Read Online Mastodonia by Clifford D. Simak - Free Book Online

it, that’s the way with Bowser. He never moves his mouth and there isn’t any sound, but I hear the words.”
    I said, “Hiram, pull up a chair and have some breakfast with us.”
    He shuffled in embarrassment. “I don’t know if I should. I already had my breakfast.”
    â€œThere’s batter left,” said Rila. “I can make some hot ones.”
    â€œYou never pass up breakfast with me,” I said. “No matter how many other breakfasts you have had. Don’t change because of Rila. She’s a friend who came visiting. She’ll be around, so get used to her.”
    â€œWell, if it’s all right,” said Hiram. “I’m partial, Miss Rila, to cakes with lots of syrup.”
    Rila went to the stove and poured more batter on the griddle.
    Hiram said, “Truth is, I can’t feel friendly with this cat-face thing. At times, I’m a little scared of him. He’s a funny-looking jigger, with just that great big head and no body you can see. That head of his looks like someone had up and painted a face on a big balloon. He never takes his eyes off you, and he never blinks.”
    â€œThe thing is,” I told him, “that Rila thinks it might be important for us to talk with him, but we can’t talk with him. You’re the only one who can.”
    â€œYou mean no one else can talk with him.”
    â€œNo one but you can talk with Bowser, either.”
    â€œIf you should agree to talk with Catface,” said Rila, “it must be a secret. No one but the two of us must know that you have talked with him, or what you talked about.”
    â€œBut Bowser,” protested Hiram. “I can’t keep any secrets from Bowser. He is my best friend and I would have to tell him.”
    â€œAll right, then,” said Rila. “I guess it would do no harm if you told Bowser.”
    â€œI promise you,” said Hiram, “that he will never tell a soul. If I ask him to, he’ll never breathe a word of it.”
    Rila looked at me, unsmiling. “Is it all right with you,” she asked, “if he lets Bowser in on it?”
    â€œJust so long,” I said, “as it is understood Bowser will tell no one.”
    â€œOh, he won’t,” Hiram promised. “I’ll warn him not to.” And having said this, he turned his full attention to the stack of cakes, shoveling up great mouthfuls of them, leaving a smear of syrup clear across his face.
    Nine cakes later, he was ready to resume the conversation.
    â€œYou said there was something important I should talk to this Catface about?”
    â€œYes, there is,” said Rila, “but it’s a little hard to explain it exactly right.”
    â€œYou want me to talk to him about this thing you have in mind, then tell it back to you. Just the four of us will know …”
    â€œThe four of us?”
    â€œBowser,” I said. “You are forgetting Bowser is the fourth.”
    â€œOh, yes,” said Rila, “we must not forget old Bowser.”
    Hiram asked, “It will be a secret just with the four of us?”
    â€œThat is right,” said Rila.
    â€œI like secrets,” Hiram said, delighted. “They make me feel important.”
    â€œHiram,” Rila asked, “you know about time, don’t you?”
    â€œTime is what you see,” he said, “when you look at a clock. You can tell if it’s noon or three o’clock or six.”
    â€œThat’s true,” said Rila, “but it’s more than that. You know about us living in the present and that when time goes by, it is known as the past.”
    â€œLike yesterday,” Hiram suggested. “Yesterday is past.”
    â€œYes, that’s right. And a hundred years is the past and so is a million years.”
    â€œI don’t see what difference it makes,” said Hiram. “All of it is past.”
    â€œHave you ever thought how nice it