Jo had been looking forward to a pleasant after-dinner doze. She had not expected to be assaulted by an elderly cockroach who feebly hit her feet with his walking stick, muttering “Dance! Dance, will you, dance!”
Soon all of the knights and squires of the Odd-Fish were dancing, making the cramped room a chaos of flailing limbs. Jo managed to shout to Aunt Lily, “What am I supposed to do?”
“The Order of Odd-Fish ceremonial dance!” Aunt Lily yelled back. “We’re required by the charter to do it after the feast!”
Jo tried to ask how, but Aunt Lily was whirled away in the shouting, stomping throng. Faces impassive, ceremonial robes hitched up to reveal purple-stockinged legs, their feet thrashing around furiously, the knights somehow looked both ridiculous and majestic.
The squires had a different dance. With a grin, Ian grabbed Jo and flung her across the room to Daphne; Daphne spun her around and sent her reeling over to Maurice; Maurice whisked Jo between his legs and sent her staggering over to Nora, who clutched Jo and yelled, “Throw me! Throw me!” Jo threw her over to Phil, starting to get the hang of it, and spun back to Ian, who, laughing, took her again and sent her flying over to Albert.
The cockroaches made it a point of honor never to practice their instruments. The rattle and squeak only got louder and more chaotic, a crashing noise barely punctuated by the banging drums. Jo spun through the crowd, clumsy and exhilarated. Glasses and bowls were smashed, and Sir Festus capered unchallenged across the dinner table, soon joined by Dame Myra and Sir Oort; Sir Oliver, still stuck in his costume, rolled all over the room, his eyes lit up and his arms flapping like the wings of a great, ungainly bird trying to fly; and just when it felt as though the dance could get no more frantic and destructive, and they were all about to collapse, the band sputtered to a halt.
“Now go to bed!” said Cicero sternly.
The change that came over the dancing Odd-Fish was instantaneous. From an unruly mob of violently dancing knights and squires, they suddenly became as calm as cows. The Odd-Fish quietly filed out of the banquet hall, and within minutes all had retired to their rooms.
Aunt Lily guided Jo up to a bedroom in one of the upper hallways of the lodge.
“I still don’t understand,” said Jo blearily. “Who’s Sir Nils? What was all that about the Silent Sisters? And I still don’t understand why I’m supposed to be dangerous—”
“Don’t worry, Jo. I’ll explain it tomorrow,” said Aunt Lily, patting Jo’s head. She looked at Jo wistfully; for a moment, it seemed she was about to say something more, but then she bit her lip, nodded, and repeated, “Tomorrow, okay? For now, just rest.”
The door closed. Jo stumbled across the room, and with a sigh flopped onto her bed, the room spinning around her. She fell asleep instantly, bringing to a close the strangest Christmas of her life.
THIS is all well and good, but what about the Belgian Prankster?
The hottest controversy about the Belgian Prankster concerned the location of his secret base. Some claimed the Belgian Prankster lived in a luxurious complex of subterranean bunkers fifty miles beneath Antwerp; others swore they had witnessed with their own eyes a sprawling system of interlinked airborne platforms, held aloft by dozens of hot-air balloons, hovering malignantly in the ionosphere; and a committed few insisted that the Belgian Prankster did not possess, nor did he require, a secret base, for he transcended mere physical form and was present in all places and at all times as a pure abstraction—as ruthless and indestructible as a principle of mathematics.
Actually, the Belgian Prankster hung out at the Country Kitchen in Muscatine, Iowa.
His entire inner circle was assembled. Each member was a grotesque human being, and yet each a genius in some aspect of prankery: Mr. AAA, a one-eyed Romanian cryptologist; Mr. BBB, a terrifyingly scarred Icelandic assassin; Mr. CCC, an eight-foot-tall Uzbek hacker; Mr. DDD, a steel-toothed Korean toxicologist…and so on through the alphabet, up to Mr. YYY, a noseless Nigerian explosives expert, and Mr. ZZZ, a massive-headed Brazilian physicist.
None of the assembled twenty-six spoke. None even moved. For hours the committee sat silent and motionless at the long table, waiting for the Belgian Prankster to speak.
But the Belgian Prankster, too, was waiting. He was waiting for a man whom, he knew, could not help but come to him.
