part 27:
A Deep Resonance
by William Hughes
©2005 by William Hughes and Matthew Atanian
Boy Scouts ½ created by Matthew Atanian
A Deep Resonance
by William Hughes
©2005 by William Hughes and Matthew Atanian
Boy Scouts ½ created by Matthew Atanian
They, the five of them, decided not to mention their dreams to the others. Of course, Matt, not having had any particular dreams to worry about, didn't really reach the decision in the same sort of way. It was sort of an internal conflict that went like this:
"What a boringly, penguin-free night we had. Perhaps we should mention it to the others. No, on second thought, it was boring. And penguin free. How often does that happen? May as well keep this to ourselves, then, wot." This was, of course, all thought very fast in an accent not unlike that of an aging RAF officer.
It was with some trepidation that led the three, Mike, Aaron and Billy, to gather around a table early the next morning and discuss their plans for the week. They were joined shortly after by Kenny, then Matt Swett. They compared their merit badge classes and suggested times to hang out and play Magic and such things that Boy Scouts like those frequently discussed in the early hours before dawn and even more importantly, before breakfast.
There were just getting around to the important business of when they ought to head out for breakfast when they were interrupted by the final portion of their number — Matt. He was, as usually, wearing his scout uniform, fedora and coat, a particular Lum attached to his lapel.
"Well," he said, grinning broadly.
And that is how their day began.
Oh, it was a pretty uneventful day, as far as summer camp went. The forest fire continued to burn, but it was far enough away that it didn't seriously threaten any of the activities beyond the waterfront. The boys went off to their merit badges, Matt hung out with his friends on staff. In the trading post, Amanda drove a random tenderfoot insane by refusing to sell him one of the official Boy Scout toothpick holders because, according to she, he wasn't old enough to buy shot glasses.
Outside the trading post, a dark shadow, a thing of vile evil, of terrible countenance and horrid purpose lurked.
Roy. The true master of irritable bastardy. Among certain circles, he was known as Roy.
He glared as he peeked in the window. "How dare she," he growled. Well, he'd show her. Oh, he would show her.
Roy looked around cautiously, rubbing his hands. "Phase one," he muttered to himself, pulling out a roll of quarters.
Inside the trading post, Amanda was happily ignorant of Roy's dark plan. She was, in fact, explaining to Mike and Luke Walker that, no, sadly, she didn't have any cheese, despite this obviously being a cheese shop, and that she had been deliberately wasting their time.
"What a senseless waste of life," Mike said sadly, shaking his head. Amanda and Luke giggled. Amanda bowed them out of the store and the two scouts left in much higher spirits than they entered — which is rather saying something.
Roy missed their exit, mostly because he was busy talking on the pay phone outside the Manor House.
"Yes. She's absolutely terrible. Yes. Yes. She refuses to sell things to the scouts because of their age. Including food, yes. Yes, ma'am. Well, I'm just trying to raise awareness about this usurp... uh... threat to your children's welfare. They're starving in the streets! What? Er, yes, there's no streets. Well, one... It was a metaphor, lady."
Mike grabbed Luke's arm and pulled him behind a tree before Roy could spot them.
"He's trying to get rid of Amanda," Mike said, peering around the tree. Roy was just hanging up, an evil grin on his evil face. He muttered something about 'phase one complete'. "
"What was that about?" Luke asked, peering over Mike's shoulder.
"I think he's calling up parents and trying to convince them that Amanda's starving their kids."
"We have to tell her!"
"No," Mike replied grimly, pushing Luke back into their hiding spot. "We can solve this ourselves without bothering her. C'mon, man, after all she did for us, we have to pay her back!"
"But all she did was play along with some Monty Python skits..."
"Exactly! The ultimate gift! Once more into the breach, dear friends!"
"Well, alright, but shouldn't we tell her?"
"No. Roy will be scoping out this place constantly. If we want to keep our new trading post pal, we must keep this a secret."
Luke looked unhappy, but he nodded anyway.
Meanwhile, Justy, Kuntz and Perry were putting the final touches on Perry's plan, although the former pair were having slight issues with the latter's poor grasp of English.
