Bubbles.
What in the name of the arcane was happening here? Roulette rubbed at her eyes repeatedly as they wandered into town, but no amount of blinking or squinting seemed enough to dispel the sight of a half-dozen buildings floating in mid-air. When she’d surveyed the scene from above an hour or two prior, the girl had sincerely hoped that her eyes were playing tricks on her.
Sadly, that didn’t seem to be the case.
“Call me crazy, but I’d hazard a guess that Toothless’s citizens aren’t living like this by choice…” Mimi observed, breaking the stunned silence that had set in since their exit from the valley.
Beretta was looking every which-way with an awed look in her eyes. “Are those real bubbles?”
“It seems so,” Marka replied. “I can only hope that those buildings are empty–I would not wish to try my luck jumping from such a height if I were trapped so high in the air.”
“But Father, imagine living inside a big bubble like that! It is like a dream!”
“More like a nightmare,” Morgan corrected. “That high up, you couldn’t come down to get groceries or see your family–hell, you wouldn’t even have a way to wash. You’d have a heck of a view, though, I’ll give you that.”
Roulette frowned up at the cluster of bubble-borne buildings. It was an enchanting sight, she had to admit; each sphere glistened in the dying light of the sun, reflecting hues of pink and orange, bobbing subtly in midair despite the overwhelming weight of their contents. But Morgan was right. If there really were people living up there, they’d surely be at their wit’s end by now–or worse.
“We need to figure out what’s goin’ on here,” she decided, scanning what remained of the town’s main strip for some sign of the local authorities. “If we can figure out how those buildings got up there, we might be able to find a way to get ‘em back down.”
Night was falling fast, and every structure she saw at ground level was bathed in shadow; the tall mountain range to the west made sure of that. Even so, she managed to pick out a peculiar sign amongst the huddle of run-down establishments to her left–one that read “Parge and O’Fleef, Personal Injury Lawyers.” The latter half of the sign’s contents had been crossed out, though, with the words “ACTING SHERIFFS” having been scrawled across the top in cramped, messy handwriting.
“There!” she exclaimed, pointing out her discovery. “That sign says the folks inside are the town’s acting sheriffs! If anybody knows what’s going on in Toothless, it’ll be them!”
Morgan scratched his chin. “Who ever heard of two sheriffs? How does that work?”
“Who cares?” Mimi huffed with an exaggerated shrug of her shoulders. “They’re clearly awful at their job if they allowed things to get this bad. All that matters is what they can tell us about Gunn… And about what we can do to return Toothless to its usual pathetic state, I guess.”
The little bell above the repurposed law office’s front door gave a chime as the gang strolled in. A plump man seated at the front desk–which had obviously been dragged there from elsewhere in the cluttered room–looked up from a sheaf of papers to regard them. He had a sweaty brow and an enormous nose, and, from the way he glanced furtively between them all, Roulette got the idea that he was the anxious type.
“Yes?” he bleated, setting his papers aside and knitting his sausage-like fingers together on the crowded desktop. “How can I assist you folks at this late hour?”
“We’re looking for, uh…” Roulette began, losing her train of thought as a lanky, bespectacled man leaned out from behind a tall stack of papers to her right, “Parge and O’Fleef? ‘Acting sheriffs’?”
The little man before them seemed crestfallen. “Just more concerned citizens, Conrad!” he called, apparently speaking to the man Roulette assumed to be his partner. He turned his attention back to them, then, looking up at her apologetically. “We’re lawyers by trade, you see, and business has been bad lately. I’m quite sure we’d have shut down by now if we hadn’t had this new role foisted on us. Conrad over there was hoping you might be new clients.”
“My clerical skills are decaying by the minute!” the skinny man moaned from beneath his overlong mustache. “And we don’t even get to sing the jingle anymore…”
“Now now, Conrad. Do cheer up,” his partner encouraged. “These good people are here to inquire about local matters, and we are duty-bound to oblige them! Unless…”
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The man wet his lips and looked to each of them in turn. “Unless you would like to hear our little jingle?”
