THE
EXPLOITS
OF THE ULTRA-HARRIERS
Fred doesn’t have such a great careerVicki becomes a Vice-president
Chapter 48
Then there was oFred,
2Who didn’t have such a great career,
3pBecause apparently he received a little too much Consolation during his year of service to Harry,
4Which he promised to work off by being the qArch-Harrier for the mid-Atlantic region,
5Although that didn’t work out,
6And Ned had to demote him to rParish Beacon a few weeks later,
7Because sIra thought it might tarnish the image of the Pontifical Harrier Parish if one of the original tUltra-Harriers got exconsolated,
8Which is when uVicki took Fred in hand,
9What with him being almost completely helpless and emasculated by now,
10vWhich maybe explains why she kind of fell for him a little bit,
11And talked to me, Willie, into giving him another chance,
12Because I was in charge of getting all the aletters written to the Philadelphians.
13Vicki thought that if Fred wrote a really great letter, maybe Harry would forgive him,
14bAnd give him a nice bonus to retire on,
15Because he really wasn’t up to working steady.
16cAnd then, of course, Fred’s letter turned out to be not so great,
17And actually quite embarrassing to me personally,
18dBecause I sort of neglected to read it before it went to eNed for approval,
19Which was a very big mistake.
20When he read it, Ned was kind of upset,
21fAnd said a lot of things about me, Willie, that I didn’t appreciate,
22Especially the part about how he might not have noticed it if gVicki hadn’t brought it to his attention,
23hWhich is why he decided to name her Vice President for iOrthodoxy instead of me.
24And then Ned showed the letter to Harry,
25jWho said that Fred had been a bad boy,
26And that I had been a bad boy too,
27Though maybe not as bad as Fred,
28Which is why my punishment would be lighter,
29And why he had decided to use the letter anyway,
30With the bad part crossed out,
31kSo that everyone and his brother would know that I, Willie, had screwed up.
32Then Ned and Vicki tried to talk Harry out of using the letter,
33Because it was still possible to read the bad parts,
34But Harry just laughed and said, lHarriers don’t read any more than they absolutely have to, and they wouldn’t munderstand it if they did.
35nBesides, what’s the fun of having an orthodoxy if you can’t make a big show out of suppressing heresy and punishing the heretics?
36oTake it from me, Harry, it doesn’t really matter what we say,
37pAs long as we can offer Consolation,
38At competitive prices.
39And so that’s how Fred’s career ended,
40And mine too.
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Chapter 48 / 53