The Gray House

“Damn Shark couldn’t be pried off the phone,” Raptor said to Ralph as if taking him into confidence. “Forty minutes! Booger’s daddy is eating me alive, and the old codger keeps babbling nonsense into the dead receiver. Ain’t that a riot?”

“What did he want?” Ralph said, accepting that one way or the other he’d have to listen to the whole story.

“Who?”

“Booger’s father.”

“A graduation certificate, what else! What do all of them want when they start that whole song and dance about quality of education? ‘I don’t care where you get it from, that’s your problem, you should have warned us that you were running a school for retards here,’ all that crap.”

Raptor rubbed his forehead.

“Boogy brought his old man a copy of the question booklet. So this buffalo keeps waving the goddamned sheet in front of my face, roaring so loud you could hear him two blocks away. Wants to know how come most of our students botched the answers to those questions. And what am I supposed to tell him? When the hardest one in there is ‘Austria is located in a. Europe, b. Asia’? And to top it off, those disgusting little Pheasants of his”—he nodded at Homer, who blinked guiltily—“are right there next to us, tossing out Latin proverbs and happily citing philosophers of antiquity.”

Homer moaned, loudly and defiantly, sending Sheep scrambling.

“Then,” Raptor went on, winding himself up, “Cupcake’s mom takes that splotchy little scrap from Booger’s daddy, acquaints herself with its contents, and starts an inquest, for what possible reason these boys here”—Raptor switched to a high-pitched voice—“these two gentlemen, who have just displayed an astonishingly high level of intellect, could have failed this, the most straightforward of tests.”

Ralph couldn’t help himself and smiled.

“So, how did they wiggle out of it?”

“Wiggle out?” Raptor said. “Pheasants? They didn’t! They just sat there ogling us and smirking! I was the one who had to do all the wiggling. For everyone, because Alf here decided to keel over and play dead!”

“It was a heart attack,” Homer protested. “I really could have died. There was not an ounce of deceit!”

“Yeah, right.” Raptor nodded. “Of course not. One’s clutching his chest, the other his phone. Guess who’s left to deal with the mess?”

“If you ask me,” Sheriff growled from his perch, pointing at Homer, “it’s all his fault. There’s no call to be pushing his Pheasants everywhere. They’d give anyone the willies. Now take my Ratlings, they make sense whenever they open their mouths.”

“I see, so that’s why their mouths are always hanging open,” Darling interjected. “And their eyes are closed. And their heads are twitching.”

“Right, that’s what I’m talking about,” Sheriff said, unfazed. “Just the ticket.”

Homer, wearing a deeply haunted look, swallowed a couple of pills and took a swig out of the mug brought over by Sheep.

“Coffee? Tea?” Sheep addressed the assembly.

Before anyone could answer, Shark came in. His suit was rumpled, the tie hung askew, but overall he was unusually bright and businesslike. Godmother followed right behind him.

Shark went to the table, poured himself some water, drank it up, looked around the room with the air of a commander before the final battle, and announced, “The topic of today’s discussion is graduation.”

Ralph thought that Shark couldn’t be anything but disheartened by what he saw. His hastily assembled putative army was in disarray. Homer, even after having pulled the cold pack off his head, cut a pitiful figure. Raptor, with his twisted tie and vacant stare, wasn’t much better. Sheriff, perched on the windowsill, brought to mind Humpty-Dumpty just before that great fall. Flustered Sheep imitated a pincushion. Darling, as always, overdid it while applying her makeup; the result was a teenager on her first trip to a nightclub.

And still this motley gang, as idiotic-looking as it is, is my pack, Ralph thought. Or whatever can be called my pack. I am one of them.

Godmother was alone among those in the break room in having a presentable appearance. Trim, collected, resembling an aging French actress, she took position behind Shark, arms crossed, and the shoulder pads of her gray suit seemed tailor-made for military patches.

“So. Graduation,” Shark repeated meaningfully. “At our last meeting I called upon all of you to give this issue some serious thought and prepare suggestions.” Shark thrust his hands in the pockets, rocked on his heels, and added, “I shall now hear those suggestions.”