Instead, they all made efforts to spend as much time as possible with Bunny or me. Each clamored for private instruction and practical training from me. I ran through all the ideas I could glean from my own experiences, and not a few I stole from the shows on the Crystal Network, like having them extract a fragile glass bubble, intact, from a nest of horned weaselsnakes without getting bitten. As usual, each tackled the tasks in different ways. The Pervects still tended to go for the academic approach, but I was pleased to see that more frequently than ever they put aside the books and tried to analyze the situation in the real world. Bee looked at everything from a logistics and supply point of view. I thought his solution was the most elegant of all, setting out the weaselsnakes' favorite prey at a distance from the nest, and retrieving the bubble at his leisure. Tolk tried to make everything his friend, disastrous in the experiment with shield-hornets, but very successful in getting the local townsfolk to lend him enough ingredients to make a pan of scones. Melvine whined and complained a lot, but away from the distraction of others he buckled down. He really was as smart as Markie thought he was. His easy command of magikal force had made him lazy. Once he stopped blasting everything full force, he became more effective. The surgical precision with which he whisked the glass ball out of the snake nest was a beautiful sight to behold. I wished the others had been there to see it, or even evinced the most remote interest in hearing my recitation of Melvine's success.
They were scrupulously polite at meals, and each vied to take over Bunny's chores. It had escalated to the point where the Pervects had fought over cleaning the windows and ended up making new curtains for all of the inn's many casements. Melvine had made it a matter of honor to seal up every crack in the old building's walls, to the point where the inn was now virtually airtight. When the front door slammed, all of our ears popped. Tolk weeded the garden and 'healed' all the plants of black spot and wilt. The vegetables grew visibly larger after that. Bee inventoried everything not indicated as private property in the neatest handwriting I had ever seen. For the first time, I knew that Isstvan had left me nineteen and a third kegs of beer, four hundred and fifty-three bottles of indifferent wine and eight bottles of wine so good it should be saved for coronations, and three well-hidden casks of hard spirits. I was glad I hadn't known about all of that in my dipsomaniac phase. Bunny enjoyed the leisure to an extent, but told me privately she was getting bored having nothing to do. She spent more and more time each day communicating with her friends through Bytina.
The practical jokes had gone on in a minor way. I was sorry I hadn't given them my mother's lectures on beans up their noses, because each time I had forbidden a certain behavior, they came up with something else that didn't violate any of the previous rules. One night someone had short-sheeted all of the students' beds. Whoever the troublemaker was had learned to include everybody in the prank, including him or herself. When I forbade apple-pie beds, then everybody's clean clothes turned up tied in wet knots. That morning's exercises had been conducted in pajamas and bathrobes. At no time were my or Bunny's things disturbed, and nothing else of ours went missing. I suppose I could have put the annoyances down to the usual social interaction between young people, but I couldn't, not after the exploding ring incident.
The cold war also, I was glad to note, did not extend to guests. Tolk galloped up to the Troll and romped in a circle at his feet.
"Chumley, Chumley, Chumley, how are you? I'm so glad to see you! Where have you been? You smell like vanilla!"
"Crunch busy. Tolk good?"
"Oh, I get it!" the Canidian replied, wheeling on his rear legs and dashing the other way. "I'm fine. Skeeve's fun. Everything is exciting. I'm learning so much!"
"Good." Chumley lumbered up to me. He was maintaining his identity as the enforcement-Troll, Big Crunch. I had dropped in on him on Trollia to make the arrangements out of the hearing of my students so that Chumley could communicate his intentions to me in words of more than one syllable. Only Tolk was in the know about Chumley's alter ego. "All ready."
"Great! Everybody lower what you're doing, and come over here," I called. The Pervects descended daintily to the ground, setting the objects they had been levitating with equal delicacy. Melvine bounced his items off the wall and into the basket from which they had come, and floated over to survey Chumley at eye level.
"How's it going?" he said, though his voice squeaked. "I wasn't scared by you, no sir!"
I grinned to myself. He'd shot up eight yards when the Troll had come charging out of the woods. I covered my amusement with a loud a-HEM! Everybody gave me their attention.
