Bad Grrlz' Guide to Reality: The Complete Novels Wild Angel and Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell (71 page)

Grinning? Yes. She knew that she shouldn’t be so happy—this was a serious situation, a dangerous situation, a frightening place to be. But she couldn’t help it. This was an adventure. She had escaped the monster; she was going to rescue her friends. She was cold and wet and frightened—and she was right where she wanted to be.

She reached the bow of the ship. The flying saucer was gone. There were no wolves. Pat was slumped beside the broken frames of the windscreens that had been crushed beneath the saucer. Max stood beside her, feet braced against the movement of the ship. He was staring out over the bow. Rainwater dripped from his gray hair, his beard; his glasses were spattered with raindrops; his clothes were soaked. But his expression was ecstatic. Lightning flashed on the horizon, gleaming through his gray hair.

“What a wonderful ending!” he exclaimed when he saw her. “So unexpected! So powerful!”

“Pat! Are you all right?” Susan kneeled on the wet deck beside her friend. Pat looked up. A bruise was darkening around her left eye.

“Wasn’t that a fabulous squid?” she murmured.

“Come on,” Susan said. “We’ve got to get you out of here. Put your arm around my shoulders.”

Susan had helped Pat to her feet when Tom arrived, flashlight in hand, looking large and efficient in a bright yellow raincoat. “What the hell is going on?” he asked, but he didn’t wait for an answer. He did the practical things. He put his raincoat around Pat, who was shivering in the cold. He helped them across the deck—past the signs that said the sundeck was off-limits, back onto Calypso Deck, down a service companionway in which Susan saw no monsters.

By the time they reached the ship’s infirmary, emergency power had been restored to the ship. The doctor was tending to an injured pirate—he had sprained his ankle while dancing in the conga line. Tom insisted that the doctor take a look at Pat and Max, though they both said it really wasn’t necessary.

The bruise around Pat’s eye was darkening. It looked like she would soon have a spectacular shiner, with colors that complemented her hair. “I slipped and fell,” Pat said. “It was all my fault. I shouldn’t have been out there anyway.” She glanced at Max. “Isn’t that so, Maxi” Max nodded, looking startled. “Yes, of course. Whatever you say.

But it was such a wonderful storm.”

“Let’s get some ice on that bruise,” the doctor said. He glanced at Max, who was still dripping rainwater. “And we’d best get you into something dry and warm.”

The doctor bustled about, getting an ice pack and some towels, taking charge of the situation.

Susan glanced at Tom and found him studying her with skepticism. “She fell?” he asked.

She shrugged, remembering Max’s advice. Sometimes it was easier to avoid telling the whole truth. “I wasn’t there,” she said. “I saw them from the observation deck and went down to join them.”

“Because it looked like so much fun out there?”

She shrugged again. “It looked like they could use a hand.” They left Max and Pat in the doctor’s care, and Tom took Susan to her stateroom. He only asked if she were all right. “I’m fine,” she said. “A little shaky, but fine.”

“Could you tell me what was going on out there?” he asked.

She wet her lips and took a deep breath, deciding that she didn’t want to lie to Tom. “Mary Maxwell and I were watching from the observation deck. Weldon Merrimax was trying to kill Pat. Max went to save her.”

He nodded, looking skeptical. “What happened to those wind-screens?”

“A flying saucer landed on them. That was my doing, I’m afraid. Mary sent in a pack of wolves.”

“Of course,” he said. He was shaking his head. “And where’s Weldon now?”

“A giant squid reached over the railing and snatched him overboard. I think Pat made that up.”

“A giant squid,” he said dryly. “I should have guessed. That would explain everything. And then you raced to their rescue.”

“That’s right.”

He put his arms around her.

She leaned into his embrace, smiling. She considered telling him about the monster in the companionway, then decided against it. He’d had enough to deal with for one night.

What do women want?

It’s an old, old question. And I’m pleased to tell you that I know the answer.

What do women want? An explanation.

That’s really all we want. We just want to understand why. Why did he say that? Why, oh why, did he ever do that? And why was that giant squid on the sundeck, anyway?

