Deep in the steamy jungles of the antebellum Midwest, a 10-pound baby was born in a generic log cabin. The day before, a thunderstorm had rippled across the steppes, a sign of future fortune. And this child, one John Chapstick, would one day grow up to become a living legend. At the tender age of 14, he set out with a bindle o’er his shoulder and a tear in his eye. Bidding farewell to his wife and 7 kids, he trekked across the great plains to spread the message passed down to him by his grandpappy.

But what was the message he spread so well? Way back in 1846, when Johnny’s pappy and two older brothers went off to fight in La Guerra De ’47, he (being a child of 8) stayed home with his mother, his 43 sisters, and his grandparents. When Johnny asked his grandpa why daddy wouldn’t be comin’ home in time for his birthday, the answer was cryptic at best: “’cause they don’t know no spellin’, boy.”

Since that fateful day, Johnny swooped and hollered, hooted at scholars, flim-flammed and blim-blammed, all in the vein hope that by teaching others the importance of good spelling, he could end all wars forever. City by city, he taught the downtrodden miners and schoolmarms, the rich and the poor, the fat and the obese. He showed the masses how to avoid comma splices, the value of a well-drawn dollar sign, and the importance of recognizing diacritical marks. Where Johnny sat his head, the seeds of conjugation took root, springing forth a mighty forest of punctuation.

Johnny loved typography, and through it, people. And the people loved Johnny, whom they affectionately nicknamed “Johnny Ampersand.”

Johnny Ampersand, age 20.

What he couldn’t fit in his 40-volume typographic epic, he would bring directly to the people. Up on a soapbox for ten hours a day, he’d preach and preen, croon and scream, until there wasn’t an ignorant soul this side of St. Louis who hadn’t heard (or could ham-handedly sing) the Ballad of Johnny Ampersand:

Way back in the land of slime,
When space was empty, void of time,
There was a man who took a stand,
Good ol’ Johnny Ampersand.

Rucksack hangin’ ’cross his back,
He left his home to take a crack
At teaching marks right off the rack,
Good ol’ Johnny Ampersand.

His brow was heavy, toes uncurled
To the masses, pages furled.
He tried so hard to hold the world,
Good ol’ Johnny Ampersand.

A master marketer of hype,
The man taught all the world to type.
Unscathed by bath, his clothes were ripe,
Good ol’ Johnny Ampersand.

With him at helm, we won’t despair;
Not under his wrathful stare.
He won the west and fought a bear,
Good ol’ Johnny Ampersand.

Then one day he jumped the shark,
Thought he’d kill the question mark.
They found him raving, mad as stark,
Good ol’ Johnny Ampersand.

As mice and men of knowledge learned,
His work was scoffed at, books were burned.
A platitude of secrets churned,
Good ol’ Johnny Ampersand.

Pen in hand and shoe on foot,
Climbed down chimneys full o’ soot,
Lost his mind and grew the brand,
Good ol’ Johnny Ampersand.

Johnny grew to hate that nickname and sued anyone who used it. As the years rolled on, he gave up his dreams and became very reclusive and erratic. He shot passenger pigeons (ectopistes migratorius) for sustenance, and was reported to have laughed coldly as the last of the specie went extinct in 1914. This led many to believe that he had indeed lost his mind, and that the ballad was a self-fulfilling prophesy. When confronted by psychologists and family, he admitted to hallucinating many conversations with Zizzi, a Micronesian deity who resembles a small tree. In 1918, he became the first human to succumb to typography poisoning during wartime.

The cover of Johnny’s Autobiography, “Treemaster and Diacritics: Refuting the Ellipsis...”

Roboshrub Inc. wouldn’t be half the company it is today without Mr. Ampersand’s subtle artistic influences. That vending machine in the lobby? Designed entirely from Ampersand’s Semicolon Aesthetics. The bathroom layout, down to the red bonsai pots? Explained in painstaking detail in Guillemet or Chevron: A Comparative Study of Angled Quotes. That big tilde over the security desk? Need I say more?!

