Dining Out


“So here we are,” I said as I typed, “babysitting two kids while their parents deal with a family emergency. The oldest boy, Xander is… Is…”

I turned to the little moppet at my elbow. “Raven, how old is Xander?”

“He’s is ten, “she told me.

“Ten!” I typed triumphantly. “And his sister… Um.” I turned to the card table where Xander was building a maze out of Legos. Five sylphs tried to watch the construction from low vantage points around the living room. “Hey, Xander? What’s Raven’s name?”

“What?” he asked.

“Raven!” Raven shouted.

“I know, sweetheart,” I told her, “I’m trying to find out.” Back to Xander. “Your sister? What’s her name?”

“RAVEN!” Raven shouted, stomping a foot. I pat her on the head and asked Xander again.

“I dunno, ask Raven!” he said, concentrating on the labyrinth.

“Good idea!” I turned to Raven. “What’s your name?”

“RAVEN!” she screamed.

“Oh. Well, why didn’t you just say so?” I typed away at the email to my parents at their time-share in Las Vegas. It was largely unnecessary detail, they had known both kids almost as long as I had.

But a chance to tease a tiny woman, of any age, is just something that’s part of my DNA. Electra determined that a while back. I don’t argue with her, she can remember what DNA stands for.

I included details of Brandy, Xander’s sylph, who they’d also met, and Ace, who they hadn’t.

“Ace is another not-quite-rescued sylph. She lost one leg in a car accident and travels in either a wheelchair or rides a howdah on… On…”

“RAVEN’S!” everyone in the room shouted at me.

“Raven’s shoulder,” I said and typed.

I ended with messages from our sylphs to Mac, Mary and Mary Ann and signed off.

Then I picked up Raven and we went to examine the progress of the maze.

Xander was experimenting with the layout of the walls, just placing the base bricks along where the walls would go.

He was trying to make it difficult, since there was a wager in place. The sylphs insisted they could solve any maze in less than two minutes.

Every one that did so got to vote on what Xander would have for dinner when we went out later. And he’d have to share.

“The problem is,” he told me, “there just isn’t that much floor to build on. So I can’t make it too crazy.”

“That is a problem,” I agreed.

I checked to make sure no one had a clear view of the layout from where they watched and left him to it.

Raven had no interest in the maze or the wager. Her sylph had no desire to mooch off of Xander’s plate, as they had a very good relationship of their own.

Ace was on the coffee table, idly rolling her wheelchair back and forth.

“Mr. Conrad?” she called as I moved to the couch. “Sir, Miss Raven wanted me to remind you when Supersylph was on.”

The ‘sir’ would have rankled, but that was just Ace’s way. She called every human Sir or Ma’am, Mister or Miss. No one teased her about it, though I was pretty sure my sylphs would be teasing me once she left.

“Yes, she did,” I agreed. Raven squealed and ran over to the computer desk where I’d left the TV remote.

“Well?” Ace asked.

“Well, what? She did ask you to remind me when-“

“Now, sir. It’s on in a minute or less.”

“OH! Of course.” We turned on the TV and most of us watched Supersylph save Center City from Nemesis and his minions.

Except this episode had hero and villain working together to save the city from an alien invasion.

“Hey! That was Thog’s idea!” Electra shouted gleefully. She was on the coffee table exactly halfway between where I sat and where Xander designed.

Brandy was at the edge of the table, as close to Xander as she could get without being on the table with him.

I suspected that she was trying to use the master-familiar connection to get a hint on the maze solution.

My other two sylphs were over by me, watching from lounge chairs beside the wheelchair.

During a commercial, Raven ran for the bathroom and Ace waved me over closer. “Sir, it’s very nice of you to indulge Miss Raven this way.”

Before I could reply, all of the other sylphs laughed loudly. “Sweetie,” Delli told her, “if you guys weren’t here, our loving master would STILL be glued to the TV when Supersylph is on.”

“I used to think he had a crush on Supersylph,” Electra said, “but he just really likes the show.”

“Action, adventure, chase scenes that go under refrigerators…” I said. “It has everything!”

