Chicks - The Chick Is In The Mail Part 22

Maybe I should just lock her up in a troll cage.

She glanced up and caught me staring at her. "Mom," she whimpered, and my heart melted.

My head was still solid, though. "You're grounded," I said. It never worked, but what else could I do?

"You're so grounded we're leaving for home at first light. No shopping or malls for a month! No TV for a week!" Any longer without TV and she would drive me crazy.

"Mom," she said again. I guess she realized I was serious. She snapped the sleeping bag over, flicked it so it rolled up, and stuffed it into a stuff sack. Shedid remember everything I'd taught her on our first camp-out.

Then she glared at me. "I hope you know, this is war. I challenge you!" She shook her head and looked down at me. "I'll never forgive you," she whispered.

"For what?" "Stealing my boyfriend." She turned and crawled out of the cave, never glancing back.

When I woke up the next morning, I had the most beautiful collection of bruises I'd ever acquired, even in a lifetime of mock and real battles. Troll-pinching-mail-pinching-skin equaled bruises shaped like purple-black roses, mostly concentrated on my b.u.t.t. I dressed in my everyday warrior woman wear, mail hauberk, stainless steel cuira.s.s, and chausses, my mail stockings, which covered all my troll marks but the three hickeys on my neck.

Despite the already stifling heat, I unpacked my coif-de-mailles and put it on my head. It covered my head and shoulders, leaving only my face bare. My hair instantly dampened with sweat. It was going to be one of those days. I swallowed a salt tablet and chugged some water.

I pulled on my boots and loaded up on armaments. I really wanted to kill something. Preferably something big.

I stepped out of the teepee into the heat of the sun, and flashing light temporarily blinded me. Shading my eyes, I took another look.

A tall woman stood there in mail so shiny I knew it had never been fought in. She wore a helmet with a gray whale rampant for a crest.

I sniffled. Her birthday suit, the one I gave her when she turned fifteen. My daughter had finally put it on.

She raised her visor. The look in her eyes chilled me.

"Well," she said. "I hope you're happy now."

By all rights I should have been. She was armed and ready to fight. It was everything I had hoped for when we began this trip. Her upper lip curled into a snarl and her nostrils flared as she sniffed at the air.

My daughter the warrior was ready to a.s.sert her final challenge to my authority.

The girls from the Teen Warrior program danced around screaming, "Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!"

Cookie bent down to draw a circle in the dirt with her cooking spoon. Gladys Badger Woman, who was our warrior parliamentarian, cautioned, "No holds barred. Just remember our two rules."

I wanted to say, Stop. It's just a troll! He's not worth fighting over. But I couldn't bring myself to say the words. I tried to hold my head up. I faltered, just for a split-second, but probably long enough for her to see me show weakness. I gathered my thoughts and prayed to the G.o.ddess for guidance. My strength returned. "Prepare to lick my boots," I said to Kayla.

"In your dreams," Kayla said. She started toward me, a full-fledged warrior.

In her cold expression, I saw enough of myself to be afraid.

Teenagers. What are you going to do?

The Thief and the Roller Derby Queen:

An essay on the importance of formal education

Eric Flint

The problem, in a nutsh.e.l.l, was that he had a lousy formal education. It didn't help, of course, that he suffered from delusions of grandeur. But if he'd stayed in school, he would have taken enough tests to realize that he was a dunce.

Being a dunce is okay, but you have to know your limitations. If you choose thieving as a profession, shoot for hubcaps instead of the Crown Jewels. For sure, don't try to steal from Satan. But that's exactly what he did.

Why did he do it? Well, partly because he was an egomaniacal dunce. But, mostly, he did it because of his girlfriend.

So it's time to introduce her: Loretta Minisci. Twenty-two years old; five feet, ten inches tall; raven-black hair; brown eyes; beautiful; shapely; and possessed of an all-consuming pa.s.sion to become the greatest witch who ever lived.Her problem, in a nutsh.e.l.l, is that while she was incredibly bright she didn't have any higher education either. And despite what you may have heard, it really takes a lot of book learning to be a great witch-much less the greatest witch who ever lived.

So, she was frustrated. Her spells never seemed to work quite the way they should (when they worked at all). And she couldn't use a lot of spells, because the really good spells are written in arcane languages, bizarre runes, and the like. You really need a Ph.D. to work through that kind of stuff, and she was a high-school dropout.

The worst of it, from Loretta's point of view, was that she wasn't able to summon demons. She tried, once, but the affair went badly. She followed all the instructions in the grimmoire, including the part about being naked while you do the incantation. That last was a piece of cake, for her, because she made her living as an exotic dancer in between roller derby matches. But because her education wasn't up to snuff, she didn't quite understand what a pentacle is. Stumbling through the words in the grimmoire, Loretta made the word out to betentacle .

