Elrod McBugle on the Loose

by Jeff Strand

  "Remember that really awful-tasting candy I bought about a month ago?"

  "You mean the cough drops?"

  "I mean the cough drops that only said they were cough drops in really small print. They were packaged like candy. If they're just cough drops, they shouldn't say ‘Great Cherry Taste.'"

  "I guess you're right."

  "I told them I want my money back, or at least for them to send me some real candy, like Junior Mints or Ex-Lax. We'll see what happens."

  "I have to write a whole new letter," I said. "But I'm still going to mail the first one I wrote."

  And I did.

  Three weeks later, there came a knock at my door.

  I OPENED THE DOOR to find two tall, muscular men standing on my porch, dressed in identical grey suits. They both had short hair, wore sunglasses, and didn't look like they were here to sell Avon.

  "Can I help you?" I asked.

  "We're looking for a Mr. McBugle," said the first man, who I will refer to as Mr. Black.

  "Elrod McBugle," added the second man, who I will refer to as Chuckles the One-Toothed Clown.

  No, that doesn't quite have the right ring...let's call him Mr. Yellowish-Orange.

  "I'm Elrod McBugle," I told them.

  "Are your parents home?" asked Mr. Black.

  I shook my head.

  "May we come in?" asked Mr. Yellowish-Orange. You know what, I don't like that name either. I'm just going to call him Mr. Tan. That'll work. Nice and simple.

  "Who are you?"

  Mr. Black stood up as straight as he could. "We are representatives of the Slurpy Gulp Beverage Manufacturing Corporation. Take us to your eyeball."

  "Oh, I don't have it anymore," I said.

  The two men glanced at each other. "Hmmmm..." they said in frightening unison.

  Now, I don't consider myself a cowardly person (except when there's something scary happening), but these men looked very much as if they might kill me. I took a step backwards.

  "Well, homework's calling," I lied, continuing to back away. "I'm sorry you guys made a wasted trip."

  "Let me get this straight," said Mr. Black, adjusting his sunglasses. "You found an eyeball in your drink, felt compelled to write to us about it, and yet you no longer have this important piece of evidence in your possession? I find that most unusual."

  "Most unusual indeed," agreed Mr. Tan.

  "It's not all that unusual," I insisted. "After I choked on it I spit it out. Why would I want to keep it after that? That would be freaky."

  The men glanced at each other again. "All right, Mr. McBugle," said Mr. Black, after a long pause, "We're going to acknowledge that keeping the evidence may in fact have been construed as ‘freaky.' But that doesn't change the fact that we find your story most unconvincing. Did you retain the bottle?"

  I shook my head.

  "Surely you're not suggesting that keeping the bottle in which the eye was found is ‘freaky,' are you?" asked Mr. Tan.

  "No, but I never keep the bottles. I throw them in the recycling bin." (I may be a troublemaker, but I'm an environmentally conscious troublemaker.)

  "Perhaps you recycle untainted bottles," said Mr. Black. "But we find it most unusual that you would not have kept the one in question. How are we to inspect for eyeball residue when you don't even have the bottle?"

  "I don't know," I admitted.

  "Surely you didn't think we would merely accept your claims at face value," said Mr. Tan. "Did you assume we just hand out free Slurpy Gulp to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who claims to have choked on an eyeball?"

  "No...I just didn't think I'd need it."

  "All right, Mr. McBugle," said Mr. Tan, "you claim to be an eyeball cuisine aficionado. Perhaps you'd care to describe what the eye tasted like."

  "I don't remember," I said, a trickle of sweat running down the side of my face. My palms were sweating, too, so I wiped them on my jeans. "It was only in my mouth for a second, and I could barely taste it over the apricot."

  Mr. Black shook his head. "That's just not going to cut it. I want you to know that I wasn't just randomly given this assignment, I requested it. Because I have tasted an eyeball. It was seventeen years ago when I was in the Peace Corps, where I'd been sent to Africa. One day I got separated from the others and I found myself captured by a tribe of cannibals. They were going to eat me, Mr. McBugle. Have you ever been captured by somebody who had plans to eat you?"