"I want all of you to welcome this week's guest lecturer," I said. "Big Crunch is well known for his skills at protecting clients or a client's interests. He has guarded kings, business tycoons and leading entertainers. He's safeguarded everything from castles down to mud huts, and designed alarm systems that have foiled some of the best thieves in the guild. He's been a bouncer at some of the finest establishments throughout the dimensions." Chumley nodded modestly at this recitation of his accomplishments. "One of the most valuable lessons I have ever learned from him was how not to underestimate an opponent. It's easy to make judgements based on looks alone. A poisonous snake doesn't look like much more than a piece of angry clothesline, but the bite can kill. Naturally, Crunch isn't much for lecturing," I stopped to clear my throat. Chumley himself was an exceedingly literate gentleman. "His instruction will be a practical exercise. We have a whole building and the surrounding forest at our disposal. Gleep and I will keep a lookout for any approaching parties of Klahds so you won't be observed. Your object for today is not to be caught and, if possible, catch Big Crunch. If Crunch catches you, you have to come back here and stay in Bunny's sitting room until lunch time. If you catch him, the game's over. That's all. Got it?"
"Sounds lame," Melvine said.
Chumley reached out with a massive purple paw and patted the Cupy so hard he bounced off the ground. "Little man easy to catch."
"Oh, yeah, hairball?" Melvine sneered. "We'll see about that."
I pulled a whistle out of my belt pouch. "Everybody ready? At the signal, hide!"
PHWEET!
By the time I put the whistle back in the pouch, not an apprentice was to be seen in the courtyard. Melvine had vanished with a loud displacement of air. The Pervects split up and flew off in three different directions. Bee took off running in a zig-zag pattern. Tolk simply galloped into the trees. Chumley tipped me a wink of his big, moon-shaped eyes.
"Wish me luck," he said.
A book open on my chest, I lounged in the comfortable crook of a tree limb that overhung the north end of the road that led past the inn. I'd been there for over an hour. During that time I had seen most of my students creeping by, trying to skirt the central area of the woods where loud crashing noises seemed to indicate that Chumley was stomping around, seeking his prey. I knew better than to make an assumption like that, but I enjoyed seeing the intent looks on the faces of my students.
When I was a boy, my friends and I used to play "Demon In the Dark," where one person was chosen as the Demon, hunting down all the others and 'killing' them. Your heart pounds in your chest when you think you hear someone sneaking up behind you. It was hard not to shout out when the Demon grabbed you and hauled you away to wherever the holding area was, usually someone's cellar or a stall in a handy stable. We would always laugh hysterically when it was all over, as much out of relief from the tension as from the fact that it was a lot of fun. My students didn't seem to see the fun in playing the game with a real life Demon, or dimension traveler, as I now understood the philological origin of the word. All of them looked deadly serious, even frightened, as they tried to keep away from Chumley. He was making it easy on them, crashing around like a charging bull. From where I sat I could see a couple of the trees he had pushed down across the road, just shouldering his way through the undergrowth.
Suddenly, silence fell. I grinned. Chumley's secret we
apon had just gone into play. I wondered if any of them would remember what I had said. The biggest mistake they all made was assuming that just because Chumley had come charging in like an avalanche, that meant he couldn't move any other way. I was almost ashamed of them, after the detailed introduction I'd given him.
A wild yell from the depths of the forest told me that he had just captured a student. I couldn't tell who it was by the shrill screech of surprise. I knew I could just go back to the inn and see who was sulking in the sitting room with Bunny. Oops, there went Tolk, galloping on all fours over the pathway. So it hadn't been him. I settled down to read a few pages.
I looked up at the sound of rustling grass. Not far from my coign of vantage, Pologne sat on a large rock painting her nails. I sighed. It was a good illusion, but I could tell easily that it WAS an illusion. The image wasn't making any noise. That wasn't going to fool Chumley. I glanced around for the real Pervect.
