NEWDIE STEADSLAW

There were a lot of things in the old township of Nesodi Iveent: there were more than three roads, there was the old alpaca factory where Yodal Rodal Bartholomew once died in a trance, and there was the community shoehorn—she was bifurcated. But what Nesodi Iveent had more than anything was the great, grand house on the hill, where Old Missus Lopkit had been living for as long as anyone could remember. It was a grand old house fit for the grand old lady, seeable from everywhere and open to everybody at all times.

Everyone knew Old Missus Lopkit, and so did everybody. Everyone else had heard of her, at least. She was a regular at every establishment in the city, and had been around since everyone was in diapers and some of them still are. A known face, a warm smile, a kind word for everyone. And so, since Old Missus Lopkit had a birthday this year, the whole of Nesodi Iveent decided that she was due a party, and so party she got. Her big ol’ house was lousy with merriment and noisemaking and other partious things, and since it was the last day of the year, the party had been in full swing for a long time, and so everyone was nearly out of breath, but willing to give it one last gasp, and there was still cake and ice cream and balloons and presents—presents for everyone, of course, for Old Missus Lopkit was that sort of kindly old soul who saw to it that everyone who came to her house got presents, and at a party, doubly so, and so everyone went to the party, and they got presents, there was no need to ever leave. Throughout the house, five hundred and fifty-five songs were playing, one for each genre, and mostly everyone was singing—dancing still being illegal, of course, but they linked arms and swayed as they sang, which was kinda pushing their luck—and there was a great big vat of pasta, and a vending machine for various cheeses, and two scientists built a robot that could serve mushrooms and shrimp, and could serve mushrooms and shrimp to mushrooms and shrimp. There was a piñata—well, there had been one, back when the party first opened. Now there was candy for the children—even, but not especially, the orphans.

All of this is to say it was quite a glorious party indeed, and those who’d go on to survive the ordeal would be sure to point out that there’d never been another one like it, excepting the end part—but I’m getting ahead of myself. Perhaps that’s the five hundred and fifty-sixth genre. At any rate—at every rate—everyone was there. Everyone, that is, except Roby and her friends, for though it was but a short jaunt from the sauce dealer’s, there was a bouncer who guarded the drawbridge that crossed the moat that surrounded the house, and atop the high wall beyond were a thousand snipers with laser-guided crossbows and hologram-powered bazookas. Family friends, nothing nasty; but still, no one wanted to make them work at a party.

“Bouncing fellow,” said Roby to the bouncer, obviously, “I give a hello! I have the name of Roby, and this house, which you see, is of the mother of me! I would like to be inside, so please step aside, if you are so inclined.”

“Sounds good to me,” said the bouncer, “but these are strangers you stand with! They’re out-of-towners, so they’ve no need to be here. Split from them, and enter the party alone!”

“A party?” said Roby. “Well, this is a shame! I am an embarrassment to my name! I have no gift, I fear, so I must cry some tears, unless one standing near brought a present to here.”

“Your enheaded thoughts bely the look about you!” laughed Traycup. “But, Roby, ’long as ingress is wanting, the present remains ungivable in any state stated! Let’s get a way inward, and trust that your own presence is present enough for the ol’ gal!”

The bouncer shook his head unlike one would a cup of dice. “I make the rules, and these so-called friends must be called, and left, out!”

“That idea you had,” said Roby, “makes me too sad. My so-called friends are friends so called, so call ‘friend’ so friends can all be unbounced around this house of ours and thereabouts for now!”

“Let’s not press the chap,” said Ben Garment. “Roby can party and the rest of us part. We can call ourselves for Oopertreepia, and make that our trip.” He gazed longfully at his stopwatch.

“Hang on,” said Phillippo. “Did they say there’s more ice cream inside?”

“Indeed so!” said Mario. “And within there’s more ice cream than even you can imagine! At a birthday party, there’s ice cream enough to fill the sky!”

Now, this of course was titillating. Phillippo turned in turn to Roby and Traycup and the bouncer, whose name by the way was, I dunno, let’s say Topaz George Ractimus—Top Gee to friends.

“So, Tray,” said Mario, “I think we’re two votes for going inside.”

“It’ll fall, but not foul,” said Traycup with a grin. He turned to Top Gee—I can call him that, we’re friends—and said, “Fair bouncemate! As you’ve denoted aptly, out-of-towners we were, but in-towners we are now, and we’ll grow the scales of Nesodi and play along, so let us mummers take up the role and break a leg! What sa’you?”

Now, Top Gee scratched his chin, and thought a thought. “You’re thinking about applying for citizenship? Then, apply your citizenship! Any denizen knows what’s big in Nesodi Iveent, so if you’ve a care to truly care, you’d cling to like ideals.”

