“Actually all humans are half skeletons,” Squid said. “You have skeletons inside you, while I don’t. But I know what you mean. The panty might demand a full human girl, so she can’t suddenly change into a walking skeleton and leave it hanging.”
They both giggled at the thought of a panty hanging loosely on a walking skeleton.
“I wish I had a magic panty,” Myst said wistfully. “I’d use it to snag a boyfriend. Like maybe Piton. I think he’s handsome.”
“He is ready to notice girls, or soon will be,” Squid agreed. “His sister thinks he’s already too much into that, and he thinks she’s too much into boys.”
“Well, send him to me! I’d treat him better than that panty thief we heard about, who flashes her panties, freaks out men, then steals their stuff.”
Then their dialogue drifted on to other subjects, and the panty was forgotten.
Squid.
Squid, on the verge of snoozing, jerked awake. That was Santo’s voice, but he wasn’t here.
Then she tuned in on him. He was sitting alone on the deck near the front of the boat as it drifted, gazing at the clouds below. They were going somewhere. Squid hadn’t been aware if it, distracted by her changing circumstance. “What?” she asked.
“Squid, I can’t see or hear you, but I think you can see and hear me,” he said. “If this works, it will verify your talent. Come up here and join me.”
Squid hastily did so. She saw Win at the stern, her wind guiding the boat as it caught the fiery sail. “Hi, Win!” she called. “Is Santo on deck?” She knew he was, but preferred not to explain about that yet.
“Up front,” Win called back. “Cloud watching.”
“Thanks.” Squid skirted the fire sail and joined her brother. “Hi, sibling. Fancy finding you here.”
“You heard me,” he said, plainly gratified.
“Well, you spoke my name.”
“Mother told me it would work, but this is the first time, and I wasn’t quite sure. I’m glad it did.”
She sat down beside him. “Actually it’s the second time, I think.” She explained about her vision of the panty.
“Now that’s really interesting,” he said. “Because that’s what I was going to tell you about. We’re heading for Caprice Castle now, since Magnus and Jess have a week off before their next engagement.”
“Wow! I always wanted to tour Caprice.”
“That may not be included. We’re supposed to pick up Piton and Data. They’ll be joining us on a tour for a week while their folks visit Skeleton Key. Their parents feel they’re becoming too isolated, so time with us will help socialize them, because we’re in their general age bracket and we’re social. But there’s a complication.”
“There always is,” Squid said. “Because this is a story, and complications are good for stories even if they’re not much fun for the folk who get complicated.”
“Exactly. Data is happy to be social, but Piton isn’t. He needs to be persuaded to visit with us.”
“Maybe you can talk to him.”
“He knows I’m gay. That’s a turnoff for him. He’s hot for girls and can’t understand any boy who isn’t. When he gets to know me he should ameliorate, but I can’t persuade him to join us.”
“Well, I can’t either. He knows I’m a cuttlefish.”
“Yes. So it will have to be Win or Myst who approaches him. Win is close to his age; she’s ten. But we need her to move the boat, so it better be Myst.”
“Who is nine,” Squid said. “Isn’t that too young? Boys don’t much want to be with girls until they’re older.”
“Yes. However, Myst will be significantly enhanced. You must persuade Myst to sway Piton.”
“Me! Why do these chores fall to me?”
He smiled. “Because you’re the protagonist. It’s not all fun and games.”
“Fun and games!” she cried indignantly. “Listen, brother—” Then she realized that he was teasing her. “I will talk to her.”
“Thank you.”
“But if this is an example of the huge event we are preparing for, I’m not much impressed.”
“We remain in the setting up stage. I suspect that we need a certain cast of children to enable it. Only when we have them all ready will the main event commence.”
“Children? If it’s big, the adults should be in charge.”
“Adults would be suspected, causing the mission to be compromised. Children are considered innocent.”
Squid burst out laughing. “In an oink’s eye!”
“I said ‘considered.’ It may be fallacious, but just as adults keep secrets honoring the Adult Conspiracy, so also children keep secrets they forget when they become adults. So adults think we are innocent, and that has force.”
“Oh, sure. I understand. So this is for children. Maybe that’s why a child is protagonist.”
“Indeed. This is a children’s production.”
“But you won’t tell me what it is.”
“Correct. I have little notion myself.”
She gazed at him, frustrated, sure that he was not telling her everything. But she remembered that his mother was Fornax, and he was privy to special information that needed to be hidden. “Okay. Anything else?”
“Yes.”
“That was meant to be facetious!”
“It’s minor, but may actually help. We need a cover story for our close organization of children, which includes non-siblings.”
“Brother! That’s an exclamation.”
He smiled. “I understand.”
“Well, let’s have it. What’s this cover story that’s going to further complicate my life?”
“We need to form a dance group.”
“A what?”
“A dance group. Classical Mundane dances, mainly. Square, round, triangle, star, line dances. That sort of thing. We’ll become an act in Magnus’s traveling show.”
“A dance group,” Squid echoed weakly. “As if we know anything about classic dancing.”
