The Order of Odd-Fish (31 page)

The man clutched ragged pages of sheet music to his chest. He threw some of it at Jo. “Sing your heart out, kid! This is your big chance to be a star!”

The police were already coming up the aisles. The ragged man saw them out of the corner of his eye, whirled, and brandished his teapot at them, waggling it threateningly.

“Not a step closer!” he shouted hoarsely. “Within this ordinary-looking teapot is enough explosive to blow this city sky-high! And,” he added roguishly, pointing to himself, “inside this ordinary-looking
man
is enough top-notch musical entertainment to blow this audience sky-high—with toe-tapping delight!”

Jo suddenly recognized the man.
“Ken Kiang?”

“Oh, yes, hello, Jo. I’m sure we’ll have a lot to chat about at the cast party afterward. But now, if you would kindly not interrupt the show…thank you.”

The rainy season had not been kind to Ken Kiang. Months of wandering the flooded streets, sleeping under bridges, and eating wet garbage from restaurant garbage bins had shriveled him into a bony shadow. But as bad as it got, Ken Kiang knew everything was going his way. He was certain his genius was holding the Belgian Prankster at bay, even as he feverishly wrote his musical on damp napkins and the backs of candy wrappers.

Ken Kiang kicked off his musical with reckless zeal. He had once envisioned a grand spectacle, but over time he had lowered his expectations. “And who needs another bloated, overproduced revue?” Ken Kiang had said to himself. “I’ll just do an intimate yet edgy one-man show.” Still, the more elaborate production wistfully ran through his mind as he strutted back and forth, sang off-key, and danced so frantically it seemed he was being publicly electrocuted:

Greetings, Eldritch City!

Ken Kiang here, with a ditty

That wasn’t written by a committee!

So sit back and enjoy, it’s quite pretty! And witty.

Not to listen would be a pity!

I once drank the blood of a freshly strangled kitty.

God, I’m good!
thought Ken Kiang. Had there ever been a song quite so wonderful? Ken Kiang doubted it.

At first Jo was too stunned to think. Then she was furious. Who did Ken Kiang think he was, ruining Sir Alasdair’s concert? She could hardly believe she had once been afraid of him. She wished someone would stop him and his horrible rhymes. Maybe, she realized, it should be her.

The audience was booing. Ken Kiang felt a wild happiness: works of genius are never understood in their own time. Rocks and food flew at him, but he flung himself into his musical with new energy, capering back and forth, bawling:

My name is Ken Kiang!

Listen to my harangue!

The Belgian Prankster, I’ve defanged!

He attacked me—it boomeranged!

I ate him like meringue

Like a dang orangutang, I sprang! Bang!

Jo couldn’t take Ken Kiang’s musical for another second—and she was just about to charge across the stage, and force him to stop, when a trembling glove touched her shoulder.

It was Sefino. The cockroach was on the verge of panic.

“Psst, Jo,” hissed Sefino. “You must help me with my hat.”

“What? No!” Jo shook Sefino off. “Don’t you see what’s happening?”

“I certainly do,” whimpered Sefino. “He’s ruining my plans.”

“Ruining
your
plans?”

“Jo, remember when I said the butlers had something special planned for tonight? We were going to do it after Sir Alasdair’s performance, as a kind of encore, but now…” Sefino gestured limply at the caterwauling Ken Kiang.

“Sefino…I hesitate to ask this, but what were you going to do?”

“We were all,” murmured Sefino, looking around carefully, “going to wear silly hats.”

“You’re always wearing silly hats!”

“No. These are
extremely
silly hats.” Sefino pointed to a string dangling from his sombrero. “When I pull this, my sombrero shall open, a whirling propeller shall emerge, and I shall ascend to the skies! The other butlers have similar flying sombreros.” Sefino produced a bulging sack of photographs. “What’s more, as we soar over the crowd in our heli-sombreros, we shall shower upon our adoring fans these autographed pictures of ourselves.”

“Might that not incite a riot of enthusiastic admirers?”

“Jo, that is the risk we are willing to take.”

Meanwhile, the crowd was annoying Ken Kiang. A little audience participation was nice, but the boos, jeers, and flying food were making it hard for him to perform. He also noticed the police were approaching him from either side. Ken Kiang suspected his next few moments onstage would be his last. He stopped the musical and started lecturing the audience.

