PREFACE

A few days ago, there was a tiny discussion on FORKNI-L that involved
the following exchanges:

Susan Garrett wrote:
>If it's any help, the old wallet of Nick's that Schanke finds in
>Close Call contains a receipt from a grocery store for a 72 roll
>package of toilet paper.

I replied:
>But that was because Nick needed supplies for TPing every tree on
>Lacroix's upstate New York country home!

And Laurie responded:
>Bwahahahahaha!!!!!!  Delightful mental images abound! Somebody has
>gott write this one!  Fanfic challenge, anyone?

Unable to resist a challenge, here it is:

THE TP CHALLENGE

Let's see if anyone else can write a story explaining why Nick would
have bought 72 rolls of toilet paper. I dare ya!

=====================================================================
Mischief Night (01/01)
by Nancy Kaminski
(c) November 1998
=====================================================================

UPSTATE NEW YORK, OCTOBER 28, 1964

"Seventy-one, seventy-two," Nick counted as he drifted over the
moonlit landscape. "I'm going to need more than I thought."

With that cryptic comment he shot off into the night sky. He had a
lot of work to do.

~~~~~

FLASHBACK: One Week Earlier

"Damn!" Nick Forrester yanked the book out of the bookcase and
reshelved it in its proper place. "Why does he have to mess
everything up?" he muttered as he found another misplaced tome.
"Perfect"--yank--"recall"--yank--"and he"--shove--"can't put"
--shove--"things back"--slam--"where they belong! Grrrr!"

The aggravated vampire cast his eyes around his apartment, looking
for anything else out of its rightful place. He found a stack of his
best LPs on the floor next to the sofa (and, on closer examination,
the disks in the wrong jackets), several pieces of valuable
pre-Columbian pottery shoved aside on the coffee table, presumably to
make room for lounging feet, and magazines inexplicably strewn on the
kitchen counter.

"He stays over one day---*one day*---and everything goes to hell in a
handbasket!" Nick stomped through his living quarters in a pique,
rearranging his possessions into their correct configuration.

"What was that, Nicholas?" The oil-smooth voice sounded amused.
Lacroix closed the front door, dropped the car keys on the end table
and raised an eyebrow at his agitated progeny in one fluid series of
moves.

Nick swung around and the two vampires locked eyes. After a brief and
unsuccessful staredown, Nick said icily, "This is not a hotel,
Lacroix. When is your apartment going to be ready? And who said you
could use my car?"

"Ah, yes, your car." Lacroix crossed the room and sat down on the
sofa, putting his feet up on the recently-tidied coffee table. "I'm
afraid there's been a bit of an accident." He picked up a copy of
Life and started leafing through it.

"WHAT?!?"

"Relax, it's a small dent. Really, Nicholas, it's just a car--and an
ugly one at that. I'm sure it won't cost you much to have it
repaired. Perhaps you can take this opportunity to have it painted
something other than that repulsive green."

Nick was left speechless for a moment. He closed his eyes, drew a
deep breath, exhaled, then said carefully, "And your apartment will
be ready exactly when?"

Lacroix looked up from a photo story on President Johnson's beagles.
"Oh, it's ready tonight. I just have to collect my bag and go."

"Then GO!"

Lacroix got to his feet unhurriedly, heaving a dramatic sigh. "Oh,
very well. I can see you wish me to leave." He collected his
overnight bag and jacket and headed for the door. "I'll need your car
again," he said, reaching for the keys.

Nick's hand got there first. "Call a cab. Fly. Walk. Take the subway.
You're NOT TAKING MY CAR," he said through gritted teeth.

Lacroix's hand withdrew smoothly. "Incidentally, I'm having a few
things delivered here instead of my new apartment. I'm going to the
estate on the thirty-first to avoid being accosted by juvenile
beggars, and that's the date my purchases are due to arrive. It's
just a few boxes."

Even as he resented this further imposition on his life, Nick
silently thanked Providence for this favor on behalf of all tiny
trick-or-treaters everywhere. He didn't want to think about the
consequences of a five-year-old fairy princess trying to shake down
his master for a Hershey bar. "Don't let me keep you," he said,
looking pointedly at the door.

Lacroix smiled gently and left without another word.

Nick went back to straightening up his apartment, taking the
opportunity to work himself into a thoroughly satisfying state of
high dudgeon. He tried to think of ways to exact revenge for his
master's latest impositions but couldn't think of any that wouldn't
result in serious bodily injury to himself. Of course, it might be
worth it, but he'd rather not. Been there, done that, as the saying
went.

Finally everything was as it should be, and Nick dropped with a sigh
onto the sofa, still fuming gently. If Lacroix wasn't messing with
his mind, it seemed, he was messing with his stuff, and at this point
Nick wasn't sure which he resented more.

For distraction he picked up the evening newspaper and started
leafing through the Metro section. A small headline caught his
eye--"Police Stepping Up Patrols for Mischief Night."

Mischief Night?

Intrigued, he read the story. Apparently the authorities were gearing
up to combat the minor vandalism expected on the night of October 30,
'Mischief Night,' when teenagers ran rampant, egging houses, soaping
windows, leaving burning sacks of dog manure on front steps, and
similar anti-social deeds.

These escapades were somehow connected with Halloween, although Nick
couldn't see how. Of course, he couldn't understand the theory of
Halloween, either, but that was neither here nor there. A germ of an
idea took root in his mind.

Lacroix was going to be in his new apartment in New York City up
until October 31, whereupon he was relocating to his upstate New York
estate. The large house sat in solitary splendor on one hundred acres
of lovely rolling countryside, far away from the madding human crowd.

In other words, it would be a tempting unguarded target for a horde
of marauding teenagers on Mischief Night.

Or one very put-upon middle-aged vampire.

END FLASHBACK

