The Manic Pixie Dream Boy Improvement Project

by Lenore Appelhans

  “Ummm . . .” Nebraska says. “I think you’re preaching to the choir. We have this same problem in the Manic Pixie Trope.”

  Milton clears his throat. “Which brings me to our last exhibit today . . .”

  We round the corner. The Manic Pixie alcove is nearly finished.

  It’s even worse than we thought. They’ve already begun the process of condemning us to this dusty place.

  Chapter 52

  The mannequins lean against the walls, already half-dressed. One of them looks just like me, down to wearing the yellow baseball cleats I scuffed on the ice while doing snow angels with Zelda at Winter Lake.

  Clearly they mean to make an example of me. They want to show how my choice of fanciful footwear somehow contributed to the downfall of an entire Trope.

  “Oh my god, that’s supposed to be Riley!” Zelda says in a choked voice. She’s shaking, and her expression vacillates between outrage and abject terror.

  I nod because my throat is a desert, and I’m too afraid to speak. The Council could be judging us right now, spying on us via hidden cameras, ready to use anything we say to defend ourselves as more proof that we’re toxic.

  “I can’t believe this.” Nebraska levies a series of harsh curses before clamping a hand over her own mouth. She composes herself and glares at Milton. “What vicious falsehoods have tainted our good name?”

  “Well,” Milton says carefully, “some in Reader World say you are one-dimensional characters with no inner life or goals of your own.”

  Nebraska lets out a laugh so harsh it could rip someone’s throat out. Possibly Milton’s. “Manic Pixies are beautifully multifaceted, well-rounded, and deep. Whoever thinks otherwise hasn’t experienced the pleasure of getting to know me.”

  “You mean us,” Zelda corrects.

  “Us,” Nebraska repeats, but in an unconvincingly smarmy way.

  I try to see the issue from the Reader World perspective. My Author gave Marsden goals that had nothing to do with Ava. But I’ve also been part of projects where my role was far less nuanced, as we all have. We complained about it enough in therapy sessions.

  “What else?” Nebraska demands.

  “It’s sexist,” Milton says.

  “Nonsense!” Her eyes land on me and narrow. “We have Riley to prove otherwise.”

  Am I the token boy though? One exception to the rule doesn’t necessarily let our trope off the hook for its historic objectification of women.

  I understand now why some people in Reader World would want us to be retired. And maybe it would be for the best if Authors stopped leaning so heavily on our Trope. But do I deserve to be locked away forever, far from public consumption, because of what I am and what I represent?

  Does Zelda? Or Nebraska, or any of the others?

  We’re not just reductive stereotypes. We’re so much more than that. Or if we’re not, we can be.

  Milton shrugs, clearly not invested enough to make a counter-argument. “Also, some say the term itself is restrictive, because it lumps all ‘quirky’ women together, essentially dismissing them.”

  Nebraska ponders this for a moment as if it stumps her. She pulls out her flask and tries to take a sip, apparently forgetting that the guards emptied it. She shakes it sadly and returns it to her pocket. Finally she squares her shoulders. “Well, you know what? I embrace the term. I’m a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and I’m damn proud of it. And why shouldn’t I be? Don’t you agree, Riley?”

  Honestly, after everything Nebraska’s done, if the Council said they were going to lock only Nebraska in this exhibit and let the rest of us go free, maybe I’d be okay with it. But the way things stand, we need her if the rest of us are going to survive.

  And we deserve to survive.

  “Yes,” I say. “We should all be proud of who we are. Manic Pixies are awesome. And we’re going to prove it to the Council . . . and to the world.”

  Chapter 53

  “Thank you for the tour, Milton,” Nebraska says ever so politely. “I think we’ve seen quite enough.”

  We’ve seen more than enough, but we still need to free George. Now that we’re more determined than ever to fight the Council, saving George is my top priority. Would Milton be willing to help Zelda and me instigate a jailbreak?

  “The Council detained one of our fellow Manic Pixies here in the VZ,” I say casually, brushing off some imaginary dust from my shoulder. “Have you seen her?”

