good-bye.
The bird-catcher allowed him his request and took him to the tortoise. The tortoise was greatly disturbed to see his friend a captive.
The tortoise asked the bird-catcher to let the peacock go in return for an expensive present. The bird-catcher agreed. The tortoise then, dived into the water and in a few seconds came up with a handsome pearl, to the great astonishment of the bird-catcher. As this was beyond his exceptions, he let the peacock go immediately.
A short time after, the greedy man came back and told the tortoise that he had not paid enough for the release of his friend, and threatened to catch the peacock again unless an exact match of the pearl is given to him. The tortoise, who had already advised his friend, the peacock, to leave the place to a distant jungle upon being set free, was greatly enraged at the greed of this man.
“Well,” said the tortoise, “if you insist on having another pearl like it, give it to me and I will fish you out an exact match for it.” Due to his greed, the bird-catcher gave the pearl to the tortoise, who swam away with it saying, “I am no fool to take one and give two!” The tortoise then disappeared into the water, leaving the bird-catcher without a single pearl.
طاووس و لاک پشت
روزی روزگاری،طاووس و لاک پشتی بودن که دوستای خوبی برای هم بودن.طاووس نزدیک درخت کنار رودی که لاک پشت زندگی می کرد، خونه داشت.. هر روز پس از اینکه طاووس نزدیک رودخانه آبی می خورد ، برای سرگرم کردن دوستش می رقصید.
یک روز بدشانس، یک شکارچی پرنده، طاووس را به دام انداخت و خواست که اونو به بازار ببره. پرنده غمگین، از شکارچی اش خواهش کرد که بهش اجازه بده از لاک پشت خداحافظی کنه.
شکارچی خواهش طاووس رو قبول کرد و اونو پیش لاک پشت برد. لاک پشت از این که میدید دوستش اسیر شده خیلی ناراحت شد.اون از شکارچی خواهش کرد که طاووس رو در عوض دادن هدیه ای باارزش رها کنه. شکارچی قبول کرد.بعد، لاکپشت داخل آب شیرجه زد و بعد از لحظه ای با مرواریدی زیبا بیرون اومد. شکارچی که از دیدن این کار لاک پشت متحیر شده بود فوری اجازه داد که طاووس بره. مدت کوتاهی بعد از این ماجرا، مرد حریص برگشت و به لاک پشت گفت که برای آزادی پرنده ، چیز کمی گرفته و تهدید کرد که دوباره طاووس رو اسیر میکنه مگه اینکه مروارید دیگه ای شبیه مروارید قبلی بگیره. لاک پشت که قبلا به دوستش نصیحت کرده بود برای آزاد بودن ، به جنگل دوردستی بره ،خیلی از دست مرد حریص، عصبانی شد.
لاک پشت گفت:بسیار خوب، اگه اصرار داری مروارید دیگه ای شبیه قبلی داشته باشی، مروارید رو به من بده تا عین اونو برات پیدا کنم. شکارچی به خاطر طمعش ،مروارید رو به لاک پشت داد. لاک پشت درحالیکه با شنا کردن از مرد دور می شد گفت: من نادان نیستم که یکی بگیرم و دوتا بدم. بعد بدون اینکه حتی یه مروارید به شکارجی بده، در آب ناپدید شد.