The Bad Fortune Teller - Melvin and the Mud Daubers



  The Bad Fortune Teller

  Melvin and the Mud Daubers

  D. D. Riessen

  Cover design: D. D. Riessen

  Copyright 2013

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  The Bad Fortune Teller

  Melvin and the Mud Daubers

  When Melvin read the sign: Madame Nuage: Seer of Destiny, he thought he’d give her a try. He didn’t believe in such things but there seemed to be no other way out of his predicament.

  “Bad back,” said Melvin, groaning as he sat down in the chair across the table from Madame Nuage.

  She studied him for a moment and then moved her cup of tea aside, leaned forward and said, “I can see that. Don’t you tell me, I tell you. You have a bad back.”

  “Right. I fell out of the apple tree…,”

  “Don’t you tell me,” said Madame Nuage. “You fell out of the apple tree and hurt your back.”

  “Yes.”

  “And now you want me to tell you how to fix it.”

  “Yes,” said Melvin, thinking that she was pretty good and that maybe he might get his money’s worth.

  “Before coming to me, you went to a doctor and he gave you some pills.”

  “Yes. But that didn’t fix the problem.”

  “Don’t you tell me, I tell you.”

  “Right.”

  “When the pills ran out, you still had the problem. So, you went to see maybe…, a chiropractor or acupuncturist.”

  “Yes! I went to…,”

  “Shush! You don’t tell me. And I ask, why does everyone go somewhere else first? Do they not believe in destiny?”

  “I’m beginning to,” said Melvin.

  Madame Nuage reached for her tea and sipped slowly, studying poor Melvin. “Your best friend is either going to kill you or save you. Would you like some tea?”

  For once, Melvin was glad about his social situation. “I don’t have any best friends. Yes, tea is good.”

  Madame Nuage opened a drawer, pulled out a cup, blew out the dust, filled it with green tea, and slid it across the table to poor, poor Melvin.

  “At your home, something is waiting.”

  “That would be Beeg, my dog. He’s waiting for dinner.”

  “You don’t tell me, I tell you. If you tell me, I don’t get tips. Something bad is waiting.”

  “Bad? But, I live alone.”

  “You have a dog.”

  “Beeg wouldn’t hurt a fly, certainly not me. We’re best friends.”

  Madame Nuage quietly stroked the string of beads hanging around her neck and studied poor Melvin. “Dark and light. I see dark and light…, maybe black and white or yellow or gold and…, pain. There is pain attached.”

  “That would be my back.”

  “You already have a bad back. This is something more.”

  Melvin blew the steam off of his tea, warmed his hands with the cup, and then took a cautious sip. No telling what kind of teas a fortune-teller would drink.

  Madame Nuage nodded in the affirmative, satisfied with her vision. “Yes. What fixes your back, if you live, is colored dark and light, if your best friend does not kill you first.”

  “What kind of fortune is that?” Melvin asked. “I was hoping to hear something that I could use.”

  “I do not tell fortunes. I see destiny. This is what is waiting for you.”

  Melvin left without giving Madame Nuage a tip. He didn’t like what he’d heard and was sorry for even thinking that she might have been some kind of help, not to mention the money that he’d just spent.

  The next day, Beeg let out a yelp when he went to get a drink of water out of the birdbath. A mud dauber had been sitting on the rim of the dish when the dog suddenly popped into view. Before he even knew the insect was there, Beeg was stung on the tip of his nose.

  Coming out of the house to see what was causing all of the commotion, Melvin was buzzed by one mud dauber as he crossed the yard and buzzed again when he finally caught up to Beeg, who was trotting around the yard yowling with his tail between his legs, hoping to avoid another confrontation.

  “Come here, Beeg. Let me see.”

  But as Melvin bent down to check out Beeg’s swelling nose, two more mud daubers swooped by, wings buzzing loudly.

  “To the house!” Melvin yelled, standing and racing for the door. But Beeg had already thought that part through and was way ahead of him.

  Looking out the window, Melvin could see what appeared to be a whole colony moving in.

  “Well, maybe not that many,” he admitted. “But there are four at the birdbath. I don’t remember any being here yesterday or the day before.”

  But they were black and yellow, just like Madame Nuage had said. And didn’t she mention something about pain? He decided that if he ever went to see her again, he’d bring a recorder so that he could refer back.

  When three of the pests flew away, leaving one to fend for it self, Melvin grabbed a flyswatter and decided that he could get them one by one.

  Walking around the birdbath, trying to approach the wasp from the rear, Melvin noticed that it turned with him so that they were always seeing each other eye to eye.

  Melvin was thinking that, with the flyswatter, he was faster and that he could pop that baby before it ever got into the air.

  And then a few of his friends dropped in for a drink, at least that’s what Melvin hoped because after they landed they all stood around waiting for him to leave and they were between him and his back door.

  “Oops,” said Melvin, backing away slowly. “Just came out to see if you had enough water. Bye.”

  Melvin called four pest control companies and every one refused to send someone out until he could answer one question. “Where is their hive located?”

  Slowly walking around the yard, noting the wasp’s movements after they left the birdbath, Melvin determined that they kept returning to a small side roof above his garage.

  No matter where he walked or what he stood on, looking up from the ground he could not see the nest. An extension ladder would get him up on the roof, but the only place to put the ladder was twenty feet away.

  “If I have to leave fast,” he was thinking, “I won’t have time to climb down. Hmm.”