Roulette blinked. “Uhm… Well, as a matter of fact–”
“We’ll be ever so brief!” the taller man pleaded. “We’ll stick to the truncated version!”
“Only eight verses!” his associate proudly declared.
Every member of the posse, Roulette included, was too taken aback to say a word… Except Beretta, who–to their collective horror–began clapping her hands enthusiastically.
“Jingle! Jingle!”
“Aha!” cried the heavyset man, rising to his feet so violently that his chair clattered loudly to the floor. “We have a willing audience on our hands, Conrad! Fetch the triangle!”
“Now, listen here!” Roulette protested. “I don’t think we have the time–”
The thunderous sound of rummaging drowned out her next words, courtesy of the thin man in the corner. He rifled through the drawers of his desk for several seconds until he succeeded in retrieving what was evidently one of his most prized possessions: a small metal triangle on a string, complete with a little metal rod with which to sound it. Having succeeded in equipping himself, the man rushed across the room and joined his fellow lawyer at the front, who had already placed his hand over his heart in anticipation of their impromptu duet.
Then, without further ado, they began:
O, Parge and O’Fleef
It beggars belief
All that can go wrong on my grange!
*TING!*
I’ve been trampled and shot,
Knocked askew and upsot,
By people–and critters–deranged!
*TING!*
I set out on my horse,
Seeking legal recourse,
And have judged what I found to be straaaaaange:
*TING!*
“EVERYBODY!”
That Parge and O’Fleef
Are my only relief,
The only personal injury lawyeeeeeers…
On
The…
RAAAAAAAAAANGE!!!
*TINGTINGTINGTINGTINGTING!*
In the aftermath of their performance, the two men stood there breathing heavily and beaming at Beretta (who was, of course, the only member of the “audience” to offer any form of applause). The squat one tugged a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped vigorously at his brow.
“So, what did you think?” he asked.
“Wow. Wow,” Roulette murmured, only just managing to keep the cringe from her face. “That was… That was really somethin’.”
“I’ll be damned,” Morgan said. “I reckon you boys have earned yourselves a new client–that song has caused me irreparable mental harm. Do you accept claims against yourselves?”
Mimi just shook her head slowly. Her body looked tense, as if her fight-or-flight response were compelling her to dash back out the way they’d come.
Meanwhile, Marka was stroking his mustache thoughtfully. “Admirable command of rhyme and meter.”
Everyone else turned to stare at him in disbelief. When the big man noticed, he gave his head a shake and shifted uncomfortably in place. “I-I mean, shame on you. My life has been ruined this day.”
The lawyers seemed to take their criticism in stride, apparently accustomed to such reactions. “I see,” said the more talkative of the two, straightening his suit jacket over his considerable paunch. “Well, let us just move on then, shall we? My name is Solomon Parge, and this is my associate, Conrad O’Fleef. How can we help you this fine evening?”
“We’re here to inquire about the bubbles,” Roulette answered gratefully, still reeling from their aural assault. To her surprise, though, the substitute sheriffs responded by rolling their eyes in unison.
“The bubbles again,” Solomon sneered. “Always the bubbles! I’ll tell you what I tell everyone else–we can’t do anything about the bubbles! Even if we could figure out how to pop them, those buildings up there will just come crashing down! Is that what you want? For them to come crashing down?”
Roulette was surprised by the sudden vitriol, but persisted anyway, determined to hold her ground. “No, but maybe if you could tell us how they got there, we could do somethin’ less… Dramatic about it?”
Solomon clutched at his head anxiously, inadvertently scraping the very hair from his scalp. Considering the near-total baldness exhibited by his shiny pate, Roulette got the sense that this happened a lot.
“Impossible!” he hissed. “I can’t let a gang of random vigilantes mess around with those things. He said he’d do something even worse if we dared touch them!”
“‘He’?” Roulette prompted, cocking a brow. “Who’s ‘he’?”
Solomon’s face took on a fearful, drawn expression as he spoke the man’s name:
“Bubba Lee Barton,” he whispered.
“...The Scourge of Biffle County!”