Short Short Stories 2011
Created | Updated Dec 15, 2011
TITLE PAGE:
The Duck Played His Accordian, While the Duchess Pitched a No-Hitter
Against Toronto. Then Things started To get Strange
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Stories by Paulh
Christmas, 2011
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Page 1
~~Q.E.D.~~
"Here's your revised version," the editor said, handing the author a one-page story.
"But I gave you an 800-page novel!" the author exclaimed, staring at it in disbelief."
"It was bloated. I cut out all the adverbs and half the adjectives. Your subplots obscured the main story, so I tossed them -- elves taking over China; fighting Global Warming by pushing the Earth further from the Sun, etc. Rewrite them as separate stories if you want..."
"You even axed the dragon who designs greeting cards in Swahili?"
"No one in Swahili-speaking countries believes in dragons any more. We checked."
"What about the Doomed Lovers' Ball?"
"It's been done!"
"The secrets of life, written in frosting?"
"Oh, please!
"The elephant Milderspoff?
"Elephants are not fashionable now."
"So all that's left is the tale of an author whose 800-page novel is edited down to one page..."
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Page 2
~~The Decline and Thaw of the Snowflake Empire~~
He could remember his birth and early life as if they had happened yesterday: his first consciousness in the icy maelstrom of a cloud, the grand whirling descent with his many brothers and sisters through a bottomless void, and finally the sudden impact that made him bounce a little. Luckily, none of his crystalline arms broke, as his fall was muffled by others who had landed a minute or two earlier. "We are here to rule the world forever!" he heard the others chanting, and he could not help but join in such a joyful chorus.
Alas, this new world of which he was a part welcomed him not at all: huge hard-shelled creatures that raced along on round rubbery things crushed many of his comrades, and there was a particularly large one that carted him -- along with vast numbers of his fellow warriors -- to a flat hardtopped field, leaving them to a die a slow, thawing death in the sunny days that became hotter and hotter as time passed.
He could hear the death agony of the snowflakes on top of him as, one by one, they gave up their struggles, until one day when he was on top of the snowbank, and he could see strange flying things whizzing by on their way to brightly-colored gardens nearby. Suddenly he noticed a beautiful flower, and realized that ruling the world was not really his purpose in life. Instead, he was meant to sacrifice himself so that his meltwater could help keep such a beautiful flower alive.
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Page 3
~~Disadvantages of Living in a Virtual House~~
When she first moved in, Yvette bragged that keeping her virtual house clean was a snap: "Remove pets and people, turn off the computer program, sweep away the accumulated dust and dirt, then bring the program up, good as new."
That was the upside.
The downside was what she was going through now at 3:00 a.m. on a February morning. She lay on the cold hard ground under what had been her bed. Twenty feet away, where the bathroom had been, water from the toilet bowl splashed on the ground. She could hear her son Elmo moaning on the trampoline that had cushioned his fall from his second-floor bedroom.
What had been a neighborhood of virtual houses was now an empty field -- apparently due to a widespread power outage -- so she turned on the emergency generator, breathing a sigh of relief as the house reappeared around her.
Granted, in the morning she would have to hang her clothing back in the closet, and her pots and pans in the kitchen cupboards. Happily, the refrigerator was real rather than virtual, so there would be something to eat when she got up.
The cat was real, too, as it slept in its favorite spot on top of the refrigerator. House or no house, there wasn’t much that could disturb a cat’s sleep.
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Page 4
~~Prologue: The Eccentric Writer~~
My husband had been very supportive of my career, so when I said I wanted to study cooking at the Cordon Bleu in Paris, he was more than happy to pack up and move to a lovely little efficiency apartment in the Quartier Latin. I assumed that while I was at classes he would take in movies or walk around the city, but instead he took a job translating and editing a collection of stories by the most eccentric writer I had ever
heard of.
“His name is Alphonse Canard,” my husband explained. “As luck would have it, he’s sitting in that little park” – he pointed out the window to a bench where a middle-aged man was playing an accordian and feeding a duck. “He’s had a sad life. He fell madly in love with a lady who told him she was the Duchess of Montmartre. He played the accordian for her, played with her pet duck, and was blissfully happy until the day when she was carted off to prison as an impostor. He never got over it.”
“He doesn’t look too sad to me,” I said, gazing at him.
“His writing has not been the same since the breakup. All of his stories are about a duck, and accordion, and the Duchess of Montmartre. He can’t get them out of his mind….”
I looked at some of his stories and realized the truth of what my husband had said. Still, they all had a certain Gallic whimsy about them. Maybe someone would want to read the collection that my husband was editing……
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Page 5
~~The Duck, the Accordian, and the Duchess of Montmartre—Canard #1~~
The duck was charming. He was witty. He regaled the Duchess with songs about
harpooning whales in the Yukon, and hang-gliding over Penobscot Bay. Not many ducks had lived lives of such adventure. Heck, not many ducks could speak English, let alone sing it.
"Tres bien, Monsieur Duck," she said, applauding fervently. "I must insist that you come
sing at my dinner party tonight, and I shall accompany you on my accordian."
Then she went to Chef Letatcestmoi to order him not to serve duckling a l'orange.
Meanwhile, at the duck’s home, his mother was scolding him for spending so much time with the Duchess. “Humans are not to be trusted,” she said. “They say they love you, but all they want is your body, usually in some sauce or other.”
The duck was the hit of the evening. The other guests insisted on six encores. Maybe these humans really did love him for himself, the duck thought. Then the dinner was served, and he suddenly wasn’t so sure. The turtle soup tasted familiar. He asked the chef who the turtle was, and realized it had been a longtime friend….
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Page 6
~~The Duck, the Accordian, and the Duchess of Montmartre—Canard #2~~
Fautdemieux Lescargot had opened the front door of the Duchess's house many times,
but this was the first time he ever saw a duck on the steps -- a duck in a suit, no less!
"I represent the National Credentials Bureau,” The duck said. “We have looked at the Duchess's credentials.and have determined that Montmartre is much too small to be a dukedom."
"But, Monsieur Duck, a Dukedom implies that there must be a Duke,” Lescargot replied. “There is no Duke here. There is a Duchess instead, one who is by far the finest Duchess in all of France, if not the world."
The duck was about to dispute this point as well when he spied the Duchess's accordian, and promptly began playing elegant music on it, music that charmed Lescargot and brought the Duchess herself to the door, tears in her eyes.
"That was my grandfather's accordian," the Duchess sobbed, "but you play it twice as well as he ever could...."
The Duchess was very generous to the duck, getting him started in a lucrative musical career that led to recordings and television specials. He no longer had to work for the Credentials Bureau. It wasn’t until he was well along in years that he realized the Duchess had conned him: her grandfather had never played any instruments, let alone the accordian. Rather, she knew the Credentials Bureau was full of ducks, and they all played accordians. What better way was there to guarantee that she would continue to be the Duchess of Montmartre, her credentials unchallenged?
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~~The Duck, the Accordian, and the Duchess of Montmartre—Canard #3~~
Jacqueline de Montmartre's costume balls and dinner parties were the finest in all of Paris, so it came as quite a jolt when she curtailed them. "The stock market has crashed, as you know," she told reporters, "which means I've let all my servants go, sold my priceless paintings, and auctioned off most of the furnishings in my house."
Financial ruin led to despondency, which fed her craving for alcohol. She lay on the floor in the parlor now, her head propped against the wall, filling a glass from her last bottle of vodka.
"Exshept for the housh, I only have two thingsh left I can shell," she pondered, "the duck and the accordian," so it was a great relief for her when the duck showed her the golden egg it had just laid. She quickly traded the egg for cash, and was able to at least buy furniture for the first floor of her house, but there wasn’t enough left over to resume the parties she was so fond of.
The question was, how often would the duck lay more golden eggs? The Duchess tried a lot of different things to get the egg production going, but nothing worked until she tried playing the accordion. The eggs that resulted gave her plenty of money for everything she wanted. She became so involved in planning new entertainments that she forgot to cash in the duck’s next egg.
The egg hatched into a tax collector.
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Page 8
~~The Duck, the Accordian, and the Duchess of Montmartre—Canard #4~~
The Duchess had never considered becoming a spy before, but the intelligence agents who appeared at her door regaled her with visions of the suave, good-looking hunks she would be dealing with. "You're sexy, you're sophisticated, you're a Duchess," they had argued, "so they would never imagine that you were also a duplicitous spy."
It turned out to be a grand adventure: dinner with gorgeous guys in the finest restaurants, travel (first class, no less!) to Monte Carlo, Capri, and other exotic locales, even hang-gliding over Angel Falls with a spy who resembled Clark Gable.
But her luck went south when she found that her next contact -- the one who was rumored to be a powerful seducer of women -- was a duck.
Reading the skepticism on her face, the duck said, "I may be a duck, but rest assured I know how to show a woman a good time...."
She waited to be seduced, and then realized with considerable horror that the duck's idea of a good time was to reach for an accordian and serenade her.
“You play surprisingly well,” she conceded after the first number. “Play something I can sing along with.”
This turned out to be a big mistake, for her singing turned to be awful. The duck, insulted, stormed out of the restaurant and told her superiors that she was a terrible spy. In the end, however, the Duchess prevailed by telling the powers that be about her marvelous recipe for roast duck.
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Page 9
~~This Gives New Meaning to the Expression “Family Tree”
Mom and Dad didn't really want to move into that assisted-living facility, but my sisters and I could no longer drop everything and rush them to the Emergency Room when she fell or he forgot to take his meds. We solemnly promised to spare no expense in helping them feel at home. This seemed like a noble solution -- until Melinda (my oldest sister) called me to say that Mom was pining for her favorite spruce tree. I was the one Melinda called because I was the only one who could afford to have the darn thing dug up, placed in a pot, and transported to the corner of her room, where it became a sort of year-round Christmas tree. Mom was very happy to have her tree so close at hand. My sisters praised me for my efforts. I was just grateful she hadn't asked for the old gnarled oak that we had fastened our swings to when we were kids. Plus, the squirrels that hung out in that tree would have driven Mom crazy.
A few weeks later, Melissa (another sister) mentioned Mom's desire for the brook that ran in front of her old house.
"There's a perfectly charming little brook that's visible through her window here!" I retorted.
"Yes, and it's so charming it makes her own brook seem even more desirable," Melissa said, feeling as exasperated as I did. “She says she won’t really feel at home until she can see her own brook.”
I crossed the facility director's hand with silver and hired a landscaper to make the nearby brook look just like the one Mom remembered. Then we told her that we had moved tons of earth in order to reroute her brook so that it flowed past her window. We weren’t sure she would buy this, but she seemed delighted with the brook either way.
Dad's eyes lit up when he saw what we were able to do for Mom -- was he about to make a request of his own? -- but it slipped his mind before he could say what it was.
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Page 10
~~Statuary of limitations~~
"You and I are the oldest gargoyles in the city," said Plucktwaddle.
"Yes," Primbleclutch replied. "The first Earl of Poddlechester put us over his front door 400 years ago to protect his household from evil in any of its forms."
"Have we done a good job?"
"Very much so!"
"Then why does the new Earl think we can't do it alone any more?"
"You're talking about the marble lions."
"Indeed."
"Would an introduction help?" said the lion on the right. "I'm Altendorf, and my partner is Feggleschmidt. We guard the front steps and the lawns. The house is your bailiwick. Let's be friends. Really!"
"Okay, fine," said Plucktwaddle. "I just don't get why the Earl thinks his steps and lawns are threatened."
"It's the software billionaire across the street," said Feggleschmidt. "His lawn is infested with marble zebras. If they ever invade us, we're ready to pounce on them!"
One of the zebras overheard the conversation, and spoke up. “You’re worrying needlessly!” he exclaimed. “Look at all the big trucks and vans that zoom along the street. A collision with one of those, and we’d lose a couple legs for sure.”