  "Not that I remember," I said.

  "I didn't think so. You're young, you're naive, and you think the world is a perfect place. I'm not going to bore you with the details of my escape, except to say that through some imaginative hand gestures I managed to convince these cannibals that I was the President of the United States and that our foreign policy with Africa would be screwed up for years if they ate me. So they agreed to let me go, and even had a small feast in my honor. Do you know what they gave me to eat, Mr. McBugle?"

  "An eyeball?"

  "You're darn right an eyeball. In three of the longest bites of my life, I ate that eyeball, and it was a sensation that will haunt me for the rest of my life. Some nights I wake up screaming because of it. Just the thought of having it in my mouth makes me shudder. Do you know what an eyeball in your mouth feels like?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "Liar! You have no idea! I'll tell you what it feels like. It feels like a peeled grape! And if you've ever had a peeled grape in your mouth for any long period of time, you know just how disgusting it is! And so I will not have you diminishing the trauma of my experience by sullying it with your own unfounded claims! You are a bad child, Elrod McBugle! A bad, bad child!"

  I figured any moment now I should be slamming the door shut, running upstairs, and hiding underneath the bathroom sink.

  "I want you to look me straight in the eye and tell me what you found in that bottle of Slurpy Gulp," said Mr. Tan.

  We looked each other straight in the eye. The feeling began to seep out of my legs.

  "Please don't kill me," I whimpered.

  "The truth! Now!"

  "I didn't find an eyeball in my drink," I admitted in a small voice.

  Mr. Black and Mr. Tan gave each other a high-five. "Are you aware, Mr. McBugle," said Mr. Black, "that you have committed fraud, a crime punishable by a lengthy prison term? Are you?"

  "I was just doing it as an English assignment," I said.

  "This isn't the first English assignment I've seen turn ugly," said Mr. Tan. "Okay, Mr. McBugle, I think you've learned your lesson. Nobody messes with the Slurpy Gulp Beverage Manufacturing Corporation. Nobody. Do you understand?"

  I nodded.

  "Good. We're not going to press charges this time. But in return, you must tell all of your friends to buy Slurpy Gulp every chance they get. I want to see Slurpy Gulp sales in Greenwater skyrocket. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Then our work here is done. I hope the next time you consider sending a fraudulent letter to a fruit drink manufacturer you'll remember our little visit."

  THE NEXT DAY in English class, Scoopy passed around the free sample packets of various candies he'd received from the cough drop company. There had been a letter enclosed expressing deepest apologies for the confusion, and promising to look into his concerns with their packaging immediately. And if Scoopy ever developed a nasty cough, they hoped he would find their product soothing and refreshing.

  Margaret Bradley raised her hand. "I heard back from the Slurpy Gulp company, but I can't find the letter. I think my mom threw it away."

  "Oh, that's too bad," said Mr. Rodriguez. "What did they say?"

  "They were very nice," said Margaret, though it was impossible to miss the tremor in her voice. "They said they were really sorry I found the bug in my drink. And I just want to say that everyone here should go out and buy lots of Slurpy Gulp, because it's a wonderful drink made by wonderful people. Please, buy as much as you can. You'll like it. I promise."

  Nobody messes with Slurpy Gulp.
>
  Nobody.

  Chapter Four Quiz

  1. How many times was the phrase "his face looked like a Jack-O-Lantern that had been carved with a garbage disposal" used?

  2. How many times did this chapter cause you to think about how comfortable it would be to tie a lobster around your neck?

  3. How many times did you stick out your tongue and go "yagga yagga yagga!" while reading this chapter? (If the answer is "zero," please do so now.) (If the answer is "one or more," please seek professional help.)

  Chapter Five

  A SCARY THING HAPPENED in science class one day. Mrs. Jones assigned our lab partners.