Raven came back and carried one of the sylph bathrooms over to the table in case Ace needed it, then the show was back on.

I wasn’t as big a fan of the next show, The Purple Riders, so I left Raven to that and helped built up walls with Xander.

Sure enough, every sylph that tried walked out the exit in about a minute.

“We need a bigger base,” Xander moaned as they started discussing what Xander would have for their dinner.

“It’s three foot on a side! This one’s big enough,” I said. He insisted that it wasn’t. Brandy waved him over and whispered in his ear.

He sat back at the table, trying to be nonchalant. Asked about the studio. About the car (the Tantive IV-E). Then, as if it had JUST occurred to him, asked if I was willing to put my money where my mouth was.

“I thought you’d never ask,” I said. I set him to dismantling the walls while I thought out my clever trap. “So, if ANY sylph can make it through my maze in less than two minutes, all the sylphs vote for my meal and Xander orders whatever he wants.”

“What if we don’t?” Cher asked.

“If no one solves the maze in that time, I get to pick the sylph’s meal.”

“Except Ace’s!” Raven said, protecting her special friend. Ace pat her owner on the wrist.

“Well, you’re going to order a hamburger,” Xander told her. “You always order a hamburger. And Ace always gets your pickle.”

With all tiny people back on the coffee table, I began construction, Xander watching closely. When the walls were two bricks higher than Cher stood, I broke out the smaller base pieces and put a roof on. It covered everything but the chamber at the very center.

It wasn’t a perfect fit, there were cracks allowing light inside, but no one could solve the maze by looking down on it.

Then I had all five sylphs get in the carry basket and held them over the table.

“Okay, there’s one entrance. And the exit is the set of stairs in the middle chamber. If one of you stands on the roof in two minutes, you all win.”

“Just one question, sir,” Ace asked. “Is it physically possible to solve this maze?” No one seemed surprised by the question, just glad someone else had asked it.

“I’ll show you the whole layout when you’re done,” I told them.

They gathered at the entrance and I started the stopwatch app on my phone. “Go!”

Raven, Ace, Xander and I watched and listened as Electra shouted orders, Cher shouted out dead ends, Delli shouted abbreviated profanity (JUST catching herself in time to avoid a punishment), and Brandy insulted my heritage. That was a little mean, she’d MET my heritage during a visit to Springwater.

Raven and Ace shouted encouragements, Xander just kept his fingers crossed.

At one point, Brandy staggered out the entrance, glared at me, and rushed back inside.

It didn’t sound like they were even halfway through when the timer went off.

“Time’s up,” I said. I lifted the roof one piece at a time and Xander lifted sylphs out of the maze.

“I want to try that again,” Electra said.

“You just want to try two-out-of-three because I know a place that serves octopus.”

“EUGH!” Xander, Cher, Ace, and Raven objected. Delli and Brandy looked up, interested. I knew that Delli was faking, though, trying to fake me into choosing something, ANYTHING else. Electra just glared that ‘You woudn’t dare’ look at me.

I don’t know why she still uses that glare, she KNOWS I would dare.

Anyway, we let them each try once more. I used the stopwatch app to record each sylph’s time.

Brandy made it to the entrance once more, and so did Electra.

“You’re cheating,” she said. “I don’t know how…”

“Okay,” I said. I picked her up and put her down in the center chamber. “Try to get out.”

She walked out the door thirty seconds later.

Delli followed her out the door. “How the FU… FUN did you do that?” she asked me.

“Yeah,” Xander asked, “How the fun, huh?”

“Xander!” Brandy called from somewhere inside. It was the tone she used when he used a bad word. He sat back, reviewing his and Delli’s comments to try to figure out what they’d done wrong.

I removed all the roofs and rescued Brandy and Cher.

Then I got a length of string out of the kitchen. I laid ait down through the maze, tying it off so it completed one unbroken loop.

Then I held sylphs over the top. They looked. “What’s with the string?” Cher asked.

“It… The inner walls don’t touch the outer walls!” Electra said, first to get it.