He was waiting for Ken Kiang.
Ken Kiang was sweating in the men’s toilet.
“This is it,” said Ken Kiang, loading his sixteenth-century Sicilian pistol. “Tonight I kill the Belgian Prankster.”
The notion gave him no pleasure. Ken Kiang thought the Belgian Prankster was a splendid villain—in fact, the man to beat, were evil a competition. But Ken Kiang preferred not to see it as a mere competition. Surely there was room for plenty of villains in the world! He even admired the Belgian Prankster’s evilness—good in its own way, if a bit juvenile for Ken Kiang’s tastes—but no, no, there are things a self-respecting man will not take lying down.
Ken Kiang had been at La Société des Friandises Etranges, basking in his double triumph of shooting down Korsakov’s plane and making Hoagland Shanks cry. But then he had glanced at the TV and saw the Belgian Prankster snickering and waving a sign that read:
ATTENTION KEN KIANG.
LILY, JO, KORSAKOV, AND SEFINO ARE STILL ALIVE.
AND YOU ARE A BOOBLY-BOOBLY-BOO-BOO.
“A boobly-boobly-boo-boo?” raged Ken Kiang. “A…boobly-boobly-boo-boo? He calls me a…a boobly-boobly-boo-boo in my hour of glory?—What is a boobly…! No! Too far! Too far! Tonight, Belgian Prankster, you will die!”
Ken Kiang stormed out of the men’s room, ready for action. He crossed the grimy dining area to the corner booth, where the Belgian Prankster and his minions sat around the chipped imitation wood table, brooding over their watery coffees and flaccid french fries.
Ken Kiang knew he was taking an awful risk. The Belgian Prankster was notorious for his unpredictable violence. Ken Kiang had heard of what he had done to the former Mr. HHH, a Cajun judo expert who had been late for a meeting—Mr. HHH had learned the hard way that you can’t do judo without arms or legs. Or Mr. EEE, a French avant-garde fungologist who had dared critique the Belgian Prankster’s hair. It was said the Belgian Prankster had instantaneously crushed Mr. EEE into a one-centimeter cube and tossed him into Mr. XXX’s coffee. Mr. XXX had known better than to complain, and had drunk the coffee as though the gruesomely compressed Mr. EEE were nothing more than an unconventional creamer.
No, Ken Kiang knew he probably would not survive against the Belgian Prankster, or indeed his committee, for every man at the table was rumored to be nearly as evil as the Belgian Prankster himself. Truth be told, early in Ken Kiang’s quest to be evil, he had desperately wanted to be on that very committee. He had even sent the Belgian Prankster a resume and a cover letter that explained that he would make an exemplary Mr. JJJ. But the letter had gone unanswered; and so it was wounded pride, as well as a desire to prove himself more evil than any man at the table, that gave Ken Kiang the extraordinary nerve to approach them. Ken Kiang wondered what he could possibly say, once he reached the table, to prove how evil he truly was. It was oddly like junior high school, when he would approach the popular kids’ table, hoping to make some joke, or say something clever, that would admit him to their inner circle.
He came to the table. Ken Kiang stood before the committee—and was at a loss. Nobody in the committee moved or spoke. No one paid any attention to him.
Suddenly it was too much like junior high.
“I once drank the blood of a freshly strangled kitten!” he squeaked.
The committee turned as one toward him. This was unprecedented. Nobody had dared interrupt a committee meeting before. Slowly Ken Kiang regained his confidence. He stood before the committee and regarded them coolly—an audacious man, a fearless man—Ken Kiang swallowed—a man about to suffer the Belgian Prankster’s grotesque wrath?
“Ken Kiang, you’ve caught me
at my weekly kaffeeklatsch,” said the Belgian Prankster genially. “Please, won’t you join us? I’m afraid, ah, ‘kitten blood’ isn’t on the menu, but breakfast is served all day.”
Ken Kiang sat down—and, with a jolt, realized he’d left his gun in the men’s room. He half rose, then sat down again, blushing furiously.
“What’s wrong, Mr. Kiang?” murmured the Belgian Prankster. “You look like you’ve lost something…?”
