Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 27 Read online

  The wolves insisted Lewis try the cheese, a scuffed, yellowy block slumped on a dirty table, a blunt cheese knife buried in it. “You cannot drive the miles to France and not eat cheese,” they said. Their long hair was bristly and caked with mud. Playing football, earlier, thought Lewis.

  The wolves cut Lewis a bruised and awkward clump of cheese, slightly bigger than his fist, its sides mashed by the blunt knife. “Try it,” the wolves said. They poured him glasses of red wine. “Try it, Lewis. Try it.”

  Lewis broke off a small corner of the cheese and pushed it into his mouth. He kept his fingers on his lips as he chewed. The cheese was dry, as tasteless as hair.

  “We love you, Lewis,” said the wolves. “We love you more than cellular phones. We love you more than camcorders and Pentium computers.” They giggled and poked at the cheese with their claws.

  Lewis cringed, expecting to be hit.

  They gathered around him, tugging at his sweater and pants with their claws. “We think you must be a wolf, one of us, playing Wolf in People’s Clothing. Take off your skin! Which wolf are you?” Lewis fell back, stammering. The wolves howled with laughter.

  “I—I—,” Lewis began, “—Is there a wolf here—named Pierre—”

  The wolves laughed and slapped one another, growling playfully. They ate and drank noisily, hair and dirt falling around them.

  “He’s a perfect gentleman,” Molly told Lewis and his wife, “and almost painfully shy.” She smiled. “He’s embarrassed by his English. I told him I like his accent, and after that he relaxed. We had a good time.”

  Lewis’ wife glowed, secretly proud of her vacation. “You should see him again.”

  “Do you see?” the wolves asked Lewis. “Do you see the moon?” They called for someone to turn down the streetlights. The wolves near candles pinched them out.

  The wolves around Lewis shook excitedly, putting their arms around him, guiding his face to look upwards. The last of the lights went out.

  “Look at the moon,” they whispered, their voices raspy and slow. “Look at it. See how great it is.”

  It floated above them, close and swollen, its craters filled and overflowing with light. Its face tilted at Lewis, the eyes weak, the mouth open in a silent moan.

  “We’ve never been there,” they continued. “Sometimes people go there, but wolves have never gone. But we dream of it, Lewis, of flying there. If we did we would stay; we wouldn’t allow humans to come: they could have the earth, if we could have the moon. We would cultivate the thin soil, build gardens and forests. We would dig into the craters, deepening them, exploring the tunnels and caverns.

  “You could come with us, Lewis. You could come and explore the moon with us. We want you to come. We promise you wouldn’t be lonely.” The wolves began to cry, softly, and tug weakly at their fur.

  Lewis closed his eyes.

  Lewis awoke the next morning to find the cardinals leaving him. They had pulled out their beautiful red feathers. “We shall be nudist birds!” they sang. “It is too cold here to make nests. We are going where there isn’t any winter!”

  They set off for the beach to raise families and work on their suntans.

  After that Lewis began making only one list late at night.

  Lewis lay back on the pillow.

  Molly danced, awkwardly at first, with Pierre at the top of a hill. The two made silhouettes against the deep violet evening sky. Molly’s laughter, light and soft, drifted toward Lewis, mixed with Pierre’s.

  As they danced, the shaggy shapes of wolves rose up around them, dancing as if they were men.

  Molly continued dancing, dancing with Pierre on the hillside as night approached, dancing with the wolves of St. Etienne.

  Lewis stared at the phone, a pale lump on the nightstand by his bed. He shifted his weight on the bed; kneaded his forehead with his fingers. The wind carried small twigs and bits of ribbon from the cardinals’ nests. In the next room the Christmas Tree spun slowly, muted blobs of color washing the walls.

  The phone rang, but Lewis didn’t answer. He already knew who was calling and what they wanted.

  Instead, he put on his coat and shoes and went outside.

  Dark clouds filled the night sky, the moon sliding in and out behind them. Around him the city lay silently.