"At that time, you," Perry pointed at Kuntz, "lure Garden Steak patrol to three hamster." He then pointed at Justy. "You will be in charge prepare hamster for Steaks."
"Three hamsters?" Kuntz asked, confused – so confused, in fact, he forgot the carefully rehearsed quotation he had been preparing. It was, he was fairly sure, something about a wedding dinner – something about funeral meats.
Justy wasn't really intelligent enough to wonder about the hamsters. His mind was on another detail. "It's Garden Snake, you imbecile!"
Perry blinked in confusion. "Snake? Ah, Perry wonder why scout store man give strange look when Perry go to buy patrol patch."
Kuntz peered at the delicious image of a half pound, medium well done, juicy, Angus steak, neatly sewn onto Perry's sleeve. "Yeah, I was gonna ask about that..."
Perry sighed. He knew then that working with those two idiots was going to take more than he had thought. Also, he would need to buy a new patrol insignia.
The rest of the day went as most days at summer camp went. There were merit badges and bad food, friendship, camaraderie, fun at the trading post and even a couple of illicit games of Magic: The Gathering.
There were not, however, any unholy rites dedicated to Elder Gods (Cthulhu does not, in fact, ftaghn) nor did any Girl Scouts show up – not that this was in any way unusual. There was, however, one very important thing that was not happening – or, more properly, was not going to happen.
There would be no, under any circumstances, "Matt Gets Wet III."
"She said no," Matt was telling the Garden Snake Patrol – which was currently down three of its members: Perry and Will Shmuler.
"Who's she?" Aaron asked – he had come into the conversation late.
"The new camp director," Mike replied. "Ann Balogna."
"Why not?"
Swett stepped in, "She said it was hazing."
"I'm going to talk to her," Mike said definitively. "Reason with her, make her see the unusually wet light." He left the others to continue arguing and started heading off towards the Nunes building.
Billy caught up with him just as he was passing the latrines.
"Why are you doing this?" he asked.
"To try and get our skit performed at the campfire."
"Not to burst your little bubble, but our skit involves getting Matt soaking wet, both with our water and with whatever water other scout troops happen to bring along with the express purpose of trying to get him to squeal like a stuck pig."
"And?"
"And what happens when Matt gets wet?"
"He'll need to engage the services of a Laundromat?"
"No, you doof, he turns into a woman. In front of an entire camp full of Boy Scouts, do you understand?"
Mike shrugged. "Kenny said he had it under control."
"No, Kenny said he thought he might be able to do something about it. And besides, isn't it easier to just not have to do the skit in the first place? None of us wanted to do it, remember?"
Mike was just on the verge of telling Billy to shut up when a tall Asian man, complete with bandana, burst from the bushes in front of them.
"Furinkan kokou wa do... N-nanda? Massachusetts da yo? Demo... Demo... Massachusetts hook ni..." He broke off, sitting down heavily and pulling out a map which he examined at length.
Billy turned and gave Mike a triumphant grin, pulling out a notebook and crossing off something on a list. Mike shook his head and then, carefully stepping past the lost, bandana toting man, vanished into the woods.
Sometime later, Mike found himself and the camp director standing outside of the Nunes building, relatively out of range of anyone trying to eavesdrop. He was trying to argue some sense into her.
"It's hazing."
"But, Mrs. Balogna, how can it be hazing? He agreed to do it!"
"It's hazing."
"He's an adult leader, not a kid!"
"It's hazing."
"He's been with the program for almost as long as I've been alive!"
"It's hazing."
"He was one of the people who came up with the idea!"
"It's hazing."
Mike sighed. It was like arguing with a brick. A particularly obstinate, ugly and lead-filled brick, at that.
"Well, look, what can we do? The Clappy Song?"
"The Clappy Song is Unwholesome." Mike could hear the capital U.
"Er, fine. What about the Exploding Toilet sketch?"
"Anything even alluding to biological functions are Grey Areas."
"The Song that Never Ends?"
"Too long."
"J.C. Penny skit?"
"Boy Scouts may not be seen in public in their underwear."
"Damn."
"No swearing."
