A Game of Groans: A Sonnet of Slush and Soot

by George R. R. Washington

  “That’s the first time anybody’s ever said that about me.” After the man pulled himself to his full height, Juan understood what he meant.

  The jerkoff gawked at the stick-figured giant and asked, “How tall are you?”

  The giant shrugged. “No idea what unit of measure they use around here. Feet? Meters? Cubits? Mud balls? My balls?” He offered Juan his hand and said, “Tritone Sinister, House Sinister’s resident japemeister.”

  Shaking hands, Juan said, “Juan Nieve, House Barker’s resident jerkoff.”

  Grinning, Tritone exclaimed, “You’re a jerkoff? Godsdamn it, I’m a jerkoff, too!”

  “Stop fooling with me, comediante.11 You look like a Sinister.”

  Tritone pointed at his long legs and said, “Do these legs look like those of a Sinister? I may be a full-blooded Sinister, but when you’re the only person in your family who has to duck to get into any room, you get treated like a jerkoff. I feel your pain, Shecky.”

  “How can they deny you? You look just like the Not-Kingslayer,” Juan noted, pointing at Tritone’s blond hair.

  “Gods forbid.” Tritone winced. “Jagweed’s so ugly, it looks like he fell out of an ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. He’s so ugly that when he was born, our mother slapped the doctor. He’s so ugly that calling him ugly is an insult to ugly people.”

  Juan looked toward the castle. “I don’t know. He seems attractive enough to me.”

  “You think he’s handsome? Well, I don’t swing that way, but that’s cool. I’ll put in a good word for you if you want, but he’s already spoken for. And you don’t want to mess with his significant other. She’s nuttier than he is. And just as ugly. Similarly ugly, for that matter.”

  As Fourshadow let loose with a growl, Juan gave the giant a cockeyed grin. “You amuse me, japemeister.”

  Tritone patted himself on the back and said, “That’s why they pay me the big bucks, Shecky.” He pulled a leather pouch from his back pocket and thrust it at Juan. “Want a snort? We’ll get ripped and talk about the joys of jerkoffdom.”

  Feeling completely accepted for the first time in a long time, Juan took the pouch, took a guzzle, and burbled, “Nothing would make me happier.”

  GATEWAY

  Eyes closed, lips parted, and chest heaving, Lady Gateway Barker moaned, “That’s it. That’s it. Right there. Wait, slow down, slow down.”

  Headcase adjusted his rhythm, then sighed, “I don’t know what to tell Bobbert. Should I, or shouldn’t I?”

  Digging her fingernails into her husband’s shoulder, Gateway breathed, “You should, lover. Do it. Do it!”

  “Just like that?” he asked. “Leave my family behind? Leave my kingdom behind? I’m the Lord of House Barker. I can’t just get up and go.”

  Gateway wrapped her legs around Head and groaned, “If you speed it up, I can get up and come.”

  Head mindlessly grinded faster, then explained, “If I become the King’s Foot, our life as we know it will be done.”

  “If you lean to the left and pick it up,” Gateway ordered, “this act as we know it will be done.”

  Noticing his wife’s frustration, Head said, “Apologies,” then made love to his wife the way a good Lord should.

  That went on for a solid three seconds until the door burst open and an elderly white-bearded man stuck his head into the room. Without preamble, he uttered, “M’Lord, m’Lady, I…”

  In unison, Head and Gateway yelled, “Go away!”

  The door opened wider, and the man stepped farther into the room. Cupping his ear, he called, “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that. Repeat, please?”

  Gateway shoved her husband off of her naked body and onto the floor, covered herself with a sheet, and roared at Head, “I thought you were going to put my purple scrunchie on the door when we’re busy!”

  Maester Blaester, the white-bearded gentleman who had been Headcase’s trusty assistant for the past two Summers, said, “I thought so too, m’Lord.”

  Unconcerned about his unclothed tumescence, Head said, “Forgot. Distracted with this Foot business. What do you need, Blaester?”

  Blaester looked up at the ceiling and asked, “Would m’Lord like to cover himself?”

  Head gave Blaester a dismissive wave and explained, “We’re all friends here. What brings you to our marital room?”

  Still staring at the ceiling, Blaester handed Head a small square package. “This was delivered to you. By a raven.”

