Annie LXXXIII: Two Happy

(Chronological index: New World Order 19)

Ray was cleaning the apartment bathtub when the phone rang. The girls were all at work so he popped up to get it.

"Ray? This is Amelia. Could you come up to the office? We need a biggie."

"Sure," he said. "Right there."

It was a little confusing. The Center championed the offsized in all respects. There were no jobs that were automatically assigned to a full sized human (or, as the girls said they say in the halls, a human of unenhanced scale).

Security had big bruisers you saw and tiny snipers you didn't. Maintenance had people that could carry a fan or walk through it. And mostly, there were employees. Why did they need a guest, however close a friend he was to the directors?

A FedEx man stood in Sam's office. Sam was nowhere in view. Amelia and some of the staff stood on the desk and glared up at the deliveryman. The deva's wings flapped in annoyance.

"Seems that SOME people haven't updated their policies in accordance with the new Rationality movement."

"They're not effective until ratified," he replied. "So I still need an actual, legal citizen to sign for the shipment."

"What shipment?" Ray asked.

"Thereby hangs a tale," Butters said dryly.

"Well, see, there's a box," the guy said. Ray leaned over to read the stitching on his uniform. 'Guy' scratched his forehead and held up an envelope. "See, the letter here separated from the box. It's somewhere, we just need to find it.

"But this letter has the address so I brought it along. In case it was important."

"Okay," Ray said, reaching for the manila.

Guy snatched it back. "Can't have it until you sign for it," he said.

"And Samantha's on a date," Amelia said.

"During working hours?" Ray said in pretend shock.

"Ski trip," Butters said.

Ray shook his head and leaned a hip on the counter. "But if I sign for the shipment, without getting the shipment, I may be compromising the process."

"Look, you want the letter? It's marked urgent."

"Yes," Amelia said.

"No," Butters said.

"How about we take the letter," Ray said, "and we sign for the package when we get the actual package?"

"Company rules," Guy started.

"Probably say you don't deliver shipment one of one in two parts," Ray interrupted.

"Look, I'm trying to do you guys a favor, here."

"Okay, we'll trade. I'll sign for the package when it gets here. For now, you give me the letter, and I make you a reservation for two at Portion Control."

"I can't afford that place!"

"I can," Ray assured him. "Dinner for two. Can you be ready by 8, Friday?"

Guy handed over the envelope. Ray scratched his name and phone number on a post-it. Then wrote, "Deliah, please feed these people so well they tell all their friends about it in tones of spiritual bliss. I will cover the cost and gratuity." He handed that over. Guy smiled and left.

Ray slid into Sam's desk chair and examined the envelope.

"What did you write, sir?" Pipkin asked.

"I said to give him and his wife or husband the standard treatment, my treat, my reservations. Me and the girls will grub around for something mere mortals eat on Friday..."

He frowned at the return address. "Can't make this out," he said. "It's to the Center, but I'm not sure it's even from the US."

"Let me see," Amelia said, walking across the blotter.

"It's my envelope," he said, turning it over to open the seal.

"It is not!" she snarled.

"I signed for it, it's mine."

"You did everything in your power to avoid signing for it!" she pointed out.

"Well, it's urgent," he said. "I'm sure Sam would want someone to make sure everything was okay."

"Yeah," Amelia agreed, "Me. Or him. Her, in a pinch." Butters drew himself up to his full six and a half inch height. Pipkin blushed to be mentioned. "And in a desperate, lonely future with zombie forces on the rise, MAYBE you."

Ray slid the letter out and unfolded it. "Water damage," he muttered. "Some of the words are smeared."

Amelia spread her wings. "Now, now," he said without looking at her. "I'm not oppressing you. And if I were, if you sylph me, you become a gnome, and lose those deva wings. The beautiful wings that tickle so nicely in intimate moments."

"She didn't tell-" Amelia protested, horrified at the betrayal.

"She did not," he said. "But you just did." He cleared his throat. "Dear Miss and Miss Anthony. I have seen your wonderful center on TV and would love to come see it for myself. Sadly, I am not long for this world because of waterdamage.

