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Crane had feared dinner would be simply the world's longest salad bar, a continual line of dishes that offered only one color: green. Once he got to the table, however, he saw his misgivings had been unnecessary. Ivy had assembled a vegetarian lasagna that looked and smelled so close to the real thing it was easy to forget there was no meat in it. Even Harley, who seemed to have the same phobia of vegetables that her despicable laughing lover had, hardly uttered a complaint.
"Red, Red, I wanna say grace! I got somethin' real nice to say!" Harley said, raising her hand like a school kid and wiggling back and forth in her chair.
"All right, Harley. Go ahead," Ivy said.
Harley cleared her throat dramatically, as though she was about to give a speech before the UN. "Thanks, plants, for gettin' chopped up so we can eat you. I really appreciate it, 'cause I was really hungry. Thanks for makin' oxygen so we can breathe, makin' sticks so Mister J can hit people with 'em, and makin' friends for Red to take care of when I'm not around."
"Lovely," Crane muttered.
"Have anything you want to add?" Ivy asked.
"No"
The Scarecrow eyed the pan of steaming lasagna with what bordered on lust. He was salivating like one of Pavlov's trained dogs. If Ivy and Harley didn't finish their silly little prayers in the next five seconds he was jumping on the table and stuffing his face straight from the source.
"All right, then. Crane, do you want to serve the lasagna?"
"No, I want to eat it."
"I think you should serve it. I slaved over a hot oven, risked perpetuating the stereotype of woman's work, and had to use the nice tomatoes I was saving for bruschetta. I don't trust Harley not to knock the whole pan onto the floor. So pick up that knife and cut us a nice slice," Ivy said.
"You're the only person who ever encouraged me to pick up a knife. I'm sure you'll be the last." Crane said.
So as not to antagonize his host, the Scarecrow cut squares of lasagna for Harley and Ivy before feeding himself. He picked up his fork and began to excavate the lasagna. After finishing what was on his plate, he went back for seconds without needing an invitation.
After everyone had finished eating, Harley sneaked off to watch television before Ivy could rope her into helping with the dishes. Crane was kind enough to dump all the dirty plates into the sink before wandering off. Ivy, muttering how she wasn't anyone's slave, filled the sink with water and set to scrubbing.
Harley was sitting on the sofa, absorbed by some cartoon. Crane took a peek at it, noted the giggling yellow sponge and his obese pink friend, and decided he'd rather converse with Ivy's plants than watch any more. He was about to go upstairs, exploring, when Harley spotted him.
"Professor, don't you wanna watch SpongeBob with me? It's a really funny episode. Patrick and SpongeBob rode the wrong bus home from Glove World and now they're trapped down in Rock Bottom. And they can't tell the boy and girl bathrooms apart." Harley said.
"Child, if Hell existed, an eternity of that show would be my punishment."
Without waiting for Harley's response, Crane climbed the stairs. He wanted to get a good mental map of the house. Whenever he moved into a new structure, he liked to become familiar with escape routes, possible ambush positions, and the best place to make a last stand should it come to that.
The first room he entered must have been the guest bedroom. Judging by the stuffed animals on the bed, the clown costume hanging in the closet, and the photograph on the wall of two hyenas eating birthday cake, this was where Harley stayed. Crane noted the window, an easy escape, and the closet, a good place to prepare a surprise attack.
The next door opened to the linen closet. It was filled with towels and sheets, all no doubt made of organically grown cotton. Crane was not going to fit on any of the shelves, and unless he planned to use a fluffy towel as a garrote, there was little in the way of weaponry. He closed the closet door and continued.
When he opened the next door, he discovered Ivy's room. It was, as expected, blooming with a rainforest of vegetation. The Scarecrow wondered how in the hell Ivy even had room to sleep. Then something from inside the confines of the room growled at him. Crane promptly slammed the door and ran away.
The only other room was the bathroom where Ivy had so easily disabled him. He had no desire to be reminded of his shame, but he had an overwhelming desire to learn where the toilet plunger was located. After living with the Joker, and having the clown purposely block up the loo just to torture the Scarecrow, Crane wanted to be prepared.
