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"Soda the Cursed!?" said Soda.

"Yes," said Uncle Karl.

"I never knew I was called Soda the Cursed!" said Soda. "Who told you that?"

"Oh, you know, people talk," replied the Puffy Beaver.

Soda said soberly, "I guess it is a good name for me."

"Well," remarked the beaver, as she bustled around the room and set the table and brought food from the cupboard, "you were unlucky to live all alone in that drive-in theater, and unlucky to have had flying cacaroaches destroy your crop of roachberries, but perhaps your luck will change, now that you are away from it."

"How can I lose that curse, Mrs. Wankenstein?"

"Call me Sheila," the Puffy Beaver said. "I’m Sheila Wankenstein."

""How can I lose that curse, Sheila?"

"I do not know how, but you must spin it around in your noodle and perhaps the notion will come to you," she replied.

Soda had never eaten such a fine meal in all her life. She had never had alien feces pickled and then boiled and then fried and then smothered in chunky, syrupy yellow gravy, and there was sumptuous jackpeach pudding for dessert and hairy lemonade to drink. When the visitors had eaten heartily of this fare the beaver said to them:

"Do you wish to see my super best friend on business or for pleasure?"

"Seeds," said Uncle Karl.

"We came to get more roachberry seeds," answered Soda.

"Well… we don’t give our seed to just anybody. But I remember that Karl and my SBF used to be friends and roommates, many years ago. They co-owned a racing wobbegong," she said, "So perhaps they will be glad to meet again. Frank is very busy, as I said, but if you will promise not to disturb him you may come over his workshop and watch him prepare an alchemistical concoction."

"Thank you," replied the Schlingian girl, much pleased. "I would like to do that."

She led the way to the area towards the back of the dome which served as the Chimpanzee Alchemist’s workshop. The old chimpanzee was still stirring the four kettles at once.

Uncle Karl came forward to greet his old friend, but not being able to shake either his hands or his feet, which were all occupied in stirring, he squeezed the alchemist's shoulder with gentle pressure and asked: "What?"

"Ah, it's Karl the Silent One and Soda the Cursed," remarked the ape, without looking up, "and he wants to know what I'm making. Well, when it is quite finished this will be the funderful Make Living Concoction, which no one knows how to make but myself. Whenever it is sprinkled on anything, that thing will at once come to life, no matter what it is. It takes me several years to make this alchemistical concoction, but at this moment I am pleased to say it is nearly finished. You see, I am making it for Sheila, who wants to use some of it for a purpose of her own. Sit down and make yourself comfortable, Karl, and after I've finished my task I will talk to you." The ape farted.

"You must know," said the Puffy Beaver, when they were all seated together on a gray couch, "that my super best friend foolishly sold all the Make Living Concoction he first made to Gonorrena, that creepy old crone from over in Plotz Quadrant." The beaver paused to light a red rubber roachberry pipe. She exhaled and said, "Gonorrena gave us a Perpetual Youth Concoction in exchange for our Make Living Concoction, but she cheated us nefariously, for the Perpetual Youth Concoction was no good and didn’t work at all."

"Perhaps the Make Living Concoction couldn't either," said Soda.

"No, it works, it's perfect and just keeps on working," the Chimpanzee Alchemist declared. "The first batch we tested on our Spork Armadillo, which not only began to live but has lived ever since. She's somewhere around the dome now."

"A Spork Armadillo!" exclaimed Soda, astonished.

"Yes; she’s made out of the popular tinned meat-flavored product Spork. She makes a moderately pleasant companion, but admires herself a little more than is considered modest, and she positively refuses to catch wild protogophers," explained the Puffy Beaver. "Frank made the armadillo some pink brains, but they proved to be too high-bred and particular for an armadillo, so she thinks it is undignified for her to catch protogophers. Also she has a hard heart made out of iguana steak and so is rather hard and unfeeling."

"What did old Gonorrena do with the Make Living Concoction your super best friend gave her?" asked Soda.

"She brought Nate Goiterhead to life, for one thing," was the reply. "I suppose you've heard of him. He has a great big pulsating lumpy goiter for a head. He is now living on a big goiter farm near Schmegma City and is a great favorite with the fairy tremorroid, who rules all of Bonertania."

"No; I've never heard of a man with a goiter for a head," remarked Soda. "I'm afraid I don't know much about Bonertania- except for what I’ve seen in movies and read in books."

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"That is one reason you are Soda the Cursed," said the beaver, in a sympathetic tone. "The more one knows, the luckier they are, for knowledge is the greatest gift in life."

"Tell me, please," said Soda, "What you intend to do with this new lot of the Make Living Concoction, which your super best friend is making. He said you wanted it for some special purpose."

"So I do," she answered. "I want it to bring my chunks golem to life."

"Oh! A chunks golem? What is that?" Soda asked, for this seemed even more strange and unusual than a Spork Armadillo.

"I think I must show you my golem-to-be," said the Puffy Beaver, laughing at the girl's astonishment, "for she is rather difficult to explain. But first I will tell you that for many years I have longed for a handmaiden to help me with the housework and to cook the meals and clean the outhouse. No actual handmaiden will come here because the place is so lonely and out-of-the-way, so my clever SBF proposed that I make a maiden out of some sort of material and he would make her live by sprinkling over her the Make Living Concoction. This seemed an excellent suggestion and at once he set to work to make a new batch of his alchemistic concoction. He has been at it a long, long while, and so I have had plenty of time to make the body. Yet that task was not so easy as you may suppose. At first I couldn't think what to make her of but then I had the idea to assemble her out of the chunks of a number of different humanoids and yokai from a bunch of different races and genus and species and genders and astrological signs. So I collected the pieces and formed from them a very well-shaped lady. I will show you what a good job I did," and she went to a tall cupboard and threw open the doors.

