Tag: A Tyrannosaurus on my Doorstep

By me, with art by Sam Messerly.

Click here to read from the beginning.

Warbell was working with a masseur named Lilt Parley, a man who looked like a muscle mannequin lightly sprayed with skin-colored paint. Each day I would escort Warbell to his lesson, and there would be Parley in a Speedo stretching on the lawn outside his massage parlor (called “Everything You Knead Massage Parlor and Tanning”) folding himself in half or maybe cleaning his ears with his big toe or something. Often there was a crowd waiting, hoping to get a chance to have a tyrannosaurus knead the knots in their back into nothingness—or possibly just break their ribs. I used to watch the shenanigans sometimes, incredulous, because I found it so difficult to imagine a full-size alpha predator with those little chicken-arms actually massaging anything. My shoulders definitely had not felt better after Warbell carried me across the city to save the life of the bacon boy. Parley always talked with Warbell at the beginning of each day, worked him through a set of stretches (including tail stretches somehow), and even massaged Warbell’s arms and forearms carefully, slowly, deliberately—boringly. I had better things to do then gawp at a nearly naked fatless man tickle a t-rex. Plus I was still pretty mad at Warbell for looking into my past, into the history of my leg injury, without even asking me permission. What I mean to say is, I could only watch for so long before I wanted to kick something hard. Preferably with my prosthetic leg so that I didn’t break my toe.

Meanwhile, every day I was also checking the recordings of Warbell at night, recorded via the secret equipment installed in his room. I hadn’t found much yet. There were times when he would grunt and growl or something, but I was never quite sure if he was just snoring. Sometimes I would pick up sounds of him rolling over, smacking his lips, or farting—when he passed gas, it made a sound like the whomp of a tuba. But I never heard him say even a word in English.

I found myself talking over the issue with Colander on my break one day as she was fixing some book covers at the library. That day she had a mandala on her eyepatch, and it was really distracting.

“Of course, I am listening to the recordings on fast forward,” I said. “But listening to eight hours of snoring on fast forward is just like listening to chipmunk chirpy snoring for four hours instead. It’s still boring enough that I want to disconnect my ears for a while and turn them in for industrial strength medicine.”

“Well, that tears it,” Colander said.

I waited. When Colander didn’t offer an explanation, I couldn’t help but ask for clarification.

“What do you mean?” I said. “Something wrong?”

“Oh, when I hold the book like this, it tears,” Colander said. “This novel really needs some industrial strength repairs. That, and plus I was wondering something.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Why are you listening for English?” she said. “Doesn’t Warbell speak fluent dinosaur?”

My eyes widened.

That night I returned to my recordings and listened carefully to some of the sections I had thought were particularly noisy snoring. At least one of these from a few days ago had a great variety of blats and grunts and wheezes. And there did seem to be a pattern to it. Colander listened too when I texted her the audio file, and she agreed with me.

That didn’t sound like just an innocent snore. But who could Warbell be talking to late at night?

By me, with art by Sam Messerly.

Click here to read from the beginning.

Warbell showed up the next morning after I bugged his place, but he had little explanation for his behavior. Instead he was smiling.

“Sometimes you need to get away,” he said. “And those cocktails hit me a lot harder than I thought. It’s been a while since I felt that sick.”

“You can’t go running off, Warbell!” I said. “I am looking after you. If you disappear, it looks bad for me. It looks bad for both of us.”

“You didn’t want to watch any more of that,” Warbell said. “No one wants to watch a tyrannosaurus barf in the street.”

I shook my head and jutted out my jaw, trying to look intimidating despite the fact I was standing in my front lawn again in my pajamas, and no matter how far I could jut my chin, I wasn’t about to spook a dino.

“It’s my job to keep track of you,” I said. “If I don’t do that, I am not doing my job.”

“Then do your job to help me do my job,” he said. “I am training today to become a real masseur. I need people who trust me and who will be willing to be my guinea pigs as I learn how to do the best therapeutic massage two dinosaur fingers can offer.”

In my mind, I imagined people signing a waiver before getting a massage. “Warning: You might get squished into tomato paste.” Or maybe, “Pay extra to insure your life against dinosaur claws.”

“No pressure,” Warbell said. “Though it would probably be more comfortable to give my first massage to someone I know. And there is quite the sign-up list already for people who want to try the novelty of a t-rex massage. We put up flyers yesterday, and we are already getting a tremendous response.”

