Mythology 101 (26 page)

Behind them, the elevator door opened. Carl emerged, red-faced and fuming, and stalked across the floor to just behind where the three others stood. He had to walk with some care because he was shod only in sweat socks, but they helped him to move with greater stealth. His shoes still lay stuck to the floor on Fourteen as though by industrial-strength Crazy Glue. He didn’t know how he was going to blame Doyle for that, but it had to be his fault, just like the way Doyle made a fool of him in front of Steven Arnold.

“I would if I could, but I have a really high overhead and a loan to pay back,” Keith said regretfully. He liked Steven Arnold. “The best I can do is a discount.”

Arnold shrugged. “It was worth a try. No hard feelings. Goodbye, kid,” the reporter waved to Doyle’s nephew.

Holl raised his hand in the Vulcan salute in which he had been carefully schooled by Keith. “Live long and prosper.”

Arnold left the library with Keith waving him a friendly farewell from the entryway to the stacks. Carl waited until Arnold was out of sight, then he sprang out and grabbed Keith by the front of his shirt. He had recovered from the shock he’d received downstairs, and now he was going to get even with the person responsible for ruining his plans. The satisfied look fled from the red-haired youth’s face as his air was cut off.

“Ulp!” Keith protested, trying to free his collar. He glanced over at the fire door.

Carl followed his gaze, then glared back at Keith. “You’ve got a heck of a lot of nerve,” Carl said, shaking him roughly. “It took me forever to set up that interview. I’m going to beat the funny stuff out of you. Yeah. Come on.” He dragged Keith back into the stairwell and let the door whine closed. Carl pushed him to the wall. “It’s just you and me.”

“Wrong,” said Lee, stepping out of the corner and dragging Carl away from Keith with ease of a man used to flipping around fifty-pound sacks of flour. “It’s you and all of us. We’ve been waiting for you.”

Carl stared at him in disbelief. “Where…?”

“I’m disappointed in you,” Teri said, appearing from behind him and shaking her head. “I’m the one who brought you in. I’m so ashamed. I thought he’d ruin it because he’s such a nut,” she pointed at Keith. “But
you
tried to do it. You know what this means to the rest of us. How could you?”

Carl goggled like a fish. A sentence forced its way out. “I didn’t think anyone would care. It was my chance.…”

“You’re crazy,” a voice grunted from the other side. Barry stood there in the shadows with an arm around Marcy, holding her, keeping her from springing out at Carl. She looked ready to explode, and Barry seemed dubious about his ability to keep her where she was much longer. “Mister Hotstuff,” Barry spat. “As if you don’t owe them, the same as the rest of us.”

“We do care,” Teri tossed her head. “In fact, we care more than we really knew. When it looked like we might lose our friends and teachers, it tore us to pieces. We blamed the wrong man because you
accused
him. And we believed you! You won’t ever be able to betray the Little Folk again, because you won’t know where they are.”

“No one will believe you when you talk about ’em. And none of us will back you up.” Lee punctuated his statement with another push.

“From now on, the Little Folk will just be a legend as far as you’re concerned,” Marcy said, throwing off Barry’s arm, her eyes glowing fire and stepping right up to Carl. She drew back her hand and slapped him ringingly across the face. He was so surprised he backed up a pace. “
That’s
for that day in class. Maybe you’d better study up on it, big man. Come on, Keith.”

Rubbing his shoulder, Keith turned out the door, side by side with Marcy. As one, the students walked out behind them, leaving Carl stunned on the landing, rubbing his cheek. “Hey!” he called.

The hinges squeaked faintly as the door sagged shut behind the other students, drawing the attention of Mrs. Hansen, who was discussing changes of assignment with the librarian on duty at the front of the stacks. “Oh, no,” she said, catching a glimpse of the fire door swinging closed. “Not again.” She shot through the chamber, pulled the door open, seized Carl by the shoulder and marched him out into the lobby. “If I have told you students once, I have told you a thousand times. That stairwell is OFF LIMITS! Come with me. I want to talk to your student advisor!”

O O O

Surreptitiously, Keith examined his own key. It was still glowing.

“Don’t worry,” Holl said, peeling off his latex disguise. “Yours will still work, always. We’ll just be opening a new door. Here,” he handed him the phaser. “I do not need this anymore.”

