Keppelberg

by Stan Mason

  It was now the turn of Thomas Howard, the ring-leader of the children, to become the instigator of the next action which would hit the village like a thunderbolt. It began when he called all the children together after demanding that they meet immediately in the school playground. They all obeyed the command with the exception of Robert and a girl named Margaret who, following my suggestion to get on with his life, were entertaining each other in his bedroom in the McBain house. The children sat in a circle cross-legged as they had done before chanting their battle cry: ‘Enough is enough! Enough is enough! Enough is enough!’ Shortly Howard raised his arms to settle them into silence and they quickly quietened down.

  ‘Friends!’ he began in a squeaky voice. ‘We cannot capitulate with the grown-ups because they refuse to listen to us. We each are adults in our own minds and, without taking the tablets, we shall grow much larger and stronger. To hell with the conventions of this village! To hell with the constitution! Times have changed but we haven’t. It’s necessary for us to stamp our mark on the present so that we can secure a decent future for ourselves. We shall never give in. I’ll say it again... we shall never give in!’

  The children began to take up the statement chanting: ‘We shall never give in! We shall never give in! We shall never give in!’

  ‘And I’ll tell you what we’re going to do next,’ continued Howard in his pernicious spiteful way, as he leered at the other children with an evil expression on his face. ‘We’re going to hit the grown-ups where it hurts them the most!

  ‘Where’s that?’ asked one of the girls inquisitively.

  ‘Who can tell me their weakest spot in the village?’ continued the new leader.

  There was silence as the question fired through the minds of the other children before a young man found his voice.

  ‘The pharmacy!’ he shouted, raising his arms in jubilation as he realised that he had found the answer.

  ‘That’s right,’ declared Howard forcefully. ‘The pharmacy. Their most vulnerable most weakest point. We shall go there and destroy it!’

  One small girl raised her hand to ask a question and everyone wondered whether she was going to challenge their leader.

  ‘If we do that,’ she advanced in a quiet voice, ‘won’t that mean that the village will die and the people with it?’

  There was an air of silence as they all thought about the impact such action might have against the villagers.

  ‘This village is doomed anyway,’ declared Howard nastily. ‘It’s doomed anyway. There’s a choice for all of us. We can continue in the same way subjected to the whims of the adults or we can go forward to grow into adulthood and enjoy a decent life for ourselves. We cannot consider the fate of the adults. No one knows what will happen to them if they don’t have any tablets. It’s their problem, not ours.’

  ‘But surely it’ll become our problem too in the long run,’ intervened one of the boys. ‘I mean they provide the food. If they die how can we survive?’

  ‘We’ll be adults ourselves,’ declared Howard carelessly. ‘We can provide our own food. Look at it this way, there’s not many of us so we don’t need much. We’ll have more than enough. His rhetoric seemed to have influenced the other children especially as he seemed so confident on the way forward. ‘Right,’ he continued in his bold fashion. ‘Now’s the time to make your decision. Either you’re with me or against me. Which is it to be?’ There was a relatively weak response from the children. ‘Come on!’ shouted the ring-leader at the top of his voice. ‘You can do better than that! Raise your hands if you’re with me!’

  This time the response was unanimous as every hand went up in support. Howard had achieve his evil aim. They were all willing to do whatever he asked of them. There were a few minor questions put forward by some of the children before Howard got to his feet with a dour expression on his face.

  ‘Very well,’ he uttered as a command. ‘We know their weakness. It’s time for us to take the opportunity to strike them hard.’ He walked to the door determinedly, pointing his hand towards the pharmacy. ‘Onward!’ he yelled loudly.

  ‘Onward! Onward! Onward! Onward!’ chanted the children getting to their feet before they followed him out of the school.

  They marched along the path until they arrived at the building. However, talking about doing serious damage and actually doing it were two different things. When they arrived thee the plan seemed to go flat like an overdone souffle for want of direction. The children entered the pharmacy reception area, squeezing in as a result of the lack of space and they looked to Howard to define the next step of the programme. The chemists inside stopped work when they saw them and they looked to the head chemist to deal with them. The woman stared at the mob with a strange expression on her face wondering why they had come on an unscheduled visit. She noticed that two of the boys were trying to force open the door to the internal part of the pharmacy which had been locked on the inside, and she went to the dispensing panel.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she demanded in a puzzled fashion. ‘Why are you here?’

  Howard had brought a sizable rock with him and, without hesitation, he threw it at the glass panel smashing it to smithereens, causing severe damage to the face of the head chemist. She fell backwards at the onslaught, her face streaming with blood, collapsing to the floor. One of the boys was lifted by the others to clamber through the space of the dispensing panel and he rushed to unlock the door of the pharmacy. Without delay, all the children ran inside.