“Great, great,” I said. “But Warb… what was the ‘very important thing’ you wanted to talk about yesterday? What is going on?”

Warbell’s expression clouded over, and there was a pause as the dinosaur searched for words. A squirrel scolded him roundly for standing too close to a particular tree as he considered my question, the chitterings of the obnoxious furball filling the awkward silence.

Maybe it was the same squirrel Warbell had coughed into a passing car.

“You want to have this talk before breakfast?” he asked.

“If it’s important, yeah,” I said. “We should get it over with.”

Warbell nodded, and I felt my body tensing up for some reason as my nerves jangled.

“Alright then,” Warbell said. “Your leg… did you lose it on April 22, 2015?”

My mouth ran off without me in that moment, and I found myself yelling at the top of my lungs in the crisp air of the morning.

“What do you know about my leg?” I shouted. “What do you know about that? Why are you poking your head into this? Did you look at my medical files? Stay out of my files! None of this, none of it, is any of your business whatsoever!”

Warbell didn’t say anything. He just shook his head solemnly and turned away.

“I have to practice my masseur techniques,” he said. “No breakfast today.”

And he was gone, and I was left with my heart beating with anger and something jittering in the back of my mind. Something very much like fear.

By me, with art by the great Sam Messerly.

Click here to read from the beginning.

I tried to chase him, but a tyrannosaurus has longer legs than a human, and my bike was not equipped for offroading. That didn’t stop me from yelling myself hoarse in the middle of a strange field, and I thought I saw some spooked locals drive by slowly as I belted out the dinosaur’s name.

“Warbell! Where are you? Get back here!”

Since “Warbell” was just my pet name for the dinosaur, the public shouldn’t have any idea why I would be out screaming in the middle of a field.

I waited at least fifteen minutes for Warbell to come back, but when he didn’t, I jumped back on my bike, grinding my teeth. If that’s how Warbell wanted it—but what on earth had he been talking about? Too late for what? And who was going to die?

Was he talking about the invasion of the dinosaurs against human civilization?

I kicked the bike stand up and started peddling. I didn’t go particularly fast, but neither is Final Pumpklin a huge city, and thus it didn’t take long to get back to my house. Warbell wasn’t there, either.

Out of frustration, I hatched a crazy idea. I should bug Warbell’s room and listen in on any conversations he might have in that big lonely garage with whatever dinosaurs use instead of cellphones. I’d never seen him use a cellphone before, but then again he also had that insane trick with his teeth. Surely these dinosaur folks had iPhones like the rest of us.

So instead of chasing Warbell, I spent half the night setting up hidden microphones and cameras in the garage. If Warbell did have secret conversations, they weren’t going to be so secret anymore. Luckily Warbell did not return while I was bugging his room, and so I finished up quickly and fell into my bed.

As a side note, I heard a rumor a few days later that some joyriders in their Mustang had skidded out when they hit Warbell’s puke patch and ended up stuck in the ditch with a nice car splattered in stinky dinosaur vomit. It kind of made me appreciate Warbell a little more when I heard about it.

Read the next chapter.

By me, and with gorgeous art from my friend Sam Messerly.

Click here to read from the beginning.

“What do you mean, you decided to become a masseur?”

We were on our way home shortly after the run in with the Wringlers, me peddling slow on my bike, and Warbell strolling lightly (or as lightly as he could) beside me. He was smiling, obviously happy to get away from the cocktail party. Still, despite his attempts to avoid drinking the champagne, his breath reeked of alcohol. And fish. He had eaten a lot of fish.

“It’s the perfect job,” he said, and his breath was so bad I could almost see drunk tuna swimming before my eyes. “I can get to know people, talk to them, on a closer level than just as a curiosity or as a celebrity in town.”

“But your arms!” I said. “They are so small!”

“They are about the size of human arms,” Warbell said. “Precisely one of the reasons why this job is a good fit.”

“You only have two fingers on each hand, and those claws…”

“Can be trimmed,” Warbell finished. “And there are techniques to get around the lack of fingers. I have been talking with some of the best masseurs in the nation. Several have expressed interest in training me.”

“It’s absolutely crazy,” I said. “You’ll crush people! On accident!”

We made a turn, and Warbell nearly took out a stop sign. An oncoming car with an ogling driver also made him slow and move behind my bike for a few steps, but then once the car had passed he moved up next to me again.

“I am very gentle by nature,” he said. “Except for when I used to hunt. I wasn’t gentle back then. But I have changed.”

