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 24: Mooch, searching for the mayor in his dark house, approached another door.

            This next door, also open, revealed a dim bathroom in which pink teddy bears seemed to dance in midair. But Mooch realized he was looking at a shower curtain. And a musty smell almost made him sneeze.
            Mooch, as silent as a sunset, approached the last door. His heart pounded as he turned the wobbly doorknob. A huge bed fell into sight.
            “AAACHOOOOOO!”
            “Oh, my goodness!” he thought. “I’ve woken him up for sure! Wait a minute. I HAVE to wake him up. I have a job to do. I’ve come to SEE the mayor.”
            The bed, however, was empty.
            Feeling disappointed, Mooch slowly returned to the stairwell, thinking: “Should I wait?—I mean, he’s clearly out. I could crawl between his sheets and get his attention when he goes to bed.”
            “AAACHOOOOOO!”
            Mooch lost his balance. Down the stairs he bounced, groaning with each thud, until he crashed at the bottom. “Ow!” he muttered. “My head! My ribs! My knees and elbows!”
            Then he heard the front door unlock. He tried to stand, but walls seemed to sway. “Hide!” he told himself.
            Dizzily, he managed to escape into a hall closet, closing the door to just a crack. But he’d forgotten he’d come to see the mayor, not avoid him.

NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 26: A horrified mayor meets fed up Mooch.

            At a glance, the mayor looked like a snowman in a suit. He entered the hall, flicked on a light-switch, burped, and walked directly to the nearest closet.
            Mooch, inside the closet, panicked. He lost his balance on boots and shoes, tumbled out, and landed on the mayor’s oxfords.
            “Mr. Mayor,” Mooch tried to say. But he just sputtered.
            “A quibil!” The fat mayor staggered backwards, disappearing through an open doorway. Down basement stairs he clattered, howling the whole trip.
            “A quibil indeed!” Mooch said. He’d had enough of this. To his feet he jumped. He flipped a light-switch, lighting up the stairwell, and down the stairs he charged, landing on the mayor’s belly.
            “Oomph!” Buttons sprang off the mayor’s tweed vest. He raised one arm, shielding his face.
            “Listen here,” Mooch said, pointing at the mayor, “and listen hard. Why do you humans act like lunatics every time you meet a quibil?”
            The mayor’s jowls shook. “Why?” Giddiness made him laugh. “Because...because...quibils stink.”
            Mooch pulled at his ears. “Because quibils stink?”
            “Yes. Quibils smell. Now get off—ohhh!—my belly.”
            Mooch stepped down to a cement floor. “You’re saying I stink!?”

NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 27: The mayor nibbles a fingernail, burps, and sniffs the air. But he finds that something is wrong, something is missing.

            “Yes,” the mayor said, labouring to get up. He sniffed the air. “Yes...er...I mean...That’s absurd. You’re supposed to stink.”
            “Well,” Mooch said, “do I stink, or don’t I?”
            The mayor nibbled a fingernail. He burped. “Apparently...you don’t...But you should!”
            “You humans are really something,” Mooch said. “You chase us out of town as if we’re criminals. And why? Because we stink. But you say we don’t.”
            “Yes...this morning...terrible. You quibils caused a lot of trouble.”
            “Is that a fact?” Mooch said. “We peacefully came to town. We wanted to know why Miss Snapdragon, the teacher, was so mean to Hooper Quirk, our friend. And we caused a lot of trouble? Who chased whom? In case you’re confused,” he added, pointing to himself, “WE were beaten and chased. Not you.”
            “Yes,” the mayor said, dusting off his suit. “All because you...stink.”
            “But you said I don’t stink. And I’ll tell you something else. The quibils are preparing right now to attack Porksville and chop off everybody’s head.”
            The mayor’s big, round face looked as blank as a full moon.
            “I don’t understand it,” he said. “You’re supposed to stink!” Then, with his teeth, he attacked a hangnail.

NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 28: The mayor sucks his thumb and says, “Goo, goo.”

            Mooch and the mayor drank boysenberry tea at the kitchen table:
            “I don’t understand it,” the mayor said. “And the stink—when you quibils came to town. Smelling salts had to be used to revive people. But it took Dr. Dewknob’s pepper juice to wake up Miss Snapdragon. Ha! She awoke with such a start that she belted him and gave him a black eye. Ha! Ha!”
            “Ffffffffup!” Mooch said, sipping his tea, and then he added, “Humans, except for Hooper and his parents, are bats.”
            “And yet,” the mayor said, gazing at Mooch, “here we are having tea.”
            “King Quibil is planning a lop-off-your-head-party,” Mooch reminded him.
            “Yes!” The mayor returned to his nails: “But you don’t stink.”
            “We have to stop this war,” Mooch said.
            “Yes, of course,” the mayor agreed.
            “So, you’re in charge. What do you propose?” Mooch asked.
            The mayor’s face, which was usually round and pale, was round and white. Then he stuck a thumb into his mouth. He sucked and sucked. Colour returned to his face.
            “The least you could do is apologize to King Quibil,” Mooch said. “Maybe that’ll calm him down.”
            The happy-looking mayor removed his slobbery thumb from his mouth, and said, “Goo, goo.”

NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 29: Quibils decide to sharpen swords, daggers, and spears until they’re as sharp as razor blades.

            While Mooch returned from his meeting with the mayor, the king made attack-plans:
            “We’ll march out,” the king said, “right after I drink my morning tea.” He snorted. “Open up the Chest of Weapons!”
            The Chest of Weapons contained swords, daggers, and spears.
            “Sharpen them,” the king ordered, trying to thump the stone floor with his Royal Rod. But he hit a toe. “Ouch!” Up he sprang, dancing, and yelling, “Sharpen them until they’re as sharp as razor blades!”
            “Razor blades!” many agreed.
            The king sat down. He sucked his sore toe. Then he pulled it out. “Chop off their heads!”
            “Chop off their heads!”
            Mooch arrived. The fever in the Royal Cave seemed strange. He felt alone. But, these quibils were his friends and relatives. He thought about the fever—and fun—at the July Bat Feast. This, however, was different.
Quibil teeth had never looked so long and sharp. Quibil eyes had never seemed so wild. A knot in his stomach felt as if it sucked strength from the rest of his body. His arms and legs grew weak.
            The king pounded his Royal Rod on the floor, making sure he missed his toes. “Where have you been? Why don’t you get that chicken tail cut off?”

NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 30: Mooch descends headfirst into a dark pit.

            Mooch and the king had been great friends, so the king’s harsh voice sounded off-key.
            “I’ve come from Porksville,” Mooch said nervously, wondering if he should have said, “I’ve been moon watching.”
            “What?” the king blurted, standing up from his throne.
            Mooch trembled. “I’ve come from Porksville,” he repeated.
            “Spy! What have you spilled?” the king said, pointing his Royal Rod at Mooch’s nose. “Have you told them our secret plan?”
            “I didn’t know we had a secret plan.”
            “Don’t be daft,” the king said. “What is a war without a secret plan?”
            “That’s right!” another quibil said.
            Mooch took a deep breath. He spoke about his visit with the mayor. He explained that quibils stink—but maybe don’t. Unfortunately, telling the story tongue tied him.
            “Throw the spy into the dungeon,” the king ordered.
            Two guards, cheered on my many quibils, dragged Mooch by the feet. He bumped along a torch-lit tunnel, to the dark dungeon.
            The dungeon was a deep pit.
            The guards easily convinced Mooch, as they had convinced Mr. and Mrs. Quirk, that being lowered by rope was better than being tossed in. In short, they tied a rope around Mooch’s ankles and lowered him headfirst.

NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 31: Mrs. Quirk threatens to break quibils’ necks; Miss Snapdragon gloats over telling Hooper: “People and vegetables should be separate!”

