The Crazy Weird Los-Slopes Opera

Amir, 5th grade

A shadowy figure wandered up the dirt path. Piece after piece of hail fell on the black hood of the figure and from the light from the illuminating stars you could see she was making short, gentle movements like she was swatting a cat. Her gray piebald hair was sharply swinging back in the wind as the wind whistled though the area. The damp odor of dew could be smelt, and the figure could almost taste the dry mountain air. And she saw what she wanted to see, the rickety, dilapidated, rotting, wooden sign that read “O’Hare Mansion” and a smaller caption that told viewers, “No Trespassing.”  The iron fence serving as a guard to the grounds, could just be opened a bit so that an old hag could get through. Wilting flowers and plants covered every inch of the “front garden” as it was referred too, but the figure gliding swiftly towards the main entrance took no notice of this poor sight. Loudly, her fingers produced a half-hearted snap and gingerly the lock came undone. With one more snap the door locked again and the figure became invisible. As a tiny cackle came from the old hag’s horrid mouth and, in somewhat of a timid way she made her way up the sixteen steps to the second story landing. My reader, you must know that despite her previous actions, she was not timid at all. An alarm system protected each room in the mansion and with a clap full of tension and excitement, the old hag disabled the alarm that let Renoir know if an intruder was about to strangle her weak neck.

Renoir, an orphan with spooky black cat hair and green eyes, was occupied with filling her diary with the contents of her latest adventure, a task which consisted of finding Mozart’s original script for his opera The Mozart Flute. Pencil in hand, Renoir wrote: ‘The carriage pulled up to the driveway of 65^th Theater.’  She thought complexly for a moment and continued ‘The driver, who was wearing a purple…’ Stopping midsentence, Renoir thought she heard a rustle behind her. With caution, she turned but midway an invisible figure grabbed her by the neck. Slowly a blurry old hag formed behind. Renoir had heard rumors in the village about this person and should have listened to the tale of how a hero outwitted her.

“Not Kui, the black witch!”

“Yes, child I am a black witch!”  The old hag paused and added, “Kui, in fact!”

As she said this, Kui took out a rather large bottle from her black cape.

“I thought Kui was slain by Sir…”

But before Renoir could finish, Kui poured the contents of the bottle down Renoir’s throat and pulled her chin up so she was forced to swallow the dirty potion. With a snap Kui disappeared in midair.

Rapidly Renoir looked less like a girl and more like a mouse.

Squeak! She muttered as she attempted to pick up the lengthy pencil in her mouth.

Failing in this, Renoir the mouse made a high, awkward jump from the chair to the table. Her paws barely reaching the table’s edge, she hoisted herself up so that her whole body was on the table.

“I must find a place to sleep!” Renoir the mouse thought, and started inspecting the surrounding area. Her perusal continued until her sleep decision rested on a corner of a piece of paper, that she [proudly] chewed herself. Working to blow out the candle, the only mark of her efforts was a burnt toe, Renoir the mouse slept soundly on the corner of paper.

When she woke the next morning her first thoughts were about breakfast. She tried to remember from a magazine article she had read previously about mice what mice ate. From her memory Renoir could vaguely remember that the article said that mice eat mostly table food or garbage. Scampering down the table leg, Renoir thought she might as well look in her trash can. On her way to the trash can, (which was on the other side of the room), her thoughts shifted to Kui and the story about how she rose to power and how one night in her reign she was slain. “Kui will not rise to power again,” Michel the Brave, (who had killed Kui) vowed, “unless in the month of full moon, evil takes bitter revenge.”

A sudden rustle startled the mouse and she realized that Brown Bark, O’Hare’s (Renoir’s master) feline sycophant was only about a yard away from her tail. Brown Bark growled, inching closer and made a sudden leap. Renoir’s scuttling took on a V-shaped pattern, and it was easy to see after the mouse had repeated this two times or so, the cat’s eyes took on a perplexed gleam. Once, she hesitated and looked behind her to see if the cat was anywhere in her area and to her awe, Brown Bark jumped triumphantly and grabbed her tail. As Renoir neared the cat’s mouth, her legs did what her instinct told them.
The mouse’s legs started running. As Brown Bark’s grip tightened on Renoir, she made a hop, and was free from the enemy’s clutches. Before she could get a sense of things, Renoir slid into a dim-lighted and rather large hole in the west wall.