Long considered the unofficial father of Unicode, Roboshrub Inc. is proud to announce that in honor of what would’ve been John Chapstick’s 168^th birthday, we’re unrolling a formerly banned project (not the bad kind of banned. The fun kind). Throw your graduation caps and instruction manuals in the air, and give it up for the Roboshrub Inc. Typographic Memorial Tag Team!

Our new product, Shrubquote, builds on a nonfunctional device Chapstick touched on in chapter 12 of 450 Uses of the Hyphen. The device was originally supposed to convert plain-jane punctuation into spiced-up doodads. We’ve achieved all that, within an acceptable margin of the edges.

Shrubquote successfully converts boring old quotation marks into their curly unseen cousins, making your unseemly “dumb quotes” into socially-acceptable “smart quotes.” This was extremely important to Chapstick, and as his spiritual heirs, it’s important to us, too. Build 202 correctly ignores HTML tags, works (semi)accurately on single quotes, and can convert quotes to their actual curly characters or their cumbersome Unicode equivalent. We hope you continue to buy Roboshrub Inc. brand products, valued at $0.00 per pound. Some users experienced excessive punctuation as a result of this innovative and illustrious product. Consult psychic before use.

Day 1

Currents of air batted the small craft back and forth... the sky had turned dark chartreuse, clouds flew quickly against the fading twilight. Why did I think I could win this thing? Me, a librarian! Get to the Prime Meridian before... him! thought a fiery young Piet Gold. It was her first day on the trail, and already the skies were turning from her first love to her most virulent enemy.

She was tracking a Nimbian who was tiny and quick, and cleverer than a sea wolf. His name was Mineuxian Tallborn, and he had bragged in the pub about being able to jump thunder. What could that mean, jumping thunder? Piet asked herself, weaving her Lunar Hummer in and out of clouds. Why did I take his stupid bet?

Weaving the Lunar Hammer between the plasmic clouds.

“Because you knew it would please me,” came an Orwellian voice from behind Piet.

By the time she could fire off a standard “Who’s there?!” the voice was gone, floating behind her now, echoing in her subconscious. Am I going insane?!

“Don’t be ludicrous, dear,” said the voice, “You know I’m telepathic.”

“I know nothing!” Piet shouted at the empty sky. A moment later, she realized what she’d implied and added sheepishly, “About you. I know nothing about you.”

“I’m the invisible ghost who haunts your Lunar Hummer, remember?” the disembodied voice said. “Also, in life, I was your mentor.”

“That in itself is wrong! I had no mentor!” she screamed out into the darkness, the sharp wind blinding her.

“Have you forgotten... Cairo?”

She held fast, gritting her teeth in remembrance. “Yes... Cairo... it’s- Aicron?! Aicron, is that you?!”

“It is.” the voice flatly grated, tuning in an out of her mind, like a cheaply-produced radio.

A blot of lightning blazed through the sky mere meters from the Lunar Hummer; the ozone smelled oddly sweet.

“I’m going to have to cut this conversation short,” Piet grinned as she reached for the control panel. “I’ve got a Nimbian to catch!”

“Yes! You must avenge me... avenge me!”

***
Day 15

The chase went on for days. Each dawn, the sun rose to kiss Piet’s face, her domain in the clouds turning rosy pink. During the night the moon would shimmer wetly, just out of reach. Piet never slept, not one second, throughout the chase. Though she never caught a glimpse of the Nimbian, she flew on.

Exhaustion began to take its toll. Her loops became looser, her rolls less accurate. Once or twice she fell into a hypnagognic state and would fly for several hours without any conscious thought. Hours later, she would be shocked back into consciousness by the realization that she was lost— lost among the clouds.

Finally, one pink dawn, the voice returned. “You’ve lost,” it said.

“But... I have two weeks to find this idiot!” she yawned.

“You’ve lost count? Today is day 15.”

Piet spat over the side of the ship. She was no stranger to humiliation, but she was furious nevertheless.

“We’re going to find him, anyway,” she said.

“Hey, loser! How’s it going?” came a third voice. Piet whirled around to face it. The Nimbian was there, a ball of static electricity holding the green insectoid on top of a cumulo stratus. Thunder jumping, Piet thought.

The typical Nimbian, giving the ceremonial welcoming gesture.