Moving twigs on the other side of the clearing gave her away. She had dug herself in behind a hollow tree, hoping to surprise Chumley. I imagined she hoped to capture him single-handedly. I had no idea how she thought she'd accomplish that, without the physical strength to subdue him or even a rope to tie him up. I imagined that at least a few of the others, most likely Bee among them, had similar intentions, and were laying traps instead of merely trying to avoid detection and capture.
Melvine came flitting through, just ahead of the crashing noises. He saw Pologne sitting on the rock. I could see an evil grin spread on his face. He doubled back into the woods and came out with a handful of red tree-buds. He flicked one at the back of the Pervect's head. She never blinked. The acorn clattered to the forest floor. The evil grin grew wider.
It had been dry that day. Melvine had no trouble kicking up a miniature whirlwind that raised enough dust to fill the clearing. Too late, Pologne saw that something was up. The dust collected itself and surrounded her like a cloud. She started coughing uncontrollably. Feeling blindly around the ground, she located a rock and heaved it in Melvine's general direction. He bobbed out of reach.
"Nyah NYAH nyah!" he taunted. The minicyclone whisked across the forest floor and went up the leg of Pologne's shorts.
"You little monster!" she shrieked, dancing around. She batted at her pants until the little wind dropped out again and skittered away. Magnificent in her fury, she stalked toward Melvine and pointed a hand at him.
Too late. A purple-furred hand, a dozen times the size of her own, snaked out of the underbrush at her back, and clapped over her mouth. The other appeared and dragged her into the bushes.
Melvine looked astonished for a moment, then gleeful. He flitted off into the woods again, no doubt to see if he could get any other fellow students snagged, at no risk to himself.
When we broke for lunch, the sour expression Tolk shot at the Cupy suggested to me that Melvine had had one more success. At the far end of the table, Melvine was bragging to Bunny how he lured Tolk into his own leaf-covered pit, from which Chumley had hauled him out.
"Isn't he being unfair, Master Skeeve?" Tolk demanded, slamming a paw down on the edge of his plate of green meat.
"Yes and no," I said, swiftly fielding the cold gobbets of flesh with a small net of magik. I put them back on his plate. I'd had plenty of time to think about it while guarding the road. "On the one hand, Melvine's not being a team player, but that should come as no surprise to you. He hasn't shown a lot of loyalty to the group."
"Hey!" Melvine protested.
"On the other hand, his behavior is fair because in the field you are going to have outside distractions. Pologne, you forgot you had an objective out there. Melvine exploited your temper by picking on you. You fell for it and forgot to be vigilant. That's not his fault."
"I should have ignored him pitching acorns at me?" she asked, her yellow eyes molten gold with anger.
"Probably." I shrugged. "It was childish of him, but your reaction didn't do you any credit."
"I suppose that kind of thing never happened to you."
"Wrong," I said coolly. "It happens to me all the time. Any of my friends will tell you that I have gotten distracted often, but I try not to let it jeopardize my mission. Or I try to turn the situation around and make a winner out of my mistake. Most of the time you can, if you try. Don't make the assumption that I'm trying to pass myself off as perfect. That's not why you came to me, is it? You came because you want to know what's effective. Let me tell you, nothing teaches you faster than making mistakes. Freezia, you and Bee got tagged because you didn't hear Crunch sneaking up behind you. You knew he could move silently, because he arrived here without having alerted everybody else for miles around.
He just made noise when he got here. And did I mention his skills at surveillance?"
"Yes," they all chorused peevishly. I nodded. My point had been made.
"He didn't catch me," Jinetta said.
"Root cellar," Chumley announced. "Not have time before lunch."
"Oh!" The Pervect's eyes flew wide open.
"Or me," Melvine added.
"Got you once," Chumley said. "Left. Yes?" he asked Bunny.
"Yes. Melvine broke jail," Bunny said. "I think you caught him first, didn't you, Big Crunch?"
"Yes."
"Cheater!" Pologne sneered at him.
"Whiner!" Melvine gibed back.
"Stop it!" I said. "Let's start over this afternoon. Everyone's out of jail again. This time, keep your mind on your task. Give Crunch something to worry about."