  “I have not,” he says. “But I hear she is quite the spitfire—in more ways than one.”

  “Oh, Milton! You rascal!” Nebraska’s giggles bubble over us, making me cringe.

  He leads us back to the entrance. Milton shakes my hand and pats Zelda on the back. He kisses both Nebraska’s cheeks in the European way.

  “Good luck,” he says. “Perhaps I will see you again, perhaps I will not.”

  Nebraska, Zelda, and I climb the ladder back to the catwalk.

  “Milton seems nice,” Zelda remarks. “Other than terrifying us with portents of our imminent demise.”

  We edge closer to the fence. I scan all the buildings, wondering which might be the jail that currently houses George.

  “People generally expect Villainous Tropes to be these awful brutes every second of every day,” Nebraska says. “But when they aren’t performing their dastardly deeds, they default to friendly. It makes them even scarier, if you ask me.”

  Did she ever consider that Milton might actually be a good person? Maybe even kindhearted enough to help us escape our fate, if he had the chance? I need to pump Nebraska for information—anything that might help to keep us all from our proposed microfilm prison.

  “So why did you bring us here?” I ask.

  “I wanted you to have the context to see the bigger picture.” She swings her arms out to show how big this picture should be. “I thought if you had context, you might not judge me so harshly for all the things I’ve done in the name of preserving our Trope’s livelihood.”

  Zelda scoffs. “Like framing George for arson and murdering Finn—”

  “I did not murder Finn,” Nebraska snaps. “In fact, turns out I did him a favor by sending him to Reader World. Now he won’t have to share in our Trope’s demise.”

  A tremor runs through me. “What are you saying? You think we’ll lose our appeal to the Council?”

  Nebraska grimaces. It’s not a good look for her, or one that seems particularly at home on her face. “I’ll be real with you, because you deserve that. If the Council has gone so far as to start our exhibit, then this Trope is pretty much screwed.”

  “So what about that rousing speech you gave Milton back there?” Zelda asks.

  “Hey, a Legacy Manic Pixie Dream Girl has to hold out at least a glimmer of hope to keep up appearances.” She holds up invisible pom-poms. “Rah, rah, rah. Go team!”

  “You don’t even know what a team is,” Zelda states, echoing my thoughts.

  “Speaking of which,” Nebraska says, like something mind-blowing just occurred to her, “our team should not include Manic Pixie Dream Boys. Society didn’t turn against us until your kind came along. All this unrest is your fault, and I will not have you ruining our defense, too.”

  Panic eats at the lining of my stomach. “No,” I protest weakly.

  Nebraska steps in close and pats me down until she finds Finn’s letter and pulls it out of my pocket. “Can’t let you keep this, sorry.”

  She throws a pitying look to Zelda. “I hope you understand that I never intended for you to be caught up in this. But they do say you should be careful of the company you keep, so I guess I can’t feel that sorry for you.” She extracts a plastic whistle from her bra and blows on it.

  “What are you talking about?” My hands start to tremble so I shove them in my now empty pockets.

  The guard with the pink neck scar approaches.

  “I know you two wanted to visit George,” Nebraska says sweetly. “So I arranged this guard to take you to her holding ce
ll.”

  I look from her to the guard and back, my heart hemorrhaging fear.

  “Wait!” Zelda lunges for Nebraska, but the guard steps between them and physically restrains her. “You can’t do this!”

  “I’m merely doing what you asked me to do. Tell George I send my greetings.” Nebraska gives us a half-wave and swishes off in her silks.

  Chapter 54

  The guard blindfolds us and leads us semi-roughly around the catwalk. I quickly get disoriented and have no idea where we are by the time he finally forces us down a ladder. So much for counting our steps and finding my way back.

  The guard’s keys jangle against metal, and a door scrapes open. The air feels thicker. At first, I can’t hear anything but Zelda’s heavy, fast breathing and our shoes hitting the concrete under us. But soon a single plinking sound multiplies into a cacophony of chaos.

