Armi’s eyes widened as Delani explained her theory.
“Do you know what a drug addict is?” She looked straight at Armi without flinching when she asked her daughter the question. She wanted Armi to know how important this was. Armi shook her head, then switched to maybe.
“Geddon has taught me all sorts of different things. One time, she mentioned drugs and what the body goes through when deprived of them after having had them for a previous amount of time.”
Delani couldn’t have been prouder of her daughter at that moment. She nodded. “That’s exactly right. The ones who were lethargic this morning drank your juice yesterday. Do you see? They got a boost when they drank it yesterday, and this morning after the boost wore off, they needed another drink to get that boost back.” Armi thought about what her mother was telling her, and after a few minutes of juggling the information came up with only one answer.
“I’m a drug dealer, that’s what I am.” Her daughter’s sad look tore a hole in Delani’s heart.
“No, no, Armi. You’re not a drug dealer—far from it. You’re selling a product that others crave. There is nothing wrong with that.”
Armi calmed down, and her mother’s reasoning helped to alleviate any misgivings she might have had about selling the juice.
“What am I supposed to do? Stop selling it?” Armi looked miserable at that announcement, and Delani didn’t have the heart to tell her that was probably the best idea. Instead, she came up with another sensible solution.
“How about we wait until the lab results? If the juice is dangerous to anyone, then you must stop selling it by all means. But if it’s not harmful, and that the boost is something everyone at the station wants, then keep selling.”
Chapter Six
A Solution
Delani read the test report—twice. She just laughed and shook her head. She was shocked and completely caught by surprise as she approached the juice stand. The line wrapped around the rotunda.
“What’s going on? I can’t believe this line is for the juice,” Delani told Mrs. Gatoroid, who just shrugged.
“Mom! Mom, do you have the results?” Worry and fear etched Armi’s face.
“Yes, right here.” She held up the paper in her hand.
“Well, are you going to tell me?” Armi looked like she was going to explode if she wasn’t told something soon.
“It’s ok. Nothing toxic, just a slight boost of adrenaline that works its way through the system in a day. Somebody with a bad heart may have problems, but they would be minor.” Armi let out a long breath. She had been holding it since she’d seen her mother.
Delani gave Armi a huge grin and an even bigger hug. “Enjoy the moment, my little girl,” she whispered into Armi’s ear.
“I will, just as soon as I can take a break!” Armi yelled at her as she dashed back to the table.
Chapter Seven
Downside to Business
Delani hung around the fruit and juice stand until the line started to dwindle, about midafternoon. When only a few stragglers were left, a couple of well-dressed and, for the race, very large Noel-nis converged on the juice stand.
“May we have a few words with the proprietor of this establishment?” one of the Noel-ni asked in a disturbing voice.
“Ah… Yeah, just a sec.” Conrey told them, then walked the few feet to where Armi and Mrs. Gatoroid were chatting.
“Ah, these dudes want to talk to you, Armi,” Conrey told the entrepreneur, jerking his thumb in their direction. Delani had witnessed the whole thing and now walked over to stand in front of the males as Armi, Mrs. Gatoroid, and Conrey arrived.
“What’s up, furry and muscled?” Armi asked them. Delani just shook her head and sighed. Conrey and Mrs. Gatoroid were silent and kept their faces blank.
“You’re the proprietor?” one of the Noel-nis asked, scrunching his eyebrows in disbelief.
“Yeah. What of it, hair-brain?” Armi was trying to be difficult on purpose. She was good at it, and what were two goons going to do with a seven-year-old, really?
The two Noel-nis laughed. “Well, you are selling an unlicensed product that will require testing and a formal hearing before you are allowed to continue.” The one on the left handed Armi a bunch of papers. “Good day to you,” he called as they were walking away.
“You have a single eyebrow between you,” Armi yelled at their backs. They looked at each other’s eyebrows, shrugged, and kept walking. Delani took the papers from Armi and quickly read through them.
“This is bad. They are shutting you down until they deem the juice is ok to drink,” Delani announced, looking worriedly at Armi.
“What a bunch of bistok-lovers,” Mrs. Gatoroid angrily retorted. Armi shrugged.
“It was great while it lasted.” Armi looked at Conrey sadly. There went Conrey’s sled. She felt tired all of a sudden.
“Don’t worry, dear. I think I have a solution to our troubles.” Mrs. Gatoroid had a mischievous grin on her face.
The next morning Armi didn’t even want to get out of bed, let alone face Conrey after their problem yesterday.
“Armi, please come out for breakfast. I have something for you from Mrs. Gatoroid,” Armi’s mother yelled through the door to either wake Armi up or get her to stop moping and come out. With a heavy sigh and even heavier footsteps, she opened her bedroom door and, Geddon in tow, sat down at the kitchen table to face the news.
“How bad is it?” Armi asked her mom, clenching Geddon tighter than she usually did.
“Oh, I don’t know. How about you read this and tell me?” Delani placed a credit chit on the table in front of Armi. Delani thought her lips would crack from smiling so widely when she heard Armi gasp and put both her hands over her mouth.
