The Wayward Noodle 2

            In Cincinnati, a woman sat at an old switchboard. She had fifty years in with Ma Bell as a payphone operator. It was one of the more stressful jobs in the world, back in the seventies, but, like Aesop carrying the food supplies, her time had come. She sat and kept an eye on ten displays, which represented the last ten payphones in the country. One light went green. This happened, on average, once a day. She carefully placed her woodburning pen back in its holder, and answered the call.

            “Op-er-ate-orrr!”

            A tiny, wheaten voice came through.

            “I’d like to place a collect call to the Agency Help Desk. Yes. I’ll hold.”

            Back in the inexplicable phone booth, as the operator connected him, Noodle lightly whistled a happy tune. He was the noodle who would save the world.

            “Agency Help Desk. This better be good. How may I help you.”

            “Hi. I’m a macaroni? who was served a la carte at ‘Mon Plume’? I got separate from the dish? and I wound up on the shoulder of a woman’s jacket? and, as they were driving home, I think they were talking about a plot to ruin the world- Soon!”

            “Hm. Go on…”

            “They were talking about possible incarceration, bread and tyranny, and the apocalypse, and the world coming to an end, and how the weapon would be delivered, I think. What they were talking about was disturbing, but I don’t want to get them in trouble unless they’re really doing something wrong. So, I need some advice, I guess.”

            “You sound winded.”

            “Well, I’ve got the phone lying down, and I’m running back and forth from the earpiece to the mouthpiece like a caterpillar with the trots. I’m just a macaroni, you know.”

            “Mister Macaroni, I take your tip very seriously, but we here at the Agency are quite confident that there isn’t any doomsday device on the loose. And we know where every other variety of device is. For example, we know where all the can openers are.”

            “Well,” Noodle said, “that’s pretty easy. They all go ‘squeak-squeak-squeak’ when they’re used…”

            “Be that as it may, we know of no machine like the one you describe. Of course, it’s disturbing when things like that are even discussed. Hey! Were their names ‘Henry’ and ‘Bartholomew’?”

            “Yes!”

            “And, they were in a Lexus.”

            “Of course.”

            “We found ‘em.”

            “Great!”

            “That information just came in. Local police pulled them over for soft rock in a built-up area.”

            “Did you get the doomsday machine, then?”

            “There wasn’t a doomsday device. They were just given a warning, and went home, I assume.”

            “But, how do you know that there was no doomsday device if they weren’t looking for one?”
           

            “They have dogs for that.”

            “Oh.”

            “But, actually, something still smells fishy…”

            “I didn’t notice that. I know Bartholomew smelled like musky lemons…”

            “No. No…my Agency sense tells me that something’s not quite right. You could be on to something. The couple might be what we call in the business a ‘red herring’.”

            “They didn’t have the fish.”

            “They may have been put there to lead you astray.”

            Noodle was just young enough to rate that high as a possibility. He was at the adolescent stage of a cooked noodle, really.

            “That must be it! But, astray from where?”

            “Good question, Mister Macaroni. We coulda taken you on as an agent, but we don’t hire food. If there’s any danger here, then I think you were led astray from the scene of the crime, which would be ‘Mon Plume’. Henry and Bartholomew probably don’t even know that they’re a part of this sordid mess. True doomsday spies don’t make rookie mistakes like that.”

            “Well, you should go to ‘Mon Plume’, then.”

            “Oh, Mac, I’ve been doing this for so long. Soooo… I’d like to go between the horns of the cliché on this case, and be somewhat skeptical, and include you somewhat.”

            “Oh! Sounds good to me!” Noodle said. “How?”

            “Go to ‘Plume’. The doomsday device may be there. Do you have a defusing kit?”

            “Wait, wait, wait! That’s miles away.”

            “Or, you could keep an eye on that couple for us…”

            “I don’t even know where they were headed…”

            “Ah! My bad. I forgot that you may be ambulatory, but you’re not all that mobile.”

            “Yeah.”

            “Watching them’s a job for someone with a car. And hands. And feet. We’ll take that end. Yeah. The restaurant’s your assignment, I’m afraid. You can be surreptitious. You’re a macaroni. You can hide easily. You could save the world! Or, not. Yeah. You’ll have to search the place yourself. Thank you for calling the Agency Help Desk, and have a nice day."

            (*click!*)

            As Noodle knew, ‘Mon Plume’ was miles away from the last payphone in Chicago. Two. But he realized that the agent was right. ‘Mon Plume’ was where the action was, and the assignment would give him more of a chance to help before he dried out. He sat there on the slanty too-small board next to the phone, listening to it go ‘beep-beep-beep’, and sighed. He would have to fashion a wormhole.

            “AW! C’MON!”

            …I can hear the reader hollering through the page. But, just wait…

            “Noodles don’t fashion wormholes! That would be against the laws of physics!”    …Wait, wait, wait. Think about it. How else does farfalle make it into a change purse? Or smushed onto the glass in a printing machine?  How does ziti take the place of a battery in a remote, or a macaroni find its way onto Pence’s head during a debate? With that sort of circumstantial evidence, the answer is easy! Noodles use wormholes with some regularity. I’m sure of it!

            Want more proof? Noodles have even made it as far as the moon! I found a Transcript On The Internet, released by ham operators in the Esperan Alps who were listening in on an Apollo mission way back when. Astronauts found something very interesting on Mons Huygens, and it never made the mainstream news. The transcript (with expletives deleted) is there for all to see, and it goes a little something like this:

            Ranger Commander: We have left the Rover and are approaching the base of a small rise.

            Houston: Copy.

            Commander: Wait. There is an object…a deposit of objects at its base. Proceeding with caution.

            Houston: Copy.

            Commander: They seem manufactured. The larger of the objects is warped, but looks like it was flat at first, and it is blue in color. Next to it is… well… if I wasn’t on the moon, I’d call it litter.

            Houston: Copy that, Ranger.

            (Dramatic but vague chatter somehow bleeding over from the other astronaut’s radio: “Amazing…”)

            Commander: What I see before me seems to be a fiberglass tray, with compartments. I recognize… in one of the small compartments, what seem to be petrified green beans…

            (More indecipherable chatter from other team member.)

            Commander: …not petrified. A fine powder that crumbles out of its…bean shape…  when tactily investigated.

            (Chatter- “…ash…” “Fantastic!”.)

            Houston: Advise caution, Ranger.

            Commander: Copy that, Houston. Next to the tray is a burst container that held, roughly, a half-pint of liquid. I can make out…words! Words printed on it… ‘Two Percent’…and… letter missing there… ‘Milb’?

            (Chatter- “milk…”)

            Houston: I think that’s ‘Milk’, Ranger.

            Commander: That’s gotta be it, Houston. More grey ash surrounding it…

            (Chatter- “pear half”.)

            Commander: Yes, Houston, another compartment on the tray contains part of some sort of fruit with the core mechanically removed. Everything in that compartment has… (tink-tink!) hardened to something the consistency of dry shellac. In the larger of the four compartments are many ‘C’ shaped things, in a pile! Dusty grey and hardened!

            Houston: Copy that, Ranger.

            (Chatter- “School lunch…” garbled talk in tones of general amazement, then, worry.)

            Commander: …That’s gotta be the entrée… Houston, we have Mac and Cheese!

            Houston: Get out of there, Ranger!

            Commander: Copy that. We’re gone.

            Houston: Use the buggy! The…

            Commander: (Panting.) Rover, Houston.

            Houston: That’s it.  Rover, Ranger! Get in the Rover and as far away as possible…