The Fanciers & Realizers MEGAPACK

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  “Only when we’re in mourning. Hai, I know, it seems silly, doesn’t it? I guess ... we can’t do anything important about a death, but we can do little things, so we do them. On a ‘world turned upside down’ theme.”

  In mourning for Solly. Looking at her companion’s black armband, suddenly conscious that not only wasn’t she wearing one herself, she wasn’t wearing a doggone thing that could be called mourning, Keiko took a third celery stick and carefully spread soft cheese on the convex side, leaving one end bare to hold it by. “So,” she said, casual as Mr. Spock announcing ten seconds left to dismantle the dilaterium bomb before it blew up the galaxy, “hear anything new about Batory?”

  “Who? Oh, our dracula! No, I don’t think I’ve seen him around since the funeral. Why? Don’t tell me you’re still hoping for a bite on the neck?”

  “Whoever said I was hoping for that? Anyway, I thought you Greek types called all your housemates by their family names.”

  “No, that’s just our brother house next door. Dr. Fairchild has an oldstyle passion about family names. He tried to get us Sighs to go along, but Mama Becky wouldn’t have it. Told him he could be as oldschool as he liked with the brothers, but we sisters were going to stick with the new mannerliness about personal names and call everybody whatever they prefer being called. The word about you and Clement was all over Thelwell the year I was there.”

  It couldn’t have been, or Clement would have heard it and shied off. Aloud, Keiko said, “It couldn’t have been. I never heard it.”

  “The people it’s about almost never do.”

  “Well, anyway, you know how gossip is. Actually, we’re just good friends, Clement and me. Strictly study buddies. Like siblings, you know.”

  “Oh. Of course, if you say so.” Grinning faintly, Theda crunched into her celery.

  “Anyway, I just wondered. Not since the funeral, you say? Hey, that was Tuesday! Elvis! He’s been sighted around campus since then.” Keiko didn’t add that she’d spent a few study hours with him herself Thursday morning.

  “Oh, you know how it is. Or maybe you don’t, if you’re still an Independent. What with classes, house activities, and school activities, we can go a couple of weeks without seeing any particular brother of the house next door. Are you still an Independent, by the way?”

  “Clear through. Momma, I don’t join anything. And I can’t see where the big social advantage is anyway, if you people don’t know any more than that about one another’s comings and goings.”

  Theda tsked a kidding disapproval. “With forty-five brothers, thirty-two of them living next door, and forty sisters, thirty-four of them living here, do you expect each of us to know exactly where every other one is at all times?”

  “I never knew you had that many people living outside the houses.”

  “Oh, sure. Some of them prefer it. Of course, we’ve also got waiting lists of members who want to enjoy the benefits of living in. All the benefits of belonging.”

  “You must’ve been pretty lucky to get in right away yourself, then.”

  Theda grinned around a bite of celery. “Not really. I joined last spring and couldn’t move in till this fall. But class has its privileges. Juniors and seniors get preference. I was still a soph when I joined, but now—Oh, Kriemhild!” she added as another Sigh sister wandered into the room. “Have you seen our dracula around lately?”

  “Say,” said Kriemhild, “what’s going on about him, anyway? We just had—guess who? Cagey Warrington Thursday, no less! up here this morning pumping the brothers about him.”

  “Who’s Cagey Whatever Thursday?” Theda asked, to Keiko’s secret relief. Somebody else didn’t recognize the name right away.

  “You know,” Kriemhild explained, “that amateur detective who fancies herself an oldnation police officer and goes charging around the continent sniffing out real-life whodunits.”

  “Oh, yes!” said Keiko. “‘Lieutenant’ Thursday. Sniffed out that medical poisoner back in the ’thirties. Kind of a clouseau, too, isn’t she? Well, what about her?”

  Theda gave Keiko a curious glance. “Did you know anything about her before, Kokyo?”

  Keiko shrugged. “Just from old newscasts.” Putting her refreshments down, she gave Theda a quick American Sign Language “Tell you later” while Kriemhild was turned to the beverage dispenser. Letting even one Pi Sigh in on any confidence was a Heap Big Step. Keiko didn’t have the least desire to let a second one in on it, especially one she didn’t even know from old days in the same dorm.

