How To Find Your Way in Minced Forest

Write Preface in the search space below right to get to the Preface.To go to the table of contents, write table of contents in the search space below right. To read a chapter, write the number of the chapter in the search space. To read the tales in Fay Spanish, go to cuentosdelbosquetriturado.blogspot.com. Thank you.

Sunday, 5 April 2020

60. Another of Michael’s Halloween Parties: The Developer

The party was off to a good start. Lira’s pub couldn’t have been more crowded. Everyone was there. Trays loaded with scary canapés and slices of creamy pumpkin cake wandered about the pub on their own waiting to be picked and eaten. Orange and black beer flowed from the fountains behind the bar. A local band was playing full blast with the black cats meowing along. Glorvina was almost drowning all that out singing a heartrending lament in Gaelic and the gossips were struggling to hear each other’s news over the noise.

In the furthest corner of the pub, as away from the din as possible, was a little oblong coffee table before a leather sofa and its two matching armchairs.On one of these armchairs sat Mr. Binky stiffly.  Salty Boogerbeard had chosen to plant his bottom on the sofa.The pirate had yet to reveal his intentions.


“Binks, now that we’ve had a couple of drinks and mean to have some more, ´tis time for a toast!” Boogerbeard raised a tumbler of rum and coke, his favorite drink, and cried “Here’s to your dream school and its newly found headmaster!”


“Curmudgeon Finn?” said Mr. Binky, giving his piping hot pumpkin flavored tea spiked with a sprinkle of rum a cautious sip. “I know he can now read and write, but I’m not sure he will be adequate. This isn’t a regular school. Its purpose is to teach fairies how to coexist with humans. What does Finn know about that?”

Curmudgeon!” roared Salty, splitting his sides with laughter. “Curdgie Finn indeed! What an idea!” Tears began to run down his bearded cheeks, mingling with the boogers trapped among the red strands of facial hair.

Salty’s laughter was non stop. But it was not contagious. Mr. Binky began to think he would have to throw his tea on the pirate’s face to calm him. He was much relieved when Salty suddenly went silent.

But as soon as he had recovered from his bout of laughter, Boogerbeard began to poke Mr. Binky in the chest with the index finger of his right hand. Then he wagged the finger at Binky repeatedly and finally turned it to point at himself.



“’Tis the man before you I am speaking of, Mungo John! I! I am the man!

Mr. Binky’s eyes widened a little but it was soon for him to believe the pirate was serious. After all, Boogerbeard had been, and still was, drinking.

Perceiving incredulity, Boogerbeard began to enumerate his merits.

“I taught Curmudgeon how to read! I gave him a reason to learn. Motivation is what does it. I’m a man of the world. Of the worlds, with the s of a plural! I’ve dealt and doubledealt with those thieving, lying and scheming humans all my fairy life, Binky!” Salty next burst into song. “I’m the top! I’m the best of teachers! I’m Napoleon brandy and the Mona Lisa and the tower of Pisa and all that... jazz!

“Oh,” said Mr. Binky, trying his best to look unruffled. “Oh, I see. What can I say? Erh, I’m sure you are a born teacher, Boogerbeard, and one with experience too. But we´ve got to give credit where it is due, and as I give it to you, I must also give some to Michael, who told Curmudgeon to watch the miraculous video, and to Curmudgeon himself, who had the patience and the stamina to watch it over a thousand times. And no offense meant, so don’t be offended please, but I need someone who..can give the impression of being a little more...respectable. Not that I don’t respect what you are. I know you are inded the top in your own specialty.” Mr. Binky always tries to be diplomatic.

“Binks,” said the pirate, taking the prime minister by the lapels of his grey jacket and speaking in a very serious, even and modulated voice, “that is exactly why I want to be headmaster. I want to turn respectable. I always planned to one day, and that day has arrived. I only have one condition. I don’t care about the salary or the hours of work involved. I’ve stolen enough money to keep my coat lined for longer than eternity. My one condition is that those who flunk get eaten. By boa constrictors, alligators, sharks from the deep blue sea or me. Your choice. There’s no other way I will do this because this is the only way motivation works.”

                                
“I don’t see how I can meet that requirement,” coughed Mr. Binky. “It doesn’t seem fair to make school compulsory and then devour the underachievers.”