  Gateway stood up, pulled the bedsheet around her chest, and sneered, “Ooooooh, a ravengram. Nothing’s more important than a ravengram. Nothing takes precedence over a ravengram.” She got down on her hands and knees and peered under the bed, then queried her husband, “You seen my stash, Head?”

  Ignoring Lady Barker, Head took the package from Blaester and carefully removed the covering paper, then opened the box. Inside the box was a smaller box. Inside the smaller box was an even smaller box. Inside the even smaller box was a box that was even smaller than that. This went on for six more boxes, until Head finally came to an envelope. Without even looking at what the missive said, Head noted, “This must be from your sister.”

  From under the bed, Gateway said, “Did she do that thing with the boxes again?”

  “Indeed,” Head harrumphed, opening then silently reading the letter. After two minutes of silence, Head Barker barked, “Ha!”

  “What?” Gateway asked.

  “Get this,” he snarled. “Your dear sister thinks a Sinister murdered Functionary. Lysergic actually thinks that one of those inept chowderheads made it through the woods, climbed the mountains, got past the guards at the front gate, got past Functionary’s personal bodyguards, and made Functionary laugh himself to death? Tritone Sinister would’ve clocked himself on a branch. Sugyrray Sinister would’ve gotten knocked out on his way up the first hill. LaDaynian Sinister would’ve gotten tackled before he got anywhere near the throne.”

  Gateway, having tracked down what she was looking for, wiggled out from under the bed, grabbed a match, and held it to the tiny ball of weede she’d rescued. She took a deep inhale, then coughed, “I agree that it probably wasn’t Tritone, Sugyrray, or LaDaynian, but it sure sounds like Jagweed’s M.O.”

  Head’s tumescence shriveled. “It does, doesn’t it?” He snatched a pillow from the bed, covered up his midsection, and mumbled, “Hmm, intrigue. Suddenly, after several relatively uneventful chapters, things are becoming interesting. Perhaps I should take Bobbert up on his offer. Perhaps I should be the Foot.”

  Gateway mumbled, “Perhaps you should.” Gazing ruefully at her unfulfilled lap, she sighed. “I can take care of myself here. Alone. As usual.”

  Lord Headcase Barker smiled. “Then it is settled. To Capaetal Ceity I shall go! I must spread the news!” He dropped his pillow and left the room, still naked.

  Watching him go, Gateway said to Maester Blaester, “And there, good sir, goes your Lord. Makes you proud to be part of the Barker braintrust, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes it does, m’Lady,” Blaester said. “Yes it does.”

  MALIA

  Malia Barker glared at Sasha Barker as if her older sister were a multi-tailed rodent who had found its way into the kitchen, then gnawed through a freshly killed yak that was to be the centerpiece of a holiday feast for the squad of Knights who had saved Easterrabbit from an attack by an otherworldly being that was so huge and powerful, it could only be described and named by modern scientists, but there were not any modern scientists in Easterrabbit, so said being went undescribed and unnamed, but it was nonetheless vanquished by the Knights who eventually ate a different yak, so it all worked out in the end.

  Wrapped up in her breathtaking macaroni sculpture, Sasha Barker did not notice her sister’s glower.

  Malia’s anger stemmed in part from the fact that her macaroni art was not going as well as Sasha’s. (Of course it was not going well. Up until the previous day, this had been a sewing class, but the head of the
school, Pryncipal Prynce, decided that sewing was a useless skill in Easterrabbit, an understandable choice, because it was impossible to sew an outfit that would survive the ever-changing elements. Malia did not care about the weather. Malia loved sewing. Malia hated pasta. But it did not matter what Malia liked or did not like, because be it macaroni or sewing, there had to be some sort of arena in which it could be demonstrated that the Barker sisters were loving rivals … except without the loving.) Malia’s circles were ovals, her squares were triangles, and for the life of her, she could not figure out how to make layers. Sasha, with only several hours of practice, had become a pasta magician, a craftsgirl with the skills of a noodle artist thrice her age, this despite the fact that she had never previously touched a piece of spaghetti. Right now, she was at work on what was turning out to be a masterpiece: a bust of her father Head’s head. The rest of the class gazed at it adoringly, and the teacher, Sistyr Glynda Roesy Raegan Melvyn’s expression was a combination of pride and ecstasy.