The hole curved upward. It would take hours to meander through the mess of darkness, Renoir predicted. Many dead ends blocked the way. When she saw the mice in mousetraps, Renoir turned back, only to go try to overcome her mousetrap fear. Upon venturing this way, blocking her path was a feather. Sitting on her tail she examined this object on the dirt, only to find nothing on the feather. Renoir peered up and this is when she noticed a giant hand was reaching in the tunnel that grabbed Renoir by her left ear and dragged her out of the black and dead ended world. The light was shining in her eyes, when dark claimed Renoir for his own, again.

Voices swirled around Renoir as she opened her tired, aching, gray eyes. 

“Is she awake?”

“Why would Kui do this?”

To Renoir’s amazement she was lying in the hand of an old friend, known as the man with the green vest. The actor and other members of the cast and crew were scattered throughout that room, much like sprinkles on a cupcake.

“Renoir, sweetie, are you okay?” a young woman, about thirty with a thick German accent wearing an outfit that made her look like an overgrown bumblebee.

“We were hoping you would come very soon!” said another with the same German accent and with the same bumblebee fashion.

“We are the QuickTrick triplets,” said the third one.

“How do you know who I am?” Renoir inquired, “And from what other folks has said I assume you know my fate?

The second QuickTrick triplet replied, “Give thanks to our XC567B Spy Camera Duo!”

“It’s simple!” The first one said, “You just type in a name and wherever a person is the location appears on the polished screen.”

The third triplet typed in ‘Renoir’ and in no more than a few seconds, the half-circle shape of Renoir’s body appeared on the screen. It was like a televisionized mirror. 

“I would like to see where Kui is now, please.” Renoir commented, still gaping.

“No problem!” the third bumblebee responded and rapidly typed in ‘Kui.’

The black hooded figure was there on the screen, in some sort of vault-like space it was filled with bottles that labels read: ‘Who-Who Potion: Prevents permanent memory loss,’ and, ‘Tiger Snake potion: produces snakes that squeeze the person closest to the liquid to death.’

The old hag teetered over to the other side room where an ebony caldron was awaiting her. Taking three bottles from the shelf she poured them in the hollow moon. Green smoke rose and Kui gave a slight cackle. With that, she took twice as many bottles from the wooden shelf and poured them in making a sickly purple looking concoction, and summoned a fish to her side. As Kui did this a bottle fell to the floor and Renoir could see that it read: ‘Mice antidote: Turns mice to human figures.’ Finally the fish came. Kui dipped the fish in the potion till its scales could not carry any more of the drink. Kui held it up and the fish sagged limply, but with no expression on his strange face. Renoir thought, that must be the power of the Death potion.

Renoir quickly regarded this thought and asked the triplets, “Where is Kui?”

“The Canyon of Dead Mermaids!” the QuickTrick triplets replied in unison, shivering, “I wouldn’t want to go there. Dodgy place, The Canyon of the Dead Mermaids is, not to mention creepy.”

“But we have to go there!” Renoir exclaimed, “I saw the potion that will transform me into a human again! Tell everyone in here I need their help!”

“Of course, Renoir!” the QuickTrick triplets said and hurried off in a northerly direction.

Renoir murmured to herself, “I must have that antidote!”

The QuickTrick triplets seemed slightly amused by this remark, and although Renoir saw no reason to be laughing, the shade of their cheeks was a dark scarlet like they had just drunken some sort of alcoholic drink.

“Tis’ a long journey!” Renoir overheard one saying to the Actor.

“Renoir needs your help!” another one said to the Man in the Green Vest.

The noise in the room had reached a rather the room went up to a high level, and so when the third QuickTrick triplet asked her what seemed to be a question it sounded very much like a chipmunk language. “Silence!”  Squeaked Renoir and all the noise and movement came to a halt at her command.

“Who is going to help me? Who is willing to stop Kui?”

Almost every hand in the room went up.

 “Let us get in the elevator?” whispered the Actor and most everyone headed to the west end of the small room. The third QuickTrick triplet, however, was still positioned in front of Renoir as though she was waiting for some signal of some sort.

“Miss Renoir?” the third bumblebee inquired, “I would be glad to carry you on my shoulder, but only with your permission.

“You have my permission, Miss…” Renoir felt slightly embarrassed as she did not know what to call her but the third Quick Trick triplet.

