Patrick Griffin's Last Breakfast on Earth (21 page)

“Are you
kidding
me!?” screamed Kempton, clapping his hands to his cheeks like a game show contestant.

“What a
wonderful
honor,” said Bostrel, shaking his head in admiration as he exchanged an elbow-bump with Kempton.

The brown-uniformed cameraman put a protective cap on his camera lens and faded back into the shadows. Meantime a fabric panel on the other side of the tent zippered open to reveal a person wearing a white jumpsuit and reflective faceplate.

“Ah,” said the superattendant. “Here's the Physiological Assessment Technician now. It's been rewarding to speak with you, Patrick Griffin. And I trust I have helped free you from those spurious questions with which our enemies have tried to impede your mind, and judgment.”

 

CHAPTER 32

Ixnay on the Odentrays

Mr. BunBun would have been lying to say his feelings weren't a little hurt at being called a hamster. But how to explain to a bunch of four-year-olds that he was perhaps part rabbit and part deer—and zero parts
rodent
?

And, really, what would be the point?

He pushed a whiskered smile across his furry snout and loudly said, “Oh, hello!”

The children's jaws fell open.

“Oh, dear, am I using the correct language?
¿Hola?
Bonjour?
”

The children—all four—laughed with delight.

“You can tawk!” said Cassie Griffin.

“Yes, oh good, it
is
English, isn't it? Why, yes, I
can
talk! And I
quite
enjoy doing so.”

“What is that?” demanded Paul Griffin, pointing.

“Oh,” said Mr. BunBun. “This crucifix? Ah, well, I am performing a funeral.”

“Somebody died!” squeaked Phoebe Tondorf-Schnittman.

“A squirrel,” said Mr. BunBun.

The children nodded somberly as if this made all the sense in the world.

“Would you like to come watch?” he asked. The children nodded again—not exactly somberly this time—and trooped across the plastic-planked footbridge.

“What's your name?” asked Chloe Tondorf-Schnittman. She had the very agreeable sensation she had somehow stepped inside the world of a children's TV program.

“Well, I have different names in different places. Some call me Sentient Jackalope, some call me John Pertolope, and mostly, these days anyhow, people call me Mr. BunBun.”

“Where's your home?” asked Paul.

“Well, I come from very far away—a place called Mindth.”

“Is that in Russia?” asked Cassie.

“Not entirely,” said Mr. BunBun.

“What happened to the squirrel?” asked Paul, pointing at the little gray body in the hole.

“A domesticated
cat
happened to it,” said Mr. BunBun.

“Aw,” said Chloe Tondorf-Schnittman, bending down.

“Would you like to help bury him?” asked Mr. BunBun.

“Yes, please,” said Paul.

“Here, we can do it like this, don't you think?” said Mr. BunBun, tossing a pawful of excavated earth into the hole.

Paul reached down and did the same and the three girls followed suit. BunBun then turned and quickly shoveled the remaining soil into the hole with his rabbit-like hind feet.

“And now,” he said, turning back to the enraptured children, “how about a prayer?” And here he sang a little Commonplace song that reminded the Griffin children (the Tondorf-Schnittmans didn't attend church) of a certain Easter hymn:

We all fear an ending

For an ending is change

And we like what we know

And we abhor the strange

Though we say we like fresh

Versus what has grown stale

Let's sometimes hold breath

And not always inhale

Be-cause—

Expiring can be inspiring

And there is no ascending

Without a real ending!

“Again?” said Cassie.

“You like it?” beamed Mr. BunBun. “It's one of my favorites.” He repeated the song three more times, pausing after each line till the children were mostly able to sing along.

“What are you?” asked Paul afterward.

“Ah, well—scientifically speaking—I'm a cervidic lagomorph. What you might call a rabbit-deer chimera. In common parlance, as I think I mentioned, I'm a jackalope.”

“Rabbits have big ears,” said Paul.

“I didn't say I
was
a rabbit; I'm just sort of related to them. Much in the way a mule is related to a horse. Or a liger to a lion. Or a griffin to an eagle—”

“Our last name is Griffin,” said Cassie.

“
Is
it?” remarked BunBun. Before the children had arrived his binky had shared with him some local police news report about a missing boy with the same last name.

“And do you have a brother named Patrick?”

Paul and Cassie nodded.

“He's a good boy?” asked BunBun.

“Patrick likes dinosaurs,” said Paul.

“What a small world,” said BunBun, thinking through the odds of running into the siblings of the boy he'd just caused to be transubstantiated to Eyeth.

“My hands are dirty,” observed Chloe Tondorf-Schnittman, displaying her muddy palms.

“Hmm,” said Mr. BunBun, turning out his own paws. “Mine, too. Shall we wash them in the pond?”

Cassie Griffin began to laugh.

“There's no soap!!” exclaimed Paul.

“There's soap in the bathroom,” suggested Phoebe.

“Let's go to the bathroom!” laughed Cassie.

Paul nearly collapsed to the wet turf in a fit of high-pitched laughter.

“Bathroom?” asked Mr. BunBun.

“Yes,” said Phoebe bossily. “Let's go, Deer Rabbit.”

