Surreal continuing story: walking through doors and passageways

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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“Territory, I guess,” she explains. “Me and Claudia were just standing outside of Herman’s minding our own business when this tweaked looking bitch comes up and starts hassling us for being on her block. I told we weren’t doing anything but hangin’ out but she told us to piss off. I told her to ‘self-fornicate’ and, next thing you know, it’s on.”

“You should keep your distance from Gertie,” advises Spike. “She’s very possessive of things she thinks are her’s. She’s also very violent even when she’s not methed up. So, consider yourself lucky nothing else happened.”

“Hey, you gonna play?” Mabel interrupts.

“The lady will be with you in a minute,” I tell her. “We wanna get a couple beers first.”

“Bud again?” Spike asks.

“Nah,” I tell him. "I think we’ll go for a microbrew this time. You know, something bottled by blondes.

For a second, the pool hall goes silent.

“I don’t know if we have that,” Spike responds with a wink. "Those might be under USSR government suspicion.

“Just make it happen,” I tell him.

“No problemo,” he answers as he reaches down underneath the bar and…

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“…takes out a heavy box, like a cigar box, that jingles slightly. He extracts a key from his shirt pocket and opens the box, which turns out to be full of Sacajawea dollar coins, and also contains a pad and pencil.
He calls Mabel and Alice over to the counter. I listen in with ESP, as Alice had expected me to do.

“OK, Mabel, you each bet $30 on a best-two-of-three match,” says Spike in a hushed voice. Each woman takes $30 from her purse and hands it subtly to Spike. He writes the bets on the pad.
Now they go over to the regular billiard table. (Billiard tables have no pockets; the object is to hit your opponent’s cue ball and a third, red ball. Players keep score by moving beads on an overhead rack.)

Mabel is bombastic and talkative; Alice is cool as a cucumber. It seems clear that in any case Mabel couldn’t be a secret agent for any organization, as much as she talks. And you couldn’t ruffle Alice’s feathers if you hit her with a brick. They flip a coin to decide who shoots first. Mabel wins the toss. She shoots first and, cigarette dangling from her lip, scores six times without a miss. Alice coolly records Mabel’s score. Throughout this match Mabel keeps falling out of her tube top, but doesn’t correct it until she finishes the shot. Some other men watch, and I sense they know her and are used to this.

“It don’t bother me, kiddo,” Mabel tells Alice after it happens a couple of times. “I fed four kids with these boobies. They have served me well.”
I gauge Mabel’s probable age and figure her kids are grown by now.

Mabel and Alice now seem almost mechanical as they shoot. Each constantly gets the upper hand over the other.
While this is going on, I notice a particularly odd couple at a pool table near the door. A heavy-set, balding man in an outfit that suggests Little Lord Fauntleroy puffs on an old-fashioned pipe. The woman with him appears particularly ditzy. Her light blond hair is in a shapeless Mary Pickford style and she wears an unlined, unstructured white dress with thousands of tiny red polka dots. The ill-assorted couple fumble and fidget as they try to set the fifteen pool balls on the table, choose cue sticks, and start to play.

Now there’s a lull in the billiard match. Mabel has won the first game and steps over to the bar for a moment to talk to Spike.
Meanwhile, I contact Alice telepathically.

Honey, did you see that couple at the table near the door? The Joe Besser look-alike and the bimbo in the spotted dress.
I saw them, all right, Luv. They may be the other two Threshold people that Parker sent us after…We’ll have to keep an eye on them—Oh, here comes Mabel with our beers. I’ll get back to you, Honey.

I get a Grolsch beer and approach another visitor, a slight, swarthy man with a drooping mustache. “You play eight-ball?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. We go over to an unused table and set it up. I keep my ESP trained on the odd couple.

I notice the Joe Besser wannabe keeps dropping folded papers out of his pockets. And there’s a bit of wind outside; several times a gust blows the woman’s skirt up, high enough to expose her panties. She has a good figure, but seems clueless about how to manage herself in public. And at one point she drops a folded sheet of paper out of her cleavage; as she tries to put it back, she manages to expose both breasts.

“Angie!” bellows Spike. “Save the peep show for the porno shop!”
Angie is about to say something about Spike’s mother when her partner clumsily bumps into her.

Meanwhile, Spike keeps track of the score Mabel and Alice are making as he watches them move beads across the rack.

Now someone else comes in—Jeanette Strong. Call me Junie Sondergaard, she tells me telepathically. I glance at Alice, who also sees Jeanette. The statuesque Ms. Strong wears much better fitting clothes this time—a gray-white sweatshirt, blue-black slacks, and white flats. Her platinum-blonde hair is long and full. She ignores the men’s catcalls and walks over to me, politely greeting my opponent. She gives the odd couple a glance that suggests that Alice and I have located the other two Threshold people; Bob and Winifred approach and haul the old drunkard Warner away.

“Gertie is making an ass of herself in Rhex’s place next door,” Jeanette says. “She’s about to blow her cover.”

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“How’s she doing that?” I whisper back to her.

Jeanette decides to relate the rest of the conversation telepathically.

Well, it seems Gertie…

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…watched Susan translate people’s words to Claudia, and Claudia’s signed replies. Gertie went in and had two servings of Jack Daniel’s Bourbon and tried ‘signing’ to the bartender and everybody else present.
That’s a pity, I reply. *You have to learn ASL as you would any other language.

I’ve been in Rhex’s a couple of times,* Jeanette continues, * and the bartender is usually tolerant, but he won’t put up with weirdoes or drunks—and Gertie usually can’t hold her liquor. Worse still, she speaks while she tries to “sign” and she keeps using the word “Threshold!”*
Joe, Susan, and Claudia apparently pick up my telepathic conversation with Jeanette. The girls play bumper pool at a table in the corner; Joe sits reading a magazine. I guess what they had to do was flush Gertie out of Herman’s place.

