Curds and Whey Box Set

by G M Eppers

  “There’s no danger. It’s fully inspected and it’s great promotion for the industry.”

  “You mean it doesn’t make you the least bit uneasy?”

  “No.” There was a moment of silence. I could tell he didn’t believe me. And I wasn’t sure he was wrong. Even though I spent most of my days securing dangerous Uber, part of my job was also encouraging safe cheese consumption. “I’m not even planning to be there this year. What brought you to Springfield?”

  “WHEY is here protesting the governor’s order to ban string cheese in schools. He also signed a bill requiring the state to pay 25% of funeral costs for victims of Uber. That’s ridiculous. Anyone stupid enough to eat Uber should pay their own funeral costs. I stopped in to say hello and your Mom was already crocheting this gigantic thing in gray and green.”

  “Give her half a Klonopin and make her take a nap.” I said. “There’s a lot of contraband cheese out there, Butte. It’s not always the victim’s fault. The governor probably meant to incentivize the state FDA affiliate to do a better job of inspecting. It makes sense.”

  “It’s over regulation. It’s unnecessary.”

  “Oh, it’s not going to break their bank. What did Illinois get last year, ten whole cases of Obstruction? It won’t even make a dent in the Federal subsidy.”

  “That doesn’t make it right. It’s taxpayer money.”

  My fingernails on my other hand were digging into my palm. How did I get into this argument again? Quickly but silently I counted to ten. Drop it, I told myself. Just drop it. He will never understand compassion. “Never mind. Let’s not go there, okay? Let me know how it goes tomorrow. Don’t forget the Klonopin.”

  “I don’t know. She’s crocheting at a pretty good pace. Does crocheting involve incantations?”

  “Sometimes. Make it a whole Klonopin.”

  I disconnected, then sat a moment, calming myself down. It had been frightening at first, thinking that perhaps Mom had fallen ill or been injured. Now I was just a bit confused. It had been years since I’d thought about the assassination of President Dacto. It was a closed case, after all. He was voted into office in the midst of the OOPS, long before the cause was identified, with the world in chaos. He had been shot at long range during his inauguration speech on the West Front of the Capitol Building. Less than fifteen minutes later, the shooter, an African American named Amadi Obeseki, was found dead by his own hand on the observation level of the Washington Monument. A 9mm Glock was in his hand and a precision long range sniper rifle with laser sight and silencer was lying near him. Within minutes after that, Dacto’s vice president, Sequoia Glenarrow, was sworn in as president and whisked away to a secret location. Although every aspect of the incident was investigated thoroughly for several months, nothing more was ever found. It seemed Obeseki had acted alone. His motivation was considered to be political since President Dacto had run on a world peace agenda. There always seems to be some warmongering nutball who can’t stand the idea of peace. Uber had yet to be identified, and the underground black market was nascent at best, so as much as we were tempted to blame something bigger, it simply wasn’t there.

  I shook my head. Odds were that some local killer had simply taken an easy way of disposing of his victims by dumping them in open graves, perhaps throwing just enough dirt on top to disguise them. In any case, it was a problem for the Springfield PD to solve, not me. Still, the idea of a serial killer loose in my hometown wasn’t particularly comforting either.

  I heard noises downstairs and shook off the reverie, jumping off the bed. The team had returned! I hurried down the steps in time to meet Billings, who had just finished hanging up his coat in the front closet. From the third step up it was an easy reach to give him the bear hug I’d been longing for. He was my son, but had surpassed my modest height before graduating eighth grade. “Welcome home, Billings,” I said as I squeezed hard. “I missed you all so much. How was Australia?”

  It was Sylvia’s first time down under, but the others had all been there before. “Oh, it’s a beautiful country!” she said with a broad smile, hanging her coat in the front closet.

  “Beautiful country, my ass!” protested Badger, handing his coat to Sylvia.

  Nitro did likewise, and Sylvia gracefully accepted the role of coat check girl. “You’re just saying that because that koala peed on you,” he said to Badger.

  “And I can still smell it! I’m taking a shower.” He climbed the steps, taking his go bag with him.

