He forced a smile. “Do not worry—a jester is not a jester who is not sometimes seen talking to himself. Is that not our job—to throw balls from our right hand to our left, and to throw jokes from the left side of our mouth to the right? A jester no more needs an audience than a puppy needs a kitten to chase his tail. Or is it the kitten who does not need the puppy? Or the bird…? What I mean is, I have no more need of Anastasia than a, well…” He stammered, confused by his own analogy. “I am perfectly merry without her, that is all. I never said I wanted to marry her!”
“Who said you did?” asked Cass, slightly mystified.
“Nobody!—I am perfectly capable of chasing my own tail and running in circles all by myself. That is all I am trying to say,” said the Jester, flustered. “Now, my invisible friend, where do we go from here?”
Cass glanced around the woods. She had nowhere else to go. Her goal was to find the Jester and she’d found him.
It was time to ask about the Secret.
Midnight was the mopping hour at the hospital.
When he got to room twelve in the PICU, the janitor looked up from the shiny floor and peered through the door as he did every night. It was sad to see such a young girl lying there like that in the dim green light of the heart monitor. But she was a strong one, he felt. A fighter. He could see it in those pointy ears of hers. He was rooting for her.
He was about to push on when he noticed her lips moving. It’s probably nothing, he thought. Just a twitch. Nonetheless, he leaned his mop against the wall and stepped into the shadowy room.
Her eyes were closed, her face almost completely still. And yet there was no doubt—she was murmuring to herself.
By putting his ear close he was able to make out a few whispered words:
“The Secret… What is the Secret…? You have to tell me the Secret… you have to…”
The janitor shivered. What he wouldn’t have given to see inside the girl’s head just then! There was something about the way she said the word secret that made him think she was talking about the Secret of Secrets, the secret of life itself.
But that wasn’t the point with somebody in her condition, he reminded himself. It wasn’t what she’d said. It was that she’d said it at all.
Should I tell someone? he wondered. He wasn’t sure exactly how significant it was that the unconscious girl had spoken. Had he witnessed a breakthrough? Or did she talk to herself every night?
Just in case, he hurried over to the nurse’s station. Nobody was there.
It was then that he noticed the flashing light.
An emergency. Downstairs.
He was reluctant to leave the girl, but he knew he should immediately go down to help.
Tomorrow he would leave a note about the young patient in room twelve. For now, her whispered words would have to wait.
HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP!!!!!!!”
As Max-Ernest ran screaming through the familiar double doors of the emergency room, he was overwhelmed with a flood of memories. He felt almost sentimental remembering the time he’d come in for a Slurpee-induced brain freeze so intense, he’d been convinced that he had frostbite of the parietal lobe.* The night he forgot that he’d eaten red beets and was so alarmed by the color of his pee that he called 9-1-1 and started dictating his last will and testament to the phone operator. The supersize genetically mutated head lice that turned out only to be cookie crumbs left on his pillow after a midnight snack. The extra-strong strain of poison oak, which he was certain had spread from the outside to his liver if not to his kidneys. The splinter he was positive was tapeworm. The hiccups that proved he had lung disease. The runny nose that meant he had a cerebral hemorrhage. The athlete’s foot that indicated incipient skin cancer or possibly elephantiasis…
In the past, due to the frequency of his medical complaints, Max-Ernest had been accused of such things as paranoia and hypochondria, not to mention alarmism and hysteria. But there was another way to look at it, he decided as he ran through the waiting room—a blur of fluorescent lights, hobbling patients, crying babies. What all his ailments had in common was that they were products of a powerful creative imagination. He had a surplus of brain waves, according to Benjamin. That was his problem.
And a good thing it was, too, because he would need to summon all of his paranoia power and more in the next few moments. Only a true Superhero of Hypochondria, a Master Presenter of Medical Symptoms, a World-Class Worrier, a True Warrior of Words, could create an emergency big enough to draw hospital staff from the upper floors.
“HELP! HELP! HELP!” he screamed again and again at the top of his lungs, grateful that he no longer seemed to have any trouble exercising his vocal cords.
And then he dropped to the floor, writhing and flailing his arms.
