The Complete Adventures of Toffee

by Charles F. Myers

Marc obeyed. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Glad you had some aspirin handy,” Memphis said, starting to move away. “I was plum out.”

  “Yeah,” Marc murmured. Then he sat up. “What!”

  It struck him, all of a sudden, that he hadn’t any aspirin either. A chill went through him. He opened his eyes and glanced at the desk, and his heart accepted an invitation to the rhumba. The little green bottle had moved to the edge of the desk and it was open!

  “Memphis!”

  Memphis was standing in the doorway. “Shut up,” she said. “Lie down, take it easy. I’ll stall Wheeler in the waiting room and feed him raw meat to dull his appetite.”

  She closed the door behind her.

  Marc made the length of the room without once noticeably touching the floor. He grabbed the bottle and stared at its label. “Take one,” it instructed, “every six months.”

  Panic crept across the silent room, but Marc forced it back.

  “Oh, well,” he murmured, “there’s probably nothing to it. Couldn’t be.” Then it hit him.

  The nausea came in waves, each one growing deeper and more relentless than the last. Everything was suddenly edged in black and gold, and slowly the room began to sway. Marc felt his knees go weak and he started back toward the lounge, stumbling; if he was going to die, he might as well do it in style. He might have cried out only his throat was suddenly dry and stiff.

  TOFFEE fled across the valley and darted into a tiny grove of trees just as the last faint glow in the sky gave way to complete darkness. A driving wind lashed the trees above her in frenetic rhythm, and the darkness was suddenly split by a writhing streak of white lightning. Her hair whipped stingingly across her face, and her tunic pressed flat against her body until it was like a part of her. Her expression, if it could have been seen, was a curious mixture of terror and exhilaration. She steadied herself against a tree and turned into the wind so that her hair blew away from her eyes. She peered into the darkness and waited.

  She didn’t have to wait long; the storm lasted only a moment and then it was gone. All at once the darkness was replaced by the same diffused glow that had prevailed before its coming, and the valley had returned to its former state of drowsy tranquility. Toffee emerged from the grove and surveyed the valley with expectant eyes. She was not disappointed; a lank figure lay crumpled at the bottom of the knoll. With a little cry of gladness, she ran toward it.

  “Marc!” she cried. She threw herself down beside him on the grass. “You devine devil, you! I’ve been expecting you all day.” In a burst of enthusiasm, she threw her arms around him and hugged him to her.

  Marc opened his eyes and frowned. “Handle with care,” he said thickly. “I think I’m fragile.” He glanced around at the valley and his face registered recognition. “So I’m back here again, am I? I’m not dead then.”

  “You drew a blank,” Toffee said. “It was a daisy, too. This valley wasn’t fit for man nor any other kind of beast when you hit it. What happened?”

  Marc boosted himself forward and ran a lean hand through his sandy hair. “I don’t remember,” he said. “It must have been terrific. I feel all twisted up inside.”

  “Just a little shaken up,” Toffee said confidently. “You’ll be all right. Tell me, just to make conversation, how’s your wife? That big blonde?”

  “Away,” Marc said. “Julie went to Kansas to look after an ailing relative. A cousin, I believe.”

  Toffee nodded with satisfaction. “Good,” she said. “That leaves me a free field, doesn’t it?” The speculation in her eyes was undisguised. “We will have fun. Lots.”

  “Now look here,” Marc said, trying to look firm. “Let’s not have any horsing around. Just this once why don’t you stay here, where you belong? Just because I dream you up that doesn’t mean that you have to come popping into my life, messing it up. Be reasonable.”

  “Sure,” Toffee said. “I’ll be reasonable . . . dirt cheap, if need be. I’ll listen to any proposition you may have to make . . . if it’s not too respectable.” She twined her arms around his neck. “Kiss me. All this dull talk is beginning to tire me.”

  Marc was in the midst of shoving her away from him when the storm returned. It came as suddenly and as mysteriously as it had departed, lashing the trees on the knoll against each other, driving the light from the sky. In a sudden start of surprise, Marc clutched Toffee to him.

  “Why, you impetuous old rogue!” Toffee cried. “What a clutch!”

