Storiesonline.net
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                               More Magic
                            by Lazlo Zalezac

Copyright© 2011 by Lazlo Zalezac


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Description: Armed with a new magic gift, Sean heads off to college with Suzie and Henri. There's nothing like being a freshman in college -- that miraculous time in a young man's life when he learns. well, whatever it is that one learns in college.

Codes: MF mag humor
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Chapter 1


Sean stood in his bedroom looking at the pitiful amount of gold in his hand. It was really kind of embarrassing how little gold there was. All he had was the gold from a gold tooth, a couple links from a gold chain, and part of a gold earring. Based on his experience from the previous year, he figured that this magic gift was going to be pretty weak. He wondered if maybe he could postpone this for a year.

"It's not very much gold," Sean said.

Looking at what he was holding, Suzie said, "You're right. I bet you have about ten dollars worth of gold there."

"If that much," Sean said.

Suzie said, "Are you sure that I can't give you some gold?"

"The dwarves told me that the rules said I have to get the gold using magic," Sean said.

"Are you ready to face the dwarves?" Suzie asked.

"Not really. I can't put it off for much longer. It's almost noon," Sean said looking over at the clock.

Suzie asked, "So how long do you think it will take?"

"Last year it only took about five minutes. I doubt it will take that long," Sean answered.

"Really?"

Sean said, "Come to think of it, it might take a little longer. It could take thirty minutes for the dwarves to stop laughing at the pitiful amount of gold that I have."

"I'll wait for you to return," Suzie said.

"I'll be back soon," Sean said leaving his bedroom.

He walked through the kitchen on his way to the backdoor. His mother looked over at him and said, "Don't go anywhere. I'm making soup for lunch."

"I've got to meet with the dwarves," Sean said.

"Today is the day?"

"Yes."

"I think I might have forgotten about that."

"I'm sure you did," Sean said.

"Didn't you give them some silver last year?" his mother asked.

Sean answered, "Yes."

"What are you giving them this year?" his mother asked.

"Gold," Sean answered.

"You're supposed to take some gold to them?" his mother asked suddenly interested.

Sean answered, "That's right."

She said, "Let me see how much gold you have."

Sean held out the little bit of gold that he had managed to collect. It was cupped in the palm of his hand. A crazed look of avarice came over her face upon seeing the little nugget. When she reached for it, he closed his hand.

"You can't have that."

"Sorry, I couldn't resist," his mother said. "Can I see it again?"

"No," Sean said.

"Pretty please with a cherry on top," his mother said while holding her hands like she was praying and batting her eyelashes at him.

Sean took a step back and opened his hand. He had to close his hand when his mother lunged for the gold.

She growled, "I gotta have that gold."

"I need to go," Sean said.

"It'll cost you a piece of gold to get past me," his mother said.

Sean pointed towards the front door and said, "There's a leprechaun over there."

"Where?" his mother said looking around wildly.

Sean ran out the door while she was distracted. He could hear her shouting, "You tricked me!"

Happy to have escaped from the house with his little bit of gold intact, Sean started walking down the path to where he had met Chom, Pip, and Clea the previous year. It was a beautiful morning and the weather was pleasant unlike the previous day that had been hot. He was wondering what kind of magic gift he would get when he ran into Liam on the way.

"Hello, Liam."

"Hello, Sean."

"I'd stay and chat for a bit, but I've got a meeting with some dwarves," Sean said.

Liam acted like he was reminded of something. He said, "I just remembered that today is the day you trade some gold for a magic gift."

"That's right," Sean said.

Liam said, "Let me see your gold."

Sean was about to show the Leprechaun his little bit of gold, but reconsidered the idea in light of his mother's behavior. The only one more fixated on gold than his mother was Liam. According to the elves, the leprechauns had grabbed every bit of unowned gold within a hundred miles.

Suspicious of Liam's motives, Sean asked, "You're not going to try to take it from me, are you?"

"I'd rather not answer that question," Liam said looking away.

Sean said, "That's what I thought."

"I could help you carry your gold," Liam said trying to sound helpful.

"Where would you carry it to?" Sean asked.

"I'd store it in a safe place," Liam said.

"Let me guess ... that safe place would be with the rest of your gold."

Liam looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, "What a splendid idea."

Sean said, "I appreciate the offer, but I'd rather not. I better get going. I don't want to be late."

Liam stamped his foot and said, "I really thought that would work."

It didn't take Sean long to reach the place where he was supposed to meet the dwarves. He knew it was the correct place because Chom, Pip, and Clea were sitting around waiting for him.

"Hello," Sean said.

Chom got up and said, "Are you ready to exchange some gold for another gift of magic?"

"Yes, I am," Sean said.

Holding out his hand, Pip said, "Let's see your gold."

Sean opened his hand and showed his gold to the dwarf. Pip and Chom raised up on their toes to look at the nugget. They burst out laughing.

Barely able to talk because he was laughing too hard, Chom asked, "You call that a lot of gold?"

Clea came over to Sean and looked at the gold in his hand. She started laughing as well. Sean stood there holding out the pitiful amount of gold thinking that maybe he was optimistic in predicting that it would take only a half an hour for them to stop laughing.

Much to Sean's surprise, the dwarves managed to contain their laughter after about five minutes. Pip held out his hand and said, "Give me the gold."

Sean handed the gold over to Pip. The dwarf closed his hand around the gold. All of the impurities flowed out between his fingers and dripped to the ground. Pip opened his hand and looked at the small amount of gold that remained.

"That isn't much gold," Pip said.

"Hey, I was in competition with the leprechauns in finding gold," Sean said defensively.

Chom said, "I guess we don't have to ask who won that competition."

Pip asked, "We don't?"

"Think about it," Clea said rolling her eyes.

"Oh ... yeah," Pip said.

Pip handed the little bit of gold back to Sean.

"It's not enough?" Sean asked.

Pip said, "You need to break off a little piece of it."

"How little?" Sean asked.

"Considering the small amount of gold that you have, you had better make it as little as possible," Chom said.

Sean searched through the many pockets of his pants until he found a magnifying glass. He held up the magnifying glass and looked at the gold nugget. He used his magic to cause a very thin strand of gold wire to rise up from the nugget. He looked at the very end and broke off the smallest slice of the gold wire that he could see through the magnifying glass.

He asked, "How's that?"

"How's what?"

"That little bit that I removed."

"What little bit?" Pip asked looking in Sean's palm. "I don't see anything."

"That little bit right there," Sean said holding the magnifying glass over the gold.

"That?" Pip asked.

"Yes."

Pip said, "It's not very big."

Chom said, "Let me see."

Sean held out his hand for Chom to look at the piece of gold he had broken off the nugget. Chom put his eye almost in Sean's palm looking for the piece of gold.

Chom said, "We might have a problem."

"What kind of problem?" Clea asked.

"We might have a big problem with it being so small," Pip said.

"It's too small?" Clea asked.

Chom said, "We'll be here all day."

Pip said, "Sean, you have to say the name of an animal and form a little statue of the animal out of the gold. Each time you do that, you'll lose the amount of gold that you just removed from the nugget. You'll keep doing that until you run out of gold."

"Duck," Sean said while creating a small statue of a duck.

Pip hit his forehead with the flat of his hand. He said, "You weren't supposed to start yet."

"I wasn't?"

"I hadn't finished telling you the rest of the rules," Pip said.

Clea said, "This is a disaster."

"What?" Sean asked.

Chom said, "The first animal you make is going to be your familiar."

"My what?"

"Your familiar," Clea said.

"What's that?" Sean asked.

Pip said, "It's going to be your animal companion."

"So my animal companion is going to be a duck?" Sean asked.

"That's right."

Sean said, "That's great! I like ducks."

"Really?" Pip asked.

"Yes."

Pip said, "I guess you can continue now."

"Dog ... cat ... chicken ... sheep ... cow ... horse ... donkey ... jackass... ," Sean said turning the nugget into a statue of each animal after saying its name.

Pip said, "We're going to be here all day at this rate."

"We're lucky he didn't have more gold."

"You can say that again."

"We're lucky he didn't have more gold.

Two hours later, Sean was still naming animals, "Aardvark, anteater, kangaroo, koala bear, Kodiak bear, grizzly bear, brown bear, panda bear, black bear..."

"This is boring," Clea said.

"How much has he done?" Pip asked.

Chom answered, "He's gotten through about half of the gold."

"How many more animals does he have to name?"

"He's only halfway done," Chom said.

Two hours later, Sean was still naming animals. "Great white shark, killer whale, sand shark, mako shark, octopus, squid, giant squid,..."

"He knows a lot of animals," Pip said.

"It's kind of amazing when you think about it," Chom said.

Clea said, "He's slowing down."

"We could be here all night," Pip said.

"Do you think he'll run out of animals first or gold first?" Chom asked.

"Animals," Clea said.

"He doesn't have much gold left," Pip said.

An hour later, Sean was down to his last little grain of sand and he had run out of animals, fishes, reptiles, amphibians, and birds. He had even run out of insects. He was searching his memory trying to come up with another animal.

Chom asked, "Is he done?"

"He's got one more," Pip said.

Sean said, "Humans."

"You can't do humans!" Pip said.

"Why not?" Sean asked.

"They aren't animals," Chom said.

"Yes, they are. According to my biology teacher, humans are mammals just like monkeys," Sean said.

Chom said, "No one has ever done humans before."

"Can he do humans?" Pip asked.

"I guess he can," Clea said. "The gold is gone."

Pip said, "Come to think of it, Merlin did do humans. He thought he could get laid easier that way."

Clea said, "Merlin was a horny little fellow."

"Did it work?" Sean asked.

"No," Chom said.

"Darn."

Clea said, "I knew it."

Sean said, "I still don't know what my magic gift is."

"You can do magic on all of the animals that you just said," Pip answered.

"What does that mean?" Sean asked.

Pip shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't know."

"That's for you to discover," Clea said.

Sean said, "I guess I'll just have to experiment."

Chom said, "Just one last thing."

"What?" Sean asked.

Chom picked up a small rock. A nugget of silver appeared in his hand. He compared the two and then removed a bit of the rock by rubbing his thumb over it. He handed the rock to Sean and said, "We've got to adjust the range of your magic."

"How do I do that?" Sean asked.

"Throw it as far away as you can," Chom answered.

Sean launched the little stone at about five hundred miles an hour at a forty-five degree angle from the horizon. It disappeared into the distance. Sean wondered how far it went.

Scratching the side of his head, Pip said, "He wasn't supposed to figure out that little trick so quickly."

"That is a major increase in range," Chom said.

Clea said, "I told you he wasn't as dumb as he looks."

"That isn't saying much. He looks pretty dumb. Not being as dumb as he looks could still leave him pretty dumb," Pip said.

"So how far is my range?" Sean asked.

"We'll let you know when we find it," Chom said.

Pip said, "It could take us a little time."

"A couple of days, at least," Clea said.

"Maybe a couple of weeks," Chom said.

"It could even be months," Pip said.

"What should I do until then?" Sean asked.

"Just assume that if you can see something and it's the right mass, then you can magic it," Chom said.

Sean said, "Great. Now what?"

Pip said, "You practice your magic until this time next year. You'll get the third and last gift of magic."

Chom said, "Come back here with copper."

"Copper?" Sean asked thinking finding a couple pounds of copper in the dump wouldn't be difficult.

"You better bring a lot of copper," Clea said.

"Pounds?" Sean asked.

"Think more along the lines of tons," Clea said.

Sean said, "That's a lot of copper."

"You've got to use magic to get it," Chom said.

Sean said, "That figures."

"I exist and this is my area."

"Who was that?" Sean asked.

"I exist and this is my area."

Chom asked, "Who was what?"

"Someone is talking to us," Sean said.

Pip looked around. He said, "I don't see anyone."

Clea said, "I don't hear anyone."

Chom said, "It must be your imagination."

"I exist and this is my area."

"Whoever it is, just talked again," Sean said.

"I exist and this is my area."

"I still don't hear anyone," Clea said.

Sean looked around and spotted a bird in the tree. It said, "I exist and this is my area."

"It's that bird," Sean said while pointing to the wren.

"I guess you can listen to animals now," Chom said.

Pip said, "It didn't take him long to figure that one out."

"I exist and this is my area."

Sean looked up at the wren and asked, "Can't you say anything beside that?"

"Sure I can," the wren said.

"Now he's talking to birds," Chom said.

Pip said, "At least we don't have to listen to him talking to us all of the time."

"So why do you keep saying you exist and this is your territory?" Sean asked.

The wren answered, "It's very important. There are three things I have to say all of the time."

"What are they?"

"I exist and this is my area. Get out of my area. I'm handsome, strong, and smart so one of you pretty chicks should want to have my babies," the wren answered.

Sean said, "I can see where they are important messages, particularly the last one."

"It is the most important one of all," the wren said.

Sean said, "That reminds me. Suzie is waiting for me to return."

Chom said, "I'm sure she's gotten bored by now."

"Probably found someone better looking," Pip said.

Sean said, "That's not possible."

"Why?"

"I'm the best looking thing around here," Sean said.

When the wren fell out of the tree, Sean walked over to where it was rolling around on the ground. Looking over at the Dwarves, he said, "I didn't know birds could laugh."



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Chapter 2


It was nearly dinner time when Sean returned home to find the back door of the house was locked. Thinking it was an accident, he knocked on the door. He shouted, "Someone accidentally locked the door. Let me in."

"I'm not going to let you in," his mother shouted back.

"Why not?" Sean asked through the closed door.

"You tricked me," his mother said. "I didn't raise my son to be a Leprechaun."

"Mother! Let me in the house."

His mother said, "I've got your girlfriend."

"What do you mean, you've got her?"

His mother said, "She's here in the house and you're out there. I'm holding her for ransom."

"You can't hold her for ransom. Her mother would kill you," Sean said.

"It'll cost you that gold nugget to get her back," his mother said.

"It's gone."

"Gone?" his mother asked.

"Yes, it's gone."

"I'm sure you added it to your hoard," his mother said.

"I don't have a hoard," Sean said.

His mother said, "You're acting tricky – just like a Leprechaun. That means you must have a hoard of gold stashed away somewhere."

"How many times do I have to tell you that I don't have any gold?" Sean said.

"You're just saying that," Sean's mother said.

"I'm not just saying it, I'm saying it because it is true."

"I'm your mother and this is how you treat me?

"I gave birth to you at significant risk to my life. I went into labor on a dark and stormy night with torrential rain, lightning, thunder, hail, tornadoes, and hurricanes. I had to trudge through a blizzard, with snow drifts ten feet deep, to reach the hospital. I was in labor for a whole month. The doctors said they'd never seen such a difficult delivery. I carried you home across a burning desert giving you the last of my meager share of water. Then I support you through your childhood by working my poor fingers to the bone.

"I've sacrificed everything for my poor baby boy. I had a promising career in the movies ... there was talk of making me a Bond girl. I gave up the chance to be Sean Connery's love interest just so I could be a loving stay at home mother. Talk about sacrifice ... you can't sacrifice any more than that.

"I had political ambitions, too. The Democrats wanted me to run for the House of Representatives and the Republicans wanted me to run for the Senate. The Independents wanted me to run for President. The Libertarians wanted to put me on the Supreme Court. The Communists ... well ... they wanted me to have sex with Stalin.

"I never did figure that one out.

"Did I pursue my political ambitions? No, I stayed at home to raise my little baby boy.

"How do you repay me? You repay me by having a stash of gold hidden away somewhere. You turn into a Leprechaun. You play tricks on your own mother. Woe is me. Where did I go wrong?"

"Mother."

"Don't interrupt me. I was just getting on a roll," his mother said.

"You forgot the violin music in the background," Sean said.

Sean's mother said, "Darn, I always forget to do that. Hold on a minute."

"Don't bother, it's not going to work," Sean said rolling his eyes.

"Mothers can be a little difficult at times, wouldn't you say?"

Sean turned around to find a male Mallard duck standing in the yard watching him. It was a fine example of the species. It spread it's wings and turned in a circle in the duck version of posing.

"Were you talking to me?" Sean asked.

"Yes, I was."

Looking at the locked door, Sean said, "My mother can be a little more difficult than most, but she's not as bad as some."

"By the way, my name is Henri," the duck said giving his name a very French pronunciation.

"Hi, I'm Sean. It's nice to meet you, Henry."

"It's Henri, not Henry. You have to use the French pronunciation," the duck said. "I'm a duck of distinction."

"That's a nice way to pronounce Henry," Sean said.

"It's French. Didn't you know that all Mallards are French?" Henri asked.

"I didn't know that. I thought your species originated from Siberia."

"We're French. Our name comes from the French word, Mallart."

"Hey, are you the duck that's supposed to become my pet?" Sean asked.

"Pet? No! I'm your familiar," Henri said.

"It's the same thing, isn't it?" Sean asked.

He wasn't quite clear on the distinction between a pet and a familiar. As far as he knew, they were the same.

Henri answered, "Any old duck can be a pet, but only I can be a familiar."

"That explains the difference," Sean said deciding he was going to have to look it up on the web.

Sean's mother shouted, "Why are you quaking?"

"I'm talking to Henri."

"Who is Henri?"

"He's my duck."

His mother shouted, "You don't have a duck."

"I do now," Sean shouted.

His mother opened the door and looked out. She eyed the duck. She rubbed her chin in thought.

"Duck a l'Orange," his mother said.

Indignant, Henri said, "I'm a Mallard, not a l'Orange Duck ... whatever that is."

"You're not going to eat my duck," Sean said.

His mother said, "You've never tasted my Duck a l'Orange."

"A recipe!" Henri screamed. "She looks at me and the first words out of her mouth is the name of a recipe. Merde!"

"You're not going to eat my duck," Sean said.

She asked, "What are you going to do with the duck?"

"I'm going to keep it," Sean said.

She said, "I've got a better idea."

"What?"

His mother said, "I'll trade you Suzie for the duck."

Henri said, "No!"

"No," Sean said. "You're not keeping Suzie and you're not getting my duck."

His mother said, "Ever since you graduated high school, you've become so uncooperative. I don't know what I'm going to do with you."

"I was never cooperative," Sean said.

"Okay, you were naïve ... which is actually better."

Henri said, "Your mother is evil."

"She's not really all that evil. She just gets ideas sometimes," Sean said.

"Right now her idea is to eat me. In my book, that isn't very nice," Henri said.

Sean said, "That's true."

His mother said, "Would you quit quacking!"

"Sorry," Sean said.

His mother got a crafty look in her eye.

Henri said, "I don't trust that look."

His mother jumped out of the house and grabbed Sean. She shouted, "I got you."

"So?" Sean asked looking blankly at his mother.

"Now you have to give me your pot of gold."

"I don't have a pot of gold."

"You really don't?"

"I really don't," Sean said.

"Okay, now you have to give me your duck," his mother said.

"No I don't," Sean said.

"How are you ever going to support me in my old age if you don't start practicing now?" his mother asked.

Sean said, "Well, if you were to release Suzie then maybe she could teach me that kind of stuff."

"Suzie! Get out here right now," his mother shouted.

Lilly shouted, "She's asleep."

"Well, wake her and send her out here," Sean's mother shouted.

"So you weren't really holding her hostage?" Sean asked.

His mother answered, "There's nothing in the rule book that says she has to know she's a hostage in order to be a hostage."

Suzie came out of the house rubbing her eyes. She said, "I fell asleep waiting for you. What's with all of the shouting?"

"Mother wasn't going to let me in the house," Sean answered.

Suzie asked, "Why is she holding onto you like that?"

"She thinks I'm a leprechaun."

Suzie said, "You're too tall to be a leprechaun."

Frowning, his mother said, "I didn't think of that."

"That's right. I'm too tall to be a leprechaun," Sean said. "Besides, I'm not wearing green."

His mother said, "Leprechauns are tricky. Your height and terrible fashion sense could be a trick."

"It's not a trick," Sean said.

Suzie said, "You wouldn't have been able to catch him if he was a leprechaun."

Releasing him, his mother said, "I guess I knew that you weren't a leprechaun. You can't blame a woman for dreaming."

"Dreaming or hallucinating?" Henri asked.

Hearing the quack, Suzie looked over at the duck and said, "Oh! What a cute little duck. I just love Mallards."

Sean said, "That's my duck, Henri."

Henri said, "I like her. She's a woman of discerning taste."

"You got a duck?" Suzie asked.

"You might say that I traded some gold for him," Sean said.

"You traded that nugget of gold for a duck?" his mother yelled.

"Well ... kind of..."

"Are you crazy? Does it lay golden eggs?"

"Henri doesn't lay eggs. He's a boy duck," Sean said.

"I'm a drake," Henri said.

His mother said, "I'm going in the house to lie down. I've got a headache."

"That's a good idea," Sean said.

His mother went into the house mumbling, "Gullible. He trades gold for a duck when he could have given it to me and earned my eternal gratitude ... for at least five minutes. Ah ... maybe a minute ... it wasn't that much gold."

Henri said, "I hate to say this, but your mother is ... a few feathers short of being able to fly."

"You aren't the first one to say ... well ... something like that," Sean said.

Suzie asked, "Why are you quacking?"

"I speak duck," Sean answered.

