Notmie nodded emphatically. “I know, isn’t it craz— Wait, you’ve heard that story before?”
“Yeah, well not exactly, I mean, it was the same story, just with certain things omitted, but yeah, I’ve heard it before. Actually I heard about it at every family reunion I went to when I was little.”
Notmie stared at the strange, balding, cape-wearing man. “Do you know what this…” His voice trailed off as he caught sight of himself in the reflection of the window.
“What were you saying?” asked Captain Alex.
“Oh right. I was saying, do you know what this means?”
“What what means?”
“About your family reunion?”
“Hey! What are you implying about my family?” Captain Alex raised a fist threateningly in Notmie’s direction.
“Gosh, don’t get so crazy. I wasn’t implying anything, oh wait, yeah I was, but it wasn’t anything bad. Well, actually I guess it was something bad.”
“Spit it out!”
“Oh, right. I was thinking if we’ve both heard the exact same story and we’re obviously not from the same family, seeing as how I’m unearthly beautiful and you’re balding, that it must have been your family which caused the curse to settle on my family, so maybe… wait… there’s some sort of conclusion from this, dang! I had it just a second ago.”
“Maybe if you look at your reflection it will help you remember it,” Captain Alex suggested.
Notmie did.
It worked. “Okay, I got it now. I was thinking, since you’re a descendant of the guy who cursed my great-to-the-seventh grandpa, Baron, and I’m a descendant of my great-to-the-seventh grandpa, Baron—”
“—yeah, that’s implied—”
“—then—”
“—and his name was Phil.”
“Whose name was Phil?” Notmie looked at Captain Alex, puzzled.
“The guy who gave your great-to-the-seventh grandpa that curse.”
“Why does that matter?”
“Well, I just thought that since your predecessor got a name, mine should too.”
“Fine. Since you’re a descendant of Phil, and I’m a descendant of Baron, maybe we could put a stop to this madness.”
Captain Alex eyed Notmie suspiciously. “And what’s in it for me?”
“I promise I won’t hit you with my limo again.”
“Deal!” And they shook hands.
“But we still don’t know where we’re going,” stated Notmie, “and I still don’t know why you’re driving.”
“Well, I suppose we should go to the best place to find counter-curses: Walmart.”
“Walmart? I’ve never seen counter-curses there before.”
“Oh, did I say Walmart? Crazy. I really meant to say The Counter-Curse Shop. It’s a nifty little store downtown. What, you never been there?” asked Captain Alex, looking aghast.
Notmie shook his head. “Nope, but then again, I don’t usually get out much seeing as how I usually get attacked by a bunch of people screaming that I’m beautiful and perfect.”
“Oh, yeah, I know how that can go.” Captain Alex had no idea how that could go.
“Speaking of which,” began Notmie, “why don’t you try to get at me and scream about how beautiful I am?”
“Huh, you know, I never thought about you like that, I mean, no offense, I think you’re a perfectly fine-looking guy, but I usually don’t go for that sort of thing, ya know what I mean? I usually don’t swing that way.”
“No, no, no, I wasn’t implying anything about your personal preferences, I’m just used to everybody—guys and girls—swarming after me, and I was wondering why you don’t.”
“I don’t know, maybe it has something to do with the curse. I mean, whenever I heard the story about my Phil cursing your Baron, I was always told that Phil put a protective curse on himself so that none of his descendants would have to vomit at the sight of Baron’s ugly descendants.”
“But Baron’s descendants weren’t ugly, we’re all unearthly beautiful!”
“Yeah, I know, but you got to remember, I was always told that the curse was successful and made all of you ugly. So I guess that doesn’t really answer your question about why I’m not attracted to you.” Captain Alex looked extremely puzzled as he finished his sentence.
So did Notmie. “Hmmm… I guess we’ll never know the answer then. I guess it’s just one of those mysteries in life that will have to remain unsolved.
“So, now we know where we’re going,” Notmie continued, “but I’m still wondering how you got the driver’s seat to my limo.”
