Mabel and Teek's Excellent Adventure

Chapter 8

"I," rumbled the Goblin King in his great soft tiger-purr of a voice, "am the Goblin King!"

"Kin-n-n-nda had that one figured," Mabel said, surveying his thin face with its high cheekbones, sharp chin, interestingly slanted eyebrows (a wide V that gave his eyes a guarded yet sharp look), and his head of fascinatingly long and ragged blond hair. "So hi, I'm Mabel, this is T.K., who we call Teek, that means 'goblin slayer' in our language—"

"No it doesn't!" the Goblin King shot back, cocking his left hip and putting his left palm on it, like a lady in a Victoria's Secret commercial, or maybe one for a medicine to control an iffy bladder. "It's a pidgin English-Hindi word meaning 'feeling well,' or 'in good health!' As in 'You look teek today, Aakashi!' Or in street slang, it's a verb meaning 'to intentionally and frequently confuse someone in order to make them lose their temper!' Or if it's spelled t-e-a-k, it's a kind of dense hardwood frequently employed in boatbuilding, shower stalls, and other occasions demanding a waterproof substance."

"Freeze!" snarled Teek, who had leveled the crossbow again.

"Now you're just teeking me!" the Goblin King growled. He struck a slightly different pose, left foot out front, heel raised, toe on the floor, right leg to the rear, knee flexed. He raised his chin and snapped his fingers at about the level of his eyes, and the weapon poofed into billows of pink vapor that smelled like parakeets.

"Whoa!" Mabel said, her voice full of admiration. "How do you, like, do that? I used to be able to do something similar when I ruled Mabel Land—long story, I was the absolute queen, except I called myself 'mayor'—but I didn't snap my fingers. I did it by clapping my hands over my head, like this."

She demonstrated, and suddenly Teek held not a crossbow, but a formidable jet-black Heckler & Koch MP5, one of the best-engineered submachine guns in the world, capable of firing 800 9-mm rounds per minute, except its banana magazine held a maximum of thirty, but it could fire 800 a minute if it had them, and you have to admit that's pretty darned impressive.

A startled Teek flinched and dropped the firearm.

Contrary to narrative conventions, it did not go off.

"Stop that this instant!" snapped the Goblin King to Mabel. "You cannot perform magic in my realm!"

"Well, looks like I just did, sucka!" Mabel said. "Huh! Hey, Teek! If I'd known earlier, I could have just zapped us to wherever Little Soos is. Let me try—"

Hastily, the Goblin King shouted, "NO! No, no, no! No, you don't! I hereby pass a new law: No one but me is able to use magic or to cause things to appear or vanish in my world." He snapped his fingers and the submachine gun morphed into a bright-green gecko that briefly attempted to sell them insurance, to no avail. It crept off into a corner, defeated.

"Here you go, little guy!" Mabel carefully picked the lizard up and helped it up to the ledge of the room's one open window, and looking grateful, it scuttled out into the yellow sunlight. Then she turned back to the tall man. "Now, look, Goblin King—wait a minute, that's crazy, you can't be that. You're not even a goblin."

The Goblin King stood straighter and insisted, "Yes, I am!"

"No, you're not!" Teek said. "Goblins are fat and stupid and smelly!"

"I'm a goblin by abduction!" he said, beginning to look irritated. Well, more irritated. Irritation was his ground state.

Mabel shook her head. "Yeah, Teek's right! You can't be a goblin by aberration, or whatever you said, and also if you were the king, you'd use the royal we! And you'd be a real actual goblin! And you're not!"

"Well—I—we could be one if I wanted to be!"

"Who in his right mind would want that?" Mabel asked. "From what we've seen, goblins are third-rate toad skins stretched over globs of rancid animated chicken fat! Yuck!" Then in a coo, she added, "No, sweetie, stay just the way you are. I gotta admit, you're hot as a human, but as a goblin you'd be like, blarrgggh!" She mimed sticking a finger down her throat.

Looking unsure about whether or not he'd been complimented, the Goblin King unbent enough to say, "Well, ah, thank you—as to species, you must understand that the goblins abducted me long ago from my father and mother and raised me as one of their own to be their king—"

"Must be where the Gnomes picked up the habit," Mabel told Teek. "They wanted to make me their queen, but they got a badger instead. I'm OK with that. She's nice."

"I am trying to explain!" the Goblin King said.

Mabel turned back to him, stabbing her finger at him. "So that's why you want Little Soos! You're gonna make him your heir! Boy, have you got the wrong guy. Take a look at his dad, and you'll see he's not cut out for kinging, gene-wise. Maybe he could be the castle maintenance guy or the handyman, but king? Whoa, babes, you got a wrong number that time! You need to shop around more. Take my advice, find a prep school for snooty rich guys to find your heir. Nice hair, by the way!"

"I have no need for an heir! I do not intend to resign, and I'm still young! For a goblin, I mean! And thanks for mentioning the hair, it takes simply ages to get it right. What was I saying? Oh, yes, I was simply—wait a minute, you're deliberately confusing the issue! Mortals, why have you come unto this—"

"To get Little Soos and bring him back home!" Mabel said. "Let's cut to the chase here."

