A Game of Groans: A Sonnet of Slush and Soot (11 page)

Still chuckling, Malia said, “Whoa, looks like our nation’s philosophy of incest extends to the direpanda community.”

Sasha stopped and asked, “Like, what’s incest?” She turned around and was treated to the sight of Dinky pleasuring Stinky with his long direpanda tongue.

“That,”
Malia explained, “is incest.”

“Ewwwwwwww,”
Sasha wailed. “That’s, like, totally the grossest thing ever.”

Malia explained, “If living creatures of any sort don’t engage in that sort of behavior—direpandas, humans, whatever—their race will cease to exist. No foreplay means no procreation, and no procreation means no life.”

Sasha scratched her head. “I don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand?” Malia asked.

“Any of it.”

Malia scrunched up her face and asked, “Didn’t Mother have the talk with you?”

“Maybe she did. I don’t, like, remember.”

Pointing at the ground, Malia ordered, “Down.” Once the girls were seated comfortably in the mud, Malia said, “When two people love each other very, very much, they get certain feelings, feelings of excitement, and their private parts—the man’s is called a penis, and the woman’s is called a vagina—become sensitive to the touch … but in a good way.” The younger Barker sister then went on to explain to the older Barker sister how, by making love, Lord Headcase and Lady Gateway could create another Barker sister, should they choose to do so.

After Malia finished her lecture, Sasha flicked some mud off her dress and declared, “Oh. My. Gods. That’s, like, totally gross.”

Shrugging, Malia said, “You may feel differently about that in a few years.” The ground then began to rumble, and a horse emerged from the forest, a horse ridden by one Goofrey Barfonme. Noting Sasha’s adoring gaze, Malia said, “Or you may feel differently about that in a few minutes.”

Sasha waved at Goof, then extricated herself from the gooey mud. When Goof brought his horse to a stop, she said, “You look totally awesome, Goof. Like,
totally
.”

Goof gave Sasha an onion-eating grin, and agreed. “I agree.” And then, silence.

“Do you think I look pretty, Goof?” she asked.

“What? Oh. Yeah. Sure. You look swell.”

Sasha giggled, batted her eyes, and said, “Like, thanks. Come down here and talk to me. I have something to tell you.” After Goof hopped off his horse, Sasha took his hand and pulled the reluctant pretender to the throne toward the riverbank. “So I heard something totally weird today.”

“What’s that?” Goof inquired.

“Okay, so when two people, like, totally love each other very, very much, they get, like, certain awesome feelings, awesome feelings of excitement, and their private parts become, like, totally sensitive to the touch, but in a radical way.” The elder Barker sister then went on to explain to the dumber Barfonme offspring how, by making love, she and he could create a baby Barfonme, should they choose to do so.

After the talk was done, Goof gawked at Sasha and uttered, “That’s repulsive.”

Sasha looked at the growing lump in Goofrey’s pink pantaloons and said, “I don’t know. It might be rad.” She took a step toward him, then kissed Goof on the cheek. He flinched, then pushed her away. The push was not hard, but Sasha’s feet got stuck in the mud, so she lost her balance and fell into the river.

Malia, forgetting that only a handful of chapters ago it was noted that she and her sister were serious rivals, stepped right into Goof’s face and growled, “She may be an idiot, and she may be spoiled, and she may be bitchy, and she may think she’s a macaroni statue goddess, but she’s my sister, and the only person who gets to shove her into the water is me.” She then pulled her sword Syringe from behind her ear and said, “You have insulted my family, and we will now fight to the death. And you might want to pay attention, because there are a Godsdamn lot of fights to the death just around the corner. And around the corner from that. And around the corner from that.” She then mumbled to herself, “Chryst, there’re a lot of fights to the death around this dump. At some point, somebody has to say, enough is enough. Where’s a good editor when you need one?”

Goof stammered, “Um, I don’t think, um, that that’s, um, such a good idea, because, um, because you’re a girl, yeah, that’s it, you’re a little girl, and Barfonme men don’t go to battle with swords against girls.”

Malia got into a fighting stance and teased, “Are you sure it’s not because you’re scared?”

Puffing up his chest, Goof claimed, “Nothing scares me!”

Malia thrust her tiny sword into Goof’s face and he gasped. “Sure, Goof,” Malia sneered, “nothing scares you.” She put her sword away, then added, “You have insulted my family, so we must battle. If swords aren’t acceptable, you can choose your weapon.”

Again puffing up his chest, Goof claimed, “You will never beat me in a battle of wits.
Never
.”

