Cloak and Dagger and Meerkats: A Joel Black Adventure

Once Upon A Time in a lovely house in the lovely city St.Louis in the lovely state of Missouri in the lovely U.S.A. on the lovely planet Earth in the lovely Milky Way galaxy there lived a lyrical young man.  (Lovely just didn't sound right. Though he is.)

This boy's name was Joel Black. (Names have been changed to protect the identities of all involved). He had brown eyes, brown hair, brown shoes, and enjoyed wearing the color brown. (A pity his name wasn't Joel Brown, eh?). Joel was brilliant young homeschooler who was a bit or a perfectionist and loved to sing and dance in his spare time.

On this particular morning Joel Black was so excited he almost wet his pants but decided to call his friend Heather Baker instead. Joel was just pressing call when Heather burst through the front door and beamed beatifically.

"Whats the good news?!" She asked, slightly out of breath from running down the road a few houses down.

"Wha- how did you know I wanted to talk to you?"

Heather rolled her eyes. Joel and Heather had been friends for so long that if Joel so much as sneered a cow creamer Heather could sense it.

Joel waved his hand. "Nevermind. Guess what! I just heard from my literature teacher and talked with my parents and I'm GOING TO ENGLAND THIS SUMMER!"

Heather leapt for joy and they decided to celebrate by baking a celebratory cake and watching old Wooster and Jeeves episodes. Little did Joel know that in a few short months he would be wishing he was back in that cozy house, laughing so hard that frosting shot out his nose and dreaming of scones and tea.

(DUN_DUN_DUUUUUUUNNNNNN!)

4 Months Later...

"Why in the name of fish 'n' chips did I ever decide to come on this hike?" Joel muttered through his chattering teeth. He had been having a most wonderful time travelling through the rustic moors of England; visiting churches full of dead people, eating delicious food in London, lounging in the London Eye and singing with drunken Englishmen on the train. Everything was going just splendidly until his group had decided to go hike a the Cat's Bells mountain. Even that had been ok at first. It was a a bright and beautiful morning, like a freshly scrubbed goldfish. Joel leapt up the mountainside like a caffeinated goat with his delightful travel mates and admired the view of the lake below and the rolling land stretching as far as the eye could see and generously sprinkled with sheep.

Soon the travellers slowed, though. The higher they got, the harder the wind blew; shoving the hikers off balance of the steepest parts of the path and slicing rain ponchos to confetti. After the first mountain peak came another, then another, then another. With each peak the group grew slower and the once blue sky a rumbling boil of grey rainclouds. Then, somewhere far above them, God must have bellyflopped into his bathtub because water fell in not only sheets but in pillows, mattresses, and duvets of water. The last straw, however, was the realization that the all of the smuggled tarts had been eaten. Forgetting their hike, Joel and his friends fled back the way they had come.

Everyone was slowly becoming more and more waterlogged until they felt like soggy tube socks teetering down the mountain peaks in freezing cold rain. Well, everyone except Mary Magenta. She was leaping, perhaps even fueled by the harsh conditions, and already planning how she was going to go swimming in the sub-zero lake when they got back to the hostel. But thats Mary for you.

Almost an hour later, so cold that hypothermia had surely set in, Joel was inching his way on a narrow ledge around the final peak. Or was it the third to last peak? He had lost count. Somehow he had pulled ahead of his friends and was taking another step when he slipped on the slick rocks and fell forewards, turning, twisting, the world blurring until he felt the hard embrace of the ground and blackness enveloped him.

Joel was rudely awoken by an army on angry rubber duckies. Thats what it sounded like, anyway. He opened his eyes to find a dozen furry creature staring at him.

"AHhhhh!" screamed Joel like a little boy discovering he had cooties. He scrambled to his feet and promptly fell back down on the backside of his brown shorts from the dizziness of rolling down the side of a mountain.

