CHAPTER FIVE: THE TEST
--

	A few days after Hieronymous's trip into town, which can not,
owing to a minor technicality, really be described as "disasterous", our
hero stumbled out of bed one morning and proceeded to the breakfast table,
as was his habit. He was more than a little surprised to find the other
occupants of the house - Wilf, Mrs. Maple, Louis the Hippie, and the
Psychic Apostle - awake already, with grave expressions on their faces.

	"What's going on?" he asked hesitantly.

	The elderly members of humanity at the table stared at each other
for a few minutes, trying to decide who should speak first, until finally
Wilf spoke. "You may remember, boy, that I said that there were a few
other members of our secret organization."

	Hieronymous decided that this would be as good a time as any to
ask a question that had been haunting him since his arrival at the house.
"Does our organization have a name?" he asked.

	"No," said Wilf. "As I was saying, there are other members besides
ourselves here. We heard last night that one of them has been captured
by... the enemy."

	"Oh dear," said Hieronymous Smith. "So what are we going to do?"

	"We shall take action," replied Wilf. "I have just been in touch
with our solicitors, and we will be sending a strong letter to the
appropriate parties immediately."

	"We have solicitors?" asked Hieronymous.

	"Yes," replied Wilf. "Very old firm of English lawyers - Choke,
Hiccup and Fahrt." He paused. "Well, most of the firm is English, anyways
- Mr. Fahrt is Norwegian. In the mean time, I'm going to go and break our
friend out of where he's being held captive. And you're coming with me."

	Mrs. Maple rose in protest. "Wait a minute, Wilf," she replied.
"That's awfully dangerous, don't you think? The boy's new, and I haven't
really taught him anything more than how to be flung against walls, and
how to stand in uncomfortable positions until his legs crumple. It's too
dangerous."

	Wilf glared at her. "Put a sock in it, Maggie," he replied. "He's
perfectly capable. He's got brains and smarts, and that's all you really
need."

	"That and free love," interjected Louis. Wilf glared at him too.

	"I still don't like it," continued Mrs. Maple. "Those people are
the powers of darkness and you know it. All sorts of terrible things could
happen." She turned to the Psychic Apostle. "Don't you agree with me?" she
asked. The Psychic Apostle fell off of his chair.

	"That settles it," said Wilf. All of a sudden, his face lit up
with a grin. "Tell you what, though," he said. "I'll make you a deal,
Maggie. I'll give the boy a test. A hard one. If he passes, he comes with
me. If not, back to training and I'll bust out our agent myself."

	Mrs. Maple thought about that proposal for a minute. She had seen
Wilf's idea of tests before. Some of them were very hard. Some of them, on
the other hand, were very dubious. "Alright," she conceded, "that sounds
fair. As long as you're not going to do the thing with the lump hammer."

	"Nope," said Wilf with a sly grin. "Something worse. Now eat your
breakfast, lad, although you'll probably throw it up by the time we're
done. Meet me in the garage after breakfast, and bring any equipment you
want to take with you." His grin widened a little more. "Oh, and take a
shower."

	Hieronymous shuddered.

--

	Following a quick breakfast of fried objects, including at least
one pig's trotter, Hieronymous headed to the bathroom to take a shower.

	Up until this point in the narrative, your humble chronicler has
not yet described the plumbing facilities available in the Ancient
Organization To Defend The World Against Evil's primary residence. The
house did not have a shower per se; rather, it had the Hydro-Therapeutic
Training Device - a large nozzled monstrosity made out of brass and
copper, hooked up to a nearby fire hydrant.

	The purpose of the Hydro-Therapeutic Training Device was to
practice martial arts stances. One of the tests of whether or not a
martial artist is worth his salt is his ability to stay in any given
stance without falling over, no matter how or from where he is pushed or
shoved. When he had first arrived at the house, Hieronymous had originally
taken the Training Device to be nothing more than an ordinary, albeit
somewhat elderly shower, and had received rather a nasty shock. Now, he
reflected, he was somewhat more prepared.

	Hieronymous stepped into the bathtub and assumed the Stance of the
Crane. Standing on one leg, he picked up the bottle of shampoo and held it
in his right hand. With his left hand, he reached up and pulled a large
chain embedded in the ceiling of the bathroom.

