NEWDIE STEADSLAW

Meanwhile, Roby said, “Now it seems I have won the right to be quite someone—the Lady Shirechester! Quite an investiture. Made for fire-festing, paid for trial-testing—and master of this house and outside thereabouts!” She had not prepared a speech for the moment, so she was playing it by hip—but no one heeded her, for, not only was the speechiness of her declaration unapparent, but also at that aforementioned moment there was a hustle and a bustle amongst the crowded servants. A new master meant a blank slate could be begun, prior faults and failings lain secret as a novel chance to make a first impression blossomed, and within the crowd were certainly those with that selfsame desirage, and they now made their new selves known.

First came forth from the gathering the head housekeeper, Yumpton Alecc, a causal lady of pandoric proportions. She bowed courteously, for it would not do to brook a mismission without décor, and then said urgently, “My Lady, there are bill collectors at the door! Whatever shall we do about it?”

Roby turned about and thought a silly thought. “Here is my will: let them collect Bill!” she said, and produced an odd gurgling sound like sewage running through a—no, wait. She was trying to giggle, but it was out of her skillset to be so ordinal.

Now, Bill thought this was a little justless, and called this unnaming wrongful. “Whyn’t William this time? I done grew out of ‘Bill’ in my ol’ boyhood years!” He drew a corncob pipe. The sketch sold for a dollar.

“I made a joke, you see,” said Roby, “or you do not see, but it is a fault of me, so I give an apology! No further attempts shall be made. Call that the promise of this day.” Roby would probably forget this promise, and it went unheard by Yumpton, who had took her at her word and gone to deliver the message.

Next came forth the boss butler, Gandlemas Hoptrophone, a pactrimal man of macroscopic gesticulations. He was as long as veins and a regular at the rodeo—on both sides. “Your Ladyship. First of all, someone’s made wine out of two men and left the barrels in the wine cellar.”

Roby whirled around and thought a somber thought. “I know nothing of this strange crime,” she said, “nor less of this strange wine.”

“Nor do I,” said Gandlemas, “and so my question is thus: shall I pair them with fish or meat?”

Roby acquired confusion. “Fish is meat,” said Roby, “for both are sweet.”

Gandlemas gasped in horror and clutched his marimba, but quickfully recovered himself, dabbing away droplings of sweat on his brow and knuckles. Shocked as he was, he was not wont to disobey a maestro’s will. “Fish is meat!” shouted Gandlemas. “Let all the playboys know this decree from Her Ladyship! And manwine, thus, is fit to accompany both!”

Yumpton now returned. “The bill collectors demand an audience!” she said. “They ill liked your response. It seems thy tone missed a mark.”

Roby spun thither and thought a convoluted thought. She had just promised to never make a joke again, and here was a perfect opportunity to see Mark sacrificed as well. Fortunately for him, however, he was in the bathroom, stuck on a particularly tricksy crossword.

“Then,” Roby said, “show them the theater and plant them astage, and soon we will meet them and witness their play. If it is pleasing we shall have a season of lovely performance and no more abhorrence.” Yumpton bowed and went to deliver this instruction.

Lastly from the crowd came the prime valet, Odorless Beige, a smooth personage of subtle renown.

Roby twirled whither and lost her train of thought. “I suspect the next vexing question to be the most perplexing,” said she in a gathering anglead.

“No question,” said Odorless. “Just wanted to know if I could get you anything.”

“You wish a quest? I have something to fetch!” said Roby with some cheer, for this was a question with a clear answer. “An egg cream and fish and chips—I think that would be quite delish!”

“That does sound good,” said Odorless, taking down the order.

“Get two of each, and one is for me, and one is for you, so you can eat too,” said Roby. Odorless nodded and was off.

Yumpton came back and said, “The bill collectors’ play was a flop! Critics are tearing them apart—they’re declaring art entirely dead! The wardrobier hanged himself in the billiard room and the nursemaid’s understudy lit herself aflame! Now they all want to renegotiate their contracts!”