“You called shotgun on the way to the car, remember?”
“Oh, right.”
“You even raced me for it. And speaking of that, it wasn’t very nice of you to brag about beating me, since you did just hit me with a limo.”
“Haha, yeah, that was pretty funny. You know, maybe if you worked out you could be a little faster. Oh, and by the way, you tend to favor your left leg, and that can cause problems.”
Captain Alex gritted his teeth. “I favored my left leg because you happened to have just dislocated my knee.”
“When?”
“When you hit me with the limo!”
“Oh. Really?”
“Did you not see me popping it back into place right before we started walking?”
“No, I guess I missed that.”
Captain Alex turned the key that Notmie had left in the ignition. “Yeah, apparently.”
“Yeah, apparently I did. So what?”
“Oh, shut up and look at yourself in a mirror or something!”
And Notmie did.
Part 5
Unique Eunuch
As usual, traffic was bottlenecking into downtown, so it was a while before they got to The Counter-Curse Shop. When they finally arrived, they were both cranky and hadn’t spoken in an awkwardly long amount of time, outside of Captain Alex’s swearing when cars cut him off.
The store was old and run down on the outside. Loose boards with “Closed” and “Out of Business” dangled on the door, hanging onto times passed. One sun-faded sign with “Beware of Eunuch” caught Notmie’s attention briefly before he disregarded it, since that was the easier thing to do than to try to understand it.
He pushed lightly on the front door. It didn’t swing open like he had planned. He pushed a little bit harder, still no budging, so he took a running start and ran his shoulder into it. The door creaked and shook, but didn’t open. He began repeatedly charging the door and loose boards fell to the pavement one after another.
“Why don’t you try the handle?” Captain Alex suggested.
The door opened almost effortlessly with the use of the knob.
“Well look who’s the smart one now!” Notmie snapped sarcastically.
“What are you talking about, Notmie? I’m pretty sure I’ve been the smart one since the beginning of this relationship an hour ago.”
The store smelled musty, and the air felt thick. Through the dim lighting they could just make out a figure in the back of the store, sitting on what seemed to be a cushion on top of a table.
Notmie didn’t dare speak at a normal volume, so he leaned close to Captain Alex to whisper. “I feel like I’m in a scary movie.”
Captain Alex squinted through the dusty air. “Hello?”
“Welcome!” replied a high-pitched voice.
The figure in the back of the shop stood up, jumped off the table, and approached them. Was it a man? Was it a woman? Who was going to ask this question first?
Not me, thought Notmie. Then he remembered the strange sign out front, and realized that the question no longer had to be asked.
“Welcome, welcome to my fine store! You are here, no doubt, because you wish to find the perfect counter-curse. My name is Yurway Kupkal, what may I assist you with?”
Captain Alex stepped forward. “Well, Yurway Kupkal—can I call you Yurway?”
“No! You may never use my
first name alone, and you’re pronouncing it wrong. It’s not ‘your wake up call,’ it’s ‘your way cup call.’ Now never make that mistake again!”
He hadn’t actually pronounced it wrong; Yurway Kupkal was just insecure and defensive about his name, among many, many other things.
Notmie tried to get back on topic. “So, Yurway Kupkal, can you help us find what we need?”
“Well, you silly person, what is it you need?”
“Um, you see,” Notmie began, “there’s this curse that was put on my family generations ago.”
The eunuch clapped his hands, delighted. “Aha! You should have said that earlier! Family counter-curses are over here.”
Notmie and Captain Alex had to hustle to catch up with the speedily moving Yurway Kupkal as he headed through rows and rows of rotting shelves.
“Now what sort of family curse is it?” he asked, and Notmie explained it to him.
“Aha, I see. Well, then this will be difficult because to have this work properly, you have to have a descendant of the person who actually performed the curse to be present upon digestion of this powder.”
“Oh, that’s me.” Captain Alex, raised his hand timidly.
