Academic Question: King in Check

by Walt Staples

Walt left this life on March 14, 2012. He will be sorely missed here at Avenir Eclectia; we have several more of his unpublished stories scheduled. This one is perhaps the strangest of his submissions here, but shows that twisted humour of his...


“Your move.”

Abram looked up from the psychosociology periodical he had been perusing. His bishop was very much in danger from the knight. “Hmm, decent, Mclean.” He regarded the board for a moment, then his bishop slid over one square of its own accord. He raised his journal again.

The biology instructor stared at the configuration of the pieces, then smiled. “Ah. Pawn takes knight.” One of the pawns began to waddle forward. “No, not you. The other one.” The pawn stopped, managed to look embarrassed as only an out-of-place playing piece can, and stepped back as the proper one waddled over to displace the offending knight. Mclean held the deceased knight between thumb and forefinger. “Abram, you’re holding up the game.”

The psychokinesis instructor surfaced long enough to note the proffered game piece, pluck it from his opponent’s grasp, and set it down beside his other lost pieces without bothering to touch it. He scrutinized the chessboard for a few seconds and said, “Concede.”

As the pieces, both taken and untaken, waddled to their proper starting positions, Mclean remarked, “You know, Abram, if you paid a bit more attention, you’d win more often.”

Abram nodded as his white queen’s pawn slid two squares. “Yes, probably. But when would I do my reading then?”

Doctor Professor Erschreckendmann, known to most as “Doctor E,” entered the club and arrived at their table. “Ah, I see you’re using Mclean’s board this time, Abram.” He leered at the biologist and hooked a thumb at the chessmen. “Have you got them housebroken yet so they don’t void themselves at awkward moments?”

Mclean sighed. “No, I still have to be careful with the timing when I feed them.”

Doctor E nodded with questionable bonhomie. “Good, good. I’m sure you will have them trained in short order—though at the moment, they seem to have you well trained.” He changed the subject. “Have either of you gentlemen seen His Majesty about?”

Abram glanced up at the alchemy instructor. “Who? Pomphee? Haven’t see him here today.”

Mclean smiled wickedly. “Perhaps he’s hiding from you.”

“No, that generally happens after I’ve seen him,” the small man said, distracted. He turned and strode off, hands clasped behind his back, apparently lost in thought.

#

Doctor E stuck his head in the door and greeted the department head’s receptionist, “Mistress Bright, is your master back yet?”

She smiled. “No, Doctor, not yet. Are you sure you don’t want to leave a message for him?” Like many, she wondered at the green lights that glimmered in the shadows cast by his enormous eyebrows.

He ran a finger over his huge mustache in thought. “No…” He smiled at her. “T’would probably spook the quarry.”

“I could send a few of the gnomes to look for him.”

He pulled at his lower lip as he considered. “If I don’t kick him up by tea, I may ask you to do so.”

He smiled at her. “Don’t let him hear, but I’m beginning to be a bit concerned.”

“Do you think there’s something seriously wrong?”

He shook his head. “No, I shouldn’t think so. It’s like having one’s key in the wrong pocket. I just don’t like things out of place; especially Pomphee.”

There was a hiss as Doctor E passed a large potted plant in the hall. He stopped and examined it. A pair of bloodshot blue eyes peered back at him. Pomphee’s voice hissed at him, “Don’t give me away. Please.”

“Give you away? I’d never think of such a thing, Pomphee. Why, your bodily elements would bring at least 23 credits on the open market.” He paused. “Though, I suppose, now that I think of it, you might fetch more as a teaching cadaver.” He leaned closer. “You are hiding and that’s not a man-eating plant?”

“Yes, I’m hiding,” the department head hissed back.

Doctor E straightened. “Oh, good. I’ve always been very bad at botany.” He regarded the blue-eyed plant. “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me what you’re hiding from, would you?”

“Professor Henpartie. She thinks I’m ‘cute.’”

