“The boy needs glasses!” boomed Dr. Portmanteau, the principal at Robert Chicory’s school, after hearing from the school nurse that the boy complained every day of severe headaches, and from his teachers that the boy’s attitude seemed suddenly inattentive and lethargic.
He made this remark to his assistant, Perkins -- a small spindly man that life had bent, folded, and mutilated into a humorless sycophant. Dr. Portmanteau, on the other hand, was one of those dedicated educators who was blessed with an innate knowledge that he was always right and was always expected to deliver his opinions at the top of his lungs. He gave the impression of a bullfrog about to explode.
“Astigmatism” asserted Portmanteau loudly, “is the bane of the modern educator. Statistics clearly show that nine times out of ten a student who is doing poorly is unable to see the blackboard properly -- or else is going deaf. That is a common phenomenon in modern schools as well!”
“So I have always understood” agreed Perkins, while surreptitiously sweeping a handful of pencils into his coat pocket. He liked to sharpen them with a pen knife at home; he didn’t write anything with them, he just liked whittling away at them at the kitchen table.
“Send for the boy at once” commanded the principal. “I’ll soon get to the bottom of this.”
“At once” echoed Perkins, already halfway out the door.
For it was true that poor Robert was oppressed with terrible headaches and a general feeling of malaise -- it had started the moment his loving mother had put the claptrap necklace around his neck. She had then kissed his forehead and sent him scampering off to school for the day -- except that Robert didn’t feel like scampering much all of a sudden. His head throbbed and his chest felt constricted, and he almost returned home to seek his mother’s tender arms and a cup of her soothing herbal tea. But he soldiered on -- a phrase he had heard his father use many times, especially on a Monday morning before going in to work.
The boy was ushered into the presence of Dr. Portmanteau, somewhat in the manner of a petitioner being allowed into the inner sanctum of an oriental potentate.
“Sit down, Robert” said Portmanteau, then immediately held up a balled fist. “How many fingers am I holding up?” he asked. Before Robert could answer he pointed at a misty water color on the wall showing an indeterminate number of sailboats on a lake. “How many boats do you see in that picture?” he quizzed Robert. When Robert was slow to respond, Portmanteau looked at Perkins and gave a severe nod, which Perkins was only too happy to imitate back at him.
“The boy is intellectually behindhand, no doubt about it” he said to Perkins. “I want you to arrange the standard battery of intelligence and motor skill tests for the boy this afternoon.”
Perkins nodded eagerly. He excelled at administering tests of byzantine complexity and opaque purpose to little children. He could often make them cry, which he felt was what a good educator was all about.
“Come, Robert” he said to the bewildered boy, “we are going to the Testing Center.”
Meanwhile, at the Marmalade Hotel, where Robert’s grandfather kept a suite of rooms in the back, an intense and vociferous game of piffle was being played on a green baize table littered with half-eaten sandwiches, sticky bottles of celery tonic, and salted peanut shells.
“I’m in for half a drizzle” said Robert’s grandfather, Horatio Snork, carelessly pushing a pile of tokens into the middle of the table, knocking over several bottles of half drunk celery tonic in the process.
His bidding adversary, Potato Nose Grogan, gave him a narrow stare.
“I’m going to lift you” said Grogan, turning over his cards. The room full of kibbitzers immediately broke into howls of derision -- no one could beat a double penuche, no one! Not even that sly devil Snork!
“I claim the twenty minute privilege” was all Snork said in reply, keeping his cards up close to his wrinkled shirtfront. The game had been going on all night.
The crowd welcomed the opportunity to raid the buffet table again. Say what you like, old Snork kept a groaning board for his guests, invited or otherwise, that never disappointed. There were candied yams smothered in marshmallow sauce; pickled herring by the bucket; toasted goose livers; cream of butter soup; marinated kumquats; dinner rolls the size of bowling balls; and a tray of foreign cheeses so piquant and intoxicating that after one bite a mouse could beat up a cat.
