Little People

by Tom Holt

  ‘Of course. We don’t have decaff here; after all, we don’t sleep, so who needs it?’

  Talk about your temptation beyond endurance. I have a notion that if Satan had crept up to Jesus fasting in the wilderness and offered him a full cooked breakfast and a big pot of steaming Blue Mountain, we’d all be going to the pictures on Black Sabbath Eve and sending each other Walpurgis Night cards. But man shall not live by bread alone, even fried bread. ‘No,’ I said, ‘don’t bother. I’ll grab something to eat once I’m back where I belong.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Will you stop saying that, for crying out loud?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  She reminded me of someone, just as I reminded me of someone. Different someones, naturally. ‘All right, you’re sorry, big deal. Now, get me something I can make a circle with. Well, don’t just stand there like a prune.’

  ‘Right. Of course. Won’t be a moment.’

  She set off like a guilt-stricken hare, and that was what made me realise who she put me in mind of. Me, of course; human-side me, the poor fool who’d jump through six hoops backwards and land on my head in a neglected cesspool if Cru told me to. As to who I reminded me of – three guesses ought to be two too many.

  Everything exactly the same, in fact, apart from the differences.

  While I was still working this out for myself, she came scuttling back with a small barrel. ‘This ought to do,’ she said.

  I looked at it. ‘You couldn’t find anything larger?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  I scowled at her. ‘Oh’s bad enough,’ I said. ‘Sorry’s worse. Don’t do it, understand?’

  ‘Sor— I won’t. Promise.’

  Even then a little tiny part of me was saying, Sweet Jesus, am I really that wet and pathetic? And coming to the conclusion that if I was, maybe I’d be better off staying here after all. Going back to being that after tasting the exuberant freedom of this commanding, authoritative if rather annoying-to-other-people – but then, who gives a stuff about other people anyway? – personality: it wouldn’t be fun. In fact, it’d be horrible. Furthermore, I’d still have all those dreadful problems to contend with - down and out, no job, Daddy George most likely out to get me and conceal my remains in the footings of a flyover, no money to buy cooked breakfasts with. And for what? Some bird who’d always treated me as commandingly and authoritatively as I was treating Melissa. No way, I thought. Bugger that for a full-scale NATO training exercise.

  ‘On the other hand,’ I said slowly, ‘where’s the rush? I mean,’ I went on, ‘if she waited for me ten years when she thought I was dead—’

  Something clinked. It was Melissa sliding the coffee pot onto an already overcrowded trestle table. Of course, I should have shouted at her for doing another of those dumb time-slip things when I’d expressly ordered her not to; but the bacon was beautifully golden-crisp round the edges, and the fried eggs were exactly the way I liked them, and the sausages—

  ‘Chair,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Ooops. I forgot.’

  ‘Stupid woman.’

  ‘Here you are,’ she said, drawing the chair back so I could sit down. ‘I’ll just go and get the salt and pepper.’

  ‘Of course, a bottle of brown sauce’d be too much to ask for,’ I said with my mouth full.

  ‘And the brown sauce,’ she said. ‘Shall I pour it for you?’

  I shook my head. ‘Give it here,’ I said. ‘I don’t want you drowning everything in it.’

  They were excellent sausages, I had to give her that, though the mushrooms were a tad underdone. Even so; maybe I could grow to like it here, if I tried really hard. The ability to compromise is the hallmark of a truly evolved personality, I always say.

  ‘Here,’ I mumbled through a faceful of semi-chewed toast, ‘get rid of that damned barrel, will you? Somebody could trip over that and break a leg or something.’

  ‘Sorry. I mean, right away.’

  Remarkable how a good meal changes one’s perspective. I guess it all goes back to our primitive hunter-gatherer instincts. A hungry man is tense, on edge, nervous, prey to all manner of doubts and worries. A man with a few thousand calories straining his shirt buttons is, by contrast, relaxed, at peace, able to sit back and take a calm, rational view of the situation at hand. Not so bad here after all, I reflected; at least, the grub’s all right and it’s free, you aren’t forever getting arrested by over-zealous fuzz when you choose to take an al fresco nap, the locals seem polite enough, and the scenery’s not bad at all. True, you’ve lost the only girl you’ve ever loved – again - but at the end of the day, what you’ve never had you don’t miss; whereas this Melissa – not in the same league as Cruella, of course, but you wouldn’t kick her out of bed, either, at least not unless you wanted something fetched from downstairs. Actually, to be brutally honest, a bloody sight better-looking than Cruella (and that’s not saying much) and not nearly so bloody stroppy. If there’s one thing a wise person avoids when selecting a future helpmeet, it’s bloody stroppiness.

