Chapter 8
The child catcher was beside himself, wondering where the hell the children were, but his first priority was to deliver the car, which he did, and then skunked off in search of the two children. There was something about those two, he could tell it. Perhaps because they were so rebellious, being raised in a free-range sort of way, that the two of them alone might give such a power boost to his contraption that he could being to implement phase one of his scheme: build the theme parks. You would think, being a magician and all, he would be the most interested in the car, but he was very dark magician, and CCBB was endowed with the kindest of white magic, and so to catcher, it was just what it seemed, a machine built by man.
The car absolutely refused to cooperate with the Baron, and so Grandpa was called into assist.
“How did you come upon that?” Grandpa asked.
“I have my ways,” the Baron said. “Now, show me how to make this car fly,” “No,” Grandpa said.
“Okay, you’re free to leave,” the Baron said.
“I am?” Grandpa asked, not certain what this new game was.
“Yes. I will get the knowledge I need from your son or his wife. Or your grandkids,” the Baron said. “I am sure one of them will eventually talk, once I start to torture them in front of each other.”
“You don’t have them,” Grandpa said.
“You’re right. Maybe I don’t have them. Maybe I just lucked into the car,” the Baron said. “So, have fun…”
Grandpa got into the vehicle and the Baron laughed.
“Good choice, my friend,” the Baron said, putting his arm around him like one might an intimate friend.
“Yoo hoo,” the Duchess sang.
“Oh! Every time I want to have just a little fun, she comes and ruins it,” the Baron said.
“Quick, drive off.”
“The thing is…”
“Ah! I thought you were going to leave without me,” the Duchess said, climbing in. “Oh, good, it’s a fine day for an outing…”
“Shouldn’t you be inside dear?” the Baron asked.
“Oh, no, fresh air is good for you, my love,” the Duchess said.
“Fine,” the Baron grumbled. “Professor Pott, make this car fly.” “Well, knowing my son, we probably have to sing a song,” Grandpa said.
“A song?” the Baron asked.
“He believes in magic and you could power a device with sound alone, but if you have harmony, and joy in your heart, will, that’s what gives you wings,” Grandpa said.
“We love singing, don’t we, my little Chu-Chi face,” the Duchess said, picking atr his collar and kissing at his cheek.
“Not in front of others,” the Baron waved.
“And you probably wouldn’t want a love song in a magical car,” Grandpa said. “We need a travel song. Like Posh.”
“Posh? Who has ever heard of such a word?” the Duchess said.
“Port out, Starboard home, Posh with a capital P o s h posh…” grandpa said. Nothing happened.
“Nothing happened,” the Baron said. “Are you playing me for a fool?!”
“No, seriously, my son would write a song for a car to make it go,” Grandpa said. “In the Gnome-Mobile, the Gnome-Mobile, we're hunting for Gnomes in the Gnome-mobile… No?
Okay, um… On the road again. Just can’t wait to get on the road again…. No? Beep Beep beep beep, the little Nash Rambler… Seriously, neither of you know songs about cars? Oh, how about East Bound and Down, loaded up and trucking… Yeah, well, they are a bit ahead of your time…”
There was a console with more than a dozen buttons and one of them was blinking an amber light, and since it had drawn his attention, Grandpa touched it, and there came a cry from the backseat that diminished the same way a train might on passing you, which you have no doubt noticed on at least one occasion, and this phenomena has a name, the Doppler Effect, and you can actually measure shifts in speed, an know if something is coming or going, if you know what you’re looking at. Grandpa looked back, the same as the Baron, and they saw the spring that had sprung the seat, ejecting the Duchess straight up, and was in the process of re-seating itself, and then there eyes went up to the Duchess who was hovering at right at 4, 922 feet, which is really quite a height when you consider the elevation of the mountain that the castle already had.
“Ah!” the Baron said.
“Please, don’t kill me,” Grandpa said.
“Kill you?! I could kiss you!” the Baron said.
“I’d rather you kill me,” Grandpa said.
“You’re the most brilliant inventor I have ever known,” the Baron said. “Shot gun!” “Just make it quick,” Grandpa said, closing his eyes.
