Jim Baens Universe-Vol 2 Num 5

by Eric Flint

  He tried to say "Good-bye," but she was gone before he could form the words and push them out.

  When he was through terrifying people for the night, he went back to his room and practiced saying "Hello, Nancy" for a whole hour until the words slid right out as if he were a normal human being. Then he went to sleep and dreamed of a world filled with little girls who were not afraid of him.

  * * *

  She was back the next day, as promised.

  "Hello, Sluggo," she said. "How are you today?"

  "Hello, Nancy," he said without stumbling on the words.

  "Isn't is a lovely day?"

  "I do not understand."

  "Oh, I forgot," she said. "You're not allowed to go out, are you?" She shrugged. "Oh, well—it doesn't make any difference. We can play right here."

  "Play?" asked the Slug.

  "You know—a game."

  He stared at her.

  "Haven't you ever played a game?" she asked.

  He shook his head.

  "Well, then, I'll teach you."

  And she did.

  * * *

  A week later she asked if there was anything he wanted or needed, like perhaps an ice cream cone, and maybe a cotton candy.

  "One thing," said the Slug.

  "What is it?"

  "I am alone all day when you leave. Teach me to read."

  "I'll teach you what they've taught me," she said. "Every day I'll stop by and give you a lesson. Well, almost every day."

  That began the Slug's education. She brought him Dick and Jane books, and then her second-grade reader, and before long he began asking her for other books.

  "You're learning faster than I did," Nancy noted. "My Aunt Penny gave me a Nancy Drew book for my birthday. I'll bring it tomorrow."

  It took him two nights to read it, and he spent another night thinking about it.

  "Is the world like that?" he asked when he returned the book.

  "I don't know," answered Nancy. "I've never been more than a few blocks from here. But maybe someday we will go exploring together."

  He made no answer.

  "No, I guess we won't, will we?" she said.

  * * *

  They became friends, of course. Her mother was dead, and her father worked at his minimum-wage job every single day during high season, which lasted from early April until late September, and six days a week the rest of the year. She had other friends, to be sure, girls and even a few boys her own age, but every little girl wants a secret friend, and the Slug was hers.

  Anytime someone was giving or throwing away a book, she appropriated it for him, and in the course of the next three years he read Shakespeare and Dickens, Twain and Melville, Kipling and Tolstoy. He didn't understand most of it, and he had only the haziest notion of geography and politics, but he devoured every volume she brought him, even those by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Clarence Mulford.

  He asked her many questions about what he had read. She couldn't answer most of them, but she tried to find the answers in the library, and as a result her education continued apace with his.

  And then one day, when he was certain that no one else would ever willingly associate with him, the Slug made another friend.

  * * *

  He had more names than you could shake a stick at. Most recently he'd been Marko the Magnificent, and back in Ireland he'd been McNulty the Mage, and before that he'd just been plain McKeever, and sometimes MacNamara.

  He stood three feet seven inches high, was perfectly proportioned, and wore a suit of green corduroy that had seen better days and probably better decades.

  The Slug heard him before he saw him. First there was a thud! and then a thump! And then someone was cursing a blue streak. It was after midnight, so the Slug figured he might as well turn the light on, since the quickest way to get the intruder to leave the building was to let him see who he was sharing it with.

  "Well, don't just stand there like a lump," said Marko. "Give a man a hand up."

  He was lying flat on his back, where he'd fallen after bumping into a wall in the dark.

  The Slug looked around, because he couldn't believe Marko was speaking to him. No one, not even Nancy, had ever willingly touched him before.

  "Yes, you!" snapped Marko. "God, you're as ugly as they say! Are you just going to stare at me all night?"

  The Slug walked over and extended what passed for his hand. Marko grabbed it.

  "Pull me up, damn it!" he snapped, and the Slug did as he was told. "Some house you've got yourself," said Marko, brushing himself off. He reached a hand up and suddenly a lit cigarette appeared in it. "Want one?"

