Jed sat on a small chair,
waiting. He was in costume; a set of dirty overalls, a couple blackened teeth,
and a glazed expression were his trademarks. Soon, a voice yelled to him that
they were ready. He went out onto a dark stage, and he could hear the sounds of
anxious children in a semicircle, waiting for the fun to start. Soon, the
lights brightened and his theme song played. He didn’t even sing anymore; the
kids did that. He just capered around like an idiot, then sat down in his
stool. Like an idiot.

The devil went to Alabama/He was lookin’ to sell some dope
He keeps doing fine/Jed comes every time/It’s where Jed finds his hope

Jed don’t know quite what to write/Sold his soul for Satan’s pot
Wrote like a madman/Blood in the bedpan/Now Jed’s got a TV spot

Our parents have left us here/On one of the electric parent’s tragedies
So just sit tight/It’s quite a sight/Here with Uncle Jed’s Retarded Stories!

“Hi kids!”

“Hi
Uncle Jed!”

“I
don’t much feel like a story today...” Part of the game, he went through this
every time.

“Awwwww...”

“But
maybe some weed will put me in the mood!” Jed took a long drag of the joint he
carried. Not only was it necessary as a prop, it really was the only thing that
kept him writing. “Haha, now I’m ready! The story I have first today is called
Sign Language.”

One
adventurous child actually asked a non-scripted question. “Is it about the
rats?”

“Yup,
little Billy!” One of his trademarks was that every single kid was ‘little
Billy’ to him, be they boy or girl. It made these conversations so much easier.
“The episode is all about the Rats of NIMH. We’ll start off easy, with an
Unholy Remix! That’s where we take a normal tall tale and brutally rape it for
our own sick and twisted purposes!”

“It
all starts right after they moved the Brisby home...”

Billy
paused in his work to wipe some dirt off of his face. It had to be done, but it
was still a messy job. It was just hours after Jenner had tried to take power,
and there was no time for grieving. They all had jobs to do, and Billy’s
happened to be the hunt for Nicodemus’s corpse. Everyone else was back at the
Complex; the materials had all been cleared away, and the rubble had been
absorbed into the mud. Only Billy was still out there, searching.

He
looked for a while longer, but all he found was Nicodemus’s four-fingered hand.
It didn’t even have the ring trapped on by arthritis years ago... Not much to
bury, but the rest was probably underground by now. Billy wiped it off on a
blade of grass, then turned to leave. Taking one last look at the battlefield,
it suddenly sank in that Nicodemus was really gone. Not just away in his rooms,
but really and truly dead. “I wish he was still alive...”

To
his amazement, the paw began to move! He managed not to drop it as the thumb
curled around and the whole extremity glowed brightly. The air over the mud
puddle did a kind of half turn, similar to when someone grabs a shirt and
twists it; like an intense version of heat distortion. It warped back almost
immediately, but when it did, Nicodemus was face down in a small pile of wood
in the middle of the otherwise cleared disaster area. Billy rushed up to him,
and found that he was still breathing!

Nicodemus
slowly stood up and looked at the paw, still severed and in Billy’s hands. He
looked at himself, alive now even though he knew he should be dead. He looked
around for the others and saw they were not present. Then he did what he did
best, and the thing that Billy would have missed the most: he nodded sagely. It
was one of those nods that people do when they want you to know that everything
is under control and going according to plan. Billy believed it implicitly.

The
two headed back to join the others, who were on their way to Thorn Valley.
Nicodemus took all the questions, and answered truthfully except where his
missing paw was concerned, for which Billy was grateful. Justin gladly stepped
down; he had been Captain of the Guard previously, and far preferred that task
to the paperwork and Council meetings of the Leader. The Rats of NIMH
successfully settled into Thorn Valley, establishing an underground colony near
one of the mountains.

Life
gradually returned to normal, but that didn’t last long. The winter was
especially long and harsh, and food supplies started to run low. Billy hadn’t
forgotten the paw, however; he used it to draw a heat wave to the Valley,
sending the index finger to join the thumb. Spring came almost immediately, but
someone had seen the light of the hand coming from Billy’s room, and his secret
was out. Nicodemus managed to convince everyone to leave it under the care of
the Leader, and the first thing he did was to give it back to Billy.

