Terry Boot and the Masochist's Boulder

Approximately ten years later, the now even older grandparents sat in their cozy and completely Muggle friendly kitchen gossiping about the neighbors' new car. Not much had changed since the evening the Bardus' had tried to leave Terry in the arctic cold.

The only thing that had really changed was the smell in the house. Not long after Terry's fifth birthday, the family had adopted a pot-bellied pig named Grudley. Nonny, in some sort of "late life crisis", had insisted on getting a "real" child, and compared to Terry's stump like body, the pig more than fulfilled her wish. He not only had two working legs, but four.

Now that was a child.

But even though you couldn't smell Terry, he was still there- well most of him was still there. He was sleeping in the second floor shower when Nonny turned on the cold water, awakening him from his sleep like a bat out of hell- a handicapped bat. Terry stumbled, on one leg, down into the kitchen- Grudley meeting him at the door- his foul stench clinging to him like some knock-off perfume.

"This," Diddle said, sucking down a cup of cheap coffee and glaring at the pair, "is why we can't have nice things." Nonny nodded her head in agreement, twisting her unfashionable apron tightly in her bony hands.

Any outsider would believe that the old and decrepit man, who resembled not much more than a pile of bones covered in a rather wrinkly and loosely fitted suit of skin, was speaking of the overly obese, and quite smelly, pig rolling in its own excrements before him. But he was speaking of the small boy in front of them, wobbling on his one leg. He was an adorable boy really, large blue eyes and a smattering of freckles across his nose. He had twenty-twenty vision, not to be confused with another boy his age. His clothes were hand-me downs from Grudley's sleeping sack, and Nonny's maternity dresses from the late fifties.

"You should take a note from Grudley, Stumpy. He's dressed properly this morning," Diddle criticized, nodding at Grudley's soiled overalls, and glaring at Terry's baggy sweater and holey blue jeans.

"You live in a shower, Terry," Nonny frowned at him. "You think you would have taken the hint by now and bathed regularly."

"You gave me a shower this morning," Terry said quietly, smiling a bit at his grandparents and exposing the only thing perfect about him...his teeth.

But there was really nothing to be done about his one leg. There was also nothing to be done about his obvious magical abilities, but the grandparents paid no mind to that rather large fault, as Terry quite frequently blew up objects around the house. They would usually blame his leg, or lack there of, for everything wrong that happened.

Grudley snorted all over Terry's pants, as if to say "Your fashion sense or lack thereof disgusts me."

"How disgusting," Nonny agreed with her late life child, pointing at their young, one legged grandson. The grandparents were constantly disgusted by their mutilated grandson, and usually kept him locked in the abandoned shower on the second floor.

Terry's grandparents also had a hard time keeping something of Terry's under control. They had heard their next door neighbors talking about their adopted son's hair growing out control, but unfortunately, it wasn't anything that normal with Terry. You see, Terry's self confidence was growing out of control. Every time they tried to cut it down, it grew back in force, only giving them more of a hassle when they tried to cut it down again. This caused Terry, who should have been miserable in his environment, to be happy and carefree.

"Roll your pants leg down boy," Diddle barked, as his stump was clearly visible. Terry grimaced, and rolled down his pants leg, sitting down at the table for breakfast.

"Ahem," Nonny said snidely, "you are sitting in Grudley's place, you twisted excuse for a grandson."

"What?" Terry asked, frowning slightly. "Does Grudley get my place at the table now?" Nonny and Diddle shook their fists at the boy in a scary display of unison gone a little too far.

"Of course," Nonny said, her tone high and whiny. "We also decided to give him your shower stall to keep his sloppings in." Terry breathed a sigh of relief. He never liked that stall anyways.

"You," Diddle said, poking at his grandson's stump, "can stay in that large hole in the backyard. And not that nice hole in the garden, either, but the one I dug to throw my burned puzzle pieces in. You'd better to be grateful to sleep in the ashes of my toil, boy."

"It's Grudley's fifth birthday today," Nonny said excitedly. "We're taking him to the county fair. He'll win that best in show prize this year for sure." Grudley chortled in response, and hopped onto his chair, burying his snout in the sloppings before him.

"And you won't mess up his chances..." Diddle said scratching himself oddly. Terry squinted his eyes in confusion. "How could I possibly mess up his chances?" he asked.