  This must be what space is like, thought Lewis. This must be what it’s like to float in space, outside the ship. Or to stand on the moon, away from the others, where you imagine you’re the only human left.

  Lewis looked at the sky.

  The moon, faded and murky, stared back with its confused look of pain, then slipped again behind the clouds. Lewis took off his glasses, crouched and placed them on the ground. He closed his eyes. The pressure in his forehead ceased.

  What happens next? Does the moon emerge from the clouds? He never opens his eyes; he never knows.

  The Hedon-Ex Anomaly

  Jessy Randall

  The announcement came over the tubes almost immediately after it started: two whirling dervishes in room 204 of the seventh grade building. They expect the anomaly; it always happens with Hedon-Ex. I’d heard similar announcements several times during my seventh grade year. The only difference was that this time I was one of the dervishes. At that point, despite spinning faster than I knew I could and feeling a bit sick, I could still hear perfectly well and was quite aware of what was going on around me. That didn’t last the whole time.

  It had all started with the baked goods. It was the last day of school and everyone had brought something. Home-made cupcakes with candy bars hidden inside, store-bought cookies, chocolates in the shape of flags and the Statue of Liberty. All that sugar and fat spread out on tables in the gymnasium—it’s a wonder we even made it back to our classrooms without incident. I myself had six desserts, and I think Zed had eight. The tubed-in music seemed to get louder and the only thing that felt normal to me was turning around, slowly at first, and then speeding up.

  When I’d seen it happen to other kids, I’d thought it looked like dancing. I found out there is a joy to it. It feels so right, or almost right—as though you’re going to get to the exact right feeling in just a moment, if you could just spin yourself there. That must be why you end up going faster and faster.

  This was about ten minutes after the tubes told Billy Carruthers to remove his helmet. The decibel level had reached some sort of predetermined number and the Hedon-Ex had to be utilized. We all knew the drill. I’d even done a report on it the year before, on the value of Hedon-Ex at the middle school level. And it’s not like Billy didn’t like being the one. He loved it! He loved wearing that helmet around and acting like he was in charge, the boss of everyone. Even though he can’t unlock it himself, can’t even take it off at night to sleep. But anyway. You should hear him go on and on about the responsibility of being the Hedon-Ex and blah blah blah. That guy is on a total power trip.

  So, like I said, as we left the gym and the wildness was increasing and a couple of kids started pushing each other, they remotely unlocked the helmet and told Billy to take it off. He got that look he does, and once the rays started out from him kids were running for the classrooms, trying to get there in time. Nobody wants to rest in the hallways, “Hedon-Ex Sleep is Extra Deep,” you know, so you want at least a carpet if you can’t get a couch.

  I was walking, or rather running, with Janie, and feeling no different from any of the other times, but then I saw that Janie was slowing down and I was still accelerating.

  That’s when the spinning started. There was a clear spot in the coat closet and Zed and I ended up there. We had enough room to spin at our own rates quite comfortably.

  Now I want to say this before I forget. Zed had been on and off my crush list since fifth grade. In seventh he got taller and cuter and he was definitely back on. But he wasn’t at the top. So what happened later was a surprise.

  Apparently Hedon-Ex responds to some peculiar combination of hormones, something to do with adolescence a
nd sweat and adrenaline. I don’t really understand it, and I guess you don’t either or you wouldn’t be asking me all these questions. If I remember right from my report, it might be an overabundance that triggers the anomaly, or the reaction of one set of pheromones with another. The tubes say they usually get a pair of dervishes, occasionally a triple or a quadruple but never just one single dervish. So that’s interesting.

  Zed and I spun ourselves to dervish speed, whirling faster than I thought thirteen-year-olds could on their own strength, and for a longer time. I mean, why didn’t we fall down? It was like we had extra balance, like we were pinned from head to floor and arms and legs just had to fly out, round and round.

  After the announcement over the tubes it was only a couple of minutes until the guards got to room 204. I’m sure they were standing by as soon as the helmet came off. I mean, they know it’s going to happen, they just don’t know exactly who will be the unlucky ones. Or the lucky ones? I’m still not sure which.