The lions and gargoyles relaxed when they heard this. They chatted happily about their past lives, and didn’t even pay much attention to the little man who came the next day to paint lines for a zebra crossing….
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Page 11
~~Extraterrestrials Like Clean Socks, Too~~
"I've run out of ideas," he said, staring glumly at his monitor.
"The world weeps for you," his wife said tartly, picking up the socks that he had thrown on the floor. She didn't mean to be sarcastic, but it was laundry day. Separating the white stuff from the dark usually pushed her to the brink. Her husband’s laziness wasn’t helping.
"No, it doesn't. The world only weeps when Justin Bieber gets laryngitis."
"What makes you think he has to sing? When he gives a public concert, he lip-syncs. They all do it. As long as it brings in the money, no one cares.
"I can relate to that. Today I'm pretending to be writing."
She wanted to say something even more sarcastic, but a cluster of tiny UFO's was emerging from the laundry hamper. She didn't like extraterrestrials as a rule, but if she played her cards right, maybe she could con them into helping with the laundry.
Alas, this was a colony of extraterrestrial writers who had exhausted the supply of ideas on their own planet. They were here expecting to get some new ideas from the Earthlings. When they saw the huge woman who was gathering laundry, they added their own dirty socks to the laundry bag.
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Page 12
~~Murder, an Occupational Hazard~~
"Douglas, the beach is so empty!" Emily exclaimed. "I hope they don't have sharks or riptides..."
When they reached the hotel, he asked about it at the desk.
"Don't worry, sir," the woman on duty said. "No sharks. No riptides. Our beach is perfectly safe. A conference of detectives was scheduled here, but they relocated elsewhere, so you won’t find the beach too crowded. The water's perfect. Enjoy!" She flashed a winning smile.
Douglas carried the beach gear, while Emily rushed down to the water's edge. She promptly did a double take. "Douglas!" she screamed. "There's a body here!"
He dropped everything and ran to her. "No pulse," he said. "There's a knife in his back. Emily, we need to tell the lifeguard."
The lifeguard was sprawled forward in his chair, a bullet through his brain. They ran back to the hotel, where the lady at the desk had been bludgeoned.
Meanwhile, at the next beach, ninety detectives were partying. "Enjoy yourselves while you can," their leader warned. "Murders happen wherever detectives go." The doorbell rang. He answered the door. It was Douglas and Emily, with knives in their backs.
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Page 13
~~The ham sandwich at the center of the universe~~
He was just sititng down to dinner when the phone rang.
"Presley Plimtwoddle?" said the voice on the other end.
"Speaking."
"This is Yerlif Drebbit at NASA's Really Big Discoveries Division."
"Oh, yes, I was expecting your call. My wife has just put dinner on the table, though. Can I call you back in twenty minutes?"
"It's very important that you not touch your dinner."
"What in heaven's name are you talking about? It's just a ham sandwich." Presley frowned.
"We have just confirmed that your dining room table is the exact center of the universe."
"And?"
"And even a small shift of weight at the center could destabilize the whole cosmos."
Mona Plimtwoddle picked up the phone. "Yerlif, my husband's ham sandwich is no longer the center of the universe. The Earth rotates. The current center is miles west of us now." Presley beamed at his wife, who happened to be an eminent cosmologist. Yerlif knew she knew her stuff.”.
Presley and Mona happily munched their ham sandwiches while Flevulus Dreavy, sixty miles west of them, was sitting down for chicken and dumplings. His phone rang.....
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Page 14
~~Tempest in a Nursing Home~~
Alma Gandiflote had been feeling poorly lately, so poorly that she didn’t play gin rummy with her roommate Agnes any more.
When Mrs. Gandiflote died, Agnes figured they'd fill her bed within days.Sure enough, a new patient turned up the next day.
"Hi, I'm Agnes," she said. "I'm the head of the conspiracy."
"I'm Fred," the new patient said. "Are you conspiring to off the cook?"
"For starters!" she said. "This meatloaf is older than I am. I'll explain the conspiracy later. There might be snitches here..." Suddenly she covered her face and slumped in her wheelchair."
"Are you sick? Should I call the nurse?"
"No, my son's in the hall, in disguise."
"Really? Why?"
"I said I'd never speak to him again if he put me in a home. He thinks I won't see through the disguise."
"How long have you been here?"
"Twelve years. He should be home screwing his nubile second wife."
Fred looked more closely at the man in the hall. "Hey, that's my son-in-law!" Fred exclaimed. He waved and wheeled himself over to the visitor.
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Page 15
~~Well-Read Hoodlums~~
"I'm not gonna <bleep>in' elucidate this again!" Reggie said, putting down his book. "Disrupt my reading once more, and I shall extricate my stiletto from its sheath and disembowel you!".
Buster apologized. He drained Reggie's bottle, snagged a pack of butts, and got up from the table as the other hoods arrived for Reggie's weekly book group. Buster could have joined, but he disliked fiction, except for "MacBeth." Great story, but bad ending!
He sat near the door, listening. Today's book was "Crime and Punishment." Reggie slapped Oscar for critiquing Raskolnikov's murder technique. "Cut him some slack!" Reggie exclaimed. "He's not a professional hitman....yet. He’ll get better with practice, though, just as you did.”
"Why read about him, then?" Chipper demanded. More slapping sounds.
"He felt guilty," Reggie explained. "A big mistake. We want to avoid this, especially the punishment part of the story. See, we can learn what not to do by reading great literature."
Buster dozed. When he awakened, the discussion was wrapping up. "Come back next week for 'Oliver Twist'" Reggie was saying. "What can we learn from Fagan?"
“Fagan, Schmagan,” Buster muttered. He preferred to read comic books. His idol was Lex Luthor. Granted,Lex always lost to Superman, but in the real world there was no Superman to foil a perfect crime….
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Page 16
~~Family Secrets~~
"When I married Prince Hal, his chances of becoming King were remote," Rana said, her eyes moist. "A month later, the 25 who were ahead of him were eaten by gigantic frogs which then vanished. I hadn't counted on becoming Queen, but then, neither did I think
I would be celebrating my 105th birthday today."
There was great applause. Richard, Rana's son, was the King now, and his many descendants filled the room.
"There is one thing that concerns me, though," Rana continued. "That concern is familybickering. Many of you treat your spouses horribly. Grave harm will come if this doesn't stop!"
"What is this 'grave harm' you speak of?" demanded Prince Nostrom, whose bitter marital dispute was in all the tabloids.
Rana took a deep breath. "I first met Hal in a swamp. I was a frog, but he kissed me, unleashing a spell. I became a princess. The spell has continued, but it's unstable. Without marital love it will unravel."
Rana had hardly spoken these words when Prince Nostrum and his wife began fighting. King Richard and his siblings and their descendants suddenly became frogs. Oddly enough, Richard's descendants remained human. His wife blushed, for she had a guilty secret as well.
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Page 17
~~If You Liked Quabbin, you'll love this story~~
"The floor seems wet," said the Mayor of Grenfield as he hung up his coat.
"That's because the Slugwash River is rising," Miss Flummocks replied, handing him some letters. "The postman says the water is climbing the steps in front of Town Hall."
"But it hasn't rained in weeks. Is the next town flooded too?"
"Nobody's there."
"Because?"
"The residents were all relocated:"
"Relocated? Why?"
She handed him the morning paper, which featured a story about Quasimobin Reservoir. "It's going to fill the whole Slugwash River Valley. We'll be underwater"
"Nobody told us about this!" The Mayor frowned.
"They probably don't know we're here," Miss Flummocks said. "That last statewide map omitted us by mistake. I'll call the Governor."
"I *knew* we'd forgotten something!" the Governor exclaimed when Miss Flummocks called.
"But you live in Grenfield yourself, sir."
"Good point. I'm going to halt the flooding until we get everybody out."
"But if you live there, wouldn't your family have mentioned it?"
"They aren't there. They went to the beach."
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Page 18
~~Stop the Lavender Vortex, I Want to get off~~
"I liked it," said Jean, who enjoyed just about every film she saw.
"Even the title?" Melanie was incredulous.
"Well, maybe 'Transcendental Ninjas from the Lavender Vortex' is a *little* strange..."
"Ya think?"
"Jean, it's a terrible movie!" Audrey exclaimed. "They aren't really transcendental, they flunk out of ninja school, and the 'vortex' turns out to be a washing machine."
"But you can't deny that everything is lavender!" Jean insisted, clenching her fists.
"That's part of the problem," Melanie said, winking. "Their football team went out on the field in lavender uniforms. What real team would do that?"
"Forget the movie for a minute!" Audrey said. "We need a catchy name for our band."
"How about 'Flaming Orange Zombie Bedpans?" Melanie suggested.
"I like it!" Jean replied.
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Page 19
~~Granted, Many Lawyers are Animals, But This is Ridiculous!~~
"Miss Vellotti, the court has appointed an attorney to represent you," the sheriff's deputy said.
"I don't need him," she said. "I chose a different lawyer."
"But the one you chose is a rat. We can't allow that."
She glared and clenched her fists. "He's a particularly large rat, which means he's especially capable. He was top of his class in Rat Law School."
"With all due respect to the rat in question, and not doubting for a moment his qualifications to represent other rats, those qualifications do not extend to representing humans in a human court of law," the deputy explained.
"But you've allowed other defendants to be represented by an ostrich and an aardvark...."
"Because they attended Harvard Law School."
"All right, I'll take the aardvark."
"Why not the ostrich."
She smiled. She was pretty sure the ostrich had been eating her irises, but she didn't want to say so.
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Page 20
~~SupercalifragilisticexpialiBOOM~~
Mary Poppins burst into tears when she saw Blimkin. He put his arm
around her and brought her into the room, soflty closing the door behind him.
"Those <bleep>ing Word Police are everywhere!" she sobbed.
"I hear that you started screaming your favorite word in Trafalgar Square," Blimkin said,
drying her tears. "That's risky. The world could have blown up."
"How did you know I did that?"
"Curious George told me."
"Is he here?"
"Yes. Babar as well."
"They're safe here. While they’re here with us, the Police can't hold them prisoner to make me surrender. Would the world really blow up?"
"The Word Police claim the planet has a curse on it. Any word with more than ten
syllables would set it off. They have microphones everywhere except here."
"Fine. Where's your dictionary?"
"In my secret drawer. It's the only dictionary they haven't confiscated."
They selected the longest word they could find.
"Antidisestablishmentarianism" they said, holding hands.
The world didn't blow up, but the Word Police turned into daffodils.
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Page 21
~~If you Don’t Like My Stories, You Can Take Your Kimono Elsewhere~~
"What kind of heartless writer turns Mary Poppins into a fugitive from justice?" Eldora said, reading over my shoulder as I typed.
"A competent one," I said. "I'm a writer. If I didn't do bad things to good characters, my readers would snooze. Case in point: you saw me doing heartless things to Miss Poppins, and you developed a strong interest in the story."
"Your next story takes the cake!" she scoffed. "Children get on the schoolbus in the morning. That afternoon, they get off as elderly people."
"Rod Serling did far worse."
"Yes, but he had elders turn into children."
"Those children would have had to be placed in an orphanage with evil Miss Hannigan, because they're too young to return to the rest home. Anyway, You don’t need to worry that my version will ever see the light of day. I plan to erase it. I erase 10 stories for every one that I post."
"You should erase them all!" she declared, walking to the kitchen to make coffee.
That gave me an idea. When she came back, she was a gorgeous geisha who had taken
a vow of silence.
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Page 22
~~Let the Punnishment Fit the Crime~~
"Whatever you do, don't major in accounting," Mom said as she dropped me off at my dorm.
"You're overreacting," I said.
"Well, watching your husband and brother-in-law go off to prison for accounting fraud will make you do that!"