“By the Bitches and the Empress’ bistok reserves, this can’t be right!” Armi looked open-mouthed at her mother, but Delani just nodded. The amount listed was over twenty-five thousand credits, and it was made out to Armi K’tanhly. There was a note at the bottom from Mrs. Gatoroid.
Armi, you should be very proud of what you have started. I had to pull a few strings, but I got the juice approved. You’re a seven-year-old genius, and I envy what you and Conrey have yet to experience. I have deposited the amount listed in your station account and will put all future funds in a similar account in the Federation. Here are a couple of numbers to memorize, and if you ever need to access the funds, just call the bank and give them the numbers. That’s it. I’ll do the rest. You have made me a rich woman, from a mere forty-percent stake in your juice business. Enjoy life, and get a smile on Conrey’s dour countenance somehow. He even irks me.
Mrs. Gatoroid Partner, The Purple Passion Juice Company
THE END
Author Notes Dominic Novielli
Hello, everyone, and thank you for reading about Armi, her frisky and sometimes funny EI Geddon (who does look a lot like Bethany Anne), and, of course, her faithful companion Conrey. Wow, what an experience this has been! I started writing because of Natale Roberts, who was supportive and determined to get me to write. Well, as you can read, I did. Not just one story, but three. I started out writing about Armi when she was eleven, but kept writing well past the eight-thousand-word mark and went all the way to twenty-six thousand. I eventually cut that down to about twenty-one thousand, but it was still over. I decided to write a different story, focusing on Armi when she was even younger and talking about why she got into so much trouble. Now you see why I went over the eight-thousand-word mark. Armi is a walking case of trouble at every turn.
I have grown to enjoy writing in a very short time, and really don’t know what I would do without it. It has become my everything to do every day, and if I don’t write at least four thousand words a day, I feel terrible.
I’m here writing these notes and really wondering what to say to you, the fans who have read one of my stories. I have to tell you that I am so excited about this I can hardly sit still enough to type. I want to run outside and shout
at the world that they too can read my story—only if they want to, of course. Well, enough about how thankful I am to you for reading and how wonderful it’s been to write for Michael and his wonderful world, but I digress. I need to get my four thousand words in today! Keep reading, so people like me have something to look forward to.
Thanks again. I really appreciate every single one of you who have taken time out of your day to enjoy a story of a mischievous child who wants only to help her friend.
Dominic Novielli
Haiku From The Kurtherian Universe
Barnabas loves chess.
Shinigami always cheats.
He plays with her why?
The Medicine Show
Logan Caird
Magnificent Maxwell’s Travelling Medicine Show is coming to town!
Del could not be more excited to see the show, but his family is broke. Since they live on the edge of a city ruined after WWDE they can always dig to find something to trade. Climb a ruined skyscraper, get something valuable, go see the show.
Nothing is ever that simple.
I want to thank both my wonderful parents for supporting all my creative endeavors over the years, my loving girlfriend for telling me more or less daily I need to focus on writing if I want to be an author, and Piper, my adorable (I swear) Doxador lap warmer. Finally, I want to thank Michael Anderle for creating such a wonderful world and giving so many of us the chance to write in it.
— Logan
The Medicine Show
In the Wasteland, Formerly the USA
Delwyn “Del” Winfield leaned out from the side of the building. Holding on with one hand, he watched a caravan of trailers pulled by oxen form a circle outside the city gates. He drew himself back in, foot slipping slightly as he righted himself, and ran through the rubble covering the floor.
A foot hit a loose patch and he slid, slammed into a wall, and fell on his back. His leg slid along an exposed and rusted metal pipe. Blood started soaking his pants, and he called, “Mooooom!” while grabbing his leg.
His mom Alecia jogged up from another room and knelt next to him, saying, “What’s wrong, honey?”
Teeth clenched in pain, Del held out his leg and pointed. Holding in tears.
She pulled his pant leg to the side. It was bleeding, but not bad. She pulled out a rag and pressed it to the leg. “Hold it there.”
Del pressed the rag to the gash. “Mom! They’re here. I saw the Medicine Show.”
“That’s good, honey,” she said, wrapping a spare shirt around his leg to hold the rag in place.
Del’s father Sherman stepped into the room. He was holding a white box with an almost circular symbol on it with a bite taken out of it. One side had glass, the other wires. The glass was broken. He said, “What happened, Alecia?”
Alecia replied, “He just got a little excited when he saw the Show setting up.”
Sherman grinned and set the box down. “Don’t blame him! What’re you looking forward to, munchkin?”
“Daad. I’m twelve now. You can’t call me munchkin anymore.” Del said, frowning at his dad.
“Sorry, kid. Forgot.” Sherman said, “Doesn’t answer my question, though. What are you most excited about?”
Del winced as Alecia tightened the bandage and said, “I don’t know. Maybe the games? Oh! Or the horses. Horses are awesome.”
Alecia said, “We have horses.”
“Guards’ horses don’t count. These are Show horses!”