“I have been waiting for this for twenty years,” the Baron said, taking aim. “Don’t worry,
Pookum! I will get you down.”
“That’s okay, I am good, Patootie,” she called back.
But he fired. Grandpa jumped, but finding himself unharmed, looked up to see the Baron firing at his wife, who seemed to be hovering, her legs kicking and her pantaloons doing drawing the eyes of everyone who happened to be in the courtyard. Her skirt had ballooned enough to slow her descent, but a thermal over the castle was holding her aloft. The second shot punch enough holes that even with the thermal, she was going down, and then her hoop broke and the dress went inverted, and down she plunged. A mass of people rushed to the ledge to peer over, and even the Baron and Grandpa made it to the wall just in time to see the Duchess surfacing in the lagoon.
“Are you alright my dear?” the Baron shouted down.
“Yes,” the Duchess said, and spit more water out. “Papito. I will be right up.”
“Damn,” the Baron said. “But it had been worth the shot. Now, Sir Pott, be honest, you had intended that for me, did you not?”
“Um, to be honest, that’s my sons car, and he does like to tinker,” Grandpa said. “Tinker? You have an injection seat in a car that can float and fly, and I have reports that it has a gold plated, continuous firing apparatus with self-directed ammunition! You, Sir, are a spy, and you have teamed up with the American and that Skrumshus woman, yes, I know who she is, and those two little midgets pretending to be children…. I will have you all hanged for such insolence, and I will send bits and pieces back to your governments in heart shaped candy boxes. I will take this car a part and build a thousand more within a fortnight and with my army of flying floating cars I will take over the world! But not until after my birthday. Though I do enjoy a good hanging on my birthday, I am afraid the day’s schedule is already full, but the day after, I have all day to watch you swing. Take him back to the dungeon!”
On any other day, being in a row boat with the children and Truly might seem the picturesque outing, but this was work, and they had to compel themselves not to be lulled into complacently by the calm surroundings as Benny and Caractacus rowed them out to the castle.
Jeremy broke the quiet: “If you’re such a good toymaker, why are you still in Vulgaria?” “Ha, forgive him for his directness,” Caractacus said.
“Nonsense! I miss the direct insight of children. I use to have it myself, but lost it, and that’s why we need children, to remind us. Children ask brilliant questions, and it isn’t until they become adults that they are trained out of asking good questions,” the toymaker said. “Well said,” Truly agreed.
“And you still haven’t answered the good question,” Jemima said. “And even though father was slightly embarrassed, he is actually interested, just as we all are.”
“Well,” Benny said, pausing in his rowing, forcing Caractacus to also pause, or they might go in circles. “You see, my father is imprisoned in the dungeon, and I remain here, compelled to make toys for the Baron, under the promise if I build the most impressive toy, my father will be released to me.”
“You’re straying a bit too far from the accepted plot,” Lester argued.
“Seriously?” Jon asked. “Have you read the book, Sir? The movies is so far removed from the book that you can’t even say it’s loosely made off the book, except they have a car named CCBB in common, and though there is at least three original family members from the book, there is no dog, and no grandfather…”
“See, you could have written me entirely out of this so that I wouldn’t have been kidnapped and tortured!” Lester said.
“When were you tortured?!” Jon asked.
“I had to listen to old people’s music,” Lester said.
“You’re old!” Jon said.
“They’re older. Their country was Gene Autry, where I am more Glen Campbell,” Lester said. “Anyway, not the point. You’re straying.”
“Loxy,” Jon said, turning to her in order to find an enlightened opinion. “Hypothetically,
I leave you alone with the children, in a foreign country, where all the kings horses and all the kings men, including an evil magician of a child catcher is looking for the kids, is there anything that would compel you to leave the children?”
“No way!” Loxy said.
“But we’re hungry!” Jemima and Jeremy insisted.
“Suck it up. You’ve gone without before,” Truly said.
Jon looked smugly to Lester. “Any questions?”
“Well, it just means she would be captured with the children,” Lester said.
“Sir, I am the very daughter of a modern major general,” Loxy said.
“Don’t make us sing it,” Jon warned.
