Entry 130

Entry 130

Sword Fight

The last few days have been strange, and getting back to the Moose Café had been somewhat odd. The street traffic had been suddenly very heavy and all the cars had turned up their car radios very loud, but it wasn’t rock music — it was the same music that had been playing in the Antique Shop. After Angela had pushed me out of the Antique Shop, she had suddenly climbed the oak tree and jumped onto the roof of a car and then another in order to cross Darling street. She waited for me on the opposite corner while I waited for the red light. While she was waiting she did a spin and a dance.

She shouted to me, “Isn’t this dress a beautiful prize, and I have the sword of justice!” Then she started singing an odd chant or disharmonious song I could not recognize.

After crossing I said, “What’s wrong with you?”

She said, “Nothing, I’m wonderful.” Then she started dancing down the sidewalk toward the Moose Café.

“What are you doing,” I shouted.

“Ballet! Don’t you see?”

“Angela, Angela, why are you doing that?”

She said, “Angela? Who’s Angela?

“Ut oh,” I said.

She said, “Ut oh? Ut oh? Ut oh? Is that all you have to say? Do you not celebrate Grace and Beauty like the grass celebrates the sky?”

“Huh what?”

“Huh what? Huh what? Huh what? Say you a word about the dance of happiness and leap you in faith like a horse gallops with the wind?”

“Um,” I said, “I’ll race you to the door.”

Just past the pine tree I ran up the marble steps and reached the brass handles of the Moose Café just a few steps ahead of her. As I unlocked the door she did some sort of Modern Dance or Jazz performance. A few strangers gathered nearby. I heard one of them whisper, “I think they’re making a movie — I think she’s someone famous.”

I came back down a few steps and I shouted out, “the Moose Café is closed today, um, uh, for a movie.”

Angela rushed in as I was coming back up the steps. She said, “I win!”, just as I was coming in the door.

“Yeah, I guess so;” I said, “you were first in.”

“Now,” she said, putting her package on the table, “I will open the prize box, and deal with the loser.”

“Um…,” I said, as I backed away.

“Um, um, um, is that all you have to say?” she said.

Angela carefully took the sword out of the box, spread her legs in a knowing posture, held the sword in a vertical position, and tilted it slightly so as to aim it at my throat.

“Um, ut oh,” I said.

“Um ut? Ha, en garde, ready, up to you,” she said, and lunged at me.

I jumped to the side and rolled under a table. She swung the sword and sliced the table in half. I barely got out in time and stumbled back.

“En garde, a vous!”

I got my balance back, and ran behind the serving counter, out of breath. “What?” I said.

“Uh, whaa, ut um you say? En garde!”

I looked for a weapon, and said, “Et tu Bruté?”

“Don’t call me Brutus! Ever!” And she prepared to strike again.

I grabbed my weapon and ran out from behind the counter. Just before a lunge, I hit her straight in the face with a banana cream pie. Before she could clean the cream off her eyes, I ran behind her and seized the sword from her. Then I made the mistake of running toward the back room with all the floor boards creaking behind me and Angela laughing in pursuit. I stood in front of the bedroom door in an area with no exits. But I thought she was in a somewhat better mood.

Angela licked some of the cream she still had on her face. She said, “There’s no vanilla! Didn’t I tell you to buy Vanilla!!” Angela looked up at the ceiling, and shouted, “Computer, remove safety panels.”

When I looked up at the ceiling I saw a strip of shiny metal that extended wall-to-wall, and when I looked down there was a parallel opening in the floor. “What are you doing?” I said.

“Give me back my sword,” she said, “and get my vanilla.”

“No, not the sword,” I said, “maybe vanilla.”

“Computer, engage,” she said.

Prison bars fell down from the ceiling into the mounting slit in the floor, and there were locking sounds.

“This is your cage,” she said, “and I’m not going to feed you or let you out until you return the sword, or I could just shoot you with arrows.”

I opened the door into the bedroom to look for tools I could use to bash through the walls. I knew I could get through plaster board, but that might only lead to brick, and I wasn’t exactly sure where the outside wall was. I thought maybe I should have gotten vanilla.