by Eric Flint
“Hope Underwood was here yesterday.” Lena continued. “She had me walk up and down the hall and look into all the rooms. So don’t try that one either.”
“Lena, would you just stop being so stubborn? Honestly, if you don’t want to be a burden, come home with me. Hope and her merry crew of nags are driving the town crazy. They’ve got J.D. and Wallace all upset. They’re burning up the phone lines.”
“I’m not giving them the satisfaction, Flo. No one has any business butting in. They’ve been after me for a week now. I’m sick of it and I told her so.”
“I can just imagine that conversation. I’d have liked to have seen it. Still, Lena, it’s not just the space issue. We could use your knowledge out at the house. You lived through the Depression and you went through the rationing of the war years. With so many people out there, one more isn’t going to be a problem. Besides, I’d like to be able to speak English to someone. Having to learn German, eat soup every day and put up with the coffee shortage is getting on my nerves.”
Flo laughed, “Come on, Lena. The German women have eleven kids between them. You like kids.
“Besides,” Flo continued, “the only good thing about the Ring of Fire is that so many people have rediscovered the importance of family. We need you. I miss Jen, the girls are busy, and Mom has her own concerns. I’m outnumbered and overwhelmed. You wouldn’t believe the mess I made, trying to add lanolin to a batch of soap. Come out and join the circus. Help me keep my sanity.”
Lena and Flo had always gotten along well. Hearing the description of an average day had Lena and Flo laughing within a short period of time.
“You really do need me, don’t you, Flo?” Lena said. “I can’t imagine how you’ve stood it. Eleven kids, five or six other adults, a husband and a lunatic ram. Are you sure you don’t want to just move in here with me?”
“There are days, Lena, when I feel like I could run away. Still, though, Grantville is home. Even Grantville in 1631 Germany is still home. We can’t go back to West Virginia, so we’ll have to do our best with what we’ve got. So, are you coming or not?”
“Oh, I’m coming, Flo. I’m coming. I’ve got to see the Ram From Hell, if nothing else. He’s getting famous, you know?”
The Brillo Legends
Bad, Baaaad, Brillo
Paula Goodlett
J.D. came in the door laughing like a maniac. Flo looked up to see him waving a rough-looking piece of paper at her.
“What’s so funny?” Flo asked. “I haven’t heard you laugh like that in a while.”
J.D., gasping for breath, handed Flo the sheet of paper. “Remember when you saw Cora the other day? It seems someone overheard you telling her about that ram and his exploits. This was making the rounds all over town today. You and that miserable excuse for a ram are famous!”
Flo looked down at the sheet, saw the drawing and read the first few lines. The further she read, the more she blushed. “Oh, no, please, no. Tell me this is a joke, J.D. Please let this be a joke.”
The top of the sheet had two drawings. One was of a ram with beautiful wool. The other, well, the wool wasn’t beautiful. The title was:
B-A-A-A-D, B-A-A-A-D BRILLO
Flo was pretty sure that no ram in history came with that kind of equipment.
* * *
Just who does this fur-ball think he is? Brillo thought. Those wimmen are mine. I’m the one who’s been here. I’m the one they’ve all been making up to. I’m the one they cuddled up to after the shearing. I’m the one who put up with all the hormone surges. What makes him think he can strut in here and take over?
Of all the people in the Richards-Sprug-Schmidt-Utt household, only one was unhappy. In fact, I’m not just unhappy, thought Brillo. I’m well and truly, to the bottom of my heart PISSED OFF!!!
“Umm . . . Johan, do think he’s going to hurt himself doing that?” Flo asked. “Throwing himself against the fence that way looks like it would hurt pretty badly. He actually shook the corner post that time.”
“He vill be okay, Flo. He is yust mad. He can smell zat ze breeding season has begun. Ve do not need him, now. I vill zee if zomeone vants him. If not, I vill check vit ze Grange, to zee if zey need him.” Johan was not sentimental about his stock.
“Gee, Johan, I kind of hate to get rid of him. He was our only hope for a while. I know it’s silly to be sentimental, but he’s really not awful . . .” Flo’s voice trailed away, as she and Johan turned to walk away.
