1
One day, for no particular reason, John Bugle felt exceptionally generous and gave his son his velvet-lined slippers, his sticky wand, his sequin-covered top hat and the biker sunglasses with one lens missing.
“Don’t thank me, son,” his Dad began, very gravely, pulling the hat over his son’s face. “This is just my way of saying, your destiny has arrived: it’s your turn to save the needy people of the world. Go and pull them out of exploding volcanoes! Talk to the lonely and rejected, employ the unemployed and …. umm, bring laughter to people who are tired of being laughed at.”
Cooter pulled the hat down to his eyebrows and heard a call for help from the fluffy clouds in the stratosphere. Sitting down, he placed the soles of his feet together, placed the wand between them, and took off like a bullet to save someone’s day.
2
He rocketed, feet first, to the man helplessly hurtling through the sky with piercing screams. However, before stopping the man’s free-fall he remembered how his father had once been sued, so he decided to make certain that the free-falling, screaming man really wanted to be saved.
“Excuse me, did you call for help?” Cooter shouted.
The man swore at him and then grabbed his hand and begged his instant forgiveness. Though Cooter pulled with all his strength, they both accelerated towards certain death. At that moment he noticed that the falling man was an airline pilot, so he just had asked, “I guess you thought you’d never be unlucky, did you?”
The man swore at him again, and this time didn’t ask for forgiveness, or even say sorry, not even when Cooter asked for an apology.
“Well, he’s probably under a lot of stress,” Cooter thought, and wondered how he could help. He pointed his wand at the screaming man and – as they burst neared the ground – he mangled some magic words and changed the man into a bird, unfortunately not the kind that flies well, for it was a kind of domesticated chicken. The good thing was, since chickens are much lighter than full-grown men, by the power of his magic hat, Cooter was able to land safely. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to undo the spell before a fox came and severely abused the chicken.
3
Before he could discuss the outcome with his father, his super-powerful hat detected an S.O.S. in the middle of a storm. With the wand firmly between his feet, he rocketed into the howling weather and found a fishing craft near sinking. The fisherman stopped praying and screamed as Cooter rolled across his deck and into the bridge. He came swinging with a pole and hook.
“BY THE DEVIL’S HORN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”
“I might ask the same thing of you,” replied Cooter, rubbing his noggin. “This isn’t exactly a safe place to be, even in good weather. There’s half a mile of water below!”
“This ain’t no time to start questioning my livelihood. Some of the apostles were fishermen. You just get a pail and start bailing! We’re taking on water faster than a sponge.”
Cooter started bailing, but even with his powers, he could not stay upright against the waves.
“WE’RE GOING TO SINK! Sir, to save your life, would you mind if I changed you into a fish?”
“What? And be caught, killed and fried in a skillet? NO THANKS! I’d rather drown.”
That gave Cooter an idea. He leaned towards the sea and sucked up its waters in one mighty slurp, sending the boat rushing down to the muddy bottom, where thousands of fish and odd creatures and plants lay gasping and dying under the clearing sky. As the danger of sinking was gone, Cooter wondered why the fisherman looked displeased. Indeed, the fisherman looked aghast at the precious sea-life expiring on the exposed sea floor.
“THE FISH!” he cried. “There will be nothing to eat tomorrow! My family has fished here for generations! I will go home and hang myself after I kill you – you IDIOT!”
4
After a narrow escape he had no time to rest, for screams rose up from the city. After a pause the tired and frankly annoyed boy attempted to fly through the air again, but was too heavy, being weighed down by the sea in his belly. So, to lighten his load and possibly save the fisherman’s livelihood, he relieved himself somewhat, but in rude fashion, though without being noticed.
Cooter straddled his wand and flew as fast as possible, at about the speed of an immensely overweight turkey, towards an apartment complex barbequing its occupants. Beneath him, fire trucks were stuck in rush-hour traffic. Hundreds of people danced excitedly on their balconies, as if they too needed a bathroom break.
