The Fat Man_ A Tale of North Pole Noir - Ken Harmon [54]
“Where do you think you’re going, mac?” one of the pipers said.
“I got a hot date with the milkmaids,” I said. “I’m in a hurry because I think a few of the lords have a jump on me.”
“You think that’s funny?” the piper snarled. “You one of those comedians that make fun of the Twelve Days, mister?”
“No, not at all,” I said, stealing a couple more inches toward the door. “In fact, I’ve always dreamed of becoming a piper.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I mean, the drummers—that’s not music. Any monkey can slap a stick on a table. And I can’t be a leaping lord because I wasn’t born to the purple, and the rest of the song is chicks and dames. No, if you want to be a part of the Dozen, a piper is the way to go.” There wasn’t this much tap dancing in vaudeville, but it seemed to be working. The piper handed me his pipe, “Give it a try, wise guy.”
The flute was heavy and stout enough to bust a kneecap or ring somebody’s noggin.
“You know how to work it?” the piper asked. Some of his buddies came up behind him and the others were heading toward the drummers’ door to see what the commotion was about. The path to the next door was clear.
“Sure, I know how to work it,” I said, lifting the flute. “You whistle into this little hole, right? You just put your lips together and blow.”
With all my might, I swung the flute right into the kisser of the big piper and let the pipe do the rest of the work. And then I legged it out of there. As soon as he stopped seeing stars, I was going to have a passel of angry pipers and drummers on my tail and I needed to make some space.
Getting past the leaping lords was a cinch. The ten-spot of lords can’t control their jumping. They are like a bunch of pogo sticks gone amok, and the only way they can really hurt you is if they just happen to land on you by blind luck. I used that to my advantage when I darted into the leaping lords’ royal chamber.
“Someone has infiltrated the court, what!” said one lord as he bounced by and into a wall. Boing! Smack! He had apparently kissed the wall many times. His face looked like a bad potato.
“Visitor ahoy!” cried another lord, who apparently fancied himself an admiral of the sea. He was dressed like he was going trick-or-treating on the poop deck. “Show your colors, man,” he said to me as he flew by. Boing.
The other eight lords tried to steer themselves my way, but ended up ricocheting off each other. Boing. Smack. Boing. Boing. Smack! Boing. You could tell it hurt.
Suddenly, a piper burst into the room and was right beside me with a mean-looking flute aimed for my head. An instant later a lord fell from the sky and flattened him like a pancake. “Sorry, old boy,” his lordship said to the piper. “Meant to get the other bloke.” Drummers and pipers were now pouring into the room and leaping lords landing on them was my only chance of getting away. It ain’t easy to run while looking up and behind you at the same time. The door to the next room couldn’t have been more than ten paces away, but I had to dance ten miles to get there. The dance worked. The lords were out of control and the drummers and the pipers made for easy targets. I’d look up and see where I thought a lord would land and get someone to chase me to that spot.
SPLAT! THUMP! SQUISH! POW!
By George couldn’t have planned it any better.
By the time I got to the other side, the floor was littered with wounded drummers and pipers and the ohso-tough reindeer were too spooked to come any farther.
Not So Tiny Tim looked at the battlefield and smiled as he watched me go through the next door.
I guess he knew that,