“You won’t get out of this one, Snork” Potato Nose Grogan said to Robert’s grandfather. “I’m gonna go get me a smoked sheep kidney.” So saying, Grogan got up from the table and headed into the crowd of happy moochers, who slapped him on the back and congratulated him on finally pulling one over on their host, leaving Snork all alone at the baize table, with nobody near enough to spit on. The old man shrugged his shoulders silently, thinking to himself ‘winners wear out their welcomes fast, but you never get tired of talking to a loser.’
As the crowd lost itself in gorging at his expense, Horatio Snork thought back over the years to other times when he was in the bleak soup. There was that time up in Purgatory Falls, surrounded by wiffle ball enthusiasts who resented his presence in town selling official major league baseballs -- he had only escaped their clutches by distracting them with a bag of turtles long enough to get into his car, lock the door, and drive straight through the farmer’s market back onto the highway. Or the time that witch Marilyn conjured up a ninja pizza that went straight for his throat . . .
Just as things looked bad for Snork, his grandson and Perkins the sycophant arrived at the Testing Center. This was a two story dull gray brick building in a part of town that discouraged interest or ambition. It was filled with dry cleaning shops, small ramshackle warehouses, and thrift stores that smelled like camphor and baked beans. Perkins lost no time in having Robert registered, as ‘educationally unsound, possibly going blind’ and seated at a desk in an empty room. Sunlight snuck through the windows like a fugitive.
“Our first order of business” said Perkins gleefully, “ is to determine your hand/eye coordination. We will accomplish this with a series of simple tests.”
Perkins held up a blue ping pong paddle in his right hand, and a red ping pong paddle in his left hand. He began twirling them around, like a windmill.
“Now, Mr. Chicory, if you will kindly pay attention -- I want you to tell me when the blue paddle has stopped -- do it by raising your left hand and wiggling your index finger.”
Robert’s headache was particularly bad today. His head felt like it was in a vise. His eyes were watering, which blurred his vision somewhat -- and so he did not pay attention when Perkins suddenly stopped both paddles, unintentionally letting the red one fly out of his hand and exit via the window.
“Completely unresponsive!” said Perkins to himself in triumph, scribbling away on a clipboard.
“Why did you throw the red one one out the window, Mr. Perkins?” asked Robert.
“Subject is prone to hallucinations . . . “ Perkins said severely, starting a whole new page on the clipboard. Robert waited patiently for him to finish. He just wanted to go home and lie down until he felt better. He looked out the window, beyond the tawdry warehouses and thrift stores, to a large green mound, where noisy mud birds were circling endlessly.
“Courage, our friend” a dim voice whispered in his head. “This clown cannot harm you -- he can’t even pinch you! We’re going to break one of our own rules and help you out for the next bit of nonsense . . . “
“Come, come, Chicory -- less daydreaming and more focus please!” said Perkins imperiously. He was enjoying himself immensely -- Dr. Portmanteau rarely let him go off by himself to torture students. This was capital fun!
Perkins led the way to another room; this one featured a large blackboard that took up one whole wall.
“You are to use the blackboard in front of you to solve a series of mathematical problems I shall give to you” said Perkins importantly. “We will start with simple equations and work our way up to more complex problems -- to test your logic as well as your mathematical abilities. Are you ready?”
“Yes sir” said Robert quietly.
“Good. Here goes. What is two plus five plus three minus one?”
Robert picked up a piece of chalk, slowly worked the problem out on the board, and turned his gaze back to Perkins.
“Seven is the correct answer” said that worthy, sounding a tad disappointed at Robert’s success.
But before he could fling down another numerical challenge a skeleton, fully articulated, walked into the room and up to Perkins -- who stared at it in uncomprehending terror.
“You the jasper giving this kid a hard time?” the skeleton asked -- although how it managed to have a voice without any lungs was a mystery that Perkins gave much thought to during his leisure moments many years later. Right now all he could manage was to make a gobbling sound in reply, similar to a turkey’s death rattle. The skeleton then went over to Robert, who did not find it frightening so much as intriguing.
“How do you hold all those bones together?” he asked the skeleton.