As soon as the first orderly rushed over, Max-Ernest started fluttering his eyelids and looking upward so that the whites of his eyes showed.
And then, the pièce de résistance, he bit down—and his mouth erupted with foam.*
Watching through the window, Benjamin smiled. Max-Ernest was a skilled actor—though not, Benjamin reflected with satisfaction, as skilled an actor as Benjamin himself.
Turning away from the delightfully comic spectacle of Max-Ernest’s staged epileptic fit, Benjamin walked quickly toward the hospital’s main entrance.
Inside, a light was flashing over the front desk. The nurse behind the desk stood with her back to the door, listening to the intercom.
“All available staff to Emergency, please. All available staff.”
Quickly glancing around the room to confirm that it was empty of incoming patients, the nurse left her post and rushed off in the direction of the emergency room.
It was just as they’d planned.
Or rather just as Benjamin had planned. There were one or two key parts of the evening’s agenda that he had conveniently failed to mention to Max-Ernest. If all went swimmingly, Max-Ernest would never know what an important moment he was missing. Not until it was too late, anyway.
Consulting Max-Ernest’s scrupulously detailed map, Benjamin proceeded toward the third elevator from the right.
The one marked PICU.
Thank you, Max-Ernest, he thought. And to think, I’m supposed be the one helping you! When this is all over, I’ll have to send you a present. Some new magic tricks, perhaps?
He had a hunch Max-Ernest would soon be wanting nothing more than to disappear in a puff of smoke. Poor Max-Ernest…
By now, three nurses, two orderlies, and a doctor were standing in a circle around the tragically ill boy lying on the floor. Would-be patients in waiting-room chairs stared with a mixture of curiosity (what is wrong with that guy?) and resentment (why is he getting so much attention when I’ve been here for three hours?).
“Yes, that’s right—I’m having chest pain and shortness of breath,” gasped Max-Ernest, wheezing noisily. “It’s… very… short… see—”
He knew those were the things that were supposed to command the most immediate attention in a hospital, but for some reason the doctor didn’t seem to see it that way.
“Those aren’t necessarily symptoms of epilepsy,” said the doctor, regarding him skeptically from above.
“I know—it’s unrelated. My asthma. Combined with an allergic reaction, I think.”
“To what?”
“Vinyl. The flooring is vinyl—see.”
“You’re having an allergic reaction to the floor in here?”
“Yes. The floor is highly toxic. I think you should consider replacing it.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’re here in the first place. Or was your reaction anticipatory?”
Max-Ernest nodded vigorously. “Well, that and the fact that I was undergoing cardiac arrest.”
The doctor leaned down to feel Max-Ernest’s pulse. She put a stethoscope to his chest and listened intently.
Max-Ernest breathed in and out as fast as he could—to no avail.
The doctor smiled,
standing. “Well, you can rest easy—I’m very confident you’re not having a heart attack.”
“Oh, that’s just because I have white-coat syndrome. You know, when you see a doctor and suddenly your symptoms disappear—but then they come back when the doctor’s gone?”
“Actually, white-coat syndrome, otherwise known as white-coat hypertension, is almost the exact opposite of what you’re describing,” said the doctor smoothly. “It’s when the sight of a doctor induces high blood pressure in patients who otherwise exhibit normal blood pressure. For some reason, I don’t think that’s your problem.”
Max-Ernest silently cursed himself. How could he have gotten that wrong? It was so unlike him! He must be nervous.
“I think the only white coat we need here is one to put on you.” The doctor gestured to the orderly. “Straitjacket, please!”
Max-Ernest turned pale. He knew all about straitjackets from reading biographies of Houdini and other escape artists—and that’s how he knew he wouldn’t be able to escape from one. “I’m not crazy! I just have Munchausen syndrome,” he said desperately (referring to the medical disorder that consists of fabricating medical disorders). “I can control it, I promise!”
“You no more have Munchausen syndrome than I’m a munchkin in Oz,” declared the doctor, towering over Max-Ernest.
The nurse from the reception area strode in. She looked down at Max-Ernest in surprise. “Max-Ernest?! What are you doing here? Are you OK?”
