No Other Story by Dr. Cuthbert Soup Page A

you?”
    â€œWell, yes,” Penny agreed, though secretly she thought that Jones and Gurda were probably the strangest pairing she’d seen since the time that Pinky, a fox terrier bred for fox hunting, developed a severe crush on Digs, a little brown fox from the seventeenth century.
    Chip thought they made a rather bizarre couple too. In fact, there were a lot of strange things about this John Jones character, if that really was his last name, and Chip greatly doubted that it was. Whatever his name, Chip had a million questions for him, but they would have to wait, because the Cheesemans were about to get the first good news they’d had all day. It came when Ethan, for the first time since being buried under a mountain of snow, opened his eyes.
    â€œLook!” Teddy exclaimed. “It’s Dad. He’s awake!”
    Chip and Penny rose quickly from their chairs and knelt at their father’s side.
    â€œDad, are you okay?” Penny asked.
    From his position flat on his back, Ethan stared up at his young inquisitor and narrowed his eyes in thought. “What is going on here?” he said.
    Chip turned to Penny to find his sister wearing the exact same look as his own. It was a look of confusion, and what caused that look was not what Mr. Cheeseman had said, but how he had said it; in a very distinct and very thick Italian accent.
    Ethan sat up and took in his surroundings with an arched eyebrow. If the eyes truly are the windows to the soul, anyone looking at Ethan’s eyes would quickly determine that he was not at home and that he now had a houseguest. “Would someone be so kind as to tell me where I am? And while we’re at it, who are you people?”
    â€œWhy is Dad talking like that guy from the pizza commercial?” Teddy asked his older siblings.
    â€œI don’t know,” said Chip. “Dad? What’s wrong? Don’t you recognize us?”
    Ethan looked at Chip with bemusement, then said, in a rather indignant tone, “Young man, you obviously have me confused with someone else. My name is Rossini. Gioachino Rossini.”
    â€œOh no,” said Penny.
    â€œHe thinks he’s Rossini.”
    â€œHe thinks he’s pasta?” exclaimed Gravy-Face Roy.
    â€œWhat? That’s rotini,” said Penny, never stopping toconsider she was using precious oxygen for the purpose of correcting a gravy-stained sock. “Rossini was one of the greatest composers of classical music who ever lived.”
    â€œWas?” shouted Ethan, waving his hands in the air. “I will have you know I am currently working on my most important opera yet. It will be the masterpiece by which all others are measured.”
    At first, they wondered if this was their father’s idea of a prank, even though he was not one to engage in practical jokes, simply because, as a scientist, he found them to be entirely impractical.
    Ethan’s head suddenly jerked to one side and his eyes shot up and over as if he were straining to listen to a sound very far away. He began softly humming a tune, slowly increasing its volume, until soon his hands were slicing through the air like an orchestra conductor.
    â€œHey, I know that song!” Teddy exclaimed. “It’s the Lone Ranger.”
    â€œActually, it’s called the
William Tell Overture,
” whispered Professor Boxley, who happened to be a connoisseur of classical music.
    â€œHmm,” said Gravy-Face Roy. “That sure is a weird name for a song about the Lone Ranger.”
    Abruptly as he began, Ethan stopped, then stood up and exclaimed, “Quick! I must have a fountain pen and paper at once!” Though none of them knew just what to make of Ethan’s strange new persona, it seemed to be unofficially agreed upon that, for the time being at least, they would go with it.
    Penny looked to Jones, who seemed thoroughly confused by the entire situation. “Do you have a pen and paper?” she