Basically, I don't own jack of this story. Cecilia had the idea for this
little munchkin (throws hugs and kisses Cecilia's way in thanks and
gratitude),
Anne Rice owns the VC references, Chris owns the yard-apes (TM), and some
words, phrases and the entire idea of the Pied Piper of Hamelin have been
copied
from my copy of the fairytale. Plagiarism is certainly not intended because
of this. Give me a person to credit, and I will.)
Gratuitous and well deserved thanks to Christina for her beta and
suggestions.
Rewrite and Correction of history by LP
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
Once upon a time there was a small but prosperous town called Hamelin. This
town rested on the banks of a great river in northern Germany. The citizens
of Hamelin were happy folk, living in their solid stone houses with sturdy
roofs above them to keep out winter snows and summer rains, drinking their
hearty beers and gathering together often to celebrate their good fortune and
their great wealth. (The people of Hamelin who have passed along this tale
would
have you believe that they were honest folk, making an honest living,
however if you go to the tavern at the corner of the square in the first
village
just west of Hamelin and order 2 ales you hear quite a different story from
the
tavern keeper. Plan on spending at least 4 hours here, more if you are
able.)
One summer, however, (and it had been a very prosperous year indeed for the
townsfolk and the farmers, lots of booty, erm, taxes had been taken in), the
cats of Hamelin began dying and it was not noticed for many months until
harvest time. All at once the rats of the town began multiplying, and with no
cats to kill them, their numbers grew to the greatest of heights (townspeople
not included in this statistic).
When harvest that year came (very bountiful with all the confiscated land),
an ocean of rats poured over the town, first attacking the freshly filled
grain- and storehouses, and when everything therein had been consumed, the
rats
moved on, still hungry. They ate anything: wood, cloth, hay, books (although
there was one storekeeper on the verge of being arrested for tax-evasion who
willing fed his account books to the rats, and an accountant who had been
embezzling funds did the same thing). Nothing was safe as the fat black rats
swarmed over the houses, climbing in windows, and gnawing through the roofs
until they fell down to the floor inside with fat rat plops before scurrying
to
eat their way back outside, definitely getting enough fiber in their diet.
The terrified citizens would wake to find rats in their beds, gnawing at
their blankets and sleeping on their mattresses, playing in their shiny copper
pots and their heavy wooden bureaus. Frantic, they ran to the Mayor's house to
beg for relief from the rats. (Well, not everybody, there was one little
girl who lived in the attic of one of more prominent houses who thought the
rats
dropping in to see her were just adorable, so she had no problem with them,
and didn't go to the protest outside the Mayor's house.) But the town
council had long been sitting in the Mayor's house searching for a solution to
the
plague of rats.
"We need an army of cats!" said one councillor.
"But all the cats are dead!" said another.
"Poison the food!" said another. But the rats had already eaten all the
poison along with the food, and they had kept coming, not letting something as
minor as death stop them from their binge (although several did get
sidetracked
at the beer factory, and when the snails in the area saw how much fun the
rats were having swimming in the beer, they decided to sip from the rims of
the
beer vats. Unfortunately, snails can get awfully drunk, awfully fast, and
the poor things ended up sliming their way off the edge of the vats to the
ground and waking up the next morning with hellacious hangovers.)
"It just can't be done without help," said the mayor in dismay, and the
councillors began wondering just how difficult it was to lace the food with
poison. None of them had actually tried since the last city father was
discovered
and hung for killing his competition to the city council seat. (They took
politics very seriously in Hamelin.)
Then, as the citizens of Hamelin stood outside the Mayor's three-quarter's
eaten house, a traveler appeared with the setting of the sun.
"What is going on here?" he asked one of the citizens on the outskirt of the
crowd.
"The city is being attacked by hordes of rats. They are eating us out of
house and home!" The traveler looked through the crowd and knocked on the
door.
The door opened and then before the wary town officials he majestically
stood, dressed in bright clothes and a long velvet cloak and a hat with large
black plume, holding a golden pipe.
"I am Santino," the stranger announced. "Other towns like yours I have freed
from such horrors: beetles and roaches and locusts and bats, and for one
thousand florins, I'll get rid of your rats!"
"A thousand florins!" exclaimed the mayor. "50,000 if you succeed will be
your payment from us." (Now we all see why the mayor got elected to his
office.)
"It is late now," the man said, "but even so, by dawn tomorrow this town
shall be free of rats!" and turning to the citizens crowded close to hear his
words (and perchance pick his pockets if they could find them), he spoke, "Go
home people! Open your windows and leave open your doors. I will free you from
this pestilence, and you will worry no more!"