            Two guards had tied rope around Mooch’s ankles. They lowered him headfirst into the dungeon. Blood rushed to his head. The pressure made him feel as if his brain might explode. He felt queasy, too, and wondered if he could keep from throwing up (down) on Mr. and Mrs. Quirk.
            “I’m going to break your necks!” Mrs. Quirk yelled. “You fur balls!”
            Mooch covered his mouth...
**
            As he did this, Miss Snapdragon, in her living- room, poured a glass of pepper juice, and grumbled:
            “I hate children!” She placed the crystal juice decanter back in her dusty china cabinet. “I hate the way they cough and burp.”
          “Brats!” She settled down between lumpy cushions on a love seat. “That rotten child,” she said. “Hooper the Pooper! Ha! He has ears like a cauliflower. Ha!” She swatted a horsefly in midair. It crashed on the wood-stove, twitched on its back, and began to smoke. And she remembered telling Hooper that people and vegetables should be separate. “Haaaaaa!”
            A splash of pepper juice tumbled into her windpipe. Her chest burned. Awkwardly, she placed the glass on a rosewood table, trying to compose herself. But coughs shot up her windpipe, like Roman candle-fireballs.

NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 32: Arthur, the baker, threatens to get Miss Snapdragon fired.

            Stooped over in pain, Miss Snapdragon paced back and forth. She wiped her stinging eyes. The phone rang.
            “Hello!” she said.
            “Hello.”
            “For goodness sakes.” She coughed. “Who is this?”
            “Arthur, the baker.”
            “Well, whoopee-do.” Then she thought she saw a face at the window above the velvet armchair. She took a second look, but all she saw between the open blue curtains were lilac leaves.
            “The town council wants to speak to you about the quibil invasion this morning,” Arthur said. “We want to meet you at the Town Hall immediately.”
            “Is that a fact? Well, I’m no town father. I’m a teacher. I teach brats—children.” She coughed. Her throat hurt. “Why don’t you phone the mayor? Isn’t he supposed to be in charge? Or is he too fat to make the trip all the way to the Town Hall?”
            “You, you...” He nearly called her a bag of wind. “Some of us think there’s a link between your new student, Hooper, and the quibil-invasion.” The baker took a deep breath. “So, Miss Snapdragon, you must come—or I’ll have the Town Council fire you.”
            “That’s telling her,” his nearby wife said.
            “Fine, then!” Miss Snapdragon slammed down the receiver. “You idiots!”

NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 33: Miss Snapdragon, forced to attend a meeting at the Town Hall, does what she does best—insult people.

            Miss Snapdragon obeyed Arthur—not that she wanted to. Five minutes after she’d hung up the phone, she was sitting with four others in the Town Hall (a lean-to beside the library).
            “Goo, goo,” the mayor said, tapping wet fingers on the walnut table.
            “He was playing with blocks on his porch,” the butcher said.
            “This is absurd,” Miss Snapdragon said. Her hair-do looked as stiff as wood. Her eyes squinted because of the ceiling light glare. “What am I doing here?”
            “Achoo!” Betsy said. “This place is mouldy.” She locked her high heels together, for something to do, and gazed around the room. “What a dump,” she thought: plywood showed through the linoleum in spots, and warped walls boasted dusty cobwebs.
            “Mr. Mayor,” Arthur said, while scratching his Roman nose, “what has happened to you?”
            “As I told you,” the butcher said, “he was playing with blocks on his porch. He didn’t even recognize me.”
            The mayor’s vest had no buttons. He looked as blank as a cabbage, and sucked his thumb.
            “Is this why you dragged me from my home?” Miss Snapdragon asked. “Or do I get overtime for watching the mayor drool?”

NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 34: The butcher accuses Miss Snapdragon of causing the quibil invasion.

