Authors: George Earl Parker
As he gazed at the patrons howling and leaping to the floor in panic, it suddenly occurred to him what was going on; it was the oldest trick in the book. When you stripped away all of the mind-bending monkey business, it was a diversion: a very elaborate diversion, but a diversion nevertheless. He sank down to one knee and scanned the pandemonium-ridden building. Escape was a breeze right now. They could walk out of the front door anytime they wanted—but then so could the kids!
***
Kate, Cal, and Tex had watched as Hunter and his strange-looking opponent prepared to bowl. None of them would say it, but they were all acutely aware of just how much trouble they were in. When they were on the run, they had a dilemma to deal with at every moment, and they didn’t have time to think about how bad things were. But now they were trapped and waiting for John to pull a rabbit from a hat. It was all too clear their situation was bleak indeed.
“I wonder what he’ll do next,” Kate said in a whisper. She was worried about any debilitating effect this peculiar transformation he was putting himself through might have upon his body or his mind. Her concern was also compounded by the fact that he was doing this for them.
“He’s gonna do what it takes,” Tex declared. Although he had no conception of what was involved in creating these aberrant bowling balls, he trusted implicitly that John did.
“He’s gonna get us out of here,” Cal said excitedly. “Come on, John.”
“Yeah,” Kate echoed with hope charging through every fiber of her being. “Come on, John.”
“Come on, John!” Tex yelled, punching his fist in the air and turning in a circle in a little good luck dance.
They fell into silence, watching the two bowlers approach the line and release their balls onto the lane. Something deep inside each of them knew this was the moment, and as Hunter’s ball leapt across the lane and began a chain reaction that resulted in absolute anarchy and chaos, their trepidation turned to elation.
“Yeah!!” they screamed in unison. It was like a pressure valve being released; they were rooting for their boy, and their boy had come through. They turned into animals, stomping, howling, growling, screaming animals. It was sweet release from the fears backed up in their nervous systems. The catalyst had been the first ball jumping the lane and knocking the second into the air; it had opened the cages to their inner animals, and their howls of delight blew their fears away like cobwebs in a high wind.
“We really are friends,” Cal marveled, “aren’t we?”
“Why are you so surprised?” Kate asked.
“Cause real friends are incredibly difficult to find,” Tex declared.
“Yeah, it’s all about trust,” Kate declared.
After calming down, they stood and watched in mute delight as John systematically destroyed the bowling alley. Cal was overjoyed that his dumb little idea had turned into such a glorious catastrophe. It meant they could get out of this horrible place and get back to the predictable normality of the real world.
Kate clapped her hands and laughed when the soda machine exploded. Then she found herself wondering exactly which ball John was. After all, there were so many; how could he be all of them?
Tex watched in admiration:
John sure is crazy, but in a really good way
, he thought. It was the kind of crazy he couldn’t help but admire; it was fox crazy, the kind of smokescreen genius hides behind. “Okay, you two. It’s a great show, but it’s time we left the stage,” he urged.
“But what about John?” Kate asked worriedly.
“He’ll hook up with us when we get out there,” Tex said. Taking a last glance from their unique vantage point, the three of them turned and hurried off to the door.
BODIES IN MOTION
Steve dragged himself up from the floor wondering how he had gotten there. The last thing he remembered was a bowling ball whistling through the air, perilously close to his head. Apart from sighs of anguish, and grunts, and groans, the only other sound was the soda machine gurgling happily to itself somewhere behind him. When he got to his knees, his head felt woolly, like he’d been drugged or something, and then it all came back to him in a flash. It was the damned poisonous blue cheese gas from Copernicus’ armpits. Never in his life had he heard that a body odor could knock someone out, but that’s obviously what must have happened.
He glanced at Copernicus, who was just beginning to stir, four or five feet away from him. Steve had obviously gotten in a couple of good licks before he passed out; either that or Copernicus managed to gas himself as well. No, that couldn’t be; he didn’t know much about biology but he was pretty sure humans remain immune to their own body odors. It made him shudder just to think about the stench, and he knew with absolute certainty he would never be able to face a piece of Stilton, Gorgonzola or Limburger again without wanting to vomit.