This continued on for quite a while, so much that Mike was very nearly late to dinner. This was unfortunate, as they were serving his absolute favorite of dinners.
That does not, however, concern this story. What does is how four scouts, three from Troop 192 and one from Troop 86, were also late for dinner. Not that most people noticed, of course, as these were not especially well liked scouts, but a few scouts noted their absence as the meal grew on and finally ended.
Three of those four were, in fact, currently sitting in the woods roughly equidistant between Crown Point and Ticonderoga, around a rough fire — the real reason they were far away from others: having an unauthorized fire is a major no-no at Moses.
Justy, Perry and Kuntz sat huddled together, the fourth scout a few feet back, holding a small wooden box of some sort.
"My plan has come together beautifully," Justy crooned, rubbing his hands together in a bad imitation of a specific, yellow-skinned, Matt Groening villain. "Excellent."
"What in box?" Perry asked, peering suspiciously at the fourth scout, his face shrouded in darkness, like a jack-in-the-box, just waiting to be wound until it pops out and terrifies some poor kid.
Justy waved his hand imperiously. "It is the key to our success!"
Kuntz shook his head. "Look, all that is well and good, but when do I get to do something?"
"It all very simple," Perry said, rubbing between his eyes. Constant exposure to Kuntz and Justy had given the cursed scout a dull but achingly constant headache in the portion of the brain normally used to deal with small children, bad pets and idiots. "You lure scouts to Three Hamster." He pointed at Kuntz. "Justy and Perry..."
"That's Lord God Yung," Justy proclaimed haughtily.
"Yes, yes, whatever," Perry said, gritting his teeth. He made a mental note to visit the nurse’s office and pick up whatever it is that Americans used to relieve headaches. "We will wait near Three Hamster and... take care of Garden Snake patrol." He gave a very nasty grin, echoed by his co-conspirators. Justy took it a step forward, throwing his head back and cackling maniacally.
And meanwhile, the quiet scout with the wooden box just stood there, listening and absorbing and, most important of all, keeping very, very good care of the small box.
It didn't take long for the four scouts to creep back into their sites. Justy vanished into his tent, while Perry snuck over to the Garden Snakes — currently watching Aaron get creamed by Matt's 'I have a full time job and can use it to get access to an entire bleeding box of Ice Age cards' deck — and pretended to be interested.
And the mysterious last scout, cradling his box close to his chest, snuck around the camp, always staying in shadows, whispering quiet things to the box.
"What a boringly, penguin-free night we had. Perhaps we should mention it to the others. No, on second thought, it was boring. And penguin free. How often does that happen? May as well keep this to ourselves, then, wot." This was, of course, all thought very fast in an accent not unlike that of an aging RAF officer.
It was with some trepidation that led the three, Mike, Aaron and Billy, to gather around a table early the next morning and discuss their plans for the week. They were joined shortly after by Kenny, then Matt Swett. They compared their merit badge classes and suggested times to hang out and play Magic and such things that Boy Scouts like those frequently discussed in the early hours before dawn and even more importantly, before breakfast.
There were just getting around to the important business of when they ought to head out for breakfast when they were interrupted by the final portion of their number — Matt. He was, as usually, wearing his scout uniform, fedora and coat, a particular Lum attached to his lapel.
"Well," he said, grinning broadly.
And that is how their day began.
Oh, it was a pretty uneventful day, as far as summer camp went. The forest fire continued to burn, but it was far enough away that it didn't seriously threaten any of the activities beyond the waterfront. The boys went off to their merit badges, Matt hung out with his friends on staff. In the trading post, Amanda drove a random tenderfoot insane by refusing to sell him one of the official Boy Scout toothpick holders because, according to she, he wasn't old enough to buy shot glasses.
Outside the trading post, a dark shadow, a thing of vile evil, of terrible countenance and horrid purpose lurked.
Roy. The true master of irritable bastardy. Among certain circles, he was known as Roy.
He glared as he peeked in the window. "How dare she," he growled. Well, he'd show her. Oh, he would show her.
Roy looked around cautiously, rubbing his hands. "Phase one," he muttered to himself, pulling out a roll of quarters.
