Tricks and Treats for Wiglaf and Mordred
by Blackford
The whirring, rattling sound of a sewing machine’s bobbin drivers echoed through the Springland Apartments corridors as Wiglaf delicately moved a piece of red fabric through the machine’s feed mechanisms to stitch a line of gold thread across the rim of the fabric. The elaborately decorative design of a king’s robe gradually took shape beneath the diligent needles and loopers. Wiglaf grinned with eager anticipation as his newest costume idea steadily developed into a reality.
This is going to be another great addition to my costume collection, Wiglaf thought. My friends and I will have plenty of costumes to choose from for this year’s Halloween party, and there will be extra costumes for other years. It’ll be perfect.
Wiglaf had been looking forward to celebrating Halloween, and the preparations for the holiday were a great excuse to try out costume-making as a fun little hobby. He had already sewn together a number of Halloween outfits, including a pirate, a wizard, a ninja, a farmer, a police officer, an explorer, and others. Each costume had been crafted with painstaking attention to detail, with the intention of making each one as good-looking and as lifelike as possible. It was going to be a blast trying on all these different costumes and deciding which one to wear to the Halloween party that would be taking place in the Springland Apartments flat.
Wiglaf knew that the Halloween party was sure to be a big success. Driver’s sisters would be coming, and Security was going to attend too. With these costumes and Driver’s homemade Halloween goodies, it’ll be great, he thought. The biggest challenge will be getting Mordred into the spirit of the moment.
He rolled his eyes and chuckled. As usual, Mordred was sulking and complaining about every little thing under the sun. Holidays always seemed to bring out Mordred’s grumpiness in a big way. Probably because of the disruptions to his normal routine of doing nothing, Wiglaf figured. It had always amazed him how Mordred managed to excel so brilliantly at idleness. He wondered how Mordred could possibly do nothing all the time and not feel excruciatingly bored and restless. Wiglaf certainly could not imagine himself being able to endure the torturous null of such consistent monotony.
Doesn’t matter, he thought. I’ll still get Mordred into the swing of things.
He wasn’t about to back down and let his best friend suffer in self-imposed loneliness. Not a chance.
* * * * *
“Chief! What the hell is the matter with you?!!” Ainsley Driver’s voice rang out across the building and shattered the normally serene atmosphere of the Springland Apartments neighborhood.
Mordred jumped almost a foot into the air from the armchair in which he had been lounging. The romance novel he had been thumbing through leaped from his hand and fell to the floor in the corner behind the chair. Driver’s piercing yell had caught him off guard, and he gritted his teeth in annoyance over the disturbance. In theory, Driver was supposed to be his subordinate, but it often didn’t quite work that way in practice. The two had been best buddies since childhood and were more or less peers. Driver always made clear that she would tolerate no nonsense, and she only took orders from him out of affection. Right now, Mordred could tell from the tone of her voice that there was no way to avoid one of her tirades, so he might as well get it over with.
Grumbling under his breath, he lifted himself out of his chair and made his way to the kitchen, where Driver’s shout had originated. He already had a pretty good idea what this was all about.
“Chief, I oughta smack you six ways from Sunday!” Driver snarled when he arrived. “I just finished makin’ a bunch o’ those nice tasty Halloween cookies for the party we’ve planned, and now they’re gone. And I know you’re responsible.”
Mordred looked up at the ceiling. “I didn’t take your cookies.”
“Don’t you lie to me. You were the last person in here after I set them on the counter. I know it, and you know it. You jus’ went an’ ate ‘em like they were your own private snack.”
Mordred found himself assiduously grinding his teeth. “Okay, so what if I did? I get hungry sometimes. So sue me.”
“You bonehead! I put a lot o’ time an’ effort into makin’ those treats. You knew they weren’t jus’ for you. Now I gotta start all over again because o’ you.”
“I don’t know why we need to have a Halloween party anyway. The whole idea is just so stupid.”
