Annie 21: Stranded

(Chronological index: Ray/Denise Married, Met Ruth)

Denise ignored the sylphs as they played their invented game, Tuffball. The screams and giggles were familiar background noise while she read.

It was actually when they stopped that drew her attention. Buttercup caught the ping pong ball and they all looked towards the back door.

"Is there a problem?" she asked.

"A big truck's parking in our driveway," Annie said. They ran to the dining room and the ladder to the window sill. Denise walked after them.

There was a panel truck hulking in the driveway. No markings indicated its purpose or company. The driver shifted it as far to one side as possible, leaving clearance for Denise to get her car out.

All four women gasped in surprise when Ray got out.

"Great news!" he said as he came through the door. "The Navy did not select our design for the remote sylph stand-in." He got a soda from the fridge and opened it. When he turned back, four pairs of eyes stared steadily at him.

"That's good news?" Denise asked.

"Well, yeah," he said. "Oh, they liked the interface, and the movement-database idea. They bought those, and we're supporting another contractor in the overall package. So we made a profit on the bid."

He sat at the table and sipped. Denise moved the sylphs to the table and took a seat opposite him.

"We kind of expected something like this. We made everything modular as possible so they could pick what they liked. But the upshot, the way Mr. Orelli wrote the contract, if they didn't buy the entire package, that leaves us free to market the product, or parts of it, independently."

"Really?" Buttercup asked. "How independently?"

"Well, we're not going to be able to sell it in the drugstore," he admitted. "But we were brainstorming ideas about who could afford it and would want it."

"Ah-ha!" Annie said.

"What?" Denise asked.

"The first thing he thought of was someplace we've both been to," she replied. "In DC, right?"

"The SylphCentre?" Pet asked.

"Of course," Buttercup said with a nod.

"Yep." He pointed towards the driveway. "There are two demo tanks in the truck. So we spin up to DC and let Samantha Anthony arm-wrestle Amelia."

"Will she see you?" Denise asked.

"I will admit, I shamelessly used Deliah to get in contact with Amelia. And I dropped Annie's name to get her attention. And we have an appointment to see both of them next weekend.

"We'll drive up, me and any of my four roommates that want to go-"

"I'm a roommate now?" Denise asked.

"You do share a room with him," Pet pointed out. "Like Annie and Buttercup and I share a drawer. And the carriers. And the spare bedroom when-"

"Hush, Pet," Buttercup said gently.

"Oh. Teasing?" she asked.

"Teasing," Buttercup confirmed.

"ANY way," Ray continued. "We drive up, stay at the Centre, do the demo, then drive back. Their people call our people and the deal's done."

"Annie?" Pet asked, looking at her friend. "That sounds like fun, doesn't it? You don't look happy."

"Ray, my sister is visiting next weekend," Annie said. "I know you're not a big fan of my seeing her-"

"Now who's teasing?" Ray asked. "I love your sister. But she's visiting this weekend."

"Yeah, this weekend on Saturday. Next weekend, she's sleeping over!"

"Oh. Well, the deal's already arranged. I guess you'll have to choose between Amelia and Ruth. I know my boss would prefer that you go, it'll make the sales pitch more friendly. But I'll leave that up to you."

"How magnanimous," Annie growled.

"Wait," Buttercup said, hands out to both parties. "Pet? Does that sound right?"

Pet just shrugged, obviously not wanting to get dragged into the issue between sylph and owner.

Buttercup sighed. "Let me rephrase. Ray is asking Annie to choose between her family and his work. And suggesting work is more important. Does that sound-"

"No," Pet said firmly. "That's bullshit." Everyone raised an eyebrow at her outburst. "Well, it is! Ray doesn't think like that!" They all turned and joined Annie in glaring at him.

"So, what would you expect?" Ray snarled. "That I call up that jackass, your father? Explain the situation, ask to take Ruth on the road with us, extend the visit and cross state lines? Maybe apologize for past assaults? Maybe I could even let him have the chance to break the good news to your sister?"

"Yeah," Annie said suspiciously. "Pretty much exactly that."

"Huh." Ray sat as if considering it. "Well, your pop says hi. He'll have Ruth here about six." Annie squealed and ran towards him.

"Anyway, I have a week to work with the simpler rigs to figure out their capabilities." He swept his pet up into a careful hug. "I don't know if anyone wants to help me with that…?"

"I do!" Pet shouted. Denise laughed and picked her up.

-----------

That evening, Ray escorted Denise and Ruth into the back of the truck. He waved at the three tiny silhouettes in the window and shut the door.

There were two assemblies in the truck. Each looked like a cross between a bloodmobile couch and an iron maiden.

"These are a lot simpler than the one down at work," Ray explained. "There's not as much fidelity in the remote, but there's not supposed to be. The good news is you only have to take off your shoes, not strip down completely."

"Wait," Denise said. "Are you saying that when you danced with Annie, you were naked?" Ruth giggled at Ray's blush.

"Yeah, but about four rooms away," he protested.

"Uh huh," she muttered.

"You'll have some choices in remotes," he said in a desperate bid to change the topic. He pulled out a drawer. Slotted in fitted foam packing were several of the action figures. "Strapping male, healthy female, skinnybutt male, tomboy…" There were two figures for each design, in two different colors.

Denise turned to see that the two couches were painted to match. "So, we can tell who's the blue remote and who's the red remote?"

"Red Teenager Needs Food Badly," Ruth intoned. She picked up a red figure with a body design close to her own.

