Munmun

by Jesse Andrews

  Littlepoors take too long to walk from ay to bee with our littlelegs, nottomention we’re not cuffable. So the guards transport you everywhere by carriercage, for example to the special littlepoor courtroom, basically a middlerich judge’s special desk that you sit on.

  Trained by my lawyer, I told the judge: I’m not in any squad, never have been even for a second, I didn’t get anyone pregnant, I don’t do drugs and I don’t sell them, I’m just trying to scale up the right way like an honest Yewess citizen. And I didn’t say anything about my sis or Shoulderheads or the cop.

  But my face was puffy and bloody from fighting, I was talking weird to this frummy judge, I knew he looked at me and saw someone nogood.

  Lawyer suggested Wreckless Endangerment but the judge preferred Attentive Murder, ohwell, I pleaded guilty and the judge didn’t frown or smile but just said, “Well, Warner, I know you’re a firsttime offender, but in your case, I’ll be candid with you, you seem like what I call an onlyamatteroftime offender.”

  I tried to nod and frown, like, you make good points, but I know you’ll be fair to me, enormous judge.

  “Fourteen is young on some kids, old on others,” he said. “On you it feels old, frankly old enough to know better, so consider yourself lucky with what I’m about to say.”

  I was too dumb not to feel a little hope.

  “The max is thirty years, but I’m only giving you eight,” sighed the judge. “Two in kidjail, six with the adults. May the Lord King God bless the Yewess.”

  III.

  WILT

  DREAMWORLD

  For a year, I didn’t dream.

  In kidjail you don’t sleep goodenough.

  LIFEANDDEATHWORLD

  Instead I dozed super tense everynight, ready to jump up, fight off attacks, get savage. We slept eight nine ten to a cage and the guards cycled new kids in and out every week to break up alliances and keep everyone fighting.

  Kidjail had plenty of faceboys for sure, infact the faceboys were the biggest squad, jackedup inky daves with crazy faces inked on their chests, backs, knees, backofthehead, and the first few days and nights were episodes of getting my face pulped, a couple teeth knocked out, nose broke, ribs kicked.

  Then after three days the faceboys asked me if I wanted to join.

  “I’m honored, dontgetmewrong,” I said. “I just can’t join a squad, daves, it doesn’t fit my beliefs,” and I didn’t actually have any beliefs but that still got me respect so for a few weeks they stopped jumping me, throwing me down, kicking my ribs and stuff, after that the pulpings were just once or twice a month.

  What do you want to hear about a year of nothing? Mostly I sat around the cage and went insane.

  The kidjail was a little house of cages, property of the corpo called Littlebighouse, builder of jails for littlepoors. Our house was allboy, allgirl was up the street. The design was similar to petstores, many stackable cages, eight nine ten beds each, and everything happens in the cage, you might not get outside the bars for weeks at a time.

  They feed you in the cage, passing rubberbowls in.

  They wash you in the cage, first taking clothes and bedsheets, then hosing you up and down through the bars, then blowdrying you, then you get clothes and bedsheets back.

  Outdoor time is when they take the cage outside for a few hours, let you have some sun and maybe a ball.

  Three hours a week we had libraryprivileges unless the guards took them away, and that was when they dump toobig books into the cage, the pages all scrawled in and chewed up by years and years of young psychos. But I still tried to make the most of it, forced my brain to read. In one year I got to page hunfourtyeight of a book called ADVENTURES OF CUTE RASCAL, a mouse with a rabbit friend liberating the forests and meadows from evil rats, in a world with no humans but plenty of swords, shields, bows, arrows, feasts.

  Sometimes a bored canread kid would help me, trap some ants with me, get me through big words or terrible sentences. But mostly I was struggling alone, a couple pairagraphs per week.

  Everyday a few hours I worked out, routines I saw the biggest toughest kids doing, pushups with a kid sitting on you, pullups from the ceiling with a kid hanging on your feet, whenever I could recruit a workout partner. Backflips, frontflips, whatever there’s room in the cage for.