Keith twitched his invisible whiskers in satisfaction. “By the way, I have a present for you,” he told Holl. Digging into a pocket, he came up with a small piece of beige paper. “It took a little conniving, but I pointed out you have got a bank account and a job, however nepotistic.” It was a Social Security Card made out to Holland Doyle.

“Thanks, Uncle Keith,” Holl said, reverently handling the card as if it was printed on crystal.

“Don’t mention it, nephew,” Keith replied, knowing that the breach between them was completely healed now.

***

Chapter 38

Five after three. The union president waited in the middle of the Sears television department for Keith to appear. It wouldn’t have been such a bad wait if there was any place to sit and watch the thirty or forty sets on display. Besides, with ten of ’em tuned to each of the four local stations, the place sounded like a zoo anyway. The manager had recognized him and was getting nervous. Sears employees were represented by a different union, but you never knew: they might be thinking of a change of organization. The wait didn’t bother him, because he knew he was going to win. Hollow Tree would join the happy membership roll of Lewandowski’s union.

Ten after. His bodyguards were watching two different soap operas on the most expensive receivers in the place. Lewandowski casually leaned against a big cabinet set as Keith came running up to him.

“Sorry I’m late. I couldn’t find a place to park.”

“No problem, kid. Well, what can I do for you? We’re private.” No one could hear a thing over the racket.

“Well, I just wanted you to know that there’s no hard feelings,” Keith began, removing the toy camera from around his neck, “but I’m not going to join your union.”

Lewandowski’s blood pressure went up twenty points. “Are you nuts? Didn’t I tell you what I can do to you?”

“Sure you did,” Keith agreed. He set the toy down on top of the nearest console television. Suddenly, all forty sets showed the same scene. It was a man on a park bench under a maple tree with pigeons and squirrels all around him. Lewandowski glanced down curiously. The man on TV was himself. And he was talking, on every set in the store.

“… I’ve got police and judges and elected officials on my payroll who could see to it that you won’t get a job in this state for the rest of your life, let alone a lousy diploma. Judge Arendson gets plenty from me every month to sign court orders, and he sees the court cases go my way. I got insurance adjusters who never settle arson claims for the insured, not if they cross me.…”

Lewandowski’s bodyguards looked up with shock as their programs were interrupted by their boss’s confession. They noticed Keith and started toward him.

The manager of the television section was beginning to get interested in the sudden change of programming on his sets, and was coming over to ask Mr. Lewandowski what was going on. The union boss grabbed Keith’s arm.

“Stop it! Shut it off!”

“Sure, Mr. Lewandowski.” The kid moved the camera away, and the taped confession was immediately replaced again by the soap operas. “See? I remember
everything
you said.”

Lewandowski narrowed his eyes at Keith, who still looked innocent and stupid to him. He waved away the bodyguards, who were within inches of grabbing the college student. “All right. You win. You’re not worth it. I’m a businessman, too. I know when I’ve lost. Gimme that tape.”

“I can’t,” Keith said firmly. “I think I’ll always keep it to remind me of you. But you’ll never hear from it again if you leave my customers alone.” The union man nodded reluctantly and Keith smiled. “Just one more thing,” he pointed out. “Please keep your gorillas off campus. We have an ordinance against wild animals in the streets, leash laws, you know.”

Keith watched the thugs’ faces turn red.

“Nice doing business with you,” he said cheerfully. “Excuse me. I’ve got another appointment I’ve got to keep.” The union boss was still staring at the bank of television sets as Doyle went out the door.

O O O

“You wanted to know where I was studying down in the library.” Keith said, guiding Diane down the stairs to Level Fourteen on that Tuesday afternoon. “So, I’m showing you.”

“What’s this got to do with my failing Biology?” Diane wanted to know. She looked around anxiously for any library personnel. They could get in trouble for being down here. The level was restricted, but Keith seemed to be pretty well at home.

“Well,” Keith began, “that just happens to be what I’m studying this term. The very thing.”

“Uh, Keith,” Diane babbled uncomfortably, clutching his arm as they crossed the dark floor. “I don’t think that, um,
practical
instruction in biology is what I need.”

“Don’t worry,” Keith said. “It’s not what you think. Trust me. Please.” He walked her through the stacks and took out the glowing key. Diane stared at it disbelievingly. Keith put the key in the lock and turned it.

“What IS this? This is just to scare me, right? It’s a make-out corner,” she determined pugnaciously.

