My Adventures in Locohornland

          I’ve never told anyone about this. I just didn’t think anyone would believe me. I mean, it’s a crazy story. I probably wouldn’t believe it if someone told it to me.

          What’s that? Okay, okay, I’m going to tell you the story—but don’t say I didn’t warn you first.

          I mean, I’ve tried to find some proof. First, I looked for Topsy, and I couldn’t find her, but that’s not particularly surprising since thirty years have passed. But when I couldn’t find any records of her, anywhere, as if she was a product of my imagination, I began to feel a little spooked. It was as if she hadn’t existed, or maybe her name was the part that really didn’t exist. My mother passed away two years ago, so I couldn’t ask her, but I thought my father would know something about Topsy.

          But Daddy just shook his head, and drawled “Never heard of her, darlin’.” Another dead end.

          Then I tried going back to her little cafe in the Quarter, but the cafe had been replaced by one of those awful souvenir shops—you know which ones I mean? They sell tacky Mardi Gras t-shirts and beignet mix and voodoo spells. The wrought-iron fence and the statue had vanished—they’re probably decorating some techie’s mansion now. So you’ll just have to believe me.

          Strange as it seems, this happened. At least you’ve lived in New Orleans a while and understand that she’s a city that enjoys conjuring up strange things sometimes. Anyone who has ever lived in New Orleans has their own weird New Orleans story. Maybe that’s why my parents chose to live in the suburb of Metarie.

          Back then, Metarie was so small that my mother had to do her serious shopping in New Orleans. Whenever she didn’t want to tow a whining seven-year-old around, she deposited me with her friend, Topsy Lestrange, who owned and managed a small Cajun cafe, Le Lapin Blanc,[1] in the Quarter. I was curious about Topsy’s unusual Christian name and once asked her what her full name was, hoping that she would explain the origins of her name to me.

          “Oh, my poppet, can’t you guess?” she said.

          I shook my head solemnly.

          “Why, Topsy-Turvy, of course,” she said, equally solemnly.

          I accepted this as truth, another one of Topsy’s wonderful idiosyncrasies, but you have to remember I was only about seven at the time. Compared to the my mother’s other friends, Topsy seemed so elegant and colorful. Looking back, I realize she was also a very kind woman.

          She never seemed to mind having a child taking up one of her tables all morning long, perhaps because I was quiet and loved to read. Or perhaps she just felt sorry for me. She let me read her ornately bound copies of Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass while I waited. I loved flipping through the elegant gilt-edged pages, although I was always afraid I might spill something on them. The pages were filled with marginalia that commented on the text and made the stories much funnier, and more interesting too, though I labored over deciphering her cramped scribbles. I was hesitant to ask her to explain any of them—I wasn’t sure if she would approve of me reading her private notes, and I didn’t want her to tell me not to. Not that Ms. Topsy[2] ever told me no.

          I adored the novelty of sitting at a table alone, reading (although I didn’t opt for the Picayune, the preference of most of the adults ). Feeling very grown-up, I sipped my cup of café au lait[3] and watched the tourists and eccentrics of the Quarter whenever I tired of reading.

          If it wasn’t raining, I sat on the patio by the tall wrought-iron fence. The fence’s whimsically ornamented rails were topped by hearts or clubs or diamonds or spades and reinforced my belief that another, more magical world was close by, if only I could find the door. The gate of the fence was decorated with many of the characters from the Alice books: the Cheshire Cat, the Queen of Hearts, the caterpillar with the hookah, and the Mad Hatter and March hare.

          But my favorite character, the white rabbit, didn’t adorn the gate; he was a waist-high bronze sculpture standing beside the gate. I loved that rabbit: he looked as if he had paused in flight to check the time. His watch rested on an outstretched paw with the hour, 7:00 o’clock, discernable, and his gloves drooping over a side pocket. I was certain that Lapin (my private name for him) came to life whenever most humans were asleep.

          Anyway, I’m not sure what time of the year it was, but I remember it was cool. I think it was autumn, but I’m not sure why I think so. I remember dark, brooding clouds, and leaves skuttering and swirling around my shoes. I was alone on the patio until the Bead Lady shuffled over to the table beside me and sat down. She clunked her coffee cup down emphatically, sloshing coffee on the checkered tablecloth. I pretended not to notice her, staring at the illustration of the Sheep in the shop, though I wasn’t really looking at it. She frightened me, even though Ms. Topsy assured me that she was harmless.