“Can’t say as I know the woman all that well other than she’s known as ‘Queen’ Mim; I don’t get over to the Literature Department all that often.” He smiled sadly. “Though I must admit from the evidence of what you say, she obviously might be a case for Doctor Professor Schadenfreude over in Psychiatric Re-manipulation.”

Pomphee’s hiss became cobra-like, “Will you stop being funny and help me?”

The alchemist looked at the plant askance. “Did you just admit that I’m funny? Besides, why me?”

There was a sigh. “Because…because you make things happen.”

Doctor E crossed his arms and stroked his mustache in thought. “So the point of the exercise is to lower your ‘cuteness’ factor.” He came to a decision. “Okay, come with me to my lab.”

“But she might see me!”

“No, I think not.” He shook his head. “I doubt she’d be able to be absent from the aroma of silverfish and binder’s glue that long.” He gestured at the plant. “But, if it makes you feel better, by all means, bring your friend.”

#

Pomphee looked at the capsule suspiciously. “What’s in it?”

Doctor E assured him in a coaxing voice, ”It’s perfectly safe. Just fructose, an enzyme for catalyzation, a touch of tri-methylinidole, tri-hydroxybutyric acid—“

The department head shrank back in terror. “Acid?”

The alchemist shook his head. “It’s not going to hurt you.” He switched to wheedling as one would a recalcitrant 150 kilo child. “Come on, Pomphee. Just take the capsule and your woman troubles will be over.”

The big man turned the suspicious look on Doctor E. “How do I know you won’t poison me?”

The little man beamed his most beatific smile. “Pomphee, I promise you as your most ardent enemy, I am not going to poison you.”

The department head looked at him searchingly. Then accepted the capsule. Doctor E handed him a glass of brown sparkling liquid. “What’s this? Is this part of the process?”

The alchemy instructor shrugged. “No, just Dr Pepper, I figured you needed something to wash it down with.”

“Oh.” Pomphee relaxed, popped the capsule in his mouth, and emptied the glass.

Doctor E was watching his watch four minutes later when the head of the Materials Department began to sniff. The alchemist took an exploratory whiff and stepped back two paces. Pomphee continued to sniff as he looked in all directions. He turned red and asked, “Oh, dear. Is that me?”

Doctor E clapped his hands and, smiling, said, “Pomphee, I now declare you un-‘cute.’”

Without the courtesy of a knock, the lab door flew open and a tall, gangling, purple-haired woman strode in. “The receptionist said she thought—Oh! Norquist! There you are!”

Pomphee paled and replied forthrightly, “I, ah…er…uh, you see—“

Suddenly an odd expression crossed her face. She snuffed, as opposed to sniffed, first in Doctor E’s direction, then in that of her balding Lord Byron. Her pupils went to pin-points as she began to hastily back out the door. “I, I…really must be going. Lots of papers to grade you know, and all that. Tootles.” She slammed the door.

Pomphee gave a satisfied grunt then turned to Doctor E. “Er, how long is this, er, my condition going to last?”

The alchemist took another step back. “By my calculations, approximately six more hours.”

The department head was horrified. “I can’t see people like this. And I can’t possibly go home to my wife in this condition. What will I do?”

Doctor E put a handkerchief over the lower part of his face. His voice was muffled as he said, “Do what any normal intelligent creature would; hide in your office and read journals.”

Academic Question: Rising Expectation

by Walt Staples -

“Pomphee, one would begin to think you like me.” Doctor Professor Erschreckendmann—aka: “Doctor E”—smiled his special smile at the department head.

The other shuddered. “Perish the thought. I only associate with you when I must.”

The little man almost purred as he preened the huge mustache that hid most of his lower face. “Excellent. Good, honest hatred I can work with. Now, to what do I owe your rather dubious attentions?”

The department head placed the tips of his fingers together on the large desk he kept between himself and the alchemy instructor. “We have a small problem.”

“You mean you have a small problem,” Doctor E cut in.

“No, we. The matter in question is an embarrassment to the school—you, me, and especially the instructor involved.”

“And which instructor might this be?”

“Hortel.”

Doctor E furrowed his brow. “Hortel? That tall broom straw in Advanced Conjurment?”