  The Slug just looked at the cigarette in wonderment.

  "I guess not, then," said Marko. "Well, what have we got to eat around here?"

  "Nothing," rasped the Slug. "Breakfast is in the morning."

  "Do you always have so much trouble getting your words out?" asked Marko.

  The Slug was about to explain that his mouth wasn't really built for speech, but it would take too many words and too much effort, so he settled for nodding his head.

  "Well, if we're going to be neighbors for any length of time, you're going to have do to better than that," said Marko. He made a sign in the air with his right hand. "Presto! Try saying something now."

  "What do you want me to say?" asked the Slug, then stopped in surprise as he realized how easily the words tumbled out.

  "You might say 'Thank you, Marko.'"

  "What did you do to me?"

  "Magic."

  "Magic?" repeated the Slug.

  "It's too technical to explain to the layman, or the laything as the case may be. Allow me to introduce myself: I am Marko the Magnificent, late of Riverview's midway."

  "Why are you here?" asked the Slug, amazed as the words raced out of his misshapen mouth.

  "Ah, now that's a story," said Marko, making another sign. Suddenly a bottle of beer appeared in each of his tiny hands, and he passed one over to the Slug. "I am one of the Little People."

  "I can see you are little."

  "No," said Marko impatiently, "I mean one of the Little People." The Slug stared at him uncomprehendingly. "You would know us as leprechauns." A pause. "No, I guess you wouldn't. Well, no matter. No one believes in us anyway." He took a swig of his beer. "I was seeking refuge after a diminutive lady of my acquaintance mistook a flight of poetic fancy for a proposal of marriage, so I hired on as the World's Smallest Magician. They just wanted card tricks and the like. They had no idea who they were dealing with." He smiled maliciously. "They tell me that you held the former record for the shortest term of employment in Riverview's history. I have surpassed your mark by almost half an hour."

  "What happened?" asked the Slug.

  "There was a heckler in the crowd."

  "What's a heckler?"

  "Don't interrupt," said Marko. "He catcalled, he berated, he insulted, and finally I lost my temper. Never," he added confidentially, "cause a Little Person to lose his temper at you." Another pause. "He had the manners of a pig, so that's what I turned him into. The last time I saw him, he was grunting and oinking his way through the Skee-Ball area. At the rate he was going, I would imagine he's made it to the Western Avenue entrance by now." He finished his beer and tossed the bottle into the air, where it promptly vanished. "Of course, management was more than a little upset with me. I thought they were going to tear me limb from limb, so I uttered a little spell my grandfather taught me a couple of centuries ago, and sent all the ladies' clothes where I just sent that bottle, and while everyone was screaming and ogling and cursing and running for cover, I walked right out. Well, I came here to give my small ladyfriend time to get over her disappointment, to say nothing of her fury, so I can't go back out into the city, and this would probably be an inopportune time to show up and ask for my half hour's pay, so I think I'll stay here with you until everything blows over."

  "You are going to stay here?" said the Slug.

  "Didn't
I just say that?" replied Marko irritably. "Now what do you want—a hot dog or a pizza?"

  "I don't know," admitted the Slug. "I have never had either of them."

  "I'd ask what they feed you," said Marko, "but you'd probably tell me, and it would ruin my appetite." He made another gesture with his hand. "Abra cadabra!" A table and two chairs magically appeared, and on the table was a pizza. "Sit down and dig in."

  "Thank you," said the Slug. He stared at the chair. "I don't think . . . I mean . . ."

  "Yeah, I see," said Marko. Another gesture, and the chair suddenly changed its shape to accommodate the Slug's misshapen body. "Better?"

  "Yes." Then: "How long will you stay?"

  "I don't know. It depends on how long Mary Macrea stays mad at me, and also whether she's told her father what we did on top of the scoreboard at Wrigley Field."

  "Will I still be able to talk like this when you leave?"

  "Well, I hope you'll have something more interesting to say, but yes."

  "Thank you."

