Our hero, Elmer
Destroyer (who is only our hero because no one better came along,)
has been verbally accosted by a sublime creature in glorious
overalls. The reason he is accosted might have something to do with
a number of facts.
1) Elmer is in
the School of Amazing Stuff, though nobody ever said it was okay from
him to be there.
2) Elmer is
trying to steal food from the School of Amazing Stuff cafeteria where
he had previously made off with a fanny pack full of tasty (if
fecal-looking) smoked sausages.
3) Elmer, in
trying to get sausage has somehow accessed red sauce.
4) Elmer is
making a mess.
These reasons
are only speculations. If you want to know the truth, you’ll have
to read the rest of chapter 14 instead of this stupid italicized
intro.
So why am I
still writing this intro?
Why are you
still reading this intro?
“I said turn off that dial, milk-face!” He sighed in highly
exalted exasperation, put down his mop of glory, stepped around me
and turned the dial.
“Sorry?” I said.
“You children!” he ranted in a voice that made my ears soar, my
eyes sting, my nose tickle, and my mouth crave salt, “you come in
here and mess around with things you don’t understand!”
“But I thought I understood.”
“But I thought I understood,” he repeated in glorious mimicry.
“I thought this spout gave out sausages.”
“Sausages!” he roared so loud that the scent of mint filled the
room, “didn’t you read the weekly menu? It’s right there at
the entrance.”
“I couldn’t read it,” I said.
“Of course you couldn’t, you little zygote. I’m surprised you
know how to sit up and burp.”
“I am eight thousand years old,” I said.
“Eight thousand!” he deadpanned immaculately. “We’ve not a
brat enrolled that’s under thirty thousand. I’m twenty-three
million, myself, and still I’m a fine figure of…”
“Of what?”
He smiled beatifically, revealing a false tooth of majesty on his
upper plate. “I can’t tell you,” he whispered so mysteriously
that my nose hairs knotted themselves.
“Here” he said waving the mop over me. “I’m cutting you off
from remote access to the time dial you found. That’s just too
dangerous. No more sneaking around anymore or I’ll show you what
else this mop can do. Leave this school now and don’t you dare
come back until you’re ready to enroll!”
“But I may need to…”
“Do not contradict me, Lower Life-form! I ban you from this school
for the next twenty-seven thousand years!”
“What do I do with this?” I asked holding out the shirt full of
paste.
“Take it with you, you ignorant slug. Don’t waste it! That’s
first quality paste – no hot house tomatoes mind you.”
“I’m sure,” I said defensively, though I had no idea what a hot
house was. “I’ll just be leaving now.” I started backing
away, leaving little blobs of tomato paste leaking through the shirt
and onto the floor.
The man grabbed his mop of glory and blasted the paste off the floor,
then he reached for Mage-e-not’s shirt. “Give me that thing,”
he muttered more articulately than any mutter could conceivably be.
He took the shirt in one hand, and miraculously, the paste did not
slip from, or seep through the cloth. He reached behind him and
pulled from his back pocket a silver object. He snapped the object
in his hand, and behold, it formed into a shining bag in which the
man stuffed the shirt and paste. He handed me the magical bag.
“Now git!” he growled impressively.
As I ran, I heard him shout behind me, “You aren’t the one that
left that pile of dirt in my entryway, are you?”
I ran faster.
Mage-e-not was not nearly as pleased with his tomato paste as he
could have been and wasn’t at all concerned that I risked the wrath
of the celestial school custodian. Maybe I can’t blame him
entirely. The tomato paste did nothing to improve the state or the
appearance of his shirt.
Ono was much more enthusiastic when she came back from her shower.
She said that the paste would be great on algae bars, and asked if
she could have the magical bag when the paste was gone.
Of course, I nodded dumbly and rushed off to find a stream to make
her algae bars.
In a more sober moment of reflection I realized that infatuation is a
lot like slavery. I wondered why we like it so much.
But I did like it, so that was all there was to it. If she commanded
me, I would face a dozen celestial custodians armed with twice as
many mops of glory.
No, I don’t recall ever claiming to be smart.
It was only later that I remembered the cigars I had left behind on
my first trip. They weren’t lying there next to the spout where I
had left them. Had there been a bulge in the bib pocket of the
custodian’s glorious overalls?
He was welcome to them. I just wish I had asked him for matches.
Today's video is embedded on a web page. Just like the school of amazing stuff, it shows you how to do something cool. Origami Darth Vader