“It’s personal magnetism, kid -- personal magnetism” replied the skeleton. “C’mon, let’s blow this morgue. I’ll walk you part way home.” So saying, the skeleton took Robert’s hand and they walked out of the room, leaving a petrified Perkins behind. When Perkins finally stopped shaking he ran pell mell back to the school to breathlessly tell Dr. Portmanteau what happened. The doctor was not prone to believe him in the least.
“That’s insane, Perkins -- insane!” roared the doctor at Perkins, who was still shaking intermittently like a pair of maracas. “You have strained your feeble intellect well beyond the breaking point at the Testing Center -- I can see now I should have been the one to take the boy down there. You can’t handle such things. I’m sending you away to a rest farm in the country for six weeks. Pack your bags and be on the next train to . . . to . . . to anywhere, for all I care!” Dr. Portmanteau turned his back haughtily on Perkins, who slunk out of the doctor’s office and was never seen again at that school.
The skeleton and Robert walked up one street and then down another, until they came to the Hotel Marmalade.
“My grandpa lives there” Robert told the skeleton proudly. “He’s rich and famous and knows lots about everything!”
“Do tell!’ replied the skeleton, which had started to disintegrate and knew it only had a few minutes of existence left. “Well, let’s go in and see the old boy -- whaddya say?”
“Sure!” said Robert. His headache didn’t seem to be bothering him much anymore. He was having an adventure that you only found in the best kind of story books.
The desk clerk didn’t bat an eye when the skeleton came up to him to ask which room a Mr. Snork had. Hotel desk clerks see way too much, especially in the middle of the night, to ever be thrown for a loop.
“He’s in the back, hosting a game of piffle. It’s getting kind of rowdy -- I wouldn’t advise taking a child back there right now” the clerk said, managing to sound both superior and completely bored at the same time.
“This is his grandson -- he’s full of magic, or will be some day. He’ll be safe anywhere” replied the skeleton, just as its skull came off its neck, rolling away and vanishing into a dusty mist. The rest of its body collapsed into a small pile of gray dust as well.
“Boy!” said the desk clerk loudly. “Clean up at the front desk! As for you, young man, if you’re related to that rascal Snork I guess you’ll be as safe as anyone back in that den of iniquity. Just go down the hall and turn right.”
This would be the first time Robert had ever been to his grandfather’s room without his parents along. He ran all the way.
No one answered his knock, so he pushed open the door to find a gesticulating group surrounding his grandfather at a green baize table.
“Admit it, Snork” Potato Nose Grogan was saying. “You’re up a creek without a fiddle! Show us your cards and let’s get this funeral over with!” The crowd surrounding the putative winner Grogan began nodding vigorously in agreement, dislodging various bits of sandwich and blobs of mustard from their gluttonous faces which then flew across the room in a haphazard and aromatic blizzard.
“Hold your horse shoes, Potato Nose” Snork replied firmly. “I’m now going to invoke Rule 51.”
Silence descended like a giant sheet cake.
“What? What Rule 51? What are you talking about, you old villain?” demanded Potato Nose Grogan.
Grandpa Snork waved airly towards the bookcase by the couch.
“Take a gander in the book -- The Vade Mecum of Piffle, by Hickenlooper. That will set you straight about Rule 51.”
Potato Nose Grogan shot up and was at the bookcase in a blur of agitated speed. He found the book, opened it up, and, turning white as a cod fillet, began reading in a strangled voice:
“Should a player produce a double penuche he or she shall be declared winner of that game, except in the case of another player invoking the twenty minute rule unchallenged. In that case, the double penuche is rendered null and void, and the player who was granted the twenty minute respite will be declared the winner.”
“How, how in blazes did you know about this?” asked the chapfallen Grogan, closing the book and putting it back into the bookcase.
“I am what you call a serious student of all games of chance, and I especially like to know about the loopholes” said Snork, silently thanking his lucky stars that Grogan had not had the presence of mind to look at the publishers’ imprint on the piffle rule book. If he had, he would have seen that it was published by Snork Publishing. And then might have guessed that Snork himself had a hand in inserting that egregious ruling on the off chance he was ever in a game where he came up against a double penuche.
