Chapter 13 Squirrels

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Debbie Honest woke up in the middle of her sleep. She was dreaming about having a session of acupuncture but she woke up to notice that pieces of rock were falling on her face. She couldn’t tell whether it was a day or a night. She wasn’t even sure what day of the week it was.

One day, when she was supposed to start her work at The Kindergarten News - she was already dressed to go to the kiosk and look through the foreign press - she was stopped by a few nasty dwarfs. She was sure that they were friends of this repulsive giant Billy Strong Fist, who in Debbie’s opinion was an imbecile. Debbie remembered him from school, when he ate his own buggers, bullied everyone smaller than himself and called her Lebbie Cohones, due to the fact that she was into girls and didn’t really fancy boys.

‘You won’t get further, Debbie. We’re closing the kiosk. Ginger George doesn’t like dwarfs to read what’s going on with the humans. No one will be allowed to do that. And neither will you.’

‘But he allowed for dwarf-human interaction. Interaction doesn’t only mean sex. It means communication, exchange of goods, political and trade relations. It has been legalized. He was the one to establish the law; if he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’s apparently an idiot.’

Dwarfs shrugged their arms.

‘You’re going with us. We have been ordered to keep you in the dungeon.’

‘That’s impossible! I haven’t broken any rules! You cannot imprison a currently innocent dwarf. This is against the rules.’

Dwarfs shrugged again.

‘Sorry, lady. Higher orders.’

‘But it VIOLATES the law, morons. Imprisoning me is against it. It means you cannot do this as you will be punished.’

‘From now on we make the rules, Lebbie.’

They all laughed. Debbie rolled her eyes. She didn’t have enough physical strength to oppose them. Dwarfs didn’t discuss much with her. They took her to the dungeon and shut the doors. It was a long time that she spent in the wet and cold prison of her ancestors. She wasn’t desperate, however. She didn’t count days to her release but was active enough to leave something for future generations. Debbie set herself a routine to scribble articles on the walls just like ancient dwarfs drew pictures of animals and hunting and gathering practices they engaged into in the past. She was writing about the reign of Ginger George, she even added pictures, which resembled hieroglyphs, just in case dwarfs became too dumb to read. It was something about Debbie, she just couldn’t stop working.

So when she felt pieces of rocks falling on her face, she was utterly surprised that something was able to surprise her.

‘Give me the light, we’re getting closer. If these maps are right, there should be the cell.’

Debbie focused on what she was hearing. This voice sounded familiar.

‘I can see a hole!’, she heard another voice, ‘We’re here!’

Debbie’s face was lit by a candle and the familiar face of Johnny Cutie appeared above her.

‘She’s alive!’

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

Now Stevie Mushroom’s face was stuck through the hole.

‘It’s nothing strange in these times. They killed Silia Lovely Bottom.’

‘Who do you mean by they?’, Debbie Honest was shocked.

‘I mean Ginger George, of course! He changed the law. For extramarital affair, you can be beheaded.’

‘But that’s ridiculous! What about Wonderful Wendy? She’s with this Innocent guy, right? I still cannot understand how come she’s attracted to such a hideous man, she’s so wonderful. However, I doubt whether their affair is purely platonic.’

‘I don’t know how it works, Debbie. Dwarf-human interaction is legal and Richard is her official lover. Maybe it overlaps the infidelity law; no one has cut their toes yet!’

‘But that is idiocy on the part of George! All those people who support him sleep around. If there’s the punishment of beheading, he’ll lose them all. Have you seen Billy Strong Fist’s feet? No toes whatsoever! He walks like an elephant!’

‘That wouldn’t be so bad if they were all beheaded. I feel sorry for Silia. You should have seen the execution...’

‘I’m glad that I haven’t,’ Debbie interrupted Stevie, ‘What else changed?’

‘Well, we cannot print anymore. Ginger George made adjectives illegal.’

‘What do you mean he made them illegal? Is that even legal to do such a thing? But why should you stop printing? Cannot you resort to nouns?’

Johnny looked at Stevie, Stevie looked at Johnny. They didn’t think about that before.

‘And if he makes nouns illegal?’, Johnny started getting pessimistic.

‘Then, you can use pictograms or pictures.’

‘And if he does this with pictures?’

‘Then we will use a language which has no nouns or adjectives and we will smash this little ginger piglet in the mud. But first get me out of here!’

Debbie was an experienced dwarf woman. But she had never expected that she would be pulled through a hole above her head, with a rope tied around her waist. To make matters worse, she was pulled by two dwarfs whom she fired on their first day from The Kindergarten News for publishing the picture of the Highest Dwarf sitting on the toilet and taking a shit. Now, when she thought about it again, it wasn’t such a bad picture.

Johnny, Stevie, and Debbie were walking through the forest. It was beginning to dawn, the sun lit deserted meadows and hidden mine entrances.

