Bob's shack

'Twernt easy, but after searchin high and low and everywhere in between, Al and Hiroki found themselves an ash stick that was perfectly straight and exactly six feet long, as the book had told Hiroki to do. Of course, findin the branch was only the beginnin of the work. Once they had the thing located, they had to find themselves a way to separate that thing from the tree what had given it life. And let me tell ya, that tree was none too ready to be partin with its parts, if ya take my meanin. Hiroki and Al musta worn through three Swiss Army Knives, a half a dozen handsaws and at least two chainsaws working their way through the first layer of bark. It got to the point where they just had to sit down and rethink the whole thing.

"Look, son," Al said, wipin the sweat from his brow, "are you sure you really need this stick? I mean, do you really need this thing? Couldn't you just, you know, take some regular straight twigs and just tape them together?"

"I'm afraid I cannot," replied Hiroki. "I am doing this project for my friend. I have saved his life and now I am responsible for him. I must to this to cure him of his blindness."

"Well, I spose I know half about that," chuckled Al. "Listen, I got this brother that could prolly whip us up a saw. He's pretty good with his hands, but not so good with his legs." He laughed. "I guess you gotta meet him before you find that funny. Anyways, I imagine he could make us up a saw fit to cut anything we might want to cut. Let's meander down and see what we could talk him into doing."

Hiroki only nodded and followed Al to another part of the tree. There, they found themselves a little, worn down hut that looked like it had been built a hundred years and fifty hurricanes ago. When they opened the door to go inside, they were blasted with heat and light that felt like a thousand suns had decided to have themselves a hugfest right in that shack. On top of that was this clangin, ringin sound like what you get when you put your timing belt on wrong. When they got into the shack, Hiroki saw that there weren't no bright, hot engine in the middle of the dirt-covered floor. Instead, there was a man swingin a hammer down onto some metal, sweat flyin off his soot-stained fists at every blow.

With his barrel chest and arms like pythons what had swallowed elephants, he woulda been the biggest man Hiroki'd ever seen, ceptin for his legs. They was withered and twisted like licorice ropes that had been left out in the sun too long. Truth be told, the man looked like a bearded barrel standing on a couple of toothpicks. And he wasn't even really standin on them, he was surrounded with this leather and brass contraption that held up his torso and let his useless legs dangle underneath him. Not to say he looked funny, mind you. Despite his mobility difficulties, Hiroki thought the guy'd have no problems putting that big hammer of his through a bank vault door, if need be. Fortunately, he was usin that hammer to bend metal to his will. He and his contraption was placed halfway between an anvil and a furnace and, when Hiroki and Al walked in, the giant man seemed to be making a spiked hammer of some sort.

While Hiroki was taking all this in, Al slipped quietly up to the man, laid a hand on his shoulder and whispered in his ear. Big boy furrowed his brow and looked at ol' one eye oddly before giving a quick nod. Al smiled, slapped him on the shoulder and turned to Hiroki.

"This here's my brother Bob," Al told the young ninja warmly. "As you can see, he's a blacksmith. I'd go so far as to say he's the best blacksmith in this tree. If you ask nicely, I bet he can help you out."

Hiroki gave a deep bow. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Bob."

"You, too, kid," Bob returned. "What is it I can do for you?"

Hiroki explained his situation. He told Bob all about his quest and the reason for it while Bob nodded slowly.

When he finished, Bob said, "I see. So you need a saw that can get that limb off?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well..." Bob gave a sidelong glance to Al, who nodded. "I suppose I can make something to help you out, but you gotta promise me something."

"Anything you wish," vowed Hiroki.

"You can't let our other brother have that saw. You gotta keep it in your possession at all times and, when you're done with it, you gotta bring the saw straight back here so I can melt it down again."

"Certainly," Hiroki bowed.

Bob turned to his brother. "Al, I don't know...are you sure about this?"

Al nodded and slapped his brother on the shoulder. "You worry too much, Bob. Look at this kid. He's trustworthy. What's the worst that could happen?"

"I dunno," Bob shrugged. "The end of the world?"

"Trust me," Al said.

Bob turned back to his anvil. "That's what you said last time," he muttered before hitting the metal on the forge. "And look where that got me."

Al shook his head, chuckling a little. He placed a gentle hand on Hiroki's shoulder and turned him towards the door. "It'll be a little bit," he explained. "Why don't you come to my place and we can eat and have a drink with some old friends of mine."