	A low rumbling could be heard from the bowels of the house.
Shortly thereafter, a naked Hieronymous Smith frantically holding a
shampoo bottle and a loofah was shot through one of the windows of the
house by a stream of very cold water under intense pressure. Wilf, who was
heading to the garage at the time, casually checked his watch.

	"Thirteen seconds," he thought to himself. "The boy's improving."

--

	After covering his privates with a convenient fig leaf, fording
his way back to his room and getting dressed, Hieronymous headed out to
the garage. He wasn't entirely sure what today's "test" entailed, or what
equipment he should bring, so after a little thought he had decided to
take an assortment of everything he could get his hands on. Under his left
arm he carried the umbrella glider that Louis had given him last week, a
large wooden pole, an electric hedge trimmer, and a small rocket launcher.  
In his other hand he had a small toolkit, full of an assortment of
miscellaneous combat and housebreaking equipment: a grappling hook and
rope, a collection of screwdrivers, a set of lockpicks, a crowbar, an
assortment of Traditional Ninjitsu Throwing Things, the Ojibwe Military
Surplus Thumbtacks Box, and, at Louis's insistence, a copy of the Electric
Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe.

	"Ready?" asked Wilf. He was sitting in the driver's seat of a
large, black van that Hieronymous had never seen before. Surprisingly
enough, it was in fairly good condition and still had all its tires and
doors. Hieronymous loaded his things in the back of the van and braced
himself for take off. Wilf fired up the van and they drove off in the
usual fashion - through the wall of the garage.

	They headed into Bakersville, and Wilf quickly parked the van
outside a small building that claimed to be a combination bakery and
coffee shop. Hieronymous looked at the sign above the door.

	"The Buns of Steel?" he asked.

	"Yep," said Wilf. "We forgot to pack lunch." He undid his seatbelt
and threw himself at the door of the van, cursing, swearing, grunting, and
twitching, until he finally opened the door and crashed into the sidewalk.
"Wait there," he said, and headed into the bakery. "There's some classic
Japanese literature in the glove compartment if you want to read summat."
	
	Hieronymous opened the glove compartment, and removed a small
paperback book with a picture of a samurai on it, illustrated in
traditional Japanese style. Opening it to a random page, he read:

	--
	
	Ikura was forced to open his eyes. "My lord Katsunishiki," he
exclaimed, "I have never seen one so large!"

	"Indeed, faithful servant," replied the noble lord.

	"My lord," Ikura continued, "while I know that it is my duty to
obey my lord's requests, and while I too feel this forbidden desire in my
loins,
	I fear that your weapon wouldst do me a great injury, perhaps even
tearing me asunder."

	"It is a samurai's duty," Katsunishiki uttered, "to obey orders in
the servicing of his lord, and even to impale himself upon his master's
sword should he so desire."

	He licked his lips. "Besides," he added, "perchance wouldst it not
be worth it?"

	--
	
	Not entirely sure what to make of this, Hieronymous put it back
into the glove compartment. He rolled down his window, and stared out into
the street. About five seconds later, he heard a loud yell from the
direction of Jinendousosetsu's House of Oriental Foodstuffs. The door
opened and the serious looking young man from the other day ran out,
heading directly for the van and screaming at the top of his lungs. Above
his head he held ... yes, thought Hieronymous who had seen similar items
lying around the dojo, that was definitely a traditional Chinese
agricultural implement.

	"Hieronymous Smith!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "Prepare
to be defeated!" He ran screaming at the top of his lungs at the van, then
suddenly dropped his weapon and started flinging himself at the vehicle at
high velocity. Hieronymous, not sure what else to do, rolled up the window
again.

	Under the savage assault on the van, the young man collapsed in
under thirty seconds.

	"Friend of yours?" asked Wilf, opening the door of the van and
passing Hieronymous two large paper bags.

	"I don't know, really," replied Hieronymous. "I met him when I
came into town the other day. He got upset when I said that I was training
with you and Mrs. Maple, and then he started throwing things at me, and he
threw me into a wall."

	"And what did you do?" Wilf asked.

	"Nothing, really," replied Hieronymous. "It didn't really hurt."

