Stranger and Stranger (3 page)

1. Made well-tailored clothing for all 9 public statues in town. Black dresses, to be exact. Dressed them all one moonless
   night. Great photos in newspaper the next day.
   
2. Broadcast pirate TV show interrupting prime time for silent footage of bees.
   
3. Infiltrated beverage packing plant and surreptitiously inserted 2,300 plastic mice into 2,300 bottles of beverage.
   
4. Built telecom interrupter, misdirecting 665 phone calls to random numbers.
   
5. Followed Blandindulle Police Cruiser #9 on its journeys one fateful evening. And all through the night, no matter where Officers Fadler and Skint went, they smelled burnt toast. AHAAHHAAHAHHAHHAHAA!
   
6. Threw huge cat-only party in the cemetery. Townspeople not pleased about subsequent feline fecal desecration of the lawn. But we did it for the dead! (Note: We Did It for the Dead = brilliant name for a band!!!!)
   
7. Chopped hole in my basement leading to town sewers, then slogged through said sewers into public buildings, then spied on elected officials in said buildings, then rearranged the office drawers of said officials.
   
8. Arranged for Mom to win 50 bucks in a contest she never even entered.
   
9. Threw my voice a lot: 7 fully developed characters. 47 townspeople hoodwinked. Good times.
   
10. Got the local scientific community riled up by publishing analysis of my recent advances in singularity theory. Anonymously. While they hotly debated my identity, I short-sheeted their beds.
    
11. Designed, handcrafted, marketed, and sold a popular line of scarves. Unbeknownst to the purchasers, I had knitted hilarious images into them, which only the color-blind could see.
    
12. Built perfectly official-looking roadblocks to cut off traffic to streets where I decided cars were no longer welcome.
    
13. Used nail scissors to carefully snip certain inflammatory images into certain neighbors’ front lawns.
    

Yeah, I’ve got a lot of fond memories of this town. And NO interest in packing.

Later

Possessions that are very hard to pack:

1. Bottles of my patented Revenge-in-a-Jar—you break one of these in a vehicle and you might as well drive it straight to the junkyard; the stuff is that stinky.
   
2. Crash-test dummies—the old porcelain kind, anyway.
   
3. Matchstick model of the bone church of Kutná Hora. (Note: Bone Church = amazing name for a band!!!!!!)
   
4. 88 live eels.
   
5. The toys of 4 cats. They are everywhere, under everything, stuck to everything, contributing nothing to the Packing Effort, distracting cats, thereby distracting me from the Packing Effort.
   
6. My lovely, lovely Oddisee and all its auxiliary devices.
   
7. Great-Aunt Millie—she’s elusive like that.
   
8. The 5-foot-by-7-foot section of wall I did my first public mural on.
   
9. Pitchblende.
   
10. My collection of minuscule rocks. These are rocks so tiny, any normal person would see them as colorless, indistinguishable, infinitesimal grains of sand. Grains of sand, chuh!!! These rocks, which have worn down from giants over the eons? These ones, formerly boulders of immeasurable girth, history,
    and footprint? How unique, masterful, and compelling each one is! Unfortunately, they’re also really easy to lose if you have to pack them.
    
11. Collection of cat whiskers—because the temptation to hurl them into the rug like wee spears is too intense for me.
    
12. The annexes, passageways, ramps, dumbwaiters, and substories I’ve constructed on this house since we moved in.
    
13. Every…single…other…frabbing…thing.
    

Luckily I have SOME help, although I can’t really take the time right now to program Raven for packing, and trying to direct her to help me has been going a little bit like this:

M
E
: OK, Raven, wrap this chandelier in tissue and put it in a box.

R
AVEN
: Uhhhh…K. [Walking toward my lab. Grabbing test tubes full of tissue samples. Fleshy, festering, DISEASED tissue samples.]

M
E
: [Envisioning my chandelier wrapped in diseased tissue samples. Yes, yes, very striking, but we have no time for avant-garde interior decorating right now.] No, Raven…ehhh, never mind.

SIGH. At least she’s got the strength of five men and can carry all my bulky items down to the moving van for me. Hooray for my superstrong golem!!! I am not lifting anything!!!!

Much Later

Have lifted approximately 923 bulky items. With all the moving we do, you’d think I would have less stuff.

June 1

Spent the entire night and most of today packing stuff, removing miscellaneous surveillance equipment from the house, eliminating traces of my presence here, and saying goodbye to favorite spots. In the panic of the last few moments, I called Zenith and told him that, as my going-away present to him, he could help himself to anything I couldn’t pack. He was over here within
seven minutes with a moving van of his own. He seemed incredibly happy with whatever he managed to scrounge, though it looked like a lot of balled-up spiderwebs and broken guitar strings to me. (I think he was just as disappointed as I was that the incredibly heavy no-drip candlestick could not be lifted by any means and is staying right where it is, buried in the floorboards.)

So. Goodbye, Blandindulle.

Am now in cab of moving van with Mom and cats, headed out. Raven and Great-Aunt Millie are packed away in the back with our stuff. Mystery is curled up on my lap, asleep and purring. Man, nothing fazes her. Miles and NeeChee are obviously bothered by vehicle travel but way too cool to show it, so they are squatting on the floor, glaring at my feet. Sabbath had to be restrained and is busy trying to eat his way out of the cat carrier and/or deafen us with his yowling. Undignified!!

Later

Asked Mom where we were headed, and she handed me the map and said it was my turn to pick. Silifordville, here we come! Hey, it may not have the MOST hilarious name of any town I’ve lived in, but it’s only 56 miles away—that’s 610 miles closer than Boody, and I’m hungry. We can move to Boody next time!

Later

Have been crushed by sudden attack of anxiety over
what the new town will be like. Part of me is raring to go get lost in a new place where everything is unknown and just waiting for me to discover and exploit it. And another part of me is huddled in the fetal position, rocking and weeping, afeard that they will have no junk shops for me there.

—Oh flamjars, here’s our exit, will write later—

Later

Am sitting in the cab of the moving van outside the real-estate office, sending hopeful vibes in Mom’s direction. Am banking on her finding us a house with enough room for all my stuff. Attic, basement, preferably a subbasement or two, some outbuildings if possible, nice big yard ESSENTIAL, treehouse would be nice, detached laboratory not too much to hope for…

Here comes Mom! Fingers crossed!

MUCH Later

Have lifted all those bulky items AGAIN. GAHHHHHH!!!

At least our new house is decent—three stories, attic and basement, big yard with giant trees. No detached lab, but I’ll make do. Cats have been released and are busy marking territory. Have left Great-Aunt Millie’s traveling jar open in the doorway to the attic so that she can take her time getting used to the new haunting grounds. Have claimed third floor for myself. Second floor will be for whatever family antiques I don’t decide to use in
my room. Mom’s bedroom will be on the first floor. She knows by now it’s smart to keep at least one whole floor between her bedroom and my experiments.

Have also had first conversation with new neighbor.

N
EIGHBOR
L
ADY
: It’s just so nice to see someone finally moving into the old Carrico place!

M
E
: [Ears pricking up.] Oh yeah? Has it been empty for decades or something? Is it haunted? Cursed? Built over an Indian graveyard?

NL: [Taken aback.] Uh, no, dear, nothing like that. It just…needed a new paint job, probably.

M
E
: [Losing interest. Silently removing myself from conversation.]

M
OM
: Well, that’s good to hear. We certainly don’t need any more poltergeists in our lives.