Even
though they had been saved from starvation, all was not well. Nicodemus was hit
hard by the sure knowledge that his Plan had failed, and sunk into a deep
depression. The Council tried to function without his guidance, but his mood
was affecting them too. While no imminent physical threat assailed them, no
progress was actually being accomplished. Billy went to try to comfort
Nicodemus one night, and he brought the paw.

Nicodemus
had soured on life. He honestly believed that he should have died, and confided
to Billy that he planned to quietly leave the Valley someday soon.

“No,
you can’t go! Don’t leave us again!” Billy was genuinely worried about the
Leader, true, but some part of him thought that his prolonged absence might
affect the paw.

Nicodemus
placed his good hand on Billy’s shoulder. “My mind’s made up.”

Billy
reached around behind him, and pulled out the paw. “I wish you were happy...
like a crow!” Nicodemus’s face switched from an image of sadness to one of
shock, and then to a silly grin as the ring finger of the hand bowed down to
Billy’s will.

“Wow!
Now I feel a lot better, even though my hand is gone... Why ever was I sad in
the first place? This is great!” Nicodemus turned to leave. “I’ve gotta go home
and sleep on it!”

“Um...
you are home, sir. Would you like your hand back?”

Nicodemus
leaned over to study the paw. “Nope, not mine. See, I’ve got it right here!” He
held up his stump, then looked confused a moment before brightening. “That’s
funny, I don’t remember losing it... Now if you’d please run along, I’ve got
sleep to do!”

“Are
you sure-”

“Aw,
I bet you’re tired, seeing as how you aren’t sleeping and all. I’ll help you
along!” Before Billy could react, he was thrown bodily up against the wall
across the hallway. “Excuse me, pardon me. Sorry about that! Run along, now!”

Billy
had a pretty strong feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach while limping
home. Afraid of what he’d do next, he avoided even looking at the paw, instead
placing it in a locked box on his mantle. Nicodemus had gone mad, and it was
his fault. Though he never admitted it, they would have all been better of with
a dead Leader instead of a psychotic one.

And
he was psychotic. As clumsy as Jeremy had ever been, but with a nearly
useless physical body. Nicodemus had always done everything using whatever
those powers were, but now his actions were poorly calculated and extremely
exaggerated. At first, nobody tried to stop him; he was, after all, the Leader.
That lingering respect kept them from banishing or imprisoning him, but he was
a massive burden. Things broke everywhere he went, and he didn’t understand
that he was doing it.

Billy
was in the cafeteria one day, but not to eat. He had brought the box with the
paw in it, and was waiting for Nicodemus to be brought in for lunch. He had
thought long and hard about it, and decided on the best statement. He planned
to wish that he had never used the paw to restore Nicodemus to life; that way,
he figured, he’d gain at least two fingers back, but they would have still been
saved by a pseudo-miraculous heat wave.

Mustering
his courage, he pulled out the key and unlocked the box when Nicodemus was
helped into the room by two other rats. Closing his eyes, he opened it and
pulled the paw out. A hush came over the room; everyone wanted this to happen,
even if they didn’t say it aloud. He spoke slowly and succinctly, just as he
had planned earlier.

And
nothing happened. When he didn’t feel the paw move, he opened his eyes and
pulled it down in front of him. The ring finger (also the little finger on a
rodent hand) was down, as were the pointer and thumb. The paw was in the
position of an obscene gesture.

What
was worse, the gesture made Billy finally recognize it, though Nicodemus had
never made that gesture in his life. Nicodemus hadn’t been the only unfound
body that night. After all, the hand that returned the Leader could logically
opt to leave part behind. Jenner’s hand had slowly accomplished in death what
it had sought to do in life. Nicodemus’s death was not enough; the rat was
forced into witnessing himself become a destructive drain on what he had worked
so hard to create. The populace at large remained prosperous, and the Leader
was condemned to a personal hell.

Jed
had been pantomiming the entire story, and a picture of him giving his audience
the finger became the cover of Time magazine.

Amidst
lots of applause, the curtain came down and the commercial break slapped the
folks at home with its loud boorish sales pitches. Stories like these were
supposed to prepare kids for corporate reality. Whether for horrible shows
(like his) on television or wasted effort... Jed left that question for the
philosophers.