[Truce, Chatty]

  I wonder if Aya is right about the tower and some kind of spiritual path, I’m not sure but it’ll be something to keep in mind, assuming that I can re-enter it. With all his papers cleared away, I searched his desk for a laptop or keys. But neither are to be found. I did find a small flashlight and a really old looking compass, I pocketed both for my go sack. My cell is fully charged, time to watch some lockpick videos.

  I found a two minute video on how to open a file cabinet lock with binder clips. The first file cabinet took fifteen or twenty minutes to open, the other two took a little less. Nothing of real interest except for a thin file on the eastern tower. I grabbed the file after looking thoroughly around his study, finding nothing more of interest. Then headed downstairs I wanted to examine where I had previously entered the other world. It was back to plain stone walls. Possibly the portal only opens at night. I keep examining the area during the day. I’ll come here tonight after dinner, examine it again.

  I still need a knapsack, or a messenger bag so I head to granddad’s bedroom. I did a quick search in here before and I don’t remember seeing one but a quick look won’t hurt. But it was as I remembered. Next stop the kitchen, see if anyone knows where Collins is. I lie to the cook and tell her I need some camping food, it should be light portable and not need ice.

  I find Collins in the backyard gardens speaking to the gardner. I waited till they finished talking.

  “Collins, I came to thank you for taking me up to my room. Maz told me if it wasn’t for your quick response I might have died. I always thought that you didn’t approve of me so I’ve been a jerk to you in the past. I’m very sorry if my actions have caused you any upset or hurt.”

  “You are more than welcome, I assume you were so severely injured searching for your grandfather. I knew that you hadn’t just given up and walked away without a word. We might never be the best of friends but let’s at least call a truce until you bring him home.”

  “Truce it is, thank you. You might be able to help me, I’m looking for a knapsack, messenger bag, something I might bring some supplies with so I don’t come back in as poor a shape as last time.”

  “I know just where to get a knapsack, I’ll bring it to your room. Also I’m sorry that I lied to you about the tower. The Colonel swore me to secrecy.”

  “It’s fine, I would have done exactly the same thing. Now I’ll continue my thank you tour. Do you know if Dr Dakkar is in the barn?”

  “Yes he was headed that way after breakfast.”

  “Thanks”

  That was really overdue, I don’t suppose it wasn’t much fun being butler to a man who wouldn’t hear a bad word about his only grandchild.

  ***

  I headed to the barn to see myself made agog by Maz’s wonders. I knocked and a goggled and labcoated Maz answered the door, he seemed delighted to see me. Come in, come in. A couple of experiments are actually running and it’d be dangerous to observe but the biggest and grandest isn’t an experiment at all. I’ll have to put on my zoologist hat and introduce you to a couple friends.

  We went into a side room that was furnished with a bed and a bunch of toys. A chimp with a helmet strapped on its head, sat at a desk, it looked like it was either writing something or coloring.

  Maz said. “Hello Groucho”

  The chimp didn’t even bother to turn around, it just said.

  “What'd you want? I'm busy here Maz.”

  “Wow” I said.

  The chimp swivels around.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you brought a babe to see me? "Just give me a comfortable couch, a dog, a good book, and you babe. Then if we can get the dog to go somewhere and read the book, we might have a little fun."”

  “I guess you can tell why we call him Groucho.”

  “Come on over babe, A man's only as old as the woman he feels. And you look just the right age.”

  “I’m sorry Groucho, I bat for the other team.”

  “Oh one of the Isle of Lesbos types, can’t say I blame you, if I was a woman, I’d be a lesbian too. I’ll give you a tip. There’s a blonde walking around here and she has a humongous set of knockers.”

  “Groucho, we don't say things like that about women. They are people, and people are every bit as good as animals.”

  “I don’t know Doc, the animals have been around a lot longer and there are a lot more of us than you. Yet it took humans to come along and mess everything up. But that blond is okay, she can come peel my banana anyday.”

  I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing.

  “Please don’t encourage him, Jaq.”

  “Oh, come on Maz, it might be politically incorrect, but it was funny. Besides, aren't you the one who wore a war bonnet to dinner the other night. How did you learn to speak Groucho?”

  “I could always speak, babe, but if you mean the sound it comes out of the helmet that Maz built for me. I want to change his name to Dolittle but he refuses to discuss it.”

  “Did you see the Dr Doolittle movie Mas?”

  “No, I read the kids book when I was learning to read.”

  “That’s very impressive, what’s your favorite book”

  “In the Shadow of Man by Jane Goodall, have you read it? It’s a classic.”

  “No I haven’t read it, I check if we have a copy in my granddads library.”

  “So you're the old coots granddaughter. I haven’t seen him around for a while. Is he okay?”

  “Yeah we hope so, I think he’s just traveling.”

  “Well if you do see him, tell him Groucho wants a rematch.”

  “What were you playing?”

  “Checkers, he wouldn’t play me again in chess, he got sick of losing.”

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  “Wow you must be good.”

