The Color of Her Panties

by Piers Anthony

  Okra, appalled, wept. That was of course a giant yes-yes of a no-no, and gave her an ogre-sized headache. She fled the hall—only to collide with Great Auntie Fanny. "Why ogrette, whatever's the matter?" Fanny inquired. A male ogre child was an ogret, and a female an ogrette, of course, not that anyone cared. Well, maybe the goblins cared, but only because they had goblets and goblettes.

  "They r-ruined my birthday party!" Okra cried.

  "Oh, is that the occasion! I thought it was a routine food fight."

  "It is now."

  "Well, then, there will surely be other birthdays! How old are you?"

  "Thirteen today, Auntie," Okra replied, beginning to feel less worse.

  "Great gobs of gook!" Auntie exclaimed politely. "Petard and brimstone! You are overdue for marriage! You're so small it never occurred to me—but I will speak to my husband, Bareface Von Wryneck, at once. We will check the grapevine to see which first cousin ogres are available."

  "But—" Okra tried to protest.

  "Let's see. There's young Crawling Banks. He's so stupid that if he had dynamite for brains, he could not clear one hairy nostril. He's ideal! But I think another ogress has her eye and maybe a ham hand on him already. There's the twins Slow Comb and Fast Comb, but it's too hard to choose between them because each one's duller than the other. Well, you'll probably have to wed the widower Zoltan Dread Locks."

  That name was unfamiliar. "Who?"

  Auntie poked her head through the door, because it happened to be closed. The wood splintered. It was the door's own fault for being in the way. She pointed a ham finger. "See that dirty old ogre dressed in animal-skin slippers and the mask of the black death? That's him. Yes, I think he's the one. You know, my first, second, and third husbands were widowers when I wed them, so I can recommend the type. An ogre doesn't get to be a widower unless he treats his ogress pretty roughly, it stands to reason. So he'll be fine for you."

  Okra backed away and stared around her, petrified with a little loathing and a lot of fear. Just before she fainted she had a vision of a great gray city crowded with gargoyles made of stone.

  Fortunately Auntie Fanny thought she must have knocked Okra out with an accidental sweep of her ham hand and didn't realize how unogreishly sensitive and weak she really was. Fanny proceeded forthwith setting up the marriage. However, none of the top prospects was interested in Okra; they pointed out with some justice that she was too small and scrawny to stand up to much punishment, and her looks were so plain as to be disgusting, and there was even an ugly suspicion that she wasn't as stupid as she pretended to be. Her parents finally gave up and turned her over to her more understanding grandparents, and the search began anew.

  So it was another year before a suitable prospect was lined up: Smithereen, an ogre from the far Ogre-Fen-Ogre Fen who had never seen Okra so didn't know her liabilities. He started down to meet her, but there were distractions along the way, such as trees that had not been twisted into pretzels and small dragons who had not learned fear. Thus his progress was slow, for of course he was doing what it was in an ogre's nature to do: setting the world along his route into ogreish order. When he arrived, he would do the same for Okra, everyone fondly hoped, for her need was obviously great.

  When the blood was on the moon shortly after Okra's fourteenth birthday—there was no party, because she was getting entirely too long in the tooth for marriage, as if her faults weren't already bad enough—the third big ugly event in Okra's life occurred. Her kindly (for ogres) grandparents disappeared, leaving her in the charge of her uncle Marzipana Giganta la Cabezudos fen Ogre, and his toady henchmen Numb Nuts and Big Blue Nose. Marzipana was a fine specimen of an ogre; he liked to stick pins into living butterflies and wear them on his head. Every time he suffered a difficult thought his laboring brain heated up his head and the butter melted, but that was no problem. He seldom bothered with difficult thoughts, and it was easy to catch new butterflies.

  Okra knew that creatures disappeared on occasion. Ogres did all manner of stupid things, such as barging through dragon conventions or walking off sheer cliffs, and were generally then heard from no more. No one thought anything of it except Okra, who discovered yet another peculiarity of her nature: grief. She missed her grandparents, and was sorry to think that anything bad could have happened to them. Naturally she kept this sentiment to herself, because of her primary flaw: her intelligence.

