Bernice peers around the door. Dad’s behind her. Joy and Bliss grin at me. Their eyeliner looks as if it has been put on with a spatula. The spiky false eyelashes ring their eyes like dark picket fences. I wonder where Connie is. Bernice’s tongue—is it forked?—pokes out as she licks her chops—in anticipation? Anticipation of what?
Nausea begins to rise from my gut. My mom and dad always said, “You’ll feel better if you just let yourself throw up.”
“It’s like magic,” Mom would say. “You instantly feel better.” And she would wave her hand like a vomit fairy godmother.
“I think I’m going to barf.”
Dad recognizes the symptoms. “Okay, clear the room!” He rushes in, grabs a wastebasket. Afterward, he helps me to the bathroom to tidy up. Then, into bed. “Now lie back, sweetie.”
“Just let me sleep, Dad, just let me sleep.” And so I fall into a deep, dreamy, healing sleep.
“She’s back!” I hear Mum call out.
As I trot up the path on Calamity, I can see both Mum and Da rushing out of the cottage. And…God’s kneecaps! Our servant, Bethilda, is trying to curtsy. She started practicing as soon as she got wind of the script changes and what might happen between me and Prince Thunderdolt. She’s tall for an old lady and skinny as a stick. It’s painful to watch her try and fold herself into a curtsy.
“You’re back. How was it?” Mum asks breathlessly.
Da, who looks a bit nervous, steps up and gives Mum’s shoulder a squeeze. “Just think, Gyrfrid, our little girl has been to places we’ve never seen. She got out of this virtual world, our make-believe world, and into…blimey…what do they call it?”
“The real world, Phinegal. The real world,” Mum replies as if she is tasting something delicious.
“But we’re in Starlight Studios, aren’t we, dear?” Da asks.
“Yes, in a computer.”
“But we’re 3-D, aren’t we?” he says.
“If people wear 3-D glasses, Phin.” Mum turns to me. “Did the little girl wear them?”
“Ryder, Mum, that’s her name.”
“Well, did Ryder wear 3-D glasses when you came out of that television set?”
“At first. She didn’t believe I could be real.”
“How did you convince her?”
“I kicked her,” I say.
“Kicked her! Oh dear, oh dear!” Bethilda is wringing her hands. “Not proper behavior for a prin—”
“No P word!” I shout. “It makes me vomit!”
“Now, now, dear. Calm down,” Mum says. “Let me give you some honey mead broth. That always settles the tummy. And I can slip in a leaf of royal mint. It’s in bloom.”
“Nothing royal, please. I’ll barf.”
“Whaaat?” Mum, Da, and Bethilda look at me as if am speaking another language.
“Barf, like vomit.”
“That is a word? Wherever does it come from?” Da asks.
“Outside. The real world.”
“Barf?” My da cocks his head. “It has a certain ring to it. Rather like it, I do. The hound, Bessie, just had pups. There’s a big fellow in the litter. I’ll call him Barf.”
“Call the pup anything you want, but don’t call me the P word,” I mutter.
“Now stop this fussing,” Mum says. “Let’s go inside and have Rory tell us what the outside world is like. The real world.”
I begin my tale over mugs of honey mead broth. Mum is fascinated. She keeps repeating “real world” with a strange hush, as if no one is supposed to know about my adventure there. In her mind it is a fantastical place.
“You realize, my dear, that you are a pioneer.” Her voice bubbles with admiration. I am her Christopher Columbus, her conquistador who sailed to the distant shores of a New World.
“Pioneer! That’s a P word.” Bethilda gives a cackle as she sets down a jug of cream and a plate of biscuits. I look at Bethilda. I get an odd shivery feeling. What is it about Bethilda that is somehow different yet awfully familiar? She goes back to the woodstove and begins pouring batter into small loaf pans. “I’m making some groat cakes for Calamity. You know how she loves them, dearie. I thought it must have been a hard trip for her. Long ride to that place.”
“You mean the real world,” Mum says brightly, and once more the word “real” seems almost to shimmer in the air.
