The 9 Lives of Alexander Baddenfield

The Nine Lives of Alexander Baddenfieldby John Bemelmans Marciano

139 pages telling delightfully evil tale of a boy who gets everything he wants – or does he?

The 9 LIVES of Alexander Baddenfield is funny.  For all time the Baddenfields have been bad and the Winterbottoms have served them, trying to keep them safe and trying to steer them in a better direction.  It hasn’t worked well the Baddenfields have always been greedy and evil.  From the first Boddenveld of Holland who created the 1637 tulip debacle to Pieter Boddenveld in New Amsterdam (now New York) who made mass profit selling the land he had purchased for about $24 in beads to Rolf Baddenfeld of Virginia colony who invented the cigarette and Weems Baddenfield who cut down the cherry tree and blackmailed his playmate, George into taking the fall for it.  Right from the start the Baddenfields had been bad.  They had been able to make a fortune, but never to enjoy it.  Each one had died young.  26 was an old age for a Baddenfield, and Alexander, only remaining Baddenfield, wanted to change that. At 12 his only friend was his cat, Shaddenfrood and looking at his cat, Alexander wondered, “If a cat could have nine lives, why couldn’t he?”

Once Alexander had that idea, nothing could stand in his way.  He went to all the doctors.  He went to all the scientists.  He went to the Head Executive Vice President for Baddenfield Pharmaceuticals (BaddPharm for short) to get what he wanted.  The researchers there didn’t seem to have any ideas either.

When Alexander could take no more, he held up a hand and said, “Enough!  If you think you can confuse and bore me into going away, you’re wrong.  Is it too much to ask for you to solve one little problem?  Is it going to be the think tank for all of you?”  Normally, a think tank is a gathering of top minds; at BaddPharm, it was a literal steel tank that employees were locked into.  “And no one gets out until someone give me something that helps!”

“How about Dr. Graft?”

The name cracked the silence of the room like a put of potato chips in a library.  Everyone turned to look at who had said it, a low-level intern in the fungus department.  “Oh,” said the man sheepishly and shrank down in his chair.

But Dr. Graft is just the person Alexander needs.  He gets his transplant, but without a change in his reckless, selfish ways will that been enough?  You’ll have to read The 9 LIVES of Alexander Baddenfield to find out.

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