Chapter 4

Jupie ran out of the room into the hallway. Looking down the hallway she saw a set of stairs and ran towards them. The stairs led up. "Darn!" thought Jupie as she ran to the other end of the hallway. At the other end of the hallway there was another set of stairs. "Double darn!" thought Jupie, "Don't these farm people have any stairs that go down!" Jupie ran back into the room.

"Where the bump are the stairs down!" she yelled as she entered the room.

Omeric and Elsie stood there looking at Jupie with concern in there eyes.

"There are no stairs down, dear," said Elsie

"No stairs down!" yelled Jupie, "Well how do you get out of here!"

"You use the stairs," said Omeric.

"You just said there weren't any stairs," protested Jupie.

"We said there aren't any stairs down; and there aren't. The stairs lead up. You are in the basement," said Omeric.

"Oh." Jupie relaxed. "I have to get control of myself," she thought. "Okay I feel better now. As soon as I get out of here I'll call Earl and then . I .. will ..." Jupie broke into tears.

"What the 'el is wrong with that girl?" asked Omeric.

"I don't know dear," said Elsie, "I hope it's not the tea."

"Honey what's wrong? Why are you crying?" asked Elsie.

"It's almost nine o'clock; I don't have any power left in my traveling craft, Earl's going to be mad, my hurkle's at the dumping ground, and I'm stuck in farming country," sobbed Jupie.

"You have a hurkle?" asked Omeric incredulously.

"Yes, no, well I did, but, my essence companion took him to the dumping ground," said Jupie and then broke into tears again.

"You let your essence companion take a hurkle to the dumping grounds?! Zondx, but, I don't understand city people," exclaimed Omeric.

"Now Omeric you hush up. Not all city people are the same and you know it. You'll have to excuse Omeric he forgets himself every now and then," said Elsie. "I'm sure your hurkle is fine dear, they're hard beast to get rid of".

"But you don't understand," sobbed Jupie, "Earl left for the dumping grounds this morning".

"Elsie go get us some tea. I have to talk with the girl alone for a minute," said Omeric.

Elsie looked at Omeric curiously for a moment then walked out of the room. She could tell by the look on Omeric's face that he was about to do something special. She hummed tonelessly as she walked upstairs to the kitchen to prepare the tea.

"Girl, I'm going to tell you something that you need to know about hurkles. Hurkles are very special animals. A hurkle will choose one person, one place or one thing during its life and whatever or whoever the hurkle chooses it puts under its protection. Do you understand what I'm saying to you?" asked Omeric.

Jupie looked at Omeric with a look of utter incomprehension. "Yes," she said hesitantly, "But Earl took him to the dumping grounds this morning".

"Zondx!" said Omeric in utter incomprehension. "YOU CAN'T GET RID OF IT!" he shouted, "For whatever reason, it has chosen you".

"Does this mean that I still have a hurkle?" asked Jupie happily.

"Yes you still have a bumpin' hurkle! Elsie! Get my bumpin' keys! We're takin' this girl back to the city!" shouted Omeric.

Chapter 5

Earl looked again at the paper in front of him. The paper had the schedule of flights for the month of Noftembre. That struck Earl as odd. The thing that struck Earl as being really odd was that there were flights on the schedule that he had not approved. More importantly they were flights he didn't even know were happening.

Earl stood up from the meeting table.

"Where the 'el do you think you're going Earl! This meeting is not over! I haven't told everyone anything about this very important secret problem that must be solved," shouted Mr. Blithers.

Earl looked at Mr. Blithers. Earl sat down. His mind spun considering what the schedule of flights meant.

"I wasn't going anywhere Mr. Blithers," Earl said mechanically.

"Good! Well since it seems that Earl has some more important matters to take care of I'll get to the point!" said Mr. Blithers sarcastically.

"There's a problem with the space program," started Mr. Blithers.

Earl's head shot up. "How could he know about the problem with the schedule?" thought Earl.

"The people upstairs are very upset!" Mr. Blithers liked using the expression from an old Vision-tube program. He found it slightly amusing because nobody knew what he was talking about and because his office was on the top floor; so there effectively, was nobody upstairs.

Everyone around the table exchanged worried looks. Whenever Mr. Blithers used that expression it meant they were going to get it worse than usual. It also meant that they were going to get extra work. Which meant that they had to spend even more time giving it to somebody else to do. Earl thought he might be sick.

Mr. Blithers looked around the table and smiled. The look of terror usually put him in a good mood.

"Fortunately the situation is being taken care of," Mr. Blithers continued.

Everyone released a sigh of relief from around the table. Everyone except from two people. Those two people were: Earl who was even more nervous that someone else was messing around with his organization and Toout who knew that Mr. Blithers wasn't finished yet.

"Yes, Earl and I," he looked over at Earl, "will be taking care of everything and all of you will be required to help him with anything that he ask of you".

The look of terror returned to the faces of those around the table. Mr. Blithers smiled. Earl fainted. And Toout sulked.

Earl awoke inside the office of Mr. Blithers. There were other people here besides him and Mr. Blithers. That made Earl feel a little better. Slowly Earl rose up from off the upholstered couch.

"Well it's about time!" shouted Mr. Blithers.

"Shut up Blithers," said one of the men Earl didn't know.

"Yes Sir," replied Mr. Blithers meekly. He still managed to glower sideways at Earl.

"We've got important work to be done here," said a female voice, "let's not waste any time."

"I agree. So Earl, what do you think about the crisis we're having with the space program," said another of the men Earl didn't know.

"Crisis!" thought Earl, "What crisis?"

At that moment the previously forgotten hurkle gave out a friendly yelp. Every eye turned on the unrelenting happy hurkle. Some looked down with consternation, others with amusement, and others shock. Earl looked down with utter confusion, and then embarrassment.

"Who brought that animal into the meeting?" demanded one of the men.

"I did," said Earl timidly.

"Oh," the man replied, "Well as long as it stays out of the way."

"It will sir," said Mr. Blithers.

"Shut up Blithers," replied the man.

"Let's get back to the subject at hand, shall we?" said the woman who had spoken earlier and appeared to be the boss.

"I believe Earl was about to give his opinion of the crisis."

"I don't even know what the crisis is," said Earl, immediately regretting it; sure he had lost his job.

"Neither do we," she replied.

"The problem," one of the men started, "is that none of us are familiar enough with the space program to figure out what the problem is... or how it can be solved."

"So how do you know that there is a problem?" asked Earl more confused now than ever.

"That part was simple," replied the woman. She then got up and left the room to return with a hurkle.

Click here to go to the next page.
Click here to return to the Stu Stories
Click here to return to the StuPage