Redemolished

  "Come on, James, we'll go back to the house."

  "But is he sick?" the Professor asked.

  "No, just out of sorts. He has a temper, you know, inherited from his mother, who is rather Bohemian. Come along, James. Back to the house."

  The Princess began to vamp James, tickling him with her cuddly fur but moving off a few steps each time he tried to embrace her for comfort. He crawled after her, out of the School-house and through the grass toward the house.

  "He'll be all right tomorrow," she called. "Charming place you have out here. 'Bye all."

  "I told you she was a right royalty," George W. said.

  And there was the time when one of the Endmen reeled into the Schoolhouse singing. "How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they seen Paree?" He examined the assembly with a bleary eye, rocking slightly. "You're all plastered," he informed them. "You're stones." Then he was sick.

  "What's the matter with our entertaining, I say, thespian friend?" the Chairman inquired.

  "The berries on one of the end bushes fermented," the other Endman explained, "and I couldn't stop him from eating them. He's blind drunk."

  "Actors!" the Senior Rabbit burst out. "Let this be a lesson to you, James. Well, just don't stand there. Somebody get him out of here and walk him around."

  "Sir?"

  "Yes?"

  "The hose is spraying the rose bushes. If we put him under the cold spray . . .?"

  "That is keeping yourself mentally awake. By all means put this clown under the hose. I only hope he sits on a thorn."

  "Connie," Constance said to Constantine, "I'm worried about Jamie."

  "Why?"

  "Shouldn't he be going to preschool?"

  "Why?"

  "He seems to be arrested."

  "He isn't three yet. What do you want, Connie, some sort of prodigy entering Harvard aged ten and blighted for life? I want James to grow up a healthy normal boy without having his mind forced prematurely."

  "If you will permit me, Professor," James said, "I would like to disagree with my learned colleague, Moe Mole, on the Big Bang Theory of cosmology."

  "Cosmogony," the White Rat corrected shortly.

  "Thank you, sir. The idea of a giant proto-atom exploding to produce the expanding universe as we know it today is most attractive, but in my opinion it is pure romance. I believe in the Steady State Theory—that our universe is constantly renewing itself with the birth of new stars and galaxies from the primordial hydrogen."

  "But what is your proof?" Moses Mole asked.

  "The eternal equation," James answered. "Energy is equal to mass multiplied by the speed of light raised to the second power."

  A voice called in human, "James? Jamie? Where are you?"

  "Excuse me, Professor," James said politely. "I'm wanted."

  He crawled to the crack in the barn door and squirmed through with difficulty. "Da!" he cried in human.

  "We'll have to open that door more," the Professor said irritably. "He's grown. Why in the world hasn't he learned how to walk? He's old enough. When I was his age, I had grandchildren."

  The rabbits and fawns tittered.

  "Class dismissed," the Professor said. He glared at Moses Mole. "You and your Big Bang Theory! Why can't you help me get microscopes for my biology seminar?"

  "I haven't come across any underground," Moe said reasonably. "As a matter of fact, I wouldn't know one if I saw it. Could you describe a microscope mathematically?"

  "E=mc2," the Professor snapped and marched off. He was in a terrible state of mind, and his classes were fortunate that they weren't taking examinations just now. He would have flunked every one of his students.

  The Professor was deeply concerned about James James Morrison Morrison, who was past two years old and should be walking and talking human by now. He felt a sense of impending guilt and went to the duck pond for a searching self-examination.

  "Now I am alone," the White Rat said. The mallard ducks paddled up to have a look at him, but he ignored, them. Everybody knows that ducks are incapable of appreciating a solemn soliloquy.

  "The quality of wisdom is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven; so who are we mere fardels to do battle with the angels? All I ask, James, is that ye remember me. This day is called Father's Day. He who shall outlive this day will stand a tiptoe when this day is named and yearly feast his neighbors. Old men forget, but is it not better to bear the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune?"

  Then he began something between a growl and a song:

  On the banks of the Old Raritan, my boys,

  Where Old Rutgers evermore shall stand

  For has she not stood since the time of the flood

  On the banks of the Old Raritan.