“That,” I said. “That right there. You’re a meat-eater. Meat-eaters shouldn’t be kneading the flesh of… of animals that you might think about eating. It’s like you’re playing with your food.”

Because of increased traffic, Warbell tried to walk up on the sidewalk, but his weight shattered the cement and broke the curb. For a while he walked back behind my bike again, which made me feel uncomfortable, as if Warbell was hunting my trusty five-speed like a predator.

“I don’t think of humans as my food,” he said. “Ugh, that taste. I wish I had never eaten anything in this awful world at all. It’s going to be the end of me.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, so I pedaled in silence, watching him in the rearview mirror I had attached to my bike handles. He had his head down, and I could hear him breathing heavily, puffing and snorting in a strange way. Along with the nasty dinosaur breath, I also picked up a stink as if an army of sopping wet mutts were walking by in a parade. Bizarrely, I could have sworn I heard the flustered trumpet of an elephant out of nowhere, and I just assumed Warb must have cussed in dinosaur pidgin or something. He was also slowing down. Given that he wasn’t running very quickly, I didn’t think he could be tired out already, but something seemed to be wrong. I slowed and stopped near a field, and Warbell stopped, too.

“Hey,” I said. “Problems?”

Warbell jerked and pawed at the ground, eyes blinking, lips working uncomfortably over his huge teeth. Then, in an incredibly burst of sound and stink and fury, he vomited all over the road. Chunks and streams of bile rolled and swam across the pavement. Warbell snapped his jaws together a few times, looking around.

“It’s no good,” he said. “No, leave me alone. Probably I can’t do anything to help anybody anyway, and I’ll just perish, helpless and alone. I shouldn’t have gotten you mixed up with this as well. And so many people are going to keep dying.”

There was a haunted look in Warbell’s eyes—anger, fear, frustration, rage. Then he made a quick movement, spun on one foot, and dashed out into a nearby field.

Continue reading.

By me, with art by Sam Messerly/Kaiju Kid.

Click here to read from the beginning.

I didn’t meet with Warbell until later that evening, wherein I escorted the huge lug to a dinner party of sundry celebs. As I cruised up on my bicycle, I thought it would probably be best to discourage Warbell from finding the job he wanted. At least, I figured I should do what I could to stop him until I could find out if his objectives were not at all sinister. Of course, I had no idea how I might begin to stop the beast given that so much of his daily schedule as dinosaur royalty and as object of scientific curiosity was to meet and greet with endless people.

Indeed, he was meeting a lot of folks that evening at the dinner party with the local rich snobs. I had never attended such an event myself, and I immediately felt underdressed because I had come in my sparky outfit after work. No one warned me that all the local rich would be competing for “most expensive wardrobe.” As I wandered through the crowd and introduced Warbell to people, I got an earful of bragging about this or that pair of gloves, that watch, this bag, those shoes, and the thousands of dollars spent on each. I mean each shoelace, for heaven’s sake.

The mayor was at the event, too, and she gave me the evil eye when she saw my electrician’s work clothes.

“We really need to get you an official set of ambassador threads,” she said. “Like a uniform.”

“Couldn’t I just carry a badge?” I asked.

Apparently that was out of the question.

“We are still learning how to live with a king in our midst,” said Mayor Pilky. “But clearly proper attire is very important. Look at the British. The staff at the palace. Those charming guard uniforms.”

“I will not wear a hat that looks like a Bride-of-Frankenstein vertical afro,” I said. “Oh, but the rex is looking for a job now. What if we made the dinosaur wear the hat, and then made him stand completely still all day, no talking, so people could take pictures with him?”

Before Mayor Pilky could respond, Warbell tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up at him. He was holding a dinosaur-sized cup of champagne and a scrunched-up expression of disgust.

“This stuff tastes awful,” he said. “Let’s go home. The discussions here are among the most inconsequential I can imagine, and there is something very important I want to talk with you about.”

My ears perked up.

“What is it?” I asked.

Before Warbell could reply, a celebrity couple—Pluck and Cake Wringler, the owners of the Brr-Eat-Toe chain of toe-shaped ice cream burrito snack cafes—stumbled up half-drunk to take a picture with the resident dinosaur celebrity.

“Take a sip from your cup, would you, and be a peach?” asked Pluck. “We are collecting sip-picks with all the stars, and you’re the biggest star on the scale—or maybe the biggest star WITH scales!”

