Letters to Jenny

by Piers Anthony

  Okay, so this morning I made a serendipitous discovery when Alan finished typing the—what? Look, Jenny, how do you expect me to tell this if you keep interrupting me? Do you want me to touch the THAT’S NOT FAIR square? Oh, all right; what is it this time? Alan? You don’t know Alan? Well, he is my daughter Penny’s boyfriend. She stayed in St. Petersburg this summer, working, so we brought her boyfriend home instead. He is working for me, helping me with research for Tatham Mound. I’m a slow reader, and I’d never get this big novel written in the limited time I have otherwise. So when I need to know what was happening in Spain between the years 1500 and 1520, Alan reads the books and makes me a summary. It’s been working very well. This time I found that a computer hard disk crash two years ago had wiped out my copy of the first chapter of the novel I’m doing with Philip Jose Farmer, the one with Tappy, the 13 year old girl who—oh, you remember. Okay. One day I may read that to you. Anyway, Alan nicely typed it back into the computer, and brought up the disk, and I copied it onto my hard disk. But I messed up; when I wanted to go to my directory on the D drive, I typed C: without realizing it, and got the wrong listing. So I typed MO for the Mound directory, and it put me there, and I was on my way. But Alan, who had been watching, remarked that I had jumped from the C Drive to a directory on the D Drive without specifying the full path name. This was unusual, so we checked it out. Yes, the program really does that, though its manual doesn’t say so; it can find a directory in a different drive, even when you don’t specify the drive. So that was the serendipitous discovery: an easy way to go to other directories. But then in the afternoon I wasted the hour, because the effect was intermittent, and I wanted to know why. I finally ran it down: DirMagic zeros in on the default drive, and can go or copy to anywhere in it, but it can’t do the same with other drives, and you have to use the full path name. Yes, I know this bores you, and you fell asleep three minutes ago, but at least your mother will understand it. In fact she probably figured out the answer long before I did.

  By this time you should have your copy of the Xanth PinUp Calendar. I hope you like it. Your mother says she looks like Miss Mayhem the Ogress right now, because of her swollen face. I doubt it’s quite that bad; after all, what about the rest of the Ogress? When you get a chance, you can go through the dates on the Calendar. There’s a typo somewhere, where it says “Nymph’s Mother Frightened by a Pun”—it leaves off the final N. Frightened by a PU? That must be a foul-smelling noise.

  And why was I shoveling horse manure for Penny? It seems she’s growing some plants and wants the best. So this is genuine Blue-horse manure, as similar to unicorn manure as Mundania gets. There’s a song, “Sipping Cider,” in which a man meets his wife-to-be when he joins her sipping cider through a straw. As I pitched that manure I thought of that song, but it didn’t quite fit: “So cheek by cheek, and jaw by jaw, we both sipped manure through a straw.” Ah, well.

  Every so often I see those two clouds I mentioned way back when, Amorphous and Whathisname. Sometimes they have lovely bright fringes at dawn, when they are sunning themselves. Once they followed me home. They must have, because when I looked east from the house, there they were on the horizon.

  I have some other readers—you didn’t know that?— and one of them has named her dog after me, “Piers.” Actually it’s a fake dog, that she puts around her house; when she takes a picture, it looks real. That reminds me of a novelty item called “Dog-Done-It” that looks exactly like dog poop. You put it on someone’s bed, and it’s almost as much fun as a Whoopee Cushion. A variant looks like fresh vomit. Think of all the fun you can have, once you get home!

  So have you been keeping up with the news on Neptune? Neptune is about my favorite planet, because back in the 1960’s when I wrote Macroscope I had my characters go there and stop at its big moon Triton, and they discovered that Triton had its own little ice-moon which they named Shön. So if Voyager II finds such a moon—well, I was there first. So far they have discovered blue clouds on Neptune, with white cloudlets that cast shadows on the lower clouds (lower clouds don’t like that), and rings and ring fragments (somebody must have blundered through and messed them up), and on Triton are pretty pinks and blues. But no moon-of-moon. Yet. Nevertheless, this all goes to show how much information can come through how small an aperture; the radio that is sending all this has the power of a refrigerator bulb. I bet you think I’m about to make some sort of point here. Well …

  Not as many enclosures this time, because last time Cam was taking Cheryl back to college and there was no one to mail the letter until Sunday, so I included the Sunday Curtis. However, today there were pictures of cats, so you can have those, and I cut out Calvin and Peanuts a few days ago for you because I thought they were cute and just in case you didn’t get to see them, here they are. And ditto for a Dear Abby column you should enjoy, especially when you get carsick.