“How convenient.” Yurway Kupkal flashed them a saccharine smile. He grabbed a bottle off of the shelf and held it up for his customers to see. “Here we are. This should be the exact counter-curse you need.”
“How much is it going to cost us?” asked Notmie.
Yurway Kupkal eyed his costumers intently. “Well, it’s very rare. Oh, and it’s made of diamonds… and kryptonite. So let’s see here…” and the eunuch began drawing figures in the air with his finger before saying a simple: “Fifty thousand dollars.”
Notmie immediately scoffed at the price, but Captain Alex kept a poker face. “Can you give my friend and me a second to discuss this?”
Yurway Kupkal, in equally polite tones, replied, “Certainly,” bowed, and disappeared behind one of the rows of shelves.
Notmie and The Captain stepped aside to discuss.
Captain Alex spoke first, keeping his voice to a whisper. “Listen, I really want to uphold my end of the deal, because I don’t want you to hit me with your car again, but this price seems a little steep.”
“That’s true.”
They were silent for a while as they pondered how to work around this impossible price. Then, as if their minds suddenly became one, they spoke in unison:
“Kill him?”
Both replied, “Sounds good.”
And just like that, without further discussion of morals or any of those other things that tend to complicate the decision of murder, it was set. Yurway Kupkal would have to be killed in order to get the counter-curse. It was just that important.
Now the dilemma they faced was how he should be killed.
Neither had ever killed before, so they spent the next few minutes discussing this and trying to come up with methods that had never been thought of in the history of mankind. Notmie, as I mentioned before as being a particularly uncreative person in general, was proud of himself when he came up with the idea of cutting off the eunuch’s arm and shoving it down his throat, but Captain Alex vetoed that, saying it seemed a bit extreme and unnecessary, and “hasn’t he had enough cut off of him?”
They began to think of something less messy, more practical, and possible to accomplish with the few assets they had available to them.
As Notmie continued rattling off ideas, Captain Alex became increasingly annoyed.
“Notmie,” he said, “we don’t have a helium tank, so that won’t work.”
“Well, we don’t have a jackhammer either, but you didn’t let that stop you from proposing your idea.”
Captain Alex threw his arms into the air in frustration. “Why are we arguing? We’re supposed to be a team!”
“Yeah. You’re right. Maybe this idea of murder wasn’t a very good idea to start off with.”
“Well then, Notmie, do you have a better one?”
Notmie stared blankly back at The Captain. “Not really. Well, sort of. What if we just let him know that since he’s so unreasonable and wants to foil all our plans, he’ll never have any friends if he keeps on in this direction? What if we try to talk reason with him? He might end up changing his ways and letting us have the counter-curse for a better price. Then we would also save on all the effort of killing someone.”
“You know,” began The Captain, “that’s very enlightened of you.”
He smiled, then smacked Notmie hard on the back of the head, adding, “That’s the stupidest an most impractical thing I’ve heard out of you all day, and since I’ve only known you for one day, I can easily say that’s the stupidest and most impractical thing I’ve ever heard you say!” Captain Alex shook his head in disgust. “But if things keep on in this manner, I’m sure it will only get worse.”
Notmie didn’t take Captain Alex’s words personally; he could tell The Captain was a troubled man. However, even if it wasn’t personal, the smack on the back of his skull still smarted. He rubbed his head for a few seconds, tending to his own needs and following his personal slogan of “Notmie is Number One.” After the throbbing began to subside, he came to a decision on their dilemma.
“Fine then, we’ll kill the guy… girl… whatever you’re supposed to call those types of people. But we still don’t know how to do it.”
Then a purely genius idea popped into his head and he motioned for Captain Alex to move in closer. They both looked over to see what Yurway Kupkal was doing to make sure he hadn’t become wise to their murder plans. He wasn’t. In fact, the thought that he was in any sort of danger had never seemed to cross his mind. For the time being, he seemed to be quite wrapped up in an interpretive dance as he hummed an off-key melody that Notmie didn’t recognize and Captain Alex suspected might have been made up on the spot. What it was that his dance was interpreting will forever be unknown.
