Stranger and Stranger (11 page)

Gigi and Bebe!

Needless to say, I immediately formed an intense dislike of them based on their clothing, perfume, posture, names, facial expressions, and voices. Maybe that’s unfair of me, but I had expected them to be much more academically oriented and much less obsessively well-groomed.

Anyway, I now understand why they are so interested in taking Raven in. It turns out that Gigi and Bebe had already heard quite a bit of town gossip about her. Surprisingly, the town gossip has nothing to do with her being a preternatural creature possibly made of undead body parts, and everything to do with her being beautiful, mysterious, and shabbily dressed. Man, I really don’t understand people
sometimes
at all. Anyway, the Gige and the Beeb see her as a diamond in the rough, and plan to get her polished up, so that she can be the social hit of the season and make them wildly popular. Or something like that. Secretly, I suspect them of wanting to use her as bait for attractive gentleman doctors.

They did not even stay to hear any of my tips on Raven care and maintenance, but gathered up “their” Raven and hustled her away. Gah!!!!! Have taken note of their address, in case I need to bust her out. Who knows, maybe as soon as tomorrow!

Later

Could not wait for tomorrow. Am sitting in the bushes outside Gigi and Bebe’s house. Wow, I kind of didn’t realize a town this small could hold houses this big. They are RICH! And Raven
is clearly getting the best of care. I spied on Gigi and Bebe for a while as they gave her some sort of makeover. It was highly entertaining. I mean, I’m pretty sure these ladies have never done their own nails in their lives, but there they were, down on the floor, giving Raven a pedicure! Good stuff. I guess I can let them have their fun for a while and give Mom a break from golem stress. Have scoped out their security system, and it will be at most two minutes’ work for me to disable, should the need come up.

—Gotta get home, am expecting a phone call—

Later

Back at home. Have received the expected phone call from Gigi, asking how we get Raven to do things. I couldn’t resist having some vengeful fun with her.

M
E
: What do you want her to do?

G
IGI
: Well, at the moment I want her to go upstairs, but she just stands there.

M
E
: Oh, right. Well, here’s the thing about that, see. She’s programmed only to respond to me.

G: Sorry? I don’t understand. You’re referring to her spy training, I suppose. Some kind of brainwashing, perhaps?

M
E
: Sure, whatever.

G: Well, I would appreciate it if you’d tell me how I
can get her upstairs.

M
E
: Well, luckily for you, I inserted a special code word in her programming when I built her.

G: BUILT her? I’m sure you’re…Hmph. Is your mother there?

M
E
: Sorry, she’s really busy exfoliating right now.

G: Just tell me the word, young lady.

M
E
: “Jockstrap.”

G: The word is “jockstrap”? I say “jockstrap” and she’ll do as I ask?

M
E
: [Holding in the laughter. Holding it in, holding it in.] Oh…sorry, no, try “poopcake.”

G: “Poopcake.” Raven, please go upstairs. No, it’s not working.

M
E
: [Holding it in…barely…] Um, try “barfbag.”

[And so it went, through “Titicaca” and “codpiece,” to “Mulva” and “Dolores,” to “dissemination” and “kumquat,” until I completely lost it, and had to put the phone down for a few minutes while I caught my breath.]

M
E
: Sorry about that, I had a bit of a…coughing spasm. [Spasm!! Ahahhahhahhha!]

G: Let’s stop this nonsense right now. Either give me the word or put your mother on the line.

M
E
: Yes, ma’am! Seriously, the word is “Emily.”

G: Raven? “Emily!” Please go upstairs. All right, that
worked. Now, good night to you, young lady.

M
E
: And good night to you, Gigi. Thanks for the laughs.

G: Hmph!!!

Later

Was very energized by belly-busting laughs at Gigi’s expense, and rallied OtherMe to help me tackle some projects. Am happy to report that we have just finished work on a small, but serviceable treehouse in one of the ginormous trees out back. It’s the eleventh treehouse I’ve (we’ve?) built, so I/we are pretty much treehouse experts by now, but this time it only took three hours, eleven minutes—three full hours faster than my/our record! We were both especially pleased at our success in completely camouflaging both the treehouse and the ladder up to it—there’s pretty much no chance of any stray neighborhood child accidentally seeing it from the ground. We equipped it with some basic booby traps just in case.