He began to crawl across the carpet; from what he could see of the place, it looked like there had been an enormous party where everyone had gotten really drunk and then trashed the joint. People were lying around everywhere moaning and holding their heads. Right in the middle of it all, crouched down on one knee and as motionless as an attack dog waiting for a thief, was Hunter.
Behind him, lying on the floor with his hands over his head, was Aristotle. Steve figured he must have thrown himself there when the madness had begun, and like everyone else he was too scared to stand up, just in case it began again. He crawled over to Hunter; he wasn’t exactly worried about standing up, he just thought it was prudent to stay down for a while longer. “Mr. Hunter,” he ventured cautiously.
“Sssshhhhh,” Hunter replied, “they’re here somewhere; I can feel it.”
Steve waited quietly on his hands and knees beside his master and surveyed the bowling alley. People were beginning to stir slowly, rising from the floor and brushing themselves off, and more than one or two of them were staring angrily in their direction.
“Is there a reason you’re wandering around on all fours?” Hunter inquired without turning his head.
“No,” Steve replied, rising to his knees, “but don’t you think it would be a good idea to get out of here?” He was worried about the patrons of the bowling alley; they didn’t seem too friendly.
“When we leave here those damn kids are going with us,” Hunter assured him. “And besides, we won the bowl, so what’s the problem?”
Steve marveled at Hunter’s resolve, but he wasn’t sure he bought the premise; all they had managed to do was score one very iffy strike, and somehow totally decimate a bowling alley. Obviously, it could be considered a victory from their point of view, but he couldn’t stop himself wondering what all these other people might be thinking.
***
John had done it; he had managed to completely control a whole bunch of bowling balls and send them flying through the air like seek and destroy missiles. He had boggled the minds of everyone in the bowling alley, and he thought his choices were inspiring. He hadn’t just gone in like a wrecking crew and smashed the place up; he had built up to it using guile and forethought.
But the mental gymnastics of controlling all those balls for so long had taken a toll on him, and he felt dizzy and disoriented as he willed himself back into physicality behind the lanes. Coming back from the changes wasn’t a piece of cake either; it was like a metaphysical version of landing a fighter jet on an aircraft carrier. He was coming from a realm that had no time or speed—everything was instant; and in comparison, the physical world was very slow. So it was always like a crash landing that jarred and jangled his whole body from his brain to his toenails, and left him trembling inside like a shivering plate of jelly.
The very last thing to return was always his vision; it was blurred and fuzzy, and it remained that way for some time. For that reason alone it was always better to come back to the place he’d left; after all he didn’t want to end up in the middle of a bone-crushing piece of machinery, or on the edge of a cliff. True to form, his vision was extremely slow in returning, and through the foggy haze he thought he saw three shapes walking away from him. “Hey, guys, where are you going?” he asked croakily, because it seemed like his voice wasn’t quite back either.
“What was that?” Kate asked, spinning around to see him standing dazed and confused behind her, “Oh my goodness, it’s John!”
Cal and Tex spun around as she raced back to him. “It’s really hard to know where he’s gonna turn up after these changes,” Tex said worriedly.
“Yeah, but he’s still in one piece;” Cal offered thankfully. “That’s the part that amazes me!” They both rushed to join Kate, who was holding onto John’s arm.
“Are you feeling okay?” she asked tenderly. “You look a little out of it.”
“Yeah, I’m okay,” he said, his vision clicking back into focus. “That was a long, out-of-body experience, but there was a lot to do.”
“I’m sorry I put the idea in your head without giving you time to think about it,” Cal apologized.
“No, it was a good idea,” John insisted. “But maybe next time you can break it to me gently.”
“You can’t expect him to understand a concept like that,” Tex lectured. “It’s an oxymoron.”
