Cookies For A Monkey, Part II

(continued)

The Doctor plodded up the basement staircase, growing increasingly irritated by the now-constant pounding on his distressed front door. He hadn't decided on how to be rid of the pest: the trap-door into the dank, grimy pit? The button that sent bolts of electricity arcing through the air? The switch that sent the huge swinging blades in motion, designed to slice the unwary into neat bits that could be easily swept into the trash? He paused at the door, then shrugged his narrow shoulders. He would let fate decide.

The Doctor turned the doorknob and slowly opened the door, allowing the rusty hinges to produce a predictable but still-menacing creak. He craned his thin neck through the opening to look out upon...nothing. The Doctor blinked twice, slowly, like a tired owl. Maybe he was working too hard. He started to close the door when he heard a voice below him.

"Hey, mister, wanna buy some cookies?" A shudder ran down The Doctor's spine. He looked down to see a tiny, golden-haired little girl with an uncomfortably bright smile that hid the determined look in her eyes. "They're only two dollars a box!"

The Doctor shifted his weight from one foot to another, then back again. Despite his genius, this was something completely out of his realm. Normally such a child wouldn't have come within a country mile of his house. Yet here one stood, staring him down the way a matador stares down a bull. Nor was he alone in his amazement: he looked over the sickeningly golden curls at the two Heebie-Jeebies at the bottom of the stairs, hands stuffed into the pockets of their shabby pants as they stared sullenly at the worn toes of their huge black boots. Beyond them, Creeps, Willies, and Shakes all gathered in a small mob on the scrubby brown lawn, whispering and pointing at the little girl who seemed totally oblivious to their presence. The Doctor's discomfort grew rapidly.

"Pardon me?" he said, in an effort to gain more time to think.

The little girl turned up the wattage on her high-intensity smile, causing The Doctor to wince behind his thick glasses. "I'm a Bonfire Girl," she said, pointing to the bright red sash hanging from her shoulder, festooned with all sorts of colorful, cheery badges. "Our troop wants to adopt a monkey at the zoo, so we're selling cookies to raise money. Wanna buy a box?"

The Doctor felt an urgent need to regain control of the situation. Marshaling his resolve, he said in a cold, firm voice, "No. I despise cookies. Go away."

The girl cocked her head to the side, screwed one eye shut, and looked The Doctor up and down with the other. "You don't like cookies? Why not?"

"I just don't. Leave now."

"That's weird." The girl shook her head, then brightened again. "I bet you'll like these!"

"I doubt that," The Doctor said gruffly, finding his inner Meanie again. "Now go away. I have a monster, " he growled, "that eats little children."

The girl rolled her eyes. "I hope he's scarier than those guys," she huffed, pointing at the Heebie-Jeebies. Hearing this, the beasties looked at the girl, then at one another. Coming to an unspoken agreement, they reached under the porch and brought out a battered suitcase and an old Schwinn roadster held together by rust and wishful thinking. The smaller of the two, holding the suitcase, jumped onto the handlebars, while the larger mounted the seat and began pedaling. They waved to the pack of minor frights on the lawn, then moved off down the road. There were plenty of other kids in the world to scare. The Heebie-Jeebies didn't need this kind of abuse.

The Doctor, now rather vexed at the prospect of having to deal with representatives of the Nightmare Workers Union, bent down toward the girl. "It is considerably scarier," he snarled. "Now begone!"

The Bonfire Girl was unfazed. Little old ladies who remembered when a box of cookies cost a quarter were a harder sell than this skinny kook. "Buy a box of cookies and I'll go," she said through her sweetest smile.

The Doctor was beside himself. "Arrgh!" he groaned, straightening.

"Look, mister, just buy a box," the girl said. "Give them to your dog if you don't want them."

The Doctor snorted. "I don't have a dog. I have a Steve."

The girl raised her eyebrows. "What's a Steve?"

The Doctor began to answer, but thought better of it. "Never mind," he sniffed. He didn't want to answer any more questions from the undertaker. Or the police.

"C'mon, mister! We want a monkey!"

Here, at least, was something The Doctor thought he could understand in all this unpleasantness. "Are you going to use it for experiments?"

The Bonfire Girl made a face. "Yuck! No! We're going to adopt him. We're going to name him Wally, and buy him a rope swing, and bananas and apples and stuff."

It was The Doctor's turn to raise eyebrows. "Why?"

"Because it's a nice thing to do and monkeys are funny. All the troops in town are adopting one." The Doctor frowned. He was lost again, and found it troubling. "C'mon, mister," the girl sighed. "It's only two bucks."

The Doctor pursed his lips, which didn't amount to much because his lips were very thin. If there was one thing he was good at, it was figuring things out. And he figured the best answer to this problem was to just pony up the dough. He could dispose of door-to-door salesmen by the truckload and likely receive a Civil Service medal, but little girls were different. Someone would notice. "Very well," he said, letting his shoulders fall. "One moment."

Turning on his heel, The Doctor stepped over to a small glass jar sitting by itself on a table awash in dust. He pulled out two bills that were so rumpled, torn and stained they looked like they had been used as chewing gum by a nervous orangutan. Returning to the door, he held out the money in his open palm.

The girl frowned at the wadded pieces of paper. "Don't you have any nicer ones? Those are all wrecked."

Little girl or not, The Doctor had his limits. "Just take the money!" he snapped.

"All right, all right," the girl said, stuffing the bills into her pocket. No need to get all grouchy." A corner of The Doctor's mouth twitched in anger, but he said nothing. "What kind of cookies do you want? I have chocolate chip, peanut butter, mint, or lemon ones." The girl unslung her backpack and rummaged through it.

"I couldn't possibly care less," The Doctor said.

"Then try the lemon ones, sour puss!" The girl giggled at her joke, and handed over a shiny yellow box. She turned and skipped merrily down the stairs, past the motley throng still gathered on the patchy grass, and on down the street, singing nonsense to herself.

The Doctor stood and watched the girl until she was out of sight, still not quite sure what had just happened. He looked down at the box of cookies he held loosely at his side. Grunting, he tore away the end of the box and ripped open the inner package in one savage motion. Letting the debris fall to the porch, he plucked a cookie from the mauled container. The Doctor squinted at the small, yellow-brown disc, then sniffed it cautiously. It smelled like the cleaner Steve used to clean the laboratory after particularly messy experiments, and was likely flavored by the same chemicals. Undaunted, The Doctor brought the cookie to his mouth, and neatly snipped off a bite with his front teeth.

The Doctor's eyes narrowed, and he glared with cold rage in the direction the girl had gone. He would begin visiting the zoo every week, and the first monkey that answered to the name Wally was in for a nasty surprise. A very nasty and unpleasant surprise indeed.

The cookies were stale.