"Please take care of my little friend. He is a surly cuss because of the waterdamage but still damage a woman's heart.

"Damage to live in that damage room that was so pretty on the TV show with the actress, who was a bit of a slut until the sylph showed her the way. The waterfall there is so pretty."

"Courtney Cox's movie?" Pipkin asked. "That was filmed in the garden?"

"Could be," Ray said. There was nothing more in the letter. "Someone's sending you a sylph with a water fixation?"

Amelia snatched the letter out of his hands and tried to discern the smeared bits.

The next day Roy was called back to the office for a signature. He found four deliverymen with one two-foot-square box. "Heavy?" he asked.

"We're just all curious about what's in it," Guy explained. He pointed to the side. "Hippo with toothache!" was written along the side with a few danger stickers. "If you don't mind our asking...?"

-----------

It was indeed a hippo, and he did indeed behave as one with a toothache.

Twelve inches long, it sulked in a corner of the box. There were some greens left over and a crumpled plastic water bottle. And it had been in the box for quite a while.

"Is it real?" Guy's friend asked.

"Oh, stink!" Pipkin shouted when Ray lifted her over the box to see.

"That's real," Guy said. "A sylph pygmy hippo. Well, thanks. We'll be going."

"Rather than help clean it," Ray laughed.

"Hello little guy," Amelia said. She reached down to pet it. Jaws snapped at her and it grunted. She jumped back, feathers flapping in agitation.

"Call Annie," Ray said. "Have her send over a head of lettuce." Pipkin lifted her phone.

Ray spread several thicknesses of newspaper over Sam's desk, then tore the sides of the box down to let the beast out of the mess.

"How are you going to get him back in another box?" Butters asked, crossing the bridge over to the sylph work area and raising it. Pipkin peered over from behind his shoulder.

"Well, he's not going to jump down to the floor," Ray said. "We'll figure the rest out after we make friends." He found a small plastic bowl. Sam had a habit of working through lunch. He filled that with water and set it outside the torn side.

The hippo looked at it disdainfully and didn't move.

One of Deliah's human cooks showed up with the lettuce. He stopped and stared, watching as Ray tried to tempt the beast out with crisp green leaves.

It finally stood, grumped to the desk and took a bite. Then it walked to the bowl and started drinking.

"If I could get a stew pot or a roasting pan?" Ray asked the cook.

"Don't you DARE!" Amelia shouted.

"To fill with water and bathe the thing," Ray promised. "Hippos are comfortable in water, right?"

The cook judged the length and height, then shook his head. "Maybe the lasagna pan...." He headed off.

"Or," Ray called, "a lobster pot to get him to a bathtub."

"You're going to pick him up?" Pipkin asked.

"How big of a bite can he take?" Ray asked. Amelia groaned. He ignored her. "Look at the scars." There were white lines all over the hippo's back and sides.

"He fought a cat," Amelia guessed.

"Or ate it," Butters muttered.

Deliah came into the office. She held a Dutch oven. Inside the pot was a jar of peanut butter and Pet, hanging onto the edge.

"Lemmee see!" she shouted urgently. "Lemmee see!"

"No, Pet," Amelia said. "He's grumpy and smelly and dangerous."

"He's HAPPY!"

"He's so grumpy he could be two dwarves," Ray countered. But he was watching the beast. Its ears perked up at the sound of Pet's voice. And the tail wagged. "I'll be damned...."

The grumpy beast looked like a puppy as it gazed at Pet. The tail worked and the eyes lit up. Pet demanded to be put down with Happy.

"No, Pet, he's covered with hippo poop," Ray said. "I was going to try to take him to the bathtub."

"Put a spoonful of peanutbutter in the pan," she said. "He loves peanut butter!"

"How do you know 'Happy,' Pet?" Amelia asked.

"That's a secret. I think. It was a secret twenty years ago. I think it still is. Maybe. I dunno. Where's Tituba?"

Amelia distracted Pet with the illegible letter. Ray tried her suggestion and gently rolled the pot when the hippo was standing in it, trying to lick the smear off the side.

