Page 38 - Unlikely Stories 2

Earl King and his Puppet Thing

some very special ingredients. Didjiridu! Oh, Didjiridu! Where can my
assistant be? He’s never here when I need him! Didjiridu, where are
you?”
Laughter erupted again, because a buffoonish figure had popped up
behind the doctor and was following him about, turning in unison.
Didjiridu wore a patchwork of brown and green, his hat a potpourri of
thistles and twigs, a perpetual idiotic grin laced across his worn blotchy
corduroy face. Calamari halted, suddenly aware of the hilarity beyond
the stage.
“What’s so funny?” he demanded. A score of underdeveloped index
fingers shot out. “There! There! Behind you!” screamed the children, as
the puppet pair spun about the square-foot stage. The doctor finally
got the message, feinted left, turned right, and confronted his ever-
smiling subordinate. “Aha, you scoundrel!” he thundered, grabbing
Didjiridu and shaking him violently up and down and back and forth.
“You rascal! You no-good layabout! You utterly worthless idiotic
nincompoop!”
“Yes, boss?” squeaked the unflappable underling.
“You—you—you chowderhead!” spluttered Calamari, rising to
his full height; and then, sinking down to his normal slouch he
piteously groaned, “I—I—I need your help.”
“Yes, boss! You do it, I name it! Uh, no, you name it, you do it! Or is
it, I do it, I name it?” Didjiridu turned to the totally sympathetic
audience and spread his arms out helplessly. The youngsters eagerly
supplied the missing permutation, proud of and pleased by their own
perspicacity.
The scientist put a finger to his lips and hissed, “Then hush up, you
nitwit! We don’t want Griselda to know what we’re doing, do we? Then
listen carefully! Today, right now, this very morning, we are going to
finish creating my Living Doll!”
“Oh boy, oh boy!” yelled the hand-held henchman. “The Living
Doll! Living Doll!”
Doctor Calamari immediately clapped his mitts over Didjiridu’s
mouth; the latter, squirming, continued to exult: “Mmm-mmph!
Mrggl-drggl!”
“Now listen carefully, my dear dimwitted Didjiridu,” crooned
Calamari, releasing his grip slowly. “All we need is a leg and a tongue.
Yes, just a tongue and a leg. You must go now and fetch them for me.

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