The toilet plunger was located in the little cabinet under the sink, as were a few bars of soap, some herbal shampoo that smelled like a distilled field of wild flowers, and some cleaning products that were no doubt eco-friendly. Crane wondered if any of the cleaning chemicals could be useful, then remembered they were watered down and would hardly win a battle against shower scum. Sighing, he decided to go back downstairs and poke around there.
Upon arriving in the living room, Crane noticed Ivy had usurped the television from Harley. Instead of a nautical cartoon, Al Gore was on and he had brought along his magical slideshow. The Scarecrow decided he'd pass on that, too. As many people who lived in Gotham during the winter months could tell you, a little global warming would be appreciated.
The kitchen was always a veritable armory. There were the obvious weapons anyone could see—knives, cast iron pans, heavy wooden chairs—and then the not so apparent but surprisingly efficient ones, such as the toaster. Crane smirked at the sight of the toaster. His own had died a noble death.
"If you're just going to stand there grinning, you can do something useful and take the leftovers out to the hyenas," Ivy called from the couch.
"They're carnivores. What if they don't like vegetarian lasagna?" Crane asked.
"Then throw it in a compost bin," Ivy said.
Grumbling about how the Scarecrow was not some hyena's butler, Crane gathered up the half-empty lasagna pan. He carried the pan outside and around the back of the house. The supply shed was tucked behind the house and adjacent to the greenhouse. Asides from the bags of potting soil, fertilizer, rakes, hoes, shovels, support trellises, planting pots, and other essentials Ivy needed to keep things green, the shed was also keeping Bud and Lou contained.
Long before Crane got to the shed, he could hear the hyenas whimpering and scratching at the door. They hated being restrained in such a small space, and without Harley to coo at them, they must have been practically dying of loneliness. The Scarecrow almost felt pity before reminding himself that developing empathy was far more trouble than it was worth.
"Stop your incessant crying. I've brought you food, so eat it and shut up."
Hearing his voice, the hyenas redoubled their efforts to escape. They pawed at the locked door, pressing their impressive bulk against it. The whimpering and yelping rose in pitch and frequency. Crane grimaced. This was probably what is sounded like at one of those insipid Disney-star concerts.
Holding the pan with one hand, Crane unlatched the shed door. The second it was open, Bud and Lou threw themselves out of their prison and, in infinite gratitude, mauled Crane with love. He was knocked to the ground, the pan landing on his chest and splattering its contents onto his shirt. Bud and Lou, obviously happier about getting their freedom than OJ Simpson, Robert Blake, and Hugo Selenski combined, pounced on the fallen Scarecrow.
"No! Get off of me; I don't want your kind of love!"
In response, the mutts started slobbering all over his face. Bud stepped on Crane's hand, nearly crushing his fingers. Lou became interested in the strange goo Ivy had used to treat the Scarecrow's head injuries, and decided to sample it. The hyena ended up backing away, pawing at his mouth and trying to get rid of the unspeakably bitter taste.
"You hideous, mangy, flea-bitten beasts! Bud, I'll skin you and make you into a fur coat. Let me up and keep your paws to yourself."
Crane was finally able to regain his feet. He glared at the two hyenas. Lou was now eating grass in a last-ditch effort to get the pungent taste from his mouth. Bud lost interest in his savior and was investigating the battered lasagna pan, his stubby brush of a tail wagging happily as he did so.
"That was for you and now I'm wearing it. Damn it! I haven't got another change of clothing and I am not wearing pasta to bed. So help me, if I can't find anything else to wear, I'm coming out here with a knife and I'm taking someone's pelt."
Bud and Lou weren't interested in Crane's personal problems. Irked by the destruction they'd caused, the Scarecrow dumped out what little lasagna was still in the pan. He then wiped as much of the mess off his shirt as possible. He walked back towards the house. Let Harley pen the furry barbarians back up; he was going to clean himself off.
