Chapter 34. Fred Chickweed Searches for a Pencil
Fred Chickweed. A man with a mission.The mission was to deliver the six pizzas that he had rescued from the delivery van.
The pizzas were cold—he had checked—and certainly were past their 30 minute delivery window. Additionally, the toppings were all a little piled up on one end of their crusts, having slid slightly off the pizzas during his confrontation with the stop sign. But when a pizza was ordered, a pizza must be delivered, and Fred was determined to get the job done.
He wasn’t looking forward to doing so, however. Fred Chickweed was a man who, as much as possible, avoided confrontation, and he had plenty of personal knowledge about the confrontations resulting from late pizza delivery. Usually, these deliveries were, say, 10 or possibly 15 minutes late; today’s pizzas, he recalled, were supposed to have delivered yesterday. He hoped that people would be understanding. Perhaps when he showed up on foot, people would take pity on him. Surely they would be able to see that he was bruised and sore, unable to move at top speed.
The first delivery, the pizza box on top of the pile, went to the house in front of him. 1842 Heartland Drive. It was just down the road from the high school. He had been planning to stop here, he remembered, after the delivery to Principal Klieglight. As he observed from the sidewalk, however, Fred could see that no one was home. At least, there wasn’t any obvious indication that someone was home. Well, the front door was open. But he couldn’t hear any noises from inside. Any noises, that is, other than a radio playing popular music far too loudly. Certainly, he couldn’t see anyone inside the house. Well, there was the woman who looked like she was vacuuming. But surely she was the maid, or something, not the owner. Not the person who had ordered the pizza. No, he wouldn’t be able to complete this delivery. He turned away, and kept walking down the street.
Each pizza box had a sales slip taped to its top. Each sales slip had a small box printed on its lower corner. It was the “undeliverable” form. On that form, there were several small checkboxes, each stating a reason that the pizza was undeliverable. “Incorrect address,” said one. “Incorrect order,” said another. “No one home,” said a third. That was the box that Ferdy would check: no one home. Maybe, he thought, he could check a box on each of the order forms. That way, he wouldn’t even have to walk all over town. In his battered state, that would be quite a relief, wouldn’t it?
What would his boss think, if he came back with not one but six undeliverable pizzas? Certainly, that was a high number. Most nights, there were no undeliverable pizzas. The occasional night saw one pizza returned undeliverable; on a rare night, there might be two. But was six statistically impossible? Of course not. Ferdy began to plan out the boxes he would check on each slip. Maybe this pizza here had been made incorrectly. They had ordered sausage and received anchovies (Fred shuddered at the thought of anchovies. Even after 30 plus years of delivering pizzas, he couldn’t stomach the thought of anchovies). Maybe this one here had the wrong address: he had found the street, but no such address existed.
The idea was to make the stories believable. With enough detail, in Fred’s estimation, any story would be believable.
In the meantime, he needed a pencil. He’d have to get this box checked off: Undeliverable: no one home. He kept a pencil atop the sun visor in the van, but of course the van wasn’t with him. Where else could he get a pencil?
He could buy one at a store, he thought. But the closest store was a good mile and a half away. Fred’s hand strayed to his hip pocket. Which was empty. Where was his wallet? Had he left it in the van?
But no, of course he hadn’t left it in the van. He had left it in his jeans. The jeans that he had shed on the sidewalk in front of the high school.
This thought disconcerted Fred Chickweed. Disconcerted him quite a bit. Someone, he realized, might steal his wallet. Worse than that, though, they might find his wallet and use it to identify him. He could see the newspaper headline now: Pizza Delivery Boy Streaks Through Lone Tree. That would spell the end of Fred’s career for sure: what was he doing delivering pizzas with no pants on?
He’d better, he thought, get to the high school.
Fred’s mind turned to Principal Klieglight. He had been a kindred spirit, hadn’t he? Principal Klieglight would surely understand a man who had lost his pants through the course of a harrowing night on the job. And, what’s more, he might have a pencil. Surely, a high school would have any number of pencils. He wondered if, perchance, Principal Klieglight might be at the school on a Saturday morning.
The high school, noted Fred, was only a few blocks away. He headed in that direction, itching to retrieve his wallet before anyone else did. And, he hoped, he’d be able to borrow a pencil from Principal Klieglight.