Tree Meeting

Now, findin a needle in a haystack ain't easy, as the old saying would attest to. But findin a straight branch on a world-sized ash tree is like findin a needle with a 15 milimeter hole in a pile full of needles with 14 milimeter holes. Maybe it's harder than that. Maybe it's like findin integrity in politics. Yeah. THAT hard. Haruki prolly wouldn't have been able to find it at all if he didn't have himself a guide.

He was wanderin around that big ol' ash tree, just feelin overwhelmed at the enormity of the task and wishin his ma would just show up, eat everything and just be done with it all. But before he could sink too low in his depression and anxiety, that squirrel he saw before came runnin back to him, with an old man in tow. Haruki noticed two things about the man right away. First, he had himself a beard of epic proportions. I tell ya, there ain't nothin to make a man stick out in a crowd, on stage or in a tree like good beard. It's your best friend in the winter and your worst enemy in summer, but it'll get you through tough times and make you look regal doin it. If this has convinced you to grow a beard, you just go ahead and do it, but make sure it's a proper beard. Don't be growin no soul patch or anythin like that that's gonna just make you look ridiculous. And don't ever, never grow yourself just a mustache. Only cops and perverts have only mustaches. And the man approaching Haruki didn't seem like no cop or pervert. He weren't no cop because of the second thing that Haruki noticed about him, which was that he only had one eye up in his face and there ain't no one-eyed cops.

He could still have been a pervert though. I ain't sayin everyone with an awesome beard is a pervert. I mean, I got me a stylin beard (you know, to cover my superfluous chin), and I ain't no kind of pervert or nothin. And if any of y'all try to insinuate that I am, well, them's is gonna be the last words that come through your teeth.

Sorry, I'm just a bit riled up. The computin machine on which I usually do my writin and story tellin and yarn spinnin decided out of the blue for no reason to just not work any more, and I spent the last week tryin to fight it. I shoulda been doin other stuff in my life during all that time like, say, writin some stuff here, but the great and almighty computer didn't want to allow it. I didn't want to git on here and make another excuse for the delay, because I don't like doin it and I know y'all don't like hearin it. Soon, though, I'm gonna find myself an alternative. But that alternative might be handwritin everything and sendin this out as a chain letter, so be prepared to send me all of your addresses if I request them.

Anyway, Haruki didn't have much time to think about whether this bearded fella was a pervert or not because the guy belted out with a, "How do, there, stranger?! Welcome to my tree!"

"Thank you," said Haruki, bowing. "I do not mean to intrude."

"It's no big thing," the stranger roared in a voice like rocks rattlin round a coffee can, "all are welcome in my tree. Even you, Haruki Hatayama."

"How...how did you..." the young ninja stammered.

"Oh, I make it my business knowin who's in my tree, don't you know," and the stranger touched the side of his nose and winked. "That and you're wearin your school name tag."

Haruki looked down and saw that, indeed, he was still wearing his name tag. Funny that he had forgotten to take it off. It was even funnier that he didn't remember the school givin out name tags. But, if he was wearin it, they must have give it to him. Unless...

"Wait," said Haruki, "are you Odin? I've read my Norse mythology, and you seem an awful lot like the Allfather."

The stranger sighed. "You know, I am so sick of that question! Just because you got yourself one eye and a beard, and you happen to live in an ash tree with three nice old ladies, everyone goes around thinkin you're the father of the viking gods! It's inescapable!"

"I'm sorry," said Haruki quickly, "I assumed too much. You have my deepest apologies."

"It's all right," replied the stranger, "it ain't your fault. It just all adds up and gets frustratin. I'm seriously considerin just gettin a name tag that says 'Not Odin' on it, so as to avoid all this confusion."

Haruki bowed again. "I am most sorry, sir. If you are not Odin, what may I call you?"

"You can just call me Al," the bearded man said, slapping Haruki on the back. "And don't worry non about that Odin thing. Now, what can I do ya for?"

Haruki explained his situation and his need for a straight branch from an ash tree.

When he was done, Al nodded, stroking his beard. "Well, now, that's a mighty tall order. But it's for a deaf and blind kid, you say?"

"Yes sir."

"All right, then. I dunno where there's a straight branch on this whole tree, but I'll offer ya my services you help you find one."

"Thank you, sir," Haruki bowed.

They turned to leave, two men off on an adventure together. Then Al turned and looked at Haruki. "Wait, Hatayama..." he said. "You wouldn't happen to be related to Tetsuo Hatayama, would you?"

"I am his son."

"All right, all right," Al nodded vigorously. "Maybe when we find that stick for you, you could help me with this little problem I'm having with my brother. You're just the chap for the job."