“Don’t you realize who I am?” shouted Ken Kiang. “I’m the savior of Eldritch City! I’ve defeated the Belgian Prankster! Yes, me! Not once, but many times! Single-handedly, I might add! Without breaking a sweat! You pusillanimous, ignorant, ungrateful, stupid, swinish, crass, blind, vulgar, miserable
turds,
don’t you see that if it weren’t for me, Eldritch City would’ve been destroyed long ago? Whaaaaaaaat!
Hoagland Shanks?
”

It was. Shouldering a path through the angry crowd and baffled police, Hoagland Shanks made his way toward the stage, suitcase in hand, hollering: “Consarn it, officers, lemme through! I’ve gotta help out my old friend Kenny. Dagnabbit, put that weapon away, officer! Doncha see that’s a talented fella up there, just tryina give yuh some honest entertainment? Kenny!”

Hoagland Shanks waddled onto the stage and gave Ken Kiang a big bear hug.

“Shanks, how—what—” Ken Kiang spluttered, staring up at the handyman in disbelief. For weeks he had fantasized Hoagland Shanks was a broken man, but now here he was, as healthy and affable as ever, and “willin’ to lend a helpin’ hand to make sure Kenny’s show goes on”!

Jo was also astonished to see Hoagland Shanks. The fat handyman had been a fixture in Dust Creek all Jo’s life; seeing him here was a pleasant shock, as unexpected as seeing Mrs. Beezy, or the Cavendishes, or any of the other old patrons of the Dust Creek Café. Jo ran across the stage and gasped, “Mr. Shanks! What are
you
doing here?”

“Long story!” said Hoagland Shanks, wiping sweat from his forehead. “Time enough for that later, Jo! Perhaps over a peach pie! Wouldn’t mind! But first things first. Gotta,
gotta
make sure Kenny’s musical is a big hit!”

“But Mr. Shanks, he interrupted Sir Alasdair’s show! Sir Alasdair worked so hard—”

“Now, heck, Jo,” said Hoagland Shanks. “Let’s not rush to judge. Everyone wants their moment in the sun, I guess! Can’t grudge ’em that. We’ve all got dreams! My dream was to eat pies, and Kenny helped me achieve that dream. Now I’m gonna do
him
a good turn.”

“Oh,” said Ken Kiang, disappointed. “I didn’t destroy your soul?”

“Heck no! And those were some delicious pies—much obliged!” Hoagland Shanks tipped a nonexistent hat.

“What’s in your suitcase?” said Ken Kiang.

Hoagland Shanks’s eyes twinkled. “Special effects!” he said, tousling Ken Kiang’s hair. “Now, Kenny, not another word outta yuh! Sit back and enjoy the show!”

Then an extraordinary thing happened. In a whirlwind of glittering confetti, extravagantly costumed performers floated from the sky on parachutes, singing the overture from Ken Kiang’s musical! No sooner did they touch down on the stage than a full orchestra hustled out of the crowd, instruments in hand, playing Ken Kiang’s music—just as he had written it!

Ken Kiang looked at Hoagland Shanks in wonder. “Shanks, how—”

“Time enough for explanations after the show!” chuckled Hoagland Shanks, punching Ken Kiang’s arm. “Now let’s enjoy some top-flight musical comedy! Maestro!”

The conductor struck up the band. There it was! Act one, scene one—just as Ken Kiang had written it on the back of a paper bag—the scene in which Ken Kiang arrives in Eldritch City and sings about how he will destroy the Belgian Prankster! The stage filled with a dancing chorus. Ken Kiang watched, astonished. It was going splendidly—and all according to the script! Just as he had imagined it! Better, even!

Jo had been shoved aside by the singers and dancers, and bumped into Sefino again offstage.

“Where
were
you?” fumed Sefino. “Didn’t I say I needed your help?”

“Sefino, did you see what’s happening out there? It’s insane!”

“My hat isn’t working!”

“Who cares? Where did all these singers and dancers come from?”

“The propeller is jammed,” whimpered Sefino.

“What do you expect me to do?” yelled Jo.

“I expect you to fix all my problems!” said Sefino. “Blast it, Jo, stop being so self-centered!”

“There’s more important—”

“Glory! Assist me to glory! Look at these!” Sefino waved a handful of crumpled papers. “These are fan letters, Jo, begging me to undertake a grand and ambitious enterprise!”

“Those aren’t fan letters, Sefino, those are your own autographed pictures
of yourself
!”

As the musical’s first song ended, Hoagland Shanks tapped Ken Kiang’s shoulder. “Now, Kenny, I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve added something to your musical. Gave myself a cameo.” He grabbed his suitcase and clambered up the stairs to the stage.

“Well, uh…sure…go ahead,” said Ken Kiang numbly. Ever since Hoagland Shanks had appeared, he had felt like he was in a waking dream.