  Feeling much better, the Professor returned to the Big Red Schoolhouse to prepare his first lecture on the New Math. "Zero," he said to himself. "One. Ten. Eleven. One hundred. One hundred and one. He was counting in binary arithmetic.

  Meanwhile, James James Morrison Morrison had finished his lunch (chicken salad, 1 slice bread w. butter, applesauce and milk) and was upstairs in his cot theoretically having a nap, actually in drowsy conversation with the Princess, who had made herself comfortable on his chest.

  "I do love you," James said, "but you take me for granted. All you women are alike."

  "That's because you love everything, James."

  "Shouldn't everybody?"

  "Certainly not. Everybody should love me, of course, but not everything. It reduces my rank."

  "Princess, are you really a Burmese Princess?"

  "I thought you said you loved me."

  "But I happen to know you were born in Brooklyn."

  "Politics, James, politics. Daddy, who was also an admiral, was forced to flee at a moment's notice. He barely had time to throw a few rubies into a flight bag and then came to Brooklyn."

  "Why Brooklyn?"

  "The plane was hijacked."

  "What's a ruby?"

  "Ask your Professor," the Princess snapped.

  "Ah-ha! Jealous. Jealous. I knew I'd get you."

  "Now who's taking who for granted?"

  "Me. Shift up to my neck, Princess. I can't breathe."

  "You are a male chauvinist pig," the Princess said as she obliged. I'm merely your sex symbol."

  "Say, why don't you join Miss Leghorn's Chickens' Lib movement?"

  "Me, sir? What have I to do with chickens?"

  "I notice you did all right with my chicken salad. Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. I saw you up on the table when mamma was loading the dishwasher. I thought the mayonnaise was awful."

  "Commercial."

  "Can't you teach mamma how to make homemade mayo?"

  "Me, sir? What have I to do with kitchens? I leave that to the help."

  "Ah-ha! Gotcha again."

  "I hate you," the Princess said. "I loathe and execrate you."

  "You love me," James James said comfortably. "You love me and you're stuck with me. I've got you in my power."

  "Are there any cats in the Red Barn?"

  "No," James laughed. "You're the one and only Princess on Red Hill."

  There was an outlandish noise outside, a snarling and screaming in creature voices.

  "What's that?" James exclaimed.

  The Princess got to the window in a scamper and returned. "Just a couple of farm dogs playing with George Woodchuck," she reported lazily. "Now, as we were saying about me—"

  "Playing? That doesn't sound like playing to me. I'd better see for myself."

  "James, you know you can't walk."

  "I'm damn well going to walk now."

  James James hove himself ever the edge of the cot and fell to the floor. He gripped the edge of the bed and pulled himself upright. Then he tottered to the window.

  "They aren't playing with George. He's in bad trouble."

  James made his way out of the room, clutching at walls and door frames, managed the stairs by sitting
down on every tread, butted the screen door open with his head, and was out on the soft meadow, trotting, tottering, falling, picking himself up, and driving himself toward the Peerless Surveyor who was being torn by two savage mongrels.

  They snarled and snapped as James threw himself over George W. and were quite prepared to come in after both of them. James kicked and flailed at them. He also challenged and cursed them in the creature tongue, using language so frightful that it cannot be reported. The display of courage and determination discouraged the mongrels, who at last turned and made off jauntily as though it had only been a game all along. James pulled himself to his knees, picked up George, lurched to his feet and began tottering toward the Big Red Barn.

  "Thank you," George said.

  "Aw, shut up," James replied.

  When they reached the Schoolhouse, everyone was there. Nothing escapes attention on Red Hill. James James sat down on his fat bottom with the Surveyor still cradled in his arms. The Debutantes made sympathetic sounds.

  "Hunters! Hoodlums!" the Senior Rabbit growled. "No one is safe from them. It's all the fault of the Bleeding Hearts. Understand them. Be kind to them. Help them. Help them do what? Kill."

  "There is a triangle of Red Hill farm," Geo. W. said faintly, "measuring exactly one point six acres. It extends into the property next door where Paula the pig, lives. Tell Paula she must respect our—She must—our boundar—"

  "I'll tell her," James said, and began to cry.

