Permute-O-Man's Revenge

by Day Kirby

Once apon a time, everything in the land of Staag Nation had order.

There were no messy rooms, no dirty dishes and no laundry. Nothing had any flaws or rough edges, everything was smooth and clean. Everything was predictable and organized.

The people were like that, too. If you were born one way, you stayed exactly like that all your life. Your hair always stayed in place. You always had the same friends, and the same enemies. No one ever forgot anything, and for that matter, no one ever learned anything new. People even knew what they were going to dream every night.

There was no such thing as luck, because everybody knew what was going to happen. Every week the lottery numbers were the same and the same person won. If you played a game of cards, you were always dealt the same hand. If you rolled some dice, the same numbers would always show. Even the weather was predictable: Monday it would rain, Tuesday it would be sunny, Wednesday it would be windy, Thursday it would snow, Friday it would be cloudy, Saturday would be hot, and Sunday would be cool. It was the same every week.

That was the way things were before Permute-O-Man came, but some things are still that way today. For instance, you have the same name all of your life. When you put food in the oven, it always get hotter, never colder. The days of the week are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and never Friday, Tuesday, Monday, Sunday, Wednesday, Saturday, Thursday. And when you throw a rock in the air, it always comes back down. These were a few of the things that Permute-O-Man didn't change when he vistited the land.

No one knows what or who Permute-O-Man really was. Some say he was a wizard, others think he was an alien from another planet. Whoever he was, he was very different from the people from Staag Nation.

He came on a Monday. This is a known fact, because Monday was the day that Alice Filler did the bookeeping for her very large hotel. She always did it on Monday because she knew that she would have no customers. It was the same every week. That was the way things happened in Staag.

So on this fateful Monday, Alice began her bookeeping, adding up the same numbers that she added up every week. Then, without warning, there was a knock on the door. "This is impossible," gasped Alice, "I never have customers on Monday." Nothing like this had ever happened to Alice, or anyone else in Staag for that matter. She thought that maybe she was going crazy. But no, if she was going crazy then she would have predicted it. So there was really somebody knocking on the door.

"Come in," she said, baffled. The door opened and a tall man in a dark cape with a big red exclamation mark on it walked in. "Greetings," he said with a wide grin.

"I wasn't expecting you. I mean I wasn't expecting anyone today. I don't even know...," she stammered, still trying to make sense of what was happening. He put his big black bag on the check-in desk and said, "I came from a long way away, and I'm going to be staying for awhile. I'll need a room."

"Yes, of course. What is your name sir?"

"Permute-O-Man."

"Permute-O-Man?"

"Yes, I bring with me the Power of Permutation."

"Permutaion?"

"The power to mix things up. Watch this." He pointed at a group of four people walking down the hall. They were three men in suits. The first man wore a grey suit, the second wore a green suit, and the third wore blue. He snapped his fingers and shook his big black bag. A puff of smoke flew up around the three startled men. When the smoke finally cleared, the first man was wearing the third man's blue suit, the second man was wearing the first man's grey suit, and the third man wore the second man's green suit.

Everyone in the hotel stopped what they were doing and stared at the three men, who were screaming in terror. No one knew what to think. None of them had predicted this. No one had even thought of such a thing. People began to panic, children were crying, grown-ups were fainting, and the hotel staff began running for the doors. Permute-O-Man's grin got wider.

After that day, nothing would ever be the same. Stories about Permute-O-Man spread throughout the land. The people who heard these stories were amazed. They had not predicted that they would hear these stories.

The stories kept coming, too, because Permute-O-Man was always doing something mischevous. He would show up unexpectedly and rearange things. One day he would show up in a neighbourhood and mix up people's pets. If you owned a poodle, Permute-O-Man might come by and give you the great dane from down the street, while your poodle might end up being the pet of someone who had owned a cat. Maybe the next day he would rearrange the hairs on people's heads, or mix up people's closets, or change people's names.

Permute-O-Man's power, which he called Permutation is an incredible power indeed. He could change the order of anything. He could change the alphabet from a,b,c,d... to b,m,k,c,... It was as if he was putting all the letters of the alphabet into his bag, and after he shook it up, the letters would come out of the bag in a different order. But he could not invent a new letter of the alphabet. For intance, if he was changing your phone number, he could change it from 739-0134 to 931-04037 or 403-7931, but he couldn't change it to 938-4037 because 8 was not in your original number. He could make things trade spots, but could not invent new things.

Even though he had limits, he could still do a lot. In fact, he told people that by rearranging the right things, he could do anything he wanted to. This did not please the people of Staag because it seemed that the only thing that Permute-O-man wanted to do was cause trouble, and so a meeting was held. The president of Staag showed up for the meeting in someone else's car, wearing someone else's clothes, carrying someone else's briefcase. The meeting had to be held in a super market because Permute-O-man had put it where the Great Hall used to be, and no one wants to go to the Great Hall because it had been moved to the outskirts of Staag, where the university used to be.

The president climbed up on the fruit display and hushed the mumbling crowd. "Thank you for coming today. By now you all know about Permute-O-Man and what he is doing. He has shaken up our once orderly society in his awful bag. I ask you, should we put a stop to this, and if so, how can we do it?"

A woman stood up, "Yes, of course we should stop him. I can't live like this anymore. I can't predict anything any more! I don't even know what my name is going to be when I wake up in the morning, or what house I will wake up in! I have someone else's nose and ears, he even put my right foot on my left leg and my left foot on my right leg!"

