He waited until she nodded her head, and then he said, “My mission today is grave.”
“NO, MAX, NO!” Ellen shrieked, trying to shield herself with baby hands. The dachshund twisted its elongated body like a towel and sprayed water in all directions. Ellen squealed and grabbed him around the neck, but the little dog refused to drop the throw toy. He wriggled free and tore off across the lawn, with the pygmy giraffe in hot pursuit and Ellen in her wet sundress toddling behind.
Not far away, Georgine and a nuss lay on lawn loungers and watched. Georgine in a bikini and the nuss in a gold-and-yellow Capias uniform. The nuss got up and said, “I’ll just go for dry clothes.”
“Good idea,” Georgine said to her back. But then she saw Mary and Bishop Meewee coming down across the lawn and heading toward Ellen. Mary was walking, Meewee was floating, and his holo was washed out in the bright sun. “Oh, damn,” Georgine said, hopping to her feet to intercept them.
ELLEN LAY ON her back on the sloping lawn and hugged the wet dog. The intruders blotted out the sky with their big, serious heads. She glanced from one to the other, and fixing her gaze on Mary, said, “I thought I made my wishes in this matter clear.”
“You did,” Mary replied simply. “But this matter, by all accounts, is grave.”
Ellen turned her gaze from Mary to the ghost of Meewee. Meewee cleared his throat and said, “What a signal day to be gamboling on all fours with a duo of furry friends.”
Ellen lifted her arms, but before Mary could bend down to pick her up, the nuss nurse, who had joined them, snatched Ellen and balanced her on her capable hip. Now Ellen was nearly level with Meewee, and she said in an even voice, “What do you want, Myr Meewee?”
Just as evenly, Meewee replied, “Halcyon summer is winding down, as always, too soon. Don’t you agree?”
“Go away, Bishop. Please, just go away. I don’t want to do this anymore.”
The baby pointed her finger for the nurse to turn her. They turned toward the duck pond, turned their backs on the Meewee holo.
The dachshund Maxwell grew quiet to watch the increasingly tense encounter. But Jaffe the giraffe, reacting to the same cues, galloped about on its oversized legs in nervous agitation. It halted abruptly in front of Meewee’s holo and said, “Bad man go away!”
Mary silently dittoed the sentiment and added: And quit with the mumbo-jumbo!
But Meewee was immune to everyone’s wishes, and he said to the nurse’s gold-and-yellow backside, “Have you ever given a thought to the venerable art of bookbinding?”
Mary was about to apologize to Ellen for bringing this madman, when Ellen turned the nurse around and peered intensely at him. Ellen’s adult mouth fell open, and the blood drained from her face. Meewee continued in a perversely conversational tone. “I seem to recall in the back of my head that you have a library of antique books. If you’d like, I could demonstrate how they were originally bound.”
At this, Ellen all but swooned in the nurse’s arms.
“Hey, what’s going on?” the nurse said. “Ellen, are you all right?”
At that, the dachshund joined the fray. But with a less than clear understanding of holo images, the dog chose to confront the nurse instead of Meewee, and it barked furiously at her from a safe distance. “Maxwell, shut up!” the baby cried. “Shut up!” Color returned to her cheeks, and the little dog and giraffe cowered at Mary’s feet. Ellen peered at Meewee and said, “All right, Bishop Meewee, I’ll go along, but this had better be good.”
Meewee’s apparition vanished without a sig. Ellen looked around at everyone and said, “Why don’t we all go in and put on some clothes. It looks like we’re going for a ride.”
No Picnic
“Call it a picnic,” Ellen said from the front of the cart. The head nurse sat in the front seat with Ellen on her lap. If it was a picnic, it was a picnic without blanket or basket, and the pets had been left behind. The two evangelines sat in the rear, and Mary fretted over the time.
The often-bumpy ride took them past rows of ever-ripening soybimi to an hourglass-shaped fish farm pond. Meewee, in the flesh, was waiting for them in his own cart. Ellen told the nurse to set her on her feet and for everyone to stay in the cart. Using Meewee’s hand for support, she walked down the grassy bank, but Meewee had to carry her over the rocky apron to the water.
From the cart they were small figures, and the nurse opened up a frame in front of her for a close-up. Georgine and Mary leaned over her shoulder to watch.
Ellen was standing on the rocky shore. Meewee picked up a stone and flung it into the water. Suddenly hundreds of fish rose to the surface. They raked the water with their dorsal fins and tails for a very vigorous ten seconds. The women could hear the rippling all the way from the cart. Then the fish submerged, and baby Ellen fell on her bottom. She sat looking out across the crazed surface of the water for a long time. Meewee crouched next to her and neither of them spoke for many minutes. Then they were both speaking at once.
“What in the world?” the nuss said. Which was what Mary and Georgine wanted to know.
Meewee stood up and stretched his legs before leaning over to pick up Ellen. He carried her across the rocks, but when he put her down on the grass she couldn’t walk, so he carried her all the way to her cart.
MEEWEE RODE BACK with them. He sat in the front with Mary. Ellen and the nurse sat in the back with Georgine. There wasn’t a syllable of conversation during the ride back to the Manse. Lyra was waiting with nuss reinforcements on the drive. Two jay security men stood on opposite ends of the porch steps.
The nusses put Ellen into her stroller, and Ellen steered it up the steps, with the others climbing up behind. At the top she turned the stroller around and, when Meewee came level with her, said, “That’s far enough!”
Meewee and the others stopped in their tracks.
“I don’t know how you pulled off that little stunt,” she continued in a grown-up voice. “I wouldn’t think it even possible. But don’t imagine for one second you had me fooled.”
“It was not a stunt,” Meewee said mildly.
“Shut up!” Ellen cried, kicking her legs in fury. “It was a
Her mentar, already standing on the porch, took a step forward.
“Lyra, I want you to drain every fishpond on this property.”
“No!” cried Meewee.
“Drain them and do likewise on
“Yes, I am to drain all Starke-owned fish farm ponds, starting with the Starke Enterprises campus, and leave the fish to rot in place.”
“Good. And you —” She turned back to Meewee, who was ashen with horror. “I’m finished with you, myr. You’re fired, terminated, relieved of all office and duties, effective immediately. Clear out at once or be cleared out. Now get out of my sight forever.”
Meewee was clearly not expecting this turn of events. “You don’t understand,” he insisted.
“I understand your maniacal devotion to your GEP dream, but I never imagined you’d go to these lengths to try to manipulate me. For your information, your spiteful attempt to trick me only confirms my decision to sell Heliostream. Now go away or I’ll have you escorted out.”
It took Meewee several long moments to turn and trudge down the steps. Ellen addressed the evangelines
