CHAPTER SIX: THE TEST, PART TWO
--

A quick summary of the plot so far:

Hieronymous Smith, a recent high school graduate with no immediate plans
for his life, has accepted a job working for a mysterious and ancient
society devoted to protecting the world against the forces of darkness, if
and when they should appear.  The problem with this arrangement is that
the society's current members are elderly relics.  Their membership
includes an elderly Deadhead with a passion for hallucinogenic drugs, a
championship martial artist with rheumatism, an elderly gentleman from an
unknown part of Asia who is renowned as being the Psychic Apostle, but who
can neither speak, hear, or see, and an elderly pile of clothes and
thumbtacks calling itself "Wilf" who runs on fried foods and has seizures
at random objects. A lifetime spent with his maxim-quoting father has
rendered Hieronymous Smith able to accept just about anything, and so he
agrees to join the society until something better comes along.

Hieronymous's training regimen is hard and rigorous, and involves being
flung against walls, Head Clamps, and Trying Very Hard Not To Get Drugged.
In his days off, he sometimes heads into the little town of Bakersville
where the organization is based. During his last trip, he encountered
Bernard Petroff, the Bertie Wooster of the Martial Arts World, who prefers
to demonstrate his strength by hurling himself at walls until he is
rendered unconscious, and briefly ended up under the spotlight of a Young
Lady of the Gothic Persuasion who goes by the somewhat unlikely name of
"Petunia".

Some time after his return from the last trip, Hieronymous was informed
that one of the other members of the organization, a mysterious somebody
who he has never met, has been kidnapped by the agents of darkness,
whoever they are. Wilf, intending to drag Hieronymous along on the rescue
mission, is forced by the other members of the household to drag the boy
along on a "test" to prove whether or not he's ready for his first real
mission. Hieronymous, not entirely sure that he's actually gained anything
from his training experience besides a very large pile of bruises, readily
agreed.

When we last left our hero, Hieronymous Smith, he had just been charged
with the task of stealing a large quantity of office furniture from a fat
man's office...

--

Hieronymous Smith stared at the large, painted-on-brick walls of the YMCA,
and felt a sinking feeling in his heart. He had been thinking about the
problem assigned to him by Wilf - the theft of a large quantity of office
furniture - for a good long time, and was not entirely confident that his
skills were up to the task. He could see three problems:

1. The office did not actually appear to have a door. Hieronymous was
unsure how the owner of the office, a morbidly obese man named Deacon
Willslop, actually got in and out of his office, but he was fairly sure
that it wasn't through the window.

2. Most of the furniture was bolted to the floor. The chair was chained to
a large post in the center of the room, and the bookshelves were attached
to the wall by means of a pair of very, very large clamps.

3.The desk was currently occupied by a very large, sleeping badger.

Not entirely sure what else to do under the circumstances, Hieronymous
pried open the window and crept into the room. He landed silently on the
floor, and really couldn't think of anything else to do, so he stood in
the middle of the room for a few minutes, staring at the bolts on the
floor and the badger on the desk.

Many years ago, the brains of human beings evolved to react in a certain
way when a man is confronted by a sleeping badger on top of a desk which
is bolted to the floor. When this scenario occurs, the main areas of the
brain will immediately shut down, while certain autonomous reflex muscles
will force the human being to drop to the floor and begin to slowly undo
the bolts of the desk with his conveniently available set of socket
wrenches. Unfortunately for human beings, evolution also created the
Algerian Desk Badger, who takes advantage of this weakness in the human
brain to satisfy its taste for flesh.

As Hieronymous dropped to the floor, the badger awakened. It stared at him
with bloodshot badger eyes. Hieronymous stared back at the badger, and
backed slowly away from the desk on his hands and knees.  It was the only
thing he could do. It was this instinctive trait of human beings that made
the Algerian Desk Badger such a deadly opponent.  The badger advanced on
him slowly.

It knew that the human would soon be backed into a corner, and it was then
that it would strike.

Somewhere in Hieronymous's subconscious, a small piece of gibberish
imparted to him by his maxim-quoting father in case of emergencies sprung
to the surface of his brain. He desperately tried to remember. It was a
story he had been told when he was young, about his uncle Haberdashery
Smith, a pioneer clothing salesman who travelled the breadths and depths
of Algeria selling cheaply made waistcoats. Uncle Haberdashery had once
encountered an Algerian Desk Badger, and had survived because...

Hieronymous felt his right foot hit the wall. He knew that it was only a
matter of time before he would be consumed by the badger - as soon as it
had backed him into a corner, it would strike. He desperately tried to
remember what his father had told him - Uncle Haberdashery had survived
his encounter because he knew that the natural enemy of the Algerian Desk
Badger was... was...