"He-hello?" he squeaked, looking around him in vain for another human in the little cave he seemed to have woken up in. There was a fire burning brightly in the corner along with several copper pots and pans and a strangely out of place door in the packed dirt wall. All that met his eyes was the mob of downy grey creatures that had woken him. They perched on their hind legs, their elongated necks bending so they could study Joel with curiosity.

"Um...nice freakishly tall kitties?"

"We are not 'kitties", my good man. We are commonly known as "Meerkats"," rose a voice from the thrall. The animals parted and a rather posh meerkat strolled forward, pipe in hand. Joel had never seen anything like it. The meerkat was impeccably dressed in a velvet dressing gown and silk ascot and had a rye smile on his suave little meerkat face.

"Splendid to make you acuantince, Sir ....?" The meerkat paused, expectantly.

"Joel. Joel Black."

"Ah. Sir Joel Black. Welcome to our meerhome. I am Earnest Augustus Bob Meerkat the Fourth and this is my family. I do apologize for the mess, our guests don't usually roll unconscious to our doorstep."

"Oh, well, yes. Sorry about that, I slippped. Wait, I didn't think meerkats even lived in England?" (For some reason this was Joel's first thought, not why the meerkats could talk.)

"Quite. We were first attracted by the booming comercial industry but were so enchanted we decided to stay on. In fact, I have extended family living all over England working in the underground meerkat chocolate industry."

Joel rubbed his head, wondering just how hard he had hit it. "The underground what?"

"Chocolate making industry, of course. Why, its a well known fact that the finest sweets in the world are made by meerkats! The Queen herself has a meerkat on staff at each of her palaces, its that good. Really, you'd think you were the one who lived in a hole! Haven't you heard of Dove Chocolate?"

Joel felt quite a fool. "Yes, its delicious. But if its made by meerkats then why is it called Dove?"

Earnest sighed and puffed his pipe. "If I had a pound for every time I heard that question! Its the most frequently asked after the recipe for my prize winning watermellon and banana pancakes. Well, Dove actually stands for Darling Oblique Valiant Elephants. It was the name of my boy band back in the day. When the band failed due to the horrendous name we shortened it to Dove and have been using it ever since." Earnest re-lit his pipe and stared off into the distance for a moment. "Lennon always said the name should have been "Pugs 'n' Drugs". I just loved puppies too much."

Joel nodded thoughtfully. "I can see why you band failed. Well, its been a pleasure, but I must get back to my group." He regretfully stood up.

"Wait! You must be starving, let us prepare you a snack before you go on your way. Julia, bring out the pancakes!"

Soon Joel and the Meerkats were having an absolutely smashing time, frolicking about the den and dining on watermelon and banana pancakes the size of Newt Gingrich's head (and they really were quite scrumptious). Joel taught his new friends how to play Ninja and in return they made him a batch of specially made meerkat chocolate for the road. They even wrapped the sweets in individual gold foil with inspirational meerkat proverbs or yore.

Joel waved goodbye to his new friends and set off on the round-a-bout shortcut. When he reached the crest of the mountain and looked back to see he was in fact still ahead of his travelling companions he thought about telling them his fantastic tale of meerkats and chocolate...but decided against it. After all, he reasoned, if it was true that the chocolate meerkat industry was as well known as Earnest had said then he would look a right fool for admitting he was the last to know. And besides, the message on the inside of his chocolate wrapper he was eating said:

"Sir Joel, I almost forgot: Our den must be confidential knowledge. Please tell no one of our location, there are Wonka spies everywhere. Come back soon! Sincerely - Earnest Augustus Bob Meerkat the Fourth"

How the meerkats had managed to fit all that writing onto that tiny square of foil was beyond Joel but he kept his lips sealed. Well, except when he slipped a chocolate.

Joel's friends were amazed at how much energy Joel had when they caught up with him.