"Really?"

Sean said, "I speak a lot of things now. Speaking to animals is part of my new magical powers."

"That could be useful," Suzie said.

"I guess," Sean said.

Suzie asked, "What else can you do?"

"I don't know. The dwarves were a little vague on that topic," Sean answered.

"Vague or evasive?"

"Both," Sean answered.

"That's just the dwarves being dwarves," Suzie said.

"That's true," Sean said.

Suzie said, "Let's go up to your bedroom."

"I've got a better idea. Let's go to your bedroom," Sean said.

"Yours is closer."

"Yeah, but you might not want to go back in my house for a bit," Sean said.

"Why not?"

"Mom was holding you hostage. She was trying to exchange you for some gold," Sean said.

"I wasn't aware that I was being held hostage," Suzie said with a frown.

"She says that you don't have to know you're a hostage in order to be a hostage," Sean said.

Henri said, "I'm never going in that house. She wants to eat me."

Sean said, "Henri is afraid to go in the house because Mom wants to eat him."

Suzie frowned. "My mother is probably going to have the same idea."

Henri said, "That's just great. Everyone wants to eat me."

"That's going to be a problem," Sean said.

Suzie said, "You're going to have to stop picking food animals for pets."



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Chapter 3


While Sean was sitting in Suzie's backyard waiting for her to change into her swimsuit, he started thinking about his new magic gift. Talking to animals was okay, but it was kind of limited. His conversation with the wren hadn't exactly been a philosophical discussion about the works of the Bard. There had to be more to his gift than just that.

He looked around wondering what animals were in the area. Suddenly, every animal within the area glowed. He could see the glow even if the animal was hidden behind a tree or in the ground. He could tell what kind of animal it was by its shape. In addition to a couple varieties of birds, there were squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, field mice, and even moles. There were a couple of toads and one snake. The ground and air glowed with insect life. He was quite shocked at how many living things there were around him.

"Hey, that's neat," he said to no one.

He turned to look at the house. He could see the outlines of Suzie's mother and father in the area of the kitchen. He could see Suzie in the area of her bedroom. A voyeur would find that gift a blessing. Sean thought about it, but then realized the only couples he could watch would be his or Suzie's parents. The idea made him ill.

He turned his attention back to the area behind Suzie's house. The whole area was filled with the glows of different wild animals. There were a lot of experiments he could perform with regard to his new magic gift.

Wondering if he could restrict what he was seeing to a single species, he said, "Let me see only the glows of the mice."

Much to his amazement and pleasure, all of the glows from the insects and other lifeforms in the area disappeared with the exception of the glows from the mice. He could see where a pair of mice had a nest with a batch of babies in it.

He turned off the glow and just looked around at his surroundings. There were trees, bushes, and grass. Despite knowing there was so much life around him, it was hard to see it. He figured that was a pretty neat aspect of his new magic gift.

Sean played around with his gift and discovered that he could find the nearest individual of a given species near him. He could also locate a specific individual animal amongst a group. He figured that he had plenty of time to learn more about his magic gift.

The sun was shining and the day was hot. He couldn't wait for Suzie to come out from the house so that they could go swimming. She was going to show off a new swim suit.

He looked over at Henri.

"Come on in, the water is great," Henri said while paddling around in the swimming pool.

"Don't use the pool as a toilet," Sean said.

"What's a toilet?" Henri asked.

Sean said, "It's a thing in which you eliminate waste."

Henri said, "Too late."

"Ugh!"

Suzie came out of the house. She was wearing a miniscule swimming suit that nearly took Sean's breath away.

"You look good enough to eat," Sean said.

"Thank you."

With a worried expression on his face, Henri looked over at him. It should be noted that a worried expression on a duck is much like every other expression that a duck was capable of making since there just isn't that much one can do with a duck bill to convey emotion. None the less, it was a worried expression with which he examined Sean.

Henri asked, "What? You're going to eat her?"

"No," Sean said.

"Why did you say that she looked good enough to eat?" Henri said.

"It's an expression meaning that she's really beautiful," Sean said.

Henri paddled around a moment and then asked, "So your mother was telling me that I'm a beautiful duck?"

"No. She was saying she wanted to eat you," Sean said.

Suzie said, "People are going to think you're strange if you keep quacking like that."

"I was just talking to Henri," Sean said.

Henri said, "So how do I know the difference between someone saying that I look good and saying that they want to eat me?"

Sean answered, "If Suzie or I tell you that you look good enough to eat, then it means you're a good looking duck. If my mother or her mother tells you that, then it means that you'd taste pretty good. With everyone else, well ... that's a good question."

"You're quacking again."

"I know. Henri's concerned about getting eaten," Sean said.

"You'll protect him," Suzie said.

"That's true," Sean said.

Suzie ran over to the pool and climbed onto the ledge that ran around it. She jumped in the water splashing Henri. The duck had to shake to remove the water from its back. Sean, on the other hand, was stunned for a moment from watching her run. It was amazing how so many body parts could move in so many different directions and just look flat sexy at the same time.

He joined her in the pool. The water was cool, the sun was warm, and Suzie was hot. Sean couldn't ask for anything better. He put his arms around Suzie and kissed her.

Startling the young couple, there was a sharp crack and then three splashes at the far end of the pool. Exhibiting very proper duck behavior, Henri took flight before Chom, Pip, and Thur rose to the surface. The water started draining from the end of the pool where the tree branch had flattened the wall of the pool.

"I told you that branch wouldn't support the three of us," Chom said.

"Well, I couldn't see where his hands were from the other branch," Thur said.

Pip said, "They were at the end of his arms."

Thur said, "They were also on her back."

"Don't be ridiculous, how can his hands be two places at once?" Chom asked.

Although Suzie had only moments ago been quite pleased with where Sean's hands had been, now had matters of greater importance on her mind. Suzie shouted, "You broke our pool."

"It's just a minor problem," Chom said while wringing the water out of his beard.

"Ninety percent of it is still in perfect condition," Pip said.

Nodding his head in agreement, Thur said, "You can't ask for much better than that."

"You're going to have to fix it," Suzie said.

Chom said, "I'm sure that we can do that."

"Two sodas each?" Pip asked.

Now standing in water that only came up to his knees, Sean said, "You broke it, you have to fix it for free."

"One soda each?" Pip asked.

"Free," Sean said.

"One soda for all of us?" Pip asked.

"Free," Sean said.

Chom said, "He doesn't know how to negotiate, does he?"

"Free," Sean said.

Thur said, "His vocabulary has suddenly gotten very small."

"That's true," Pip said.

"You're going to fix it for free and you're going to fix it now," Sean said.

"Why now?" Chom asked.

"My mother is coming home soon," Suzie said.

Thur asked, "So?"

Sean said, "My mother is going to be with her."

Pip asked, "What do you think they'll do?"

"They'll cut off your beard," Suzie said knowing how proud they were of their beards.

"That's not good," Chom said looking over at the broken wall of the pool.

Pip said, "She wouldn't dare. That's really cruel."

"They'll cut off your beard, dress you in a suit, and take you to H&R Black tax school," Sean said.

Horrified, Thur said, "She wouldn't!"

"She would," Chom said.

"That's inhumane," Thur said.

"You don't know his mother like we do," Chom said.

Pip said, "We better get to work."

Thur held up a roll of duct tape. He said, "This will fix it."

"What is it?" Chom asked.

"Duct tape," Thur answered.

"Duck tape?" Pip asked.

"Yes."

"What good will it do to tape a duck to the pool?" Pip asked.

Chom said, "A better question is – where will we get a duck?"

"That's easy. Sean has a duck," Pip said.

There was a worried quack from high in the sky.

"You're not taping Henri to the pool," Sean said.

"I'm sure there's another duck around here," Chom said.

"It's not duck tape, it's duct tape," Thur said.

Pip said, "Make up your mind. First you say it isn't duck tape and then you say it is duck tape."

"It's not duck tape, it's duct tape," Thur said.

"There he goes again," Chom said making a gesture like Thur was crazy.

Thur said, "The official motto of the duct tape company is that if it can't be fixed with duct tape then it can't be fixed."

"Let's see that," Pip said.

Chom looked at the roll of duct tape. He said, "That's duct tape."

Pip said, "I wonder why he was calling it duck tape."

Sean put an arm around Suzie and said, "Let's sit on the patio. They're going to be here all day."

"That's a good idea. There's definitely not enough water left in the pool to swim in," Suzie said.

With great effort, Sean and Suzie climbed out of the nearly empty pool. They went over to the patio where Sean arranged two chairs side by side. He then took a seat in one chair and then Suzie promptly sat on his lap. The dwarves stopped bickering and turned to watch them.

"Get back to work," Sean shouted.

The dwarves grumbled a bit about the unfairness of it all. They then went back to arguing about how to best fix the pool. The argument ended when Chom duct taped Thur's mouth shut and threatened to do the same to Pip.

"Are you looking forward to college?" Suzie asked while watching the dwarves tear apart the edge of the pool.

"Yes, I am. Just think of it, we're going to be students at Baron University," Sean said.

"That's a tough school. It's ranked in the top twenty in the world," Suzie said.

Sean said, "I know. The school motto is, 'Shut up and learn something.' You can't get much greater dedication to learning than that."

"It's going to be tough," Suzie said.

"I know, especially that first part," Sean said. "I've never been all that good at shutting up."

"That's true," Suzie said. "Have you decided upon a major yet?"

"I figured I'd major in everything," Sean said.

Suzie said, "Still sticking to physics."

"Yes," Sean said. "How about you? Are you still planning on majoring in medicine?"

"Yes," Suzie said.

Sean said, "That's a great choice. With your looks, you could raise the dead."

"Thank you," Suzie said, "but I'm afraid it doesn't work that way."

"It doesn't?" Sean asked surprised. "It should."

"I'm worried about living away from home."

"What's to worry about? Dingem is a nice place," Sean said.

"I've never been away from home on my own before," Suzie said.

"Neither have I," Sean admitted. He was looking forward to it.

Suzie said, "I'm scared of moving to a new place and being surrounded by strangers."

"I wouldn't be afraid of that. I think it would be nearly impossible to get surrounded by stranger people than our families."

"That's true."

Sean said, "See, there's nothing to be worried about."

"We won't know anyone."

"We'll meet lots of nice people," Sean said.

Henri landed on the table making sure that he could watch the dwarves. He didn't trust them not to try taping him to the side of the pool.

"They ruined a good pond," Henri said.

"They'll fix it," Sean said.

"You're quacking again," Suzie said.

"Sorry. Henri says he can't speak human. Something to do with his bill not being flexible enough," Sean said.

"I guess that could be a problem," Suzie said.

Thinking that it would be nice if Suzie could speak with Henri, Sean said, "Maybe you could learn duck."

"I don't see how," Suzie quacked.

"Hey! She's speaking duck," Henri said.

"How did that happen?" Suzie asked amazed that she suddenly understood what Henri was saying.

"Magic," Henri said.

"That's great," Suzie said.

"I overheard you talking about moving away," Henri said.

"Yes. We're going to college," Sean answered.

"Where?"

"Dingem," Sean answered.

Henri said, "I've got cousins in Dingem. I'll enjoy visiting with them."

"You're going?" Suzie asked.

Henri said, "I'm his familiar. I go where he goes."

They would have talked more about Henri being Sean's familiar, but Suzie's mother chose that moment to step out of the house. Sean's mother followed behind her eying the duck on the table.

Suzie's mother asked, "What are you doing?"

"We're talking," Sean answered.

"You're quacking," Suzie's mother said.

"We were talking with Henri," Suzie said pointing to the duck.

Suzie's mother looked at Henri and said, "Peking Duck."

"I'm a Mallard, not a Peking Duck," Henri said indignant at being confused with such a plain looking duck.

Suzie said, "Peking Duck is a recipe."

Henri took flight while quacking, "Your mothers are evil."

Sean said, "Now look at what you did. You scared off Henri."

Sean's mother said, "It'll be easier to catch a duck than a leprechaun."

"All it will take is a little bread scattered around the backyard and a shotgun," Suzie's mother said.

"You're not eating my duck," Sean said.

Sean's mother said, "Don't pay any attention to him. He's still upset about the lobsters."

There was a minor explosion from the swimming pool. Suzie's mother looked in the direction of the pool and saw the damage.

Upset, Suzie's mother asked, "What happened to my pool?"

"Dwarves," Sean answered.

"Get the scissors!"

Three dwarf heads popped up over the edge of the swimming pool. Wide-eyed, they stared at Suzie's mother. They exchanged looks.

Chom shouted, "Run!"

Watching their mothers chase the dwarves into the woods, Sean said, "That got their minds off Henri."

Henri settled on the table and said, "You know, for a couple of women their age, they sure can run."

"They've been chasing leprechauns for a year," Sean said.

"Ah! That explains it."



-------

Chapter 4


Moving day is perhaps one of the most important days in the college life of a freshman student. It is the day when young men and women finally cut the umbilical cord that ties them to their parents. The young men and women are worried about what the future will bring. Their mothers worry about them. The fathers worry about how much it is all going to cost them. It is an emotional time for everyone involved ... well ... almost everyone.

Sean stood next to his gold truck wondering how he was going to get all of his and Suzie's stuff to their room. It was going to take a number of trips even with the help of magic.

A couple helping their son move into the dorm stopped unpacking their car to stare at Sean's gold truck unable to believe their eyes.

Standing outside the dorm building, Sean's mother said, "We got him here. Let's go."

Sean asked, "What's the hurry?"

"I'm expecting Sean Connery to confirm that he'll be moving into your old bedroom. I'd hate to miss his call."

"We just got here," Sean's father said tired from the long drive.

Sean's mother said, "You're just grumpy because you're afraid that I'll forget all about you when Sean Connery moves in."

"No, I'm not."

"Maybe you could move into Sean's room and Sean Connery can move into our room," Sean's mother said.

"That's not a bad idea," Suzie's mother said.

"Explain that to what's-his-name that I'm married to," Sean's mother said.

The family that had been staring at the truck turned to stare at his mother.

Lily said, "Why don't you just rent his room to some young stud who will do anything I ask him to do?"

"That's what I'm planning on doing with Suzie's old room."

Lily asked, "Really?"

"I want a guy with huge muscles, six pack abs, and an ass so hard you could break a board on it," Suzie's mother said.

"Can I borrow him?" Lily asked.

Sean asked, "What for?"

Lily said, "I want a boy toy."

The family turned from staring at Sean's mother to stare at Lily.

"No, you don't!" Sean said.

Suzie's father said, "Hey! Wait one second. You said you were going to rent her room out to a pretty young woman."

"Did I say that?" Suzie's mother asked innocently.

"Yes."

"I lied."

"It figures," Suzie's father said.

The family at the car next to theirs turned to stare at Suzie's parents.

There was a loud crash from the street. Horns blared. A car came to a bouncing stop in the middle of the parking lot. On the final bounce, four dwarves flew overhead before landing in the bushes surrounding the dorm building. The bushes were demolished.

Chom stood up and said, "Let's do that again!"

Pip said, "I'm so happy we let him drive!"

Clea said, "He's a whole lot better than Sean."

"That last flight was great," Thur said.

The family turned from staring at Suzie's parents to stare at the dwarves.

Sean looked at the four dwarves. Confused, he asked, "Who's driving?"

Stomp got out of the car with a big grin on his face. "Fun drive!"

"Hi Stomp!"

"Hi Sean!"

"Hi Stomp!"

"Hi Suzie!"

The family turned from staring at the dwarves to stare at the troll.

The whoop whoop of sirens sounded in the distance.

Stomp frowned and said, "Bad noise. Go stomp."

Chom said, "Let's watch Stomp stomp on some cars."

Stomp took off to find the source of the annoying noise. Excited, all four dwarves followed Stomp towards the street. Other people took one look at him coming their way and started running away.

The family standing next to Sean's truck watched the dwarves run past.

Sean's father said, "It sure is going to be quiet without the dwarves living in the backyard."

"I'm going to miss them," Sean's mother said sadly.

Surprised, Sean asked, "You're going to miss them?"

"Who do you think was building the traps we were using when we were trying to catch the leprechauns?" Suzie's mother asked.

The family turned to stare at Suzie's mother.

Henri landed on top of the truck. He quacked, "Those dwarves fly almost as well as I do."

The family turned to stare at the duck.

Sean said, "Hello, Henri. How was the flight?"

"Not too bad. I ran into some geese heading south. Those honkers really know how to move," Henri said.

"Have you found a place to stay?" Suzie asked.

Henri said, "I saw a nice little pond on my way here."

"That's great," Sean said. "You'll have to show it to me after we finish moving into our dorm room."

Unused to seeing people quack at a duck, the family stared at Sean and Suzie.

Henri quacked, "I'm going to see if I can find any of my relatives."

"Okay. I'll see you later," Sean said.

Suzie said, "Let's get our stuff to our room."

Sean searched through the dozen pockets in his pants. He pulled out a wrinkled sheet of paper. Looking down at it, he said, "Our room is 318."

"318?" Suzie asked. She dug around in her purse and pulled out a sheet of paper. She looked at it and then said, "Mine says 218."

"Let me see that," Sean said while moving so that he could look over her shoulder.

"Look," Suzie said pointing to the room assignment.

Sean held out his piece of paper and compared it with the one that Suzie was holding. Disappointed, he said, "We're not in the same room. You're in 218 and I'm in 318."

"I'm in 318."

Sean looked over at the young man who was unloading the car that was parked next to his truck. The guy was just as scrawny as Sean. He was wearing thick glasses with black plastic frames.

"I'm Sean Connery Michaels."

"I'm John Patterson. Is your mother a Sean Connery fan?" John asked.

"Yes," Sean said.

"My mother is a John Wayne fan. That's why she named me, John."

Sean's mother said, "John Wayne? What kind of woman could prefer John Wayne over Sean Connery?"

"Sean Connery? Give me a break. He was so bad as James Bond that they had to replace him," John's mother said.

Sean's father cringed. "Oh. Those are fighting words."

"John Wayne's real first name is Marion. That's the name of a librarian. Talk about wimpy," Sean's mother said.

John's father cringed. "Oh, those are fighting words."

In the sudden silence that followed the whimpering death of a police siren off in the distance, the two women faced each other with vicious expressions on their faces. They snarled. They glared at each other.

"There were so many complaints about Sean Connery playing James Bond that they actually considered changing his number to 000."

Turning purple, Sean's mother shouted, "John Wayne walked like he had a corncob up his butt!"

The two women flew at each other. There was scratching, biting, hair pulling, and screaming. Oddly enough, most people in the parking lot ignored them in favor of hiding behind their cars. It appeared they were more concerned about the sounds of gunshots and grinding complaints of metal getting flattened that were coming from the street.

Looking at the two women rolling around on the ground, Sean said, "I've got a feeling that they're going to be arguing for hours."

Suzie said, "Maybe we ought to take our stuff up to our room."

John said, "That might be a good idea."

Sean, John, and Suzie made the first trip carrying a single suitcase each. They had to check in with the folks at the dorm, meet their residence assistant, and get the keys to their rooms. It was a process that took a little time, but it wasn't long before the three students, each with keys in one hand and a suitcase in the other, went up to their rooms to check them out. Sean and John explored room 316 while Suzie spent time in room 216.

The double rooms were misleading, in that while empty they looked large. Each double held two beds with two cabinets for clothes. There were two desks. They weren't nearly as large as they looked. There was very little room to move around unless the beds were configured as bunk beds.

For the next hour, they took luggage, chairs, lamps, and small refrigerators to their room. Suzie's mother and father helped with carrying her stuff. Sean and John were left to carry their stuff alone. They were assisted with the judicious use of magic which did the heavy lifting. Regardless of their increased carrying ability, it still required several trips from parking lot to dorm room to haul all of their possessions up to their new abode.

Sean's mother and John's mother were still battling it out in the parking lot. Sirens filled the air, with each siren turning silent shortly after it reached the site from which the gunshots were originating. The yells and screams were positively horrifying, at least they were if one was horrified by those kinds of noises.

Acting like concerned husbands should, Sean's father and John's father were watching their wives fight to see if any clothes were going to come off. They occasionally would suggest that the women quit pulling hair and start ripping clothes, but to their disappointment the women ignored their suggestions that it was better to be naked than to be bald.

Leaving John in his dorm room, Sean stopped by Suzie's dorm room intending to help her unpack the rest of her stuff. It seemed to Sean that Suzie had a lot more stuff than he did, but when she had finished putting it away that it seemed like she had less. He wondered if that wasn't another form of magic. He made a mental note to ask the dwarves about that.

He arrived in Suzie's room just before Suzie's roommate, a young and very attractive woman by the name of Ashley, made her grand entrance. She flowed into the room like a queen, spotted Sean standing there, posed to show off her shapely breasts, and waited for Sean to fall to his knees in front of her. He didn't. She didn't like it that he didn't. He didn't care. Suzie was delighted. That made him happy although he had no clue why she was happy.

Ashley changed her pose to show off her backside knowing that some men felt that her lovely heart-shaped derriere was one of her best features. Looking over her shoulder at Sean, she asked, "What do you think?"

Suzie's father was halfway to his knees when Sean said, "With a little exercise, you could really firm up that butt."

