James and Sirius Meet John Tatum by Lizzie Lupin
(Alright, here's the deal, this is a one-shot fic, it's totally insane, very random, and I'll bet you laugh out loud! I guarantee to catch you off guard at least once or twice with these jokes... Anyway--basic story line, James and Sirius--both sixteen-- get bored, and meet John Tatum; an awkward twenty year old guy who is a pitiful, traveling knife salesman. By the way, I made this fic back in March, but now I decided to fix the typos and stuff, so this is a revised version.)
James and Sirius were staying at the Potter Manor for the summer. They were sixteen that summer, very much in love with practical jokes, but very bored--and you know nothing good happens when James and Sirius get bored, because once bored, they instantly take action. James'parents were away for the afternoon, so James and Sirius decided to entertain themselves with a favorite pastime. They undid the unplottable and muggle resistant charms on the house. And then they waited for a muggle door to door salesman to come by.
James and Sirius had climbed out of James' bedroom window and were sitting on the roof waiting for a victim. With a pair of muggle binoculars, they eagerly watched local passersby who wandered down the city sidewalk that ran in the distance of the manor grounds. Finally, they saw a young fellow, all arms and legs, who was carrying a briefcase and tottering toward the house.
The man walked through the open iron gate of the manor, stumbled up the drive, and clambered up the marble stairs of the front porch. Then he knocked on the front door and as he waited he looked around curiously and tried to peek in one of the windows. Earlier, James had been smart enough put a silencing spell on the front door so that the house elf wouldn't hear any knocks and come answer the door. That way, they'd have their prey all to themselves.
The fellow didn't see James and Sirius up on the roof...
"Ahoy, there!" James called pleasantly, as the guy had his nose pressed to the living room window. The guy jumped and looked around for the speaker. "Up here, nitwit." The guy looked up and saw James and Sirius on the roof. They both stared with wide eyes and gave the guy dazzling smiles just to freak him out.
"Can we help you, kind sir?" Sirius asked politely. The guy stuttered and started muttering about 'knives' and 'presentations'.
"Well, sir, I'm afraid we can distinguish your mumbling from up here."
"Yes," James agreed conversationally. "You'll have to speak louder and more clearly, if you please."
"I'm, uh, I'm John Tatum, and I'm selling some fantastic knives," he called. "I'd like to put on a presentation for you, if you'd like."
"Oh, the fellow is a knife juggler!" Sirius said, excitedly.
"My, and he's going to put on a presentation for us!" James said, enthusiastically, as they pretended to misunderstand the guy.
"No, no, I'm selling knives," the guy corrected quickly. "Not juggling them."
"Boy, this will be so cool!" Sirius said brightly to James. "You know, how I've always said I wanted to see a knife juggler before I died."
"Seeing as you've got that case of Spattergroit and you've only got two months to live, this fellow came just in time!" James said gravely. The guy was thoroughly confused, especially as he had never heard of "Spattergroit" before.
"Is--is your mother or father home?" The guy asked Sirius, in hopes of talking to someone more...'rational' than the two.
James immediately fired up, and said indignantly, "'I am his father!" he thumped Sirius on the shoulder. "As well as the owner of this establishment!" The guy hurriedly muttered apologies, and surveyed James curiously as James was only sixteen and obviously could not have looked a day older than twenty at the most.
Meanwhile, Sirius choked back a laugh.
"Now about this presentation," Sirius said, furrowing his brow. "There's no telling when I'm going to kick the bucket, so let's see this knife juggling you speak of."
"I told you, sir," the guy said hurriedly, "I don't juggle the knives, I just give you a demonstration of their cutting ability!"
James bounced back to his excited routine, apparently having forgiven the guy for the mix up that James was the 'owner of the establishment'.
"Yes, let's hurry on with the show!" James said, eyes bulging with false excitement.
"Should we invite him up?" Sirius dumbly asked James very loudly.
"Yes, Mr. Tatum, why don't you climb up?" James called politely to John Tatum. John dropped his jaw in disbelief, and looked up at the roof, sort of halfheartedly sizing up the climb, before muttering that he couldn't climb up.
"He's mumbling again," Sirius said loudly, annoyed.