So there she was, when the demon materialized, surrounded by a pile of fried calimari.

"That stuff's like rubber," complained the demon. Then, ogling Loretta: "But what a babe!" Things didn't go as badly as they might, because Loretta was used to fending off the advances of l.u.s.tful males. And even though she wasn't wearing her roller derby pads, she still had a mean knee and a really vicious elbow smash. But it was sticky for a while, and she was always afraid to summon demons thereafter.

But what kind of great witch can't summon demons?

She brooded about the problem for several weeks. Then she decided that what she needed was a piece of brimstone. It's not clear where she got that idea. It's not in the literature, that's for sure. But Loretta had a tendency to invent her own recipes, which was one of the reasons her boyfriend insisted on eating out. (The other reason is that he felt a great thief should eat in fine restaurants, even if he couldn't read the menu.) Now, mind you, fooling with recipes is no big deal when it comes to cooking. But it's really not a good idea when you're dealing with the underworld.

Loretta was just as stubborn as she was smart and good-looking. Once she got something in her head, that was that. Right off she started pestering her boyfriend to go to h.e.l.l with her and steal a piece of brimstone. She didn't actually know what brimstone was, but she remembered from her Sunday school days (which were a long way back) that there was lots of it in h.e.l.l.

The thief refused, at first, so Loretta withheld her affections (as they say). Eventually, he gave in. Loretta thought it was because he was terminally h.o.r.n.y, but the truth is that the more he thought about the job, the more it appealed to his vanity. He liked to call himself the Cat, but his friends called him the p.u.s.s.y (which, among his crowd, didn't have the same connotation at all).

"I'll show 'em," he muttered to himself. And he went to Loretta and agreed to do the job. "Providedyou can get us into h.e.l.l."

"That's easy!" she exclaimed.

And it was. Any half-educated witch can get into h.e.l.l. The trick, of course, is getting back out.

Even then, she botched it. Loretta still hadn't figured out what a pentacle was, so when they arrived in h.e.l.l they were surrounded by fried calimari. Naturally, the smell drew every imp within range, because imps love seafood and there's a real shortage of it in the Pit of d.a.m.nation.

That's probably what saved them, for the moment, because the imps were so busy gobbling down the calimari that they didn't think to grab the trespa.s.sers until Loretta and the thief were on the lam.

Still, things looked bad.

Loretta and the thief were trying to make their escape across a field of ice. The thief was grousing and complaining the whole time because he'd dressed for what he thought h.e.l.l would be like, and sneakers and a bathing suit just didn't cut it. Loretta didn't hear him, however, because after the first five seconds she had skidded completely out of sight.She'd come to h.e.l.l in her roller derby outfit. (d.a.m.n what the book said; she wasn't about to deal with demons stark naked again.) And while the knee and elbow pads kept her from getting too badly sc.r.a.ped up, her roller skates were completely useless. Although, as it happens, they're probably all that saved her.

But we'll get to that in a moment. First, let's reexamine the moral of the tale. The problem?Lack of formal education . Both Loretta and her boyfriend had gotten their ideas about h.e.l.l from watching TV evangelists late at night when there wasn't anything else on the tube. And the truth of it is that televangelists have the silliest ideas about h.e.l.l, as well as everything else. That doesn't hurt them , of course, since they always go to Heaven because G.o.d likes them even if they are a lot of con artists. (He's willing to forgive a pious scam. And it's not even a scam, anyway, because G.o.d favors faith a long way over brains so even the jerks who send in their money get to Heaven.) But it was tough on Loretta and the thief. If they'd read Dante'sInferno , of course, they'd have known that h.e.l.l was a frigid wasteland.

Again:lack of formal education . Because if you trace it all back, you find that the preachers from whom they'd gotten their ideas were a poorly educated bunch themselves. Their ideas of h.e.l.l they'd gotten from the only book they'd ever read, which is the Bible. And while the Holy Book was accurate enough at the time it was written, you've got to stay abreast of the literature in your field. Satan does.

Once the Devil read Dante's description of h.e.l.l in theInferno he redecorated the whole place. Calls it Renaissance Chric.