  “Maybe you just naturally smell like koala pee and you’re just now realizing it,” I suggested.

  From the first landing, Badger called down, “I’ll be down in a tick!”

  Shouting a little louder to cover the distance, I added, “I’d prefer you come down in clothes!”

  He shouted back one more time from far above. “Bite me!” Then we heard his door close.

  “He took a shower on the plane,” Billings told me.

  “Maybe he ran out of soap,” suggested Sir Haughty, tossing his go bag, like the others, in a pile at the bottom of the steps and heading to the kitchen for mail call.

  I stepped around the bags. The pile was much smaller than usual. “Wait a minute, where are Roxy and the twins?” I asked.

  Billings still had a relaxed arm across my shoulders. “Oh, Roxy had to stop at the dry cleaners, and the twins went to their tailor to discuss wedding dresses.” The twins, Agnes and Avis Nicely, each had her own set of arms and legs. Separating them these days would have been a simple procedure, but they had no interest in it. Their parents raised them to be unashamed of their condition, seeing that they were trained in martial arts from an early age for self-protection. Billings, my son, had announced his engagement to Avis Nicely a couple of months ago.

  “Isn’t it early for that? You haven’t even set a date yet.” I said as the rest of them migrated to their respective piles around the kitchen table. Immediately, several envelopes were flung with unerring inaccuracy toward the trashcan in the corner.

  “Not really. Do you have any idea how hard it is to make a wedding dress for one conjoined twin and a bridesmaid dress for the other?”

  “Bridesmaid?” Sylvia, with short, black hair and a dimpled chin, had one blazing emerald eye. The other was covered with an eye patch due to an injury some months ago. “Oh, she’s going to recruit me, too. It better not be hideous. I’m not a dress person. They never look good on me.”

  “I wouldn’t know from hideous,” said Billings, leafing through his variety of envelopes. He folded up the two magazines he’d received and tucked them under his arm. “But I’ll pass your concerns to Avis when I see her.”

  “Text her. Right now.” Sylvia insisted, pointing a finger to direct him to take out his phone. “Nothing hideous.”

  With a sigh, Billings pulled out his phone and texted with one thumb.

  There was a brief moment of silence, which was broken by Knobby who blurted, “Helena says she’s not going.”

  I glared at him. Nitro responded, “Don’t be silly. We’re all going.”

  “Oh, don’t make a federal case out of it. There’s no reason for me to be there. I don’t like cheese. I won’t be eating any cheese.”

  “I’ll eat yours,” offered Sylvia. “I loved cheese,” she continued nostalgically. “I can’t wait. It’s my first trip to the White House and I haven’t eaten cheese in almost ten years. This is the first time it’s been 100% absolutely positively verified safe enough for me to chance it. And I’ll get to meet the President, and don’t they serve champagne, too? Very classy.”

  “What are you wearing?” I asked her. “It’s supposed to be formal for us and you just said you never look good in a dress.”

  “I’ll find something,” she said, noticing that Nitro had received a small, square package. She exchanged a look with him. He nodded at her and she sucked in air. How I wanted to ask what it was, but if they didn’t want to share I couldn’t. Sometimes it sucks to be polite. Stupid filter.
/>
  Billings’ phone vibrated and he checked it. “Sylvia, Avis wants to know how you feel about polka dots.”

  Sylvia grabbed the phone from his hand and began texting back herself. “How do you increase the font size on this thing? Oh, never mind. I’ve got it.”

  “I understand this year it’s Durrus,” said Sir Haughty. His full name and unofficial title is Sir Francis Maxwell Haughty IV. He acquired the “sir” unofficially from an English friend of his after an evening of drunken debauchery and insisted he be called Sir Haughty ever after, at least among ourselves. He’s very tall, though not quite as tall as Billings, and also very very British in a not too shabby Colin Firth kind of way.

  “Sir Haughty, are you doing the usual commentary?” I asked. Sir Haughty is a renowned expert on cheeses.

  “Of course.”

  “And Nitro, I assume you’re on the inspection committee?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Well then, CURDS is well represented. I don’t need to be there.”