“But I like that song,” Jeremy said.
“There’s been enough songs in this thing already,” Lester said. “Fine, let’s say Truly did actually leave the kids in the basement…” “Cellar,” Elizabeth and Eston corrected.
“Cellar, sorry,” Jon agreed. “The children, while in the guise of a Jacked Box…”
“Jack N the Box,” the children corrected.
“Which we appropriated for disguises, meaning we stole it, jacked it, Jacked box,” Jon clarified. “Jesus, not the point. The point is you kids saw the very child catcher with your own eyes, you heard how creepy his voice is, and so, hypothetically, you’re in a foreign country, you know everyone hates kids, and you’re alone in a cellar full of toys, without adult supervision, and you hear some creepy guy singing candy and ice cream, and all free today, if you just climb up into my van… What would you do?” “Call 911,” Eston said.
“Yeah, that’s just not right,” Elizabeth said. “That scene is really unbelievable. Kids aren’t that stupid.”
“Some of them are,” Lester said. “But that’s not what happen! The catcher was using magic. They were spelled!”
“I would never fall for such a spell,” Loxy said. “Or allow the kids fall for it.”
“You left the kids alone!” Lester said. “And then you lied to Caractacus.” “How did I lie to Caractacus?” Loxy asked.
“The next time you saw him, you said, ‘Umm, he took the kids,’ as opposed to owning: ‘I left the kids alone for just a second,’ cause seriously, where did you think you’re going to find food? It’s not like there’s a corner market, and you saw all the villagers high tail it for the boondocks, and you don’t know who’s got food or who’s going to open door, or who is going capture you and sell you to the Baron for a penny, or worse, so either you were completely insane and Caractacus was a fool to entrust his children to you, or you were under a spell, a movie plot contrivance of a spell,” Lester said.
“Good point, and since that is so unbelievable, we’re going with Jon’s version,” Loxy said.
“What?” Lester asked.
“You convinced me,” Loxy said. “That scene could never have happened, not with me in it.”
“Or the children. We are, or they are, fairly street smart,” Elizabeth said.
“Yeah, except for the whole running out in the street without looking so that you almost got yourselves run over smart,” Lester said. “Which is literally how we got ourselves into this giant mess!”
“That was a well-executed plan to bring a nice looking woman home to dad so that he could get laid and be less grumpy,” Elisabeth said.
“What?” Jon asked.
“It was one of our list items,” Eston said.
“I didn’t put that on the list,” Jon said.
“Of course you wouldn’t, that would be creepy, using your own children to get laid, but if we put it on the list and brought you someone home, well, that’s alright, and it’s been a movie plot contrivance for ages.”
“Yeah,” Eston said. “Truly was our mark. She even came with her own car. And we need a car if we’re going to be a modern family.”
“See, this is how you magicians, and adults in general, have the whole world understanding thing backwards,” Elizabeth said. “See, we children are the future, and we know more things than you do, and we know what’s going to bring about the best possible future, and so we’re rewriting the past to suit our needs, and so, there used to be a Mimsie, and she was alright, but she really wasn’t musically inclined.”
“And father, you were lonely with her, because she just didn’t get you, but she tolerated you because she loved us, and she wasn’t all bad, and she knew it was right for us to know you, but she hated being on the farm while you tinkered in the garage, which was just your way of coping with not getting laid, because after twins, she didn’t want anything more from you, and though she was never satisfied with how much you earned, she also hung around because you promised her fortunes, and maybe you would have been more successful earlier, but she didn’t believe in you or your work, and finally she had enough and lost all patience with you and left, at least, that’s her version of the story, but it’s the version we gave her, so that we could have the best suitable parents, while also allowing her to go and find her own happiness, and so when Jeremy and Jemima grow up, they will have kids even more knowledgeable and more powerful than we are, and they will tweak us, retroactively beneficial, and in turn, we will tweak our parents, and Truly, again and even better, and our kids will tweak our grandkids, and in this manner, all of humanity is saved through the child,” Eston said. “That’s why we celebrate Christmas.”
“I am properly lost,” Jon admitted.
“They’re you’re kids alright,” Lester agreed.
