Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help (11 page)

As a consequence of his unexpected bliss, Milrose found himself singing opera in the shower. He did not in fact
know
any opera, and his Italian did not exist, much less his German, but he sang it nevertheless, and his voice was—a surprise to both him and Arabella—not bad at all.

“For this must be the hour,” sang Milrose Munce, “when angels haunt the shower / And lo my heart’s great pain, would whirl down the drain / But I a mere shampoo, await the hair of you …”

This almost affecting aria was accompanied by the sympathetic gurgling of the drain. The song wafted across the den and into Arabella’s receptive ears.

The gurgling of the drain was, in general, solid and predictable. You knew that the drain would gurgle; it was a constant. Hence it was surprising when that gurgle changed in tone. Milrose Munce was in the midst of improvising a ballad on the subject of cleanliness and its traditional relationship to
godliness, when the gurgle of the drain grew suddenly very loud and annoying.

He stopped singing immediately. That annoying gurgle was familiar! Well, the gurgling aspect of it was not, but the annoyance surely was.

And then the drain coughed, and began to choke. “Munce,” said the drain, in a truly irritating voice, “turn off that shower or I’m gonna drown …”

“Harry!” whispered Milrose with excitement. “Hurled Harry!”

“I’m going to hurl, all right, if you don’t cut that water!”

Milrose immediately turned off the shower, and whispered into the drain, “Gotta whisper here, Harry. Our Professional Helper’s lurking about.”

“Gotcha.”

“Great to hear your voice, man!” This was certainly the first time that Harry had ever heard these words. And probably the last. For his voice was capable of scraping warts from the tongue of a geriatric whale.

“Yeah, well, I told you I could probably do something about your situation. And you didn’t believe me.”

“O me of little faith. You’re a hero, buddy. At least I think you are. What are you going to do?”

“Dunno yet. But some chick was cooing all sorts of seductive stuff from the floor above, and the
jocks down here are all testosteroned up—I figure I can get them to do just about anything. Got any preference?”

“Oh man. Yeah. A daring rescue would rock, for instance.”

“Right. Daring rescue. Can we be more specific?”

“Well …” said Milrose, biting his lip. “It may involve … in fact, it’s
gonna
involve invading the first floor.”

“Uh, right. First floor. Never been there. Uh, nice place?”

“Oh yes. Just like a tropical resort.”

“We down here—well, the dead guys, anyway—have, um, misgivings about that floor.”

“Entirely unnecessary. This place is heaven.”

“But maybe some of the living lunkheads can put together a little invasion for you.”

Milrose pondered this. Yes, that was true—the living jocks had no particular reason to fear the first floor. On the other hand, Milrose had—in the last minute or so—come up with at least three ingenious notions, all of which involved ghouls.

“Buddy, do this for me. Try. It’s time you guys took back the first floor. It’s
yours,
man. These jokers up here are
usurpers.
You gonna let them get away with that? I thought you guys were all about, you know, conquering the enemy.”

“Well, beating the other team, actually …”

“Exactly!
This is the other team we’re talking about. Win this one for the Gipper! Go, ghouls!” (Who is the Gipper anyway? wondered Milrose Munce. Why is he so inspiring to jocks? Milrose decided that he would probably despise this Gipper, were he to meet him.)

Harry was silent. Clearly he was wrestling with his cowardice. And yet—and this is one of those rare impressive attributes you find inherent in athletes—Harry won. It took courage for a little guy to ride a horse that scared him (almost literally) to pieces, and that was the kind of thing that made it possible for Hurled Harry to contemplate the uncontemplatable. He was going to conquer the first floor.

“Consider it done.”

“You’re a prince.”

“And I’m gonna bring an
army.”

“You’re a prince and a general!”

“We’re gonna get you out of there, and we’re gonna reclaim what is ours!”

“A prince, a general, and an orator!”

“Yeah, well, I’ll do my best.”

Milrose thought for a moment. “Um, look Harry. I know this isn’t really your thing—hey, it’s not
my
thing—but do you think you could get to the second floor? I sort of think you should launch the war from there. Believe it or not, I think we could use a poet in this battle.”

“A
poet
?”