  So say hello to Cathy and the Therapists for me, and hang in there for another week. Who knows, something good might happen.

  PS—this is my 132th (hundred and thirty-tooth) letter so far this month, on the way to over 160. I have too many readers!

  September 1989

  * * *

  Chocolate pudding gets augmented by pureed pizza. A new wheelchair cushion appears. A blowhard passes through. A possibility is mentioned. And the world most likely does not end as predicted.

  * * *

  SapTimber 1, 1989

  Dear Jenny,

  Yes, Alan is typing research notes for me on the down-stairs system so I’m up here in color and laser printing. Did I mention that my background is chocolate and my print is vanilla? I’ve gotten to like having a color monitor.

  Yesterday we had to take the dogs in to the vet for shots and such. Oh, they were satisfied to go; Lucky is a big dog—he weighed in at 73 pounds this time, and he’s old now; in his prime, who knows what he weighed. It’s just that they get too excited, and it’s hard keeping them under control. I managed to skin a shin—what do you mean, what am I complaining about? You’re thirteen; you’re supposed to skin your shins, but I’m too old for that—and today I have a sore back, so I must have pulled a muscle without knowing it. Then today I went on my run, and went full-face through a spider web. I was trying to claw it off without stopping my run when I hit a second one. Fortunately I saw it, and only clipped part of it. Then I encountered a third, and managed to duck most of it. They all had those big orb-weaver spiders. I have nothing against them, but I wouldn’t want one on my face. Then I stopped for the pump and the horse’s pasture water, and the small black biting flies swarmed around me. I swatted a dozen or so—I prefer to live and let live, but those flies don’t share that philosophy—and then pulled off the cap of spiderweb that remained on my hair. I discovered six black flies caught in it. They had buzzed my head and been caught! Served them right. I was sorry I couldn’t take them back to the spider. I don’t like spider web on my face, but I also don’t like ruining all those hours' work by the spider. We have webs around here with lines that extend up ten feet, to the branches of trees; they can go to phenomenal lengths to anchor their webs properly, and I admire the industry and architecture of it. The other day a mosquito came to bite me—there’s another thing I swat—so I swatted it and took it outside, but at the screen door I saw a little running spider—do you remember Jumper in Xanth #3?—so I put the mosquito down next to it, and blew on the mosquito so that it moved a bit, and that little spider pounced on it and took it away. There was my good deed for that day, maybe. So I like spiders, who are sort of the cats of the bug world. Except when they catch dragonflies. Last year I found a dragonfly caught by a bit of web, and I managed to free it. If you are ever down here, I’ll show you how to get a dragonfly to sit on your hand. I finished my run, stopping every so often to comb out the sandspurs clustered in my socks—sandspurs are the mundane version of curse burrs, and I’ve found that a hair-comb works as well as anything to get them out. Anyway, you can see I’ve been busy.


  I just checked today’s incoming batch of mail. Now I dictate my answers into the cassette recorder and the secretary types from that. The trouble is, I tend to ramble and lose coherence when I’m speaking, and the secretary doesn’t know what a run-on sentence is, so I have a mess of correcting to do when the letters come back. Sigh. But today the last letter I read was in reaction to the Author’s Notes in the Incarnations series. She lives near the giant redwoods, and says the last of those lovely trees is being cut down for furniture. Ouch! Mankind is such a destructive slob, with so little sense of the art and significance of natural things. She said her world seemed to be coming to an end, because her husband deserted her after 8 years and two children, and then she was riding with a friend, and didn’t know the friend had been drinking, and drove the VW into a pole, and she—the letter-writer—was on the passenger side that hit. Ouch! I know about that sort of thing; ask your mother to tell you about Robert Kornwise, any week now when she recovers so she’s slightly more mobile than you are without your wheelchair. She’s so cheesed off about not getting in to see you that the cats are looking strangely at her, wondering whether she’s a mouse. Anyway, this woman was injured in the heart, and it stopped beating twice while she was on the operating table. She had a vision that she sat up and looked around, realizing that she was leaving her body, and a man said “You can go back, you know.” She thought about it, and didn’t want to leave her children without a mother, and the fact was that there was a new man she thought might be worth marrying, so she decided to go back. Four days later she woke in this world, and a year later she married the man. Now she’s reading my Incarnations books, which relate to things like this, and wanted to let me know. So you see, there’s no telling whom you might have met, back when you were 85% in the next realm.

