Lukiv

QUIBILS AND QUIRKS
(the original text as serialized in The Cariboo Observer)

Dan Lukiv, M.Ed.
English and Creative Writing
McNaughton Centre, Quesnel, BC, Canada
E-mail: lukivdan@shaw.ca

LAST EPISODE/CHAPTER 12: Mr. Quirk grabbed his wife and made her sit on his lap. "I want a kiss," he’d said. "Yuck!" Hooper said. "I want to visit Mooch."

            "For land sakes." Mrs. Quirk struggled to get off her husband's lap. "When will you grow up?"
            "Oh, Mable." He snickered as she stomped her feet. "You're still a spring chicken."
            "I want to visit Mooch," Hooper announced again.
            Mrs. Quirk yanked at her husband's nearest ear-lobe.
            "Ow!" he said, releasing her.
            "That's the last time I make you carrot cake," she said.
            Mr. Quirk laughed. He devoured his slice of cake, then opened the Q-volume of Professor Hamburger's Encyclopaedia.
            "I want to visit Mooch," Hooper repeated. "He's my best friend."
            "You can't wander through the forest at night," Mrs. Quirk said. "You might get lost."
            "Mable, you're a worrywart. He can follow a trail," Mr. Quirk said.
            Her eyes flashed. She stood between Hooper and her husband. "It's dark."
            "All the better to see fireflies," Mr. Quirk said. "And besides, the moon's out; the sky's clear. That's enough light for anybody."
            "A fine help you are," she said. "Bears could eat him."
            "Really, Mable. We know all the bears around here. And we have to let him go sooner or later."
            "Mr. Helpful!" she said. "I suppose you'd send him away in a spaceship if that's what he wanted."
            NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 14: Hooper discovers Professor Hamburger's time machine.

"Can I go?" Hooper asked. "I want to visit Mooch!"
Mrs. Quirk said she'd washed her hands of the matter. Mr. Quirk reminded her that Hooper needed some fun.
Hooper wasted no time finding his wind breaker and leather shoes. He tied his laces as Mr. Quirk, looking surprised, read his wife a paragraph from the Q-volume:

            Stink from quibils makes   people act   savage...Booger
            Jimm knew an antidote...but he died...by tumbling   down
            Booger   Hill. He became   a    gigantic   snowball    that
            rolled through Porksville, flattening the museum.

            Mr. Quirk scratched his chin. "What do you think about that, Mable?"
            "What do I think? I think that if any trouble comes to Hooper," she said, "you'll be warmer at the North Pole."
            Hooper, eager to see Mooch, skipped along, dashing his UFO through the air. But as he climbed up Booger Hill, he discovered something that shocked him.
            Blue, yellow, and red lights flashed. Hooper stepped back. "My lord!" he muttered. He faced a contraption, on level ground, that resembled a fenderless 4x4 car that had a control centre like a doorless wheel house from a tugboat—a contraption that banged repeatedly, rattling Hooper's eardrums, and that wavered like a mirage in a desert.
            NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 15: Hooper meets Professor Hamburger, and pushes a button that he should not push.

            The banging and wavering stopped. Hooper saw a bony, bearded man sitting before a control panel.
            "This isn't 1925!" the man said. He mumbled that Booger Jimm knew the quibil stink antidote, which would help people and quibils become friends. "Now I have to re-set this time machine."
            "Hello," Hooper said, but the man didn't hear. "Hello!" he repeated.
            "What?" The startled man jumped up, smacking his head on a fuse box. That knocked him out. Out of the time machine he tumbled. Down he came, landing on Hooper.
            Flattened Hooper pushed and wriggled. Finally, he escaped. Up he sat.
            The man groaned. He opened his eyes halfway, reached out, and said, "I've got to stop the war! Tomorrow! I must!"
            "Who are you?" Hooper asked, crouching beside the bony man.
            "Professor Hamburger," he said, his eyelids fluttering, and then they closed.
            Hooper's mother had said the professor was dead. But there he lay, still breathing, with his bearded face in the dirt.
            Hooper decided to hurry home to get some help. But: "I'll stop for just a moment," he thought: "Sit in the leather seat, take a closer look at the dials and buttons—No, I should run home." He stepped inside. He sat down. "I'll rush home. Professor Hamburger needs help. Yes!"
            Then he pushed a blue button...

