Deviation Actions
Literature Text
**********
"Nick, watch your sister. I need to find a pay phone and check in with the office."
"What? Why do I always have to do it? Where did Dad go???"
"He's probably doing 'research' again. Watch your sister. This is important."
"It's always important..." Nick looked for a pebble to kick his frustrations out on. Of course, there were none to be found between all these legs walking along the concrete stretches. It would mar the appearance of 'The Happiest Place on Earth'. He followed behind, navigating his sister's stroller on an ever changing course between bodies in motion and the meandering curbs, losing sight of his mother for moments that seemed longer with each iteration.
"Autumn keeps dragging her feet!" His plea for intervention dissolved into the general murmur of the masses. The advantage was hers. So, with a snicker escaping her devilish grin, and a little bracing, she threw her body upwards, slamming both feet into the concrete. Away she was launched, her long blonde braided hair flying like a pair of whips around the fair skin of her cheeks and down to rest on her brand-new, pink Minnie Mouse T-shirt, shaggy bangs bouncing right along. The stroller handles had catapulted out of his hands, all a part of a five-year-old's plan. "Stop it!" She knew the lap belt would save her. Nick was not so lucky, stumbling to crash half-toppled onto a wrought iron fence post, while jamming a finger between chain links.
"Watch it, kid!" came a muffled snarl from inside a smiling cloth masquerade. Now he had to face The Mad Hatter. Nick's young dignity could not take much more.
"Sorry, it was my little sister that tripped me."
"...everything's fine, Paul. I wanted to check-in. It's amazing here, isn't it? It was great of Harold and me to bring the kids here..."
Nick was left to figure it out inside a pocket, separated from the heavy summer crowd. Everything felt off-kilter as he stood there frozen, half-shrugging and all bewildered. A dad who thought he was Magnum P.I., his little girl shouldered with Mickey ears on, worked his way around some boy rubbing his elbow, and what must be his sister sitting in a stroller. Another girl stood on one side of the King Arthur Carrousel, letting everyone know how unhappy she was, her parents pulling out their hair while offering toys and treats for silence. Over in a particularly large family, father and kids argued about where to go next, the mother trying desperately to regain control. They all marched right along with a pace Nick could never figure out. All of them had come to enjoy a perfectly imagineered fantasy underneath the grey summer sky.
"Mom, can Dad take me on The Matterhorn today?"
"No! I want to ride Dumbo! Mommy, take me to Dumbo!"
"What? Hold on...take you sister on the ride, please. I'll be done in a minute...yes...sorry, you can't hear anything in this crowd...did you get the Weinstein report?" His mother shooed him away with her free hand, then used it to cover her ear. Nick knew it was useless to protest. His mom could never get far away from business, even here. She had barely even dressed down, with her beige skirt and pale blue blouse and her dirty blonde hair tightly permed. She meant business and not even her kids would slow her down, as the last five years of Jazzercise showed.
"Yay...let's go Nick."
"It's a shame that this place doesn't serve alcohol. How can I be in California and not be able to get a good chardonnay?"
"ahhr...Alright...get out of the stroller." Nick went to undo her belt. Before he could try, she had wiggled up out of it, and was off in a zip of tan Corduroys.
"Paul...Paul, I’m on vacation. Get Laura to work out the details..."
Another wait in line, then the fantasy twirled around him with a newly manufactured, four-hundred-year-old Bavarian facade (so he had been told) and meticulously manicured greenery. This trip had come a few years too late for him. When he was a kid, he played as if he could see magic out of the corner of his eye, and followed the tracks of elves to their burrow in the trees, but now he was grown-up. He groused and watched The Skyway pass above them, and plotted his escape by it to tomorrow.
‘Pretty colors and happy endings were the stuff of marketing.’ It was something his father had gone on and on about until he disappeared. Marketing was his father's job. He worked for an advertising company in Denver. His mom was somebody important for a brewery. One time, she had tried to explain her job to him. It made no more sense to him than her title, 'Executive Assistant in Charge of Internal Coordination and Interests'. All he knew was that she was on the 'fast track to the ‘it’ crowd'.
"Let's go ride Peter Pan nex'!"
Mom was nowhere in sight. Nicolas worked his sister back through the traffic to catch a glimpse of her in quite the animated state, her words thankfully lost in the din. It would be a while longer.
