"Make it stop," Randall pleaded.
""Whatever shall I do?" Milton worried. "I do so want to count to two, yet I also wish to stay on one." What would you you do if you were Milton?" do if you were Milton?"
"Drown myself," said Sir William.
"Then Milton got an idea. It was a good idea, and made Milton smile nearly as much as he smiled when he thought of the number seven. "Why, it is simple!" he declared. "I shall write the number one on this piece of paper, and then I can look at it while I count to two!""
Sir William"s grip on Randall"s shoulder tightened, causing him to wince with pain.
"And Milton did. But when he finally counted to two, Milton grew sad again, for now he couldn"t count to three without rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrwwwwwwwwwww...."
The voice faded away. A perky female voice sounded. "We are experiencing magical difficulties. This exhibit is now closed."
"YES!" Sir William shouted. "PAR-TEE! PAR-TEE!"
The glowing arrow appeared, and they got up from the bench and proceeded to the next exhibit. It was a stone table, upon which rested a lobster, an avocado, and a piece of lint. A placard on the table read "Thou shalt determineth whicheth object doth not belongeth, and toucheth the blueth dotteth underneatheth. Got ith?"
"The lint," suggested Randall. "You can eat the lobster and the avocado."
"I agree about the lint," said Sir William, "but it might be because both the lobster and avocado can be used as weapons, while the lint would be woefully ineffective."
"No, no, you"re wrong. The answer is the lint. It"s the only man-made substance on the table."
"It must be the lint. The lint is the only one that would burn right away if you thrust a torch at it."
"Wait, I changed my mind. It"s the lint, because that"s the only one you can fit between your toes or in your belly b.u.t.ton."
Sir William touched the blue dot under the lint.
"Guess what?" said the voice.
Randall and Sir William waited.
"No, really, guess what?"
"Uh, what?" asked Randall.
"You know that dot you pressed?"
"Yeah."
"Well, let"s take a little quiz. What letter does lobster start with?"
"L," Randall answered, his stomach sinking.
"And what letter does lint start with?"
"L," Randall answered, his stomach continuing its downward trajectory.
"Soooooo ... it"s my guess that the one thing not to belong would be the one that doesn"t start with that wonderful letter L. And by golly, that would be the avocado, wouldn"t it?"
The exhibit vanished. The humming sound started up.
"Any last words?" asked the voice.
"Rutabaga, trollop, and fleece," said Randall.
"Good ones. And now, here comes the wizard beam!"
The humming grew louder, then abruptly died down.
"Just kidding again!" said the voice.
Randall wiped off the quart of sweat that had gathered on his palms.
The voice continued. "Actually, I was just kidding when I said I was just kidding." The humming grew louder again. The lights all turned a dark red color.
"Sir William, can I tell you something?" asked Randall, shouted to be heard as the humming reached its loudest point.
"Of course you may."
"If you"ll look down at your loin cloth, you"ll notice that there"s been a bit of ... uh, slippage. I wouldn"t want you to die like that."
"Thank you," said Sir William, making the necessary adjustments.
The wizard beam fired.
And missed by a good twelve feet.
"Not especially accurate, are they?" asked Randall. The humming died away. The background music was worse than ever, consisting of a man singing about the Tic-Tac-Toe game of love.
"No, they"re not," Sir William agreed.
They followed the next glowing arrow down a short hallway. At the end of it was an iron door, upon which were the words: "Here shalt thou find thy final test. Pa.s.s through this door, and confront thy True Self. If thou goest not loco, thou shalt move on in thy journey, and probably be killed by the witch Grysh."
"Confront my true self?" asked Sir William. He snorted with laughter. "The only danger in this test is being overcome with the Happies from being too close to myself."
He threw open the door, and they walked through. The air was like liquid again, although this time liquid of a much thinner consistency yet with more lumps.
SIR WILLIAM found himself alone in a room with mirrored walls. He checked his hair, found it adequate, and then began walking around the room, searching for the exit.
A human-shaped shadow materialized in front of him. Slowly it began to develop a flesh-colored hue. Finally, it had transformed into an exact duplicate of himself.
"h.e.l.lo," it said.
"Why, h.e.l.lo," said Sir William, looking his true self over. "Those are some shiny biceps you"ve got there."