  The reason this was scary is that science class contained a higher-than-usual number of people I didn't really want to be partnered with. In particular, it contained three bullies, Andy, Warren, and Colin, who had taken an immediate dislike to me at the beginning of the year. Andy is the tallest of the three, exactly a head taller than Warren, who is exactly a head taller than Colin. When they stand side-by-side they look like a staircase.

  I hadn't tried to make them dislike me the first time we met. I was minding my own business as I stood in front of my locker, praying that the Locker Fairy would magically appear, wave her glowing wand, and make me remember my combination. Andy, Warren, and Colin were a few feet away, making fun of Julie Gelder's new hairstyle, which they were comparing to various dead mammals.

  "You guys are such jerks!" said Julie, after Warren suggested that her hair most closely resembled a dead yak. "You stand around thinking you're so tough, but even he could beat you up!" She pointed at me.

  The three bullies turned and looked at me. I really, really, really, really wanted the Locker Fairy to appear so I'd have a place to hide. Either I'd unknowingly did something to make Julie hate me, or she was attracted to guys with multiple fractures.

  There was a long pause. "What are you smiling at?" Andy finally asked me.

  I wasn't sure how he'd confused my expression of trying not to puke with a smile, so I didn't say anything. I'm not a wimp, but I certainly didn't want to fight all three of them at once. I'd have horrible amounts of homework to catch up on when I came out of my coma.

  As it turns out, I wasn't required to be stomped eight feet into the ground that day, since Mrs. Webster walked by and gave us all her disapproving glance. I took that opportunity to head off to class, possibly saving my life.

  The Bully Trio hadn't really said anything to me after that, aside from the occasional death threat, but I still didn't want to be partnered with one of them.

  Mrs. Jones read the names of our partners. I assume English was Mrs. Jones's first language, but you wouldn't know it from listening to her. Charlie Brown's teacher would tell her to enunciate. Fortunately, she usually wrote all of her lecture notes up on the blackboard, allowing them to serve as subtitles.

  After a couple moments to decipher what she said, I found that Mrs. Jones had put me with Julie.

  Aside from her dead mammal hair, Julie was one of the more attractive girls in the school. She was definitely one of the tiniest. She would have been perfect for one of those circus acts where a car drives into the ring and then clown after clown after clown after clown gets out...not that I'm suggesting that Julie looked like a clown. She didn't look anything like a clown. She was just tiny.

  After the official partner announcements were made, everyone in the class went back and took their places at the lab tables, where we had a wide variety of chemicals, test tubes, beakers, metal stirring thingies, and other scientific equipment to work with. I was disappointed to find that we didn't have any electrodes to use to re-animate a dead body, but sometimes life was unfair.

  "So what are we supposed to do?" asked Julie.

  I picked up the lab sheet that rested on the table. The title was "Chemical Reactions." That sounded pretty cool. Mrs. Jones had written out step-by-step instructions on how to produce the various chemical reactions, and we needed to write detailed notes about each reaction in our lab book.

  At the bottom of the sheet, in big letters, was a message that said "Chemicals are not toys! None of the chemicals in today's lab are harmful or poisonous, but I still expect you to treat them as if they were. Anyone caught throwing chemicals at anyone else will be given an F for the assignment. Anyone caught drinking out of a test tube, or forcing anyone else to drink out of a test tube, will also be given an F. And keep your eyes on your own lab."

  So Julie and I began to do the lab. We mixed the first set of chemicals in two separate test tubes, following the instructions perfectly until we had a pair of test tubes filled with dark blue liquid. The last step was to pour them together into a beaker and observe the reaction.

  This was going to be really cool, I could feel it.

  We poured them together. The dark blue liquids combined to form...a slightly darker blue liquid.

  Yeee-ha.

  "That's it?" asked Julie.

  "I think so," I replied. "We did everything right."

  "But that's so lame."

  "Maybe the beaker was dirty."

  We raised our hands, and Mrs. Jones walked over. We asked her if our chemical reaction had turned out the way it was supposed to, and she said something which we translated as "That's exactly what was supposed to happen. Great job, you two." You could also have translated it as "Monkey noses are really good in lowfat yogurt," though that seemed a less likely interpretation.

