TWENTY-TWO: HOTEL SCRUNCHYFACE

There once was a small little hovel house on Montague Street in Pome Town. There once was a small little hovel house where Cyclops and Scrunchyface called it home.

There once was a house and there once was a street, but if there’s a street there are signs and there are sidewalks, and then there are signs, and then there were streets, and small hovel homes there were few as there were none.

There once was a small little – no, there wasn’t. There now is a tall scraping hotel where there was. Cyclops sees it as stare as his thirty-eight eyes. He sees it and he sees the clouds. Cyclops sees it in all directmas of up and down. He sees the windows he sees the walls he sees them rising he sees the talls. He sees the towers and wowers and zowers, he sees the talls and all the rows, he sees the no’s and the many windows, and he could never see over it, even standing on too many toes.

There is in fact a tall hotel on Montague Street, and it has a sign on the door, on the awning far over and above the door is a sign written in letters, written in words and names and sounds and rounds, and the awning said, “Hotel Scrunchyface,” and this meant that Cyclops certainly must investigate, he must look, must listen and drink and intestine-ate.

He used the spy methods, he drank into shadows. He used the spy-way and walked all the byway. He tried like a spy and he lied like a spy, and if you might walk by, he might ask you why.

And who would walk by but Rack and Zack who are back for attack from the second wink track. And they are the Orange Drink Brain Trust of the Amalgamated Fifty-Seven Counties, but they don’t have time to brain too much, in fact and in ract they are driving in the dust.

“Rack and Zack,” said Cyclops to stop them.

“Cyclops and Cyclops,” said Zack and Rack in tandem.

“Who is this hotel, and why does it have a certain name. Where is my house where I once used to drowse. Where is the room where I used to stay hoom.”

And Cyclops points to them, to Rack and Zack, he points them to the name and the sign, the name on the sign, and it sure is a sign, and there sure is a name, and the name is up there, but it’s not on the air.

They read the name they read the name they read the name but who is to blame. “Who is to blame?” they crack, Rack and Zack, and Cyclops, our Cylops, feels under attack.

Not even a brain trust of two trust a man with carrot stew. Not even a stack named with Zack want a snowman’s nose back.

They shrug their shoulders like carrying boulders and they would say more, but they are on the way to the store.

“We cannot tell a lie. There are things we must buy, and your carrot reminds us why” and so they toodle-oo, and so Rack and Zack do.

If there is nobody on the outside, Cyclops thinks with his thirty-eight eyes, then I must maybe go inside. And that’s no surprise.