How People Are Being Hypnotized. And Two Windows Get Broken.
NILLY’S MOTHER AND sister were howling at the top of their lungs. They had forgotten Nilly was missing, because Hallvard Tenorsen was there. On TV. He was conducting with a broad, gleaming white smile, and they were following his baton with their eyes and doing whatever it said. They were in the middle of the second verse of “Norway in Red, White, and Blue,” a patriotic song that had become popular during World War II when Norway was under occupation by Nazi Germany. They were also nearing the end of their third bag of Cheetos when there was a sudden tinkling sound of breaking glass.
And since it was so late in the evening and they were at home in the safety of their own living room, Eva and her mother jumped like crazy. They stared at the large ice-covered snowball lying on the living room floor surrounded by shards of glass from the smashed windowpane.
“Nilly, you gnomified nitwit!” his mother screamed in rage at the hole in the windowpane. “Have you started vandalizing windows now too?”
In response, another ice snowball arrived, smashing the rest of the windowpane.
Nilly’s mother and Eva stood up and staggered over to the window. And there, on the other side of the picket fence, they saw six figures.
“Who’s out there?” Nilly’s mother yelled.
“The Norway Youth,” cried a voice that Nilly’s mother recognized right away.
“Truls and Trym Thrane!” she screamed. “Your mother’s going to hear about this in an Oslo minute, you catch my drift?!”
“Send that dwarf out here!” Trym yelled back. “Vee want Nilly! Otherwise vee’ll break the rest of your windows! This is a presidential recommendation!”
Nilly’s mother gave Eva a questioning look, but Eva just shrugged.
“What do you want with Nilly?” his mother yelled.
“Vee’re just supposed to bring him to the president, Mrs. Nilly!” a high voice called.
“Jeez,” Eva told her mother. “That’s Beatrize’s voice. I didn’t think she was into breaking windows and stuff like that.”
“What does the president want with Nilly?” Nilly’s mother howled.
“Weren’t you listening to the president’s speesh earlier this evening, Mrs. Nilly? Everyone who’s really small or really good at spelling has to meet with the president.”
“Why?” Eva yelled at the window.
“Because, as the eighteenth century drinking song that kind of became our first national anthem says, we’re the Birthplace of Shampions, which means no one has any business being small here. I’m sure you’ll get him back after the president has had a serious shat with him.”
“And what about the stuff about spelling?”
“The president doesn’t want a bunsh of pesky, uppity spelling know-it-alls picking on people who occasionally forget to double a letter. Seriously, Mrs. Nilly!”
Nilly’s mother contemplated this. Then she yelled back: “Sounds quite reasonable, all that. And Nilly is lazy, and I’d be more than happy to hand him over to you, tied up if you wanted. But you’ll have to tell the president that unfortunately Nilly isn’t home.”
“Oh well,” Beatrize yelled. “So sorry about the broken window, Mrs. Nilly, but vee were told that was the way it had to be done. Vee’ll just come back later.”
Eva and her mother went back to the TV, in time to sing along with the last verse. “Confounded tarnation! Nilly’s going to have to pay for that out of his allowance,” her mother said, and shivered.
“Nilly doesn’t get an allowance, Mom,” Eva said, and hurriedly devoured the last of the Cheetos.
NILLY, DOCTOR PROCTOR, and Gregory were all sitting around Gregory’s coffee table looking eagerly at Lisa. They were looking at her eagerly because she had just said, “I know how people are being hypnotized!”
“You asked what we have in common, those of us who haven’t been hypnotized?” Lisa began.
“Yes,” Doctor Proctor said. “If we knew that we could figure out how it’s happening.”
“It’s been right there the whole time,” Lisa said. “Right in front of our eyes. We just haven’t been watching it happening. For whatever reason. And a good thing, too.”
“What is she talking about?” Gregory whispered to Doctor Proctor.
“Shh!” Doctor Proctor said.
“But everyone else has been watching,” Lisa continued. “My mom and dad. Nilly’s mother and sister, Beatrize, Trym, Truls. Everyone in Norway!”
“Of course, it’s obvious!” Nilly said, slapping himself on the forehead.