          She was one of those colorful eccentrics in the Quarter that everyone knew, or rather, knew about, like the Duck Lady.[4] Rainbow-colored clumps of Mardi Gras beads wreathed her neck; she peddled them to the tourists for her livelihood. She was said to be from Austria: she had a thick, guttural accent of some kind that added to her menacing mien. Everyone said she w

the most effective sales technique I’ve ever

seen. After squinting into the victim’s face and curling her lip, she would say, “I vill carse you, and vyour days vill be dark . . . so dark . . .”

          If the person didn’t then capitulate and buy a string of beads, the Bead Lady would shake her head regretfully, tut-tutting as she turned and took a few hesitating steps. Right when the person felt reprieved, the Bead Lady would swirl around and, in a shrieking, strident voice, begin to lay the curse.

          The Bead Lady gave a good show. She had an innate dramatic sense and always switched to German to enhance the eerie atmosphere. It’s much scarier hearing a curse pronounced if you can’t understand a single word of it. The Bead Lady liked to circle her victims too, like a hungry turkey vulture, keeping her beady eyes and beaky nose next to the victim’s face while she spewed out the curse. It was creepy. I knew she was a witch.

          Really, don’t laugh. I knew, and I still know—she was an honest-to-God witch. Just listen to what else happened. That morning, the Bead Lady seemed calmer than she usual; she wasn’t even muttering to herself. The Bead Lady often stopped in cafes of the Quarter and was always treated to coffee or a meal. The cafe owners knew the tourists liked a little local color, and since Voodoo wasn’t practiced in the streets anymore, the Bead Lady was the best they could offer. Besides, they were a superstitious bunch, and I don’t think they wanted to be on the bad side of a witch.

          I tried to pretend I hadn’t noticed her. I studied the illustration of the Sheep in the shop, but I could feel the Bead Lady staring at me. Finally I looked at her.

          She held up her index finger and beckoned me close. I knew that witches ate children, but I was trained to be polite. I stood up and walked to her table, as if I were under a spell. My heart was pounding.      

          “Yes, ma’am?” I said.

          She smiled a crooked smile. “Follow him,” she said, nodding wisely.

          I didn’t know what she was talking about. I nodded back and whispered, “Yes’m.”

          The Bead Lady slurped down the rest of her coffee and clanked her cup into the saucer.

          She stood up abruptly. “Remember,” she ordered.

          I nodded again. As I watched, she did something curious. She put her hand on the head of the white rabbit and leaned down and whispered into one of his ears. Then she walked to the gate, which I knew was always kept locked, and pushed it open with a protesting squeak. Leaving the gate standing ajar, the Bead Lady walked away.

          “Curious and curiouser,” I said, staring after her and thinking of Alice.

          I was about to go tell Ms. Topsy about the open gate when the statue of the white rabbit moved. He shook his watch and held it to his ear. It must have been ticking satisfactorily because he smiled and tucked the watch in his pocket. Then he scurried out of the gate before I had time to react.

Well, of course, I followed him. Wouldn’t you follow a statue that came to life?

          And the Lady Bead had said, “Follow him.” I wasn’t going to disobey a witch; she could put a curse on me if I didn’t follow her orders. Lapin moved amazingly fast, and I trotted after him. The wind gusted and raindrops spattered the sidewalk. I brushed my bangs out of my eyes and squinted through the rain, and I saw the rabbit turning a corner.

          I sped up to follow him and fell into the yawning mouth of an uncovered manhole. I began falling but, just like Alice in the book, I fell gently.

          The hole was wide and deep, and the walls were like a gigantic bulletin board, cluttered with faded newspaper cuttings and photographs that flapped in the breeze I stirred. I passed a row of televisions, with some strange sport flickering on each screen. I saw a jar labeled “jalapeno jelly” and another labeled “burnt orange marmalade” and couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to eat either of them.

          I grabbed for one of the newspapers clippings and yanked it from the wall, but the brittle, brown paper disintegrated into tiny flecks. The flecks began to glow with a strange orange light and slowly reconnected with each over, swirling into a strange form as I watched. It looked a like a miniature cow, except for the wings sprouting from its back and the immense, twisting horns on its head. The strange little beast threw back his head, gave a high-pitched moo-ooo-oo, and galloped away.