  Turning back, Kriemhild looked from one to the other, waited half a second, and went on, “Well, she got carried into the brothers’ house with a sprained ankle or something. No, it couldn’t have been sprained, because she walked out again by herself afterward. The Greenhill girl was with them, the one Czarny has his fangs sharpened for. I think Cagey Thursday is trying to tie him in with what happened to Solly. And poor Tony last year. Greenhill’s really the kiss of death to her boyfriends, isn’t she?”

  “Or Czarny is,” Theda quipped with a tiny laugh. “No, we shouldn’t even joke about things like that.”

  Keiko put the rest of her present celery stick in her mouth and chewed furiously to keep from talking, meanwhile clenching her fist out of sight behind the arm of the chair. So April had been with “Lieutenant” Cagey Thursday at the Pi Rho house this morning! Had April even been the one to sic Thursday and her sidekick onto Clement? Little mousefink! And Clement thought he was in love with her! And topping it off, Keiko wouldn’t ever be the one to stake his heart by telling him about it if his lady love had brought the dogs in on him this weekend. No, just in case he ever did end up with the Greenhill, Keiko wasn’t going to risk his happiness by poisoning their together-life even before it started.

  “Why not?” Kriemhild was answering Theda. “Don’t you think some people have been saying it seriously? A very good way to kill two birds with one bomb, if you’re a dracula—get rid of a rival in love and have dinner at the same time, then charcoal the body in a car smash to cover up that the real cause of death was loss of blood.”

  I hate you, too, Kriemhild Purple Sigh, Keiko thought. Aloud, she said, “I never heard anyone say anything like that.”

  “Well, if they aren’t saying it, they’re thinking it. Chow, ladies!” Kriemhild took her mug of something hot and started to leave.

  “Just a minute!” Keiko exclaimed. “What did they tell Cagey Thursday about him?”

  “As I understand it, that they think he’s packed up and quit residence and gone to live somewhere else, nobody seems to have much idea where. Chow!” Kriemhild repeated, and left the room.

  “Packed up and quit residence?” Theda echoed, looking back at Keiko. “Did you know anything about that?”

  Remembering that Theda Hari lived in a world poised on the rim of some kind of twilight zone between silent movies and spy thrillers, Keiko made a decision. “Yah, as a matter of fact, I did. ‘Lieutenant’ Thursday stopped in to see me after lunch. To check whether I knew where to find him.”

  “Oooh! Is she really a famous floater?”

  Keiko waffled her hand. “She’s clicked on three or four cases that made the news. Spotted some real crimes where nobody else even suspected there’d been anything shady.”

  “And now she’s in little, tiny Hodag Crossing trying to find out where our very own dracula has run away to! How thrilling!”

  “I can think of a lot of reasons somebody might decide to leave a Greek house besides ‘running away.’”

  “No, you can’t,” Theda said matter-of-factly. “Because you’ve never lived in one.”

  “Neither have you,” Keiko pointed out. “I mean, not in a frat house.”

  “Well, no, you have me there. But Kokyo, if you already knew he’d left the house, why ...”

  “Why did I come poking around here myself?” Keiko
grinned and hoped her shrug didn’t look too much like an act. “Oh, you know me, Teddy. Cagey Thursday turned out to be an old sorority woman, and as far as she could see without ever having met any of them before, every petal of the Purple Rose looked fine. But me, there are just one or two of those fellas I never could bring myself to trust.”

  “You mean ...” Looking thoughtful, Theda took a drink of tea and swirled the ice cubes around in her glass. “Yes, I think I know who you mean.” She looked at Keiko again, and her eyes twinkled. “What do you want to do? Get inside the forbidden regions? Search his room? Have a look at the brothers’ secret ceremonial dungeons?”

  Bingo! Aloud, Keiko said, “Yeah, sounds good. Any idea how?”

  “How far are you willing to go?”

  “Hey, I’m an Independent. The worst they can do to me is throw me out again if they catch me. The only question is how can I get in, in the first place?”

  “Would you be willing to pretend you’re a rushee?”

  Slowly, Keiko nodded. “Ye…ah. I guess so. To pretend.”

  “My! You are desperate, aren’t you?” Theda glanced at the clock. “All right, come on. We may be able to catch their new pledge before they let him off for the day.”

