Esther M. Friesner - True Believer

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Esther M. Friesner - True believer

ESTHER M. FRIESNER

TRUE BELIEVER

"A spoonful of sugar," sang Mary Poppins, "helps the medicine go down." But

while it's rare, there are occasions when perhaps it's better not to take the

medicine, such as the following case of an eight-year-old boy who doesn't know

what his pharmacist has in store for him....

Esther Friesner is the very funny author of sixty short stories and two dozen

novels. She lives in Connecticut and clearly knows a thing or two about

rodents

and children.

"AW, MOMMMMM, DO I haaaaaave to?" Jimmy Hanson screwed his mouth shut and made

prune-face, prunes being the only thing he hated more than medicine. (He had

even told his parents that prunes were an alien plot by the Toad-Men of Skraax

to take over the minds of Earthlings before the invasion, human minds being

just

so much Silly Putty to the aforesaid Toad-Men, or so the latest issue of

Captain

Hamster and the Frenzies said. For some reason his parents remained

unconvinced.)

Mrs. Hanson stood at her son's bedside, calmly pouring out a dose of thick

cola-colored glop into a tablespoon. "Yes, you have to," she said. She placed

the open bottle on Jimmy's nightstand and gave him a nononsense-now look. The

spoon of doom swooped down to the boy's lips. "So open up."

It was the direct approach, and Mrs. Hanson knew it was doomed to fail. Still,

every time the hour struck for Jimmy's medication, she went through this

little

charade for form's sake. It was rather like the way Mr. Hanson suggested a

just-the-two-of-us trip to the movies on nights when he wanted a conjugal

right

or two.

In point of fact, Jimmy not only did not open up, he clamped both hands over

his

mouth and glared at his mother. Mrs. Hanson shook her head: Why did she even

bother? Time for a little bribery. "Jimmy, darling, while I was out I bought

you

a nice present. You can have it just as soon as you take your medicine."

"Whi'zit?" Jimmy inquired suspiciously from behind his self-imposed gag.

"It's the very newest issue of your favorite comic book, that's what."

Slowly the hands lowered. Jimmy sat up a little straighter in bed and

declared,

"Huh-uh. Can't be. I already got the May issue of Captain Hamster and the

Frenzies." To prove his point, he snatched up one of the two dozen comic books

bestrewing the counterpane and held it so that his mother might see its garish

cover and know herself to be caught and shamed in a lie. It was no mere

coincidence that he likewise held the book so that it effectively blocked his

mouth against any sneak attacks of the maternal spoon.

"Yes dear, I know, but that's not the one I bought for you." Mrs. Hanson was

beginning to lose patience. She had not been as gently raised as Jimmy and it

was an effort for her to maintain an air of sweet reason when all her

instincts

clamored to drop negotiations and simply scream Look, you spoiled little yard

ape, I've already missed ten minutes of General Hospital. If you don't want to

wind up doing a guest shot there, you swallow this stuff now!

However, Mrs. Hanson's whole experience of marriage and maternity had been the

triumph of pop-psych and theory-of-the-moment over instinct and gut-reaction.

Therefore when a skeptical Jimmy demanded to see proof that his mother had

indeed purchased a newer edition of Captain Hamster, she complied without

demur.

Setting the filled spoon down carefully atop Jimmy's chest of drawers on her

way

out of the room, she returned in jig time with the comic in question. "See?"

she

said from the doorway.

"That doesn't look like Captain Hamster," Jimmy challenged. "Anyway, Daddy

just

brought me this issue last night."

"Daddy buys you all your comics at the newsstand across from his office

downtown. Maybe they don't have the latest issue."

"Oh yeah? He said he bought this one at CVS in the mall!"

"Darling, it says Captain Hamster and the Frenzies right here on the cover,

and

it says June too. Maybe they changed artists. Besides, I didn't buy this at a

newsstand or CVS. I bought it at a genuine comic book store."

"The kind you won't let me go in." Jimmy's brow was knit with the pain of past

civil wrongs done him in the name of parental judgment calls. At eight years

old

he couldn't spell censorship but he could tell it when he saw it, all right.

"The kind you don't go in either. How come you did?"

Mrs. Hanson sighed and patiently explained, "When I went out to fill your

prescription, my car broke down before I got to the mall. I just barely made

into a service station. You know I don't like leaving you home alone for long

when you're sick, so I asked the nice man if there was a pharmacy nearby.

Well,

there was -- a real old-fashioned drug store with a soda fountain and

everything

-- and the comic book store was only a block before it. I got your medicine

and

your present while my car was being fixed. See how Mommy's always thinking of

you? Now you just open up for Mommy and --"

"I will if you lemme hold Captain Hamster," Jimmy replied. He looked angelic

enough to be packing a shiv.

Motherhood works havoc on perception. Mrs. Hanson heard surrender in her

baby's

voice when what she should have heard was the sound of butter firming up

rock-hard in his mouth. She offered him the comic with one hand and closed in

with the filled spoon in the other.

In a breathtaking exhibition of speed and dexterity, Jimmy contrived to slap

the

new issue of Captain Hamster into the Back off, Jack! position across his

mouth

while at the same time flinging the old one aside so that it knocked over the

open bottle on his nightstand. As the last dribble of medicine oozed its way

into the shag carpet, Mrs. Hanson's last drop of patience went the way of the

dodo. The neighbors who heard her scream only stopped short of calling 911

because they didn't want to be a bother.

Little Jimmy took the one remaining dose of his wasted medicine without

further

ado, in rightful fear for his life.

Mrs. Hanson went downstairs to the kitchen to call Jimmy's pediatrician, Dr.

Beeman, and ask for a refill on the prescription. She had just hung up the

phone

when she felt something heavy fall on her shoulder. She turned to find herself

staring into a pair of slightly buggy, definitely beady black eyes set in a

hairy brown face. A teensy, triangular nose framed by bristling whiskers

twitched furiously at her.

"What's this we hear about you yelling at your son?" the giant hamster

demanded.

"Yah! Yah! Lemme at 'er! Lemme pound 'er! That'll learn 'er!" Something

vaguely

human was bouncing wildly up and down behind the hamster, its mop of untamed

hair flying. It beat disproportionately large hands rhythmically on the

kitchen

walls, the counters, even the ceiling, like hell's (or possibly Bedlam's)

answer

to Gene Krupa.

"Easy, Bongo." The hamster held up one dainty pink paw. From a great distance

away, figuratively speaking, Mrs. Hanson noted that the roly-poly beast was

clad

in a blue jumpsuit, complete with yellow cape. She'd never known there was

that

much Spandex in the universe.

"Aw c'mon, Cap, let Bongo do a number on her." A fresh voice butted in. For

some

reason it seemed to be coming from the oversized hummingbird zipping around

the

hamster's head. On second glance, Mrs. Hanson saw that it was no hummingbird

but

a winged girl in a spangled pink thong leotard. Despite her small size, she

flaunted a pair of mammaries that simply had to be an aerodynamic

disadvantage.

"Do it! Do it!"

"Be silent, Laggi, Girl of the Starways," said a fourth voice. "It is not

always

Bongo's turn to deal with our foes. Sometimes they belong...to me." Those

warm,

sinister, seductive tones put Mrs. Hanson in mind of dark places where

unspeakable secrets murmured siren songs, luring the unsuspecting ever closer

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