I hurried off to the administration building to sign up for courses. There was a business management course I wanted, but accounting was a prerequisite. Maybe *one* accounting course would be okay.
"Hello, Mr. Tate," my advisor said when I brought him my course selections, "most of these are good choices, but I can't let you take accounting.".
"But it's a prerequisite for a course I need next semester!" I protested.
"Sorry, but no!" the advisor said. "There's no accounting for Tates."
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Page 23
~~I’ll Work on my Super Powers Right After I Finish My Nap~~
Captain Lazy was the only superhero in history who harnessed the power of sloth for fighting evil. He was too lazy to hire a publicist, though.
This explains why he was less famous than Whammo, who rescued businessmen's inebriated wives from crocodile-infested waters at parties (the crocs were probably inebriated too, as it was an open bar).
The thing is, heroes like Whammo and Green Stinger and Superhunk had to rely on big muscles and cutting-edge technology, while Captain Lazy actually had superpowers.
Well, *one* superpower: his laser vision could levitate objects even if they were miles away. One fateful afternoon when the other superheros were busy elsewhere, Captain Lazy saw the Brazen Bomber place a bomb on the busy Gothamtropolis Bridge. Hundreds of commuters stood to die horribly when it went off.
Captain Lazy had been planning to take a nap, but the knew the sound of the explosion was likely to cut it short. He levitated the bomb into outer space, where it exploded harmlessly. Then he sent the Brazen Bomber to the police station, along with video footage that proved his guilt.
Then he took his nap.
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Page 24
~~Fifteen Minutes of Fame~~
It began as a routine writing assignment, but when three of my best
characters drowned in a freak July snowmelt accident at Yosemite, I found myself back at square one.
The deadline was two days away, and here I was interviewing new characters. The best ones were on vacation or working for better writers than I would ever be. Only a miracle could save me.
"I see that you've been in 28 stories by Writer X, but she never gave you a name," I told the first applicant, a rather bland little fellow.
"I was one of the hobbits or Hogwarts students," he explained. "None of us had lines or individual names, but she paid well. Nice things always happened and there was no danger."
"The story I'm writing is about a secret agent who smuggles a magic thimble from the Turkish baths in Budapest to Boise, where the genie inside is given her freedom."
"Why not just mail the darn thing?" the applicant wondered.
At first his mental laziness bothered me, but then I realized that my story would be forgotten as soon as it appeared anyway.
"Fine," I agreed. "You're hired. You're a secret agent, so you'll have no name."
Little did I realize that the genie would become an international celebrity whose memoirs would divulge my character’s real name. He became famous as well, but fifteen minutes later he choked on a baloney sandwich.
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Page 25
She was the perfect character for my next story: drop-dead gorgeous, troubled by a shadowy past, and -- best of all -- no other writers had signed her up yet.
"They *tried* to sign me up," she countered. "Malcolm Tishpid [1] saw me as a beautiful princess in some tiny Italian coastal principality..."
"Great plot!" I enthused.
"Not great! I could be in hundreds more stories, but my readers would wonder why a princess is washing her own nylons or fending off some butcher in H*ll's Kitchen. They’d remember that, and not take me seriously in other stories. ‘Beauty is enough. Royalty just complicates things.’" I told Tishpid, so he hired someone else for his protagonist.”
"Well, you’ll be happy to know my story involves no royalty! Try this: Your brothers are detectives. You're smarter than them, and one day..."
"Wait!" she exclaimed. "I’ve read your other stories, and no way are you a competent detective story writer. Scratch the detective brothers routine. I've got a better idea "
Iron bars descended all around me.
"I'm a femme fatale," she said, looking at me through the bars. "You're a third-tier writer who won't be missed, but you're good looking. My friends will pay me to let them sleep with you. I’ll take the money and go to Monte Carlo to ride in Lamborghinis with some rich playboy." She walked away, her keys jangling merrily.....
[1] Not his real name
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Page 26
~~Sometimes Déjà Vu is Not a Good Strategy~~
I was sipping pina coladas by the pool when my editor's secretary called. "That was quite a story," she said. "Mr. Twuggs was stunned. Literally."
"Wow! I only gave it to him an hour ago," I exclaimed.
"The paramedics are here. They can't find a pulse," she went on.
Suddenly this didn't seem like good news. "You mean my story almost
killed him?"
"There's no 'almost' about it," she replied. "He's flatlining. Take my advice and go back to your father's hardware store. Nobody's going to risk reading your stories now." She hung up.
I noticed that God was sitting next to me. "You're having a dream,"
He said. "Nevertheless, the secretary's advice was sound. Call your father. He'll let you start immediately."
I woke up. Going to my PC, I read the last story I'd given to my editor. It began, "I was sipping pina coladas by the pool when my editor's secretary called."
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Page 27
~~Flea-Collaring Suspects~~
"Mrs. Danvers," I said, "why are you hiring me to find the killer of a dog?"
"Not just any dog," she exclaimed. "Rebecca was a miracle. She understood seven languages, was a published author, and was advising the President on foreign policy."
"No one that exemplary could go through life without making enemies," I said. "Once I have a list of Rebecca's enemies, the killer's name will be on it."
"Well, that's the thing. Everybody loved her."
Just then, an anonymous letter arrived. "I killed Rebecca, and you will never catch me," it said.
In the next week I questioned the neighbor's boy, Rebecca's publisher, the President's foreign policy advisors, and all the cats within six blocks. All had ironclad alibis.
The big breakthrough came when the CIA decoded a message from the Flea Underground proving that fleas had killed Rebecca over her flea-repellant ad.
"Being a P.I. is harder than it used to be," I told Mrs. Danvers over a cappuccino.
"That's nothing," she said. "Canaries are suing mine owners over unsafe conditions..."
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Page 28
~~You Can’t Say I Didn’t Warn You~~
"I'm evil."
"That's what I want to hear."
"I'm also ugly."
"I paid extra for that, so don't disappoint me!" The evil spirit I had conjured was still too hazy to make out with any clarity, so I stirred the cauldron some more.
"In my past life I was a great singer," the spirit reminisced. "I sang all the great villainous roles -- Iago, Mephistopheles...."
"You won't be singing as much this time around," I said. "I do a comic magic act. My partner died recently, so I conjured you ro replace him. Yes, you'll sing a little bit, but we're here mostly to get laughs."
The spirit turned out to be truly ugly, as he claimed. The act went well until he started singing so beautifully that the audience focussed on him completely. Afterwards he signed up for more gigs, while I got lost in the shuffle.
I was annoyed, and told him so.
"Well, I *told* you I was evil," he replied
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Page 29
~~Lucky Guess?~~
It's a fundamental cosmic law that the air conditioner in your car will break down on the hottest day of the summer. A corollary is that you'll encounter delays when you go to the garage to get it fixed.
Thus I waited in a long row of cars at a road construction site. Sweat poured from my brow. As I turned the fan to maximum, I heard a terrifying sound: my inner voices were awake.
"Just pass everybody!" said the first one. "Go ahead, knock over some red cones. Nobody's doing much anyway."
"Don't do it!" cautioned another voice. "That cop looks mean. It's
probably hotter in jail than it is here."
"It's a scam," said the first. "Those 'workers' are gonna walk down the line and rob everybody!"
"Aw, they're real," said the other voice. "That guy over there has a pot belly and a deep tan. He's probably got a wife and a little girl and a pet hamster called Credalia Fupwig."
As entertaining as the voices were, it was time to go. The line ahead of me was moving. As I passed the guy with the pot belly, I overheard his phone conversation. “Don’t worry, honey, I’ll pick up some hamster food for Credalia on my way home,” he said.
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Page 30
~~A Giant Step Forward~~
"You've done an amazing job with this town," said Governor Blarswell.
"I pretty much had to," said Mayor Wimbly. "We had no money to hire a Town Planner and Town Architect, so I took on their duties...."
"You have advanced degrees in both fields, and it shows," said Miss Ramrod, the Governor's assistant. "You're also an accomplished sculptor."
"There's just one thing that concerns us," the Governor said.
"You're talking about our bridges," Wimbly said. The others nodded. "I'll explain. Tourism looked like a way to bring money into the town. A multimillionaire in the next county bought London Bridge and moved it to the middle of the desert. Tourists flock there from around the world. I thought if we had novelty bridges too, they'd stop here on their way to that other bridge. I built them of nontraditional materials -- watertight cardboard, bamboo, old jewelry, beans -- and painted them bright colors. At Christmas time, I put strings of colored lights around them"
"We saw them," said the Governor, smiling. "They're lovely. Our concern is that the bridge of beans has sprouted a beanstalk, and the giant at the top looks dangerous...."
“Don’t worry,” Mayor Wimbly said. “The giant is a welcome visitor because he pays us with golden eggs.”
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Page 31
~~Bad Altitudes~~
"You never told me about the canyon," Felicia exclaimed between bites of steak and salad.
"What's to tell?" I said. "It's as great as it looks. I like to wander there after supper, when the sun is setting and the bats and hawks are overhead."
"I'll join you!" She finished her steak and put her silverware down.
"Right now?"
"Yes! There's not a moment to lose." She planted a kiss on my cheek and tugged on my arm.
She was soon in love with everything in the canyon: the scrub oaks, the sagebrush, even the old bridge that spanned the Quixotic River. "Wait, why are those men on the bridge?"
"They're getting ready to jump, " I explained.
"But they'll kill themselves!"
"That's the Thursday Night Men's Bridge-Jumping Club. They come here to jump. Afterwards they feast on barbecued ribs and ice cream."
"Can't the police stop them?"
"There's Officer Foley over there." A police car sat next to the bridge. "He's trained as an EMT. Sometimes he jumps, too."
"That's men for you!" Felicia said indignantly.
"Come back on Tuesday. We'll watch the Tuesday Night Women's Bridge-Jumping Club."
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Page 32
~~I Came With the House~~
"Welcome to the neighborhood," I said, handing an apple pie to the woman at the door.
"Thanks," she said, invitng me in.
A gray tiger cat dashed between my legs as I entered. "That's a beautiful cat," I said. "How old is he?"
"I've never seen him before," she said, frowning. "I'm Irene Ferguson, and this is George, my husband."
As George and I shook hands, Irene went to the kitchen to remove the cat, who had retrieved a can of cat food, opened it, and was using silverware to eat it.
"It's not good manners to interrupt someone who's eating," the cat said when Irene arrived. She jumped back in shock. "Yes, that's better," the cat said, finishing his meal. "I'm contractually obligated to stay here. The Hickenloopers understood this, and you
will too, Mrs. Ferguson. I'm part of the house. Without me, the house suffers."
As I walked back to my own house, I heard a yowl as Irene threw the cat out. By morning, the foundation was sagging and there was a hole in the roof. Within two days the house had collapsed, except for the part that was above the cat’s dish.
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Page 33
~~I’d Rather Date You Than Read Your Stories~~
Dear Phineas Fuffleblinger:
I read your stories because I don't have anything else to do, but I'm
going to stop if you keep writing morbid stories that end with bitter
irony. --Remba Noofy
Dear Remba Noofy:
If you stop reading my stories, how will you know whether they're
still morbid and bitterly ironic? --Phineas Fuffleblinger
Dear Phineas Fuffleblinger:
I'll just know. Okay, the cow will tell me. --Remba
Dear Remba Noofy:
Can I interview your cow? She sounds like great story material. --Phineas
Dear Phineas Fuffleblinger:
Sorry, I just spoke to the cow, and she no longer reads your stories.
I'm your last reader. Without me, you're out of business. --Remba
Dear Remba Noofy:
Ouch! Would you like to come over to my house for dinner next Tuesday? We can go over my forthcoming stories, and you can tell me which ones won't fly. --Phineas
Dear Phineas Fuffleblinger:
Of course I'll come. As I said, I have nothing else to do. --Remba
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Page 34
~~An Udderly Despicable Murder~~
The scarf was lovely. Made of turquoise silk, it should have graced the neck of a Fifth Avenue heiress at an opera matinee or chic gallery. Instead, it was half-covered in dung in a deserted pasture near Cooperstown.