“Hoffman,” she replied. Miss Hoffman did not feel at all insulted in anyway by Renoir’s mistake, as she hoisted Renoir on her shoulder.

The others were piling into a small cramped elevator, with was made out of a glass that you could not see though. There was a door on the left side that Miss Hoffman and Renoir went through.

At their entrance, the man in the green vest pushed a button that Renoir could not view.

The elevator then started moving. The unclear glass walls pushed toward the group as the elevator got more crammed while the elevator itself went downward. The walls pushed the group more and more, and just when Renoir was sure they were going to become pancakes, there was a crash, darkness, and then blinding light.

Hills filled the horizon, and there was a stream with rocks bordering the muddy bank. The river ran for three miles or so, and then there was a little patch of yellow grass. The rest of it was just grass stretching on for miles and miles. A slight breeze blew, coming from the mountains.

Renoir asked the Man in the Green Vest, “Where are we?”

“We are 55 miles northern-southern of Delhi, India, which is the precise location of the Canyon of the Dead Mermaids.”

“What does northern-southern mean?” Renoir inquired, slightly embarrassed.

“Why, northern-southern is the longitude of the mantle! But Kui lives in the core of the earth, so we still have a little longer way to travel.”

“So does that mean we are 55 miles under Delhi?”

“”Now you are catching on!” exclaimed the Man in the Green Vest jumping to his feet.

Renoir’s stomach lurched at the thought of these sentences. They were under Delhi? They had to go all the way to the core to stop the mistress of evil, Kui. Then a question that was looming in the air formed in Renoir’s mind: ‘Would she survive the trip to the Canyon of the Dead Mermaids?”

Her thoughts were interrupted by a voice below her that said “We better get going Renoir,” and she realized that she was still on Miss Hoffman’s shoulder.

The Man in the Green Vest, (who seemed to be the leader) led the group to the small patch of yellow grass, where he halted, and hung his head before the dehydrated grass as if it were a grave of someone that was very dear to him, and told Renoir quietly, “I believe the only way to enter the Canyon of the Dead Mermaids is for Kui to hear the sound of someone that has been under her influence. The patch of yellow grass is a marker for where you should stand when you…”

His voice trailed off, and Renoir nodded.  Standing on the patch of yellow grass, she produced a rather innocent sounding squeak. 

At this the nearby grass split in half and two golden mermaids appeared, each one the size of three elephants. As water started trickling out of the mermaid’s mouths, the hills merged together creating a canyon shape. A thick mist fell over the surrounding area blocking any passerby from view, (though I doubt there was any living thing in the mantle.) 

“Kui lives at the bottom of the canyon,” the Man in the Green Vest commented. “The nearest entry way is through the mouth.  If my calculations are correct, we can use the golden ladder on left side of each mermaid’s fin.  Half of us will enter through the right mermaid and half of us will enter through the other mermaid.  They both lead to the same grand hallway.”

The water from the mermaid’s mouths was now up to Miss Hoffman’s waist.

“We better hurry!” Renoir exclaimed.

“All right,” the Man in the Green Vest said, “The Actor and I will go first.”

One by one, the cast and crew of the Los Slopes Opera ventured into the mermaids mouths until only Miss Hoffman carrying Renoir and a strange figure with an apron and eye shadow the purplish color a bruise turns when it is healing, whom Renoir had never seen, were left to climb up the ladder. The water was now up to Miss Hoffman’s chest and Renoir could feel droplets of it on her feet.

As the climbed the ladder on the left mermaid, one soggy limb after another came out of the water, the level of which was increasing. A swift wind blew and the ladder being slippery made Miss Hoffman’s right foot come clear off the golden ladder.  

“We need to drain the water out!” yelled Miss Hoffman. “If we don’t, we will drown!”

There was an object that looked very much like a vent. It was a coffee color, and Renoir could see a clear substance she knew as water if she looked in one of the peepholes.

“Miss Hoffman,” Renoir screeched at the top of her lungs, “I think I found a drain!”

“Try to close it!” Miss Hoffman replied, noticing the coffee colored vent-like object.

“To do that I have to go inside it, Miss Hoffman!” Renoir screamed as she hopped off the third bumblebee’s shoulder, “Wish me luck!”

Miss Hoffman’s dirty, wet face filled with tears as Renoir jumped into the center peephole.