          I kept falling down, down, down, and began to get sleepy, just as Alice had. I wondered what had happened to Lapin, and whether he inveigled little girls to fall down deep holes just for his own entertainment. I wondered if he was a hare as well as a rabbit. Then he would be German-- Hare Rabbit.

          What was the difference between rabbits and hares anyway? I wasn’t sure. Maybe hares were bigger and more closely related to bears. Maybe there are Hairy Bears and Berry Hares. The more I thought about it, the more confused I became, so I was glad to land with a soft plumpety-plump on a pile of grass clippings and leaves.

          I jumped up immediately and brushed myself off, but I couldn’t see Lapin anywhere. I noticed I had landed near a small pond. I picked up a long stick and poked around for the bottom of the pool.

          A loud voice said, “Would you stop that! Little girl, I said to stop brandishing that weapon. You could hurt someone!”

            I searched for the source of the bossy, grown-up voice, but I didn’t see anyone. I decided that I must be imagining things, so I went back to trying to find a shallow spot in the pond.

            “I’m warning you! Stop it this instance, or you’ll regret it.”

            “Who’s talking to me?” I asked. “Are you a ghost?”

            “A ghost? Why would you call me a ghost? I’m more solid than you are!”

            “Then why can’t I see you?”

            “Because, like most humans, you walk around with your nose in the air. If you ever looked down, you might see some interesting things.”

            I looked down and saw a large turtle staring up at me. “Oh! I wasn’t expecting a turtle! And you talk?

            “Why not? the turtle said.

            “How very odd!”

            And why do you think that’s so odd? You talk, don’t you?” the turtle said peevishly. “It’s a good thing that snapping turtles don’t loose their tempers very easily, or you could have lost your big toe.”
            “A snapping turtle?”

            “Would you stop staring cross-eyed at me! Go find a mirror and stare at yourself, if you want to look at something strange. You’re pink and blue and yellow, not proper animal colors at all.”

            “I’m not an animal. I’m a human,” I said.

            “Oh, that’s right—humans are different because they periodically slaughter each other over trivial reasons.”

            “That’s not true!” I protested.

            “It is too!” said the turtle. “I often read the newspapers that students leave littering my pond.

            Humans seem to have wars all the time.”

            “Well, sometimes we have to fight wars,” I said, though I didn’t understand why either.

            I decided to change the subject before he could ask me more questions about it.

            “What’s your name?” I asked.

            “Why do you want to know?” He said, narrowing his eyes and glaring at me.

            “I was just trying to make conversation. I thought we could introduce ourselves.”

            “Why should we do that?”

            “To be friendly, of course,” I said. “I’m Frances Hill. How do you do?”

            “You are the most infernally inquisitive person I’ve ever met. First you want to know my name: then you want to know about my health.”

            I decided not to talk to him anymore, because he might snap at me.

            After a few moments, the turtle said, “I’ll tell you my name, if you promise not to laugh.”

            “I promise,” I said.

            “Happy,” the turtle said.

            “I suppose I am happy. I haven’t really thought about it.”
            “NO!” the turtle yelled. “You’re not happy!! I am.”

            “You don’t seem happy,” I said. “You seem a bit cross.”
            “NO! I don’t feel happy! the turtle said. “I am Happy!”

            “Well, if you are happy, why don’t you feel happy? That doesn’t make any sense.”

            “That’s because you don’t have any sense,” the turtle said. “Listen carefully: my name is Happy!”

            I tried not to laugh but the turtle looked so cross that I couldn’t help laughing. “A snappish snapping turtle named Happy!”

            “Be that way,” Happy said, and lumbered back to the pool and slid in the water. He didn’t surface until he was on the other side.

            Just then I spotted the White Rabbit scuttling into a large boxy building. A sign in front of the building said The Human Researcher Collection.

          Winnie the Pooh was standing at the door. He said, “Ticket, please.”

          “I’m sorry. I don’t have one.”

          “Oh, dear,” he said. “You’ll have to answer a question then. How did the book Winnie the Pooh make you feel?”

          “Well,” I said, considering the question carefully. “It made me feel happy, but it made me feel sad too.”