Then back she came, lugging in her arms the chunks golem, which she dragged to the bench and propped up so that the figure would not tumble over.

Soda examined this curious contrivance with wonder. The chunks golem wore a crazy-quilt dress that matched her crazy-quilt flesh. One hand was slightly bigger than the other, one arm was shorter and more muscular than the other, and one leg was thicker than the other. Each finger was a different size or shape. The feet were about the same size.

"I made her very strong. She will have to work, when she comes to life," said the Puffy Beaver.

The skin of the chunks golem was the most compelling part of her. While she waited for her super best friend to finish making his Make Living Concoction the beaver had found ample time to complete the skin as her fancy dictated. The skin was made of a variety of bits of skin of different colors- pink, turquoise, magenta, brown, gold, blue, purple, yellow, red, and many more- and textures- hairy, smooth, leathery, moist, flocked, furry, scaly, spongey, and many more, held together by black stitches and golden staples. Gold is the most common metal in Bonertania and is used for many purposes because it is soft and pliable.

One of the golem’s eyes was big and round and white with a black pupil, the other was an average humanoid eye surrounded by a circle of indigo. The golem’s hair was in cornrows with long thin braids, some beaded, sticking up in the air and hanging down her neck.

The face Soda considered very artistic and lifelike, and the Puffy Beaver was pleased when the girl praised it.

"Has she any brains?" asked Soda.

"Oh krud, I forgot all about the brains!" exclaimed the beaver. "I am glad you reminded me of that! But I must be careful not to give her too much brains, and those she has must be such as are fitted to the station she is to occupy in life. In other words, her brains mustn't be very good."

"Wrong," said Uncle Karl.

"No; I am sure I am right about that," returned the woman.

"He means," explained Soda, "that unless your handmaiden has good brains she won't know how to obey you properly, nor do the things you ask her to do."

"Well, that maybe true," agreed the Puffy Beaver; "but, on the contrary, a handmaiden with too much brains is sure to become independent and high-and-mighty like the Spork Armadillo and feel above her work. This is a very delicate task, as I said, and I must take care to give the lady just the right quantity of the right sort of brains. I want her to know just enough, but not too much."

With this she went to another cupboard which was filled with shelves. All the shelves were lined with blue glass bottles, neatly labeled by the alchemist to show what they contained. One whole shelf was marked: "Dr. Wankenstein’s Patented Alchemistic Brain Concoctions," and the bottles on this shelf were labeled as follows: "Humor," "Cleverness," "Judgment," "Confidence", "Bravery," "Ingenuity," "Amiability," "Learning," "Truth," "Poesy," and "Movie Trivia".

"Let me see," said the beaver; "of those qualities she must have 'truth' first of all," and she took down the bottle bearing that label and poured from it upon a dish several grains of the contents. "'Amiability' is also good and 'judgement.'" She poured into the dish a quantity from each of these bottles. "I think that will do," she continued, "for the other qualities are not needed in a slave, er, I mean, handmaiden."

Uncle Karl, who with Soda stood beside her, touched the bottle marked "Cleverness."

"Little," said he.

"A little 'Cleverness'? Well, perhaps you are right, sir," said she, and was about to take down the bottle when her super best friend suddenly called to her excitedly from the fireplace.

"Quick, Sheila! Come and help me."

She ran to her super best friend's side at once and helped him lift the four molybdenum kettles from the fire. Their contents had all boiled away, leaving in the bottom of each kettle grains of fine white powder. Very carefully the alchemist removed this powder, placing it all together in a golden dish, where he mixed it with a golden spoon. When the mixture was complete there was scarcely a handful, all told.

"And that," ooked the alchemist, in a pleased and triumphant tone, "is the wonderful Make Living Concoction, which I alone in the world know how to make. It has taken me nearly six years to prepare these precious grains of dust, but the little heap on that dish is worth the price of a kingdom and many a king would give all he has to possess it. When it has become cooled I will place it in a small bottle; but meantime I must watch it carefully, lest a gust of wind blow it away or scatter it."

Uncle Karl, the Puffy Beaver and the Chimpanzee Alchemist all stood looking at the marvelous concoction, but Soda was more interested just then in the chunks golem's brains. Thinking it both unfair and unkind to deprive her of any good qualities that were handy, the girl took down every bottle on the shelf and poured some of the contents in the Puffy Beaver's dish. No one saw her do this, for all were looking at the Make Living Concoction; but soon the beaver remembered what she had been doing, and came back to the cupboard.

"Let's see," she remarked; "I was about to give my lady a little 'Cleverness,' which is the Doctor's substitute for 'Intelligence'- a quality he has not yet learned how to manufacture." Taking down the bottle of "Cleverness" she added some of the powder to the heap on the golden dish. Soda became a bit uneasy at this, for she had already put quite a lot of the "Cleverness" powder in the dish; but she dared not interfere and so she comforted herself with the thought that one cannot have too much cleverness.

The Puffy Beaver now carried the gold dish of brain concoction to the bench. Taking off the top of the multi-colored golem’s head, she placed the powder within the skull and then stapled the top of the head back on.

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