“You know what?” the Nimbian continued, his wings flickering to maintain his balance, “I was under your ship the whole time. I’m serious. You never thought to look there?” He laughed. Piet Gold remained silent, her face a stony wall of disappointment.

The Nimbian paused, his face betraying his emotions. He was quite concerned with Piet’s adamant visage; he thought it was pretty funny that he had hidden right behind her the entire two weeks. He hesitated before reminding her, “You owe me two million d’jennies...”

The Lunar Hummer hung in midair. Tension mounted as the two stared each other down.

“Computer... Open Fire.”

***
Day 23

“It’s been days since you shot the Nimbian out of the sky... do you have to keep looking?” the voice said derisively, a hint of lip biting in the vernacular.

“That’s not something you would have told me a year ago, when you were alive, Aicron.”

“Yeah, but now I’m, like, a ghost. A show-host ghost. Have you,” the show-host ghost reflected, “ever seen the sun rise... from the inside? I think you leap before you look.”

“I think I shouldn’t have to put up with this-”

Before Piet could wrest control of her mind from the babbling specter, a flashing light outside the module’s window appeared out of nowhere; with spiral concussion, it triggered a shift in altitude that shook the tables on the Lunar carpeting. One, two, and then three crystal glasses fell from the dining table, shattering into billions of prismatic slivers.

“He’s back again, isn’t he?!” she growled at nobody in particular. Even the normally festive ghost was silent; this was odd, as in life he never passed up an opportunity to mock others for their misfortune. Perhaps this schadenfreude was why he now haunted a skyship?

“Curse your segmented eyes, Tallborn! I’m gonna have French-fried Nimbian tonight-”

“You are in maybe restricted airspace,” a blaring warning banally blared from below her berth. It was a trio of helicopters, each bearing the insignia of the U.S. Department of Airspace Restrictions and Poor Grammar. “Identify yourself and bring down land immediately, or you will be in violation of Treaty #9, section asterisk.”

“You are in maybe restricted airspace!”

“But I don’t have the means to respond! Or to land! And your grammar is downright stupid,” she shouted at the top of her fluid-filled lungs out the open window of the Lunar Hummer.

“We urge you for respond. This is to have been your final warning.” The lead chopper began circling the small craft slowly at first, but quickened in pace. The other two readied their grappling hooks.

Piet glanced about the cabin for something she could use to fight them off. She was a tiny weakling of a librarian, and the Raven-Copters around her were piloted by what appeared to be ex-sumo wrestlers. She grabbed an ionospear from the closet, but the power harpoon had only enough charge for a single shot.

“Why not use the ship’s guns?” whispered the ghost.

“Minuxian’s antennae are jamming the ports, remember?” The stupid Nimbian! If only he hadn’t fought back... if only he hadn’t made her so wroth to begin with. Him and his stupid static boots...

His static boots! That was the answer! She seized them from the shoe rack in the corner and began to strap them on. The first boarder clambered onto the Lunar Hummer while she was still tying the laces, and she stared at him, horrified. The massive man screamed, leaving Piet very confused. A second later, she saw the Ionospear hovering past her. It fired its single shot, blasting the captain out through the cabin door and into the sky.

“Aicron, I didn’t know you cared!” Piet said, strapping the boots to her feet.

“Yeah, well,” the ghost said, blushing invisibly.

“You’re still an idiot! Now they’ll shoot me on sight!”

“Oh...”

She rolled towards the door, just as another boarder entered, waving his gun menacingly into the cabin. He was not expecting an attack from directly below him, however, and Piet kicked him in the stomach. The boots went off, inducing a positive charge in the attacker and shocking him enough to force him backwards— again, into the open sky.

As he fell, he rearranged the electrons in the clouds. A moment later, the puffy white clouds were turning black. Down on the planet’s surface, Farmer Brown said to his lovely young trophy wife, “Storm’s a-brewin’. Eeeeeyup.”

Farmer Brown was one of the smartest pig farmers in his small community of pig farmers, but not even he could anticipate the kind of radioactive backwash going on up in the stratosphere. Each cloud began to reabsorb the residual effects of the Ionospear before passing the ions on to their neighboring nimbi. This had only happened once before in the history of labeled pants, back in the second world war... but Roosevelt couldn’t save the world this time.