"I shall return your favor in kind," Haruki told him. "The Hatayama are an honorable family and we always return our debts."

"Great to hear!" said Al, slapping him on the back again. "Now let's go find that stick."

Ash me no questions

I'm just gonna come right out and say it. I hates me some shoppin. I hate everything about the shopping experience. I hate drivin all the way over to the Wal-Mart in the next town (which I gotta go to because of my aforementioned troubles). I hate walkin in and havin some guy who looks like an unwrapped mummy and smells like a truck carryin Vick's crashed into a truck carryin cream cheese tries to say hi to one last person before shufflin off this mortal coil. I hate seein roughly eight metric tons of back fat wanderin around stuffed into a half ounce of tank top. I hate how they're always tryin to reorganize everything so it's easier to find. I just wanna scream at Mr. Wal "Hey, doofus! Thing'd be a lot easier to find if ya quit movin 'em all over hither and yon."

A couple months ago, I went to get myself some toothpaste and they had it next to the candy aisle, which I thought was a pretty good lesson for the kids. But then, I went back in there a couple weeks ago and it was almost within reaching distance of the angry tentacle beasts. First, I had to wander all over the store to heck and back to find where it was, then I had to go into the garden center to grab myself a shovel with which to fend off the unwanted touch of them accursed pseudopods. Then, I had to get myself a plastic sandwich bag or a glove or something to pick up the toothpaste so the acid from the tentacle beasts' spit didn't eat right through my hand. I decided to use the sandwich bag. But, just as I was pullin the bag outta the box, this employee came around the corner and started tellin me that I was stealin and I had to buy that whole box of bags now even though I already had about a hundred boxes at home from when Douggy was tryin to make himself a floaty suit for the pool. But that's neither here nor there, just so long as you know I warn't wanderin in there ever intendin to buy me no sandwich bags. But I sure as heck walked out with some. That and they charged me for the tentacle beast that I had to whack in the head with the shovel because he was gettin a mite close to the Crest. And then they had the gall to charge me for the shovel, as if it was my fault that the blade dissolved after it met tentacle beast face. In the end, I went in for toothpaste and came out with a shovel handle, a box of sandwich bags I didn't need and a dead tentacle beast in a plastic bag. In all the excitement, I'd forgotten to buy the toothpaste and so I still ended up brushin my teeth with baking soda for the next week.

I'm just tellin ya all this so that when I say that Haruki's collectin everything on his shoppin list what the Grimoire of Necrography gave him sounds to me like the worst thing that could happen to a guy, you'll be able to keep it in perspective and not go yellin about how he coulda been devoured by a Sarlak or somethin stupid like that. I know that it might be a touch more painful to get digested for a thousand years in the belly of a sand worm, I ain't stupid. But it still wouldn't match the sheer frustration of findin some of the stuff that Hatayama kid had to find to help out his pinball wizard friend.

I mean, sure, the first stuff was easy and he just had to pop on down to the seven-eleven or the eight-twelve or the thirty six-twenty four-thirty six or whatever convenience store they had on his crazy planet. He could just go on down there and pick up all the coffee and gummy worms and actual worms and dried newt's eyes that he needed. Plus he coulda picked himself up a Powerball ticket while he was at it. I know, I know. He was super rich and inherited his dad's crazy big pile of money when his dad ran off, but it's still nice to win somethin once in awhile.

His first big problem was in findin the, ahem, privates of a turtle what had killed a man. He looked all over high and low for that thing. He musta been in and out of a thousand stores and weird medicine shops. He saw enough turtle privates to last a normal person a lifetime, but none were labeled as to whether they'd been attached to a man-killer or not.

He was gettin mighty despondent and started considerin himself a different career path. In that spirit, he bought a self-help book that urged him to "think outside the box" and "solve problems creatively". It was really inspirational. And not in that "Eatin Chicken Soup With Five Maurys on Tuesdays in Heaven" sorta inspirational, but inspirational in that it taught him somethin he didn't know before and inspired him to act. So, he acted. He killed a guy with a turtle, then "harvested" what he needed. Bing, bang, boom. Problem solved.

In this way, Hiroki got himself all but one of the ingredients. Not in the "killin a guy with a turtle" way, mind you, but in a "thinkin creatively" sorta way. His final task was to get a perfectly straight stick, six feet in length, off an ash tree. And it couldn't be no trunk, either, but had to be a genuine branch of the tree. Now, I ain't no horticulturalist but I'm pretty sure that's near well impossible to do. I ain't even totally convinced you could grow yourself a tree with a perfectly straight six foot branch if you really wanted to.