A college student was next, "Is he just going to keep doing this until everything is a random mess? Will he ever be satisfied? There are so many things to mix up, I don't know if he'll ever get to all of them, he'll never finish!"

An older man got up: "How can we convince him to stop doing this? Is there any price we can pay?"

A voice from the back, "Let's challenge him. He says that he can do anything, change anything. There must be something he can't do. If we can outsmart him, I bet he'll leave."

The President spoke next, "An excellent idea! Does anyone have any ideas?" The crown grew silent as people scratched their chins and thought.

Suddenly, the automatic doors of the super market swung open and Permute-O-Man walked in. "Excellent!" he said, grinning like a mad fool, "I do like a challenge. I agree to this challenge. If you can find something that I cannot do in a week's time, I will restore order to your land and leave forever. If you don't succeed, then I will become your president."

Well, the president was forced to agree. It might be the last chance that they would have to be rid of Permute-O-Man, and he might just permute himeself into the President's job anyway. The finest minds in Staag worked on the problem with every scrap of energy they had. They worked all day and all night, considering every idea, no matter how weird it sounded.

The hours turned into days, and still no one had solved the problem. The President sat in the Presidential office, counting the seconds until Permute-O-Man would take over.

Meanwhile, Permute-O-Man was having a great time. He allowed himself to be tested, and answered every question that the people of Staag asked him. For instance, a young girl came up to him and said, "I bet you can't change the weather, can you?" He looked up at the sunny sky and grinned. Then he snapped his fingers and shook his bag, and it began to rain. The girl asked, "How did you do that?" He said, "Why, I just changed the order of the days! It used to rain every Thursday, and now it rains on Tuesdays."

As the week went on, Permute-O-Man became more happy and the people became more miserable. Then, on the last day ofthe week, a man named Ramsey burst into the president's office.

"I've solved it!" he said, "I know of something that Permute-O-Man cannot change!"

The president's eyes lit up. Permute-O-Man appeared in a puff of smoke, "Ha! You think you can outwit me! Give it your best shot!"

"Okay," said Ramsey, "You can rearrange friendships, can't you?"

"Of course I can."

"There is something about friendships you can't change, though, isn't there?"

"Nonsense," said Permute-O-Man, and to demonstrate, he snapped his fingers and two people who were holding hands suddenly started yelling at each other, "See?"

"Come with me," said Ramsey, as he led Permute-O-man to a room filled with people. "Every pair of people in this room are either mutual friends or mutual enemies. That is, if Frank doesn't like Maria, then Maria doesn't like Frank. No one likes someone who doesn't like them. Now, do you know what a friend triangle is?" Permute-O-man shook his head. "A friend triangle is three people who like each other. An enemy triangle is three people who hate each other. Right now in this room there are some friend triangles. For example, Noah, Susan and April are all friends with each other. There are also enemy triangles. Mick, Judy and Carl hate each other."

Permute-O-man, who was listening patiently said, "This is fine, but I can change this. I can use the power of permutation to change who is friends with who and who has which enemies."

"Yes," said Ramsey, "but you can't get rid of the triangles. No matter what you do, there will be at least one friend triangle or enemy triangle!"

"What!" cried Permute-O-man, "That's ridiculous, of course I can change that. Watch!" He snapped his fingers and in a puff of smoke, all the friendships were changed.

"Yes," said Ramsey, "but notice that now Amy, Carl and Susan are all friends. There is still a friend triangle.

"Okay," said Permute-O-man, his voice getting angry, "then how about now!?" Another puff of smoke, and again Ramsey said,"But now George, Linda, and Mick are friends!" Permute-O-man grunted with frustration, "There has to be away! Give me a some time!"

"You have until midnight to do it." said Ramsey.

Well, Permute-O man shook his bag all day long and then all night too, trying to get rid of the triangles. The people in that room got pretty dizzy changing friendships again and again, but it was worth it, because Permute-O-man never did get rid of the triangles. No matter how he changed things, at least three people either liked or hated each other.

Just before midnight, a crowd assembled and the Presidentapproached Permute-O-man. "You have been stumped," she said,"you must restore order to Staag and leave forever." Permute-O-man looked at her, exhausted, "It's a trick! You can't defeat me!"

"It's over," she said, "now leave!"

"No!" he said, "I must have my revenge!" and in the last 5 minutes before midnight, Permute-O-man put his hand in his bag and began stirring like crazy. Things started to change wildly, everything being mixed up. Everyone was dizzy because everything in Staag was being moved around all at once. Peoples' faces were a blur as noses, ears and eyes from all over were changing places. Houses and busses and trees were flying all around, being moved here and there. He was trying to mix everything in the whole world up!

He would have done it, too, if those five minutes hadn't run out in time. At the very end, Permute-O-man dissapeared and returned to wherever he had come from. Even after he was gone, things kept spinning for awhile because he had mixed up his bag so much.

In many ways, Permute-O-man was responsible for the way things are today. For instance, people can't go around predicting things the way they used to. Our personalities change, and our friendships change. The lottery numbers are always different. This can be bad, but since the world is changing, we are always learning something new. It is very difficult to be bored when you don't know what is going to happen next.

What happened to Ramsey? Well, he became a national hero, and went on to become a famous mathematician. People still study how he vanquished Permute-O-Man, and there are some numbers that have been named after him in his honor.