  The event that followed was absolutely mayhem. The children pushed rudely past the chemists, climbing on to the tables and tipping out all the jars of powders on the floor. Then they started to smash the jars so that glass littered the room. They raced down the side to the large cabinet that contained the P13 and threw out all the green powder wantonly. Within a few minutes, much to the dismay of the chemists who were helpless to stop the carnage, the place was in ruins. Green and white powders had been strewn and trodden on all over the floor, coupled with the smashed glass of the jars. Nothing had been left untouched. It would be impossible for the chemists to manufacture any more tablets until further supplies were available but only Townsend and the Treasurer knew where they came from.

  After they had done the damage, the children sat on the tables throwing powder at each other as if in a game, jubilant that they had carried out the action proposed by their new leader. They had intended to make their mark with the adults in the village and they had achieved their aim. However, when all the excitement had died down, and the chemists had left in disgust, taking the head chemist to the doctor’s surgery, the euphoria dried up as they realised the impact they had made.

  ‘Was this really a good idea?’ asked one of the girls. ‘Did we really make our mark on the adults by doing this? Only I can’t see how this has helped us.’

  Howard was adamant in his reply. ‘Of course it was a good idea. We must strike at the adults at every opportunity for the cause.’

  ‘But we have no cause,’ bleated one of the boys weakly. ‘We’re not taking the tablets so we can grow into adults. What difference did it make to destroy the pharmacy?’

  The new leader disregarded the comment, providing his own answer to the debacle. He removed a box of matches from his pocket and lit a piece of an oily rag he had brought with him. He laid it against the timbered wall of the pharmacy and they all left swiftly. Before long, the building was consumed with flames. The pharmacy was destroyed by wanton vandalism much to the detriment of the villagers. After this evil deed had been carried out, nothing in the village would ever be the same.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The situation between Bridget McBain and the Secretary climbed to a higher level very shortly after the arrangement of sharing me had been made. Bridget soon realised that she had made a huge mistake allowing the Secretary to get her hands on me and she began to regret the deci
sion deeply. However there was an old anecdote that what’s been done cannot be undone and there was nothing she could do about it without causing trouble. Even worse was the fact that the Secretary was beginning to make demands for me to spend more nights with her than had been agreed in the first place. To add to that, she even began to pull rank on the unsuspecting widow.

  I was sitting in the kitchen enjoying a meal with Bridget one evening when there was a sharp knock on the door. Bridget answered the call to face the Secretary who pushed past her to enter the lounge and sit in an armchair with an annoyed expression on her face.

  ‘It can’t go on like this,’ remonstrated the visitor angrily. ‘You didn’t tell me he was such a great stud,’ she ranted agitatedly. ‘One-in-five’s not good enough for me. I want more... much more!’

  ‘He’s my man,’ claimed Bridget on the edge of tears. ‘I only let you borrow him because you’ve been such a good friend to me. You have no right to make such demands.’ She was furious at being confronted by a woman who wanted to take me away from her at nights, especially as the Secretary was already married. ‘I think one-in-five was a very generous gesture by me. It will not change or you won’t have him at all!’

  ‘We’ll see about that!’ snapped the Secretary, rising from the armchair as if to enter into fisticuffs with her opponent. ‘I demand that we share him equally. That would be the fairest thing. One night with you, one night with me.’

  ‘In a pig’s ear!’ riposted Bridget irately. ‘You don’t realise how good he is in bed with me.’

  ‘Oh I know all right,’ came the response. ‘I’ve been with him at nights. I know just how good he is. Why can’t we share him as I suggested?’

  Bridget shook her head vigorously. ‘That’s not the way it’s going to be. You’re married. I’m a widow. I have priority, so you can go jump in the lake!’

  There was a moment of silence with the two women glaring at each other. Then the Secretary came up with a novel idea.

  ‘I have another solution,’ she ventured thoughtfully. Bridget stared at her waiting anxiously for the idea to be revealed. ‘As we both want him, why don’t we share him every night?’

  As I listened, my mind went into a whirl. Who did they think I was? Both women... every night? I’d be worn out within a week. I wasn’t Superman although both women seemed to believe me to be.

  ‘It’s not going to happen,’ insisted Bridget irately.

  ‘You don’t understand what I’m saying,’ uttered the Secretary, relaxing the tension that had riddled her body.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ demanded Bridget even more anxiously as she failed to grasp the essence of the suggestion.

  ‘We can both share him every night if the three of us get into bed together. It would be an exciting experiment in sexual intimacy to say the least.’

  ‘How could he make love to both of us at the same time?’ My partner began to get into an emotional state as she reviewed the idea.

  ‘Don’t be a cuckoo! He’d make love to one of us first and then the other one. I’ll concede that you can go first if you wish. I don’t mind. He has remarkable sexual stamina, you know.’

  ‘Yes I do know!’ spat Bridget thoughtfully before she put the idea completely out of her mind. ‘It wouldn’t work.’