“Yeah, I know. Generally useless. But I think we can put this guy Percy to use in your military campaign. We’ve contacted him already, but he’s dragging his feet. It’s not going to be easy to get him fully on board. You might have to rough him up a bit.”

“I like that idea.”

“Thought you would. Okay, Harry, I gotta go. This is turning into kind of an epic shower, and our Helper is gonna get suspicious. Go, team!”

“Right on. I’ll try to get back to you a few showers from now.” He paused. “And, um, can you get the chick whispering again? Good for morale …”

“You got it.”

Milrose Munce emerged into the den, hastily dressed and with his hair dripping. Massimo Natica, who was busy exchanging fraternal words with the medieval mace, had apparently noticed nothing.

Unfortunately, this was merely appearance. Massimo looked up from his conversation with the mace and made his way—still carrying his beloved weapon—towards Milrose Munce.

“Milrose,” said Massimo, “were you having a conversation with a bar of soap?”

“Why yes I was,” said Milrose after some hesitation. “Is there something wrong with that?”

Massimo was swinging the mace, casually, as if it were a purse. His smiling face, however, did not bear
a casual smile. No, it was the sort of smile you associate with unstable soldiers who have become crazed after weeks in the jungle, naked except for a thick layer of giant mosquitoes.

“Something wrong?” said Massimo Natica, smiling and swinging. “Something
wrong
?”

Milrose and Arabella regarded each other with mutual hysterical terror.

“No, nothing
wrong,”
said Massimo. “Nothing except the denial of
weeks
of Professional Help. The deliberate rejection of
weeks
of my Professional time. The undeniable
fact
of your
refusal
to
submit
to the
greatness
of my
expertise.”

“Now Massimo,” said Milrose with a forced air of conviviality. “You know that’s not true. I’ve made tremendous headway. Look how
rare
these conversations now are! You’ve almost cured me. So very close, man. If you give up now, you will be depriving yourself—and me—of your greatest Professional triumph! This will make the medical journals. The history books. The epic poems …”

Massimo did not look entirely convinced. He swung the mace with slightly less vigour now, but his smile retained a twinkle of malevolent madness, and he had developed a twitch in his neck.

“You are
trying
my Professional
patience.”

“I am, man. I’m trying my best. Let’s give it one more try!”

Massimo let the mace hang limply at his side. His twitch began to calm itself, with longer and longer intervals between jerks. His smile began to take on an air of sanity.

“Breakfast,” said Massimo with only slightly demented cheer.

After placing the mace on one of the comfy chairs—and Milrose made a note to avoid sitting on that chair without first clearing it of weaponry—Massimo walked almost steadily to the door. As always, that hideous brute was waiting behind the door, his tray laden with food. Milrose and Arabella had yet to set eyes upon that face, but they had mutually intuited a repulsive mug with disgusting eyes.

What perturbed Milrose Munce this morning—among many things, of course—was that the brutish arms of this silent servant now extended some
seven
inches past the cuffs of his medical shirt, and this indicated one of two possibilities. Either the shirt had shrunk (which Milrose desperately hoped was the case), or the arms had grown.

“Let us enjoy our breakfast this morning,” said Massimo Natica. He did not add “as this may be our last occasion to do so on this earth,” but Milrose detected the implication.

How Milrose missed ordinary life. He found that he even missed Mr. Borborygmus, that drooling idiot of a teacher. He would be happy, even, to
lounge on the second floor, with Percy and poets. Or even in the basement, with Sledge. Okay, perhaps that was pushing it.

Still, his desires were definitely skewed. He desperately longed for Harry’s grating voice in the grate at the foot of the shower, and Percival’s pompous pronouncements through the ceiling above his bed. Neither of these could compete, of course, with the sound of Arabella whispering to the linoleum, but they did occupy a surprisingly prominent place in his daydreams.

Certainly the danger of the present situation was making the grass infinitely greener just about anywhere in the world. Milrose Munce could imagine a handful of prisons that might compete with the Den of Professional Help—in the Third World or Texas, for instance—but that was about it.

A
WEEK PASSED—SEVEN SHOWERS IN TOTAL—WITH NO WORD FROM
H
URLED
H
ARRY
. P
ERCY, SURELY, WAS NOT TO BE RELIED UPON, THOUGHT MILROSE, BUT
H
ARRY WAS A DIFFERENT ORDER OF GHOUL.