  "If you want to thank me, give me the chef's tour when we're done eating."

  "The chef's tour?" repeated the Slug.

  "Show me around."

  So they ate the pizza, and Marko magicked up two more beers, and then the Slug led him through Aladdin's Castle, showing him which three of the hundred doors actually opened, where the Bumps in the Night would suddenly emerge from the floor and walls. He led him through the slanting room and the vibrating room and the rotating barrel, past the Chamber of Horrors and Ghost Central, and finally they came to the Hall of Mirrors.

  "I love these things," said Marko, standing first before one and then another. "Look at me!" he said, pointing to a mirror. "I'm six feet tall!"

  The Slug looked at each mirror in turn. He was still the Slug, and suddenly the night seemed less magical.

  * * *

  Nancy showed up at her usual time, and was so full of news about school that she didn't even notice that he was suddenly speaking normally. He decided not to tell her about Marko, because he was sure Marko had broken a number of laws, and his reading had convinced him that lawbreakers, no matter how bright they might be, were always caught and usually executed.

  They spoke for an hour—well, she spoke, he listened—then she was off to do her homework and watch the television set her father had finally bought.

  "Who was that little girl?" asked Marko, when she had gone.

  "Her name is Nancy," answered the Slug. "She's my friend. In fact, she was my only friend until I met you."

  "She's been nice to you, has she?"

  "She taught me to read, and she brings me books, and she talks to me almost every day."

  "It's a shame she can only talk to you here."

  "I can never leave," said the Slug. "You know that."

  Marko looked at him thoughtfully for a long moment. "You gave me sanctuary when I needed it. Perhaps I can return the favor. Meet me right here after the Castle closes for the night."

  The Slug went back to work, terrifying women and giving strong men nightmares. Then, at midnight, when the last lock clicked into place, he went looking for the leprechaun.

  "In here," said Marko's voice.

  The Slug followed it and found himself in the Hall of Mirrors.

  "They say the Little People are selfish and ungrateful," Marko began, "and I won't argue the selfish part. But we know how to return a favor when it's freely given."

  The Slug stared at him curiously.

  "Take a look in that mirror," said Marko.

  The Slug looked. He seemed to be eight feel tall and skinny as a rail. He glanced at the next mirror, where he was short, squat and rotund.

  "I've seen these before," he said, unimpressed.

  "Keep looking," said Marko.

  The Slug looked into the closest mirror and slowly, ever so slowly, the creature he was staring at began to change. The oily, miscolored, repulsive flesh melted away, the facial features became regular, the hands and feet took on human shape—and, within a minute, he was looking at a handsome man in his early twenties. The elbows and knees were where they should be, there were the right number of fingers and toes, the mouth no longer looked like it was fit only for sucking fluids.

  Every mirror showed the same image.

  "What do you think?" asked Marko, smiling.

  "It is beautiful," said the Slug.

  "I think so."

  "And cruel."

  "Cruel?" asked Marko.

  "To show me what I can never be," said the Slug.

  "I don't suppose you can click your heels three times, and say 'There's no place like home,'" said Marko with a smile. When the Slug merely looked confused, he continued: "Of course not. So much for drama. Blink once."

  The Slug blinked—and when he opened his eyes, the image he knew so well was back in the mirrors.

  "Thank you," said the Slug.

  "Don't thank me yet," said Marko. He reached into the air, and suddenly a mirror, a real mirror, appeared in his hand. "Take a look. Then you can thank me."

  The Slug looked, and saw the man he had seen in the mirrors a moment ago. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he held his hand up before his eyes, certain it would be the same hand he had seen all his life. But it wasn't. It was the hand that belonged to the handsome young man.

  Tears ran down the Slug's cheeks.

  Human tears.

  For the first time ever.

  * * *

  His euphoria lasted almost eighteen hours. He walked out of the Castle in the morning, mingled with the customers, reveled in the fresh air and the sunlight. He spent most of the day just being alive and happy, and then he returned to Aladdin's Castle to share the news with Nancy.