“Oh we’re gonna have one alright. I’m not gonna put up with any more o’ these lame-ass days with you hangin’ around here doin’ nothing. It’s boring. You understand what I’m sayin’? I get bored, Mordred. Think about that some time.”
At the moment, Mordred was more preoccupied with his own boredom than with any dreariness Driver might be experiencing.
Driver continued, “And you ain’t gettin’ any more goodies ‘til the party. You jus’ blew your chance to taste any more samples. So get outta here and find someone else to bother.”
Mordred grimaced—he wasn’t thrilled at all about having to wait that long for more treats. But he knew better than to argue with Driver when she was in this mood.
* * * * *
Mordred walked through the apartment past where Wiglaf was working on his latest costume masterpiece. Wiglaf saw that Mordred was angry about something. He had heard Driver screaming, so he figured that she and Mordred had a fight. He decided to cheer his buddy up.
“Hey Mordred, wanna try on some of these costumes I made? You can pick any one you want for the Halloween party.
Mordred scowled. “No, Lackey, I don’t want to try on any of those rags, and I don’t want to take part in any Halloween festivities. Why do you have to interrupt my life with these stupid holiday plans anyway?”
Wiglaf shrugged. “It’s just a little fun. Besides, you could use a change of pace in your daily routine.”
“No I don’t!” Mordred snapped. “That’s your problem, Lackey. Interfering where you’re not welcome. Because of you, I just got chewed out by Driver!”
Wiglaf looked up from his work. “What are you talking about? What did I do?”
“You got her all interested in this dumb Halloween party, that’s what! Now she’s making cookies and refreshments, and when I helped myself to some of them, she went ballistic on me. Now she won’t let me try any more cookies, and it’s all your fault!”
“Oh yeah?” said Wiglaf. “And who told you to steal her cookies in the first place?”
“This is my house! I should be able to take anything I wish!”
“Look, Mordred,” said Wiglaf, “I don’t have time to argue right now. Let’s forget all this silly stuff and focus on having a fun Halloween, okay?”
Mordred just turned away sulkily and walked out the apartment room door.
* * * * *
It was a pleasant autumn day outside, and Mordred went walking through the neighborhood by himself. Curse that Lackey and his foolish ideas, he thought. I can’t get any peace thanks to him. And now I’m deprived of homemade cookies! Mordred was especially appalled by the fact that Driver had barred him from sampling any more Halloween goodies. Normally he would just forget the whole thing, but the lack of access to treats had put him in a very bad mood.
I have to do something to get my mind off this, something to cheer myself up, he thought. But what can I do that won’t require excessive work on my part?
He wanted to play some kind of trick on Lackey, but of course that would require actual effort. Lackey thinks he’s so smart with all his costume-making nonsense, Mordred thought. I ought to show him just how worthless his corny costumes really are.
Then his face brightened. An inspired thought had suddenly emerged in his mind. “Wait a minute! That’s it!” he said aloud to himself. “I’ll beat Lackey at his own game! He wants to make costumes? Fine, I’ll give him a costume he won’t forget. And when I do, I’ll put a nice deep dent in his stupid career as a go-getter hero!”
Mordred paced around the street. “It will be simplicity itself,” he said. “I’ll devise my own costume—a costume that will make me look like Lackey! Then, disguised as Mr. Hero Boy, I will commit petty crimes in the city and ruin Lackey’s reputation!” The thought of it made Mordred wild with glee.
“I shall teach him a lesson once and for all,” Mordred told himself. “He won’t be in the spirit of the holiday for long. When he finds out that his heroic image is destroyed and that the world despises him, he’ll be too depressed to do anything fun or cheery.” Mordred grinned as he considered how much relaxation he would have without Wiglaf getting on his nerves.
Then he paused. Uh oh, he thought. I forgot how much annoying and tedious work would be involved in making a Lackey costume. Mordred certainly had no interest in spending an inordinate amount of time crafting such a costume, which would require duplicates of Wiglaf’s complex chainmaille and boots. What to do?
