The Doonkelshtump Hits the Fan – Chapter 6

Roger Doofenshmirtz sat in a stark, stone cell in the depths of some forgotten dungeon of justice in the city of Paris. He was wearing a dowdy, homespun dress, and his face still showed random pencil lines and bits of residue from the old age makeup that had been clumsily removed from him by the gendarmes. His brown hair was a terrible mess – honestly, if they were going to pull the gray wig off of him, they could at least have lent him a comb. Roger had kept most of his late mother's personal possessions, not only the significan and sentimental ones, but even the most mundane, because he simply couldn't bring himself to dispose of them. It wasn't as if he'd had the foresight to know how useful they would become, but ultimately he had realized that her clothes, her passport, her very identity could help him out if matters got sticky for him. It was almost as if Mother was still watching over him from Beyond.

He might have pulled off the deception if he'd only been dealing with the police. But two representatives of the Global League of Investigative Bureaus had intercepted him coming off the plane in Paris: a German with an affable smile and steely eyes, and a stone-faced Finn who sounded like a Scandinavian version of that "Termination" fellow from the movies. The GLIB agents packed a DNA scanner, and it would have taken more time and preparation (not to mention some help from a more scientific mind) for him to fool that.

The iron bars of the old fashioned jail cell separated him from a whitewashed office area where two gendarmes and another agent of GLIB were stationed. They stood and sat and drank coffee and spoke French to each other, but always kept at least two pairs of eyes on him. Another agent had stopped by briefly to consult with the men on duty, and with him had been what appeared to be a mongoose in a fedora. The sight reminded Roger of Guiserblint's claim that an ostrich in a fedora had absconded with the Queen of Drusselstein. What was this sudden craze for stylish headwear on animals?

Perhaps he should have just let Baldegunde go. Except he couldn't be sure of how much of his scheme she might have puzzled out. Of course, if Guiserblint had just eliminated her in the first place, the way he was supposed to, they would all be sitting pretty. Well, he reconsidered, as long as that doofus-head DOOFAS Head Zengle could have kept himself out of the European celebrity tabloids for a week or two. Seriously, this would have gone so much better if Roger could have done everything himself.

When had the first germ of this plot sprouted in his mind? Probably not long after Mother had passed, leaving him rudderless and feeling his age. The Tri-State Area had already grown dull to him. Being Mayor had its perks, but there was really nowhere to go. For a day or two he had flirted with the idea of a run for President. But what was the point? It was just being Mayor again on a bigger stage, and with more problems, not only keeping the voters happy, but battling with Congress and those pesky Justices. It was too bad he couldn't just have his own country…

Guiserblint had given him the first solid idea. Roger had gone to his birthplace to accept some accolade, and the Drusselsteinian Minister of Foreign Affairs had buttonholed him after the formal banquet and started bending his ear. The man had consumed a little too much fermented goat's milk and blathered without discretion about how wretched his life had been ever since the Queen had come of age and ascended to the throne. Back in the days when she was an orphaned teenage Princess, Baldegunde had cared mostly about clothes and cute boys, and Guiserblint had enjoyed free reign over the country. Oh, yes, technically he had been just a glorified servant, but the Princess was young and naïve and Guiserblint kindly took care of all those bothersome royal decisions for her. Then, the man lamented, after all his hard work she had had the nerve to grow up and start taking her duties seriously and asking questions and doing things for the good of the people and it was just all too much for him to stomach. Queen Baldegunde was so aggravatingly nice, she had actually, with her own regal hands, baked doonkelberry pies for the Drusselsteinian Orphans' Home.

Roger would swear to the end that it was Guiserblint who had first mused on how much better things would be if Baldegunde took a tumble off the tallest tower of the castle.

The next day of that visit, Roger Doofenshmirtz had been feted by the Amalgamated Syndicate of Doonkelberry Growers, as the DOOFASes were then known. Their president, Mr. Zengle, had confided to him that the global doonkelberry market was lagging and could really use some creative ideas to promote the fruit to foreign buyers. Roger had feigned interest but dismissed the concern as soon as he was on his way back to Danville. Then a week or two later, he'd been out on that piece of property Mother had left him, pondering a use for it and wondering what sort of golf course it would make, when he had found that odd glowing pebble. He hadn't known at first what it was, but a little research had prompted him to dig through every drawer in his house to find that old contraption of Heinz's that he'd ended up with, and a couple of late-night expeditions with the pizzazium locator had yielded results beyond his wildest dreams. Roger Doofenshmirtz was sitting on the world's biggest lode of pizzazium infinionite, and no one knew…

From that point, it was hard to reconstruct what had happened next, and which pieces of the puzzle had been the first to fall into place. Getting the pizzazium out of the ground without alerting any meddling authorities had been a challenge until the night Roger had ventured into the depths of the City Hall basement in search of the Tri-State Area property records and had discovered the little blue men living in the catacombs. Roger had been as ignorant of them as anyone, but the friendly little fellows had told him how they had been brought to the shining city of Danville a century or so ago by Billy Bonka the Candy Maker. It had been decades since the candy factory had closed, and years since they had been released from its old site, but the Badinkadinks were still around, living in one basement or another, eating the weeds from vacant lots and longing for the good old days of useful employment. They had leapt at the offer of mining pizzazium in exchange for a steady diet of fresh doonkelberry plants, and Roger Doofenshmirtz had become their hero. He trusted them more than any human workers he could have hired. Billy Bonka and his legendary factory had been dead and gone for fifty years, but his loyal blue minions still refused to divulge even a hint of the candy maker's secrets.

Zengle had been pushing the idea of a doonkelberry miracle fuel for a year or two with no success (and no fuel). Guiserblint was easily worked into a blissful dither by the prospect of overthrowing the Queen, not to mention the promise of pizzazium-fueled weapons that would make Drusselstein the envy of Europe. Of course, the Minister thought the revolution was all his idea, and assumed that he would be left in charge when it was done. Roger knew that Melanie would be onboard with him whatever he proposed, and when he needed a scientific mind to figure out how to power the city off a lump of pizzazium in the depths of a fake Doonkenol plant, Cousin Narthelliot had been surprisingly helpful. Roger hesitated to call the man a genius, but he was smart enough to handle the technology, and sufficiently unscrupulous to play along. Best of all, he didn't argue or try to take things over, and was unlikely to blow everything to bits, literally or figuratively. In other words, he wasn't Heinz.

Ambrose Petersen had been a bit of an afterthought, and Melanie never had been enthusiastic about bringing him in. Roger was aware, however, that the reporter idolized him, and reasoned that Petersen would be more easily controlled working inside the office than writing for the Daily Danville. A little well-placed corporate glad-handing on the Mayor's part had hastened the extinguishing of the local newspaper, and the unexpected good luck of Mrs. Petersen dreaming of an extended maternity leave from WJOP's newsroom was just icing on the cake. Ambrose, himself, had been a dream come true – every little favor Roger did for him, every bit of interest the Mayor showed in his dear charming family, just bound the grateful young man closer. Melanie and Narthelliot knew Roger too well, and Zengle and Guiserblint were too blinded by their own ambitions to care, but bless his heart, Ambrose Petersen actually believed that Mayor Roger Doofenshmirtz was a Knight in Shining Armor devoted to saving the world by any means necessary.

Yes, Roger sighed, it was a pity matters had reached this point for him, dressed like Mother and sitting in a cell. It would have been nice to be the Supreme Ruler of Drusselstein. He would have paid his idealistic young acolyte handsomely to come with him. Ambrose Petersen would have made a splendid Minister of Propaganda.

To be concluded…