  Which brings me to the next subject: there’s a prediction that the world is coming to an end today: Friday Saptimber Oneth. So if you don’t get this letter, you’ll know why. Maybe if you hold your breath, it will happen sooner. Which reminds me deviously of an old song. I think it was titled “Brighten the Corner,” and its essence was that you should brighten the corner where you are— that is, don’t worry about going far away to have a good time, have it right here. But the version I learned was a parody: “When you gotta go, and the toilet’s too far—right in the corner where you are.” So what has this to do with the end of the world? Well, it was the idea of making things happen sooner, whether meeting God or something a bit lower.

  Yesterday I had two letters from your mother. One was postmarked AwGhost 25, so it took only six days to get here, and the other was postmarked the 29th, so it took all of two days. She evidently sneaked a peek at one of my letters to you, and was snapping at “Tooth or Consequences.” She said they gave you some tests, and that you read well (those right-angle lenses must help!) but don’t spell well, and you still don’t like math. You sound just like my dyslexic daughter Penny! I didn’t learn to spell until I became an English teacher, and had to grade spelling tests. There is no relation between spelling ability and intelligence, because spelling in the English language doesn’t make any sense. But when you get set up with your computer, you can have a spelling checker program. They highlight the misspelled word, and offer several suggestions for the word you’re looking for. So it becomes a game of multiple choice, which should be easy enough for you. So make a note: SPELLEN CHEKKER. Anyway, she hopes she has a mouth with teeth in it soon. That was the letter where she announced your Pudding Triumph. What happens if anyone calls you Puddinghead? Right: splat in the face.

  Her second letter contained her penciled picture of you, drawn from memory. And here I thought you were the one in the family who was interested in art! She says her jawbone surgery is doing much better than they thought. I can explain that: when everyone and sundry got into mischief, she let fire with such heated words that any remaining infection was burned right out of her jaw. Fire-breathing dragons don’t have much trouble with infection either, for the same reason. So maybe she’ll have teeth again on schedule. She says you went on to eat more real food, not merely pudding. She says that if you can manage to eat again, that should help you to talk too, because the same tongue you eat with is used in speech. Well, keep eating, then!

  She also tells me that I have the “Serendipity” explanation in my big novel Tarot just the way I gave it to you. Oh? I don’t remember, and now can’t find the place. Tarot is the kind of novel your mother shouldn’t be reading. Anyone who reads it without being affronted at some point doesn’t understand it. I regard it as my best work, but it’s way beyond the competence of my average Xanth reader. So don’t you try to read it, even with your right-angle lenses. I note, on rechecking the one-volume edition, that it says “the classic fantasy adventure trilogy,” though it is science fiction rather than fantasy, and it’s a single novel. My contract even says it shall never be referred to as a trilogy. So much for contracts. So don’t become a writer, Jenny; there’s too much aggravation. And she says Ray tried to order Bio of an Ogre at Waldenbooks, and first they tried to make it Ogre Ogre, then the Bio of a Space Tyrant series. But for all that, at least Waldenbooks carried it; Dalton did not. Tell Ray that in about two weeks it will appear in paperback; he should have saved his money, I really didn’t mean to bring so much aggravation to your friends.

  She also says you have one of those special effect sounds devices like the one I described, only with different sounds. Well, have fun! I remember when I was in high school, and someone played a joke on an instructor. When the man started his car, it went WHEEEEEE-BOOM, and then thick black smoke poured out from under the hood. I really shouldn’t laugh….