“So, it’s a maze?” Delli said. “One passageway is like any other.”

“But, to solve it, you’d have to know where this loop was!” Electra explained. “If you just follow the walls to the left, or always turn right, you never cross that loop. You just circle all the way around the center and back where you started.”

“So you ARE cheating!” Delli said.

“No,” Brandy said. “I can see the path. I can see how Electra got out.” She pointed.

I put the four of them in the center, with the roofs clear, and the string in place. They played in the maze for a bit.

Xander looked confused, still. I knew Brandy would explain it to him.

Ace and Raven just giggled because they were not eating octopus tonight. Well, no one was. I had a much worse fate in mind.

“How did you ever think of that?” Electra asked a few minutes later. Brandy was down in the maze, walking through it and explaining the ‘trick’ to Xander. Everyone else was on the coffee table, muttering. Probably all agreeing that it was cheating.

“I think I read it somewhere,” I shrugged. She looked suspicious. “No, you know how I can remember jokes from Reader’s Digests from the sixties?”

“You do have an amazing brain for trivia,” she agreed.

“I honestly don’t know if I figured that out or if I read it somewhere and just kept that one kernel of knowledge,” I said.

“Huh. And here we were afraid you were getting smarter,” she said.

“No risk of that,” I assured her.

-----

Dinner was at the Mongolian Barbecue place. It was popular among my sylphs, so they were happy when I let Raven uncover the carrier.

Until Delli remembered the wager. “Oh, NO!” she moaned as they walked out onto the table.

“What?” Cher asked. “This is a great place! You love this place!” He pointed to the buffet, the rolls of thinly sliced pork, beef and chicken, the slices of vegetables and the bowls of sauce.

“But tonight, Glorious Bohemian is picking the flavor!” she wailed.

“Oh,” the others said, stunned with realization.

I’m not an adventurous diner. I never pick the spicy options. I mean, I like flavorful, but not painful.

Usually at this place I get one bowl with the spicy sauce for the sylphs, and the rest of the night I eat the mild or less sauce.

Brandy asked a few questions, then thought about Xander’s tastes. “I recommend the medium sauce, beef, cabbage, mushrooms and broccoli,” she told him.

He nodded and marched off to the buffet. I lingered for a bit to make sure they took our drink orders and Raven’s hamburger off the kids’ menu. I softly told Brandy (and everyone else), “If Xander shares with you, he has to share with everyone.”

“He knows that already,” she assured me with a wink. I winked back at her and walked slowly to the buffet. Xander scurried past me with his bowl of stir-fry.

When I got back to the table with my bowl of mild chicken and cabbage, Delli wailed long and loud about how boring my choices were, how bland the taste.

Of course, she already had stains on her shirt from Xander’s food when I sat down. I didn’t point those out.

So Xander thought he’d gotten one over on me, forming bonds of conspiracy with the sylphs. Fight the Man!

I pompously allowed him to share a tiny bit of his ice cream with the poor pathetic pets after dinner. Ace was full of pickle and turned it down.

------

That night, Xander took a shower in the master bathroom and I ran a bath for Raven in the guest bathroom.

She waited, wrapped in a towel, while we made sure the water was the right temperature. Then I left her under Delli’s supervision and walked out.

“Ace usually watches me bath!” she protested.

“But Delli lives here and knows where everything is,” I replied. She accepted my logic and I got a minute alone with the guests.

Ace and Brandy waited on the guest bedroom nightstand. Cher was by the door, listening for any call from Delli. Electra was with the guests, looking curiously at me.

“Okay, real quick,” I said. “I got an email from Chrissy. Grandpa Mortimer’s funeral is on Friday at eleven. They would like you two to lead the kids in a brief prayer for his soul at eleven thirty.”

“Us, sir?” Ace asked.

“We, uh, we attend church with them,” Brandy said, “but we don’t actually…”

“Sir, could you lead Mister Xander and Miss Raven in the prayer?”

I shook my head. “Chrissy fears that my atheism and sense of humor would be too tempting to make light of the situation.”

“They both trust you, though,” Electra pointed out. They still looked anxious.

