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Post By Visionary Sun Oct 08, 2006 at 11:03:35 pm EDT |
Subject
The Greatest Little Show On Earth: A tie in to Dancer #37 | |
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“This doesn’t make any sense…” Al B. Harper complained, looking over the printed building layout for Dancer’s new theater. He waved the grilled cheese sandwich he was eating at the offending documents. “This boiler configuration would eject super-heated steam right into the face of anyone who stepped on this floorboard.” “Probably a typo” the lithe brunette owner assured him. “In the blueprints?” “Well, they’re just one version of the blueprints” Dancer explained. “The building has gone through many, many revisions over the last 150 years at least. It took a fair amount of fancy footwork to get the clerk down at the city archives to just happen to come across this set.” They were interrupted by a knock at the entryway. “Godmother Dancer?” Maggie asked shyly from the kitchen door. She was flanked by her brother Griffin who was prodding her forward. The Legionnaire in question looked up from the kitchen table where Al was engrossed in his research. “Heya Munchkins” she greeted them brightly. “What’s shaking?” “Munchkins have red noses and striped hose and like to form pointless government offices” Griffin informed her helpfully. “We’re just short.” “I stand corrected, Handsome” she noted. “What can I do for you two?” “Tell her” the boy urged his sister. The little girl clutched her bad arm to her body and looked at the floor. “If you’re still looking for help putting on a show, I… I mean, some friends and Griff and me…” “She’s got an act!” the brother blurted. “A really good one too!” “Really? That’s great!” Dancer got up and crossed the kitchen to kneel and look her god-daughter in the eyes. After fishing her hair out from in front of her scarred face, that is. “You want to help and be in the show, Maggie?” “No ma’am… I mean, yes, I want to help, but not…” she swallowed. “She doesn’t want people looking at her” Griffin noted disapprovingly. “She thinks she looks different.” Dancer raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?” “Since her Godmoth… since Camellia took away her blessings. Maggie thinks she looks different.” “And she doesn’t to you?” the brunette legionnaire realized. “Not really” Griffin asserted. “I mean, I can see that she has trouble sometimes. She can’t stand as straight, or run, or jump, and her arm is hurt. But…” “But otherwise she’s just as pretty as she ever was” Dancer finished. “And a fairy princess is very pretty indeed.” “See?” he prodded his sister. “She gets it!” “He never saw it any other way” Magweed told Dancer, gently touching the scarred half of her face. “Camellia’s spells didn’t fool him. He always only saw this me. He doesn’t know.” “Maybe he knows more than you give him credit for” Dancer told the girl. “If he wasn’t fooled, then he must be very clever. And everybody knows that griffins are especially smart to begin with.” “I keep telling her that” Griffin sighed. “So maybe you ought to listen to him about this, hmmm?” Maggie looked away. “I still… don’t want to be on a stage.” “No problemo, sweetie…” Dancer assured her. “The truth is, this show is all about luring a nasty man into doing something stupid and threatening so we can stop him and win the day and make the world safe for talented young ingénues to stay upright and fully clothed during their auditions. Your dad wouldn’t want you at risk. No need to worry about us, mind you… I’m sure we’ll be perfectly fine.” “Does this trap door open to a room filled with spikes?!” Al choked. “Reasonably fine” Dancer amended. “Besides, the whole child actor life has a load of pitfalls of its own. Your dad will be less than thrilled if you’re robbing a drug store on an “E! True Parodiopolis Story” in five years. So you just let us worry about the show, okay?” “Okay” Maggie agreed. “Aw… it was a really, really good act…” Griffin complained. “Well, I should hope so…” Dancer replied. “’Cause if you thought you were going to get out of here without me demanding to see it for myself, then you don’t know your godmother. And there’s no use trying to get out of it, because I’m very persistent.” “This bladed pendulum isn’t still installed, is it?!” “Very persistent” she reiterated. “Are… are those my lab mice?” Al B. Harper asked, bubble pipe hanging from his lips and a half eaten sandwich in his hand. “They’re very helpful!” Maggie complimented them. While she had been blessed with the friendship of small animals, one should never take such things for granted and not give credit where it was clearly due. “They don’t say much, but they learn very quickly.” “All producers love a theater troupe that takes direction well” Dancer noted, impressed. “Are… are my lab mice… dancing?” Al B. double checked. Indeed they were. There in the depths of the Lair Labs, while Amy Aston good naturedly kept the tempo clapping along with Maggie and Griffin, two dozen identical white mice scurried in and out in alternating spirals before meeting in two lines, bowing to each other, and then twirling around in pairs. On the edges of the makeshift stage area, little homemade trapezes were moved into place and soon the furry little critters were flipping through the air above the dance with daring-do and many excited squeaks. Finally, the whole production was circled by exercise wheels, unhinged from their bases and festooned with ribbons, which pairs of mice wheeled about the stage, one from the inside and one from the top. “If you had given us more time to work on it, I was going to suggest a little synchronized swimming in a pie plate to round out the show” Amy noted. “Why… Why are my lab mice… dancing?” Al finally managed. “Why, whatever else would live animal test subjects be doing in your lab, Mr. Harper?” Dancer asked mildly. “Er… It’s nothing like that, really. You know we did most of our inhumane testing on Nats…” the scientist explained quickly. “They’re just here to have sex. That is, I mean, It’s just… Kinki left behind some perfume, and I set up a test to see if the perfume contained some futuristic sex pheromones that caused me to, um… that caused a sexual response that would help her to get ahold of my… erm, rather, help her hold sway over… um… over the… sex drive of the opposite… um… sex.” “He sure says “sex” a lot” Griffin noted. “He’s big on it as a theoretical science” Amy agreed. “It’s the practical applications he hasn’t quite worked out.” “It’s a valid study” Al sniffed. “Kinki had wiles. Possibly chemical wiles.” Amy nodded. “’Cause it in no way could have been her wearing her jumpsuit’s zipper down around her navel.” “That’s harder to test on mice” the Lair’s resident genius pointed out weakly. “So you applied you’re time temptress’s perfume to rodents” Dancer summed up, “In hopes that they’d be spurred to copulate irresistibly.” “For science” Al reiterated. He looked back to the twirling mice. “And now they’re out and dancing.” “I know…” Dancer sympathized. “It’s depressing how few of my dates want to bother with a night out first by comparison.” The mice reached the big finale of their routine and, with one more dramatic spin, stopped on cue with their heads and front paws raised to the ceiling. Then they dropped back down, taking their bows… their little chests puffing from the exertion as Dancer, Amy, Maggie and Griffin clapped enthusiastically. “Bravo!” the brunette cried as she plucked Al’s sandwich from his hand and gently tossed it to the tiny performers, who fell on it hungrily. “That was amazing!” she cooed to Maggie, who was grinning from ear to ear. “You’ll have to help me with my choreography sometime” “Told ya it was good” Griffin insisted. “Good? That was beyond good! That was the Bubsy Berkeley extravaganza of the rodent world! And you did it with career science types, who aren’t usually known for their physical grace…” She swept up her god-daughter and caught her nephew by the hand. “I think it deserves a backstage party with rootbeer and frozen yogurt.” “Can they have some too?” Maggie asked for the mice. “Oh, I think they’ll be celebrating the way most couples do after the big dance” she assured the children. “Why don’t we let nice Mr. Harper get on with his experiment, okay?” Al stood there, chewing on his bubble pipe after the others had left, and stared at the gathering of rodents that were finishing up his sandwich. “Er… so…” he finally said as the mice looked back up at him expectantly. “Raise your hand if you think you were in the control group.” |
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