As Hoagland Shanks took the stage, the orchestra changed its tune, lurching from the sparkling musical score to a raunchy wail, horns blasting lasciviously as Shanks struggled to unbutton his shirt. Grunting and grinning, Hoagland Shanks shrugged off the shirt and let it fall to the stage. Then he started to peel off his undershirt.

“Shanks isn’t stripping, is he?” said Ken Kiang. “No, no. He’s not stripping.”

He was. The audience howled in angry protest over the unsightly striptease. But Hoagland Shanks did not care. Bumping and grinding, he hopped around the footlights, wriggling out of his trousers. The crowd shouted for him to put his clothes back on. Hoagland Shanks winked in response, waved coyly, and waggled his hips. His voluminous pants soon floated off the stage, followed by a yellowed pair of gargantuan drawers.

Hoagland Shanks faced Eldritch City and wiggled his naked body with indecent delight.

“Okay, buddy, let’s go,” said a policeman, taking Hoagland Shanks by the arm.

“I’m not done!” said the nude Hoagland Shanks, shaking off the policeman. “I want to take it all off, and I’m
gonna
take it all off!”

“Sorry to break it to you, fella, but you’ve gone about as far as you can go.”

But Hoagland Shanks went further. As the band blared, Shanks produced a knife and sliced a neat cut from his forehead to his navel. He tore off his skin, revealing the insides of his body: a throbbing, squirming mass of blubber and muscle. He ripped those away, too, until there was just a skeleton. The skeleton walked over to the suitcase, opened it, and rummaged about, picking out some new guts, and carefully stapled them onto itself. Then the skeleton retrieved a wrinkly sheath from the suitcase, and wriggled into it—the skin of a huge, gray-haired man. He then went on to put on clothes, tauntingly, in a kind of bizarre reverse striptease: first dozens of long, dirty furs and pelts; then a pair of oversized green ski goggles; and finally, a ragged rawhide diaper.

And the Belgian Prankster—for it was he—chortled.

T
HE
return of the Belgian Prankster sparked a citywide panic. The festival collapsed into an uproar, a stampede, and Jo had never before run so far, so fast, so long. When she finally stumbled to a stop, breathless and exhausted, she was lost in an unfamiliar neighborhood. The streets were deserted, but not far away she could hear hundreds of people screaming.

The next few hours were a flurry of confusion. The Belgian Prankster hadn’t done anything yet, but everyone prepared for the worst. Many barricaded themselves in their homes; others fled the city; still others sat numbly on the sidewalk, awaiting catastrophe. Jo did not return to the lodge but spent all night wandering the streets. Everybody had the same panicked expression. Jo just felt empty. She listened to the jittery conversations with a dreadful calm. Everyone was sure of only one thing: that something awful was about to happen.

But nothing happened.

The headlines of the
Eldritch Snitch
for the next few days told an increasingly baffling story. The first day was an across-the-mast screamer:

BELGIAN PRANKSTER RETURNS!

But if the first headline was shocked, the next day’s headline was puzzled:

BELGIAN PRANKSTER WON’T MOVE

It was true. The Belgian Prankster hadn’t moved from the spot where he had first appeared. He stayed put and kept on chortling. Everyone had abandoned the neighborhood around him. No one dared venture near. But for all the terror the Belgian Prankster inspired, he wasn’t doing much. He just stood there and kept up his inscrutable chortle.

The headlines became more and more bewildered:

BELGIAN PRANKSTER STILL WON’T MOVE

Then:

BELGIAN PRANKSTER SHOWS NO SIGN OF MOVING SOON

Finally:

MOVE ALREADY, BELGIAN PRANKSTER!

But not even a stern chiding from the
Eldritch Snitch
could induce the Belgian Prankster to budge. Soon the braver citizens of Eldritch City began to approach the Belgian Prankster. At first they dared only watch him from behind barricades, fifty yards away; but as the days wore on, more and more Eldritchers regained their courage and drew closer to the enigmatic man who chortled and chortled but did not move.

Terror became bafflement; bafflement yielded to impatience; finally, impatience gave way to disappointment. The Belgian Prankster had failed to deliver an apocalypse. He had not killed a single person, or even blown up a single building. He became a figure of public ridicule. Children scampered up to the Belgian Prankster, poked him, and ran away laughing. Doctors examined him and found him to be in excellent health. Still the Belgian Prankster did not move. But he kept on chortling.

People will put up with being terrified, but no one will tolerate being bored. Now the Belgian Prankster was merely holding up traffic. Eventually some policemen picked up the Belgian Prankster and hauled him off like so much lumber. The Belgian Prankster didn’t seem to notice, but continued chortling as he was carried away. But where to? He couldn’t be jailed, for he had broken no law—he was just being weird. So the Belgian Prankster was declared insane and committed to the Eldritch Asylum for the Feeble of Brain.