“That’s nice of you, Bethilda,” I say, staring at her straight back. She’s very fond of Calamity and is always making her special treats. Something is a tiny bit different about her. “But I didn’t take Calamity all the way, Bethilda.”
“Why ever not?” She turns to look at me.
“Well, it would be hard getting her out of the television set and into Ryder’s bedroom. And I just didn’t want to have any accidents.”
“Accidents?” Bethilda says. “What kind of accidents?”
“In the real world, people and animals poop.”
Mum’s mouth drops open. Da blinks.
“I…I…thought there might be things we didn’t know about in the real world. I mean, it must be so different from our world. But you learned this when you crossed over, I assume?” Da is still blinking.
“I sort of knew about it before. They have special rooms—at least, the people do. And just before I crossed over into Ryder’s bedroom, I heard her go into the bathroom.”
“And poop?” Mum asks.
“Pee. Then I heard the chamber pot flush.”
“Flush? Chamber pots?” Da blinks again.
“Actually, they call them toilets. Not chamber pots.”
“And even princesses poop in these…these…toilets?” Bethilda says in utter disbelief. I nod.
I think I can safely say that no animated character has ever pooped on-screen in television history. If it happens, it’s off script.
I suddenly realize why Bethilda looks strangely familiar. I remember the picture in Ryder’s room of her granny flashing a big smile on a horse. Now, I have never in all my animated life seen Bethilda on a horse, and she wears a kerchief, not one of those cowboy hats like Ryder’s granny. But there has always been that gap in her teeth just like the one in Ryder’s granny’s teeth. Now it’s gone. “Bethilda, what happened to your teeth? No more gap.”
“No, dear. I think they did that to me at Starlight Studios somehow. Animators decided to fix my teeth.”
“For this movie,” Mum says grimly.
“D-don’t you miss it, Bethilda?” I stammer.
“Miss what?” she asks.
“The gap in your teeth.”
Bethilda’s bright brown eyes fix on me. She tips her head to one side. “A gap is a space with nothing. How can I miss nothing?”
“I suppose that’s true,” I say weakly. “But I liked you the way you were. And now you can’t whistle.” Whistle, I think, like Ryder’s granny. How do I know that Ryder’s granny whistles when she calls up her horse Calamity from the pasture? I can almost hear it. It’s as if on my first trip to the real world I picked up things that I never knew about or heard about before. Maybe because Ryder knows them.
“That’s sweet, dear. But you know, things have to change sometimes. I don’t mind not whistling. We all have to sacrifice.”
“No! No! That’s just the point. And things don’t have to change.” At least, not in our make-believe, virtual world. The thought jolts me, but I dare not say it out loud. “I don’t want to be what they are making me be.”
“A princess?” Bethilda whispers the word.
“I heard that, Bethilda. It’s not just that. They are doing weird things to my body.” I turn toward my mum and da. “You haven’t seen what I have in the real world.” I try to say “real” just the way Mum always says it, as if it is some sort of super paradise.
“What?” Mum says, tense.
“They’re making Cassie draw me taller, with this teensy-weensy waist.”
“Oh, Cassie! How I do wish we could talk to her. She’s drawn you wearing a corset?” Bethilda asks.
/> “Sort of. And I’m a lot skinnier.”
“What?” Mum is clearly outraged. “We feed you.”
“Skinnier? No. Certainly not,” booms Da. “You’re a strapping girl with muscle, speed, endurance.”
“They’re making Cassie redraw me for the new movie.”
“But why?”
“I have to match all the new products. The dolls, the posters, the live girl actress who will play me in the coronation at the Starlight Studios amusement park.”
“Coronation!” Bethilda sighs dreamily.
“And you saw this?” Mum asks, her voice trembling. “In the real world?” The last two words seem to sputter, then collapse, wrinkled like a balloon that has lost its air. “What else did you see, Rory? Aside from the flushing chamber pots,” Mum whispers.
Da leans across the table. “Was it like those maps of yore when folk thought the world was flat and the mapmakers would write at the edges of the known world ‘Here There Be Dragons’?” His blue eyes sparkle as if catching a glimpse of a distant and unimaginable coastline.
