A Highly Unlikely Scenario, or a Neetsa Pizza Employee's Guide to Saving the World

by Rachel Cantor

But, Sally! Leonard said. We don’t know what we did wrong!

  My name isn’t Sally, Sally said. Now go.

  Grasshopper legs and the world of the demons

  Leonard consulted the Brazen Head on his navigation watch about caravan times and then, because they had time, brought Felix to the (Nondenominational) University Eating Establishment to get him a snack of fried grasshopper legs, which Felix loved but today would not eat.

  Can it be the Time between Here and There? Felix asked.

  Of course, Leonard said.

  It’s my fault, the boy said. I shouldn’t have said what I said. Now you’ll never get married!

  You only said the truth, right?

  Yup, Felix said.

  I think she’s a little crazy.

  I think she’s nice. I want you to marry her!

  Me too, Leonard said, surprising himself. How about we find out what Cathars are?

  Felix nodded and poured sesame sauce on a grasshopper leg.

  The navigator watch didn’t have as many options as the screen Brazen Head. Leonard chose the window shopper, then pressed Speak to Me and asked, What is a Cathar? The window shopper smashed fancy store windows, grabbed shiny infofiles and hid them in his overcoat, then deposited them in front of the Brazen Head, which looked at them disdainfully and said:

  “Catharism, also known as Albigensianism, was a medieval Christian sect that flourished in Languedoc and northern Italy in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Considered heretical by the Catholic Church, the sect was all but obliterated by the Crusades and Inquisition; a remnant found refuge in our Great Land, where they now form a small but powerful faction. According to Catharism’s dualistic beliefs, an evil material world stands in possibly eternal opposition to a good, spiritual world. Personally, the Brazen Head believes the Cathars to have been influenced by Manichean dualism, though the Head recognizes that in holding this belief it bucks all manner of scholarly tide. Later, alligator!”

  The Head stuck a finger in his ear, wiggled it about, and removed it to find, on its tip, a little woman, who was chased off the edge of the watch face by a black-robed man with an ax.

  Not terribly illuminating, Leonard said.

  It’s the demons, Felix said. Don’t you see? The evil material world standing in possibly eternal opposition to a good, spiritual world. He’s talking about Grandfather’s demons!

  Give a girl a present

  Leonard hoped Isaac would call with a Plan B, so he dragged his grandfather’s settee back into the no-longer-white room and spent the night there. Carol wasn’t back from her book group, so Felix, who didn’t love being alone in the dark, slept in Leonard’s room with Medusa.

  Leonard wished he could get in touch with Milione. Mill was a man of the world: he would know how to woo Sally, or whatever her name was; he could explain what Leonard had done wrong.

  But Isaac didn’t call, and neither did Mill. There would be no Plan B, no romantic assistance.

  Realizing that Carol might be gone awhile, Leonard decided he needed to conserve cash, so the next morning, he packed a portable lunch consisting of jujuberries, some bridies, and cold revolutionary stew. He didn’t have any lucre himself, having given half his salary to Carol, always, for his board, and half to the pizza-greeter ministry. Now he wished he’d kept some: he wanted to buy a fancy sash or a swatch-cut for his afro.

  We need to bring Sally a present, Felix said. So she’ll like us again.

  Her name isn’t Sally, Leonard said.

  Yes it is, Felix said.

  He seemed very certain about this.

  I’m not sure she ever did like us, Leonard said. She was just doing her job.

  I’m sure she liked you, Felix said. Before she pushed you. What can we give her?

  I’ve never given a girl a present, Leonard said. What do you think?

  She likes books so probably she likes drawings. That book of hers had drawings. I could give her a drawing. What about a drawing of the demon world from Grandfather’s story?

  Whatever, Leonard said. Sally probably wouldn’t even be at the library, and if she was, she’d refuse to be their Book Guide. He’d had one chance to find a wife and he’d bungled it! Still, Isaac had said the library, so after Leonard had supervised exactly five minutes of awesome karate kicks, they again went to the caravan. When the Service Desk assigned them to Dora, Leonard gathered his courage and said, We really enjoyed our conversation yesterday with Sally. In fact, we weren’t quite done when our time was up.