By now Alice and Mabel have continued their match; they’re so intent on the game that they don’t drink much of their beer.
I see Alice’s reaction to her most recent shot: She has won the second game. She pushes the appropriate number of beads across. Spike sees this and writes something else on the pad.

As for the odd couple, the man keeps dropping his pipe, and uses a tiny scoop to pick the embers up off the floor and pour them back into the pipe bowl. The woman, Angie, constantly adjusts her bra and panties, and keeps dropping the same folded piece of paper on the floor. Alice watches for a moment.
Suddenly Angie stands stiffly and gets violently ill. She barfs on the floor and passes out.

Jeanette, Alice, Mabel, Spike, my opponent and I, hurry over. Angie’s partner just stands there like a lump, mumbling to himself. I call 911 on my cell phone. Jeanette and Mabel help Spike lie the woman flat on the floor, and clean up the mess.
Alice and I, and the others, are baffled about this. We don’t know Angie or the Joe Besser look-alike, and wonder why Threshold would recruit such pitiful people, if in fact they did so. The paramedics and ambulance come to tend to Angie.

Suddenly a paramedic says, “She’s not breathing!”
They’ve connected her to a device that shows the heart rhythm on a little screen. I just see a flat line.

“Asystillate!” one paramedic says. They pull her dress and brassiere down—and the folded piece of paper falls out and is ignored. They start the defibrillator and touch the paddles to her bare chest. When the machine is ready they give her a jolt of electricity. They do this twice and then the screen shows a recurring jagged pattern.
“Sinus rhythm,” one paramedic says into his phone. But Angie is still unconscious and they put her on a stretcher and carry her away. Her partner, in the ridiculous getup, agrees to go with her in the ambulance.

“Where are you taking her?” I ask a paramedic.
“Kaiser Permanente Emergency,” they say. “Are you a relative?”

“No, he isn’t,” says Spike, who has approached. “Her name is Angelina Klomp. I’ll call her family.”
I guess Dr. Luglio will treat her, I think to Alice.

She and Mabel begin the rubber game. Meanwhile, my opponent and I have begun our game of eight-ball. He is a cool character much like Alice and I wonder where I might have seen him before.
I lightly sip my bottle of Grolsch as the opponent breaks. He makes several successful shots. He has a bottle of water and sips it occasionally. Jeanette sits and watches.

Now Gertie storms out of Rhex’s Bar and sits pouting on the curb. She drops a folded piece of paper out of her purse and angrily jams it down the front of her top. The one Angie had is still on the floor. Even Spike ignores it.
Alice wins the rubber game by a narrow margin. She pushes the rack across and collects from Mabel.

Alice approaches me and we embrace. She sees Gertie outside, and thinks, If she’s a Threshold person, she’s as clumsy an agent as Angie!
She is, says my opponent, who has just sunk the eight-ball. Alice and I turn to him, puzzled; he removes the mustache, which is a paste-on. It’s DXM instructor Hardev Prithviraj! He motions for Alice and me, and Jeanette, Joe, Susan, and Claudia to step over to a corner for a private conversation. Hardev picks up the folded piece of paper that Angie had in her bra and reads it, and nods happily.

“You’re doing just fine,” Hardev says. In fact…”

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you deserve an Oscar for your performance. Just keep up the ruse and everything will go as planned. However, be sure to tell Gertie to tone things down a bit."

I look over at the sheet of paper. It’s signed by someone who identifies himself (or herself) as “ThrO23”.

“Who’s ‘ThrO23’?” Alice asks.

“He’s probably Angie’s and Gertie’s contact with Threshold,” Hardev answers. “You think they could’ve picked a more subtle way of designating their agents than using the letters ‘T’, ‘h’, and ‘r’ for their code names.”

“It doesn’t seem competence is a priority for this group,” I comment.

“Or incompetence could be their stategy,” Alice suggests quietly. “Perhaps by hiring drunks, stoners, and other assorted losers and dimwits to do their entry-level work, they’re trying to project an image of a bungling organization so that we underestimate them.”

“That’s an interesting theory,” Joe says, “but so far I still haven’t seen anything that supports it.”

Hardev is about to add his opinion to Alice’s theory when Spike walks up to our group. I see he has a curious look on his face.

“Excuse me,” he states, "but I was wondering if…

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“You seem to know something special about those losers—Angie Klomp, Gertie Armendariz, the old guy Warner, and Barrett,” Spike says. “Something I don’t know.”
Alice says, “And Barrett is—”

“Barrett Steeneken, the guy in the Fauntleroy getup,” says Spike.
“We believe that they belong to an organization with suspicious motives,” says Hardev.

Spike snorts, “I don’t think those four could do anything worse than make a mess in here like they did! And Gertie usually starts a fight when she comes in here—”
Suddenly Mabel, about halfway between us and the bar, shrieks, “Get away from there!”

Alice, Spike, Hardev, and I, and the others with us, turn toward the counter. Mabel has grabbed onto the ankle of a man we hadn’t seen come in the place; he’s near the cash register. She and Leroy restrain the man until the rest of us approach.
Leroy gets a hammerlock on the intruder. Mabel lets go, but Spike, Joe, and I stand close in case the man breaks loose from Leroy.

“I’m calling the cops!” says Mabel; she does so.
Suddenly I focus my ESP on the man. He is thinking, My first mission for Threshold and I blew it!

I relay this telepathically to Alice, Hardev, Jeanette, and Joe.
The cops—this time it’s Hermione and Winifred—come to arrest and Mirandize the till-tapper. They take statements from Spike, Mabel, and Leroy and, with a wink for Alice and me, haul him away.

Spike, Mabel, and Leroy return to the counter; Hardev speaks to the rest of us.

“Well, we caught five Threshold people when Parker and Breastly only knew about four,” he says. “That’s a feather in the cap for both of you, Alice, ____. I declare this mission completed.” He takes a portfolio and removes two envelopes from it; he hands them to Alice and me. Each contains a check for the remaining $1000 we were to get. He has similar rewards for Jeanette, Joe, Susan, and Claudia. Apparently, collaring the till-tapper, who hoped the four decoys would distract us, was the frosting on the cake—that even Hardev had not anticipated.