As soon as he walked in the door, Harley glanced up at him. Her eyes were glazed with boredom; apparently Al Gore wasn't as entertaining as a talking porous square. After taking him in for a few seconds, her eyes began to widen and her mouth fell open.
"Professor!" Harley gasped.
Having no idea what was provoking her reaction, Crane turned around, half-expecting to see Mel had followed him into the house. There was no giant plant standing in the doorway. The only thing Crane saw was his own reflection in the door's small, square window.
Staring at his own image for a moment, the Scarecrow figured it out. The tomato sauce from the lasagna had soaked his shirt and even flecked on his face and arms. The color of the sauce looked startlingly like blood. Crane looked, especially in the relatively dim light of the living room, like he'd had a very ugly meet-up with Victor Zsasz.
"Calm down, Harley. It's just tomato sauce. Your pets knocked me over and the lasagna landed on me." The Scarecrow said.
"Blood would have almost been better. It's not as stubborn a stain as tomato juice. I hope you aren't too fond of that shirt," Ivy said. She's hardly looked up from the former Vice President. Maybe if Crane had walked in with a dandelion he'd pulled out of the lawn she'd show a little reaction.
"Yes, but I like my vital fluids in my body, where they can do the job of keeping me alive. And I happen to not only like but need this shirt. I haven't got anything else to wear and I don't intend to strut around in your bra, "The Scarecrow replied. A moment later he realized how disturbing of an image he in one of Isley's brassieres was.
Harley apparently had the same mental image, because she was snorting laughter. Crane scowled at her. She laughed harder. The Scarecrow was beginning to get annoyed because his deadly glares had no effect on anyone anymore.
"I wasn't about to offer you my bra but I do have a shirt that for some strange reason doubled in size the first time I washed it. Since you're going to be a sarcastic bastard about it, though, you can just wrap a towel around your shoulders and call it a toga," Isley said.
"I'd rather not dress like Nero, thank you." Crane replied.
"Then wear tomatoes. I don't care."
Grinding his teeth, the Scarecrow threw the empty lasagna pan in the sink. Then he stomped upstairs to the linen closet. He stripped off his soiled shirt, threw it on the floor, and selected a towel. Trying to ignore the fact that it featured a floral design, Crane did as Ivy recommended. He wasn't about to go and check in the mirror, but he supposed he probably looked quite like a gayer than usual Tiberius.
Slouching around in his floral toga, the Scarecrow was unsure of what to do. He didn't want to go downstairs where Ivy and Harley could laugh themselves into a coma over his new and far-from-scary look, but he didn't want to remain in close proximity to whatever creatures lurked in Ivy's room. Finally the fear of unknown life forms won him over and he decided to see what sad polar bear pictures Al Gore was using.
Mercifully for Crane, Ivy and Harley had left the living room and were distracted at the front door. Bud and Lou had finished the lasagna and had come seeking their matriarch. The drooling duo was attacking the door, their claws scraping at the paint, and raising a racket. Ivy was shouting for Harley to get them back in the shed before she had them composted, and Harley was begging Red to let the Babies in because it wasn't right to keep them locked up like criminals. The Scarecrow took control of the TV, tried to block out Ivy's fury, Harley's pleading, and the hyenas' yapping.
Switching off Al Gore in the middle of a spiel about boiling frogs, Crane channel-surfed for something scary. Ivy didn't have a great deal to offer in the way of programming. Asides from Harley's cartoon channels, most of the shows seemed to be about nature. The idea of watching grass grow didn't strike Crane's fancy, and neither did a program on how bio-diesel came to be.
"Get them out to the shed before I get my crossbow!" Ivy roared.
The Scarecrow hastily turned the channel back to Al Gore. Poison Ivy, it seemed, was a great deal more frightening than anything he was likely to find on the screen. He didn't want her to bring that shrieking wrath down on him next.
Ivy slammed the door, presumably shutting Harley and the hyenas out. She stalked back into the living room, her anger rising from her in almost visible waves.
"You let them out of the shed."
"No, they broke out. And they knocked me over, slobbered on me like a chew toy, and made me filthy," Crane replied.