"What kind of question is that?" Nonny barked, motioning to his stumpy leg. "You and that damned phantom leg!"

"You're staying home this year, boy," Diddle said. "We got Mrs. Figg from down the road to watch after you, so you'd better make sure we get our money's worth. Don't destroy anything of hers, and try to make friends with that Potter boy. It never hurts to be the patsy of a famous person."

"Famous person?" Terry queried, but before anyone could answer him, the phone rang.

"Hello?" Nonny answered in a falsely cheery voice. "What? No, you don't understand, you have to watch Terry today. Well, that's no excuse. Terry only has one leg and he gets on just fine."

Violent cussing and racial slurs filled the tiny kitchen of the Bardus' as Nonny hung up the phone.

"That hag down the street broke her haggish leg," Nonny barked. "The cripple has to come with us."

"Yay!" Terry shrieked as Diddle hollered, "Nay!"

"There's nothing we can do about it, Diddle," Nonny said glumly. "I told you we should have put up that electric fence... because we can't have Terry just running around the house while we're gone."

With that, Stumpy, er, Terry, hopped out of the kitchen and waited by the car. On the way there, Diddle, barely legal to drive as he had the vision of a deranged Clydesdale equipped with blinders, whined confusedly about random events. He also had a form of Alzheimer's, and seemed to repeat things that he was trying to hide.

"...those crazy polar bears, always good for a laugh...especially when they are deforming things," he said, for no reason in particular.

"I had a dream about a polar bear ripping my leg off last night", said Terry, but no one heard him. "It was writing its name in the snow with urine..."

"We're here," Nonny bellowed, as the car pulled into the "Ole Country Faire" parking lot, or rather, a grassy field filled with other cars. People of all kinds were milling around the entrance, if by all kinds you mean two legged people of various kinds.

As they stepped out of the car the stench was overwhelming. It was like one thousand Grudley's inside an old sock filled with rotten eggs. Terry winced, trying to recoil from the smell, but with one leg, recoiling was quite the difficult task. He had tried once, and had landed in a hole- which Nonny promptly tried to fill with cement.

After the Bardus's registered the large pig, they headed off to the show tent. The tent resembled that of the circus variety, with red and white stripes up and down its exterior. Inside the tent were stands arranged in a sort of coliseum style around the edges, and in the very center sat the judging stands.

A pudgy, surly looking man, who was wearing a blue ribbon on his chest that read "Judge #1", stepped into the inner circle.

"Ahem," he said, clearing his throat. "Would the handlers please bring their animals forth?" Terry watched from the stands, where he sat all alone, as Nonny dragged Grudley up onto the showing stand. Grudley, more rotund that usual, nearly crushed the stand to pieces. This made Nonny squeal with enjoyment. The fatter Grudley was, the better his chances at taking home the gold...errr... plated trophy.

The judge was walking around slowly, stepping in pig excrement and holding his nose, examining the other pigs, and Terry suddenly realized there was something worse than being a cripple. That would involve being a pig judge at the local fair. Or even worse, Terry mused, being a cripple at a local fair.

That's when he realized that there was nothing worse than being him. He supposed, with a laugh, that he had known that simple fact all along.

At that juncture it occurred to him that he really didn't have much to live for. Just as the judge stepped in front of Grudley, Terry closed his eyes and thought, 'If only I had one of his legs...' And then, suddenly and unexpectedly, the pig vanished all together! The judge gasped, took off his glasses, put them back on again, and stared down where Grudley should have been. But, instead of the large piece of stinking animal, there was only a plate of steaming sausages. Which were also large and stinking, but I digress. Let's just say, Grudley didn't win best in show.

Diddle ran over to the plated pig as Nonny fainted onto the ground. Diddle glared at Terry and was about to give him a good yelling when he forgot that Terry existed again.

"How could this have happened?" he asked madly, as another pig, this one not comprised of sausage links, received the blue ribbon.

Terry raised his hand, ready to admit to his crimes.

"Grandfather, I somehow turned Grudley into a plate of sausages...with my mind," he said, stumbling over to the scene.

"I mean who or what could have done this?" Diddle continued, throwing his hands up in the air like a maniac, nearly trampling Terry.

Nonny, who had just come to, got up from the ground, with a strange gleam in her eye and a smirk on her old, decrepit face. She walked right up to Terry and looked him over, attempting to deduce how Grudley's state could be his fault.