“I have an idea,” whispered Notmie.
They talked and fine-tuned the plan for a few more minutes before interrupting the eunuch’s dance mid-move, which left him with one leg high in midair and arms tucked up under his armpits in a way that made it look like a bizarre version of the Chicken Dance.
“Done discussing?” squawked Yurway Kupkal.
“Yes, but first we were wondering if you had any counter-curses for—um… life?”
“Oooooh! I certainly do!” He clapped his hands in excitement before darting ahead toward the aisle. “Right over here, follow me! This one is a big hit, but I’ll tell you a little secret.” He turned to face his costumers and whispered most unnecessarily, seeing as how they were the only ones in the store. “This one really isn’t considered a ‘counter-curse,’ because you see, it’s not countering a curse, it’s just some liquefied rat poison I bought a large quantity of last year from this shady character I met under a bridge. Works like a charm. It should fit your purposes perfectly.”
Yurway Kupkal continued walking then stopped in front of one of the more precariously leaning shelves and asked, “Just for curiosity’s sake, what exactly are you going to use this poison for? A boss who’s been giving you trouble? A lover who won’t stop cheating? A baby who won’t stop crying?”
“No, not exactly,” said Notmie, a little appalled at the thought of giving a crying baby liquefied rat poison.
Yurway Kupkal began scanning the shelf, moving his finger across the bottles until he found what he was looking for. “Aha, here we are: the counter-curse to life. There are some side effects that, by law, I’m supposed to list for you, but since your purpose is to kill someone, I think you’ll be fine with me just skipping that formality.” He winked at them as he pulled the thick, glass bottle off of the shelf.
Notmie reached for it greedily. “Yes, that’s fine. Would you mind just giving me the bottle now?”
“Oh, certainly, certainly. And I guess you want to know what the cost will be with taxes, finder’s fee, and so forth,” replied the eunuc
h, handing Notmie the bottle.
“Er… yeah,” Notmie said, looking meaningfully at Captain Alex.
“Well, I can’t do the arithmetic off the top of my head, so I’ll have to ring it up on the cash register and see how much it comes out to. Right this way.”
He headed up to the front of the store as Notmie and The Captain followed, arguing quietly.
“You do it,” began Notmie, handing the bottle to Captain Alex, “I can’t bring myself to.”
“You’re the one who wanted to get rid of this curse to begin with! You do it!” The Captain shoved the bottle back into Notmie’s hands.
“If you don’t do it, the deal’s off, and I’ll hit you with the limo again.”
The bottle changed hands.
“I don’t care! I’ve survived you hitting me once; who’s to say I can’t do it again?”
Notmie now found himself with the bottle in his hands and without a comeback that would allow him to shove it back to Captain Alex.
They reached the counter and Yurway Kupkal asked for the bottle to ring up the price.
It was now or never for Notmie.
He heaved the bottle as hard as he could at the shopkeeper’s head. The bottle shot through the air in what seemed to be slow motion (but was just another case of Antihyperbeautosis).
Thunk!
It made contact with a sickening smack, and the eunuch was knocked backwards, but he was by no means dead; their plan had failed.
Notmie and Captain Alex looked at each other in desperation asking with their eyes: “What now?”
Notmie hadn’t anticipated that the bottle hitting Yurway Kupkal’s head might not kill him instantaneously.
Man, that plan was foolproof! It worked at the family reunion, but then again, that was with a crystal bowl. Maybe it doesn’t work as well with counter-curses for life.
Yurway Kupkal rubbed his head where the bottle had made contact, looking dazed and mumbling something in Russian. After a moment he gripped the edge of the counter and pulled himself up. “What the heck was that all about?”
Notmie was about to say something, but Captain Alex blurted out: “Tourette’s! He has Tourette’s syndrome! Please forgive him it won’t happen again.”
The Fraud Page 4