“The house is big enough,” said Ben Garment.

“Big as in popular,” said Top Gee.

“It looks like both from here,” shrugged Ben Garment. “So, I’m planless! Best to get enroaded once more.”

“Sneaky Ben!” said Roby. “We are friends. This party we will attend before the end!”

“Then I’ve to redress,” said Ben Garment. He took off his wooden coat, and went on, saying, “Say, blockader, rather than spending time doing your job, why not look the other way and show us to the coat room? If we’re to be stuck here, I’m growing warm, and would rather disrobe than not.”

But Top Gee shook his head ponderously. “Alas, would-be attendees, that’s not an option—but a quest is. Go out, find me the symbol of Nesodi Iveent—if there’s such a thing—and come back professing love and patriotism. At that time, we can rediscuss admission!”

Roby accepted this quest on behalf of everyone, and so they all went out to the city to find a symbol of Nesodi Iveent. With Roby among the number of the group, the knowledge of this symbol was instantly acquirable. Roby, as a wayward native of the great old town, surely had in her blood some inkling of what made the place special, unique—a place like no other.

“Acorns, of course!” said Roby. “We can do no worse.”

Traycup snapped some of his fingers and said, “That’s an idea that’s only occurred to me once or twice in passing, and not at all by passing notes in class! Roby, you’ve got the makings of some kind of sous-chef, if I’ven’t missed my mark!”

“That’ll click, but feisty, acorns are,” said Ben Garment. “That’s as dangerous a foe as it gets.”

“I’ve seen several in my day,” said Mario. “Follow my lead, and I’ll get us some.”

So, they set a trap for some acorns. It was a trap of the classic variety: they fashioned a grandish pit strung across with a taut tightrope, securely attached to the ankles of a couple of hippopotami who were engrossed in watching their soaps—no, not the T. V. kind—and utterly unlikely to denote the attached ’rope and make short work of it. Pit-in they made replete with spikes, mostly just sharpened bamboo and broken pool cues, but they’d also found some rebar they could work with and so busted out the grinding belts—but on seeing the potential danger in anyone’s encountering the pointy bits, they tipped them all with marshmallows, so if anyone were to greet the spikes with excess downward velocity, the blow would be cushioned, and they’d be spared impalation on the incarnate of tetanus.

“Well done, team,” said Mario.

“Well, team, done,” said Ben Garment.

“We had as fine a teacher as a lamp’s post!” said Traycup.

“Know what it reminds me of?” said Phillippo. “When you get the cereal with a maze on the back, and they misprint it so there’s no solution?” It wistfully pondered the days of its youth, but only briefly, for it’d had none.

“Now, take a gander,” said Mario. “You’re about to see it in action! For the pit’s point is to be a fair battleground for gladiatorial folks. Two at a time they can take to the rope, do a little battle until one’s done, then twenty-goto-ten!”

Even as Mario spoke, gladiators of all sorts began to arrive, some taking the concept literally enough and donning naught but a baskettish helm and bearing trident and net, while others occupied every other type, some strongful and some lithe, novice and veteran both, and they all bore swords and laser guns and battleships and switchblades, armored with stout hides of boiled leather, or mail of steel and chain, and one guy even rowed up in a bathtub, crying, “¡Viva la revolución!” for reasons lost in translation.

And so, shortly a battle was joined in a very orderly way, and the gathered combatants took up place in queues at either end of the tightened rope, and entered upon it two at a time, and, with their weapons and armors they had brung themselves, battled one another, until one was toppled and plummeted into the pit of spikes, bounced off the cushioning marshmallows, and landed in the losers’ queue to wait for a taxi. Now, certainly, no zombies or ghosts were born.

While all this, the sun shone down on them all, and the heat of its rays and the warmness it threw fell upon the marshmallows and saw them begin to melt, and they ran as sugar of a liquidy type from the marshmallows’ tops all down the spires on which they were skewered, and puddled at the spikes’ bottoms. The puddles coalesced into a good pool, which soon became a great pond, and then finally rose to become a grand lake. Some ants were nearby, beheld the sugary loch, and thought it a fine prize, and set up camp on the shore, to reap its rich resources. They prospered, and their camp grew into a fine colony, and enlarged more further and became a great nation, a land like a beacon, with wealth and power to rule the world. They named it Antelia, and it had no equal, and for years it throve to the admiration of all other lands. But the ants became complacent, forgot the struggles of their forebears, and trusted to the eternity of their community. They lived without thought, fat and happy, rich and proud, comfortable and above all safe, until all at once the justice of their republic was undone as the careful planning of zealots culminated in their overtaking of power, and conspirators promoted cronies and cemented their dominance, hateful agents undid laws and overturned votes, and enculted leaders crowned their ruler as their golden goddess and called her the mightiest, for she was the one most bloated with the sweet sugar of the lake, which she took all for herself, and she became engorged and whitened ferociously—and then Traycup picked her up with tweezers and put her in a jar.

