Chapter 2 : Working Out The Kinks Later…
It was the next morning when it began. Down a sunny, window-lined corridor Alois skipped like he was as innocent as a buttercup in a golden field. He failed to notice a tall and dark shadow brooding in the corner, running a feather duster obsessively down a blue marble vase as it watched him pass by. Alois halted mid-skip as he realised that something in the corner of his vision was out of place. He turned slowly, eyes wide, but broke into a smile as he realised it was Claude.
"Ahh! There you are! So how're you feeling? No side effects?" the boy came up to lean on the vase stand. He noticed Claude's dedication had him emersed in his work, and it took him a few seconds to answer.
"I am in perfect health, Your Highness. Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you this morning," Claude spoke quietly, then crouched down on level with the vase stand. He was checking for dust.
"Nah," Alois bent down to look at Claude from across the stand. He tried to get attention, but Claude was busy glaring at the one spec of dust still clinging to the side of the vase.
"Tenacious little thing," the butler muttered to himself. Rising to his full height, he straightened his glasses with a rub to the bridge of his nose. He glared at the spot Alois presumed the dust spec was, and suddenly began twirling the duster over the vase at top speed. The action was so quick it looked almost mechanical. Stranger still, the demon's gold eyes were lit up with a dust-hating passion. Glasses flashing white, he glared down at the vase as if he were actually exterminating vermin.
Alois thought he better leave before he ruined Claude's cleaning rhythm. He was also a little creeped out. But as he turned to go, an unnaturally smooth, haunting voice sung to him over his shoulder, "…Boy's and girls of every age…wouldn't you like to see something strange?...Come with us and you will see… this, our town of Halloween."
"What the hell…" Alois turned to see Claude smiling down at him. He shuddered deeply, "Uh, Claude…did you just sing to me?"
"No, Your Highness," Claude smiled pleasantly as if all were well, then returned to his dusting. It seemed he didn't even realise what he had just done.
A more cautious boy would have noticed the undercurrents of five different levels of creepy going on here, but as it was Alois we are talking about, the persistent shaking of his hands and chill down his spine were arrogantly ignored. He had eyes to gouge and visitors to insult. There was no time to waste worrying about the unearthly breeze that rustled through his hair and whispered inaudible promises of doom. Doom! DOOM!
"Ah, shut up," Alois grumbled lazily, and he continued skipping down the hall.
Claude watched his master go as he kept humming a tune under his breath he didn't recall learning the words to.
That day, some time after Alois had sent the milkman running towards the hills screaming, "Monster child!" whilst holding his bleeding hand and a severed finger, Claude was serving his master and their latest guest tea on the front lawn of the estate. Alois couldn't quite put his finger on it, ahem, but there was something slightly off about his butler's service. Was it the way Claude jabbered his given orders at close to the speed of sound? Perhaps it was it the eerie manner in which he grinned to Alois as he poured the teapot, not even looking while the tea stream entered the cups dead on centre? Or was it the way he tore up the lawn as he ran back and forth in the fast forward version of demon's speed? Who knew.
Alois rested in a slovenly pose at a round little table, his face the epitome of disinterest. He didn't bother to pay attention to his guest, who sat opposite him and spoke on and on about some business prospect a young earl like Trancy could use his vast fortune on to make even bigger bucks with, "Honestly, there's nothing to it. Leave the investing to me. If you just aim for 3% quarterly-"
"Your Highness!" Claude burst out, seemingly on the verge of a mental implosion, "Please, allow me to correct your blunder."
"What?"
"Don't you see? You have a hair out of place," Claude gushed, and before anyone could stop him, he lunged forward and pinched a tiny, two-inch hair that rested stray from Alois' fringe, and smoothed it back into place.
Alois hadn't even noticed the hair. And he didn't appreciate his butler leaning into his private space like this, so he slapped Claude's smiling face away. For a moment, Claude seemed to realise he had committed a blunder of his own. He moved back, looking embarrassed. With a touch of his gloved hand, he felt the smarting heat of the slap sear across his flat cheek, and appeared deeply troubled by it.
"Claude," Alois snapped.
"Yes, Your Highness?"
"Get back here, Alois' voice was serious, "I know what's gone wrong just now."
Claude leaned forward, only to receive an unceremonious slap to the other side of his face. Their lone guest first recoiled at the harsh treatment, but was stunned at the butler's reaction; a dreamy smile grew across the man's face!
As Claude felt both of his freshly beaten cheeks, he breathed gratefully, "Why, you're right! I was uneven. Thank you, Your Highness."
The guest observed the butler bow and walk away with a spring in his step. He concluded the man had not one but many screws loose, then turned to his host, who scowled, "What are you looking at!" and tossed the teapot lid at his face.
Rubbing his nose, the man announced the afternoon was getting late, and he had other places he needed to visit. Of course, none of them would be as wonderful as the Trancy estate and its company, but he would solider on bravely.
As the man almost power-walked down the mansion driveway, Alois hissed under his breath, "Bloody freak."
"Yes Your Highness, he is quite asymmetrical," Claude spoke calmly, but he startled Alois with a sudden cry, "He must be perfected!"