          Winnie the Pooh beamed, wrinkling up his button eyes. “Excellent answer. Succinct and to the point. You couldn’t possibly be a scholar. Enjoy the exhibition!”

          I wandered into a large room filled with an odd assortment of animals and people who were roaming about the room, staring up at the specimens in large Plexiglas cases and murmuring to each other in low voices. It seemed to be some sort of costume ball, because I noticed a pirate with a parrot on his shoulder, a gangster, a magician, and a midget.

          I was shocked when I realized that the specimens were alive. But most of them seemed oblivious to the world around them. The first one, a plump, bow-tied man, was surrounded by tall piles of books. He would thumb through a book and scribble something on a scrap of paper, then immediately throw that book down. The placard on his case said, “Obfuscation Expert: Professor Twiddle-Deedee. Tries to make sure the reader never knows what he’s talking about, since he often has no idea himself.”

          The next exhibition case contained a man who must have been the twin of Professor Twiddle-Deedee. He sat at a desk, first furiously reading, then furiously writing, then reading again, and then writing some more. His placard read “Redundant Regurgitator: Professor Twiddle-Deedum. Doesn’t like to say anything unless it’s been said many times before and couches what he does say in prose so numbingly dull that no one bothers to read him anyway.”

          Another case held a woman sitting at a desk and typing furiously into a strange flat box with a flat sort of screen. She smiled with pursed lips sometimes and sniggered at her words occasionally, under the sign “Perfidious Pedagogue: Professor Pettifogger. Enjoys twisting the meaning and intention of original authors’ words by using phrases out of context and spurious symbols to support her latest arcane and idiotic theory.”

          I yawned and wandered over to the next case.

          This one was “Depressed Disparager: Doctor Doolittle. ”Likes chewing up and spitting out the work of literary icons. Also enjoys terrorizing students, particularly those that show enthusiasm or naiveté.”

          “Why don’t they notice us?” I asked a man wearing a white linen suit.

          The man stroked his white handlebar mustache and said, “Don’t rightly know, miss. I imagine it’s because they’re so self-absorbed. They don’t notice anything but themselves and their own ideas.”

          “But how did they get in the cases?”

          The man smiled and took out a cigar. He stuck it in the corner of his mouth without lighting it and said, “Well, a bunch of us got tired of them. Frank Dobie,” he nodded toward a rumpled man in cowboy boots, “and I—I guess you could call us the ringleaders. We finally just got fed up. They weren’t too hard to trap, and they didn’t seem to mind—they’re pretty tame little critters.”

          “Did they murder anyone?” I asked, still not understanding why they were imprisoned.

          “Yep, they murdered my words. They thought they could get away with it because I’m dead, but I’ve come back to haunt them.”

          “Oh, dear, my mother says I murder the human language when I talk sometimes,” I said, wondering if I should run.

          “Oh, I don’t mind folks murdering their own words. I only get riled up when they do it to mine. Some of the researchers were okay; they understood that words can be sacred.”

          I nodded. “The words in the Bible are sacred.”

          He chuckled and said, “I agree, but I would bet that your reason for calling those words sacred is different than mine.

          “Now don’t get me started on religion.” He shook his head. “But those researchers, I didn’t like the way some of them poked and pawed through our possessions and our lives and never a word of thanks.”

          “I wouldn’t like that at all,” I said. “My cat does that sometimes, and I always get so mad.”

          He nodded. “Cats, yes, there’s definitely a resemblance. The researchers like to hunt, but they’re hoping to uncover hidden centipedes under a stone so they can tell the world about it. I could excuse them desecrating the dead, since most people don’t understand that the dead are often hanging around listening to every word.          

          “But they didn’t leave it alone there. They kept saying the silliest things about our characters and what was meant by what they said. They don’t want to let them speak for themselves. I may be dead myself, but my characters are alive and well. That’s what tears me to pieces—the disrespect they show my creations. Don’t they even realize what a miracle they are? Unlike us, they are immortal. Some people don’t seem to understand that most writers say what they mean to say. A story can’t be explained because it means different things to different people.

          “So we offered them a deal. They would have exclusive interviews with some of us, if they didn’t mind going on exhibit. The idiots just jumped at the chance. Revenge will be sweet.”

          “What are you going to do to them?” I said, beginning to feeling sorry for the poor professors.

