The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island Read Online Free PDF Page B

your door!" I could rip the door from its weak root hinges and toss it down on top of her and kill her. I would not do that. That would be inappropriate.
    "Kiss me," the pancake said.
    I kissed her. I didn't know what else to do.
    "Come on. The inside of the door is more interesting than the outside."
    I kissed her again. Her lips were like a maple lollipop that happened to be attached to a living creature. It mattered little whether I cared for this pancake, or whether she cared for me. We'd made a silent agreement not to care about each other. Tasting her, I decided that I might enjoy her company in spite of my best intentions.
    "Come on," she pleaded. "I want you to see the inside."
    She turned away from me and opened the door and walked inside. "This will end badly," I mumbled.
    "What?" she said.
    "Nothing," I said, and followed her into the potato house to learn the wonders of her crappy door, and maybe suck on her lips a little.
    Oh Fanny Fod, I thought, I'm sorry.
    I entered her potato and closed the door behind me.
     
    *
    Beyond the potato door, the beloved object of this pancake whom I shortly expected to screw in exchange for information, a mountain of doors greeted me. Each potato door squirmed against the other doors.
    Red gravy bled from the doors.
    The house was wet and smelled like bleach.
    "Don't you love my door?" the pancake said.
    "Well . . . it's not just one door. It's many doors, and none of them are connected to the door that leads outside."
    The pancake laughed at me. "Oh, you're silly. All doors are connected."
    "Maybe, perhaps." I had to act like a door inspector, like I knew what I was doing. "But what are potato doors doing on Pancake Island? What do potatoes have to do with pancakes and doors?" I had failed to find the right moment to ask these questions until now.
    The pancake did not question why I was unaware of facts that must have been common knowledge to all pancakes. She was that oblivious. She told me a pretty good story the pancakes told each other about their castles. The story went that once upon a time, a long time ago, there lived a race of pancakes who were made out of potatoes. They decided to evolve for some reason or another and died in their potato forms to reincarnate as hip, happy, modern day pancakes. That is why so many potato castles sprouted up in the syrup-rich soil of Pancake Island. According to the story, there was an even older race of pancakes: the zucchini race. Zucchini pancakes did not exist for very long. Some believed that the zucchini pancakes migrated from Pancake Island for one reason or another. Fanny Fod lived in the only zucchini castle left alive.
    "So how about it?" the pancake said.
    "How about what?"
    "Are you going to inspect my door or what?"
    "I said I loved it."
    "That's not your full inspection, is it?"
    "Let me see."
    I circled the mountain of doors, occasionally leaning over and making a ticking noise with my tongue, pretending to be deep in thought. I ran my fingers along the edge of several doors and everywhere my fingers touched, turned green. That really impressed the pancake. "Yes," she said. "It needed that extra flair."
    "Leave it to a door expert," I said.
    I walked around the door mountain three times in all, stroking it here and there, gesticulating ambivalently at times to suggest that I had not yet made up my mind about her door.
    "What is it?" she said.
    "I'm not sure. Something's missing. Do you think . . . let me rephrase that. Do you know what a Cuddlywumpus is?"
    Her body swayed back and forth horizontally, indicating a negative. "A Cuddlywumpus? I've never heard of such a thing."
    "Do you think Cuddlywumpus might be the name of a door?"
    "It could be, but it has never occurred to me to name my door."
    I was relieved to hear that. It would be a huge letdown if the mysterious Cuddlywumpus turned out to be nothing more than a talking door. I might even lose all interest in Fanny Fod if I discovered that she obsessed herself over a