The little girl in the pretty flowered dress smiled and looked at the quarter resting in the palm of her diminutive hand as if it were a winning lottery ticket. She squeezed it tight and climbed carefully up on the riser that stood in front of the pay-per-view binoculars attached to the railing. Raising up on her tiptoes, she could just… barely… bring her eyes even with the lenses. Sliding the quarter into the slot, she listened as it click-clack-clunked its way into the innards of the machine. The view through the eyepieces suddenly lit up, as did she. Panning across the setting before her, she made out each of the colossal faces – reciting, in that deliberate enunciation of a seven year old, “There’s Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and… (gasp)!” She paused, staring intently. “Goodness!”
Up on the giant granite face of our 16th president, something wiggled vigorously, swinging back and forth as it dangled out of Abe’s left nostril. As the young girl watched, the object squirmed aggressively and suddenly disappeared, as if Mr. Lincoln had gone “Snrrrrkk!”, and snuffed it up inside. “Oh, Mr. President,” admonished the girl, knitting her brow, “Momma always says you need to blow, not snort. Shame on you!”
Meanwhile, up in Abraham Lincoln’s nasal cavity… The Gnarly Bandit was knitting his own brow, searching in the shadows for a solid foothold – finally gaining purchase and settling in with some stability. He looked around, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. The countenances on Mt. Rushmore had been carved with a remarkable level of detail, right down to the nose hairs. It made these cavities a nice place to, say, stash something valuable – such as that bag o’ gold that nestled in the crook of two intersecting follicles. Gathering it up, he finally relaxed for a moment, wiping the grainy sweat from his brow and taking a draught from the small silver flask he produced from his pocket. Here’s to pots o’ gold and obsessive compulsive sculptors, he toasted silently.
The Bearded One was feeling relatively contented at the moment. Sure, his efforts at Kettle Moraine had been a disappointment, but upping the ante at the Black Hills 100 Mile with a mix of rain, mud, heat and high water had proven fruitful. What once had been a field of 11 Gnarly Bandit competitors was now down to 6 – a much more workable number. He pondered the remaining contenders: Todd Brown, Janet Hausken, Timothy Kruse, Jeffrey Lenard, Adam Rood, Brian Woods. Pesky buggers, to be certain. But he was about to pull the big hammer out of the toolbox, the Superior 100 Mile, aka the venerable Sawtooth. Just the thought of it made him relax – his grip on the bag loosening just a little bit…
When the bag of gold started to fall, the Gnarly Bandit let out a litany of expletives that turned the surrounding foliage to their fall colors a month early. Down on the observation deck the entire crowd stopped as if one and stared at the monument, wondering which of the four presidents had elicited such an incongruous tirade. A mother covered the ears of a seven year old girl. For their part, the four massive visages stood stone faced, none seemed willing to give up the guilty party – though, if one looked very closely, he might have noted Teddy looking just a bit disapprovingly at Abraham.
Inside the vertical cavern, the Bandit hung precariously from a granite hair by the toes of one weathered cowboy boot, extending to maximum length. Between two outstretched fingertips he clung to the very end of the leather strap that bound the bag of gold. A near catastrophe, barely averted. He gathered himself upright, stashing the bag carefully in his pack, and affixed a long rope to a follicle. His cover likely blown, the Grizzled One figured he’d best make a quick exit. Besides, the horse was waiting, and he had business up northeast that required his attention. He lowered the line and quickly shimmied down. From a distance, it looked a little like Honest Abe had a stringer from a bit of post-nasal drip going on…
A short week later, in Ms. Applebaum’s second grade class room, the teacher sat reading an essay from one of her new second graders – in response to the writing assignment, “What did you do over summer vacation?” She rolled her eyes, sighing audibly. Opening her planner, she made a special note to move the lesson regarding fiction vs. non-fiction up in the order a bit, underlining twice…