I gotta say, though, until I got mixed up in this whole squirrel versus ninja business, I wasn't what you'd call a great success in life. And I been told that I gave up a lot of stuff to easily but, really, tryin all the time to get yourself a bunch of stuff is a lot harder than pickin up a jar of "I don't care" moonshine and watchin the sun set from your front porch. People say the secret to success is persistence. Well, persistence and inheritin a giant pile of money. So I guess Hiroki had all the ingredients to be successful.

So, he wandered around from planet to planet until he found the biggest durned ash tree in the universe. This thing was, at rough estimate, the size of a million, billion suns. I ain't seen it for myself or nothin, so I'm just goin on word of mouth here, but I'm relatin it as I heard it, so you can choose to believe that about its size or not.

Hiroki came up on this tree and saw these three old women sittin underneath in havin themselves a sewin circle. He politely introduced himself and clarified with them that this was, indeed, an ash tree. To which they responded that they knew durned well who he was and they knew that if he couldn't tell an ash tree from a hole in the ground, then he was about to have a lot more trouble than he realized. He just went on the assumption that these grumpy women weren't gonna tell him a whole lot more and so he might as well just go ahead and start lookin for the straightest branch he could find.

The importance of Pinball

There was young Hiroki Hatayama, sitting in the spooky section of the library, reading by candlelight and fending off the bats that would swoop down and try to bite him on the neck and other exposed skin surfaces. He pored over tome after tome while the lightning continued to strike outside, lighting up the dark corners of the library and making Hiroki promise to himself never to look into some of those corners again.

But it was late, and his eyes were heavy. His head tilted forward just a little, and he dreamt of pinball. Ahh, sweet pinball. I know y'all out there is young and don't recall how important pinball was in the '70s. Let me see if I can spell it out for ya. Pinball was, and I ain't exaggeratin here, really important in the '70s. In fact, I would go so far as to say pinball was really, REALLY important in the '70s. Does that help? I thought it would. I know me and my buddies would go straight to the pizza parlor (where all pinball machines were kept in those days) after a long day of building houses or shaving bears or whatever job we had at the time, and spend hour after hour just watching that silver ball bang and bounce around while the points racked up. Everyone under the age of 60 became a master in the game and, for a time, we considered doing away with elections in the House of Representatives and just selecting people according to pinball high score. I gotta say, after watchin C-Span over the last 20 years, I think we may have been a lot better off if we'd gone with that plan.

Of course, where I was goin with this is that, of course Hiroki was dreamin of pinball. We was all dreamin of pinball at the time. We weren't all bein awakened from out pinball dreams by hearin our name bein whispered, even though we knew we was alone, which is the situation Hiroki found himself in.

"Hiroki..." came the soft, seductive voice, like warm waves crashing over a supermodel.

He awoke with a start, "Wha? Huh? Screw you tilt!! If you weren't aware, this was the most common thing to say when being awoken in the 70s, followed real close by, "Maybe big hair ain't that great," and "Peanut farming rocket scientist!"

Hiroki looked around, but he didn't see nothin or no one who coulda been talkin to him. He was about to dismiss it all as the large peperoni and anchovy he'd had for dinner and go back to sleep, but he heard it again. "Hiroki....Hiroki Hatayama!"

I ain't never been a ninja myself, but I've seen and heard enough about them guys to guess they prolly got themselves a high tolerance for bein creeped out. I mean, a regular guy like me, I see a spider that's got itself a little too much hair and I'm screamin like a schoolgirl and climbin on a chair. Ninjas regularly make pets out of giant, hairy spiders that look like Yetis with eight legs and a dozen eyes, so it takes a whole lot more to creep them out. Hiroki, though, that guy was right creeped out.

He drew his sword and checked that his throwin stars and calipers were where he had left them. Then he dropped back into the shadows like he was taught, becoming part of the background. He slid along the walls like he was made of shadow, scanning around to find the source of the voice. He didn't have to wait long.

"Come on!" The voice yelled out again. "I can still see you, Hiroki! No, don't try to climb that wall. Seriously, I can see you're reaching for a throwing star. Don't bother. Really, I can see you. No, don't pick your...Hey! I didn't need to see that. Wait, no, don't eat tha....EWWWWW! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!"

Hiroki smacked his lips and dropped his eyes. The source of the mysterious voice had penetrated all his ninja camouflage powers and watched him eat that last slice of peperoni from his pocket. So he went for a different tactic.

"Who are you?" He asked.