Inside the trading post, Amanda was happily ignorant of Roy's dark plan. She was, in fact, explaining to Mike and Luke Walker that, no, sadly, she didn't have any cheese, despite this obviously being a cheese shop, and that she had been deliberately wasting their time.
"What a senseless waste of life," Mike said sadly, shaking his head. Amanda and Luke giggled. Amanda bowed them out of the store and the two scouts left in much higher spirits than they entered — which is rather saying something.
Roy missed their exit, mostly because he was busy talking on the pay phone outside the Manor House.
"Yes. She's absolutely terrible. Yes. Yes. She refuses to sell things to the scouts because of their age. Including food, yes. Yes, ma'am. Well, I'm just trying to raise awareness about this usurp... uh... threat to your children's welfare. They're starving in the streets! What? Er, yes, there's no streets. Well, one... It was a metaphor, lady."
Mike grabbed Luke's arm and pulled him behind a tree before Roy could spot them.
"He's trying to get rid of Amanda," Mike said, peering around the tree. Roy was just hanging up, an evil grin on his evil face. He muttered something about 'phase one complete'. "
"What was that about?" Luke asked, peering over Mike's shoulder.
"I think he's calling up parents and trying to convince them that Amanda's starving their kids."
"We have to tell her!"
"No," Mike replied grimly, pushing Luke back into their hiding spot. "We can solve this ourselves without bothering her. C'mon, man, after all she did for us, we have to pay her back!"
"But all she did was play along with some Monty Python skits..."
"Exactly! The ultimate gift! Once more into the breach, dear friends!"
"Well, alright, but shouldn't we tell her?"
"No. Roy will be scoping out this place constantly. If we want to keep our new trading post pal, we must keep this a secret."
Luke looked unhappy, but he nodded anyway.
Meanwhile, Justy, Kuntz and Perry were putting the final touches on Perry's plan, although the former pair were having slight issues with the latter's poor grasp of English.
"At that time, you," Perry pointed at Kuntz, "lure Garden Steak patrol to three hamster." He then pointed at Justy. "You will be in charge prepare hamster for Steaks."
"Three hamsters?" Kuntz asked, confused – so confused, in fact, he forgot the carefully rehearsed quotation he had been preparing. It was, he was fairly sure, something about a wedding dinner – something about funeral meats.
Justy wasn't really intelligent enough to wonder about the hamsters. His mind was on another detail. "It's Garden Snake, you imbecile!"
Perry blinked in confusion. "Snake? Ah, Perry wonder why scout store man give strange look when Perry go to buy patrol patch."
Kuntz peered at the delicious image of a half pound, medium well done, juicy, Angus steak, neatly sewn onto Perry's sleeve. "Yeah, I was gonna ask about that..."
Perry sighed. He knew then that working with those two idiots was going to take more than he had thought. Also, he would need to buy a new patrol insignia.
The rest of the day went as most days at summer camp went. There were merit badges and bad food, friendship, camaraderie, fun at the trading post and even a couple of illicit games of Magic: The Gathering.
There were not, however, any unholy rites dedicated to Elder Gods (Cthulhu does not, in fact, ftaghn) nor did any Girl Scouts show up – not that this was in any way unusual. There was, however, one very important thing that was not happening – or, more properly, was not going to happen.
There would be no, under any circumstances, "Matt Gets Wet III."
"She said no," Matt was telling the Garden Snake Patrol – which was currently down three of its members: Perry and Will Shmuler.
"Who's she?" Aaron asked – he had come into the conversation late.
"The new camp director," Mike replied. "Ann Balogna."
"Why not?"
Swett stepped in, "She said it was hazing."
"I'm going to talk to her," Mike said definitively. "Reason with her, make her see the unusually wet light." He left the others to continue arguing and started heading off towards the Nunes building.
Billy caught up with him just as he was passing the latrines.
"Why are you doing this?" he asked.
"To try and get our skit performed at the campfire."
"Not to burst your little bubble, but our skit involves getting Matt soaking wet, both with our water and with whatever water other scout troops happen to bring along with the express purpose of trying to get him to squeal like a stuck pig."