"I'd blame Terry, but there isn't anything unique or special about him besides that blasted stump for a leg, which isn't special except for in the sense that mentally impaired kids are special," she screeched, digging through her purse for a baggy. "We need to bag up Grudley and get him home immediately!"

"Wait a minute!" Diddle yelled, "did you say stump and Terry?"

"Yes I did Diddle, yes I did."

"That's it! His deformed leg must have done it...somehow," Diddle proclaimed, a wizened look on his haggard face. Nonny's eyes opened in realization.

"My word, you must be right, I mean look at it! It's the perfect scapegoat. Why didn't Hitler think of this? Oh wait, he did," Nonny said in agreement.

Terry thought he was going to explode. Never in his life had he felt such pure anger coursing through his veins. Terry was the type of kid that instead of getting angry got confused. He ought to have been very confused at this juncture, seeing how he had just performed some sort of sorcery, but ironies of all ironies, he had never been so sure about something in all of his life. He knew he had used magic to exact revenge on the pig. His leg or lack there of, had nothing to do with it.

"Actually," Terry said, hopping between the two, "I did it with magic."

Nonny and Diddle looked down at the boy strangely.

"Who are you?" Diddle asked as his Alzheimer's crept back upon him much like a refuge from Mexico creeps over the American border; not very surprising, and not very subtle, and in the end, very painful.

"I am your grandson," Terry said, his voice high and manic, "and I used my magic on Grudley."

"We have a grandson?"

Terry pulled up his pants leg and exposed his stub.

"Ah, yes... Stumpy," Diddle recalled, and then picked up the boy and threw him over his bony shoulder. "It's to the hole in the ground with you...and not that nice one in the garden, either."

And that's exactly what they did. They threw him into the hole, and as Diddle pointed out, as if for the first time, "Not that nice one in the garden!" He installed the electric dog fence, and strapped the collar around Terry's neck.

Terry pulled at the collar at his throat, but it wouldn't budge. Even after Terry changed Grudley back into his slimy, smelly self they didn't release him.

It was at times like these that Terry tried to remember what life was like with his parents. If Terry had had any sort of education at all, he would have known that as you go further back in time, it's harder to dig up memories of things that had happened to you. As a result of this lack of education, Terry just assumed that his memories were something else that Nonny and Diddle had taken from him, along with his clothing and well being.

This isn't to say, however, that Terry had no education. Every once in awhile, when his grandparents weren't looking, he turned on the TV, and watched shows meant for pent-up housewives. It was in this manner that Terry learned how to read (love letters from hot to trot butlers), count (stolen money), write (forged checks), and haggle for the best prices at the market. Not to mention he learned a thing or about how to handle a cheating husband, and what the best thing to feed your children was. When Terry had kids and a cheating husband, he'd be prepared.

The Barduses didn't ever talk about Terry's parents. Even though his mother had been their one and only child, it was like she never existed for them. All the portraits, paintings, and pictures were taken down, as Rowena liked to travel from portrait to portrait trying to catch a glimpse of her son.

He wasn't sure exactly what his parents had done for a living, only that they were "god damned liberal bastards", and that had something to do with their demise. One day when Nonny, Grudley, and Diddle were out digging that hole in the backyard, ("Damn good hole. Would win first prize in a hole contest if there were such a thing. Would win first prize in a hole contest if there were such a thing," Diddle had said, letting his mental condition take hold.), Terry had decided to explore the house a little bit. He sneaked up to the attic, and there he had found all of his mother's old belongings.

In a large mahogany trunk in the corner of the room Terry found his mother's old school things. Terry looked through his mother's old robes, picked up her wand, and tried to read through some of her old books. At the bottom of the trunk, he found a dead owl in a cage.

"What is this stuff?" Terry had wondered aloud. In a pocket of one of his mother's robes was a shiny, glass orb, filled with red flowing clouds. Attached to it was a note that read: "Feed and water owl." Upon having Terry touch it, it exploded into a million pieces.

"I guess she forgot," Terry said sadly. "And that ball seemed to be in the know."

When Nonny and Diddle found Terry sitting in front of his mother's old trunk, they had thrown him into their precious hole, but had taken him out again right away and into another, shoddier hole. No need to ruin a really nice hole with a cripple.

"They must really hate me," he thought, laying in the fetal position.

What Terry didn't know was that they didn't really hate him; they just had forgotten he existed again.