CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

XXII
“Oh wait, did I say herring?! I meant pasta!” said the Blizzard, much to the dismay of all present.

John, extremely dejected, replied, “Well, thanks for the offer, Mr. Blizzard, but – ”

“The Blizzard!” corrected their host. “My name is The Blizzard, not Mr. Blizzard! My father was Mr. Blizzard! He was a great man! I am simply The Blizzard!”

“Yes, well, we’re going to have to decline, the Blizzard. Pasta’s not exactly at the top of our to-do list right now,” said John.

“It’s on top of mine!” contested Bill, holding up a to-do list which, sure enough, had pasta written right on top of it.

“Since when have you had a to-do list?” demanded John. “Moreover, since when have you known how to write?”

“I don’t know how to write,” said Bill.

“Then where did you get that list?” asked John, frustrated.

“What list?”

“I have had enough of you, Comrade!” said Mischa suddenly, taking out his trusty pistol and aiming it at Bill’s head. “I took a lot of abuse under Josiah – a LOT – but none of that can compare to the agony I have been forced to endure since meeting you. Prepare to die, you annoying, garbage-toting…man!”

“Hold on a minute, Mischa!” commanded John. “I hate Bill as much as you do, and normally I’d be first in line to kill him; but I owe Bill my life somehow, so I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you not to shoot him. As for you, Bill, one more word, gesture, or inexplicable phenomenon out of you and I’m taking away your crayons.”

Mischa reluctantly put his gun away, and Bill, stifling tears, was now completely silent.

“Oh, come on! You have to stay for dinner!” insisted the Blizzard, pretending not to have heard the last exchange. “My ice butler was up all night yesterday cooking penne pasta for everybody!”

“First of all, how could he have been cooking for us last night if we didn’t arrive until today? And second of all, never mind that, I don’t even care, we’re leaving,” said John.

The Blizzard, however, was not one to give up so easily, and he continued to persist. The two companions capable of deductive reasoning simply attributed his insistence to loneliness, because after all, how many visitors could he possibly have?

But unbeknownst to them, the Blizzard was actually a secret agent working for Josiah Malum (there were a lot of those, apparently). What he’d said about his ice butler was true – he had been up all night cooking pasta. What he had failed to mention, however, was that it was poison penne pasta - with pesto and parmesan - an alliterative dish of death!

“Well if you won’t stay for dinner, at least have a slice of cake!” bargained the Blizzard, who was making use of his doctorate in psychology and hoped to pressure them into acquiescing with reciprocal concessions.

“Chocolate cake?” asked Mischa.

“I’m allergic to chocolate! In fact, I’m so allergic that the very word causes me to keel over dead!” said the Blizzard.

And that was the end of him.

“Oh dear, it’s going to take me quite a while to clean up this mess!” said the ice butler, ice broom and ice dustbin in hand.

“I guess the Blizzard was really more of a LIZARD!” said Bill.

“That didn’t make any sense at all,” spat John.

“Or maybe it made too much,” countered Bill.

“Bill...you’re the worst person ever.”