  They took the body of the woodchuck from his arms and carried it to the woods where they left George exposed to the weather and nature. Creatures do not bury their dead. James was still sitting in the Big Red Schoolhouse, silently weeping.

  "The kid's a right guy," one of the Endmen said.

  "Yeah, he's got moxie. You see the way he fight them dogs to a Mexican stand-off? Two to one against, it was."

  "Yeah. Hey, kid. Kid. It's all over now. Kid, you ever hear the one about the guy who goes into a butcher store, you should excuse the expression?" The Endman poked his partner.

  "I'd like a pound of kidleys, please."

  "You mean kidneys, don't you?"

  "Well, I said kidleys, diddle I?"

  "Oh, funny! Fun-nee! Huh, kid?"

  "He will have to fall into the pond, Kaff Kaff, I say be immersed," the Chairman said. "He is covered with George's blood, and the two Commies will ask questions."

  "That's Connies."

  "No matter. Will our lovely young Debutantes be kind enough to convey our valiant friend to the pond and—"

  "I can walk now," James said.

  "To be sure. To be sure. And push him in. Kaff Kaff. And my apologies to the Mallards, who may resent the trespass. May I say, my dear boy, I say, may I state on behalf of us all that we welcome you as a fully accepted member of our commune. It is a privilege to have a specimen of your species, Kaff Kaff, among us. I'm sure my valued friend, the Professor, will agree."

  "He's my best pupil," the White Rat admitted grudgingly, "but I'm going to have to work him over if he ever hopes to get into Rutgers."

  "Oh, Jamie! You fell into the pond again."

  "Da," the hero said.

  That night was another bad night for James. He was terribly upset over the murder of George. He was in a quandary about the Scoutmaster's denunciation of dogs—because he was as fond of dogs as he was of all creatures.

  "There are good dogs and bad dogs," he kept insisting to himself, "and we mustn't judge the good by the bad. I think the Senior Rabbit was wrong, but how can a Scoutmaster be wrong?

  "It's a question of the Categorical Imperative. Good acts lead to good results. Bad acts lead to bad results. But can good lead to bad or bad to good? My father could answer that question, but I'm damned if I'll ask him in his language. He won't speak ours."

  Here, the deep rumbling the bats began to irritate him. Creature voices are pitched so much higher than human voices that what sounds like a bat squeak to the human ear sounds like a bass boom to the creature ear. This is another reason why-most humans can't speak creature. James went to the window.

  "All right! All right!" he called. "Break it up and move it out."

  One of the bats fluttered to the window screen and hooked on. "What's bugging you, old buddy boy?" he rumbled.

  "Keep it down to a roar, Will you? You want to wake up the whole house?"

  "They can't hear us."

  "I can hear you."

  "How come? Not many human types can."

  "I don't know, but I can, and you're making so much noise I can't sleep."

  "Sorry, old buddy, but we got to."

  "Why?"

  "Well, in the first place we're night people, you know?"

  "Yes. And?"

  "In the second place we don't see so good."

  "Moe Mole doesn't see either, but he doesn't make much of a racket."

  "Yeah, but Moe is working underground, old buddy. He hasn't got like trees and barns and buildings to worry about. You know? Now the last thing we want to do is crash into something. There'd be a CAB investigation, and somebody would lose his license for sure."

  "But what's the noise got to do with it?"

  "That's our sonar."

  "What's sonar?"

  "Radar you know about?"

  "Yes."

  "Sonar is radar by sound. You let out a yell and the echoes come back and you know where everything is."

  "Just from the echo?"

  "Right on. You want to try it? Go ahead. Wait a minute; no cheating. Close your eyes. Now make with the sonar."

  "What should I yell?"

  "Anything you feel like."

  "Weehawken!" James shouted. The bat winced.

  "I heard three echoes," James said.

  "What were they?"

  "Weehawken."

  "That was the big barn."

  "Whyhawken."

  "The smoke house."

  "Weehawkee."

  "The oak tree. You're getting the hang, old buddy. Now why don't you practice a little? it won't bother us. None of us use place names except one cracker from the south who keeps hollering Carlsbad."