  “Settle down,” the guard commands, and the noise stops immediately. He rips the blindfold from my eyes, and I blink several times to get my bearings.

  We’re in a cellblock, for sure, with bars and bunks and assorted prisoners in orange jumpsuits holding up spoons, but all the sliding cell doors are open.

  The guard pushes us over to one of the cells. George sits at a desk, making notations on a pad of paper with a purple fountain pen. She has modified her jumpsuit into a halter and skirt combo, with a strip of the ripped fabric holding back her hair.

  “Welcome to jail,” the guard says. He taps his guard stick on George’s desk, and she finally glances up and notices us.

  “Riley! Zelda! How fabulous to see you!” She launches herself at us for a group reunion hug.

  “No touching!” the guard admonishes, and the hug ends as quickly as it began. He takes his leave without giving us any further instructions or information. So unsettling.

  “Are they treating you okay?” Zelda scans our friend’s body for any signs of abuse or neglect, but truth be told, George’s skin glows like she’s been at a spa rather than in jail.

  George grins. “Everyone is so nice. Most of them are Prisoner and Guard Tropes, so Authors have them work a lot, but when they’re around, we have the best time. Right now, I’m teaching them to tap dance.”

  I trace the unused lock on her cell door. “So, they don’t lock you in?”

  “Only the outside door,” George says.

  “We need to escape.” I give her a condensed version of what has happened since the Council carted her off, and her face grows more alarmed by the sentence.

  “Nebraska is such an idiot,” George says to me. “You’re not the destroyer of our Trope, you’re going to be the one who saves it. Instead of trying to get rid of you, she needs to parade you in front of the Council.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Our Trope is sexist because it’s 99.9 percent females in quirky muse roles. That makes it all too easy for society to dismiss the Manic Pixie as a girl thing, like menstrual cramps and the birth control pill.”

  Zelda catches George’s drift. “But if we had more male representation, then we’d be taken more seriously. You’re a genius, George!”

  “Why thank you.” George flaps her notebook in the air. “I also have a plan to break out of jail. That’s what I’ve been working on. And with you two here, the chances of success have improved markedly.”

  “Even if we get out of this building, how are we going to get out of the VZ?” Zelda literally wrings her hands. “There’s a giant wall and tons of guards.”

  “I have that covered, too,” George says. “No worries.”

  Jail time has given George an insane amount of focus, and I tell her as much.

  “It’s given me time to think about what’s really important and put Angela’s self-care strategies into practice,” she says. “All my conflict with Nebraska has been distracting me from working on my own issues. It’s up to me to improve my own attitudes, regardless of external circumstances.”

  George is a lot more developed and complex than she lets on. No wonder the Council considered her for Legacy status. “Why did you never tell us about being up for promotion to Legacy?” I ask.

  At this, George stabs a page of her notebook with the pen, spilling purple ink everywhere. “They wanted me to deny who I am.”

  “How?” Zelda reaches out to still George’s hand.

  “I’m not going to hide any longer,” George declares. “Angela and I are in love.”

  Aha! Angela’s listlessness after George’s arrest makes sense now. “You make a great couple,” I say.

  George blushes. “Thank you. I wish everyone were as open-minded. The Council claimed Legacies should embody the most renowned traits of their Tropes.”

  Zelda takes the pen from George and adds a few defiant stabs of her own. “And they want to put you in a heteronormative box.”

  “Exactly.” George drops the notebook on the floor. “But I am done with boxes. And I’m done with this jail.”

  “Well, then, let’s get this party started.” I give her a twirl. “What’s your plan?”

  We spend the rest of the night and the next day plotting. We sleep in shifts on George’s single bunk.

  The morning of our Town Council defense dawns with a visit from a Mafia Maven, who introduces herself as Marla. Zelda and I rouse George from her bunk.

  “Georgie, you up for another tap lesson?”

  George grins. “Gather everyone you can find. Guards, too. This is going to be a routine you never forget.”