A burst of tipsy giggles sprayed from the couple. Warbell looked visibly annoyed, but he put his champagne glass on a nearby table and then placed his claws on the couple’s shoulders.

“If you would like something better than a simple and boring photograph, and a unique experience as well,” he said, “then you should sign up for a dinosaur massage from your king. I will be starting my job as a masseur as soon as possible, and I can pencil you in as advance customers.”

By me, and with art by the great and mighty Sam Messerly.

Click here to read from the beginning.

I almost fell off the bench. Colander hit the egg again. It cracked open in a collapse of dust and pebbles. And she was right, there were no dinosaurs in there. Just rock and dirt and dust.

We sat looking at the mess on the picnic table as I scratched my stubble and Colander stuck out her tongue.

“That was fun,” she said, then blew the dust off of the hammer and slipped it into a loop on her coveralls as if it were a gun holster.

“I don’t know what to think,” I said. “I was sure it was an egg.”

“Maybe it’s a fossil egg,” Colander replied. “There have been a number of fossils found in and around Final Pumpkin in the past, after all. Or maybe just somebody made some mud balls and it hardened like that.”

I rested my chin on my one arm and doodled in the dust left over from the mutilated mudball.

“What do you think of Warbell, Colander?” I asked.

“Warbell?” she asked.

“Oh, that’s the name I gave—”

“The dinosaur, gotcha,” Colander finished. “Seems like a pretty cool dude to me.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “There is so much mystery around him. I don’t know really why he is here, why he wants my garage, if he is just going to eat everybody.”

“Probably not the last one,” she said.

I slammed my hand down on the table, which blew up a cloud of dust and made Colander jolt away. I immediately felt guilty, but I plowed ahead anyway, blushing furiously.

“But we don’t know!” I said. “He is apparently from some dinosaur kingdom! What if they invade? And he has that weird technology with his teeth. What if the dinosaurs have some kind of super weapon that they can use to destroy everybody in the world?”

“Warbell did a special activity on Thursday for the kiddies at the library,” Colander said. “He was telling stories about being a dinosaur cub. Biting his brother’s tail. Headbutting trees. He described the burbling stream as his version of the Internet. You could learn about the world from what comes floating by. Lots of branches and leaves might come down the stream, and that probably meant a storm or an earthquake. But it’s better than the Internet because you can reach in and catch your lunch, and then keep right on watching. You can use it as a toilet, too. You can’t do that with a computer screen. The kiddies were really laughing.”

I crossed my arms on the picnic table and plopped my head on top of them.

“Evil masterminds can be good with children,” I said. “Like in that movie with the babbling yellow pill people.”

Colander gazed up at the sky, and she let out her breath with a puff.

“There are no guarantees in this life, Walty old bean,” she said. “Maybe Warbell is in reality a secret ninja warrior beast waiting to assassinate the President with pizza-sized ninja stars or something. But usually I find kids are a pretty decent judge of a fellow’s character. Not always, but often enough. Get a bunch of kids together, and if you are a murder monster, they won’t laugh at your jokes.”

She reached out, and the index finger on her right hand lightly grazed my elbow.

“But you’re right, Walter,” she said. “Warbell is hiding something, and even if he has good intentions, it’s possible whatever it is could cause trouble. I think you are right to try to figure out what is going on.”

We chatted for a while longer, and then Colander got up to go. My elbow, where she had touched it, felt like it was glowing for the rest of the afternoon.

By me, with art by the illustrious Sam Messerly.

Click here to read from the beginning.

I survived my first week as Warbell’s ambassador while also working my electrician’s job at the same time. There were a few other highlights actually—or lowlights, depending on how you look at it.

Twice I had curious gawkers trying to break into my home in the middle of the night because they wanted to see what a tyrannosaurus looks like sleeping. We have guards now.

I had a chance to pose for a picture with the star of the Dinosaur Yacht Slaughter series of films, Paul Gransmall. I got his autograph, and he got Warbell’s. I love those movies—especially Dinosaur Yacht Slaughter 5: No Hope Atoll. They have a sea serpent that gets seasick in that one.

On Friday, when Warbell was munching away at a maple tree, a confused squirrel dived down his throat and he actually coughed so hard that he launched the poor rodent into a passing convertible. Luckily the driver only screamed like a ninny as the panicked squirrel ran circles in the back seat before bounding out and down the street and up the nearest telephone pole.

