CHAPTER 24
The four-and-a-half hour flight (clipping along at Methusaleh speed, as usual) was scenic at the beginning and at the end—as the McGorkles flew over northeastern Canada at the start and over France at the end—but was boring in the middle, as they saw nothing but featureless Atlantic Ocean for the middle three hours or so of the flight. Warble didn’t think to descend, so as to be able to view the boat traffic on the ocean, until it was too late.
He did take the craft lower once they were over France, though, and Mary was fairly certain she could detect the aroma of delicious food wafting up from below, as well as faint sounds of romantic accordion music.
By the time the McGorkles reached Weggis, hovered over it for a minute, and then descended straight downward, landing in a meadow on the outskirts of the Swiss village, Marianne had spotted the Arodnap and had come over to greet them.
“I’m surprised to see you two,” she smiled. “Especially you, Warble. I didn’t think you would ever want to come back here. As you can see, the mountains are still intact, and the cattle are still in the pasture.”
“That’s good, Marianne. I’m a changed man,” Warble said, somewhat sheepishly, recalling his former behavior, but also somewhat proudly, reflecting on his new and improved persona.
Marianne raised an eyebrow dubiously and looked at Mary for confirmation of Warble’s assertion, expecting to see Mary mirror her facial gesture by also raising an eyebrow or two, then shake her head and sigh. But that didn’t happen.
“Yes, it’s true, Marianne,” Mary said. “Warble is no longer a megalomaniac, nor psychotic, nor a narcissist.”
Marianne could scarcely believe her ears. “Will wonders never cease?!” she exclaimed.
“Nope,” answered Warble. He didn’t quite agree that he had been psychotic, but did accept that the other two charges were probably partially true.
“What happened? What caused the change?” Marianne asked.
“Love,” Mary said.
“True Love,” affirmed Warble, smiling and nodding in agreement.
“I thought you loved money above all else, Warble,” Marianne said.
“I did; or I thought I did, back then, Marianne. But money without Mary is mere paper. And Mary doesn’t care that much about it—so why should I? In fact, money is a nuisance. We would all be better off if it had never been invented.”
“Congratulations, Warble!” Marianne said. “You are a new man!” and she extended her hand in greeting, as if meeting him for the first time; which, in a way, she was.
“Speaking of love . . . speaking of true love,” Marianne began, “I want to reacquaint you with Hans Georg Kollenborn; he is now my husband.”
Warble was so stunned by this news that his jaw dropped. He couldn’t imagine Marianne ever getting married. He had always viewed her as being somewhat cold and emotionally distant, ‘married to her job.’
“Congratulations to both of you!” Mary said, hugging Marianne and Hans in turn.
The McGorkles and Kollenborns made the normal small talk for a few minutes, and then Mary asked Marianne if she and Hans had seen any of the others. She hadn’t. Marianne then turned the question around, and Warble admitted that they hadn’t seen any of the others yet, either—she was the first on their list to visit. And they had been in the year 2024 until a few hours ago, after all. Or before all. . . . Before now, anyway. This time travel business could short-circuit your brain if you weren’t careful. Sometimes it’s hard to keep straight whether something you remember is from the past or the future.
“We do plan on going to Africa to see Ward, too, though, right after this,” Warble added.
“Oh, is that where Ward ended up? It’s strange to see you two without him tagging along,” Marianne said.
Hans didn’t really know Warble or Mary—although he had been introduced to them on their previous brief visit to Weggis. For that reason, he didn’t have much to contribute to the conversation. Truth be told, Hans wasn’t overly curious about them, but he did listen somewhat attentively to the others and smiled pleasantly when that seemed the appropriate thing to do.
Warble did seem a much more pleasant fellow to both of the Kollenborns than he had been the last time they had seen one another. Hans thought maybe all there was to it was that Warble had been in an especially bad mood then—or was in an especially good mood now—but Marianne, knowing Warble well (or at least knowing the old Warble well) realized that there was more to the difference in attitude than simply a passing mood. Warble had definitely changed. For the better. Which, after all, was the only direction in which it was possible for him to change much.
Despite all this, Marianne kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, and for Warble to come up with some scheme for making money. But he never did.
So, during the following days that the McGorkles spent in Weggis (in a hostel near the Kollenborn residence), Marianne grew more and more relaxed around her old boss, and was surprised when she realized one day that she actually liked Warble now, and was no longer nervous around him. That would have seemed impossible in the past, when Warble was always trying to cheat her out of her benefits or get her to work overtime without pay.
Oddly enough, then, when Warble and Mary remarked a few days later that it was time for them to move on, to go to Africa and visit Ward, Marianne was truly sad to see them go—not only unhappy to see Mary leave, as normally would have been the case, but sad to see Warble leave, too. ‘It’s true! Wonders do never cease,’ Marianne said to herself.
Warble, who had never liked animals before, had even grown fond of a female bovine named Cowbella that boarded with the Kollenborns. He thought about asking permission to take her along to Africa, but when Mary reminded him that Cowbella was the Kollenborns’ source of milk and cheese and such, he didn’t press it, or even mention it.
Warble was becoming less selfish and more kind by the day, a turn of events which Mary—and everyone Warble came into contact with—was happy to see and experience.
“Say ‘Hi’ to Ward for me,” Marianne said, as Warble entered “Tinga Tinga, Tanzania” in the GPS/CPS, leaving the year at 2525.
“Will do,” Warble and Mary said in unison. When Warble realized that they had done that, he didn’t get angry or irritated, as he usually did when people said the same thing simultaneously; he simply looked over at Mary and smiled.
So off flew the McGorkles, Africaward. In a little over four hours, they were hovering over Tinga Tinga, about to drop down onto the same road on the outskirts of town where they had landed on their previous visit to that place.
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