"Never mind, we'll go down to him," James said pleasantly to Sirius, although John could clearly hear. "The poor dear doesn't know how to climb...Yes, we'll be right down, Mr. Tatum"
"Yes, and I'll grab the video teleporter," Sirius said enthusiastically.
"Video camera," James corrected under his breath.
"Video camera, I mean," Sirius said, as they scrambled back through the window and down stairs, grabbing James' muggle video recorder...nobody ever knew where James had gotten that camera...although nobody would have put it past James to 'borrow' it from some pitiful muggle. The two boys hurried down to the front door, to where John Tatum was waiting. The man made to step in the house when James opened the door.
"What do you think you're doing?" James asked sharply, he stepped out onto the porch, pulling Sirius behind him, and quickly snapped the door shut.
"I usually do my presentation on a kitchen table, sir," the guy babbled uncertainly, turning red from embarrassment. "Unless you have another place I could display them to you?"
"Yes, well, you can't come in the house," Sirius said seriously.
"Yeah," James said, nodding gravely. "The maids are waxing their eyebrows." Sirius jabbed him in the ribs with an elbow.
"You mean the maids are waxing the floors," Sirius corrected.
"All the same, all the same," James said distractedly. "Well, the man needs a table, son. Go fetch him one."
"Alright." Sirius agreed. "I think there's one in the garage, I'll go fetch it, shall I?"
"You know what?" the guy said, glancing at his watch. "That's alright, I'll just be on my way."
"Oh no you don't!" James said, wheeling the man around, and seating him on the porch bench. "Sirius, go fetch the table.
"Alright, hopefully I won't collapse under it's weight--" Sirius muttered loudly under his breath. "Being a...sick man and all..." Sirius ran behind the mansion, out of John Tatum's sight, and then he conjured up a heavy oak table out of thin air. He also put a weightless charm on it so it was feather light. Then he flipped it over and threw it over his back, and pretended to huff and puff with his back bent double as he pretended to stagger back to the porch.
When he came within sight of James and the salesman, James said, "Aw, you wuss, quit huffing and puffing! Make it snappy, Sirius, won't you? I don't care how sick you are! The fellow is in a hurry!"
"No, no, I'm not, he's fine!" The salesman said quickly. "Let me help you with the table." And he made to come help Sirius carry it.
"Get away from me!" Sirius said quickly, for if the guy touched the table, he would have discovered that the table was feather light--which would leader to awkward questions. "Just because I'm a sick man doesn't mean I'm incompetent to carry an oak table!" The guy jumped back from Sirius and muttered apologies.
James seemed to realize that Sirius had put a weightless charm on the table. As Sirius made to set the table down, James tipped Sirius a wink. And James, his wand behind his back, he flicked the wand and there was a loud, thundering bang as Sirius set the table down, so it gave the impression that the table must have weighed as much as a small elephant.
Sirius wiped his brow, and gave rattling breaths, as if he were about to collapse, and he said down on the bench.
"Now--for the--presentation," Sirius muttered between gasps.
"Yes, yes," John said, opening his briefcase on the table. "Well, our company is called--"
"HOLD IT!" James yelled. The guy jumped a mile.
"What?" John gasped.
"I have to turn the camera on," James said lightly, messing with the camera buttons. "Rolling!" Sirius put an arm around John and waved brightly at the camera.
"Sirius, why don't you explain to the camera what's going on?" James said.
"Well, we just made a new friend," Sirius said, smiling way too widely. "And he's going to show us how to knife juggle. Alright, go ahead, John..."
"Alright, well," The guy said, uncomfortably. "Well, my name is John Tatum, and I work for our company; Sharp Bleu, and we make knives--"
"Blue? Are the knives blue?" Sirius questioned, cocking his head.
"Not b-l-u-e," the salesman explained. "B-l-e-u. Sharp Bleu."
"Isn't that a kind of cheese?" James inquired from behind the camera.
"Yeah, I think my aunt had some once," Sirius said, shaking his head. "It was some French cheese, or something, all blue and green and fuzzy--tasted horrible..."
"No, Sharp Bleu is not a cheese," the salesman said. "It's our company name."
"But the knives aren't blue?" James asked.
"No." The salesman said firmly.
He brought out a selection of knives, ranging from tiny ones to huge butcher knives.