Loretta got out okay due to blind luck. As it happens, the ice fields of h.e.l.l are almost frictionless. That's because the coefficient of- Never mind. No point going into the physics here. (The kind of people who'd buy a book like this-I haven't even seen the cover yet, but I'll guarantee it's covered with half-nekkid women wearing S&M gear-wouldn't follow it anyway.) (Oh, sure. Tell me it'll be on the coffee table when the guests arrive. Along with your leather-bound copy of Kant'sCritique of Pure Reason. ) Like I said, frictionless. Two great roller-derby-queen-type strides into it and she was off her skates- wham!-right on her a.s.s, sailing across h.e.l.l. Loretta steered herself as best she could, using her knee and elbow pads, but within five minutes she reached the Wall. (Yes, h.e.l.l has a boundary. It's flexible, of course. Depends, any given day or night, on the precise equation between d.a.m.ned souls and saved souls but, again, we'll skip the math. See reasoning above.) She hit the Wall feetfirst. Anybody else would have broken their ankles. But Loretta was a roller derby queen, and she knew just how to handle collisions. Next thing you know, she was skating up the Wall making her getaway. (Gravity works differently in h.e.l.l. Just trust me.) The Wall is infinite, of course, but she was saved by divine intervention. Once she got high enough to be noticed, an angel came and took her back home. Sports fan, he claimed, even though Loretta thought he was a regular in the club where she did her dancing, hiding his face at one of the back tables along with all the televangelists. Maybe not.

For the thief, on the other hand, things didn't go as well. At first, he was full of confidence. He always liked to brag to his friends that he'd never been caught. His friends always said that was because he never managed to actually steal much of anything. And it was true that he was better at the getaway part of the job than he was at the actual getting. (Which, when you think about it, kind of defeats the whole purpose of being a thief in the first place, but he was never smart enough to figure that out.) The thief took one look at Loretta flying off and decided to try a different route. So he plunged into a snowdrift. Bright guy, like I said.

Soon enough, the thief was floundering around in the snow, freezing his a.s.s off. He didn't get far, of course. After they finished gorging themselves on the calimari, the imps set off in hot pursuit. They had no trouble tracking him. They didn't even bother following his footsteps, they just followed the smell of suntan lotion. Imps know exactly what sun block smells like, because all surfers go to h.e.l.l. (Yes,all of them. It's not that G.o.d has anything in particular against the sport. It's just that He hates the music of the Beach Boys, and He tends to overreact.) (Hey, it's true, He does. Read the Bible. A little hanky-panky in Sodom and Gomorrah? BRONZE AGE HIROSHIMA. Eat the wrong fruit? LIVE BY THE SWEAT OF YOUR BROW, CHILDREN BORN IN SORROW, PMS-the whole nine yards. Violate the building code? ALL LANGUAGES CAST INTO CONFUSION; MILLENNIA OF TRIBAL WARFARE. Eat sh.e.l.lfish? LOCUSTS.

Jaywalk? SEVEN LEAN YEARS. Don't recycle? PLAGUE. Do this, ETERNAL d.a.m.nATION; do that, ETERNAL d.a.m.nATION. Strict is one thing. That Guy's into leather.) Back to the story.

After they caught him, the imps straightaway hauled him up before the Prince of Darkness. The whole thing moved way faster than the thief expected, being, as he was, accustomed to the pace of the criminal justice system. Naturally, the dummy tried to cop a plea. (This is what's called "unclear on the concept.") The devils immediately convulsed with laughter.

"Wrong court, chump!" they howled.

The Prince of Darkness wasn't at all what the thief expected. No horns, no cloven hooves, no barbed tail. Just an ordinary-looking fellow, middle-aged, dressed in a navy blue Brooks Brothers suit. With a red power tie, naturally. He was sitting in an executive swivel chair on a raised mound in the very center of h.e.l.l, eating lunch off a TV tray. Around him, as far as the eye could see, stretched a horde of sinners squatting naked on the ice.

No, Satan didn't look like much, but the thief wasn't fooled for a minute. He wasn't bright, but he'd kicked around a lot. The Devil's lunch was the first tip-off. What you call areal power lunch: Satan was tearing the leg from a roasted baby and devouring it like a wolf.

"Unbaptised toddler." He burped. "My favorite."

That was bad enough. Then the thief spotted the ta.s.seled Gucci loafers and the Rolex and knew he was really in deep trouble.

"I want a lawyer!" he cried. "Is there a lawyer anywhere around?"

Satan's minions started howling again. Two thirds of the horde of sinners scrambled to their feet. In less than a minute, a gigantic brawl erupted on the field of ice, millions of naked attorneys battling each other over the fee.

Eventually a wizened old character fought his way through the mob.

"Corporate lawyers," he sneered. "Punks."

"I'll take your case," he announced, extending his hand. "I'm Clarence Darrow."

Ignorant as he was, the thief had heard of Clarence Darrow. (Defense lawyers were of interest to him, given his profession.) "But-you're famous! What are you doing here? You're supposed to be a good guy." Darrow shrugged. "G.o.d's got a different opinion. At first I thought it was because of the Scopes trial.

