The Orphan of Awkward Falls Read Online Free

had come for the presentation as well, along with Lulu, her hairless Egyptian spaniel. After themayor had shaken a sufficient number of hands, he and the first lady made their way to their seats, which was the cue for everyone else to do the same.
    The seating was arranged in a steep semicircle above the stage, allowing everyone a perfect view. The house lights dimmed, and a spotlight shone down on center stage. Unsure what to expect, the audience gaped when Fetid Stenchley, strapped to a wheeled gurney, was rolled into the circle of light. The little man, with his enormous bug eyes and hunched body, was so oddly repugnant as to be almost comical. Surely this wasn’t the infamous murderer they’d heard so much about. Was he wearing some sort of costume? Several students giggled at the absurd figure, munching popcorn as if they were at the movies.
Maybe this will turn out to be an interesting afternoon after all,
they thought.
    They had no idea.

    Fetid Stenchley had never been on a stage before. In fact, he had been inside a theater only once, as a boy, when he had paid a stolen penny to see a man wrestle a bear. To the audience’s delight, the bear won the contest by tossing the man into the fifth row and eating his hat. But this stage, and whatever show was about to take place, was clearly of a different sort. Stenchley was not a mighty bear and was strapped down so tightly he could scarcely breathe, much less wrestle. Surgeons and hefty orderlies surrounded him and werewatching him closely. If this was a contest, careful precautions had been taken to ensure that the madman did not win.
    Stenchley had little choice but to lie still as the masked surgeons of the asylum milled about, prepping him for the Treatment. It was just as well, since he had learned the hard way that fighting the surgeons was useless and only prolonged the horrid ordeal. Instead, he had developed the helpful habit of imagining a buffet table crammed with platters of roast doctor, fried doctor, sautéed doctor, curried doctor, doctor puree, doctor pie, and doctor tea. His jawbone worked back and forth busily now, as he grazed through the medical smorgasbord in his mind.
    Stenchley’s intelligence was more on a par with that of the simian race than the human one. As a child, even the third grade had proved too advanced for his scholarly abilities. Yet his addled brain was somehow capable of almost photographic recall. As a result, he had memorized every step of the Treatment process down to the smallest detail and could predict exactly what would happen next. This had the odd effect of allowing the madman to think he was actually in control.
Shine a light in my ears,
he thought, and a surgeon shone a light into his ears.
Take my pulse,
he thought, and another took his pulse.
Temperature,
he thought, and a third stuck a thermo- meter into one orifice or another.
    Behind him, a complicated-looking machine the size of a Dumpster made whirring and hissing noises, its rows of smallimportant-looking lights blinking off and on. Technicians made final adjustments to various knobs and dials, plugged in hoses, and arranged trays of gleaming tools near the gurney, all in perfect accordance with Stenchley’s “orders.” When everything was ready, the surgeons took their places and waited as Dr. Herringbone stepped onstage.
    “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” the doctor began. “Wel- come to the Asylum for the Dangerously Insane. Ten years ago, the patient you see before you, Mr. Fetid Stenchley, entered our institution a cold-blooded murderer. He was known not only for killing but, pardon me for saying it, for consuming portions of his victims as well.”
    The audience became very quiet.
    “As many of you may recall, Mr. Stenchley was responsible for the death of one of Awkward Falls’s most famous natives, Stenchley’s own employer, the renowned Professor Hibble. Obviously, the patient was a perfect candidate for the advanced rehabilitation