“Oh!” said Roby. “We must deal with these collective fellows. It seems they cannot be dispensed with little hellos.”

So Roby, Yumpton, Gandlemas, Odorless with an egg cream and a fish and chips, and all the other employees of the house went as one to the theater, which had been disassembled and converted into a gym, and now the bill collectors were playing a fast-paced round of bee-ball, and were beating themselves by a score of all to nothing. Roby perceived the sporting show as Odorless handed her the sought-for chips, cream, egg, and fish, in whatever assemblage was proper.

“Well now—” began Roby, and also ended Roby, for Gandlemas stepped before her and addressed the invaders, and spoke louder and stronger than she did.

“Behold!” came the booming voice of Gandlemas Hoptrophone. “The lady of the house has arrived, and in this realm her word is law, so make your case before her and beg, trembling, for the sparing of your miserable lives, if you so dare to remain where you stand, ye pitiful mortals!”

“Well,” said Roby, “perhaps that speech is to akin to violence! It is a more fine thing to say names and construct an alliance.”

As Gandlemas made his presence full-sized, Odorless went to stand at Roby’s—well, he stood around her four o’clock, but that would be a meaningless turning phrase to these Inverted Earth folks, so we’ll just say it was between bee and three—and he said to her, “Gotta let ’em know where you stand, ma’am.”

“Can they not see,” said Roby, “the standing place of me?”

Odorless nodded soberly. This would be a difficult mistress to be beholden to overlong.

Now the bill collectors came forward, and Bill shrunk to the back of the party, and Odorless bowed and stepped aside so that the bill collectors stood before Roby to say their piece under his scrutiny. They marched up in a line and then fanned out in a row, all stoutish piping men, all dressed in nice smart suits; rich with money, perhaps they were—as Roby theoretically was now, but no nice suit was of her, nor fancish dress. It was good that Odorless showed the collectors to the lady of the house, else they would have never guessed.

The bill collectors all stamped their feet and clapped their hands and threw back their heads and said, “Madam! Ahem! We have been trying to contact you about your car’s extended warranty! Ahem!”

“Is that the meaning of the thing?” said Roby. “But alas sirs, there is not a car of me.”

The bill collectors could not hear such athletic words.

“She ain’t got a vroom-vroom machine!” shouted Odorless.

The bill collectors all stamped their feet and clapped their hands and threw back their heads and said, “Madam! Ahem! Your phone number has been preselected to win a stay at one of our luxury five-star hotels! Ahem!”

“That is an odd thing indeed,” said Roby, “for no telephone is of me, and, if one were, I know not what number it would be—except one, the number of no-one. That seems like enough. Remembering more would be rough.”

“She ain’t got a ring-ring machine!” shouted Odorless.

One last time—spoiler alert—the bill collectors all stamped their feet and clapped their hands and threw back their heads and said, “Madam! Ahem! Your assistance is needed in moving hundreds of millions of dollars out of my endangered country! Ahem! Please provide your bank account information as a show of good faith, and we will transfer all the gold in Altrapia to your ownership, of which you may keep half! Ahem!”

Roby said, “I cannot eat gold.”

“She ain’t hungry for your bling-bling rocks!” shouted Odorless.

“That’s three strikes, boys,” added Yumpton, with the menace of a drying pole.

Then the gates at the far end of the room were opened, and a hundred raging Gila monsters stormed in, each bearing a dozen sharpened pistols, and they chased down the bill collectors, suspecting they were just scamming the nouveau riche—that they were was just a neat coincidence—but when the Gila monsters saw they were in the bee-ball arena, they stopped as one, and went into huddle, and quickly devised a change in plans.

“We challenge you,” said the Gila monsters, unhuddling, to the bill collectors, “to a match of bee-ball!”

“Ahem! Game on! Ahem!” was the resoundful response of the bill collectors.

“Madam,” Gandlemas quietly said to Roby, “this is yours to forbid or permit.”

