Pylimitics

Magpie was always excited to share the latest things she’d overheard people talking about. A few days ago, she’d found a new perch in a different part of town. It was like most of her favorite perches: next to a place where people sat outside and ate tasty things that left crumbs. While she waited for the crumbs, she listened, and got even more excited. 

Hare was relaxing outside his house when Magpie swooped in.

“Hare, listen to this!” she said, “I found a new part of town where the people talk about completely different things! They call it fizzix!”

“Are you sure, Magpie?” asked Hare. “That doesn’t sound like a real word to me.” Hare knew Magpie loved eavesdropping on the townspeople, but her hearing was not the best. 

“I’m positive,” said Magpie. “I wasn’t convinced at first, so I waited ’til I’d heard it a lot of times, and now I am. It’s fizzix. And it comes with lots of other new words too. And we’d better pay attention, because it’s very important.”

“How do you know it’s important?” Hare also knew that Magpie sometimes got too excited about what she heard in town. 

“Because these people, in this part of town, are serious. They’re not telling jokes. Well, not usually. And they nod at each other!”

“Magpie,” said Hare, “what does nodding at each other have to do with anything?”

“It means they’re smart and wisely considering things, of course,” said Magpie. She nodded wisely, or tried to, which doesn’t work quite as well when you’re a bird. 

Hare sighed. If he knew Magpie, everybody in the forest was just going to have to put up with this for a while until she found something else to be excited about. “OK,” he said, “tell me all about it, Magpie.”

Magpie shivered delightedly. “Great,” she said. “The first thing you have to understand is that there are different kinds of fizzix. There’s gastrofizzix, and that’s all about hair.”

“It’s about me?” gasped Hare.

“No, no, hair, Hare. Like fur, only what people have on their heads.”

“I don’t get it, Magpie.”

“I’m just getting started, Hare, just wait.”

Hare sighed. “OK, keep going.”

“Gastrofizzix is all about bangs. No, wait, let me finish. In another part of town I learned all about bangs; it’s when people get their hair cut so it hangs over their faces.”

“Oh come on,” said Hare, who had seen plenty of people. “People don’t hang their hair over their faces.”

“Not their whole face, Hare, just the top. Where I used to perch some of the people would go into one of those little shops they have, and when they came out their hair would look different. And other people would talk about their bangs. And the people around my new perch talk about gastrofizzix and bangs. Big ones, so probably some special person with a really big head. And bangs.”

“Magpie,” said Hare, “are you really sure you’ve heard all this clearly? It’s not making much sense.”

“Like I said, I’m positive,” said Magpie. “And let me tell you why it’s so important. There’s a bang they talk about — they call it the big one — that happened so long ago there was nobody around to hear it.”

“What about the person with the really big head?”

“Never mind that,” said Magpie, waving a wing dismissively. The point is, they also mentioned the forest bang. They didn’t call it that, but I know that’s what they meant. Because it was all about a forest, and whether anybody heard anything in it.”

“I hear most things around here,” said Hare, twitching his long ears.

“Yes, well, maybe it was a different forest,” said Magpie. “We’d just better get ready, that’s all I’m saying.”

“For what?”

“For the big forest fizzix bang of course! What do you think I’ve been talking about?”

“Magpie,” said Hare, “I don’t have any idea what you’ve been talking about. I think you should go back to town and do some more listening, because I think you must have missed something.”

“But Hare, what if…”

“And don’t say anything to Hedgehog about this, Magpie. You know Hedgehog always worries about everything, and doesn’t need something new to worry about.”

“But Hare…”

“Sorry, Magpie, but I have to go see Beaver; he says he has a new book he wants to show me.”

“But I haven’t even gotten to the other kinds of fizzix! One of them has tronz, and we’d better watch out for ‘em. They can kwant! That kind of fizzix is even called ‘kwant ‘em’! I’ve got to tell everybody!

“Not now, Magpie. I’ve got to go.”

“Oh all right, Hare, but if anything bangs or kwants before I get back, you’ll probably be sorry. And watch out for tronz on your way to Beaver’s house.”

Magpie flapped away toward town. Hare, who didn’t really need to visit Beaver, shook his head and went back inside. “Fizzix,” he muttered. “What will Magpie dream up next?”