“It is you who have lost, Belgian Prankster!” retorted Ken Kiang, recovering. If he couldn’t shoot the Belgian Prankster, then he’d kill him using something else—he’d have to improvise. His eyes flicked around the room. Ken Kiang could feel the Belgian Prankster’s committee staring at him. They were shocked, surely, by his reckless defiance of the Belgian? Let them be shocked! After all, he was Ken Kiang—the most evil man on the planet—and nobody, not even the Belgian Prankster, would insult him and live.
“So, welcome to my little social club,” leered the Belgian Prankster. “Why don’t you treat yourself to one of the Country Kitchen’s mouthwatering breakfast specials? I can’t vouch for the hash browns, which are indifferent at best, but the three-meat omelet is truly superb.”
A waiter sidled up to Ken Kiang and handed him a menu.
In a flash of inspiration Ken Kiang barked “steak and eggs” and shoved the menu back at the waiter. Yes—steak and eggs must come with a steak knife! He could then kill the Belgian Prankster with the knife. It was a beautiful plan. Ken Kiang marveled at his own ingenuity. He was so clever it hurt.
“Actually, Mr. Kiang, it is fortunate you dropped by,” said the Belgian Prankster. “There is some business I mean to conduct with you.”
“Business!” cried Ken Kiang, standing. “There will be no ‘business’ between us, you mad Walloon, other than the business of vengeance!”
The Belgian Prankster snuffled merrily. “Still sore from my little joke, Mr. Kiang?”
“No man calls me a boobly-boobly-boo-boo and lives!”
“Oh, but Mr. Kiang, didn’t you know?” said the Belgian Prankster slowly. “I am no man.”
Ken Kiang stared. The Belgian Prankster’s nose, a bloated, purple thing that seemed to have a mind of its own, sniffled and twitched, tilting his goggles. The goggles caught the glare of the restaurant’s fluorescent lights and suddenly flashed into a blinding rectangle of eerie green. Ken Kiang gazed at the hypnotic goggles and felt his courage drain away. The Belgian Prankster grinned; his mouth seemed too large to be real; his tongue flopped around like a dying fish.
Ken Kiang fell back into his seat.
“I merely stated facts,” said the Belgian Prankster. “Your would-be victims are alive. In a place called Eldritch City.”
“Never…never heard of it.”
“Oh, haven’t you?”
Ken Kiang wished his steak and eggs would hurry up. The sooner he could stab the Belgian Prankster and get out, the better. The whole situation was giving him the creeps, from the Belgian Prankster’s crazy talk and nightmarish goggles to his motionless committee, who seemed to be frozen in place, eyes closed, in perfect silence and stillness—as though waiting for something too horrible to watch.
“Do you like balloon animals, Mr. Kiang?”
Ken Kiang blinked. “What?”
“Balloon animals. I began modestly in my career of prankery,” said the Belgian Prankster. “Starting out, I worked as a clown for children’s birthday parties. Balloon animals were my specialty. Why, I became so skilled that soon my clients couldn’t tell the difference between one of my balloon dogs and a real dog! Balloon animals! Do you like them?”
“I guess…”
“I soon tired of inflating balloons and twisting them to look like animals,” said the Belgian Prankster. “So I started inflating animals until they resembled balloons. Mr. Kiang, have you ever seen a dozen gerbils, pumped full of helium, float off into the sunset? It is a poignant spectacle. Sometimes they wave their tiny paws.”
Ken Kiang frowned. “What’s your point?”
“My point?” snapped the Belgian Prankster. “My point is that any so-called ‘villain’ can drink kitten blood. But have you ever inflated a little girl’s kitten with pressurized hydrogen until it resembled a furry zeppelin? And then lit a match under it—a kind of feline Hindenburg, if you will? All this, at the girl’s own birthday party? What? No? No? Well, I assure you, when the kitten exploded, the little girl’s tears were plentiful, and tasted like wine. But stick with sipping your…kitten blood, was it? Yes, of course. You must know what you like.”
It took all of Ken Kiang’s self-restraint not to lunge across the table and throttle the Belgian Prankster right there. This was worse, far worse than “boobly-boobly-boo-boo”—now the Belgian Prankster was mocking Ken Kiang’s evilness. Oh, we’ll see about that, said Ken Kiang to himself. He patiently awaited his steak and eggs, and the knife.