Denise chose the blue athletic male figure. "Just to be different," she said. Ray rolled his eyes but slotted the two figures into a rack of electronics.

Then he helped the women lower themselves into the benches and close the cuffs in place.

------

"What are they doing?" Annie asked.

"For the thousandth time," Buttercup muttered, "they're listening to you panic and laughing." Annie growled and started to pace.

"Hey!" Pet said, pointing through the window.

Ray was stepping out of the truck and turning to lock the door. When he turned towards the door they could see two tiny figures in his shirt pocket. They held tight to the edge of the pocket and looked around.

"They did it!" Pet shouted. She turned and jumped down to the counter. She led the way as they all ran around the edge of the sink, crossed the stove and skidded to a stop beside the door.

"And here's the kitchen," Ray was saying as he stepped through. "I'm not going to say anything trite about your new perspective." He stood for a second, turning slightly to give his passengers a view of the whole room.

Pet waved as their view apparently passed over her. "Which one's Denny?" she asked.

"That would be the muscular blue male," Ray said. "Denise wants to be able to beat me up if I step on her."

"Oh! Don't do that! You'll hurt her!"

"I won't," he promised. "I'll keep them in my pocket so they won't risk any sort of emotional damage." He turned towards the hallway. "Now out in the living room-"

"Screw that!" the blue figure shouted and started to scramble out of the pocket. Then she looked down. The floor was a long, long way down. The intellectual knowledge that she wouldn't actually get hurt warred with the apparent risk she was viewing clearly.

Ray cupped his hand under the pocket and waited for her to pull herself out. "Ruth?" The red figure hesitated. Denise held out her hand. Ruth took it and clambered out and down to the waiting palm.

They held each other as Ray lowered them to the counter and the waiting sylphs.

"Denny?" Pet asked, stepping up to the figures. Annie noticed that the imposing camera/mike arrangement had been replaced by a tiny flatscreen TV. It showed a low-res view of the operator's face. Denise smiled and held her arms out for a hug. Pet carefully wrapped her arms around the plastic torso.

Annie was much more confident in the remotes' durability. She practically tackled Ruth's figure. Giggles sounded through the kitchen.

-----------

"And this is my carrier!" Pet said. She dragged Denise inside the space that Denise had constructed.

"Well, have to admit, it looks different from inside, with the lid shut," Denise said.

"Yeah," Pet said absently. "And this is where I sleep. When I'm not in our drawer in Denny's bedroom." She bent over to pat her favorite cushion. "Wanna try it?"

Denise laughed and set herself down in Pet's place. "Comfy," she reported.

"Yes, it is." She sat by her owner's remote and hugged the wide shoulders. "I never thought I'd be able to hug this much of you at once."

"I'm glad to have this chance, too," Denise said. She patted Pet on the head. "It's…cool, seeing the world how you see it."

"Oh! Wanna see me drive a truck!?"

"I've seen you drive Buttercup's truck, Pet."

Pet sagged at the memory. "Oh. Yeah."

"But, do you want to give me a ride on the truck?"

"Yeah!" Pet grabbed the nearest elbow and started dragging again.

Upstairs, Annie was watching Ruth's remote stare around the master bathroom. "I never saw so much porcelain in my life…"

"You should have been here when the pipes broke. Well, it was downstairs, but the water fountaining across the walls, floor, giants? To die for."

Giggles echoed off of the tiles. "That must have been a mess."

"Good thing about being a sylph? If the mess is more than an acre, no one expects you to clean it." She took her sister by the elbow and steered her towards the slide. "But really, the reason I brought you up here was to take you down again."

In the kitchen, Ray stared at his cards then looked at Buttercup. "Do you have any twos?"

"Go fish." A squeal Dopplered swiftly from the second floor to the first. "Two days of this?" she asked him.

"Of what?" he asked absently, sorting his new card into his hand.

"Of 'oooooh, shiny!' in a thousand variations," she replied. "And, do you have any queens?"

"Naw," he said. "The AC in the truck is going to mysteriously lose power in the next twenty minutes or so. The fun takes on a ten minute half-life after that. And here, you card shark, you."

"Thank you. And, thank you." He nodded, watching her neatly stack her queens.

Just before eleven PM, Denise's figure staggered up to Ray's ankle and tapped on it. "Honey? I can't…I can't breathe. It's like I'm in a sauna…"

"Is she dying?" Pet asked urgently. Up on the table, Buttercup rolled her eyes. Ray kept a straight face and picked the pair up.

"Maybe you've spent enough time using the remote for now, dear."

"Oh, no, I wanted to…explore," she said. "After…bedtime."

"Plenty of time for that," he promised. "Now, where are Annie and Ruth?"

"Going through Ruth's purse," Pet reported. She was holding Denise's shoulders. "I thought you were going to sleep in my carrier," she said softly.

"I love you dearly, Pet, but I was hoping to see my husband…in a new light, as it were."

"But you guys usually turn the lights out at bedtime," she replied.

"Birds and bees, Pet," her mother commented.

"Oh. OH. Ooooooh." She thought about that for a second, then nodded to Denise's flatscreen face. "Okay."

"Just…not tonight," she panted. Ray came into the room, put a struggling Annie down and picked up his wife.

Annie ran along the table as he walked by, shouting in protest. "We weren't really going to put lipstick on the monitor! Bring her back! We'll behave!"