Max-Ernest jumped to his feet. “Nothing! It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
Not waiting for a response, he sprinted toward the exit.
Taken by surprise, the nurses and staff watched him go for a moment before running after him.
“Hey, we have to be fast,” Max-Ernest whispered, entering Cass’s room. “Benjamin, can you hear me—?”
Benjamin, who had been leaning over Cass, stood up straight, startled. His monocle fell to the floor. Fumbling, he picked it up and restored it to its place covering his eye.
“Sorry if I scared you,” continued Max-Ernest. “They figured out I was faking. They even figured out I was faking faking. Like that I didn’t even have real Munchausen syndrome. It was fake Munchausen. Which, if you think about it, is a fake fake syndrome syndrome…. Anyway, they’ll be here any second—” He stopped, seeing Benjamin’s expression. “What happened? Is she OK? Were you able to see inside her head?”
“Yes, for a second, I almost… saw…” Benjamin seemed to be in some kind of trance, as if still half inside Cass’s mind. “I almost… I almost reached her…. And then you…” He trailed off.
“You mean you…? Wow, that’s great!” said Max-Ernest, excited. “If I stall the nurses for another minute, would that be enough time to… to reach her?”
Benjamin nodded, staring down at Cass. “I think so….”
“OK. Maybe I can just run around the floor and make them chase me. How ’bout that?”
“Yes… yes. Good idea…”
Max-Ernest hesitated in the doorway, staring at Benjamin. He was thrilled that Benjamin was on the verge of success, and yet he felt strangely uneasy.
“What did you see before… or almost see?”
“The Secret,” said Benjamin softly. The jagged line of Cass’s heart monitor reflected eerily in the monocle—a moving crack in the glass lens. “She was thinking about the Secret, I could tell. I was so close….”
“The Secret? What do you know about the Secret?” asked Max-Ernest, his guard immediately up.
“Oh, I don’t know about it at all, really,” said Benjamin quickly. He looked up at Max-Ernest, regaining his composure. “It’s just that I couldn’t help picking up from you that Cass was looking for the Secret—a secret, I should say. There are so many secrets in the world, after all!”
“Right. I guess I should have tried to hide it more….,” said Max-Ernest. But I did try to hide it—my mind couldn’t be that transparent! he thought.
“Perhaps, but I would have seen anyway.”
But you said you never looked into people’s minds without asking, Max-Ernest thought, but he didn’t say it out loud.
“Now go,” said Benjamin. No longer in his trancelike state, he appeared completely alert—on edge, even. “I need to be alone. It’s very important.”
Max-Ernest stared at his friend. Or rather at the boy he’d thought was his friend.
He couldn’t trust Benjamin; he knew it now with certainty.
“Um, you know what, I don’t think there’s time, after all. The nurses’ll be here any second. We better get out while we can.”
“Just give me one minute with Cass, old chum. I’m afraid I really must insist. Let me worry about the nurses.” Benjamin took a step toward Max-Ernest. It was clear that if Max-Ernest didn’t leave, Benjamin was prepared to push him out the door.
“No, I don’t think so….”
Max-Ernest started looking around the room for an object—a broom or mop maybe?—with which to protect himself and Cass if necessary.
“Max-Ernest? What is going on here? I need an explanation or I’m going to have to call security right now!”
The boys turned.
The nurse from reception was standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips, the janitor behind her.
The jig, as they say in the crime business, was up.
Three minutes earlier, Max-Ernest would have been bitterly disappointed to see them show up. Now, he was relieved.
“Sorry, wrong room,” said Benjamin quickly. “Looking for my grannie!”
He rushed out without looking anybody in the eye.
Max-Ernest was unable to leave so quickly. He had to talk to a hospital administrator first.
Thankfully, the nurse persuaded the hospital not to press charges (as some had wanted), or even to have Max-Ernest committed to the mental ward (as others had suggested). Grief over Cass, she said, was responsible for his crazy behavior.
Nonetheless, Max-Ernest left the hospital totally despondent. Time, he knew, was running out. And he seemed further away from saving Cass than ever.