  And then James fell in love. It was a mad, consuming passion for the least likely candidate. Obeying George Wood-chuck's dying admonition, he went down to the triangle to request Paula, the pig, to respect the boundaries, and it was love at first sight. Paula was white with black patches or black with white patches (Poland China was her type), and she was grossly overweight. Nevertheless James adored her. He was the despair of the Big Red Schoolhouse.

  "Puppy love," the Professor snorted.

  "He's a setup for a my-wife-is-so-fat-that joke," one of the Endmen said.

  "Marriage is out of the question," the Senior Rabbit said. "She's twice his age."

  "And twice his weight."

  Caw! Caw! Caw!

  "If he dares to bring that woman here," the Debutantes said, "we'll never speak to him again."

  James dreamed into the barn. "Ready for the biology seminar," he said.

  "Mathematics today," the Professor rapped.

  "Yes, Paula."

  "I am the Professor."

  "Sorry, sir."

  "We will begin with a review of binary arithmetic. I trust you all remember that the decimal system uses the base of ten. We count from one to ten, ten to twenty, twenty to thirty, and so on. The binary system is based on zero and one. Zero is zero. One is one, but two is ten. Three is eleven. Four is one hundred. What is five, James?"

  "One hundred and Paula."

  "Class dismissed."

  And then James began to skip classes.

  "We were supposed to start a dig yesterday," Moe Mole reported, "and he never showed up."

  "He cut my oratorio session," Jack Johnson said.

  "That boy is turning into a dropout."

  "Have you noticed how he's brushing his hair?" the Debutantes inquired.

  "Oh, come on!" His Eminence said. "If the kid's got hot pants, why can't we—"

&n
bsp; "The boy is morally straight," the Scoutmaster interrupted sternly.

  "It can't be solved on simplistic terms," the Professor said. "Emotions are involved, and the cerebrum is never on speaking terms with the cerebellum."

  Alas, the situation resolved itself on an afternoon when James, carefully combed and brushed, brought another armful of apples to his love. Paula devoured them as stolidly as ever while James sat and watched devotedly. Apparently Paula was extra hungry this afternoon because when James started to embrace her she started to eat him. James pulled his arm out of her mouth and recoiled in horror and disillusionment.

  "Paula!" he exclaimed. "You only love me for myself."

  "Khonyetchna," Paula grunted in Cyrillic.

  James returned to the Big Red Schoolhouse in a gloomy mood. Of course everybody had seen the sad incident, and all of them did their best to be tactful.

  "Physiology tomorrow," the Professor said. "We will discuss the hydrogen-ion balance in the blood."

  "Yes, sir."

  "We got to get on to the modern composers, kid."

  "Yes, sir."

  "You know, shale is an oil-bearing rock," Moses Mole said. "But why isn't there any oil in red shale? There must be a mathematical reason."

  "We'll try to find it, sir."

  "Stick out your chest and be a man," the Scoutmaster said.

  "I'm trying, sir."

  "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all," the Chairman said.

  Then a fawn nestled alongside James and whispered, "It's all right. We're sorry you picked the wrong girl, but it has to happen to every man at least once. That's how you find the right girl."

  James burst into tears and cried and cried for his lost love while the fawn petted him, but in the end he felt curiously relieved.

  "James," the Professor said, "we must have a serious talk."

  "Yes, sir. Here?"

  "No. Come to the willow grove." They went to the willow grove. "Now we are alone," the Professor said. "James, you must start speaking to your mother and father. I know you can. Why don't you?"

  "I'm damned if I will, sir. They won't speak Us. Why should I speak Them?"

  "James, they don't know how to speak Us. Aren't you being unfair?"

  "They could try."

  "And I'm sure they would if they had a clue, but they haven't. Now listen to me. You're our only link between Us and Them. We need you, James, as a diplomatist. Your mother and father are very nice people; no hunting or killing on Red Hill, and they're planting many things. We all live together very pleasantly. I admit your mother loses her temper with the Scoutmaster and his troop because they won't get out of her way when she comes out to the hang the laundry on the line, but that's because she has a Bohemian disposition. We know what artists are like, unpredictable."