“You said there was some business you want to conduct with me,” said Ken Kiang evenly.
“At last we come to the good stuff,” said the Belgian Prankster. “You, Mr. Kiang, have enmeshed yourself in a web of inconvenience far larger and more intricate than you can fathom. From the moment you acquired that black box, you were entangled in it; but now, because of your rash actions, you are a doomed man, fate’s plaything.”
“You like to hear yourself talk,” said Ken Kiang.
“You’ll soon wish you had listened closer. You have no idea of the dangerousness of the girl on the plane you shot down.”
“Jo Larouche?”
“Jo Hazelwood is her name.”
Ken Kiang shrugged. “A harmless girl, by any name.”
The Belgian Prankster looked at Ken Kiang for a long time.
“Let me tell you a story,” he said finally. “It is not long, and you may learn something useful. In particular, you will learn there is more evil in Jo Hazelwood’s fingernail than in a dozen of you.”
Ken Kiang burst into laughter. He still hadn’t perfected his evil laugh: instead of a satanic roar, he invariably dissolved into a braying giggle. He couldn’t help it. Such giggling was the kind of fault that made Ken Kiang wonder if, deep down, he might actually be a decent fellow. No; the notion was too abhorrent to consider for long.
Ken Kiang wiped tears from his cheeks. “You’re telling me that girl is evil?”
“She is the daughter of chaos,” said the Belgian Prankster. “She is the bride of the apocalypse. She is the All-Devouring Mother.”
Ken Kiang rolled his eyes. “Well, Belgian Prankster, you are a jokester. Unlike you, I have actually met this Jo—Hazelwood, was it?—and she is as threatening as a teaspoon.”
“I was at her birth. And she is the teaspoon that will gouge out your eyes.”
“You’re afraid of a little girl?”
“No, Mr. Kiang. I do not fear Jo Hazelwood. I do not fear, period. Those emotions are no longer available to me.” The Belgian Prankster’s mouth widened into a display of rotten teeth. “I am Jo’s devoted servant. And she—oh, oh—she is my perfect little flower.”
“Er, um, ha,” said Ken Kiang. The Belgian Prankster was starting to freak him out. “Can a fellow get some steak and eggs around here?” he called; but the kitchen was silent, the cash register deserted. Ken Kiang looked around, startled—at some point all the other customers had left. He was alone with the Belgian Prankster and his inscrutable committee, and the sudden emptiness of the restaurant was more unnerving than any threat.
“As promised, I will tell you a story,” said the Belgian Prankster. “A little story I wrote all on my own, about how Jo was born. I cannot guarantee that you’ll like it, Mr. Kiang; but at least you’ll know something about Eldritch City before you go there.”
“Eldritch City? What are you talking about?”
“I am sending you to Eldritch City.”
“You’re not sending me anywhere.”
“You must prepare the way for me, Mr. Kiang.”
“I’m not
your errand boy, Prankster. You can’t make me go anywhere.”
“No, I won’t make you.” The Belgian Prankster placed an envelope on the table. “You will eventually go of your own free will.”
Never did Ken Kiang want to murder the Belgian Prankster more than at that moment.
And then, as if on cue, the waiter came back and laid a dish in front of Ken Kiang.
He stared. There was no knife. It wasn’t even steak and eggs.
“What is this?” he demanded.
“Huevos rancheros,” said the waiter.
“I ordered steak and eggs.”
The waiter and Ken Kiang looked at each other. Ken Kiang felt himself start to boil. The waiter picked his nose.
“Waiter.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t want huevos rancheros. I want—will you take your finger out of your nose?”
“Well, la-dee-da.” The waiter wiped his finger on his apron. “If I had known we’d have such high-class swells tonight—why, I would’ve worn my solid gold tuxedo.”
Ken Kiang clenched his fists. (It was all the more maddening because he did, actually, own a solid gold tuxedo.) He could hear the Belgian Prankster giggling. He had to take control.
“Listen. I want steak and eggs.”
The waiter picked his nose.
“Can you get me steak and eggs?”
The waiter considered his finger.
“STEAK AND EGGS!”
“All right, I heard you,” sighed the waiter. “I’ll get you your precious steak and eggs, since your little world will obviously fall apart without them. Anything else?”
The Order of Odd-Fish Page 10