"Wha-Claude, stop!" Alois bolted up in his chair, his sudden jerk almost sending him backwards.
Claude immediately halted, and dashed forward to align the teacups Alois had upset. The boy stared in horror, unable to take his eyes off the giant battleaxe Claude had resting over his shoulder. Its blade was a solid head of dark metal, its handle was as tall as a man, and it had come from the highest bracket of the armoury. You couldn't even reach it, let alone lift it, without the help of a steady ladder and three strong men. But Claude had obviously dashed there and back in under ten seconds.
"C-Claude…what are you doing with that axe?"
"That man has one of his shoulders two millimetres higher than the other. He must be evened out, so I am going to shave off the extra bone."
"What?"
"Oh, do not worry, Your Highness. I will be precise. Or else, failing that, I will cleave a little more off his other shoulder to even out any mistakes. Excuse me," Claude bowed deeply, managing to keep the massive battleaxe by his shoulder without the slightest effort. He rose and bounded towards the departing man. The poor fellow had no idea what was coming at him.
"CLAUDE!" Alois screeched, and that did make the man turn around. He squinted in the distance to see the Trancy brat howling while his uniformed butler obediently attended to him. The man heard the boy cry, "I spilt the sugar, see!" then rolled his eyes and slipped through the open gates to reach his chestnut mount. He rode away without ever knowing how close he'd come to getting anaesthetic-free surgery.
Back on the lawn, Alois huffed in relief, "Yes, that's right, clean up that sugar. That's a good butler."
Alois curled up apprehensively in his chair, knowing the only thing he could have done to stop Claude in his tracks was to upset the aesthetics of the tea table. Claude had raced back to his master the moment he heard the cry, and so when the man turned around he had missed seeing Claude, poised for the attack.
Now Alois watched Claude's frame move smoothly as he bent over the little table to scoop up every last crystal of white, and pour it back where it belonged.
"Your Highness should not eat this now; it has been tainted. I shall go to the pantry to fetch some more-"
"Whoops! Oh, look how clumsy I am. I spilt it a second time," Alois gave a fake smile.
"No matter, I shall fix this," Claude laid down his axe and carefully scooped the spilt sugar into its porcelain bowl. But no sooner than he'd done so, Alois tipped the bowl over again.
And so the sugar war began; Alois tipped and Claude scooped. The young master started to see the entertainment value in this game. It certainly granted him plenty of attention, and it was sure to make Claude snap…eventually? But no, Claude was obsessed, and every time the sugar was tipped he delighted in gathering it up in his gloved palms and pouring it back into its bowl. Somehow, with demonic perfection, he managed to recover every fallen crystal in less time than it took Alois to tip the bowl over. Now that was efficiency. Alois' smile drooped to frown, and after a few minutes of the game he realised they could be at this all day. Claude was loving it.
"Yes, back to where you should be," the butler muttered in a caressing tone as he emptied his hands for the ninetieth time.
Alois let out a sigh of frustration, "Claude, what's come over you?"
Claude broke from his trance to look up, "Your Highness, ever since this morning, I have realised that I, as a demon butler, could be doing so much more. My standards have been sloppy, and I apologise. But they will be so no longer! I aim to become the model of efficiency. Have you noticed my efforts?"
"Uh, yes, but don't you think you're overdoing things just a little bit?"
Claude broke into a dramatic, rapid-spoken rant that Alois could barely catch, "Why walk at a human pace when you can run at a demon's pace? Why pour tea at a normal rate when you can serve ten guests in as much time? Why iron the linen once a day when you can iron it three times over? Why roast uneven vegetables, when you can cut them into identical lengths and widths? Why serve as a mere butler when you can serve as a demon butler? Your Highness, I plan to be the spirit of perfection!"
Alois sat speechless. What could one say to that? Claude stood on the spot, his neat freak-induced high rocking him back and forth.
"Uh, Claude, acting like you have to pee real bad is not the spirit of perfection…"
Claude immediately went as stiff as a board. Alois drew his face his to palm and let out a grumble. How could he wake this fool up, before he decided to chop his own fingers down to even lengths, and alphabetise the order in which the triplets moved around the house?
Alois knew what had to be done. He seized the sugar bowl. Slowly, to draw out Claude's pain, he held it on its side from a height. This time the crystals spread all over the table and some even bounded over the edge. Claude grew wide-eyed as he realised; some of those crystals could never see the likes of a clean sugar bowl again. Alois took a spoon and flattened the pyramid of white granules that had piled up on the table. He spooned some up and flicked it over their guest's cold tea, then stood and scattered a handful of sugar over the grass as if he were sowing grain. He spoke solemnly, "Claude, see this? Nothing is perfect."
Alois dusted his hands clean and strode off coolly, leaving Claude to sulk over the mess. The devastation was evident in his golden eyes. With no one around to see him, he fell to the ground a broken man. While running his hands through the tainted sugar, he muttered, "'Nothing is perfect'…if that is so…if I cannot reach perfection….then I must take pride in the things I am best at. Yes, that is the way to which I shall endeavour. I shall not fail."
It was now that an unsettling smile crept across Claude's face.
Notes: Claude, what are you thinking of now? I don't trust that face! I am stumped...Can you guess?
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