“Seriously?” Malia asked. “Me and you in a battle of wits?”

Goof nodded confidently and boasted, “Nobody has ever beaten me in a battle of wits.
Nobody
.”

Malia noted, “That’s because everybody lets you win, dummy.”

“I win my battles fair and square,” Goof asserted, “as I will right now. I will even let you choose the topic.”

“Okay. Baseball.”

“What’s baseball?” Goof asked.

“In 1967,” Malia asked, “who won the American League Triple Crown?”

“The American what?”

“
Wrong!
Carl Yastrzemski, who batted .326 with 44 homers and 121 RBI.”

“Wait a minute…”

Malia interrupted, “Next question: Name the only pitcher to throw a no-hitter on Opening Day.”

“Opening what?”

“
Wrong!
Bob Feller, April 16, 1940. The Tribe beat the White Sox one–zip.”

Goof sniffled and wiped something from his eye. “You’re being really, really mean, Malia.”

“Nut up, Barfonme. Next question, and this is an easy one: Who earned the nickname ‘Mr. October’?”

“Um, I don’t know, maybe Reggie Jackson?”

“Crap. Lucky guess.” She peered at Goof’s face. “Hey, are you crying?”

Goof wiped a tear from his cheek, then sniffled, “I hate you, Malia Barker! You suck! I hope you die! I’m gonna tell my mommy on you!” And then he ran toward the forest, bawling the entire way.

“Hey,” Malia called, “you forgot your horse!” After Goof was out of view, she turned to her sister and said, “Well, I guess I didn’t need to tell you about making babies, did I?”

Gazing adoringly at the forest, Sasha said, “Oh. My. Gods. Goofrey Barfonme is, like, the cutest boy
ever
. I’m going to totally make love to his penis.”

Malia Barker threw up in her mouth a little bit.

“Gods, I’m hungry,” Lord Headcase Barker complained from his position on the floor beside the throne, right beside the King’s feet.

King Bobbert Barfonme topped off his mug of top-shelf grog and, staring at the thick, dark purple liquid, noted, “If you throw down a couple bottles of this stuff every day, your appetite won’t seem like much of a problem. For that matter,
nothing
will seem like much of a problem.”

Oblivion sounded appealing to Head, and he was tempted to go on a grog bender, because it turned out Bobbert had been right: Being the Foot was awful. Aside from having to keep the increasingly erratic King on track, it was one annoyance after another: If Queen Cerevix wasn’t complaining about the horrible state of the castle’s mudroom, it was Goofrey whining about how somebody stole his Leapstyr. If it wasn’t Tinyjohnson trying to undermine what little authority Head had, it was some commoner complaining about the neighbor coveting their wife, their manservant, their maidservant, and their donkey, not to mention playing their music too loud. Taking all that into consideration, it was little wonder that Bobbert spent ninety percent of his life inebriated.

Another reason Head sympathized with his friend: the throne.

Head did not know the history behind the Capaetal Ceity King’s throne, nor did he care to, because whoever devised that thing had to be a sadistic nutjob, and who has the time to read about sadistic nutjobs when there is mud to be slogged through, onions to be eaten, and main characters to be killed? The back of the throne was standard—black velvet covered with jewels, which, while certainly eye-catching, could not have felt good on the back—but there were no arms, and the seat was a white porcelain circle with a huge hole in the middle, and the chair itself was hollow. Whenever King Bobbert broke wind—which, while not as often as Head’s son Allbran, was still a regular occurrence—the echo could be both heard and felt throughout the giant, high-ceilinged throne room. Sometimes Head heard other noises coming from the bottom of the throne, noises that he could not or would not identify, noises that made him happy he did not have to sit there. (The Queen’s throne, it should be noted, was a bejeweled barstool. Cerevix had been trying to get the administration to allocate funds for a real chair for seasons, but she was always voted down, primarily because nobody on the Budget Committee liked her.)

Head told his friend, “Before I grog it up, I’d like to get something in my gut.”

Bobbert nodded. “I understand. And get something in your gut we shall.” Pointing across the room, he said, “But not until we deal with this.”

Head followed Bobbert’s finger and gazed at the entrance to the throne room, where he was greeted by the sight of his youngest daughter in the grip of four of Cerevix’s cousins—he’d been introduced to all of the Sinisters upon his arrival at Capaetal Ceity, but they all looked exactly the same, almost as if they’d inbred for centuries—and Malia was squirming and screaming as if she were a toad who had eaten but not fully digested another toad, and the second toad was trying to jump up and down inside of the first toad’s stomach.