"Look, Inspector," said Jean-Pierre Le Fou, my assistant, "the scarf has a monogram: 'MLM'."
"This is very disturbing, Jean-Pierre. This scarf belongs to Michelle La Moo."
"The famous cow? Why would she relieve herself on such an expensive scarf?"
"She wouldn't. She should be filming a movie or sipping cognac in her condo in Geneva now."
"Then perhaps a bird has carried her scarf across the Atlantic and dropped it here."
"Good thinking! The case is as good as solved.
We dined with an elderly widow at a nearby farmhouse. She removed a t-bone steak from her freezer to cook for our meal. Suddenly I was struck from behind.
When Jean-Pierre and I came to, we were no longer in the farmhouse. We met a white-bearded man who introduced himself as Saint Peter. "You were all murdered," Saint Peter said.
Jean-Pierre's jaw dropped.
Michelle La Moo cursed us for botching the case.
This didn’t seem like a good time to ask her for an autograph…..
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Page 35
~~Some Cats Just Like to Show off!~~
Ozymandius was smarter than the average cat, but this was ridiculous! My girfriend and I were headed for the beach in my Mercedes converticle, when a tiny voice in the next lane exclaimed, "You forgot to feed me!"
I looked toward the voice. There was Ozymandius, riding my motorcyle
like a pro. "I didn't forget, Ozymandius," I replied. "Mrs. McBlather is feeding you while I'm away."
"She ran off to Disney World with the gardener this morning."
"He's a good catch, but her husband may see this in a different light."
"Of course, I *could* eat those delicious goldfinches that nest in the oak tree," Ozymandius retorted.
"You *know* those are off limits!" I exclaimed.
"Pull over, Marty," my girlfriend said. "so I can get to know your marvelous cat."
In the end, Ozymandius spent the week at our resort. The owner didn't normally allow pets, but Ozymandius fixed her computer system and showed her some new yoga positions.
We return every summer now. Ozymandius owns the resort, and sometimes he teases us by putting goldfinches on the menu.....
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Page 36
~~Things kept coming up~~
"Bruno, I want a divorce."
"That might be hard to arrange, Sylvia," said Bruno, putting down the newspaper he was reading and gazing sadly at the woman he had
loved for two decades.
"And why is that?"
"We aren't married."
"But I remember our wedding day in Bermuda."
"So do the Moloneys. They dropped in unannounced and insisted on
taking us out to that Thai restaurant on an outlying island. Something got dropped from our to-do list. Guess what it was."
"The wedding. Oh, Bruno, I'm so sorry. I had forgotten."
"The next day you were sick, and the doctor said you were pregnant...."
"...With the twins. Of course! And the day after that...."
"... I was assigned to the Falklands for two years..."
"...And we couldn't find an airline that would take us there. Bruno,
I think we should get married *now.*"
"Do you still want a divorce?"
"No. I'll never find another man who can finish my sentences as well as you do."
They kissed. This time there were no interruptions.
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Page 37
~~Poking Fun at God~~
Ralph Laffer had performed before thousands of audiences, but
this looked like the toughest one yet. Or maybe he knew *this*
audience too well, as it was in his home town.
He had five minutes before going on, so he peeked through the curtain
to figure out what jokes he should skip. There were lobsters in the
front row, alpacas in the second, and some ducks in the third. You
*never* told jokes about lobsters or alpacas to their faces. With ducks you could do it, but these particular ducks were his childhood friends. They'd feel insulted with the duck material he had.
Well, pretty much *everyone* felt shortchanged by God, so he made God take the brunt of his jokes that evening. The applause at the end was tumultuous. Even the very large guy in the back row was enthusiastic. Suddenly Ralph recognized the guy. He was God. A shiver went down his spine. He could use God's approval in future jokes. After all,this proved that God *did* have a sense of humor....
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Page 38
~~Catastrophe~~
The sign said it:all: "Caution: Angry house pets ahead"
"Who puts up these dumb signs?" Dini grumbled as we sat behind a long line of cars.
"The Department of Unexpected Aggravation," I said. "Someone let their pets out, and didn't let them back in. That can make animals so angry they'll do desperate things."
Two blocks later we saw three cats and a bulldog parading along the street with placards reading "Unfair treatment by the McGregors."
I rolled down the window. "Is there anything we can do to help?"
The biggest cat approached and said, "The McGregors forgot to let us back inside when they left, and they didn't feed us. Do you have any. cat food?"
"Yes, we do," Dini said brightly. She climbed over me and handed the cat a bag of dry cat food.
"You owe me big for that," Dini said to me as we drove away.
"Definitely," I said. "You'll get the fancy canned food tonight, for sure!"
Dini purred.
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Page 39
"I'm not going to play Jimmy Nice any more!" Fred shouted, walking out of the network executive's office.
"Fred, we've told you many times, your character is a delusional who only *thinks* he's Jimmy Nice," the executive hollered after him.
Fred. stopped and turned. "That would explain why your scriptwriters have had Jimmy do so many things that are out of character," Fred said, a puzzled look on his face.
The executive cocked an eyebrow. "We really would like to have you on the show for another season. No one else can play the part the way you play it -- with total belief in your identity as Jimmy Nice. Anyway, there's a handsome bonus if you sign. If you still don't want the part, we'll ask Meryl Streep to take the character until we can write him out of the show. We know that Meryl can play any part under the sun, male or female, young or old."
Just then a stranger walked into the office with an air of great indignation. "This man is animpostor," he said, pointing to Fred. "I am the real Jimmy Nice."
"Ah, Meryl, we were just talking about you," the executive said with a smile.
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Page 40
~~You know You’re in Trouble When Even Unicorns Hate you~~
When Bill came home from work that night, he headed straight
for the sofa, buried his head in his hands, and sobbed uncontrollably.
Wendy had never seen him so distraught. She wiped his brow with
a warm wet washcloth and reassured him that, whatever was wrong,
she could help him with it.
"Honey, I hit a unicorn on my way home," Bill told her between sobs.
"Over by the Mitchells' place...."
"That's not far away," Wendy said, reaching for her gloves and her coat. "Wait here, and I'll see if I can find the poor thing Maybe we can save it." She jumped in her car, and was back in five minutes with a small, pearl-colored unicorn wrapped in a soft bath towel.
"It's a she," Wendy said. "Her eyes are open, she's resting comfortably, and she hasn't lost much blood."
Mr. Salamanca, who lived two doors down the street, was a veterinarian. Wendy was lucky to find him at home, and he was soon giving the unicorn a shot of antibiotics and giving her five stitches. "She's going to be fine, but you need to remember that unicorns avoid contact with humans."
"Now that we've contacted her, what will happen to her?" Bill asked.
"She'll be fine. It's you I'm worried about. Her lawyers will sue you for every penny you've got. Take my advice and move as far away as you can."
That was how Bill and Wendy came to live on an island off the coast of Alaska. Every day they would look through their binoculars to see how many angry unicorns were lined up on the shore waiting for them. Luckily, unicorns were forbidden from boarding the ferry that came out once a day.....
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Page 41
~~There are worse things than being marooned on a desert island~~
Brandon Glottersby was basically a good guy, but he was extraordinarily unfit to be a husband, as his three ex-wives could attest. Thus it was that he jumped at the chance to be captain of a cargo ship in the south seas. It would be a lonely job, with just a couple of sailors and a cook for company, but he had no one at home waiting for his return anyway.
Three weeks out, he found himself in open ocean with a ferocious storm bearing down on the ship. After a long night of monstrous high waves, he blacked out. The next thing he knew, he was lying on the beach of a desert island. His crew was lost, but the ship's cook was next to him on the beach, glaring at him with all the hatred she could muster.
"Why are you so angry at me?" he asked her.
"You don't remember me, do you?" she said. "I was your first wife. I was going to meet my fiance at the next port of call, but instead I have to put up with *you* on a desert island."
"You think you have it bad, Charlene?" said a woman who was walking toward the beach. "I was his *second* wife. I've been stranded here for two years, but at least it's been quiet. Now you'll be quarrelling with Brandon all the time! "
Things were about to get even stranger. An airplane flying overhead suddenly plunged and disappeared into the sea. A few minutes later, the pilot parachuted down, landing on the beach. Brandon turned white when he saw who she was: his third ex-wife.
As it turned out, the ex-wives hit it off with each other right away. They formed a vocal trio. Charlene used her cell phone to contact rescuers. Soon they were airlifted and became a popular singing sensation. Brandon elected to stay on the island.
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Page 42
~~In a Funeral Parlor on Halloween Night~~
Molly carried her candy in a plastic pumpkin as she wandered from
house to house yelling "Trick or treat." She was almost ready to return home with her sweet treasures when Mrs. Maguire's dobermans managed to wriggle free of their leashes and bound after her, barking like the hounds of Hell.
She took refuge in the funeral home that her father ran. No one was there, and yet she heard voices coming from the downstairs area where bodies were stored awaiting their funerals. She turned on the lights and carefully descended the stairs.
"Oh, it's you, Molly," came a friendly voice. Mrs. Delaney, who had died a couple days earlier, was sitting up in her casket. "I was just getting settled in on the other side, when they whisked me back here. Something about the spirits returning on Halloween night. It's rubbish, I tell you. I spent enough time on Earth, and I'd rather go forward..."
"I don't like it a bit," grumbled Mr. Lazaroski. "My last few months were endless pain, and I was finally free of it. Now it's back. Drat!"
There were a couple of others in adjoining caskets. They were both fond of playing cards, so they were intent on their game.
When she was sure the dogs had run off, Molly ran home. The next morning, she checked in on the bodies in the funeral home. They were totally still.
“What a strange night that was,” Molly muttered to herself as she left. Her dad stood in the doorway beaming at her, for he figured that she might be developing an interest in the family business……
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Page 43
~~Even the Toilets Aren’t Safe on Halloween Night~~
Uncle Cornelius was a great big bear of a man. He'd been decorated in his days as a U.S. Marine, and his subsequent years as a fireman had strengthened the notion that he was the bravest man in our town. How many people's lives had he saved? No one had kept count, but it was surely a very large number.
We thought that he could handle anything, but Halloween night showed us otherwise. He had gone into the bathroom to use the facilities, but something went horribly wrong. We could hear deep rumblings as of strange creatures moving through the pipes. There was a sound of churning water, followed by Uncle Cornelius's cry of fear. The next thing we knew, the door had opened and a white-faced Cornelius was trying to run out. He was unable to get past the door, though. A hideous green tentacle had firm hold of his ankle, and was pulling him back.
My Dad and my brother tugged at Cornelius, while I raced to the kitchen to get a carving knife. I chopped at the tentacle until it came off. We looked past Cornelius, and saw the most unsettling sight we'd ever seen: a mountainous green tentacled monster rising out of the toilet. We closed and locked the door, but soon the creature was banging on it.
"He'll go back to where he came from as soon as daybreak comes, won't he?" Mother reasoned.
"We can't wait that long," I said. "Maybe can fool him, though." I sifted through my sound effects CDs until I found the one with the sound of a rooster crowing. I played that a few times, and the pounding promptly subsided. When it was quiet again, we cautiously looked into the bathroom.
The creature was gone.
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Page 44
~~The Orphans and the Storm~~
The orphans sat patiently in a large hall that was still festooned with wreaths and Christmas bells (each bearing a red bow), even though January was almost over. Outside, a major storm was raging, the snowflakes being whipped every which way by a fierce wind.
The board members of the Society to Send Orphans Out Into the Storm came in, made sure the children were securely bundled up against the cold, and led them through the door one by one until the hall was empty at last.
Meanwhile, directly across the street, the Society to Take orphans in From the Storm was waiting with warm, nourishing food and comfortable beds.