* * *
Wool, wool, that’s all they think about. What about stamina? What about vigor? That hair-ball over there would fall over dead before he could walk half the distance I could. There’s nothing to him but hair. Brillo knew what was coming. He was being deposed.
First they’ll see if anyone wants me, then they’ll send me away. Worst of all they might turn me into . . . NOOOOOOO!!!! I’d rather go to the butcher! Brillo continued to ram the weak spot of the fence.
* * *
Hours later, in the dark of night, the fence finally gave up. Brillo stomped away.
I’m getting’ some before I leave, he was determined. I’m gettin’ some and then I’m headin’ north. North to where a sheep can live free. North where they can’t take my wool, my wimmen or my lambs.
Spying one of the furry ewes away from the flock, Brillo bounded over and satisfied himself.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he baaed as he sauntered away. “Very nice of you, I’m sure.”
As he stalked away, Brillo began to get sleepy. Blearily, he looked at the sky. “Which way is north?” he wondered.
When Brillo Met Annie
Stanley Leghorn
Brillo jerked to full wakefulness. Something was making the ewes nervous and they were bleating and moving away from the back of the fence. Brillo shouldered his way through the shifting crowd and looked, listened and smelled. It was the smell that told him what had upset his ladies.
Stupid yapper, if he’s in here I’ll smack him into the back of the house, I swear I will! No one bothers my wimmen but ME!
The canine was not in the pen, but traveling past it on the way towards the woods with something in its jaws. Flo had described Brillo’s many faults: Destructive, greedy, Destructive, pig headed, Destructive, sneaky, Destructive, arrogant and did she mention Destructive? The one thing she had, grudgingly, praised him for was being a good family ram. And having the tremendous personal courage that job required.
Brillo slammed into a part of the fence he had tested earlier for just such an event. The section pulled up out of the ground and Brillo squirmed under, leaving a bunch of scruffy fur behind. Da lady don’t like my fleece anywho, he thought. But, he swiftly set off in pursuit. As he got closer, he was surprised to hear a soft feminine voice berating the canine: “Put me DOWN! I do not taste good and you are ripping me! Stop this before you get in more trouble!” But not so surprised that he failed to lower his head and go to ram speed as he got close.
* * *
“Ooh, NOW you are going to get it!” exclaimed the voice. The small canine, little more than a cub, looked over his shoulder and yelped in fright. The warning was enough for him to get MOSTLY out of the way. But mostly is not the same as all, and Brillo shifted his attack as much as possible to make it as much as possible. The result was a glancing blow to the tail which sent the pup flying. When the pup landed, he leapt to his feet with a yip of pain and saw Brillo turning around for another pass.
His mother had told him that discretion was the better part of valor in a failed attack such as this one, and he became rapidly discrete, all the way to the woods, yipping in pain each time his hind legs hit the ground.
* * *
Brillo slowed as he saw his victim in full flight, and stopped near where he had hit the pup. “Snort! Don’ come back, ya stoopid yapper!”
Brillo was about to head back to the pen when the voice said, “Thank you ever so much for saving me, Brillo!” Brillo quickly looked around but could see no one. “Who dat?”<
br />
“My name is Annie, I belong to Johan’s daughters.” Brillo peered down at the ground. There indeed was the doll he had seen before, when the daughters had been out playing near the pen. “How come you never talked afore?” asked Brillo.
“It is part of the Guild rules, we have to listen to people and children, but we can talk to animals,” replied Annie, who was mournfully holding her left leg in her arms.
“Stoopid hooman rules, humph! Well, I gotta get back te my wimmen. They don’ feel safe witout me.”
“Oh, please, do not leave me out here in the field! Please, PLEASE take me back to the house where I can be found!”
“Why? I gots family te watch and take care of.”
“I know, but it will only take a few minutes for you to run me over there. You run so fast, I bet you could go it in less time than it takes to squirm back into the pen. Besides, a good deed is its own reward.”
