Second Chapter — Of Rodentia and Men

Double Eleven returned home and took a cold shower. He washed with his ACME LatherMan soap. He picked up the telephone to order carryout tofu, but was arrested by the sight of Little Bunny Fufu, hopping through the nearby forest. He replaced the receiver, and dove through the window like a well-sharpened glasscutter. He stood up and dusted himself off, just in time to see the vile rodent picking up some field mice and bopping them on the head. Down upon them swept Double Eleven, and he said, “Little Bunny Fufu! I don’t want to see you picking up the field mice and bopping them on the heads.”

“But I get three chances, right?” sniveled the cowardly bunny.

“I think not,” replied Double Eleven, and blew off his head with his ACME bunny disintegrator. “Run, little field mice! Saaaaaave yourselves!” The tiny, stupid mammals scampered off in every direction. Double Eleven smiled contentedly.

Suddenly, screaming through the night sky, a brilliant streak of phosphorescent glitter formed a deadly arc above his head and ended on the ground in front of him. Out from the explosion of fairy dust strode a tall, thin, wiry, lean, mean, fairy machine. A robotic voice informed him, “Agent One-One-One-One, you are forgetting Agent Seven-One-One. This message will self-destruct…”

Agent Double Eleven heard no more, for he was already running in the opposite direction. He hit the dirt about 300 yards away, out of sheer frustration (even though he felt no particular animus toward the dirt).

“Alack!” he cried, “why doth the fates taunt me so? What am I but a mere poopsie-daisy? What can I do against the dark hosts of the Desert of Even More Unpleasant Things? Oh that I could turn back the hands of time to that happy day when Seven Eleven and I sat on the dock of the bay wasting time! If I had known then what I know now I would never have dove into the azure waters of the briny sea and swam to the yacht that called to me in the depths of my mind! Oh that I had never dreamed of a dream of a ship, beckoning me to meet my DOOM!”

He tore his lineaments with his fingernails and sprinkled dust upon his bleeding head.

“You’re stalling,” a field mouse whispered in his ear. Agent Double Eleven swept it aside with his hand and stood up with a new resolve.

“You are right,” he said. “The time for wasting time has passed. I must do what I must do, and I must do it now.” He looked down, but the field mouse had apparently been swept over the edge of the precipice on his right, for it was nowhere to be seen. “I thank thee for thy words, small friend,” he called into the depths.

Just then, an earth-shattering explosion threw Double Eleven off his feet as the fairy messenger self-destructed. He tumbled headlong into the precipice, gently turning in his fall as he was wafted sideways by a jet-stream blasting through the abyss. Luckily for him, it blew him up. He landed back on the extreme edge of the accursed pit, slipped, slid, and came to rest on a narrow ledge about nine feet below the rim.

“Well, this is a bloody fine fix,” grumbled Double Eleven to himself. He stood on his tiptoes and stretched as high as he could, reaching, reaching, reaching…

Suddenly, out of the clear blue sky, or rather the sky with only a few visible cirrus clouds in the stratosphere, a woodchuck came hurtling down onto the ledge.

At least, Secret Agent Double Eleven thought it was a woodchuck. As it struggled, grunting, to its feet, and dusted itself off, he saw it to be a large, fat chipmunk.

“Greetings, stranger,” it said in a gravely, high-pitched voice. “Where go you?”

Double Eleven, rather taken aback, regained his composure and answered, “I don’t really know.”

“Ah, enjoying the view, hmm?”

“Um, no. I fell here. Sort of.”

“Mmm, me too, hmm hmm hmm!” The strange little animal chuckled to itself, drawing in the dirt with a stick (don’t ask me where he got it). Double Eleven ignored it and resumed his reaching. He dared not jump, lest the ledge give way. Then he felt a tug at his pants leg.

“Double Eleven?”

“Yes? Hey—how’d you know my name?”

“Mmm, many things I know, hehee!” The little animal whacked him jovially with the stick. “Where go you, hmm?”

“I told you, I don’t know.”

“Ah, looking for someone you are, hmm?” The bloated rodent peered keenly up at him.

“Yes, how do you know these things?” Double Eleven was curious about this strange mammal’s power of deductive logic.

“Mmm, many things I know, hehee!” He went back to drawing in the dirt.

“As a matter of undeniable fact, I am looking for a great warrior, or at least an average one—I’m not picky,” Double Eleven told him.