“I do think this is Chrissy and Chip’s choice to make,” I told them, “so I won’t change any details. BUT, all of us will be right here if you need us. Okay? For explanations or hugs or whatever.”

“You don’t have to say funeral,” Electra said. “Just lead a prayer for Grandpa.”

“Okay,” Brandy said, her hand on Ace’s shoulder. “We can do that.”

“And if they ask questions, sir, you’ll be there?” Ace wanted me to repeat. I reassured her.

“Also, knowing the details of the funeral, I sent flowers in our name, and another set of flowers from Xander, Raven, Ace and Brandy.”

“Thank you, Mister Conrad.”

“Yeah, that was thoughtful, thanks.”

“It was Electra’s idea,” I said. She looked surprised at the credit as I got up and went to the hall. I was just in time to see Xander coming out. I reached out to ruffle his hair.

It was perfectly dry.

“YOU didn’t actually stand under the water, did you?”

“That’s how Dad catches me,” he said glumly.

“Who do you think told me to check?” I asked. I pointed back to the shower. He slogged back in. I went back to wait to attend on Miss Raven.

-----

Supersylph and Nemesis were guests on Electra’s show that week. Xander pretended to be unimpressed when I mentioned it. Then Electra presented him with a wrapped gift. He found an autograph book inside, which already had Electra’s and Kerri’s signatures. He got a little excited after that.

Raven went straight to excited just knowing that Supersylph was going to be in BOISE, much less in the same building with her. The autograph book we gave her was just icing on the cake of her glee.

Part of our prep had been asking kids in local schools to submit questions for the hero and villain. We had Xander and Raven read them out loud, picking five questions from each of their recordings.

When the stars showed up, we also filmed the kids asking their own questions. We used one question from each of them in the broadcast.

Supersylph complimented Xander on his question and made him her devoted slave for life.

Nemesis wrote a poem in Raven’s autograph book and drew her directly to the Dark Side.

We took them and their Production Assistant out to dinner after the taping. Xander told the story of sneaking food to defenseless little sylphs when I made them eat cardboard dipped in water.

The sylphs gossiped about people they all knew, like Kerri, Amelia, Thog. They tried to get a sleepover, but the Productin Assistant wasn’t sure it was allowed.

That was fine. I remembered being responsible for Hair and Costume back when they belonged to the Network. “Better safe than sorry,” I assured her. So we just hung out after dinner for a long, long visit, until Raven fell asleep in her sherbert.

Then I carried her out to the car, while Xander hauled the sylphs.

Back home, I tucked her in to the guest bed, tucked Ace into her carrier on the nightstand, made a last check on the camping tent out back, tapped the Love Nest behind the stairs, and climbed back upstairs to sleep alone in my own bed.

I wasn’t lonely, of course. I’ve never really been alone since about halfway through my senior year. OUR senior year. That night, I knew where Electra was, and could almost feel the heat of Brandy’s body beside her.

-----

The next day, we got a call from the Anthonys. There was a very special interview they wanted us to do.

It was Mia, the first undine.

She was all over the media, telling her story of being blessed by the Earth, being healed by magic, being changed, and her family becoming youthful. All in compensation for cleaning up some pollution and restoring the planet, just a little.

So, when Amelia suggested an appearance on Electra’s show, Mia accepted. And when something so remarkable was offered, Electra accepted enthusiastically.

I kept my reservations to myself.

It’s not that I didn’t trust Mia. Amelia insisted that Annie and Pet and their human vouched for her. And for Gaia’s intentions.

But that’s what was freaking me out, almost as bad as Kerri’s amputations had freaked Electra way back when.

See, the idea that anything we do to the Earth is part of a relationship… That our acts were observed and recorded by something so alien as an immortal entity like the Earth… I tried desperately to remember if I ever buried a battery in the yard, or littered at a campsite, or tossed trash out the car window…

I did kinda remember running over a squirrel because the road was icy and if I’d swerved we might have all died. And Gosh, I was sorry about that. I just didn’t know where to offer my apology…



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Index

b 146. Dining In