The Duck Played His Accordian, While the Duchess Pitched a No-Hitter
Against Toronto. Then Things started To get Strange
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stories by Paulh
Christmas, 2011
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Page 1
~~Q.E.D.~~
"Here's your revised version," the editor said, handing the author a one-page story.
"But I gave you an 800-page novel!" the author exclaimed, staring at it in disbelief."
"It was bloated. I cut out all the adverbs and half the adjectives. Your subplots obscured the main story, so I tossed them -- elves taking over China; fighting Global Warming by pushing the Earth further from the Sun, etc. Rewrite them as separate stories if you want..."
"You even axed the dragon who designs greeting cards in Swahili?"
"No one in Swahili-speaking countries believes in dragons any more. We checked."
"What about the Doomed Lovers' Ball?"
"It's been done!"
"The secrets of life, written in frosting?"
"Oh, please!
"The elephant Milderspoff?
"Elephants are not fashionable now."
"So all that's left is the tale of an author whose 800-page novel is edited down to one page..."
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Page 2
~~The Decline and Thaw of the Snowflake Empire~~
He could remember his birth and early life as if they had happened yesterday: his first consciousness in the icy maelstrom of a cloud, the grand whirling descent with his many brothers and sisters through a bottomless void, and finally the sudden impact that made him bounce a little. Luckily, none of his crystalline arms broke, as his fall was muffled by others who had landed a minute or two earlier. "We are here to rule the world forever!" he heard the others chanting, and he could not help but join in such a joyful chorus.
Alas, this new world of which he was a part welcomed him not at all: huge hard-shelled creatures that raced along on round rubbery things crushed many of his comrades, and there was a particularly large one that carted him -- along with vast numbers of his fellow warriors -- to a flat hardtopped field, leaving them to a die a slow, thawing death in the sunny days that became hotter and hotter as time passed.
He could hear the death agony of the snowflakes on top of him as, one by one, they gave up their struggles, until one day when he was on top of the snowbank, and he could see strange flying things whizzing by on their way to brightly-colored gardens nearby. Suddenly he noticed a beautiful flower, and realized that ruling the world was not really his purpose in life. Instead, he was meant to sacrifice himself so that his meltwater could help keep such a beautiful flower alive.
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Page 3
~~Disadvantages of Living in a Virtual House~~
When she first moved in, Yvette bragged that keeping her virtual house clean was a snap: "Remove pets and people, turn off the computer program, sweep away the accumulated dust and dirt, then bring the program up, good as new."
That was the upside.
The downside was what she was going through now at 3:00 a.m. on a February morning. She lay on the cold hard ground under what had been her bed. Twenty feet away, where the bathroom had been, water from the toilet bowl splashed on the ground. She could hear her son Elmo moaning on the trampoline that had cushioned his fall from his second-floor bedroom.
What had been a neighborhood of virtual houses was now an empty field -- apparently due to a widespread power outage -- so she turned on the emergency generator, breathing a sigh of relief as the house reappeared around her.
Granted, in the morning she would have to hang her clothing back in the closet, and her pots and pans in the kitchen cupboards. Happily, the refrigerator was real rather than virtual, so there would be something to eat when she got up.
The cat was real, too, as it slept in its favorite spot on top of the refrigerator. House or no house, there wasn’t much that could disturb a cat’s sleep.
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Page 4
~~Prologue: The Eccentric Writer~~
My husband had been very supportive of my career, so when I said I wanted to study cooking at the Cordon Bleu in Paris, he was more than happy to pack up and move to a lovely little efficiency apartment in the Quartier Latin. I assumed that while I was at classes he would take in movies or walk around the city, but instead he took a job translating and editing a collection of stories by the most eccentric writer I had ever
heard of.
“His name is Alphonse Canard,” my husband explained. “As luck would have it, he’s sitting in that little park” – he pointed out the window to a bench where a middle-aged man was playing an accordian and feeding a duck. “He’s had a sad life. He fell madly in love with a lady who told him she was the Duchess of Montmartre. He played the accordian for her, played with her pet duck, and was blissfully happy until the day when she was carted off to prison as an impostor. He never got over it.”
“He doesn’t look too sad to me,” I said, gazing at him.
“His writing has not been the same since the breakup. All of his stories are about a duck, and accordion, and the Duchess of Montmartre. He can’t get them out of his mind….”
I looked at some of his stories and realized the truth of what my husband had said. Still, they all had a certain Gallic whimsy about them. Maybe someone would want to read the collection that my husband was editing……
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Page 5
~~The Duck, the Accordian, and the Duchess of Montmartre—Canard #1~~
The duck was charming. He was witty. He regaled the Duchess with songs about
harpooning whales in the Yukon, and hang-gliding over Penobscot Bay. Not many ducks had lived lives of such adventure. Heck, not many ducks could speak English, let alone sing it.
"Tres bien, Monsieur Duck," she said, applauding fervently. "I must insist that you come
sing at my dinner party tonight, and I shall accompany you on my accordian."
Then she went to Chef Letatcestmoi to order him not to serve duckling a l'orange.
Meanwhile, at the duck’s home, his mother was scolding him for spending so much time with the Duchess. “Humans are not to be trusted,” she said. “They say they love you, but all they want is your body, usually in some sauce or other.”
The duck was the hit of the evening. The other guests insisted on six encores. Maybe these humans really did love him for himself, the duck thought. Then the dinner was served, and he suddenly wasn’t so sure. The turtle soup tasted familiar. He asked the chef who the turtle was, and realized it had been a longtime friend….
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Page 6
~~The Duck, the Accordian, and the Duchess of Montmartre—Canard #2~~
Fautdemieux Lescargot had opened the front door of the Duchess's house many times,
but this was the first time he ever saw a duck on the steps -- a duck in a suit, no less!
"I represent the National Credentials Bureau,” The duck said. “We have looked at the Duchess's credentials.and have determined that Montmartre is much too small to be a dukedom."
"But, Monsieur Duck, a Dukedom implies that there must be a Duke,” Lescargot replied. “There is no Duke here. There is a Duchess instead, one who is by far the finest Duchess in all of France, if not the world."
The duck was about to dispute this point as well when he spied the Duchess's accordian, and promptly began playing elegant music on it, music that charmed Lescargot and brought the Duchess herself to the door, tears in her eyes.
"That was my grandfather's accordian," the Duchess sobbed, "but you play it twice as well as he ever could...."
The Duchess was very generous to the duck, getting him started in a lucrative musical career that led to recordings and television specials. He no longer had to work for the Credentials Bureau. It wasn’t until he was well along in years that he realized the Duchess had conned him: her grandfather had never played any instruments, let alone the accordian. Rather, she knew the Credentials Bureau was full of ducks, and they all played accordians. What better way was there to guarantee that she would continue to be the Duchess of Montmartre, her credentials unchallenged?
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Page 7
~~The Duck, the Accordian, and the Duchess of Montmartre—Canard #3~~
Jacqueline de Montmartre's costume balls and dinner parties were the finest in all of Paris, so it came as quite a jolt when she curtailed them. "The stock market has crashed, as you know," she told reporters, "which means I've let all my servants go, sold my priceless paintings, and auctioned off most of the furnishings in my house."
Financial ruin led to despondency, which fed her craving for alcohol. She lay on the floor in the parlor now, her head propped against the wall, filling a glass from her last bottle of vodka.
"Exshept for the housh, I only have two thingsh left I can shell," she pondered, "the duck and the accordian," so it was a great relief for her when the duck showed her the golden egg it had just laid. She quickly traded the egg for cash, and was able to at least buy furniture for the first floor of her house, but there wasn’t enough left over to resume the parties she was so fond of.
The question was, how often would the duck lay more golden eggs? The Duchess tried a lot of different things to get the egg production going, but nothing worked until she tried playing the accordion. The eggs that resulted gave her plenty of money for everything she wanted. She became so involved in planning new entertainments that she forgot to cash in the duck’s next egg.
The egg hatched into a tax collector.
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Page 8
~~The Duck, the Accordian, and the Duchess of Montmartre—Canard #4~~
The Duchess had never considered becoming a spy before, but the intelligence agents who appeared at her door regaled her with visions of the suave, good-looking hunks she would be dealing with. "You're sexy, you're sophisticated, you're a Duchess," they had argued, "so they would never imagine that you were also a duplicitous spy."
It turned out to be a grand adventure: dinner with gorgeous guys in the finest restaurants, travel (first class, no less!) to Monte Carlo, Capri, and other exotic locales, even hang-gliding over Angel Falls with a spy who resembled Clark Gable.
But her luck went south when she found that her next contact -- the one who was rumored to be a powerful seducer of women -- was a duck.
Reading the skepticism on her face, the duck said, "I may be a duck, but rest assured I know how to show a woman a good time...."
She waited to be seduced, and then realized with considerable horror that the duck's idea of a good time was to reach for an accordian and serenade her.
“You play surprisingly well,” she conceded after the first number. “Play something I can sing along with.”
This turned out to be a big mistake, for her singing turned to be awful. The duck, insulted, stormed out of the restaurant and told her superiors that she was a terrible spy. In the end, however, the Duchess prevailed by telling the powers that be about her marvelous recipe for roast duck.
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Page 9
~~This Gives New Meaning to the Expression “Family Tree”
Mom and Dad didn't really want to move into that assisted-living facility, but my sisters and I could no longer drop everything and rush them to the Emergency Room when she fell or he forgot to take his meds. We solemnly promised to spare no expense in helping them feel at home. This seemed like a noble solution -- until Melinda (my oldest sister) called me to say that Mom was pining for her favorite spruce tree. I was the one Melinda called because I was the only one who could afford to have the darn thing dug up, placed in a pot, and transported to the corner of her room, where it became a sort of year-round Christmas tree. Mom was very happy to have her tree so close at hand. My sisters praised me for my efforts. I was just grateful she hadn't asked for the old gnarled oak that we had fastened our swings to when we were kids. Plus, the squirrels that hung out in that tree would have driven Mom crazy.
A few weeks later, Melissa (another sister) mentioned Mom's desire for the brook that ran in front of her old house.
"There's a perfectly charming little brook that's visible through her window here!" I retorted.
"Yes, and it's so charming it makes her own brook seem even more desirable," Melissa said, feeling as exasperated as I did. “She says she won’t really feel at home until she can see her own brook.”
I crossed the facility director's hand with silver and hired a landscaper to make the nearby brook look just like the one Mom remembered. Then we told her that we had moved tons of earth in order to reroute her brook so that it flowed past her window. We weren’t sure she would buy this, but she seemed delighted with the brook either way.
Dad's eyes lit up when he saw what we were able to do for Mom -- was he about to make a request of his own? -- but it slipped his mind before he could say what it was.
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Page 10
~~Statuary of limitations~~
"You and I are the oldest gargoyles in the city," said Plucktwaddle.
"Yes," Primbleclutch replied. "The first Earl of Poddlechester put us over his front door 400 years ago to protect his household from evil in any of its forms."
"Have we done a good job?"
"Very much so!"
"Then why does the new Earl think we can't do it alone any more?"
"You're talking about the marble lions."
"Indeed."
"Would an introduction help?" said the lion on the right. "I'm Altendorf, and my partner is Feggleschmidt. We guard the front steps and the lawns. The house is your bailiwick. Let's be friends. Really!"
"Okay, fine," said Plucktwaddle. "I just don't get why the Earl thinks his steps and lawns are threatened."
"It's the software billionaire across the street," said Feggleschmidt. "His lawn is infested with marble zebras. If they ever invade us, we're ready to pounce on them!"
One of the zebras overheard the conversation, and spoke up. “You’re worrying needlessly!” he exclaimed. “Look at all the big trucks and vans that zoom along the street. A collision with one of those, and we’d lose a couple legs for sure.”