One thing you could say about Potato Nose Grogan was that he was a good loser. He walked up to Snork, who was still seated at the baize table, nibbling on a piece of maple candy, and handed him a set of keys.
“Here” said Grogan gruffly. “You won ‘em fair and square. My dockyard and the boat.”
“You mean that old tub, the Puddle Bat?” asked Snork, fingering the keys.
“Yeah, I mean the Puddle Bat -- and she ain’t no tub! She’s as sea worthy as any other boat afloat!”
“No doubt, no doubt” said Snork mildly. “Here.” He threw most of the keys back to Potato Nose Grogan. “You can keep the dock -- I got no use for it. And I’ll keep the Puddle Bat. I might need it for an expedition I’m thinkin’ about takin’ one of these fine days . . . Hello dere, Robert!”
The old man waved Robert over to his side.
“What are you doin’ here, my boy?” he asked fondly. “Where’s your parents? Don’t tell me you come all this way by yourself!”
“Oh, grandpa! I was in school and then I was being tested by mean old Mr. Perkins and then a real live skeleton, I mean real, uh, real, uh dead skeleton come to get me and we walked by here and my headache isn’t so bad now cuz I’m with you . . . “ Robert stopped his mad rush of words to give his grandfather an enthusiastic hug.
The crowd of hardened gamblers and raffish kibbitzers looked on with misty affection, until they remembered they were a crowd of hardened gamblers and raffish kibbitzers -- at which point they gruffly demanded to know what Snork was going to do with Potato Nose Grogan’s boat. They leered at Robert as well -- trying to give him the impression they were a desperate bunch of ne’er-do-wells who would cut his throat for a grilled cheese sandwich. Robert simply stared back at them and smiled the full and open smile of a boy safe in the company of his beloved grandfather. Somewhat abashed, the crowd shifted its attention back to the remains of the buffet table, where everything was either wilted, crumbled, melted, or being carried away by an army of industrious ants.
“None of your beeswax” replied Snork to the general hullabaloo about the Puddle Bat. “I’ll be taking that up with Mr. Grogan personally after I escort this fine young man back to his parent’s house.” The old man got up from the green baize table and left with Robert. At the front desk he told the desk clerk to send the riot squad to his rooms and clean out the moochers but let Potato Nose Grogan stay as long as he wanted. The clerk nodded briskly as he began beating on a large brass gong. The riot squad was always good for business -- they created a stir around town that gave the Marmalade Hotel the reputation of a dangerous place where anything might happen -- and the out of towners loved to think they were balancing on a precipice when they checked in there. Plus they gave the desk clerk enormous tips for directions to the ‘danger zones.’ The desk clerk usually gave them the address of the public library.
“So a skeleton brought you to me, eh?” asked Snork, as he and Robert ambled along the streets towards home.
Robert gave his grandfather a blow-by-blow account of the whole incident, not forgetting to mention how sick he’d been feeling ever since his mother made him start wearing the claptrap necklace. This worried the old man, and made him feel somewhat guilty -- since it was he who had gotten the stone in the first place and suggested to Robert’s parents that he be made to wear it to dampen his possible magical abilities.
Robert did not weary of retelling the whole story again when he and his grandfather arrived at home. While his parents listened, half in awe and half in disbelief, Snork lay back in a comfortable armchair and drifted off to sleep. When he awoke with a start his smiling grandson was by his side, telling him it was time for dinner.
“I hadn’t meant to stay so long” said the old man, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “I gotta get back to old Potato Nose for some business stuff.”
It took little persuasion to convince the old gentleman to stay. But as soon as the meal was over he got up, kissed his grandson on the head, and headed resolutely out the door while waving goodbye.
Less than a minute later Snork was back inside the house, slamming the door and yelling for all the windows to be shut.
“The mounds, them darn mounds -- they’re all lit up with green light!” he exclaimed. “Something weird is gonna happen tonight, and I wouldn’t be out there right now for all the mud in Brazil!”