  ‘Oh, come on!’ pressed the Secretary. ‘it’s worth a try just to settle the argument. Be bold! Let’s do it!’

  I continued to listen to the conversation as I sat eating my evening meal, shaking my head in bewilderment. There could never be a situation whereby two women were fighting so savagely over the same man solely for his sexual prowess and ability. I had to admit that since making love to the Secretary, my feelings towards Bridget had shifted a phase. I still loved her but my lust for the other woman was almost overpowering. There was a chemistry between us which over-matched that which I had with Bridget and it consumed me even more. Yet I had my pride and the fact that two women were fighting over me made me feel extremely flattered albeit rather confused. In effect, I was a one-woman man and knowing that two women wanted me so strongly was driving me out of my mind. In my opinion, due to the changes that had been made with regard to my relationship with Bridget, I would be better off out of their lives altogether, although I would mourn the absence of physical intimate activity at night. Subsequently, I laid down my knife and fork on the plate and went into the lounge to face them. Both women stopped talking as I entered the room, mainly out of embarrassment, and I addressed them both equally.

  ‘This is not going to work,’ I told them bluntly. ‘The two of you cannot share me... and I’m not getting into bed with both of you at the same time. That’s for sure!’ I paused to look at the expression on their faces as they waited with baited breath for me to continue. ‘I’ve come to a decision,’ I went on. ‘I’m not going to be involved with either of you sexually in the future. I’ve had it with both of you making arrangements for me to sleep with you in turn. I don’t like being used and abused and that’s exactly what you’re doing. As a result, you both lose the right.’

  The two women immediately broke into an argument, trying to persuade me to change my mind, but I told them point-blank that it was over for both of them. After I had rendered my decision, I left the house to walk back to the police station. At least I would get a peaceful night’s sleep there... and many more the way things were. I couldn’t get over the nerve of Bridget hiring me out to the Secretary, and I was appalled at the argument regarding the change to the original agreement. Nor could I accept sharing the two women either part-time or equally. Subsequently, they had both lost me once and for all.

  Bridget did not pursue me at the police station to beg me to come back to her. She stayed at home hoping that I would change my mind and return in due course. The Secretary, however, had different ideas. She raced after me to the police station thinking that she might be able to win me like a prize now that Bridget was no longer a contender.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I told her flatly. ‘I’m going to run a celibate life from now on. I’m not for hire and I’m not amenable to having sex for vouchers!’

  She refused to accept my decision, spending the best part of fifteen minutes trying to bully me into agreeing to sleep with her for just one more time. No doubt she thought that, if I did, the experience would cause me to continue intimately with her. I knew the game she was playing. If I caved in, I would never get her off my back. So I told her in no uncertain terms that I had finished with women and with her in particular. She broke down sobbing, almost certainly with crocodile tears, but my heart had been turned into stone. Eventually, when it was clear I wasn’t going to change my mind, she admitted defeat and left. I sat down on the Desk Sergeant’s stool sighing with relief. I was alone at last... enjoying the peace!

  There’s a saying that for every good thing that happens in the world, a bad one cancels it out... and vice versa. If it were true, it was that way in the village as well. I was disturbed by one of the villagers a short time after I had returned to the police station who raced speedily to inform me of the latest disaster to hit the village.

  ‘Have you heard the news?’ he asked breathlessly.

  ‘There are no radios in the village so I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I replied sarcastically.

  ‘The pharmacy!’ He puffed long and hard as he tried to catch his breath.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I went on rather carelessly before I began to realise the seriousness of his news. ‘What’s happened in the pharmacy?’

  ‘It’s been destroyed,’ he told me, his chest heaving with the effort. ‘The children got inside. They smashed all the jars of powder and injured the head chemist. After that, they set fire to the building and burned it down to the ground.’

  I gasped at the news because, without doubt, it would affect every single person in the village with the exception of myself
. They all took the tablets to keep them young and virile. Now the children had maliciously destroyed their thread of life. I knew that Townsend had retreated into the church and I wasted no time in hurrying there to find him. He was sitting in the front pew with his head in his hands praying to the Almighty in a loud voice. I approached him gently, not wishing to tip him over into a nervous breakdown.

  ‘Mr. Townsend,’ I began earnestly. ‘Did Obadiah Keppelberg say what would happen to the villagers if they stopped taking the tablets?’ He looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes and gave a brief sob without replying. ‘Tell me what will happen if they stop taking the tablets!’ I repeated with an urgent tone in my voice.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he bleated staring at me wide-eyed. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because I’ve just been told that the children have burned down the pharmacy. Everything there’s been destroyed.’

  I couldn’t have imparted any worse news because he gave a terrible groan and threw his hands in the air in despair.

  ‘It’s the end of us!’ he cried. ‘The end of all of us!’

  His body went limp and he fell into a faint before looking up to Heaven for guidance.