Higher Mythology

by Jody Lynn Nye

  “If she’s had a bottle, you’ll want this next.”

  “Well! Logic!” Dola exclaimed gratefully. She raised an eyebrow at the man. “Thank you,” she said, bobbing her head. Skinny seemed embarrassed but pleased.

  He pulled a wadded pad out of the first box. They both saw immediately it was too big; it would have fit Dola herself. Skinny took a pad from the second box. It was about twice too big, but Dola could cut it in half lengthwise with the scissors from her chatelaine.

  There was another box, made of thick blue plastic. “Cleaning cloths.” Skinny pried open the half-lid and showed her one. It stank of some Big Person chemical antiseptic that made Dola cough.

  “It’s not a cloth, it’s some kind of paper,” she said, after a close look. “What a dreadful wasteful people you are, first diapers meant to be thrown away, then cloths that aren’t really cloth.”

  The man shook his head, crouching beside her. “I suppose you’re one of those green people,” he said, amused.

  “No, we’re not,” Dola said with spirit. “That’s a myth.”

  Skinny paused, as if about to deliver himself of a difficult query. “Do you grant wishes or something?”

  “And what if I did?” Dola asked. “Would I do anything for those who’ve imprisoned me against my will, and endangered my charge?”

  “I’ll make things nice for you,” the skinny man said. He rose and left the room.

  Mona sat at her desk with her head in her hands, going over alternate wording for the apology she was going to have to make to those children’s parents.

  “I’m so sorry we accidentally kidnapped your daughter,” she recited bitterly, practicing the sound of it. She shook her head. It wasn’t going to be easy no matter how she phrased it. She was embarrassed. When every single instance of public exposure counted, this was going to be a huge demerit. Except for their problems with waste disposal, she had done all the right things to keep the public on her side. She had been responsible for beginning a town-wide recycling program for plastics. All the Gilbreth office stationery was made of recycled paper. Even the wooden desk in her office was made of wood from a replanted forest. That girl and baby were innocent bystanders, snatched up by her employees in the midst of an illegal act. Could she apologize to the parents and ask them not to inquire into what her men were doing there on their property?

  Mona felt her ire rousing. Yes, that was right. This girl came from Hollow Tree Farm. They were already trying to ruin her reputation in the community. Instead of ashamed, she was getting angry.

  “Miz Gilbreth,” Pilton inquired, tapping on the door. “Are we gonna take the kids back?”

  Mona looked up at him sharply. “Grant, go back and ask that girl if she’s any relation to H. Doyle.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, backing out of the office obediently.

  Pilton was back in a moment, looking more bemused than usual. “Miz Gilbreth, she says he’s her uncle.”

  “My God!” she cried, throwing her head back. “I can’t eat crow to him! It’s the end of my career!”

  Headlines danced before her eyes, worse than the ones she’d imagined before. She had to think. The party national committee must never, never get to hear of this incident. Maybe she could negotiate with the man. If the Doyles agreed it was all a mistake, and would promise not to press charges, she could still get out of this with a whole skin and an intact political career.

  “Well, we can’t have her going back to him and saying we maltreated her,” Mona said, half to herself. “We just can’t let her go yet.”

  Pilton looked pleased. “I was just gonna ask you, ma’am, it’s kind of cold in that office. If she’s going to stay a while I thought I’d go home and bring her my daughter’s sleeping bag. Would that be okay with you?”

  “Give them anything they want,” Mona snapped.

  Pilton grunted under the weight of the cardboard carton he was carrying. He shifted it to rest between his hip and the wall as he reached into his pocket for the key to the office, kicked open the door, and backed into the room.

  The little girl was just where she’d been sitting when he’d left.

  “I got some nice things for you,” he said. She looked up at him with dull eyes. The baby was sleeping on her lap. It was a cute little thing; had the same kind of ears the girl did. He wondered if Jake was right, and the shape was just a mutation like her size. Maybe their folks had been drinking the water that was tainted with the runoff from the factory. Pilton himself had seen what too much of that nitrogen feed could do to plants: just think what effect it might have on animals and people. And maybe he was right, and they’d captured a real live fairy girl.