“Eureka!” Doctor Proctor lit up. “That’s what we have in common! We haven’t been watching!”
“Uh, watching what?” Gregory cried, agitated.
Lisa and Nilly and Doctor Proctor responded in unison: “The NoroVision Choral Throwdown!”
“I wasn’t watching because I was doing my homework and practicing for band,” Lisa said.
“I wasn’t watching because I was reading about horrible animals and putting on shadow-puppet shows,” Nilly said.
“I wasn’t watching because my antenna hasn’t been working,” Doctor Proctor said.
“And you, Gregory,” Lisa said. “You weren’t watching because you don’t have a TV.”
ON THE TV screen at Lisa’s house, Tenorsen was on the seventh verse of “Norway in Red, White, and Blue” when the glass in the front windowpane shattered.
Lisa’s commandant father stared in astonishment at the shards of glass, the shattered flowerpot, and the snowball that were lying on the floor in front of his wingback chair. First Lisa had disappeared and now this!
“My lord, what’s going on?” Lisa’s commandant mother said.
A voice from outside on the street yelled: “Send Flatu-Lisa out here!”
Lisa’s commandant father walked over to the window.
“What kind of hooliganism is this?” he roared. “What did you just say about my daughter?”
“She’s a very good speller!”
“Of course she’s a good speller! And now I’m going to show you how good I am at slapping disobedient shildren upside their heads!”
And with that the large man came trundling out of his living room and started bellowing a ghastly roar that lasted down the front hallway, out the front door, down the walkway, through the gate, and out onto the street where the Norway Youth had already long since fled in panic.
Lisa’s commandant father stopped there, gasped for breath, and mumbled to himself, “But where is she?”
“IT’S HALLVARD TENORSEN,” Lisa said. “The singing chiropractor. He’s hypnotizing everyone.”
“He’s no more a chiropractor than I’m a moon chameleon,” Nilly said.
“This is terrible,” Doctor Proctor said. “We have a man-eating moon chameleon for a president. And he’s planning to start a war against Denmark!”
In silence, they contemplated this grim, deplorable fact for a few minutes.
“All right, all right,” Lisa said. “I think we’d better come up with our plan a little faster than this. I have to go home soon and do my homework.”
HER COMMANDANT FATHER was standing on the front stoop waiting when Lisa got home.
He crossed his arms and tried to hide his relief with a gruff expression. “Do you have any idea how worried your mother has been about you?”
“Yes,” she said, knowing that her father must have been at least equally worried. “But I had a good reason for being late, Dad.”
“Oh yeah? And that reason would be . . . ?”
“I can’t tell either you or Mom. You’re just going to have to trust me, Dad.”
Lisa’s commandant father watched dumbfounded as she marched right past him, into the house, and up to the second floor. Her commandant mother came to join him out on the front stoop and asked, “Well, what did she say?”
“That vee have to trust her.”
Lisa’s commandant mother looked at Lisa’s commandant father puzzled. Then Lisa’s father put his arm around Lisa’s mother’s shoulders and cleared his throat. “I have the felling that our little girl isn’t so little anymore, honey.”
WHEN NILLY GOT home, his house was dark.
Nilly opened his sister’s bedroom door a crack and peeked into his mother’s room to make sure neither of them had been eaten by moon chameleons yet. But they were both sleeping—at least judging from the snoring sounds—unconcerned and safe. He was about to close his mother’s bedroom door when he heard her voice.
“There you are, you slacker. I’m too tired now, but remind me that I’m supposed to tie you up and hand you over to the Norway Youth first thing tomorrow. Okay?”
“Okay, Mom.”
“But not until you’ve brought me breakfast in bed!”
“Humph.”
AND THE LAST thing that happened that night was that Nilly put on a short shadow play for Lisa. Not a scary one, because there’d already been enough scary things for one day. It was the longest ski jump in the world, a graceful arc that lasted and lasted, until the ski jumper turned into a bird that, on broad, safe wings, sailed under the moon, into the night, and on to the land of dreams, and didn’t land until long after both Lisa and Nilly had fallen asleep.