Then he had an idea. “I can outsource the most tedious work to that useful contractor who calls himself ‘Security’,” he said. “Security is a miracle-worker when it comes to performing all kinds of tasks. If I hire him, he’ll surely complete the most complicated pieces of the costume.”
However, Security would need guidance on how to craft the costume’s specifications. Mordred needed some type of outline to help Security understand what he wanted. Where was he going to get the specs for the Wiglaf costume?
“Aha! I know how to get the specs!” he said. “All I have to do is break the fourth wall. Our author, Liliy, surely has notes on Lackey’s design. They’ll work fine as specs. Also, a reader who uses the screen name ‘KGJ’ once made her own Lackey costume. I shall simply appropriate her notes as well. I’m sure the two of them won’t mind if I ‘borrow’ their precious records for a while.” Mordred chuckled.
“I must place my order with Security for a costume design immediately if I want the results back quickly,” he continued. “Meanwhile, I must gather the remaining pieces of the outfit.”
* * * * *
Shortly afterwards, Mordred placed his costume request with Security and sent him the outfit specs obtained from the ledgers of users Liliy and KGJ. Now he was heading for one of his father’s famous horse stables.
“Horse hair is excellent for wigs,” he reminded himself. “I’ll fashion a golden wig out of yellow horse mane to mimic Lackey’s ugly blonde hair.”
In the stable, Mordred found a collection of yellow horse hair among other horse hair which had been cut from his father’s horses. He slowly tied clumps of hair together until he had produced a semi-usable wig. It wasn’t exactly a skillful replica of Wiglaf’s hair (or even a very good-looking wig), but Mordred didn’t care. He just wanted to get things going.
Soon the costume order from Security arrived in the mail. Inside the package were crude imitations of Wiglaf’s boots and chainmaille. Security hadn’t had time to make them more sophisticated because Mordred had demanded a rush job.
Mordred put on his costume, adding a belt with a plastic toy sword stuck in it. He then placed the makeshift wig on his head. All in all, he looked very strange indeed, appearing more like a junk pile than a Swedish swashbuckler. No one who had ever seen the real Wiglaf before would have been fooled for a minute, but someone who had never seen the real Wiglaf might just be fooled, provided that Mordred didn’t come too close.
Mordred was satisfied with the outfit, telling himself, “This is such a perfect setup. In this disguise, I can rob any store I desire, while the real Lackey will take all the heat from the authorities! No one will dare to stop me because they will all be too afraid of arousing Lackey’s wrath. They know he’s a guy who’s strong enough to lift boulders over his head, so they’ll just run and hide when they see me robbing their stores. I’ll get even with Lackey and make a little profit at the same time!”
* * * * *
In the hours that followed, a series of news reports describing a sudden spate of small-time robberies began circulating. The news stories reported that a number of small stores in the city had been robbed by a perpetrator who bore the same physical description. The stories quoted terrified store owners who swore that they had been robbed by the Swedish hero known as Wiglaf.
“I saw him with my own eyes!” one owner said. “He cleaned out my cash register! He wore chainmaille and had blonde hair! Who else could it have been?”
“He robbed my store too!” said another owner. “I was too afraid to come near him, of course, but I knew it was him when I saw his medieval-type outfit.”
“Wiglaf has turned against us all!” said another. “But why? We thought he was our friend, not our enemy! What could we have done to anger the mighty Wiglaf?”
Soon the headlines on the news stories were blaring: “Hero Wiglaf Turns to Crime!” “Swedish Adventurer Reveals Himself as Villain!” One article contained this passage: “The former hero widely known as ‘the Devil of Bohuslan’ has launched a one-man crime wave in this city. How long will it be until his reign of terror engulfs the world? One also wonders why his targets are so small, given the considerable power he wields.”
* * * * *
Still wearing his homemade hero garb, Mordred was preparing for his next robbery. He was hiding behind the corner of his next target, a candy store, and was straightening his wig.
“Ah, this is working out exactly as I wanted,” he said. “All the idiots in this town are scared stiff. Everybody hates and fears Lackey now. Pretty soon they’ll probably ban him from the city limits.”