The neighborhood where the Belgian Prankster had appeared was cleaned up. Strangely enough, it turned out that all the singers, dancers, and orchestra from Ken Kiang’s musical had been nothing more than ingeniously complicated papier-mâché dolls. In any case, they were swept up, piled into trucks, and hauled away to the dump.

Life went back to normal for everyone in Eldritch City, except Jo.

It was five days after the Belgian Prankster had returned.

Jo had not slept once. Every night she lay in bed with her eyes open. She craved sleep, but she was afraid that if she fell asleep, the Belgian Prankster would appear and take her—she had no illusions about the Belgian Prankster being locked up in the asylum. Jo drank coffee after coffee, desperately trying to stay awake, dreading sleep; but she needed to sleep; but she was terrified of sleep; but she was going crazy without sleep; but she couldn’t sleep…

She had been
right next to
the Belgian Prankster! But if he had really wanted her (and if Hoagland Shanks had really been the Belgian Prankster all along—and that was unthinkable, what on earth,
why
?) then why hadn’t he taken her long ago, back in Dust Creek?

She wanted to go to him.

It was stupid. It was suicide. Aunt Lily had specifically warned her not to. But where was Aunt Lily now? She hadn’t stopped the Belgian Prankster from coming to Eldritch City—so where was she? Had the Belgian Prankster killed her? And Korsakov, and Sir Oliver? Jo was frantic. Aunt Lily, Korsakov, Oliver—they might all be dead. But that was unthinkable, impossible. Again and again Jo’s mind circled back to the same question: where was Aunt Lily?

The days dragged on, and the heat beat down with a vengeance, sticky and sluggish. Nothing seemed worth doing. The city glared harshly in the day, making Jo’s eyes ache. At night she writhed in bed, feeling like she was wrapped in hot wet cotton.

She couldn’t stop thinking about the Belgian Prankster. Her duel was coming up in three days, but she stopped practicing. What was the point? Fiona was going to kill her, or at the very least expose her. She barely spoke to her friends anymore. Everyone assumed she was withdrawn because Aunt Lily was still missing, but they were only half right.

Jo wanted to kill him. The Belgian Prankster had practically murdered her parents, and now maybe even Aunt Lily, Colonel Korsakov, and Sir Oliver, too. Jo ached to kill the Belgian Prankster—and with her father’s message, she felt she might even know how. Furious but repulsed, fascinated but terrified, she felt herself pulled toward him.

It was time for the final ritual before the duel: a tea ceremony at the Grudge Hut in Snerdsmallow, in which Jo and Fiona were required to read hundred-line poems insulting each other. It was two hours before the ceremony, and Jo was sitting at the café with the other squires. But she felt distant from everyone around her. She told herself Aunt Lily was gone, but she felt nothing. She just felt empty, hardly even human.

“Have you written your poem yet?” said Ian.

Jo didn’t even know what he was talking about at first. “Um…no. I haven’t.”

“You’re kidding,” said Ian. “This is serious, Jo. You can’t just blow it off.”

“Well, I’m not kidding,” said Jo irritably.

Audrey said, “Can’t Jo just say something off the top of her head?”

“No, the poem has to be in the traditional style,” said Ian. “Unless Jo can improvise in iambic tetrameter, she’d better start writing now.”

Jo’s head was pounding. “I don’t even know what iambic tetrameter is. I don’t care. Why do I have to go through all this?”

Ian started to object, thought better of it, and said: “Well, here’s an idea. Sefino writes five or six poems denouncing his enemies a day. I’ll get him to crank something out for you.”

Jo looked up. “Would you really, Ian?”

“Don’t mention it. I know what it’s like for your knight to go…missing. I hope they’re all right. I’ll go find him.” Ian squeezed her hand and was gone.

Maurice said, “So what happened to that crazy Ken Kiang guy?”

“They threw him in jail,” said Albert. “Disturbing the peace, bomb threats…he’ll be locked up for years.”

“Hey, Nora,” said Daphne. “It looks like the Belgian Prankster is back, but nothing’s happened. How does your theory explain that?”

“Well…it doesn’t,” said Nora. “If reality truly followed the show, the Ichthala should’ve appeared at the same time. That didn’t happen. I guess
Teenage Ichthala
doesn’t predict the future after all.”

“Aren’t you disappointed?” said Daphne.

Nora looked at Daphne strangely. “Disappointed that the city hasn’t been devoured?”

“So you were wrong!” said Daphne.

“Yes, Daphne,” sighed Nora. “Is that what you wanted to hear? I was wrong.”