            Unknown to uneducated Hooper, the words above the blue button read "AUTO REVERSE."
            The time machine banged. Professor Hamburger, sprawled on the ground, jerked, sat up, and placed one hand on his sore head. He had bits of dirt and moss in his beard.
            Hooper heard him shout: "Oh, no!"
            "Get out!" Hooper told himself. But a rainbow of colours swirling around the cockpit almost hypnotized him.
            Professor Hamburger shakily rose to his feet. The banging time machine flickered, like a flame in a draft, and then vanished.
            "Noooo!" The professor grabbed two handfuls of hair, and pulled. "Ohhhh! My head! Noooo! Come back!"
            The rainbow-swirl that filled the cockpit dazed Hooper. He clutched both armrests: "Heeeeeelp!"
            The banging stopped. The rainbow disappeared. That allowed Hooper to again see the flashing blue, yellow, and red lights.
            "Chop off their heads!" somebody roared.
            "Ahhhhhh!"
            The time machine—time and space machine, actually—had landed in a clearing fenced off from the source of the racket by a row of birch trees. A flat-roofed grocery store edged one side of the clearing, a brick bakery the other. This was Porksville!
            Hooper climbed down from the time machine, and, peaking between two birch trunks, found armed quibils chasing people along Main Street. Miss Snapdragon ran by, screaming and waving her arms.
            NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 17: A quibil wants to lop off Hooper's head.

LAST EPISODE/CHAPTER 16: Hooper, in the time machine, landed in Porksville during the quibil-invasion.

            "There's another one!" a quibil waving a sword yelled. "He's hiding in those trees!"
            Hooper froze.
            "Charge!" the quibil exclaimed. "I'll lop off his orange head!"
            Hooper unfroze. He ran to and jumped into the time machine, and he began pushing buttons. Nothing happened. He pushed more buttons. Nothing happened.
            The quibil, now standing in front of the time machine, looked confused. Flashing lights reflected along the blade of his sword. Then he bared his teeth. Hooper hadn't realized a quibil's teeth could be so big. And white. The quibil began swinging his glinting sword as if it were a nunchuk. He could have been a dumpling-shaped Ninja-killer. Hooper pushed a green button beside a dial that read "1925." That's when the time machine began to bang again, and that's when the weird rainbow returned (the wavering was visible only from the outside).
            He heard the quibil call out: "Wait! Aren't you Hooper? Yes, you are, aren't you? We've been looking for you. Where are you going?"
            The last words Hooper heard the quibil say were: "Come back!"
            But Hooper couldn't go back. He was totally, completely gone.
            NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 18: Hooper continues his ride to who knows where; Mr. Quirk tries to convince his wife that Hooper, who left to visit Mooch, is fine.

            As Hooper traveled through time (and space), Mr. Quirk carved a chunk of soap into a Viking warship.
            Mrs. Quirk stirred a pot of porridge. "Hooper can eat this when he gets home. If he ever gets home!"
            "Mable," Mr. Quirk said, "you worry too much."
            "YOU," she said. "YOU carve boats while our son could be someone's supper."
            Mr. Quirk laughed. "Who would eat him?"
            "I'm warning you, Matthew. My nerves are acting up."
            At the newly replaced kitchen window, he said, "Come here."
            "I'm busy."
            "Mable," he said, "I want to show you something."
            Reluctantly, she joined him. "The porridge'll burn, Matthew."
            "Look," he said. "See the silver moon? This is the most beautiful valley in the world."
            "Porksville has gone mad, Matthew."
            Mr. Quirk frowned.
            Someone pounded on the door. Feeling spooked, Mrs. Quirk dropped her ladle.
            Mr. Quirk opened the door: the cross-eyed Royal Attendant clutched a spear. Five other quibils—guards—waved swords. The six had trekked along the path that topped Booger Hill, unlike Hooper who'd taken the lower path.
            "You're under arrest," the Royal Attendant said. "King Quibil places you under arrest until the war is over."
            NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 19: Mrs. Quirk is sure that something terrible has happened to Hooper.

