“You call Georgie a ‘someone’?” the man laughed, bad breath fuming out. Lucy was going to faint. “You’re a cute kiddo,” he raised his head and cheered with the rest, saying, “Georgie! Georgie! Georgie!”
It was obvious that Georgie was there by the table in the middle and was the spectacle everyone was looking at. Suddenly everyone was singing:
Georgie Porgie, puddin' and pie,
Scared the girls and made them cry.
When the boys came his way,
He scared them harder and they ran away.
“Yeah!” others called out after singing the rhyme.
“This isn’t the real rhyme,” Axel noted. “It’s been changed,” tugging at Loki’s shoulder.
“What do I care?” Loki said. “Stop analyzing.”
“In the real one Georgie Porgie runs away when the boys come to play,” Axel recited. “He’s basically capable of scaring girls but fears boys.”
“Seriously? You think this is the right time to sing to me?” Loki said, trying to reach the middle of The Closet while holding Fable’s hand.
Loki and his friends wedged themselves through until they reached the first row of the crowd, wondering what all of the hub bub was about. Reaching the table in the middle, they found something slightly different from anything they’d expected.
There was a round table with two men sitting opposite to each other. They were looking at a lot of small glasses on the table; really small glasses, enough for just one glock.
Each man wore the same crazy pirate outfit, only the one on the right stood out for many reasons. He was much bigger than the rest, stronger, and had a neat beard that hung like a pony-tail in a spiral dreadlocked line dangling from his chin. Each lock on the tail had something glittering in it, a small emerald, diamond or other jewel. The hair on the man’s head was long and curly, and it added a certain wilderness to his persona, like a tough and rugged warrior who everyone should respect. He had faint patches of blue mascara on his one visible eyelash, and wore an eye patch on the other. His nose was straight, and he had a strong jaw. Loki thought he looked more like a twisted version of Long John Hawkins in Treasure Island. His jewelry and outfit looked more expensive than what the other people wore, especially his purple coat and boots.
“That’s Georgie,” the man with yellow teeth told Fable, having followed them. “Everyone knows him,” he called out Georgie’s name one more time.
Loki noticed Georgie had a bowl of pudding pie next to him on the table. He wondered if he should’ve paid attention to Axel’s theories.
“The man opposite to him is Cry Baby,” the man with yellow teeth said, booing at Cry Baby who was chubby, with a bushy beard and bubbly cheeks. He had a pumpkin pie next to him.
Each man picked up one of the small glasses, took a long breath, and gulped the drink down. Each one did it separately, and while he did, everyone’s eyes were on him, watching to see if he could finish the drink.
“So this is a drinking competition?” Axel whispered in Loki’s ear.
“Looks like it,” Loki said. “They’ve been drinking for a while because there are a lot of empty glasses,” Loki saw men holding dollar bills in their hands while cheering. “It’s obvious that the crowd is betting on who’ll be able to drink the most without giving up.”
“Or passing out,” Axel suggested. “Or even better, puke it all into the other’s face.”
“I wonder what’s in the glasses,” Loki uttered.
“I think I have an idea, but you might get mad at me,” Axel replied.
“Shoot,” Loki said, not taking his eyes off the table.
“The other man is called Cry Baby, right? There is a nursery rhyme about him, too.”
“Interesting,” Loki rubbed his chin. “Tell me about it.”
“It goes like this: Cry Baby, cry, put your finger in your eye, and tell your mother it wasn't I,” Axel said.
“What kind of a demented song is this? Why would you tell it to a baby?”
Suddenly, Axel grabbed Loki’s shoulder even harder. “I got it. We’re here to get Baby Tears. This man is called Cry Baby, and the nursery rhyme is about babies. It all makes sense now.”
“What makes sense?”
“All these people around us are Boogeymen,” Axel said. “They visit children at night and scare them, only they don’t do it because they like to scare children and take their cereal like it happened to me. They are doing it to collect Baby Tears.”
Loki’s eyes sprung wide open as the crowd bellowed. Georgie Porgie gulped another drink down then smirked at Cry Baby showing his yellow teeth.
“So Boogeyman scare children to collect their tears?” Fable considered. “Why do they need those Baby Tears?”
“I have no idea,” Loki said. “It seems plausible, though, even if it’s just plain awful to make a living from scaring children.”