Women—Bad Grrlz in particular—are interested in the answers to these questions. Like scientists of all kinds, we search desperately, persistently, for an explanation.

In the interest of science, I will explain a few things here.

What, you may ask, was I doing out on the sundeck with that thug Weldon Merrimax?

Well, when I met Weldon Merrimax, he was intriguingly mysterious about the goings-on aboard the
Odyssey.
He told me he couldn’t explain it all to me just yet. But he said that if I met him on the sundeck at midnight on Halloween, he would explain everything. Who could turn down an invitation like that? A mysterious rendezvous with the promise of an explanation—how intriguing!

Oh, sure—it was stupid to meet him. I’ll grant you that. When I went to the party at Penelope’s, I hadn’t really decided whether I’d go or not—but after a Rum Monkey it started to seem like a fine idea. I figured I’d just slip away and find out what Weldon had to say for himself.

Out on the sundeck, Weldon told me that he was going to kill me. I asked why. (What did I tell you: Bad Grrlz always want an explanation.) And he told me about a dream. He had dreamed he was in a library and he found a book titled
Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell.
In this book, Weldon Merrimax was just a pseudonym of Max Merriwell. “It wasn’t fair,” he said.

“What does that have to do with me?” I asked him.

“The author was Pat Murphy,” he said. Then he tried to grab me. It was nice of Max to come to my rescue.

Apparently, he had wandered out of his cabin and spotted me in the corridor as I headed out to the sundeck. He decided to follow me. “I was worried about you,” he told me in the infirmary. “I thought you might need some help.”

So I was on the sundeck with Weldon and Max came to rescue me. My memory of events gets a little blurry right after Weldon punched me and I fell in a heap. I’ll tell you: getting punched in real life is a hell of a lot worse than it looks in the movies. This spunky heroine did not immediately leap to her feet to fight back. That really hurt.

While we were in the infirmary, Max told me that I missed seeing a pack of wolves and a flying saucer. I remember blinking away tears just in time to see Weldon Merrimax coming toward me like the killer in a B-movie. He was, I think, going to toss me overboard. I saw a blast of spray shoot up behind him. And I thought about how nice it would be if a giant squid were to snatch him overboard. I imagined a tentacle grabbing the railing.

There it was, just as I had imagined it—a lovely tentacle wrapping itself around the railing. Then I imagined another tentacle, as thick and strong as the first. And there it was. Finally a third tentacle, whipping over the railing and wrapping itself around Weldon’s waist.

As the tentacle dragged Weldon over the side, I managed to struggle to my feet and peer over the railing. I looked into the eye of the monster of my imagination—the giant squid. Its eye was the size of a dinner plate—as black as obsidian, as smooth and unreadable as an ocean swell. As I watched, another wave crashed against the ship. The monster released its grip on the railing and slipped back into the water, taking Weldon with it.

Max told us about the power of the imagination. I’ve always had a good imagination. I’m not sure how all these events fit into my understanding of physics. I’m not sure how to reconcile Schrodinger’s cat and Pat’s giant squid. I don’t know how the mind of this observer influenced the potentialities to bring a giant squid up from the depths. But I think it’s all quite intriguing.

After Weldon sank beneath the waves, Susan came running out to save us. Tom showed up just a few minutes later. Max and I spent an hour or so in the infirmary before Ian came to claim me. Apparently Tom had tracked him down and told him a little about what had happened. The doctor allowed him to take charge of me. We left Max chatting amiably with the doctor.

Ian tried to take me to my stateroom and tuck me into bed, but it takes more than a black eye to slow this Bad Grrl down. I took advantage of his efforts to comfort me. After a bit, his comforting hugs became something less platonic. I took him to his cabin and one thing led to another. (I made sure of that.) He was sleeping like a baby when I woke up this morning and slipped out of his bed. I came to the sundeck to survey the aftermath of last night.

This morning, the weather is clear. The sun is shining; the sea is calm. When I arrived on the sundeck, a workman was painting over the gray marks that the giant squid’s tentacles had left on the white railing. Another was sweeping up the broken glass from the shattered windscreens.

I asked the man sweeping up the glass what had caused the damage, just to see what he would say. “Big waves,” he said. “Fierce storm last night.”