“Nope,” Keith said, pausing. “I want to present you to the greatest teacher in the world on ANY subject,
including
biology.”

“You mean you?” Diane asked with mock skepticism, turning into the bright room. “Hi, there, Mr. Alfheim,” she called. “How nice to see you. What are you doing down here?” Then her eye took in the unique characteristics of the room’s inhabitants. Her jaw trembled and fell open. “Oh, my,” Diane said. Keith gently propelled her inside and closed the door.

“Good afternoon, Mees Londen. Von’t you sit down?” the Elf Master suggested, pointing to an empty desk next to Marcy. It was Carl’s.

“If it’s all the same to you, Master, I can move,” Enoch volunteered, lifting his books and leaving the desk next to Keith’s vacant. Keith winked at him. Enoch smiled as he settled down between Marcy and Lee.

Diane’s eyes followed the child-sized figures with wondering fascination. “I don’t believe it.”

“You’d better,” Keith informed her. “These are my best friends.”

“I know what she’s thinking,” Marm complained. “‘Those ears.’”

“They all do that,” Holl chuckled as the Master rapped on his easel for order.

O O O

To Keith’s delight, Diane fitted in with the current class as if she had always been there. Teri gave him a silent thumbs-up behind her back, and he grinned. When the session broke up for the day, Holl suggested that she would be welcome to help box and wrap orders, since extra hands would be useful. Keith was delighted. Holl always voiced the others’ opinions, and their opinion seemed to be that they were happy to have Diane with them.

Keith was pleased to have gotten his secret off his chest to Diane, but he was equally pleased as to how well she was handling getting to know everyone. She had an easy facility for making friends, and it didn’t take long before she stopped noticing the differences between the Big Folk and the Little. Within an hour, she was chatting as freely as she would anywhere else. Maura and Candlepat liked her immediately, and involved her in a passionate talk about fashion that made Keith want to flee the room. The look on Holl’s face told him probably he’d have company.

Diane instantly agreed to help pack up Hollow Tree’s merchandise. “To make things move more quickly,” she said. “Ms. Voordman’ll have a fit if the Hollow Tree shelf drops empty again.” She went through the new items with careful, awed hands. “Ms. Voordman’s going to love this jewelry,” she said, holding a necklace of tubular beads up to her throat, and then reading the tag. “She won’t be able to keep it in stock.” She paused and stared. “Diane Teri Designs? What’s this?”

“Well,” Keith admitted sheepishly. “Teri gave me the idea, but they thought they should put your name on them, because you’re my lady. In the end we compromised.”

“Take it,” Maura said, thrusting the necklace on her. “We’d be pleased if you accepted it as a gift.”

“Oh, I can’t,” Diane protested, admiring the tiny lady timidly, almost afraid that by looking at her she might break her. “What about you? You’d look beautiful in something like this. You should have it instead.”

“My man is the one who makes them,” Maura said, proudly glancing at Holl. “I can get others.”

“So,” Diane asked Holl over a packing crate full of bundles, “why do they call you the Maven?”

O O O

The next morning, Wednesday the 15th, Keith and Diane cut all their classes, and spent the day taking the parcels around to his many clients. They waited impatiently at each stop for the owners to write out checks. “I don’t know why you’re in such a hurry,” one shopkeeper admonished him, looking up at the two nervous faces across her counter. “I always pay within thirty days.”

“Taxes, Mrs. Geer,” Keith answered pathetically. “They’ll skin me and hang me out to dry if I don’t get in a quarterly payment.”

“Of course. I understand perfectly.” She bent her head over the checkbook and plucked the pink slip away from its perforations. “Many happy returns of the season.”

It took them hours to get around to all of Keith’s scattered customers. Most of them were as understanding as Mrs. Geer had been, but others had passed over tart remarks about economy along with their checks. Only a few were unsympathetic enough to insist on the standard 30 days, but in the end, there was enough in their hands to make the payment. At five minutes to five, Keith roared up to the front door of the Midwestern Trust Bank, and leaped out. “Sit in the driver’s seat, will you?” he shouted to Diane as he ran inside, not waiting to see if she moved.

There was a long line for the tellers’ windows, and Keith nearly died of impatience before a teller beckoned him over. He drummed on the counter while the girl counted the checks and then added up the total on her machine, until she stopped and looked annoyed at him. He flashed her a toothy smile, and put his hands behind his back. She went back to her addition.