“We’ll want to get identification on that till-tapper from both Hermione and Winifred, and Joan Breastly or James Parker. And Dr. Luglio will identify Angie and Barrett at the hospital. Your business at Spike’s Pool Emporium is over for now.”
“For now?” I ask.

“Yes. There may be others recruited by Threshold—or even Sikes-Potter’s minions—who hang around here. But these five are the only ones we had an inkling about.”
“So we’re done here for now,” says Alice.

“Yes,” says Hardev, “but we’d like to have Spike, Mabel, and Leroy come back with us to the Morpheus. You all will have to have the tattoos removed—you can go back to Sherm’s place tomorrow. Mary will remove your warts and scars, and you can store your biker gear in lockers.” All this time, of course, Susan has been translating Hardev’s speech to Claudia.

Hardev now goes over to talk to Spike, still at the bar. Mabel goes around and picks up the drinks. I look at a clock near the bar and see that it’s closing time. All the other patrons leave.
Spike, Mabel, and Leroy approach the rest of us, with Hardev. Two armed security guards arrive; Spike hands them a set of keys and a logbook. They settle in.

“I’ll drive Spike, Mabel, and Leroy back to the Morpheus, along with Jeanette,” says Hardev. Joe and the girls get in the Bradleys’ big sedan; with Alice clinging to me, I fire up the Harley and we all return to the Morpheus. Artie admires the chopper as I park it in the private lot.
We go inside and walk down to the stage. My Mom, Eloise, Mary Blonda, Buster, and Fred meet us there. We introduce the pool-hall trio; Fred apparently recognizes Leroy.

Just as Eloise engages Spike and his friends in conversation, Hermione and Winifred approach, still in uniform but apparently off-duty. Each of them looks like the cat that swallowed the cream. They tell our group, including Fred and Hardev, what they found out about the till-tapper they arrested and booked.

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“Guy’s name is Chad Darrow,” Hermione informs us. “He 31 and has been arrested previously for shoplifting, petty theft, joy riding, possession of drug paraphenalia, and several DWI’s.”

“Why does Threshold recruit these cheap hoods to do its dirty work?” I wonder aloud.

“Because they’re cheap hoods,” Fred explains. “Remember, they specialize in ‘affordable cosmic disruption’ (whatever that is).”

“Oh, that reminds me,” adds Winifred, “there were several Threshold business cards on Darrow’s person when we booked him.”

“So, that entire performance put on by the Threshold people was just to distract everyone else in the bar long enough so Darrow could raid the register?” Alice asks. “Aside from getting some fast cash, what was the ultimate goal?”

“Well, since everyone here is a DXM person, I can answer that,” Spike replies. "The register had more than simply cash and change; there was also a key. This key…

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“…can be used for manipulation of reality. It’s ostensibly a common house key, but in fact it contains special alloys and circuitry that can help cause cosmic disruption once it’s turned in a lock,” says Spike.
“That’s quite a key that can accomplish such a thing all by itself!” I comment.

“Well, it isn’t that powerful. Apparently, Darrow was going to use it on the rear entrance to Rhex’s bar tomorrow morning before the bartender returned.
“Gertie likes to go inside places of business to plant stuff—and so does Barrett—the Joe Besser wannabe. The day bartender at Rhex’s, Whit Boole, caught Gertie last week, trying to drop a specially-made slug into the reaction machine on the wall near the bar.”

“Reaction machine?” asks Alice.
“Yes,” says Spike. “You may have seen one of those near the bar at my place. You drop a nickel into the slot at the top and push a button. When it pops out you have to push a second button quickly in order to retrieve the nickel. It helps a lot of people gauge their reaction time—and plenty of patrons of Rhex’s place and my place have been honest enough not to drive home if they see their reactions are too slow.”

“And the slug Gertie was going to drop into the machine had circuits in it too?” asks Alice.
“Yes. In fact the night bartender told me Gertie waited until she came on, to relieve Boole, before coming in. She called me and told me Gertie went straight to the reaction machine.”

“So she put the coin into the machine yesterday,” I say.
“Yes. But her own reaction was so good she kept getting her nickel back. That’s why she was pouting on the curb.”

“Well, what happens when the key and the and the fake nickel are in place?” asks Hermione.
“That’s two out of three,” answers Spike. “Barrett Steeneken was going to go into Rhex’s after Gertie had plunked her slug into the reaction machine. He was going to get laughed at because of his ‘Stinky’ getup, storm into the men’s room, and switch the float ball in the toilet tank with a special one devised by Threshold. With key, slug, and float ball in place, Darrow could use Rhex’s as a starting point for a large-scale disruption of reality.”

“Well, it’s lucky for us that Angie had that faint when she did,” I say. “I don’t mean I’m happy she took sick—”
“Just that she was indisposed so that Barrett couldn’t go next door to carry out the float-ball switch,” Hardev says.

“That’s right,” I reply.
Now two other people arrive—as if on cue. I recognize one as attorney Lester Paulsen; so do the others present, and we stop our DXM talk.

“I feel much better now,” says Paulsen. “This is Walter Troutdale, the brother of the proprietor of Steinmetz’ Grill. We have found out what was in that turkey gumbo I ate.”
We’ll have to check that out, since it’s possible that Angie ate some of that gumbo too, Hardev says telepathically to us DXM people.

I politely introduce Paulsen and Troutdale to the others.
“One of the companies that makes spices we use, has constantly failed to maintain quality control,” Walt says in a voice much like Walter Cronkite’s. “It’s West Side Imports in Hayward.”

“Mr. Paulsen, are you ready to continue the Aalto deposition?” Alice asks.
The attorney smiles. “Yes, Ms. Terwilliger. Edmond has already contacted me and suggested we use the manager’s office in the theater. Call Ms. Dandridge when you’re ready.”

