I WAS WATCHING THE NEWS A FEW DAYS AGO WHEN THE REPORT CAME ON ABOUT THAT TRAGEDY DOWN AT SEA WORLD WITH THE TRAINER AND THE KILLER WHALE. IT PUT ME IN MIND OF SOMETHING SIMILAR THAT OCCURRED RIGHT HERE IN VARMINT COUNTY LAST YEAR.
No, we don't have an aquarium, or for that matter any salt water that could provide a home for killer whales.We do have Elijah Haig's private alligator farm, where the old man keeps the pet gators, including Old Gnash, donated by his Louisiana cousins. More importantly, we have Barney Pennywell.
Barney, you might recall, is the legally blind science teacher at Lower Primroy Middle School, known affectionately to his students as "Mister B."
Barney, who wears coke bottle glasses and was known in college as "The Mole," describes himself as "the other driver everyone is supposed to be watching out for." His wife May Belle, hoping to keep him around long enough to at least collect his teacher's pension, drives him to work and back each day.
But once he arrives at school, Barney is on his own, as are his students, other faculty and the occupants of nearby buildings. Something of a cross between bumbling Mister Rogers and blind Mister Magoo, Barney is famous for his science experiments and demonstrations gone wrong, for years a source of humor for the kids and a source of terror for Director of Schools Henrietta Lowe.
In years past Barney has managed to destroy his lab with a model volcano that was a bit too realistic, accidentally release two rattlesnakes during parent visitation night and cause a panic when his helium-filled model of the planet Jupiter broke loose, floated into the upper atmosphere and was spotted by astronomers at McDonald Observatory.
"I can't fire him, his brother is chairman of the county budget committee," Henrietta moaned to school principal K. D. Surple. "Maybe I could transfer him to a safer job, like teaching English literature at Varmint County High."
"Nah, Barney would just organize a reenactment of Shakespeare's Hamlet and somebody would get decapitated with a broadsword," K. D. replied. "Better to leave him where he is. He always places the kids at a safe distance and is a real danger only to himself."
"Besides, we've got the best science test results of any school in the district. Everyone wants to attend Barney's class to watch Mister B electrocute himself, blow himself up or turn into a human torch."
So it was a bit surprising when the school board approved a spring field trip for Barney's class last year. They were reassured by the fact that the kids were studying plant and animal ecology, not some subject that involved dangerous chemicals, volcanoes or meteorites falling from the sky.
"We really don't have that many dangerous animals around Varmint County. I told Barney absolutely no snakes or spiders. Other than that, the most dangerous wild critters in these woods are a few skunks and maybe a Bobcat or two, if he could find them in the daytime," K. D. observed, hopefully.
School officials had overlooked Elijah's gator pens, however, seeing as how they are located over in Haig Hollow where outsiders are not normally welcomed. Barney, however, was a favorite teacher of Elijah's granddaughters Penny and Cloe, and the old man was happy to oblige when Barney asked about a field trip to Varmint County's most unspoiled wilderness.
"You come right ahead and bring them young'uns up here, Mister B. We got lots of deer and wild turkey and I'll bet I can rouse up a coon or two. You can even take 'em down to the gator pens at feeding time if'n you want."
So Barney's class traveled one fine spring day to Haig Hollow. There was a bit of a delay when the bus driver refused to go any further unless he received hazardous duty pay. Old Elijah Haig drove out to see what the problem was and reassured the driver that he had safe conduct onto Haig land.
Taking the driver aside, Elijah also promised, "If you disappoint these children, one of my boys can drive the bus on in.You can walk back and if you're still alive when we come out, we'll pick you up. Strangers on foot don't usually get very far around here."
The trip proceeded uneventfully. The kids got to identify dozens of rare plants and trees ranging from American Chestnuts to the nearly-extinct Cumberland Rosin Weed. They watched a doe and a fawn romping in a meadow and scampered among a flock of nearly 80 wild turkeys.As a special surprise, they got to watch two bull elks battle it out over mating rights.
"I just had them elk brung in from Colorado last year. I sell a special jet fuel additive to theAir Force and as part of the deal, they had to trap me a dozen Rocky Mountain Elk off their bombing range," Elijah winked.
Finally it was time to visit the alligator pens, a first encounter for all these mountain-born kids. "We'll avoid Old Gnash. He's a mite prickly around people, but I got a dozen smaller gators down in the main pond."
This is where Elijah Haig made his big mistake: "Mister B, it's time to feed my gators some catfish we brought in from Mud Lake. Would you like to help?"
So Elijah's two oldest grandsons and Barney Pennywell entered the enclosure with a few dozen fresh catfish and three long poles with paddles on one end.The feeders placed the fish on the paddles and lifted them about ten feet out into the pond where the gators would thrash around and battle each other for the tasty morsels. It was quite a show for the kids, accompanied by oohs and ahhs every time a gator would break the surface.
The feeding went off without a hitch until finally Barney, admitting that his aging shoulders were getting a bit tired, handed his pole to one of the Haig boys and hobbled over to the side of the enclosure to sit down on a log and rest.
"Uh, Mister B, don't. That's not a..." little Corney Hotchkiss started to blurt out as the log turned around and chomped down firmly on Barney's lower leg. The gator then took off for the pond, dragging its prey along as the two vanished in the water.
The kids stared in shock as the Haigs all grabbed various clubs, hatchets and long sharpened pikes and began wading into the murky water, thrashing gators left and right. Finally, grandson Toby emerged with Mister B, sputtering and spitting water as he was muscled to the shore.
"Gawd, Papaw. He's lost his leg at the knee. Get something to stop the bleeding," Toby cried out.
"No need to do that, young man. I'm OK, just swallowed some water is all," Barney croaked.
"But your leg?"
"Artificial. See, the gator just broke the hinges loose."
Turns out Barney Pennywell lost his right leg several years back, during an experiment involving Newton's Third Law as applied to the acceleration of falling objects. Being a science whiz, he fashioned an artificial limb that worked so well that only his wife and Doc Filstrup knew the leg wasn't flesh and blood.
A few minutes later, a gator rolled lifeless to the surface of the pond.
"That's your gator, Mister B. We named him "Hard Time" after Judge Harwell 'cause he is a particularly merciless old cuss."
"Seems to have choked on your leg," Toby observed.
"Sorry about your alligator, Mr. Haig. Can I pay for you to replace it?"
"Naw, thats O.K. We was getting too many for this pond and thinking about thinning the herd anyway. Old Hard Time would have been one of the first to go. Say, how would you like a stuffed 'gator for your classroom?"
And that is how the Lower Primroy Middle School basketball team came to change their name from the "Catamounts" to the " Hill Gators," complete with a stuffed mascot named Hard Time that stares from its perch above the gymnasium floor.
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