"They're extremely sharp and well made," John said. "You won't get a sharper cut from any other knife."
"Prove it." Sirius challenged.
"Yes, all part of the demonstration," The guy said. He pulled a tomato from his briefcase. "Watch as I peel this tomato." And he took a small knife and peeled the tomato. James and Sirius were unimpressed.
"So?" James asked, haughtily.
"Well, you couldn't do that with an ordinary knife, sir--see, a tomato's skin is so thin..." The guy said, slightly disappointed, for he was obviously proud of himself for peeling the tomato.
"Here, let me show you something else," He said, hopefully, taking a pair of Sharp Bleu scissors from his briefcase. "This is a pair of scissors we make, they're incredibly sharp," he took a penny from his pocket. "they're so sharp, in fact, that they can cut this penny in two." And he started to try and cut the penny with the scissors, which didn't seem to be working, and he accidentally dropped the penny. Sirius picked up the discarded tomato and threw it at the guy.
"What the heck? Why did you do that?" John Tatum exclaimed, wiping splattered tomato off his face.
"Because your penny trick isn't working, and my father and I aren't very amused," Sirius said, plainly. "There weren't any other vegetables available to throw at you, and I thought you were finished with the tomato. Weren't you?"
"Well, yes, I was finished with it," The salesman said, "But you didn't need to throw it at me--"
"Juggle, juggle, JUGGLE!" James and Sirius chanted together.
"I don't juggle! Really!" The guy exclaimed. "I'm here to sell you very sharp knives! That's it!"
"You don't juggle?" Sirius asked, crestfallen.
"Why didn't you say so?" James asked, annoyed, lowering the video camera.
"I did tell you, sir! Several times!" The guy said, obviously getting upset.
"You really should have said something," Sirius said, sadly. "You got my hopes up..."
"See what you did to my poor son?" James asked, angrily. "And he's only got a few months to live!" (James was still videotaping the guy, mind you.)
Sirius started breathing heavily. "I'm--not feeling so good...need to lie down," Sirius muttered, shakily. "--no juggling?..."
"That's right son, no juggling." James said firmly, sadly. "You best be on your way, sir." John Tatum gathered up his things, hurriedly, glancing at Sirius as though he thought Sirius was going to die.
Sirius clutched his heart and made a grotesque face, "Father...I need...carrot juice"
"I'm sorry, Sirius, but you drank all of our supply of carrot juice." James said, sadly.
"Can't you get some?" Sirius asked pitifully.
"No, Sirius, your health is too frail for me to leave you by yourself while I went to get some." James said, sadly.
"Can't...can't Mr. Tatum go and get some for me?" Sirius asked pleadingly, looking hopefully at the salesman, who itched his neck uncomfortably.
"No, Sirius, you foolish child," James said reprimanding. "You can't go asking favors of Mr. Tatum. We've only known him the best of an hour. Unless...you would be so kind?" he looked at the salesman uncertainly. The salesman awkwardly shuffled his feet.
"No, Sirius, he doesn't want to." James sighed. "I'll send you to your Auntie Helga's house while I got pick up some carrot juice for you."
"Not Auntie Helga!" Sirius wailed, horror in his eyes. "She makes me feed the cows and fold laundry!"
"That's enough, Sirius." James said, sharply. He shot an annoyed look at the knife sales man. "Well, thank you for coming by, anyway, Mr. Bleu."
"Not Bleu--Sharp Bleu is the company--Tatum's the name--John Tatum," the guy said uneasily. He handed James a brochure for the company. "If you change your mind, just give me a call."
"You know, most people wouldn't have come by." Sirius wheezed to the guy.
"Yes, it's been awhile since we've had visitors." James agreed.
"If only I wasn't so contagious, maybe I'd have friends..." Sirius said sadly. The man looked horrified, because he hadn't realized 'Spattergroit' was contagious.
"Well, friends won't really matter, Sirius; you'll be off to a better place in a couple months, anyway." James said. Just for good measure, Sirius deliberately coughed on the guy, and the salesman took off running, wiping Sirius' cough off of his face with his sleeve.
As he ran out of sight, Sirius sat up brightly, and said, "Nice guy, wasn't he?"
"Yes, he was," agreed James. "Much nicer than the flame throwing encyclopedia salesman..."