The pangolin ordered the breadsticks—to march.

The breadsticks exchanged meaningless glances and knowingful looks with themselves. “Uh, boss?” they said. “It's January. How're we to do a thing like that? Shall we wait—or consider the boat long-missed?”

The pangolin carefully sold all of its thermal socks so it could steeple its hands menacingly and said, “Listen for once, and learn something.” It pointed to the whiteboard, where plans for a fourteenth-century cathedral were drawn in painstaking detail in the most florid watercolors, every nave and chapel labeled clearly, a complete part list speccing out all the needable materials, and the blueprinting company's logo brazen in its tricolor glory. Also, along the sides were some rude drawings that Jimmy, who shall remain nameless, drew while no one was looking. The breadsticks crowded around the whiteboard with their phones out, snapping pictures, deleting them to take better ones, and making dank memes out of the best for submission to socialized media, where their value would be determined. At the end of this process—a secondary ordeal that half of the breadsticks did not survive to bear witness to—it was Sando Mirage whose meme won, with nearly six thumb-up votes, and so he was crowned King of Breadsticks, and given a lifetime supply of library cards and denture paste. A short lifetime.

Sando Mirage knelt before the pangolin. “I,” he said, “am Sando Mirage, King of Breadsticks, and I come before you in the name of all breadsticks, and heretofore do I pledge this: the loyalty of all breadsticks—here, everywhere, now, and in the whole future—lies with you!”

“I—” stammered the pangolin. “I already have that. I bought you. I own you. And now I'm ordering you! So, march already!”

Sando Mirage gazed at the pangolin with two faraway looks, the eternal sunlight glinting off his crust, and then, as if coming out of a withheld reverie, said, “But, boss, how can we? It's January.”

The pangolin threw up its hands and breakfast. “Is this a fruitless endeavor, after all?” it muttered.

Sando Mirage chuckled. “Boss! We ain't fruit! We're bread—as unfruity as a thing gets!”

The pangolin blinked, blank. Then, finally, it opted for defeat. It gave up on trying to utilize the breadsticks as its henchmen in the forthcoming Traycupnapping—that was its goal, by the way, I don't know if anyone put up the posters explaining that, but they were supposed to—and instead wrote off the eight ninety-nine as a loss, and moved on and out, while the breadsticks remained to try to learn more about fire hydrants.

Perhaps hope was too much to hope for.

It—the pangolin, not the year hummus was invented—went to a bus stop where three kids were playing not hopscotch, but something that looked a lot like it, involving scimitars. Due to the scimitars, the kids were bored, so when the pangolin offered them all the breadsticks they could juggle in return for pledging their eternal loyalty to it for the rest of the weekend, they laughed and threw shrubberies at it, for what value was there in a breadstick that consented to being juggled? The pangolin beran and hid in a paper factory. Like—a factory that made paper, not a factory made of paper. That'll come later. It always does.

“The spirit of youth is unwilling!” said the pangolin. “This is as surprising as it is predictable.”

The kids, who were named Jack, Jill, and Incalculably Horrible Edgarthompshire, went ahead and lit the factory on fire, in the name of juvenile delinquency, and then found some old cookies in the dumpster. The old cookies started to tell an old story about the old days—one of the “uphill both ways” kind—but the kids mercifully put the old cookies out of everyone's misery and in the line of fire. Somewhere, a dog was wearing boots. Good boots—the kind that you couldn't afford and, if you could, you wouldn't have to.

The factory owner emerged from the shadows and bellowed at the pangolin. “An event? This begets blame! Here, you can be the haver!” It began to chase the pangolin with a broom—just a normal, unwitched broom—as it was the closest thing handy. However, the pangolin found a broom as well, leftover from a cockfight, and the duel was joined. As broomstick clashed with broomstick, a bus full of nuns pulled up and they all gawked at the spectacle, and told the kids to stop spoiling their dinner by having so many cookies, and the kids apologized earnestly, but no one was really convinced, and then a flashy red sports car drove past, and everyone's heads turned, not in excitement and jealous staring, but whipped up by the vortex left in the car's wake, and their heads spun around and around until they came unscrewed and fell off, and all their heads rolled down the street to a pancake store, where they were picked up by Old Mr. Feltober, and he was going to put their heads into the hopper to grind them up and make them into pancake batter, but Eraserhead's lawyer came by threatening to sue and also kidnap Old Mr. Feltober's firstborn, and as Old Mr. Feltober had no born at all, the lawyer donned gloves and prepared to make some. Old Mr. Feltober got the hint.

Meanwhile, splintered broomsticks clattered to the floor. The pangolin and the factory owner stared at each other across the conveyor belts and pulley rigs. They were clearly evenly matched foes.

“Evenly matched?” said the pangolin. “With this? This? This doddering geezer—desk jockey—mere manager!”