Ashley screamed. Suzie kissed Sean who was wondering what he had done to deserve a kiss like that. Ashley's parents, having heard the scream, ran into the room to find out what was the matter.

Concerned, her father asked, "What's the matter, Princess?"

"He said I had a flabby butt," Ashley whined.

Her father, not entirely pleased about all of the young men who were throwing themselves at his lovely innocent daughter, was privately happy to learn there was a young man who was not totally enamored with her. Still, she was upset and that bothered him. He said, "I'm sure he needs glasses, Princess."

Sean said, "No, I don't. I've got perfect vision."

Seeing that Ashley was about to throw a fit, her mother said, "Young man, Ashley has a perfect butt."

"No, she doesn't. Suzie has a perfect butt. I could stare at it all day," Sean said earning another kiss from Suzie.

Suzie's father was staring at Ashley's butt. He couldn't find anything wrong with it. In fact, he was pretty happy with the whole package that came with the butt. She was the kind of girl he was hoping would move into Suzie's room.

"I think Ashley has a perfectly fine butt," he said. "I'd love to run my hands ov..."

"Hey!" Suzie's mother said giving him an elbow in his side.

"What? You're planning to move some young muscle bound stud into Suzie's room after promising me that a girl who looks likes Ashley would be moving in," Suzie's father said while rubbing his side.

Suzie's mother grabbed him by the ear and said, "We're going home."

"Yes, Dear," he muttered while being dragged from the room.

Suzie said, "Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad."

"Bye," her parents called out.

Her father added, "We'll see you Thanksgiving."

"Unless I've rented your room out to Studly," her mother corrected.

Ashley's mother had listened to the exchange and said, "I like the idea of renting out a room to a young stud. You know ... Ashley's room is available now."

"Mother!"

Her father said, "Don't worry, Princess. I promise you, your mother won't be renting out your room."

"Thank you, Daddy."

He said, "I guess we better start bringing your stuff up here."

Ashley's mother said, "I'll keep Ashley company while you bring her stuff up here. Just watch out for those two women who are fighting in the parking lot."

"I will," Ashley's father said.

Sean said, "I guess I ought to get John and go break up the fight."

Suzie said, "Go ahead."

Sean went to his room and grabbed his roommate. They made their way through the crowded halls of the dorm building overhearing interesting snippets of conversations such as, "Mother!" – "Dad!" – "You're not so big that I can't put you over my knee and paddle your ass!" and the ever popular – "You're embarrassing me!"

Sean and John reached the parking lot in time to hear Sean's father say, "You'd think they'd have lost one item of clothing after wrestling like that for more than an hour."

"I know. I'm rather disappointed," John's father said with his disappointment obvious in his voice.

Sean's father said, "I bet if we got a couple beers in them, the clothes would be flying."

"That's a very good idea," John's father said.

"That's a bad idea," John said looking at his father in horror.

In full agreement with John, Sean said, "That's the worst idea I've ever heard."

"Well, I think it is a very good idea," Sean's father said.

Looking at his mother, Sean said, "I bet Sean Connery has tried calling three times about moving into my old room by now."

"I bet that John Wayne film festival is about half over by now," John said.

Both women froze. They looked at their sons and then at each other. Simultaneously, they growled, "Next time!"

John's father said, "Next time we come, I'll stop and get a couple beers in her."

"I'll do the same," Sean's father said.

"Deal," John's father said. They shook hands on it.

Watching his mother scrambling towards the car, Sean said, "You better catch up with Mom. She's liable to leave you behind."

"You better get in the car, Dad. Mom's about to drive off without you," John said.

Sean's father ran off to get to the car before his wife reached it. John's father managed to get in the door of his car while his wife was backing out. Sean's father managed to dive in the open window of the car before it left the parking lot.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Sean said, "That went a whole better than I thought it would."

"Same here," John said.

Stomp showed up with an armored SWAT vehicle behind him. He was dragging the vehicle by the battering ram affixed to it. The police officers, who were trying to surround him, looked like they were having a pretty bad day.

Smiling at Sean, Stomp said, "Hi Sean."

"Hi Stomp. What have you got there?"

"New club," Stomp said waving the vehicle around.

"Nice," Sean said.

"I like."

"It looks like a very good club," Sean said.

"I go."

"You just got here. Can't you stay here for a while?"

"Miss home."

"I understand. Have a good trip home," Sean said.

"Thanks Sean."

John watched the troll stomp off with the SWAT vehicle slung over his shoulder. The police continued to surround the troll, but none of them got within reach of him.

John said, "He seems like a nice enough fellow."

"He is," Sean said.



-------

Chapter 5


After watching his parents drive off, John said, "All of that moving in was hard work. I'm thirsty."

"Let's get a soda," Sean said.

Four dwarves appeared as if by magic. Pip asked, "Did someone mention soda?"

"No," Sean said.

"Yes, you did," John said.

"No, I didn't," Sean said.

The dwarves took turns arguing with Sean, each claiming he had mentioned sodas while Sean denied it. The argument had gone on for about five minutes when Chom said, "No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did," Sean said and then slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand.

"Hah! I knew it!" Pip shouted.

Sean said, "Stomp just ruined a bunch of police cars."

"He totally demolished about a dozen of them," Clea said.

"It was great," Chom said.

Sean said, "I wonder if there are any enterprising and ambitious dwarves around here."

Suspicious, Chom asked, "Why?"

"I was just thinking that an enterprising and ambitious dwarf, or four, might want to earn a whole bunch of soda," Sean said.

"Uh oh. That sounds like you're talking about work," Chom said with a frown.

Tugging on his beard, Thur said, "I don't like work."

"I don't mind work so long as someone else is doing it," Pip said.

Chom said, "You can say that again."

"I don't mind work so long as someone else is doing it," Pip said.

Chom started to say, "You can say..."

"No, he can't," Clea said hitting Chom on the head.

"Why not?" Chom asked while rubbing his head.

"We have more important things to talk about."

"Like what?" Pip asked.

"How many sodas are you talking about?" Clea asked looking at Sean.

"That is a good question," Chom admitted.

"I agree," Pip said.

"It's unanimous," Thur said. "That was a very good question indeed."

Clea asked, "So how many sodas are you talking about and what would we have to do to get it?"

"I was thinking that someone might offer to fix the cars for ... oh... ," Sean paused dramatically. When all four dwarves were leaning in to hear his suggested figure, he said, "five hundred bottles of soda a car."

"With a dozen cars, that's ... six thousand sodas," John said.

The four dwarves looked at each other. They looked at Sean. They looked back at each other. Their faces broke out in greedy little grins.

Trying to sound nonchalant, Chom said, "I don't mind work all that much."

"Sometimes it is better to work than to watch someone work," Pip said stroking his beard thoughtfully.

"Six thousand sodas," Thur said.

"I do like the sound of that," Pip said.

"Six thousand. That's a nice round number," Clea said.

"It sure is," Chom said.

Sean asked, "Can I ask you a question?"

"You just did," Clea said.

Sean asked, "What are you doing standing around here talking about it?"

John said, "Someone could offer to fix each car for four hundred sodas and then you'd have none."

The dwarves looked at each other for a second. They turned and charged towards where the cars had been flattened. There was the normal pushing and shoving as each tried to be the first one there. Pip fell down. Chom ran over him. Pip grabbed Chom's foot. Chom fell down. Pip ran over him. Chom chased after Pip shouting.

"Excitable little fellers, aren't they?" John said.

Sean turned to John and said, "I'm sorry. I should have introduced you to them."

"You have some rather unusual friends," John said.

"I guess," Sean said.

John said, "That one guy had breasts just like a woman."

"That's because Clea is a woman," Sean said.

"She has a beard."

"All dwarf women have beards," Sean said.

"Interesting. I didn't know that," John said.

"Let's go get something to drink."

"Lead on McDuff."

The pair were heading towards the Student Center, a rather remarkable nondescript building that was the center of student life. It was one of the places outside of the school cafeteria and library where students of all majors rubbed elbows with each other. Young women, away from the watchful eyes of their parents, were strutting their stuff. Young men, majoring in babes, beer, and what might become a profession were hell bent on pursuing the first two items on their to do list, get laid and get drunk, with great diligence.

John was busy identifying all of the women he was going date in school. Sean was distracted from listening to his roommate ramble on when Lily tugged on his shirt sleeve. He looked at her wondering why she wasn't in the car with his mother and father.

He asked, "What are you doing here?"

"Where are Mom and Dad?"

Sean answered, "They went home. Didn't you leave with them?"

"No. I was distracted by an exceptionally fine example of a hunky male," Lily answered.

"I keep telling you that you should be studying math and physics instead of looking at boys," Sean said.

"The only math I'm interested in is his telephone number. I got it and a promise that he'll do all kinds of things for me," Lily said.

"A telephone number is not math."

"It's a number and that's as much math as I need to know," Lily said.

Groaning, Sean said, "You're going to put me in an early grave."

"How am I supposed to get home?" she asked.

"That's a good question," Sean said.

Lily spotted a particularly well built young man. She did something with her skirt that raised the hemline an additional two inches. As far as Sean was concerned, her skirt was already four inches too short.

She said, "I think I'll stay here, or rather ... over there by him."

"No, you won't," Sean said grabbing her arm and pulling her back beside him.

John said, "Who's the young lady?"

"My sister," Seans said.

"You should probably call your mother or father to come pick her up," John said.

"I don't have a phone," Sean said.

John pulled out his cell phone. He said, "You can use my superduper splenderifous knock-off clone of a Chinese copy of an android phone."

"That's neat," Sean said examining the phone.

"It does everything," John said.

"That's amazing," Sean said. He looked at it for a moment and then asked, "How do I make a call?"

"I haven't figured that part out, yet," John said looking a little embarrassed.

Lily grabbed the phone. Two seconds later she was saying, "Sean Connery called here looking for you."

"At Baron, where you left me," Lily answered after a moment's pause.

"Come pick me up in the Student Center. Maybe he'll call back," Lily said.

She hung up and said, "Mom said she'll be here in ten minutes."

"Good," Sean said.

"How did you do that?" John asked.

"Do what?"

"Make a call."

Lily said, "Let me show you."

Lily and John spent the next five minutes bent over the cell phone while Lily explained all of the features. Sean watched thinking he was going to have to get one of those phones. The question was, where would he get the money? He looked out the window and spotted a squirrel digging through one of the trashcans. It disappeared for a second and then emerged with a hunk of hamburger bun.

Sean went outside. The squirrel, not a very trusting soul, watched him carefully. When Sean got a little closer the squirrel grumbled, "He's going to steal my food."

"I'm not going to steal your food," Sean said.

"You speak squirrel!"

"Yes, I do," Sean said.

The squirrel said, "You're definitely going to steal my food."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because that's what squirrels do. We steal each others food."

"I'm not going to steal your food. I'm looking for money," Sean said.

"Is that food?" the squirrel asked.

"No. I'll give you food for money," Sean said.

"I don't know what money is," the squirrel said.

Sean dug into his pockets before pulling out a bunch of coins and a dollar bill. Holding them up, he said, "That's money."

"I've seen that before," the squirrel said.

"You have?"

"Yes, I'll have you know that squirrels are very observant. We notice everything," the squirrel stated proudly.

"I'd appreciate if it you'd collect some for me. I'll give you a whole bagel," Sean said knowing that he could always take an extra bagel out of the cafeteria in the morning. He was on a meal plan.

"Bagel? I like bagels!"

"Good," Sean said.

"What should I do with the money?" the squirrel asked.

"Let me find a place for you to hide it," Sean said.

"Okay," the squirrel said and went back to eating.

Sean looked around and spotted an empty cup. He grabbed it and went over to a bush. He buried half of the cup in the ground where it would be hidden well out of sight. He returned to the trashcan where the squirrel was eating a piece of donut. It particularly enjoyed the sugar rush from the frosting.

"I put a cup under the bush. Hide the money in the cup," Sean said.

"Okay," the squirrel said.

"Thanks," Sean said.

Thinking he may have solved a minor money problem, he entered the building. It took him a minute to find Lily and John. They were seated at one of the tables still discussing the cell phone and all of its features. He joined them at the table.

"Where were you?" Lily asked.

"I was talking to a squirrel," Sean answered.

John laughed. "You were talking to a squirrel! That's a good one."

Sean was about to reply that he could talk to squirrels, but there was a screech from the front door that demanded his attention. Everyone in the room turned to look at the source of the brain piercing noise. The next thing Sean knew, his mother was flying in their direction screaming the whole way. She was very excited.

"When did he call?" his mother asked even before reaching the table.

"Who?" Lily asked as if she had no idea who her mother meant.

"Sean Connery!"

Innocently, Lily said, "Oh that. I was mistaken."

"Mistaken?" Sean's mother said with a frown.

"He said that he was Connor McClown of the clan McClown. I thought that Sean Connery played that role until Sean pointed out that it was Christopher Dumbert who played that role."

"How disappointing. You must have been crushed. I know I would have been," Sean's mother said.

Lily said, "I was devastated."

"How could you possibly mistake Christopher Dumbert for Sean Connery?"

"You know, all those Englishmen sound the same to me," Lily said.

"He's Scottish," Sean's mother corrected.

"That might have been part of the problem. All those accents confuse me. I've never really talked with him before," Lily said.

Sean's mother said, "We'll watch a bunch of his films so that you won't make that mistake again."

"Shot myself in the foot with that one," Lily muttered.

"Well, let's go home," Sean's mother said.

"Bye, Sean."

"Bye, Lily."

"Bye, John."

"Bye, Lily."

Waving a hand, Lily shouted, "Hey, hunky big guy! I'll be seeing you."

"See you!"

"No, you won't," Sean said. He shouted, "And if you do, just remember – she's under aged."

Sean's mother said, "Oh, Sean. I didn't see you there."

"Of course you didn't. You were concerned about Sean Connery."

"I'm glad you understand."

"Where's Dad?" Sean asked.

He had images of his mother driving off leaving his father behind. Then he'd have to make a call and get her to come back for him. A mental movie of juggling family members came to mind.

"He's outside chasing a squirrel around the campus. It stole his coffee money right out of his hand," his mother answered.

"Uh oh," Sean said. "I better get a bagel and talk to that squirrel."

John laughed. "Ah! My roommate thinks he can talk to squirrels."



-------

Chapter 6


Every university of any size has one. A small area of land that has been set aside as sacred ground – made holy by the blood, sweat, and tears of generations of students. In the manner of a shrine, the university builds seats surrounding that patch of turf so that students, past and present, can come, and, as observers, participate in the Saturday ritual called College Football.

On this, the first day of school, the groundskeeper made a discovery that turned the whole university on its' head. There, in the center of that most sacred places of the university, was a ramshackle shack made of material taken from one section of the seats. A tendril of black smoke leaked out a crooked chimney. Sounds of fighting, bickering, and yelling were nearly muted by the constant sound of hammer hitting anvil.

The groundskeeper, either having a heart attack or doing a very good job of faking one, staggered back to the locker room where the coaches were reviewing the plans their first home game of the season. The words that came out of his mouth were so incredible that the coaches had to see for themselves. They ran from from the locker room to the field. The physical trainer stayed behind to call an ambulance for the groundskeeper.

-------

Sean was headed into the very first class of his college career. It appeared to be a university rule that all Freshmen were required to take at least one eight o'clock class. The rumor was the rule existed so that all students could finish their first year with a solid D in some subject.

Much to Sean's surprise, Henri landed on his shoulder. A number of students, a pitifully small fraction of those stumbling blurry eyed towards their classes, took note of the duck. A few thought it was a figment of their imagination brought about by too much alcohol the previous night.

"The dwarves are in trouble," Henri said.

"Where are they?" Sean asked still making his way to class.

A few more students took note of Sean walking down the hall quacking like a duck. No one was alert enough to make a comment about it, though.

"In the giant nest shaped thing," Henri said.

Sean said, "I'll check it out after class."

"What's a class?" Henri said.

"It's a meeting where we go to learn stuff or get bored," Sean answered.

"That dude is talking to a duck," a student said.

"Can I go?" Henri asked.

"Sure," Sean said.

A coed cooed, "Oh, look at the cute duck."

Henri preened and said, "There's a woman of discerning taste."

"Hey Duck! Hunting season opens up soon. I'll be seeing you," another student said.

Henri said, "Not if I see you first."

"Don't worry about him," Sean said.

Henri said, "I've got a month of target practice before hunting season starts. By then, he'll run when he sees a duck flying overhead."

Sean spotted the room in which his class was going to be held in. He entered and took a seat in the front row. Henri took a seat on the desk next to his. Sean looked around the room.

"We must be early. There are only six of us in here," Sean said.

"This is exciting," Henri quacked.

Professor Gibbons walked into the classroom. He went to the front desk and set his papers down. He looked around the room with a snarl on his face. There was a whole room of seats available, and only one person chose to sit in the front row. The other five people were all seated in the back row.

"I see that you poor miserable excuses for students have not heard about me. I'm sure that you didn't believe the rumors that I like to flunk everyone out of the course in the first two weeks of class so that I don't have to teach an eight o'clock class. That is not a rumor, that is a fact."

Henri quacked, "This isn't going to be boring."

Professor Gibbons roared, "Is that a duck in my class?"

Sean raised his hand and shouted, "Oh! Oh! Call on me!"

"You!" Professor Gibbons screamed while pointing at Sean.

"Yes, it is a duck," Sean answered thinking it was pretty nice to start off a class with an easy question.

"What is a duck doing in my classroom?"

Sean raised his hand and shouted, "Oh! Oh! Call on me!"

"You!" Professor Gibbons said pointing at Sean.

"It came to learn from the smartest nicest teacher on campus," Sean answered.

Henri quacked, "You're laying it on a little thick there."

Professor Gibbons shouted, "Duck! You came to the wrong room for that!"

"This is not going to be boring," Henri said looking around to see if there was a window he could fly out.

Professor Gibbons leaned across the desk and glared at Henri. He said, "I take the school motto very seriously. You will shut up and learn something. Do you hear me, Duck?"

"Yes," Henri quacked.

Sean thought that was worthy of comment. He smiled broadly and gave the man two thumbs up. Professor Gibbons snarled at Sean. Opening up his grade book, Professor Gibbons flipped through the pages until he reached the roster for this particular class. He smiled evilly at the room.

"Jane Andrews..."

A woman's voice squeaked, "Here."

"I wasn't calling roll!"

"Oh."

"What is the purpose of government?" he asked in a bellow.

"I don't know," Jane answered trying to crawl under her desk.

Although she wasn't sure what to expect in college, she surely hadn't expected her first class to be like this. All of her teachers in high school were nice. They didn't yell or bellow like this guy.

"Wrong answer!"

"Sorry," she said near tears.

"Blaine Chaucer. What is the purpose of government?"

Blaine said, "That's what I'm in this class to learn."

"If you had come to this class to learn something, you'd have read the book! Did you? No! You came here expecting to be spoon fed like a little baby. Well, guess what. There will be no babying in my classroom. You are adults and you will act like adults," Professor Gibbons shouted.

Two of the students in the class stood up and ran out of the room. Professor Gibbons watched them leave. He rubbed his hands together and looked down at his role sheet.

"Sean Michaels. What is the purpose of government?"

"It's to protect the people from threats originating from both within and without the geopolitical boundaries over which the government claims sovereignty," Sean answered.

"That's the wr... ," Professor Gibbons started to shout. He paused, he frowned, and then he said, "That's the textbook answer."

"I know. That's where I got it from," Sean said.

Professor Gibbons looked at Sean. He was sitting in the front row and actually was prepared for class. He hadn't had a student do that in years. He muttered, "Damn, there's still four of them left."

Henri quacked, "Five, if you count me."

"Duck! What did you say?" Professor Gibbons bellowed.

Henri quacked, "I said – five, if you count me."

"Ronny Spengler. Are you an anarchist?"

Ronny answered, "I don't know."

"Do you even know what an anarchist is?"

"No."

"Wrong answer!" Professor Gibbons shouted.

Ronny stood up and said, "I don't have to take this!"

"Then leave," Professor Gibbons shouted.

Ronny and another student fled the room. Professor Gibbons said, "Then there were two ... uh ... three if you count the duck."

Professor Gibbons shouted, "Blaine Chaucer. Are you an anarchist?"

"Yes," Blaine said with a smirk. "I don't believe in government."

"Really?" Professor Gibbons asked with a very evil expression on his face.

"Yes," Blaine said smugly.

"What are you going to do when I go over to you, rip your head off, and shit down your neck?" Professor Gibbons asked in a loud roar that probably echoed down the halls of the entire building.

"You can't do that. That's illegal," Blaine said pompously.

Earning a look of approval from Professor Gibbons, Sean muttered, "Wrong answer."

"Not when there isn't a government to protect you," Professor Gibbons said.

"There is a government, though," Blaine said.

Professor Gibbons said, "Guess what, Anarchist. You just earned an F in the course. Stupidity like yours can't be fixed."

Blaine said, "We'll see about that. I'm going to complain to the Dean!"

"Go ahead! You won't the first student to complain about me and you won't the last. I'm tenured," Professor Gibbons said.

Blaine stormed out of the class. Professor Gibbons said, "Then there was one."