"It's Alice! She's real! Let's go see her," Autumn squealed, tugging his arm and making huge, bended knee hops in place.
"No no NOno, no no no NO...Lame!"
The two of them boarded Captain Hook's fancy fiberglass ship as it set sail for the sky, hung on a disguised metal track. To her, it was magic. To him, with all the buttons and electricity and machines, it was better.
"Where is Tinker Bell? I don't see her!" She tried leaning way out over London to check under the boat, to the point where Nick had to grab her by the collar.
"She's too small, I guess."
"Do you think fairies are real?"
"No..." The answer was meant to stomp out all discussion.
”What about Santa Claus? He's real."
"I don't know..."
"What about God?"
Nick shook his head slowly. Autumn cheered as they traveled through a story which unfolded in a series of twists and jerks. He would never admit to anyone how well he remembered the tale.
Something was bugging him. Yeah, his little sister was part of it, but really, it had been since yesterday. He had gotten seasick riding the riverboat in Frontierland (how that was even possible?). That feeling was back. He rubbed his head as they left the attraction, muttering about the rough ride, then a familiar baritone voice carried over the din.
"Nicolas, where is your mother?!?" His father waved as he walked towards them from the strip of buildings across the way, wearing his deep blue jeans and a light button-down shirt tucked in loosely to hide an expanding waistline.
"She's by the bathrooms, on the phone!"
"Oh boy, it's going to be a bit. OK...wait...no! Come back here, Autumn!" The elder Reuel snagged his daughter’s arm before she managed to cut through the bushes and into some mischief.
"Can we go to Tomorrowland? I want to check out the arcade. All they have at Marvin's Pizza is Ms. Pac-Man and Pole Position."
"No way, Kiddo. I spent $18.50 to get you in here, arcades are free. Let's go to check out the shops." It was like that was why everyone came here, for the shops. "It was hundred bucks for the four of us, and every fifty feet, there’s more to spend money on. The profit margin must be insane."
"Can we at least go on the Matterhorn later?"
Nick trudged along behind with the stroller. His father had insisted he dressed in a nice pair of slacks and one of his alligator shirts, even though it was so hot out, like a hundred degrees. His stomach growled from the smell of greasy food, which made him feel even queasier, his feet ached, and nothing they had done all day had made any of these worthwhile.
At least the stores had air conditioning. Why were all of them filled with princess clothing? Autumn did not seem to care much for the dresses either, and had taken to chasing the dust bunnies off of the shelves. He endured, the whistles at the price tags, the clucking, and the jargon, with a sigh. Relief finally came after the forth such store.
"I'm going to get Paul fired when I return, the man isn’t pulling his weight. I can't even enjoy my vacation with all his pestering." His mom was winding down fit by fit.
"Taiwan...Between Japan buying up real estate, and Taiwan making everything we use, in thirty years they’ll have divided this country right down the Mississippi.”
"Can we get something to eat?"
“Dad! It’s a small world! Please, please can we go?!?”
“Sure, Autumn. You know, I remember growing up in Burbank when this ride opened. Of course, all of this around here was…”
Nick sighed again, and trudged along. He spent the next five minutes wishing he had a paddle to push their boat along. All that the world getting smaller meant was there was less room for everyone, and people were not getting along too well already. His stomach certainly was not getting any smaller.
“Dad, can we PLEASE go eat now? I’m starving!”
"I want to try this toy store here first. We have a bid in to Hasbro."
This one was placed right at the attraction’s exit, luring riders inside with its outlandish appearance. It had caught a big fish now. The insides were so garish that Nick thought he had fallen into one of those old, jerky specials they played every Christmas on the television. Autumn spied one parent, then the other, and slipped away unnoticed once more. Nick picked an angle towards the door, and went to take a breather behind an aisle of dolls outfitted in dresses from around the world.
Maybe they had some real toys in here somewhere. Nick wandered for bit until he caught a glimpse of his sister at the center of the store under some tower, castle...thing, housed under a sky painted dome. She stood over one of the barrels of dolls, completely still, which was a little odd in itself. Usually, nothing held her attention for more than a handful of seconds. Curiosity took over, and he followed her there.
"What's going on, Sis?" he asked in a gentle voice as he walked up beside her.
"Tha' Tinker Bell's glowin'." She pointed into a whole pile of them, flat faced, noseless ragdolls with shiny silver wings.