            “We have a serious problem,” Arthur reminded Miss Snapdragon. “We were invaded by quibils this morning.”
            “How brilliant,” Miss Snapdragon said. “I didn’t notice fainting from the smell. I didn’t notice that witch doctor, Dewknob, pouring pepper juice down my throat, trying to choke me to death.”
            “Miss Snapdragon!” the butcher said. “We think you’re the cause of the quibil invasion.”
            “Is that a fact?” Miss Snapdragon said. “And I think you’re nitwits.”
            The butcher had buggy eyes. He stood up.
            “Achoo!” Betsy said.
            Arthur said the same.
            “Goo, goo.”
            “Morons!” Miss Snapdragon said.
            “You, you battle-axe!” the butcher said. “What have you been teaching those kids, anyway? My son says you’ve been talking about some woman called Catherine The Not-So-Great. And what about that other woman called Joan of Bark?”
            “Achoo!” Betsy repeated.
            Muscles in Miss Snapdragon’s neck bulged. “Read your herstory books, like we do, Mr. Know-It-All,” she said, accenting every syllable. “Then you’d know exactly who they were.”
            “Achoo!” Arthur said. “We’re—ah!—getting nowhere.” His thick eyebrows jerked up and down as if they were trying to leap off his face.
            “Listen here!” The butcher pounded his fist on the table. “I’m not finished!”

NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 35: Miss Snapdragon denies having a problem with Hooper.

            The butcher glared at Miss Snapdragon. “Who on earth is Bob Peanut? You told the children that he invented beef broth!”
            “Why don’t you read your son’s history book and find out? Or don’t you know how to read?”
            “Ahhhh!” the red-faced butcher said.
            “Goo, goo.”
            “Ah, ah, ahhh!” Arthur said, squeezing his nose. “Achoo!”
            Betsy’s eyes watered, blurring her vision. “Did you and Hooper Quirk have a problem today?” she asked Miss Snapdragon, blinking her eyes hard.
            “Hooper? That orange kid with cauliflower ears? Of course not.”
            “Dorothy said he ran out of the school because you upset him,” Betsy said.
            “Upset him?” Miss Snapdragon said. “Your Dorothy is a gossip and ought to be caned.”
            “Miss Snapdragon! I declare!”
            “Goo, goo.” The mayor studied his thumbs. “Heads.”
            “The quibils and Quirks are friends,” Betsy told Miss Snapdragon. “If you insulted Hooper, that might explain why the quibils came to town. Maybe they wanted to know why you were so rude to him.”
            Miss Snapdragon rose, unlike the butcher who sat down. “There was no problem in class,” she said. “Do you hear? Are you deaf?” She kicked her chair away.
            Betsy sneezed.
            “You’re fired!” Arthur said. “You should be fired.”

NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 36: Find out about the Town Hall cave-in.

            “Fired?” Miss Snapdragon said. “Excuse me. Have you forgotten that I came to this dump to teach your brats?”
            She turned to leave. She stomped a foot. A bronze tablet that read “THE MEEK SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH” fell off a wall. Twelve rotten floor joists snapped. Through the floor, and down to the cool belly of mud and wood bugs, everybody sailed, screaming as if each were getting pulled through a meat grinder.
            Dr. Dewknob, out for a peaceful stroll, heard wailing as the members of the town council and Miss Snapdragon floundered in muck beneath the Town Hall.
            “What on earth?” he said as he stood on Main Street, under a streetlight. “Not more quibils?!”
            He sniffed...Nothing. He relaxed.
            Realizing the wailing came from the direction of the Town Hall, he relaxed more. Once he’d opened the door and saw, below, arms waving like the tentacles of a deep sea monster, he laughed.
            “What do we have here?” he asked. “Birds of paradise?”
            “Get us out of here!” the butcher demanded.
            The doctor rescued Miss Snapdragon first.
            “The world is full of lunatics!” she said, her hair falling down her face in stringy globs. And she didn’t even thank the doctor or stay behind to help rescue the others. Instead, she stormed homeward and cried.

NEXT EPISODE/CHAPTER 37: Meet Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

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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