"Two if you count the duck," Sean said.

In a dull roar, Professor Gibbons asked, "Are you an anarchist?"

"No. I rather like the concept of being protected from threats," Sean said. "I'm a firm believer in the need for government."

"Is that because you're a ninety pound weakling?"

"No. Actually, I'm pretty capable of taking care of myself," Sean said.

Professor Gibbons pulled up a chair and said, "You don't strike me as being particularly capable of taking care of yourself, but I'll ignore that for the moment. Why are you a firm believer in the need for government?"

"Henri, this magnificent specimen of duck-hood, is an example. He lives in an anarchy, but not by choice. There's no government of ducks. His whole life is lived in constant fear and there's not one duck that will step in to protect him if he gets threatened. He won't die of old age. I don't want to live like that," Sean said.

Impressed, Professor Gibbons said, "That's a very good argument."

"Thank you," Sean said.

"Do you really want to have an eight o'clock class?"

"Not really."

"Do you have class between one and two thirty on Tuesdays and Thursdays?"

"No."

"Let's meet in my office during that time instead of here at eight," Professor Gibbons said.

"Okay," Sean said.

Professor Gibbons said, "I'll see you at one on Thursday. Read chapter two and we'll discuss it."

"Great," Sean said.

Sean left the room with Henri riding his shoulder. The halls were basically empty since the class had ended early. All in all, Sean felt that the class had gone well. At least he didn't have to be there at eight o'clock in the morning.

Sean quacked, "That's a pretty good teacher. He asks good questions that make you think. I'm going to recommend his class to everyone."

Henri said, "It sure wasn't boring."

"I know. I hate boring," Sean said.

"Talking about hating being bored, don't forget about the dwarves," Henri said.

Sean said, "You did say that you thought they were in trouble. Where is this giant nest you talked about?"

-------

Coach Winalot, head coach of the football team, had stood on the field for ten minutes stunned that anyone would dare build a shack in the middle of his football field. The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. Someone was going to pay for this insult and he wanted it to be by his hands. He thought he could take care of the matter by tossing the little fellows off the field and demolishing their building. He stormed over to the shack and pounded on the door.

Chom stuck his head out, looked around, looked up at the coach, and then said, "We're busy."

"I want you off my field," Coach Winalot said in a low angry growl.

"Go away. We're busy," Chom said dismissively.

"I'm here to toss you off the field," Coach Winalot said sucking in his gut and trying to look larger and fitter than he really was.

Much to his consternation, his threat to toss them out was met with considerable glee. The dwarves piled out of their workshop and lined up facing the coaching staff of the football team. There was a bit of pushing and shoving while the dwarves established a proper order.

At one time, Dwarf Tossing was a real sport, albeit a simple one with very few rules. A dwarf and a non-dwarf would try to throw each other. The one who was thrown was the loser. Of course, in those days the dwarves fought back and it was a rare occasion when it would be the dwarf who was tossed. The exceptions were when dwarves faced trolls, ogres, and giants.

Chom stepped forward and said, "I'm first."

Rubbing his hands together excitedly, Pip said, "This ought to be good."

Thur said, "We haven't had a proper dwarf toss in centuries."

Jumping up and down excitedly, Clea shouted, "Go Chom!"

Coach Winalot did not know that Chom was one of the past Dwarf Toss champions. When he grabbed Chom to toss him off the field, Chom threw him thirty yards down the field. As far as the dwarves were concerned, Coach Winalot made a satisfying thump when he hit the ground. They applauded Chom's effort.

Clea shouted, "Dwarves one and Humans zero. Next!"

Pip exchanged places with Chom. "My turn!"

The coach of the special teams went to grab Pip and flew thirty-five yards down the field. The dwarves whistled and clapped the effort. Pip turned and bowed.

Clea shouted, "Dwarves two and Humans zero."

"Mine went further than yours," Pip said strutting around in front of Chom.

Chom said, "Mine was fatter than yours."

"He was not."

"He was too."

Thur said, "Who cares? It's my turn!"

The defensive coach charged at him like he was going to sack a quarterback and then flew through the air in a low arc. He only went twenty-five yards before bouncing to a stop. Thur kicked the ground in disgust.

Chom said, "You'll do better next time."

"You need to work on your form," Pip said.

"I'm a little out of practice," Thur said.

Clea stepped up and said, "My turn."

The offensive coach flew a respectable thirty-three yards. He made a nice oomph sound when he landed. It was a good toss and her form was near perfect.

Clea jumped up and down while shouting, "I've still got it!"

"That was good," Chom said.

"It's going to be hard to beat that," Pip said.

Thur said, "Dwarves four and Humans zero."

Chom shouted, "Let's go again."

The coaches, rather abashed by their failure to toss the dwarves off the field, went into a huddle. It was a regular football huddle with each of the men bent over at the waist with hands on their thighs. They gave each other significant looks.

Coach Winalot said, "That didn't go well."

"Not well at all," the defensive coach said.

"We can do better."

"Yes, we can."

"We have to do better. We can't play a game Saturday with that shack on the fifty yard line," Coach Winalot said.

Chom poked his head into the huddle and asked, "What are you talking about?"

"We're planning our strategy," Coach Winalot answered.

"That ought to be interesting. Can I listen?"

"No. Get back over there."

"Darn. I was hoping to have a laugh or two," Chom said before going back over to the other dwarves.

"What did they say?" Pip asked.

"They said they were planning their strategy," Chom answered.

Thur laughed. "Strategy in a dwarf tossing contest? That's stupid."

"They're amateurs," Clea said.

"We should have been able to toss them further than we did considering they think this is a contest of strategy," Chom said disappointed in the quality of the opposition.

Sean arrived in time to watch Chom throw two coaches at the same time. He watched them fly through the air with the greatest of ease; pretty confident that wasn't their intention.

He walked over to Pip and asked, "What's going on?"

"We're having a Dwarf Tossing contest."

"Who's winning?"

"The score is Dwarves 22 and Humans 0."

"That's a rather lopsided score," Sean said.

Thur said, "They think it is a game of strategy."

Sean and Henri burst out laughing.



-------

Chapter 7


Living at college, in different dorm rooms, and majoring in different subjects was making it hard for Sean and Suzie to spend as much time together as they both wished. Since this was one of two classes he shared with Suzie, they were walking to class together holding hands. His excitement was almost palpable. She did not look anywhere near as excited as he did.

They stepped out of the dorm building. It was a beautiful September morning. The sky had a few puffy clouds, the temperature was perfect, and there was a soft breeze in the air. Freshman students were walking to classes filled with anticipation of what they were about to experience. Seniors, jaded by three years of education, shuffled towards classes thinking they only had another year of school and then they would free.

On the lawn outside the dorm building, the squirrels were scampering around stealing food from each other and generally bickering. Occasionally, one squirrel would stop to watch the people walking past. Women passing by clutched their purses tightly. Men held a hand over their back pockets to protect their wallets.

A squirrel spotted Sean and then chattered, "I want a bagel."

"I'm not giving you any more bagels," Sean replied.

Sean was finding it impossible to walk anywhere on campus without a squirrel coming to him demanding a bagel. His efforts to get them to stop stealing money were proving ineffective.

"I want a bagel."

"No. I've told all of you before that you have to stop stealing money."

"I want a bagel."

Several other squirrels took up the chant, "We want bagels."

Suzie, not understanding what the squirrels were saying, said, "The squirrels sure are acting weird."

"Uh ... yeah," Sean said.

"They've been stealing money from everyone," Suzie said.

The first page of the latest edition of the school newspaper had a sequence of pictures of a squirrel approaching a woman's purse, rummaging through it and then emerging with a wad of bills in its mouth. The headline on the paper announced that Baron University had been invaded by a criminal gang of squirrels.

"I'm trying to get them to stop doing that," Sean said.

A big fat squirrel came waddling out. He said, "We want bagels and we want them now."

"Stop stealing money," Sean said.

"Our agreement was, we find money and you give us bagels."

"I'm ending the agreement."

"You can't do that."

"Yes, I can."

"No, you can't."

"I'll make you stop," Sean said.

"We want bagels and we want them now!"

The squirrels all started closing in on Sean and Suzie. The aggressive stance of the squirrels was beginning to make Suzie nervous.

Moving to stand closer to Sean, she said, "I don't like this."

"Don't worry, Suzie. "I'll take care of this," Sean said.

"Good," Suzie said.

Facing the squirrels, Sean said, "I'm warning all of you. You've got to stop stealing money and demanding bagels or I'm going to have to do something to stop you."

"Your threats don't scare us. We outnumber you," the fat squirrel said confidently.

Sean said, "I speak hawk."

"Hawk?" the fat squirrel asked nervously.

"Yes," Sean said. He let out the screech of a hunting hawk.

The squirrels scattered. Each ran to a tree and climbed up it. Peeking around the trunks, the squirrels started shaking their fists and barking angrily at him. The big fat squirrel was still trying to climb up the trunk of the closest tree, but was having a little difficulty getting his massive body up the tree. He turned to Sean and said, "This means war!"

Sean let loose with another screech of a hunting hawk. Within seconds there wasn't a squirrel to be seen anywhere. Even the fat squirrel managed to make it up the tree.

"That took care of that," Sean said.

"Thank goodness," Suzie said.

Sean said, "I hope they got the message to stop stealing money."

"I'm sure they did," Suzie said.

"Let's get to class. I'd hate to be late to class, especially this class," Sean said.

Suzie frowned at Sean's enthusiasm. She asked, "Did you explain to your adviser about your enthusiasm for certain topics?"

"Yes. That's why I'm taking this class from Dr. Waters. My adviser said he really loves enthusiastic students," Sean answered.

"That doesn't worry you?" Suzie asked.

"I'm looking forward to it," Sean said.

"I guess it'll be okay," Suzie said with only a slight trace of concern in her voice.

They walked across the campus to the building in which there class was to be held. Much to their surprise and pleasure, there wasn't a squirrel to be seen. They entered the building. With each classroom they passed, Sean's excitement grew while Suzie's nervousness increased.

She slowed while passing one of the labs and looked at the sign over the door. It read, 'Atoms split here.' A little further down the hall was another room with a sign over it. It read, 'Burn stuff with a tightly focused beam of light.' Suzie slowed her step and nearly turned around to leave the building when she came across a room with the sign over the door, 'Future headquarters of the new world government.'

All was mostly well until he spotted it. That hallowed room at the end of the hallway called to Sean with a power too strong for him to resist. He nearly dragged poor Suzie to the door. He stopped and looked at the writing above the door. It was a simple message that resonated with Sean – 'Pour, pour, step back, boom!'

"The chemistry lab," Sean said with an awed voice.

Suzie not only looked worried, she was worried. The potential for disaster loomed large on the horizon. There were shelves containing rows and rows of chemicals locked behind glass doors. She could see that they were beckoning Sean, tempting him to mix them in all kinds of ways – both natural and unnatural. She hoped that the chemistry instructor would be able to moderate Sean's enthusiasm.

"Oh look! Sulfuric acid! Nitric Acid! Acetic Acid!" Sean exclaimed pointing to a collection of bottles on one of the shelves.

"Uh, we should get to our seats," Suzie said nervously.

"I need keys," Sean said almost maniacally.

"No you don't," Suzie said horrified at the prospect of Sean having unfettered access to the chemicals.

Sean went to get in one of the seats at the front of the lab, but the first row of tables were roped off as were half of the seats in the second row. The plastic tape that was used to keep people from using those seats were marked with 'Do Not Enter. Police Crime Scene.' There was a major chunk missing out of one of the lab tables in the first row. Actually, it was more than a chunk. About all that was left of the table were parts of three of the legs. There were little pieces of glass embedded in the other lab tables along with burn marks.

Sean and Suzie, much to Sean's disappointment, had to settle for seats at the far end of the second row. Suzie sat at the end, wanting to put as much space between her and the damaged tables. She kept glancing at the spot where the missing table was supposed to be while wishing she could be seated on the last row of lab tables.

"I'm going to enjoy having you for a lab partner," Sean said.

Worried, Suzie said, "I really need an A in this class if I'm going to get into medical school."

"No problem. We'll get A's," Sean said confidently.

Dr. Waters strode into the lab. Small scars peppered his face and hands. He only had half an eyebrow over his right eye. The eyebrow over the left eye was completely missing. His lab coat had little burn marks scattered over it. He looked around at the shelves with a maniacal gleam in his eyes. Sean thought there was something familiar about the expression on the man's face.

"Greetings ladies and gentlemen. I am Dr. Waters and I'll be your instructor for Chem 1101, the Intro to Chemistry class."

Sean leaned over to Suzie and said, "He looks like a chemistry teacher."

Suzie said, "He looks more like a mad scientist or pyromaniac to me."

"I know. That's how a real chemistry teacher is supposed to look," Sean said happily.

Dr. Waters laughed while rubbing his hands together and then said, "Prepare yourselves for our first lab demonstration."

Excited, Sean said, "Oh boy! He even has a maniacal laugh."

"Oh no! He even has a maniacal laugh," Suzie said fearfully.

Standing at the lab table at the front of the room, Dr. Waters poured the contents of one test tube into a beaker while saying, "First, we pour a little of this into the beaker."

"Then we pour the contents of this test tube into the beaker," he said while fitting actions to words.

He took a step back while announcing, "Then we take a step back."

Realizing what was about to happen, Suzie shouted, "Duck!"

BOOM! The beaker exploded in a cloud of smoke and flying glass.

A few students looked like they had enjoyed the demonstration, but most of them looked a little concerned. In fact, a few students looked absolutely terrified. Starting a class off with an explosion was kind of unusual, but ducking flying glass was more than what they expected in a college course. One student, pulled a piece of glass out of his cheek and promptly fainted.

"I love chemistry," Dr. Waters announced.

"So do I," Sean shouted.

Dr. Waters smiled at Sean. He liked to see enthusiastic students who were interested in Chemistry.

"I need a laboratory assistant," Dr. Waters said.

Sean jumped out of his seat with his hand in the air. Jumping up and down, he shouted, "Pick me! Pick me!"

Dr. Waters pointed at Sean and said, "You!"

"Great!"

Dr. Waters said, "Remind me to give you the keys to the chemicals after class."

"Oh wow!"

"Oh dear," Suzie said getting worried.

"The Dean requires that I ask every class one question on the first day of the semester," Dr. Waters said a little uneasily. "Does anyone in the class not have health insurance?"

A student raised his hand.

"You don't have health insurance?" Dr. Waters asked with a frown.

"I have health insurance, but I have a question," the student asked.

"What's your question?"

"Do we really need to be insured?" the student asked with emphasis on the word 'need.'

"Definitely. You need health insurance. It's also not a bad idea to have a good life insurance policy; one with a double indemnity clause for accidental death," Dr. Waters answered.

"Why?"

Dr. Waters looked over at the destroy laboratory table and said, "It's been my experience that parents appreciate that forethought if something happens to go wrong on your final exam."

"Uh ... what's the final exam?" the student asked nervously.

Dr. Waters answered, "I'm not going to tell you, but it's basically pass or fail."

"What happens if you fail it?" the student asked.

Looking a little uncomfortable, Dr. Waters answered, "The two kids who used to sit over there last semester failed the final exam."

"What happened to them?" one of the students asked while staring at the spot where the destroyed lab tables were.

"One of them survived ... somewhat."

A dozen students rose and ran out of the room. Disheartened, Dr. Waters watched them leave. Thinking he might get one or two of them to change their minds about leaving, he shouted after them, "Okay, so the kid can't walk, but there wasn't any permanent brain damage!"

There was another mad scramble at the door while another dozen students left the room.

Dr. Waters shouted, "Come back! Don't leave! We get to make toxic clouds of gas, explosives, and carcinogens."

Sean turned to say something to Suzie about how some students just didn't seem interested in getting an education.

"Suzie?" He looked around without spotting her. "I wonder where she went?"

Dr. Waters sighed. "I really try hard to make this a fun class."

"It looks like it's going to be a blast," Sean said earning a smile from Dr. Waters and a groan from the handful of students left in the room.

Dr. Waters said, "Today's lecture is on making Nitrocellulose, also known as guncotton. A little known fact about guncotton is that it was once used to make billiard balls. The only drawback to them was that they occasionally spontaneously combusted or exploded."

"Cool!" Sean said, "Chemistry and history in one class. You can't ask for more than that."

An hour later, Sean left the laboratory very pleased with the class. He was proud that his sample of Nitrocellulose made the biggest bang among all of the student samples. Even Dr. Waters was impressed.

Pausing for a moment, Sean said, "This is going to be an easy A."



-------

Chapter 8


On his way to the building, Sean passed two police officers guarding five tall stacks of sodas. He could tell that they were guarding it by the way they were marching around it and looking very self-important. He stopped to examine the stacks of sodas. It was the cheapest brand of soda on the market, but Sean knew that the Dwarves wouldn't care.

"You're guarding five hundred bottles of soda?" Sean asked.

"Six hundred bottles," one of the officers answered.

"Why six hundred? I thought they were fixing the cars for five hundred," Sean said.

"We wanted special features," one of the officers said.

"That's right," one of the officers answered.

The other officer said, "I can't wait to drive it. We clocked the last one at three hundred miles an hour before it went off the road and sank in the pond."

"You've got to admit the splash it made was pretty good."

"Good? It was a great."

"Thank goodness the Chief knew how to swim."

"So what special features did you want?" Sean asked.

"We wanted one that floated."

"I can't swim."

"I can see why you'd want it to float," Sean said nodding his head sagely.

"We also got a parachute," one of the officers said.

Both officers put a hand over their hearts and looked down at the ground. In unison, they said, "Poor Scotty."

"What happened to Scotty?" Sean asked.

"He went off the side of a cliff," one of the officers said.

"Did he die?" Sean asked horrified.

"No. It was a spectacular crash, but he walked away from it," one of the officers said.

"So why the poor Scotty bit?" Sean asked puzzled.

"He said that his whole life flashed before his eyes when he went off the cliff."

Curious, Sean asked, "What did he see?"

"The only thing he remembered was losing his virginity."

"That's a good one to remember," Sean said.

"Actually, all he remembered of it was drinking before and waking up after."

"That's sad," Sean said.

"That's not much for a whole life."

Sean said, "That's true."

"He wants to live long enough to get at least one more thing to flash before his eyes the next time he almost dies. At least something more than his experience of flying off the cliff."

"I can't blame him," Sean said.

"He's gotten real careful since then."

"He won't drive over twenty-five miles per hour now."

There was an explosion from inside the building that shook the ground. The two officers pulled their pistols and turned to see what had happened. They couldn't take any chances. After all, they were guarding six hundred bottles of soda.

"It sounds like they got it started," Sean said.

"What?"

Sean said, "It sounds like they got the car started."

"That was the explosion?"

"Yes," Sean said.

There was a rattling sound while the garage door opened. A few seconds later a car flew out of the building, swerved out onto the street, and took off like a rocket sled with tires spinning and smoking. It was a long low sleek looking car.

"Someone stole our car!"

Seans said, "No. The Dwarves are just taking it out for a test drive."

"I didn't think of that," one of the officers said.

The other one said, "I knew that."

"At least it doesn't look like a rocket," Sean said.

"A rocket car? That would be so neat," the policeman said.

"It sounds neat, but Chief Fastman back home had one and couldn't catch a speeder to save his life. It kept flying into billboards," Sean said.

"Really?"

"He said that it was kind of embarrassing having the speeders drive past laughing at him," Sean said.

"That would be embarrassing."

"Definitely."

"Still ... a rocket car," one of the police officers said with longing in his voice.

"That one looks pretty fast," Sean said.

"I like fast."

The car pulled up and the Dwarves piled out of it. The went over to the two police officers.

"Is that the soda?" Chom asked.

"Yes."

Pointing at the car, Pip said, "That's your car."

"It looks fast," one of the police officers said.

"It's fast, but it's got no bounce," Chom said.

"That's good, isn't it?" Sean said.

"We like a lot of bounce," Pip said.

"Bounce is good," Clea said.

They immediately swarmed over the stacks of soda, and began dragging them into the building. Sean went to help, but thought better of it. He wasn't sure how the Dwarves would react to someone getting between them and their sodas.

The two cops drove off in the car with tires squealing and smoking. Their right turn at the end of the street ended up being more like a pretzel than a right angle. It did look like they were having a little difficulty controlling the car.

Sean followed the Dwarves into the building. Along one wall was a pile of flattened police cars. Along another wall were stacks and stacks of soda. There was far more soda than he figured repairing the police cars would bring.

"Wow! You've got a lot of soda here," Sean said.

Chom belched after draining a large bottle of soda. He grabbed another one and opened it. Pip grabbed another one and took a long drink from it.

"We got two thousand bottles of soda when we negotiated the move out of our workshop. You should have seen Clea negotiate. For a moment there, I thought she was really dying," Chom said.

Sean, having experienced how Dwarves and leprechauns negotiate, knew exactly what Chom meant. A dwarvish negotiator made an amateur actor look like a professional.

"That's a pretty good deal. So how did you end up with building?" Sean asked looking around at the structure.

"It was part of the deal," Thur said while grabbing his third big bottle of soda.

