“Terrific. You coulda told me.” Rick slammed himself into his seat and kicked his feet up. “I feel like a jerk.”
“So do I.” Keith buried his head in his hands, and didn’t bother to come up for air even during the voting. Even that was not the end of his disgrace. To Keith’s dismay, in spite of his self-sacrifice the vote came out overwhelmingly in favor of a new library. Keith had done too good a job of promotion. There were cries of glee when the voting results were announced. He felt like drowning himself.
As the meeting adjourned, Carl came over to him, and spoke to the top of Keith’s head. “I really enjoyed that, Doyle; I just wanted you to know. It’s too bad you won.”
“Lay off, Carl,” Rick said in a bored tone, but there was no mistaking the fury blazing behind his eyes. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t know who put the Historical Society on to Gillington, but I’m sure it wasn’t Keith’s fault.”
Carl puffed up with indignation and pointed at Keith. “What do you mean, who? He put them on to it, buddy. You thought it was funny to oppose issues just because I was backing ’em, huh, Doyle?”
“Carl,” Keith said, looking up. “Shut up. I still plan to campaign against everything you do for the rest of your life. I blew this one, but it’s the only one you’ll ever get. I don’t like you treating me like a weirdo, and I’m a little tired of you trashing my dorm room, too,” Keith added pugnaciously, rising to his feet. Carl stood a lot taller than he did. He felt like the Chicken-hawk threatening Foghorn Leghorn, but he kept his ground.
“What is going on here?” Rick inquired, uncrossing his running shoes and standing up. “We won!”
For once Carl looked honestly surprised. “I didn’t touch your room, turkey. I haven’t done a thing to you. Yet.”
“Not once? Tuesday was the second time.” Keith was taken aback. “Then, who?” Rick looked at one, and then the other, and back again.
“I don’t know. Now, blow, punk, or I’ll do worse than trash your room.” Carl leaned forward menacingly.
“Well, okay,” Keith shouted, making for the door with a fist raised. “You won’t have Keith Doyle to push Carl Mueller around anymore. At least until next meeting. I’m going to get that vote overturned.” He left with Rick following right behind him.
“Did I miss something? At least you could tell me what’s going on, Doyle.…”
O O O
“The next thing I have to do is make sure that the Historical Society doesn’t do a basement to attic check. It’s pretty hard to hide a whole village. I have to get them to declare monument status for Gillington before the committee reports to the Dean, or I won’t be able to stop the planning commission. The good news is that I get back into the Master’s class just before it’s time to study for the Soc. final. I may even pass, considering how lousy I’m doing on practical social interaction. Marcy?” Keith asked, leaning across her kitchen table and waving a hand in front of her eyes. She was sitting rigid, staring down at a spot. “Hello?”
Marcy blinked. “Sorry.”
“Tell old Uncle Keith what’s on your mind,” he wheedled, patting her hand gently. She endured three pats, then drew away. “I don’t like to see my friends miserable. Unless I make them that way myself.”
She smiled sadly at that. “No, you didn’t do it. The truth is I’m sitting here feeling like a pervert.”
Keith did a double take. “Say that again? No, don’t. I heard you. Tell me why.”
“It started the day you got thrown out of class. Maybe a lot sooner, I don’t know. Carl said something insulting to me. I really hate him. He’s got such an ego. Enoch jumped on him for it. I think he would’ve hit him if Carl hadn’t backed off. Carl was really surprised. I was, too. He’s been … protective of me, lately. Enoch, not Carl.” She was having to fight to get the words out. “I … I feel, I don’t know.…”
“… Like you’ve got something going for him?” Keith finished, a little light going on in his mind. “That’s why you’ve been sort of backing off on me?”
Marcy nodded, miserably.
“Great!” Keith exclaimed.
“But I feel like I’m cradle-robbing, or something.”
Keith’s eyes went wide. “What? Is this the author of the Marcy Collier paper on the sociological stresses of racial dwarfism? The person who stood up to Doctor Freleng when he suggested that there wasn’t enough statistical evidence to make a sociological premise out of it? You are treating short people like children.” He pointed a finger toward her nose. “You’re doing it. Enoch is forty-six years old. He told me so himself! If anything, you’re a little young for him. He’s cradle-robbing.”