“If to you it is all the same” said Roby, “it would be nice to watch a fun game. I can sit back and enjoy my meal, and then later find out just what is their deal!”

So Gandlemas became the judge and called the players to line up for the tip-off. The Gila monsters arrayed on one side, and the bill collectors on the other, and Gandlemas threw fifty basketballs, fifty footballs—whichever kind—and fifty baseballs into the ring, and the match began in earnest, and balls were thrown and kicked and dropped and grabbed all about the field. Roby watched all of the accelerating transpirings happening under her newfound roof with a sense of passing diversion and a lack of limestone.

“The life of a lady of the manor is an odd one indeed,” she uttered. “The types of ways and manners are truly odd fun, I see.”

Odorless shrugged. “They probably just got the wrong address. This happens all the time.”

“To think,” said Roby, still all in awe, “that one could have in a hand an egg cream and a fish and chips ready on demand! The life of a fine lady is a novelty, and very different from classical poverty!”

Odorless smirked and said, “Not used to hot meals, eh? Well, I’ve been there—but I know a thing or two about this life of luxury. Trust in me, and I’ll see you want for nothing. It’s the good life from now on, m’lady!”

Roby grinned at the thought of the ease of a jobless existence where extravagances could be had on a whim. It seemed like everyone should get such service, for this was surely better than being attacked over graham crackers, or whatever happened earlier. This gave her an idea, and as unskilled in the field as she was, this should be cause for concern. She suddenly blurted, “I have an announcement, and now I pronounce it: as I am the lady of the house, and the master hereabouts, it falls upon me to make the decree that guides all of thee—naturally. My new rule is this, for I have a wish, and not much is better than hot chips and fish! All you should have it, simply by habit, and you should be glad it fills all your mouths; so then, says I, from this day hereby, you all are by rights master of this house!”

Now, what Roby meant, of course, was something along the lines of the abolishment of a class system, and equality for everyone—that there should be no downtrodden servants, that there should be no birth-given nobility, and that everyone should have as much as they need, especially in the realm of egg creams and fish and chipses. It was a heartwarming and charming ideal, albeit probably naïve—or, perhaps, it was naïve to think that it needed to be any more complicated than that to attain justice.

However, that’s not what Roby said.

Everyone rolled up most of their sleeves and pounced on the windfallish moment.

“As the master of the house,” said Bill, “I declare that I and I alone am the master of the house.”

“Not so fast,” said Gandlemas. “As the master of the house, I declare that my masterhood is unstrippable.”

“That’s the gaudy claim of a pretender,” said Odorless. “As for me, as the master of the house, I hereby claim all rights mine, and all rules everyone else’s!”

“As the master of the house,” said Yumpton, “I declare the bill collectors hereby sentenced to death by ninety-nine car pileup!”

“We’re using them!” said the Gila monsters. “As masters of the house, we are playing bee-ball! So if you could all please keep quiet so we can concentrate...” The Gila monsters didn’t finish their sentence, because they had already resumed concentrating.

Now, if there’s one thing an estate baron needs, it’s a small army of servants, so the next thing each of the servants-turned-masters did was hire their own butlers and housekeepers and valets and grooms and coachmen and scullery maids, but as soon as they each entered the house, Roby’s rule took effect automatically—a jilted farrier made sure to let them all know—and they all became masters themselves, and so needed further servants of their own, who in turn became masters... You can see where this is going, I’m sure. Before long, there were over a billion and forty people in the house, the population increasing exponentially, and the latest masters were pretty upset that there was no room for their own servants, not even under the table, and so they threatened to quit, but their masters wouldn’t hear of it. The house reached maximum capacity and was so overflowing, in fact, that some people had to make their bunks on the spice rack above the stove, and some in hollowed-out books, and some in unused basketballs—

“There are no unused basketballs,” said the Gila monsters, grabbing the overlooked balls and adding them to the game. But, it was too little, too late. The final buzzer sounded, and by a score of thirty-nine trillion to negative six, it was the bill collectors who were victorious.

