Chapter 4: Mr. Clean vs the Vacuum
“So, what exactly is the plan?” Cecily demanded as she and August ran toward Puddle’s house. They had left Glow at home with strict instructions to stay there, although Cecily seriously doubted the child would obey. She would probably materialize right in the middle of whatever monsters they were dealing with at the most inconvenient moment.
August was carrying a metal skillet that he’d grabbed from the kitchen on their way out and Cecily had her expired pepper spray from back home, so they were prepared–as long as whatever they were fighting was slow, easily frightened, and had sensitive eyes. They hadn’t encountered any monsters here so far: all the people and animals were similar to the ones on Earth, just slightly off, whether with different colors, extra tails, or strange abilities. Cecily hoped Glow had just been spooked by some green coyotes or something like that–although, they weren’t really qualified to deal with coyotes either. She felt the ugly locket bounce against her chest and remembered Ravioli Girl’s instruction to only open it in an emergency. I can’t believe I made it almost twenty-four hours without an emergency, she thought sarcastically.
“The plan is to make sure Puddle is okay and to help him get to safety,” August panted, shifting his grip on the skillet. “And to not get hurt ourselves.”
He’s read too many books, Cecily thought, but she didn’t argue. She certainly didn’t want Puddle to get hurt, and there was no one else to help, so they would have to do what they could.
They arrived at Puddle’s house after a few minutes and stopped short. “Those don’t look like monsters,” August murmured. “Those look like robots.”
Whatever the invaders were, they were definitely made of metal and Cecily could make out some wires and wheels mixed in there, but it was hard to define their shape because Puddle had absolutely demolished them. The huge man was stomping on the last of them, effortlessly crushing the gray metal under his size 50 boots. Two or three other robots lay littered around the yard, so torn to pieces it was hard to tell where one stopped and the other started.
“Puddle, are you okay?” August called to him, dropping the skillet on the ground with a weak thud.
Puddle looked up at them and smiled cheerfully, no signs of having even broken a sweat. “Yes, I’m perfectly fine! How are you two?”
The twins approached, and Cecily felt almost embarrassed at their meager offer of assistance as she slipped her pepper spray into her pocket. “We’re fine, but Glow came and said you needed help.”
This time Puddle looked embarrassed. “My apologies about that. I really just needed her out of the way so I could take care of these.”
“You destroyed them all yourself?” August asked, sounding rather awe-struck as he surveyed the metal massacre.
Puddle shrugged. “It wasn’t difficult. It’s what I’m here for, after all.” He leaned down and picked up a 30-pound chunk of metal with one hand, examining the wires poking out of the torn sides. “I’ve never seen anything like them before.”
Cecily wandered the yard until she found a robot that was intact enough to identify its shape. It was a squat cylinder, about three feet in both height and diameter, with blades sticking out of the sides. It almost looked like…
“It’s… It’s a Roomba,” she realized aloud. “August, it’s a giant Roomba with knives!”
“You’ve seen these creatures before?” Puddle asked from where he was still standing a few yards away.
“Never this big, or this… armed. I didn’t know there was any electricity here, but these guys must have been running on some kind of battery.” Cecily squatted down to the dead Roomba and looked inside the hole Puddle had punched into it. “Look, there’s even a circuit board!” I think that’s what that’s called, anyway. She wasn’t much better at science than she was at literary criticism.
“Is it from Earth?” August wondered quietly, crouching next to her.
Cecily shook her head. “I doubt it. Earth has its fair share of weird shit, but if someone made giant killer Roombas, that’s something that would have made the news and probably landed them in jail.”
August frowned. “Maybe it’s a recent development. We’ve been gone for a few months.”
“Okay, so assuming in the last eight weeks someone has managed to invent a fleet of enormous blade-wielding vacuum robots, what are the chances they get teleported here?”
“Well, what were the chances that we got teleported here?” August retorted. Cecily frowned at him.
“What are you two talking about?” Puddle asked, walking over to them.
“We’re just wondering where these came from,” Cecily answered smoothly. “Do you know why they were attacking you?”
“No idea,” Puddle said nonchalantly. “Say, would you two like to come with Glow and me to the market? We can pick her up from your house on the way.”
That was an abrupt change in subject, Cecily thought, noticing that August was also taken aback by how quickly Puddle moved on from the fact that his home was just attacked by robots. She wasn’t about to argue with a seven-foot being of pure muscle, though, so she just nodded and stood up, giving the metal carcass a kick for good measure.
They walked back to Cecily and August’s house, and to Cecily’s surprise, Glow was still there when they arrived. She was jumping on the bed in August’s room and squealed when she saw them come in. “Da! I was so good! Wasn’t I so good, Da?” She teleported into Puddle’s arms and he squeezed her fondly.
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“You were very good, Glow. You followed my instructions to stay here until it’s safe! You know what that means?”
“Treats!” Glow cheered.
“So it is possible to get her to behave,” Cecily murmured to August. “We should try more bribery.”
August nodded absently, then gasped. “I left the fire on in the oven. I need to turn it off!”
“Number one cause of housefires!” Cecily called after him, getting a giggle from Glow.
August came back a few minutes later with a puzzled expression. “The bread dough was gone.” He hesitated. “Glow, did you eat the bread dough?”
Glow giggled harder, then broke into peals of laughter as Puddle held her at eye level and frowned. “Glow, it isn’t nice to eat other people’s food without asking.”
“I’m more worried about the fact that she ate two loaves of raw bread dough!” August exclaimed. “Won’t that seriously hurt her stomach?”
Puddle chuckled and put Glow down. “Not even a little. In fact, I’d be surprised if she isn’t hungry again in two hours, she always works up such an appetite.”
