Cyber Wiz

Mabel Quartz


I've so much work to do! I can't pause a moment but it seems to me I've heard the faint sound of the hunting horn. Did you hear it Jeffrey? They're suppose to hunt through here today."

"No Aunt Ellen," I replied. "I haven't heard anything."

"Well it's no wonder. You must be the laziest creature since God created the Three Toed Sloth. Have you been sleeping again? Good heavens child it's ten o'clock in the morning! I thought boys were suppose to be active!"

"I took an antihistamine," I explained. "I feel a little drowsy."

"Well if you didn't house the cat right under your nose perhaps you wouldn't need an antihistamine."

"But I'm very allergic to..."

"Well forget all that," she said with a wave of her hand. "I can't get this computer working properly. Be a good boy and help me here would you? I need to get on the web and talk to Upton Snowberry about Snowberry Hall in Birdshire, England. It's for my garden book."

I couldn't tell Aunt Ellen her computer should be in a museum. Aunt Ellen has a way of making her requests sound like orders. She doesn't exactly say, 'or else' but she gets this haughty look in her eyes that makes me scramble. I sometimes wonder if she might be a reincarnated dictator. I dislodged the cat, rolled out of the hammock and staggered over to her PC. It took me a few minutes but with a little finagling here and there I was able to reach the web page of Lord Upton Snowberry.

"And I thought your mother exaggerated when she said you were bright!" Aunt Ellen exclaimed in amazement. "You do show signs of intelligent life! Why those gray cells of yours work harder than all the rest of your cells put together!"

"Thanks Aunt Ellen," I replied dryly.

"Old Snowberry is a tough egg to get a hold of," Aunt Ellen continued. "I probably won't hear back from him for a week but he has the best rose garden on the web. I'd love to include him in the chapter on roses in my book."

Suddenly I heard a faint tootling of a horn. I listened carefully and heard it again.

"What is it Jeffrey?" Aunt Ellen asked looking down her nose at me.

She raised her eyebrows and studied the grassy horizon. I knew she heard it too.

"The hunt! Perhaps we'll view the fox! I must get my binoculars!"

She dashed through the open french doors into the house.

I leaned on the deck railing and listened. I could hear the full cry of the hounds as they approached. They sounded like they meant business. Blood thirsty business. I felt sorry for the fox. What did he ever do to them?

Out behind the back of Aunt Ellen's house, beyond the gardens, is a grassy field. I spotted an orange speck racing into view. The poor fox, running for his life, headed straight toward the garden and the house.

"View halloo! View halloo!" I heard Aunt Ellen shout excitedly from an upstairs window.

Next the hounds appeared like a plague of locusts. The field swarmed with long eared, long legged, black, tan and white dogs all baying and running. Behind them came some red coated huntsmen galloping on horses and cracking large whips. The huntsman with the horn shouted at the hounds.

The fox headed straight into the garden and I breathed a sigh of relief. Surely he'd be safe in Aunt Ellen's garden. He dashed past a large azalea bush then past some rose bushes and ducked under a boxwood near the deck. I guess nobody told the hounds to stop because the next thing I knew they came racing into the yard right after the fox. Aunt Ellen is going to murder them! The fox must have thought they were going to murder him because suddenly he bolted out from under the boxwood and leapt right up on the railing next to me! I screamed at the top of my lungs.

Next, the strangest thing I've ever seen occurred. The fox pivoted on his hind legs and leapt through the air toward the french doors. The computer was all that stood between him and the doorway but rather than clearing the computer, the fox leapt right into it. I don't mean that he leapt into it and hit it and fell. I mean he leapt into the screen and went right into the computer, right into cyberspace!

The next moment, a sea of leaping, baying hounds surrounded me and knocked me down. I curled up into a ball and laid on the deck. Suddenly, they were gone and I heard the thundering of hooves on the lawn and the huntsman and whips shouting, "The hounds! We must save the hounds!"

I looked up and saw the bottom of a horse fly over me with his legs curled up tight in a fantastic leap over the railing and into the computer. Then another followed and another, shrinking as they arced into cyberspace. I covered my face and rolled under the hammock. I saw in a hideous display the fieldmaster on his big grey horse follow the huntsman and whips then the rest of the field followed him at a full gallop and leapt over the railing and into the unknown as though some force from beyond was drawing them in. My mother, in perfect form, jumped to her doom followed by Nadine who was the last one in the field and pulling hard on the reins but she couldn't get her horse, Pumpernickle, to stop.

Then, it was quiet. I stood up and looked around. Out across the grassy field the earth began to crack. A large fissure formed and headed for the house splitting everything in it's path. The house shook violently and began to crumble. The sky blacked. The wind came up with a roar. I felt myself falling when suddenly something grabbed me by the back of my collar and I began hurtling through the air. The computer screen grew larger and larger and I thought to myself that this must be the last thing a bug sees before he hits the windshield of a car. Then I went through the glass into cyberspace!