Mordred adjusted the wig on his head again. “The one thing that annoys me is how unwieldy this costume is. This stupid wig keeps falling down and getting in my face. I have to fix it like every five minutes! And this chainmaille is a pain to carry around, and the boots are kind of difficult too. I’ll be glad when I can finally take this whole outfit off.”
Mordred peered around the corner of the candy store building. “I’ll go home after I’ve done enough damage to Lackey’s good name. Now it’s time to hit this candy store.”
Pulling his chainmaille into place, Mordred sauntered toward the door and entered the building. The store was blooming with Halloween candy specials and was adorned with Halloween decorations. The owner of the store—a brown-haired man with a mustache and wearing a red shirt and blue apron—was working behind the counter. As he worked, he eventually heard Mordred approaching and started to turn around.
“Good afternoon, sir!” the store owner said. “May I interest you in one of our Halloween specials? We have some delicious—.” Then he stopped. He had just finished turning around and finally saw the identity of his newest customer.
“You!” he said. “You’re the one who’s been robbing all those stores today!”
“You’ve got that right,” said Mordred, careful not to come too close and risk undermining his disguise. “Now if you don’t mind, I would appreciate it if you would stand aside while I help myself to your monetary specials. I wouldn’t want to have to tear this store apart and you along with it.”
“Y-yes sir, r-right away,” the manager stuttered.
The manager slowly backed off to one side and stood on the leftmost end of the store. Mordred immediately started rummaging through the cash register.
“I hope you’ll remember to talk to the press about how I hit your store,” he said while stuffing money into a bag.
“I certainly will, Mr. Garrott,” said the manager.
Mordred froze and looked up from his work. “What did you call me?” he asked.
The store manager, no longer wearing a fearful look on his face, was smiling as he said, “The game is over, sir. It’s time for you to go home.”
The manager peeled back his face—nothing more than a mask—and revealed himself as no one but Wiglaf himself!
“Trick or treat!” Wiglaf said with a grin.
“Lackey!” Mordred cried out. “But where did you—?”
He didn’t get a chance to finish because Wiglaf had already leaped across the room and tackled him to the floor. Mordred struggled in vain as his roommate pinned him firmly to the ground.
“The owner of this store owed me a big favor from the last time I stopped a robbery here,” said Wiglaf as he held down Mordred. “He let me use his store so I could set up my little sting operation. You see, buddy, it didn’t take me long to find out what you were doing.
“I heard some news reports on TV about a couple of petty robberies downtown by someone who looked like me. Now I know how people in this town exaggerate and how they can be pretty gullible, so I listened in some more. When the announcers started reporting that the places being robbed included bookstores, candy stores, toy stores and what-not, I knew you were probably the thief. You always think so small in your villainy.”
“Lackey, I—,” began Mordred.
“I mean, who did you think you were fooling?” said Wiglaf with a laugh. “Besides all the gullible onlookers in this town, I mean. If I were a villain, why would I limit myself to small-time stuff? Seriously, Mordred, if you want to try to make me look evil, then at least give me a little more credit than that!”
“All right, all right!” shouted Mordred. “Just let me up off the floor!”
Wiglaf released his hold on Mordred and helped him to his feet. It was a little awkward getting Mordred up again because of all the moving parts of his costume constantly getting in the way.
“Do you have any idea how goofy you look?” said Wiglaf. “You look like you just walked out of a trash heap. It’s lucky for you the people in this town don’t pay close attention or you’d have been laughed off the streets and all the way back to Springland.”
“I hate you,” grumbled Mordred.
“Glad to see you’re back to normal,” said Wiglaf. “After you return all the stuff you stole, we’re going home. Tomorrow’s Halloween and we’ve got that party to prepare.”
As Mordred rolled his eyes, Wiglaf paused on the way out of the candy store.
“Oh yes, I almost forgot,” he said. “You’d better return those notes and blueprints back to our author Liliy and to the user KGJ. You’ll be lucky if they don’t sue you.”