  "Who are you?" she demanded when she encountered him backstage. "And what have you done with my Sluggo?"

  "You don't recognize me, do you?" he said, smiling. "Concentrate. Does my voice sound familiar?"

  "Where's Sluggo?" she insisted.

  "It's me, Nancy," he said. "I'm Sluggo."

  "If you've hurt him, I'll do something bad to you."

  He spent the next ten minutes trying to convince her that he was the Slug. She was hysterical for the last five of them, and finally ran out of the Castle.

  When they closed that night he found Marko sitting down, gnawing on a lamb shank.

  "She doesn't know me," he said miserably.

  "Nancy?"

  The Slug nodded. "She doesn't believe me. I can hardly blame her."

  "She'll get over it."

  "She may never come back."

  "She'll come back, if only to find out what happened to her hideous friend."

  "She's going to find him," said the Slug.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Change me back."

  "Are you crazy?"

  "She's my friend," he said. "And now she's crying."

  "You stay like this, you can make a thousand friends," replied Marko.

  "I don't want a thousand friends. I want her. She was my friend when no one else would even look at me. I was grateful last night, but in retrospect you shouldn't have changed me. It was against the laws of Nature."

  "Bullshit," said Marko. "Looking the way you looked was against the laws of Nature."

  The Slug stared silently at him for a long moment, and then uttered a single word: "Please."

  "You're a fool," said Marco. He snapped his fingers, and the Slug, the real Slug, was suddenly back. "And now you're spoiling my digestion, too."

  * * *

  She didn't come back the next day, or the next week, or the next month.

  It took her three months and seventeen days to return to the Castle, by which time Marko was long gone.

  The Slug was going to ask what had happened, but then he saw the crutches. She had taken the streetcar from school to Riverview as she did almost every day, and had tripped on the three stairs leading down to the pavement and broken her leg. It was a bad break—the femur was fractured and the ankle
was shattered—and they'd done two surgeries thus far with more to come.

  She was half-convinced she'd dreamed or imagined the strange man who claimed to be Sluggo, and he did nothing to dissuade her. She was miserable, and not only from the pain. Her father, who always thought she was useless, took this as absolute proof of it; she'd fallen behind in school; and her classmates teased her mercilessly about her clumsiness.

  They talked long into the night, the crippled little girl and the grotesque mockery of a man, and for the first time she willingly touched his hand.

  * * *

  The next decade was not kind to Nancy. Unable to exercise, she became obese. Becoming obese, she was endlessly teased when she wasn't being avoided. Three more surgeries didn't quite fix the foot, and she acquired a permanent limp. Andrew Varda, a quiet alcoholic, became a noisy one and lost his job. They moved to another part of the city, but she still managed to visit the Slug two or three times a week.

  As for the Slug, he kept reading everything he could get his hands on and imagining what it must be like to be out there in the world that was forever denied to him, and he continued to spend his days terrifying people who paid good money to be terrified.

  And every now and then, usually when he lay alone on his cot late at night, he would remember the touch of a little girl's hand on his own.

  * * *

  They closed Riverview in 1967. Sold it to a developer who put up stores and condos and parking garages on the ground made hallow by the Bobs and the Silver Flash.

  The very last thing they tore down was Aladdin's Castle. They never found any trace of the creature that was said to live in it. The developer assumed it was just another urban myth.

  But I'll tell you something interesting.

  There's an old house out by the Fox River, just south of the Wisconsin border and maybe forty miles inland from Lake Michigan. It's occupied by a woman and her invalid father. The woman's in her sixties now. No one's ever seen her father, but he must be nearing ninety.

  She seems friendly enough. Doesn't talk much about herself, doesn't socialize at all. She goes into town to shop once a week, and gets around pretty well for a fat old woman with a limp. Every once in a while she picks up a stack of new paperbacks for her father to read. Once, when paying for them, she even dropped his nickname: Sluggo.