“Ahem! Bureaucracy always wins. Ahem!” they said.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. All the masters and servants-who-thought-they-were-masters silenced and stared at the door in horror, terror, and new shoes. Who could possibly be visiting at this time of noon?

“If this is the electrician,” said Odorless Beige, “he’s late.”

The door swang open, and there was stood Yonilicus, mayor of Howlistune, facets aglimmer, cape assembled, monocles distributed in logical arrays. Yonilicus beheld the masses crammed into the house, and noted their insultingly mathematical number.

“Well, then,” they said. “This is not the puzzle I demanded! Graciously, I shall never mind it. I am Yonilicus, mayor of Howlistune! I am given to understand that a new Lord Shirechester has been encrowned. May he step forth, and receive the mayoral blessing, that the barony thrive in tandem with the burghery!”

All the people in the house stepped forward and at once said, “I! I am the Lord Shirechester!”

As all the masters spoke at the same time and instant, the combined sonic effect created a soundage that was loud beyond measurable capacity, and it caused an expeditious pressure wave to be emitted from the house, a wave which passed through all objects throughout the city, breaking glass, grass, and three kinds of bass, as well as shaking more than ten buildings and knocking several valuable collectors’ edition plates off the mantelpiece and onto the floor, where some costly breakage occurred. Nearly all participants were unfooted in the blow, and those that weren’t were glad to skip it.

“This brooks a little much!” said Yonilicus, regaining themself, mostly unundone from the assault. “Rule-breakers, I guess! Well, I’ve a book of sinners’ names you’re all to be added to—but, seeing as your number is unjust, and as you’re all rich folks already, I’ll take payment of a fine in the lieu! Call it a buck apiece and we’re square. Now, pay up! For I’ve to see if Missus Pilpot’s coffee cup got shattered in that you-made distress.”

Now, under the rulership of the old Lord Shirechester, the manor had become quite a wealthy place, but under Roby’s misguided attempts at stewardship, the vault had been split amongst its billion and forty or so lords and ladies—each of them had barely a penny apiece now, so none among them could afford the one dollar fine.

“Then it’s the law for you!” said Yonilicus, and they called their lead detective, Partisia, who arrested everyone and threw them in jail—not literally, but it was his last day on the job and he couldn’t be bothered to try any harder than not. They—the masters—began to bicker and place blame, as nobility is wont to do, and each pled their innocence—but the guard wasn’t listening, and had already plugged his walkie-talkie into the microwave to listen to the song of plasma as he tried that thing with the grape.

Before long, the jailed masters had gotten out of breath owing to their argumentation, and they had an oh-so-brief moment of silence, before Odorless dispelled it and said, “This is all the fault of Roby Lopkit, who slew Lord Shirechester, and whose fool-hearted rule has sown such chaos!” Notwithstanding that ere her well-meaning decree they had all been servants sharing a quarter between them, it was with truth that Odorless spoke—sort of—and so they sought to extract their revenge, and they each withdrew a secret knife from their boot, and they turned to Roby to strike, and they all lunged and stabbed her a hundred times—but then they checked to see that they had killed her, and lo and behold, they had not killed anyone, for they had merely struck at a sad-looking stain on the jail floor that resembled Roby overmuch. Roby was not amongst the gang, and had not been for quite a while.

Roby remained in the grand manor, having stayed silent and made no claim to ownership when the arrest phase was occurring, and now she was settled into the driver’s seat and ready to ride. She put the house into reverse, peered into the rear-view mirror, backed out of the parking spot into the street, threw it in drive—it was an automatic—and started down the highway at an inconspicuous and legal speed. As she drove down the street, she played with the radio, and found a nice station with songs about miscellaneous cheese. Roby smiled.

“Traycup will be joyed that I have found a new toy,” she said. “A mansion on wheels! And how smooth driving feels. It will take us no time to reach Oopertreepia, and I hope that we all will soon be meeting up.”

Then the gondola carrying Mario the gondolier crashed through the roof and exploded.