“No dragons in Starlight Studios. When I was by the portal, I could see Cassie’s desk. She had samples from the new Rory product line—strange-looking dolls and posters and lunchboxes. The pictures on them sort of looked like me, but not really. My hair was long and silky, not short and curly the way it is now.” I sigh wearily. “I have to carry a wand and wear a tiara.”
“Tiara! And a wand!” Bethilda claps her hands gleefully.
I give her a withering look. “Bethilda, you can’t kick any butt with a wand.”
“Kick butt?” Mum, Da, and Bethilda repeat, confounded.
“What’s that?” Da asks. I know Da is picturing a cute piglet’s butt with a curly little tail and me chasing it about the slops trough.
“A real-world term that means ‘fight,’ Da. Not chasing piglets. Combat.”
“Real-world terminology,” Da whispers to himself.
“And not only that,” I continue. “I’m wearing a very low-cut gown, not my usual tunic. And it has sparkles all over it. My lips are puffy. And my eyes have very thick, long eyelashes and have this stupid look in them.”
“They’re making you flirt!” Da is seething. “I won’t have you flirting. How can you shoot a bow and arrow if you’re flirting? How can you win a sword fight if you’re batting those lashes?” He looks me straight in the eye. “What else did you see?”
“Cassie.” I gulp. “Cassie crying.”
“Why was Cassie crying?” Da asks.
“It was so sad. She buried her head in her arms and was sobbing, ‘They can’t do this to her…they can’t. It’s so wrong. It’s all marketing.’ ”
“Marketing?” Mum asks. “Like going to the Coddington market when we take the spring piglets?” Many episodes of Super-Rory-Us begin at the Coddington market that is held every Friday in the village square.
“No. It’s this stuff. All these products they make—the Rory dolls, the games, the puzzles, the costumes.”
“Anyhow, the phone rang and Cassie picked it up. She started yelling, ‘Andy Holmsby did not create Rory to be a princess! That was the last thing in the world she wanted. She wanted a girl who is strong and brave, who is outspoken and fights for what is right and doesn’t give a hoot about some brainless Prince Charming.’ Then she slammed the phone down and said some bad words.”
Mum shakes her head. “That’s not G-rated at all.”
“Mum, I was in the real world. People say and do all sorts of un-G-rated things.”
Her jaw begins to tremble and she dabs her eyes. “Start at the beginning, Rory, and tell us everything you saw in this so-called real world.” Mum’s nose wrinkles slightly, as if she is smelling something bad.
“It wasn’t as hard as I thought it might be getting across. First I just had to slip through the portal into the streaming-on-demand mode. Before I knew it, I was in the streaming content. That was the hard part. I kept popping up in the wrong programs. I don’t think anybody saw me. But then I found the way into the stream that took me directly to what Ryder was watching, and when I felt the time was right, I just stepped out and—Shazam!”
“Just stepped out? Like magic!” Mum’s and Da’s voices are filled with wonder. “Shazam indeed!” Da exclaims.
“I think it was a little bit of magic. You see, I think there are these places where the borders of the make-believe world and the real world bump up against each other and that’s where I was able to come out, slip through the layers like a leak. But the big question is, will it be possible for Ryder to come to our world so she can help me? I think that is the only chance I’ve got to fix this problem. But first I have to go to sleep. Let me tell you, the real world can tire you out.”
I crawl up to the little loft space where I sleep on a mattress made of sweet grass and petals from spring flowers. Mum tucks me in, gives me a kiss, and leaves. There is a little round window. I can see the moon and the stars. Andy Holmsby knew a lot about stars, and she insisted on the proper constellations being painted for the right season. It is the end of summer, and I can see the Cygnus the Swan swooping up into the night. There are all sorts of stars powdering the computer-generated indigo sky, but the constellations really seem to shimmer. I know that the star in the tail of the swan is called Deneb. Ryder was surprised that I knew about laundry bleach; I wonder what she’ll think when I tell her I know all about astronomy.
I know more than I’ve told Ryder. When I climbed back into the television set at Ryder’s house, I didn’t just go straight home. I think of streaming like a river, an electronic river full of TV shows. So I jumped back in and found my way into the television monitor in the home theater in Ryder’s house.
