It is important to know now that everyone on the roof that day exhibited orderly and methodical behavior. There was professional conduct of the first magnitude. There was no wild screaming or cursing or even the kind of sarcastic chuckling which you might expect in those about to enjoy a well-deserved and long-delayed victory. The problems of the day were not attributable to inappropriate deportment. My staff was good. It was when the Visigoths had approached close enough that we could see their cruel eyes and we could read the savage and misspelled tattoos that I realized our error. At that time I put my hand on the smooth side of our beautiful cauldron and found it only vaguely warm. Lukewarm. Tepid.
We had not known then what we now know. We need to put the oil on sooner.
It was my decision and my decision alone to do what we did, and that was to pour the warm oil on our enemies as they milled about the front gates, hammering at it with their truncheons.
Now this is where my report diverges from so many of the popular accounts. We have heard it said that the warm oil served as a stimulant to the attack that followed, the attack I alluded to earlier in which the criminal activity seemed even more animated than usual in the minds of some of our towns-people. Let me say first: I was an eyewitness. I gave the order to pour the oil and I witnessed its descent. I am happy and proud to report that the oil hit its target with an accuracy and completeness I could have only dreamed of. We got them all. There was oil everywhere. We soaked them, we coated them, we covered them in a lustrous layer of oil. Unfortunately, as everyone knows, it was only warm. Their immediate reaction was also what I had hoped for: surprise and panic. This, however, lasted about one second. Then several of them looked up into my face and began waving their fists in what I could only take as a tribute. And then, yes, they did become quite agitated anew, recommencing their assault on the weary planks of our patchwork gates. Some have said that they were on the verge of abandoning their attack before the oil was cast upon them, which I assure you is not true.
As to the attack that followed, it was no different in magnitude or intensity from any of the dozens we suffer every year. It may have seemed more odd or extreme since the perpetrators were greasy and thereby more offensive, and they did take every stick of furniture left in the village, including the pews from the church, every chair in the great hall, and four milking stools, the last four, from the dairy.
But I for one am simply tired of hearing about the slippery stain on the village steps. Yes, there is a bit of a mess, and yes, some of it seems to be permanent. My team removed what they could with salt and talc all this week. All I’ll say now is watch your step as you come and go; in my mind it’s a small inconvenience to pay for a perfect weapon system.
So, we’ve had our trial run. We gathered a lot of data. And you all know we’ll be ready next time. We are going to get to do what we wanted to do. We will vex and repel our enemies with boiling oil. In the meantime, who needs furniture? We have a project! We need the determination not to lose the dream, and we need a lot of firewood. They will come again. You know it and I know it, and let’s simply commit ourselves to making sure that the oil, when it falls, is very hot.
THE CHROMIUM HOOK
JACK CRAMBLE
EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS, that we pulled in the driveway and I found the hook when I went around to Jill’s door. It was caught in the door handle, hanging there like I don’t know what. I didn’t know what it was at first, but when Jill got out she knew, and she started screaming, for which I don’t blame her. Her father came out and made like where had we been and did we know it was almost one o’clock. He’s a good guy, but under real pressure, I guess, since his wife had her troubles. Anyway, he looks at the hook, and then he looks Jill over real good, suspicious-like, like we’d been up to something, which we definitely had not. We had been, as everybody knows, up at Conversation Point with our debate files, and the time got away from us. I was helping her with her arguments, asking questions, like that, things like “What are the drawbacks of an international nuclear-test-ban treaty?” And she would fish around in her file box and try to find the answer. Her one shot at college is the debate team, and their big meet with Northwoods was a week from that Saturday. It was Mr. Royaltuber who called the police, and the word got out.
JILL ROYALTUBER
IT WAS THE scaredest I’ve ever been, and when I think of how close that homicidal maniac came to getting us and doing whatever he was going to do with that big vicious hook, my blood runs cold. Jack was really brave. He wanted to get out of the car after we heard the first noises, the scrapings, and see what it was, but I wouldn’t let him. Sometimes boys just don’t have any sense. We’d already heard about the escaped homicidal maniac on the radio. They’d interrupted Wild Johnny Hateras’s Top Twenty Country Countdown with the news bulletin that some one-armed madman had escaped the loony bin on Demon Hill and was sort of armed and dangerous. And of course Discussion Point is right there by the iron fence of the nuthouse. We had gone up to Discussion Point to work through some problems I’d been having since my mom left, and Jack was talking to me about being strong and saying he’d be there for me and not to get too depressed and to look on the sunny side of things, that Mom was better off in the hospital—she certainly seemed happier. So Jack was being that thing, supportive, which I love. A boyfriend who is captain of football is one thing, and a boyfriend who is captain of football and supportive is another. But I kept him from getting out of the car after we heard the noises. The wind had come up a little and it was dark as dark, and I said, “Let’s just get out of here.” Jack wasn’t afraid. He wanted to stay. But I told him it was late, and then we heard the scratching closer, against the car, and it felt like it was right on my bare spine. “Pull out!” I yelled, and he gunned the engine of his Ford—it’s a wonderful car, which he did all the work on—and we headed for home.