His eyes flicked up to the top of the desk, and saw the means of his
salvation. There it was - one of those complicated little steel
ball-clicking-thingies that adorn the desks of office workers everywhere,
and the only means of defeating a Desk Badger. He leaped as high in the
air as he could and landed on the desk. The badger snarled and also took
the air, its paws scrabbling as it hit the desk's surface. Hieronymous
stared at it, pulled one of the little steel orbs of the Newton's Cradle,
and set the device in motion.

Click, click, click, click, click.

The badger stared at the little steel balls clicking back and forth, and
soon fell prey to its hypnotic lull. Its eyes closed and it settled into a
deep slumber. Hieronymous wasted no time, and bludgeoned it into a coma
with a socket wrench. The beast collapsed in a heap, and Hieronymous
exhaled in relief.

He soon returned to the task of unbolting the desk from the floor.

Well now, thought Wilf who had been watching the entire scene through the
window, so he knows about the Algerian Desk Badger. He smiled - perhaps
the boy would actually pass this test. Not that he'd had any doubt, of
course.  If worst came to worst, he'd lie about the result.

Now then, he mused... how to add a little more fuel to the fire?  
Inspiration struck, and he headed off to the community message boards with
a piece of paper and his box of thumbtacks.

While all this was going on, Hieronymous had succeeded in unbolting the
desk. He wasn't sure how he'd get it out of the office, but it was a
start. He approached the front of the desk, grabbed one side, and heaved.

It was here that Hieronymous made his first mistake, for he had not
noticed the second Algerian Desk Badger sleeping underneath the desk. It
snarled and leapt at his ankle.

With a loud cry of "Kyyaaah!", Hieronymous leapt back with a start as his
brain froze up again. Instinctively, he dropped the desk and started to
back against the wall again on his hands and knees.

It was probably very fortunate for him that he dropped the desk on top of
the badger. There was a rather disgusting noise, and Hieronymous snapped
out of his trance a few seconds later.

"Well now," he thought, "that was... disgusting." He decided to ignore the
desk for now, and proceed with unbolting one of the chairs. He had just
finished removing the last nut when he heard a loud, somewhat nasally
constipated voice bellowing from elsewhere in the building.

"WILF, YOU BILIOUS, DEGENERATE AND SENILE OLD FART!" yelled the voice.  
Crap, thought Hieronymous, Wilf's gone and posted a satanic message. Which
means that Deacon Willslop, all four hundred and so pounds of him, is
going to start trying to squeeze through the doors in this building.  
Which means...

The building started to vibrate as Deacon Willslop began the slow and
agonizing process of forcing his mounds of excess padding through the
fifty-seven doorways that lay between his current location in the men's
washroom, third floor, and the front door. Plaster trickled down from the
ceiling. The furniture vibrated. Picture being stuck in the middle of an
earthquake, and you get the idea.

Hieronymous stuck his head through the window. "Wilf, you idiot!" he
yelled, "what did you do that for?!"

Wilf popped up out of nowhere. "I may be an idiot," he replied, "but I'm
not the one who just stuck his head through a window. Bandage?"

"No thanks," said Hieronymous, "I'm fine." Oddly enough, he reflected, he
was. He wasn't even bleeding. "Look," he continued, "what exactly is this
supposed to test? And how am I supposed to get this desk out of this tiny
window?!"

Wilf shrugged. "You'll think of something," he replied. "If I was you, I'd
start by scraping the badger off." He looked around, then turned pale.  
"Oops," he said, and scurried off. Hieronymous watched, fascinated as
usual, as the four hundred pound YMCA director lumbered off after the
elderly gentleman.

"I SEE YOU!" yelled Willslop. "COME BACK HERE!"

"Neener neener neener!" replied Wilf, as he dove erratically into a group
of bushes. A series of loud snaps permeated the air, and Wilf shot out of
the bushes like a bat out of hell, covered in mouse traps.

Deacon Willslop laughed madly and lumbered off after Wilf again. It was
like watching a giant pudding attacking a city in a 1970's B-movie.

"Don't just stand there boy!" yelled Wilf, running around the park covered
in mouse traps, "come and rescue your commanding officer!"

"I can't!" Hieronymous yelled back. "I'm moving furniture!" As if to
demonstrate, he picked up the giant desk again and attempted to throw it
through the window. The desk crashed through the wall, sending plaster,
wood, glass, and a really ugly baby picture flying in its wake. The end
result, Hieronymous mused, was that the desk was now outside and he could
get the rest of the furniture out. All in all, a fairly satisfactory
arrangement.

The only remaining problem was that the van was parked at the other side
of the building, and the desk weighed nearly as much as its owner. Oh
well, thought Hieronymous, and heaved, remembering to lift from the knees.
He wobbled and dragged the desk halfway around the building, while around
him chaos reigned. Wilf had started throwing the mousetraps back at Deacon
Willslop, while the YMCA director had gotten an elephant gun out of
somewhere and was running around trying to line the elderly lunatic up in
his sights.