And finally it was Saturday. Warbell had some kind of job interview—I couldn’t remember which one. While he was busy with that, I went to the park to meet Colander, though I arrived long before three in the afternoon. We had agreed to meet at a specific picnic table—the one near Lake Bunch closest to the dock. Before I met with Colander to talk about the (suspected) eggs, I was trying to collect my thoughts about everything that had happened that week. Part of my process of doing that was just writing down some of the most memorable events, like I shared above. But I also took stock about all the things I was afraid of, all my doubts about Warbell, all my frustrations and confusions.

Colander appeared at 3:05 wearing overalls, yellow tennis shoes with gaudy smiley-face pom-poms and a big smile as she bounced down the sidewalk. She was 35 and dressed like a sugar-rushed five-year-old, but it made me smile. Her eyepatch had an omelet design today, in honor of our meeting presumably.

“All right,” she said, hopping sideways and scooching into the picnic table seat then dropping her head low conspiratorially. “Boiled, scrambled, or fried?”

“Raw so far,” I said, and took out the two strange rocks and placed them on the table. They were almost perfectly round, like oversized softballs, but dark brown with a rough surface. I had washed them thoroughly before our meeting, so they were dust free. Colander rolled one of them around on the picnic table a few times.

“Want to just break one open?” she asked.

“Right here, where anyone can see us?” I asked. “Anybody walking by could catch a glimpse of what we’re doing. There could be a dinosaur inside!”

Colander picked up one of the rocks and shook it up and down, listened to it, gave it a long sniff, put it back down again.

“Nah,” she said. “Definitely not hollow. No dinosaurs in there.”

And with that, she whipped out a hammer and hit the egg with all her might.

Read the next chapter.

By me, with art by the great Sam Messerly.

Click here to read from the beginning.

I talked with Warbell for some time about the job possibilities in Final Pumpkin. Most of his listed jobs—policeman, librarian, psychiatrist, doctor—I told him would be impossible for many reasons, from practical concerns to a lack of training and education to federal laws. I did not have a lot of time to chat. I was already behind on wiring the library, and so I left Warbell after a relatively short yak session.

We didn’t really say goodbye, though we acknowledged I would check up on him around lunchtime.

As I pedaled, I thought through everything one more time. It was still difficult to trust Warbell because there was so much I didn’t know, and he also seemed to be deliberately hiding something. Maybe a lot of somethings. How can I know what a dinosaur’s hidden motivations might be? How can I know that I can trust a dinosaur at all, especially a flesh-eating one? How do I know I can believe anything he says?

Yet I also couldn’t help but see that he was honestly trying. That he did save that kid. That he really was worried about something going on in the city. And I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe what Warbell was worried about might be the rash of bizarre health incidents that had been occurring for some time across the nation. Many people had been afflicted, seemingly at random. No coherent cause had ever been identified, and it was difficult to know which incidents were connected to the phenomena in the first place. But Murdock Gargle was almost certainly just the latest victim.

Yet why would Warbell be concerned about that? Surely a dinosaur wouldn’t come to live with humans in order to research human health concerns?

That day and the rest of that week we ironed out our routine. Every morning, lunch, and evening get together I would check up on Warbell and go over his schedule and help him with any problems and try to answer any questions he had. We would discuss his job-hunting efforts, and I would try to give him some tips. Later, often in the middle of the night, I chased away rubberneckers and paparazzi from the lawn. I also tried to get my truck back from Charlie a few times, but he was conveniently not home whenever I went over to his place.

Conversations with Warbell were formal. Dry. I tried not to show whatever I was feeling because I wasn’t sure what I was feeling. Warbell, so far as I could tell, did the same.

And sometimes in spare moments I would get out those rocks or eggs or whatever they might be, and I would look at them, poke at them. I was tempted to even take a lick and see what a dinosaur egg might taste like. But mostly I waited. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions or do anything rash with the “eggs” until I had met with Colander on Saturday. Maybe meeting with her, talking with her, just blowing off steam with her would help me to figure out what I was supposed to do. And of course if these really were eggs, then the problems with Warbell were really only just beginning.

Read the next chapter.

By me, with fine art by Sam Messerly.

Click here to read from the beginning.

As I didn’t pipe up anything right away, Warbell nodded and said, “You may get dressed and ready for your day. We have some time. I would appreciate the opportunity to talk over my list when you have finished your breakfast.”

With that, Warbell turned back to the tree and tore off several more leaves with his lips, then gummed them awkwardly for a few minutes before trying to swallow them. This was followed by violent coughing as the dumb lizard choked on the leaves, but he straightened up again after regaining his composure and then ripped several more leaves off the tree.