“A goal’s gained!” said Traycup. “Here’s bait for a better, usefuller trap.”

“Oh, now, that’s impressive,” said Phillippo, with Mario nodding at his side.

“Clever improv!” said Ben Garment. “I was sure we hadn’t planned past the gerrymandering.”

“There was not a plan of me,” said Roby with more than her usual confusion. “Oh! You speak of the plan of we. Yes, yes, it was no guess—this test was truly the best.”

“Now, who’s got,” said Traycup, “an idea for an acorn-aimed trap?”

But before they could reconvene at all and concoct a new style of snare, they were suddenly approached by Perlemeny, a tiny librarian, who wished a word or two.

“Now, see here,” she said, “and nowhere else, for there’s nothing to see there—I’ve emerged the victor in the contest of queues! Yes, the combatants have all fell spikeward, for knowledge is power, which I have abundantly, and none could equal! So—a prize is due, and I’ll call it some pounded flesh from each of you!”

“We have no prize to give,” said Roby, “though as a victor you may happily live!”

“Harken to her not,” said Ben Garment. “Your prize comes in the mail, of course.”

“I have not the time to wait for that pun!” said Perlemeny, and she threw some roundhouse kicks at them, but nearby a kestrel driving a banjo repair truck honked the horn and startled her, so that Perlemeny missed and all of her kicks struck the strong trunks of trees, and they began to shake, and they shook from their branches the very acorns our bravish heroes sought.

“Behold!” cried Traycup. “Here come the ’corns!”

“But beware!” said Mario. “They’re falling pointy-side down!”

The acorns plunged earthward pointy-side down, and they all feared being pierced overmuch by the ’corns, and none had brought an umbrella strong enough to dispense with the ’corns attack, except Phillippo, and he didn’t know how to work one. They were sans defense, unless—

“There are coats of me,” said Roby, “and I can shed one or three, for I have jackets and capes in a plentifulness, and am glad to share some if it helps this mess!”

“Roby’s an idea!” said Traycup. “A fine coat ’rapped ’round our usses will see us through this dangerment!”

“Do it hastefully,” said Ben Garment, “if you’re to do it at all!”

Roby took off some of her coats, and even with layer upon layer removed, she still had several many more wrapped around her corpus, her true form unfindable under the mass of laundry.

Now, Ben Garment had a coat of wood that he’d disposed of, and regretted it sorely, since that coat had been with him since the war, so when he acquired one of Roby’s, he named it Polioman and donned it with love, if not comfort, for its button-count was off. Mario put his on easily—it happened that he and Roby wore part of the same size. Phillippo was a fabrical horse costume, and so simply scrunched itself up into the shape necessary to insert itself into a coat’s sleeves. And Traycup—

“Alas, but I have a coat to myself already,” said Traycup, “and with this manner of fitness, I’ll not b’able to don twain!” It was true—Traycup didn’t have enough equipment slots to wear two coats at once.

“Then discoat your own coat, and let me become its host,” said Roby. “I can bear many! I can wear any! And when one of mine is worn, all the acorns shall be shorn!”

“Then, let’s make a swapping,” said Traycup, and he tossed to Roby his own coat, and put on Roby’s acorn-proof coat, and with only one coat upon him, it was a solution as satisfactory as a glass-bottomed toaster. He only hoped he hadn’t left anything important in his pockets.

“Civic pride, ho!” cried Phillippo.

“We surely are,” said Ben Garment.

Thus armored, when the acorns at last struck them, they found our heroes unperturbably garmented, and could make no penetration, and found their struggles in utter vain, and so fell, crying, into the pockets of the coats, stuffing them, and providing them all with ample proof of their Nesodi Iveenthood.

“Let’s call this place,” said Traycup, “over and done with afore the bookmonger completes the raptor’s interview! Pals, we’re partyward!”

And so, coats donned, they departed from the forest or state park or wherever it was that they found those woods, and made their way whence they came, back to Top Gee, the hike back to the environs of the house on the hill being the voyage of but a short decade, one made all the merrier by the passage of a snail through the eye of a needle in a haystack and a long breakfast’s watching a lighthouse. Top Gee gleamed with sea foam as they each gladly brandished their pockets of ’corns for his inventoring, all beaming with a glad and happy grin, and he took their measure and, seeing the adequateness of their accomplishment, citizenfied them.

“True children of Nesodi Iveent,” said Top Gee, “would struggle to befriend as many forest eggs as you have! Your entrance is guaranteed, and your presence is welcome!”

With that, he let them in.