"I guess you were in a pretty good bargaining position since schools are pretty vain about their football fields," Sean said.

"You can say that again," Pip said.

Everyone waited for Sean. Sean looked back at them. They stared at him waiting for him to repeat himself.

"I guess you were in a <mumble> <mumble> since schools are pretty blah blah blah," Sean said not quite able to remember exactly what he had said.

"That's no good," Pip said with a look of disgust on his face.

"It was close enough," Sean said defensively.

"No it wasn't," Pip said.

"Yes, it was," Sean said.

"What was that mumble mumble bit? Or the blah blah?" Chom asked.

"That was a little lame," Thur said in agreement with Chom.

"More than lame, it was quadriplegic," Clea said.

Wanting to divert the conversation, Sean said, "You got a pretty good deal from the school."

"You can say that again," Pip said.

"You got a pretty good deal from the school," Sean said rolling his eyes.

"That's better," Pip said.

Chom said, "He could have put some energy into it."

Sean looked around and spotted a box filled with a variety of small bags of chips. He walked over to the box and looked in it. He knew better than to assume that they had purchased the chips. There was some nervous clearing of throats behind him.

"Where'd you get the chips?" Sean asked.

Pip said, "A ... uh ... a..."

"A private commission," Chom said.

"Yeah, a private commission," Pip said nodding his head in agreement.

"Oh? From whom?" Sean asked.

"Ahhh ... You wouldn't know them," Chom said nervously.

"Them?" Sean asked suspicious of who might have commissioned something from the Dwarves.

The Dwarves all looked a little uneasy. Chom started rocking back and forth on his heels while whistling. Pip went over to the stacks of soda and started counting them. Thur went over to the flattened police cars and pulled one off of the pile.

Clea said,"It's getting late and we have work to do."

"Tell me about this private commission," Sean said.

The Dwarves stood around looking at each other. There was some hemming and hawing. After exchanging numerous guilty looks, the Dwarves shrugged their shoulders.

Finally, Chom said, "If you'll step outside, we can talk about it."

"Outside?" Sean asked suspiciously.

"Definitely, outside," Pip said nodding his head.

Sean stepped through the open garage door. The Dwarves closed the door behind him. Unfortunately, the closed door made it difficult for them to hold a conversion since the Dwarves were on the other side of the door from him.

"They tricked me," Sean said kicking the garage door.

Sean could hear Chom say, "That was a close one."

"He's going to be angry," Thur said.

Sean banged on the metal door and shouted, "Let me in."

"We're busy," Chom shouted.

"We're very busy," Pip said.

Sean walked back to his dorm wondering about the private commission the Dwarves had taken. He noticed Henri flying above. He waved at Henri. All of a sudden the duck dove towards the ground and then pulled back up in flight. A large wet white spot appeared on the head of a student.

The student shouted, "I'm going to kill that duck!"

Another duck flew over head. The student spotted it and started running towards a building. After a few steps there was another splat and white mess in the student's hair. He shook his fist at the sky and shouted, "Wait until duck hunting season!"

A whole flock of ducks flew over. The student ran like crazy towards the building.

Watching the action, Sean said, "It looks like Henri has found a playmate."

He went to Suzie's room and knocked on the door.

Ashley opened the door. Seeing that it was Sean, she unbuttoned another button on her shirt. Come hell or high water, she was going to get him under her thumb. Without even noticing Ashley's actions, Sean looked around her and waved to Suzie. The young woman smiled at seeing the infuriated expression on Ashley's face.

"How is your new chemistry class?" Sean asked.

"I love my chemistry teacher. She's really safety conscious. She went over all of the laboratory safety procedures during the first class," Suzie said.

She had enjoyed her first day in the chemistry lab. The instructor had gone over the various safety procedures that all students were to follow. She demonstrated the proper use of the hood, the enclosed vented chamber, in which all experiments were to be performed. She demonstrated the proper way to use a pipette. The demonstrations did not include anything explosive, or poisonous. She had them use dyed water so that they could see if they splattered something.

"Dr. Waters is safety conscious, too," Sean said defending his chemistry teacher.

Sean was still disappointed that Suzie had transferred into a different section of chemistry. It now meant that he and she shared only a single class, that being math.

"I don't think so," Suzie said having experienced one class with Dr. Waters.

Sean said, "He pointed out in class the value of owning a good gas mask. I went right out and bought one."

"A gas mask?" Suzie queried.

"That and padded clothes," Sean said.

"A gas mask?" Suzie asked again.

"Sure. It's great for dealing with toxic fumes and tear gases," Sean said smiling.

"Tear gas?"

"You should hear about some of the experiments we're going to perform in lab. It's great!" Sean said excited about his class.

Ashley said, "I'm in a chemistry class."

"That's nice," Sean said. "Are you ready for math class, Suzie?"

"You bet."

Ashley asked, "Who is your instructor?"

"Professor Point," Sean answered.

"He's impossible. He gives everyone a C," Ashley said.

Having experienced several very impossible professors and finding them highly engaging, Sean said, "I don't believe that."

"You'll see," Ashley said.

Thirty minutes later, Sean and Suzie were seated in the front row of the class. Sean looked around at his fellow classmates. There were twenty people in the room counting himself.

"They believe in small class sizes here," Sean said to Suzie.

Suzie said, "I was told that the average class size was forty students."

Professor Point walked into the class room carrying a briefcase. He very carefully set the briefcase in the middle of the desk. He even measured it so that he knew it was in the middle of the desk. Slowly, he opened his briefcase and extracted a stack of papers.

"I teach using an inversion method. This class starts with a final exam and ends with an elementary assessment test. Your grade is determined by how late in the semester it takes you to pass an exam."

"Wow! That's a novel approach to teaching," Sean said to Suzie.

"It sounds kind of unfair to me," Suzie said with a worried frown.

"Did you read the textbook?" Sean asked.

"Yes."

"Anything in it you didn't know?" Sean asked.

"Not really," Suzie answered honestly.

Professor Point handed out the test papers. Several students took one look at the test and left the room. He waved farewell to them.

A student said, "I don't have a pencil."

Professor Point paused, pulled out a pencil, and asked, "What is your name?"

"Stan Beckwell."

Professor Point wrote the student's name on the test paper. He then pulled out a red pen and wrote a big fat zero on it. Holding it up for the student to see, he said, "That was easy, wasn't it? You didn't even need a pencil."

"That's not fair!"

"It seems fair enough to me," Professor Point replied while he handed a test paper to Sean.

"You've got to admit, Stan, you made it easy for him to grade your test," Sean said.

Professor Point smiled at Sean and asked, "Do you need a pencil?"

Sean held up a handful of pencils and said, "I brought one and a few spares. I like to be prepared."

"Do you know which end of the pencil to use?"

"Yes, I do," Sean said.

Smiling evilly, Professor Point said, "Let's see you use it."

Sean shrugged his shoulders and went to work on the test. With exaggerated care, he wrote his name at the top of the test. The first question was easy and he had it done in less than fifteen seconds. The second question gave a little trouble and required almost a full minute to answer.

Professor Point was ready to pounce when he noticed that Sean had the correct answers. He frowned and leaned over to watch Sean work the third problem.

Suzie cleared her throat and said, "I'd like a test."

Professor Point handed her a test and continued to watch Sean march through each question. He was about to exclaim that Sean was getting one wrong when Sean turned the pencil around and erased the error.

Sean muttered, "Boy that was dumb. Two and two is five! Right!"

"I've seen worse mistakes," Professor Point muttered.

"I bet you have," Sean said.

Concerned with what he was seeing, Professor Point watched Sean answer the last test question. He'd never had a student complete his first test, much less complete it in five minutes and without an error. He returned to his desk and rummaged through his briefcase.

Sean brought the test up to the desk and said, "Here's my test."

Dismayed that he might actually have to give out an A, Professor Point said, "I believe I gave you the wrong test."

"Oh. Thank goodness, I was looking for something a little more challenging," Sean said.

"Take this one," Professor Point said.

Sean took the test and returned to his desk. He looked over the test with a frown. It was significantly more difficult. He went to work on the first problem.

Suzie walked up to desk at the front of the room and said, "Here's my test."

"Already?"

"Sure. It was kind of easy," Suzie said.

Professor Point looked over the test. She had all of the correct answers as well. He frowned and dug through his briefcase. He pulled out another test and said, "Try this one."

"Okay," Suzie said.

She went back to her seat and started working on it. Other students, a few near tears, dropped tests off at the front desk. Professor Point had few difficulties grading them. None of them had even a single question correct.

He grabbed a test out of the hands of a student without even looking up. He then glanced down at the test. He realized that the questions weren't on the test that he had handed out to the rest of the class. He looked up to find Sean standing there smiling at him. He looked down at the test and frowned. All of the answers were correct.

He said, "I made another mistake and gave you the wrong test. I've got the correct test in my briefcase somewhere."

Professor Point dug through his briefcase. He found a test from one of his higher level class and grinned. He handed it to Sean and said, "Here you go."

"Okay," Sean said taking it back to his seat.

The test question was to prove Fergie's Unproven Theorem, which, as everyone knows, is a convoluted theorem based on a correlation between the number of members of the Royal Family, the season statistics for the New York Yankees, and the number of times a randomly selected valley girl says the work 'like'. It has been used by transportation authorities world-wide to generate driver's license numbers for individuals over sixty-five.

Professor Point saw that Suzie was waiting to turn in her test. He looked it over. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he checked her answers. They were all correct.

"Take this one," he said while handing her another test.

Suzie looked at it and frowned. She asked asked, "Are you sure?"

"Very sure," Professor Point replied.

The class was empty of everyone except Professor Point, Sean, and Suzie. The eighteen other students had walked out of the room in a daze knowing that the best they could make in the class was a B and only if they managed to pass the midterm.

Professor Point asked, "Are you done?"

Scratching his head, Sean said, "The answer didn't come out right."

"What do you mean?"

Sean said, "I couldn't prove it, but I did manage to disprove it."

"Same here," Suzie said. "I was able to use it to show that negative one is equal to zero."

Professor Point raced over to where they were seated and grabbed their tests. He looked over their work with a disgusted frown. The two had taken completely different approaches to disproving Fergie's Unproven Theorem.

"Fergus is going to be upset about this," Professor Point said.

"He is?"

Professor Point said, "I was there at the Rusty Bucket of Booze when, after two full bottles of Scotch, Fergus came up with his famous unproven theorem. We licensed it to the department of transportation and the revenues from it has been buying our booze ever since."

"We're sorry about that," Suzie said.

"By the way, you've got three A's each."

"Three?" Sean asked.

"You took the finals for this class, the one that comes after it, and the special topics class."

"Nice," Suzie said.

Sad, Professor Point looked down at the two tests and said, "There goes our evenings at the Rusty Bucket of Booze."

"Why?"

"There's no way we can afford our bar bill without the income from Fergies Unproven Theorem."

Sean said, "I was just thought of something. Perhaps another drunken bout will produce another theorem of equal worth."

"That's true. There's a lot of government agencies out there," Professor Point said.

"I bet you could come up with something for the Nuclear Regulatory Agency," Sean said.

Professor Point said, "I like the way you think."

"Thank you."



-------

Chapter 9


With Sean off to college and the Dwarves gone, things were returning to as close to normal as possible at the Michaels household. Lisa was now getting all of her mother's attention and that wasn't always such a great thing. At the current moment, Lisa's mother had just discovered what Lisa had been up to while they had taken Sean to school.

"Did you say that a college boy gave you his phone number?" Lisa's Mom asked sweetly.

"Yes, and he was a real hunk, too. I bet he could fetch and carry all kinds of things for me," Lisa said.

"Do you still have his number?"

Holding up the slip of paper, Lisa answered, "Yes, I do."

"I want you to call that number and tell that boy that I want to talk to him."

Lisa said, "Okay."

She dialed the number and waited for big hunky guy to answer.

"Mental Health Hot Line. Are you in crisis?"

Lisa looked around for a second and then said, "Uh ... my Mom wants to talk to you."

Her mother grabbed the phone and shouted, "Listen you little pervert. I'm going to come down there and rip your balls off. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, I hear you."

"Then I'm going to slice them into little thin slices, fry them, and then feed them to you."

"Uh, Ma'am. Are you feeling okay?"

"I'll feel a whole lot better when I'm done with you," Lisa's Mom answered.

"You might want to calm down, Ma'am."

"Calm down? You have the gall to tell me to calm down you little pervert. I'm going to push a broom handle up your butt so far that people with think you're wearing a hat rack on your head."

"Ma'am. There's no need to be threatening."

"Threatening? I'm not making threats. I'm making promises."

Lisa raised a hand and said, "Uh ... Mom."

"Do you often feel violent like this?"

"Only when I really get mad and I'm crazy mad at the moment."

"We can talk this out, Ma'am. There's no need to be angry."

"Do you really think we can solve this with talking?"

"Yes, Ma'am. I'm sure that we can come to an understanding and work through this issue."

"You sick twisted man!"

"Uh ... Mom."

"Be quiet, Lisa."

"Do you need some help, Ma'am?"

"Help? No. I don't need any help. I can hunt you down and torture you without any help from anyone."

"Are you Mrs. Michaels?"

"Yes, I am. In case you're wondering, I'm Lisa's mother."

"Is she there with you?"

"Don't play stupid with me. I know what you're doing."

"I've called for some help. They're on the way, Mrs. Michaels."

"Help? You're going to need a whole bunch help by the time I'm done with you."

"Uh ... Mom."

"Be quiet, Lisa. You'll get yours when I'm done with him."

"Ma'am. Are you threatening your daughter?"

"What are you worried about her for? You'll be dead and buried by the time I get around to punishing her!"

"You're scaring me."

"Be afraid, be very afraid!" Lisa's Mom said and then cackled.

"Maybe you need to get a little distance..."

Lisa's Mom interrupted, "Distance? You want distance?"

"Ma'am..."

"You can run, but you can't hide. I've been chasing Leprechauns for a year now. You aren't going to get away from me."

"Leprechauns? You've been chasing Leprechauns?"

"Don't change the subject pervert. I'm coming after you."

There was a knock on the front door.

-------

Sean was studying his new super advanced hyper fantastic high tech cell phone with features that haven't been invented yet. He knew it was that, because that was what it said on the box it came in.

So far, he had figured out how to make a call. He had tried it out by calling himself, but he got a busy signal so he couldn't practice answering it.

Sean figured he would have made a bit more progress than that except the instructions were written in a language that was very similar to English. It was similar in the sense that every word was an English word, but the words were ordered according to some scheme that even a Leprechaun couldn't figure out.

Giving up, Sean asked, "What does – Butterfly floating touches make best not machine action window – mean?"

His roommate, John answered, "It's best to use a firm pressure when using the touch screen."

"That's completely obvious," Sean said.

"It's one of the easier ones to figure out," John said. "I've had my phone for two months and I've managed to get through the first two pages of instructions."

"You've only got a hundred and eighty-eight pages to go," Sean said.

"I'm not even going to try to figure out the warranty."

"I don't blame you."

The cell phone started making noises like a cricket chirping. Sean asked, "What's that mean?"

"You've got a call."

"My first one," Sean said. "Let's see if I can answer it."

It didn't take him that long to find the right button to push. Who ever was calling was very patient and kept calling back until he managed to answer it.

"Hello, you've reached Sean Connery Michaels on his new super advanced hyper fantastic high tech cell phone with features that haven't been invented yet."

"Hi, Sean. I'm at the police station."

"Hi Lily. Did Mom get arrested again?"

Lily answered, "Not exactly. She's in the crazy section of the hospital."

Rolling his eyes, Sean said, "I've told her to run if she ever encounters that psychiatrist in public. He's got it in for her, but you know Mom – she never listens to me."

"They came to the house for her," Lily said.

"That's odd. Why?"

Lily said, "Do you remember big hunky guy who gave me his telephone number?"

"I certainly do. I really read him the riot act," Sean said.

"Well, he didn't give me his telephone number. It was a different number."

Wondering if he owed big hunky guy an apology, Sean asked, "What number did he give you?"

"The mental health hot line."

Sean said, "Let me guess, you called, she grabbed the phone, and made the kind of threats that mother makes so well."

"Exactly," Lily said.

"Why are you calling me? I can't bust her out of the hospital."

"The doctor said that she's going to be in there for years."

"He never did like her, particularly after she photo-shopped a picture of his head on the body of a flasher and sent it out as a Christmas card."

"He never should have said that she was nuttier than a fruitcake."

"That was after she zapped him with the cattle prod."

"He said she needed medication."

"You can't change the past. I wouldn't worry about Mom. She can take care of herself."

Lily said, "I'm not worried about her. I was wondering if you could ask big hunky guy for his real phone number."

"I can't. He's no longer big and hunky. He's now small and flat," Sean replied.

"What happened?"

"He was run over by an ACME steam roller," Sean said rolling his eyes.

"Those are dangerous," Lily said.

"They've flattened many a coyote chasing roadrunners."

"That's a shame about big hunky guy. I'm sure there are other guys just as big and hunky there."

"Sorry, there aren't any left on the entire campus."

"What happened to them?" Lily asked.

"They all failed school."

"It's only been a week."

"It's a tough school."

"Well, Dad is going to be here soon. I'm going to have another lollipop and wait for him," Lily said.

"Okay. Ask Dad to call me," Sean said.

"Sure."

Lily hung up. Sean examined his phone with a frown. He said, "My battery is almost dead."

"Hey, you got a whole phone call out of it. You're doing better than I've managed to do," John said.

"I was worried about battery life."

"Now you don't have worry. You know it sucks."

Sean nodded his head.

John said, "So your mother got locked up in the wacky-factory."

"Yep," Sean said. "It was bound to happen sooner or later. She is a little exuberant at times."

John said, "That happened to my mom once. It didn't affect her at all. The doctor ... well ... he didn't always have that twitch. It's getting better now. I heard that he can drink most of a cup of coffee without spilling it on himself."

"My mother has that effect on some people, too."

John looked at the clock and asked, "Don't you have chemistry soon?"

-------

Dr Waters said, "We pour. Then we pour. We stir it a bit. We pour in a little of this. We stir it again. We pour in some of this. We don't stir. We back up and wait for the boom."

There was a loud noise and glass flew across the room. The only student watching was Sean and he was clapping loudly. The rest were hiding under their lab benches. They weren't clapping. Most of them were quivering in fear.

Chom and Pip came walking across the lab bench. Every eye in the class watched their progress. After all, it wasn't every day that two strange Dwarves walked across a lab bench in the middle of a class. The two Dwarves stopped a step away from where the beaker had been.

While stroking his beard, Chom said, "That's wasn't a boom."

"More like a thump," Pip said.

"Definitely more like a thump. Although, I might use the word whomp to describe it."

Dr Waters asked, "Who are you?"

"I'm Chom."

"I'm Pip."

"Get out of my lab!" Dr Waters shouted.

Chom asked, "So you can convince these poor saps that that pathetic little whomp was a boom?"

"How dare you?"

Pip said, "He dares pretty easily."

"I do," Chom said with a nod of his head.

Pip said, "If you want to hear a boom, then watch the master at work."

"Do you think you can do better than that?" Dr. Waters asked knowing a challenge when he heard one.

Rubbing his hands together, Chom replied, "You bet."

"Show me!"

Chom ran around the room grabbing bottles of chemicals off of the shelf. He put a beaker on the lab table and started mixing chemicals. Dr Waters saw what he was doing and stepped back.

Chom said, "Now it goes Boom."

There was a loud explosion at the front of the room. Part of the lab bench disappeared and the ceiling above it turned black.

Dr Waters said, "That's not too bad. Now, it's my turn."

Sean said, "This ought to be pretty good."

Every student in the class except Sean discretely moved to the back of the room.

Ever the instructor, Dr Waters explained what he was doing while he worked. "First we add a little of this. Now, we add a little of that while stirring. We let it settle for a minute. We pour off the liquid keeping the crystals that formed on the bottom of the beaker. We put some of this in the beaker and shake it all up."

Pip said, "This could be good."

"I can do better," Chom said.

"We might want to step back a couple more steps," Pip said.

"Good idea," Chom said.

Dr Waters said, "We add this stuff to it and then heat it over the Bunsen burner. We take several steps back."

Sean said, "This is going to be great."

There was a loud explosion. A large chunk of the lab bench was gone and there was now a hole in the ceiling. All of the students in the back of the room fled.

The instructor in the classroom above looked down in the hole. He said, "Dr. Waters! Final exams are at the end of the semester."

Dr Waters said, "We're having a challenge match."

"I'll evacuate the building," the instructor said and then promptly disappeared from view.

Chom said, "My turn!"

Pip looked around the room. "Sean, you might want to move back."

"Okay," Sean said.

While an alarm was sounding in the background, Chom was mixing a bunch of chemicals together. Seeing what Chom was making, Pip and Dr Waters edged away from the front of the room. The sounds of people running through the hallway and screaming in terror could be heard in the background.

Rather surprised to see his professor at the back of the room, Sean asked, "Dr. Waters! What are you doing back here?"

"Safety precaution," Dr. Waters mumbled.

Pip showed up on the lab bench next to Sean. He said, "This is going to be good."