  “Here’s a sleeping bag for you. It’s my daughter’s, but she won’t need it back right away. It’s just been washed, so it smells really good.” He held up the quilted bag. Dola glanced at it, put her nose in the air, and turned away again.

  “Got a few toys for you and the baby. Couple of books and magazines.” He showed her colorful digest-sized periodicals. Dola tried not to look interested even though she’d never seen those titles before. “I brought you a portable TV, too. The reception’s okay. Here’s a TV guide. You want to try it out?”

  Dola was very interested in trying the television, and in wrapping herself up in the warm-looking coverlet, but she didn’t want to seem too eager to accept his offerings. She hadn’t missed the query about her relation to Holl. It couldn’t be mere accident that the very people who were ruining their water supply were the same ones who had kidnapped her in their haste. They must be very uneasy. Skinny wanted so badly to make friends, but did she dare to appear vulnerable? He and the other man were responsible for bringing her here against her will. She had the sudden urge to make him pay dearly for her incarceration.

  “All right,” she said, hopping down from the chair. The seat was warm where her bottom had rested, so she set Asrai down there. Skinny plugged the set in and unrolled a long wire from the top to the metal window frame, where he hooked it in place.

  “Got no antenna,” he said. Dola watched carefully as he switched it on. A small dot appeared in the center of the screen, unfolding outward toward the boundaries until the picture could be distinguished. The sound warmed up just as slowly. She disliked the electronic hum behind the music and voices. Dola clapped her hands over her ears as the squeal grew louder and began to eat into her consciousness. On the chair, Asrai began to mutter and squirm in her sleep.

  “For the love of nature, turn it off!” Dola exclaimed. Skinny jumped for the controls and switched the set off. “Take it away. It’s so noisy I’d never enjoy a minute of it with all the terrible squeals and hums it makes.”

  “I thought you’d like it,” he said, hurt. “Look, here’s a program guide and everything.” He put the magazine down on the desk and pushed it toward her. “My kids like the cartoons in the morning.”

  “I don’t watch cartoons,” Dola said haughtily.

  Skinny nodded knowingly, evidently remembering that she was something special. “I guess you don’t,” he said. He unplugged the set. “I’ll take it home.”

  “No, leave it,” Dola said, suddenly curious what Big children’s entertainment was like. Hollow Tree had no television, and the sets at the library were not attached to antenna. All she had ever seen on them were educational tapes.

  “Can I get you something to eat?” Skinny asked.

  Dola assessed the empty feeling in her stomach and judged that her pride wouldn’t hold out against a night of abstinence. “Yes,” she said. She thought longingly of a treat that was forbidden at home by her Conservative relatives, and impetuously burst out, “Pizza!”

  “Sure,” Skinny said, and started out the door.

  “And it can’t be just any pizza,” she said, imperiously leveling a finger at him. “It must be in a proper box!”

  “Gotcha,” he said, shrugging into his coat.

  Dola sat by herself watching the television when she heard the
man coming back. Hastily, she switched it off, but was privately glad to do so. The evening news was scary. She was glad to be rid of it. No wonder the elders didn’t let Keith Doyle bring them a television to keep! It was almost enough to make one fear living in the world.

  Skinny’s footsteps came all the way to the door, and stopped while keys jingled and entered the lock.

  “Here you go!” he said, putting a large, flat box down on the table. “I brought you some soda, too.”

  Dola approached the box and gazed at it avidly. She only got pizza if Keith Doyle or one of their other Big friends was visiting. Great-gran Keva disliked it because the toppings hid the beauties of her prized bread, and most of the other elders hated it because it was so messy. Dola, like her friends Borget and Moira, loved it, and not just because Keith Doyle did, although that added to its attraction. The label attached to the box gave her pause at first. She sniffed carefully at the huge pizza, and tasted a bite with even greater care. She tried a larger bite of pizza, taking in a small, round slice of a green vegetable. It was very hot, but there was no doubt that it was fresh.