  Malia wanted to smash Sasha’s statue into a million little pieces, then use the shards to wipe that look off of the Sistyr’s face. But she was a resolute little girl, so she went back to work, determined to make her statuette of Sasha’s limbless body look like what Sasha’s limbless body would look like, rather than an ovular rectangle. Or maybe a rectangular oval.

  However, she was having trouble concentrating, as Sasha and her friends were chatting at a volume inappropriate for a fusilli lesson. (If Malia had dared speak that loudly, Sistyr G.R.R.M. would have gouged her face with her notoriously rusty sword.) The topic, as usual, was Sasha’s love life.

  Sasha’s blond-haired friend Jennyfer squealed, “Goofrey Barfonme so loves you.”

  Her brown-haired friend Jennyfur added, “And you so love him.”

  Her red-haired friend Jennyferr predicted, “And you guys are totally getting married.”

  Her black-haired friend Boberta offered, “And you are so going to bear many children.”

  Throwing down a handful of ziti, Sasha said, “Oh. My. Gods. You guys are, like, totally grotty to the max. I’m gonna, like, totally puke. Like, ewwww!”

  It took all of Malia’s restraint to keep from jamming her ovular rectangle down Sasha’s throat.

  Sasha continued, “So I’m, like, going for a walk yesterday, and Goof comes up to me and was all like, ‘Hi,’ and I was all like, ‘Hi,’ and he was all like, ‘You look lovely today,’ and I was all like, ‘I know,’ and I could totally tell he was trying to look down my shirt, so I was all like, ‘Are you checking out my boobs,’ and he was all like, ‘No way,’ then he totally ran away. As if?”

  As all five of the girls giggled like chirping baby birds asking their mama for either breakfast or dinner, Malia threw up in her mouth a little bit.

  Right then, Sistyr G.R.R.M. knelt beside Malia, glared at her ditalini, and sneered, “You call that art, girl?”

  “No,” Malia sneered back. Pointing at Sasha’s creation, she added, “And I don’t call that art either.”

  “Well, then,” Sistyr G.R.R.M. queried, “what would you call it?”

  “Lunch.”

  “You do not speak to a Sistyr that way, young Lady. You do not speak out of turn.”

  Pointing at the gaggle of giggling girls, Malia pointed out, “They’re speaking out of turn.”

  “When somebody creates a work of genius like Sasha, we make exceptions,” the Sistyr humphed.

  Malia raised a single eyebrow and mused, “Nobody has ever used the words genius and Sasha in the same sentence. My sister is dumber than dirt. The ditz gets by on her looks.” Then, whispering, she continued, “Kind of like her mother.”

  Gesturing to the door, Sistyr G.R.R.M. screamed, “I don’t care if you’re a Barker, or a Sinister, or a Targetpractice, or an Aaron, or a Barfonme, or if you’re from one of the families from books three or five whose names nobody can pronounce and/or remember! You do not speak to a Sistyr with that tone! Out!”

  Malia tossed a handful of tricolored gemelli into the air, screamed back, “My pleasure!” then sprinted across the room, down the stairs, and out the front door, where she ran toward the comforting fur of Stinky, her beloved direpanda. Stinky gooily licked his mistress’s face, then made a happy direpanda noise when he got a gander of his brother, Fourshadow. The two animals romped around and about as if they had not a care in the world, which irked Malia to no end, so she told Stinky, “Attack!”

  Stinky gave Malia a quizzical look, then gave Fourshadow an even gooier lick than he’d given Malia. Staring disgustedly at her pet, she said, “Wimps.”

  “Maniquí,12 how dare you disrespect my direpanda!”

  Malia spun around and smiled at her jerkoff brother Juan. Running into his embrace, she said, “Thank Gods, a Barker with a brain.”

  Juan hugged her back, then, noticing the cloudy expression on Malia’s face, said, “Mierda, I know that look.”

  “Yes.” She pouted. “Sasha is being Sasha.”

  Juan took her hand and said, “Come, mi querido, I have something that will cheer you up.” He led Malia to the jousting field on the other side of the castle, where a gaggle of young men covered in armor were paired off, clumsily thrusting their swords at one another. On the far end of the lawn, a man clad in a short-sleeved chainmail shirt and too-tight chainmail shorts blew his whistle and roared, “Alright, buttercups, that’s the worst display of swordsmanship I’ve seen in Summers! Drop and give me fifty! And if I see anybody not eating mud, he’s running laps! Actually, you’ll all run laps!” He jogged to the center of the field and bopped two of the boys on their helmets. “You two dummies, drop your cocks and grab your steel. I want to see some fighting.”