"Joel!" they said. "We are amazed by how much energy you have!" There was one bothersome thing nagging at Joel that the meerkats hadn't fixed, though. His trousers were so cold and wet still that it felt like he was wearing a fish. Mary came to the rescue however and lent him her extra pair of furry pants and Joel was soon running down the mountain to the waiting bus in his pink pj pants covered in pictures of Tinker Bell with wild abandon. Not even the looks of other hikers in scandalously short shorts when Joel's friends yelled "JOEL, YOUR PINK FAIRY PANTS ARE SLIPPING!" could slow him down. Now that, ladies and gentleman, is a confidant man. Or a silly American who didn't yet know that "Pants", in England, is what they call underwear.

Several Days Later...

"Good Gravy and Other Glorious Things!" Joel's seatmate Hannah Music flopped onto the minibus seat and pulled out her headphones to listen to some Kpop for the long bus ride ahead. Charlotte and Mariah started laughing uproariously at something they had seen on Mariah's laptop in the back and Gemima, Charlotte's little sister, ran over and sat on the seat across the aisle. Joel's group had just visited a quaint town on a walk through the rain to enjoy the scenery. And the gift shops. And perhaps most of all the heavenly bakery full of all sorts of whipped, baked, and flaky perfect dream desserts.

"Hannah! Can I listen to my favorite song again?" Gemima pipped up in her lisping British accent. Combined with angelic blonde hair and wide eyes, she was a force of cuteness to be reckoned with.

"Sure. Just give it back when you are done, ok?"

Gemima settled into her seat, nodding her head and singing, "Hey Sooouuullll Sis'ta! Ain't that Mis'ta Mis'ta on the Radiooo, Stereoooo, Oooh-ohhh-ooooh-oh-oh!" (There were some gaps in her knowledge of the lyrics).

"Whats the gravy about?" asked Joel.

"I'm just so tired. I feel like we just did the Hike from Heck all over again." Hannah yawned and wadded up her coat behind her head.

"What, I loved that hike! Except for those scary biker guys that almost murdered David and I in our sleep at the Youth Hostel."

Hannah rolled her eyes. "Joel. They were a bunch of older Scottish guys who liked to ride vintage bikes. I think your lives were hardly in danger."

Joel smiled. "You are probably right, Hannah. You always are! After all, you are supremely intelligent and beautiful and by far the most skilled Ninja player I have ever met."

(Ok, some dialogue might have been slightly altered. Just a little.)

Joel was about to go on defending his case as a near murder victim (ahem, praising Hannah) when something caught his eye just outside the bus window. A coal black 2000 Honda Civic paused next to the bus, stopping just long enough for Joel to see the window roll down and Earnest the Meerkat (wearing stylish Bond-esq shades, I might add) salute before the car roared off. Joel grinned to himself. While his friends might be bringing home pictures, little figures of the Big Ben on key chains, and a cold or two; Joel had a secret and memories that were so unbelievable that only the chocolate wrappers in his pocket could possibly make someone believe.

The bus rumbled to life and they were off. Somewhere, today, in the lovely Milky Way Galaxy, on the lovely planet Earth, in the lovely U.S.A., in the lovely state of Missouri in the lovely city of St. Louis in a lovely house there is a lyrical young man named Joel Black. He might appear to be like any other brilliant homeschooler with a knack for stacking cups but don't be fooled. Agents of the Underground Dove Chocolate Meerkat industry are well trained and only the most observant person might hear the crinkle of foil wrapper, the drop of milk chocolate on his t-shirt, and the twinkle of a secret in his eye. But you didn't hear anything from me.

Espionage and Ewes,

-Hannah

Weaving Mountains of Molehills

Imagine a web of colorful strings. They run along on their merry way, sometimes intersecting other strings for an instant and then rushing on. Even though they only crossed paths for a second, both strings’ paths are irreversibly changed. The strings cross, stretch, and tangle in a seemingly random mass until you step back and see the grand picture, the entire web. Suddenly the chaos is a pattern, a plan, a pre-destined picture.

That web is your life. Or, rather, Hannah’s life. Your line begins; you are born. You grow up, meet people, events and experiences bend your path, following the plan set for you by God. Eventually, as all strings do, your life will come to an end. Your string may be a minute long, a year long, a hundred years long; only God, who can see the whole web, knows.

