“I’ll buy you another one.”
“Don’t bother. It’s just I could fly better when I was wearing it.”
He said, “It’s not really flying. It’s more like hovering.”
“What, like leaping around like a pogo stick makes you special? Okay, so apparently it does. But you look like an idiot. Those enormous legs. That outfit. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“Why are you such a pain in the ass?”
“Why are you so mean? Why do you have to win every fight?”
“Why do you, Bunnatine? I have to win because I have to. I have to win. That’s my job. Everybody always wants me to be a nice guy. But I’m a good guy.”
“What’s the difference again?”
“A nice guy wouldn’t do this, Bunnatine. Or this.”
• • •
“Say you’re trapped in an apartment building. It’s on fire. You’re on the sixth floor. No, the tenth floor.”
She was still kind of stupid from the first demonstration. She said, “Hey! Put me down! You asshole! Come back! Where are you going? Are you going to leave me up here?”
“Hold on, Bunnatine. I’m coming back. I’m coming to save you. There. You can let go now.”
She held on to the branch like anything. The view was so beautiful she couldn’t stand it. You could almost ignore him, pretend you’d gotten up here all by yourself.
He kept jumping up. “Bunnatine. Let go.” He grabbed her wrist and yanked her off. She made herself as heavy as possible. The ground rushed up at them and she twisted, hard. Fell out of his arms.
“Bunnatine!” he said.
She caught herself a foot before she smacked into the ruins of the Yellow Brick Road.
“I’m fine,” she said, hovering. But she was better than fine! How beautiful it was from down here, too.
He looked so anxious. “God, Bunnatine, I’m sorry.” It made her want to laugh to see him so worried. She put her feet down gently. The whole world was made of glass, and the glass was full of champagne, and Bunnatine was a bubble, just flicking up and up and up.
She said, “Stop apologizing, okay? It was great! The look on your face. Being in the air like that. Come on, Biscuit, again! Do it again! I’ll let you do whatever you want this time.”
“You want me to do it again?” he said.
She felt just like a little kid. She said, “Do it again! Do it again!”
• • •
She shouldn’t have gotten in the car with him, of course. But he was just old pervy Potter and she had the upper hand. She explained how he was going to give her more money. He just sat there listening. He said they’d have to go to the bank. He drove her right through town, parked the car behind the Food Lion.
She wasn’t worried. She still had the upper hand. She said, “What’s up, pervert? Gonna do a little Dumpster diving?”
He was looking at her. He said, “How old are you?”
She said, “Fourteen.” He said, “Old enough.”
• • •
“How come you left after high school? How come you always leave?”
He said, “How come you broke up with me in eleventh grade?”
“Don’t answer a question with a question. No one likes it when you do that.”
“Well, maybe that’s why I left. Because you’re always yelling at me.”
“You ignored me in high school. Like you were ashamed of me. I’ll see you later, Bunnatine. Quit it, Bunnatine. I’m busy. Didn’t you think I was cute? There were plenty of guys at school who thought I was cute.”
“They were all idiots.”
• • •
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that they were really idiots. Come on, you know you thought so, too.”
“Can we change the subject?”
“Okay.”
• • •
“It wasn’t that I was ashamed of you, Bunnatine. You were distracting. I was trying to keep my average up. Trying to learn something. Remember that time we were studying and you tore up all my notes and ate them?”
• • •
“I saw they still haven’t found that guy. That nutcase. The one who killed your parents.”
“No. They won’t.” He threw rocks at where the owl had been. Nailed that sorry, invisible, absent owl.
“Yeah?” she said. “Why not?”
“I took care of it. He wanted me to find him, you know? He just wanted to get my attention. That’s why you gotta be careful, Bunnatine. There are people out there who really don’t like me.”
“Your dad was a sweetheart. Always tipped twenty percent. A whole dollar if he was just getting coffee.”
“Yeah. I don’t want to talk about him, Bunnatine. Still hurts. You know?”
“Yeah. Sorry. So how’s your sister doing?”
“Okay. Still in Chicago. They’ve got a kid now. A little girl.”
“Yeah. I thought I heard that. Cute kid?”
“She looks like me, can you imagine? She seems okay, though. Normal.”
• • •
“Are we sitting in poison ivy?”
“No. Look. There’s a deer over there. Watching us.”
• • •
“When do you have to be at work?”
“Not until six a.m. I just need to go home first and take a shower.”
“Cool. Is there any beer left?”
“No. Sorry,” she said. “Should’ve brought more.”
“That’s okay. I’ve got this. Want some?”
• • •
“Why don’t you leave?”
“Why go wait tables in some other place? I like it here. This is where I grew up. It was a good place to grow up. I like all the trees. I like the people. I even like how the tourists drive real slow between here and Boone. I just need to find a new job or Mom and I are going to end up killing each other.”
“I thought you were getting along.”
“Yeah. As long as I do exactly what she says.”
“I saw her at the parade. With some little kid.”
