Page 53 - Fables volume 2

other path. He held his breath as it slowly wheeled toward its
destination. Thunk! His calculations were correct: the lead plug came
to rest against the open end of the pipe, offset by a small angle
sufficient to permit entry to a full-grown cockroach. Archy knew the
Egyptian pyramid-builders could not have done better.
He next laboriously dragged certain chips and slivers of metal he
found beneath the ancient pipe saw on a bench at the other end of
the basement over to his ad hoc bomb shelter. He could tell by
weight which contained lead. Having accumulated a pile of this
material inside the pipe near the barely-open end, he returned to the
office to read the latest news of the international situation. It had not
improved. Time was getting short. Now he faced a task more difficult
than his one-of-a-kind marvel of invention and improvisation: he had
to find a mate.
Bugacita was one of a small group of immigrants recently arrived
from the Gulf Coast in a load of paper. Archy figured she hadn’t had
time to form a bad opinion of him, so he courted her with the same
concentrated attention he had brought to political and technical
affairs. He brought her tidbits from the special store he had
accumulated from the newspaper employees’ kitchen cabinet, an
apparently airtight enclosure baffling his scientifically-ignorant peers.
He groomed her until his antennae ached, keeping up a steady stream
of flattering click-clack. These, he knew from his study of the
humans’ study of cockroaches, were the way to win her heart.
Nothing else mattered: she looked like good breeding stock, and his
wooing was successful.
He took her to the shelter and tried to explain its purpose and the
necessity that they set up housekeeping there immediately. She was
alarmed at the idea of shutting themselves up in that dark tunnel for
months on end. Then he showed her the cache of food he had
stuffed into the far end of the pipe: delicacies she had imagined
existed only in some far-off paradise of high-class crumbs. She
assented, asking only that she be allowed to bring along her cousin
from the old country, Xavier. Archie considered: it was not in his
plans, but she would not abandon this familiar family member with
his curious mincing gait. The food supply would have to stretch
further. The deal was sealed—and soon the hatch was, too, with a
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