  ‘Here,’ I called out without looking round (no need),’ can you get Sky Sport in this godforsaken dump?’

  She didn’t answer (they get moody sometimes; the best thing is to take no notice), so I kicked off my shoes and closed my eyes for a nap.

  Not a sensible thing to do in Elfland, where they don’t sleep but where they can fast-forward you. As far as I was concerned, I’d hardly closed my eyes when someone prodded my arm. I did the eyelid routine in reverse and muttered, ‘Now what?’

  To my surprise, I was surrounded by elves. Hundreds of the buggers, all looking at me as if I’d just kicked my football through their greenhouse window.

  ‘Not now,’ I grunted. ‘Piss off, all of you, I’m trying to get some sleep.’

  ‘Sleep?’ said an elf I hadn’t seen before.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘it’s where you shut your eyes and keep them shut. I used to do a lot of it at one time, but then you clowns ram-raided your way into my life, and I haven’t managed to get any kip for over ten years. Go away.’

  Silence, and plenty of it. Somehow, a couple of hundred people not saying anything all at the same time is a damn’ sight quieter than an empty room. Spooky, too.

  ‘Well?’ I snapped – I wasn’t in the mood to play games with a bunch of Enid Blyton characters. ‘Do you actually want something, or have you all come here to gawp at me?’

  An elf in the front row cleared her throat. Cute little thing, if you liked blondes. ‘There was something,’ she said.

  ‘Oh joy,’ I grunted. ‘Well, spit it out then, if you must. Then I can sort you lot out and get back to my snooze.’

  ‘It’s about—’ The spokeself fidgeted with the sleeve of her tunic. Very irritating. ‘It’s about you,’ she said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You see—’

  ‘Oh, for pity’s sake. Get on with it or go and play hopscotch in the minefield.’

  ‘You see,’ the spokeself said, ‘you’ve been here a while now, and—’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I only just got here.’

  Immediately she looked down at her feet, obviously unwilling to contradict me. Another elf stepped forward. ‘Actually,’ he said,’ that’s not strictly true.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Not strictly,’ said the elf, slowly turning purple with embarrassment. Very strange effect it was, too, given the greenish tinge of the elfin complexion. ‘In actual fact, you’ve been here six weeks, and during that time—’

  ‘No, I bloody well—’ I hesitated. No, dammit, the bugger was perfectly correct. I could remember every detail of it. Good fun, too; lots of sitting about being waited on hand, foot and finger by a bunch of obedient if exquisitely dull elves. The thought that I’d missed all that made me very angry indeed. ‘You bastards,’ I growled. ‘What the hell did you want to go and do that for? I’d have enjoyed all that.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the elf (he was now the colour of a ripe plum, didn’t suit him a bit),
‘that’s more or less the point. You enjoyed it very much indeed. We didn’t.’

  I couldn’t see any problem with that. ‘So?’

  The elf shuffled his feet. Never actually seen anybody do that before. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘no offence, but to be brutally honest with you, we’re all a bit fed up about it. You see, because the last six weeks have been - well, not a whole bundle of laughs for any of us, it means we’ve all had to miss out on them. And, well, it’s a bit inconvenient, actually.’

  I shrugged. ‘Tough shit,’ I said. ‘Hey, don’t look at me with that constipated-yak expression. If you didn’t want to miss out, you shouldn’t have fast-forwarded. Especially,’ I added, remembering how very, very angry I was, ‘without asking my permission first. Bloody annoying habit of yours, and if you do it again I’ll kick your bum. Got that?’

  No answer; in fact, the concerted absence of answer was deafening.

  ‘And you can pack that in while you’re at it,’ I said. ‘From now on, anybody who stands there looking at me without saying anything will be deemed to be asking for my boot up their backside. All right?’

