(Suggestion: read P. Joke 1 before reading this post)
Arlen took awhile to recover from his eye injury, hiring his ex-wife to come in for an hour or two to take care of it.
A few days later he walked past the same spot, outside the Blalock Asylum. Arlen felt both nervous and curious. The citizens of Blalock again yelled a number, this time it was 15. What the heck, they aren’t going to pull that on me again. In fact, near the hole in the wall where he got poked, someone had written two words. “Look insied” He laughed, they’re can’t even spell “inside”. But he had learned his lesson.
They continued with “fifteen” loudly, in different languages. Alongside the fence he noticed a ladder, and for some reason the ladder and the ground around it was wet. Propping the ladder against the fence, it just about reached the top of the 8 foot boards. Slowly he climbed, listening to them laughing and yelling. Might this be a different game?
At the top, he peered over the rough board ends. Slowly. Seeing nothing, he climbed higher.
Suddenly, three heads popped up, smiling, still yelling “fifteen”. They quickly raised milk pails full of water, wound up, and flung water at him. The shock of the cold water took away his breath, but worse yet it knocked him backward. Helpless, he rode the ladder away from the fence in a sweeping arc.
Lying there on the roadway, trying to catch his breath, he looked up at the three faces. Wind knocked out of him, he heard them yell a new word.
Sixteen, sixteen, sixteen.