  In unison, the boys chanted, “Yes, Sur Anklewankle!”

  As he walked away from his students, Sur Anklewankle noticed Juan, pointed at the young man, and said, “Ladies, there’s a guy you should pay attention to. He’s a jerkoff, but he’s got serious game.”

  In unison, the boys repeated, “Yes, Sur Anklewankle!”

  To Juan, the teacher said, “You wanna take over my class? These buttercups are driving me batshit crazy.”

  Before Juan could answer, one of the two boys Sur Anklewankle singled out chirped, “I’m ready to battle, Sur.”

  The other parroted, “As am I!”

  Juan leaned down to Malia and said, “Do those voices sound familiar?”

  Malia grinned. “Bobb and Goof.”

  “Correcto!”13

  Her grin widening, Malia hissed, “This’ll be fun. Bobb’ll wipe the floor with him. Sasha’s boyfriend is going down.”

  Juan frowned. “I’m afraid not.”

  “You would be against Bobb?” Malia asked. “He’s so much better than Goof. I’m even better than Goof.”

  “It’s not about who’s better,” Juan explained. “It’s about politics.”

  Before Malia could ask what politics had to do with fighting, she heard the familiar sound of steel on steel. Five clinks into the bout, Bobb fell to the muddy ground with a loud squish, then, in a flat voice, said, “Ouch, ouch, ouch. Never have I suffered such an embarrassing defeat. I don’t know what hurts worse, my soul or my leg.”

  Goof raised his sword above his head, jumped up and down, and giggled, “Yay me, yay me, yay me! I’m the greatest jouster ever! Yay me, yay me, yay me!”

  Bobb stood up, seemingly not the least bit hurt, removed his helmet, and told Goof, “You’re the greatest, Goof.” Then Bobb and Sur Anklewankle rolled their eyes at one another.

  Malia said to Juan, “Bobb took a dive, didn’t he.”

  Juan nodded. “Sí.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Goof is a quejumbrosa poco perra,14 and if he loses to a Barker, he’ll whine to his father, and if he whines to his father, his father will whine to Lord Barker, and if the King whines to Lord Barker, Lord Barker will whine at Bobb, and the cycle of whining will never end, all because Goof is a quejumbrosa poco perra.”


  Grinning an evil grin, Malia queried, “Does Sasha know her future husband is a quejumbrosa poco perra?”

  “No,” Juan explained. “The idiota15 is blinded by love.”

  Goof stumbled over, removed his helmet, and asked Malia, “I apologize that you had to see that. It must be a great embarrassment to you to see your blood be vanquished.”

  Over Goof’s shoulder, Malia saw Bobb flipping young Master Barfonme the double bird. Biting her cheek to keep from laughing, Malia said, “I have never seen such a performance, and for that, I’m more embarrassed than you’ll ever know.”

  As Goof galloped away, Malia told Juan, “Goofrey Barfonme and Sasha Barker is a match made in heaven.”

  Juan frowned. “Or infierno.”16

  ALLBRAN

  Letting loose a series of prickly tush toots that were felt two floors below, Allbran Barker stared out the window and sighed. There on the front lawn stood Bobb and Juan, shooting arrows at a newly constructed mud statue that looked suspiciously like Goofrey Barfonme. Juan’s aim was slightly better than Bobb’s, and every time Bobb missed, he would snarl, “Bastard,” to which Juan would respond, “You mean jerkoff. ” Allbran had no idea what they were talking about, but he did not care; all he wanted was to join his brothers in their adventures. Unfortunately, he knew that this was not to be, partly because he was a little boy, and partly because of his uncontrollable flatulence.

  He tried to manage his gastrointestinal issues, Allbran did, following the advice given to him by Summerseve’s best doctors: Eat lots of raw onions. To Allbran, it felt like the vegetable compounded the problem, but he did not want to anger his parents, so he choked down one huge onion with each meal. He knew it made him unpleasant to smell both coming and going, but maybe someday the treatment would work.