Thus challenged, the six students stalked out of the inn like gunfighters heading for a showdown. Chumley stayed at the table long enough to finish one more cup of tea, dabbed at his lips with a napkin, then rose.
"Better go see what they've thought up, what?" he asked cheerily.
The twilit sitting room smelled strongly of wet Troll. Chumley sat in front of the fire wringing his fur out into a bucket while my six pupils sat looking as smug as cats fed an exclusive diet of canary.
"Four times?" I asked one more time to make sure I'd heard it correctly.
"Yes," the Troll said. I couldn't tell if he was speaking as Big Crunch, or as Chumley himself being terse.
"They threw you in the pond four times?"
"Not say again!"
I turned to the class. "I'm impressed. How did you do it?"
The three Pervects glanced at one another. Finally, Jinetta spoke.
"Well, you said to give Crunch something to worry about. Freezia here realized that none of us could take him on by ourselves."
"So. You decided to work together?"
"Was that against the rules?" Tolk asked, his big brown eyes sad.
"Not at all!" I said. Inwardly, I was pleased. Whatever it took to get them cooperating again. Chumley's pride would heal. "Let's hear the details."
"Well, he caught Pologne again," Jinetta began. "But before he could get her back to the inn, we devised a little trap."
"Little!" Chumley exclaimed.
"Bee really designed it," Freezia said.
"It wasn't much," Bee said modestly. "Just a deadfall attached to a rope sling with a sled made out of branches that catapulted its load into the pond. Very simple, really. Tolk tied all the knots."
"I almost fell in the water with him," Pologne said excitedly. "After that, I came up with another surprise. It was easy after the first one, because all I had to do was dig a shallow pit and cover it with leaves so it looked like a trap. Then we draped a tarpaulin in between a couple of rocks on the bank and covered them with dirt and roots so it looked like the path continued around that way. And he fell right in!"
By now, Chumley's head was hanging in shame.
"Then, we levitated him over—" Melvine began. I held up a hand to halt his narrative.
"I understand," I laughed. "We don't have to relive every one of the splashes." Melvine looked disappointed. I turned to Chumley. "Big Crunch, I think your seminar has been a huge success."
"More tha
n huge," Chumley mumbled. "They did good job."
"Top marks," I said. "Everybody, take the evening off. You've earned it."
Tolk dashed to the door then back to Bee. "I'm taking a walk! Come with me!"
The young soldier scrambled up from his bench. "Why not? Permission to go walkies, sir?" ? "Granted," I said. "Have fun."
"How about you?" Tolk asked the Pervects.
"That's very nice of you," Pologne said, "but I'm just dying to have a hot bath."
"Okay okay okay! Tomorrow?"
"Maybe. Thanks."
Freezia approached Pologne almost shyly. "I noticed your manicure got snagged while you were stringing up those nets. I'm going to do my nails. Would you like to use my buffer?"
"Oh, yes!" Pologne exclaimed, clearly grateful for the detente.
"Then we can try on each other's clothes," Jinetta said. "I think you'd look lovely in my new twinset, Freezia. I know it'll be a little long on you, but that's the style this season, you know."
"That is so nice of you, Jinetta!" Freezia beamed. "I love that sweater set." They bustled toward the stairs. The exchange didn't have the warm friendliness that they had arrived with some weeks before, but it was less tinged with fear and distrust than some of their earlier exchanges.
"I thought they'd never leave," Melvine said. He stumped out of the room.
Chumley let out a low whistle. "That's a formidable lot you have there, old scout. Particularly when they do put their minds to it to work together."
"Yes, it is," I said. "It's a shame they'll never see each other again when they leave."
"The girls will," Bunny said. "But I've noticed they really shine when they add their talents to the guys'."
I shook my head. "I may suggest they join forces, but they have to go their own ways. It's a shame, if you ask me. They could put their mark on the world."
Chumley eyed me with amusement. "Someone to assume the mantle of M.Y.T.H., Inc., perhaps?"
I grinned back. "Don't give ME any ideas, Chumley. I'm still trying to make up my mind what I want to do when I grow up."
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