And yet when he got home and saw Yo-Yoji’s e-mail, he was flooded with relief. While Cass’s condition was critical, at least one tragedy—a potentially drastic one—had been averted. As it turned out, Max-Ernest had been right not to trust Benjamin—more right than he possibly could have known:
From: [email protected]
Subject: DUDE, YOU BETTER READ THIS RIGHT NOW!!!
To: [email protected]
Jfstnm, Lro, u r lnfmc pjayne darenr tdam am afr cuftar fm bromt ob ky latdrook kfrror… Gust cot laih brok Bugf ame saw yr n-kafj alout Lnmgakfm. Soumene so rameok, tdn way dn idamcne, so F efe a jfttjn makn snarid. Modtfmc… Lut tdnm F joohne up tdat sidooj dn wnmt to, ame cunss wdo’s “dnae ob sidooj” at Mnw Prokntdnam… A cuy makne… eruk rojj, pjnasn… Juifamo Lnrcako. Ud-dud. Er. Brnahfm’ J!!! Ynp, Lnmgakfm’s sidooj was rum ly Kfemfcdt Sum! Eummo wdat ft knams… Spy??? Enbfmftnjy MOT COOE. Ajnrt ajnrt ajnrt! Pjz tnjj kn wdnm u cnt tdfs so F iam rnjax ame co laih to lufjefmc cakn jnvnjs.*
Lates! Y-Y
m/ (>.<) m/
(Rock On!)
Being the Story of a Green Pea, a Baby Boy, and a Jar of mayonnaise
From time to time, some of my more adoring fans (OK, OK, some of my more suspicious readers) ask me if it is really and truly true that I almost drowned in a jar of mayonnaise when I was a young child. I’m not certain in which of my many, many major media interviews they happened to read this story (OK, OK, it was the interview I conducted with myself at the end of my second book, and who better to conduct it, I ask you) but it is time I settled the question once and for all.
The answer is: yes, I did.
Here is how it happened:
The True Origins of My Mayophobia A Personal
Digression
As hard as it is to believe now, there was once a time when yours truly, Pseudonymous Bosch, was just a Baby Bosch. An innocent infant who knew nothing
of secrets, let alone the Secret. Who had never heard of the Terces Society or the Midnight Sun. Who had not yet even tasted his first bite of chocolate.
This unformed child, this unfinished project, this unbaked loaf, this unsculpted clay, this unwritten novel, this baby was I.
Do not think for a second that I am trying to gain your sympathy, but I was not a happy baby. What with my parents always fighting over me (oh, did I mention the tragedy of my broken home?) and my insides always fighting with themselves (oh, did I mention the curse of my acid stomach?), I spent so much of my babyhood crying inconsolably that fights seemed to break out wherever I went.
No, I am not looking for your sympathy, but a crying baby has no friends. None. You try listening to a baby cry for five minutes or ten minutes or twenty minutes or for months and months on end as I cried. See if you don’t want to throttle the poor little lamb.
Not for the crying baby the clucking and the cooing of Grandma Jo. The sneaking of sweets by Grandpa Carl. The pinching of cheeks by Aunt Martha. At best it’s a pitying glance and a shake of the head. You’re lucky if nobody throws a shoe at you.
No, really, honestly, I am not looking for sympathy. Keep your tissues to yourself. Don’t send me flowers or consolation cards. I have no use for your well-meaning words.
Well, not now, anyway. Back then I suppose it might have been nice if just one person had smiled at me. If a single solitary individual had taken just the slightest bit of interest in that red-faced baby boy with the yellow snot running down his nose and the heat rash on his toes.
You see, had someone taken just a little itty-bitty bit of interest, he or she might have discovered the little green pea, hardened and blackened over time, lodged between the folds of my little baby thigh. It had stuck to my skin somehow and caused a small but persistent pain, an icky-itchy-sticky-scratchy-pushy-pully feeling in my leg that never went away, day or night.
Call me the Princess and the Pea. Make fun of me all you like. But that pea bothered me for nearly a year. It was the reason I was crying. Or the main one. Who knows what would have happened if some kindly person had thought to look into my thigh and remove that pea the day it got stuck there. Who knows what a smiley, bouncy baby I would have become. All the smiling and bouncing that would have been bestowed upon me.
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