You have another mission before that, says Fred telepathically. I note that Spike, Leroy, and Mabel seem to react.
Now Messrs. Paulsen and Troutdale leave. The rest of our group comes in. The youngest family members approach—Jack Sharp II, Georgie and Bobby Blonda, Maria and Katrina Oranjeboom (clinging to the Blonda boys), Owen and Nancy Sharp, Jimmy Bradley, and Chuck Brown, along with Gwen and Jeanette.

Mabel coos at the kids; Buster joins them. We introduce the kids to the pool-hall trio. Little Jack II approaches Mabel and says, “How do you do, Ms. Fafoofnik,” showing Red Nicholas’ influence by way of his uncle George.
Mabel comments sagaciously—albeit in other-side-of-the-tracks Brooklynese—about Jack and the other kids:

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“You guys are soitainly a coiteous bunch.”

“Wow, I haven’t heard anybody speak like that since Jean Hagen in Singin’ in the Rain,” I mention to Spike. “Mabel’s Brooklyn accent would sound thick even to Cyndi Lauper.”

“The weird thing is that she’s from Everett, Washington,” Spike says. “She’s never even been to Brooklyn.”

“Really?” I ask incredulously.

“Oh, yeah,” he answers. “Just ask her.”

So, I politely interrupt Mabel, who’s talking to Jeanette about the upcoming show, and say…

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“You know, Mabel, I would have guessed that you were from Flatbush or New Greenpoint.”
Ms. Fafoofnik smiles. “I wasn’t. I was born in Port Orchard, Washington, and I grew up in Everett. But half of my relatives were from Brooklyn and I guess I picked up their manner of speech.”

Alice and I introduce our group to Mabel, Spike, and Leroy.
“And this little boy is related to the boy and girl over there?” Mabel asks, pointing to Jack II, Owen, and Nancy.

“Yes,” says Eloise, stepping forward. “Jack II is the son of Owen and Nancy’s eldest brother Andrew. I have fifteen kids.”
Mabel reacts to this. “You poor woman!”

Eloise smiles. “I’m not a ‘poor woman,’ Ms. Fafoofnik. All my kids were full-term deliveries and the pregnancies were uneventful. I’m quite proud of my brood.”
Mabel looks with some astonishment at Eloise’s look-alike kids.

“They’re a handsome, healthy bunch, Ms. Sharp,” says Mabel. “Here, see my kids and grandkids.” Mabel shows Eloise snapshots of her offspring from her purse; Eloise looks at the pictures and compliments Mabel.
Now Alice joins Lena, Amy, and Gwen on stage; Prester John’s Aunt goes through their numbers. The pool-hall trio applauds when they finish, and I sense that, like Fred, Gwen knows Leroy.

I take my turn and play the Chopin preludes, and then, with Johnny Goss at the piano, I sing “Fer the Good Times.” Spike and his friends laugh and applaud.
Then Jane, in her gaudy costume, performs her numbers; I remain on stage to play string bass in the first number, “Biggest Parakeets in Town.”

Now Fred calls Alice and me to step out into the hallway just inside the atrium. Buster joins us.
”After Spike, Leroy, and Mabel leave, you’re to get ready for your mission at the high school, to get the goods on Coach Willy Hades. He’s the head football coach.

“As you already know, _______, you’ll be Dennis Montrose, a halfback on the varsity football team, and Alice, you’ll be Andrea Torrance, a cheerleader. You’ll register as members of the senior class. George and Betty Galloway, ______, will be your parents Gus and Belinda; Alice, your parents Paul and Eda will be Powell and Eulah Torrance. I’ll have Paul and Eda come out here for the transmutation.”
“Do you mean making us all younger?” I ask.

“Yes,” says Fred. “Pete and Loora will make you both 17 years old, and the parents correspondingly younger. You’ll both be transfers from Airways High in Redondo Beach, in L. A. County.
“The League will provide transcripts and cover stories for you to submit. I assume you still have your high-school grade transcripts.”

“Sure,” says Alice. “We presented them to the college registrar so we could get rooms in the dorms.”
“Fine,” says Fred. “The League will use your freshman-, sophomore-, and junior-year grade records. Joan Breastly will give you all a full briefing tomorrow, with documents and a cover story, after you have Sherm remove your tattoos.”

“And I sure won’t be able to ride the Harley to school,” I say.
Fred smiles. “The high school is three blocks away from the Morpheus, on Siddely Street.”

With this, Alice and I return to the stage, with Fred and Buster. The cat introduces himself, tacitly of course, to the pool-hall trio. Lloyd Werdin does his queen-is-dead routine; his daughter Joanie and her husband Andrew set up for “The Typewriter.” Stanhouse, Lorraine, and Sylvia join us.
Now Jane, still in costume and looking like a super-busty six-foot-tall Tammy Wynette, approaches Spike and his friends. Jane greets Mabel and sits next to her. Buster jumps onto Jane’s lap; Jeanette sits on the other side of Jane.

“Those two pretty girls over there must be your daughters, Ms. Bradley,” says Mabel, glancing at Susan and Doris.
Jane thanks her for the compliment.

Mabel can’t resist making a comment about Jane’s and Jeanette’s up-front assets (Jane is wearing a bra, Jeanette is not):

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“That reminds me, I have stop by the store and buy some cantaloupes.”

I look at Jane and Jeanette to see their reaction. They seem puzzled by the remark. I unsuccessfully try to stifle a snicker.

“What’s so funny?” Jane asks.

Awkwardly and evasively, I say, "Oh … uh … I was…

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“…making a tacit comparison with Ms. Fafoofnik’s mention of ‘cantaloupes.’”
Jane and Jeanette, who have known me for quite a while, catch on. Well, all I had done was snicker at Mabel’s remark—it was Mabel who commented about the women’s outsize bosoms. Both women grimace slightly.