He ignored her and walked to the back door. "Jealous!" she shouted. "Just because there's one human on Earth I can have fun with… Bring her back! We're not done!"

She barely noticed hands on her shoulders until Buttercup firmly turned her around. "The air conditioning in the truck is failing, Annie. Your sister is going to go into heat stroke if she stays in the bench-thing."

"Oh."

"Now, do you want to risk harming her? Or would you rather have a chance to play with your sleepover buddy, even if she is a gawking, gangly, giant of a big sister most of the time?"

"Well…."

Pet slid up behind Annie, wrapping her arms around her roommate's waist. "It was fun, wasn't it?"

"Very much, Pet. Maybe next time we can play a game, all five of us?" She looked over at Buttercup.

"Hide and seek," the other sylph suggested. " Nothing drives home the new size like being able to use a wadded up Kleenex for cover."

"That would be great!" Pet said.

"But don't tell them," Annie said. "Don't want them scoping out hiding places from five feet off the ground."

"Oooh, a secret!" Pet giggled. The back door opened then. Ray stepped in carefully. He had Ruth over his shoulder in a Fireman's carry. Denise leaned heavily on his arm as she walked beside him.

"Denny?"

"Ruth?"

"The benches aren't quite as supportive as the military version was," Ray said. He held Denise's arm while she sat, then lowered Ruth to the chair next to her.

They sat dripped sweat on the table as he rushed to fill two glasses with water.

"So tomorrow," he said, "we're going to use timers. And for every amount of time X you spend in the bench, you spend 2X out of it."

"Why…" Ruth started to ask a question, but discovered that she was drinking water. Her body wouldn't let her talk until it was hydrated again.

Ray and Denise both reached out to lower her glass. "Sip it slowly," they told the teen.

"Why didn't I put a timer on it the first time?" he asked. "Would either of you have believed me?" He turned to look at the sylphs. "Would any of you?"

"I would," Annie muttered.

"The hell you would have," Buttercup giggled. "'Just a few minutes more,' you'd have begged. Ordered. Demanded."

"What? I wouldn't do anything to hurt Ruth!" Annie protested.

"And now you can't pretend that you don't know what'll happen," Buttercup said. She cast an appraising glance at the two human women. "They really look out of it," she mused. "They're both going to need lifeguards watching over them when they bathe."

"I'll do it!" Pet said.

"The three of you can make sure Ruth doesn't fall asleep in her tub," Ray said. "I'll be playing lifeguard in the master bathroom."

"Mmmm," Denise hummed with a sleepy smile. "Bath."

"Bath," Ruth agreed. She turned to look at Annie, reaching out to touch her gently on the shoulder. "I had fun, tiny big sister."

Annie nuzzled her head against the finger. "I did, too, incredibly over-tall little sister."

-----------

They were fighting already when Ray stepped into the house. "I'm just saying," Denise's figure griped, "the stopwatch should start now. Now that we're inside."

"Or at least not until after we made the connection," Ruth added.

"Nope," Ray said. He put the figures down where the other sylphs waited. "It's my stopwatch, and I started it when your bodies started to rest on those benches. Done, no more argument, don't waste time."

"Are you going to stand for that?" Annie asked Denise. "He's using his 'master of sylphs' tone on you!"

"Annie," Buttercup said softly.

"You're going to waste their time," Pet said, not as softly.

"Right, right, let's make the most of it," Denise said. "So. What are we doing?"

"Hide and seek!" Buttercup shouted. "Ray! Count to a hundred!"

Pet squealed, took Denise's hand and ran off towards the living room. Annie nodded her head and led Ruth towards the hall. Buttercup jogged towards the dining table.

"One hundred…ninety-nine," Ray called. "Visitor rules! Ninety-seven…ninety-six… Living room only! Ninety-four…"

Annie and Buttercup veered to follow Pet. Ruth stifled a giggle and followed.

----

"Three…two…one. Ready or not, I'm pinging your registration chips!" He set the timer and strode carefully towards the arena. "Now. If I were newly small…where would I think to hide?"

He scanned the bookcases quickly, then knelt on the carpet. There was a hint of movement at the base of the sliding-door drapes. He crawled slowly forward. "Is someone hiding behind…?"

He dropped to his belly and slid one finger under the curtains. There was a shuffling sound as someone avoided his touch. He lifted the bottom with a swift jerk. Pet leaped into the air and squealed.

"Pet? You're usually much better at this," he said, holding out his palm. She stepped aboard and he carefully rose to his feet. "Did you give up one of your better hiding spots to a newbie?"

"Maybe," she pouted. He put her on the mantel, next to the timer, and turned back around. Arm sweeps under the sofa didn't find anyone or flush them into view. He tried to remember the last place Pet had hidden. If it wasn't under the sofa… Ah. He picked a cushion up by the corner.

Denise's figure was sprawled under the center of the cushion. "I think that's cheating," he said as he pinched her hand between two fingers and lifted. "A real sylph would suffocate in there."

"If you ain't cheatin'," she said as she dangled before his face.

"You' ain't tryin'," they finished together. He gently lowered her beside her sylph.

He just happened to look down as he passed the dieffenbachia and saw a tiny foot next to the stalk. He knelt and pushed some stacked books around in a book case.

Buttercup was watching him but didn’t see the hand sneaking around the plant until it grabbed her. She screamed as she was lifted up and was still trying to catch her breath as he lowered her to the mantel.