  Melissa sort of nudged her way to the front of the crowd. About time, I said to myself. Why is it they’re never around when you want them? ‘We’re very sorry,’ she said, ‘but it isn’t.’

  ‘Talk English, you stupid woman. It isn’t what?’

  Honestly. To judge by the look on her face you’d think I’d just eaten her cat. ‘It isn’t all right,’ she simpered. ‘In fact, it’s not very right at all. We think—’ You could see she was all tensed up about something; probably that time of the month. ‘Well, we think you should go back.’

  I tell you, you could’ve blown me down with a fart. ‘You what?’

  ‘It seems to us,’ Melissa went on, averting her eyes like I was a road accident or something, ‘that you haven’t really fitted in terribly well since you arrived, which makes us think you probably aren’t all that happy here—’

  ‘Only because you buggers won’t give me the chance,’ I pointed out. ‘Bloody hell, every time I try and have a bit of fun, or even just put my feet up and veg out for half an hour, some daft clown zaps me into the middle of next week. Idiotic thing to do, and I won’t stand for it. Apart from that, though, I could probably get used to it here.’

  Somehow, I got the impression that the elves didn’t want that to happen.

  I wouldn’t have thought it was possible for me to get angrier than I was already; but, as so often, I surprised myself by my ability to rise to the occasion. ‘For God’s sake,’ I snapped, ‘I wish you green-faced bunch of freaks’d make your stupid minds up, once and for all. One minute you’re practically kidnapping me, and you—’ Meaningful scowl at Melissa. ‘The moment I got here, you were trying to tear my clothes off. You don’t need a degree in psychology to figure out what was on your mind.’

  Melissa made a tiny whimpering noise, like a small dog whose tail’s got sucked up the Hoover. ‘It wasn’t like that at all, I thought we were—’ She stopped and pulled herself together, or at least, she managed to rally some of the outlying areas. Pulling herself together would’ve netted all the king’s horses and all the king’s men some pretty juicy overtime. ‘I think we both got hold of the wrong end of the stick,’ she said. ‘You see—’

  ‘Impossible,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘We can’t both have got hold of the wrong end of the stick,’ I explained. ‘Stick’s only got two ends, so one of ’em would have to be the right one. Do try and express yourself a bit more clearly, otherwise it’s bloody wearing trying to make out what you’re trying to say.’

  Reasonable enough observation, I thought; but that bunch of goggle-eyed mutants just looked at each other and shuddered with refined disgust. If I’d had the energy I’d have given them something to shudder about.

  ‘My apologies,’ Melissa said frostily. ‘What I meant to say was, we feel that we’ve made a serious error of judgement by encouraging you to come and settle here, when it’s quite obvious that this environment really isn’t at all suitable for someone with your temperament and attitude. So we all think—’

  I waved a hand in a vague gesture of reassurance. ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Please, don’t get your knickers in a twist on my account. Look, if it makes you feel any better, I forgive you. There, now you can all stop wetting yourselves with sublimated guilt and shove off.’

  ‘Actually,’ Melissa said, with a little tremor in her voice, ‘not us. You.’

  All I could do for a moment was stare. ‘Me?’

  She nodded. ‘You,’ she said. ‘We’d be very grateful indeed if you could possibly see your way at some point in the nearish future to going sort of away. Please,’ she added.

  ‘What? You’re telling me to fuck off?’

  Melissa sighed; the sigh seemed to be coming up out of the ground, like a geyser with wind. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘If you wouldn’t mind too awfully much.’

  ‘Oh really? And if I do mind?’

  ‘Then we’d all feel terribly upset about it and blame ourselves for making you so unhappy.’

  ‘But I’d still have to fuck off?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I didn’t know what to say. I’d never been thrown out of a parallel dimension before. ‘But where am I supposed to go?’ I demanded. ‘Fuck it, this is my home. I haven’t got anywhere else. All thanks,’ I pointed out,’ to you lot.’

  They didn’t like that one bit; I could see them all squirming in unison. Enough to give a bloke vertigo.