“Yeah, I know,” says Jeanette. “I remember how you said, ‘It’s what’s up front that counts’ when you used to date me.”
Jane adds, “But we know you don’t stare at our boobs or comment all that much about them. And half the time you don’t even face us straight on when you talk to us because you don’t want to appear obsessed with our big breasts.”

I still feel uncomfortable about this. Fortunately, James Parker approaches, to interrupt the awkward pause. He calls Alice and me up to the back of the seating area and hands us documents for our mission at the high school.
“In two days you are to go with George and Betty Galloway, and your parents Paul and Eda, Alice, to register at the school. Be sure you go to Sherm’s tomorrow to get the tattoos removed—they won’t let you in like that. And Sherm will have some documents for you himself.”

“And when we come back here,” says Alice, “Pete and Loora Oranjeboom will rejuvenate us?”
“Yes. Our art staff has drawn a conception of how you are to look, for the benefit of the Oranjebooms.”

The rather sketchy drawings show me as Dennis Montrose, in a football uniform, minus the helmet, and Alice, as Andrea Torrance, in a cutesy cheerleader getup of sweater, pleated skirt, white bucks, and megaphone. We look eighteen, and appropriately nerdy.
“So this is how you’ll look when the Oranjebooms rejuvenate you,” says Parker. Is it satisfactory?”

“Yes,” says Alice, “except that the picture shows me holding the megaphone with my right hand. I’m left-handed. And neither of us appears here with glasses.”
“Loora will take care of that,” says Parker with a smile.

“So what do we do about Coach Willy Hades?” I ask. (The name rhymes with “shades.”)
“He carries a clipboard.” Parker shows us a sketchy page with an odd emblem that includes a black pelican. “The coach may have papers like this—it’s a Threshold emblem. Sherm will give you ‘spy cameras’ to take pictures of Hades’ clipboard papers whenever you can get to them.”
“Where does Coach Hades keep his clipboard when he isn’t coaching?” I ask.
“He teaches biology for Periods 1 and 2. At that time of day the clipboard is on his desk in his gym office. But get to the clipboard any way you can. Oh—the cameras are edible in case you get caught.”

Parker hands us each a $1000 check; as with the pool-hall mission, we’ll get the other half of the money when we’re finished. He prepares to leave, but adds, “Oh—one more thing, Alice—have you finished decoding that Sequel book?”
“Yes,” she says. “I have it on a Zip disk.”

“Well, make a copy of it and take it to Sherm tomorrow.” Parker leaves. Before he exits the Morpheus, however, he talks to George and Betty Galloway briefly.
“I assume he’ll call Mum and Dad as well,” says Alice. We embrace. :slight_smile:

Now we return to the seats. The Contralto Quartet is performing “I Am Woman.” All four women—Jane Bradley, Jeanette Strong, Amy Dolan, and Sally Mears—are wearing white gowns, and all have bras on, but they bounce just the same. We sit between Spike and his friends on one side and Stanhouse, Lorraine, and Sylvia on the other. Buster jumps onto my lap. Jane gives me a you-know-I-am-kidding look; she and Jeanette (and Sally) know I don’t obsess about their bosoms. I assume likewise about Amy.

The quartet finishes, and gets applause. Spike, Leroy, and Mabel leave—for now. We bid them goodbye; I suppose they’ll be back.
Meanwhile George and Betty Galloway, whom Parker has briefed, sit with us, away from the non-DXM people, to discuss their role in our upcoming mission.

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“I’ll be posing as a janitor and Betty will be a cafeteria worker at the high school,” George explains. “You and Alice are to address us only in those roles while you’re undercover.”

“What’s your part of the mission?” Alice asks.

“I’m supposed to plant some things in Hades’ gym office and classroom while ‘cleaning up’,” George informs us. “And Betty is supposed to keep her eye out for strange goings-on in the kitchen.”

“I hope that summer I spent as a waitress when I was in college comes in handy,” Betty says. “That’s the only experience I have in the food service industry. Oh, by the way Alice, I was talking to the Oranjebooms and they said that you really don’t need that much rejuvenation treatment; you could pretty much pass as a high school student as you are now.”

“That’s very flattering,” Alice says with a smile. “I guess all that time avoiding the sun and remaining a pale English girl paid off.”

“How about me?” I ask. “I hope I don’t need a lot of work.”

“Well,” Betty states, "Loora told me…

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“You’re starting to go gray at the temples; you’re quite chunky; and you show wrinkles. More importantly, your metabolism is much slower at your age than it was when you were a high-school senior.” I’m glad for Betty’s frank appraisal; I sure don’t need flattery here.
“There’s something else you both need to consider,” says George.

“Our wings,” says Alice.

“That’s it,” he says. “Loora said she and Eloise will hypnotize you both, and give you a post-hypnotic suggestion so that you, Alice, will subconsciously cloud the minds of those who come in contact with you—that they will not know at all about your wings, from the beginning of 6th Period until you both leave the campus—or the locker room—at the end of the day, or after a game. The next game _____ High plays is at home, against their old rival, Templeton High across town.”

“That’s fine with us,” I say. Alice and I have our arms entwined.

Betty continues. “For the sake of simplicity, you both have the same schedule. Tentatively, it’s as follows:
“First period: American Government, Mr. Wayne, Room 208.
“Second period: Advanced French, Mr. Hernández, Room 401.
“Third period: Chemistry, Mr. Bassett, Room 124.
“Fourth period: Journalism, Ms. Harbaugh, Room 62.
“Fifth period: Word Processing, Mr. Thomas, Room 61. They print the school newspaper.
“Sixth period: sports.

“We’ll have a DXM operative, who is a school employee, see to it that these tentative schedules are prepared for you,” Betty concludes.
“I assume we can use the What to Say book if necessary,” says Alice.