  This isn’t our policy, the Service Desk said, so Leonard said, The young chap has a gift for Miss Sally, and Felix obligingly waved the demon picture. His sweetest little-boy smile did not soften the heart of the Service Desk, so Leonard said, Dora will be fine, but first the young ’un has to go to the restroom.

  I don’t, though, Felix said.

  Yes you do, Leonard said, and they slipped off, first toward the restroom, then following the path from the day before, through the talking-books room, past the scriptorium, down the aqua hallway, past the scholar tables, till they reached the locked bubbleglass partition.

  Criminy, Felix said. What now?

  I guess we have some jujuberries and wait, Leonard said, but they didn’t have to wait because along came a brisk someone wearing a senior librarian skirt who said, Chief Librarian Isaac said you were to pass?

  That’s right, Leonard said. Both of us.

  Right, the senior librarian said, looking puzzled. I don’t know any Chief Librarian Isaac, but he had access to my headset, and into the breathreader she blew.

  Wow! Felix whispered as they continued along without her.

  Between the two of them, they remembered every dark hallway and stairwell till they reached the staircase that played marches.

  Peter! Felix whispered.

  Do you think she’ll be happy to see us? Leonard asked.

  Certainly, Felix said, but when they arrived, Library Security was there with their noise absorbers and library sticks to escort them out of the building. As Sally watched and bit her nails, Leonard’s and Felix’s hands were tied behind their backs and they were led exactly down the route whence they’d come, but not before Felix managed to drop his drawing of the demon world before Peter’s desk.

  A non-bleating, non-sirening call

  That night as Leonard again waited on his grandfather’s settee for word of Plan B, he got a call. He very nearly answered with his Neetsa Pizza script: those had been the only calls he’d ever received on a non-bleating, non-sirening phone.

  It was Sally, or whatever her name was.

  What do you want from me? she asked.

  How did you know where to call? Leonard asked back.

  The boy, he put your number on the drawing. Where did he get it?

  The drawing? He made it. For you. To say he was sorry for whatever we did.

  Yes, but where did he get it?

  Too late, Leonard realized that he shouldn’t have allowed Felix to give her part of his opus: it referred to demon stories he wasn’t supposed to share.

  I can’t tell you, Leonard said simply, deciding that if Sally was to be his wife, he must be honest with her.

  You’re Baconians, aren’t you? she whispered. I was wrong about you.

  We’re nothing, Leonard said. We don’t know what Baconians are. We’re not Cathars, either. I’m Pythagorean, and the boy is half Jacobin, sort of. You know, it wasn’t necessary to tie his hands. You frightened him. We had to spend twenty minutes in the University Eating Establishment waiting for his health meter to normalize.

  I think you’d better come down here.

  Where? The library? Felix is sleeping. It’s three in the morning.

  Tomorrow, then. Come to the side entrance, the one with the sun on it. Be there at noon.

  Will you tell me your real name?

  But she was gone.

  Baconians

  Leonard asked his screen Brazen Head what a Baconian was. He was too tired to choose an in
formation-gathering method, so he got the stock figure of a woman checking her watch and tapping her foot in irritated boredom, then the Head appeared and said, “You’re joking, right? Sounds like bacon and onion, maybe a made-up word for an unappetizing omelet? Another time, key lime.”

  Maybe the girl really was crazy.

  We have a second chance, Leonard advised Felix the next morning. A third chance. We’d better look trim and act sharp.

  He straightened Felix’s peaked cap, wiped cinnamon bun off his cheek.

  Have you been brushing your teeth since your mom left? he asked.

  More or less, Felix said.

  What about baths? Have you taken a bath?

  I don’t get dirty, Felix said. I don’t like dirt, remember?

  Sounds good, Leonard said. Five minutes of karate kicks, okay?

  Then Leonard fossicked for lucre and packed a lunch—what was left of the skirlies, and some jujuberries. He had no primary-colored stockings to wear, and no sashes, thick or thin, but he did find a nonpatterned tunic in a robust lavender. It would have to do.