  Otherwise I just sat like everyone and watched whatever vids the guard had on the wallscreen, and when there wasn’t vids I daydreamed, plotted, tried to keep my brain alive, and most important, avoided other prisoners and their beatings and dumb schemes, because everyday something bad or dumb was happening somewhere in the cage, some scumbag smuggling in weeds or dusts, groups betting on random dicerolls, some argument was revving up into a brawl, or just a psycho was out to prove that he’s the worst.

  But a lot of the time we just watched vids.

  Every guard tried to make his shift less sad and boring by putting vids on the wallscreen. So every guard, we learned what kind of vid does he like, news or terror or ballgames, is he open to requests for different kind of vids, how sensitive is he to noise, how much noise and fighting will he ignore before he freaks out and hoses the cage, andsoonandsoforth.

  Everytime a new guard starts working at Littlebighouse, he has to learn a few rules about watching vids in a room of kidprisoners. Rule numberone, no vids with women looking sexy, not just talking about pornos or girlsgonewild but even ordinary murderdramas, gameshows, realhousewives, it doesn’t matter, if it has women showing legs or titcrack, it’s a disaster. Boys will freak out, everyone needs to prove he’s the most hetro, soonerorlater someone is pulping someone’s face.

  Rule numbertwo, no sexymen either, a kid will accuse another kid of loving it, again you will advance prettyquick to facepulping.

  Rule numberthree, playing shootemups on the wallscreen gets everyone to shut up and watch motionlessly, but as soon as you finish, fights break out allover like magic.

  I was sulky and got targeted for fights a lot, not just from faceboys but also fighty psychos. Mostly the guards hated me for this. The head guard was called Wilt and he had a special name for me.

  “What’s wrong today, Grumpyrat,” he said.

  “I live in kidjail, so that’s probably the first part of what’s wrong,” I said in the beginning.

  But over the weeks and months I said lessandless.

  Another guard named Belt, he was hunched and old. He was my favorite because he lifted you out of the cage by hand. Most guards used the net.

  Also his hearing was terrible, so he put on vid captions, a little more reading practice for Warner.

  Prayer visited every month. She was middlepoor now for sure, around threequarterscale, outscaling me by sevenplus. Wow, it was amazing to see her. Huge, walking funny, bobbed hair, and wearing logoed shirts and skirts like any middlepoor lady out veggieshopping.

  The first time she saw me she shrieked and cried at my bashedup face and I had to tell her a bunch of times, sis, I’m not talking about me today, please, just talk about yourself, what was Scale Up like, how was the wedding, where’s Usher, how’s Mom.

  Well the Scale Up Ceremony was amazing, she told me finally, they put you to strange solodream sleep, dreams with no one else in there, and you just wake up huge, feeling so thirsty and hungry, and they put you in a robe and walking feels insane, the ground is smoother and meets your feet harder, but in a good way, you suck in air and it feels so powerfull, everything is just different, it’s amazing, she said.

  “Food is the most different,” she told me. “It’s just better between your teeth. It feels nicer on your tongue.”

  I told her it made me really happy to see her this big, I really meant it too, I mean dang look at you all middle and happy, so I guess what was the wedding like.

  The wedding was super basic, a government ritual. Paddy did not get her a dress or anything, no guests showed up, that whole part is less exciting, let’s stick to talking about being scaledup.

  I asked her what happens if he wants a divorce
, is she protected or would she lose everything?

  “Technically for the first two years it’s a trialmarriage, after that I would get half in a divorce,” she told me.

  “But what about before the twoyear mark,” I asked.

  “He’s not going to want a divorce,” she promised me.

  That wasn’t a great answer but I decided, maybe better not to go there.

  Instead I begged her to scale Mom up, atleast get her out of that churchhouse, everytime Prayer came I asked if she had rescued Mom yet.

  The first few times I said this her face got sad, and she said, yeah, ofcourse, I’m trying, I mean I talk to Paddy about it all the time.

  Each time I got mad and said, what’s Paddy’s stupid problem, how hard is it to let tiny Mom be in your house.