The fierce storm didn’t explain the scorch marks where the saucer had landed, but they wouldn’t be there much longer. The workman with the paint was heading for that patch of deck, preparing to cover over the evidence.

Last night, I asked Ian whether the folks on the bridge had seen what happened on the sundeck. He called up there and asked. He told me that they talked about seeing ball lightning, a rare form of lightning that takes the form of a globe. I looked at him skeptically, and he shrugged. “People see what they want to see,” he said.

The folks on the bridge apparently had nothing to say about the wolves, the giant squid, or the passenger who vanished overboard. Of course, there’s no evidence that Weldon was ever on board—he wasn’t on the passenger list—so he can go missing without provoking an official inquiry. It’s all very convenient.

I lingered on the sundeck long enough to watch the deck crew eradicate all evidence of untoward happenings—painting over the scorch marks, removing the twisted frames of the windscreens. They are on the side of order, after all. And last night’s events were definitely on the side of chaos.

The descent into madness
is
an inevitable part of the process of writing a novel. You can’t escape it. Just go with it. You really have no choice.

—from
On Writing Novels

by Max Merriwell

That night, Susan slept soundly in Tom’s bed, rocked by the storm waves, soothed by the rattle of rain on the window. She had waited up until he was off duty, and then joined him for a nightcap in his cabin. One thing led to another, as she had known it would. And she spent the night.

And as she slept, she dreamed. In her dream, she stood on the balcony of her own stateroom. The sea was covered with mist, as if they were sailing over clouds. She wondered what monsters the mist might be hiding, then decided it didn’t matter. She could handle any monsters that might show up.

She heard the glass door slide open and glanced behind her, expecting to see Pat. Mary Maxwell stepped out. Through the glass door, she could see Pat still asleep in bed.

Susan smiled at Mary: “You’re not gone,” she said.

Mary shrugged. “Apparently not. Just thought I’d see how you were doing.”

“I’m fine. Seems like all the troubles are over.”

“You think so?”

“Of course. It was Max and Weldon that stirred everything up. Weldon’s gone and Max seems okay now.”

“So you think everything will calm down?” Mary asked. “I think so.”

Mary looked a little skeptical. She glanced through the glass doors at Pat. “She’s sleeping so peacefully,” Mary said. “She’s dreaming. What do you think she’s dreaming about?”

Susan shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“About you, of course. About us, standing here talking. And if she stopped dreaming about you, where would you be?”

“Right here,” Susan said.

Mary laughed. “You’d be nowhere at all. You’re only a sort of thing in her dream. If she woke up, you’d be gone. Poof! just like that.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Susan said. “What about you?”

“Poof!” Mary said. “just another thing in her dream. Ridiculous or not, it’s true. I just figured it out myself. Why else would Weldon have been after her?”

Susan shook her head and turned away from Mary, looking out over the misty water. She shivered as a cold breeze blew on her face.

She blinked and she realized that she was in bed, cuddled up against a warm, masculine back. Tom turned over, then, putting his arms around her and pulling her close. In the darkness, she could see the glowing numbers of the digital clock. It was five thirty in the morning. Tom had to get up at six, she remembered.

“Good morning,” Tom said. “I have to get up at six.” He kissed her. “But we have a little time.”

They made the most of the time they had.

“Be careful about deciding you want to be a fiction writer. It’s not an easy path. You have to rely on your imagination—and your imagination is a dangerous thing.” Max looked bright and alert, despite the alarms and excursions of the previous night. “Fiction writers are all a little crazy, and science fiction writers may be crazier than most. It comes, I think, from spending far too much time alone, imagining new worlds inhabited by strange people, making up stories, talking to yourself—and having conversations with your imaginary friends, people who don’t really exist. It’s not such a big step from imagining conversations to hearing voices.”

At the end of workshop, Max smiled at Susan and Pat. “I was wondering if you’d like to have lunch,” he said.

Pat nodded just as Susan noticed Tom and Ian stepping in the door. Tom waved to Susan. “I thought you might want to have lunch,” he said.

“I’d love to,” she said.

“Great,” said Ian. “We’ll all go together.”