“Yeah. She’s been babysitting for a friend at the restaurant. Mom’s into it. She’s been reading the kid all these fairy tales. She can’t stand the Disney stuff, which is all the kid wants. Now they’re reading The Wizard of Oz. I’m supposed to get your autograph, by the way. For the kid.”
“Sure thing! You got a pen?”
“Oh, shit. It doesn’t matter. Maybe next time.”
• • •
It got dark slow and then real fast at the end, the way it always did, even in the summer, like daylight realized it had to be somewhere right away. Somewhere else. On weekends she came up here and read mystery novels in her car. Moths beating at the windows. Got out every once in a while to take a walk and look for kids getting into trouble. She knew all the places they liked to go. Sometimes the mutants were down where the stage used to be, practicing. They’d started a band. They were always asking if she was sure she couldn’t sing. She really, really couldn’t sing. That’s okay, the mutants always said. You can just howl. Scream. We’re into that. They traded her ’shine for cigarettes. Told her long, meandering mutant jokes with lots of hand gestures and incomprehensible punch lines. Dark was her favorite time. In the dark she could imagine that this really was the Land of Oz, that when the sun couldn’t stay away any longer, when the sun finally came back up, she’d still be there. In Oz. Not here. Click those heels, Bunnatine. There’s no home like a summer place.
She said, “Still having nightmares?”
“Yeah.”
“The ones about the end of the world?”
“Yeah, you nosy bitch. Those ones.”
“Still ends in the big fire?”
“No. A flood.”
• • •
“Remember that television show?”
“Which one?”
“You know. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Even Mom liked it.”
“I saw it a few times.”
“I keep
thinking about how that vampire, Angel, whenever he got evil, you knew he was evil because he started wearing black leather pants.”
“Why are you obsessed with what people wear? Shit, Bunnatine. It was just a TV show.”
“Yeah, I know. But those black leather pants he wore, they must have been his evil pants. Like fat pants.”
“What?”
“Fat pants. The kind of pants that people who get thin keep in their closet. Just in case they get fat again.”
He just looked at her. His big ugly face was all red and blotchy from drinking.
She said, “So my question is this. Does Angel the vampire keep a pair of black leather pants in his closet? Just in case? Like fat pants? Do vampires have closets? Or does he donate his evil pants to Goodwill when he’s good again? Because if so then every time he turns evil, he has to go buy new evil pants.”
He said, “It’s just television, Bunnatine.”
• • •
“You keep yawning.”
He smiled at her. Such a nice-boy smile. Drove girls of all ages wild. He said, “I’m just tired.”
“Parades can really take it out of you.”
“Fuck you.”
She said, “Go on. Take a nap. I’ll stay awake and keep lookout for mutants and nemesissies and autograph hounds.”
“Maybe just for a minute or two. You’d really like him.”
“Who?”
“The nemesis I’m seeing right now. He’s got a great sense of humor. Sent me a piano crate full of albino kittens last week. Some project he’s working on. They pissed everywhere. Had to find homes for them all. Of course, first we checked to make sure that they weren’t little bombs or possessed by demons or programmed to hypnotize small children with their swirly red kitten eyes. Give them bad dreams. That would have been a real PR nightmare.”
“So what’s up with this one? Why does he want to destroy the world?”
“He won’t say. I don’t think his heart’s really in it. He keeps doing all these crazy stunts, like with the kittens. There was a thing with a machine to turn everything into tomato juice. But somebody who used to hang out with him says he doesn’t even like tomato juice. If he ever tries to kidnap you, Bunnatine, whatever you do, don’t say yes if he offers you a game of chess. Try to stay off the subject of chess. He’s one of those guys who think all master criminals ought to be chess players, but he’s terrible. He gets sulky.”
“I’ll try to remember. Are you comfortable? Put your head here. Are you cold? That outfit doesn’t look very warm. Do you want my jacket?”
“Stop fussing, Bunnatine. Am I too heavy?”
“Go to sleep, Biscuit.”
• • •
His head was so heavy she couldn’t figure out how he carried it around on his neck all day. He wasn’t asleep. She could hear him thinking.
He said, “You know, someday I’m going to fuck up. Someday I’ll fuck up and the world won’t get saved.”
“Yeah. I know. A big flood. That’s okay. You just take care of yourself, okay? And I’ll take care of myself and the world will take care of itself, too.”
Her leg felt wet. Gross. He was drooling on her leg. He said, “I dream about you, Bunnatine. I dream that you’re drowning, too. And I can’t do anything about it. I can’t save you.”
She said, “You don’t have to save me, baby. Remember? I float. Let everything turn into water. Just turn into water. Let it turn into beer. Tomato juice. Let the Land of Oz sink. Ozlantis. Little happy mutant Dorothy mermaids. Let all those mountain houses and ski condos go down, all the way down and the deer and the bricks and the high school girls and the people who never tip. It isn’t all that great a world anyway, you know? Biscuit? Maybe it doesn’t want to be saved. So stop worrying so much. I’ll float. I’m Ivory soap. Won’t even get my toes wet until you come and find me.”