  Our getaway is a go, and right in the nick of time, too.

  We stage an improvised jailhouse rock musical with lots of tap dancing and a rattling of the outer jailhouse keys as the central instrumental element. The Guards totally go for it, and during a furious tap-off between the svelte Mafia Maven Marla and George, I use the distraction to divest a guard of his keys, unlock the outer door, and return said keys to their owner without anyone noticing. Once everyone retires to the rec room to celebrate the Mafia Maven’s tap dominance, George, Zelda, and I slip out the unlocked front door. Zelda quickly trades shirts with George, so George doesn’t draw attention as a prisoner, and whoa does Zelda look good in an orange halter-top.

  We climb the ladder up to the catwalk, George leading the way.

  A few rungs from the top, I hear a familiar voice.

  “Why, if it isn’t Georgie the spitfire.” Milton chuckles not at all evilly. “From the second you introduced me to the escapism of tap dance, I knew you had the ingenuity for a prison break.”

  “You claimed you didn’t know George,” I say.

  “A simple ruse to keep Nebraska unaware of my deep respect for her rival,” Milton explains as he gives Zelda a hand up the ladder. “When I heard about today’s tap session, I got here as soon as I could, but it looks like I missed out. Come. We must hurry.”

  It’s not super surprising that a Manic Pixie could win over a jaded villain like Milton—not to mention an entire jail population. But it’s certainly a feat that George managed it within the space of a couple of days.

  We don’t have much choice but to trust Milton, so we do. He takes us through a chain-link door and back down a ladder that puts us onto the shadowy streets of the VZ, which is rather terrifying.

  I try my best not to be distracted by Zelda’s amazing abs as we follow Milton to an Abandoned Shed.

  “This is as far as I go, my friends,” Milton says. “Stay true to yourselves, and find ways to tell your stories. It is all I ask in return for my assistance today.”

  George throws her arms around him. “Thank you for everything. Keep practicing your shiggy bops, okay?”

  “Will do.” He salutes her, throws himself into a fancy tap dance step, and slips away.

  We have to dig through a pile of ancient corroded saws and rakes to uncover the trap door to a tunnel that runs under the wall. Zelda flings the tools as though they’re as light as plastic toys, while George stops too often to admire constellations of rust. The muscles in my arms ach
e with the effort, but we finally manage to move everything and lift the wood panel.

  We find a flashlight taped to the underside of the trapdoor. Zelda liberates it and turns it on.

  We take deep breaths and prepare to run.

  Nebraska may believe I’m a liability, but with the fate of the entire Manic Pixie Trope on the line, I can’t abandon my fellow Pixies. Not after all that I’ve witnessed here.

  Chapter 55

  The more distance we put between us and the VZ, the more we relax. We make it back to the Right Side of the Tracks with just enough time to stop by our apartments and change clothes for the Council meeting. Zelda takes George home with her to raid her wardrobe, since we suspect George’s place has been cleaned out already.

  I am far from looking my best. My skin is puffy from the restless sleep and tortured dreams of the past two nights. But I put on my silver sport coat and burgundy pinstripe pants borrowed once upon a time from Finn. They both suffer from wrinkles and Sprite’s kitty fuzz, but they soothe me emotionally. And I need that because I am really freaking nervous. What if the Council condemns us to the Trope Museum tonight? Would they cuff us and take us away immediately? Or would I be able to jump aboard the Termination Train and take my chances there?

  Town Hall sneers at us with its straight angles and cold concrete, but tonight we fight back with color. All 157 Manic Pixies have shown up in their quirky best. The Hall brims with pinafores and sashes and pink tutus. I look around the auditorium for Zelda and George but figure they’re keeping a low profile.

  Mandy comes up behind me and guides me into a seat in the front row. “God, Riley, did you go hamper diving?”

  “Nice to see you, too,” I reply. She is, of course, whimsically dressed in a flared jade vinyl dress with a cameo choker and thigh-high skin-tight jelly boots. Her lipstick blares fire-engine red. “How’s Clark?”