Marcy’s mouth fell open. Her tongue felt dry, and she swallowed. “He is?”
“Scout’s honor,” Keith held three fingers up. “That’s fact. Would you like to have me play carrier pigeon for a change and find out how he feels about you? Although I can guess already, from what you just told me.”
Marcy flushed at his last words, the red suffusing her fair skin to the hairline. “I’m sorry I said that to you about carrier pigeons.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything at first.”
“And I’m sorry, because I think you like me, too.”
“I do,” said Keith, standing up and taking her hand. This time she didn’t pull away. “Enough to want you to be happy. So, are we sorry enough? Shall I go?”
“Yes!” Marcy squeezed his hand, and her eyes were bright.
“Miles Standish to the rescue!” Keith assumed a heroic pose and strode out the door. The hallway rang with his triumph.
“What a weirdo,” observed one of Marcy’s roommates from the living room.
***
Chapter 20
Something seemed different about the hidden entrance in the block in the library wall. There seemed to have been some kind of erosion, or a more minor disturbance of surface dirt. “Sandblasting?” Keith asked himself. Apparently, it had caused some internal disturbance as well. The passage wouldn’t open up to him. It took some time before someone heard him and let him in. Marm appeared, peering cautiously around outside before he shut the heavy facade.
“There was scratching on the wall last night,” Marm told Keith, guiding him by lantern light down the ladder inside. “We listened, but decided it couldn’t be you. You’d just come in the other door then. The old ones were pretty worked up.”
Keith was disturbed by the news. “You don’t think someone else knows you’re here?”
The bearded elf spat. “O’ course they do. You know, and pretty Marcy knows, and fair Teri knows, and staunch Lee knows. All those do.”
“I meant strangers. None of the other students know about this door. Not from me.”
Marm looked very worried. “Perhaps from one of us, then. There’s been a bit of coming and going of late. More than in past years, I can tell you. Are you going to want the same kind of wood for my boxes, or can I use what I can get?”
“Use whatever you want, Marm,” Keith said absently.
Marm shrugged. “What I want is not what I have. Our supplies are not great. Our stockpiles are gleaned slowly, at night and secretly. You must know that the old ones consider you to be wasting our time and our precious resources.”
“I don’t think it’s a waste.”
“Neither do us younger ones,” Marm declared. “But we don’t speak for the clans.”
“Just have to use my salesmanship on them, too,” Keith said glumly. “Don’t worry. It’ll all work out one day.” He spotted Holl walking by the hydroponic garden and waved. The stocky blond elf nodded and came over.
“Good day to you, Keith Doyle,” Holl said. “You’re a bit out of color today. Are you not feeling well?”
Keith found it impossible to meet his friend’s eyes, and spoke to his feet. “They took the vote. They’re going to tear down this library.”
Holl nodded sympathetically. “I know. It’s almost an anticlimax after that day in class, isn’t
it? Very brave of you to come and break the news.”
Keith was taken aback. “How did you know? I was coming down here to tell you.”
The Maven took a piece of folded newsprint out of a pocket. “We all read newspapers. It was in The Midwesterner. Here, ‘Student Makes Plea for Historic Gillington.’ We’re all most happy about it though it went so against you. You did try. That was enough even for some of the oldsters.”
“The vote was pretty lopsided. I felt like an idiot,” Keith admitted, and thought for a minute. “For once I did something well. Too well. The truth is that I have no idea now when the axe will fall. The Historical Society may not come through for us in time. I’ll understand it if you decide you never want me to come down here again.” He grimaced. “I may be able to pass the Sociology final on my own.”
“No need,” Holl said, grinning. “You’re still welcome, and in the class as well. For the first time in forty years, they’re stirred up. And, for the first time ever, by a Big Person. They’ve decided to follow your idea to stockpile against the future, since we have no pots of gold. We may not be able to avert disaster so neatly if we haven’t our able champion. It’s an elegant solution, I must admit, to make us work for our own salvation.” Keith kicked the pavement uncomfortably, and Holl chuckled. “There’s a second reason as well, and it, too, is your fault. They’re beginning to see what they’ve been missing in new goods. We can earn proper raw materials for daily living, and a few luxuries, too, while we save to buy a home. Lee brings some things in with the supplies. I don’t mind at all.”