  Billings said, “I’m not explaining to President Glenarrow. She will send the Service after you if you don’t show up.”

  I decided the best way to avoid this argument was to change the subject. I turned to Nitro, who now had the mysterious square box tucked under his arm while he leafed through Physician’s Monthly. “How soon can we get my recertification out of the way?”

  He stopped leafing and smiled, but not at me directly. “Gee, I don’t know. I’m really busy.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Billings. “Places to go, people to see. He might not get around to that for weeks.”

  Sylvia jumped in, adjusting her eye patch. “Yeah, maybe months even. I’m thinking around St. Patrick’s Day maybe.”

  Not to be left out, Sir Haughty said “Without a doubt.”

  “Told you,” said Knobby from his position in the outskirts.

  I rolled my eyes and groaned. They were ganging up on me. “All right. All right. If I agree to attend the BBCD tomorrow will you recertify me today?”

  “Meet you in the yard in five minutes,” Nitro said without hesitation. He turned and carried his mail into his room which is at the end of the hallway off the kitchen. “Don’t forget to stretch.”

  Five minutes later, as I finished some deep knee bends and lunges, Nitro came out in a light jacket carrying a clipboard. “You know the drill, Helena. Ten reps each and twice up the wall. Where do you want to start?”

  “I’ll do the laps first,” I said, starting to jog in place. The air was crisp, the temperature in the upper 30s. The sky was gray with cloud cover. Some of the equipment was inside the loop of dirt track and some outside. There were three hurdles placed equidistant around it. I entered the track and started running counter-clockwise while Nitro counted off my laps. After five laps, I turned around and ran clockwise until Nitro called it at ten. There was no stopwatch. It wasn’t a race, and I was able to pace myself so I didn’t get too winded.

  After the laps, I jumped on the horizontal ladder and started swinging across. This time, I counted with him each time I reached an end. I varied the method, going hand-over-hand one way and head over heels another. That’s a really fast way across. You just raise your legs up to grip the sides with your ankles, drop upside down, then swing backwards until you can reach a bar behind you. Twist as you pull your feet down and you’re there. “I know Billings will send me the report, but tell me how it went in Australia,” I asked, to show how bored I was as I hung upside down for a moment. “Five.”

  “Three,” said Nitro calmly. “We found the Cheddar plant deep in the outback. Kind of amazing actually, to see the cooperation between all the aboriginal tribes to keep the thing on the move. It migrated deep inland to change hands then came toward the shore to sell. When they were out of finished cheese they used the profits to buy raw ingredients. We confiscated all the equipment, but didn’t put anyone in custody. Now five.”

  “Any injuries?”

  “Roxy broke a nail. Sir Haughty got punched by a kangaroo, but don’t tell him I told you. He doesn’t want to talk about it.”

  “Why not? Nine.”

  “Seven.” It felt like nine. “Because of where he got hit.”

  I almost lost my grip. “You mean…?”

  “Right in the gumdrops. He couldn’t stand up for two hours. He just sat in the back of the rental jeep in the fetal position while we followed wheel ruts into the outback. Man, Australia is huge. Most people fly all over, but you can’t follow wheel ruts in a jumbo jet.”

  I moved on to the balance beam, my mother’s phone call fresh on my mind. “What do you know about exhumations?” I asked as I walked across the beam.

  “What?” I’d caught him off guard with the abrupt change in topic.

  “You know, where they dig up someone who was buried.”

  “Yes, I know what exhumation means. Why do you ask? Can you do a flip on the next pass, please?”

  I turned on the end of the beam and did forward flips until I got to the other side, feeling the stretch in my abdominals, then began walking the length backwards. “Two. I got a call from my mother that my father is being exhumed due to a police investigation. Six.”

  “Three. Keep that up and I’ll ask for more difficulty. How’s your double axel lately?” He joked. “What happened with your Dad?”

  “You remember President Dacto, right? He’s from my home town.”

  “He was assassinated. Sure. Four.”