  “Why is it called garbage pizza when all the ingredients are unspoiled?” she asked.

  Skinny grinned, still watching her with open curiosity. “That’s because they just dump tons of stuff on top of it. It’s good. You like cola or lemon-lime?” He proffered two bottles with the tops twisted off.

  Dola sampled from one, then the other. Both contained fizzy drinks, the kind the Big Folk liked. She made a face. If this was the ale that custom demanded be served alongside pizza, she’d drink it, but it was a punishment in itself—gassy and without substance.

  “I’d rather have juice,” she said, and eyed Skinny to see if he’d obey her.

  He did. He went away and came back with orange juice, then went away again for freshly squeezed juice when Dola complained about the canned variety. She accorded him imperial nods instead of voicing her thanks, but he didn’t seem to find her behavior out of the ordinary, since he thought she was some kind of supernatural being.

  The pizza was very good, but Dola felt a little guilty enjoying it so much. She was being indulged more thoroughly because she was kidnapped than on the most sumptuous birthday she had ever had. It was turning out to be one of the best things that could have happened to her. She refused to think of what might happen to her hereafter, but her mother would be so glad to see her come home she’d surely forgive.

  By now there were few other noises in the great buildings around them. Occasionally she heard the slow footsteps of a heavy man passing by under the window. It was beginning to impinge upon Dola that unless she could cudgel her wits into coming up with a plan she was going to have to sleep in this room, that she couldn’t leave. One of her cousins was wise about locks, and could undo anything Big Folk could do up, but Dola’s particular talent was for illusion. She could make the door seem to vanish, but such a vision wasn’t good enough to allow her to pass into the hallway beyond.

  She was getting sleepy, and wagered that Skinny’s wits were becoming muddled with exhaustion, too. Perhaps now was the time to try and make her escape. It was worth a try to see if he could be persuaded by the avoidance charm to miss seeing her, at least until she could sneak past him and away.

  Concentrating on the TV program book, she willed the space around its surface to become slick so that all glances would slide immediately off toward something else. When she was having trouble keeping her eyes on it herself, she turned to Skinny.

  “Where has that TV book gone?” she asked pleasantly, dandling the baby in her lap.

  Skinny looked at the top of the desk, missing the book completely, and cast around. “Well, it was just right here,” he said. “I’ll find it for you. Maybe it just slid off the desk.” He started searching around, even picking up the sleeping bag, and shaking it out. He picked up the pizza box and looked underneath, almost touching it when he put the box down. Dola nearly laughed. Slowly, surreptitiously, she started applying the technique to herself and Asrai.

  Skinny, eager to please, was all but turning the office inside out in search of the book.

  “Well, I know it was here a minute ago,” he said, then turned around just as Dola sealed off the enhancement around herself. “Hey, little girl, where’d you go? Hey! This isn’t funny. Don’t hide on me. Come out this minute!”

  Now he was actively searching the room. Dola had to keep dodging around to keep him from touching her. If once he made physical contact no amount of sight-avoidance would work to preserve the illusion.

  A key jingled in the lock. Her opportunity was nearly there. Dola gathered herself for the dash. The door opened, and Jake stood in the doorway, a gun in his hand.

  “What are you making all that noise for?” he demanded.

  Skinny turned around, arms flailing and eyes wild. “She’s gone! She just disappeared again, like she did this afternoon. She got away!”

  “Crap. The door’s been closed the whole time, right? Then she has to be in here somewhere,” Jake said. Dola crept up by him, waiting for him to move into the room to help Skinny search. He cocked the gun and held it up by his head. She stopped, aghast.

  “Okay, kid,” he said, looking around at the empty air. “You come out right now or I’ll start blasting everything in this room. You hear me? You show your face right now or you’re gonna have a bullet in your gut!”

  Swallowing, Dola went back by the tall locker and removed the avoidance charm. She stepped out, holding the baby protectively with her arms covering as much of her little back as she could. Incredibly, Asrai had slept through all the shouting.