Wiglaf couldn’t stop giggling as he led his disgruntled friend outside.
* * * * *
“Wiglaf clears his name!” the TV news reported that evening. “The Swedish hero uncovered an attempt to frame him as a criminal and recovered the stolen merchandise!”
Inside the Springland Apartments complex, Wiglaf, Mordred and Driver were lounging in the living room listening to the news coverage on the television.
“It seems that the rumored turn to crime by Swedish adventurer Wiglaf was in fact an elaborate hoax in which some obscure individual was impersonating him,” the news anchor announced.
“Well duh,” said Wiglaf. “I could’ve told them that.”
The news program featured some brief video footage of Wiglaf marching the costumed Mordred down the street.
“Hey Chief, you sure look cheesy wearin’ that pile o’ garbage,” Driver commented. “Next time I tell you to go bother someone else, make sure it ain’t someone who’ll make ya look ridiculous.”
“It was Security’s fault!” snapped Mordred. “He didn’t make my costume good enough!”
“Yeah, sure, like it was a brilliant idea to put on all that junk in the first place,” said Driver. “Can I use what’s left o’ your outfit, Chief? I bet I can make some nice toilet bowl chains out of it.” Driver burst out laughing.
“Oh shut the hell up,” said Mordred.
“Let’s just forget all this now, guys,” said Wiglaf. “Why don’t we just select our Halloween costumes? I’ve got plenty to go around.”
“Okay, let’s do it,” said Driver. “Chief, you be a good boy and participate, and I’ll let ya have one cookie before tomorrow.”
Mordred sighed. “Okay, fine. Let’s do this thing.”
* * * * *
The next evening was Halloween night, and the gathering at Springland Apartments was proceeding successfully. Wiglaf, Mordred and Driver were joined by Security and by Driver’s three sisters, the Valkyries, for an evening of eating sweets, listening to music, watching horror movies, and playing parlor games. Chatter and music echoed through the living room as the festivities continued.
Everyone was dressed in their full Halloween glory, with Security portraying an Indiana Jones-like explorer and Sigrdrifa sporting a mountain climber’s outfit. Brynhildr was dressed in an eighteenth-century English gown, while Svafa was wearing a black ninja costume she had borrowed from Wiglaf’s collection. Wiglaf himself was wearing the king costume he had sewn together, complete with robe and crown.
As the guests mingled, Wiglaf went to see Mordred, who was over at the refreshment table eating a cookie. Mordred was dressed in a pirate outfit he had picked out from Wiglaf’s costume pile.
“You look like you’re doing fine, bud,” he said as Mordred munched the treat. “And that pirate suit looks good on you. Everything’s going great. I told you this would be worth it.”
“Well, at least you didn’t blow up the place,” said Mordred. “Just don’t think you’ve earned any extra credit with me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Wiglaf smiled.
Wiglaf went across the room to chat with Security while Mordred hung around the table. As he was eating, Mordred suddenly felt Driver come up behind him. Driver was dressed up in a military outfit with camouflage colors and dark boots.
“Hey Jack Sparrow, you busy?” she grinned. “What’s a lady gotta do to get some attention ‘round here?”
Mordred scoffed and gave a chuckle. “Don’t try to butter me up. I can still throw you out of my house if I choose.”
“Yeah, but you ain’t gonna,” said Driver. “This place would go to hell in a handbasket without me. So why don’t you just enjoy the party?”
“I have to admit that Lackey got things together admirably,” Mordred commented. “And your Halloween treats don’t taste half as bad as I’d feared.”
“Well, Mr. Garrott, that’s about the closest thing to a compliment you’ve given me in a long time,” said Driver. “You goin’ soft or somethin’?”
“Don’t count on it.”
“In that case, I’d better keep you in a mild mood with some more treats. Open your mouth, pirate man. I’ll feed ya some candy.”
Mordred rolled his eyes in exasperation, but he didn’t resist Driver’s approach. He even managed a small smile as she moved the pieces of candy through his mouth. Don’t rock the boat when life is being okay to you, he thought.
The End