“Yes, and Leo will keep an eye on you. During Sixth Period, however, Leo will go to the football field and Ulrica Werdin will be assigned to the girls’ gym, which is on the other side of the gym building from the boys’ field house.”
“Well,” says George, “We’re going to meet with Joan Breastly now to prepare the documents and cover stories. We’ll see you tomorrow morning at Mrs. Jason’s office—the school registrar.” George and Betty leave.

Well, Alice and I have other business to conduct. We round up Joe and Susan Bradley, and Claudia, along with Jane and Jeanette.
“Why Jeanette?” I ask Alice.

“I don’t really know,” she answers, “but Jeanette may pose as your ‘old flame’ on campus.”
“Do you really think she can pass herself off as a high-school senior?” I ask.

“We’ll let Eloise and Loora decide that,” says Alice.
So now we leave, in my Lexus, to go to Sherm’s Tattoo Parlor. One by one he calls us in for a procedure with a tool that looks like an electric razor. He calls Claudia and Susan, first. They come out in ten minutes, without tattoos. Then he calls Joe; then Jane; then Jeanette; then Alice; last of all, me.
As I go in, Sherm hands me a portfolio. “Parker was here this morning with your cover stories. You two should have no trouble joining the football team and the cheerleading squad. I know Coach Hades and the girls’ cheerleading coach Ms. Thelma Pilar myself.”

“What do we need to know about their temperament?” I ask. Alice has come back into the tattoo room.
“Well, they’re taskmasters, of course, but they’re fair. Remember, a lot of these kids are scatterbrained. You shouldn’t have any special difficulty with Hades or Pilar.”

We thank Sherm and return to the Morpheus. We meet Leo, who is about to leave. “I’ll join you at the school, but right now I’m on my way to Coos Bay to check out a reappearance of the Westinghouse Jet Set TV,” he says. Alice and I see him off.
We go to the kitchen. Buster looks on as Jane and Jeanette (she wears a black flannel dress and nothing else) describe their roles in the mission. Now Eloise, Pete, and Loora come in.

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“_____, if you don’t mind, I’d like to start with you first and finish with Alice,” Loora says. “There’s not much work I’m going to be doing with her so she won’t take long.”

“I was wondering about Jeanette?” I ask. “Is she part of this?”

“Yes,” Pete answers. “She’ll be posing as one of the girls in the ‘Goth’ clique. You know–dark clothes, black wig, black or blood red lipstick, pale complexion, listen to The Cure a lot.”

“Actually, I was thinking Alice might be more convincing as a ‘Goth chick’,” Jeanette suggest.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Alice inquires.

“I wasn’t trying to insult you,” Jeanette explains to her. “It’s just that you have big dark eyes, a pale complexion, and look kind of frail (even you could probably kick the ass of every man in this room). You also like wearing dark colors.”

“So do you,” Alice states. “Look at what you’re wearing now.”

“Look, there’s a reason why Alice is posing as a cheerleader and you’re a Goth,” Loora says. “It all has to do with your specific talents.”

“That’s right,” adds Parker who, unbeknownst to us, has been listening to Alice’s and Jeanette’s exchange. "Alice is a cheerleader because…

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“…she’s smaller and more agile. And her voice is within the normal range of voices of girls in their late teens.”
“That’s something else that needs little or no changing, as rejuvenation goes, I suppose,” says Alice.

“Precisely,” Parker replies. “No disrespect intended, Ms. Strong, but with your full figure, and your low-pitched voice, you wouldn’t be suitable as a cheerleader.” Parker also hands Jeanette a copy of her schedule, which is quite different from the one Alice and I have. But she has all the same teachers.
“I don’t care much for the idea myself,” Jeanette says. “The boys would stare at my bouncing boobs and forget about the game.”

“I think Alice will turn a lot of heads as a cheerleader,” I say, looking down and blushing. Alice embraces me. :slight_smile:
“Actually,” says Loora, “With her size, and voice, Jeanette emits a dignity that would make her the dominating personality in any group.”

“So who is going to ‘dominate’ on the cheerleading squad?” asks Alice.
Parker says, “There’s a wispy brunette named Margie Stewart. She has styled herself the ‘captain’ of the squad, and would probably bark orders at the others if Coach Pilar weren’t there. You’ll have some training sessions; most of the girls are easy to get along with, as are the boy cheerleaders.”

“How about the varsity football team?” I ask Parker.
He says, “The captain and first-string quarterback is a colorful, bright fellow named Dexter Glenwood. He has a really high IQ for a football star. You’ll need to pay heed to him as well as to Coach Hades and his staff. Luckily there are no bullies, druggies, or slackers on the team—Coach Hades sees to that.”

“What about the other teachers we’ll have to deal with?” asks Alice.
“Mr. Wayne in first period government is an unabashed right-winger. He’ll often praise Dubya, Arnold, Bill Gates, and other right-wingers. And he mentions Rush Limbaugh now and then too.

“Mr. Hernández, in advanced French, is easygoing unless you misbehave.
“Mr. Basset, in chemistry, is soft-spoken, but effective—he loves the subject and most likely you will too. Be courteous to him.

“Ms. Harbaugh, the journalism teacher, will expect you to try your hand at writing for the Red Tide, the school newspaper. She encourages all the students to do so.
“Word processing is right next door to the journalism class. Mr. Thomas used to teach printing. You may want to share a computer.”

Loora speaks up. “Since Betty Galloway will work in the cafeteria she’ll subtly slip you communiqués at lunchtime. She may expect you to provide her with some as well.”
“And George and Betty are still my Dad and Mom for this, as Gus and Belinda Montrose?” I ask.

“Correct,” replies Loora. “Now, everyone else sit on that bench across the room. _______, you are about to become Dennis Lawrence Montrose, age 17.”
Loora speaks an odd incantation and then sprinkles moon dust over me. (??) I don’t hear “Close to You,” but I sense an intense tingling sensation, then a strong shiver. Then all is quiet.