Caractacus, the kids, Truly, and Benny rowed across the lake into a hidden cave. You may wonder, given how easy it was to just row a boat right into the castle why the children weren’t smuggled out and or why some of them just didn’t swim away and make a run for it through the wilderness. In one versions, the villagers hid them there, under the castle, in order to keep them safe. It’s not reasonably plausible, given how astute the child catcher’s nose was, but sufficiently plausible, in a mote’s eye, enough that the writers and directors went with it, because they think the general movie going audiences are stupid and will buy anything, and it’s just a kid’s movie, and really it was about the music, not the plot, and so they were playing it down even further. In this version, the kids were found shackled and chained in such a unique way that they were all facing the wall, and on the wall, shadows danced and moved, and this was their way of life, so much so that they imagined the shadows were the real world. At first sight, it was easy to imagine their minds were so terribly warped at this point that even if their chains were severed, they would prefer the shadows to the real world. Only a few kids had freed themselves, or so they had thought themselves as self-liberated, but by then they were trained by the catcher to feed the little ones, and remove their poop, and collect finger nails and ear wax for the making of dark potions… In fact, one collection was the dried, unbroken ear artifacts, the good kind that after delicate extraction comes out whole, and is indistinguishable from cornflakes, in fact, this is how he poisons his targets, dropping dried cornflake ear wax into the victim’s actual cornflakes. “Eww!” Elizabeth and Eston said.
“Why else do you think tooth fairies collect teeth?” Lester asked.
“This scenario is just as unbelievable,” Eston said.
“Have you considered how many people believe what they see on the televisions and on internet as being an accurate representation of the real world?” Jon asked.
“I prefer the shadows of flames,” Lester said. “More directly honest.”
In some instances, some of the children were so severely deformed from having been shadow kids for so long, they were hardly recognizable as human children. A few, very few, had actually turned into shadows and had slipped away into other universes. It has been demonstrated by science, which had learned it the hard way, that children that were allowed to do nothing but watch television had had their skulls imploded due to the vacuum pressure of lost brain mass. The kids that had been promoted to feeding the chained kids were hardly better, in fact they didn’t even seem to see the new comers in their environment, as they had never seen others before. Caractacus waved a hand in front of one of them and got no response. They were worse than zombies. At least Zombies cared enough to eat you if you walked by them.
“They’ve been here so long they don’t know how to see,” Benny said. And, you may think this is an impossibility- that people can be trained to see, and to not see- and an experiment performed on kittens had proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt. Kittens raised in vertical striped rooms were discovered not to be able to see horizontal lines, and so could not even jump up on a chair or table, and kittens raised only able to see horizontal lines could make it to a table top but would run into the legs of the table, because they couldn’t see vertical lines. A lot of kittens died to bring us this message. And Bothans, too.
Truly pointed out the wires coming from the children’s skullcaps. Caractacus followed the leads to a cable, and following the cable they came to the most horrid device ever devised in the history of devices. A brain sucking, steam driven, Mega-Block building contraption. In addition to pooping out an assortment of Mega Block, it stamped out clothing, and horribly written movies that wouldn’t even be tolerated as B movies. On the wall was a map of Florida, California, and Japan, with blue prints and plans to make theme parks of such mega proportions that the whole world would bow to the superiority of the Baron, with secret underground tunnels that connected all the theme parks, and the children that came to the park would be plugged into the rides and unknowingly have their brain secretions sucked out, and yes, brains doe secrete stuff, because all cells, every living cell, does one of two things, move something, or secrete something, and thoughts are brain secretions, and so free ranging, enslaved children, would be forced to turn out even more Mega Blocks without their knowing they were enslaved, because those are the best kinds of slaves! “He’s trying to take over the world,” Truly said.
“If only I had a robot dog that could plug into the machine and liberate the children,” Caractacus said.
“Jon,” Loxy warned.
“We could go back to the beginning and alter Tesla…”
“Just cope with what you got!” Lester snapped. “We’re not starting over.” “Maybe we could just insert my robot dog and no one will notice,” Jon said.
“No,” Loxy said.
And so, aft