Chom came running towards the back of the room. There was a loud boom before he reached where Sean was standing. He flew through the air and landed upside down against the wall. He left a nice little dwarf shaped indent in the wall.

It took a minute for the dust to settle. The entire lab bench was gone, the hole in the ceiling was twice the size it had been, and there was now a hole in the floor.

Pip shouted, "That was great!"

"What?" Sean asked. His ears were ringing and he couldn't hear what was being said.

"I can do better!" Dr. Waters shouted.

"Let's see," Chom shouted pulling on his ears trying to get some of his hearing back.

Dr. Waters disappeared into the back of the lab. A few minutes later he emerged wearing a large bomb disposal outfit. He had another one in his hand. He walked over to Sean and handed it to him. Sean put it on.

Sean leaned over to Chom and shouted, "He's really safety conscious."

"Good. Let's see what he's making," Chom shouted back.

This time, the preparations by Dr. Waters were very elaborate. He had glass tubes mounted on stands that connected decanters, tubes, and things inside ice buckets. There were three Bunsen burnings causing stuff to boil.

Sean looked at it and figured it was time to practice his mad scientist laugh.

Chom asked, "What was that?"

"My mad scientist laugh."

"You need to work on it," Pip said.

Dr. Waters shuffled to the back of the room and shouted, "Into the hallway!"

Sean, Pip, and Chom followed Dr. Waters out into the hallway. Dr. Waters braced himself against the wall across from the room.

He said, "Brace yourselves."

Sean leaned against the wall.

Chom stood there with his arms crossed and tapping his foot. He said, "What was all that?"

"That will produce a very loud boom."

"When?" Pip asked looking around bored.

"About now."

There was nothing. Pip and Chom looked at each other and shook their heads. Dr. Waters frowned wondering if something had gone wrong. Sean was kind of disappointed.

After another minute, Pip said, "This is stupid."

"I would say that I won, wouldn't you?" Chom said.

There was an extremely loud explosion. Pip and Chom went tumbling down the hallway. Sean was very glad that he had been leaning against the wall. Dust billowed out from the lab, making it nearly impossible to see anything. Sean was coughing.

Pip and Chom came walking back to where Sean and Dr. Waters were standing. They were patting their clothes and sending up a cloud of dust.

Pip said, "Not bad. That was definitely a boom."

"I can make a bigger boom than that," Chom said.

Dr. Waters said, "Let's see."

The four returned to the chemistry lab. There wasn't much left of it. The lab benches had all been flattened. There was a hole in the floor that was almost as large as the room. The only ceiling was the one for the floor above.

Dr. Waters said, "There's a lab down the hall that's used by this real prissy chemist. She's never made anything even remotely like a boom."

Sean said, "I've heard about her. She's got to be the most boring chemistry teacher on campus. She doesn't do any explosions or create any noxious gases. What's the use of learning chemistry if it isn't to make noise and bad smells?"

"I like your positive attitude," Dr. Waters said.

"Thank you," Sean said.

Dr. Waters said, "She may be prissy, but she's got a whole bunch of chemicals in her lab."

Chom said, "Let's go."

They went down the hallway to a different chemistry lab. The walls were clean, all of the lab benches were whole, and there weren't stains on the floor or ceiling.

"What is this place?" Pip asked.

"It's chemistry lab."

Chom said, "Imagine that. A chemistry lab in which no one has used any chemicals."

"Sad isn't it?" Dr. Waters said.

Chom went to work gathering bottles of this liquid, jars of that powder, and some canisters of gas. He started mixing things at random. It was bubbling and boiling, then it stopped. Chom grabbed a beaker, looked at it, and took a sip from it. He belched.

"That's good."

"What is it?" Dr. Waters asked.

"It says it is Carbon Tetrachloride."

"I've never tried drinking any of that," Dr. Waters said.

Chom picked up another flask. He opened the flask, smelled it, and said, "Perfect!"

Frowning, Pip said, "We might want to go outside."

"Is that what I think it is?" Dr. Waters asked nervously.

"What do you think it is?" Chom asked.

"Glycerin."

"It is what you think it is," Chom said.

Dr. Waters said, "We might want to go outside."

"I already said that," Pip complained.

Sean said, "Yeah, but he's the teacher."

"Oh," Pip said with a frown.

They went outside to find a huge crowd gathered around the building. The vast majority of people were students or faculty. There were about twenty firetrucks parked nearby. The firemen were standing around in clumps holding hoses pointed at the building although they didn't have the water on yet. There was lots of talking and pointing at a small hole in the wall where dust was still billowing out.

"There's quite a crowd here."

Dr. Waters said, "Ignore them. They always show up during finals week."

"Chemistry is a very popular spectator sport," Pip said.

"Only if done correctly," Dr. Waters said.

The Dean walked over to where Dr. Waters was standing. He said, "I take it that your presence out here means that it is safe to go back in."

"We're out here because it isn't safe to be in there," Dr. Waters said.

Sean said, "You've got to admire Dr. Waters, Dean Whopper. He's so safety conscious."

"Right," Dean Whopper said. "What's going to happen?"

Dr. Waters said, "I don't know. It ought to be good."

"You mean bad."

"Good or bad, it's all a matter of perspective," Dr. Waters said.

Impressed, Pip said, "I'm going to have to remember that line."

Chom came running out of the building. When he reached Sean, he said, "This is going to be good."

They stood there looking at the building. A minute went by and then two minutes. The crowd grew restless. There was a lot of mumbling about this being a waste of time.

Pip said, "I didn't know that boring was good."

Sean said, "That's news to me too."

"It'll go boom," Chom said tugging worriedly on his beard.

"You're tugging on your beard," Pip said.

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

Dr. Waters said, "That must have been a dud. Are you sure you got the proportions right?"

Chom said, "Of course I did. A little of this and a little of that and a bunch of other stuff ... It'll go boom."

Dean Whopper said, "I'm going in."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Chom said.

"You don't want to be in there," Pip said.

"I've got to see what damage you've done to the new science building," Dean Whopper said.

Pip said, "That's a complete waste of time."

"Why?"

"We're not done damaging it yet," Chom answered.

Dean Whopper said, "Hey, aren't you part of that gang that defiled our football field?"

Pip said, "According to our agreement, we can't talk about that."

"That's right, we can't talk about it at all," Chom said.

Sean asked, "What agreement?"

Chom said, "Pip and I talked about it and agreed that we can't talk about it."

"It's important to keep your agreements," Pip said.

Dr. Waters said, "I think your boom went pfffttt."

The words were barely out of his mouth when there was a huge explosion. The roof of the building lifted up ten feet. It hung there in the air for a second. Then it came down along with the rest of the building. When the dust cleared, there was only a pile of rubble left.

"That was a good one," Dr. Waters said appreciatively.

"I told you," Chom said.

"Our new science building!" Dean Whopper cried sinking to his knees.

Dr. Waters said, "I can do better."

"Oh yeah?" Chom asked.

Dr. Waters said, "Yes. We just have to find another lab."

Thinking he would cheer up the Dean, Sean said, "Hey, Dean Whopper. You've got to look on the bright side."

"What bright side?"

"You don't have to go inside the building to see the damage," Sean said smiling.



-------

Chapter 10


Suzie looked over at Sean. He was sitting there watching a dozen ball bearings orbiting around a ping pong ball. He pulled two more ball bearings out of his pocket and tossed them into the air. A second later they had joined the other ball bearings in orbiting the ping pong ball.

"You look bored," Suzie said.

"I really thought college would be a bit more challenging," Sean said with a sigh.

"I'm sure it will get harder," Suzie said.

Sean said, "It's the second week of school and I've already got five A's. Two of them are in classes that I hadn't even signed up for."

"That was kind of surprising," Suzie said since she had gotten three A's along with Sean. "I know about the A's in math. What are the other two?"

"The social studies class and my chemistry lab," Sean said.

Sean and Professor Gibbons had discussed all of the material to be covered in the course during his first office visit. At the end of the time visit, Professor Gibbons had handed Sean a copy of last year's final exam. Sean aced it. Professor Gibbons told him that he had an A and didn't have to come back.

Shocked, Suzie asked, "How did you get an A in your chemistry lab? You guys blew up the Science Building."

"I was the only student there at the time. Dr. Waters figured I got as much experience with things that go boom as any of his past students," Sean said.

"He's crazy," Suzie said.

Sean said, "I still have to go to the lecture classes. They aren't all that boring, but they aren't anywhere near as exciting as the lab class."

"I wouldn't know," Suzie said.

"Why not?" Sean asked.

Suzie answered, "There are no lab classes for the rest of the year. All of the labs are gone as a result of the explosion."

"Darn. I was looking forward to burning things with a laser next semester," Sean said.

"That's not going to happen," Suzie said.

Sean said, "So now I've only got three classes: Chemistry lecture, English, and History."

"That's not much for a full time student."

"I know. I've already read all of the books assigned for all of my classes," Sean said.

Suzie asked, "Why don't you sign up for some more classes?"

"I can do that?" Sean asked.

"Sure. It's not to late to Drop or Add classes," Suzie replied.

Sean asked, "How do I do that?"

Suzie wasn't sure, so she went to her desk and picked up a copy of the student handbook. It was a small handbook, only 387 pages of extremely small print. She flipped through the pages to find what she was looking for since there wasn't a table of contents or index. She finally found what she was searching for after the 30 pages on the grade arbitration process. She read the procedure with a frown.

"What does it say?" Sean asked.

Suzie said, "They got separate procedures for dropping a class, transferring to a different class, and adding a class. Dropping a class is pretty easy, just go to the department secretary and fill out the form. The chair of the department will sign the form and presto, the class is dropped. Apparently, professors really don't want to be teaching. Transferal requires you to go to the department secretary and then get the two professors to sign the form. Only a few professors will sign the form to let you into their class. The chair will sign the form on behalf of the professors and you'll be transferred."

"That sounds simple enough. How tough can it be to add a class?" Sean said.

"It looks a little complicated," Suzie said looking over the procedure.

"What is it?"

"Well, step one is to go to the registrars office to get an add/drop form."

"That makes sense."

Suzie said, "There's a footnote here."

"What does it say?" Sean asked.

"For male students: If the pretty girl is at the desk and you look at her boobs, she won't give you a form. If the ugly girl is at the desk and you don't ask her out on a date, she won't give you a form. She'll only give you the form after you've taken her out and had sex with her. All students who have tried that have been hospitalized for severe psychological stress disorders. If the plain girl is at the desk and you don't convince her she is pretty, she won't give you a form. If the handsome guy is at the desk and you don't ask him out, he won't give you the form. If the ugly guy is at the desk and you are better looking than him, he won't give you the form. If the battle ax is at the desk, she won't give you the correct form unless you request the form to drop out of school in which case she will fill it out for you and your roommate. All others who work at the desk have been instructed to say that they are out of forms and to come back next year."

"Is that what it really says?" Sean asked.

"Yes."

"I'm impressed. Imagine that, instructions that actually tell it like it is. You don't see that very often," Sean said.

"Step two is fill out three copies of the form. The required language on the first form is!Kung. The required language for the second copy of the form is Egyptian Hieroglyphs. The required language for the third copy of the form is cuneiform in the Old Assyrian ductus of the early second millennium, as adopted into Hittite."

"It could be worse," Sean said.

"They aren't making it easy," Suzie said.

"Is there a footnote?" Sean asked.

"Yes. It says there is a person on campus who knows!Kung but no one knows his or her identity. However, that unknown person will fill out the form in!Kung if you place the form, a twenty dollar bill, and a sheet with the class to be added, your name, your student id, and a haiku at the required drop location. The proper hiding spot is found by going to the northeast corner of the language building counting four rows of bricks up. The third brick along the eastern face is loose and the required materials are to be hidden behind it. The filled out form will be shoved under your dorm room door within twenty-four hours."

"Interesting."

"It sounds kind of cloak and dagger, to me," Suzie said.

"It sounds like a job for Double-o Zero," Sean said striking his muscleman pose.

"What's!Kung?"

"It's a language spoken by African Bushman in the Kalahari Desert. It's got lots of clicks and whistles in it. Fortunately, I know the language," Sean said.

"I didn't know that. When did you learn it?" Suzie asked.

"Knowing languages is part of my magic gift. What's the next step?"

"Step three is to take the form to the professor of the class you want to attend. The footnote says that they are required to tell you that you can't get into their class," Suzie said.

"At least, we won't go into this with any positive expectations," Sean said.

"Step four is to appeal the decision to the chair of the department for the course that you want to take. Again the footnote says that they are required to tell you no," Suzie said.

"Now we're making real progress," Sean said.

"Step five is to appeal the decision to the dean of the school."

"Which one?" Sean asked.

"Which one what?"

"The dean of the school of your major or over the course you're taking?" Sean asked.

"Um ... it doesn't say," Suzie said. "Wait, the footnote says that they're to tell you that you went to the wrong Dean."

"Ah! That makes sense. I love bureaucratic procedures."

"Step six to is appeal the decision to the other Dean unless it is the same as the Dean you went to the first time. In all cases, the Dean is required to say no."

"This isn't looking too positive," Sean said with a frown.

Suzie said, "Wait. There's a footnote here. Dean Brown will say yes to pretty coeds who have sex with him, but his yes will be overruled by the Provost."

"I'm the wrong gender so that doesn't apply to me," Sean said.

"Step seven is to appeal the decision to the Provost. There's another footnote here. Let's see ... He is required to say no," Suzie said.

Sean said, "Let me guess, step eight is to appeal to the President of the university."

"Yes, and he will say no," Suzie said.

"Who's next?"

Suzie said, "No one. Step nine says to hire a lawyer. There's a footnote that says that with one phone call from the lawyer all no's will become yeses and all yeses will become no's. You'll have your form approved within 180 work days, by which time the semester is over."

Sean said, "That is a very well documented procedure. Whoever wrote it must have really done his or her research."

Suzie said, "I'm impressed."

"I guess we start with step one," Sean said.

"We're off to see the registrar," Suzie said taking his arm in hers.

They skipped out of her dorm room and to the exit. The stepped out of the dorm and came to a stop. There, in middle of the sidewalk, was a squirrel. It was not just any old squirrel with a bushy tail merrily eating a nut, but a squirrel wearing a suit of armor made from soft drink cans. It held a small sword in it's little front paw and a shield in the other.

"We want bagels."

Sean said, "What are you supposed to be?"

"I am the knight they call Sir Squirrel."

Sean asked, "Where did you get the suit of armor?"

"According to the agreement I made with the Dwarves, I'm not supposed to talk about that," Sir Squirrel said.

Deciding that he was going to have a long talk with the Dwarves, Sean said, "So what are you doing here?"

"We want bagels."

"No. I'm not giving you any bagels," Sean said.

Sir Squirrel was getting ready to issue a challenge to a duel. However, at that moment, a student wearing thick glasses walked past. He looked down at the squirrel. Shaking his head, he picked up the squirrel and tossed him in the trash can.

With real disgust in his voice, the student said, "I can't stand litter bugs. There's a trash can right over there and some jerk drops his soda can right in the middle of the sidewalk."

"Some people are so inconsiderate of others," Sean said sagely.

"I better get to class," the kid said. He looked up at the building, squinted his eyes, and then said, "This isn't the lecture hall."

Suzie pointed to a building across the lawn. "It's over there."

The student looked in the direction Suzie pointed. He stuck his head forward and squinted. He adjusted his glasses. He took off his glasses, cleaned them, and put them back on. He stuck his head forward, squinted, and shook his head.

He asked, "That grayish blob over there?"

"That's it," Sean said.

"Thanks," the student said.

"You're welcome," Suzie said.

"I'm going to have to get new glasses," the kid muttered while he walked off.

Turning to Suzie, Sean said, "Let's go see the registrar."

While they walked to the administration building, Suzie asked, "What did the funny little squirrel want?"

"He wanted a bagel and I told him no," Sean said.

"He sure looked funny in that suit of armor," Suzie said.

"He thought he was a knight or something. He called himself, Sir Squirrel."

"They've got some strange squirrels on this campus," Suzie said.

"Yes, they do."

Suzie said, "First, it was a criminal gang of squirrels. Now they think they are back in medieval times. Someone really ought to study them."

"Here's the administration building," Sean said.

"I wonder where the registrars office is."

Sean said, "There's an office directory over there."

They stood side by side while they studied the sign for a minute trying to puzzle out the entries. There were a lot of letters missing on the sign. It was as though there were a fixed number of letters and too many words that had to be displayed. The entries at the top were complete. Of course, those were the entries for the President, the Provost, the Legal Department, and the Bursars office. The entry for registrar was missing a few letters and read, "R g s ar Of ice." Three of the four numbers for the office were missing.

"That's useful," Suzie said with a frown. "At least we know one of the four numbers of the room number is a seven."

"I suppose we could ask someone," Sean said. "Oh, there's something over. Let me check it out."

He went off to study a poster on the wall. Suzie was waiting for him when she spotted a young man walking past. She approached him.

She said, "Excuse me. Where is the Registrars Office?"

"You don't want to go in there," the student said looking around wildly.

"Why not?"

"Do you want to die?"

"Why do you say that?" Suzie asked.

"Nobody who goes in there ever comes out," the student said. He glanced around nervously. "I've got to go."

The student ran off.

Suzie said, "That was strange."

Suzie spotted another student walking past. She said, "Excuse me. Can you tell me where the registrars office is?"

"Don't go there. There are ghouls in there," the student said.

"Really? I've never met a ghoul before. They're probably nice folks who got a bad reputation because they're ugly or scary looking," Suzie said.

"Whatever you do, don't go in there," the student said and then ran way.

"Maybe I better ask where it isn't," Suzie said to herself.

She spotted a student edging along the wall trying not to be noticed by anyone. She walked over to him. He sidled along trying to pretend that he hadn't seen her.

"I've heard that people are supposed to avoid the Registrars Office," she said.

He stopped. "Are you talking to me?"

"Yes," Suzie said.

"You can see me?"

"Yes."

"Oh. I'm never going to pass my class."

"What class?" Suzie asked.

"My Ninja Studies class."

"I didn't see that listed," Suzie said.

"It's not listed. That's how Ninja Studies works. You aren't supposed to know about it."

"Oh." Suzie said.

"You wouldn't happen to know where the Registrars Office is, would you?"

"Yes. It's in the basement, way back in the corner. It's room number seven," he answered.

"Really?"

"Yes. You don't want to go there. Strange things happen in that office," he said.

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Nobody talks about it," he answered.

Suzie said, "Thanks for the information. I'll let you get back to your Ninja training."

"Thanks. Don't tell anyone you saw me."

"I won't," Suzie said.

Suzie returned to where Sean was waiting. She said, "He said it was in the basement in room 7."

"That's funny, that's exactly what the map over there said," Sean said pointing to a poster three steps away.

Suzie looked at the map and growled. She asked, "What language is that in?"

"It's a phonetic version of Bangi-me," Sean answered.

"What?"

"Bangi-me."

"You're making that up."

"No, I'm not. It's a real language spoken in seven villages in southern Mali," Sean said.

"I can tell that they really want students to find the Registrars Office," Suzie said staring at the map.

They made the trip down to the basement. It was dark and dingy down there. Pipes leaked water onto the floor providing an environment promoting the growth of a very healthy crop of mold and fungi. Little scratching sounds originating from the darkest areas of the basement could be heard. Occasional screams of horror echoed in the darkness.

They wandered through a maze tracking down the room numbers. They walked past rooms 11, 3, 13, 5, and 17 pausing to read the sign on each door. Room 11 had a sign on it stating that it was the Office of Career Development. Underneath the sign was another sign stating 'Abandon All Hope.' Room 3 was for student counseling. It had a nice sign stating, "Depressed? Come in, we'll put you out of your misery." Room 13 was the Superstition Counseling Center. One had to pass under a ladder to get into it. Room 5 was the janitor's office. Room 17 was the Office of International Students.

"That's an interesting number scheme," Suzie said.

"You can say that again. They're all prime numbers," Sean said.

Suzie said, "The next room should be 7."

"So it is," Sean said coming to a stop in front of room 7.

It had a sign on it that read, 'Go Away!' There were what appeared to be bloody hand prints on the door. Scratched onto the bottom of the door was a message, "Help Me."

"Should we go in?" Suzie asked staring at the door.

"Sure," Sean said.

They went into the office holding hands. A middle-aged woman was seated at the counter. She looked up at them with an expression of surprise on her face. She leaned forward and studied them for a second.

She asked, "Are you students?"

"Yes," Sean said.

"You're not in here by mistake are you?"

Sean said, "No. We came here specifically so that I could add a couple courses."

"No kidding?"

"No kidding."

The woman shouted, "Hey, we've got a pair of students!"

Four people came boiling out of the offices. They all stopped and stared at Sean and Suzie. It was as if they had never seen a student before.

One of them said, "So that's what a student looks like."

"I never would have guessed," another replied.

"I wonder how they found us."

Sean answered, "I read it on the map."

"That's in Bangi-me," one of them said.

"I know Bangi-me," Sean said.

"A Ninja told me," Suzie said.

"Now they're going to drop the Ninja program. The guys upstairs can't have Ninjas running around telling all of the school secrets," one of them said.

