“Too bad.” Of them all, Mudge appeared the least affected by his personal infection. “Needs to lead a ‘ealthier life, the poor sod.”
“I have not had a cold in some time,” observed Clothahump. “And you say you have never had these measles before?” Jon-Tom nodded. “It appears then that each of us has contracted something new to our systems, or at the very least something which we have have not experienced in some time.”
“Blimey, you’d think you were all dyin’, wot with all this sneezin’ and sweatin’ and pukin’ an’ all. Wot you chaps need is—” He halted in mid-sentence and his eyes got very wide. Abruptly he bent over and grabbed his crotch with both paws. The reason for his earlier reluctance to identify the location of his itch was now apparent.
Clothahump studied the bent-over otter studiously as he blew his nostrils for the fortieth time. “A new and particularly virulent strain, I should say.”
“Of what?” Jon-Tom touched his cheek with one hand, felt the heat.
“Difficult to say. Gonorrhea, perhaps, or something even less comfiting.” The otter was rolling around on the ground and moaning while he clutched at his privates. Since the diseases they had contracted were moving with exceptional rapidity through their bodies, each of them was suffering the cumulative effects of his or her respective infection. None was more discomforting than the otter’s.
“It ain’t fair,” he was shouting at a vicious fate, “it ain’t fair!”
“Nothing the perambulator does is fair, Mudge.”
“It can’t be. I mean, everyone’s been clean wot I’ve been with the ‘ole bloomin’ year.”
“Doesn’t mean anything to a perturbation,” Jon-Tom told him sympathetically.
Breathing hard, the otter at last rolled to a stop. Sitting up, he pulled down his shorts and commenced to examine himself in detail. “Blimey, you don’t think there’ll be any permanent effects, do you, mate?”
“Mudge, I have no idea. I hope that I’m going to be immune to measles from now on, but I’ve no way of knowing for sure. None of us do.”
Clothahump adjusted his glasses, blew his nose yet again, and murmured, “Poetic justice.”
Mudge’s head snapped around, and he glared at the turtle, barely suppressing the frustration and fury he felt. “If we didn’t absolutely need you to straighten out this rotten mess the world ‘as got itself into, Your Wizardshit, it would give me the greatest pleasure to knock your bloody smug face down into your bloody arse.”
“I did not make the comment out of a casual desire to provoke.” Clothahump was not in the least concerned with the otter’s threat. “I have had occasion to notice, water rat, that you are a great one for laughing at the misfortunes of others. But when it is your own person that is involved in disquieting circumstances, your sense of humor absents itself.”
“Don’t be too hard on him,” Jon-Tom requested. “Really, sir. There’s nothing funny about venereal disease. Why, it could cause shriveling and complete ruination of his—”
Mudge let out a cry of despair and fell over on his side.
VII
They recovered from their assorted infections by the following midday. Jon-Tom had suffered and been done with a severe case of measles in less than twenty-four hours. Clothahump’s cold had left him, and Sorbl no longer had to vanish into the bushes every five minutes. Having contracted the most serious disease of all, Dormas was the last to recover. None of them had any permanent damage to show for their respective bouts.
Mudge was as fit as any of them, having been fully restored to health. That didn’t keep him from taking occasional peeks at himself when he thought no one was looking.
“Relax, Mudge,” Jon-Tom told him. “It’s all over. Pretend it never happened. We’re as healthy as we were the day before last. There are no aftereffects.”
“Bloody well better not be.” He was helping Dormas adjust her load. “If that blasted perambulator baiter’s ‘urt me love life, I’ll dice Mm for a stew.”
“I’m sure you’re none the worse for wear, Mudge. Everyone else is healthy again. You must be too.”
“Well—on close inspection she all appears to be in workin’ order, but I ain’t really in a position to find out for sure. One thing’s certain: I’m goin’ to take ‘er slow an’ easy at first.”
Jon-Tom nodded approvingly. “Thataboy. It wouldn’t hurt you to rein in your profligate life-style a little, anyway.”
“You may be right, mate.” Mudge slipped his longbow over his shoulders. Then he raised one paw, put the other one over his heart, and solemnly intoned, “No more orgies. No more a different lady every night. By the digger of dens, I swear this. I’m goin’ to cut down.”
“It was worth the trouble if it made a new otter out of you. There’s nothing wrong with seeking pleasure in moderation for a change, you know.”
“Aye, mate. It made me see the light, that bloomin’ infection did. I’ve done wot I pleased lo these many years without ‘avin’ a care to wot I might be doin’ to me body. Tis time for a bit more maturity. If I start watchin’ meself, maybe I’ll never ‘ave to suffer with that kind o’ sickness for real.” He shouldered his own small backpack and started briskly up the narrow game trail they’d been following.
“Much as it’s goin’ to ‘urt,” he muttered. “I guess I’ll ‘ave to restrict meself to a different lady every other night.”
Clothahump was shaking his head as he waddled off in the otter’s wake. “Incorrigible, as are most of his kind. You can try your best, my boy, but water rats are unreformable.”
Jon-Tom fell into step alongside him, keeping his strides short to match the wizard’s. “You can’t expect him to turn into a church mouse overnight, sir.”
“I expect him to turn into a desiccated corpse one night is what I expect. But keep trying. Far be it from me to dampen your enthusiasm.”
“You may be right, sir, but keep trying I will.” He let his eyes shift forward. Mudge was leading the way, those bright black eyes darting left and right, missing nothing. He was whistling cheerfully.
At least he’ll die happy, Jon-Tom mused. And who was he, unwilling visitor from another place and time, to criticize? This world had already forced him to relinquish many long-held moral precepts. He would never degenerate to the otter’s level, of course, but neither was he the same person he’d been when Clothahump had mistakenly brought him over. Nor could he exactly be called pure, having enjoyed a joint on occasion and spent more than his fair share of study time trying to focus his roommate’s binoculars on the girls’ dormitory across the way from their apartment.
So who was he to judge Mudge? At least the otter knew how to have fun. Jon-Tom had to work at it. It was the lawyer in him. He was too restrained, too much in control of himself. Maybe one day Mudge would be able to show him how to really let go.
You worry too much, that’s one of your problems, he told himself. Like right now, you’re worrying about worrying too much.
Angrily he kicked at a rock (making certain it was not a pinecone) and tried to think of something else. Nothing was more frustrating than arguing with yourself and losing.
As if doing penance for all the trouble it had caused recently, the perambulator did not trouble them for some time. They marched on, climbing steadily across the plateau, unaffected by discombobulating dislocations, save for a few minor ones. Jon-Tom spent one morning trying to adjust to being suddenly left-handed, while one evening Mudge’s fur turned pure silver. Not silver-colored, but solid strands of metallic silver. He was bitterly disappointed when he changed back before he could give himself a shave.
At the same time Dormas was transformed into a gloriously hued palomino, Jon-Tom acquired the skin tone of a Polynesian, and Sorbl’s brown-and-gray feathers all turned to gold. It was a reminder, Clothahump declared, that not all the perambulator’s perturbations need necessarily have harmful consequences. Jon-Tom was disappointed when his artificial tan vanished along with the rest of the changes. It would have stood him in good stead at the beach.