  We followed the step-by-step instructions for our next chemical reaction, and wrote in our lab books that the pale yellow liquids had turned a slightly paler shade of yellow when combined. Only eight more exciting reactions to go.

  At this point we wondered if a little creativity was in order. After all, would Thomas Edison have invented the light bulb if he'd just followed instructions? Would Albert Einstein have come up with the theory of relativity if he'd just followed instructions? I think not! So why should I, Elrod McBugle, just follow instructions?

  Answer: Because we'd flunk the assignment.

  Okay, but what if we did the actual assignment, and then added our own special touch after our notes were complete? For example, what if we combined the dark blue liquid and the pale yellow liquid?

  We combined them in our largest beaker.

  We got a darkish pale green liquid.

  Woo-hoo!

  Julie and I continued to go through the lab sheet, creating all the required chemical reactions, but at the end of each step we poured the result into the large beaker to see what would happen. What happened was that the mixture turned to a pretty disgusting brownish-black color. But it still didn't do anything interesting.

  When we finished our reactions, there were ten minutes of class left. Mrs. Jones had left the classroom to take an important phone call from her husband. I stirred the brownish-black mixture, hoping it would bubble or dissolve the glass or leap out and devour somebody, preferably Colin, Warren, or Andy, but nothing happened.

  "I dare you to drink it," said Julie.

  "I would," I said, "but Mrs. Jones specifically told us not to drink any of the reactions." I pointed to the part of the sheet were it said that.

  "No, she said not to drink out of test tubes. That's a beaker."

  Fortunately, I didn't have a crush on Julie, or I might have actually drank it. I'm not even going to tell you some of the stupid things I've done for girls I had crushes on.

  Okay, I'll tell you one, but only if you promise not to tell anyone else.

  Wait a second, I don't even know you. Forget it.

  At this point, Andy came wandering over from where he and Warren had finished copying the lab notes of the people next to them. "What's this?" he asked, tapping the beaker.

  "It'll give you eternal life," I said. "Drink it."

  "Ha-ha," said Andy in such a way to indicate that he didn't think my comment was worth a ha-ha at all. Then he spat his gum into the beaker.

  It plopped in the liquid, bobbed up to the top, and floated there.


  "Gross," said Julie, searching through her immense vocabulary to find the one word that perfectly expressed her innermost feelings.

  Then the liquid began to swirl, and the pink gum sank beneath the surface. There was a fizzing sound. There was a bubbling sound. There was a footsteps sound that was Andy getting out of the way in case it decided to blow up.

  The liquid suddenly turned pink.

  "Gross," Julie repeated, because if one word perfectly expresses your innermost feelings, there's no real reason to waste energy trying to find another one.

  The liquid was now bubbling violently and rising to the top of the beaker. This was not good, because spilling pink gook that hadn't been created according to lab instructions all over the table was a sure way to get in trouble. For a split second I considered slamming my hand over the top of the beaker to block the liquid, but then I decided I kind of liked that my hand didn't have holes in it.

  Right before it could spill over the top, the liquid stopped rising, and then sank back down to its original level. Julie and I breathed a sigh of relief. I picked up the metal stirring thingie and poked at the liquid, which was no longer liquid but a sticky, gooey, gum-like concoction.

  "We're never going to be able to get the beaker cleaned before Mrs. Jones comes back," Julie noted.

  The beaker solved that little problem by cracking in several places and falling apart. The gum-like stuff slowly oozed out, forming a nice pile of glop. By now, everyone in the class was watching.

  Julie sniffed. "You know, that smells really good."

  I bent my face down to the glop and took a whiff. She was right. It had an absolutely fantastic smell, like the best strawberry-flavored bubble gum ever.

  I looked at the clock. Only five minutes until the end of class, and Mrs. Jones could walk in any second. I hurriedly grabbed a large petrie dish and scooped the glop into it with a clean beaker. I was thankful to learn that it didn't stick to the table at all, just leaving a large pink spot that wiped off with a paper towel.