  For a moment they clung together, helpless under the driving blast of the wind. Then they felt themselves being lifted, as by a giant hand, and hurled into space.

  A VARI-COLORED pin-wheel whirled through the darkness and struck Marc squarely between the eyes. Instantly his mind cleared a little, and he opened his eyes. A strip of oak paneling met his gaze, its dark grains writhing before him like water snakes in a pond. He turned over on the lounge and looked at the room. Slowly the room and its objects fell into place and became fixed. He flinched.

  Toffee smiled down at him. “Greetings,” she said. “Always flat on your back, aren’t you?”

  Marc gazed at the girl and her brief tunic without pleasure; it was a sight that shocked his finer sensibilities. Surrounded by the severity of the office she looked even more naked somehow than she really was. Absently he tried to imagine her in a more suitable background, but the only setting that occurred to him was one that featured a great deal of plumbing and running water. His mind veered away from a vision that thoroughly repelled him.

  “Go ’way,” he said. “If you have any shame at all, go ’way and hide yourself. I don’t want to look at you.”

  “You should be so lucky,” Toffee retorted, “And don’t try pulling any of your phony moralistic airs on me. Remember, I know what’s in your mind.” She sat down on the edge of the lounge. “How do you feel?”

  Marc sat up and considered. He examined his emotions and state of health with care, and was soundly surprised at his findings.

  “I feel wonderful!” he exclaimed. “I feel great!”

  “Who boffed you?” Toffee asked.

  “Boffed?” Marc asked. “How do you mean?” He thought back, trying to remember. “Oh, that!” he said finally. His gaze wandered to the green bottle on the desk. “Those pills. I took a couple.” He laughed shortly. “They hit me like a sledge hammer, but they don’t seem to have had any serious effects. Memphis gave them to me by mistake just before . . .” His eyes widened. “Oh, my gosh! How long have I been out? Old man Wheeler may walk in here any moment! He mustn’t see you!”

  “Who’s Wheeler?” Toffee asked.

  “A client. He’s about sixty-eight and as . . .”

  “I’ll leave,” Toffee said. “When they get past sixty I begin to lose interest . . . and patience.”

  Marc took her by the arm and started her across the room. “You can take the rear door,” he said. “It leads to the hallway and . . . Stop twitching your hips like that. When you get outside . . .”

  He stopped and made a small whining noise.

  It was as though the ceiling had suddenly come crashing down around his head. For a moment he was numb all over. Then he could feel himself sinking toward the floor, but he wasn’t falling. The sensation was alarmingly strange and disagreeable.

  “What the devil’s . . .!”

  He stopped again; his voice was echoing back to him in an unfamiliar falsetto. The words were his but the voice definitely was not. He started back in alarm, tripped over something and sat down heavily on the floor. It was then that he glanced up and saw Toffee. For a moment he was certain he was losing his mind.

  Instead of the well-curved, half-clad redhead he had last seen, he was now confronted by a chunky little moppet of about eight. Her heretofore inadequate tunic now covered her completely, part of it even trailing on the floor. He opened his mouth to speak but gave it up as Toffee expressed his emotions for him with a shrill scream of dismay. Apparently unmindful of her sudden trans
formation, however, she was staring at him with horror.

  “You’ve shrunk!” she cried, “You’ve . . . you’ve shriveled!”

  Her voice, also, had moved up an octave or so.

  MARC quickly turned his attention to his own person and found to his complete stupefaction that Toffee spoke the truth. Indeed he had shrunk like a ten-dollar suit in a cloudburst. What he had tripped over had been his own trouser legs, the spare yardage of which was wadded loosely about his ankles.

  “Those pills!” he yelped. “Good grief! They’ve not only stopped my age, they’ve backed it up!”

  Toffee giggled a little hysterically. “You look so funny!” she tittered. “Your ears are so big. And . . . and you’ve got freckles!”

  Marc winced; it was probably all too true. As a youngster he had been plagued with these disfigurements and he had been very sensitive about them. After all, being called “pitcher ears” and “leopard puss” hadn’t been fun. Outgrowing these names had been his own personal triumph. And now all that was cancelled; he was back where he had started. He looked up woundedly.

