Read I, PENELOPE, CHAPTER II, The Touch, Part 2 :: CHAPTER III. Part 1. The Ferryman's Pole

I, Penelope

Amanda Hamlin

Chapter Three

The Ferryman’s Pole

Part I

I agree to meet Kendra and Julia at Café Café. Our favorite couch in the back has been taken by a group of vampire wanna-be college students with dyed black hair and black lipstick so I find the two of them perched awkwardly on the tall stools by the front window and looking mighty put out by the whole thing.

“Stupid bastards,” I hear Julia mutter as I drag another stool over to them. But then her sour expression changes to a sugary smile as she catches sight of me. “Why, Penelope, we’re so glad you could make it. We hardly ever see you anymore.”

“I’m not that busy. You guys don’t call me that much.”

“I know why she’s not busy.” Kendra is hunched over her plastic cup of diet coke, staring morosely into it like it’s a whiskey shot at a saloon.

“Yea, and I know why you’re so down in the dumps.”

“Because Sven is out of town,” Julia pronounces in a monotone, rolling her eyes. “I’ve had to listen to her,” she jerks her thumb at Kendra, “moon about it for the last fifteen minutes.”

“He’s on a cruise. It’s so romantic.”

“It’s a family reunion and he’s going under duress,” I point out dryly. “And who the hell has enough money to afford having a family reunion on a cruise ship anyway?”

“Really rich people, that’s who,” sighs Kendra dreamily.

“Well, it sounds like Penelope knows more about what’s Sven’s doing and thinking than you do,” warns Julia. We both glare at her, and she ignores us as she throws back her head and downs the remains of her drink in one gulp. “Let’s blow this joint. I want to go check out the new deals at The Carcass.”

The Carcass is our local used clothing store, with a sign that features a vulture ripping apart an old dress like carrion. I hate the place, even though it has a lovely smell like books in people's basements, because it's full of used prom dresses which, of course, Kendra immediately goes over to. With a cry of admiration, she pulls a shimmering, sea blue gown off the rack. It has a slanted neckline so that it's held up by a thick band on on shoulder and the other is strapless. To offset this, the skirt cascades to the floor on one side and is slit high on the other. She clasps the gown to her, as if it's her dancing partner. The iridescent blue looks fabulous against her skin, and I feel sick.

“Oh, I can just imagine dancing in this,” she sighs.

“With Sven,” Julia sneers. Kendra sighs even more deeply at the thought. “I don't know that Sven would even like that dress. I don't think you're showing enough leg.” Kendra makes a face at her. “Don't be so upset. There's an easy way to solve this.” Julia grins evilly. “Just ask Penelope. I'm sure she knows all about Sven's preferences now.” When Kendra shows no sign whatsoever of doing this, Julia asks me directly.

I keep my face turned away and sulk in wounded righteousness. “The day I can wear a dress like that, I'll comment on it. Until then, I won't even look at it.”

“Penelope, we know you're aggrieved but...”

“Nope, not listening. Here's what I'll be wearing that night.” I wave an old Iron Maiden concert T-shirt that I pulled out of the discount bin at them. Julia throws up her hands and turns her back on me. I check out my single purchase and then continue to pick through the discount bin, not because I expect to find anything else I want, but just to pretend like I'm doing something. It provides my mind with a very minimal distraction from my depression over the fact that I'll never get to wear a formal dress. Needless to say, my back has completely gone out by the time they get tired and decide to leave. Thankfully, they don't end up buying anything. The woman at the counter is kind of clueless and always takes forever to check people out.

Kendra suggests we go to the park, and I certainly have no objections. Once there, I stare dreamily at the leaves above my head as we lie in the grass and my thoughts wander back to the day I fell for Robert. It was a bitterly cold day in the middle of February. My parents had insisted I leave for class way earlier than normal because they were convinced, with the snow and ice, it would take more than an hour to go half a mile. Of course, they grossly overestimated the amount of time and I arrived at school quite a while before classes were to start.