"I am the Grimoire of Necrography!"

"You're the...Grim...of..." Hiroki stuttered

"That's right!" The voice said. "I'm the Grimoire!"

"A talking book, huh?" asked Hiroki.

"Yep," the voice responded, "a talking book. Isn't that awesome?!"

"Not really," responded the young ninja. "You're, like, the sixth or seventh talking book I've met in this section of the library. Seriously, it's a wonder anyone can get any studying done in this section of the library, between the talking books and the bats and having only candlelight to read from. There is such a thing as a desk lamp, you know!"

"Woah, hey," said the Grimoire. "Ease up there, little tiger. Don't get your panties all in a bunch. I just wanted to help you out a bit. But if you don't want my help..."

"No, wait," said Hiroki. "I'm tired and frustrated. I didn't mean to take it out on you."

"That's ok," replied the book, "I forgive you."

"So, what did you want to help me with?"

"I know you're looking to help your friend Thomas," started the book. "And I have hidden withn my pages the spell that can do just that. The problem is, though, that it's written in a special invisible ink, so you can't read it."

"That doesn't help me much then, does it?" The young ninja was snarky, like all teenagers get around that age.

"Well," said the book, "it could if you'd just shut up and listen. Look, I can't tell you the spell. But, I've seen the spell used before and I can tell you what you need to read the invisible ink."

"Really?!" gushed Hiroki.

"Really," said the book, smugly.

For the next two hours, the Grimoire of Necrography recited to Hiroki a list of ingredients, quantities and where to get them, while the young ninja wrote everything down. As the sun came up, Hiroki, with new hope in his heart thanked the book and turned to leave the library. The book chuckled lowly to itself.

"What was that?" asked Hiroki, turning back.

"Huh? What?" asked the Grimoire, innocently.

"That sound," said Hiroki.

"What sound? I didn't hear anything?" The book was talking a little too fast.

"It sounded like you chuckled lowly to yourself."

"It...what? No, that's...that's.....well, here's the thing. I was thinking of this joke this other book told me."

"Oh yeah?" Hiroki was suspicious. "What was the joke?"

"It was...um...it...you see, it was a book joke, and you just wouldn't get it. But the punch line is 'rifle, rifle'...."

"Uh-huh," nodded Hiroki. "I guess I'll just be going now, shall I?"

"Yep, sure, go ahead and get those ingredients. Have fun." Shouted the book.

As Hiroki turned to leave, he heard the book chuckling to itself again and decided he should find another library.

Teenage Ninja

I guess from the time he organized all the chillins in revolt until he reached adulthood, the ninjas tried to keep Hiroki in isolation as much as they possibly could. But, you know how it is. Boy will be boys. And, sometimes, this particular boy killed all the guards outside his room with increasingly deadly poison and more advanced delivery techniques, and went down to the local pizza parlor to hang out and blow all his allowance at pinball. Naturally, this bein the 70s, he gave deference to this handicapped kid that came in to play. There was just somethin about deaf, dumb and blind kids in the 70s that made them sure play a mean pinball.

Sure, in the end, the Clan Police would always show up in riot gear, shoot tear gas into the building and slaughter the customers as they came out, only sparing the sons of the ruling council, but Hiroki thought his twice weekly pizza and time with other boys his age was worth the time he spent developing his tear gas resistance. Partly because Hiroki loved him some pinball and partly because he built some good connections.

First, he got himself hooked up with the sons of the entire Clan Platypus ruling council. To be fair, he didn't exactly make those connections just at the pizza shop. He actually met the group of thirteen when he first staged his little nursery room takeover. Thirteen of the kids in the nursery at the time were sons of council members and they remembered the impassioned speech Hiroki made against parental oppression. When he later began to show up to the pizza parlor of a Friday night, he became default leader of the group.

Second, he made friends with that deaf, dumb and blind kid. They began hanging out and challenging each other to beat high scores. After some time, they became fast friends. Their bond became much stronger when, during the Friday raids, Hiroki protected the kid from certain death. You know, there's usually two ways to make life-long friends. You can A) meet people who are going to die pretty soon or B) keep people from dying right after you meet them. Either way, you really gotta put yourself in a lot of dangerous situations in order to make real friends. In fact, Douggie and I met one another on a plane full of promising young rock stars one winter as they were traveling across the country to deliver presents to orphans and be reunited with long-lost fathers. Ain't no more dangerous place to be, really, because that plane had a 90% chance of crashing. It never did crash, but still, it was a dangerous situation, so my point remains valid.

