Read Online Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help by Douglas Anthony Cooper - Free Book Online Page A

however, unusually tall, perhaps three or four stories. Theceiling could barely be seen in the gloom. For the moment the only light was what poured in (slowly, like molasses) through the open door.
    Apparently, Arabella and Milrose were to sleep in a bunk bed. It was not an ordinary bunk bed. It had mattresses, one on top of the other, connected by a ladder, but it had about twenty of these, arrayed in a tower.
    “Feel free to choose!” said Massimo Natica. “I shall in fact come to some conclusions, based upon which bed you each decide to occupy.”
    Milrose thought it might be nice to sleep at the top of a tower of beds. On the other hand, rolling out of bed by mistake would be a dramatic and serious affair. Sleeping had never struck him as an adventurous activity, but then much of what he was now experiencing was new.
    “I shall take the third bunk,” said Arabella.
    “Ah,” said Massimo Natica. “For any particular reason?”
    “Yes,” said Arabella.
    Milrose pondered his choice.
    “I shall wait until you are far from this room before making my decision,” said Milrose. “Feel free to come to a conclusion based on that.”
    After this small and depressing episode, the two found themselves once again occupying their respective chair and sofa, in preparation for whatever mightbe inflicted upon them. Massimo Natica had a glowing smile upon his absurdly shaven face, as if he had already accomplished great things in the way of Helping his two patients.
    Is that what we are? wondered Milrose Munce. Patients? He lay on his sofa, doing his best to reduce the voice of this man to an undifferentiated drone in his ears. Milrose was pretty good at not listening. He had practised this rigorously in the classes of Mr. Borborygmus, so that he could sit through an entire lesson without having to take in any of that teacher’s useless information.
    As Milrose was in the process of not listening, he examined the ceiling above him. It was certainly not an exceptional ceiling—with one exception. It had a door. Now, the occasional ceiling does have a door—a trap door, which leads in general to an attic. This, however, was not a trap door. It was a door door. It had a doorknob. It opened out, apparently, into mid-air. In that sense it was a dangerous sort of door: Milrose could imagine someone on the other side opening it and falling, bellywards, onto the floor. Then again, it was unlikely that anyone opening that door would be unaware of the fact that they were horizontal while doing so.
    Massimo Natica droned on, and Milrose spent the entire drone daydreaming, but Arabella was taking a morbid interest in what the man was saying.
    Later, when they were lying in their respective beds, Arabella explained to Milrose what it was that Massimo Natica had said.
    “It seems,” said Arabella, “that we are to be fully erased.”
    She had to say this very loudly, as Milrose had decided that he did indeed wish to sleep on the topmost bunk.
    “We are to be rubbed out, like a bad essay written in pencil. And then I guess we get recomposed, like a better essay written in ink.”
    This was not the kind of thing that Milrose wanted to hear, but it was not unexpected.
    “He went into a very long explanation, trying to justify this. I was not convinced. Are you convinced, Milrose?”
    “What do you think?”
    “I thought so.”
    “Think again.”
    She thought again. “Yes, I think I know your thoughts.”
    “Who do you think he is?” said Milrose.
    “I don’t know. I haven’t yet figured out
what
he is.”
    “Well, a Professional, clearly.”
    “Did you see a diploma on his wall?”
    “No.”
    “Professionals almost always have diplomas on their wall. It’s a point of pride.”
    “Right. I say we search for the diploma tomorrow. If he doesn’t have one, then he’s a fraud.”
    “Wouldn’t it be nice if he were a fraud?”
    “Yeah. I’d like that. We could torture him with that little fact. Until he broke down and