Without looking up, the rodentia said, “Wars not make one great.”

“Yes, well, whatever,” Double Eleven said absently, “but what I need is a reckless, feckless, slightly sarcastic fellow with vast electronic knowledge and piloting skills. A handsome visage is not mandatory, but a fedora and bullwhip would be nice.”

“You would like fries with that, hmm?”

Before Double Eleven could formulate a sufficiently witty comeback, there was a whir of rotors overhead, and a strong downdraft nearly sent the two plummeting into the depths.

A man with a fedora, bullwhip, and handsome visage to boot leaned out of the helicopter and said, “Need a lift?”

Double Eleven, who was now hanging onto the edge of the ledge by the very tips of his fingertips, paused to evaluate this question, and found little sarcasm to recommend the stranger. However, as his fingers were getting weak, he was not in a position to be choosy.

The chipmunk, meanwhile, levitated himself into the Huey and said, “Around the survivors a perimeter create!”

“What?” Double Eleven said, slightly perplexed.

The fedora clad stranger extended the whip down toward Double Eleven and directed him to seize it, which Double Eleven did obediently. FedoraMan hauled him up, and the disgruntled secret agent found himself sprawled on the floor of the chopper, with the obese chipmunk standing over him. The animal poked him in the stomach with his gnarled stick, and said, “A mission, you have, hmm? A helper you will need, yes?”

“Yes, we’ve been over this already,” Double Eleven replied as he struggled to his feet, the gusty winds whirling around the chopper making his footing unstable.

“Your man, this is,” the wise rodent declared.

“But I find his lack of sarcasm lacking,” Double Eleven objected.

“Making no sense, you are,” the chipmunk admonished him, “double negative, you use.”

Double Eleven gasped, “How do you know my mother?”

“Confusion leads to mistakes, mistakes lead to suffering, wooo,” the ancient let out a strange groan. “I sense much confusion in you.”

“So do I, ironically,” Double Eleven agreed. “In, me, that is. In you I sense many acorns.”

While they were having this discussion, FedoraMan was piloting the helicopter over the chasm, in the direction of the setting sun. The chipmunk whapped him on the back of the head with the stick, and said, “Go south, you must. Take this pathetic creature to the Desert of Even More Unpleasant Things, you will. It is your destiny.”

“I don’t believe in destiny,” the man replied.

“Believe, you shall,” the chippie said with a gleam in his beady, close-set eyes.

The man snorted, then addressed Double Eleven, “The name’s Kentucky Solitaire, but you can call me Tuck.”

“He’s a dope,” Double Eleven whispered in the corpulent rodent’s tiny ear. “I don’t want him!”

Chippie shook his head. “Impetuous and headstrong you are.” He gazed upwards and addressed the ceiling, “I cannot teach him—he is too old.” He paused, then sighed. “Woooo, do what I can, I must. Your companion to be, this man is. Deny it you may, but in the end, face it you must.” He limped to the door and turned. “Leave you now I must. My padawans wait, on my private island in the sun.” He turned abruptly and jumped out the door, calling, “Remember what I have told you, woooooooo!”

“What an exceedingly odd little man,” Tuck observed with an alarming lack of sarcasm.

“He isn’t a man, you dope, he’s a chipmunk,” Double Eleven replied.

Tuck swung the craft southward, and turned on the afterburners. “Hold on, kid,” he shouted, with yet another missed opportunity for sarcasm.

“Don’t call me ‘kid’,” Double Eleven seethed.

“Oh, what is your name, anyway?”

“I cannot divulge that, for security reasons,” Double Eleven told him haughtily. “You can call me Your Excellency.”

“Okay, Ex,” Tuck said blithely, “ring the bell when you want me to stop.”

“Are you being sarcastic?” Double Eleven asked, hopefully.

Tuck glanced back with annoyance. “No, just a friendly joke.”

Double Eleven was disappointed, but decided to remain optimistic. He settled in for the duration of the flight, leafing through the latest issue of Archeology Today.

“Want some peanuts?” Tuck asked.

Double Eleven looked up with joy, thinking that Tuck was being sarcastic, but unhappily found a bag of dry roasted peanuts shoved in his face.

Next Chapter:
A Foray Into Boredom

Tags: 1111, Mr. Chippie, Tuck