  The new pledge was gone from the front yard, where Spuds Struwwelpeter dozed alone in a ragged pile of leaves. Slipping around to the back, Theda and Keiko found him putting his rake away in the garden shed.

  “Hey, what’s-your-name!” the sorority woman began. “Val?”

  He turned and looked them over as if for identification, saw Theda’s ring or her black armband or something, and snapped to attention. “I am, my Lady Sigh, the lowliest ... uh, lenticulus? of—”

  “Oh, save it for Greek week.”

  “I caught it this morning for not using it to—”

  “Yes, well, that was whomever, this is me. You’re Valentino Something. I’m Theda Jones Hari from Ladysmith, junior year, majoring in Cinematic Literature, perceptional world primitive flickerscreen, favorite flower the orchid.”

  He had yanked out his pocketcom to take it all down, part of learning the basic personal data about every Pi brother and sister. Clement, Keiko remembered, had had the “lowliest lentisk bug” speech down pat two mornings after his pledging. She had helped him memorize it, and all the other similar Pi mumbo-jumbo except a few of the most “Solemn Secrets.” The same way she always helped him learn his lines for plays.

  Valentino finished getting Theda’s data filed and looked up expectantly at Keiko.

  “And this,” Theda went on, “is M. Ko-Ko, one of our potential pledges. She’s seen the inside of our house and now she wants to see the inside of yours.”

  “Uh,” said Valentino. “Well, I’d be more than honored, but maybe one of the brothers—”

  “She wants to see more than just the downstairs front,” Theda said meaningfully. “Catch my drift?”

  He looked from one to the other of them and actually started to blush.

  “Or else I’ll just forget about pledging,” Keiko remarked. “I’ve heard a couple pretty nasty stories about the Purple Rose, and if I can’t see a few things for myself, I’d just as soon steer clear of its sister house.”

  “Whatever you’ve heard,” Valentino protested, “it had to be just jealous gossip.”

  “That’s what I’ve already told her,” said Theda. “But she won’t believe me without seeing for herself, and this is one stubborn cookie.”

  “Well ... What do you want to see?”

  “The basement,” Keiko replied. “and some of the bedrooms might help a lot.”

  “But they’re forbidden to all women! Even Mater Grayling.”

  Keiko said, “No lookee, no pledgee.”

  “There!” said Theda. “You wouldn’t want to cost the Pies a good pledge, would you? Besides, think of the raid points you can coup for yourself.”

  “Raid points? But—”

  “My word! Hasn’t your big brother ... They have assigned you a big brother, haven’t they? They usually do it the day after pledging.”

  “Well ... not yet. At least, they haven’t told me. I think it was going to be Solly Barghoothi, but ...”

  “Solly’s room,” said Keiko, remembering that it had also been Clement’s room. “I’d really like to see Solly’s room. I knew him back in the old days, before he was even a Pi Rho.”

  “Take it from me as a friendly big sister,” Theda assured Valentino. “When they get around to assigning you a big brother, he’s going to advise you about how much they want their pledges to raid the house. It shows spirit, you see. Yes, you can be sure of getting a lot of points in your favor if you start now, while you’re the only pledge. Think how much spirit a solo raid will show!”

  “But ... Look, aren’t we supposed to do it as a group or something? Whenever the pledge class is full?”

  Theda shook her head. “Not necessarily. Maybe in other houses, but not in the Pies. Sure, we love group raids, but we also have a proud tradition of solos. Why do you think we pledge people individually, for dear’s sake?”

  By that time, Keiko thought he was pretty well hooked. It took a few more minutes to reel him in, a dozen more of Theda’s cajoling speeches, sprinkled with Keiko’s comments whenever she thought they might be helpful; but they had him. Keiko might even have hoped that Theda’s scheme wasn’t going to queer his chances of joining the fraternity, if she hadn’t believed with all her heart that people were better off outside Greek houses. Except maybe Theda Hari.

  The next big stumbling block was that, having agreed to a raid, he wanted to do it by night. But Keiko fibbed that she had a big date tonight, and Theda pointed out how much more daring and spirited a sneak solo raid would be in the daylight hours, and finally he agreed to try it right away that same afternoon.