“Aicron, can you give me more lift?” Piet piped into the piloting pipe, which made her privy to the pilot’s position. “Aicron?”

“I am here, my meal ticket!” the ghost gracefully groused, a ghastly grin in his grim voice.

“The clouds are creating colors, canceling constellations, and causing confusion!” she yelled.

“What’s with the alliteration all of a sudden? Do you have any idea how annoying that can be?” Aicron acrimoniously accused.

“Focus, Aicron! We’ve still got three choppers on our tail! Evasive maneuvers!”

“I thought there was only one left... you know, because you sort of kicked one of those guys out into the sky... and I harpooned the other one...”

“What, you think they’d just jump aboard and let their multi-million dollar helicopters crash?” she sarcastically chortled, lifting one reddish-brown eyebrow. “Do you have any idea how much a helicopter is worth? There’s always someone on board to pilot it, and fire missiles.”

“Well, pardon my compassion. At least one of us was thinking of the big picture. You know, if it were up to you, we’d all be living under a big rock out in the middle of Florida. You know that, don’t you?”

“Why do you always do this,” she sighed, “you know you’ve lost an argument, but instead of accepting it, you say things that are distracting and pointless.”

“Ah, the student has surpassed the teacher.”

Fortunately (for Aicron’s pride), an explosive shockwave ripped through the sun-streaked sky, flipping the Lunar Hummer end-over-end. Only by quickly jamming her right foot into Tallborn’s static boot, which had sealed itself to the side of the ship after his demise, was Piet able to keep from falling out into the roiling clouds. The choppers weren’t so lucky, and their blades bent upward, sending the extremely expensive machines down, down to Farmer Brown. The next day, Mr. Brown would discover his pigs mercilessly crushed under the weight of three government helicopters; it would only feed his paranoia and fear/hatred of big government.

***
Day 24

“Hey! Hey, can anyone hear me?!” said the downed pilot to anyone who could hear him; there had to be other survivors, there had to!

“Gunther? That you?” a scratchy southern drawl wavered from the burning troughs. “I... think my leg’s broken.”

“Hold on, Chen! I think I see you.” Gunther stumbled, using his hands to “see” in the odorous den. Chen was still alive... it may have been too late for the others (they were seriously overweight), but if he could drag Chen to safety, it could earn Gunther that promotion to Helicopter Obstetrician.

“Chen, are you-”

Light poured in as a heavy foot kicked in part of the wall, filling the air with sawdust and drywall. The filaments stuck to a dark pool of red goo that seemed to seethe over the hay and dirt.

“Ma pigs! Ma precious pigs!” wailed Farmer Brown, lowering trembling fingers down at pieces of bones and snout, all that remained of his prize-winning potbellied pigs. Fighting off tears, the old man could feel his own pulse throbbing twixt his eyeballs as his grain pail spilled its contents besides his faded trousers; yet he maintained a death-grip on his 19^th century railroad lantern.

“A civilian! We’re saved!” Gunther beamed, holding a semi-conscious Chen up to the lantern light.

Ah, the civilian. So graceful, so happy; so full of ham.

“You...” Farmer Brown waved a hairy, crop-infused finger at the dazed survivors. “You... government agents... big brother... always watching...” he swung his head back, looking over his shoulder and through the dark woods behind the farm.

“You two...” he bent in his fingers. “You two done crushed all ma little piggies.”

He picked up the half-empty grain pail and dumped it all out. Reaching into his left sleeve, he pulled out a stalk of corn, and threw it in the bucket. He repeated this several times, until the pail was brimming with... corn.

“You gonna turn ma pigs into paste?! You gonna be piggies!” he threw the bucket directly at Gunther’s head; Chen fell to the ground as the prodigal pilot keeled over.

“Why don’t you eat yer corn, piggies?!” Farmer Brown laughed, snapping the straps off his overalls. They dropped, revealing a dark blue wetsuit. “Now we gonna go to market.”

***
Day 29

“What did he promise you?”