“What’s going on here?” Head asked. “Did you eat but not fully digest a toad?”

Queen Cerevix regally strolled into the throne room as if she were the Queen or something, followed by four blond Sinister cousins, and explained, “Your daughter, Lord Barker, appears to have made a fool of my son.”

Bobbert slurred, “So what else is new?”

“I guess I know who’s sleeping on the couch tonight,” Cerevix snapped.
“Again.”

“Oh yeah? You and whose army?” Bobbert grumbled.

Cerevix gave her husband a confused look and said, “In any event, apparently your Malia threatened my Goof with a deadly weapon, then insulted him, then stole his horse. He doesn’t deserve to be treated that way, on either the page or the small screen.”

Head shook his head, then pointed out, “My Queen, Malia couldn’t weigh more than, um, what’s the unit of measure they use around here? Pounds? Grams? Stones? My stones?”

Bobbert said, “Let’s say she’s a skinny little tomboy and leave it at that.”

“Fine,” Head agreed, “she’s a skinny little tomboy, and Goof is a strapping young man…”

“I don’t know if
strapping
is the right word,” Bobbert said. “I’d go with
nebbish
. You get a gander of those pantaloons he wears? Makes him look like a weenie.”

“I guess I know who’s sleeping on the couch
tomorrow
night,” Cerevix snapped.

“Oh yeah? Well, put that in your pipe and smoke it,” Bobbert grumbled.

Cerevix gave her husband a confused look, then said, “In any event, your daughter insulted my son, then she stole his horse.”

King Bobbert snorted, then he chuckled, then he guffawed, then he tittered, then he giggled, and then he whooped. Then, laughing, he said, “Your son got beaten up by a
girl
?!”

“He’s your son too,” the Queen noted.

Shrugging, Bobbert said, “Maybe he is. Maybe he isn’t. Maybe we’ll get the real answer someday.”

Off in the distance, Juan Nieve’s direpanda Fourshadow could be heard growling.

“I guess I know who’s sleeping on the couch the night after tomorrow,” Cerevix snapped.

“Oh yeah? Well, I know you are, but what am I?” Bobbert grumbled.

Cerevix then said, “In any event, Lord Barker, how do you intend to punish your daughter?”

With his stomach grumbling, Head said, “I’ll take care of it later. How about we order some Thai?”

Ignoring the Foot, the Queen exclaimed, “I have the perfect punishment: three years of hard incest!”

Bobbert rose from his seat, closed his throne’s lid, and said, “Cerevix, we will not have Malia sleeping with Allbran, because the boy has one foot in the grave…”

Off in the distance, Allbran Barker could be heard yelling, “I’m feeling fine, thank you very much!”

“… and incestuous behavior might kill him…”

Off in the distance, Allbran Barker could be heard yelling, “It wouldn’t kill me, but it’s really gross!”

“… but I don’t want this mess to carry on, so come up with a punishment we can all agree on, then go to your chambers and play with Jagweed or something.”

“I concur,” Queen Cerevix concurred. “Malia killed something important to Goof—his dignity—so we should kill something important to her … like maybe her direpanda.”

Head’s stomach again rumbled, and he thought,
Man, a direpandaburger with grilled onions sounds mighty tasty,
but then he noticed the silent tears running down his daughter’s cheeks, and said, “Cerevix, I will handle this.”

Ignoring him, Cerevix turned to the quartet of blond Sinisters and shouted, “What do you say, team? Kill the direpanda?”

In unison, Team Sinister answered, “Kill the direpanda.”

Cocking her ear, Cerevix called, “I can’t hear you!”

“Kill the direpanda!”

“Let ’em hear you in Summerseve, my peeps!”

“KILL THE DIREPANDA!”

Cerevix turned to Head and smiled. “The masses have spoken.”

“More like the
asses
have spoken,” Bobbert mumbled, then glared at Cerevix and added, “I know, I know, I know, I’m on the couch.”

To Head, Cerevix said, “So unless you want a bunch of Sinisters all up in your ass, I recommend you kill the direpanda.”

Lord Headcase told his daughter, “Malia, I’m so sorry about this. But if I didn’t make decisions based on a rigid, unbending adherence to a moral code that no one else bothers to follow and that only seems to harm my family while leaving the obvious villains unscathed, then I wouldn’t be Headcase Barker. I just hope that this unrealistic obsession with moral rectitude doesn’t come down on my head like an executioner’s sword sometime in the future.”