  “Pretty good, do you want to play a game of strip chess? Everytime you lose a piece you lose an article of clothing. I’m only wearing two articles, a shirt and pants. So I’m sure it’d take me thirty minutes to get you naked.”

  “Nope you shouldn’t have bragged about beating my grandfather, now that I know how good you are, I’ll keep my clothes on. Thanks.”

  “Well if you see the blonde send her over, but don’t tell her how good I am and I promise to give you a mouth watering description of those babies. I’ll describe them so well that you’ll think you saw them yourself.”

  “Alright, Groucho is just the first stop on this tour, say goodbye Groucho.”

  “Goodbye Groucho, goodbye Jaq, if you want to switch teams again now that you’ve met the planet’s malest of males. I’ll keep my dance card open for you, you can even eat crackers in bed.”

  “Thank you Groucho, I can honestly say that I’ll never forget you.”

  ***

  Back out in the lab, workbenches covered two walls and all sorts of electronic devices looked to be in various stages of completion.

  “Did you invent that helmet Maz? It’s really incredible, and Groucho is quite the character.”

  “Yes I invented the helmet a few years ago and then Groucho came along, a circus was selling all of their animals, they were going to all human acts and all the animals had to go. Chimps can be aggressive so there weren’t many buyers interested. He can be very sexist but he learned that behavior watching his animal trainer interact with women around the circus.”

  “Well I think he’s funny, it’s stuff I wouldn’t take from a man but you could make a fortune if you two went on TV.”

  “I could never do that, the government would take him away, turn him into an assassin or worse.”

  “You’re a good man Maz, most people wouldn’t care as long as they got some profit from it.”

  “You seem surprised that I’m a good guy.”

  “Well you did introduce yourself as a mad scientist.”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot I did that. Come on, I'll introduce you to Draco.”

  “Ok sounds good.”

  We walked toward the back of the barn but soon we walked down a set of concrete steps.

  “I never knew that the barn had a basement.”

  “It doesn’t have a basement, this is to access a cavern that has an outlet on the other side of the mountain.”

  “What’s in the tunnel Maz? I hate bats. I know they are important to the ecosystem but they just creep me out.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s not a bat, it’s not even a mammal.

  Maz opened a door and we were in a large cavern and just a few feet from me was a huge red dragon. It had been sleeping I think, but it opened an eye as big as my head and said.

  “This is who the sperm was for?”

  “Aaa a Yes, Draco, I’d like you to meet Jaq, she’s Henry’s granddaughter.”

  “Sperm? What’s he talking about?”

  “It’s nice to meet you Jaq, any relative of the old coot’s, is alright with me.”

  “Thank you Draco, it’s nice to meet you, Maz what does he mean by ‘who the sperm was for’.”

  “Magic dragon sperm is the base for that cream that cured your burns.”

  “Oh I see, well thank you Draco it was very kind of you.”

  “Oh no Jaq, it was my pleasure.”

  “Your pleasure, your pleasure, just have a little fun at the expense of the new girl.”

  “Oh come on Jaq, you could laugh a little, it was a clever line.”

  “It was a clever line and I do thank you. I’m just a little shocked, I’ve never been close to sperm before.”

  “I get it, you play for the other team, you slept with blondie last night.”

  “What, how did you know that?”

  “My nose can smell many things and you smell more like her than me and you’ve been rubbing me all over yourself. I’m more than just magic sperm, I'm also a world class magician, real magic not that stage stuff that humans do. Just look.”

  “Holy crap you can turn invisible, wow, but why would you ever need to be invisible, you can’t have any natural predators.”

  “No it was the damn humans, every time I’d fly out to hunt, and the humans saw me take some poor virgin girl, strap her to a pole in the ground and expect me to take her as a virgin sacrifice. So I’d have to pick her up and fly her to some village far away and release her.”

  “Why far away, why not just release her back to her own village.”

  “Just think about it for a minute, let’s say you are a village virgin girl, someone in the village sees me by chance. The village decides they need a virgin to sacrifice, and they pick you. Now the entire village has proper horror stories about what dragons do to virgins, and they picked you for that to happen to. None of the virgins ever wanted to go back to their families or their village so I became a taxi for virgins. Finally I grew sick of it and made up an invisibility spell.”

  “Yes, when looked at from the virgins perspective the real monsters aren’t the dragons even if they did all those horrible things, it’s the other villagers that put her in that betrayed her.”

  “It’s even worse according to some of the virgins I saved. The men of the village would try to coerce the virgins into sleeping with them. Their argument was that since the village only sacrifices virgins to the dragons then the men would do the virgins a favor by taking their virginity. Honestly I think that’s how the whole weird custom got started. Some devious man decided he wanted to sleep with a virgin; he makes up a weird legend about dragons and virgins and the custom is born. That’s what humans get for not bothering to fact check anything.”

  “It’s worse nowadays with the internet and politicians.”

  “Tell me about it, I’m just glad I live in Wales.”

  “Well I better get going, I have to bathe before dinner. But Draco thank you so much for your donation to my recovery, and just remember before you answer a clever line can be overused.”

  “Then I’ll just say don’t think of it as a handout, more like a gigantic endowment."