The current drifted Renoir down a little way. The current grew stronger, and a blurry crimson dial came into sight.  Renoir knew this to be the function that would stop the water, in other words the drain. As the drain became more focused to Renoir’s sight she wondered how to get up to the drain. And then, she remembered that as Miss Hoffman was climbing the golden ladder, a thread came loose from Miss Hoffman’s bumblebee costume. Renoir had caught the thread and it was the only part of Miss Hoffman she had taken with her when she hopped in the passage to the drain.

Suddenly the way forward became clear.  Renoir would tie the thread to the drain and use it to hoist herself up to the drain. Once on the same level as the drain, she could turn the drain and stop the water level from rising.

Thinking about this, she had become a little distracted and she was now under the drain. Quickly she tied a knot she had invented herself which Renoir called the Devil’s Knot. It was invented because she needed a quicker way to fold O’Hare and Treuilgta’e’s clothes. The finished knot looked very much like an untidy fold, but since O’Hare and Treuilgta’e did not care how neat and organized their clothes were, The Devil’s Knot served well for that purpose. Renoir never knew she would use it as part of a plan to stop massive amounts of water in the mantle.

The knot worked, as it always did, and using her left hand to grasp on to the thread she began to work her way up to the drain. Once eye to eye with the drain she used all her might to turn it although the drain would not budge. She then noticed a small circular object on the eastern side of the drain that read: WARNING: AN OFFERING THAT CANNOT BE REPLACED MUST BE GIVEN.

Renoir thought to herself, “What do I have that cannot be replaced?”

 And then the bumblebee thread helped her again.

Renoir thought that if she handed over the thread to the small circular object, she could possibly clear the water from the surrounding areas. Seeing that this was the only part of Miss Hoffman she had brought with her when she went into the path leading to the drain, and to Renoir the value of this thread meant as much as anything in the world to her, for it belonged to a companion that may be meeting her end the very moment, so by any means it could not be replaced. 

With these thoughts, Renoir undid the Devil’s Knot, (which she had never done before) and gingerly presented the thread to the round, circular object on the eastern side of the drain.

Accepting the thread, the circular object made a sound much like the sound humming birds make when they are collecting nectar from a flower. After this small noise had stopped Renoir made a second attempt to reverse the water’s flow.

With all her might she pushed the drain, and it produced a sound much like when you open a door on flimsy hinges. She continued to push the drain and as more creaking sounds came out of the drain the water seemed to gradually slow and finally stop, when at last Renoir noticed her mistake.

She had given the thread to the circular object to help her reverse the water flow. With no thread there was no way to get down from the drainage system except to jump. Luckily, in the same article in which she read what mice ate she had also read that mice had excellent agility. The corridor ahead was steep, though and very narrow. But, seeing that her only hope was in jumping down from the drain, she proceeded in the process of giving jumping down from the drain a thought. Standing on the very edge of the ruby-like colored metal, she loosened her feet muscles and jumped. A winding corridor lies ahead of her as she lands, accompanied by many twist and turns. At the first sign of daylight everything went pitch black.

When Renoir awoke she was in the room that she had seen on the XC567B Spy Camera Duo.  Kui’s chambers looked the same, with the hollow moon or cauldron in the center, and potion bottles placed gruffly on the walls.  Coming from the other entrance was the Los Slopes Opera, who noticed Renoir immediately.  

“Renoir,” exclaimed Miss Hoffman lifting Renoir up onto her shoulder “we were so worried about you!”

“We thought you were dead,” said the Man in the Green Vest.

“I thought you were dead.” Cried Renoir a small puddle of tears formed at Miss Hoffman’s feet.

“Well, let’s find that mice antidote.” Miss Hoffman commented as she refocused the group while taking a packet of tissues from her pocket and dabbing her eyes.

“We will look up Kui on the XC567B Spy Camera Duo and make sure she is nowhere near!” offered Miss Hoffman’s sister who, Renoir assumed was also named Miss Hoffman.

As the two other Hoffman’s connected the Spy Camera to the bottom of the cauldron, Renoir conferred with the third Miss Hoffman and the Man in The Green Vest about the location of the mice antidote.

“I saw it right on that spot of ground,” said the hopeless Renoir for the fourth time.

