36

After rummaging for what seemed like an half an hour, Puck yanked his hand back out of the cupboard with what looked like a blue household drill. It came to a tip. It was electric and the power cord disappeared back inside the cupboard. Maybe there was an outlet just inside the little swinging door. Puck held the drill in one hand, and with the other he pulled out a small bottle of vanilla extract.

"EEEK!" cried Chris, smiling.

"Now jut hold still a minute," Puck said. He threw a switch on the drill and it started to buzz. Jody blinked. Puck approached Chris and pointed the drill at her stomach.

"What is it! Wolfie! What is it doing! " Puck slowly moved the drill side to side, adjacent to, but not touching, Chris' stomach. And when she wriggled out of the way, he put his hand on her shoulder.

"Trust me," he said. "It defers appetite. I want you ladies hungry for that Bavarian Cloud! I want---"

He put up a finger. "Ahhh, I need my glasses for this." He took a black glasses-case out of his pocket and removed a pair of glasses and wore them.

"It tickles!" said Chris.

"That is so weird," Jody said. She realized the words had come out sounding irritated and wondered whether she was.

After a few minutes of aiming the device at Chris' stomach, he said, "Now how do you feel, Chris?"

Chris blinked.

"I'm not hungry anymore!" she cried. "It worked!"

"It defers appetite," Puck said. "You won't be hungry again for a couple of hours."

"How in the world does it do that?" Jody asked skeptically.

"I myself, don't know how," Puck said. "But I like for my guests to try it. When you taste that Bavarian Cloud," he told Chris, "you'll understand."

He turned to Jody and brandished the whirring appetite-deferrer.

"Jody?"

"No, thanks," Jody said. "I'll just wait."

"As you wish," Puck said. "The good news about the appetite-deferrer," he said, holding up the tan vanilla bottle. You can drink all you want. In fact, the more you drink, the better it works!"