"That's right," the woman who had been at the counter said.

"It's all about the folks upstairs not having to work," one said sadly.

The woman at the counter said, "What can I do for you?"

"I want to add two classes," Sean said.

"Two?"

"Yes," Sean answered.

After a short exchange in which Sean provided his student id number and his schedule was pulled up on the computer, the staff learned that Sean had made five impossible A's. They decided to do the impossible and get him enrolled in two classes that day. It only took three hours to get him added to two classes: art appreciation and yoga.

Waiting while two members of the staff tried to remember how to add students to a class, Sean and Suzie had tea and cookies with the rest of the staff. Everyone who worked in the office was very friendly and quite curious about the modern college student. They only saw a student once every five years or so.

Sean and Suzie actually had a very nice time. After making promises to return for a social visit, they left behind a staff that was sad to see them leave.

Sean and Suzie were strolling arm in arm along the sidewalk in front of her dorm. A young couple were in front of the building throwing a Frisbee back and forth as students were occasionally known to do. They weren't doing a very good job of it, with the Frisbee flying off in unexpected directions.

Watching them, Sean said, "That looks like fun."

"It does. Maybe we ought to try it sometime," Suzie said.

Sir Squirrel was precariously perched on the edge of the trash can. He had finally managed to climb out of it. He had discovered the hard way that a suit of armor wasn't the best thing to wear when trying to climb. He was not in a good mood. Although squirrels frequently raided trashcans, they didn't like being thrown away like yesterday's trash.

Seeing Sean approaching, Sir Squirrel shouted, "I want bagels!"

"I told you before – I'm not giving you any bagels," Sean said.

Sir Squirrel pulled out his sword and waved it about in a threatening manner. "Give us bagels!"

"No," Sean said.

Sir Squirrel was about to challenge Sean to a duel when a poorly thrown Frisbee hit him. The blow sent him tumbling into the trashcan. There was the loud sound of a squirrel cursing and then a 'clink' when it hit the bottom of the can.

Sean picked up the Frisbee and tossed it back to the student who had thrown it. It went off in the wrong direction, but a little magic corrected that. The student caught it with ease.

"Thanks!" one of the kids shouted back to him.

"My pleasure," Sean shouted in response.

Suzie asked, "What did the squirrel want?"

"Bagels," Sean answered.



-------

Chapter 11


Professor Hue stood in front of the class prepared to teach another crop of young fresh minds how to appreciate art. A projector was showing a picture of painting with a red apple on a table. He strutted back and forth for a moment giving everyone a chance to examine the picture.

He asked, "What is this a picture of?"

Sean raised hand. He noticed no one else was raising a hand, but that was actually pretty normal and he didn't think anything of it. He liked it when classes started with easy questions.

"You!" Professor Hue shouted while pointing at Sean.

Confident that he had the correct answer, Sean said, "It is a painting of an apple on a table."

"Wrong!" Professor Hue shouted.

"What?" Sean asked looking back at the picture.

"You are wrong!"

Sean said, "Wait a minute. That red thing sure looks like an apple to me. That brown wood surface that it is resting on, looks like a table."

"You're only seeing the superficial. This is not what the picture is of."

"So what is the picture of?" Sean asked looking around the room.

There were a number of students who were shaking their heads. Obviously, Sean wasn't seeing the same thing everyone else was looking at. He looked again at the painting and rubbed his eyes. That didn't work, it was still a painting of an apple on a wood table.

"It's about love waiting in absolute loneliness. It's of a fresh, ripe, virginal woman waiting to be found by the right man."

"What woman?" Sean asked. "There's no woman in that picture. I only see an apple."

"That's because you're seeing it with your eyes," Professor Hue said.

"That's because we see with our eyes," Sean said as if he was explaining a fact to a little child.

"No!"

Sean snorted. Pointing to the appropriate body parts, he said, "We see with our eyes, hear with our ears, smell with our nose, taste with our tongue, and touch with our skin."

"Where did you learn that nonsense?"

"I learned that in elementary school. I can arrange some experiments to prove that to you, if you would like."

"Don't tell me you're a science major," Professor Hue said in disgust.

"Okay, I won't tell you that," Sean said.

"Are you?"

"Am I what?"

"A science major," Professor Hue said.

"You told me not to tell you that," Sean said.

"I'm ordering you to tell me that now."

"Make up your mind," Sean said.

Professor Hue asked, "Are you a science major?"

"Yes," Sean said.

"I told you not to tell me that," Professor Hue said.

"You just finished ordering me to tell you that. You look a little young to be suffering from Old-timers disease. You might want to get that checked out by a doctor," Sean said shaking a finger at Professor Hue.

Professor Hue waved an arm in the air theatrically. Trying to sound lofty, he said, "Scientist have no appreciation for beauty. They are emotionally void – empty of all feelings."

Professor Hue gave a little dramatic hop that might have been a move stolen from ballet, but it if had been then it was a very poor imitation of one. He felt that art, drama, and dance had a lot in common, although he wasn't very good at the drama and dance parts. Still he tried.

He said, "We have artists, because the world needs beauty and people who appreciate it."

He looked at Sean and, in a very stern voice, said, "You do not get a hug."

"A hug? Why would I want a hug?" Sean asked blankly.

Professor Hue turned to the rest of the class and asked, "Does anyone else want to tell me what that is a picture of?"

A timid young woman slowly raised her hand. He called upon her.

The young woman said, "That is a picture of temptation."

"Interesting," Professor Hue said. "Why do you say that?"

"You have to remember that Eve tempted Adam with an apple. In this painting, we have an apple sitting there all by itself. It is ripe and delicious looking, the epitome of temptation."

Professor Hue said, "Very good. You get a hug."

He pranced over to the young woman and hugged her. Sean watched the scene completely confused by it.

Professor Hue asked, "Does anyone else want to say what this is a picture of?"

A guy dressed all in black answered, "It's a picture of rot."

"That is a dark interpretation. Why do you say that?"

The guy said, "What you see is a nice red apple, but you can't see the rot inside. It's puissant corruption hidden behind a facade of beauty. We all know that beauty is only skin deep."

"I like that," Professor Hue said. "You get a hug."

He pranced over to the young man and hugged him. Sean listened to the exchange completely confused by it. He didn't know why the guy in black seemed so happy about getting hug.

Professor Hue asked, "Does anyone else want to say what this is a picture of?"

Sean said, "You said it was a woman. She said it was temptation. He said it was rot. Which one of you is right?"

"We all are," Professor Hue answered. "We each see something different in the painting."

"So I see an apple on a table. I guess that means I'm right, too."

"You're hopeless," Professor Hue said shaking his head sadly.

Sean said, "I read the textbook and I remember what it said about this picture. This painting was made during a practice exercise in a still life class."

"Who told you to read the textbook?"

"No one."

"You are not to read the textbook until I tell you what to read out of it. Too much of the material in it is concerned with minutia and facts that get in the way of true appreciation of art. It is a perfectly horrid book and I wouldn't use it at all except there's one or two pages that one must read about the artistic spirit."

"I thought the section on perspective, light, and arrangement of subject was pretty good. That whole bit about how the eye moves around the canvas was fascinating," Sean said.

"You science types are all alike. You're all so worried about technique and trying to develop a comprehensive theory of art that you have no appreciation for what the artist is trying to convey," Professor Hue said.

Sean said, "According to the book, the artist who painted that picture was supposed to learn about light and shadows. He wasn't trying to convey anything other than he knew how light interacted with objects."

"There you go with the facts again. Art isn't about facts. It is about feeling," Professor Hue said with a pout.

"Is that a fact?" Sean asked.

"Yes."

Sean said, "That's weird."

"What's weird?" Professor Hue asked.

"You just told me a fact about art while telling me that art isn't about facts."

"You're hopeless."

Sean frowned and thought about it. He said, "I hope not. Wait a second! I can't be hopeless, I still have hopes. At least, I hope I do."

Professor Hue said, "You're trying to confuse me with logic. It won't work. I'm immune to logic."

"Really?" Sean asked with a puzzled expression.

"Yes. Now I'm going to show another painting. I don't want you to look at it with your eyes."

"Okay."

After a second, Professor Hue said, "What do you see?"

"Blackness," Sean answered.

"That's a very strange interpretation of this classic painting. Tell me why you say that?"

Sean said, "I have my eyes closed. No light is reaching the rods and cones on the back of my eyes so all I see is blackness."

Professor Hue screamed in frustration. He said, "Open your eyes and look at the painting."

"You told me not to look at it with my eyes."

"You have to look at it with your eyes to see it."

"You just finished telling me that I'm not supposed to see it with my eyes. How am I supposed to see and not see things with my eyes? That doesn't make sense."

"Are you particularly dense?"

"No. Last time I weighed myself, my weight was appropriate for someone my size and build so that would suggest that I am of typical density."

"Open your eyes and look at the painting."

Sean opened his eyes and looked at the painting. He shook his head.

"This is a very famous painting titled, 'Nymphs by a Pond.' What do you see?"

"I see a very unrealistic painting of nymphs by a pond," Sean said with disdain.

"Why do you say that?"

Sean said, "Everyone knows that water nymphs have blue hair. The artist put the wrong color hair on them."

"Maybe they are wood nymphs," Professor Hue said.

"No. Wood nymphs have green hair," Sean said.

Professor Hue said, "Have you ever seen a wood nymph?"

"Yes. I know a whole bunch of them," Sean answered.

"You do?"

"Yes."

"So tell me about these nymphs."

"The artist got the nymphs all wrong. Not only do they not have brown hair, they have bigger breasts than the artist drew. They don't wear clothes. They also have a carefree expression on their face. Nymphs aren't serious at all. They like to get chased a lot, but they really enjoy the catch."

Professor Hue said, "There's hope for you yet. At least you have an imagination."

"I tell him facts and he thinks it's imagination. He imagines things and think they're facts," Sean said shaking his head.

"What was that?" Professor Hue asked.

Sean said, "I was agreeing with you. You are immune to logic."

Professor Hue said, "Everyone look at this next picture."

There was picture of an abstract painting comprised of dots of various colors randomly placed on a canvas. Some of the dots looked like they had run.

"What is this painting of?"

Sean looked away. He started humming as if that would make him less noticeable. Professor Hue turned to Sean and said, "You! What is this painting of?"

Sean answered, "It is a painter's drop cloth."

"Wrong!"

"I beg to disagree. I've seen painter's drop cloths that look exactly like that," Sean said.

Professor Hue said, "A painter's drop cloth is an accident. This was an intentional piece of art."

"Yeah, the artist intentionally made a painting of a painter's drop cloth," Sean said. "It's a very realistic depiction of one."

"You're wrong," Professor Hue said.

Sean said, "Prove it."

"There's no proof in art. That's a concept of science, not of art."

Sean said, "How can you say I'm wrong?"

"You're trying to use that logic stuff again. I told you that I'm immune to it," Professor Hue said shaking his hand at Sean.

"So how did he make it?" Sean asked.

Professor Hue said, "He dripped paint on the canvas from his brush."

"How does paint get on a painter's drop cloth?" Sean asked.

"It drips off the painters brush onto the drop cloth."

Sean said, "It sounds to me like the pattern on a painter's drop cloth and the pattern on this painting were made in identical ways."

"One was done by an artist and the other is done by a common laborer."

"Assuming he was starving artist, what did the artist do to put food on his table?"

"He waited on tables at a local restaurant."

"He sounds like a common laborer to me," Sean said.

Professor Hue said, "Stop with the logic! Logic has no place in art!"

"Are you sure?" Sean asked.

"Yes."

"How about mathematics?"

"There's no place in art for mathematics!"

"The textbook had a whole chapter on the mathematics of certain kinds of mosaics," Sean said.

"You are not to read the textbook. It's filled with facts that don't apply to art. Anything describable by mathematics is not art."

"Is that a fact?"

"Yes."

"I think we've covered this ground before," Sean said with a snicker.

Professor Hue asked, "Does anyone want to say what this is a painting of?"

A young man raised his hand.

"You!"

"It is a painting of the chaos of life," the young man answered.

"Excellent," Professor Hue said. "You get a hug."

"Why does he get a hug when he's wrong?" Sean asked.

"Why do you say that he's wrong?"

Sean said, "Do you agree that art based on mathematics is not art?"

"Yes."

Sean said, "There's a whole branch of mathematics dealing with chaos. If there's a mathematical concept underlying chaos then that painting can't be of chaos."

"There's no such thing as a mathematical theory of chaos," Professor Hue said.

"Yes, there is. I got an A in the subject last week and I wasn't even taking it," Sean said.

"Who gave you an A last week?"

"Professor Point."

Professor Hue backed away from Sean with a look of horror on his face. He shouted, "Never say that name in my presence again!"

"Professor Point?"

"Never say that name again! He's evil."

"I like Professor Point."

"He put horse piss in my beer glass at the Rusty Bucket of Booze."

"How do you know that?"

Professor Hue answered, "He gave it away when he asked why I was going to drink that horse piss instead of a real man's drink. All of those mathematicians were laughing at me."

Sean said, "I think he meant that beer is horse piss compared to Scotch. He was wondering why you weren't drinking something stronger."

"Really?" Professor Hue said.

"Yes."

"It doesn't matter. He's a vile evil man. He used Fergie's Fifth Unproven Theorem to prove that my last masterpiece was based on mathematics!"

Sean said, "I'm impressed. Last I heard, Fergie had only gotten up to his Third Unproven Theorem. He said he was going to donate it to the republocrat party so that the President can select locations for public appearances during his reelection campaign. The first location it picked was on a rowboat in the middle of Lake Superior."

"It doesn't matter what kind of civic acts those men perform to help reelect the greatest President this country has ever seen. Those damned mathematicians are always causing trouble. They make fun of us artistic types," Professor Hue said.

Sean asked, "How did he prove your great work of art was based on mathematics?"

"He used his phone. He input some data, operated on it with his bizarre mathematical operations, and then showed me the result."

"What was the result?" Sean asked with a frown.

"An exact duplicate of my painting. All of the mathematicians burst out laughing when I started crying. It was mean."

Sean pulled out his phone and looked at it. He stood up and walked over to the projection of the painting. He held up his cell phone and randomly pushed a number of buttons. Suddenly there was a picture of the painting on the screen.

Sean said, "Did he do something like that?"

"Exactly."

Sean held up his cell phone and said, "I put in a bunch of random key presses and look at what I got."

"No! It can't be," Professor Hue cried out.

"I'm afraid it is," Sean said.

"Another piece of art proven to be a fraud by a science type," Professor Hue said near tears.

Sean was about to argue that all it showed was that he had somehow taken a photograph of the painting, but thought better of it. Professor Hue wasn't too good with logic and wouldn't understand his explanation. He asked, "Does this mean I get an A?"

"Yes. Get out of here. I never want to see you again," Professor Hue said.

Sean left the class studying his super advanced hyper fantastic high tech cell phone with features that haven't been invented yet wondering how he had managed to take a picture with it. He tried to recreate the button pushes, but nothing happened. He looked at the battery and saw that it was low already.

Sean looked up just in time to see Sir Squirrel, wearing a slightly dented suit of armor made from a soda can, step into the walkway front of him. The squirrel pulled out a sword and waved it around in a menacing manner.

He shouted, "We want bagels!"

Sean said, "I told you, I'm not giving you any bagels."

A skateboarder rolled past Sean at a fast clip. Angry, the skateboarder shouted, "Don't litter asshole!"

"I don't," Sean shouted back.

In a rather impressive maneuver, the skateboarder grabbed Sir Squirrel without even slowing down. Sir Squirrel let loose with an impressive string of swear words. The litany of words best not mentioned in polite company ended with a dull thud when the squirrel was deposited in a trashcan as the skateboarder rolled past it.

Sean said, "It's really nice to know that so many people on campus are concerned about littering."

He went on to head for the building where Suzie had a class. It was a nice lovely day and lots of students were walking around. There was even a short one who was walking beside him. It took him a minute to realize the short student was Chom.

"How's it going, Sean?"

Sean answered, "Pretty well. How are you doing?"

"It's a nice lovely day so I thought I'd go out for a walk."

"Are you busy?"

"No," Chom answered.

"I've been meaning to talk to you."

"About what?"

"I keep running into a pesky squirrel wearing a suit of armor."

"I wonder where Sir Squirrel got his suit of armor," Chom said trying to look innocent.

"Rumor has it that it was made by a bunch of Dwarves in exchange for potato chips," Sean said.

"Don't believe every rumor you hear," Chom said tugging on his beard.

"Why not?"

"Because sometimes they're not true," Chom said.

"I guess that means that sometimes they are true," Sean said.

"Now that we've got that settled, I've got to run," Chom said.

Sean said, "Where did you get all of those potato chips?"

"I really don't have time to talk. I've got places that I need to not be at," Chom said.

"Like here?"

"Exactly."

"That's what I thought," Sean said.

Chom said, "It's been nice talking to you."

"We'll talk about this some more," Sean said.

"You've got to find me," Chom said just before he disappeared.

Sean pulled out his compass and looked at it. He smiled and said, "I know how to find you."

He put the compass away. It was almost time for Suzie to get out of her history class. He headed over to the building where her classroom was located. He reached it and sat on the bench to wait for her.

Bored, he looked around and spotted a sparrow. He tweeted, "Hello, Sparrow."

"You speak Sparrow," the bird tweeted.

"Yes. Would you like to talk a bit?"

"I can't talk for long. Me and some of the flock are going out to the fields to eat some grain soon."

"You like hanging out with the flock?"

"Yes. We call our flock the Host. It sounds a lot better than just a flock. We only hang out together about the time we're ready to migrate or when there's a good field of food to eat," the bird tweeted.

"Interesting," Sean tweeted.

It was fifteen minutes before Suzie came out of the building, but Sean hadn't been bored. He spent the time talking to the sparrow. He learned a lot about life as a sparrow during that time.

Suzie came up to him and greeted him with a kiss. She asked, "So how was art appreciation?"

"It didn't start out too well. My professor had a bit of trouble with facts and logic. I muddled through and got an A. I'll have to thank Professor Point for that," Sean said.

"Really?" Suzie asked.

"Yes. Professor Point might also be able to explain to me how to take pictures with my phone," Sean said.

They were about to head to the dorm when a big ugly guy stepped in front of Sean. He was about a foot taller than Sean and at least twice as wide at the shoulders. He had a low sloping forehead.

"You're holding hands with my girl," big ugly guy said.

"No, I'm not."

Afraid, Suzie moved to stand behind Sean.

"She and I have a date to discuss the birds and the bees."

Sean said, "I know a bunch about birds. I also know a bit about bees. Maybe you want to discuss them with me."

"Smart ass. I'm going to pound you to a pulp."

Sean looked over at the sparrow with whom he had been talking. He tweeted, "Would you go get some friends and chase this guy away?"

"Okay," tweeted the bird.

"Thank you," Sean tweeted.

The big ugly guy said, "What do you think you're doing? Talking to birds?"

"Yes."

"Are you making fun of me?"

"No. I asked it to go get some friends and chase you away," Sean said smiling at the guy.

The guy's hands curled into fists the size of small hams. His face turned red. It was almost possible to see steam coming from his ears. The big ugly guy looked even uglier when he was angry.

Worried, Suzie said, "Sean, you're making him angry."

"Don't worry. I've got it all under control," Sean said.

"I'm going to chew you up and spit you out!"

Sean pointed up at the sky and said, "Look at the birds."

Suzie looked up, her eyes grew wide, and then she said, "There's a lot of birds."

The big ugly guy looked up at the sky. There were thousands of birds flying towards them. Actually, it looked like they were all flying at him. It was soon obvious that they were flying directly at him.

"Oh shit!"

The flock of several thousand birds descended upon the guy. He turned and ran. He had to keep ducking while running since the birds were doing low altitude flyovers coming within mere inches of his head. They were flying past him on the left, right, and above him in a continuous stream.

"Bye!" Sean said waving to the big ugly guy.

A female voice said, "[explicative deleted]."

Sean turned to see who had spoken to him. He didn't initially see anyone until he looked down. Standing on the ground next to him was a very large bird. Actually, it wasn't quite a bird. It was mostly a bird, with the exception that it had a female human head rather than the more typical bird head.

It looked up at him and said, "[explicative deleted]."

He asked, "Who and what are you?"

"Who and what the [explicative deleted] are you?"

"I'm Sean and I'm a human."

"I'm Foul Fowl and I'm a harpy."

"It's nice to meet you," Sean said.

"It's [explicative deleted] nice to meet you," Foul Fowl said, "It's [explicative deleted] good to be back."

Disturbed by the language Foul Fowl was using, Suzie said, "You have a very foul mouth."

"Thank you," Foul Fowl said. "That's the nicest [explicative deleted] thing anyone has [explicative deleted] said to me in centuries."

"You're welcome," Suzie said with a frown.

Foul Fowl said, "I'm going to join those [explicative deleted] sparrows in the [explicative deleted] fun.

"Have fun," Sean said.

"Have a [explicative deleted] nice day," Foul Fowl before she flew off in pursuit of the big ugly guy.

"Outside of her foul mouth, she seems nice enough," Suzie said.

Sean said, "I like her."