Alecia flashed a smile and stood up. “Well, if you want to see those show horses we better get back to work. Have to find something worth trading if we want to get into the show.”
Del, all gangly limbs, scrambled to his feet and ran off to start searching.
Sherman smiled at Alecia and took her hand. She leaned against his shoulder, squeezed his hand, and kissed his cheek.
Del had always been good at getting into small spaces. Even now that he was as tall as his father, he was still skinny enough to manage places they couldn’t fit, which is where he usually found the best stuff.
He climbed on top of a desk and jumped up to grab the edge of a hole, pulling himself up to the next floor. The stairs leading up here had fallen years ago, so this was the only way to get there. The room was dark, most of the light coming up through the hole he’d climbed through.
He moved his feet carefully as he felt his way to the wall. He found something rounded and hard hanging on the wall and brought it back to the light. A red pipe with a handle and some words on it. He dropped it through the hole to the floor below and kept looking.
Going back to the wall, he identified a door a little farther down, but when he pushed it didn’t move. The handle turned freely but something on the other side was blocking it, so he sat on the floor in front of the door as his parents had taught him and kicked it. The door barely moved, but sunlight streamed through the crack.
He kicked it several more times, and finally whatever had been blocking it gave way. The door swung open, and there was a crash from the other side. The floor beyond the door gave way and slid off the building, plummeting ten stories to the street below. Luckily this section of the city was only frequented by scavengers.
Del crawled to the ledge and looked out across the plains beyond the city to where the Show was setting up. The trailers formed a wall with gaps between them. The people from inside were opening them, setting up barriers to close off the gaps, and assembling the booths.
Outside the circle, a couple of people were moving a booth into place in front of a gate between two trailers. From the ground, no one would be able to see what was going on inside the show without going through the gate.
Two women walked a group of horses between a gap in the trailers. They joked and played around as they led the horses to join the oxen at a river a mile from the Show.
“Was that huge crash you, Del?” Sherman called from below.
Del yelled back, “Sorry, dad!”
“You okay up there, son?”
“Yeah,” he said, “Oh! I found something on the wall. I dropped it to your level.”
“Fire extinguisher, yeah. It’s a bust. The nozzle broke years ago, and whatever was in it leaked out.”
“Aww, man,” Del said. He pushed himself up and looked around the room he was in. With the door open and light coming through it, he could see that most of this room had already been ransacked. He called down, “I’ll keep looking.”
Throughout the day Del kept finding reasons to go to the edge of the building and watch the Show set up. Everything he was finding turned out to be a dud. He pulled at a door with a little sign on it, but it was locked.
He felt along the door and tried to sound it out, “Imp loy eees. Oh! Employees Only! Score.”
He grabbed the handle and pushed, forgetting he just found it locked. He looked at the walls, but this room didn’t have any windows in the hall, so he went to the room next to it and opened that window. Leaning out he looked toward the locked room. Two windows, glass still present, and both of them closed.
He scratched the bandage on his leg. It was starting to itch.
There was no ledge under these windows, so Del went back inside and made his way up to the next floor. Above the locked room was a large, empty room that had once had floor-to-ceiling windows. Now there was just air.
From this side of the building he couldn’t see the Show, but he had a good view of the rest of the city. The sun was starting to set, and the line of sunlight was moving across the city.
He untied the end of the rope around his waist, tied it off on a nearby pillar, and lowered himself down to the closed windows below. At first, he was off to the side, but he was able to get to one without much problem.
No seams. The window wasn’t designed to open. Most of the windows this high up were not. He braced himself as well as he could and kicked. The glass gave way, and he almost fell into the room. He grabbed the edge as he swung in, cutting his hand on the glass.
There were several metal shelves against the walls, a table in the middle of the room, and a refrigerator in one corner, as well as cabinets above a counter against one wall. Pressing on his cut hand, he checked the fridge. It was full of food.
All of it had been in the fridge for at least fifty years, and it hadn’t worked in just as long so it was mostly petrified, but it was a good sign.
Del looked through the cabinets and found a metal box with a red plus sign on it. Grinning, he opened it. It was full of bandages and medicine. Most of the medicine would be useless, but the bandages would be worth something.
He looked at his bleeding hand, closed the box, and tore off part of his shirt to bind across his palm. He set the closed box on the table and unlocked the door. It was the kind of door that locked itself each time it closed, so he propped it open with a chair and went to find his parents.
They were two floors down, looking through a pile of rubble. Del told them, “I found a locked room.”
Sherman said, “Score!”
Del grinned. “I know!”
Alecia chuckled. “Lead on.”
On the way back to the room, Alecia noticed Del’s hand and grabbed his wrist. “What happened?”
“Cut it on some glass.”
“This is exactly what I said would happen. I did not want to come here, because you two are going to get yourselves killed,” she fumed as she unwrapped his hand.
She wiped the blood off and cleaned the wound as well as she could before retying it, then offered, “We should just go home.”
Tales from the Kurtherian Universe: Fans Write For The Fans: Book 3 Page 14