“The same.”

The little man drew his abundant eyebrows down. A glint of green played in their shadows. “And what, pray tell, could anyone that innocent do that would embarrass so august a body as this?”

“He rises.”

One eyebrow rose slightly. “So? You are afraid he will supplant you? I don’t buy it. You have your very own form of fecklessness. Pomphee, you’re irreplaceable.”

“Thank you for your vote of confidence,” the department head replied drily. “No, the problem is that young Hortel actually rises. He levitates. And at the wrong time.”

“And there is a ‘right’ time?”

Pomphee sighed. “Must you?” He continued, “If he could control it, fine and good. But he tends to cause a distraction. There we are at the interfaith breakfast this morning and he just lifts-off.”

Doctor E leaned back in his chair. “So what’s your real interest? He’s not in the Materials Department.”

The other was silent for a moment, looking down at his interlaced fingers. Continuing to look down, he spoke haltingly, “I like him. He has no ax to grind, he takes no sides, stabs no one in the back, and is interested only in training the students. I don’t want to see him destroyed.”

The little man across the table gazed off into space. “His nickname through the wards was ‘Little Friend of all the World…’”

“What?”

“Hmm? Oh. Kipling. Before your time.” He leaned forward, the green lights glowing beneath his eyebrows. “What precisely has set the cat among your pigeons, Pomphee?”

“Bishop Guash is coming for the dedication of the chapel annex and I’m afraid Hortel will cause a scene.”

The alchemy instructor nodded. “A large and rather fat cat indeed—or perhaps tiger would be closer. All right, I’ll see to it.”

Pomphee looked at him suspiciously. “That’s all? No stalk to the door? No cutting remark? Why?”

Doctor E grunted as he rose to his feet. “Because cats protect their hunting territories.” The guard gnome opened the office door at his approach. “And I allow no one to abuse you but me,” he cast over his shoulder as he walked out the door.

#

Professor Hortel, all two meters and 30 kilos of him, perched upon a tall stool beside a caldron, a screwdriver hanging in his hand. He regarded the caldron sadly. “I’ve torn that heating element down three times so far, and I can’t find the glitch.” He blew out his cheeks. “I suppose I’ll have to call maintenance. Who knows, someone may show up before the end of the term.” He turned back to Doctor E. “I’m sorry; that’s not what you’re here for, is it?”

“No,“ he rumbled. “More the matter of your little fantasy of flights.”

Hortel blushed and looked sadder. “Yes, that has been a problem. Unfortunately, I have no control of them. I hear a piece of liturgical music and I’m aloft. The Archbishop found it very disconcerting back when I was at Whales’ View.”

The other nodded. “Yes, I’ve noticed that the higher the clergyman, the more likely the startlement at the manifestation of something whose existence he preaches on.” He fingered his mustache thoughtfully. “No other music sets you off then? Say, classical, for instance?”

The Conjurment instructor shook his head. “No, Doctor E, only when it was written with a religious purpose in mind.”

Doctor E abruptly began to whistle “A Mighty Fortress.” Hortel rose into the air. The whistler quickly switched to “Die Gedanken Sind Frei” and he settled back on the stool. “Hail Holy Queen” and into the air. Doctor E brought him is for a landing with “My Old Man’s a Dustman.”

“You see what I mean,” the stork-like man said.

His erstwhile flight controller smiled. “I think this might be a matter for the Athletics Department.”

#

Sunday, noon, all were present at the dedication, including Professor Hortel seated between two burly members of the mootsball team. Bishop Guash sprinkled holy water over the altar of the new side chapel, the choir broke into Mozart’s “Hallelujah” chorus, and the tall, thin Conjurment instructor appeared lifted into the air by the mootsball player on each side grasping an ankle. After a moment, they drew him back to earth.

After the ceremony, his Excellency took Axgrinnder, the Chancellor, aside. “Frederick, I really must compliment you on the turnout and spirit. Though some of the latter was a bit irregular. I mean the athletes picking up that one instructor and lifting him up. I don’t think I have ever seen the like.” He smiled. “But I do appreciate the spirit. Now, where is the luncheon to be served?”