  “His brother passed away and when they went to bury him they found what Butte referred to as ‘unauthorized bodies’. They are excavating rows on each side as part of the investigation.” I added, “Five,” just to placate him. I made another pass in a cartwheel and a half, this time feeling it in my obliques.

  “I’ve never participated in one. What do you need to know?”

  I stopped in the middle of the beam to do a brief handstand, “I told Mom there was nothing to worry about. They would put him back when they were finished. I mean, they probably don’t even open the casket, right? They aren’t going to disturb him?”

  Nitro wrote something on the clipboard, maybe that I was argumentative, or maybe he was using hashes to count my reps. As I turned on the end of the beam I saw Billings come out to the back porch to watch. He leaned against a support beam and crossed his arms. “You’re probably right,” said Nitro. It’s not his body they are investigating. Let me guess, your mother isn’t taking it well.”

  “Couch cozy.” It sounded more extreme than afghan, but it was more or less the same thing. And if Billings overheard he would still never suspect. Mom made cozies for everything.

  “Oh dear. Maybe it’s more worry about a killer being on the loose than just your Dad. Okay, that’s ten. What’s next?”

  I hopped off the beam. This wasn’t the Olympics. I didn’t need to do a dramatic dismount and raise my arms in triumph which was good because I didn’t think my back would arch like that without something cramping. I went over to climb around on the jungle gym for a while, weaving in and out between the bars. “It sounded like she was just freaked about him being dug up. About the dead bodies being there, but not necessarily why they were there. That’s what’s got me worried, though.” I went to the top, which wasn’t really very high, and waved at Billings. When Nitro was satisfied, he told me to move on. I had the wall and the chin-up bar left to do. I went to the wall, climbed up, rappelled down, then did it again. Distance and exertion made it hard to continue the conversation so I did it relatively quietly.

  “Check. Okay, Helena. That leaves chin-ups.” My arms were a little tired from the wall climb, but I jumped up and grabbed the chin-up bar on the first try. Then I hung there for a moment, taking breaths. Chin-ups are hard. I probably should have done them first. “You all right, Helena?” Nitro asked when I hesitated. I looked over at Billings, who straightened up and dropped his arms. He wasn’t allowed to help me.

  “Just oxygenating,” I said calmly, adjusting my grip. I had wor
ked extra hard on the chin-ups because the equipment was new, and the lack of this particular skill had contributed to my injuries. It wasn’t standard fare like the rest of my exercises. I pulled myself up until my chin cleared the bar. “One.”

  “Four?” offered Nitro, well aware of how difficult they were.

  “Anyone for eight?” I asked, completing another chin-up. “Two.” I proceeded to do my ten required chin-ups, counting each one accurately. Finally, I dropped from the bar. “Well?”

  “You’re cleared.” He made a giant check mark on the clipboard. “Welcome back!”

  Billings gave me a round of applause. It was only after stopping that I noticed the temperature had dropped. Maybe it was just that I was sweating, but it felt noticeably colder than when I had come out. Nitro seemed okay, but I felt thoroughly chilled. “Brrr. When did it get so cold out here?”

  “Somewhere around the fourth lap,” Nitro said. “Let’s get inside.”

  I ran ahead of him and Billings reached out as if I needed help to get up the stairs, his engagement ring glinting in the porchlight. They’d each gotten a polished silver band with a little notch in it that would join perfectly with the gold wedding band eventually. No big gemstones sticking out and getting in the way. “Good job, Mom. I can pass the baton now, right?”

  “In a hurry?” I kidded him as we went into the kitchen. The table was now cleared of mail and there was a pile of envelopes on the floor near the garbage can. I bent down and scooped them up and put them in the trash, then went to the kitchen sink for a drink of water. “Make sure Badger files your mission report first. Once you sign off on that, I think we’re good to go.”

  Nitro moved past me to open the refrigerator, setting his clipboard on the counter. I could see that the only thing on it was a plain white page with a couple scribbles and the giant checkmark. “I’m starved! You would think I was the one doing all the exercise out there. What have we got? Oooo, Chinese!”

  Nitro is vegan. “I got a vegetable stir fry for you. It’s marked.”