  “It’s hard for me to ask Paddy for anything,” Prayer told me. “Because as good as it feels to scale up, I guess it feels worse to scale down, even just from ninetenth to threequarters, Paddy says you feel weaker and punier and it’s not healthy for an older guy. He does complain kind of a lot sometimes, he feels sick and bad from scaling down, Prayer why did you do this to me, et set set setera. So ontop of that he really doesn’t need to hear from me questions like, hey, when are we bringing my mom in here.”

  “You’re his freaking wife and Mom is his freaking family now,” I rasped out of my halfbusted throat, someone punched it the daybefore. “You’re a pretty young girl who married an old fat babbler, he owes you big, when I get out of here I’m going to slap his freaking face.”

  But it turned out the problem wasn’t just that Paddy hated Mom, Mom also hates Paddy, the whole thing has gotten complicated because Mom has gone a little godcrazy.

  “She won’t even take the munmuns I try to give her,” Prayer told me in her big voice, out of her big head. “She just gives them back. She says the Lord King God doesn’t like my marriage.”

  “Because Paddy’s old and gross,” I said.

  “No, because Paddy doesn’t belong to the Church of the Lord King God,” said Prayer.

  “He’s churchless?” I said.

  “No, he’s in a church,” said Prayer, bashfull.

  “Oh,” I said.

  Prayer didn’t want to fill in the blank.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t even ask which one,” I said.

  • • •

  Paddy belonged to the New Planetary Church, a church started by a guy who’s still alive, so already, bigredflag.

  The major belief is that munmun scales you up in this life, but what about the next life? Goodworks are what scale you up in the next life, and if you think it’s important to scale up in this life, forget it, way more important to scale up in the next, because you spend the next life in, drumrollplease, outerspace.

  In outerspace you need to be so huge that you become a planet, otherwise you will drift around all small and cold and breathless and get smacked by comets forever.

  So you better get started on those goodworks, start fattening up your little future spacepebble, and guesswhat, a major and convenient goodwork is ofcourse Donate Munmuns To New Planetary Church.

  “Why would Paddy even join this church,” I said, confused on account of, Paddy’s super cheap, I can’t see that guy loving to give away munmuns.

  “His boss made him,” Prayer explained.

  The church likes one thing better than you giving your munmuns to the church, and that thing is, recruit other joiners. So to encourage recruiting, the church’s system is, the goodworks of your recruits count toward your goodworks too. Eye ee, when your recruit pays a hundred munmun entry fee, it’s like you paid the hundo fee too, and also the guy who recruited you, all the way back to the original starter of New Planetary Church, who collects all the goodworks of everybody and will get to be biggest of all in the afterlife, the sun or a blackhole or something.

  So Paddy’s boss, an owner of many Quickstands in the Lossy Indica area, at some point mentioned to Paddy, hey, I have goodnews, this church is the True Universal Truth, you should really consider its teachings, it has a lot of guidance on how to lead a fulfilled life, righteousness, virtue and whatever, and bestofall, if you join the church I probably won’t have to double your monthly Quickstand Franchise Fee.

  And so Paddy joined as a business decision, and as part of the marriage he made Prayer join too.

  “So, Paddy is not troubled that his scale in the next life will always be bigger than yours,” I said.

  “What are you talking about,” she said.

  “Your goodworks are also Paddy’s goodworks, plus he has his own, so, the math works out like, in deathspace he’ll be huger than you for sure,” I said.

  “Warner, no one actually believes any of this stupid crap,” she said.

  It’s the truth and I’m sorry for making you learn so much about this stupid church, anyway the point is, once our mom learned Prayer converted to New Planetary, that was it, gameover. Anytime Prayer visited Mom at the Dockseye Middlechurch of the Lord King God, Mom refused to talk anything not churches or gods. Mom do you need anything, Prayer you need to leave that cult. Mom it’s fine how’s your eye, Prayer the Lord King God will still forgive you if you just nevermind that evil cult today. Mom can I atleast fix your janky chairwheels, Prayer join your enormous hand with mine now and say, Lord King God, mybad, forreal.