Anyway, Hiroki spent a lot of his free time with the deaf, dumb and blind kid (who was named Thomas, by the way), or thinking about how to help him. Because of his isolation and intelligence, Hiroki had mastered the ninja arts by the age of fourteen, and was allowed to pursue any area of study he saw fit. He spent a year or so studying conventional specializations (advanced beheading from a distance, pirate weaknesses and particle physics) and then moved into more esoteric arts. By the time he reached sixteen, he was an avid practitioner of magic. And this wasn't no "oh look at me, I can stand on one foot for a week" kinda crap like what passes for magic nowadays. It wasn't even none of that "make the Statue of Liberty" disappear kinda magic. One, it wasn't just illusion and two, they didn't have no Statue of Liberty. The closest they had was a statue to the Great Narlock, Eater of Hearts. Oddly, both statues had the same inscription on them;

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Except the statue of Narlock finished with, "So I can eat their hearts."

Regardless, Hiroki wasn't makin that statue disappear. He was doin himself some honest-to-goodness, plain, ol fashioned magic. Stuff like turnin sticks into snakes and snakes into ladders. Sure, there's an easier way to turn sticks into ladders (it's called rope), but it ain't as flashy. Hiroki pursued magic for two straight years, giving all of his non-pinball-and-pizza related waking hours to the project. He was really looking for a way to help out his friend Thomas. I don't think Thomas ever really asked for ninja help with his deafness, dumness and blindness. I mean, he seemed to be doin all right with his pinball career. I guess Hiroki never asked or somethin, but he wasn't aware that Thomas had been featured in international news pieces and had optioned his life story to a promising young rock band. I don't know if anything ever came from that, but he'd made about a bajillion dollars off the deal.

Well, as it turns out, magic ain't a great way to cure purely medical problems. I guess it'd be the same thing as if you'd had a demon and you tried gettin rid of it by hosin it down with hand sanitizer. I ain't gonna go into all the sordid details right now but, trust me, that ain't the way to get rid of a demon. But that little Hiroki kept at it. He tried all sortsa different formulas to get rid of Thomas' problems, but nothin seemed to work. So, he ended up doin himself some research in the forbidden part of the library. You know, that section they have in every library that's sealed off with heavy chains, always seems to be wet and dark and, even though the rest of the library's spotless, is always covered in dust and cobwebs? Yeah. That's the section he did his research in.

Now, I don't wanna sound like I'm just tellin ya any ol story here, but there's some things that's always true. If you punch a bull in the nose, he will get mad. If you meet a guy named "Bad, bad" Leroy Brown, you can bet there ain't a man in the whole damn town badder than that guy. And, if you start doin research in the spooky section of the library, you will end up practicin black magic and nearly destroying all life on the planet, even if you do it with the best of intentions. It's just a rule of nature. And that's precisely what the teenage ninja did.

Lemons

Now, I ain't gonna stop fightin them or nothin, but I gotta admit there's one advantage a person could get from bein a ninja. Them guys know when opportunity is knockin at the door with a box of girl scout cookies and a check from Ed McMahon. That is to say, they know how to take the lemons of life and turn it into hard lemonade. This kind of behavior ain't always good for people who isn't ninjas, but I imagine it'd be pretty darn good if you was a ninja yourself. You ain't a ninja, are ya? I don't want no ninjas readin this here thing. It's got all my plans and deepest thoughts in it. I mean, it's got ninja killin words in it. It's full of words so powerful that, if you happened to be a ninja and someone just told you about this here blog, your head would blow like you had stuffed your nose full of m-80s just before you remembered you was allergic to gun powder. So, no ninjas readin this.

Like I says, them ninjas can make some great lemonade out of life lemons, and that Hiroki Hatayama kid represented one heck of a lemon. He was sittin his sad, cryin butt on the ground, just wishin one of his parents would come back and give him some food or help him wipe his nose or whatever it is abandoned kids think about, when a couple of members of Clan Platypus, who was out for a head clearin stroll, happened to spot him. I know, you think I'm bein too hard on the kid. After all, you say, that poor kid was just left by his parents. But I would have to point out that you forgot that I myself went through this same sorta thing. Sure, my parents didn't turn into hideous creatures, and my pa fell through the crust of the Earth instead of giving me an existential dilemma before leaving, but other than that, it was just the same. And let me tell you, when your parents have left you to fend for yourself with nothing to take care of you but ninjas or, in my case, harbor seals, you gotta wipe away the tears, pick yourself up by your bootstraps, and grow the heck up.