He didn't try to move the entertainment console or the media. He did grab one cable from the nest in the back and tugged gently. After about six inches was moved, Annie shouted surrender before she was tugged in half. She stomped out and suffered his capture with ill grace.

"You're not the last one caught!" Pet said. "You're always the last one caught."

"If I'm caught," Annie muttered.

Ruth was a poser. Ray suspected she'd spent more time imagining being a sylph than even Denise had. And she hadn't had a chance to become familiar with the actual limitations the little women lived with.

So where would a sylphophile imagine she could hide from the big, evil giant?

He got to his knees once more and crawled along the floor. She'd have come in to the room, running behind Annie. The first thing she'd seen was…

There was a giggle from the mantel as he crawled towards Ruth's purse. He pinched the coiled strap and carefully took the slack out of it. When he yanked the bag into the air there was a surprised squeak. "Gotcha," he said. He pawed carefully through the bag to find her crouched in the belt loop for her cell phone case.

He put the whole thing with the other sylphs and checked the time. "Two minutes to spare!" he said cheerfully. "You guys suck."

"Oh?" Denise asked. Think you can do that again?"

"Sure." He closed his eyes. "One hundred…ninety-nine…"

"RAY!" Pet shouted. He opened his eyes and she pointed to the edge of the mantel. "Let us down?"

-----------

The panel truck wasn't really equipped for multiple passengers over a long drive. The women, all five of them, packed into Denise's two-seater and followed the truck.

Ray shrugged and declared the truck cab to be 'man country.' If they called his cell on the drive, he only responded in Authentic Male language. It was heavy on belches, CB lingo and beef-jerky metaphors. He spoke English at the stops for gas and food, though.

Ruth took an opportunity at one of the gas stations to thank him for inviting her along.

"We're glad to have you," he assured her. "No thanks necessary."

"How about for talking to my pop?" she asked. "Or for…being civilized when you talked to him."

"That's, uh…" He concentrated on topping off the tank for a second, then securing the hose and the gas cap. "I don't want him to have bad feelings about the house. Not if it's going to affect your or Annie's relationship with him."

"Then that's what I'm thanking you for," she said. The teen wrapped her arms around her sort-of brother-in-law and drove her face into his chest. He hugged her back.

Across the island, Denise had broken a Twinkie in half and placed it on the dashboard. Annie looked up from scooping out the interior to see her sister and owner embracing. She glared for a moment.

------

Buttercup turned out to be fluent in Authentic Male. "That's a ten-four on the spicy sausage, good buddy. We'll scout out a counter display near the till. Over."

He belched "ooooooooovah 'nd o't." She closed the phone and stepped away from it.

She explained: "He's getting hungry. And he's in the mood for Wendy's. First one we can see from the freeway, we pull over. He'll follow us in." Four pair of eyes stared. "What?"

Denise turned back to the road. "Buttercup, you may be spending too much time with my husband."

"Jealous?" Annie asked.

"Why would I be jealous, Annie?"

"Well, really. There are five beautiful women in the family this weekend…"

"I'm beautiful?"

"Yes, Pet. But what I'm saying, he's seen four of us naked. You may be okay with that," and she gestured up at Ruth, " but I don't want it to be five."

Ruth gasped slightly. Buttercup looked up to see the teen staring down at the sylphs.

"Ray's not going to see Ruth naked, Annie," Denise replied. "He's seen the sylphs naked because everyone sees sylphs naked. It's not like he's sleeping with all of you, or planning to sleep with Ruth."

"How would you know?"

Denise reached out without looking and plucked Annie off of the top of her carrier. She opened the glove box and dropped the sylph in.

Annie popped to her feet and grabbed the edge of the door. "Don't you dare!"

"Time out, Annie." She reached for the door.

"I'll pee on your registration!"

"Then you'll stay in my pocket in the line at the DMV," she said and shut it.

"Did I…" Ruth started to ask.

"It's Annie. She can't deal with humans on a physical basis, so she wars with words every so often.." Denise hit the turn signal and aimed for the ramp.

"She's a bit more restrained around Ray," Denise continued. "Ray puts up with less of her mouth, so she offers less mouth."

She pulled into a space and waited as Ray pulled in beside them. "I just don't know what set her off.

-----

Halfway through the meal, Ruth picked Annie up and put her beside Ray's sandwich. The sylph glared up at her for a second, then hunched over.

Ray glanced from Denise to Ruth, down to Annie then back to Ruth. "What's this?"

"Maybe… Maybe Annie should ride with you for a while," she told him. He stared back at her for a second.

"Okay," he finally said. He grabbed his sylph by the ankle, lifted her up and lowered her head-first into his pocket.

The flap had a Velcro seal. Ruth realized she'd never seen Ray wear a shirt that didn't have a pocket. But she'd never noticed that the pockets had flaps. He'd never had a reason to put his own sylph in time-out in front of her.

He mistook her stare. "I used to get shirts with buttons on the flaps," he explained. "Annie chews through the threads until the buttons fall off. Velcro's the only thing that lasts for any length of time."

They ate in silence for a bit. Buttercup and Pet moved a bit closer to Denise's drink, fearing some sort of confrontation. Denise sat quietly, staying neutral.

Ray watched Ruth. She wasn't looking more comfortable as time passed. But Annie wasn't wriggling next to his ribs.

"What did she do?" he finally asked in a calm voice.

"She said you were going to hit on me," Ruth replied.