The lions and gargoyles relaxed when they heard this. They chatted happily about their past lives, and didn’t even pay much attention to the little man who came the next day to paint lines for a zebra crossing….
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Page 11
~~Extraterrestrials Like Clean Socks, Too~~
"I've run out of ideas," he said, staring glumly at his monitor.
"The world weeps for you," his wife said tartly, picking up the socks that he had thrown on the floor. She didn't mean to be sarcastic, but it was laundry day. Separating the white stuff from the dark usually pushed her to the brink. Her husband’s laziness wasn’t helping.
"No, it doesn't. The world only weeps when Justin Bieber gets laryngitis."
"What makes you think he has to sing? When he gives a public concert, he lip-syncs. They all do it. As long as it brings in the money, no one cares.
"I can relate to that. Today I'm pretending to be writing."
She wanted to say something even more sarcastic, but a cluster of tiny UFO's was emerging from the laundry hamper. She didn't like extraterrestrials as a rule, but if she played her cards right, maybe she could con them into helping with the laundry.
Alas, this was a colony of extraterrestrial writers who had exhausted the supply of ideas on their own planet. They were here expecting to get some new ideas from the Earthlings. When they saw the huge woman who was gathering laundry, they added their own dirty socks to the laundry bag.
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Page 12
~~Murder, an Occupational Hazard~~
"Douglas, the beach is so empty!" Emily exclaimed. "I hope they don't have sharks or riptides..."
When they reached the hotel, he asked about it at the desk.
"Don't worry, sir," the woman on duty said. "No sharks. No riptides. Our beach is perfectly safe. A conference of detectives was scheduled here, but they relocated elsewhere, so you won’t find the beach too crowded. The water's perfect. Enjoy!" She flashed a winning smile.
Douglas carried the beach gear, while Emily rushed down to the water's edge. She promptly did a double take. "Douglas!" she screamed. "There's a body here!"
He dropped everything and ran to her. "No pulse," he said. "There's a knife in his back. Emily, we need to tell the lifeguard."
The lifeguard was sprawled forward in his chair, a bullet through his brain. They ran back to the hotel, where the lady at the desk had been bludgeoned.
Meanwhile, at the next beach, ninety detectives were partying. "Enjoy yourselves while you can," their leader warned. "Murders happen wherever detectives go." The doorbell rang. He answered the door. It was Douglas and Emily, with knives in their backs.
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Page 13
~~The ham sandwich at the center of the universe~~
He was just sititng down to dinner when the phone rang.
"Presley Plimtwoddle?" said the voice on the other end.
"Speaking."
"This is Yerlif Drebbit at NASA's Really Big Discoveries Division."
"Oh, yes, I was expecting your call. My wife has just put dinner on the table, though. Can I call you back in twenty minutes?"
"It's very important that you not touch your dinner."
"What in heaven's name are you talking about? It's just a ham sandwich." Presley frowned.
"We have just confirmed that your dining room table is the exact center of the universe."
"And?"
"And even a small shift of weight at the center could destabilize the whole cosmos."
Mona Plimtwoddle picked up the phone. "Yerlif, my husband's ham sandwich is no longer the center of the universe. The Earth rotates. The current center is miles west of us now." Presley beamed at his wife, who happened to be an eminent cosmologist. Yerlif knew she knew her stuff.”.
Presley and Mona happily munched their ham sandwiches while Flevulus Dreavy, sixty miles west of them, was sitting down for chicken and dumplings. His phone rang.....
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Page 14
~~Tempest in a Nursing Home~~
Alma Gandiflote had been feeling poorly lately, so poorly that she didn’t play gin rummy with her roommate Agnes any more.
When Mrs. Gandiflote died, Agnes figured they'd fill her bed within days.Sure enough, a new patient turned up the next day.
"Hi, I'm Agnes," she said. "I'm the head of the conspiracy."
"I'm Fred," the new patient said. "Are you conspiring to off the cook?"
"For starters!" she said. "This meatloaf is older than I am. I'll explain the conspiracy later. There might be snitches here..." Suddenly she covered her face and slumped in her wheelchair."
"Are you sick? Should I call the nurse?"
"No, my son's in the hall, in disguise."
"Really? Why?"
"I said I'd never speak to him again if he put me in a home. He thinks I won't see through the disguise."
"How long have you been here?"
"Twelve years. He should be home screwing his nubile second wife."
Fred looked more closely at the man in the hall. "Hey, that's my son-in-law!" Fred exclaimed. He waved and wheeled himself over to the visitor.
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Page 15
~~Well-Read Hoodlums~~
"I'm not gonna <bleep>in' elucidate this again!" Reggie said, putting down his book. "Disrupt my reading once more, and I shall extricate my stiletto from its sheath and disembowel you!".
Buster apologized. He drained Reggie's bottle, snagged a pack of butts, and got up from the table as the other hoods arrived for Reggie's weekly book group. Buster could have joined, but he disliked fiction, except for "MacBeth." Great story, but bad ending!
He sat near the door, listening. Today's book was "Crime and Punishment." Reggie slapped Oscar for critiquing Raskolnikov's murder technique. "Cut him some slack!" Reggie exclaimed. "He's not a professional hitman....yet. He’ll get better with practice, though, just as you did.”
"Why read about him, then?" Chipper demanded. More slapping sounds.
"He felt guilty," Reggie explained. "A big mistake. We want to avoid this, especially the punishment part of the story. See, we can learn what not to do by reading great literature."
Buster dozed. When he awakened, the discussion was wrapping up. "Come back next week for 'Oliver Twist'" Reggie was saying. "What can we learn from Fagan?"
“Fagan, Schmagan,” Buster muttered. He preferred to read comic books. His idol was Lex Luthor. Granted,Lex always lost to Superman, but in the real world there was no Superman to foil a perfect crime….
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Page 16
~~Family Secrets~~
"When I married Prince Hal, his chances of becoming King were remote," Rana said, her eyes moist. "A month later, the 25 who were ahead of him were eaten by gigantic frogs which then vanished. I hadn't counted on becoming Queen, but then, neither did I think
I would be celebrating my 105th birthday today."
There was great applause. Richard, Rana's son, was the King now, and his many descendants filled the room.
"There is one thing that concerns me, though," Rana continued. "That concern is familybickering. Many of you treat your spouses horribly. Grave harm will come if this doesn't stop!"
"What is this 'grave harm' you speak of?" demanded Prince Nostrom, whose bitter marital dispute was in all the tabloids.
Rana took a deep breath. "I first met Hal in a swamp. I was a frog, but he kissed me, unleashing a spell. I became a princess. The spell has continued, but it's unstable. Without marital love it will unravel."
Rana had hardly spoken these words when Prince Nostrum and his wife began fighting. King Richard and his siblings and their descendants suddenly became frogs. Oddly enough, Richard's descendants remained human. His wife blushed, for she had a guilty secret as well.
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Page 17
~~If You Liked Quabbin, you'll love this story~~
"The floor seems wet," said the Mayor of Grenfield as he hung up his coat.
"That's because the Slugwash River is rising," Miss Flummocks replied, handing him some letters. "The postman says the water is climbing the steps in front of Town Hall."
"But it hasn't rained in weeks. Is the next town flooded too?"
"Nobody's there."
"Because?"
"The residents were all relocated:"
"Relocated? Why?"
She handed him the morning paper, which featured a story about Quasimobin Reservoir. "It's going to fill the whole Slugwash River Valley. We'll be underwater"
"Nobody told us about this!" The Mayor frowned.
"They probably don't know we're here," Miss Flummocks said. "That last statewide map omitted us by mistake. I'll call the Governor."
"I *knew* we'd forgotten something!" the Governor exclaimed when Miss Flummocks called.
"But you live in Grenfield yourself, sir."
"Good point. I'm going to halt the flooding until we get everybody out."
"But if you live there, wouldn't your family have mentioned it?"
"They aren't there. They went to the beach."
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Page 18
~~Stop the Lavender Vortex, I Want to get off~~
"I liked it," said Jean, who enjoyed just about every film she saw.
"Even the title?" Melanie was incredulous.
"Well, maybe 'Transcendental Ninjas from the Lavender Vortex' is a *little* strange..."
"Ya think?"
"Jean, it's a terrible movie!" Audrey exclaimed. "They aren't really transcendental, they flunk out of ninja school, and the 'vortex' turns out to be a washing machine."
"But you can't deny that everything is lavender!" Jean insisted, clenching her fists.
"That's part of the problem," Melanie said, winking. "Their football team went out on the field in lavender uniforms. What real team would do that?"
"Forget the movie for a minute!" Audrey said. "We need a catchy name for our band."
"How about 'Flaming Orange Zombie Bedpans?" Melanie suggested.
"I like it!" Jean replied.
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Page 19
~~Granted, Many Lawyers are Animals, But This is Ridiculous!~~
"Miss Vellotti, the court has appointed an attorney to represent you," the sheriff's deputy said.
"I don't need him," she said. "I chose a different lawyer."
"But the one you chose is a rat. We can't allow that."
She glared and clenched her fists. "He's a particularly large rat, which means he's especially capable. He was top of his class in Rat Law School."
"With all due respect to the rat in question, and not doubting for a moment his qualifications to represent other rats, those qualifications do not extend to representing humans in a human court of law," the deputy explained.
"But you've allowed other defendants to be represented by an ostrich and an aardvark...."
"Because they attended Harvard Law School."
"All right, I'll take the aardvark."
"Why not the ostrich."
She smiled. She was pretty sure the ostrich had been eating her irises, but she didn't want to say so.
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Page 20
~~SupercalifragilisticexpialiBOOM~~
Mary Poppins burst into tears when she saw Blimkin. He put his arm
around her and brought her into the room, soflty closing the door behind him.
"Those <bleep>ing Word Police are everywhere!" she sobbed.
"I hear that you started screaming your favorite word in Trafalgar Square," Blimkin said,
drying her tears. "That's risky. The world could have blown up."
"How did you know I did that?"
"Curious George told me."
"Is he here?"
"Yes. Babar as well."
"They're safe here. While they’re here with us, the Police can't hold them prisoner to make me surrender. Would the world really blow up?"
"The Word Police claim the planet has a curse on it. Any word with more than ten
syllables would set it off. They have microphones everywhere except here."
"Fine. Where's your dictionary?"
"In my secret drawer. It's the only dictionary they haven't confiscated."
They selected the longest word they could find.
"Antidisestablishmentarianism" they said, holding hands.
The world didn't blow up, but the Word Police turned into daffodils.
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Page 21
~~If you Don’t Like My Stories, You Can Take Your Kimono Elsewhere~~
"What kind of heartless writer turns Mary Poppins into a fugitive from justice?" Eldora said, reading over my shoulder as I typed.
"A competent one," I said. "I'm a writer. If I didn't do bad things to good characters, my readers would snooze. Case in point: you saw me doing heartless things to Miss Poppins, and you developed a strong interest in the story."
"Your next story takes the cake!" she scoffed. "Children get on the schoolbus in the morning. That afternoon, they get off as elderly people."
"Rod Serling did far worse."
"Yes, but he had elders turn into children."
"Those children would have had to be placed in an orphanage with evil Miss Hannigan, because they're too young to return to the rest home. Anyway, You don’t need to worry that my version will ever see the light of day. I plan to erase it. I erase 10 stories for every one that I post."
"You should erase them all!" she declared, walking to the kitchen to make coffee.
That gave me an idea. When she came back, she was a gorgeous geisha who had taken
a vow of silence.
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Page 22
~~Let the Punnishment Fit the Crime~~
"Whatever you do, don't major in accounting," Mom said as she dropped me off at my dorm.
"You're overreacting," I said.
"Well, watching your husband and brother-in-law go off to prison for accounting fraud will make you do that!"
I hurried off to the administration building to sign up for courses. There was a business management course I wanted, but accounting was a prerequisite. Maybe *one* accounting course would be okay.