  The caravan was delayed. The Brazen Head on Leonard’s navigator watch explained that this was because of explosions the night before in three Business District eateries—a Neetsa Pizza, a Heraclitan Grill, and a Whiggery Piggery. Some of the roads had become impassable. The culprits had cleverly disassembled all the neighborhood webcams, so their identity was not known. Heraclitans (naturally) blamed the Pythagoreans, who blamed the monarchists, who blamed the Whigs. No one blamed the Luddites, whose machine-breaking bakers were presumed not to know about webcams. The caravan had to detour around the Business District—already Leonard and Felix were late.

  They hurried through the University Walking Grounds, Leonard holding Felix’s hand because he could see fights breaking out between pizza greeters and flamethrowers, royal pages and neo-Maoists. It was well after 12:30 by the time they arrived at the Library and found, in the back, an entrance on which someone had painted a crude yellow sun with spiky orange rays.

  Sally wasn’t there, she wasn’t anywhere. Leonard wanted to cry.

  We’ll wait, he said.

  She’ll come, Felix said, and they leaned against the door, chewing on jujuberries.

  Suddenly the door opened behind them and they tumbled into a dark hallway.

  Shh! It was Peter. Quickly, he said.

  Now that Peter was out from behind his desk, Leonard could see that he was terribly short, no taller than Felix, which is to say, about half Leonard’s height. He wore layers of checked suede—shirt, waistcoat, jacket—and walked, quickly, with a gnarly cane.

  You should have come on time, he muttered. Miss Sally will be displeased.

  As they walked swiftly down yet more dark hallways and up and around various dark stairwells, Leonard, still holding Felix’s hand, took the opportunity to think about Sally. Now that he was to see her again, now that she had asked to see them, it seemed safe to contemplate her perfections. There was the matter of her waterfall curls and headbeads, her uniquely stylish garb, and the mystery of her name. Leonard hadn’t realized how much he liked mystery in a woman! Because he was still in essence if not in employment a Pythagorean, he took a moment also to consider her proportions—she wasn’t wanting there, either! Her legs were just the right length vis-à-vis her arms, and her torso, and her cute freckled nose. There was also the alien quality of her obsessions, and the way his arm tingled when she shook his hand. Yes, Leonard concluded as they approached the wooden revolving door, Sally, Baconian or no, Sally or no, was perfection.

  Closed for renovations

  To move through the wooden revolving door, Peter first had to shift a standing sign that read, Closed for Renovations. At which point Leonard realized that the Priceless Manuscripts sign had been replaced by a crooked, hand-printed banner that read Archive of Severely Damaged, Unreadable, Out-of-Date Caravan Directories.

  There’s a new Chief Librarian, Peter mumbled. An Isaac Someone-or-other. No one’s seen him, but Miss Sally wishes to take precautions.

  Felix tugged at Leonard’s outback jacket, but Leonard took his hand and squeezed it. Once inside the Precious Manuscripts parlor, he was surprised to see the room outfitted as if in preparation for a siege. Someone had brought in a small refrigerator and a hot plate and a tea service for eight, in addition to a crate of apples, a bag of dried grasshopper legs, and a large store of peanut-butter jam squares.

  Someone has to be here at all times, Sally explained from behind the desk. Her hair was pulled back severely and contained in sparkling fishnet. She wasn’t wearing freckledot makeup; Leonard could see now that she didn’t need it.

  Let’s go in, she said, accepting antiseptic gloves from Peter as they entered the small room to the side. Inside, there was a cot, on the ground next to which someone had placed a torchlight and some books. Sally, probably, since her clutchbag was also there.

  What do you know about the Voynich? she asked.

  Leonard and Felix shrugged.

  Have a seat, she said. It’s time I explained. Don’t be uneasy: Peter is standing guard.

  For some reason, this made Leonard uneasy.

  Sit, Sally said. People always sit when I give my talks.

  She opened the cabinet and pointed mechanically at the book.