"Do you think that's true?" he asked. "Do you even think she thinks that's true?"

"No. I think she saw us hug. I think she misses you."

"Naw," he said. He started to collect the empty boxes, wrappers and cups. "She sees me all the time. She probably just wants to hoard all your time to herself."

Denise gathered her sylphs and went out to the car. Ray put Annie down on the table between the two humans. She crossed her arms and stared at the fake wood beneath her feet.

"What exactly did you say?" Ray asked. She didn't answer. Ruth finally volunteered the bulk of the conversation that got the sylph locked away.

"Uh huh," Ray mused. "Anything you want to talk about?" Annie shook her head the littlest bit. Ray wondered if she was embarrassed. It was a novel concept for this particular pet.

Maybe she just didn't want to talk in front of Ruth?

"Why don't you go ride with Denise," he suggested, "and I'll talk to Annie for a bit." Ruth nodded and walked out. Ray dumped the trash then carried his cup and Annie out to the truck.

There were two cupholders, one lined with a soft cloth. He put Annie in the little nest. They were silent until he was on the freeway.

"What are you mad about?" he asked after a few miles. "Hell, who are you mad at?"

"I don't know…" she muttered. "I just…there was you, hugging her, and I thought… I don't know what I thought. I just… It's nothing. Just Annie being Annie," she sighed.

"No such thing," he said. "Annie snarks, but Annie always has a reason to snark. I've always known this."

"You have?"

"Yeah, sure," he said with a smile. "I haven't always cared… Maybe not about your reasons, or maybe not for your reasons, but I've usually been able to figure them out.

"It's not like you're insane. Just… outmassed by an overwhelmingly large society, which you tackle by verbal abuse, more often than not."

"Okay, then, you tell me why I was so angry!" she challenged. He nodded and thought for a bit. She sat in the cupholder and stared out the passenger window. The truck vibrations purred through her body.

"Well," he said. She roused, realizing that she'd dozed a bit. "Ruth looks a lot like you."

"Yeah?"

"In many ways, Ruth is, right now, what you were right before you sylphed."

"Oh, she's smarter than I was."

"Not by much," he said dismissively. "And even if she were, you're not in a position to compete with her intellectually."

"You're saying I should challenger her to a game of chess? I hate chess. I never get over the suspicion that you guys move pieces when I'm on the other side of the board."

"No, no," he said. "I'm wondering if you're jealous about her height." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "Wait, no," he said. "There's nothing you can do about it. And nothing you can expect anyone around you to do, to make you big again. You're at your bitchiest when people disappoint."

"You think this was one of my bitchiest?"

"Accusing your sister and me of cheating on my wife? In front of my wife? And your sister?" He glanced down to raise an eyebrow.

She sunk down in the nest. "Oh. Yeah, I guess."

"And in front of Pet. And Buttercup. Who were also implicated, I take it."

"I said, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah!" She uncurled enough to shift around so her back was to her Master.

The thoughtful silence dragged on for a few more miles.

"What was she hugging you for?" she finally asked.

"She was thanking me for making peace with your father. And for inviting her along."

"Ah." After a few moments, she stood up and pointed her finger at Ray's face. "Ah! AHA!"

"What? What?"

"You invited her!"

"You didn't want her along?"

"No, you bastard, you INVITED her. That's the problem! INVITE! From the French word envitay, meaning 'having a choice in the matter.' She had a choice!"

"I don't think that's the definition or the origin-"

"Never mind that!" She jumped from the cupholder to the floor, then ran to his left ankle (circling his right which rested on the gas pedal. She was angry but not stupid.). Once next to it, she started slapping and clawing at the skin above the sock.

"You FUCKER! You invited her!" She made this charge a few times, then started sobbing between repetitions.

Ray flinched a couple of times, then steeled himself against the pinpricks of pain and pulled over to the side of the road. He turned on the hazard lights and waited for the words to stop.

When the sylph was sobbing without interruption he reached down. She had collapsed against his shoe. The bawling sylph slapped at his fingers once but otherwise didn't resist.

He moved her back to the cupholder. He dipped a thimble in what was left of his drink and offered it to her. She took it and held it.

Ray's phone rang. He opened it without checking the ID. "We pulled over for a little meeting."

"I know," Denise replied. "We're behind you." He glanced in the mirror in time to see her headlights fade. "Need company?"

"No. No, we'd better get moving. But… Tell Ruth I have learned that it's not her fault."

"Okay." They pulled back onto the freeway and continued along.

"What's the problem with inviting your sister, Annie?" There was no answer for a long, long time. She did sit up at one point and whistled.

He glanced down. In the light from the dashboard controls, he saw that she was kneeling with her hands raised in silent appeal.

Ray picked her up and nestled her in his pocket. He made sure the pocket centered over his heart, then let her alone.

They crossed another state border before she stood up. Poking her head out, she sighed heavily. He waited patiently.

"I used to have a brother, you know," she said.

"I didn't know that."

"Well, you wouldn't. He was a fantasy."

"Oh."

"I started thinking him up about a month after…" She paused, her voice threatening to choke up.

"After," he said firmly.

"Yeah, after. Anyway, he was about ten years older than me. Sometimes more, sometimes less. He'd done something reprehensible and been driven from the house. My parents never talked about him."

"Very much in character."

"It was, wasn’t it? Well, he found out about the sylphing, and he came and rescued me. Sometimes he beat you up, sometimes he just crawled in through the window."