“All true, and more,” said the factory owner, “for I am as I once was—vagabondish warrior and drum-suite orienter! Slayer of thoughtless fancies, precision jammer of some renown! And now, springing from your deeds, my prescription factory is aflame! A flame that's not part of my keto plan! I'm unresting until honor's restored!”

“No, this won't be how it goes!” said the pangolin. “I've been through a bit and I'll be through a bit more! Mark these words, because you'll hear them again: I've more to say!”

So, the pangolin swung across the river on a rope, and the river was full of alligators, crocodiles, and robotic vacuums thirsting for blood, but the rope snapped and the pangolin fell into the river, and it would've been devoured by all three aforementioned dangers, but, the factory owner, spotting the river and quickly thinking of its usefulness in combating the flames combating its factory, diverted the river into the factory's AC system, so that the water flowed through the entire factory, put out the flames, and flowed back into the street and drained into the sewer, which was not how the city's storm drain system was supposed to have been built, but you get what you pay for, and so what happened was that instead of falling into the river, the pangolin fell into a three-act play put on by the local school.

“But soft,” said the lead, “what angel wakes me? Why, it's a problem for my parents, if you ask me!”

The spotlight fell onto the pangolin, so it could do its soliloquy. Of course, the pangolin didn't know its lines, and hadn't shown up to the dress rehearsals at all. In fact, the pangolin had never shown up to any of the workshops they had been doing all season. It's like it didn't even care about the project. So why was it even here?

“Spare me your strife!” said the pangolin. “Memory Lane's around the corner—it's me that's foiled here! If I'd nonfaulty breadsticks, all would be well, but instead I've been greeted with a series of obstacles, each more oblongated than the last!”

“Those aren't,” said the lead, “your lines!”

Now, the audience grew despondent at the failure of the play and in seeing the fourth wall broken, and so threw all their horseshoes, hand grenades, and rotten golf tees at the pangolin. It caught the horseshoes, ate the hand grenades—but it was the golf tees that marked the true threat, for the pangolin's natural enemy was proximity to golf-related paraphernalia, and so at the mere sight of the flung tees it fled and leapt upon a nearby velocipede, and scrammed with haste.

“With or without,” it said, “I'll show you an offing not long in the making!”

It fled up and down the city streets, striving to shake off its pursuers, and this grand effort was sadly wasted on its own imagination, for it failed to realize that none were pursuing it, in fact, and all who'd beheld it of late had already quite forgotten about it, and let it get on with its own devices, for they all had bills to pay, and the bank didn't take pangolin scales—yet—and so it was back to the aquarium for them all. But, in its haste, the pangolin had worked up quite an appetite, and so stopped at the local deli for a snack. It parked its velocipede in a convenient tourniquet and strolled inside with all the casualism it could muster, the chime on the door alerting the proprietor.

“What's it to be, boss?” said the clerker, enspying the new victim. I mean, customer. “And don't say breadsticks—we don't stand for puns, here.”

“Nor should you stand at all,” said the pangolin. “Bad for the bones. Take a seat and spare the menu—make mine cheesecake and cheese tea, but keep it quick.”

During the period wherein the pangolin was beholden to wait, notwithstanding the clerker's adequate processing speed, it began to ponder the difficulties encountered in its mission. Broadsword and shotgun, defeated and slain. Breadsticks, a useless waste of money. Could cheesecake and cheese tea really succeed where those'd failed?

The 'cake and tea were prepared with slow tenderness approaching care, and at the moment of their readiness were delivered to the pangolin's booth with speed but deliberateness, so not a drop or crumb—or rather, a crumb or drop—was lost, and the pangolin partook in its repast.

The bell on the door chimed for the last time.

Into the deli stepped a woman. There were cold and edges about her. She gazed about the deli without haste or interest. She was named Markerel Squarte, and she was here for a reason. The door slowly closed behind her.

The clerker was behind the counter and wiping it clean out of habit. He glanced at Markerel and said, “What's it to be, boss?”

Markerel had already had it with the deli. She ignored the clerker's query. She went, with a voice without smoothness or mercy, “I'll do the asking when I want to hear you.” There was only hate. She grinned with utterly malicious wrath—hateful and heavy words, but she was a hateful and heavy person. Weapons were near her fingertips. She would bathe today.

“That's a known voice,” the pangolin said, only to itself, but there were no secrets between betrayers. Markerel heard it. She strode over to its position, staring all the while at the clerker. In turn the breakfast-havers whose routines had been mildly interrupted stared at her, disapproving.

“Well, what have we here?” went Markerel. “An old friend?” When she stood above the pangolin she turned her head and gaze to it, and drowned it with her attention. She smiled still, an act learned from long practice. “Ah. It's something more fiendish. Well, fiends can be dealt with. Anyone can be dealt with.”