  Once we slowed down enough for them to grab us safely (after all, they are safety officers!) they bundled us onto the detention bus. They were perfectly polite about it, no excessive force or anything. We’re a lot smaller than they are, after all. No need for brutality. One of them did have a funny look on her face, though. Was it pity? Envy? It almost seemed like both. Not a look I normally see on the face of a grown-up.

  They strapped us into seats on the detention bus, Zed and I riding alongside each other, facing the side of the bus so we both had the same unobstructed view out the floor-to-ceiling windows. It’s mostly just construction between the seventh grade building and detention, big hills of dirt with redbots peeking out or working away, digging and pushing. The tubes piped in music, the same crap music we get all day at school but as we rode along, Zed and I, the music seemed more beautiful than usual, more apropos, more like real music you’d play on purpose in your room or with your friends. And at the same time the view got more beautiful, like we could see each grain of sand and feel the feelings of the redbots, the satisfied feeling they get moving a pile of gravel from one place to another.

  And I say “we” could see this and feel this because one thing was very clear, Zed and I were having the same experience. I don’t know how I knew that but I did. Like we were thinking together, seeing together. Maybe it was the way he moved his hand closer to mine at the exact moment I moved mine closer to his, and then we were holding hands, not looking at each other but totally utterly blissed-out on the music and the view, the stupid boring music and the drab ugly view, I would have said just a few moments before and would say now, but right then, for that section of time, wow.

  The bus heaved up to the entrance of the detention building and safety officers unstrapped us and led us in. Last day of school and all, the place was packed, both with actual detentioners and those like us who were in need of medical attention. Everyone could tell we weren’t going to be seen any time soon and the guards got mixed up in the melée so they just sent us down the hall, yelling that we were in rooms eleven and twelve.

  We never got past room eleven. We were still holding hands and Zed pushed open the door to eleven and I shut it behind us and we fell into each other just holding each other and kissing, our mouths soft, then hard, then soft again. I don’t know much about kissing, I mean really I don’t know anything at all about kissing but it was like the whirling dervish reaction, it was like we had to do it to feel normal, we had to keep doing it and try different ways, try every way of pressing our lips together, our whole mouths, biting, whispering, eyes open or closed, the room was small like a room at a doctor’s office, with two chairs, we pushed those to the side and rolled around on the floor. I know this is going to sound gross and weird but Zed’s mouth tasted so good to me, it was like his saliva was the most delicious thing ever invented.

  When they knocked a while later we had dust all over our clothes and we must have looked like crazy people. I don’t even know what we looked like. Happy, probably. Probably disheveled and maybe older than thirteen suddenly. My face felt rubbed and strange. The Hedon-Ex anomaly was starting to wear off by then, enough that I felt embarrassed, and didn’t have that “we” feeling as intensely as before, which is probably a good thing since they separated us immediately, and put me in this room, where I am now with you, and I’ve been here for three days and would like to know when you’re going to let me go home, or if you’re going to move me straight on to the eighth grade building, which I’ve heard has a swimming pool. And I’d like to know when I could see Zed again and if possible I’d like to put in a request that we be assigned to the same floor in the new building. I have heard that sometimes such requests are allowed for well-adjusted students with good grades and that’s both of us.

  I’m really completely back to normal, the anomaly is over. I have some questions for you, now, though. Like, do you know, if I’m exposed to Hedon-Ex again, will I have the same reaction? What if Zed and I are around each other again when Billy takes off the helmet? Don’t you think that might be a worthwhile experiment to perform? I can’t be sure what Zed would say but I know that I’m willing to participate in such an experiment in the name of science

  .