  “There,” Jake said, “you see? She’s still here. And she’d better still be here in the morning,” he thundered threateningly down on her. “You got me?” Timidly, Dola nodded. “Good. Come on, Grant. You better get home. Your wife called looking for you.”

  “Right. Good night, little girl,” Skinny said, with a friendly smile for her.

  The door boomed shut and locked tight. Dola stood staring at it for a moment, feeling more lonely and scared than ever.

  ***

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Keith spent the next day worrying and wondering about Dola and Asrai so much that he didn’t hear what Paul Meier was telling him until the second time through.

  “I said Judge Yeast likes your idea. They’re crazy about it, in fact,” Meier said gleefully. “The clients don’t mind that you’re an amateur. They said you gotta get your creative people from somewhere—they don’t drop out of the clouds, you know. So your names are on the layout.”

  Keith let the realization dawn with a sort of incredulous joy. A whoop wound its way up from the deepest part of his insides, until it burst out in a deafening crow of triumph. “Yahoo!” Dorothy beamed, and the end of her pencil danced a happy rhythm.

  “What did they like so much?” Brendan asked. He looked miffed, but was trying to pretend it didn’t matter. “I thought it was stupid.”

  “Anthropomorphism,” Paul replied, pronouncing each syllable with satisfied emphasis. “The client thought it brought to mind the Pillsbury Dough Boy and the Parkay margarine tubs all in one. No other yeast uses a character, and yet yeast is the ingredient in breads that makes it all happen. What with the growing surge in home baking, this is a big deal. They liked the connotation that the package’s a real judge, not just named for the Judge Company. It suggests that it’s a wise choice for bakers. They want to see a whole campaign based on it.”

  “Great!” Keith said, his eyes aglow.

  “Glad to hear you’re happy about it,” Meier said, with a sardonic tilt to his head. “Now here comes the work. You and Dorothy get to work on ideation. I want some more suggestions. You’re now working parallel with the pro team. I expect you to come up with more good stuff than they do. Show me some ideas tomorrow.” Dorothy perked up and nodded vigorously at Keith.

  “Uh, Paul,” Keith said, circling around the table and taking the supervisor asid
e confidentially, “could I maybe spend tomorrow doing some field research on say, one of PDQ’s downstate clients? I’ve just got to get down to the Midwestern campus. It’s an emergency.”

  “Problem with your girlfriend?” Meier asked, suddenly skeptical.

  “No!” Keith exclaimed, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “It’s something else. It’s really important, Paul. I wouldn’t ask for any other reason. Would it be impossible to wait the brainstorm session just one day?”

  Meier sighed, but lifted his shoulders helplessly. “Kid, this is a tough biz. All right. One day. Down by Midwestern, huh? You can go talk to Gilbreth Feed and Fertilizer, get a feel for what they’re up to. They’ll like that. We don’t usually pay house calls.”

  “Gilbreth? In Flyspeck?”

  “You know them?”

  “Sure do,” Keith said, with emphasis. Meier gave him a curious look.

  “Good. I’ll give you a letter of introduction. You can go and get a feel for what they’re up to. Ask questions. Look around. Maybe it’ll give you some ideas for their account.”

  Keith already had an idea of what Gilbreth was up to, namely polluting on a large scale and hiding their tracks, but he agreed to visit the factory. An in-depth visit might provide him with some good dirt for the Folk to use in their next letter to the editor.

  He smiled at Paul. “I promise I’ll take a really close look at everything that’s going on at Gilbreth.”

  Late that night, the telephone on the kitchen wall rang at Hollow Tree. The circle of Folk gathered around it glanced sidelong at one another, rolling the whites of their eyes like frightened horses. Even Holl hesitated, wondering what to do. Marcy looked at all of them, then snatched up the handset.

  “Hello?” she said. She turned to Holl, and with a significant look handed him the receiver. The other Folk tensed.

  “Hello?” he said. “Yes, this is … Mr. Doyle.”

  The voice at the other end was male, deep and gravelly. “The girl and the baby are safe. They’re healthy—I mean okay.”