‘It must be somewhere here, he must be somewhere here. I asked forest creatures.’

‘I never entirely trusted forest creatures, Stevie, they told me once that Germany won World War II.’

‘And haven’t they?’

‘This is why I fired you from the news. Possibly, you are good at entertainment, but when it comes to serious information and accuracy, you are quite hopeless. I think we all benefited from Out of the Box...’

‘You have read our newspaper?!’

‘I read everything, Johnny. I found it funny, I must say. Additionally, I was driven by pangs of guilt that you ended jobless and was happy to discover that you prosper with these body fitness training and food support.’

Stevie and Johnny shrugged. The day when they were fired was actually the day they started the series: The Highest Dwarf in Awkward Places, which included granddad dwarf on the toilet, during the morning routine of shaving nose hair, at the gym when squatting, while undergoing some alternative medicine treatment along the lines of jumping onto autumn leaf piles to treat arthritis and swimming in the lakes naked to avoid bunions. This series increased the circulation of Out of the Box, and what Debbie found unprofessional, a lot of dwarfs found an enjoyable companion of their morning meal.

Stevie and Johnny still relied on alternative sources and often made use of wild animals, birds, and even insects to find the information they were so badly in need of. Now they were looking for Frank First Aid Kit, who hasn’t been seen since the fatal moment of his redundancy.

At the far end of the forest, there was a wooden hut, surrounded by a vegetable garden. It was an old hut, small in its size but well-maintained and clean. The door was painted with red paint and the garden was neat and pleasant. They knocked on the door and waited patiently for the reply.

After a few minutes, a very haggard dwarf appeared behind the door.

‘Frank?’, Johnny was unsure, ‘Frank, is that you?’

‘Johnny? What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at work?’

‘I don’t have many clients. Female dwarfs cannot engage in physical activities. There’s not much to do.’

‘Me too,’ Stevie added, ‘Ginger George chose catering companies which I cannot really control. We have been idle for a while...’

‘And you, Debbie?’

‘I was kidnapped,’ Debbie explained.

Frank let them inside. Everything there was kept equally clean as on the outside, but Frank didn’t look like the old version of himself. He grew a beard and little twigs started growing from his head just like in between some of the oldest dwarfs’ hair when they reached a certain age. Frank looked older and thinner. But he also looked peaceful. Apparently, he had time to think.

‘You look different.’

‘Yes, and I am different. This time without work did me good. I was working hard every day since I was born. Now I had time to reevaluate things. To discover what is really important to me.’

‘And what is it?’ Stevie was curious.

Frank whistled. They heard a thudding sound, which was getting louder and louder as if an earthquake started unexpectedly not from the center of the earth, but from the distance, culminating around Frank’s hut.

Frank, Stevie, and Debbie looked behind the window and saw thousands, ten thousands of squirrels reacting to Frank’s every move, ready to fulfill his every wish. Frank smiled and they couldn’t tell whether it was a smile of happiness or madness, as behind his beard and his bushes Frank didn’t really look normal.

‘Squirrels?’

‘Yes, I found my purpose in life.’

‘But, Frank, you have to listen to us. We are oppressed. There are terrible things happening in the Kindergarten. Injustice! Silia Lovely Bottom was beheaded. We suffer from hunger. Ginger George creates crazy laws! We have to do something about it. You have to help us.’

‘Johnny, I don’t have to do anything. When I worked like I felt I was supposed to work, you didn’t appreciate me for it. I was ridiculed and I wasn’t happy. I lost satisfaction long ago. It’s no longer a place for me.’

Stevie, Johnny, and Debbie looked at Frank with wide eyes.

‘He’s definitely gone mad,’ said Debbie, observing the army of squirrels, ‘Listen, Frank, I was imprisoned for a long time. I know it may break you. You start to talk to yourself and laugh at your own jokes. But you cannot remain like this forever. You don’t belong to forest creatures, you belong to us.’

‘Don’t tell me where I belong. I belong where I want to belong, Debbie. I feel accepted here and loved. They all remember Nutsy.’

‘Who’s Nutsy?’

‘It’s a squirrel, Debbie,’ Stevie explained ‘Frank had once a squirrel and Ginger George killed it.’

‘Oh, great! So now you buried yourself among squirrels! You know, Frank, I was hurt many times by him and his fellows but I’m not hiding from the world.’

Frank didn’t listen. He looked through the window, to a place distant, almost like Silia Lovely Bottom cast her eyes before her final sleep. Absent, desolate and numb.

They had no choice but to leave Frank’s cottage and head back to the Kindergarten.

‘We lost him,’ Stevie said sadly.

‘We lost many.’, Debbie whispered, looking at the backyard of the Kindergarten where many beheaded dwarfs lied in piles as quiet casualties of their severe punishments.