The whole crowd followed him back to their private apartment. Denise and Annie were waiting there, along with a few other friends and coworkers.

They all followed him to the bathroom and took turns climbing the stairs to the catwalk along the side.

Ray ran the water warm, but not hot. Happy seemed to like it and kicked up some splashes. Deliah found a long wooden spoon in the minikitchen and scooped up some more peanut butter.

Pet lowered the oar and fed the hippo. It stood docile, if not exactly cheerful, while Ray scrubbed it top to bottom and end to end.

Ray got a scrub brush and started to give the fellow a back scratch. It leaned into it and he thought he heard something purring in the tub.

But wondrous as the unheard of creature was, it was the audience's reactions that amazed Ray.

A steady line of sylphs seemed to be coming through the bathroom to look down at the beast in astonishment. A few undines and one gnome even came by.

They stared silently for a time, then moved out of the way for someone else to stare. If Annie weren't standing at Pet's elbow, he'd think she was out there selling tickets.

But it was an orderly, awe-struck procession, almost like a religious ritual.

These people were seeing something that had never been seen before. Something that connected the magically shrunken to the natural world. It was an amazing thought when you got down to it. Next to this, the wholly human concept of sylph rights was just an intellectual puzzle.

Ray wondered what Happy really meant. Where the guy had come from? Were more animals going to shrink? Was the whole world going to shrink?

And why did Denise keep apologizing to Pet?

When he was clean and the tub drained and filled twice, Ray started to slowly lower Pet to the bottom of the tub. She got tired of his caution and jumped over the side.

Happy lunged, Deliah screamed, Annie and Denise jumped into the pool, the gallery gasped and Ray tried to snatch Pet back up. She squealed and got a grip, wrapping her arms around the hippo's neck as far as they'd go.

He stood still and wiggled. "Damn," Annie said, wading close. "He is happy."

"Yeah," Pet said dreamily.

"He's real!" Denise shouted. "Really real!"

"Toldja."

-----------

They finally moved Happy to the pond in the Garden. Sylphs thronged the paths. Residents that had not even visited the Garden during years inside the Center were lined up to see a tiny hippo relax in the kidney shaped pond beneath the waterfall.

Pet was near him almost the entire first two days of his stay. Then she finally went home to her family though she visited him once or thirteen times a day.

A week after Ray Foster signed for the pygmy sylph hippo, and an hour before Samantha Anthony was scheduled to return from her vacation, two men entered the Sylph Center.

The humans made a direct path to the Garden, scooped up the hippo and carried him towards the door.

They made no attempt to hide the fact that they carried Happy. One carefully held him about the waist, avoiding the vicious bite of the visibly peeved mammal. The other opened doors to allow his partner to pass.

They cooperated fully with Security when they attempted to leave the building. They were taken into custody and turned over to the police department.

Happy was revealed to the general public when the men's legal counsel held a press conference demanding that his client's charges be clearly defined, and the laws they broke specifically identified.

Ignoring the legal hijinks, the Smithsonian laid a claim for possession of the world's only known non-human sylph.

Sanc Dembukan government laid a claim for possession of the only other non-human sylph, as they had the only available mate that would allow perpetuation of the species.

The Justice Department announced that it did not need Happy's physical form for prosecution of the thieves.

The State Department did not SAY that handing over the hippo would smooth future efforts to increase the number of devas and their availability to solve American waste issues. But they implied the holy fuck out of the idea.

Samantha Anthony, as the ranking human member of the Center's board of directors, was technically the recipient of Tituba's bequest (neither the CIA, FBI, IRS or NSA could locate Tituba or even verify that she had ever existed). She depended heavily on Pet's advice.

Pet just hoped there would be Happy babies in the future. She escorted him to Sanc Dembuka on an efreet charter where he was introduced to Furahifu.

After a brief period where both hippos seemed confused about what the other creature was, they settled down into a companionable relationship. Reproductive behaviors have not been observed to date.

Happy did appear to encourage Furahifu to accept Pet's presence during her first visit, though experts suggest the first jar of peanut butter Furahifu ever saw might be the explanation.



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