“Look at yourself in the mirror, _____,” says Loora.
I look. “Wow!” I say. I look seventeen again! My pants fall down, since my waist is considerably smaller; everyone laughs. I pull my pants up and sit on the bench next to Alice, who giggles and kisses me. :o :slight_smile:

“You’re next, Alice,” says Loora.
She speaks a shorter incantation and sprinkles a tinier handful of moon dust. Alice appears to change only slightly. Now she sits back on the bench, next to me, and we cuddle.

Then Jeanette steps up. After Loora’s incantation, Ms. Strong’s bosom is a bit smaller, but still impressive. The blonde woman is still six feet tall. She sits with us. “My code name hasn’t been issued yet,” she tells us.
Loora calls the older adults in—Alice’s parents Paul and Eda, along with George and Betty Galloway. The Dutch woman uses the same incantation for all four, along with a suitable sprinkling of moon dust. (I can almost hear Karen Carpenter.) The four older adults transmute into people the right age to have high-school kids.

Buster looks at all of us, awed and impressed. He jumps onto Betty’s lap; she strokes his fur and he purrs.
Parker now says, “Jeanette, show _______ and Alice the pictures in this portfolio. I’ll explain them now…”

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Jeanette shows us a 10" by 12" black-and-white illustration of an ornate looking object.

“This picture is a 19th century engraving of a lockbox supposedly constructed by Red Nicholas,” Parker explains. “It’s about the size of a shoebox and, although you obviously can’t tell from this illustration, is emerald colored with inlaid amethysts surrounding the lock.”

“What’s inside?” I ask.

“We don’t really know,” Parker answer. “The rumor is Nicholas used the lockbox to deposit some mysterious objects and/or documents. However, sometime around the time when he was imprisoned beneath the Morpheus in an opium-induced haze, the lockbox was either stolen, lost, or hidden away by Nicholas and its existence forgotten–until now.”

“Somebody found the box?” Betty inquires.

“Oh, no,” Parker exclaims. “That’s our job. It’s the main purpose of this mission. What happened was somebody discovered a key–a key to…”

Jeanette pulls a smaller picture out of the portfolio. It’s of an intricately designed and elaborately decorated key.

“…this lockbox,” finishes Parker. “You may remember during the mission to Spike’s Pool Hall that we prevented a key from getting in Threshold’s hands. Among the objects that key opened was an old safety deposit box at the Wells Fargo Bank downtown. We had some DXM people check out the box and inside we found the key along with a note in ink explaining it was to Nicholas’ lockbox and that the lockbox was supposedly buried or entombed somewhere on the site where the high school is now. Our job is to recover it and find out what’s inside before anyone from Threshold does.”

“It seems to me we’re going through lot of trouble to do this,” Alice says. “Has anybody simply asked Red about where the lockbox is and what’s inside?”

“Many times,” Parker answers, “but he never gives us a straight answer. We’ve even tried doing telepathic scans but he just jams them. For some reason, he’s not interested in the lockbox and doesn’t seem to care one way or another about who recovers it.”

“Maybe it’s because there’s nothing in it,” I suggest.

“We entertained that possibility,” Parker says. "But there is at least one reason why that’s probably not true. It seems…

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“…that there is a sketchy history on the lockbox, contained in these documents.”
One of these that Parker shows us, is a valuables inventory record prepared when Wells Fargo planned their move from their building on Amoruso Street, about six blocks south of Hector Guzman’s body shop, to the sleek new office building on Bradford Street north of the Morpheus.

“This is an interoffice memo appended to the inventory record prepared by the banks’ operations office.

“Dear Mr. Slate: The safety-deposit boxes had been set up to move to the new site at the time of the incident. We took inventory before the boxes were to be removed from the old vault, and after the move was completed. There was a jewel-studded green-and-purple lockbox in Box 23N that did not appear in the second inventory. When we found the discrepancy we notified the examiners’ office and the local police. The records on the box show it was registered to Claude William Nicholas of Lodi.”

Parker now shows us a page from a local newspaper, from about 1982.
Jared Smedley, 61, was tried in Superior Court on burglary and conspiracy charges. Smedley had rifled a property room in the old Police Department building on North Hester Street. Three officers were also indicted, on charges of misappropriation of department property, including an antique jeweled lockbox reported stolen from the Wells Fargo Bank during their move to the Bradford Street building in 1980. The officers also face charges of accepting a bribe.

“Jared Smedley?” asks Alice. “He used to own the Morpheus, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he did,” says Parker. “The police never did identify the person who stole the lockbox from the bank’s property. But when it was in the police property room, after it was recovered, Smedley bribed some cops to sneak it out to him. But the department found out. Smedley and the cops who were arrested never did say what they did with the box and so they went to jail. Smedley had enough influence at the time, to get a light sentence. The cops all did hard time at San Quentin.”

Parker continues. “We have one other clue. First, it seems that after Smedley died, earlier this year, his family went to Edmond Bartholomew concerning radioactive material they said he owned.”
“Why did they go to him?” I ask.

“They just wanted a lawyer to prepare his estate,” says Parker. “Several family members claimed Jared owned something radioactive, like a hunk of uranium metal or some such. Edmond said they should search Jared’s property—lawyers don’t do things like that.

“Second, several school employees made vague complaints about radios and other electronic equipment malfunctioning in the gym building. The school authorities refused to investigate. The DXM operatives think the lockbox may contain, among other things, radioactive metal—not harmful, but enough to screw up radio transmission and, perhaps, personal computers. And they believe it may be beneath the floor in Hades’ gym office or below the floor, in the foundation.”

Parker now produces a small, portable Geiger counter, itself the size of a shoebox.
“All we want you to do, is find a way to get into Hades’ office and prowl around with this device. Just note when it begins to react to radiation, and where. Prepare a report and we’ll have other operatives conduct the physical search, even beneath the building if they have to.”

“What is the best time of day or week to do this?” asks Alice.
“Coming right up,” says Parker. He produces several copies of a list of best times, and hands out copies to Alice, the Galloways, Jane Bradley, Jeanette, and me. We put all the papers and photos in the portfolio, and take the Geiger counter.