There are many stories in Hannah’s web (She likes to imagine its lime green). Some that began long ago and ended long ago, some began long ago and still have yet to end, and some that she anticipates in her future. To pluck one thread and tell only that story is truly impossible, because they all intersect. Without even one of the stories, that web of you, of Hannah, would unravel. Still, I don’t have time to tell you Hannah’s entire life and you don’t have time to listen, so I’ll try to choose just one length of string.

I must apologize, where are my manners? You, naturally, have no idea who this Hannah person is whereas I’ve been her intimate friend and overseer for many strings. Allow me to introduce you to Hannah G. Musick, a girl who would like to create the impression that “G” stands for an exotic and interesting middle name but would give up the charade and laugh about how it was really just “Gabrielle”. Then Hannah’s mind would wander, from middle names to “Why do people find it necessary to appear exotic?”, to exotic fruits, her great enjoyment in mangos, the color of mango, the idea of buying mango nail polish, then rationalizing that she would only wear it once and thus it wouldn’t be worth $6.99. Plus tax. Laughing to herself (and in avoidance of algebra homework), Hannah would most likely take her thoughts and turn them into a long and humorous email on middle names for the amusement of her friends.

Hannah is…well, many things. Funny, brash, timid, paranoid, serious, contradictory; human. A homeschool sophomore, sister, Christian, traveler, daughter, and friend.Definitely far too interested in what other people think about her, but who isn’t? Hannah changes depending on who you ask.

A stranger would describe her as approachable, the person you’d ask directions from in a crowded subway or ask to hold your bag while you chased down your toddler. A close friend would hand Hannah the bag because she is unusually trustworthy but would never ask her for directions. Asking Hannah would be of course useless because she can count all the street names she knows on one hand and can get lost with a GPS. A stranger would say that she was friendly, nice, and a little shy at first. A close friend would agree with the friendly and nice, and then ask if they were talking about the same person because the Hannah they know is seldom subdued.

Ah-ha! The length of string I choose is from last summer, early June 2010. Hannah is in Iiyama, Japan, (near Nagano) with her Japanese classmates on a school trip visiting famous attractions and staying with host families; exploring Japan. At this particular moment in time she’s not touring Tokyo Tower or climbing on Mt.Fuji; but stuffed in an enormous bus with her classmates and winding up, up, up a mountain.

“Yeah! My host family is awesome! We had shabu shabu last night and set off fireworks in the back yard.”

“Dude. We’re staying in a ski resort, pretty cool, huh?”

“My host sister reads the same Manga I do! We have so much in common, it’s unbelievable. And my host family is really funny and friendly.”

Hannah’s smile began to dim as she sat and listened to the excited chatter echoing in the wide tour bus and slowly slouched in her seat. Her friends couldn’t seem to say enough good things about their host family. What was going on? Were any of her friends having trouble in their host families? She scanned their faces again: no trace of disappointment or dissatisfaction. Was she really the only one? Hannah’s cheerful mood began to sour.

Turning to the window, Hannah didn’t see the beautiful scenery zipping by in her reflection. Her dark peach skin was a changing palate of fresh green trees and stained brunette bark, her brunette irises suddenly sky blue and filled with floating clouds. The only part of Hannah that didn’t change was her black hair, twisted into a bun and held in place with a sharpie, and her unruly eyebrows. The warm, even hot weather had released the little springs of hair that twirled out from her head like swirly horns in the humidity. Hannah wound one of her horns around a finger as she replayed the previous night with her host family over again, comparing her experiences with the glowing reviews of her friends. The night had really started at dinner…

Hannah peeked at her host family over the rim of my rice bowl. They were all kneeling at the low table in the family room on rice mats eating dinner. The table was scattered with white dishes of mysterious foods, more appetizing than others. Hannah’s pint-sized host father with carefully combed grey hair and round spectacles, her preoccupied and generally confused host mom, her shy, introverted host sister, her comatose eating machine of a older host brother that only materialized at meal times, the old maid aunt that lived in the little room under the stairs, and the kindly miniature host grandmother with a penchant for gardening turnips and green beans.