  ‘Well, actually,’ said an elf in the second row, in a teeny-tiny little voice, ‘you have sort of lived most of your life over the other side, so—’

  ‘Oh sure,’ I grunted. ‘And what a life it’s been. Ever since I was a kid it’s been sheer hell, and you want to know why? Because of you. Because, when I was still a little snotnose brat, I saw an elf. Have you any idea what that did to me? And that was just the start; since then I’ve vanished, been declared officially dead, lost a staggeringly huge amount of money and the only girl I ever loved; and if I ever show my face on the other side again, Daddy George’ll have me hunted down like a cockroach in the Ritz and killed. Oh, and while we’re at it, I’m half an elf. Half of me is one of you creeps, so I’ve got every bit as much right to be here as the whole bunch of you put together. So there.’

  ‘Actually,’ Melissa whispered, ‘that’s not entirely true either. Not if we all say you’ve got to go.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I shouted. ‘Or are you trying to tell me that your laws allow you to sling someone out of your poxy little world just because you don’t like his face?’

  ‘We haven’t got any laws,’ Melissa said.

  ‘Haven’t got any . . . ? Pull the other one, it’s got a big heavy boot on the end. Of course you’ve got laws. Everybody’s got laws.’

  ‘We haven’t. We don’t need them, you see, everybody here’s civilised and nice. Everybody except—’

  ‘Except me.’

  ‘Nearly everybody,’ Melissa said glumly. ‘So yes, if we say we think it’s be quite a good thing if you were to go somewhere else, then, strictly speaking, you’ve got to go.’

  ‘Really,’ I said, folding my arms defiantly. ‘And if I decide I don’t want to go, who the bloody hell’s going to make me?’

  ‘Um,’ Melissa said. ‘Well, us.’

  I laughed. ‘You. Oh, right. My God, I’m so scared.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ another elf broke in hastily, ‘we won’t hurt you. It’ll all be done as quickly and painlessly as possible. You honestly won’t feel a thing.’

  ‘Too frigging right I won’t,’ I snorted. ‘Because the only thing I’ll be feeling is my fist pushing your teeth down your poxy turkey throats. And don’t say I haven’t give you fair warning.’

  Melissa looked so sad that if I hadn’t been boiling with righteous fury I couldn’t have helped feeling sorry for her. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘just think of
all the good you could do over on the other side. Rescuing all those poor elves trapped in your stepfather’s factories, for a start. It’d be such a wonderful thing to do, we’d all be ever so grateful, and there isn’t actually anybody else who could do it – well, apart from Santa Claus, of course, but he’s ever so busy choosing toys for the children—’

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Stop drivelling,’ I told her. ‘It’s bad enough you coming here with a lynch mob trying to run me out of town without you drivelling on as well. I can’t hear myself think for your incessant bloody yattering.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘And don’t keep saying you’re sorry. I told you before—’

  While I was still talking (how rude can you get?) they tried it on; I could feel the force of their united willpower pressing down on me like a vast soggy weight, beginning to push me down through the interface the way you’d stick a pen through damp blotting paper. No chance; I was, after all, half an elf, and half-human too, which gave me a huge reserve of bloody-mindedness and annoyability that their more rarefied genetic makeup denied them. I dug my extradimensional heels in and pushed back. They stopped shoving and stared at me.

  ‘Pathetic,’ I said. ‘You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to get rid of me. Now quit pissing about, before I lose my temper.’

  Picture serried ranks of six-foot elves all sagging in unison. Funniest thing you could ever hope to see. Of course, I said to myself, two can play at that game. I reached out with whatever it was I’d been pushing back with, and sent the front two ranks sprawling in the grass. ‘I’m warning you,’ I said. ‘Or do you want me to find out just how hard I can swat with this thing? I’m up for it if you are.’

  It was rather satisfying to watch all those elves scrambling up and scurrying off to the sides, clearly scared out of their feeble wits. I’d often wondered what it’d feel like to push people around, after a lifetime of being on the other end of the procedure; for the first time, I could fully understand where all the kids who’d bullied me at school got their kicks from.

  ‘Please don’t do that,’ said an elf. ‘We have a saying here, a punch is the shortest distance between two victims. You’re hurting yourself more than you’re hurting us.’