"Beat me up?"

"Oh, the day after your beach trip? Leaving me all alone in the bird cage? He really whaled on you."

"I guess I deserved that."

"Then he took me away to his reprehensible life and we lived happily ever after."

"What was his reprehensible life style?"

"The usual: movie stunt man, sometimes an international financier, or an internationally ranked competitive scotch whiskey taste tester..." She was silent for a moment. "Or President Thoroughgood's cabinet advisor for sylph affairs."

Ray sat up straight. "You're STILL fantasizing about an imaginary brother saving you from all this?"

"No," she said quickly. "At least, not since Ruth showed up."

"Oh, no."

"Oh, no," she agreed. The catch was back in her throat. Ray raised a hand to touch her shoulder. She leaned her face against his fingertip. He thought he felt a few tears, but wasn't sure.

"I just… I saw her thanking you. I guess I've been waiting all this time for her to beat you up."

"Annie…"

"And you invited her! Boaz would never have waited for an invitation!"

"Boaz? The international stunt taste tester?"

"Yeah. His name comes from the book of Ruth." She laughed with just the tiniest touch of hysteria. "I'm psychic, go figure!" She swallowed and calmed her voice by an octave.

"And Boaz… Boaz never ordered me. He always asked. He always gave me the choice. He always… invited."

"Oh, god, Annie."

"Yeah, yeah. Ruth treats me…like a person, you know? And you treat Ruth like a person. So, logically, one would expect you to treat me like a person."

"I did ask if you wanted Ruth on the trip."

"After you already made the arrangements," she snapped.

"Oh. Yeah." His voice was small in the rumbling cab.

Denise called, bragging on Ruth. "With a cell phone, a triple-A travel book and a flashlight, she managed to make arrangements for all of us outside of Richmond tonight!"

"That's great," he muttered. Annie elbowed him in the rib. He visibly shook off his mood and was more upbeat. "Sorry. Got emotional about that dead raccoon on the side of the road. Really, that's great. Can't wait to see what she's picked out for us. She did make sure one room gets the Playboy channel, right?"

"Yes," Denise said. "Hers." Then she laughed and broke the connection. He laughed and put the phone away. After a moment he glanced down to see that Annie was still sticking up out of his pocket, then cleared his throat.

"What… What if I gave you to Ruth, Annie?"

"What?"

"Seriously. What would you think if I gave you to Ruth. I mean, I won't pretend there's any monetary amount that would make me happy about giving you up. I'd talk to a lawyer, maybe charging her one dollar to make it legal, but I'd be effectively giving you to her. If that's what you'd want.

"We'd have to wait until she was out of your mother's house, of course." He scanned through the gloom. Denise's car was poking along the freeway, hanging back so she could guide him in to the hotel.

"I… Are you serious?"

"Yes. Pet'll be heartbroken, I'll be depressed, but if you'll be happy…"

"No. No, I don't think I would be," she mused. "I'd go from her sister to her burden."

"You're not a burden, Annie."

"Maybe not with the negative connotations, but… Well, I wouldn't be like a roommate. She couldn’t go to a party without taking me along or making sure I had food and water and batteries for the TV remote.

"She couldn't plan a long weekend without figuring someone or some way to take care of her pet. Every decision tree that a young college student has would have the extra line of 'where Annie would be at the time.'"

"That sounds familiar," he said.

"It would…it would change how she saw me. How she reacted with me. Treated me. Right now I'm your burden, her treat. But if she was responsible for me 24/7…."

She turned and crawled up his shirt. Grabbing a fistful of hair, she hung next to his ear. "Is that what I was supposed to realized? Is that why you offered, because it'd be a shitty thing to do? Were you going to talk me out of it if I didn't realize it on my own."

"Annie…I never lie to you."

"What about that letter Ruth put back together?"

"I never lied. You dictated, I typed, I sent it. You just never asked what I thought would happen."

"Hmph."

She sank down to sit on his shoulder. When she was sure the road ahead was straight, she slid to the pocket.

"But if I still wanted it…?" she asked.

"If you want it, ask her," he promised. "If you don't… Well, maybe I can work on granting you more autonomy."

"Yeah," she snorted. "You're all about the civil rights of the altitude challenged."

He pushed her head down and sealed his pocket once more. "What the hell?" she protested.

"Teasing," he said. "Different from the legally sanctioned punishment of a wayward pet in that I'm smiling, not swearing." She growled, but was pretty sure that only made him smile more.

------

Denise was checking in by the time Ray found a parking place for the truck. Ruth was outside, looking anxious. Her eyes flicked between Ray's face and his closed shirt pocket as he walked up.

His arms went wide and took her into a hug. "She was mad at me, Ruth," he said. "Not you. Never you."

Ruth sighed in relief. There was a slow tearing sound as Annie pushed against the Velcro. Ruth giggled and opened his pocket. Annie popped up into the air with a smile.

"Hey, sis! I heartily, sincerely and abjectly offer an apology for my behavior."

"I accept," Ruth giggled. She held out her palm and the sylph crawled out to drop onto it. They hugged, body-to-cheek.

"Now, can you carry me over to Denise? I need to apologize to everyone else."

"Okay," Ruth agreed, turning towards the lobby. "Then you, me, Pet and Buttercup get to spend the night in our own room." She turned back to Ray. "If that's okay…?"

"That's up to you and Annie," he said. "If you two want to be alone, we'll keep the girls with us." He held the front door open to let the sisters through. "Up to you," he said to Annie with a wink.