“It would be a pleasure,” said Mr. BunBun, clearing his throat. “But I'd really best be on my way—”

“And we can have a snack!” announced Cassie.

“Do you like carrots, Deer Rabbit?” asked Paul. “There's carrots.”

“Yes, I very much enjoy carrots, young man, but I've got a long way to go today. Speaking of which—do you know of a place called New York City?”

“There are dinosaurs there!” said Cassie. The American Museum of Natural History was the Griffin twins' favorite place in their so-far discovered world.

“And mammoths!” said Paul.

“Dinosaurs and
mammoths
?” said Mr. BunBun.

“And a giant sloth,” said Cassie.

“And a giant squid,” said Paul.

“And a blue whale,” said Cassie.

“Ah,” said Mr. BunBun, furrowing his brow ever so slightly. “And there are people, too, right? In the city? A lot of people?”

The children gave him a blank look.

“It's crowded?”

Cassie nodded emphatically. “The lines get
very
long.”

“My dad got mad one time,” said Paul.

“Oh, good,” said Mr. BunBun. “Not about getting mad—I just mean it's good that there are a lot of people there. I need to see a lot of people.”

“Why?” asked Cassie.

“Well, I've got to put on a, umm, show of sorts,” said Mr. BunBun.

“You do magic tricks?” asked Chloe.

“Well, in a manner of speaking, yes.”

“Will you be on TV?” asked Phoebe.

“TV? Television, is it? Well, yes, I do hope so.”

“When?” asked Phoebe.

“In a few days, I expect.”

The children seemed awfully impressed.

“Well, it's been a pleasure meeting all of you, but I really must get going.”

“Aw,” said Chloe, looking like she might cry.

“Thank you for helping me with the funeral,” he said. “And are those
pens
?”

Chloe nodded emphatically and proffered three capless markers she had taken from the playroom.

“May I, really?” asked Mr. BunBun, touched.

Chloe handed them to him.

“Thank you very much—they may prove to be quite useful,” he said as he delicately touched one of their felt tips. “I don't suppose they have some sort of covers?”

Chloe shook her head.

“Don't stain yourself,” said Cassie.

Mr. BunBun nodded somberly, accepting the markers with good care.

“Bye bye, Deer Rabbit,” said Paul.

“Goodbye, my friends,” said Mr. BunBun, bowing nearly to the ground. Then he turned and hopped across the five yards to the mainland and onto the early spring golf course.

 

CHAPTER 33

Baseline Conditions

The physiological assessor looked up from the screen of her red-and-white-skinned binky.

“Well”—her voice tinny and distant through her mirrored faceplate—“you have good LDLs, excellent nerve conductivity, top-level immune indicators, blood pressure within normal limits, adequate dentition, no evidence of scoliosis, dermatitis, gingivitis, halitosis, psoriasis, or any viral or bacterial infection.”

“That was it?” asked Patrick, impressed. “That was the test? You were able to tell all that just now?” He'd just emerged from a glass-walled cylinder that basically resembled the cleaning machine that had destroyed Neil's T-shirt. The procedure had taken less than thirty seconds and had been entirely painless.

“Yes, the holiscan is complete. You're cleared for normal travel and physical activity. The only significant suboptimal condition itemized”—the woman paused to lift her faceplate. She had a thin face and a long nose that hooked sideways at the tip—“is that you would appear to be at risk, due to an enzymatic conformational issue expressed in some of your lymphocytes, to an immunological hyperresponse to certain glycoproteins.”

“What?”

“It's a fairly narrow range of molecular structure. I don't think it will pose an issue as such conformations naturally occur only in mollusks.”

“Oh, yeah, I'm allergic to seafood.”

“Seafood?”

“Well, fish are okay, but I'm not supposed to eat clams and things.”

“No,” said the medical technician, raising her cosmetically enhanced eyebrows. “Now, do you have any subjective complaints?”

“What kind of complaints?”

“The objective portion of your examination is complete. Now we check for any subjective issues that may have been missed by our instruments. Do you experience any pain or discomfort on a recurring basis? Headaches? Stomachaches? Tiredness? Soreness of throat? Excessive itching of the skin or mucous membranes? Stiffness of limbs? Frequent diarrhea? Difficulty with micturition?”

“What-er-ition?”

“Micturition.”

“What's that?”

“Do you have any difficulty passing urine?”

“Um, no,” said Patrick. At least not since he'd figured out how to work their waterless, high-tech toilets.

“Good,” said the woman, scanning her binky. “Then the examination is complete.”

“That was it?”

“Unless you have any questions.”

“Actually,” said Patrick, “you're like a doctor, right? Like you know about health and exercise and how much sleep to get and things?”

“That is my subject matter expertise, yes.”

“Good,” said Patrick. “Because I think I've been getting too much sleep and was wondering if there are any techniques for waking yourself up? You know, so you don't sleep too much?”

“You don't have alarm apps on Earth?” asked the woman.

“Well, I was thinking more like are there any ways to do it yourself—like, say you're in a dream and you decide to wake up from it, how would you do that?”

“Dreams are the Minder's province,” the woman quipped. “You are not supposed to have any control over them.”

She glanced at her binky again and said, “I've just summoned your escort.”