	Wilf smiled. "Oh ah," he said. "That's good. Your body is being
conditioned to take impacts." He fired up the van again and they headed
out of Bakersville with extreme rapidity. "If it wasn't for the fact that
he was an idiot, that boy could actually be a good martial artist. One
day, he may even become better at slamming himself against large objects
than you are. Oh ah."

	The van spun around and headed through a section of forest that
Hieronymous had never seen before. "Gotta be careful if you go through
here," Wilf pointed out. "There's a bunch of Nazis in the woods around
here."
	
	"Nazis?"

	"Nazis. Nasty ones."

	"What the hell are Nazis doing in the woods of Bakersville?"
Hieronymous asked.

	"Not sure," Wilf replied. "I'm pretty sure they just got lost one
day. They like to shoot at passing automobiles and sing 'Deutschland Uber
Alles' out of key. That's how you can tell when you're getting close."

	"So what do we do?" asked Hieronymous.

	"Easy," replied Wilf. He flipped open a panel on the dashboard,
exposing a row of controls, and pushed a small button. All of a sudden the
rear doors of the van opened and an elderly Jewish grandmother shot out of
the back of the van and into the woods. All of a sudden the hills echoed
with the sound of machine gun fire. "Don't worry," Wilf continued, "it's
just animatronics."

	They drove on. "So who was that guy?" asked Hieronymous. "Sounds
like you know him - why is he so pissed off at me for working for you?"

	"Oh ah," replied Wilf. "Well, that's where it gets interesting."
He spun the steering wheel and Hieronymous was flung back into his seat.
"The gentleman with the Chinese Farming Thing back there goes by the
unlikely name of Bernard Petroff, and when he isn't being an idiot, which
is rarely, he's actually quite a respectable fighter. His thing is the
study of environmental combat - the ability to use your surroundings as
weapons. Anything from telephone poles to blades of grass."

	"And tables?" asked Hieronymous.

	"And tables."

	"Interesting," said Hieronymous. "So why is he after me?"

	"Suffice it to say," said Wilf, "he thinks he should be part of
our group, and, well, I don't."

	"Why is that?" asked Hieronymous.

	"I'll tell you later," said Wilf. "For now, concentrate on
preparing yourself." He suddenly spun the wheel around, and the van halted
in a gravel parking lot. "We have now arrived at our most ancient and
sacred training ground, used by our organization since its inception many
years ago."

	Hieronymous inspected his surroundings. "This is the YMCA," he
said.

	"Well, yes," Wilf admitted. "Why do you think I get such a kick
out of bugging the idiot who runs the place?" They left the van, and
Hieronymous vaguely wondered if this was going to involve posting Satanic
Messages.

	"So what's the training task?" he asked.
	
	"Ah," said Wilf. They walked towards the building in a manner that
Hieronymous hoped wouldn't attract any more attention than Wilf usually
did, and stopped outside of an office window. They crouched below the
sill, and Wilf spoke in a whisper.

	"You see that office?" he whispered. Hieronymous nodded. "That is
the office of my enemy and arch-nemesis, Deacon Willsop, the director of
this accursed facility for overweight office workers, whining brats,
pregnant mothers, and people with a passing interest in ceramic glazing.
It is in this office that your test will take place."

	"What's the test?" asked Hieronymous.

	"Simple," replied Wilf. "Be warned, however, that nobody has ever
completed this test before. Save myself, of course. Are you sure you're
willing to face the danger, lad?"

	Hieronymous thought about it. He wasn't entirely sure how the
grossly overweight director of operations at the YMCA could possibly pose
a threat to his health, other than sitting on him and suffocating him to
death.

	"What the heck," he replied. "I'll do it."

	"Very well," replied Wilf. "Your task is a simple one: you have
two hours to remove all of Deacon Willsop's office furniture and load it
into the back of that van."

	"WHAT?!"

	Wilf sighed. "Look, you see that desk there? And those chairs? And
that bookshelf? And the filing cabinet, and the.."

	"Yes, I get the point," Hieronymous interrupted, "but what does
that have to do with testing my skill?"
	
	The elderly man grinned. "You may find it tougher than it looks."
He got up and headed back to the van, and removed a shovel from the back.
"I'll be digging your grave," he added, "just in case. Try not to scratch
the desk, it's a Steinway."