The people hurried home, determined to stay awake so they could witness the
stranger at work (and hopefully steal his secrets). But several hours passed
and when they heard the soft tones of a golden flute moving through the
streets, they fell asleep.
Santino moved through alley and street, calling the rats by the sound of his
golden flute. As he slowly progressed he soon had a legion of rats following
behind, more joining from open doors and the rafters above, stopping their
incessant chewing to crawl over one another as they were led by the pied
piper.
As he played, Santino followed the path to the river, turning now and then
to play a small jig for the little (okay, big) rat feet scampering along, and
then he walked straight into the river, still playing to the fuzzy fat rats.
The rats followed him into the stream, and with agonized squeals and frantic
terrified splashes all the rats drowned (except for three, they were so fat
they floated downstream and ended up drying off in a big cave.)
When the townspeople woke there was not a rat to be found. The town rejoiced
(except the little girl) and the town council rejoiced even more, for the
pied piper had vanished, as surely as the rats.
The delight died away when come evening the piper reappeared and demanded
his payment.
"50,000 florins?" exclaimed the mayor. "Absolutely not! We said 50, so
here!" he said, throwing a fistful of coins to the ground. "Take that and
leave
our town."
"One thousand florins at least!" said Santino angrily.
But the Mayor interrupted in his whiny, wheedling voice, "Be grateful for
that, the rats are all dead, and they can never come back."
With flashing eyes, and palpable rage Santino glowered at the city fathers
with his patented Irate Santino Glare (TM). "You'll bitterly regret ever
breaking your promise," he said, and then vanished.
The councilors stood round, shivering in premonition, but the Mayor was too
ecstatic to notice, orgasmic one might say (although probably only one).
"We've saved 50,000 florins!" he said, pointing to the ground, and surely
true,
the pied piper, in his anger, had left the 50 florins thrown to him.
That night the citizens of Hamelin slept peacefully, not once waking to the
sound of rats gnawing on the wooden legs of their beds, or the feel of a fat
rat landing solidly on their mattress as yet another fell through the roof.
It was the first good night's sleep that they had enjoyed in months, and every
last one of them went to it with a vengeance.
So when the melody of a golden flute wafted through the air in the very
early hours of the morning, no adult heard it. But the children awoke, drawn
to
the sound as if by magic, and they hurried to join Santino as he paraded
through the streets, calling children of all ages out to him. They crowded
about
him, never straying beyond the call of the music (have I mentioned that it was
really pretty music? Really jazzy for a flute, and given that these poor
kids never heard anything but boring Salzburg court music, if they were lucky,
they thought this new music was nifty.)
The procession soon moved to the edge of town, and beyond, through the
fields, past a forest where Santino had put some of the bats, and finally to
the
base of a mountain. There he stopped, and the children looked at the looming
rock with awe (the yard-apes (TM) wanted to climb it, can you believe it?),
and with a loud trill of notes from the flute, the mountain opened for Santino
with a great creak! With a flourish and a bow, Santino pointed the way
inside the cave with his golden flute, and the children skipped happily after
him.
The story (Hamelin version, 67.3) ends saying that the door closed, a
rockslide barricaded the entrance, something about a lame boy telling all the
adults what had happened, yadda, yadda, the children were lost forever, harsh
lesson learned and the "lesson" was passed from father to son over the
generations and the centuries.
To this day, I still scoff at this. All that rot that the piper killed the
children, stole the cattle, bayed at the moon, and tipped over the beer vats.
Rubbish. This is what really happened:
When the children went inside, Santino separated the oldest from the younger
ones and took them to a back part of the cave, where he drank their blood,
and gave them the gift of immortality. To the younger children he said, "We
are going to Rome, where you shall see many wondrous things, and learn many
great secrets. Your cheating parents will die, but you are worthy to join me.
You are pure, uncorrupted, and we shall move through the centuries together.
Today we will spend here, and then tomorrow night we shall leave for a better
town than this!"
So we, I mean they, rested during the day, and then moved out for Rome in
the evening hours, traveling through the caves and leaving the mountain
through
a back entrance. When they got to Rome, they went into the catacombs, and
lived and became the first great coven of Rome, bringing others into their
folds and spreading the message of Santino the Great for centuries to come.
The End.
Oh, wait, remember that little girl in the attic? And remember those three
rats that survived because they were so fat? Well, we later found out that
they were so fat because the little girl had been feeding them her bread
crumbs.
You'll be happy to know that there was a very touching family reunion when
the girl found her rats safe and sound, though a little soggy. They came with
us to Rome, and Santino ended up keeping them as pets when the little girl
grew up and got tired of them. The rats were upset for a while, but then
decided that they liked to have Santino pet them, and he fed them better than
the
little girl ever did, anyway.
**************Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living.
(http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-duffy/
2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598)