I went back inside and shut the door, and I was thinking hard as I went through my morning ablutions. I found I had little appetite for breakfast, so as I chewed on a lone piece of toast, I made a few phone calls and printed out a few documents from my computer. I then folded up the collected pages, straightened out my shirt, checked my hair one last time, and stepped outside again.

Warbell was still standing next to the tree. A morning jogger was busy taking a selfie with him, for which Warbell gave a close-mouthed smile. I walked over to Warbell, shooing away the jogger with my eyes. The man made a rude gesture towards me and took off.

“Warbell,” I said. “I really don’t know what kind of a job a tyrannosaurus rex can do in this town. But there are a few things you should know about job hunting in the United States. Number one, and this is just a basic one: It helps to have a nice smile. I don’t know if you can, but if you are able, it’s a good idea to put your teeth back in. The, err, plant-eating teeth.”

I was looking down as I spoke, though I sensed a change in Warbell’s posture as he stood beside me.

“Also,” I continued. “Usually for most jobs you need to have some kind of resume. I printed out mine so you could take a look at it. I have it here. A resume lists any previous jobs you have had, or other experiences or education or certificates that would make you qualified for the kinds of jobs you are interested in. If you, I don’t know, have some job experiences in the dinosaur world from which you came, it would be a good idea to write them in a resume format for your job search. It’s a little difficult to explain all the things that go into a resume, and I don’t have time to give you guidance in that this morning, but I called in to city hall and asked them to send someone over to help you put something together.”

I took a breath.

“Really, it also helps to wear a nice shirt and a tie, too, but I don’t think we have any in your size,” I said, and looked up.

Warbell was looking down at me, and his teeth were back, shining in the early morning sun.

“It’s easier to talk with teeth,” he said.

Read the next chapter.

By me, with art by the great Sam Messerly.

Click here to read from the beginning.

I received a tongue lashing that evening from Mayor Pilky over the phone, but a few excuses about my electric work at the library placated her a little—but only after I listened to Pilky preach about the importance of “our dinosaur king” to the future of our fine city and his standing as the reigning king and a litany of other reasons why I need to take my role more seriously. And I listened and I nodded and I said “yes, yes” and eventually I hung up and went to bed in a fog of frustration.

I didn’t sleep well that night. The eggs from beneath the house rolled through my dreams. The idea of dinosaurs secretly visiting the human world “all the time” introduced a million monster movie scenarios in my head, as did the idea of the “Kingdom of Eternity” (or whatever it’s called). Where was this kingdom? In the center of the earth? Somewhere in South America? On a mysterious island with a giant ape? In an inexplicably tropical land hidden near the South Pole? On the moon? In North Korea? Where?

And of course Warbell with those teeth, those grinning killer teeth. It made me weak at the knees just thinking about them.

I couldn’t sleep in my bedroom. I slept in a guest room in the basement that I hoped Warbell didn’t know about. Or at least I tried to sleep. Mostly I tossed and turned all night long.

The next morning I awoke to my alarm—not to the sound of a dinosaur at my window. It was six am. I bumbled blearily out of bed, but images of Warbell assaulting the neighborhood drove me to dress quickly and dash upstairs and out my front door.

“Good morning, Walter,” said Warbell.

The tyrannosaurus was standing placidly next to the large oak in my front yard, and was lipping the leaves.

It took me a while to realize just what was going on, and when I did realize, I did a double-take. Warbell was lipping the leaves because he had no teeth at all!

“Now I’ve made a list,” said Warbell with a strange lisp, “A list of all the companies in town. I have been working through said list, trying to find the sorts of jobs which I think I will be able to use to get to know my subjects most effectively. I am curious to talk over the options with you before you must go and take care of your electrician’s work.”

I was quiet long enough that Warbell turned from his lipping of the leaves to look at me.

“Well? If you are worried about my breakfast, I have already eaten. Today, leaves. Mostly maple. Cheap.”

“What happened to your teeth?” I asked.

“I removed them,” Warbell said. “You are my subject, and my teeth obviously make you very uncomfortable. Not just you, either. There were others at the park yesterday who were very frightened to see my teeth.”

“But so what?” I asked.

Warbell drew himself up to his full height.

“So it is the duty of a true king to take into account the needs of his subjects,” he said. “And if those subjects are scared of my teeth, a king should be glad to make the sacrifice of a few ivories.”

Read the next chapter.