…7, 8, 9.
Nine umbrellas.
Miss Hawkline paused beside the stand. There was something very familiar about it but she could not figure out what it was. There was just something very familiar. She wondered what it was.
“What is it?” Greer said.
Miss Hawkline was standing there staring at the umbrella stand. She thought that she had paused there for just a few seconds but it was longer than that and she did not realize it because she was lost in total curiosity.
She was holding up the possible demise of the Hawkline Monster.
“This elephant foot umbrella stand is very familiar,” she said, addressing her sister. “Is it familiar to you?”
Her sister, who was also Miss Hawkline, took a look at it. Her gaze was suddenly equally intent. “Yes, it is familiar but I don’t know what it is about it that is familiar. It almost reminds me of a person but I can’t quite figure out who it is. It’s somebody I’ve met, though.”
Greer and Cameron looked at each other and then carefully around the hall. They were looking for the monster but they didn’t see it. This conversation about the elephant foot umbrella stand had all the markings of the kind of stuff the monster would pull off.
But the monster was nowhere in sight, so they mentally put aside this Hawkline sister concentration as mere eccentricity.
“It certainly does remind me of somebody,” Miss Hawkline said.
“Why don’t you think about it later after we’ve finished off the monster? There’ll be plenty of time for you to figure out who it is, then,” Cameron said.
The Hawkline Monster in 4/4 Beat
The Hawkline Monster backed down the stairs to the laboratory, causing a shimmering flow of light like an ungodly waterfall. It also caused a confused inept shadow to bungle along in front of it.
The Hawkline Monster was now very confident. It knew how to handle things and looked forward in anticipation to the results of its power.
The Hawkline Monster had conceived of a diabolical fate for Greer, Cameron and the Hawkline women. It considered the plan one of the best things that it had ever come up with. It was the true amalgamation of mischief and evil.
The Hawkline Monster almost laughed as it strategically retreated down into the laboratory with its shadow scrambling awkwardly, tumbling goofily and carrying on in a demeaning, laughable manner as it tried to perform the perfunctory tasks of a shadow.
The Hawkline Monster was basking in confidence as it drifted and flowed down the stairs. What did it need to worry about because after all, did it not have the power to change objects and thoughts into whatever form amused it?
Daddy
Miss Hawkline opened the iron door to the laboratory. She pulled back the two bolts and took the key from her pocket which soon released the huge padlock. All the time that she was opening the door, her mind was fixed on the elephant foot umbrella stand trying to figure out what person it reminded her of. The recognition of that person hovered right on the edge of her mind.
She pulled back the first bolt on the door. It was a little hard to get back, so she had to give it a good tug.
That umbrella stand was so familiar.
Who was it?
She pulled back the second bolt. It came back much easier than the first one did. She barely had to pull on it.
I’ve seen that umbrella stand thousands of times before but not as an umbrella stand, she thought, but as somebody I know.
She took a large key from the pocket of her dress and inserted the key into the huge padlock on the door and she turned the key and the lock fell open like a clenched fist and she took the lock off the door and hung it on the hasp.
Then she yelled, “DADDY!” and turned and ran down the hall to the elephant foot umbrella stand.
A Harem of Shadows
The Hawkline Monster had found itself a good position of concealment in the laboratory and now just waited for Greer, Cameron and the Hawkline women to come into its domain.
The Hawkline Monster was so confident of their future that it was not even curious when it heard one of the Hawkline sisters scream and run back down the hall away from the laboratory door, followed by everybody else.
What difference did it make what they did up there for soon they would return and come down that flight of stairs and the Hawkline Monster would play with them a little bit. Then it would change them all into shadows and the monster would have five shadows following after it instead of one incompetent shadow.
Perhaps, these four new shadows would be skillful at playing the role the Hawkline Monster had devised for them. Yes, the monster thought, it could stand a little competence in the shadow line.
The Hawkline Monster had concealed itself behind some test tubes full of chemicals which were a rejected possibility of de-eviling The Chemicals that the professor had worked on for months before abandoning them as failures.
The shadow had concealed itself behind a clock on the table beside the test tubes. As soon as there was light in the laboratory the incompetence of its concealment would be revealed.
The shadow could not do anything right.
“Soon you will have playmates,” the Hawkline Monster said to the shadow.
The shadow didn’t know what the fuck the Hawkline Monster was talking about.
Father and Daughters Reunited (Sort of)
Miss Hawkline was on her knees and she had thrown her arms around the elephant foot umbrella stand and she was sobbing uncontrollably and saying over and over again, “Daddy! Daddy!”
The other Miss Hawkline stood there looking down at her sister, trying to figure out what was happening.
Greer and Cameron were busy looking around for the Hawkline Monster. Had they missed seeing it when they had looked for it before? Or had it come up behind them in the hall? They looked all over but they cou1dn’t find the monster anywhere.
Then the other Miss Hawkline bent forward and looked very hard at the elephant foot umbrella stand.
Suddenly a huge flush flash of emotion exploded itself across her face and she fell to her knees beside her sister and said, “Oh, Father! It’s our father! Daddy!”
The Hawkline sisters were not as emotionless as they thought they were.
Greer and Cameron stood there watching the Hawkline sisters hugging and calling an elephant foot umbrella stand Daddy.
Marriage
Greer and Cameron left the Hawkline women with the elephant foot umbrella stand and walked back down the hall to the laboratory door. It was time to do something about the Hawkline Monster and right now. Greer and Cameron had had enough of its antics.
Greer was now carrying the lamp.
Cameron had a glass of whiskey in his hand.
Greer still had not noticed anything different about Cameron carrying the glass of whiskey. His mind was really someplace else because under any other conditions, he would have noticed the glass of whiskey. This was a first for him. Perhaps it was time that he should start thinking about retiring, about hanging it up and finding a good woman to settle down with.
Yes, that was probably a good idea. Maybe one of the Hawkline women. He of course had no way of knowing that the Hawkline Monster had already planned a sort of group marriage for them, anyway.
Dream Residence