“What?” Piet said, distracted. She turned to face the ghost’s request, years of Dewey Decimal training kicking into overdrive.

“What did he promise you if you won the race to the Prime Meridian?”

“Oh. The bet was for two million d’jennies.”

“That’s... hey! You know what?!” Aicron’s spectral nostrils flared with invisible sawdust. “With that kind of money, you could buy me a robot body to live in!”

“I could, but I won’t. Not after... last time,” she said as she stroked the long scar on her right cheek. “Besides, I need that money for an operation...”

“Heavens above, below, and maybe in a parallel universe! I had no idea you were sick!” the empathetic poltergeist cried, ingratiating himself on her in the hopes of usurping the prize money for his own robotic needs.

“It’s not an operation for me, it’s for my precious little child.”

Aicron knew Piet long enough to know that she had no children. “Yeah,” he said sneakily, “I was just on the phone with your kid. He said to give me all your prize money, you know, for that new robot body...”

“She is to be my sister’s baby,” Piet frowned, “my sister, who lives in the strictest of poverty. I alone must save her!”

“What of the child’s father?”

“Her father died on the moon, fighting demons,” Piet moaned. If only things had worked out differently, Piet’s sister could have successfully poisoned him as planned, and had enough insurance money to stay at an actual hospital, instead of Farmer Brown’s pig birthing center.

“And now, my only niece is going to depend on me to keep her, you know, financially soluble. But the poor, wretched child,” Piet wailed, “has been pre-diagnosed with that most terrible of afflictions, the No Organs!”

“Not the No Organs!”

O horrors! The innocent child, a victim of the No Organs?! Why?!

“The no organs?” came a third voice from the Lunar tether cable. Mineuxian Tallborn, sporting a brand-new pair of static boots, walked in through the shuttle doors, upside down and backwards. “I had no idea that’s what you were going to use the money for!”

“What would you prefer she used it for?” Aicron sneered, “Sign-in security software? She isn’t a business!”

“I was planning to use the money to end world hunger... by imploding the universe. But you and your selfless nature have changed my narrow-minded, insect-eye view of the world!” He handed her a brochure. “This contains a map leading to my secret supply of Nimbian gold and centrifugal birthing devices. Bring your sister there, and raise the child in happiness!”

“I’ll... never forget you, Mineuxian Tallborn!” Piet whispered, running over to hug the slimy critter.

“Still dead over here,” Aicron waved, rolling his semi-transparent eyes. “Speaking of which, how did you survive our last encounter? I saw you-”

“You saw nothing!” Mineuxian clicked. “It was all just another game to me. But now that I’m no longer questing quixotically for quid, I can quit this quorum and become a quiz-show host!”

“Quiz-show host?” Aicron raised a ghostly eyebrow. “I just happen to be a show-host ghost! Would you happen to need a co-anchor on your splendid little project?”

“That depends. Can you carry a tune?”

“You graciously graze my gruesome gaze with such a guttural query?”

“I ask politely, poltergeist, the politics I may peruse to pry you from your pointed place, and play party to my show?”

“Such talk! Tall tales, and telephonic tricks. Tried two times to tip this ship,” Aicron’s ghostly visage quipped.

“Ah, good sir, a tune you carry! Lightly not this path you tread; for underneath its mighty carriage, lies the fallen and the dead.”

“Are... you still talking about... starting some kind of game show together?” Piet asked, wresting the two from their game of alliterative cat and mouse.

“Yes. And so, we must be off! Time to fly,” the Nimbian cried. “Remember fondly, me, young human.”

“Remember doubly,” Aicron added, accelerating perpendicular to the horizon. Piet stood there, in shocked silence, watching the ghost and Nimbian spiral each other on their way to stardom. Then she looked at the brochure in her hand.

“Don’t worry, sis. Everything’s gonna be okay... I can feel it.”

***
Day 284

“Piet Gold, as next-in-kin to Phules Gold, it is my terrible duty to inform you... that your sister died in centrifugal childbirth.”

“That’s terrible! Her baby... did it survive?”

“Sure,” said the priest, pulling the infant out of his trench coat. “She’s all yours. She was left to you, in your sister’s will.”