Perhaps a tormentor would brandish a knife and a sharpening tool in a menacing way, but of course Markerel would do no such thing. Her knives were already sharp, and the ones that weren't were dull on purpose. Moreover the pangolin knew her, knew what she was capable of, and, seeing no knives in her hands, knew that this made their number uncountable—and itself beyond prayer.

“Let's have a pleasant conversation,” said the pangolin with abundant nervousness. “There's cheesecake and cheese tea to spare.”

“A conversation!” went Markerel. She made a sound like laughter that had all the joy of a neonate's bier. “Me? With you? No. I don't do that. Besides—I'm working. Unlike you.”

“I'm working as well!” cried the pangolin. “In fact, I've been tasked with a vital procurement—that's, admittedly, proving a challenge.”

“What's the matter?” went Markerel. “Can't handle it on your own?”

This was true, and the pangolin was loath to admit such, and said nothing. It looked away sheepishly, which of course gave it all way.

“Don't worry about it anymore,” went Markerel. “Do you want to know about my job? I'll tell you. It's a government job. For the mayor's office!” Markerel smiled. Markerel was always smiling. It was never pleasant. When she smiled more, the world got worse. “Isn't that nice? That means it's important. That means I'm important. That means I can matter.”

“That's good enough news to put the past away, isn't it?” said the pangolin, with its last shred of hope. “Shall we drink to it? Or shall I depart, and let your work commence?”

“Doesn't it sound familiar?” went Markerel lovelessly. “My job. Doesn't it? Think.”

“I don't know the second detail about it,” said the pangolin. Its ware was waxing.

“You should,” went Markerel. “It's your job.”

“What's this?” said the pangolin. “Now you're saying a hard pill to swallow!”

Markerel laughed, to the nausea of all who overheard the event. “Ausdrom says he's disappointed in you. Ausdrom says you haven't done what he asked. Ausdrom's tired of waiting.” Now Markerel directly loomed over the pangolin, beyond caring. The pangolin counted the rest of its life in seconds. “Ausdrom says to deal with you.”

“Well,” said the pangolin, “if you seek battle—”

Now at that moment the clerker knocked a wooden try from the counter, and it fell to the floor and made a jarring, clattering sound, and quite disturbed the atmosphere. The breakfast-havers took note and tut-tutted, the pangolin nearly sprang from it seat in alarm, and Markerel—

An unholy sound like steel buildings torn apart by a hurricane ripped from Markerel's throat and she leapt onto the counter and threw open her coat and drew one hundred knives, and then she stabbed the clerker with the one hundred knives, and then the other patrons who were trying to enjoy their midmorning coffee and bagels elected for panic instead and became afraid, but it would not last long, for Markerel had more knives, enough for everyone, and they were oh-so-sharp, and she cut them open and made them bleed, and all their blood went onto the floor and mixed and became one, and then they themselves fell onto the floor and swam in the blood, wailing, screaming, and in time became silent, so that the pangolin and Markerel could continue without interruption, but there would be no continuation, for the pangolin wisely fled during this event and was not seen again, and Markerel remained to bathe in her contentment.

At a time much later, Markerel made a phone call, and it was Ultrasymbolic Unitasker that answered.

“I have dealt with the pangolin,” went Markerel.

“I told you that wasn't necessary,” said Unitasker.

“You introduced the topic,” went Markerel. “I read between the lines.”

“Don't read between the lines, read the lines,” said Unitasker. It wasn't worth trying to argue. “Never mind. It doesn't matter. What about Traycup?”

“Yes, of course I'll collect him,” went Markerel. “Don't insult me. I don't forget. I know my job.”

“I had the pangolin do it as a favor,” Unitasker said. “A personal project. But the situation's changed. I want him quick. Fast. Whatever it takes.”

“Did you think I would hold back?” went Markerel.

“And I want him alive,” said Unitasker.

The phone was quiet for just long enough for it to be on purpose. “I know my job,” went Markerel. “And I'm going to go do it now.” She hung up.

Unitasker sighed, target unknown.

Now, with Oopertreepia's unscheduled return, a few people of note were a bit put out. Leaders and presidents and armies had to plan for Oopertreepia's comings and goings—it was a whole political thing, only now the boss came back when we thought he was taking this week off, so now we're waiting to see if he'll leave Tuesday morning, or if he'll be looking over our shoulders all week. We were counting on this respite, and now no one knows what's going on. Yonilicus wanted Unitasker to knock on the very gates and ask if the man of the house was home, but Yonilicus was unseemingly ambitious, at least for Unitasker's taste. There must be a better way. Unitasker had a hunch, which was a perfectly neutral event, but he was a sucker for hunches, and that was definitely detrimental to anyone's mental well-being. But he must be right—he must. The Lopkits knew something.

He was still holding the phone—he hung it up at last. He went over to the window and hoped his silhouette looked cool.

“I wonder,” he said to himself, “if she can dance.”