“Hello sky-box-dwellers!” cried the flying boy, still annoyed by the fisherman’s ingratitude. “Do you suddenly want to have your feet on the ground?”
An elderly, habitually polite woman, replied, “Please, young hero, would you mind taking our place in this fire?”
Cooter felt his heart throb as if with pity, but his nose twitched as he tested the smoke. “Sorry, I’m not into toxic barbeques. Otherwise, I would have been glad to volunteer. Do you want me to toss the whole burning tower into the Yellow Sea, though it’s only half full?”
An old woman cried, out, “Oh God, why did we put our faith in architects, engineers and fire engines? We should have put our faith in you.”
Cooter offered to turn them all into a flock of birds.
“Quick! Turn me into a finch!” one man yelled.
“Turn me into an bunting!” another shouted.
“A kite!”
“A kingfisher!”
“A COCKATOO!”
And so on, all names he’d never heard of before, therefore making his job impossible. He thought of urinating on the burning tower, but thought that was impolite, so instead he turned everything in the building into stone, everything – well, except for most of the humans. This almost instantly extinguished the fire.
The people cheered and celebrated for a few seconds, or just until they found all their precious furniture, textiles, rare books, appliances, soft beds and electronics turned to stone. Cooter fled away again, barely eluding a hail of stone fruit and toilet paper.
5
In his haste and confusion of emotion, quite by accident he flew directly over the city’s nuclear power plant, which happened to be on the brink of catastrophe. Cocking his super-ear, Cooter overheard the following conversation inside:
“Should we call Super-Cooter?” one asked.
“Are you mad? You know how much seawater he drank? He’ll try to save us with a fearsome urination!”
Hearing them laugh, Cooter smashed through the walls, wagged his finger at them like his mother had done a thousand times at him, and said, “Why have you lost trust in me?”
“Ah, well, you have made a few errors in judgement, haven’t you?” they cunningly replied, half-grinning, half in reproach.
“Can you get better service from another hero? Right. Then don’t complain so much, and be happy with your lot!”
Despite this excellent speech, they still didn’t trust the kid and shut the plant down. The trouble was, this meant that nothing in the city worked except for a few bicycles and battery operated toothbrushes. People weren’t exactly overjoyed about that, so the Ministry of National Energy asked Cootie to donate his super-energy.
“We’ll just hook you up to the electric grid. It’s won’t hurt,” they said.
Cooter starred, flabbergasted, for he was sapped by his adventures, and wondered where he could pee. To encourage him, they said,
“Don’t doubt your powers! Your father has done it a million times!” they lied, and added, “Don’t hold back your precious energies! People need their morning coffee!”
“I understand, but I have a better idea,” the magician kid suggested, his voice rising as he started shaking with anger.
“What’s that?” they asked, eyebrows furled.
“I’LL BLOW UP YOUR NUCLEAR PLANT! MAYBE THE RADIATION WILL CAUSE MUTATIONS AND CREATE AN INTELLIGENT SPECIES, OR MAYBE JUST A POLITE ONE. GOOD-BYE!”
6
After flushing the excess salt out of his system, Cooter reported the world’s behavior to his father, who nodded and nodded and almost fell asleep. “Well,” he finally managed in response, “nothing has changed, son. I guess they’ll never learn.”
“I’m not giving up yet. I want to have as much fun as you did.”
“And understandably. Life is rather boring without the world’s daily emergencies. There was nothing quite like a morning newspaper to give me a new goal and reason to live.”
“And we have a responsibility to use our gifts to ensure that good always triumphs over.”
“Maybe we do, or maybe we’re just here to amuse them.”
“COOTER! COOTER!”
It was his mother, shouting for him from the garden. “Get over here and help me! We’ve got twenty bushels of tomatoes to haul into the kitchen. There you can crush them with your feet into a fine sauce!”
His father shrugged his shoulders, looked up to the heavens and said, “Don’t worry, son, the world can wait a day or two. It’s the small things in life that always gave me the greatest sense of accomplishment, and with luck you’ll feel the same way.”