A Spirit of Fun

by Walt Staples -

In his idle moments, Pomphee, the department’s head, wondered whether it was prescience on the part of an ancestor that led to picking the name or whether, possessing that name, the man before him felt at some level required to live up to it. Doctor Professor Erschreckendmann or, more simply Doctor E, hulked in the armchair across the desk from him, if a man of 60 kilos can be said to “hulk.” Perhaps it was it was his way of holding his head tilted forward and regarding the subject of his interest from beneath thick, bushy brown eyebrows, a gleam of green glimmering in the shadows. In combination with the ferocious mustache, one was given the uncomfortable impression they were being observed through a sniper’s sights from ambush.

The other spoke, “And that’s your problem? One freshman prankster?”

Pomphee nodded. “Precisely, Doctor.”

Doctor E lowered his right eyebrow. “What makes him special?”

The department head sighed. “The last stroke was the neutron particle spectrum analyzer.”

“Richardson’s new toy?”

“Yes. Well, it seems young Hacket found a way to view questionable artworks on it.”

Doctor E half smiled. “Something neither the League nor the chaplains would approve of, no doubt. So? Take them off.”

“That was the first half. The second became apparent when those, in a moment of weakness…indulged, shall we say. It seems anyone who does comes away with a red face.”

The professor chuckled. “That shocking, are they?”

“No,” Pomphee shook his head, “literally red. Hacket linked a cantrip to the instrument. If one uses it for its proper purpose, there is no problem, but if used to view…” he let the rest hang and reached for the cigar box on his desk.

Doctor E gave a great gust of a laugh. “Ah. That’s why Richardson and half his grad students are nowhere to be seen. And the mice of the department want me to bell this young cat.”

The other nodded. “Just so.” He pushed the cigar box across the desk and raised his eyebrows.

Doctor E put up a hand in negation. “No. A wise alchemist doesn’t smoke. There are far too many things in my laboratory that are much too fond of fire.”

The department head choose a dark Cabyo and touched it into ignition. “Will you handle the matter?”

The smaller man rose, turned, and with his hands clasped behind him, strode to the door. As the guard gnome held the door, he stopped, turned, and with hands still clasped, answered, “I’ll think on it.”

*

Hacket peeped around the corner of the sub-hallway. Though designated only for maintenance robots and gnomes and other such creatures running errands, the students often used it as a shortcut between their cells and the library. The string was almost invisible and stretched across the hall neck-high on a human. He snickered. The next student though would receive a very wet surprise. He glanced again at the buckets; their color merging them into the walls and ceiling.

Footsteps! He crouched so as to peer around the corner from a lower vantage. The freshman’s freckled face broke into a big toothy grin as he recognized his victim, the sawed-off little runt with the huge mustache from the Materials Department. This was going to be so good!

His quarry approached the string oblivious to its presence. Hacket put a hand over his mouth to stifle a giggle. The little man touched the string—his head flew from his body! Hacket froze in horror and the bottom dropped out of his stomach as the headless body fell forward, hit the floor, and flew into hundreds of fragments.

As he stood transfixed, a hand dropped on his shoulder and a voice rumbled, “You might consider breathing again.”

Hacket slowly turned his head. The hand on his shoulder belonged to the little man and it was attached to the rest of him.

The redhead found his tongue. “How?”

Doctor E twitched his mustache with amusement. A green fire burned behind his eyes. “A simple matter of bi-location and atomization, my boy.”

“How the devil—?”

“No,” the professor cut him off, “in my case, they’re from the other side. An inheritance, one might say.

“Now, if you can control your clownish impulses until the end of the semester, I’ll take you on as a lab assistant. Come along.”

As he followed, Hacket asked, “Inheritance? Is it elven blood then?”

The old man snorted. “Elves? Of course not--Heinzelmännchen.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“Look it up, boy,” Doctor E threw over his shoulder, “That’s the way you learn.”