"You too. And I"m very impressed by your fully developed pectorals. I don"t suppose you"d make a muscle for me?"
"I"d be happy to," said Sir William, making immense muscles in both of his arms. "These aren"t those stick-on muscles, either. These are the real thing."
"I can tell," his true self said, shoving a finger deep into its nose.
Sir William lowered his arms. "What are you doing?"
His true self withdrew the finger, and inserted it into the next lower orifice. "Dining."
"Stop that! You"re a knight in the king"s army! Behavior like that is completely unacceptable!"
"Oh, really?" asked his true self, hocking the mother of all loogies and spitting it on the floor. "Who says?"
"You can"t possibly be my true self," said Sir William.
The duplicate began to vigorously scratch his underarms. "Dang, my pits itch! Would you mind helping me with this?"
"I"ll do no such thing!"
"Fine." His true self raised his arms high, then continued the scratching procedure with his teeth.
"Have you no dignity?" Sir William cried.
"I"m not using my tongue, am I?"
"Stop it!" Sir William pleaded. "You"re not me! I would never do something like that!"
"Oh, really?" The duplicate gave him a leering smile. "Is your name Sir William of Mosiman, or are you still ... Billy the Bug-Eater?"
"That was a long time ago!"
"Bug-eater! Bug-eater!"
"I was only a child!"
"Sucked down any caterpillars lately, Billy?"
"Shut up!"
"Remember how all the kids used to laugh at you when you ate the bugs, Billy? Remember how n.o.body would play with you because you were such a vile little child?"
"That"s not me any more," Sir William sobbed. "Not me. I don"t eat bugs. No bugs. None."
The duplicate took out a long, slimy worm. "Mmmmmmm. Feeling hungry, Billy?"
Sir William let out a battle cry, then lunged forward.
RANDALL FELT a tinge of excitement as he looked around at the mirrors. I"m going to see my true self I"m going to see my true self!
Then the shadow transformed completely, revealing a gorgeous, scantily-clad woman.
Randall shrieked.
OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH!!! he thought.
He shrieked again just to be sure.
OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH!!! And that shriek-it sounded feminine! And that shriek-it sounded feminine! OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH OH MY- OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH OH MY- The woman looked at herself, then looked at Randall. "Whoops, this can"t be right."
She took a step toward him. Randall rushed back and pressed himself against one of the mirrors. "Leave me alone! Don"t touch me! Back, androgyne!"
"I think this was a mistake," the woman said. "I"m the true self of a Karen Soukup. These things get mixed up every once in a while. You should"ve seen the king of Arnzen"s face when the poodle appeared."
"Just get away from me ... please..." Randall begged.
"Fine," said the woman, sticking a finger up her nose as she vanished. One of the mirrors fell away, and Randall scurried through the exit it created.
HE EMERGED in another hallway. At the end was a door with a "To the Cemetery" sign hanging from the k.n.o.b. Sir William stood there, looking pale.
"I just beat the c.r.a.p out of my true self," he whimpered. "This is going to cause me some psychological damage, isn"t it?"
Chapter 7.
Or Was It Chapter Eight...?
THE MIST hung heavy over the cemetery, thick with the souls of those long dead and buried. The air was cold, sending a chill through all visitors, a chill that went bone-deep, a chill that froze the marrow. But the roving undead, they cared not about freezer burn, and their hunger ran rampant. Their stomachs growled like a nightmarish chorus of spirits gargling ectoplasm in the moonlight. They wandered, seeking their human prey, yearning for the sweet flavor of flesh, with a pinch of paprika. There was no peace for the grotesque figures who lurked in this final resting place, not with the unholy snoring of the witch Grysh during hours of daylight. Their lives, or lack thereof, were unbearable. Filled with eternal misery. Fraught with agony. Very yucky.
Which is why they were known as the Griping Dead.
They complained incessantly. "How"s it going, Charlie?" "How do you think? It sucks!"
"Same here."
They picketed Grysh"s mausoleum. They organized protests. They signed pet.i.tions. They scrawled nasty phrases on Grysh"s front door ("Grysh is a big dumb-head").
None of it worked. They remained her prisoners.
So they were a little irritable when Randall and Sir William stepped outside the Realm of Mystery into the graveyard.