Autumn And Its Discontents.

Autumn brings with it few pleasures. One of those very few is the sort of grudging realization that, since there's not much to be done outdoors, one might as well curl up in one's sumptuous oak-paneled library with a Cohiba, a bottle of something peaty, amber-colored, and aged not less than 18 years, and a good book while the storms rage outside. 

Not, however, are these pleasures for the scions of the ancient Palmer dynasty: Intrepid Stella A. and Young Leo J. The passing of the Paradiso of summer into the Purgatorio of fall and the eventual Inferno of winter (sounds counterintuitive, I know, to refer to winter as an "inferno," but who am I to quibble with Dante?) occasions something worse than grief in them. The passage of the seasons engenders ennui. 

Gone are the days of chasing the giant squid around Palm Lake, the days of tearing recklessly through the woods, the days of croquet and Lawn Darts. It's cold, wet, and joyless outside. And now that the rain and gloom of a Midwestern autumn have descended upon stately Palmerwood, they're bored out of their socks. 

"There's nothing to doooooooo," grumble the Palmerlets bitterly."I'm booooooooooored. Boooooooring." 

This portends no good. Idle hands, so they say, are the Devil's playground. And fewer sets of mitts on the planet are, at the moment, idler, or, in general, more prone to deviltry than those of JP's adorable lil' moppets. Evil gestates in their tiny brains, and mischief will soon be abroad. 

In desperation for distraction, the Palmerlings decide to explore some of the lesser-known reaches of Palmerwood in search of distraction and havoc. 

They find themselves in a dusty, ill-lit, and long untraversed corridor on the first floor of the far north-northwestern wing. Portraits of some of the less savory Palmer antecedents grin malevolently down upon them. And they discover, under the Persian-silk Kerman floor-runner, a trap door. What, oh what, could possibly await them beneath it?

The fearless lil' poppets descend an ancient stone stairway into a cavernous--uh---cavern yawning beneath the stately halls and teak floors of Palmerwood above. A vast cathedral-like space opens above them--bats flutter in the darkness. Armed only with a guttering candle and their infinite capacity for mischief, the Palmerlings venture deeper into the Mysteries of Palmerwood. Whatever, oh whatever, shall they find?

In a chamber just off the main space at the bottom of the stairs, a wondrous sight meets the small Palmerkins' eyes: the fabled Palmer Treasure Room, long thought to be no more than a legend. Sacks of gold doubloons sit like fat, drunken pirates--treasure chests piled up like children's building blocks line the walls. Art treasures from around the world are scattered hither and yon, and great amphorae overflowing with jewels, gem-studded gold chains, crowns and tiaras, and other priceless adornments of royal princesses long gone stand like sentinels.

But the lil' Palmerels' eyes are drawn like bees to honey to a strange, rather Egyptian-looking headdress perched on an old steamer trunk. And next to the headdress lies a mouldering old book on the cover of which is written in fading, spidery handwriting, "THE JOURNALS OF FFOULKE GRYMCROFT-SMERTHWICK PALMER, OBE."

Intrepid Stella A. and Young Leo J. open the old book they found lying beside the odd Egyptian headdress and begin to read its yellowed, crumbling pages. 

Great zounds! It's the journal of JP's great-great-great-granduncle, the famed explorer Doctor Sir Ffoulke Grymcroft-Smerthwick Palmer, Baron Palmer, OBE, who discovered the tomb of Pharaohess Khol-Dah-Nom-Khamen outside Qasr-Farafra in 1862! Fascinating!

In it, they learn some interesting facts. First, that Sir Ffoulke Grymcroft-Smerthwick preferred to employ belly-dancers instead of ordinary Egyptian laborers (which really wasn't much of a surprise); and secondly, that the strange headdress that Sir Ffoulke Grymcroft-Smerthwick discovered inside Khol-Dah-Nom-Khamen's sarcophagus has some... some rather interesting powers.

Now, my children, while charming, well-mannered, extremely clean, and undoubtedly very highly gifted, are sometimes possessed of less than superb judgment.

When one comes across an ancient artifact from a lost civilization--a thing redolent of mysterious occult power and positively dripping with ominous supernatural puissance--one might hesitate before putting it on one's head.

However, that's precisely what Stella did.

Having observed the somewhat uncanny effects on his elder sister of donning the ancient Egyptian headdress in the Fabled Legendary Palmer Treasure Room, Young Leo J., one would think, would be a little hesitant to slap it on his own gourd.One would be wrong. Young Leo J. also puts on the ancient Egyptian headdress, although he's a little more Zen about the process.

The precious, precocious progeny, the Palmerwood poppets, race madly back up the ancient, winding stone staircase. Have their wishes come true? Was the account they read in the Journals of Doctor Sir Ffoulke Grymcroft-Smerthwick Palmer, OBE, of the old Egyptian headdress's strange powers true? Whatever, oh whatever, shall they find waiting for them upstairs??

Meanwhile, back in the library, I greeted the sudden appearance of the world's largest fishtank (Stella's wish) and my own somewhat precipitate transformation into the DaddyMonster (a creature that appears out of nowhere and chases the children around when they've been rotten) with little more than a quirk of my eyebrow and a sigh.

"Cubbings," I growled, "be so good as to call Dr. Pooley, Rabbi Felsenfeld, Father O'Herlihy, and whichever other experts in healthcare and supernatural afflictions and ailments you can think of, would you? The children appear to have found that $#@&ing old Egyptian wishing-hat that my great-great-great-granduncle, Doctor Sir Ffoulke Grymcroft-Smerthwick Palmer, Baron Palmer, OBE, brought back."