Sighing, I turn onto my side as I sink deeper into the memory. In my mind's eye, I make my way to my first class (geometry) to kill time until it starts. When I arrive, I discover that several other people are in the same boat. Robert, Sven, and Timothy Kroke, our resident socially clueless savant, are also hanging around outside the classroom.

“This is getting boring,” cries Sven in exasperation as I walk up.

“How long have you been here?” I ask.

“Oh, hours. This is so stupid.”

“We could play chess.” Timothy pulls his mini portable chess set out of his backpack. Chess is one of the things Timothy is a genius about. He can also solve math problems just by looking at them though, sometimes, he doesn't actually do very well in class because, even though he always puts down the right answer, he can never explain how he got it. He also stutters when he speaks, only wears ratty sweat shirts, and always smells of urine. Because of his chess abilities, I'm reluctant to expose myself to the humiliation of losing (and because of his odor I'm reluctant to expose myself to the smell by sitting close to him). Sven, however, has no qualms and immediately sits down across from him. He doesn't last long so I have to step up and sacrifice myself to fill more time. If possible, I loose even more quickly.

Robert lounges back against the wall and mocks us the whole time. My face flushes with shame. Even though chess isn't my thing, I'm still embarrassed about losing, especially in front of people I know but not very well. Sven looks put out but tries another game. What makes it worse is that every time Timothy wins, he feels the need to give a stammering lecture about why we lost and exactly which wrong move (usually about two turns into the game) made the loss inevitable. Robert keeps laughing. When Sven loses a second time, he also loses patience. Grabbing Robert by the shoulders, he pushes him to the table and forces him to sit in the chair across from Timothy.

“Rob, sit in this chair, play chess...”

“And lose,” we both finish simultaneously. Admittedly, Robert is a much better chess player than either of us. He takes his time with his moves, pausing to examine the board and think each one through before making it. This, I think, is when I start to become interested in him. He's intelligent and not afraid to show it.

But he's no match for Timothy who, according to popular rumor, plays chess in his sleep. After loosing a few pieces, Robert appears to become agitated and starts muttering to himself. I can't quite catch what he says but it involves kung fu and cheese whiz. After he repeats it a high speed several times, the words run together and become kung fu cheese. This makes me laugh and I fall a little more. I can tell because I start tucking my legs under me when I sit and get a cramp.

“Is your strategy to be so annoying that the other person can't concentrate on what they're doing?” I ask. My budding attraction is making me start to feel antsy and I can't keep quiet.

“Yes, and it actually works.” Sven comes up behind Robert and hits him in the head (he also showed his true colors early). “Sven, don't do that again.”

“Hit him again,” I say and Sven promptly does.

“I'm warning you, if you do that again I will break your arm.” He doesn't let himself be trifled with, another point in his favor. Sven keeps trying to sneak up from behind and hit him. Robert is trying to keep an eye on him so he has his back to me and I hit him in the head. Obviously, I'm in deep at this point because that was basically just an excuse to make contact. Robert turns back around slowly and gives me a strange look then resumes the game, which takes a very long time to finish because, every few minutes, Sven hits Robert in the head and the two of them fight for a while.

Finally, Timothy gets Robert in check mate and announces the game is over. He looks like he's about to go into another lecture about Robert's failings, but Robert quickly holds up his hand to stop him. “Wait,” he says. “I'm going to make some chess god moves.” He begins switching pieces on the board and putting back pieces that had already been captured, all the while keeping up a running commentary about what he is doing that he is clearly completely making up on the spur of the moment. So, he's also incredibly creative. This is the last piece of the puzzle and, from that moment on, I love Robert.

******

After they finally manage to escape the ancient temple, very worn down and battered indeed, the party decides to limp back to the nearest town to rest and buy supplies. They're lucky to be alive at all because the final battle with the the giant “what?” magical lizard spirit who guarded the temple was a total disaster. All three of the various warrior class characters committed one of the cardinal blunders of D&D by buying only slashing weapons, which had very little effect on the creature's tough hide. They all seemed to think it was someone else's fault. The others should have taken the hit for the team by using a crushing weapon while they got to look cool swinging a big sword around. But the real problem was that Sven forgot to memorize his spells the night before the battle, which made him completely useless.