“As if,” he agreed. “Don’t worry; we’ll learn with startling velocity.”
“Oh, more enhancement? Or do you know where there are dancing shoes that we can put on and they will do our dancing for us.”
He smiled tolerantly. “We will call it natural ability that wasn’t evident until there was motivation.”
“So I will have to get Larry to dance with me, and Myst will have to get Piton. That won’t be easy. Girls like to dance, but boys generally don’t.”
“Consider it a challenge.”
“Oh, spit!”
“That’s the spirit,” he agreed equably.
Sometimes she regretted how hard it was to rile Santo. “I will talk to Myst,” she said with resignation.
“Meanwhile, I will talk to Win,” he agreed.
Squid returned to her room. Myst was there now. “Anything new happening?” the girl inquired.
“Yes. We’re going to form a dance group, square, round, et cetera.”
Myst clapped her hands. “Goody! I love to dance.”
“But we’ll need partners. Boys.”
“Blip!” Myst swore. In a couple more years she would be able to say “Bleep!” and later still, as an adult “Damn!” But of course one of the Child Conspiracy secrets was that they knew what the euphemisms stood for. They just couldn’t say them aloud. “I knew there’d be a catch. We don’t have enough boys, and they won’t do it anyway.”
“We’ll have to recruit a couple,” Squid said. “Which reminds me; you have a chore coming up.”
“Oh? What?”
“You have to persuade Piton to join us on the boat for a week or two, and get him to join the dance group. His folks think he needs socializing.”
Myst laughed. “He’s almost a teen. I’m still a child
. A pretty teen girl might interest him, but not me. And even a teen might have trouble making him dance.”
Squid had a flash of inspiration. “That panty I saw in the vision. He has it. He wants to find out who it fits. Maybe it fits you.”
“And maybe it fits a pretty teen girl ten times as well. Try again.”
“He’ll want to try it on any girl he meets, until he finds the right one. You won’t even have to mention it; he’ll think of it himself soon enough. And if you should happen to be the one, well, you’ve got a dance partner, maybe even a boyfriend.”
Myst considered. “I don’t believe it for half an instant. But you’ve got me intrigued. The only way I can be sure that panty isn’t for me is to try it on.”
“That’s right. Satisfy your curiosity. What can you lose?”
“My virginity.”
Squid froze. “Myst, you’re only—”
“Nine years old. I shouldn’t even know that term.” She laughed. “Gotcha, sister. I do know better.”
Squid relaxed. “You got me,” she agreed. “I was starting to think like an adult.”
“I’ll try to talk him into it.”
“One favor. Please say my name when you’re on the beach.”
“Why?” Then Myst remembered. “Your new talent! Then you’ll tune in on me.”
“Exactly. I’m supposed to track important events, and this may be one of them.”
“Okay. But if I do anything I shouldn’t, don’t tell on me.”
“Agreed,” Squid said, smiling. “Child’s honor.”
“We can’t let the adults catch on to our secrets. There would be blip to pay.”
“There would,” Squid agreed.
The boat landed on the beach isle where Caprice was parked. The castle was magnificent with its walls and towers. Piton and Data were still outside, playing on the sand.
Win and Myst debarked and walked toward the twins. “Squid,” Myst murmured.
Squid, watching from the deck, went below, now that she had the vision. She was already getting to like this new talent.
“Hey!” Win called. “We’re Win and Myst, two of the siblings on the fire sail boat. We want you two to visit us on Fibot for a week or two.”
“We know who you are,” Data called back. “We saw you blowing the boat in. I’ll be glad to get a good ride on it.”
“No,” Piton said shortly.
Just so. He was the truculent one. “Come, Data,” Win said. “Let me show you around the boat. You’ll like it.”
“I know I will,” Data said sociably.
Myst looked at Piton. She opened her mouth.
“Forget it,” the boy said unsociably. “Go play with brats your own age.”
“I prefer to play with you. Give me a chance.”
He sent her a look that could have boiled ice water. “I’ll give you half a moment. Then I’m going inside Caprice. Alone.”
This was the crux. But she was prepared. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
That made him pause. She was young, but the secret places of any girl were of interest to any boy, especially a naughty one. It was mainly curiosity, but compelling. “Yeah?”
“Our talents, of course. Then who knows?”
“Of course,” he agreed, disgruntled. But she knew she had him interested. She had hooked him with The Hint. Of course they would talk about talents out here where someone might overhear, but once they got private that might change.
“Here’s mine.” She dissolved into mist, forming a small cloud as her dress dropped off her vaporous body.
He stared. He knew she would have to reform soon, naked!
“Here’s mine,” he said quickly, and changed into skeleton form, his clothes hanging loosely on the bones. “It’s not magic so much as inherent; Data and I can both do it. But that’s our talent.” He changed back, and adjusted his clothing.
Myst coalesced back into solid girlform. But a thin lingering curtain of mist concealed the key parts of her bare body. She picked up her panty and dress and put them back on as the mist faded. “Ta-daa,” she said.