  Unable to sleep, Okra roamed the dank chambers and dusky tunnels of their home caves by night. During one of these dismal jaunts she happened to overhear the voices of her Uncle Marzipana and his henchmen. It seemed that the Ogre-Fen-Ogre Fen ogre Smithereen had been spied bashing small dragons over their heads with fresh pretzel treetrunks, and would bash his way on to Lake Ogre-Chobee any day now. They were afraid he would balk when he actually saw Okra. So they planned to carve a petrified pumpkin into the shape of an ogre face—any random pounding and slashing would do for that—and jam it on Okra's head so that she would look uglier than she was, at least until after the wedding. Then it wouldn't matter, of course; the ogre would pull out her hair and bash her real head into any new ugliness he preferred.

  For some reason Okra wanted neither the pumpkin treatment nor the marriage. She realized that she just didn't fit in ogre society. So with shame she did her final unogreish thing: she bugged out. She packed her dragon-leather knapsack and made her way out to the dark slurpy shore of the lake where her little homemade oxblood boat lurked. Ogres were no sailors, so none of the others had ever recognized the nature of this craft, let alone connected it to her. She had often rowed around the lake by night, finding it blissfully peaceful. That of course marked one more flaw in her nature: no good ogre desired peace.

  But once she was in her boat and fleeing the ogre caves, she realized that she had nowhere to go. She was unlikely to get anywhere if she had no destination, so she pondered, and by and by it came to her. She would go to the Good Magician for an Answer! Since she didn't have a Question, she would have to come up with one. She cogitated and pondered and considered and thought about it until her skull began to overheat, and finally decided that she would simply ask for her fortune. Whatever the Good Magician had to offer was bound to be less worse than whatever else she faced.

  But she didn't know where the Good Magician lived.

  So she solved that problem ogre fashion: she just rowed and rowed until maybe she'd get where she was going. While she did, she continued to think—that was a lifelong fault of hers—and realized that she might have a better chance if she did not leave her fortune up to the Good Magician. She should frame her Question so that the Answer would give her the clue to improving her fortune. But how could she do that?

  Questions flitted tantalizingly around her ears, never quite entering her head. She began to get annoyed. That gave her a notion. Maybe she should ask whether she should keep her temper, and if so, where should she keep it? But after a time she realized that the Good Magician might simply answer "No," and charge her a year's service. So she discarded that one and continued to ponder.

  She rowed and rowed, because she couldn't see where she was going but obviously wasn't there yet. That gave her plenty of time to think. Finally she came up with what she thought was the perfect Question: how could she become a Main Character? For it was evident that every creature was a character in the realm of Xanth, but some were more important than others. All of them suffered sundry travails, but the main characters had a much better record of survival and success than did the throwaway characters. Most ogres were obviously throwaways, which was why their lives were so wretched. But if she could somehow manage to become important, then her fortune would take care of itself.

  The night had brightened into day, and the day had darkened into night, several times during the course of these deliberations. Still she hadn't gotten there, and she was beginning to get somewhat tired and hungry. But she was afraid that if she stopped rowing, she would get distracted and never get there.

&nbs
p; Then there was a horrendous bump. She had gotten there! But when she looked around she discovered that it was only a bare shore; there was no Magician's castle in sight. "Oh, everything's going wrong!" she exclaimed. "I'll never find the Good Magician!"

  "Hello."

  Startled, Okra screamed and leaped into the air. She came down on her feet outside the boat, halfway frazzled. She hadn't realized that anyone was close.

  It turned out to be a merwoman in nymph form named Mela. They talked, and decided to cross the lake—it was now the Kiss-Mee—together, because Okra had the boat and Mela knew where to go. Okra tossed the boat back into the water and they started off. Okra rowed vigorously, having recovered some strength during the brief pause, and encouraged because now there was someone to show the way.