"Thanks," she said.

-----------

"Now," the desk clerk said, "we give sylphs the run of the place. The little guideways are suggested, for safety's sake, but are not restrictive in nature. So watch your feet. The big lumbering giants are restricted to common areas unless they're escorted by a sylph. Your stay in certain areas is actually dependent on your escort inviting you."

He scrutinized the faces of the human guests as he said this. They all nodded, accepting the stricture without any open trace of irony or resentment.

At that, his formal smile relaxed into an sincere one. "Then welcome to Sylphcentre!" He stepped over and kicked the desk bell. When the valets appeared, he directed them to the basement rooms arranged by Amelia.

"Down! Down, down, down!" Annie shouted. A surprised Ruth put Annie on the floor in the little colored band next to the wall. Denise and Ray put their sylphs next to her. "We'll meet you there!" Annie shouted, then grabbed her roommates by the hands. "You guys have GOT to see the sylph elevators!"

They scampered off to the sylph-sized elevators and disappeared.

"Nothing personal," Ray assured Ruth. "She's been talking up the Centre for years. There's about six hundred things she wants to show them this weekend."

"And you know Annie," Denise added. "Instant gratification it just too slow."

They ended up in a suite with two bedrooms. A note from Samantha apologized for not greeting them, but gave them a time for the demonstration.

Ray glanced from the note to his wristwatch. "You know, there's just enough time to make sure the system wasn't broken during travel."

Ruth's eyes lit up in hope. "Of course," he went on, "I couldn't begin to impose my commercial concerns on one or two tourists who-"

Denise dope-slapped the back of his head. "Drop the suitcases and power it up, lover. We'll see if we can find our sylphs."

There was the odd sound of the tiny but sturdy sylph-door banging open. "Ta-da!" Annie said, bowing and waving her cohorts inside.

There was a fourth figure among the three familiar ones. Annie dragged a sylph woman in Centre livery over to Ruth's feet.

"Ruth! This is Still Cassie! She's the legacy of Ray and my misdemeanor past." Cassie smiled and waved up at the teenager.

"Would that be the smuggling run from Cancun?" Denise asked from across the room. She glanced at her husband and smiled. "Or the attempt to kidnap a pregnant polar bear in the beer truck?"

"Those are our FELONY past," Annie enunciated carefully, ignoring Ruth's goggle-eyed stare. "No, this was the one night of Sylph Rescue. We Rescued two Sylphs."

"Wasn't that what you were supposed to do?" Ruth asked.

"Yeah?"

"Then why was it a misdemeanor?"

"Politics," Ray said. Denise stepped over, knelt and offered a finger. Cassie shook it.

"Pleased to meet you," Denise said.

"Pleased to get a word in edgewise," Cassie replied.

"I know the feeling. So. Ray's thinking of putting the machine through its paces before the meeting with Amelia. If anyone's interested." Pet cooed and Annie smiled up at Ruth.

Cassie nodded briefly at Annie and stepped towards the door. "You're welcome to join us," Denise offered.

"Thanks, but my shift is over and I have a date. But I hope to see you around!"

-------

Ray carried the remotes back to the suite. They'd decided not to wander the just-for-sylphs areas, at least not until Sam or Amelia had seen the system.

They were surprised to find the real sylphs waiting naked. "Annie insisted," Pet explained. "And she won't say why."

"It's the tour," Annie explained. "If you'll come with me?" She reminded Ray of a den mother as she swept her crew into the tiny bathrooom.

The scale toilet and shower were enthusiastically received…then they saw the hot tub.

Ray set an alarm on his watch and made himself comfortable on the bed. The water fight went on for quite a while.

-------

Introductions in Samantha's office were quickly made and happily received. They all sat in a circle of chairs with another circle of chairs on the table between them.

Samantha and Amelia remembered Annie clearly. Amelia even remembered the flowers Ray had sent. When the reasons for the flowers had been explained, Sam and Denise both smiled and kissed his cheeks.

The story behind Ruth's presence amused and amazed the Centre directors. "We should put that in the newsletter!" Samantha suggested, picking up her PDA.

"Uh,…." Ruth started to demur. She paused, though, not wanting to give offense.

"It's still a secret," Annie pointed out without any such hesitation. "From Momma and our church, at the least."

"Ah." Sam didn't stop writing. "So we either make it an anonymous anecdote or we don't publish it for a few years." When she finally put it down, she smiled across the conversation pit.

"So. You had something of an invention to sell us?"

"Show," Ray corrected. "I really hope it sells itself." He started to tell about the remote system. Annie managed to behave for all of three minutes before explaining how the three sylphs had been crucial to development.

It ended up an Annie and Pet presentation. Ray was the contractor representative for questions about technical details.

Ruth and Denise answered a few questions about the experience, but kept insisting 'you have to see it to believe it.'

"Okay," Sam finally said. "Let's go see this, and believe it!" She started to pick Amelia up, then paused. "Why don't we meet you in the garden?"

"Good idea!" There was a fireman's pole in the center of the pit. The sylphs dropped to the floor and started walking to the door. Denise and Ruth followed at the sylphs' pace.

Ray led Sam to the parking garage.

---

"The garden," Amelia was explaining as they walked, "was actually inspired by a science fiction story."

"Oooh," Ruth replied. "Which one?"

"Micronauts."