“Oh.” He was having trouble masking his illicit disappointment. The notorious Adult Conspiracy to Keep Interesting Things from Children was childhood’s greatest frustration, and they never ceased trying to get around it.
“Let’s get out of sight of the boat and castle,” Myst said. “We don’t want anyone else to see the next stage. Adults might not understand.”
“Oho!” Actually the danger was that adults would understand.
She definitely had him baited. Squid, observing, had to admire Myst’s finesse. She was young, but already talented at managing a boy.
They walked to the far side of a small dune, out of sight of any likely spy.
And encountered a woman walking the other way. Both Piton and Myst were guiltily startled, and Squid knew why: this was an adult woman, and they couldn’t afford to have her see or guess what they were up to. Not only that, but she was bomb-shell beautiful, with flaring red hair, crystal bright green eyes, appealing freckles on her face and shoulders, and a soft shade of white skin. She wore a loose robe that no longer even tried to conceal the outline of her phenomenal bosom.
Piton was really too young to freak out, but he was certainly trying, so it was up to Myst to do the talking. “Uh, hello,” she said.
“Hello, children,” the woman replied. “What are you doing here behind the dune?”
How could they answer that? “Just seeing the sights,” Myst said. “I’m Myst, and this is my friend Piton. He’s half walking skeleton.”
“A crossbreed! So am I. I’m Marceen. I’m thinking about going to see the Good Magician to find out what my ancestry is, or maybe what my magic talent is, because I don’t know either and it’s about time I found out.”
Piton was jolted out of his daze. “Crossbreeds don’t always have talents, except changing back and forth between their forms.” He shifted rapidly to skeleton, then back before his clothing could fall off.
“That must explain it,” Marceen said. “Except that I can’t change back and forth, maybe because I don’t know what other form I might have. I’m stuck with this form. All I think I know is that I might have some ogre ancestry. Maybe if an ogre met a nymph at a love spring. But that wouldn’t explain my ears.”
Now both children thought to look at her ears. They were pointed.
“Jenny Elf is the only person with pointed ears we know,” Myst said. “And she would never stray near a love spring.”
“I know. So it’s a mystery maybe only the Good Magician can unravel.”
“If you go on around the dune, you’ll see Caprice Castle and the Fire Sail Boat,” Myst said. “They both travel. I’m sure one of them would take you to the Good Magician’s castle, if you asked.”
“Oh thank you!” Marceen exclaimed. “I could kiss you both!”
Then, before they could protest, she did both, quickly kissing Myst on the forehead and Piton on the ear. Then she walked on around the dune.
“That was interesting,” Myst said. “I’m glad we could help.”
Piton did not reply. He had freaked out.
Myst snapped her fingers. “Come out of it,” she said.
He recovered. “I’ll never wash that ear again.” So it had not been a total freak out.
They walked on a bit, making sure that now they really were alone.
“Ready?” Myst asked.
“Sure,” he said eagerly.
“I’ll match you skin for skin. Show something.”
He promptly removed his shirt.
She rolled down the top half of her dress. For a woman that could be impressive, but not for a child. For an instant Squid suspected Myst envied Marceen.
A shadow loomed over the dune. “Bleep!” Pito
n swore, fearing discovery.
But it turned out to be only an errant cloud.
“We’d better hurry,” Myst said. “Just in case.”
“Yeah.”
“This time I’ll lead.” She dropped the rest of her dress, standing bare in her panties.
He stared, but did not freak out. He was a little too young for any ordinary effect, and she was a medium degree too young. Blip! Still, his gaze was intense. There was magic, just not enough of it. Yet.
“You too,” she reminded him.
“Oh.” He laughed, embarrassed. “Maybe I did freak, a little.” He dropped his pants and stood in his underpants.
Myst looked almost as intently as he had. She clearly had never seen a boy’s briefs before, at least not while in girlform, and did not know quite what to make of it.
To Squid, it wasn’t much different from a snug swimsuit. But of course underpants lacked the magic of panties.
“I guess that’s it,” Myst said, almost reluctantly. “We have Looked.”
“I guess,” he agreed, still looking at her. Then a faint bulb flashed over his head. “Unless.”
“Unless?”
“I’ve got something you can try on, if you want to. As long as you’re mostly bare anyway.”
“Unless it’s a really pretty dress, I’m not much interested.”
Squid smiled. The girl knew exactly where this was going, and was eager for it, but masked her excitement. He wanted to get her bare again, on some pretext. She liked the game of Show Me, but pretended otherwise. What a little actress!
“It’s a panty.”
“A panty! I’ve already got one.”
“This one’s plaid.”
“Plaid!” As if that made all the difference, allowing him to think he was playing her.
He fetched it from the pocket of his fallen pants. “Here.”
But Myst demurred. “I’d have to get all the way bare to put it on. You’re just trying to trick me.”
As if she didn’t want to be tricked. Beautiful!
“No I’m not! Here, I’ll get bare too.” He dropped his underpants.
Myst wasn’t the only one who stared. Squid was similarly fascinated. There it was, male anatomy. Young, but there. A plain violation of the Adult Conspiracy that they would never tell.
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