It may just be me, but I think that is he hadn't wanted so badly to be coddled, things woulda turned out mighty differently. But things weren't different. Things happened exactly as they happened, which is how things always happen, if you notice. And as it happened, in this case the kings that was happenin was that the ninjas was bein super nice to the cryin kid they found because they remembered him from the family picnic and they knew he was the son of the most famous killer in the universe.

So, the ninjas picked him up, wiped the boogers off his upper lip, offered him some milk and cookies and took him to their underground volcano base. Now, at the time, Clan Platypus was still pretendin to be a friendly, happy corporation that was just tryin to do good for the world. I gather they was tryin to look like a manufacturer of paper plates what could be washed and stored after use. If it were real, it woulda been a pretty solid idea. Sadly, they was actually makin the plates out of plastic that had been made to look like paper because A) it was cheaper and B) they was plannin on slowly replacin the plastic with woven meth. But, at the point in time as these happenins was happenin, they was still just usin plastic. I ain't sayin they was right in doin that or nothin, but, if you ask me, havin a plate made of plastic is a whole heck of a lot better than havin a plate made out of a drug that's gonna keep you up all night and eat your bones. Maybe that's just me. But, because the Clan was still tryin to act like responsible corporate citizens, and so they had themselves a pretty nice Child Care Center inside that volcano base.

It was into this Center that they put little Hiroki while they went to talk to the CEO, Ted, about what they should do. He responded by calling them a couple of idiots and told them they had to run down, collect that kid and make sure they oversaw every aspect of his education and life until he was grown up enough to do it for himself. They agreed that was probably a good idea (mostly because their other option was dying in a pit full of grizzly bears covered in razor blades) and ran themselves right back down to the kiddie room.

When they arrived, they were met with a hail of missiles that had been quickly, but efficiently, carved out of bottles and wooden blocks. The child care technicians had mostly been taken hostage and the security guards were trying to negotiate with the terrorists who had taken over the play room. In the end, Clan security lost eight good men, two of the baby sitters suffered irreversible psychological damage and it was discovered that the mastermind of this situation was none other than the young Hiroki Hatayama. In the fifteen minutes it had taken the ninjas to get yelled at by Ted, Hiroki had organized the children into a well equipped and disciplined army that was attempting to secede from the rest of the company and form their own country with Hatamaya as Great Grand Poobah In Chief.

When they saw this, the ninjas who had picked Hiroki off the beach knew they had something special, but very, very dangerous, like a Christmas package filled with nitroglycerin. They took charge of the situation, removed Hiroki into his own apartments, arranged tutors for him and raised him as if he were their own, very dangerous, son.

Be a goose, Win a goose

I know I may have mentioned this a time or two, and I ain't one to beat a dead horse, but dead people are talkers. They are the chattiest bunch of Chatty McChattersons that ever chatted their way out of the chat factory in Chattanooga. They just go on and on. You'd think that, in their years of life and subsequent years where they were dead but not allowed to shuffle off this material plane, they would have heard of summarzin. After this conversation with the ghost dragon army, though, it would appear that's not the case at all. In fact, I would say they was right up among the five or six most long-winded supernatural beings I ever had to speak to. I'll tell ya about the other members of that group some time when you got a month or two to kill.

For now, though, I'm gonna just go ahead and give you the rest of the story as I remember it. It seems to me like I've given these ghosts far too much ink lately. Of course, this bein the internet, by "ink" I mean "bits". I ain't exactly sure what a bit is, but I know they must be made out of gold or some equally precious material. The guy I have come clean out my internet tubes every week charges me per bit he finds down there and my bill last week was nearly $150. So, because I don't wanna keep cloggin up my tubes with someone else's nonsensical ramblin, I'm just gonna go ahead and replace it with my own nonsensical ramblin. That way, I'm payin for what I make. It's like if you was to have a fiber eatin party and afterwards, you had to call out the roto rooter guy. Sure, some of that down there is yours, but most of it is someone else's, and that's just nasty.

So, accordin to them ghost dudes and dudettes, Hiroki Hatayama saw his mom turn into a giant, planet eatin fish and then saw his dad just wander away after shoutin, "You should not be!" at his son. Now, my pa used to call me a lazy, layabout, good-for-nothin flapper. I'll admit, that hurt sometimes. Especially seein as how I was only tryin to get into this goose imitation competition they have over in Gooseville every year.