          “Oh, I’m not going to do a thing. They’re going to do it to themselves. Can you imagine how the scholarly world will react when they start quoting interviews with dead authors as source material?”

          “I see,” I said, although I didn’t at all.

          “I bet you’d rather talk to another kid than a fusty old dead man like me. Why don’t you run upstairs and find Tom Sawyer? It’s time for him to get back in his book, and I want to make sure he does. Could you give him that message?”

          “Tom Sawyer? But he’s not real! He’s a character in a book.”

          “He’s more alive than I am,” he said.

          “Who are you?”

          “Samuel Clemens, Miss, better known as Mark Twain.”

          “But you’re dead,” I blurted out.

          “The reports about my death have been greatly exaggerated,”[5] he said and winked at me.

          “Oh,” I said and remembered my manners. “I’m very glad to hear you’re not dead. I’ll go look for Tom Sawyer then.”

          I was wondering if that was where the Lapin had gone since I hadn’t seen him downstairs. I hadn’t forgotten that the Bead Lady had told me to follow him. I galloped up the stairs to the next level and noticed Tom Sawyer right away. He was climbing out of a broken window into a tree.

          “Hey, what are you doing?” I cried.

          “I’m escaping,” he said. “I’ve been shut up in here for years. Nothing interesting ever happens. Why don’t you come with me?

          “But Mr. Clemens said that he wants you to get back in your book.”

          “I know that—he always hates to let me out. But I get bored doing the same stuff over and over again.”

          “Oh, I would too.”

          “You know how adults are. They think doing the same thing over and over is how you’re supposed to live. This sycamore is a perfect climbing tree too, and I bet it’s never been climbed.”

          I peered out the window. It was a long way to the ground. But then I saw The White Rabbit scampering behind a building. “Oh, no, I need to follow that rabbit!”

          “Well, climb on out here then,” Tom Sawyer said, reaching out a hand. “Don’t worry. It’s not hard. I’ll help you if you get stuck.”

          I followed Tom down the tree. I never could have climbed it by myself because I was so short.

          When I dropped to the ground the rabbit had disappeared. “Let’s go,” I said. “He went this way.”
          We ran down a sidewalk until we reached a stone wall. The rabbit was nowhere in sight.

          “Here,” Tom said, lifting me onto the wall. “You sit here. I think if I climb a tree, I ought to be able to spot him. There can’t be that many giant rabbits wondering around.”

          I sat on the wall, squinting up at Tom and watching as police officers closed off the busy street in front of me. Behind me people, many of them dressed in rust and white outfits, were gathering. They were behaving in a very peculiar manner, talking and shouting and whistling and hollering and waving their hands in the air with their index and little fingers pointed to the heavens.

          “Where am I, and what are these people doing?” I asked a bedraggled worm that had crawled on the wall and was slouched beside me.

          “Hey, I’m Drag Worm. This is the Drag,” he explained. “And these loony tunes are waiting for a parade right now.”

            I studied the worm. “You don’t look like a worm, you look like a caterpillar.”

            “I hope so—I’d like to wrap myself up in a little cocoon and wake up with wings. Then I could just fly away. Most of the people here don’t even see me. Or if they do, they don’t talk to me.”

            “Well, maybe you’re lucky,” I said, studying the crowd. “Are they a religious cult?”

            “All the ones dressed in the same colored clothes are Locohorn fans.” The worm wiggled his antennae and snorted. “Well, yea, you could call it a cult. See, at Locohorn Hill lots of the people worship cornball. And the symbol of the sacred game is Bevo, a locohorn. ”

            “What’s cornball? What’s a locohorn.” I asked.

          “Wow, where are you from? Cornball is a game played with a big hush puppy.”

            “How do they hush a puppy?”

            But the Drag Worm had fallen asleep. I looked up and saw that Tom was still perched in the tree to watch the parade. I could hear a band coming and I thought they were playing “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” but the words were different:

                        The ears of Bevo are listening, all the live long day,

                        The ears of Bevo are listening, you cannot get away.

                        Do not run from his moo-mooing at noon or middle of the night.

                        The ears of Bevo are listening till Aggies see the light.