  Mela was saying something, but Okra couldn't hear over the sound of her rowing. But when her thoughts had run their course, catching her up to the vicinity of the present, she became aware of something else: the sky was darkening. Was it night already? No, it was a big thick cloud getting ready to rain on them. Well, a little rain wouldn't hurt, unless it filled the boat. Maybe it would be better to go to land and wait out the storm, as they would not make much progress in a storm.

  She paused in her rowing. "Do you think we should—?" she inquired.

  "Too late!" Mela cried. A gust of wind chose that moment to blow her hair halfway across her face. "Fracto has cut off our retreat."

  "Fracto?"

  "King Cumulo Fracto Nimbus, the worst of clouds. He always makes trouble."

  "But ogres like trouble!"

  "Can you swim?"

  "No."

  "Then you won't like Fracto's kind of trouble."

  She had a point. Okra tried to turn the boat around and row toward shore, but the wind gusted up hugely and blew them the opposite way. Now she saw that the cloud had formed a big misty mouth and was blowing right at them. The wind was whipping up the waves, which were becoming mountainous.

  Rain started, first a few fierce drops, then a drenchpour. "Eeeek!" Mela screamed, pulling her bare legs up. "Fresh water!"

  "What's wrong with that?"

  "I'm a saltwater creature. Fresh water foozles my tail."

  "But you're wearing legs."

  "I don't know how to swim with legs. Anyway, it foozles my skin, too." Indeed, her skin was getting all blotchy where the rainwater was striking it.

  Okra tried to scoop out the water in the boat with her hands, but it was coming in too fast. So she grabbed her oars again. "Maybe we can get somewhere," she said.

  Mela looked doubtful, but whatever she was trying to say was lost in the howl of the wind and roar of the waves. Okra saw a huge wave looming, trying to swamp them, but she managed to heave the boat forward enough to elude it and ride its swell after it settled a little. Waves could be handled; they were like dragons—not too bad if closely watched and tackled from behind.

  But it just got worse. Sheets of water swept across, making Mela scream piercingly enough to be heard even above the storm, and filled the boat rapidly. Okra couldn't row; she had to bail. So she shipped the oars and started scooping out water with both hands. It flew out in gouts, lowering the level, and that saved the boat from sinking. But that meant that they were entirely at the merciless mercy of the wind and waves. In addition, Okra could feel an asthma attack coming on; the exertion, wind, and soaking were making her breath clog. Asthma always waited for the worst times.

  Then the awfullest wave yet charged them. It picked them up and carried them at a horrendous rate into obscurity. All they could do was hang on, soaked through by the seething foam; they were doomed to go wherever the wave took them, with no argument.

  The boat crashed onto a sandy, hairy crumb of a rock. It overturned, dumping them out. The water receded, leaving them sitting high and wet. Mela was huddled and shivering, and even Okra was cool. That had been a nasty storm, but they had after all made it to land.

  The storm moved on, leaving only a few satisfied rumbles behind. It was through with them.

  "Oh, no!" Mela exclaimed as she straightened up and sat down, more or less in one motion.

  Okra looked. There was a great moving mound of sand coming toward them, giggling. "Gotcha in my sand trap!" it said. "Hee hee hee!"

  "No, she she," Okra gasped. "Two she's, not three he's." She hoped her breath would unclog soon.

  "It's a sandman," Mela said. "And he's caught us in his sand trap. That's why Fracto dumped us here."

  "Sand trap?" Okra stood—and sat again as the sand went out from under her.

  "It catches you so you can't get out of it. I've heard about it, but never been in it before. The sandman will cover us over until we smother, and then we'll dissolve away until only our heads are left, and we'll be beachheads."

  "Hee hee hee!" the sandman repeated, agreeing.

  Okra focused her brain and thought heavily for a moment. She knew she couldn't fight the sandman, because she could hardly breathe and was getting horribly weak. So she had to use her brain, such as it was.

  A dim bulb flashed, heating her head. She had a feeble notion! She reached into her soaking wet knapsack and pulled out her lunch: a bottle of door jam. She hated to waste it, but it seemed necessary. She twisted the cap, making it ajar, and dumped the jar of it into the sand around her.