  Mom was always pretty godhappy, but apparently after we left she became some kind of a nun or something, alldayeveryday just sewing clothes for other littlepoors, eating only pastes and gruels, wheeling herself around the streets at night trying to save souls.

  It made me a little happy that atleast the church was taking care of her. But a lot sad that we weren’t, her worthless kids, one scaledup and selfish, the other a scumbag inmate.

  So that was Mom.

  About Usher meanwhile, Prayer had no idea.

  “The same morning you got arrested, he left, I don’t know where to, he didn’t tell me,” she said.

  “Ohmygod, Prayer,” I yelled, furious. “What is even going to happen to him. Where will he sleep.”

  “I look for him in Dreamworld sometimes,” she said. “I’ll tell you if I find him.”

  “Cats or hawks will eat him for sure and if I found out he’s dead, guesswhat, you’re also dead, as in, I will consider you dead forever,” I told her.

  “Usher is his own guy, I’m not responsible for him, and anyway he left without even telling me,” she said.

  “I will think of you as tragically dead,” I yelled. “Whatashame about Prayer, I will never get to talk to her again, I even forget what her stupid face looks like.”

  That was Prayer’s first few visits anyway, before my tongue got fat and dull.

  How can I even tell you what a year in kidjail does, if you don’t know. The days went by, weeks, months, I became less myself.

  If you’re only around boys you don’t know and don’t like, mostly scumbags and peenfaces, prettyquick you get bad at talking. Your mouth loses most of its programs, reduces prettymuch just to “I’m not intrested,” “Don’t bother me,” “Sorry dave,” “Heck you want,” other sad hard sayings.

  So Prayer’s visits got shorter and shorter, because I just didn’t say much, also she had worries of her own to deal with.

  “I can’t stay for long, I’m really sorry, Paddy’s got me running the stand everyday now, he’s really kind of turned the business over to me, except I guess for the ownership part,” she would say and I just grunted, tried to care a little harder and couldn’t.

  “Sorry I haven’t been in a while, Paddy retired, he just sits in bed allday playing vidpoker with cyberfriends, except I think the friends are all just robots, do you think I should be worried about it, probably it’s fine right,” she would ask with tired eyes and a stressedout mouth, but her worries just bounced off my hard cool thoughts.

  My thoughts were about tunneling.

  I’m in an eightyear tunnel, I thought everyday, just need to slowly tunnel through time, dig through
time at the rate of one day per day, make it to the otherside with reading skills, thinking skills, superstrength.

  But after a few months you begin to realize, an eightyear tunnel is an impossible length.

  You begin to think, I can’t see the end of this tunnel, how do I know it’s not collapsed in the middle.

  You realize, in two years the tunnel gets darker, bumpier, crappier. In two years I’m in with grownups and in grownjail they throw littles in with middles. So you’re in with daves who outscale you by two, three, five, way more frequency of getting pulped, more probability of getting banged, more likelihood of getting told, here are your choices, join a squad or die. Goodluck surviving six years with hopeless grownups, bigger sadder madder than you, more insane too.

  You realize, I have no control, even here in kidjail, what if the faceboys get serious and just break my neck one day.

  What if a psycho fights me, a true psycho wants a fight to the death and he kills me or I kill him, the outcomes are death or lifeinprison.

  What if this tunnel I’m digging is just a pit.

  The days crept by and I got sad, mad, meaner to boys than I had to be.

  If a kid stepped on my bed, I yelled at him. If a kid stared at me, not even meanstaring, just alone or afraid, I slapped his face.

  The guards and parolecops mentioned it, during checkups, they said, “Grumpyrat, you’re not going to fight your way back outside, and infact if you keep getting in fights, you’re never going to leave,” like that’s news to me, like I’m an idiot who can’t figure that out.

  They thought I was one of the worst kids and after a year I was thinking, what do I know, maybe they’re right.

  I realized the tunnel was not even me digging, it was just the earth swallowing me whole like a snake.

  DREAMWORLD

  One day about a year after I got jailed, they came in and plucked the worst kids out of the cages onebyone, Puppyneck the king faceboy, Nick the total psycho, Starling the dustaddict, and numberfour, yourstruly.