"Hello, Mr. Tate," my advisor said when I brought him my course selections, "most of these are good choices, but I can't let you take accounting.".
"But it's a prerequisite for a course I need next semester!" I protested.
"Sorry, but no!" the advisor said. "There's no accounting for Tates."
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Page 23
~~I’ll Work on my Super Powers Right After I Finish My Nap~~
Captain Lazy was the only superhero in history who harnessed the power of sloth for fighting evil. He was too lazy to hire a publicist, though.
This explains why he was less famous than Whammo, who rescued businessmen's inebriated wives from crocodile-infested waters at parties (the crocs were probably inebriated too, as it was an open bar).
The thing is, heroes like Whammo and Green Stinger and Superhunk had to rely on big muscles and cutting-edge technology, while Captain Lazy actually had superpowers.
Well, *one* superpower: his laser vision could levitate objects even if they were miles away. One fateful afternoon when the other superheros were busy elsewhere, Captain Lazy saw the Brazen Bomber place a bomb on the busy Gothamtropolis Bridge. Hundreds of commuters stood to die horribly when it went off.
Captain Lazy had been planning to take a nap, but the knew the sound of the explosion was likely to cut it short. He levitated the bomb into outer space, where it exploded harmlessly. Then he sent the Brazen Bomber to the police station, along with video footage that proved his guilt.
Then he took his nap.
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Page 24
~~Fifteen Minutes of Fame~~
It began as a routine writing assignment, but when three of my best
characters drowned in a freak July snowmelt accident at Yosemite, I found myself back at square one.
The deadline was two days away, and here I was interviewing new characters. The best ones were on vacation or working for better writers than I would ever be. Only a miracle could save me.
"I see that you've been in 28 stories by Writer X, but she never gave you a name," I told the first applicant, a rather bland little fellow.
"I was one of the hobbits or Hogwarts students," he explained. "None of us had lines or individual names, but she paid well. Nice things always happened and there was no danger."
"The story I'm writing is about a secret agent who smuggles a magic thimble from the Turkish baths in Budapest to Boise, where the genie inside is given her freedom."
"Why not just mail the darn thing?" the applicant wondered.
At first his mental laziness bothered me, but then I realized that my story would be forgotten as soon as it appeared anyway.
"Fine," I agreed. "You're hired. You're a secret agent, so you'll have no name."
Little did I realize that the genie would become an international celebrity whose memoirs would divulge my character’s real name. He became famous as well, but fifteen minutes later he choked on a baloney sandwich.
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Page 25
She was the perfect character for my next story: drop-dead gorgeous, troubled by a shadowy past, and -- best of all -- no other writers had signed her up yet.
"They *tried* to sign me up," she countered. "Malcolm Tishpid [1] saw me as a beautiful princess in some tiny Italian coastal principality..."
"Great plot!" I enthused.
"Not great! I could be in hundreds more stories, but my readers would wonder why a princess is washing her own nylons or fending off some butcher in H*ll's Kitchen. They’d remember that, and not take me seriously in other stories. ‘Beauty is enough. Royalty just complicates things.’" I told Tishpid, so he hired someone else for his protagonist.”
"Well, you’ll be happy to know my story involves no royalty! Try this: Your brothers are detectives. You're smarter than them, and one day..."
"Wait!" she exclaimed. "I’ve read your other stories, and no way are you a competent detective story writer. Scratch the detective brothers routine. I've got a better idea "
Iron bars descended all around me.
"I'm a femme fatale," she said, looking at me through the bars. "You're a third-tier writer who won't be missed, but you're good looking. My friends will pay me to let them sleep with you. I’ll take the money and go to Monte Carlo to ride in Lamborghinis with some rich playboy." She walked away, her keys jangling merrily.....
[1] Not his real name
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Page 26
~~Sometimes Déjà Vu is Not a Good Strategy~~
I was sipping pina coladas by the pool when my editor's secretary called. "That was quite a story," she said. "Mr. Twuggs was stunned. Literally."
"Wow! I only gave it to him an hour ago," I exclaimed.
"The paramedics are here. They can't find a pulse," she went on.
Suddenly this didn't seem like good news. "You mean my story almost
killed him?"
"There's no 'almost' about it," she replied. "He's flatlining. Take my advice and go back to your father's hardware store. Nobody's going to risk reading your stories now." She hung up.
I noticed that God was sitting next to me. "You're having a dream,"
He said. "Nevertheless, the secretary's advice was sound. Call your father. He'll let you start immediately."
I woke up. Going to my PC, I read the last story I'd given to my editor. It began, "I was sipping pina coladas by the pool when my editor's secretary called."
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Page 27
~~Flea-Collaring Suspects~~
"Mrs. Danvers," I said, "why are you hiring me to find the killer of a dog?"
"Not just any dog," she exclaimed. "Rebecca was a miracle. She understood seven languages, was a published author, and was advising the President on foreign policy."
"No one that exemplary could go through life without making enemies," I said. "Once I have a list of Rebecca's enemies, the killer's name will be on it."
"Well, that's the thing. Everybody loved her."
Just then, an anonymous letter arrived. "I killed Rebecca, and you will never catch me," it said.
In the next week I questioned the neighbor's boy, Rebecca's publisher, the President's foreign policy advisors, and all the cats within six blocks. All had ironclad alibis.
The big breakthrough came when the CIA decoded a message from the Flea Underground proving that fleas had killed Rebecca over her flea-repellant ad.
"Being a P.I. is harder than it used to be," I told Mrs. Danvers over a cappuccino.
"That's nothing," she said. "Canaries are suing mine owners over unsafe conditions..."
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Page 28
~~You Can’t Say I Didn’t Warn You~~
"I'm evil."
"That's what I want to hear."
"I'm also ugly."
"I paid extra for that, so don't disappoint me!" The evil spirit I had conjured was still too hazy to make out with any clarity, so I stirred the cauldron some more.
"In my past life I was a great singer," the spirit reminisced. "I sang all the great villainous roles -- Iago, Mephistopheles...."
"You won't be singing as much this time around," I said. "I do a comic magic act. My partner died recently, so I conjured you ro replace him. Yes, you'll sing a little bit, but we're here mostly to get laughs."
The spirit turned out to be truly ugly, as he claimed. The act went well until he started singing so beautifully that the audience focussed on him completely. Afterwards he signed up for more gigs, while I got lost in the shuffle.
I was annoyed, and told him so.
"Well, I *told* you I was evil," he replied
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Page 29
~~Lucky Guess?~~
It's a fundamental cosmic law that the air conditioner in your car will break down on the hottest day of the summer. A corollary is that you'll encounter delays when you go to the garage to get it fixed.
Thus I waited in a long row of cars at a road construction site. Sweat poured from my brow. As I turned the fan to maximum, I heard a terrifying sound: my inner voices were awake.
"Just pass everybody!" said the first one. "Go ahead, knock over some red cones. Nobody's doing much anyway."
"Don't do it!" cautioned another voice. "That cop looks mean. It's
probably hotter in jail than it is here."
"It's a scam," said the first. "Those 'workers' are gonna walk down the line and rob everybody!"
"Aw, they're real," said the other voice. "That guy over there has a pot belly and a deep tan. He's probably got a wife and a little girl and a pet hamster called Credalia Fupwig."
As entertaining as the voices were, it was time to go. The line ahead of me was moving. As I passed the guy with the pot belly, I overheard his phone conversation. “Don’t worry, honey, I’ll pick up some hamster food for Credalia on my way home,” he said.
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Page 30
~~A Giant Step Forward~~
"You've done an amazing job with this town," said Governor Blarswell.
"I pretty much had to," said Mayor Wimbly. "We had no money to hire a Town Planner and Town Architect, so I took on their duties...."
"You have advanced degrees in both fields, and it shows," said Miss Ramrod, the Governor's assistant. "You're also an accomplished sculptor."
"There's just one thing that concerns us," the Governor said.
"You're talking about our bridges," Wimbly said. The others nodded. "I'll explain. Tourism looked like a way to bring money into the town. A multimillionaire in the next county bought London Bridge and moved it to the middle of the desert. Tourists flock there from around the world. I thought if we had novelty bridges too, they'd stop here on their way to that other bridge. I built them of nontraditional materials -- watertight cardboard, bamboo, old jewelry, beans -- and painted them bright colors. At Christmas time, I put strings of colored lights around them"
"We saw them," said the Governor, smiling. "They're lovely. Our concern is that the bridge of beans has sprouted a beanstalk, and the giant at the top looks dangerous...."
“Don’t worry,” Mayor Wimbly said. “The giant is a welcome visitor because he pays us with golden eggs.”
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Page 31
~~Bad Altitudes~~
"You never told me about the canyon," Felicia exclaimed between bites of steak and salad.
"What's to tell?" I said. "It's as great as it looks. I like to wander there after supper, when the sun is setting and the bats and hawks are overhead."
"I'll join you!" She finished her steak and put her silverware down.
"Right now?"
"Yes! There's not a moment to lose." She planted a kiss on my cheek and tugged on my arm.
She was soon in love with everything in the canyon: the scrub oaks, the sagebrush, even the old bridge that spanned the Quixotic River. "Wait, why are those men on the bridge?"
"They're getting ready to jump, " I explained.
"But they'll kill themselves!"
"That's the Thursday Night Men's Bridge-Jumping Club. They come here to jump. Afterwards they feast on barbecued ribs and ice cream."
"Can't the police stop them?"
"There's Officer Foley over there." A police car sat next to the bridge. "He's trained as an EMT. Sometimes he jumps, too."
"That's men for you!" Felicia said indignantly.
"Come back on Tuesday. We'll watch the Tuesday Night Women's Bridge-Jumping Club."
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Page 32
~~I Came With the House~~
"Welcome to the neighborhood," I said, handing an apple pie to the woman at the door.
"Thanks," she said, invitng me in.
A gray tiger cat dashed between my legs as I entered. "That's a beautiful cat," I said. "How old is he?"
"I've never seen him before," she said, frowning. "I'm Irene Ferguson, and this is George, my husband."
As George and I shook hands, Irene went to the kitchen to remove the cat, who had retrieved a can of cat food, opened it, and was using silverware to eat it.
"It's not good manners to interrupt someone who's eating," the cat said when Irene arrived. She jumped back in shock. "Yes, that's better," the cat said, finishing his meal. "I'm contractually obligated to stay here. The Hickenloopers understood this, and you
will too, Mrs. Ferguson. I'm part of the house. Without me, the house suffers."
As I walked back to my own house, I heard a yowl as Irene threw the cat out. By morning, the foundation was sagging and there was a hole in the roof. Within two days the house had collapsed, except for the part that was above the cat’s dish.
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Page 33
~~I’d Rather Date You Than Read Your Stories~~
Dear Phineas Fuffleblinger:
I read your stories because I don't have anything else to do, but I'm
going to stop if you keep writing morbid stories that end with bitter
irony. --Remba Noofy
Dear Remba Noofy:
If you stop reading my stories, how will you know whether they're
still morbid and bitterly ironic? --Phineas Fuffleblinger
Dear Phineas Fuffleblinger:
I'll just know. Okay, the cow will tell me. --Remba
Dear Remba Noofy:
Can I interview your cow? She sounds like great story material. --Phineas
Dear Phineas Fuffleblinger:
Sorry, I just spoke to the cow, and she no longer reads your stories.
I'm your last reader. Without me, you're out of business. --Remba
Dear Remba Noofy:
Ouch! Would you like to come over to my house for dinner next Tuesday? We can go over my forthcoming stories, and you can tell me which ones won't fly. --Phineas
Dear Phineas Fuffleblinger:
Of course I'll come. As I said, I have nothing else to do. --Remba
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Page 34
~~An Udderly Despicable Murder~~
The scarf was lovely. Made of turquoise silk, it should have graced the neck of a Fifth Avenue heiress at an opera matinee or chic gallery. Instead, it was half-covered in dung in a deserted pasture near Cooperstown.