”Um…すてき！Tastes, um, great.ありがと。”

Hannah had rarely heard such a deafeningly awkward silence as at the table that night. She could actually hear crickets outside, whistling away as the sun lit the sky pink, orange, and blueberry. She chewed nervously. Despite being sorely tempted to do the awkward turtle hands, she refused the urge and gingerly picked up the slice of limp pickled green bean (from the garden) between her chopsticks. It looked disturbingly similar to an eel. The family stared intently at her as she popped it in her mouth. Hannah’s faced twitched at the salty, bitter taste, but she swallowed and weakly smiled.

”Um…すてき！Tastes, um, great.ありがと。”

The Grandmother started huskily laughing hysterically and everyone else snickered. Hannah played with her rice. What had she said wrong? She’d just said it was- oh. Hannah winced. She hadn’t said the food was delicious, she’d said it was wonderful, amazing; the wrong words when describing a humble green bean.

Pretty soon Hannah was wishing that they’d laugh at her again, cough, anything! The silence was broken by nothing but slurps and the click of chopsticks. Even the crickets had settled down now that night had totally blackened the landscape. Plus, she started to wonder, where would she get water? Hannah hadn’t seen anyone drink anything besides miso soup since she’d arrived. She didn’t recall my textbook mentioning drink etiquette in awkward host families. Better not to say anything, she decided; and just sneak upstairs later and drink out of her water bottle. As she ate her rice under the supervision of the host family, Hannah groaned inwardly. How was she going to survive 3 days of this?! The truth was, Hannah wasn’t even supposed to be here. At the last minute her mom, the trip leader, had switched Hannah and another student. The other student, a hyper girl with unstable feelings about staying in a host family alone, had been paired with one of Hannah’s friends and sent off to Hannah’s host family. Hannah didn’t complain, she just smiled, handed over her host gifts, and got into her new host family’s car. Alone. Even though Hannah knew she should be grateful she even had a host family, it wasn’t enough to stop the creeping feeling of dissatisfaction.

Hannah was snapped out of her bitter reverie and back onto the mountain when the driver opened the bus doors with a hydraulic hiss and everyone began piling out. Hannah tried to shake off the unhappy thoughts and jumped back into the bubbling conversation of her friends. They were about half-way up the mountain, as far as you could go by bus. Armed with a ski pole and windbreaker against the chill air, they prepared to ascend the mountain peak. First, however, some fun in the snow.

Snow? In June? Don’t worry, Japan isn’t an arctic wasteland during summer months. Bear in mind, however, that we were on a mountain, a piece of land that jumps up from the rest of the earth and tries to touch the sky. In return, the sky showers the mountain peak with first snow long before the rest of the landscape. The peaks were literally covered in a generous amount of snow, bamboo, and thick foliage. So combine steep hiking, snow, tangled mazes of vines and trees, and mud. LOTS of mud. Hannah’s already turning attitude took a sharp dive for worse.

It wasn’t long until Hannah’s black chucks and jeans were splattered with mud, and her hair full of twigs and they were only a fourth of the way to the peak according to their overenthusiastic leader, Peter. Despite being a tad past his prime he was leaping madly ahead faster than any mountain goat. He looked rather like a silver-haired Joker, laughing at the other hiker’s weakness and saying, “This is easy! No problem! We’re almost there! (snicker, snicker).”

Hannah is that friend that comes over to watch the super bowl for the commercials and to eat the peanut butter. If someone asked her to play tackle football she’d plunge right in but would much rather read than watch supposedly sensible people run around in colorful latex, so it was natural that she had fallen behind the rest her group after escaping a particularly complicated bit of brush that required some complex gymnastics. She stopped to catch her breath.