            "We're under arrest until what war is over?" Mr. Quirk said.
            Mrs. Quirk rushed to the door. "Where's Hooper?"
            "Hooper?" The Royal Attendant had a gold tooth that twinkled. "How should I know? But I know the king wants to make sure spies don't spoil his lop-off-their-heads plan."
            "Heads?" Mrs. Quirk cried. "Where is my boy?"
            "I already told you," the attendant said. "How should I know?"
*
            Mr. and Mrs. Quirk, the Royal Attendant, and the five guards headed in moonlight along the lower path on Booger Hill.
            "Matthew, I think I'm going to be sick," warned Mrs. Quirk. She stomped one foot. A toad splattered on the path.
            "Let's just go along, dear. We'll find out what this is all about." Mr. Quirk reached into his trousers for his pipe. But, of course, it wasn't there. "We'll sort this out with the king."
            "Hooper had better be all right," Mrs. Quirk told the cross-eyed attendant. "If he's hurt, I'll hold you responsible. I'll have you skinned and roasted!"
            The attendant glowered. "The king will be pleased to learn you're a threat to quibil-safety."
            "Mable," Mr. Quirk said, "we must be calm."
            "Calm?" she exclaimed.
            "Yes." He studied the sparkling swords and spear. "Calm is the key."
            NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 20: Mrs. Quirk finds Hooper's toy UFO, but not Hooper, and has an anxiety attack.

            On Booger Hill, Mrs. Quirk found Hooper's shiny UFO in a bed of moss. She swung around, wildly scanning the dark forest. How monstrous trees looked! Limbs became arms of warriors! Giant killers wanted to destroy her son! Quibils became cannonballs shooting through space, aimed at her family!
            "Hooper!" she called.
            "Hooper!" echoed a nearby cave.
            "No harm has come to him from us," the cross-eyed Royal Attendant said, "and no harm will come to you if you cooperate." His gold tooth flashed. He shook his spear. "So move it!"
            *
            In the Royal Cave, Mr. and Mrs. Quirk faced King Quibil. Torches blazed. Shadows danced on rock walls. "I've had enough of this," Mrs. Quirk said. "Where's my son?"
            King Quibil whacked his Royal Rod on the hard floor. "I'll ask the questions!" He scowled at the Royal Attendant. "Where's Hooper?"
            "We couldn't find him," the attendant answered.
            "What?" The king grunted. "Why not?"
            "Our boy is missing," Mr. Quirk said. "I think we should send out a search party to find him."
            Many concerned quibils muttered to each other.
            "I hope he's all right," a mother said.
            "You don't suppose," another mother said, "that Horace, that bear, has eaten him, do you?"
            NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 21: King Quibil accuses Mr. and Mrs. Quirk of being spies.

            "Perhaps he's gone to town to spill our plan to the humans," the king said, leaning to one side.
            "Plan?" Mr. Quirk asked.
            The fat king leaned forward. "Listen here, I'm the one who asks questions." He closed one eye, peering at Mr. and Mrs. Quirk. "Why are you orange? We were in town today and saw some humans. You're orange, but they aren't."
            "You idiot!" Mrs. Quirk said. "My son is lost!"
            "You aren't seriously planning to chop off everybody's head...tomorrow—are you?" Mr. Quirk asked.
            "What? Who told you our plan?" Each time the king got upset, his hair puffed up. "They're spies!"
            "No, um, I told them," the Royal Attendant said.
            "You told the enemy our secret plan?" the king asked.
            "They were our friends," the attendant weakly reminded the king.
            "Nonsense!" the king said
            "Idiot!" Mrs. Quirk said.
            Mr. Quirk coughed. "I suggest you send out a search party to look for my son."
            "I warned you, Matthew, didn't I?" Mrs. Quirk said. "I warned you not to send Hooper out at night."
            Mr. Quirk, feeling absent-minded, bit his tongue: "Ow!"
            "Chop, chop, chop!" the king said. "You might as well know. It'll be chop, chop, chop, and then there'll be justice."
            NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 22: Mooch has his own plan—to stop the war from taking place.