"And?"
"And what happens when Matt gets wet?"
"He'll need to engage the services of a Laundromat?"
"No, you doof, he turns into a woman. In front of an entire camp full of Boy Scouts, do you understand?"
Mike shrugged. "Kenny said he had it under control."
"No, Kenny said he thought he might be able to do something about it. And besides, isn't it easier to just not have to do the skit in the first place? None of us wanted to do it, remember?"
Mike was just on the verge of telling Billy to shut up when a tall Asian man, complete with bandana, burst from the bushes in front of them.
"Furinkan kokou wa do... N-nanda? Massachusetts da yo? Demo... Demo... Massachusetts hook ni..." He broke off, sitting down heavily and pulling out a map which he examined at length.
Billy turned and gave Mike a triumphant grin, pulling out a notebook and crossing off something on a list. Mike shook his head and then, carefully stepping past the lost, bandana toting man, vanished into the woods.
Sometime later, Mike found himself and the camp director standing outside of the Nunes building, relatively out of range of anyone trying to eavesdrop. He was trying to argue some sense into her.
"It's hazing."
"But, Mrs. Balogna, how can it be hazing? He agreed to do it!"
"It's hazing."
"He's an adult leader, not a kid!"
"It's hazing."
"He's been with the program for almost as long as I've been alive!"
"It's hazing."
"He was one of the people who came up with the idea!"
"It's hazing."
Mike sighed. It was like arguing with a brick. A particularly obstinate, ugly and lead-filled brick, at that.
"Well, look, what can we do? The Clappy Song?"
"The Clappy Song is Unwholesome." Mike could hear the capital U.
"Er, fine. What about the Exploding Toilet sketch?"
"Anything even alluding to biological functions are Grey Areas."
"The Song that Never Ends?"
"Too long."
"J.C. Penny skit?"
"Boy Scouts may not be seen in public in their underwear."
"Damn."
"No swearing."
This continued on for quite a while, so much that Mike was very nearly late to dinner. This was unfortunate, as they were serving his absolute favorite of dinners.
That does not, however, concern this story. What does is how four scouts, three from Troop 192 and one from Troop 86, were also late for dinner. Not that most people noticed, of course, as these were not especially well liked scouts, but a few scouts noted their absence as the meal grew on and finally ended.
Three of those four were, in fact, currently sitting in the woods roughly equidistant between Crown Point and Ticonderoga, around a rough fire — the real reason they were far away from others: having an unauthorized fire is a major no-no at Moses.
Justy, Perry and Kuntz sat huddled together, the fourth scout a few feet back, holding a small wooden box of some sort.
"My plan has come together beautifully," Justy crooned, rubbing his hands together in a bad imitation of a specific, yellow-skinned, Matt Groening villain. "Excellent."
"What in box?" Perry asked, peering suspiciously at the fourth scout, his face shrouded in darkness, like a jack-in-the-box, just waiting to be wound until it pops out and terrifies some poor kid.
Justy waved his hand imperiously. "It is the key to our success!"
Kuntz shook his head. "Look, all that is well and good, but when do I get to do something?"
"It all very simple," Perry said, rubbing between his eyes. Constant exposure to Kuntz and Justy had given the cursed scout a dull but achingly constant headache in the portion of the brain normally used to deal with small children, bad pets and idiots. "You lure scouts to Three Hamster." He pointed at Kuntz. "Justy and Perry..."
"That's Lord God Yung," Justy proclaimed haughtily.
"Yes, yes, whatever," Perry said, gritting his teeth. He made a mental note to visit the nurse’s office and pick up whatever it is that Americans used to relieve headaches. "We will wait near Three Hamster and... take care of Garden Snake patrol." He gave a very nasty grin, echoed by his co-conspirators. Justy took it a step forward, throwing his head back and cackling maniacally.
And meanwhile, the quiet scout with the wooden box just stood there, listening and absorbing and, most important of all, keeping very, very good care of the small box.