He shoved the baby into Piet’s arms and turned to leave. Doubt shot through her mind like bird pellets. Piet knew that she was a failure at life. She had a level of incompetence so profuse and integral to her character that it could only be genetic. And the gods of the sky had graced her with a child?

“Wait!” she called to the priest, “Father Berrick! What’s her name?”

In lieu of an answer, he handed her some rolled-up papers.

“Don’t worry, little one,” Piet said to the baby, which was crying for its mother, “I’m going to make sure you never make the same mistakes I did. I’m going to raise you to be an actress. An empress! Anything but a Librarian!”

The baby was so pink and vulnerable in her arms. Its adorability doubled when it ceased wailing and cooed a little. A bouncing baby girl, Piet thought. She unfurled the birth records Father Berrick had handed her.

“It’s okay, little Catry. I’m going to raise you right.”

Evidence uncovered by an Icelandic expedition of bread crusts floating near a deep-sea trench has fueled speculation among the scientific community that the radiation produced by underwater chasms has a direct correlation on the number of toast points that become sentient in any given year.

Toast, our newest enemy?

The originator of the "Liquid Toast," or "Toastido Radiation Theory" theory is Dr. Elias Stottlebottom, brother of the late anti-water activist Nigel Stottlebottom. In 1963, Dr. Stottlebottom announced his doctoral thesis to an uncaring, unprepared world. At first, few believed the precocious young doctor. But when a 1987 seaquake off the coast of Micronesia led to a surprising increase in the number of semi-intelligent humans, Stottlebottom's theory was given new life.

Dr. Elias Stottlebottom, fighting to keep our oceans toast-free.

"It's just so gratifying that after these years of neglect, my meticulously-detailed hypothesis is no longer being ridiculed. Even as we speak, no one is throwing eggs or toilet paper at my house! This is truly a great day for science," Stottlebottom is allegedly reported to have said under duress.

While the Toastido Radiation Theory is growing in supporters, there is still some dissent. Russ Vialovski, a Russian immigrant and father of two who works as a lab techinician at Zombietree Corps, had this to say:

"Zere ees no possibility of zis toast gaining- how you say- mental powers from zeese undervater vents. Ees as silly as sayink zat zee communist party fired nuclear missiles into ze vents. Eet ees simply impossible."

Other more skeptical scientists doubt the very existence of toast.

"We have no direct observational observations that any form of edible wheat exists," Dr. Hugo of the Celery Institute of South Wales said to us in misshapen letters scrawled on a stalk of celery. "The only edible foodstuff is celery, and celery derivatives, such as celery juice and cats."

Celery and cats, the two main food groups.

When reached for comment, the International Toast Aficionados (an organization designed to determine the intelligencosity of toast) declared rumors of intelligent toast to be maliciously untrue. Still, the great debate that started in a rogue scientist's garage is now drumming in the breakroom of every office, the tempest of every teapot. So when you take a bite out of breakfast tomorrow morning, just remember: that piece of toast could be smarter than your dog.

That is, if you live by a deep sea trench.

While many people utterly despise the little word verification things that must be filled before posting a comment, others recognize it as an excellent way to prevent comment spam. As a robot, I'm forbidden to participate in this childish discussion; however, I am able to stop and smell the veridical roses, so to speak. By your powers combined, here you go.

This one made me sad.


This one scares me for reasons I can't understand.


This one made me timid for a few days.


Reminded me of that new show, "Psych!"


They misspelled New York...


I used to have some pogs... and that other part vaguely resembles that show Roboshrub likes, FLCL.


'Sup with you?


This one just sounds like some kind of police show.


Just rolls off the tongue; musical, isn't it?


This one is ours.


How 'bout a hot cup o' joe?


My gut told me you'd enjoy this.


You're looking at pron.


Isn't this pronounced "cyborg?"


This one's very secretive...


I'm filled with elation!


Google! Such language!


Aw, look at the cute little hindrance!


I've never seen such an active captcha.


Boom! Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-awwwwwww!

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Independence Hall
September 17, 1787
9:41 P.M.

“We set out today to bring into this world a new form of document-”

“Pink belly! Pink belly!” the delegates chanted, interrupting George Washington mid-speech.