  “Look who’s laughing,” he said. “With that pot belly of yours, you’re no glamour item yourself.”

  An expression of utmost horror swept Toffee’s face as she ceased to stare at Marc and turned her attention to herself. One quick, shuddering glance told her the story. This time she screamed as though she really meant it.

  “No!” she shrieked. “No! NOooooh! It isn’t me! It isn’t!” She turned on Marc, raging. “You did this! You swallowed those crazy pills!” Irrationally, she held her hand under his mouth. “Spit them out!” she demanded. “Spit them out this instant or I’ll rip those revolting ears right off your despicable head!”

  “Don’t be disgusting,” Marc said looking away.

  “You’ll be surprised how disgusting I can really be,” Toffee wailed, “if you don’t do something about this.”

  “What can I do?” Marc asked helplessly. “After all the pills were Culpepper’s idea, not mine. He’s the only one that can do anything about it.”

  “Get him!” Toffee cried. “Get him! Ring him, call him, wire him, cable him! Only get him!” Her cherubic face began to pucker, her large eyes beginning to cloud. “Wouldn’t you know that I’d have to suffer too, just because you were simple-minded enough to take a couple of pills! Wouldn’t you know? Look at me! ... just a shapeless little chunk of blubber. I’ve got about as much appeal as a smudge pot. Less!”

  “Stop your sniveling,” Marc said crossly. “It isn’t helping matters. And I’ve got to think.”

  “Why start now?” Toffee asked waspishly.

  Marc thoughtfully rolled up his trousers and got to his feet. Full length, he was even stranger to look upon than when sitting down.

  His coat sleeves hung limp at his sides, extending nearly a foot beyond his hands; his shirt collar, previously a perfect fit, was now a perfect scream; his scrawny neck jutted out of it like a wire coat hanger. When he walked, his shoes shifted loosely about his feet, making an annoying clattering noise against the floor. Marc Pillsworth, taken all in all, which really wasn’t so very much as things stood, had suddenly become an offense to both eye and ear. Toffee, who, on the other hand, had retained a goodly portion of her comeliness, regarded him with distaste.

  “If we ever get out of this, pitcher ears,” she said, “I hope you have to go through your adolescence again.”

  SUDDENLY they both jumped as the door opened and Memphis’ head jutted into the room. The secretary opened her mouth to say something, then froze, goggle-eyed. She stared blankly at Marc and Toffee, and they, for want of anything better, simply stared back. There was a long moment of supercharged silence before Memphis found her voice.

  “Wh . . . ,” she said weakly. “Where’s Mr. Pillsworth?”

  Toffee laughed bitterly. “That jerk,” she murmured.

  Memphis smiled stiffly. “I don’t know how you got in here, honey,” she said with false sweetness, “but you really shouldn’t be here; this is a business office.”

  “You’re telling me?” Toffee said. “I’m the kid that got the business in it.”

  Memphis cleared her throat. “Now why don’t you just tell me where Mr. Pillsworth has gone and then run along and play?”

  Toffee turned to Marc. “Listen to that over-stuffed tomato giving us the rush act,” she said. She cast glittering eyes toward Memphis. “For two cents I’d come over there and hammer your big thick shins for you. And if you don’t clear out I may decide to do it for free. Beat it yourself. You’re bothering us.”

  Memphis gasped. Then she turned to Marc. “Tell me, sonny,” she said, “how does your sister like her spankings . . . sunny side up or over easy? Or are you a wiseacre too? Now, look here . . .” She stopped short as her gaze fell on Marc’s sagging costume. Her eyes grew wise and fearful. “You’re wearing Mr. Pillsworth’s suit!” she shrieked. “What have you done to him?”

  “You’d be surprised, Bertha,” Toffee sneered. “In my opinion it wasn’t half what he deserved.”

  For a moment Memphis was struck dumb. Then her voice came back to her in a lusty scream. She wheeled around and charged out of the room. A second later there was the sound of a telephone dial being put into frenzied motion. Memphis was bawling for the police even as she dialed.

  Marc, who had remained in a state of mental and physical paralysis during this disquieting interview, suddenly came to life.