  This is the Voynich manuscript. The Voynich manuscript is the only unreadable book in the universe. It is written in a code that no one can understand. Emperor Rudolph II of Bohemia purchased this book in 1586, though the book is known to be older than that. The emperor was a strange man who amused himself with games and codes. He collected dwarves—Leonard and Felix knew better than to interrupt—and had a regiment consisting solely of giants. The manuscript was sold to him possibly by John Dee—an English navigator and spy who shared Rudolph’s interest in magic and the occult. The manuscript passed through many hands, eventually being found in 1912 by Wilfrid M. Voynich. Hence the Voynich manuscript.

  The Voynich contains 246 quarto pages, of which 212 contain mysterious drawings. These drawings are of botanical, astrological-astronomical, biological, and pharmaceutical subjects, which is to say, they’re of plants, stars and planets, and so on.

  Sally removed the dustproof cloth, which Leonard noted was not the one in which she’d blown her delicate nose. She placed it on the scholar table, then carefully opened the book so that Leonard and Felix could from that distance see drawings of plants—book-size versions of the drawings on the wall, which Felix was about to remark on out loud, when Leonard, sensing Felix’s impending irruption, pinched his side. She covered the book again with the cloth.

  This is where my lecture usually ends, Sally said. Because this is where it gets interesting. The Cathars are convinced that the Voynich reveals the secret location of the Holy Grail, though they are utterly unable to prove it. They’d like very much for it to be so because they don’t have much left in the way of documentation. If they can crack the code and prove the book is theirs, they might attract new members. The Strawberry Parfait ice cream chain isn’t exactly bringing them in.

  I didn’t know—

  That Parfait is Cathar? Exactly! They’ve got no outreach, no philosophy they’re willing to share with their customers, and besides, once you’re fully initiated you have to starve yourself to death, and who wants that? But Parfait lucre helped establish this university. They’re strangling Voynich studies: they’ll only allow research that supports their point of view! We Latter-Day Baconians and some other inconsequential groups have been forced underground, practically.

  Baconians? Leonard asked. He couldn’t help himself. He had to know everything there was to know about Sally: if she was a Baconian, he had to know what that meant.

  You don’t know anything, do you? Sally said.

  Leonard and Felix shook their heads.

  I’ll have to digress, then, won’t I? Roger Bacon was an English scientist, scholar, occultist, and Franciscan friar who lived from 1214 to 1294, or thereabouts, or
maybe from 1220, it’s hard to know. He was the most brilliant man of his age. He wrote the Voynich! Really, you haven’t heard of him?

  Does he have a food chain? Leonard asked.

  No! Sally said, disgusted in a way that pierced Leonard’s heart. He decided he’d ask no more questions.

  He was a Master at Oxford, then he taught in Paris. We don’t know where he was between 1247 and 1256, though I have my ideas. He became a friar in 1256, expecting that this would lead to another teaching position, but instead, a few years later, the Franciscans prohibited him from publishing. He eventually got around this through Pope Clement, formerly known as Cardinal Guy le Gros de Foulques, who instructed him in 1266 to write about the place of philosophy in theology. Am I speaking too fast?

  No, Leonard said.

  You have a glazed look on your face.

  I think you’re very pretty, Leonard said.

  Sally stomped her foot. Her freckled cheeks became pink.

  I need you to listen, she said. This is very important!

  Leonard listens best when someone pretty is talking, Felix said. That’s what he meant.

  Oh, Sally said. Sorry.

  Please, continue, Leonard said.

  Where was I?

  Leonard had no idea.

  The place of philosophy in theology, Felix said.

  Right. It was at this point that Roger Bacon produced the works for which he is most famous—and she pointed to some tomes beside her cot: Opus Majus, Opus Minus, De multiplicatione specierum.

  Latin, Felix said.

  Of course, Sally said. For the remainder of his life, Bacon alternately taught and suffered under house arrest, but this doesn’t interest us.

  It doesn’t? Leonard said.

  No, Sally said. Anyone hungry?

  Code yellow

  We should eat before I tell you the best part, the part nobody knows.

  Jujuberries? Leonard offered.

  Yuck, Sally said. Really, the only thing I like, besides legs, is, don’t laugh …