“Seeing as you catalyzed them into it,” Keith pointed out.
“I just see a bit further ahead than the others. Never having lived anywhere else, I’m not burdened with memories of the ‘good old days.’ Though I find it hard to picture my home in another place, I can be … more objective. But to the point,” Holl finished, rubbing his palms together, “your two dozen lanterns will be ready in a week or so. I’ll let you know. We’re wrapping everything in newspaper. The librarians microfilm each edition of the daily press and then discard them. Such a waste. But we could use a bit of string or tape.”
“No problem. You guys are doing terrific,” said Keith, elated in spite of himself.
“May I return the compliment?” Holl smiled. “I do not judge success by the results, but by the attempt.”
“You sound like the Master.” Over Holl’s shoulder, Keith spotted Enoch between two of the small houses. The black-haired elf was sawing wood, scowling at each cut piece as it fell between the saw-horses. “’Scuse me.”
O O O
“Hi, there,” he said gently, so as not to startle Enoch into having an accident. “Can I talk to you a minute?”
The black eyes rose and bored into him. “You’re talking. Go ahead. I need not listen if I don’t want to,” Enoch said curtly, and went back to cutting wood. He had on a carpenter’s smock with tools poking out of the many front pockets. There was a heap of small tile-shapes, which Keith recognized as the bases for the elf’s own specialty, puzzle boxes. The oddly shaped pieces which made up the rest of the wooden conundrums had been sorted into a neat line of baskets beside the squares. It was a tidy assembly-line.
“Well,” Keith sat down on the packed earth floor with his back against one of the houses. A spider meandered down from the eaves on a thread and hovered in front of his face and pondered his capture. He wondered where it would be best to begin his appeal. “It’s about Marcy.”
Without looking up again, Enoch snapped, “What about her?” In an instant, his face and ears had turned dark red with anger.
“Well, I only really met her a few months ago. I like her a lot. I think she’s a great person. She’s intelligent, she’s pretty, and she’s fun to be with. More than a little secretive,” Keith smiled, looking around at the village, “but otherwise what else could a guy want?”
“I know all of these things.”
“Oh, I know you do. I just wanted to let you know.…”
“Aye, you don’t have to go on,” Enoch said hostilely. “That it’s; she and you, and you want me to keep my hands off, isn’t that it?”
“No,” Keith contradicted him. “You’re half right. It’s she, but it’s not me. It’s you. I am here to ask you, as a friend, just how interested you are in her. I think you are very interested.”
“How would you know?”
“Well, right now, it’s written on your forehead in bold-face print. Right under ‘Doyle go home,’” Keith quipped wryly. “But mostly, it was your standing up to Carl the day I got thrown out of the Master’s class. She noticed it then, too.”
“It’s none of your business.” Enoch gestured sharply at him.
“True,” Keith conceded, gritting the words through his front teeth. His back teeth had unaccountably grown together, holding his jaw shut, and he couldn’t wrench them apart. He ran his tongue around to determine the cause of the phenomenon. Nothing there. It must be something Enoch was doing to him, but he hadn’t sealed Keith’s lips, so it wasn’t enough to shut him up. “But is it doing either of you any good as just your business?”
“Go away!” A slice of wood slipped off the end of the block he was sawing, quickly followed by another, and another. Keith watched in fascination as they clonked to the floor. Each section was dead even. Sweat beaded on Enoch’s forehead. He wiped it away with the back of his free hand without ceasing work, and left a sawdust stripe over one eye.
Keith cleared his throat to project his voice over the saw. “I can’t; I’m not through. Would it help if I said Marcy and I just had a talk, and she admitted she doesn’t want to go out with me anymore because she can’t stop thinking of you?” Keith inquired, ramming the sentences out so that Enoch couldn’t interrupt him. The color faded from Enoch’s face until it was as pale as it had been red. He stared at Keith, who concentrated on looking innocent and helpful.