“Oh, good, Bunnatine,” he said, drooling, “that’s a weight off my mind”—and fell asleep. She sat beneath his heavy head and listened to the air rushing around up there in the invisible leaves. It sounded like water moving fast. Waterfalls and lakes of water rushing up the side of the mountain. But that was some other universe. Here it was only night and wind and trees and the stars were coming out. Hey, Dad, you fuckhead.
Her legs fell asleep and she needed to pee again, but she didn’t want to wake up Biscuit. She bent over and kissed him on the top of his head. He didn’t wake up. He just mumbled, Quit it, Bunnatine. Love me alone. Or something like that.
• • •
She remembers being a kid. Nine or ten. Sneaking back into the house at four in the morning. Her best friend, Biscuit, has gone home, too, to lie in his bed and not sleep. She had to beg him to let her go home. They have school tomorrow. She’s tired and she’s so hungry. Fighting crime is hard work. Her mother is in the kitchen, making pancakes. There’s something about the way she looks that tells Bunnatine she’s been out all night, too. Maybe she’s been out fighting crime, too. Bunnatine knows her mother is a superhero. She isn’t just a waitress. That’s just her cover story.
She stands in the door of the kitchen and watches her mother. She practices her hovering. She practices all the time.
Her mother says, “Want some pancakes, Bunnatine?” She waited as long as she could, and then she heaved his head up and put it down on the ground. She covered his shoulders with her jacket. Like setting a table with a handkerchief. Look at the big guy, lying there so peacefully. Maybe he’ll sleep for a hundred years. But more likely the mutants will wake him, eventually, with their barbaric yawps. They’re into kazoos right now and heavymetal hooting. She can hear them warming up. Biscuit hung out with some of the mutants at school, years and years ago. They’ll get a kick out of his new outfit. There’s a ten-year high school reunion coming up, and Biscuit will come home for that. He gets all sentimental about things like that. Mutants, on the other hand, don’t do things like parades or reunions. They’re good at keeping secrets, though. They made great babysitters when her mom couldn’t take care of the kid.
• • •
She keeps her headlights off, all the way down the mountain. Turns the engine off, too. Just sails down the mountain like a black wing.
• • •
When she gets home, she’s mostly sober and of course the kid is still asleep. Her mom doesn’t say anything, although Bunnatine knows she doesn’t approve. She thinks Bunnatine ought to tell Biscuit about the kid. But it’s a little late for that, and who knows? Maybe she isn’t his kid anyway.
The kid has fudge smeared all over her face and her pillow. Leftover fudge from the parade, probably. Bunnatine’s mom has a real sweet tooth. Kid probably sat up eating it in the dark, after Bunnatine’s mom put her to bed. Bunnatine kisses the kid on the forehead. Goes and gets a washcloth, comes back and wipes off some of the fudge. Kid still doesn’t wake up. She’s going to be real disappointed about the autograph. Maybe Bunnatine will just forge Biscuit’s handwriting. Write something real nice. It’s not like Biscuit will care. Bunnatine would like to crawl into the kid’s bed, just curl up around the kid and get warm again, but she’s already missed two shifts this week. So she takes a hot shower and goes to sit with her mom in the kitchen until she has to leave for work. Neither of them has much to say to the other, which is normal, but her mom makes Bunnatine some eggs and toast. If Biscuit were here, she’d make him breakfast, too, and Bunnatine imagines that, eating breakfast with Biscuit and her mom, waiting for the sun to come up so that the day can start all over again. Then the kid comes in the kitchen, crying and holding out her arms for Bunnatine. “Mommy,” she says. “Mommy, I had a really bad dream.”
Bunnatine picks her up. Such a heavy little kid. Her nose is running and she still smells like fudge. No wonder she had a bad dream. Bunnatine says, “Shhh. It’s okay, baby. It was just a bad dream. Just a dream. Tell me about the dream.”
Kelly Link is the author of four short story collections: Get in Trouble, a finalist for the 2016 Pulitz
er Prize in Fiction, Pretty Monsters, Magic for Beginners, and Stranger Things Happen. She lives with her husband and daughter in Northampton, Massachusetts.
About the Editors
Tricia Reeks lives in the bear-infested mountains of Asheville, North Carolina with her mountaineer husband and her two ferocious French bulldogs. She is the founder of Meerkat Press and the editor of Love Hurts: A Speculative Fiction Anthology.
Kyle Richardson lives in the suburban wilds of Canada with his encouraging wife Michelle, their rambunctious son Kai, and a staircase that Kyle seems to be constantly tumbling down. He writes about shape-shifters, superheroes, and the occasional clockwork beast, moonlights as an editor at Meerkat Press, and has been working on his first novel for so long now, his wife has resorted to ultimatums. He made his short-fiction debut in Love Hurts: A Speculative Fiction Anthology and has since sold stories to Daily Science Fiction and his enthusiastic mother, at exorbitant rates.
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