Hieronymous, lugging the desk around, kept an eye on the battle. He'd
never noticed it before, but Wilf was fast. Very fast. His footwork was
agile and nimble, as he pirouetted around his adversary, flinging taunts
and mousetraps alike. On the other hand, Hieronymous mused, you didn't
need to be all *that* agile to pirouette around that particular adversary.

As he dragged the desk along, his foot hit a trip wire. He heard the click
and thud of hidden mechanisms, and ducked just in time as a series of
sharp wooden things, lovingly handmade by Japanese craftsmen, flew through
the air and nearly embedded themselves in his head. Most of them bounced
off of the desk, and Hieronyous decided that the prudent thing to do would
be to hide under the desk until the storm stopped. He did just this, first
checking for Desk Badgers.

Around him, the battle raged. Deacon Willslop, abandoning his elephant
gun, was now attempting to attack Wilf with a "Souvenir of the East Idaho
Pharmaceuticals Museum" collectible tea urn, whatever the hell that was.  
The two of them had also apparently crashed into a hornet's nest, and were
being chased by hordes of angry insects. Hieronymous watched the battle
for a little longer, wondering who exactly was being tested here, then
continued to lug the desk back to the van, watching out for trip wires.
After another nasty experience, he started watching out for trip wires and
concealed pits, and finally lugged the desk up to the back of the van. He
opened the door...

and realized that not only were all the doors locked, but Wilf had also
locked the keys in the van. Not sure what else to do, and having done it
once today already, he smashed one of the windows with his skull and
opened the door.

Wilf yelled encouragement from the battlefield. "Good lad!" he exclaimed.  
"That's using your noggi - oof!" While he was distracted, his opponent had
managed to hit him on the kneecap with the collectible tea urn.

"Bugger!" exclaimed Wilf. "That's the first time you've managed to hit me
in the past forty years!" He felt his kneecap gingerly, and began moving
in an intricate defensive pattern that involved bobbing, weaving, and
supporting all your weight on your hands while kicking blows away with
your feet.  Hieronymous loaded the desk in the back of the van, and the
chair soon after.

Wilf, while dodging and weaving, stared into the office. All that was left
was the bookshelf and a particularily hideous hat stand that he didn't
really care what happened to anyways. Perhaps it was time to...

Yes, he thought, let's see if the lad can pass the final part of the test.

"Alright, Hieronymous," he yelled, "you seem to be doing fine on your own,
so I'll see you when you've finished loading the last of the furniture!"  
With that, he clapped his hands together, and disappeared in a puff of
smoke.

Hieronymous blinked.

"Wilf?" he asked nobody in particular. He looked around for any signs of
the old man, but he couldn't be seen. What he could see included Deacon
Willslop who, having vanquished his old rival, was now charging at his
apprentice like a bull in the Toreador-impaling season, swinging his tea
urn as he went. Hieronymous, fuelled by adrenalin, got the hell out of his
way, ran into the office, and broke the wooden hat stand in half with his
bare hands. Yelling and screaming, he charged his opponent, with the sharp
pointy bit of the hat stand out in front of him like some kind of lance.

Deacon Willslop moved in for the kill, tea urn in hand.

From his vantage point, hidden in one of the trees, Wilf watched the fight
between his eldest rival and his best student with pride, and ate cheese
and branston sandwiches.

The two men charged at each other. More accurately, Hieronymous charged
and Deacon Willslop shuffled.

Willslop swung the tea urn.

Hieronymous remembered his kung fu training just in time. Dropping into a
traditional Shaolin kung fu stance, he narrowly avoided the tea urn and
maneuvered himself behind his opponent with another piece of cunning
oriental legwork. He seized the hatstand in his hand, and shoved the
pointed end... well, you get the idea.

That particular part of his fighting strategy wasn't traditional Shaolin
kung fu, but it worked pretty well. For a moment, everything stopped - the
mousetraps, the hornets, Wilf's clicking dentures. Then there was a cry of
"YEOWOWW!" and Deacon Willslop, all four hundred and twenty pounds of him,
shot forward like a rocket and smashed into the walls of the YMCA. There
was a sudden implosion of wood and plaster.

When the dust had cleared, Hieronymous stood triumphant over his
unconscious enemy.

"Well done," said Wilf. "Now just load the bookshelf into the back of the
van and I think we'll call it a day."

--

"Well," said Wilf as they drove off, "seems you passed my little test. You
can handle yourself in a panicky situation, and I got some new office
furniture out of it, so all's well that ends well."

Hieronymous stared at him in disbelief. "You mean this was all about
replacing your office furniture?!"

"Call it a bonus," replied Wilf. "Oh ah." He hit the gas and the van shot
off in the general direction of Bakersville. Hieronymous closed his eyes,
and thanked his lucky stars that this was all over for now. Being part of
an ancient organization that defends the world against evil was certainly
exhausting.

In the back of the van, one of the desk drawers slowly opened, and a third
Algerian Desk Badger that nobody had spotted yet prepared to leap...