"Behold the countenance of vengeance!" proclaimed Mr. Neville Barclay
as he held his mask in one hand, and grinned triumphantly.
"Who the heck are you?" James said earnestly. "I've never seen you
before in my life."
"What?" roared Neville, "You and your heathen friends destroy my life,
and you don't even recognize me! This is unconscionable! I mean
what's the point of revenge if the people against whom you're seeking
revenge don't even realize who or why vengeance is being meted out
against them?"
Neville buried his face in his hands.
"Whoa! You're like Sideshow Bob on the Simpsons, but I swear I don't
know who you are, mister. Sorry," James said as the villain sobbed.
"You're sorry?" Neville said angrily raising his head up to stare in
disbelief at Jamie. His voice rose in intensity, "YOU ARE SORRY! Oh,
my boy, you have no idea how sorry you and your comrades will be!"
James glanced over at Zack and whispered, "Just like Sideshow Bob,
right, Zack?"
"Mmmhuh," mumbled Zack in assent.
This made the villain even angrier. He flailed his arms in the air
against unseen assailants. He roared unintelligibly.
At last he calmed down a bit, and spoke, "I am not this kid's cartoon
character of which you speak. Though I saw part of an episode with
this Sideshow Bob of whom you speak at the Sanitarium before the
orderly turned it off. Too violent, and not conducive to mental health
recovery, or so he said before he turned in professional wrestling."
Neville sighed.
"Though I suppose the years have not been kind to me, and I probably
do look like half the man I used to be. When you knew me, I still had
all my hair," he sighed. "I had tenure. I had a girlfriend. We were
engaged to be married. I even had a dog. But you little boys
conspired to take that all away from me. So, do you remember now?"
"Mrs. Pertwee?" James asked tentatively. The guy did sort of look
like his sixth grade teacher.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding? Do I look like a woman? Wait, do you
mean you nasty brats destroyed another tenured teacher's life, and
sent her to a sanitarium? Oh, I'm doing a greater service to humanity
that I realized. Here I thought I was just seeking a modicum of
justice for myself, but now I discover that you've destroyed countless
other lives. Alright, maybe not countless, but at least one other.
Tell me about Mrs. Pertwee?"
"Uh, she was our sixth grade teacher, but we were all pretty sure that
she used to be a he. You know like Mr or Mrs. Garrison on South Park.
She wore a big theatrical cape-coat, and carried a cane. She was too
tall to be a real woman, too gangly. Kinda like that giant model on
Tosh.0 the other night. Any chick that big has to be a guy, right?"
"Oh, the insensitivity," lamented Neville, "Do tell me more."
"Well, after they took her away in the ambulance. I never saw her
again. Mr. Turnbull took over classes for the rest of the school year
on October 1st. Though we did have a series of substitute teachers for
him. He was technically our sixth grade teacher."
"Villains," said Neville distastefully. "How many other teachers did
you vile little creatures go through over the years?" he asked.
James was had figured out that the man holding them was a former
teacher, but he didn't know who it could be. So he was stalling, if
this was like an episode of the Simpsons, then Lisa should arrive with
Chief Quimby and his policemen at any minute. He felt bad making up
all that stuff about Mrs. Pertwee. Mr. Turnbull had been his sixth
grade teacher. Pertwee had been the teacher the year before who
retired before they got there. She had been a short doughty woman.
James had instead imagined Dr. Who's Jon Pertwee in drag as he
described the teacher he had never had. He needed to string this
weirdo along until the guy either realized he had the wrong kids or
James figured out who he was.
"Er. You know I've never counted," James answered, "Lessee there was
Pertwee, and the O'Connell sisters. I can't remember which one walked
in front of the train and which jumped off the train bridge..." he
lied.
Neville had gotten a notebook and started writing. He had to get the
whole story before he did anything else. How many lives had these
monstrous children destroyed, beside his own?
"Suicides?"
"Uh, yeah, sure," said James caught off guard, "Suicides, right."
"Oh, please! They weren't suicides. You murdered those hapless sisters
who merely wanted to educate you unspeakable little children," his
voice reeked of disdain.
"Maybe you're more like one of the Harry Potter villains than the
Simpson villains," James said thoughtfully, "Definitely not a
Voldemort, but maybe a Snape or Malfoy...or..."
"Shut up! The villains you describe cannot compare to your own
villainy. They were fictional. You are real - though soon you'll be
fictions. I wonder, perhaps I've cast you and your friends all wrong.
No way should Andy be immortalized as Superman - maybe General Zod. I
think maybe I'll do over the Chamber of Horrors with each of you evil
boys redone as a wax monster. Art should reveal your true souls -
which I'm beginning to doubt you have."
"Ew, just don't do me as Ned Flanders as the Devil with doughnut-
headed Homer," said James. It felt as if the grip of Superman holding
him was starting to slip, maybe James' body heat was melting some of
the wax, or maybe the wax hand was separating from the wax wrist. He
struggled silently, as Neville harangued the air with epithets.
James was pretty sure that this guy knew who Sideshow Bob was, and
knew that he always failed in his dastardly vengeful plans. Just the
mention of the Simpsons sent him into a rage now. James figured he was
on the right track, but he still had no idea how to free his friends
or himself at this point. He needed a Lisa Simpson or another plot
device to get out of this. It might be too much to hope for that the
villain would reveal everything including how to defeat him and free
all his victims. Still, he was still ridiculing the Simpsons, if
James just pushed the right buttons, maybe, just maybe the villain
would undo himself. That's the way it always happened on TV right?