           

          The band members wore cowboy hats and western shirts with fringes, and the loud drums and the blaring horns made me want to follow them. Bevo plodded after them, staring at the ground with glazed eyes. He didn’t seem very excited about being worshipped. The Bead Lady, who was perched on his back and drinking a cup of espresso balanced on one of his horns, was certainly having more fun. She was pulling off strings of Mardi Gras beads and throwing them into the crowd.

          Some of the crowd followed Bevo, the Bead Lady, and the band down the street and around the corner, and soon it was quieter.

            I looked up in the tree and saw that Tom was asleep, so I slipped off the wall. My legs were tired of sitting; I needed to stretch them. I picked up a stick, and idly poked and prodded the stones of the wall as I walked, noticing snail and centipede fossils embedded in the stones. Then I saw one more. And then another, as if it didn’t like being trapped in the stone.

            “Oh the poor little things, I wish I could help them.”

            “What poor things?” asked Tom Sawyer, looking over my shoulder.

            “Look, the fossils, they’re moving.”

            “Wow, I’ve never seen anything like that!” he said.

            “I think it’s scary,” the Drag Worm said. “Come on, let’s go ask Egghead. He knows about everything.”

            “Who’s Egghead?”

            “His name’s Humpty-Bumpty. He likes to hang out on the wall and explain things to people. He doesn’t even mind talking to Drag Worms.”

            Humpty-Bumpty was a roundish man with a smile that stretched to almost each ear. A crowd of students were gathered round him as he talked to them about the connection between man and nature.

            The Drag Worm pushed his way to the front. “ Hey, Egghead, that connection is coming unconnected.”

            I don’t like to remember what happened next. I’ll just include the Mother Goose rhyme to remind you of what transpired:

                        Humpty-Bumpty heard a boy shout,

                        “Fossils escaping! The wall’s let them out!

                        The great stone wall started pitching and writhing,

                        The students all watched, not even breathing.

                       

                        But Humpty-Bumpty had to know why:

                        How could a fossil suddenly un-die?

                        He studied the wall through a thick glass,

                        Amazed by the seething, animate mass.

                       

                        He didn’t heed the ominous rumble,

                        Before the stones started to tumble.

                        A scholarly martyr was buried that day;

                        An inquisitive mind snatched away.

                       

                                               

                        Entombed in this heap of rubbly stones

                        Rest Humpty-Bumpty’s sacred bones.

                        An appropriate shrine to our saintly Bump:

                        Flowers constantly bloom on this blessed hump.

 

 

 

            We all stood watching the dust settle. Drag Worm sighed and wiped away a tear.

            I was crying too, and Tom Sawyer handed me a grubby handkerchief. “Don’t cry,” he said gruffly. “I can’t stand to see a girl cry.”

            “All right, I said, sniffling and dabbing at my eyes. “Thank you.”

            Tom Sawyer just grinned in that friendly way he had, and said, “I think I’ll be getting back to my book now. I’m all tuckered out.”

            That’s when I saw Lapin. He was standing on the edge of the crowd, talking to the Bead Lady in hushed tones. The Bead Lady looked up and spotted me.

            She swung herself back on Bevo and shouted, “There she is! It’s all her fault! She didn’t follow the White Rabbit!”

            She charged after me. I tore off as fast as I could, but I knew I had no chance. I could feel Bevo’s breath on my neck. Bevo scooped me up in his twisted horns and flung me high in the air. I soared through the air so fast, the world around me was a blur. I finally landed with a hard thump. I looked around me wildly, and was relieved to find myself back on my chair in the patio in New Orleans.

            I shook my head and stared at the white rabbit statue. I got up and examined him more closely. He looked like a stone statue, but I noticed the watch in his hand now read eleven o’clock. As I was turning away, I thought I saw him wink, but I wasn’t sure.

            Ms. Topsy swung open the back door, holding two steaming bowls. “Your mother will be here in another hour, but I thought you might want some gumbo before you left.

            “And I have a present for you. In case you get tired of the Alice books.”

            I tore off the tissue paper wrapping. “Oh, thank you,” I cried.

            It was a beautiful copy of Tom Sawyer. I was glad I would get to meet him again since I never had a chance to say good-bye.

            And that’s my story. You can see why I don’t tell people about it. My mother said I’d just had a dream. But I never showed her this. From my pocket I pulled out a cotton handkerchief, and the initials in the corner read: T. S.

                                   

           

Word count: 4,527 words