AZOTUSLAND chapter twenty six

Alice had come through. She showed up at the IC at 10:15 every morning. Andy would have her free double espresso and pumpkin bread ready for her so she could go back down to work with Jeremy and the kids with no delays.

She had two associates come with her for just the hour with various old pieces of, well weird stuff. Tim and Juan would bring old warped rain gutters, broken pedestals, long wide steel tubes and bags and bags of sand and rock up the big steps to the main landing. A wheelbarrow and a lot of tools also showed up and Maugham noticed a stack of at least 10 rolls of duct tape out on the stone table while he went into the IC to check his email.

When Alice was "On" she was a field general. Jim had let it be known that she had complete control and was not to be questioned.

At 11:15 everyday she would depart and it was not until the day before, on the next Wednesday, that she actually was there all day.

The interesting thing was not much changed cosmetically about the building. It really, to customers, just looked like some small work crews were doing minor repairs.

Jim was immensely pleased and told Alice so.

"Yes, well..." she said looking ahead. "One day soon you will pay on the other end."

"Yes Alice," he said looking out smiling, "I suppose I will."

Of course there were a few incidents.

Hans was not at all pleased when the work crew came in and cut a hole in an old unused duct and then jerry-rigged a long ramp through the Gallery that poked out one of the main windows.

"You haff RUINED ze symmetry!!" he yelled at Tim, but Tim paid him no mind. The wrath of this slim German was nothing compared to Alice without her espresso.

It was only on Wednesday that any of the staff really noticed or suspected what was going on. Since multiple projects and events were always the order of the day it was just not that unusal. Everyone knew Jim watched over all.

But on Wednesday, Renata went over to the screen in the upper cafe and did a quick check of the next few days.

When she saw the "Mouse-Trap Day for Kids" on the screen for the next day, she chuckled and made a call to Rand.

"You gotta be here at 1 tomorrow baby," she cooed into the phone.

"Ah Ren, I'm pretty booked," he said.

"I'll be yummy tonight if you do" she said laughing.

"You are always yummy," he said.

"I'll dance to Mysterious ways if you come."

"Done. Gotta go."

She smiled.

"Love that man," she said to herself and was pleased.

********

At 1 p.m. that Thursday afternoon those who had any idea all tried to find a good seat. Jim had to try and officiate and he wore a funny hat that Matisse had made for him and he stood up on the top of the hill with Jeremy, Lucille, Carver, Alice and a small group of parents and kids.

On a wide table there was a large bucket filled with crochet balls and all around the table there were perhaps a good eighteen mallets.

Maugham opted out of the fiasco and took up residence on the deck with Templar, Jacob, Martine and Manfred.

Below them, looking out the windows were Roo, Renata, Rand, Ted, and a smattering of customers.

Around the grounds, and strategically placed, were Jonathan, Tim, Juan and Ian had skipped some classes to be there.

Jim gave a forgettible introduction and thanked Alice, Jeremy, Lucille, and Carver as well as the other kids..

"Who's first?" he then asked.

"I believe Lucille is first," Carver said and he handed her a blue striped ball.

She laid it on the small carpet and gave it a big whack and it sloped down the first walkway at the top of the hill and down into a culvert...down a tube and dropped out on another long slope that cut aginst the grain the other way. Then it lodged in the corner of the next turn.

Everyone cheered as Lucille made mark on her card.

Carver followed with a similar hit and his shot disloged Lucille's which ran down the hill, dropped off a small cliff into a trough and rolled into the rain gutter on the roof of the Azotus Cafe proper. They could see it run and skip a bit then they heard a clunk as it fell into a basket. Carver's orange striped ball followed in similar fashion.

After another eleven kids had hit similar shots the basket was full and had weighted down enough to activate a pulley which brought up a wire basket full of juice pouches out of a water drum.

When the kids had taken these Alice let go of the basket and the basket full of crochet balls fella collpased to the ground and 13 crochets balls started falling, bouncing and running off down the long path toward the corkscrew.

Three of them made it all the way to the sloping cement darinage ditches and swished down into an area boxed off. Everyone elese had to take their turns hitting again.

It was a sunny day and the clouds overhead were white and kind. The air was cool and as Jim looked down at the scene he felt happy for a brief moment until his mind returned to what he had to say to Maugham that evening.

From the landing just up from the Gallery, the kids had to hit up hill from a divited green carpet and bounce their ball off the planter at an angle so it would be on the other side of the dividing wall that had been set down.

Once on that side the ball could do one of two things. If you hit it a a lucky angle (there was really no skill involved at any point except the end) your ball might be caught in the old warped rain gutter and disappear into the side of the building, only to re-appear God-only knew where. Or, if you missed that, your ball would be corraled into a sloping collection station and pop through the wall (through an old dryer exhaust hole in what was now the Gallery) into the Gallery proper.

In either event what happened next was far too much for Hans who had never been properly clued into what was about to happen all around him.

The kids started hitting and running down the hill. At least five of the balls made it into the curved ramp leading into the building, which in turn dropped them into the old duct, which deposited four of them into the long ramp that went out the window. As this happened six other balls flooded into the Gallery as Hans shrieked and jumped up on top of his desk and began to scream things in German.

None of the kids knew German, so no harm was done, not even when Hans heard the first three crochet balls rumble loudly passed his head in the long ramp and spit out the window on the far end. The fourth ball took a bad skip and jumped the railing and sailed throught the upper window just to the right of the open one with a crash.

Outside, Alice put her hands to her mouth and tried to muffle a large laugh. Then, being meticulous and detail-oriented, she wondered about the last ball. She went over to the wall where the initial ramp entered and gave it a quick shove.

By this time Hans had moved to the window and simply sighed as the children ran around hitting their balls around the room and marking their score cards. He leaned a bit on the ramp and just then the last ball came shooting through and he dropped down as it smashed through the lower window.

Hans shrieked again and fled to the darkroom where he turned off the safelights and hoped the end of the world would soon be over.