He stared at her, unbelief written on his face (that is a metaphor; actually it was an eye-bugging, eyebrow-raised, wrinkle-browed expression that clearly said either "I don't believe you!" or, more colloquially, "Say whaaaa-?" No actual script on his flesh.). "You didn't let me finish!"

In exchange, Mabel tilted her head and gave him her squinty-eyed "are you for real?" look. "What, did I commit noblesse oblige?" She wriggled her fingers like Stan always did when he was being sarcastic about some fancy-pants word or idea.

The Goblin King seemed to puff himself up like an indignant owl on the evening of January 20.* "You certainly did—no, wait, you didn't! You couldn't, because noblesse oblige refers to the responsibility of the upper classes to behave well toward their inferiors!"

"You sure?" Mabel asked, her expression dubious. "Then what was I thinking of?"

Sounding frantic, the Goblin King said, "I don't know! Um, perhaps lèse-majesté!"

"Doesn't sound right," Mabel insisted. "What's it mean?"

"It means teeking with a king!" the Gnome King exploded. "Like acting as though you knew what I was going to ask when you clearly could not have. Known. That!"

Mabel put her hands on her hips and stared him down. "Yeah? OK, Mr. Smarty, you were gonna ask 'Why have you come unto this my realm, and what do you seek?'"

"No, I wasn't," said the Goblin King, pouting.

"Oh, really?" Mabel asked, her voice poisonously sweet, like glycyrrhizin**. "Then what were you going to say?"

The Goblin King muttered, "Was gonna ask you if you wanted to try to win the baby back, is all."

"Yes, we do!" Teek said. "And before we start that, return my clothes!"

Striking another pose—shoulders thrown back, head lowered, right arm pointing toward them sternly—the Goblin King said, "Then you must prove yourself worthy—wait, what?"

Teek didn't flinch. "Your goblins stole my shoes and socks and shirt and pants!"

"And underwear!" Mabel added.

"Uh," Teek said, turning pink, "well, Mabel, uh, actually, uh . . . ."

Mabel hit him on the arm. "You were goin' commando? Teek, you scapegrace! Oooh, that's so hot, you bad boy, you!"

The Goblin King was turning pink, either from anger or from embarrassment or perhaps some unfortunate hybrid of the two. "Really, this is becoming quite tedious—"

Mabel clapped her hands together and rubbed them, like Grunkle Stan getting ready to fleece a rube. "Right, down to business. Where you got the baby stashed at, GK?" Mabel demanded.

The Goblin King attempted another pose, but apparently he had run through his repertoire. He settled for crossing his arms across his chest and scowling. "That is disrespectful! You can't call me that!"

Mabel said, "Well, 'Goblin King' sounds dorky!"

"It does not!"

"Does, too!" Teek said loyally.

The king of all the goblins looked as though he were about to suffer an aneurysm. "No, it doesn't! Oh, wait, though. What does 'dorky' mean? 'Impressive?'"

"Guess again," Mabel said. "Look, call me Mabel, call him Teek, and what's your name? Come on, we're all friends here."

He recoiled as though having just sat down to a banquet and having the waiter uncover a dish of boiled unskinned rat. "No, we are not!"

"Just because you won't give us a chance!" Mabel said. "I'm very lovable when you get to know me! Aren't I, Teek!"

"She sure is!"

Mabel kissed his cheek. "Later, hon!"

The Goblin King ran one hand through his long, shaggy hair, undoing about two hours of work by a Goblin hairdresser.*** "Look, please, will you get to the point if I tell you my name?"

"Yes!" both Teek and Mabel said in unison.

He sighed. "Very well. My name is Jahrkves."

Mabel fell to the floor, giggling like a rabid hyena and rolling around in a circle, her feet on the circumference, her head in the center. "Wah-hah!" she said at last, when she could finally talk. She sat up and wiped tears from her eyes. "Your name is Jerkface?"

"Jahrkves!" corrected the Goblin King. "It's a very ancient and honorable name! I was born fourteen hundred and fourteen years ago, and—"

"Mazeltov!" Mabel said, jumping to her feet. "Ooh, what day?"

"—in the land where I was born, Jahrkves was a perfectly respectable name—what? August 31, by your modern era's calendar, but that's completely beside the—"

"No! Freaking! Way!" Mabel yelled. "Shut up! Me, too! And my brother! We were born on August 31! What a coincidence!" She paddled her hands around each other between the two of them "What is happening here?"

"Really?" Teek asked her. "Last day of August?"

"Yeah, really!" Mabel said. "Oh, the party will be in the Shack, and you're invited, of course! Listen, all presents are gratefully accepted, but please, no perfume or anything that's scented, 'cause I have to be careful with my allergies. And you don't want to get Dipper started, he sneezes like a kitten—"

Jahrkves slapped a palm over his face. "I will say this only once!" he said. "I have the baby you seek! I hold him captive up in the topmost chamber of this tower! I will take one of you up—"

"Both of us!" Teek said, balling his fists, which were swelling a little. Goblin heads are not the softest things to punch.

"THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!" Jahrkves thundered.

"You can't take two, can you?" Mabel asked. "You're not strong enough!"

"I could too take both of you if I wanted to!" Jahkves said, stamping his foot.

"You're bluffing!" Mabel said. "As a magician, you suck!"

"I'm telling you I could!"

Mabel stuck her tongue out at him. "Nuh-uh!"

"I could, I could, I could!"

"Hah! Big talk! Maybe you can prove it!"

"Well, maybe I will!"

"Yeah, I'll bet!"

The Gnome King's face was turning purple, like a nearly-ripe eggplant. "I could do it! I am deeply learned in the mystic ways, since I am fourteen hundred and fourteen years old—"

"Fourteen hundred and fifteen on the last day of August! Happy birthday!"

"Yes, well, um, thank you, but I was saying no man alive can match me in my knowledge of the tortuous ways of magic! I can call spirits from the vasty deep!"

"Name two!" Mabel snapped, interrupting him.

"—Bob and Ray! Where was I? For I have spent more than twelve hundred years studying the secrets of sorcery—"

Mabel giggled. "Man, your Social Security check must be enormous!"

Despairing, Jahrkves turned to Teek. "Listen, boy, could I just take you? By yourself? Get away from her for a while? Just us guys? Please?"

Teek shook his head. "Then I'd be in trouble with her, too. Look, dude, I feel you, but I think you'd better just give up and take us both."

A wise king knows when to retreat. Jahkves sighed and said, "Oh, very well!"

"Wait a minute!" Mabel said. "Give Teek back his clothes first! And make sure they're cleaned and pressed!"

"I'll do better than that," Jahkves said grimly. He snapped his fingers.

Teek's scarlet-and-saffron suit that Mabel had improvised from wall hangings vanished, replaced by a tight black T-shirt glittering with, on the back, small chrome studs spelling out "Born to Rune" and on the front a cool-looking bone-white appliqué of an evil skull that you just knew would glow in the dark. And the jeans—oh, man, the designer jeans, stretch denim, the legs slashed stylishly on the thighs and below the knees in just the right places, the seat hugging his seat like a long-lost sister—ew, that didn't come out right, say tight as a second skin—and black biker boots with zippers and chrome chains and more studs, these ones pyramidal and flashing in the light.

"Oooh, so—so tight!" Mabel said, stepping back and giving Teek a long, admiring gaze. "Mabel like!"

Jahkves sighed. "If you're quite ready, hold onto each other's—no, wait, you don't have to—I was going to say hold hands, but I suppose a full-body hug will do. Teenagers!" He snapped his fingers, and they all vanished simultaneously.

Dipper almost dropped the crystal ball. He had been cupping it in his left hand, catching the light from the window, and examining it through a six-inch magnifying glass.

He had noted its complete lack of scratches, its strange clarity, with no flaws, imperfections, or trapped bubbles—though it seemed to have polarizing qualities, because as he turned it, sometimes it darkened momentarily—and its unusually heavy feel, as if it were made of lead, not glass or crystal. Certainly it wasn't a polymer. Nothing man-made.

And then, as he revolved it, and too fast for him to be absolutely sure what he was seeing, Mabel and Teek momentarily resolved, as though he were looking through ball at a photo—no, a movie of them.

They were hugging each other. Tightly. And spinning, as if flying through the air. Mabel had evidently leaped onto Teek and clung there like a healthy squirrel on a sickly little sapling, her arms wrapped around Teek—and also her legs, with her heels tucked into the hollows behind his knees! And he was wearing the tightest jeans that Dipper had seen since the time Robbie Valentino had the accident with the big tub of scalding hot water at the world's cheapest fair.

It was just an instantaneous flicker, clear and then gone, but Dipper clenched the crystal tight enough to break it if he'd had the strength of Superman. He didn't, so nothing happened.

"Mabel," Dipper said aloud, "what have you got yourself into now?"

The ball did not answer, which was probably just as well, because Dipper didn't feel like he could take another vision like that last one.

Oh, when he got hold of Mabel and Teek, he'd ask them both for an explanation, and he'd give Teek every benefit of the doubt, but if Teek was becoming another Trey Moulter—

No, no, no, he told himself. The first thing to do, the important thing to do, is find some way to get Mabel back!

THEN I can kill Teek, if necessary.

*January 20 is the evening before the feast day of St. Agnes, and according to John Keats's poem "The Eve of St. Agnes," the coldest day imaginable. Take a read. Keats was better at poems than titles.

**I am not making this up. Glycyrrhizin is an acidic component of licorice root and is sweeter than sugar. Though in moderate amounts it can inhibit the growth of liver tumors, it is also toxic and in a large enough dose can cause death by stroke by spiking blood pressure to drastically elevated levels. The more you know, the further you go!

***Goblins, even the females, have very little hair, but that does not prevent some of them from taking up the comb and shears and becoming adept at doing unto others what they can't do unto themselves. This is not unusual. Restaurants routinely hire cooks that have only a dim grasp of what heat does to food, and remember that history teacher you had who mixed up the dates of the Civil War and the Spanish-American War?