"Huh...I don't see anything."
"Tha' one way over there..." She stood up on the tiniest tip of her toes and stretched out for one of the many out of reach. Nick could not resist the site of his pathetic little sister, so he dug through the pile, pulling one out after the other to her vigorously shaking head until finally there was a nod. He had to check this doll out himself, turning it over in his hands several times to make sure. It was a Tinker Bell alright, nothing special, about a foot long and not even the nicest in the bin.
"You're nuts."
"You see it?" He strained over every inch of it until the fabric began to blur. The lack of food made his head hurt and the room spun a bit. "No...I'm going to put it back."
"Daaaaad!"
"What, Honey?!" His voice shouted from nowhere.
"Can I have’a Tinker Bell?"
"...Bring it here."
Nicholas was hesitant to hand the doll over, but there was no nonsense on his squinched up sister’s face. She held up the doll with both hands, squealing and giving it a hug before skipping off to find their father.
"$12.95? No, Honey, it's too much. You each can have five bucks."
"Dad, she can have my half."
"You're three dollars short." Nick dug out a small stash of quarters out of his slacks, counted out a dozen and placed them in his father’s palm. He had been saving them for the arcade, just in case. The opportunity, it seemed, had passed, and he was willing to do anything, anything, if it would get him some lunch. "I'll get the tax, Sport. I'm using the whole trip as a write-off anyways.
**********
Nicolas Reuel was convinced he had been cursed, and in the way every ten-year old thinks, he was right. He looked to a future when he finally would get to do the things that little ‘kids’ do not get to, like this ‘Mission to Mars’. He was ready. He had read the plans and looked at the diagrams, many times, in the encyclopedias at school. The United States was going to Mars. The flying cars and hover boards and moon colonies and holograms, they were coming. It was right around the corner, and he wanted to be there when it happened. The possibilities were endless, like being shrunk and actually inside the human body, or instead a computer, fighting disk battles.
But no, for now he was the babysitter. He often blamed his sister for not having a chance at Little League, even though he could not hit worth a lick. He was not very strong, or tall, or athletic, and spent most of his free time exploring the hills above Golden, Colorado, pretending it was whenever, wherever, else. There was plenty of fertile earth and nature around his home to develop quite the imagination. It was people who were lacking, so he was pretty used to relying on his own devices.
So, Nick was used to doing his own thing. At school, he hung out with his friends, and was ignored by others, which included the girls, which he was fine with, mostly. He absolutely knew why. His blonde hair never lay right, the fat nose with the freckles, he had gotten it all from his mother. Worse were his father’s ears, and big mouth filled with buck teeth. It made Nick look like Goofy. His mom sometimes teased him about his baby face, another thing on a long list of reasons why he could not grow up soon enough.
Nick looked nothing like his sister, who had inherited her father's straw blonde hair, which was stringy from activity and neglect, large bright blue eyes, button nose, and high cheeks, and her mother’s long limbs, crescent ears, and diamond shaped face with a sharp jaw. He had been the first, but somehow she had been reserved all the best features. She looked less five than a small adult, and was always drawing the attention for it. Life was not fair. He was the chauffeur to a movie star.
Still, he felt better when stomachs were filled and rides were rode, all the necessary hustle and bustle to make a vacation, and the body want to return home to escape it. This was to be the highlight to their summer before the return to school and Autumn’s first day of Kindergarten.
The sun made its exit stage right so that the final scene could begin. Relief came to sunburned skin as the air cooled. The Reuel family rested at the patio of a restaurant on Main Street, USA, lingering on for the final night to watch bodies and forms dance in time to a synthetic melody, bathed in the warm glow of ten-thousand incandescent lights. Characters known for decades across the earth passed down the lane, well-loved things twisted by light and shadow into unnatural caricatures. Autumn ordered ice in her glass of milk, and offered soothing words to her Tinker Bell. Soon, fireworks rent the sky with blues, whites and reds, cracking throughout the park to bid a raucous farewell to the guests.
**********
Nick should have been asleep. He was told to hit the hay two hours ago. He might have, except for the lingering headache. When was he ever going to have another chance like this, anyways? This television had thirty-two channels. At home, they had four, maybe five on a good day and he could get the antenna pointed right. Even then snow stuck to the television. The only movies he ever got were those old late night ones on channel 31, and they were the worst.