Brillo puffed himself up with pride. “Yah, I will take ya.” Leaning over, he grabbed the doll in his mouth, growling about the horrible doggy aftertaste. Quickly he went to the back porch and tossed the doll onto it.
“Satisfied?” Getting no answer, Brillo repeated, “I said sat,”
Brillo stood like a sheep in a headlight. Only in this case it was a flood light. He heard the door open.
“You MONSTER! Johan, tomorrow we have mutton! This is the last straw! Ripping up your daughter’s doll!”
Johan and J.D. were scanning the woods edge. Johan bent over to pick up the doll and his nose flared open. Brillo had an easily identified scent. As did dog. “Where is the wolf now, eh?”
Flo’s husband was scanning the woods edge with the sight on his rifle. Brillo looked towards the woods and snorted. He pawed the ground, gave a tossing motion with his horns and sneered.
“J.D., did you see that?” quavered Flo.
“See what, honey?” He lowered the rifle, and said, “Johan, I don’t see anything now, it must have run off.”
“But, But, But . . .” Flo stuttered to a halt.
“You all right?” asked her husband.
“I need to get back to bed. Johan, take that creature back to the pen and see that he STAYS there!”
“All right. Come on Brillo, back to your post.” Fortunately, Flo could not see the grin on Johan’s face as he firmly guided Brillo home.
A good deed is it own reward, huh? snorted Brillo . . .
Local Woman Goes Buggy
Paula Goodlett
“Flo, have you seen this one?” J.D. asked, while hiding a smirk. “It seems you’ve made the news again.”
Flo, irritated beyond endurance, read the broadsheet J.D. handed her. The title, under the usual graphic drawing, read:
LOCAL WOMAN GOES BUGGY
An interested observer reports that Mrs. J.D. Richards appears to be having a nervous breakdown. As evidence, we present the following letter, purported to have come from the desk of the person in question:
Dear Mary,
Brillo is NOT my silly ram. Brillo is my business partner Johan’s silly ram. And he’s not silly. If he was silly he wouldn’t be a problem. The problem is he’s SMART, and he’s out to get me. Everybody seems to think he’s just a poor misunderstood dumb animal, but they are WRONG. He is the devil in sheep’s clothing. He takes every opportunity to get at me, and when I try to point out his behavior, he stands there all innocence. But I know what he’s really like. If he wasn’t such a hero to everyone else he’d have been dinner ages ago.
With thanks,
Flo Richards
Flo finished reading, stunned. “J.D., I’ve never said that to anyone. I didn’t write this letter!” she wailed. “What am I going to do? The whole town is going to believe this, just like they believe that stupid sheep killed a wolf.”
“There, there, dear,” J.D. answered. “No one is really going to believe that you’re crazy. I’ve lived with you since 1967. I’d know if you were really crazy.”
“I’m not crazy. Really, I’m not,” Flo began to babble. “I don’t think he’s out to get me. He’s just a sheep. I know a sheep doesn’t have that much brains. He couldn’t have planned this. Someone is out to get me, I just know it. Who is it? Why are they doing this?”
J.D. put his arms around Flo and patted her back. “I know, darling, I know.”
No, No, Brillo!
Virginia DeMarce
“We could do it, Mrs. Nelson,” Trissie Harris coaxed. “I know that you have the booklets for No, No, Nanette!”
“We are not,” Iona Nelson said firmly to the class, “going to enliven the organizational meeting for the League of Women Voters with a Brillo skit. We are going to sing our entry for the national anthem contest, and that is all we are going to do.” She was using her best schoolteacher voice.
“But,” Trissie protested, “some of them are soooo cute. Grandpa made up the one about Charlie.”
Against her better judgment, Iona found herself asking, “What one about Charlie?”
“Charlie was in the original.” Trissie’s grin made it plain that she was going to cherish this day for a long time. She rarely got to solo in the middle school chorus:
"Get Wild Root Cream Oil, Brillo!
It’s full of lanolin.
Get Wild Root Cream Oil, Brillo!
It keeps your wool in trim.
Get Wild Root Cream Oil, Brillo!
Don’t chase the ewes away.
Get Wild Root Cream Oil, Brillo!