It didn't take long for the four scouts to creep back into their sites. Justy vanished into his tent, while Perry snuck over to the Garden Snakes — currently watching Aaron get creamed by Matt's 'I have a full time job and can use it to get access to an entire bleeding box of Ice Age cards' deck — and pretended to be interested.
And the mysterious last scout, cradling his box close to his chest, snuck around the camp, always staying in shadows, whispering quiet things to the box.
Author's Notes
The title for this story is from the rather famous Japanese Haiku by the poet Basho. The original is:
Furuike ya, kawazu tobikomu, mizu no oto.
Breaking the silence of an ancient pond, a frog jumped into water, —a deep resonance.
Okay, I admit this is fairly short, but I'm sorta short on time. I'm writing, no lie, three other things that demand my attention, so this will have to be. I promise I'll take my time on the next one. Well, not the next one, but you know what I mean. Or else.
Grrrr.
Arrivederci;
Hughes
Furuike ya, kawazu tobikomu, mizu no oto.
Breaking the silence of an ancient pond, a frog jumped into water, —a deep resonance.
Okay, I admit this is fairly short, but I'm sorta short on time. I'm writing, no lie, three other things that demand my attention, so this will have to be. I promise I'll take my time on the next one. Well, not the next one, but you know what I mean. Or else.
Grrrr.
Arrivederci;
Hughes
Matt's Notes & Disclaimers
Great, Hughes, just great. You were supposed to make things easy for me by setting the plot into motion. You set it in motion, all right... But in a vague and mysterious way meaning that I still have to put some thought into what happens next.
You bastard.
Well, I suppose that that does, in part, hearken back to what my original intent for this story line was.
Way back in the day, when Mike was still alive, I had been planning to do this “we-each-write-every-other-one” story line with him, thinking it could be
interesting seeing what happens when one of us ends the story in a cliffhanger.
With Mike’s untimely passing, I offered Hughes the position he had vacated.
Hughes, you are a bastard.
Here’s hoping I can come up with a cliffhanger to pay you back with.
The random Cthulhu reference caught me a bit off guard, as I am sure it will catch some other readers who didn't visit the website within a specific period of time off guard, too. I considered removing it, as I usually like to avoid inside jokes. But I decided in the end to leave it in. After all, it is an inside joke in which the "inside" is this website. Those who don't get it undoubtedly missed the "fake part 27" that Hughes wrote and asked me to put up for a week or so before the real one (i.e., what you hopefully just read) was ready.
Now the usual. Jusenkyo curses and the character of Ryoga are from Ranma ½ by Takahashi Rumiko, used without permission.
This story is not endorsed by or meant to reflect the values of the Boy Scouts of America.
And lastly, Mike isn’t really dead. It was a metaphor.
You bastard.
Well, I suppose that that does, in part, hearken back to what my original intent for this story line was.
Way back in the day, when Mike was still alive, I had been planning to do this “we-each-write-every-other-one” story line with him, thinking it could be
interesting seeing what happens when one of us ends the story in a cliffhanger.
With Mike’s untimely passing, I offered Hughes the position he had vacated.
Hughes, you are a bastard.
Here’s hoping I can come up with a cliffhanger to pay you back with.
The random Cthulhu reference caught me a bit off guard, as I am sure it will catch some other readers who didn't visit the website within a specific period of time off guard, too. I considered removing it, as I usually like to avoid inside jokes. But I decided in the end to leave it in. After all, it is an inside joke in which the "inside" is this website. Those who don't get it undoubtedly missed the "fake part 27" that Hughes wrote and asked me to put up for a week or so before the real one (i.e., what you hopefully just read) was ready.
Now the usual. Jusenkyo curses and the character of Ryoga are from Ranma ½ by Takahashi Rumiko, used without permission.
This story is not endorsed by or meant to reflect the values of the Boy Scouts of America.
And lastly, Mike isn’t really dead. It was a metaphor.
For those keeping track,
Billy predicted the following:
Billy predicted the following:
Kenny will do something smart
Swett will be sarcastic
Perry will try to kill them
The Porters will show up
Matt will swoon over Sarah
Matty will resist the advances of Kuntz
Kiwi/Mocha Fruit Juice
Everything will work out in the end.