~~~~~

During the week leading up to Halloween, Nick did a little research
on the phenomenon of Mischief Night, and the typical acts of
vandalism one could expect to suffer. He wanted to choose the perfect
act of veiled revenge.

He briefly thought of the old standby, soaping windows. This
particular deed was annoying but removable, but somehow he knew
Lacroix would instantly know who had done it if 'Lacroix is a jerk'
written in Latin showed up on second-story panes of glass. Besides,
his master would recognize his handwriting.

In the end Nick decided decided that reconnoitering the target might
help him pick out the perfect act. Accordingly, at dusk the next day
he took to the air and flew upstate.

His master's estate wasn't far, only one hundred miles or so, so he
made quick work of the journey. Once there, he settled silently to
the frosty grass and flitted wraithlike across the grounds, letting
his imagination have free rein.

It was an elegant house of warm red brick with white porticos and
gleaming graceful windows. A tree-lined drive led up to the imposing
front entrance.

*Trees.* Nick looked thoughtfully at the drive. Stately, ancient elms
towered along the graveled lane, their overarching boughs interlaced
to form a leafy tunnel. Or at least they would in the summer---now,
in October, their branches were bare.

Not for long. Nick smiled. It wasn't a pretty sight. He levitated and
began counting.

~~~~~

UPSTATE NEW YORK, MISCHIEF NIGHT, OCTOBER 30, 1964

"Wow, stocking up your fallout shelter?" the clerk asked. "I've never
sold that many to one person."

"Maybe," Nick smiled as he paid the bill, stuck the receipt in his
wallet, then hefted the large cardboard box full of ammunition. "You
never know when you'll need some, right?"

"Uh, I suppose so," the clerk replied. He watched his odd customer
disappear into the night, then went off to tell the night manager to
put Puffy Cloud toilet paper, all colors, on the reorder list, since
their entire supply was sold out.

~~~~~

Nick set his cardboard box on the ground and selected a roll. It was
a rather nice shade of pink, scented, and two-ply for staying power.
He hefted it experimentally, then threw it up and out over the first
elm tree.

Trailing a long tongue of pink, the toilet paper tangled nicely in
the upper branches of the tree, then stuck.