“Why wouldn’t I understand an oxymoron,” Cal countered. “I understand you, don’t I?”
“Now children, let’s not trade barbs until we’re clear of this place,” Kate scolded.
“That’s impossible,” John said, grinning. “The more danger they’re in, the more they banter. It’s like a feud; it stops for nothing and lasts forever.”
Tex and Cal stared at them both for a very long moment, and then, as if by some unseen cue, they turned and began walking away. “Now let me see, where did we park the limo?” Tex said in his finest English accent.
“The driver parked it,” Cal said, “and I hope the scalawag can remember where, or I’ll have his guts for garters.”
“Not bad for an oxymoron, old boy,” Tex offered crisply.
“Oh, that’s not an oxymoron, old chap,” said Cal, adopting his own variety of the queen’s English. “No, that’s a pair of manly suspenders.”
“Manly Suspenders!” Tex exclaimed. “I used to know a chap called Manly Suspenders at university.”
“Not the same Manly Suspenders who used to hang around with Hairy Thighs?” Cal remarked in his inimitable droll way.
“What a dashed small world,” Tex guffawed. “It most certainly was!”
“I hear he’s very big in elastic these days,” Cal confided with a hint of a snigger.
“Who? Manly Suspenders, or Hairy Thighs?”
“Manly Suspenders, of course,” Cal paused for effect. “He stretched himself to the limit to hold up the world.”
“Well, that’s a very noble gesture,” Tex continued in his mock British tone. “Not many would go to those lengths to prevent a chap’s socks from wrinkling round his ankles.”
“No. Multitudes of ankles are wrinkle-free now thanks to Manly Suspenders.”
“Say, didn’t he start that musical group?” Tex said with a straight face. “Now, what was their name?”
“Indeed, it was the Rubber Band,” Cal drawled, “featuring the Girls’ Unmentionables.”
“Girls’ Unmentionables!” Tex exclaimed loudly, “Now what did they do?”
“Backing vocals, old boy; a very important job. You have to come in with a doo-wop or an ooh-wah at the appropriate moment,” Cal replied in his most serious tone, “or the whole performance droops like a wilted flower.”
“Yes, I’ve always thought that was a wonderful thing.”
“What, a wilted flower?” Cal asked.
“No, backing vocals.”
“Really,” Cal drawled.
“Yes…wouldn’t it be wonderful if every time you said something important there were backing vocals singing, ‘He’s right,’ or ‘What an absolute and complete genius?!’”
“Quite right! We must invent it. You could strap it to a belt, and when you want your words to carry extra weight, you just press a button and it comes out like a radio jingle.”
“That’s the ticket, old boy,” Tex continued in his mock serious tone. “I think we just solved all the problems in the world.”
“Yes, either that or we’ve just added to them,” Cal admitted with a wry grin.
John and Kate had been following them down the corridor, thoroughly entertained by their mindless drivel, but now they had reached the door.
“After you, Mr. Roberts.”
“No, I insist, after you, Mr. Burton.”
“Okay, guys, you’ve made your point,” John said smiling.
“What point did they make?” Kate asked incredulously.
“That they’re a couple of goofballs, but we couldn’t make it through this without them,” he replied.
“Listen, man, you can’t go around saving our asses every five minutes without thinking we appreciate it,” Tex said.
“Yeah, and if a little comedy routine is called for to lighten the mood, we can do that too,” Cal offered. “It’s all about teamwork.”
The three of them fell into a big hug, slapping each other on the back repeatedly.
“Oh no, I’ve just witnessed a male bonding ceremony,” Kate moaned. “Aren’t you guys supposed to keep your sensitive sides a secret?”
“It’s not male bonding,” Tex carefully pointed out, “it’s group bonding. Get over here in the huddle.”
They had been riding an emotional roller coaster, and each of them was feeling the debilitating effect. Kate was happy to get into the huddle; the personal contact gave them all an opportunity to draw strength from one another, and it just felt good to know they were sharing the adversity.