CHAPTER 1

THE ENTRANCE

C'mon in won't you? You can sit right down there in that rocking chair. Oh! you saw the sign on the door and wanted to ask me about Aardvark, did you? Well, I guess I'm the best person to tell you about him since I was with him from the moment he entered the country. Do you want to hear from there or from the real beginning? Well, okay, I'll tell you about the start when he met the Valkyries.

You see Aardvarks can live only in the warmest places. So, when the Aardvark got lost in the Swiss Alps, he was very uncomfortable. Don't ask me how an Aardvark got to the Swiss Alps or what he was doing there in the first place. He's never told anyone, except maybe the Valkyries.

Anyhow, stumbling around in the freezing cold, he got lost; but good. Just as he was about to give up and say farewell cruel world, he stumbled upon an ice crypt. Stumbled, he ran into it and knocked out two teeth.

This crypt which was set in the side of one of the glaciers was not an ordinary one, for frozen within its icy walls, rent free, were two Valkyries and a large elephant. Even the elephant was unusual. He was the sole owner (the Valkyries obviously had no use for one!) of a handsome brown handle-bar moustache, nicely waxed and glistening.

The Aardvark, who was inquisitive as are all great men, strolled up to the ice crypt as nonchalantly as a freezing Aardvark could, and dying of hunger, put forth an exploratory tongue and licked the ice. To his amazement, the ice was lemon flavored. Wait a minute, I'll tell you why it was lemon flavored, but first let me tell you what happened.

Knowing full well the consequences of licking open this age-old ice pack, but racked with hunger, the Aardvark proceeded to lick open the crypt. After several minutes of lightninglike licking, the Aardvark sated his hunger and in the process freed the Valkyries.

The Valkyries were forever grateful and proceeded to show the Aardvark this by bursting into a Wagnerian opera, complete with flowing braids.

After the preceding formality had been dispensed with, introductions went around and the Aardvark found out the fact, which is of practically no use to anyone, that the Valkyries' names were Olga and Ketanya Schwartz. Very old lineage, this name. The elephant, who had been sitting by looking very bored about the whole thing, was named Rubin.

The Valkyries, it seems, were delivering a package of lemon flavored Jell-O to the cook in Valhalla, and en route, had gotten frozen in the ice. The elephant was their mode of conveyance since all the good horses had a day off and went to the people races at Lowaleah.

The Aardvark heard all of this in a rather detached way, for you know most Aardvarks can neither talk, write, nor understand human language.... The Valkyries who perceived this deficiency were contemplating giving the Aardvark some of their Valkyrie Local Number 86112 Magic, Pat. Pending, when the recipient in question suddenly turned a lovely shade of aquamarine, shivered, and dropped over, frozen solid. This solved the problem very effectively. They worked their second-hand magic on the fellow, and when he awoke...! Well, there was a complete change in him. This was the exit of Aardvark, boy nothing, and the entrance of Cassius Quagmire Aardvark, man of the world.