Later—another project down!

We have finished the sun-spigot! It is excellent! The solar panels collect sunlight all day. Then it gets condensed and stored in a tank in the bedroom. We’ve rigged up a hose and spray gun so that every night we can hose down the plants with super concentrated sunlight. We also made two totally sunproof suits so that we are not scorched by toxic sun. As much as we love and
respect plants, it’s a mystery to us how they can stand that stuff. Anyway. What’s important is that we were able to bring all our bizarre, beautiful plants up to our room and now have a huge crazy garden up here. At last! Let the crossbreeding begin!

Later—incredibly productive night!

We have created cat collars with sonic dog-repelling devices on them. Am wearing mine around my ankle and roaming the neighborhood a bit, looking for dogs. Will report back in a bit.

Later

Back to the drawing board. The dog repeller also repels cats, squirrels, rats, birds, reptiles, and insects. All around me, in my peripheral vision, I can see animals running, flying, crawling, or squirming in terror to get away from me. Unacceptable. I am already feeling enough animal rejection at home!

Will keep it for sewer use, however.

Later

Am exhausted from super high productivity of the night. Am thrilled to have OtherMe here to make projects go so quickly. Am climbing into my hammock for some sleep.

Later—in the hammock

Just realized I forgot to tell OtherMe about my secret sewer. Let alone visit it. Oh well, she is already asleep. Maybe tomorrow.

Binary Larry better not have been up to any teen-style lameness down there, or he will PAY!!!!

June 11

Man, I’m soooooooo into having an identical Me around. Tonight was pretty much the best night of my life, mainly because OtherMe and I spent several hours laying our plans for what is going to be a pretty stupendous prank on the town. Or is it even a prank? I think it’s more a work of art. It’ll take a few days to set up, but it’ll be sooooooooo worth it.

I was still feeling very gung ho on the whole “Duplicate Silifordville” idea, but OtherMe has come up with a far superior concept. She heard on the news that there’s going to be a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Town Hall next week—for what, she doesn’t
know or care. What matters is that a big crowd of local people will be there, and that’s all the inspiration she needed.

We waited until Mom was fast asleep, then snuck out of the house together and spent a few hours exploring Town Hall and the adjacent grounds. Man, I should have checked out the place more closely before this! I would have immediately added it to my short (Very Short) list of Good Stuff in Silifordville.

Here are some of the wonderful things Town Hall had to offer us:

1. Large statues of anatomically correct naked folk.
   
2. A bench with a commemorative plaque reading: “IN LOVING MEMORY OF RITARDO N. O’BRANE, FOUNDER OF SILIFORDVILLE.”
   
3. Several achingly beautiful, pristinely white, longing-for-the-spray-can walls.
   
4. An outdoor exhibit of log cabins.
   
5. Playground populated by huge, colorful, plastic, easily unbolted barnyard animals.
   
6. A rooftop garden.
   
7. Indoor bird and rodent life.
   
8. Janitorial staff mostly under 20 years old and easily distracted from work responsibilities.
   
9. A supply closet and toolshed with locks a 2-month-old could crack.
   
10. Transom window leading to the storage room
    where they keep the uniforms. Uniforms!!!!
    
11. Large, antique, dusty, unused heating ducts that lead into every room.
    
12. A perfectly round library with a retracting roof.
    
13. An empty Olympic-sized swimming pool.
    

With all those possibilities, we had no choice but to discard them and do something completely original and self-sufficient. OK, well, actually we did use the heating ducts as passageways in our travels, which felt gloriously covert and spylike. And man, I loooooooooooove bumming around in the empty Town Hall at night with OtherMe! After thoroughly casing the joint, we took over the boardroom for a planning session.

SO. Here is OtherMe’s big plan: We’re going to create a wondrous Manifesto that will open people’s minds to the beauty of Strange, and then modify the town’s A/V equipment so it is capable of projecting our Manifesto directly into their brains. Then on the night of the ceremony, once the crowd has gathered, we’ll seal the doors and roll the Manifesto. Everything will be remotely controlled
from the safety of our bedroom. Then we just sit back and watch the town of Silifordville get STRANGE!!!!!!

before: BORING

YESSSSSSSS! Here’s to OtherMe and her rascally diabolical plans!

OK—pretty great progress for one night. We are headed home.