"Oh, yeah, I read that when…" Ruth's smile faded. "That garden was a collection of carnivorous plants."

"What?" Pet asked.

"Well, yeah, in the book. It was designed to collect plants from all over the world. When the scientists started shrinking people, they used the garden to test their ability to survive at the new size. Those plants provided some danger, thus drama, for the story.

"Here, we have some unusual plants, but picked for beauty, not drama."

"Good," Buttercup judged. "I'd hate to have to spend all day rescuing Denise from Venus Flytraps."

"Well, it was never the Addams family garden, either." The double doors opened automatically. Warm, humid air brushed out over the women.

A riot of lush colors filled the space before them.

"Woooow," Buttercup said in a hushed tone.

"It is, isn't it?" Amelia re;ied. "Come on in."

Near the door, Annie's eye was caught by a climbing vine that wrapped around a stanchion and climbed up into the domed ceiling. The green leaves went on and on, fading in an inestimable distance.

"Now it makes sense," she muttered.

"What does?" Pet asked.

"Jack and the beanstalk." She took a step back to try to better view the top. Pet stepped with her. "I never understood why he'd leave a perfectly good farm for the potential of…" She waved helplessly.

"Oh. Funny," Pet said. "Annie, I always thought you'd relate really well to Jack the Giant Killer."

"Well, once I was up there, sure."

"Come on, you two!" Amelia called. They scampered to catch up.

A system of waterfalls arched over walkways for humans and sylphs. The cool spray was refreshing against the sauna-like conditions of the garden.

The party dawdled along, examining tiny pools and huge ponds, plashing the water with extended hands or spritzing each other.

Buttercup begged a quarter from Denise and was rolling it towards a diving board over fern-banked wishing well. Pet and Annie caught up and each begged a coin.

"As long as you don't wish for a successful sylph rebellion," Denise commanded as she handed over the money.

"What? Well, if there are conditions-" Annie said, folding her arms to refuse the money.

Ruth laughed and offered a nickel. "It's all I have, but it's without strings."

"Thank you, my lovely lady," Annie said. "Tell Ray he owes you a nickel."

"Tell him yourself," a voice said from behind a leaf. It swept aside and one of the remotes stepped into view. Samantha's face was projected at the top of a red figure that approximated her body type. She spun the figure as if showing off a dress.

"What do you think?"

"Wow. That's you?"

"In the flesh!" She paused and cocked her head. "For a given value of 'flesh,' of course."

"Of course." Amelia stood, bemused, as Sam walked up. A small articulated finger hovered over the sylph's features. "I always wondered what you looked like up close…"

"And without a magnifying glass."

"Yeah." They giggled and drifted to the side of the walkway, lost in each other's real or simulated eyes.

Ray stepped around the corner of the path. "As you can see, the articulation supports a variety-"

"Hsst!" Denise interrupted.

"What? Huh?" He looked around in confusion.

"She says shut it, you!" Annie called up. She nodded her head. Amelia was showing Sam the underside of a huge-petaled flower. They both spoke in whispers and ignored the others.

"Oh." He glanced at his watch. "Well, um, we need to collect the remote when her time is up, but that can probably wait…" He looked around as if only just noticing the contents of the room.

"Wow, this place is cool. Is that a bromeliad? One of those flowers with the incredibly small frogs living inside?"

"Oooh! Let me see!" Buttercup called, holding her arms up. Ray reached over to the sylph path and picked her up.

---------

Ray turned over the keys to the truck in the First Coast Animatronics parking lot. Josie was off to meet with a few theme park directors.

Ray climbed into his own car in its usual place. As he pulled out of the lot, he felt Annie stir in his pocket. "Waking up?"

"Where are we?"

"You know, old people need their sleep, or they're just nonfunctional. You shouldn't try to keep up with a teenager, not at your advanced-"

"I'm going to stab a birthday candle in your eye," she muttered.

"Crotchety old woman," he replied.

"Where's my sister?"

"Denise is dropping her off at the mall. You'll be happy to know that she's about as zonked as you are. Turns out growing girls need their sleep, too." He pulled onto the freeway.

"Where are we going?"

"Dinner. Roadhouse Grill, nothing strenuous. Oh, and we've got bets on how many sylphs fall asleep before the check comes. Loser has to pay."

"What're you betting?" She started to climb up to his shoulder. She paused halfway then slid back down to the pocket.

"Not telling. You'd go out of your way to spoil it for me." He put his hand by the pocket. "Did you want to be on the shoulder?"

"Nah. Too much effort." They were silent for a mile or two. He took the exit for the Southside Connector and aimed for the restaurant.

"Ray?" she asked. "If Ruth gets a driver's license. Can we go hang at the mall?"

"Nope. Word'll get back to your mom, Ruth'll get in trouble." He thought for a second. "But then again, maybe she'll get in enough trouble that she gets thrown out of the house."

"Poppa wouldn't allow that…"

"Well, your dad would have to choose between his wife and his daughter. Again. And he strikes me as particularly loyal. And he would know that Ruth, at least, had family to stay with."

"Family?" she asked. "Who?"

"Same family she ran away to," he said. "I remember someone using the word four times in one or two sentences…"

"Really?" She surged up his shirt to nuzzle his cheek. "You really consider her family?"

"Yes," he said. He pulled into the lot and parked beside his wife's car. "Whatever else the world says or I've said…we're… a family."

He hugged his friend and got out of the car. He gathered their family and they went inside for dinner.

Back to the Index