But then I found out it was really the Leopold and Loeb case that ticked Him off. The Lord views the insanity plea as a Personal affront, seeing as how He made man in His own image."

Clarence Darrow really was a great defense lawyer. Right off he entered a plea of not guilty on grounds of mental incapacity, arguing that only a moron would think of going to h.e.l.l to steal brimstone. Satan immediately agreed with him, but pointed out that h.e.l.l was the a.s.signed eternity for imbeciles.

"It's not fair," admitted the Lord of Flies, "but I don't set the rules. G.o.d does. And you know how He feels about r.e.t.a.r.ds."

So then Darrow changed the plea to not guilty on the grounds that there was no crime involved anyway, seeing as how there wasn't any brimstone in h.e.l.l to steal in the first place. "It's like charging a man in a desert with trying to steal water," he argued.

This led to a long wrangle. The Devil responded that intent is as important as action in a.s.sessing a crime.

That developed into a discussion of the metaphysical priority of mind vs. matter, which Darrow would have lost in a minute if he were in Heaven where (it goes without saying) Mind comes a long way before Matter. But he was a canny old lawyer, and he knew that Satan placed great store in things of the flesh.

Eventually, the Devil admitted the plea. The thief started to breathe easy, but not for long, because Satan right away charged him with trespa.s.sing.

"That's just a misdemeanor!" squealed the thief, before Darrow could shut him up.

"You dummy," growled the lawyer.

Sure enough, the Prince of Darkness and all his satanic subordinates were glaring at the thief like-well, like devils. "A misdemeanor!" bellowed Satan. He shredded what was left of the two-month-old sinner and hurled the hideous gobbets at the thief.

"Let me give you a taste of the punishment reserved for trespa.s.sers," he snarled.

The next instant the thief found himself transported into a realm of h.e.l.l that is so horrible and gruesome that even Dante couldn't bring himself to describe it. At the time, the thief thought it was for an eternity, but when he was hauled back Satan glanced at his Rolex and said: "How'd you likethat thirty seconds?"

The thief was shaking all over. Tight-lipped, Darrow leaned over and whispered in his ear: "They're real big on the territorial imperative down here, stupe. From now on, keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking."

That said, Darrow went right back on the offensive, entering a plea of not guilty on the grounds that there were no signs posted informing the unwary traveler that h.e.l.l was private property.

The Devil spluttered. "What are you talking about, you lousy shyster? I don't need signs-everybody knows I own this place!"

Bingo. Jackpot.Clarence Darrow for the defense!

Because, naturally, as soon as G.o.d heard the Devil say that (He hears everything, of course) He blewHis stack and intervened. Which was exactly what Darrow had counted on-winning on appeal to a Higher Court.

A great Presence manifested Itself.

NO YOU DON'T, b.u.m. I OWN THIS PLACE. I MADE IT, DIDN'T I? YOU JUST COLLECT.

THE RENT. (You can't put quotation marks around G.o.d's dialogue. He's unlimitable. First offense gets a rain of toads.) Satan tried to squawk about jurisdiction, but that's really a flimsy argument when you're dealing with the Lord Almighty, Creator of the Universe. The Devil's usually a lot smarter than that, but he was caught off guard. In the end he irritated G.o.d so much that the Lord Above changed the terms of the lease.

FROM NOW ON, b.u.m, YOU DON'T GET THE UNBAPTISED BABES. (And that's how Limbo got created, in case you ever wondered.) Satan gibbered with rage, which is an absolutely terrifying thing to see unless you happen to be G.o.d.

After the display had gone on for a while, G.o.d got impatient.

ARE YOU FINISHED? IF NOT, I'LL CREATE A BIB TO CATCH THE DROOL.

Satan clamped his jaws shut.

THAT'S BETTER. NOW. WHAT'S THIS ALL ABOUT, ANYWAY?.

G.o.d already knew what it was all about, of course. He's omniscient. But He gets some kind of weird kick out of acting dumb. (Always been like that. Remember the time, early on, when He was wandering through the Garden of Eden? Silly. A full-grown Supreme Being, acting like a Kid playing tag: "Yoo-hoo!

Adam, where are you?") Before the Devil could open his mouth, Darrow started talking. It was a great closing argument, too.

Then G.o.d announced His decision. He found in favor of the defendant on the grounds that while he was guiltier than sin the whole thing tickled the Lord's fancy. But the thief didn't get off scot-free, because G.o.d sentenced him to ten years in Purgatory before he would be released back to earth.

"What for?" whined the thief.

BECAUSE YOU'RE AN IDIOT.

Then G.o.d smote the Devil with a bolt of lightning. Contempt of court.