Milrose went to bed, on the seventh night, perturbed. His dreams were unpleasant. But he was awakened by the sound of a magnificent explosion. This was followed by chunks of ceiling falling around and upon him, then fine plaster dust filling his nostrils.

Of course, an explosion—especially one so very close by—was always a welcome occurrence. Moreover, it often signified, to Milrose, the proximity of a certain friend. “Dave?” he inquired.

“Greetings!” There was no mistaking that
demented voice. “I’ve been experimenting with temporary explosions. So far, so good, wouldn’t you say?”

“Uh, aren’t all explosions temporary?” asked Milrose. He sneezed.

“No. Not like this. I believe I have found a way to temporarily blow something up, so that it reverts to its unblown-up state in a couple of hours. We shall see, at any rate.”

The loathsome yet welcome head of Dave was now fully visible, floating above in a cloud of plaster dust.

“That doesn’t sound entirely possible, Dave,” said Milrose, who was feeling a bit odd about having such a calm scientific discussion, given the circumstances.

“And yet it is. This is ghost chemistry, my friend. All sorts of new techniques. I’ve been researching—”

“Ah. Ghost chemistry.”

“Known to the vulgar as ‘magic.’”

“Man that’s vulgar. ‘Ghost chemistry’ is vastly preferable.”

“I in fact prefer the technical term: ectoplasmic manipulation. At any rate, yes. According to my calculations, we have a bit less than three hours of exploded ceiling, after which it goes back to being an unexploded ceiling.”

“Marvellous. Thank you!”

“A pleasure.”

“So, uh, what now?”

“An escape. Well, a temporary escape. You have to return, of course.”

“Of course. Yes.” Milrose thought for a moment. “Why?”

“Because I can get you out of here, but I can’t get you out of the place I’m taking you to. And you’d probably prefer to be in the Den.”

“Can’t wait to see this place.”

“Wish I could be more useful. But I’ve been doing a lot of research into this Help business as well—highly secretive stuff; nobody knows much about it—and it seems we dead guys are under a lot of constraints, when it comes to … interfering. Spells, counterspells … all very annoying. Now, we should get on with this, before my explosion deplodes—we’ve only got a couple of hours. Fetch the girl, and let’s move.”

Milrose climbed down the ladder until he was at Arabella’s bed, where she was still engaged in a tiny, charming, fragile snore.

“Arabella …” Milrose whispered urgently. “Arabella!”

The delicate snore turned into a delicate snort, and then a delicate cough, followed by a delicate sneeze. “Milrose?”

“Yes! Come on up and meet my friend!”

“Your friend?” she asked, sleepily.

“You’ll see. Come up to my bunk.”

Arabella sat up and rubbed her eyes. She frowned and examined Milrose, to determine whether he was playing an elaborate joke. He did look sincere. “Okay. A … friend. All right. You go up. I’ll follow.”

Milrose scrambled up the ladder, and Arabella followed far more gracefully. When her head cleared his mattress, she was pleased to see a tremendous hole in the ceiling, framing the floating ex-body of that pyrotechnic prodigy, Deeply Damaged Dave.

Introductions were made, as Dave lowered a rope ladder through the hole. “Kind of low tech,” he said, “but I wove it myself.”

“Hey, it’s a nice ladder,” said Milrose.

“You did a lovely job, David,” said Arabella.

“Thank you. Too bad you missed my temporary explosion.”

“Aren’t all explosions temporary?”

“He’ll explain later. Dave, where are we going?”

“I’m not sure. A place with obscure and perhaps useful information, according to my research. I’d go myself, but it’s one of those areas that’s … off limits to the dead.”

“Ah.”

“Spells, counterspells, ingenious boobytraps, et cetera.”

“How ingenious? Like, ingenious enough to snare a living kid?”

“Guess we’ll find out. Come on up.”

Milrose and Arabella climbed the rope ladder and scrambled awkwardly over the lip of the hole onto the floor above. Dave had not bothered to turn on any lights, and the second floor—whichever part they now occupied—was impenetrably dark.

Dave evaluated their chalk-dusted figures with his trained scientific eye, but did not seem to come to any conclusions. “So, when I got the message from your poet friend—man he’s annoying—”