It’ll really make your day.
But wait just a minute, Brillo!
Wild Root just isn’t in.
You don’t need Wild Root, Brillo!
Your fleece has lanolin.”
Trissie opened her mouth for another line; then looked around the classroom, said, “I don’t think I’d better sing the last verse right now,” and sat down with a plop. The rest of the class laughed loud enough that Iona suspected that they had already heard it.
She was saved from having to comment by the bell.
* * *
“Okay,” Flo said to J.D. “I can believe that Dex Harris made a bawdy ballad to the tune of the Wild Root Cream Oil Commercial. I really can. I can even believe that he taught it to Trissie. But no way do I believe that he wrote the rest of those. I know the guy, J.D. I’ve known him all my life. There’s no way that he spends his spare time reading collections of American short stories.”
“Look, Flo,” J.D. said. “This could be like the story about the monster. The one that every time the guy chopped one head off, it grew a couple more. If people get the idea that the stories really upset you, they’re likely to do more of them. Just to get your goat. Or your sheep.”
He fled in mock terror. It was definitely mock, because he knew perfectly well that no matter how upset Flo was, she wasn’t upset enough to dump a cup of rare and valuable hot coffee over his head.
Flo stared glumly at the table. No, there was no reason why any of the Harrises would be out to get her. Dex had just written that as a joke. But, “Local Woman Goes Buggy?”
That one had meanness to it.
The kind of meanness that only kids had. On the back of an old envelope, not bothering to sharpen the pencil first, she started making a list of everyone in Grantville who had gone to grade school and high school with her. Annotated.
* * *
“I don’t think that you’re really stopping to think about it, Mom,” Amy said impatiently. “You were right the first time, when you said that the ‘Buggy’ one isn’t like the others. Even if you figure that one out, the person who wrote it won’t be the person who wrote the rest of them.”
“Get to the point,” Kerry said.
“She will,” commented Missy as she buttered another piece of rye bread. “It’s just that by the time she gets there, the rest of us will have written the Great American Novel, built our own greenhouses to grow citrus fruit in our back yards, opened up home businesses, and sent off expeditions to start colonies back in America. J
ust thinking about all the stuff people think we ought to do since we came back in time makes me tired before I’ve even gotten breakfast.”
Flo wondered when her daughters, who were rapidly approaching thirty, were going to start talking to one another like they weren’t still squabbling about who got the bathroom first. I love them, I really do, she assured herself. I love them all. I love the grandkids that I have. I love, she paused and looked at Kerry, the grandkid that it looks like I’m going to have any minute now. I’ll love the grandkids I’m almost certain to have next year or the year after, if somebody doesn’t re-invent the pill.
Kerry’s David was in school, which reduced the noise level somewhat. Amy’s David and Missy’s Mike were still small enough to corral in a playpen, but since it was the same playpen and Mike had recently bopped David on the head with a toy Brillo, both were squalling in the background. Amy’s Kayla and Missy’s Caitlin had both been in moods all morning that would have driven the author of “sugar and spice” to take it all back. Little girls appeared to be made of sour pickles and tabasco sauce.
But Amy was not distracted. “Look, except for the Buggy story, they’re all Peter Rabbit stories.”
“Amy,” said Missy. “Get to the point.”
Amy, sad to say, stuck her tongue out at her sisters.
Flo mentally gave herself one more black mark for Abysmal Failures in Maternal Training.
“The Peter Rabbit stories aren’t about the guy who had the garden, Whatzisname. Mr. Whatzisname is just there in the background, for scenery. That’s where Mom is in all the others. They’re about the animal. So he’s a stupid ram, so what? She’s only there in the background trying to keep him in his pen, or away from the ewes, or not appreciating how brave and clever he is, or something. The stories are about him. Some of them don’t even mention Mom at all. Except the ‘Buggy’ one. That’s about Mom.”
Kerry thought a minute. “You’re right. I hate to say it, but you’re right. And some of them do have to be guys. It must have been a guy who wrote ‘Bad, Baaad, Brillo!’ But ‘Buggy’ was written by a female. It’s just nasty.”