  The sand swarmed over the sticky stuff and got jammed. More sand came in, and it too got jammed. Soon there was nothing but jammed sand.

  Okra got to her feet and stepped on it. The surface was now firm because of the sand. The jam nullified the looseness of the sand, and the sand nullified the stickiness of the jam. She could walk on it.

  But the effect did not reach to Mela. So Okra stood at the edge of the jammed sand and reached out to catch the merwoman's hand and draw her in. Then the two of them stepped out of the sand trap.

  The sandman was so annoyed that he sank back into a blah mound. Good riddance.

  But this turned out to be an island, not the far shore of the lake. They would have to stay here overnight, for the storm could turn around and get them again if they tried to leave before it did. Okra dumped the remaining water out of the boat and set it out to dry in the sun.

  They found a pool of firewater. Mela decided that this was better than fresh water, so they had a bath in it, using a cake of carved soapstone they found nearby. Soon they were free of the last of the horrible froth Fracto had dumped on them. Okra's asthma gave it up as a bad job, and let her breath unclog. They rubbed their hair dry with a towel from a cottonwood tree. Then Mela sang a siren song as she combed her long tresses, making them magically lustrous.

  Okra watched, intrigued. She pulled out a lank strand of her own hair. It had never occurred to her that hair could be beautiful, and it was not the ogre way to—but still___

  Mela smiled. "Would you like me do your hair, too?"

  Okra blushed, which was another unogreish thing to do, and agreed. So Mela used her magic brush and song, and soon Okra's hair had changed from dank strands to lustrous tresses. She looked at her reflection in the pool, and was amazed.

  The light was getting all lavender, purple and soft. It was time to find something to eat, before the light moved on to deep purple and black. They gathered beach nuts, sand dabs, beached banana boats, and finally found a coconut tree with several nuts full of fresh cocoa. That gave them plenty to eat and drink, despite the loss of Okra's door jam.

  Then they collected driftwood and made a drifter's hut to sleep in. Okra's boat, turned upside down, made the roof. They gathered fresh pillows and sheets from pillow bushes, forming a comfortable bed. They slept.

  In the morning they scrounged for more food, finding some crabapples they cooked in the hot spring until they stopped squirming, and set out again. Okra had new confidence, because she discovered she liked having a companion instead of being alone. Mela was not at all like an ogre; she was beautiful and nice and fun to be with.

  "May I ask you something, Okra?" Mela asked
.

  "Sure. But I may not know the answer. Ogre's aren't very smart."

  "You seem smart enough to me. What I want to know is, why is it that you don't talk like an ogre?"

  "I do talk like an ogre, but not as loud."

  "No, you don't. You don't rhyme."

  "Ogres don't rhyme!"

  "Yes, they do. They say things like 'Me think you stink.' Crude rhymes. You don't talk that way."

  Okra considered. "Maybe we just sound that way to others. We don't to ourselves."

  "Or maybe your ogre tribe is different from the other ogres."

  "Maybe. I'll try to rhyme if you wish."

  Mela laughed musically. "Don't bother! I like you as you are."

  Okra rowed, and they made progress toward the far shore of the lake. But Okra, facing back, spied a cloud on the horizon which rapidly grew larger as it approached. "I think Fracto is coming after us again," she said.

  Mela turned back to look. "You're right! That's the demon cloud. Can we get to land before he reaches us?"

  "We can try." Okra bent to it with new vigor, and the light craft leaped ahead. Still, Fracto gained, and would have caught them except that his leading winds just blew them farther ahead. He couldn't suck them back into himself.

  However, they didn't have much choice about where they landed, and didn't have much chance to check around before the storm hit. They snatched burlap from a tree, strung it over a branch, and weighted down the ends with heavy shells. This gave them some shelter from the wind and rain, and they huddled inside it while the storm raged outside. At least they had made it all the way across the lake.

  It remained day, but there was nothing to do except wait out the storm. Okra was really getting to dislike Fracto! It rained every day at home, too, but that wasn't malignant; Fracto evidently stormed just to make trouble for travelers. So they lay down and slept.