-------

Chapter 12


Sean and his roommate, John, were down in the television room of the dorm watching a cable news channel. It was a large room with lots of chairs and a wide screen television mounted on the wall. The chairs, stained by years of pizza dropped on them and soda spilled upon them, had seen better days.

There were two boxes of furry pizza that were left over from last year on a table in the middle of the room. A student with a partially eaten piece of pizza resting on his chest was staring off into space, repeatedly saying, "The colors ... Look at all the colors."

Normally, Sean and John would not spend an evening watching the news, but they had the same history class and had been assigned to watch the evening news. They were to report on any news story that might be of historical significance in the future. There were another dozen students all watching the news for the same reason.

With a picture of the President in the background, the news announcer said, "In a minor news story, the President was rescued from Lake Superior after the rowboat in which he was giving a speech was capsized by a rogue wave. Secret Service agents were quick to jump to the rescue after playing ten games of paper, rocks, and scissors to see which one of them would have to get wet.

"In an interview after the rescue, the President said that his next public appearance will be at the foot of Mount Snowsalot. We will not be covering that speech because of the high risk of avalanche. We're willing to go far for a news story, but our reporters are not suicidal.

"When asked why he was going to do a public appearance in that particular location, the President answered that he was running his campaign based on sound scientific principles. He had been reassured by members of the scientific community that this strategy would lead to a result that was best for the country. When asked to clarify what that meant, he said this his reelection was clearly in the country's best interests."

John said, "Fergie's Third Unproven Theorem is picking some unique places for the President to appear at in his bid for reelection."

"Do you think this qualifies as a news story that might be of historical significance?" Sean asked.

"No. If he had died, maybe. A close call isn't really significant," John said.

Sean said, "You're right."

The reporter said, "In a related story, firemen rescued a cat that was stuck on the branch of a tree. This is one of those feel good stories that makes you feel good.

"The dramatic events began early this morning when the cat, Snuggles, climbed up the tree. The owner called up to it promising din-din would be a full can of the luxury cat food – Gourmet Meals for Cats, Salmon flavor. The owner knew that the cat was in trouble when it wouldn't come down after that kind of enticement.

"We interviewed the CEO of Gourmet Meals for Cats for his insight into the problem. CEO W. Hiskers said that any cat would climb down out of a tree for a chance to eat some of their gourmet cat food, particularly the Salmon flavor. The cat must be in serious trouble if it didn't climb down. He expressed his best wishes for a positive outcome to what could possibly end up being a tragic event.

"Firemen worked frantically for hours trying to figure out how to rescue the cat from its perch six dangerous feet above the ground. Their initial attempt to rescue the cat turned into tragedy when the ladder collapsed, sending one fireman to the hospital. His condition was reported to be stable.

"We interviewed the CEO of Ladders for Most Purposes about the collapse of their product. CEO, Mr. I.M. Short, said that all of their ladders came with warnings that improper use of their products could lead to injuries. He was confident that the fireman had not rigged sufficient safety lines and that the company would not be liable for any damages. In a related story, the stock for Ladders for Most Purposes rose two tenths of a point.

"A brave fireman, rigged with safety harnesses, finally climbed the tree and lowered the cat to its frantic owner. The fireman suffered minor scratches from the cat, but the important thing was that the cat was safe. The whole crowd that was gathered breathed a huge sigh of relief upon seeing Snuggles safe in the arms of his loving owner.

"Our intrepid reporter attempted to interview the cat, but it had nothing to say about the episode. It appears that cats value their privacy and seldom grant interviews.

"We spoke with famous Cat Whisperer, Annie Malls, about what long term consequences such an experience would have on Snuggles. She said that Snuggles might suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and that the owner had to help make Snuggles feel safe and secure. She recommended removing the tree.

"Our best wishes go to the cat for a speedy recovery from what had to be a traumatic experience."

Looking a little disappointed, John said, "For a feel good story, I don't feel very good."

"Same here," Sean said.

John said, "Did you know that all flavors of Gourmet Food for Cats are made out of tofu except for the tofu flavor?"

"No, I didn't."

"It is."

"What is the tofu flavor made from?"

"Meat by products," John answered.

"That sounds disgusting," Sean said.

"So do you think this story is of historical significance?" John asked.

"No."

One of the students said, "That's was a really good news story. I feel real good after watching it."

John said, "Isn't that a picture of your mother?"

Sean looked up at the television screen. There was a picture of his mother on the screen. Underneath her picture was a caption reading, 'Patient X.'

"Uh oh! I wonder what she's done now," Sean said.

Looking excited, the news announcer said, "In a dramatic breaking news story that may bring about the end of civilization as we know it, a woman in a psychiatric hospital has gathered evidence that the government is funding experiments into brainwashing people. Due to privacy concerns, the identity of the patient must be kept secret and we cannot use her name, but must call her Patient X. Patient X, shown in the photo behind me, claims she is being held against her will at the hospital. We have an intrepid reporter on the scene."

The television cut over to a location in front of a hospital. The pretty young female reporter was still primping for her time on the air. Realizing that she was already on air, she picked up the microphone and faced the camera.

She said, "I am standing in front of the hospital where a female patient, known affectionately as Patient X, is being kept against her wishes. Patient X has what she claims is conclusive proof that the government is performing brainwashing experiments on patients in this facility. As you can see, there's nothing going on there. All that means is that the evil deeds are being performed behind closed doors.

"Oh wait! Someone is parking a car in the visitors parking lot. The driver is getting out of the car. He's looking in our direction. Now he's walking to the front door. He's opening it and, yes, he went inside. We don't recognize him, but it is possible that he is a government agent sent here to squash this important story.

"As you can imagine, the tension here is incredible."

The scene returned back to the studio. There was now a picture of the man from the parking lot with the caption, 'Man in Black?, ' under it.

The news announcer said, "We don't have all of the details on the proof that brainwashing experiments are taking place at the hospital. We think it is interesting that a government agent has already shown up on the scene. We have our best investigative reporters on the job to find out more about the mystery man who showed up at the hospital."

The picture behind the news announcer changed to that of a man with the caption, 'Dr. Jones – Government Goon, ' under it. The expression on the man's face was one of surprise, as if someone had jumped out in front of him and taken his picture.

The news announcer said, "Our intern has dug up evidence that the psychiatrist treating Patient X, shown on the screen behind me, has received a research grant titled, 'Healing Psychiatric Disorders Through Positive Reinforcement.'

"As anyone one in the know knows, positive reinforcement is government speak for waterboarding when you do something they don't like. We asked the head administrator at the hospital about waterboarding practices. He denies any involvement in any activities that might be considered torture. Of course, waterboarding has been ruled as an aggressive questioning technique and not torture. Our janitor, an authority on government conspiracies, says that his denial is proof enough that they are waterboarding patients in the hospital.

"We will be sending in an undercover reporter to unearth the truth. We'll have an interview with him as soon as we return from the commercial break."

John said, "Your mother sure is shaking things up there."

"I know," Sean said.

"I think it's significant that the government has already sent a man to the hospital to squash this story."

"That was my dad," Sean said.

"Your dad works for the government?" John asked.

"No. He's a traveling salesman."

John said, "That's a great cover story for a government employee."

"He's not a government employee. He's there to see my mother."

John said, "The reporter said he was a government employee."

"The reporter was wrong," Sean said.

One of the other students watching the news program said, "Hey Dude, this is serious stuff. The government is learning how to brainwash people and that poor Patient X is only the first victim. You and I are next. This is, like, real scary stuff."

"Ah man, don't you know anything? The government has been doing this stuff for years. How do you think the republocrats got into office?" another student said.

John said, "It's hard to believe that they are waterboarding people in hospitals. It will make me think twice if I ever have to have my appendix removed."

"They didn't say that they were waterboarding regular hospital patients, only those with psychological problems," Sean said.

"Who knows how deep the depravity exists in that hospital," John said.

Sean said, "I think the commercials are over."

The news announcer returned on the television. He said, "We are here with John Doe, our best undercover investigative reporter."

"Thank you," the man wearing a Nixon mask said.

"It must be difficult sneaking into places wearing that Nixon mask."

"I'm wearing that mask to hide my identity," Nixon said.

The news announcer asked, "What do you look like without the mask?"

Nixon removed the mask and said, "This is how I actually look."

"You look better with the Nixon mask on," the reporter said.

John Doe put his Nixon mask back on. He said, "My wife prefers it when I wear the Spiro Agnew mask."

"She's a woman of discriminating taste," the reporter said. "So how will you sneak into the facility?"

"I plan on showing up and telling everyone that I've seen trolls. They'll commit me and I'll experience the waterboarding treatments personally."

The news announcer said, "There's a local shopping center that advertises that it has a real mall toll troll named Stomp. He's very popular with the kids in the area. I don't think they'll lock you up for having seen a troll when everyone else has seen one too."

"Oh. I guess I'll say that I've fallen in love with a wood nymph."

"There are reports of wood and water nymphs in that area, along with Leprechauns, Giants, fairies, gnomes, brownies, and elves. They're not going to commit you for seeing something that lives in that area."

"This could be tough," Nixon said.

"Any other ideas?"

Nixon said, "I could say that I think Dances with Wolverines is the best movie ever made."

"That would get you locked up for life. You might not ever get out of there," the reporter said.

"It's a desperation move."

The reporter asked, "What if you don't get any evidence of torture taking place?"

Nixon said, "That's the best evidence that torture is taking place. Don't forget my undercover story on trees that drink beer and litter by throwing their cans on the ground."

"That's when you went undercover as a raccoon."

Nixon said, "That's right. I won a Pullmyfinger Prize for creative journalism for that story."

"It's easy to forget that you're an award winning journalist," the news announcer said with obvious envy in his voice.

"I expect to get another for this story," Nixon said confidently.

The news announcer said, "We've just gotten word that there is to be a press conference at the hospital. We'll bring that to you live after the commercials."

A commercial came on for Gourmet Food for Cats. It showed a cat stuck up in a tree. When the owner held out a can of the gourmet cat food, the cat jumped and died. The caption said, 'Cats are willing to die for Gourmet Food for Cats.'

John said, "I remember that story about trees that drink beer and throw their cans on the ground. That was real journalism."

"Didn't he have pictures of teenagers drinking and throwing their beer cans on the ground?" Sean asked.

John said, "Yes, but he said the trees put them up to it just to confuse the issue. He interviewed the teenagers and they admitted that it was a plot by the trees. They didn't want to drink the beer and throw the cans on the ground, but the trees tricked them into it."

"That's right," Sean said. "I guess there was no chance of them lying about it, particularly when the reporter is dressed up like a giant raccoon."

"Lie to the news? Are you crazy?" John asked.

"No. I just forgot myself there for a moment," Sean said.

"The commercials are over," John said.

The reporter came on and said, "The press conference is about to begin now. We'll go there..."

The television scene changed to a long table inside the cafeteria of the hospital. Sean recognized the place from his short stay at the hospital.

A man wearing a suit sat down at the table. Sean's mother was brought in wearing a straightjacket. A man wearing a doctor's coat sat down between the man wearing the suit and Sean's mother.

The man in the suit said, "I'm Horace Grimes and I am the administrator for this fine medical facility. I want to clear the air concerning a number of allegations that have recently been leveled against this facility.

"I want to state for the record that this hospital provides the best medical care available in the country. Our record is amazing. We haven't killed a patient in years. Not many hospitals can make that claim.

"We do not engage in any activity that could be considered torture. We do not waterboard patients no matter how tempting it might be. We put patients first."

The man in the doctor's coat said, "I'm Dr. Jones and I'm treating Patient X. Patient/doctor confidentiality prevents me from going into any details about the medical condition of Patient X. However, I can tell you that she's a very very sick woman. She has every mental illness ever documented and a few that haven't been seen before. I plan to become very famous after studying her.

"She may look harmless, but she's under my care for very good reasons. She has threatened the life of a volunteer mental health professional. In addition, she has made unspecified threats against her child. Anything she says has to be taken in the context of someone who is very very sick."

Sean's mother said, "I'm Patient X and I'm being held against my will. Dr. Jones is a sadist who takes great pleasure in hurting patients. He's been trying to get me here for years. Mr. Grimes is a bureaucrat who will say anything to avoid a lawsuit. Are there any questions?"

A reporter asked, "Mr. Grimes, are you a bureaucrat?"

"I'm an administrator here at the hospital."

"Yep, you're a bureaucrat. She's telling the truth on that one."

Another reporter asked, "Dr. Jones. Isn't it true that you've been trying to get Patient X committed for years?"

"I've been aware that Patient X is a very very sick woman for a long time. I've wanted a chance to help her to recover so that she can be a model citizen," Dr. Jones answered.

"Yep, you've wanted to get her here for years. She's telling the truth on that one."

"Is there any personal animosity between you and Patient X?"

"What do you mean?"

"Isn't it true that Patient X photo-shopped your head onto the body of a flasher and used it as the picture on her Christmas Cards?"

"Yes."

Sean's mother said, "He called me crazy."

"Dr. Jones, isn't it also true that you have said on occasion that you'd love to give her a treatment or two of electroshock therapy?"

"That was right after she has zapped me with a cattle prod," Dr. Jones protested.

"I was at the store and was looking at cattle prods. I just wondered how well they worked. When he said that I needed to be sedated and locked away, I knew I had found a good person to test it on," Patient X said.

"That seems reasonable," one of the reporters commented.

The reporter asked, "How well did it work?"

"Not as well as I expected. I kind of thought he'd moo or something. Instead, he just fell down and flopped around like a fish."

"He didn't moo?"

"No."

The reporter commented, "I would have thought he'd moo."

"They should have called it a fish prod," Patient X said.

The reporter asked, "Dr. Jones, given this long history of animosity between the two of you, aren't you pleased to be in a position to make her suffer?"

"I'm not making her suffer. As I said, I've been aware for a long time that Patient X is a very very sick woman. I am pleased to be in a position to give her the help she so desperately needs."

"Why is she in a straightjacket?"

"She keeps poking me in the side and making zapping noises," Dr. Jones answered with a nervous twitch.

"How long have you had a twitch?"

"What twitch?" Dr. Jones asked.

"Zap!" Patient X said with a smile.

Dr. Jones twitched.

"That twitch," the reporter said.

"I didn't twitch," Dr. Jones said.

"You must be nervous about something. What are you trying to cover up?" a reporter asked.

"Nothing," Dr. Jones said.

"He's trying to brainwash me," Patient X said.

"How is he doing that?" a number of reporters shouted.

"He says nice things to me when I'm good," Patient X said.

"That sounds like brainwashing to me," the reporter said.

"Definitely."

"No one says nice things to anyone anymore," another reporter said.

Patient X said, "Zap."

Dr. Jones twitched and then said, "If you stop doing that I'll make sure you get ice cream for dessert."

One of the reporters shouted, "Brainwashing!"

"If I don't stop, he'll make me watch all of the other patients eat ice cream. How cruel can a man be?" Patient X asked.

"That's vile," one of the reporters shouted.

The reporters started shouting, "How much is the government paying you to brainwash patients?"

Mr. Grimes shouted, "We'll put together a panel to investigate these charges. For now, this interview is over!"

Patient X was led out of the room by an orderly. Dr. Jones and Mr. Grimes disappeared through a back door. Reporters were shouting questions.

The television cut back to the news announcer. "That was an amazing revelation. You saw it here on our news station first. You heard conclusive proof that the government is paying people to practice brainwashing. We'll be right back after the commercials."

John said, "Imagine that. We got to see the proof first because we were watching this station."

Sean said, "It was on every other news station that was there at the press conference too."

"They don't count because this is the only unbiased news station on the air," John said.

"I guess."

John said, "There's no guessing. They advertise that they are the only unbiased news station on the air."

"So do all of the others," Sean said.

"Yeah, but this one means it."

A student showed up with a clipboard in hand. Holding the clipboard out along with a pen, the student said, "Hey, man! You need to sign this petition to free Patient X and stop the brainwashing."

John grabbed the pen and signed the petition. There were already two pages of signatures.

Sean asked, "Who are you going to send the petition to?"

"Uh? Send it to someone?" the student asked blankly. "It's a petition. You sign it and that's that."

Sean asked, "Aren't you supposed to send it to someone?"

"I don't think so," the student said.

The news program returned after airing several commercials. Now instead of just a news commentator, there were three news pundits seated there looking smug and superior.

John said, "Now, we get to learn more about what's happened. They brought out the news pundits."

"Oh joy," Sean said.

The large man in a rumpled suit started the discussion by mumbling, "Blah blah blah, she's crazy."

"That's a very good observation," the woman in the business suit with the see-thru blouse said.

"I disagree," the skinny guy said.

"Why?" the man in the rumpled suit said.

The skinny guy said, "The government has a long history of performing experiments on people. Just because she's crazy doesn't mean she isn't telling the truth. We need a write in campaign to force Congress to set up a committee to study this problem."

The woman adjusted her position so that a bit more of her chest was visible. She said, "Let's not forget about Snuggles. That poor cat must be traumatized."

"We need a write in campaign to force Congress to set up a committee to study the problem of cats getting stuck in trees," the skinny guy said.

"I agree," the large man in the rumpled suit said.

The news announcer said, "Now that we've solved those problems, it's time for a commercial break."

John said, "There are a lot of commercials."

"More commercials than news," Sean said.

John said, "Hey, it's a commercial for a medicine. I want to hear all of the side effects."

With a background video of a family at a picnic, the announcer said, "Do you have a disease which no one has ever heard of? Ask your doctor about Splatz-Topical-Adenal. Some of the possible side effects are, increased risk of stroke, high incidence of heart murmurs, liver failure, spleen failure, brain tumors, nausea, headaches, migraines, tooth loss, erectile dysfunction, irregular menses, tingling in fingers, paralysis, loss of muscular control, twitching, urinary track infections, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, crones disease, anti-crones disease, old maid syndrome, old man syndrome, gender reversal, uncontrollable bursts of giggling, and anal leakage. Remember to ask your doctor if Splatz-Topical-Adenal is the medicine for you."

John said, "I'm impressed. There aren't many side-effects at all and none of them sound all that bad."

"What's old man syndrome?" Sean asked.

"I'm not sure. Probably, you turn into a grump," John said.

Sean said, "I could live with that."

The news program came back on the air. The news announcer, looking visibly upset, said, "In another major tragedy, the rock singer Princess has split from her movie star husband, Brock. That's right folks, America's favorite couple is getting a divorce. According to insiders close to the couple, the couple got into an argument over whether Dihydrogen Monoxide should be banned or not. Our sources tell us that dull minded Brock is against banning Dihydrogen Monoxide, while the beautiful, smart, and politically correct Princess is for banning it.

"In case you aren't aware of it, Dihrydrogen Monoxide is a very dangerous chemical that is a major component of acid rain and contributes to the greenhouse effect. Previous attempts to outlaw this chemical have met with strong opposition. Environmental activists blame the extremely powerful chemical lobbies for blocking any attempts by the EPA from regulating Dihydrogen Monoxide."

Once the news hour was over, John said, "Well, your mother is the only news item of historical significance that I saw."

"Ah, I'm going with the cat story," Sean said.

"Why the cat story?" John asked.

"I figure there's going to be a whole new industry of cat psychologists as a result of it," Sean said.

"I didn't think of that," John said thoughtfully.

A lovely young coed came over and held out a clipboard and a pen. In a sweet voice, she said, "Sign the petition banning Dihydrogen Monoxide."

John said, "Are you kidding?"

"Oh no," she said, "I believe strongly in protecting the environment."

Sean whispered, "Sign it, John. She's young, pretty, and dumb as a post. Maybe you can ask her out on a date."

"I didn't think of that," John said taking the clipboard and pen from the young woman.

There were already five pages of signatures on the petition. Clearly, a lot of students thought that this was an important issue.

"Would you like to go out on a date with me?" John asked while signing the petition.

"You're a geek. Do I look stupid to you?" the girl asked in disgust.

"He's not a geek, he's an environmental activist," Sean said.

"Oh, in that case, sure I'd love to go out with you," the girl said batting her eyes fetchingly at John.

John said, "I owe you one, Sean."

Author's Note: My apologies to any real or imagined cable news stations who bear even superficial resemblance to the cable news station presented in this chapter. I meant no disrespect. Real news stations are much more sophisticated in how they present news than I'm capable of describing. Let's face it, they can make even the most absurd story look important while all I can manage is to make it look like poorly written fiction. Oops, I didn't mean to write that ... Uh ... Well...

My apologies to our esteemed fourth estate, anyway. Keep up the good work, you guys. We all need to know more about the marital status of various celebrities. It's so much more important than covering real news. After all, divorces of celebrity couples ranks right up there with ... well ... the marriages of celebrities. I lie awake at night in bed worrying about those self-indulgent couples.

I also applaud the activism of our scientifically and socially enlightened press as evidenced through the political commentary that occurs on every news story. With a little more effort on the part of our highly esteemed watchdogs of democracy, we can get water outlawed or at least have it designated a controlled substance. Every time it rains, the EPA can levy a fine on God and the national debt problem will miraculously evaporate. Damn, I didn't mean to write that.


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To Be Continued...
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Posted:  2011-09-01
Last Modified: 2013-01-19 / 06:41:49 am
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