  The wasps did not like any of Melvin’s ideas. They buzzed him when he leaned the ladder against the roof, became more aggressive when he climbed up onto the roof, darting in and around his presence in ever increasing numbers as he headed toward their hive, even though he was walking slowly, looking downward and whistling softly.

  He had to get down on his hands and knees to look up under the eave.

  Seeing Melvin’s head pop into view, all of the normal commotion of the hive came to a stop as they all waited to see what stupid thing Melvin was going to do next.

  “Oops.” Slowly, Melvin back away, returned to the ladder, descended, went inside, had a stiff drink and decided that he would never do that again.

  After learning that the only way to get to the wasp’s hive was from the roof, every pest control company declined the work and referred the job to their competitors who, they claimed, were experts in that kind of thing.

  Madame Nuage was not sympathetic to his plight when Melvin walked back through her front door. “I remember you, dark and light. No tip. Why are you coming back?”

  “I was hoping that you could tell me more.”

  “More of what? Your destiny is what it is. Spending more money does
not change anything.”

  “I’ll give you a big tip.”

  “I see,” said Madame Nuage with a short smile. “You would like a clearer picture?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You know I cannot change destiny.”

  “Right.”

  “Would you like some tea?”

  Melvin nodded yes and seated himself at the table with a sigh of relief and a groan.

  “Your back is getting worse,” said Madame Nuage as she pushed the steaming cup across the table. “How is your dog?”

  “He got stung on his nose by a wasp.”

  “I see.” Madame Nuage sipped her tea and fiddled with the ring on her left thumb, turning it slowly. “Black and yellow…, dark and light, like a tunnel. You are approaching something very dark and if you survive you will be fine after that.”

  “What was that about my best friend saving me or killing me?”

  “That has not gone away. But, there is something more…, a big event.”

  “Like an earthquake?”

  Madame Nuage smiled. “Whatever shakes your world. Prepare for a soft landing in case you fall.”

  Melvin dragged his bed mattress through the house, out the back door, and placed it next to the ladder. Then he went inside and put on the bee suit that he had rented and was about to go outside when he noticed a black van parked in his driveway. And then two men got out, one wearing a black hoodie, the other a white, and they both had guns tucked into their belts.

  They came up to the front door, knocked loudly and said, “Open up, Frank! We want our money!”

  Melvin made sure that the door was locked. “I don’t have any money. You’ve got the wrong house. There’s no Frank in here.”

  “Right. Open up and let us see.”

  “I don’t know you. I’m not opening the door.”

  Through the curtains, Melvin saw the man dressed in black head for the gate leading to his back yard. The other one tried opening the front door and then started pounding on it.

  “Open up! We want our money!”

  Suddenly, the safest place in the world seemed to be up on the roof. Melvin raced for the back door, hoping to get to the ladder before the other guy got past the side gate, which was tricky to open because the post holding the gate sagged to one side.

  “Come on, Beeg!”

  At the bottom of the ladder, Melvin grabbed Beeg with one arm and started climbing using just one hand. Beeg, noticing that every step higher was accompanied with a momentary feeling of falling backward until the hand reattached to the next rung, started squirming like a worm on the end of a hook and began to yelp his nervous sound, which went something like, “Oooooh nooooo!”

  Several wasps were suddenly in the air, circling widely and then diving in for a closer look.

  “Go Beeg!” Melvin yelled as he swung Beeg up onto the roof.

  A shot rang out with a loud BANG as the man down below yelled, “Stop!”

  Hearing the shot, Beeg streaked across the roof, slid into the tiny area beneath the eaves where the wasp’s nest was located, knocked it loose, realized what he had just done, and streaked back to Melvin who, now under gunpoint from both men down below, was starting back down the ladder.

  Beeg leaped into Melvin’s arms from a dead run and together they fell down onto the mattress with a loud PLOP along with a hundred angry mud daubers.

  Both men started waving wildly and even managed to kill a couple. And then they took off running over to the side of the house where the gate doesn’t open very well, got past that, got into the van along with their newly acquired friends and, with roaring engine and squealing tires, headed out in a rush.

  Melvin, still in his bee suit, quietly waited until he was sure that everything had calmed down, and then cautiously sat up. Beeg, who had somehow found a way to get beneath Melvin in the chaos, sat up and checked himself for wounds. Melvin slowly stood and then went over to the side of the house.

  The mud daubers nest was on the ground in the pathway between him and the gate, covered with angry wasps. Melvin decided that he’d leave that alone for a day or two until they were all gone away and close the gate from the other side. Looking beyond the gate he noticed that the van was gone.

  And then he noticed that his back felt fine. He turned this way and that, bent forward and backward and realized that he had no pain whatsoever. So, the next day he dropped in on Madame Nuage and gave her a hundred dollar tip.

  # # #

  The Bad Fortune Teller # 1 - Ernie’s Great Adventure

  The Bad Fortune Teller # 2 - Bill’s Bricks

  The Bad Fortune Teller # 3 - Melvin and the Mud Daubers

  The Bad Fortune Teller # 4 - Harry, Ted and Gary

  The Bad Fortune Teller # 5 - Kibo

  Dave’s work revels with the fanciful, ponders the inscrutable and enigmatic, and examines the human character.

  To read other stories by D. D. Riessen, please visit:

  D. D. Riessen

  To hear audio readings of these works by the author, or to learn about the history behind the stories, please visit his website at:

  https://www.ddriessen.com/

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  This is my passion.

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