The makeup people were packing up little suitcases with their bottles and tubes and other stuff, and boy oh boy oh boy! What I heard there about Bernice’s daughter Bliss!
One makeup artist said, “Bliss doesn’t look a thing like Rory, but with the movie changes it might be easier.”
Why were they trying to make Bliss look like Rory? God’s kneecaps! It can mean only one thing: Bliss will be playing the newly crowned Princess Rory at the movie premiere coronation! As I fall asleep, I remember Cassie’s exact words to another animator: “You know, Bernice was once a TV producer, and she’s dying to be a part of Super-Rory-Us in any way she can.”
This is going to knock Ryder’s socks off. The perfect place for Bernice to get involved with Super-Rory-Us is to have Bliss be the “princess” for the coronation. The thought almost makes me nauseous, but hey, I’m in make-believe territory. A no-barf zone.
At the end of the day, Bethilda goes to her small quarters near the chicken house. The soft cluckings of the chickens are comforting, and she often soothes them in return, especially during thunderstorms. But tonight Bethilda is the one in need of soothing. She is deeply confused. She knows that her mistress Gyrfrid is right—that Rory was “created” as an eleven-year-old and she, Bethilda of Saxby-on-the-Weston, was created as a seventy-one-year-old lady. But Bethilda is more and more confused as she hears her masters and Rory talking about this real world.
How did Rory get across? Bethilda doesn’t quite understand all this portal and streaming business. Rory must have crossed over while off script. Bethilda likes when they are off script, the way they all were when they weren’t in the show but talking as a family around the table. Everyone could say what they thought. Bethilda had thought that being a princess, being royal, would have been thrilling to Rory. She certainly would have been thrilled when she was a little girl to become a…Bethilda stopped.
“Stupid me,” she mutters. “I’ve never been a little girl. I have always been seventy-one years old.” I will never be seventy-two. Or eighty, or sixteen. I have never had young years when I might have actually been pretty. She peers into a small mirror that hangs on a hook above her tin washbasin. Her face is creased with deep lines. The wrinkles were created by the deft sketching hand of Andy Holmsby. The o
ld lady’s face was further perfected and scanned into that computer thing. Bethilda has lost track of how they transformed her into a character from that point on. She leans in closer. The gap between her teeth is certainly gone. “I believe they really are getting me ready for service to a princess!”
She sighs. Why does Rory have to be so goldarn stubborn? “Goldarn”—where did that word come from? Sometimes words and thoughts just pop up. She supposes it’s just part of getting old. No! You fool. You are old. Always have been! She glances at the Bible by her bed. She imagines that it is not really proper to pray for someone to become a princess. Well, she must prepare herself to consign the idea of Rory being royalty to that slag heap of dreams out in the Valley of Deletions, just north of the East Grief Road. That is where all the ideas, sketches, and scans that don’t work for the show go. An animation dump. She could probably find her tooth gap out there somewhere. But how does one look for nothing—a gap? She smiles at herself in the mirror. She looks so much better now.
I’m half asleep, but I can’t stop thinking about what happened before the visit from the vomit fairy godmother. Bernice and two of the Three Happys were peeking around my bedroom door. An invasion. But before that, Rory, real Rory, was climbing out of the TV set. It all seemed so real. I want it to be real. I don’t want it to be a dream, even if it was just a good dream.
I text Penny—sorry, Penelope.
Pen—you’ll never believe what happened!!!
I lie back down and wait for the little bing. Nothing.
I’m a little…uh…misty, as if I’m not quite real, as if I’m somehow floating. I think I’m in my bed. But maybe I’m not. The TV is still on, but it’s a different show.
I climb out of bed and glance at the sheets. Rory’s words come back to me: Too much bleach. Look at this pillowcase. I look all faded and yucky. She was here. She knows about bleach. But not sliders. “And I know about stars,” a voice in my head seems to say.
One thing I know is, Rory needs all the help she can get and so do I. I look at my cell phone. No sign of Penelope. I turn toward the TV and step closer.