Too Many Birthdays Can Kill You
The sky darkened. The headsetted rabbit hopped into a nearby hole in the ground and vanished. Teams in various colored jerseys were running this way and that, diving into other holes, huddling behind large rocks. All that panicked hopping and running produced a sound like the drumming of an approaching army of chaos, or an oncoming storm. Soon the only creatures in sight were our three friends, huddled together, kept company only by the now unattended banners: And:
The feeling was of something enormous approaching. As Fred stood there—some might say Fred was quivering with fear, but I won’t say that—she thought she spied a giant yeti in the distance; then she thought what she saw was closer to the size of a grizzly bear; nope, was it a large hound? Normally things grow larger as they get closer, but this approaching creature was doing the opposite.
The creature was a cuddly little dog, maybe part Shih Tzu. The little dog was yapping: “Birthday violation! Birthday violation! On order of the Rat! Disperse! Disperse!”
Yet who was there to disperse? Only Fred and her friends remained.
You may have noticed by now Fred’s tendency to get lost in her own thoughts. While the dog was yapping, Fred was thinking about how she had once been told that Shih Tzus had been bred to fit in emperors’ sleeves to keep them warm and company. And then she was thinking about how she had been told that that kind of phrase—to keep them warm and company, or, say, he opened the door and my heart—was called a zeugma. And perhaps one reason she was thinking of the very odd word zeugma was because the dog was wearing a large tag that read: DOGMA. Fred couldn’t remember quite what dogma meant, but it sounded cute.
Gogo sneezed. She nervously caressed the lockets that held the photos of her children. Then she sneezed again.
“I know a guilty sneeze when I hear it,” Dogma woofed. “Hand over the candles.”
“We’ve got no candles, Dogma,” Downer said glumly.
“Hand over the cake,” Dogma said.
“You think we can afford cake?” Gogo said, then sneezed yet again.
Dogma sniffed at the air. “I don’t smell cake. I’ll give you that. But the girl said the B word four times and implied another four-score more. She pronounced plans for getting older and wiser in the usual ways. She—”
“Look at her, Dogma. Does she look like she’s getting older and wiser?”
As you may remember, Fred was still wearing fluffy bunny slippers and planet pajamas. May she always wear fluffy bunny slippers and planet pajamas, if she wants to.
“And, as you must acknowledge, Children are the Greatest Thing in the World. She is clearly a child and has every intention of remaining a child—”
As these questionable defenses were being offered, Fred folded her arms and thought impatiently about peanut butter and pickle sandwiches.
Sometimes it’s good to have no idea of the perils of your situation.
“Regardless of candle or cake possession, the girl, who may or may not be a child, spoke of plans to get older, she spoke of the B word. These are undeniable violations of Rat Rule 79.”
Gogo blew her nose, then managed: “A violation of the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law, right?”
“The spirit?” Dogma said. “I don’t believe in spirits. And neither does the Rat Queen, who is entirely rational and good and righteous and divine and very, very reasonable. I believe in one thing and one thing only. And that is the divine law of the Rat.” Dogma then took out a harmonica, sounded out three notes, and began a slightly robotic song and dance:
The Rat-a-Tat-Tat-Tat
The Rat of Rockets and Pocket Calculators and
Freeze-Dried Ice Cream…
The Rat without Good Luck Charms or Fortune Cookies
or Ouija Boards or Magic Crystals
But still, other kinds of crystals, like Gypsum and Beryl,
and snowflakes,
even though they melt.
I follow.
The Rat.
Everywhere.
Unlike you.
Dogma directed unlike you right at Downer.
Which made tears appear in Downer’s eyes.