            Mooch felt dreadful. The king had actually sent Mr. and Mrs. Quirk to the dungeon. He had to do something. Things had become absurd. And they were going to get worse.
            Later that night, he headed for Porksville, darting between trees, fearing that a quibil would see him and report him as a spy. But he had to stop a war. So he had to speak to a human in charge—the mayor of Porksville.
            In town, he sneaked along a zigzag trail behind the west-side homes that lined Main Street. Finally, he spied the mayor's house. He'd heard it was a big, white box with lots of windows and purple curtains. Off the trail he slinked. As quietly as possible, he stepped through tall grass.
            But a squirrel, perched on a willow branch, began to chatter.
            "Shhhh!" Mooch whispered. "I've got enough problems without you attracting attention."
            "What's your beef?" the squirrel asked. "Have you got a thorn in your foot?" Then he chattered more. Another squirrel joined in, and a dog began barking.
            "This is great," Mooch thought. "I'll be found out. I'll be run out of town by madmen swinging brooms and meat cleavers. The quibils will invade tomorrow and chop off everybody's head. I'll be thrown into the king's dungeon as a spy."
            NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 23: A Doberman pinscher decides to attack Mooch.

            A dog barked.
            Mooch had just thought: "I'll be found out. I'll be run out of town by madmen swinging brooms and meat cleavers. The quibils will invade tomorrow and chop off everybody's head. I'll be thrown into the king's dungeon as a spy."
            The dog barked louder.
            "On the other hand," Mooch thought, "I could be captured by these crazy humans. They'll barbecue me at a town feast: "Pass a leg," the mayor will say. "Don't you dare eat that leg," Miss Snapdragon will protest. "The legs are mine. I like cracking them open and sucking out the marrow.""
            Mooch shuddered. The dog barked even louder. The butcher, in his nearby red rancher, slid up a bathroom window. "Shut up, why don't you!" he hollered.
            Mooch hid behind a willow trunk.
            "Can't I get any peace without—dogs driving me nuts?" the butcher yelled.
            Many dogs barked and howled, sounding as weird as the start of Beethoven's ninth symphony.
            "Whether I live or die," Mooch said, "I have a job to do." He bounded towards the mayor's house. But a Doberman pinscher seemed to drop from the sky. It snarled and lunged forward, opening its jaws wide, as if Mooch were a juicy rabbit.
            NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 24: Will the dog chew up Mooch? Will Mooch get to meet the mayor and stop the war?

            Through an open window, Mooch dove into the mayor's pantry. He scrambled to his feet and shut the window as the assassin-dog ran circles in tall grass and barked.
            "Savage," Mooch whispered, trying to breathe smoothly and calm down.
            He left the cloudy jars of pickles in the pantry and found, on the murky main floor, a living-room, kitchen, dining-room, and bathroom. He also found some stairs, which likely, he thought, led up to the mayor's bedroom.
            Up the long flight, Mooch began tiptoeing. And he reasoned, "I'll bet I know why the house is dark. The mayor's gone to bed early."
            Halfway, he passed a bear's head—a trophy—on the wall. But its gleaming teeth (the mouth was wide open) spooked him, as if the beast might suddenly come alive and chew off his arms and legs.
            At the top, on a dusky landing, Mooch, noting three doors, took deep breaths, edging along like a cat burglar.
            The first door—open—led to a moonlit den. Faded diplomas hung on walls, and three pairs of shoes sat on a hulky desk. But Mooch saw no mayor.
            Stealthily, he stepped along the hall to the next door...
            NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 25: The mayor comes home, and Mooch, his head and ribs aching, hides.

Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999 by Dan Lukiv. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

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