I spent two years perfectin my goose costume; gettin the wings just right so that, with the smallest flick of my wrist, I could soar to the highest heavens. I spent day after day jumpin off our barn roof, furiously pumpin my arms and, more often than not, fallin on to the cold, unforgivin ground, breaking a major limb. It was on one of my many, many hospital visits that my pa called me a lazy, no good flapper. But I was determined to show him wrong. I worked and worked to fly. Day after day, from before sun up to after sun down I would build and jump until I could fly like the birds. Finally, the day of the big contest came.

I passed through the first round, which was a round-robin double elimination tournament. I then breezed through the quarterfinals, where I was up against a Scotch terrier in a hand-sewn outfit. No one expected him to do that well, really. I mean, he couldn't even fly or make goose noises. Sure, he was adorable, but you don't win the Gooseville "Be a Goose, Win a Goose" contest on looks alone. Then I moved to the semi-finals, in which I was up against the 1976 Harlem Globetrotters. They had developed a new trick where they joined bodies in such a way that they looked and flew like a goose.

I don't know if you've ever seen you some Harlem Globetrotters, but those are some mighty large men. I bet, if you're old enough, at some point in your life you've met a guy named Tiny. And, if you're anything like me, you were shocked to learn that this Tiny was, in fact, gigantic. Now, imagine that there are about a dozen guys the size of Tiny, and they've all joined hands and legs to form a giant goose. That would be a mighty large goose, wouldn't you say? In fact, that goose would be so large as to warp time and space, transporting the 1976 Harlem Globetrotters to some different time every time they formed that goose. If you was a member of the squad, this would prolly be very bad news. However, if you were Pat O'Neil or the Washington Generals, then this would be excellent news because they Globetrotters would forfeit any contest of skill that they were entered into. If you was the generals in this case, then you would advance your win/loss record to 2/100,000,000,000. If you was Pat O'Neil, and I was, then you would be automatically passed into the final round to compete against Goose X, the greatest goose imitator Gooseville had ever seen.

And that's exactly the situation I found myself in. I was guaranteed at least second place, which was better than anyone really expected me to do, so I was happy just to have the opportunity. My opponent, though, was something else. He'd been competing in this contest for thirty years, and for thirty years he had been undefeated. He was the unbeatable king of goose imitation, but no one knew who he really was. He always showed up in full costume, maintained his goose character throughout the competition, and wandered off into obscurity as soon as he'd won the prize. This was to be a great challenge.

We stood on the launch platform. I was as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Then, because I was in goose mode, I got even more nervous because I'd just thought about a cat. I was so worried that I almost missed the launch signal. Fortunately, the start gun woke me from my panicked reverie and we were off. Goose X and I ducked and dove around the sky, passing over and around each other. We honked to the best of our ability, both obviously making the best effort to imitate a goose. But then, a mere three hours into the round, Goose X made a fatal mistake. I don't know what that guy had for breakfast that day, but he apparently couldn't hold it any longer. He dropped himself a little fudge log right on the judges' desk. This, in itself, was not enough to disqualify him.

What Goose X must not have counted on was one of the judges being a Biologist specializing in Goosology, or the study of geese. That poop landed right in front of Professor Goosey McLovesgeese (actual name). He took one look at it and declared the contest over and me the winner. Why was Goose X disqualified, you may ask? Well, it turns out that Goose X was so durned good at imitating geese because he was an actual goose, albeit an unusually large goose, standing just shy of six feet tall. He had been careful for three decades not to reveal his secret, but now it was out. Let me be clear here, no one had a problem with his being a giant goose. The people of Gooseville ain't a bunch of speciests or nothin. It's just that the contest was for imitatin a goose, and a thing can't imitate itself.

So, in the end, I got myself a free goose. I took it home to pa and he apologized for callin me lazy. He wouldn't take back the flapper comment, though, which I learned to live with. Goose X ended up hittin all the daytime talk shows and told Donahue that he'd been entering the contest all those years because he loved the taste of gooseflesh and couldn't very well capture and kill them himself. He later went into a treatment center. Last I heard he was working as an addiction specialist and helping people with interventions.

I guess the whole point is this; if your pa calls you a lazy, good-for-nothin, it hurts. But at least you can prove him wrong. But if the last thing you ever heard from your pa is "You should not be!" that's got to mess with you a whole bunch. I mean, you can't even do anything to make up for that. So, I'm tryin to understand Hiroki's side of this story, because he turned out to be a pretty messed up guy, as you'll see soon.

But, like I says before, you best be glad that it's your ol' buddy Pat tellin ya this story, because them ghosts took forever to tell the thing and went off on all sortsa tangents that didn't have nothin to do with the actual story. Not me, though. That just ain't my style.