“Is this true?”
Keith’s jaws unlocked suddenly. He worked his mandible muscles stiffly. It must have been a variation on the cohesiveness spell Holl had once described to him. Whew! he thought, I’d hate to get the little guy really mad. “Trust me. I’m a carrier pigeon, to coin a phrase. A go-between. Western Union. Cyrano de Bergerac.”
“I’ve read the book,” Enoch said, considering. There were the beginnings of hope in his eyes. He picked up another piece of wood, put the saw to it, then carefully set block and saw down on the ground and looked up at Keith. “Why did she not speak to me herself?”
Keith decided not to mention details of his conversation with Marcy. “She’s old fashioned,” he said instead. “And she’s shy. You understand.”
“That’s uncommonly good of you, if you care for her yourself.” Enoch eyed him suspiciously.
“I do. You know. It’s because I care that I’m talking to you,” Keith said. “I’m happy to be her friend. I’ve decided that’s enough for me. I guess I haven’t found Miss Right for Keith Doyle yet. If Marcy isn’t the one, why should I ruin it for other people?”
Enoch nodded, squinting thoughtfully at Keith, and then he smiled. The expression changed his whole face from that of a sullen little boy to an open, mature man. It was so startling Keith barely stopped himself from gaping at the transformation. “Ach, aye, well. Maybe it’s time I talked to her myself, then.”
He stripped off the smock and laid it over the saw horses. With a friendly nod to Keith, he disappeared into his little house, reappeared, buttoned up a coat with a cap over his ears, and walked purposefully toward the wall entrance tunnel.
“Wait,” Keith said, catching up with him. “It’s broad daylight out there. They’ll see you.”
There was determination in the dark elf’s eyes, making him look one last time like the headstrong boy who had sized Keith up that first day in class. “They’ll get used to it,” Enoch said.
O O O
A few days later, Keith reached for the phone without looking up from his “Sociology for the Mass
es” textbook. With the receiver between thumb and forefinger, he punched out Marcy’s number using his pinky. One of her roommates answered, and over the blare of heavy metal music roaring in the background, deigned to inform Marcy she had a call. She seemed a little amused by something. In a moment Marcy answered, sounding breathless.
“Hello?”
“Hi, it’s Keith.”
“Oh, hi,” she said, more casually. “I was doing laundry.”
“I was doing homework. I thought you might like to come over and help?” Keith said hopefully. “The final exam is coming up and all.”
“Oh, I can’t. I haven’t got anything clean to wear that’s dry.”
“How about tonight, then?”
There was a pause. “No. I’m going out. With Enoch … Keith? I’m happy. Really happy.”
“I’m happy for ya, doll-face.” Humphrey Bogart was back. “Don’t let him get fresh. But where are you going? You’re going to attract a lot of attention.”
“Well,” Marcy paused, embarrassed. “I thought about that, too; so we’re going to the movies.”
“What’s playing?”
There was a mumble on the other end of the phone, the only words of which Keith could distinguish were “double feature.” “What was that?” he asked, pressing his ear into the receiver. “I couldn’t hear you.”
“It’s a double feature,” Marcy announced, louder than necessary. There was a very long pause. He prompted her to repeat, and then laughed until he was out of breath when she said, almost in an undertone, “Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal.”
“That’s wonderful!” Keith hooted. “They’ll think you’re dating the star.… Marcy? Marcy…? Hello?”
***
Chapter 21
“I feel like I’ve been brought home to meet the folks,” Marcy said, bolt upright in the overstuffed armchair in Ludmilla Hempert’s living room, squeezing her hands together uncomfortably. She unclenched them to accept a cup of coffee and a plate of cake.
“I suppose I am considering myself to be family,” Ludmilla smiled, serving Keith from her rolling tea tray. Keith took his plate and sank happily into the upholstery of the wide couch. He scooped up a large forkful of cake and disposed of it with a blissful sigh. Ludmilla regarded him indulgently. “Are you comfortable, my dear? A cushion, perhaps?” The old woman swept down on Marcy with a pair of ornate pillows and tucked them in behind her.
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