  And she says you already know about dog-done-it and plastic vomit. Ah, well. I believe in education, and I made sure to educate my daughters. That meant that they learned early what a whoopee cushion was, and bouncy imitation snakes and the like. What schools think is education is something else.

  So you see, your mother had a mouthful to say. Actually she said even more than that, but rather than boring you with it I’ll write her a separate note. Your mother says a lot! Oh, you already knew?

  How is Cathy, your roommate, doing these days? I remember when she moved in with you, but I haven’t heard since. You girls didn’t quarrel, did you?

  I have some enclosures. Curtis and Alligator Express are back, and a couple of Far Side cartoon reruns I thought you might like if you didn’t see them before. Also a picture for a computer ad, with RAM being rendered as male sheep.

  Keep going, Jenny; life may get more interesting soon.

  SapTimber 8, 1989

  Dear Jenny,

  I wash my hair each Friday, because that’s when I take my weekly shower whether I need it or not (stop sniggering; I do wash up every morning and after every run; I just don’t take a full shower), and noticed that I was running low on shampoo. I need to keep changing brands, because any one brand stops working and in three days I’m all over dandruff. So my wife bought what looks like a bottle of bleach called Selsun Blue. Next week I’ll try that, but I’m afraid this stuff is really laundry bluing and I’ll turn bleached or bright blue. What do you use? Oh, you don’t get dandruff? Well I didn’t either, when I was your age. But one of the disgusting things about growing up is that you get dandruff. Just wait; you’ll see. So there. Anyway, I had my fastest run in two months, and yes I stopped at the little magnolia tree. The sandspurs stuck in my socks, and when I stopped to take them out (ouch!) the flies swarmed in to bite me. Par for the course.

  I have to get on with this letter, because I have a couple of others to follow. A fan in Texas says the folk in his class have to choose an author to study, so that next month they can be that author before the class. He chose me, so he wants to learn something about me. I’ll tell him to get the paperback Bio of an Ogre which will appear in paperback soon after he gets my letter; that will tell him more about me than he cares to know. Why he should want to be 55 years old with a receding hairline I do
n’t know. I also have to write a note to Richard Pini (what do you mean, Richard Who? Richard Elfquest Pini, that’s who) because he sent me three copies of The Blood of Ten Chiefs and one of its sequel, Wolfsong, out of the blue. You know, in Isle of View (What do you mean, is that part of a series?!) I have Jenny Elf mention part of the past history of the elves of her land, which is not Xanth (oh, you’d caught on to that?), and the part she mentioned related to the story I did about Prey-Pacer, who was mostly known as Prunepit. I wonder what Jenny Elf will be doing in the future? Even the Muses can’t say for sure, because she’s not really part of their frame.

  I am now in the last chapter of Tatham Mound. It’s depressing. I do get depressed sometimes when a novel ends, because for months I have been in the thick of it, living and breathing with my characters (yes, they do breathe, especially the buxom young women) and it is finally over, and that part of my life is done. Normally I get right on into the next novel, to ease the unease. But this one is worse, because it’s a bigger novel than most—it should be about 180,000 words when finished—and sadder. All the characters die. I knew that before I started, of course, because we found their bones in the Mound. Still, now I know those folk, and I hate the way they died of smallpox. Tale Teller’s daughter Wren had just married and had a baby when the plague killed them both, for example, and her beautiful bones (even the archaeologists marveled) and those of her baby are there together. I made up the story, but a beautiful young woman and her baby really did die then, and who is to say it wasn’t Wren? This morning I got the bodies buried—what a job that was, covering over 77 bodies using baskets of sand hauled by hand!—but there’s still the ceremony of the Black Drink to go, to be sure the spirits of the dead are satisfied and don’t get mad at the living. It is bad business when the spirits get angry! Then I’ll have to do the Author’s Note, with all the dry discussion about population statistics and plagues and excavation of mounds. So this letter is a kind of relief, because we aren’t going to bury you in a mound and dig you out over 400 years later to look at your bones. We’re not going to bury you at all; we’re going to get you up and about and out of Cumbersome hospital.