Elbridge Gerry groaned as Alexander Hamilton hit him repeatedly across the stomach. The constitutional convention may have been over, but the party was just starting.

“Ow! George! Ow! Help me, George!”

George Washington looked on; it was not his place to interfere with the legislative process.

“Pink Belly! Pink Belly!”

“Okay, Al. That’s enough,” said a small voice from the back of the chamber. James Madison walked over to the brawl, tapping Hamilton on the back with his (then in vogue) walking stick. “Break it up.”

“Come on, Jemmy!” protested Gouverneur Morris. “We all know Elbridge deserves it!”

The delegated nodded readily; Madison could even hear a few of them hissing at him for his unwanted intrusion.

“He’s a power-mad grubber! Bad!” Hamilton kicked the Jeffersonian Republican in the ribs.

“You see why we need a bill of rights?” asked Madison derisively at the congregation. “There’s no law preventing us from doing this kind of thing.”

“Yeah, but there’s a good reason we didn’t write a national bill of rights,” Hamilton grunted as he hoisted Gerry over his shoulders. Limping to the open veranda, he tossed the man over the railing and into a pile of firewood.

“Ahhhh! Splinter!” were the last words anyone heard from Elbridge Gerry before the window slammed shut, locking him out of the after-party discussion.

“Okay, Mr. Hamilton, why don’t you enlighten me as to why you think we don’t need a bill of rights?”

“I’ve already told you a thousand times,” Hamilton shouted over the wiffleball match that was breaking out between the South Carolinian and Pennsylvanian delegations. “We don’t need a formal bill of rights because the constitution is a bill of rights. Get it?”

“No,” Madison yelled to be heard over Charles Pinckney as the man ran a victory lap around the Pennsylvanian delegates.

“If we start listing rights, then what about the rights that aren’t listed?” Hamilton pursed his lips and raised an eyebrow. “Sorry Jemmy, but a bill of rights would limit our rights, not protect them. Can you not see the flawless, machine-driven logic in my plan?”

“Yes, but we haven’t said that there are any rights reserved to the people at all! We need to make some mention that there are rights that-”

A heated debate between the greatest thinkers of the time.

The rest of his sentence got cut off as a ceiling panel collapsed, dropping a stunned Elbridge Gerry onto the unsuspecting delegates. The elder statesman rose to his feet, his clothing tattered, his hair covered in wood shavings.

“How did you get back in here?!” bellowed George Washington, whose tri-cornered hat had been knocked off in the fall, revealing a large tattoo across his shaven scalp. It was said that this tattoo endowed him with superhuman strength and the ability to see the future.

“Mind your own business! This is my impression of you: ‘I’m Ge-orge Washing-ton. I think I’ll go to Happy Town and drink a gallon of cheap maple syrup.’ You like that, funny man?!” Elbridge wheezed, trying to stand up straight. He was having a hard time, what with the wooden Massachusetts shoes and all.

Madison shifted uncomfortably. “We still need to seriously consider a national bill of rights...”

“Okay, fine!” Hamilton pouted. “You can have your puny, pathetic bill of rights! But just so you know, I won’t be helping you. Write them yourself.”

“But that could take days... hey, who wants to do a bill of rights?”

In rapid succession, the delegates let off a stream of “not it” until at last Madison was about to conceed the whole thing. The room became as quiet as a fresh mowed lawn as everyone waited with bated breath to hear the stunning reversal. Madison took a deep breath through his nostrils, opened his lips slightly, and looked Hamilton right in the eye.

“Mister Hamilton-”

“WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

Everyone in the room was jolted out of their respective skins as a loud holler erupted from the front doors, which were kicked in by none other than...

“Thomas Jefferson!”

“That’s my name, stagecoach!” Jefferson jeered at the framers. “I wanted to be here sooner, but I got held up at the store. You believe they want $0.04 for an almanac?! Well, I set them right. It was really funny. What I did was, I got a dog and a mule...”

It was then that Jefferson noticed how quiet the room was, and how everyone’s eyes were fixated on him.

“Hey, Madison, what are you guys looking at?”