“Here’s the first half of your pay for the mission,” Parker says now, handing us each an envelope containing a check for $1000. “I’ve asked the parents of high-school kids at the Morpheus, to send their kids in here to brief you on routine behavior and procedures.” He now gives us the DXM handshake, says “Good Luck!”, and leaves.

While we’re reacting to Parker’s assignment, the high-school kids all enter: Artie and Brian Brown; Claudia; Mike and Susan Bradley; April Blonda; Jan Oranjeboom; Kenny, Linda, Marty, and Nancy Sharp. Artie, Mike, and Kenny are on the varsity football team; Susan and Linda are cheerleaders. Susan also explains that Claudia takes some special classes and in regular classrooms she is accompanied by an interpreter Jack and Eloise hired.

George Sharp, incidentally, is present too, although he finished high school two years ago. He, Artie, and the lovely Susan, speak first.

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“As you might know, there are a lot of cliques in high school,” Susan says. “_____, as a member of the football team, will be part of the jock clique. That means you’ll be hanging out with the student athletes and coaches. Alice, as a cheerleader, will usually associate with the other cheerleaders but, with her, there’ll also be some overlap with the fashion club, dance club, and honor society.”

“Any tips on how to fit in?” I ask.

“Just kind of keep quiet, observe what the other kids are doing, and do what they do,” George answers. “Within reason of course–don’t needlessly cause trouble or do anything stupid or malicious. I don’t want you to be a complete sheep. That advice, by the way, applies to everybody.”

“Me too?” asks Jeanette.

“Not as much,” George replies. “The Goth kids at high school pretty go out of their way not to blend in with the other kids. Still, that doesn’t mean you should cause trouble just for the hell of it. Also, you’re a member of the honor society with Alice and the debate team.”

“There is something, however, I have to tell all of you about this particular high school that’s different from any other school,” announces Arties. "At this school…

860

“The teachers apply an ‘independent study’ philosophy, for one thing.”
“In other words,” says Alice, “they usually allow the kids to prepare for assignments and exams any way they see fit?”

“That’s it,” says George. “Mr. Hernández in French class, and Mr. Basset in Chemistry, tell you what material the class will cover and pretty much let you study any way you want. I was in Hernández’ class myself.” He sighs. “My conscience was ten times tougher than any teacher.”
“Well, how are the tests?” I ask. Several of the kids wince.

“That’s just it,” says Artie. “The tests are tough. But hey, you’ve both long since reached adulthood and studied elsewhere and besides, you’re in college. You won’t have any real trouble with the course material or the tests.”
“I can’t help but sense that _____High is a strict and cheerless place,” Alice comments.

“Far from it,” answers Susan. “The teachers say, ‘This is what you have to learn and we will test you on it, but apart from that you can do anything you want—legal, of course.’”
“This raises a question about the faculty, the principal and the local school board,” I say.

This gets a grin from the kids. “Coach Moscowitz—the swimming coach—told us that most of the faculty were hippies and activist liberals in the late Sixties,” says Jan Oranjeboom. “This school has the greatest concentration of liberal faculty and administrators in the country!”
“I assume, of course, that the scholastic integrity of the place is not a problem,” I say.

“Not at all,” answers George. “When I took the SAT I got a score of 787—pretty high, I must say. ______ High has in fact won plenty of honors in the last ten years. And having a football team that is a champion or hot contender year after year doesn’t hurt.”
“Can you tell us anything about the teachers we’ll have?”

“Which ones?” asks Artie.
“Alfred Wayne, Government; Julio Hernández, advanced French; Herb Basset, Chemistry; Bonnie Harbaugh, Journalism; Bob Thomas, Word Processing; and our coaches, Willy Hades and Thelma Pilar.”

“Wayne is our own Rush Limbaugh,” says Artie. “He really chafes at the school’s liberal policy. He’s the only real right-winger on the faculty, and he blames everything wrong on liberals. He said that if the government were composed only of conservatives the tragedy of 9-11 wouldn’t have happened.”
“I’ve heard that philosophy,” I say. “I had a senior government teacher like that, who blamed everything on liberals. To hear him you’d think that being a liberal was a capital offense!”

Kenny Sharp speaks up. “Hernández is a really mellow teacher. Like Artie said, he doesn’t give much homework. But you’re dead meat if you fail his tests!”
Jan says, “Old Man Basset doesn’t assign much reading, either. But when you go to the lab you damn well better know what to mix with what—and how much.”

“Yeah,” says George. “Basset ran me ragged like that in my senior year. Nearly bit my head off. But I got a 100 on the final!”
Susan says, “Ms. Harbaugh dresses in a complete hippie outfit. But she can give you that look. And her tone of voice can get to you: ‘Ms. Bradley, how is your article coming along?’ or ‘Well, Ms. Bradley, if you’re checking your makeup and hair in class, maybe you don’t have enough work to do!’”

Susan adds, “And then there’s Mr. Thomas. On the first day of school he sits you at a computer, hands you a manual, and says, ‘Do the assignments at the end of Chapter One—at your own pace.’ And he expects you in the first semester, to start keying up articles for the Red Tide right away!”
“How about school security?” Alice asks.

The kids turn grim.
George says, in a humbled and sober voice, “Three years ago a drug dealer was jumped and killed on campus, by a hop-head, during school hours. It was really chilling. The student body has been law-abiding ever since—it’s almost a school tradition.”

The kids’ severe demeanor now fades.
I hear footsteps coming down the hall. With ESP I find it’s Jack and Eloise, probably calling us back to the stage. But before they come into the room, Alice and I finish up with the kids.

I ask, “What do we need to know about the coaches, including Willy Hades, Jeff Moscowitz, Thelma Pilar, and Geraldine Safer? I heard Hades and Pilar were demanding but fair…”
Artie and Susan answer.