“Hey, wait up! Guys! Guys?” Hannah groaned. Didn’t they notice they were missing a person? She stood for a minute to catch her breath. Glancing through the unexpected break in the foliage beside her, Hannah’s breath stopped. She’d never seen a view so spectacular, so vast. Land clothed in only natural foliage and the occasional red-roofed house stretched out forever into the mist below me, beyond me, around me. No photograph could capture the majesty of that view. For perhaps the first time that day she felt happy, awed by God’s creation, lifted above herself. She began hiking with renewed energy.

After that little glimpse of what was to come, the rest of the hike up seemed like pie; a rubbery, bitter-sweet, seemingly never-ending piece of pie. When they finally reached the very tippy-top of the mountain it felt like they’d conquered the challenge. Mist flowed over the landscape, obscuring the distance. They raised our ski poles in victory and congratulated each other. Hannah was bathing in the glow of victory (and sweat) until she looked down. “Yay, hooray, we made it...now let’s do it all again in reverse.”

(Nice smile, Joel)

Hiking downhill should be much easier than hiking uphill, right? RIGHT? Wrong! Keep in mind the mud. The snow and ice. The sharp pointy sticks with a seemingly personal vendetta you. Oh, yeah, and Hannah’s ski pole snapped. This was all well and terrible until Hannah and her compadres rounded a bend in the path and stepped into thin air. The path just disappeared in a steep drop of slushy snow. The path resumed half-way down the slide at a right-angle in just such a way that if she missed her stop she’d take a pleasant plunge down the bramble-tangled mountain. The more reckless guys yelled and slid down the hill with minimum injury and few injuries. Hannah was pacing back and forth trying to find the easiest, driest, least pokey route down. Carefully, she put her foot down in the snow and slowly eased down. Her feet slipped, her hands flailed, and she rolled down the slope.

As fast as Hannah and her personal belongings were tumbling down the mountainside, her attitude was taking a plunge into a pit of self-pity and bitterness. On perhaps any other day Hannah would have laughed off the spill down the mountain-side, the cold mud and scratches, being laughed at by her older, athletic brother, even the horrid feeling of hiking in wet jeans. That day? It would be easier to coax a smile out of poisonous cacti.

Suddenly, in the relative privacy of her group of fellow slowpokes (her mother and the only girl on the hike in a skirt), the thoughts and bitter complaints that had been simmering under the surface all day boiled over. Hannah’s generally optimistic attitude cracked and crumbled. Right there, right then, she had a meltdown. Everything just poured out (and a few tears, too) leaving her hiking mates with a bit of a shock.

When the whole story had flowed out, they walked for a moment in silence.

“So?” Hannah asked, sniffling a bit. “What do you think? What should I do?”

“Well, you have a terrible attitude, first of all.”

“Thanks, MOM!”

When they started getting into it, though, Hannah realized her friends were right. She’d been complaining all day, even if it was just in her head. Hannah was in Japan, with great friends, and with opportunities that some people never have the chance to experience. How could she let one unpleasant night ruin her day, like a coffee stain on a brand new shirt?

After a lot of apologizing and relieved laughter, Mom pointed out another important point. What if Hannah’s placement was not the mistake it seemed; what if she was in that specific family for a reason? What if there was something Hannah could do to give them hope, to change their lives in a way that would be remembered long after my brief stay was over? What if, instead of waiting for the next few days to be over, she used the time to reach out and minister to her host family? Hannah saw a situation that had seemed unfair and pointless through new eyes. This wasn’t a cruel trick; she had a mission. What she didn’t have (and badly needed) was a tissue.

Hannah’s band of slowpokes rounded the bend and found themselves on a concrete road, the bus only a 10 minute walk away. For the first time on the entire hike, Hannah wished that it was longer. When she’d resolved her issues and actually looked around, she was captured by the beauty of her surroundings. The colors intensified by the melting snow, Michelangelo clouds, the feeling of being liberated of a burden. How come she hadn’t seen this before?

That night Hannah knelt at her host family’s dinner table and bowed. When she looked up and met the eyes of her family, she smiled genuinely for the first time and took a long sip of her miso soup. Hannah noticed things she hadn’t before; the timid glances, the desperate eyes, the need for hope. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

The End

おわり