  X

  (From the Memoirs of Sylvia Tomlinson Marlene)

  Amy Thelwell Residence Hall was one of a set of four dormitories. As each of them was built around its own central courtyard, so the four of them as a group were built around a large quadrangle. In the middle of the quad stood a fountain; and in the fountain, which had been drained for the winter, stood a wooden statue of a small green monster, about the size of a Shetland pony, with a huge, toothy mouth and a lot of white bristles down its back.

  “One of our wandering hodags,” Ramon Mendoza explained, pointing to the statue. “There used to be three. This one to wander around the campus, another to wander around Greektown, and a third to wander around the rest of the community. Number Three disappeared last year, and the debate is still raging whether to replace it or not. Czarny has always been very efficient and imaginative in helping the Greektown hodag wander.”

  “Interesting,” said Cagey.

  “But probably irrelevant in itself,” he added for her, leading the way to the dry fountain for a better look at the portable statue. “My point is, Czarny came very close to being the perfect fraternity man. As a pledge, his only fault was overeagerness. As a fully initiated brother, his one serious failing appeared when he started refusing to take any further active part in hazing new pledges.”

  “When was that?” Cagey asked.

  “Immediately after the Tallpines tragedy.” Mendoza pointed to the hodag. “Nobody can ever say for sure about mythological critturs, but we’ve always thought the woodcarver gave ours a very plausible anatomy. Don’t you agree? See here, I know how that sounds, ‘Right after the Tallpines incident,’ but don’t carry away the wrong impression. Yes, it was a stiff pledging. One of the stiffest they’d ever had. And yes, Czarny helped plan it—but not all of it. Certainly not the roughest parts. If I’m any judge, Czarny didn’t know everything that had been planned, and when he saw it getting away from the plan as he knew it, he tried at first to call a halt to it and finally, when he couldn’t do anything else, he walked out on it and came up
stairs to enlist help from the brothers who weren’t taking part. Unfortunately, by then it was too late—”

  “My Lord!” I exclaimed. “What happened? You don’t mean ...”

  “No, I don’t. I admit I didn’t word that very well. Tallpines got a bad ceremony. If they’d done to me what they did to him, I would have depledged as soon as I could do it without looking like a coward. But there was no reason he shouldn’t have survived with scratches and bruises. Basically, the committee decided to honor his ethnic heritage with the wildest and most badly researched hodgepodge of mock Injun tortures since Reeltime movie days. Beginning with something inspired by scenes from Fenimore Cooper and ending with a bloodless version of the Plains Sun Dance. I think they strung him by the wrists, though it may have been beneath the shoulders. Anyway, Czarny’s contribution had been to choreograph the opening sequence, with suction-cup arrows and rubber-headed tomahawks. He even insisted on making the pledge wear goggles to protect his eyes. Czarny had also planned to end the business with a mock scalping using an ice cube to simulate the sensation of a knife blade. I might point out that what our vampire planned for Tallpines was arguably shorter and milder than what had been done to himself at his own pledging—which would also have been enough to make me depledge. I’d say we’ve been standing here long enough to study any hodag, even had it been a live one. We’d better move on before some of those other people stroll up too close to us.”

  He turned and started unhurriedly out of the quadrangle, Cagey on one side of him and I on the other.

  “What went wrong?” Cagey wanted to know.

  “I thought I’d been explicit enough. When the rest of the pledge committee formed the gauntlet with real switches and rubber hoses instead of slapsticks, Czarny lodged an instant protest with the ‘Heap Big Chief’ who was overseeing things. When it was ignored and they proceeded to the fake Sun Dance, he came upstairs. But by the time he had found half a dozen brothers to come back down with him, the pledge party had left the basement and taken the pledge off to the ‘Happy Hunting Grounds,’ a.k.a. the Pi Rho hunting cabin out in the woods northwest of town. Czarny was so upset by then that he insisted on taking his recruits out there. They found everything all right, Tallpines being given a friendly beer bash with the designated drivers sticking to plain cola. Therefore, Czarny came on back. I think most of his later sense of personal guilt arose from not having stuck around long enough to make sure Tallpines didn’t try driving back dead drunk, alone, and bruised. The mystery is why Tallpines did that very thing. Maybe some misplaced notion of proving his Native American fortitude.”