Here were all kinds of cool stations, and they came in clear as crystal, and this one showed movies all the time. Right now, a bunch of guys were in space getting eaten by a big black bug monster. He sat and watched the flickering screen amazed, the sound turned up just loud enough to be heard over the snoring. It was the perfect crime.
“Nick, what’cha doin’?” Autumn appeared next to him, startling him more than it rightly should. She rubbed the sleep out with a fist, first one eye, then the other. Tinker Bell was hooked underneath the elbow of her other arm. If Autumn had put her down even once, he had missed it. She had made her appearance at an inopportune moment, and stared wide-eyed through a particularly gut-wrenching scene. “Ohhh, you’re gonna get in so much tra-ble.”
“No, Mom and Dad aren’t even going to wake up.”
“Why?”
“They finished off that bottle of wine from yesterday because they couldn’t take it with us. Didn’t you hear them?”
“I’m gonna tell N-E-ways.”
“Don’t you dare!”
“I aAaMmm!” Autumn’s fists were jammed into her sides to prove her point, Tinker Bell hanging on for dear life. Nick grinned, which was countered by a raspberry.
“You do that…an I’m…I’ll take you toy away!” Nick snatched at the doll to prove his point, causing Autumn to squeal and twist away. “Quiet!” He yelled, checking the bed for movement .
“Then leave ‘er alone!” Autumn yelled from her knees, her now unbraided hair spilling down to hide her face. “She’s scared a you! She only likes me!”
“Fine…” he replied in a stressed whisper, “if you stop yelling.” Autumn crawled over and plopped herself next to her brother in a stand-off. Legs crossed, her arms followed with a harrumph. Nick continued to watch, and tried to ignore her as the body count slowly rose. She was not going to ruin this for him.
“Nick, Tinker Bell doesn’ think we should be watchin’ this.”
“No, you shouldn’t be watching this, Sissy.”
“She says…what?” Autumn bent over close to the face of her doll so she could hear the imaginary voice better. “She says that it scares her and that it…what did you say? That ’you are rather a dizzy-pointment to your pra-jem-neat-oars’, whatever that means.”
“Uhm, OK?”
“Let’s watch the one with all the cartoons.”
Nick tried to ignore her some more, then strange bodily fluids sprayed all over the bulkheads. “Yeah…you’re probably right.” He flipped the knob several times until he found the station they wanted, but instead of cartoons, it was some old black-and-white show. “Hey, I know this. It’s ‘Dennis the Menace’. You should like it. It’s about a kid like you.”
“You’re one of those.” Together, they watched until heads nodded and eyes drooped, and a brother carried His little sister to bed.
**********
"There’s something wrong with her." Her father muttered in passing between the more important things astride him. “She’s too withdrawn. Look at her muttering to that doll. She never pays attention to what’s going on around her.”
"Harold, she's not even in school, yet."
"It's not healthy, Laura."
"Don’t take your hangover out on her. Remember Nick at this age? He was always talking to himself. It's a phase. She’ll be fine once she gets used to school."
Harold’s attention returned to the notepad in hand, cross-referencing his scribbled notes with the paperwork scattered across his row of vinyl beam chairs. Autumn spun in little circles in her pretty little blue dress, twirling her new doll to their own private joy. Laura eavesdropped on the delighted comments of the passersby, guessing where this beautiful little girl had been and how much fun she must have had. Nick hid in a corner, yawning and leaning up against a structural column half-buried in the wall, alternating tugs at his cuffs and collar to find little extra breathing space. His father had promised to buy him a larger dress shirt before the flight back. His father said a lot of things that he did not expect Nicolas to remember.
“Now boarding passengers for flight 775, bound for Denver, Colorado...”
Nick sat up as straight as possible and twisted his neck every which way to see everything he could out the plane’s window, not like that was much of anything in the early morning dark. He had bargained for the window seat on the return trip, and was not about to give it up no matter what. Autumn would be fine, stuck in the middle. Maybe he would see their home on the way back. His parents were set in the row in front of Autumn and him, his father already with his sleep mask on.
For a few minutes, Nick sat fidgeting with both eyes peeled, hoping they would get away with the row to themselves. The odds must be in their favor with this many empty seats. Autumn stood up in her chair, and twisted directional nozzles until she choked on a blast of air down her throat, then found a neat little orange button that dinged. It was Nick who had to deal with the stewardess. At least she was an understanding one.