For one moment it appeared like Ivy was going to get the crossbow, but then she pushed the Scarecrow over and sat down on the couch. She sighed loudly. Crane tried not to look at her, lest she think he was ogling her or something.
"Harley should be occupied for a while. She's actually going to tell those things a bedtime story! Can you imagine it, Crane?"
"Yes, actually. I lived with Harley and the Joker for weeks. They weren't nice weeks, but I did learn more about the both of them than I ever desired to. For instance, never let the Joker cook his own meals. He burns the curtains."
Ivy sighed again, this time without so much rage. "Do you want to get started, Toga-boy?"
"Started on what?" Crane asked. He hardly avoided tacking on some insidiously stupid plant-themed nickname, like 'Veggie Woman' or 'Tuber-lass'. The thought of Ivy concocting a nickname he hated more than Johnny the Mop Man restrained him.
"On killing the Joker, of course! What did you think I was talking about, a memoir?"
The Scarecrow said, "If we did write memoirs, I think they'd be best-sellers. The next time I find myself staring at the wall in Arkham, I'll pen my life's story."
"Great. Don't send me a copy and make sure it's printed on recycled paper or I'll find you. Now, do you want to get to work?"
"Absolutely."
The Scarecrow and his new partner in crime turned the kitchen into their war room. They each took a chair and began to ponder the many logistical problems involved with murdering one of the most feared men in the world.
"He's doubtlessly back in Arkham, so I suppose we should wait for him to escape. Breaking into Arkham poses a whole set of problems, and there are a few people there I am not particularly eager to see anytime soon," Crane said.
"All right, that's a good idea. We'll wait for the clown to get out. It probably won't be long. I don't suppose you know if Batman broke any of his bones, do you?" Ivy asked.
"I wouldn't be surprised if the clown's on life support. I've seen the Batman angry, but he looked like someone had pissed in his bat-Cheerios. I don't suppose Harley and I escaping put him in a better mood."
"So we should have at least days to finalize this. Maybe weeks. Oh, I hope that abusing swine's in unbearable pain," Ivy said.
"I don't normally find myself rooting for Batman, but I hope he administered the single most savage beating ever recorded."
"Knocked that hideous grin right off the clown's face."
"Kicked his teeth in."
"Ruptured his spleen."
"Snapped him in half like a tw- I mean a potato chip."
"Nice save. Let's forget about what Batman did to him and concentrate on what we're going to do to him. At least for a little while. We can go back to fantasizing later."
The door banged open and a dejected Harley crawled in. "The Babies are sleepin'. Are you sure they can't share my room, Red? Red? Where'd you go?"
Harley soon spotted the missing botanist in the kitchen, her face only inches from Professor Crane's. The two of them looked deeply engaged. They were whispering like a pair of conspirators or Russian spies and an alarming fervor glowed in their eyes. Mister J got that look when he had a real good plan hit him out of the blue.
"Uh, are you guys plottin' something?" Harley asked cautiously.
"No! Of course not, Harley," Ivy said hastily.
"No. Of course not," Crane mimed. Ivy glared at him for being dense.
Before Harley could ask any more questions, Ivy grabbed Crane's hand and yanked him from the table. They were out of the room and up the stairs in seconds. Harley heard a door upstairs slam shut.
They were definitely going to shag.
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Author's Notes:
Pavlov trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a ringing bell. I suspect he lived a lonely life and had a lot of spare time.
Bruschetta is an Italian dish made with grilled bread, garlic, olive oil, and then any number of toppings such as tomatoes, cheese, or peppers.
That is a real episode of SpongeBob. It's titled Rock Bottom.
OJ Simpson, Robert Blake, and Hugo Selenski were all acquitted of murder, despite some dissenting opinion from the public.
The Roman emperor Tiberius liked little boys. Let's leave it at that.
In An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore explains that a frog placed into very hot water will hop right out while a frog placed in cool water that is slowly heated won't realize what's going on until it's cooked. Or rescued, as he hopes. The boiled frog is a metaphor for people not seeing danger if the danger amasses gradually, like global warming.
Next chapter will feature the Joker.