  “Now see what you’ve done!” he piped in his child’s voice. “Why couldn’t you tell her the truth?”

  “She’d have to be daffy to believe it,” Toffee said. “Besides, I didn’t like her attitude; she was treating me like a child.”

  “Now we’ll have to run for it,” Marc said. “Once the police get hold of us, we’ll never find Culpepper.”

  They left the office through the rear door and made their way quickly down the hall to the fire escape window. Marc pointed to a blue convertible in the parking lot below.

  “We’ll have to try to drive the thing somehow,” he said. “After we’ve gotten away, we’ll do what we can about getting in touch with Culpepper.”

  “I’d like to get in touch with him,” Toffee lisped, “with a crowbar.

  As Marc was boosting Toffee over the sill and onto the fire escape, a nearby door opened and a large, florid woman stepped into the hallway. She stopped at the sight of the children and observed their activities with alarm.

  “Here, here, kiddies,” she said, looking maternal, “you mustn’t play out there; you might get hurt. Where are your mummy and daddy?”

  “Down at the hoosegow,” Toffee said evilly. “Mummy’s bailing daddy out for peddling hashish at the orphans’ picnic. What’s it to you?”

  “Oh, dear!” the woman exclaimed. “You poor, little, neglected, underprivileged things!” She started forward but was suddenly stopped by a warning glance from Toffee.

  “Better stay out of this, fatso,” Toffee cooed. “You might get your girdle fractured.”

  The woman turned red. Then she swung around and continued abruptly down the hall. “Little monsters!” she snorted. “Hope they break their dirty, little underprivileged necks!”

  AWAY from the building and in the car, the two inadvertent juveniles found themselves at sharp odds with the mechanical age. Squatting on the floor, Toffee attempted to operate the foot mechanisms while Marc knelt on the seat and tried his small hand at manipulating the steering apparatus and gear shift. After much concentrated effort and grinding of gears they managed jointly to smash the fender of the neighboring sedan. There the operation ended in dismal failure. Time was running out like water in a hair net. Memphis, in the company of two uniformed companions, was gesticulating wildly from a fourth story window.

  “Delinquents!” she yelled. “Juvenile fiends! Now they’re stealing his car!”

  “Duck down!” Toffee rasped. She reached up and pulled Marc down beside her. “Stay out of sight!”

  �
�They’ve already spotted us,” Marc returned. “They’ll be down here in a moment.” He reached past her and opened the car door. “Crawl out,” he instructed. “I’ll follow. We can crawl along under the cars.”

  Like a couple of bemused slugs, they scooted out of the car, under the sedan of the abused bumper and started on a scenic tour of gravel and axles. They had removed themselves from the convertible by only five cars when the sound of flat feet scraping over gravel sullied the quiet afternoon air. Toffee, leading the way, peered fearfully from beneath the fender of their current refuge.

  “They’re closing in,” she said. “They’ve searched your car and now they’re fanning out. What’ll we do?”

  Marc thrust his wide-eared countenance next to Toffee’s and surveyed the situation. The policemen, under the supervision of Memphis, were embarked upon a campaign to beat every inch of automotive brush in the entire parking lot. Currently, however, these activities had been arrested by the arrival of the parking lot attendant who, quite understandably, was wanting to know just what was going on. Still the situation looked grim for Marc and Toffee once the search was resumed . . . as it would be in only a second . . . the jig was up. Marc glanced quickly around for possible avenues of escape.

  The vehicle next to the one under which they were hiding was a large delivery truck with paneled sides. It was black and rather formidable looking but still it offered a possibility.

  “Over there,” Marc whispered, pointing to the truck. “Crawl under and toward the back. We can open the rear doors and climb inside without being seen.”

  Toffee nodded and started out. When they arrived at the rear of the truck, they managed to open the doors and get inside with a certain amount of cooperative pushing and pulling. They closed the doors after them and Marc found an inside catch with which the doors could be locked. They settled back in the dimness to catch their breath.

  A removable panel isolated the rear compartment from the driver’s cab, cutting off most of the light, and the two fugitives had to feel their way about.