“Kui has placed a vision trick on the bottle. She must have known you wanted it dearly. Miss Hoffman, walk over to the spot of ground Renoir indicates and see if you trip,” ordered the Man in the Green Vest.

Miss Hoffman did just what the Man in the Green Vest ordered her to do and at the spot of ground that Renoir indicated she walk to, Miss Hoffman made a little jump, and fell flat on her stomach,  her cheeks as red as the leaves in autumn.

“A-ha!” whooped the Man in the Green Vest triumphantly, “Here it is!”

The Man in the Green Vest down to Miss Hoffman’s sole of her shoe and out of midair, he drew a bottle full of turquoise liquid, the label printed on it read:  A MICE ANTIDOTE.

The Man in the Green Vest uncorked the bottle. Cries of “Drink It!” spread throughout Kui’s chambers. Miss Hoffman hollered, “Do it, Renoir!” And Renoir nodded to the Man in the Green Vest, who, at this signal, poured a droplet down Renoir’s throat.

Instantly, Renoir became a girl again. Hugging the Man in the Green Vest and Miss Hoffman she bit her bottom lip.

“No time to celebrate,” came a cry from the bottom of the cauldron. Renoir realized it was the second QuickTrick triplet.

“Kui is coming down this hallway at this very moment!” she shrieked in terror.

Soon the thumping of Kui’s cane that was made of maple tree birch could be heard and everybody shook he fear as she came into sight.

“Well, well, what have we here,” she said in her scratchy, velvety voice, her vocal chords bobbing up and down as she spoke, “the mouse, and her clique.”

“Do not call me that!” Renoir whispered, a glowering look on her face, while she stepped forward.

“I’m sorry, girl, I’m very deaf these days!” she commented, drawing out her wand.

“Leave her alone!” Miss Hoffman cried.

“Cal Ventura aqua scripto palermo! « Kui cried and a contrail looking light burst from her wand.

All the doorways slammed shut, and the ceiling and the walls started to cave in inch by inch. Renoir jumped away from the wall and moved closer to Kui.

“Ho`asvotos!”  Kui hollered. The whole Los Slopes opera was bound in ropes except Renoir, who jumped when the spell was about to hit her.

“Well, well, it’s only you and me girl! I think I will end of the day with a good killing curse! Ha!”  Kui snorted.

But Renoir wasn’t really paying attention to what Kui was saying. Instead she noticed that Kui was standing very near the cauldron, which was still bubbling Death potion. If only she could do what her instincts told her to do…..

“Quitolos!” bellowed Kui, but Renoir was ready. Missing the killing curse by a mere foot, she charged into Kui and rammed her into her own Death Potion. Kui’s wand fell to the ground. The death potion bubbling with delight, the first stone fell followed by many rocks.

Kui’s first spell had worked; the Canyon of the Dead Mermaids was caving in!

“We must find a way out of here!” exclaimed the Man in the Green Vest, “Renoir, you can use Kui’s wand to untie our bonds and open the door.”

Renoir grabbed Kui’s wand, and ran to where her peers were being held captive. Small boulders were falling from the ceiling now; Renoir meanwhile, was pointing her wand at the ropes which, at the touch of the wand fell to the floor.

Once all were free, Renoir simply pointed Kui’s wand at the lock on the door and, magically, it dropped to the ground and the door swung open. A hundred pound rocks were now falling from the ceiling.

The dim lighted corridor ahead seemed endless, everything in that corridor was the same; expect the size of boulders coming out which averagely weighed half a ton.

There was a door at the end of the hall, (which Miss Hoffman offered to hold open for the whole group to get through.)

Two massive pumps dominated the next room, which the Los Slopes Opera had to climb down (for it was the only way to get out) and they landed in front of the two mermaid statues which were now sinking into the ground. Following the enormous stretches of grass the Los Slopes Opera got back into the small cramped elevator pressed the button that read: 65^TH THETARE. Renoir saw painfully her breath being taken away, and then they were in the small cramped room Renoir loved.

“We’re late!” cried The Actor checking his watch, “we’ve got a performance of the Mozart Flute to perform.

As everyone was sprinting around the small backstage room, Renoir sat on the makeup artist’s chair handle, the place she had sat when she first introduced to the Los Slopes Opera. It was strange how the people in that gang’s life went on, how they pretended nothing had happened, how it was seemingly all a dream.

Which maybe, it was.

- August 2008

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