I looked carefully through the doorway. “It looks like another planet!”
“It is!” Oort laughed.
“Can we…go there?”
“Just step through the door!”
“Wow!” I said again, and stepped through with Oort.
Suddenly I was on another world!
“Where is everybody?” I asked.
Oort pointed to the top of the hill. “On the other side is a valley, with a whole city in it. But just over the hill is what I really want to show you. Come on!”
I followed him, still wide-eyed at the world around me.
Orange grass!
Green sky!
We got to the top of the hill, and suddenly I was looking down on the most amazing thing I’d every seen. There in the distance, in the wide valley at the bottom of the hill, was a huge city made up of the same kind of buildings as Oort’s house—a sprawling cluster of strange, tall, narrow, many-angled structures in wild colors—bright pink, red and purple.
“Unbelievable!”
“And look at
I was speechless.
Sitting on a wide plateau was a tall, narrow, weird-cornered place with square and oval windows of different sizes. It was multi-colored—yellow, tangerine, the color like the bottom of a swimming pool. Off to the side was a play field surrounded by a strange, zigzagging fence and filled with things that sort of looked like swings and crooked monkey bars. The play field was filled with kids dressed in bright clothing just like Oort—and a group of them, big and mean looking, was climbing the fence and marching up the hill toward us.
“Hey, Oort!” I said, suddenly alarmed. I looked behind us—but Oort’s house was gone, replaced only by orange fields and blue trees.
The gang of kids reached us, brushing Oort aside as they surrounded me. The biggest of them smiled a green, gap-toothed smile at me and said, “Hey, I wonder who this is?”
He turned to Oort and his evil smile softened. “Guess you’re one of us now, loser!”
“Sorry, Bud,” Oort said to me, as I went down, and felt someone tugging at my shoes and socks, felt someone else shoving orange grass down my pants, and felt something really sticky and bright blue being rubbed into my hair, “It was the only way I could stop being the new kid in
Ahead of the Joneses
Today I’m a happy man, because the deliverymen installed my new abstract lawn sculpture. I had it set up on the property line, and I could swear that Harry Jones’s eyes bugged out when he saw it facing his front porch. The bastard’ll have to look at it every day as he leaves for work.
~ * ~
When Jones called me over to see his new lawn sculpture today I had to hold myself back from strangling him in front of it. It’s a silver-plated job, twice the size of mine and with twice as many artsy features. And on top of the fact that he had the nerve to
~ * ~
Today I called one of Harry’s kids over to take a picture of him and his friends with my brand-new holo- camera. Gave little Robby an instant print (gave each of his friends one too!) and I just know the kid ran home to show Harry and ask how come they don’t have a holo-camera. I could just visualize Harry yelling at the little lout and telling him to shut his mouth about holo-cameras. Made me feel warm inside all day.
~ * ~
Harry called this afternoon to tell me about the great buy he got on a holo-moviecamera and to invite Sheila and me and the kids over to help them make their first full-length film. Of course I told him we couldn’t make it, but the bastard had little Robby run over later with a print. An hour’s worth of color film, with sound—self-projecting cartridge too. Just need an empty space to project it in. I projected it into the garbage, of course; it burns hell out of me that a jerk like that who can’t be making any more money than me could afford something like that. Of course there have been a lot of sales on holo-moviecameras lately, and the prices have come down a bit. It’s the fact that he just has to do me one better that makes me feel so rotten…
~ * ~
Eat your heart out, Harry Jones! The workmen turned on the juice today and left, and I must admit they did quite a job. There can’t be anyone in the whole county, never mind this block, with a complete amusement arcade like mine in his backyard. And I mean
~ * ~
God help me, and I’m a religious man, but I almost went over and murdered him today. I’m calmer now, but the initial shock of coming home from a short business trip to find the finishing touches being put to Jones’s outdoor 3-D theater, set on top of his domed vapor-pool, and all of that resting on top of his automated midget racer track and micro golf course (combined with a good-sized arcade and target-shoot in one corner, floating six feet above the ground) was just a bit much. After a couple of hours I stopped trembling. I thought I could cheer myself up tonight by programming a light show, but Jones’s heat-lightning extravaganza left the blinking lights in my backyard about a thousand feet below.
I’m desperate.
~ * ~
Every last penny I’ve got is gone; Sheila’s run away with the kids—but none of that matters. After five months I’ve finally found a research assistant in one of the large consumer appliance companies who could be bought, and I