“Name another way of getting people to learn what they don’t want to!” the pirate let go of Mr. Binky’s lapels and sank back on the little sofa he was sitting on. He raised his bent legs to it and made himself comfortable. “You know, I don’t take kindly to being disappointed. If you don’t see things my way, I’m bound to feel hurt, Binks. And if I feel slighted, I will most likely find comfort in thinking you aren’t clever enough to understand me. And that will turn you into a flunkee. And in my territory flunkees get eaten.”

“Waiter, another barrel of rum and a case of two litre bottles of coke,” ordered Mr. Binky, hoping the pirate would pass out if he drank some more. And wake the next morning with amnesia.

Boogerbeard smiled knowingly.

“It’s not just me that will be offended.There’s lots out there like me who will want to know why I’m not good enough for you and your sissy school. The Vicious Villains Society will want to know why I can’t be headmaster of your school. They will file a complaint. And don’t try to get me drunk so I will forget about this tomorrow. Like I said, I’m experienced. When you are coming, I am on my way back.”

The Vicious Villains Society is a syndicate of real and purported evildoers Although there are  fanatics among its members, dedicated in heart and soul to the destruction of kindness, anyone who can pay the member’s quota is welcome to join. You needn’t even bother to have done or to intend to do evil to be accepted. All they want from you is your money. 

The pirate yawned and laid his head back on an arm of the sofa, observing Mr. Binky through half-shut eyes.

Mr. Binky took hold of the teapot and served himself a little more tea.

Suddenly Boogerbeard began to laugh like crazy. He put a plush velvet cushion under his head and another on his belly and spread his booger-stained beard all over the second cushion, laughing hilariously all the while to himself.

“Ohh, Binky, you don’t understand my sense of humor,” he cried finally. With a twinkle in his eye, he added, “You’re getting deathly pale! It’s a joke, mate! Someone like me has better things to do than be a teacher!”  

Mr. Binky was not sure if the pirate had been joking before or if he were joking now.

“Since you’ve been sneaky and gotten me drunk, I will reveal to you my secret plans,” said Boogerbeard. “It´s my way of thanking you for buying me drinkies. I mean to bring gas and electricity to Bumps’ Island. I’m going to build power stations there so those nitwits can live by night without losing more neurons. On a sunny island like that, they don’t need artificial lighting. It´s like selling ice to the Eskimos. But since the Bumps are stupid, let them pay high bills and make me rich. Richer.”


Curmudgeon Finn came and sat on the vacant armchair. Since he had learned reading skills he read nothing but The Fay Economist and The Financial Fairy Times. It turned out he was in cahoots with Captain Boogerbeard. He explained to Mr. Binky that he was going to supervise the construction of the power plants and see to it nothing was stolen while the building was going on. He would be in charge of security on the island and Salty would give him a percentage of the benefits.

                                
“Curmudgeon, you hunk!” hiss-clucked Basiliska, overhearing her ex-boyfriend and slinking up to peck his ear. “How nice to see you again!”

“I’m going to call this progress, Binky,” said Boogerbeard, winking an eye at the prime minister. “Want to invest?”

But Basiliska was not the only eavesdropper around. If it has to do with Mr. Binky, the Leafies are always on guard.


“Binky is conspiring with developers!” hissed Leafy Thaddeus. “Get them!

Of course, as Michael apologized the morning after to Lira when he showed up to pay for the party and the damages his guests had caused, it wouldn’t have been one of his Halloween parties if there hadn’t been a fight.

Lovely Lira felt sorry for her brother-in-law. “You needn’t pay for the damages. We’re used to riots here,” she lied out of pity. There is no pub with a quieter atmosphere than The Jealous Merrow’s. The seas are always calm there, and rare is a storm.

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About Me

My blogs are Michael Toora's Blog (dedicated to my pupils and anyone who wants to learn English and some Spanish), The Rosy Tree Blog (dedicated to RosE), Tales of a Minced Forest (dedicated to fairies and parafairies), Cuentos del Bosque Triturado (same as the former but in Fay Spanish), The Birthdaymython/El Cumplemitón (for the enjoyment of my great nieces and great nephews and of anyone who has a birthday) and Booknosey/Fisgalibros (for and with my once pupils).