Doing what? Cecily was about to ask, but Puddle turned toward the door. “Come on, I’ll buy you some bread at the market to make up for it.”
They returned to the path that was somehow the only unchanging part of the forest, turning in the direction away from Puddle’s house and walking toward the market. August and Cecily had discovered the market in the middle of the night when they were chasing Glow after she stole August’s notebook the first time she came over, and Cecily had been very suspicious of anyone who would sell goods in the middle of the night. It turned out, though, that the market was always there, no matter the time of day. Some of the vendors were constantly shifting with no apparent schedule, while others seemed to live there and never sleep. Either way, it was always a gamble what they were going to find, and how they were going to pay for it.
As they walked, August leaned close to Cecily. “I’m a little worried about Puddle,” he confided.
“Why would you be worried about the man who just destroyed a swarm of killer robots?”
“Yeah, and then he said that’s what he’s here for. I learned in a psychology class that middle-aged men are at really high risk for loneliness, and I’m worried that Puddle just sees himself as a guardian for Glow and not his own person.”
Cecily thought about that. “Well, if his only friends are his neighbors that are half his age, then yes, maybe he is lonely. Or, maybe he’s just the kind of person that finds a lot of personal fulfillment in being a dad and doesn’t need friends!” Even as she made the suggestion, she could see the wheels in August’s head turning. He was in his ruminating stage. He would let this problem occupy his mind constantly for a week or two, then once Cecily had forgotten about it he would pitch a crazy idea to her that she would have to go along with because she wouldn’t have given enough thought to propose an alternative. That was how Cecily had ended up taking a single semester of college classes before finally forming an argument to the contrary and dropping out. It was also how they had managed to survive here for so long, so she couldn’t complain too much.
The market was open-air and a random jumble of tables, tents, and people just sitting on the ground making offers. “Those are cool!” August observed, pointing at a group of vibrant orange doves piled on top of each other like blocks stacked by a child with early symptoms of OCD.
“Excuse me, could you spare a Favor?” An unfamiliar man approached August, holding out his hand. “Just a small one?”
“Sure, what do you need?” August asked, but Puddle overheard and stepped in front of him.
“Go make your own luck,” he ordered the man cryptically, causing him to scamper off. He turned to August. “Be careful. Most people who ask for Favors would be fine without them, and you don’t want to end up with a Favor deficit.”
“A Favor deficit?” August repeated, but Puddle had run off to stop Glow from waking the stack of sleeping birds.
“People here are so weird about favors,” August mused.
A loud snap of electricity sounded nearby, causing Cecily to jump. An aging woman was walking past them, and as she took another bite of whatever she was eating, a bolt of lightning shot from her body into the sky, like a reverse storm.
“Hey, careful with that,” Cecily chided her, realizing with horror that this felt normal to her. I’ve been here too long.
“Sorry, dear, it’s just very tasty,” the woman explained, holding up what Cecily recognized as a cannoli.
A cannoli that shoots lightning… Cecily looked around sharply. She had only seen magical Italian food–or any Italian food–one other time since leaving Earth. Is Ravioli Girl here? If she could just find the witch again and get a redo, she would do it right this time and get them home.
“Where did you get that?” she asked eagerly.
“From a young witch who comes here occasionally. I’m afraid she sold out and left a few minutes ago, though,” the old woman told her apologetically. “You’ll have to keep an eye out for her next time!”
“Dammit,” Cecily groaned. “I really need to find her again.”
“Oh?” August raised an eyebrow. “Does the reclusive Silly finally want to make a friend?”
“I don’t want to be friends with her, I just want to use her magic,” Cecily said quickly. “I think she could get us home.”
August’s other eyebrow joined the first. “Really? That’s great! What’s her name?” Cecily looked away and continued scanning the crowd. August sighed. “Silly, you really need to start learning people’s names. At this point it feels intentional.”
It was intentional, but Cecily didn’t need to explain that right now. She kept looking over the market at the two dozen or so people that were milling about. Most were middle aged or elderly: Cecily didn’t see anyone that looked under 35 except herself, August, and Glow. Yet another quirk of this world, and yet another reason to find Ravioli Girl.
After wandering for a bit and confirming that there was no green-haired witch present, Cecily rejoined August, who was carrying a basket of bread and a sack of flour, both gifts from Puddle. That’s one way to get groceries, she thought, realizing with relief that they wouldn’t have to figure out a new payment method quite yet.
“I am going to help one of the vendors with his cart,” Puddle explained, lifting Glow up to perch on his shoulders. “I trust you two can find your way home?”
“Of course! Thanks again for the bread and flour!” August answered, waving at Puddle as he walked away to a large horse-drawn cart whose horse was visibly sleeping. Cecily waited for Puddle to wake up the horse, but instead he lifted the entire cart–horse and all–and started walking away with it, the short-legged vendor struggling to keep up behind him.
As the twins walked home, Cecily thought about Ravioli Girl. If she sold at the market occasionally, there was a chance they could find her. I just need to come back every day to look for her, Cecily decided. I will find us a way home, and I won’t waste time on friends or a job until I’ve done it.
With that decided, Cecily quickened her step, her newfound resolution adding energy to her strides until August grabbed her arm. “Silly!” he hissed. “Silly, stop right where you are and don’t move!”
“What is it?” she whispered back, but he held a finger to his lips.
“Listen,” he whispered. Cecily could faintly hear the sound of someone singing, but couldn’t make out the melody or words.
“What is it?” she repeated, and August looked at her, his eyes wide and serious.
“It’s Carly Rae Jeppson.”