Daphne nodded. “Well, I’m glad you can admit it, at least.”

Maurice said, “So how do you feel about the duel, Jo? You ready to fight Fiona Fuorlini?”

Jo was staring blankly into her coffee.

“Jo!”

“Huh?”

“Are you ready for the duel?”

“Oh…yeah, I guess.”

“Are you okay?” said Nora.

“I’m fine. Just tired.”

“Then drink your coffee. The tea ceremony is over an hour long,” said Nora. “You don’t seem so hot, Jo. Your skin almost looks green. Where’s Sefino?”

“I’m here, I’m here,” muttered Sefino, entering with Ian. He had been in a foul mood ever since the cockroaches’ debacle at the Founders’ Festival.

“All the butlers,” fumed Sefino, “resplendent in our most glittering finery, majestically rocketing into the sky like so many brilliant fireworks, showering the crowd with genuine signed portraits of ourselves—free of charge, if you please—and nobody even notices!”

“The Belgian Prankster had just returned. Everyone thought the world was about to end,” said Daphne. “Don’t you think your timing was off?”

“Timing has nothing to do with it!” raged Sefino. “Can’t people notice two things at once? Can’t people say, ‘Ah, there’s the Belgian Prankster, we’re all going to die—very nice’—and then! Behold the glamorous Odd-Fish butlers streaking across the firmament, thoughtfully distributing signed portraits to fans and collectors! I ask you: did the Belgian Prankster fly? Did he distribute signed portraits of himself? No, and no! He just sat and chortled, and
he
got all the attention! It’s unfair, it’s unjust, it’s actually immoral…and nothing,
nothing
about us in the
Snitch
!”

Eventually Sefino was subdued by sympathy and a few drinks. The squires left Jo and Sefino to a booth in the back, where Sefino spread out some blank paper and licked his pencil.

“So you need help with your poem?” said Sefino. “Let’s see. What rhymes with
Fiona
? Almost nothing, I’m afraid. How about
Fuorlini
? Hmmm.
Genie
…
meanie
…
fettuccine
…not much there, either. You should get a different opponent.”

“It’s too late for that.”

“Then again,
Larouche
is tough to rhyme, too,” mused Sefino. “But she’s got you on
Jo
. Let’s see,
Vertigo, overthrow, gazebo, comme il faut
…there’s a lot to work with. Have you considered changing your name to
Orange
? Nothing rhymes with
orange
. Orange Larouche?”

“I’ve already changed my name, remember?” murmured Jo. “From Hazelwood?”

“Do you know, Jo, I’d almost completely forgotten.”

“Of course you have.”

“But it doesn’t matter, does it?” said Sefino. “The Belgian Prankster came back, but he didn’t touch a hair on your head! You were right next to him; he could have grabbed you on the spot! And now he’s safely locked up in the asylum. Everything can go back to normal, and nobody need know about your nasty little secret…. Seriously, though, don’t you think Chatterbox should have at least written
something
about me?”

Jo stared at Sefino in disbelief. The depth of his vanity had never fully struck her until now. Sefino was the only one who knew about her secret, and Colonel Korsakov was missing, along with Aunt Lily and Sir Oliver, all whom might be dead; yet he felt his progress in the society pages was of greater importance. Jo was bewildered into silence.

“Jo?…Jo! Enough moping, let’s get this poem done.”

Jo lay in her bed, painfully awake.

She had disgraced herself at the Grudge Hut. Woozy with exhaustion, she’d spilled the tea as she poured it in Fiona’s cup. When Fiona read her poem denouncing Jo, Jo couldn’t keep her eyes open. When she stood up to read the poem Sefino had written, the words looked garbled, a rushing filled her ears, she felt dizzyingly empty, and she collapsed.

The Grudge Hut broke into angry shouts. Fiona’s seconds demanded Jo forfeit, but Fiona calmed them down; she wanted the duel to go on. Jo could hardly look at Fiona. In three days Fiona was going to kill her, or at the very least expose her. In three days her life was going to be over, disastrously.

Ian and Nora helped Jo back to the lodge and put her to bed. Her insides felt sour and scraped-out. She watched the afternoon light shining from behind the drapes. After a few hours it faded to a mellow evening glow and then dissolved into night.

She couldn’t fall asleep. She could hear activity all throughout the lodge as knights and squires and butlers came and went, slamming doors and talking and laughing; she heard them become quiet and whisper as they approached her room, thinking she was asleep, and then resume normal volume when they were almost out of earshot. Jo felt as though she had been stricken by a plague, isolated so she didn’t spread her infection to others. She wasn’t called down for dinner, but Ian brought up her food for her.

“Jo?” he said softly.