At last, all the paperwork was finished. Keith stopped at one of the convenience tables and wrote out his checks to the IRS and the Illinois Department of Revenue and sealed them with the appropriate forms into stamped envelopes. He saluted the guard who opened the door to let him out into the street, and heard the click of the deadbolt lock behind him. Throwing an OK sign to Diane, he trotted over to the mailbox, yanked down the handle and threw the envelopes inside.

“Good evening, Mr. Doyle,” a thin voice said from practically next to him.

“Yaah!” Keith jumped in surprise. Mr. Durrow stood there, his lips pursed in a tiny smile. This was the sort of effect IRS agents lived for. He was pleased.

“I just mailed the check, honest to God,” Keith wailed in protest.

“I know,” Durrow said austerely. “Your next payment is due June 15th.” And he walked away without changing expression.

O O O

The Historical Society met with the press on campus. Director Charles Eddy was pleased to announce to the newspaper-reading and television-watching public that “Gillington Library has attained monument status, and it will be cared for in perpetuity. It is my honor to have discovered this worthy structure in our midst and brought it to the attention of those who care about the history of America.”

There was some scattered applause. Eddy smiled fatuously, posing with a broad gesture to the high doorway. Several cameras flashed in his face. “We are proud to have such a fine example of Civil War era architecture in our own little town, and we want to make sure it will be available for our children to appreciate.” There was much cheering and confetti-throwing as Eddy presented a small plaque to Mrs. Hansen, and they shook hands for the cameras. Eddy was pleased to note that he would have his picture in several papers by morning.

O O O

Brushing confetti out of his hair, Keith went to announce the good news to the Little Folk.

“That’s a blessing,” Holl told him. “Now there is no need to hurry up to get to the farm. It will take quite a lot of work before it is habitable to our standards.”

It hadn’t struck Keith until that moment that his friends would be moving just that much further out of reach. His heart sunk in his chest. “How much time before you go?” he asked with a long face.

Holl chucked him on the shoulder. “Cheer up, widdy. The Master won’t leave the students while the course is in session. Perhaps we’ll go in the summer. We’ll be staying a good while yet.”

“Just as well,” Diane put in, coming over to them with a handful of flowers from the village garden and a paper-covered bundle, “since I need to finish the Biology course. Don’t abandon me now, just when I think I could pass!”

The Master regarded her. “Ve keep our responsibilities in mind, Mees Londen.”

“We can’t do without you in any case, Keith Doyle,” Holl continued. “We’ll need help getting there and moving all our things, and finding sources for wood and plaster and the like.”

“You bet.” Keith got a dreamy look on his face and studied the glowing ceiling. “I’ve been formulating a plan to help with that. I have these friends.…”

“My dad drives a big van,” Diane interrupted eagerly. “I’m sure he’d lend it to me if I tell him I’m helping some friends move house.”

“Uh-huh, and I think I can get a deal on bulk plas—”

Holl searched the heavens in exasperation. “We didn’t know when we were well off. Now we have
two
like Keith Doyle.”

“Now how bad could that be?” Marm inquired, frowning at his neighbor. He flipped a hand out and enumerated the blessings of Keith Doyle on his fingers. “Look at all the good he’s done us. Found us a new home and the means to acquire it. Been a good friend.”

“I agree,” the Elf Master added. “I do like him, but I must admit he drives me mad.”

“Me, too, but I like him anyway,” Diane said agreeably. The Elf Master didn’t seem to intimidate her. “I have a present for you, Keith. From Ms. Voordman and me.” She handed him the bundle, and he stripped the paper off of it. “This is thanks for everything, including the scholarship. Even though I know now it was phony.” She looked at the others regretfully.

“You may still haf it at least for this year,” the Master stated graciously, sketching a little bow to her. “I haf not changed my opinion of you, though I know not how finances will fall out in the years to come.”

“Thank you,” Diane said gratefully, turning to him. “I didn’t know how I was going to break it to my father.” Behind them, Keith let out an exclamation.

Underneath the wrappings was the original ceramic elf-in-a-tree from the Country Craft shop. “Now that I’ve seen the original, I know where he got the logo for your company. It wasn’t just a fantastic myth.” Diane grinned, winking at the Elf Master. He gave her a stern look, which made her smile more.