Frowning, Nick flew up and retrieved the roll. Maybe there was a
better way to do this than the traditional throwing method.

He draped the end of the paper on a branch, then with the roll
spooling out behind him, flew in circles around the tree. He was
delighted with the decorative spiral pattern he made, rather like the
stripes in a Venetian glass paperweight. Very nice.

He made quick work of that tree, using the entire roll. Gathering up
another roll, he moved on, this time making vertical stripes with an
attractive accent diagonal from the outmost branch to the bottom of
the trunk.

And so he moved from tree to tree, creating three-dimensional paper
sculptures. The tissue fluttered in the damp wind, clinging and
shredding among the upper branches, until the entire lane was a
tangle of pale, spectral ribbons moving in the night breeze like
attenuated ghosts. The pale pastels---pink, blue, yellow, and
white---glowed gently in the moonlight. It was, Nick decided as he
surveyed his efforts, worthy of Jackson Pollock at his abstract
expressionistic best. He almost regretted that it wouldn't last.

Almost, but not quite. Looking at his creation, he realized that even
the dimmest vampire---and his master was far from dim---would know
that another vampire had created this glorious mess, not a bunch of
human teenagers, not unless they had access to a cherrypicker and
were tree surgeons in their spare time.

Uh-oh. He was in for it. But damn, it felt GOOD!

~~~~~

NOVEMBER 3, 1964

Nick looked up from his newspaper when he heard the door open and
close. His insides clenched momentarily when he sensed the identity
of his visitor, but he quelled the feeling of doom and managed to
raise a mild inquiring face to his master. "Good evening, Lacroix.
Did you remember to vote today? I don't think Goldwater has a
chance, do you?"

In reply the ancient vampire stood silently in front of his progeny
and removed something from his pocket. Shreds of damp pastel tissue
paper splooshed to the coffee table.

Nick looked at them with a raised eyebrow. "There's paper in the
bathroom, you know. You didn't have to bring your own."

"Do you know the meaning of this?" Lacroix's voice was soft, with a
familiar undertone of threat.

"Yes, Lacroix, I do. It's toilet paper, and you use it when you..."

"NOT THAT!" his master thundered. He continued in his 'I want to
dismember someone' tone of voice. "I am well aware of what toilet
paper is. I want to know why it is currently defacing my property."

"Oh, dear." Nick tried to sound sympathetic and at the same time mask
his thoughts, not an easy thing to do since that was one of those
overlooked lessons he had had to pick up on the streets. "They got
you on Mischief Night, huh?"

"'They' apparently did. I suspect you know who 'they' are---and that
'they' are going to pay dearly for this." Lacroix glowered furiously.
The emphasis he put on the word 'they' plainly indicating he had more
than a passing suspicion he knew who 'they' were, and merely wanted a
confession. Nick could feel his master trying to probe his innermost
being.

Nick kept up his defenses and said blandly, "Sorry, can't help you
out. Would you care for a drink? I still have one bottle of your
blend in the fridge." He got up and moved towards the kitchen.

He found himself suspended by his collar with his toes several inches
from the ground, nose to nose with his enraged sire. They glared at
each other, the effect somewhat spoiled by the trembling of Nick's
lips as he tried to refrain from laughing.

"AUGHGHGHGH!" Lacroix roared as he threw his son at the wall,
frustrated that the desired confession wasn't forthcoming and his
inability, for once, to get through Nick's defenses. He turned to
stomp out the door.

From his position sprawled on the floor, Nick called, "Wait,
Lacroix, I do have one thing to tell you."

Lacroix halted, his back to Nick. "WHAT?!?"

Nick levered himself up into a sitting position. "Only that if you
wait long enough, it'll just sort of melt off the trees. Or so I
gather. In the meantime, just think of it as---modern art."

The sound of the door slamming shut almost drowned out Nick's
helpless laughter.

Fin

Comments, criticisms, Belgian vandals, and rolls of Charmin to:
nancykam@mediaone.net