About the time he was sure they were in the clear, Nick picked up a train-like double-thump of hard plastic alternating knocks against steel chair legs and tender feet. Slowly, it grew louder as it was dragged down the cheap carpet, just creeping, creeping, creeping closer. Finally, he could not take it anymore, and peeked over headrest and perm to spy an over-sized and altogether intimidating woman almost upon them. He sunk deep into his seat, and prayed for deliverance.
The woman’s carry-on was thrown into the overhead bin above them and beaten down until the resistance gave way in the crunch of delicate glass. She rattled in between the two armrests of her aisle seat with a half-grunt, half-moan. Autumn squealed and jumped out of her seat as a heavy arm came down across her lap.
And this was not even the worst. The woman grumbled a bit during takeoff, then shook her body farther into the chair, kicked her feet up, and threw her head back over the cushion. Soon, her mouth was a geyser of spittle, a small, deep throated snore sputtering from within.
As soon as Nick though the worst was over, craving stirred inside the woman, and she woke with a shiver and a snort. Her purse was kicked out from underneath the seat, and she strained for it, producing a pack of Virginia Slims and a lighter. One was lit, and she took a long drag from it. Nick stifled a cough. Autumn took the worst of it.
"Miss...Miss Lady, Mille is getting really sick from your smoking," she cried in a small, determined voice. "Can you stop, please?"
"Look kid, I'll do what I want. This flight is over two hours. Leave me alone." The ‘lady’ did not even bother to look at Autumn.
"Nick, Millie’s getting totally sick. Help her."
"Who is that? And what am I supposed to do?" Autumn tugged on his sleeve, almost climbing him in desperation. "Please, put it out. Look at her, it won't kill you to wait." He probably could have said that better. The look he got in reply made that clear.
"Screw you kid I need it for my diet." She proceeded to take another long drag, blowing the smoke from her nose.
"Millie's really mad. Somet’in's gonna happen." Nick could not help but watch in anticipation. Maybe the smoke was messing with his vision. Tinker Bell was blurry or something. Its smile seemed twisted, and the wings drooped. It even seemed to be turning blue. Then, the weirdest thing happened. In a puff of ash and char, the cigarette exploded. Shocked, the woman shot up, driving her forehead square into a pair of air nozzles before folding back into her seat. She came back up rubbing her forehead, eyes squinted shut in pain.
"What the hell was that? What did you do to me, girl!?!" The woman crumpled the cigarette's now splayed ends into the armrest ashtray. Nick could not hold back a smirk. It was straight out of a Loony Tunes. There was even soot ringing the woman's crimson face. Nick saw the steam rise from her ears, and cartoonish devil horns sprouted from the welts on her head.
"Nothing! Millie did it!" Autumn slipped the doll behind her back, protecting it from a clubbing from the woman’s wild arms with her own little body.
"I'll get you...you witch! Where are you parents?!? I'll put you over my knee!"
"Dad-eee!" Dazed, her father sat up and pulled the mask off of his eyes. Her mother had prairie dogged from her seat at the scream.
"You leave my sister alone!" Nick shouted, not knowing what else he could do.
"Madam, I'm going to have to ask you to move." It was the young stewardess, who had heard the commotion from the galley, and had come to investigate.
"This girl…she did this to me. Look at my face!"
"Come with me now, please." The commotion had spread, and two other additional stewardesses joined in from the front of the plane.
"It's not my fault!" In the strictest sense, this was true, but there were plenty of other seats to discuss it all in. The woman was ushered away by the three stewardesses as hurriedly as they could, her luggage and purse left behind. Autumn giggled, and Nick heard an echo at a higher octave. Harold and Laura never got any explanation to their liking about the whole thing.
Upon landing in Denver, the Reuel Family was offered a profuse apology as the plane was cleared before them. Autumn and Nick were offered, and quickly accepted a trip to see the cockpit and meet the captain. Nick even rattled off the names of the gauges he knew as he sat in the co-pilot's chair.
"See, this is how people fly Millie. Maybe Mister Pilot can show you how."
The Visit
The Naga New Life Part 2
Depowered: A helping hand, or four... part 2
PG; Revision 3.3 (combined with chapter 4 and resplit, revised)