When they finally reach the town, I tell them there's a market going on to make things more interesting...also because Jeff broke his sword trying to use it like a club on the lizard and the town's too small for him to find a decent replacement if there isn't a market. I enjoy describing all the different stalls in the market (though they don't seem to appreciate my effort). In addition to the typical bread, cheese, soap, and wine vendors (and the required sword seller) I add a fortune teller, a potion dealer, a man who sells exotic birds, and a very violent puppet show, which they do enjoy.

Sven decides to visit the potion dealer. I didn’t really intend for anyone to buy stuff from him. I just put him there to look interesting. Trust Sven to be a pain. To try to discourage him, I describe the potion dealer as being filthy, ragged, and slightly insane to show how unreliable he is. It doesn’t work. He buys a sleep potion, a love potion, and a confusion potion, which are the only “standard” potions the dealer offers. I figure they seem pretty harmless.

“This sucks,” Sven complains. “That can’t be all he has. You said he had bags and bags of potions under his table.”

“Yes. But those are the only potions he knows what they do. The rest are all random, unidentified potions.”

“So? I use my identify potion skill.” He rolls a die. “And I make it.” I panic. I don’t want him getting tons of powerful items and, since they have multiple copies of the Dungeon Master’s Guide, I can’t even make them wonder about what the potion does. They’ll just look it up the second I say the name. What’s a DM to do? Make up a totally new potion of course. But what? My Monstrous Manual is lying next to me on the couch and it happens to be open to the “bat” entry.

“It’s a potion of bat creation,” I say smugly. Doesn’t sound terribly threatening, does it?

“A what?” cries Sven in frustration. “What the hell does that do?”

“That’s for you to find out.”

“Fine. I identify another.” And another…and another…and another. I get pretty good at making up elusive sounding names like “fertility of fields,” “colorful mystery,” and “silence of silver.” But I make most of his successes potions of bat creation, hoping he’ll get bored and give up. No luck.

“How many potions are you planning on identifying?” I ask impatiently.

“All of them.”

“But there are over 200 potions here.”

“So?”

“Sven, stop being stupid. There’s nothing useful here,” scolds Robert. “We don’t need any more stupid potions of bat creation.” Sven ignores him and keeps trying to identify potions so Robert has his character come up and hit him in the back of the head, then drag him away while he’s stunned. After this incident, everyone makes fun of Sven about the potions he bought so every time there’s a debate on what to do, he suggests using the potions to prove it was actually a good idea for him to get them. And when he sees that this pisses people off, he does it all the more.

Oh my god. Sven is an idiot as well as an asshole and now Kendra thinks I like him. This is obviously because she does and will no longer admit it. It's been about a week now since she called Julia and I in a rage and started ranting that "I'm through with him. I quit. I wash my hands. Etc. etc." Julia immediately began celebrating. I kept quiet but, personally, thought the rant sounded kind of phony. I expected her to be back drooling over him in a couple of days, like has happened in the past, but she stuck to her story. However, she now always acts majorly paranoid about me being around Sven, like I was just waiting for her to get out of my way or some stupid shit like that. Well, sorry, Kendra, but he's not the catch you think he is. Some of the rest of us don't get turned on by people who are rude and stupid. And…if you were really over him you wouldn't care if I was, not that I would be. I see right through her, but I still feel insulted that she would suspect me of such a thing.

--end of Chapter 3 part I –

Keywords: chess, D&D, dungeons, dragons. jealousy, potion, market

Copyright: Amanda Hamlin

Not to be used by A.I. without permission of the author.

Cover art by Eric Hamlin

To view his portfolio, go to: https://www.instagram.com/hamlin.eric/

Not to be used by A.I. without permission of the artist.

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