"Look, Inspector," said Jean-Pierre Le Fou, my assistant, "the scarf has a monogram: 'MLM'."
"This is very disturbing, Jean-Pierre. This scarf belongs to Michelle La Moo."
"The famous cow? Why would she relieve herself on such an expensive scarf?"
"She wouldn't. She should be filming a movie or sipping cognac in her condo in Geneva now."
"Then perhaps a bird has carried her scarf across the Atlantic and dropped it here."
"Good thinking! The case is as good as solved.
We dined with an elderly widow at a nearby farmhouse. She removed a t-bone steak from her freezer to cook for our meal. Suddenly I was struck from behind.
When Jean-Pierre and I came to, we were no longer in the farmhouse. We met a white-bearded man who introduced himself as Saint Peter. "You were all murdered," Saint Peter said.
Jean-Pierre's jaw dropped.
Michelle La Moo cursed us for botching the case.
This didn’t seem like a good time to ask her for an autograph…..
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Page 35
~~Some Cats Just Like to Show off!~~
Ozymandius was smarter than the average cat, but this was ridiculous! My girfriend and I were headed for the beach in my Mercedes converticle, when a tiny voice in the next lane exclaimed, "You forgot to feed me!"
I looked toward the voice. There was Ozymandius, riding my motorcyle
like a pro. "I didn't forget, Ozymandius," I replied. "Mrs. McBlather is feeding you while I'm away."
"She ran off to Disney World with the gardener this morning."
"He's a good catch, but her husband may see this in a different light."
"Of course, I *could* eat those delicious goldfinches that nest in the oak tree," Ozymandius retorted.
"You *know* those are off limits!" I exclaimed.
"Pull over, Marty," my girlfriend said. "so I can get to know your marvelous cat."
In the end, Ozymandius spent the week at our resort. The owner didn't normally allow pets, but Ozymandius fixed her computer system and showed her some new yoga positions.
We return every summer now. Ozymandius owns the resort, and sometimes he teases us by putting goldfinches on the menu.....
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Page 36
~~Things kept coming up~~
"Bruno, I want a divorce."
"That might be hard to arrange, Sylvia," said Bruno, putting down the newspaper he was reading and gazing sadly at the woman he had
loved for two decades.
"And why is that?"
"We aren't married."
"But I remember our wedding day in Bermuda."
"So do the Moloneys. They dropped in unannounced and insisted on
taking us out to that Thai restaurant on an outlying island. Something got dropped from our to-do list. Guess what it was."
"The wedding. Oh, Bruno, I'm so sorry. I had forgotten."
"The next day you were sick, and the doctor said you were pregnant...."
"...With the twins. Of course! And the day after that...."
"... I was assigned to the Falklands for two years..."
"...And we couldn't find an airline that would take us there. Bruno,
I think we should get married *now.*"
"Do you still want a divorce?"
"No. I'll never find another man who can finish my sentences as well as you do."
They kissed. This time there were no interruptions.
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Page 37
~~Poking Fun at God~~
Ralph Laffer had performed before thousands of audiences, but
this looked like the toughest one yet. Or maybe he knew *this*
audience too well, as it was in his home town.
He had five minutes before going on, so he peeked through the curtain
to figure out what jokes he should skip. There were lobsters in the
front row, alpacas in the second, and some ducks in the third. You
*never* told jokes about lobsters or alpacas to their faces. With ducks you could do it, but these particular ducks were his childhood friends. They'd feel insulted with the duck material he had.
Well, pretty much *everyone* felt shortchanged by God, so he made God take the brunt of his jokes that evening. The applause at the end was tumultuous. Even the very large guy in the back row was enthusiastic. Suddenly Ralph recognized the guy. He was God. A shiver went down his spine. He could use God's approval in future jokes. After all,this proved that God *did* have a sense of humor....
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Page 38
~~Catastrophe~~
The sign said it:all: "Caution: Angry house pets ahead"
"Who puts up these dumb signs?" Dini grumbled as we sat behind a long line of cars.
"The Department of Unexpected Aggravation," I said. "Someone let their pets out, and didn't let them back in. That can make animals so angry they'll do desperate things."
Two blocks later we saw three cats and a bulldog parading along the street with placards reading "Unfair treatment by the McGregors."
I rolled down the window. "Is there anything we can do to help?"
The biggest cat approached and said, "The McGregors forgot to let us back inside when they left, and they didn't feed us. Do you have any. cat food?"
"Yes, we do," Dini said brightly. She climbed over me and handed the cat a bag of dry cat food.
"You owe me big for that," Dini said to me as we drove away.
"Definitely," I said. "You'll get the fancy canned food tonight, for sure!"
Dini purred.
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Page 39
"I'm not going to play Jimmy Nice any more!" Fred shouted, walking out of the network executive's office.
"Fred, we've told you many times, your character is a delusional who only *thinks* he's Jimmy Nice," the executive hollered after him.
Fred. stopped and turned. "That would explain why your scriptwriters have had Jimmy do so many things that are out of character," Fred said, a puzzled look on his face.
The executive cocked an eyebrow. "We really would like to have you on the show for another season. No one else can play the part the way you play it -- with total belief in your identity as Jimmy Nice. Anyway, there's a handsome bonus if you sign. If you still don't want the part, we'll ask Meryl Streep to take the character until we can write him out of the show. We know that Meryl can play any part under the sun, male or female, young or old."
Just then a stranger walked into the office with an air of great indignation. "This man is animpostor," he said, pointing to Fred. "I am the real Jimmy Nice."
"Ah, Meryl, we were just talking about you," the executive said with a smile.
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Page 40
~~You know You’re in Trouble When Even Unicorns Hate you~~
When Bill came home from work that night, he headed straight
for the sofa, buried his head in his hands, and sobbed uncontrollably.
Wendy had never seen him so distraught. She wiped his brow with
a warm wet washcloth and reassured him that, whatever was wrong,
she could help him with it.
"Honey, I hit a unicorn on my way home," Bill told her between sobs.
"Over by the Mitchells' place...."
"That's not far away," Wendy said, reaching for her gloves and her coat. "Wait here, and I'll see if I can find the poor thing Maybe we can save it." She jumped in her car, and was back in five minutes with a small, pearl-colored unicorn wrapped in a soft bath towel.
"It's a she," Wendy said. "Her eyes are open, she's resting comfortably, and she hasn't lost much blood."
Mr. Salamanca, who lived two doors down the street, was a veterinarian. Wendy was lucky to find him at home, and he was soon giving the unicorn a shot of antibiotics and giving her five stitches. "She's going to be fine, but you need to remember that unicorns avoid contact with humans."
"Now that we've contacted her, what will happen to her?" Bill asked.
"She'll be fine. It's you I'm worried about. Her lawyers will sue you for every penny you've got. Take my advice and move as far away as you can."
That was how Bill and Wendy came to live on an island off the coast of Alaska. Every day they would look through their binoculars to see how many angry unicorns were lined up on the shore waiting for them. Luckily, unicorns were forbidden from boarding the ferry that came out once a day.....
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Page 41
~~There are worse things than being marooned on a desert island~~
Brandon Glottersby was basically a good guy, but he was extraordinarily unfit to be a husband, as his three ex-wives could attest. Thus it was that he jumped at the chance to be captain of a cargo ship in the south seas. It would be a lonely job, with just a couple of sailors and a cook for company, but he had no one at home waiting for his return anyway.
Three weeks out, he found himself in open ocean with a ferocious storm bearing down on the ship. After a long night of monstrous high waves, he blacked out. The next thing he knew, he was lying on the beach of a desert island. His crew was lost, but the ship's cook was next to him on the beach, glaring at him with all the hatred she could muster.
"Why are you so angry at me?" he asked her.
"You don't remember me, do you?" she said. "I was your first wife. I was going to meet my fiance at the next port of call, but instead I have to put up with *you* on a desert island."
"You think you have it bad, Charlene?" said a woman who was walking toward the beach. "I was his *second* wife. I've been stranded here for two years, but at least it's been quiet. Now you'll be quarrelling with Brandon all the time! "
Things were about to get even stranger. An airplane flying overhead suddenly plunged and disappeared into the sea. A few minutes later, the pilot parachuted down, landing on the beach. Brandon turned white when he saw who she was: his third ex-wife.
As it turned out, the ex-wives hit it off with each other right away. They formed a vocal trio. Charlene used her cell phone to contact rescuers. Soon they were airlifted and became a popular singing sensation. Brandon elected to stay on the island.
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Page 42
~~In a Funeral Parlor on Halloween Night~~
Molly carried her candy in a plastic pumpkin as she wandered from
house to house yelling "Trick or treat." She was almost ready to return home with her sweet treasures when Mrs. Maguire's dobermans managed to wriggle free of their leashes and bound after her, barking like the hounds of Hell.
She took refuge in the funeral home that her father ran. No one was there, and yet she heard voices coming from the downstairs area where bodies were stored awaiting their funerals. She turned on the lights and carefully descended the stairs.
"Oh, it's you, Molly," came a friendly voice. Mrs. Delaney, who had died a couple days earlier, was sitting up in her casket. "I was just getting settled in on the other side, when they whisked me back here. Something about the spirits returning on Halloween night. It's rubbish, I tell you. I spent enough time on Earth, and I'd rather go forward..."
"I don't like it a bit," grumbled Mr. Lazaroski. "My last few months were endless pain, and I was finally free of it. Now it's back. Drat!"
There were a couple of others in adjoining caskets. They were both fond of playing cards, so they were intent on their game.
When she was sure the dogs had run off, Molly ran home. The next morning, she checked in on the bodies in the funeral home. They were totally still.
“What a strange night that was,” Molly muttered to herself as she left. Her dad stood in the doorway beaming at her, for he figured that she might be developing an interest in the family business……
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Page 43
~~Even the Toilets Aren’t Safe on Halloween Night~~
Uncle Cornelius was a great big bear of a man. He'd been decorated in his days as a U.S. Marine, and his subsequent years as a fireman had strengthened the notion that he was the bravest man in our town. How many people's lives had he saved? No one had kept count, but it was surely a very large number.
We thought that he could handle anything, but Halloween night showed us otherwise. He had gone into the bathroom to use the facilities, but something went horribly wrong. We could hear deep rumblings as of strange creatures moving through the pipes. There was a sound of churning water, followed by Uncle Cornelius's cry of fear. The next thing we knew, the door had opened and a white-faced Cornelius was trying to run out. He was unable to get past the door, though. A hideous green tentacle had firm hold of his ankle, and was pulling him back.
My Dad and my brother tugged at Cornelius, while I raced to the kitchen to get a carving knife. I chopped at the tentacle until it came off. We looked past Cornelius, and saw the most unsettling sight we'd ever seen: a mountainous green tentacled monster rising out of the toilet. We closed and locked the door, but soon the creature was banging on it.
"He'll go back to where he came from as soon as daybreak comes, won't he?" Mother reasoned.
"We can't wait that long," I said. "Maybe can fool him, though." I sifted through my sound effects CDs until I found the one with the sound of a rooster crowing. I played that a few times, and the pounding promptly subsided. When it was quiet again, we cautiously looked into the bathroom.
The creature was gone.
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Page 44
~~The Orphans and the Storm~~
The orphans sat patiently in a large hall that was still festooned with wreaths and Christmas bells (each bearing a red bow), even though January was almost over. Outside, a major storm was raging, the snowflakes being whipped every which way by a fierce wind.
The board members of the Society to Send Orphans Out Into the Storm came in, made sure the children were securely bundled up against the cold, and led them through the door one by one until the hall was empty at last.
Meanwhile, directly across the street, the Society to Take orphans in From the Storm was waiting with warm, nourishing food and comfortable beds.