  Thou Earth, Thou

  K. M Ferebee

  Dunbar set to work at once in the garden. Whilst Mason unpacked boxes, airing the linens and arranging dishes in the narrow kitchen cabinets, Dunbar was on his knees in the knotted foliage, unearthing weeds. It was the principal feature of the house, this garden, and had been the aspect that finally committed them. It was unusually large for a suburban neighbourhood, measuring perhaps four metres by fifteen, and had been ferociously neglected by the former owner. Rosemary ran rampant in great spiny outgrowths; tomato plants towered and drooped their sad, untidy leaves. There were masses of flowers, grown tall and rather savage. The smell that rose out of it was vast and wild and heady, a riot of scent somehow indecipherably green. Dunbar was mad for gardening and had fallen for it instantly. “Just think,” he’d said, “by the start of summer I could have it cut back, and we could plant pumpkins and courgettes and runner beans.”

  “We can buy all of those in a supermarket,” Mason had pointed out, but by then it was too late: Dunbar had set his heart on having the garden. And, Mason was forced to admit, there was something pleasantly domestic about looking out the kitchen window and seeing his partner rooting in the sun-drenched greenery. Dunbar was slight and fair and sunburned easily, but he seemed at home in the outdoors in a way that was difficult to explain. Indoors he grew restless. Rooms seemed not quite large enough to contain him. Even in his sleep he moved constantly, shifting and reaching, as though his dreams were a box he longed to escape. In the garden he looked already calm and somehow restful. Mason allowed himself a small and wary smile.

  They had left the city because Dunbar found it confining, though he was careful never to say so. This was on account of the fact that Mason thrived amongst the city’s coffee shops and bookstores, and amongst its theatres—for Mason was a costumier. It was a trade he had undertaken not because of any particular affection for clothing, but rather out of a consuming passion for the antique. He worked on productions where it was necessary for period wardrobes to be meticulously recreated: waistcoats, farthingales, doublets with slashed sleeves. His work was detailed and exact; he had (he was aware) a reputation as slightly tedious. What satisfied him was his first glimpse of the clothes fitted to the living man or woman. After this moment the man, the woman resumed their prior form as actors and actresses, but for one instant a transformation took place. It was as though some small window had opened across the great distance of time, and Mason alone could press his face to it and see. A slow quiet joy suffused him at these times, which in all his life he had described to no one except Dunbar. The revelation that he loved Dunbar had been coincident with the revelation that Dunbar was capable of comprehending this one thing.

  The suburbs had a quality of newness that Mason found disturbing. T
heir thin layer of civilization sat uneasily on the land. The bookstores were lined with fluorescent lighting; the coffee in the coffee shops tasted of machines. The cars had no scratches on them. He liked the dirt of the city, its tiredness, its inventory of old and broken things. He could have gone on living in his dingy apartment, where the lights flickered when the elevated train rushed by. But he had seen Dunbar’s discomfort. Dunbar shied away from loud noise and crowded places; he had a peculiar terror of the subway that could not be tamed. He had moved to the city only to do postgraduate work at a prestigious school. Mason thought: When his degree is complete he will leave, and he will leave me. So it was at his suggestion that they began to look for a house outside the city. Though, “There aren’t any theatres!” Dunbar protested.

  “I can drive in to work,” Mason said. It seemed a plausible, even ideal solution: Dunbar had a car, a tiny, cream-coloured thing. Standing at the kitchen window now, a ceramic cup held in each hand, he watched Dunbar moving bright-haired through the garden and was convinced that he had made the right choice. Their happiness seemed not only assured but also present: a warm, physical, corporeal being. It crept through the kitchen on light feet. Mason closed his eyes. He wanted to preserve this feeling.

  Mason had taken off work for the week so that he and Dunbar could move. By the weekend after, it seemed that they were in some sense settled. Books had been set upon shelves in a semblance of order, Mason’s antique gramophone—decorative only, as he owned nothing which it could play—occupied a side table, and over the mantelpiece in the parlour Dunbar had hung a large print of Altdorfer’s St. George and the Dragon. This was Dunbar’s favourite painting. In it, a wilderness of greens and golds swallowed the figure of the saint on his stallion. George’s small, fragile body could scarcely be seen. The dragon, too, in defeat, was cowed and tiny. Only the vast spreading limbs of the trees were truly visible. They seemed triumphant, as though it were there victory and not the saint’s that the artist portrayed.