Pets 2: Pani's Story (8 page)

Her head hurt now, too. Her eyes burned and her bottom was really, really sore. When she shifted her feet or clenched those beet-red southern cheeks, scalding heat flared deep down in the muscle. As wrapped up as she was in her own misery, it wasn’t until she had been reduced to sniffling whimpers that she gradually became aware that Tak’buh was talking and had been for some time.

At first thinking he was talking to her, Judy half turned to glance back at him over her shoulder. He was sitting a short distance away at a console of sorts, talking into a monitor so flat and thin that it looked like nothing more than a sheet of glass. When he noticed her watching, although the friendly, affable expression on his face barely altered, he snapped his fingers and pointed for her to get back in position. She obeyed. Instantly. She just didn’t have it in her to argue anymore, at least not until she heard the soft beep as he switched off the monitor and stood up.

“I did what you told me!” she wailed when he came back to the corner. Covering her bottom with both hands, she cringed away when he reached for her, but he slipped his hands beneath her arms and picked her up anyway. Careful of her bottom, he balanced her on his hip, making comforting shushing noises as he patted her head, stroked her hair and carried her back upstairs.

She didn’t fight at all when he stripped her down to her diaper and put her back into her sleepsack. She made only a single protest—a soft choking sound—as he fastened the collar back around her neck. But after dutifully checking the tightness, he gave her a warning tap on the nose and Judy stopped doing even that. When he laid her into her crib, she rolled over onto her side to face the wall. She didn’t want to look at him, not even accidentally, so she closed her eyes and waited for him to go away.

Tak’buh covered her with a blanket, tucking it right up under her chin. He stroked her hair, leaned over the rail of the crib to press the most tender of kisses upon her forehead and then left the room, switching off the light and closing the door as he went.

She had just been put down for a nap.

Sniffling, Judy reached back to touch the flaming heat smoldering just under the skin of her bottom, bringing her other hand up past her collar in an attempt to swipe the excess folds of the sleepsack across her overflowing eyes. Her whole life was stretched out before her, an unending procession of diaper changes, bottles and sippy cups, baby-doll dresses and bare bottom spankings extending decade after decade for as far as her mind’s eye could see. She wanted to scream and kick the bed and wall, to rail and beat her fists and thrash until she ripped her way back out of this sack.

But she was also tired. Too tired to really want to do any of that, and so she simply caught her breath, holding in one keening sob after another, until the warmth and comfort of her bed began to dull the edges of her misery. She closed her eyes to ease their burning and quite simply fell asleep.

34

* * * * *

At the very end of a length of rope, Judy sat among the flowers of Tak’buh’s garden, her knees drawn up to her chest and a thick leather collar as firmly fixed around her neck as the opposite end of her tether was attached to the stake the giant had hammered into the ground. The sun felt warm across her shoulders. She could hear birds chirping and singing from atop the trees that towered high above the houses that surrounded her little cage of a yard. A city girl born and raised, she now found herself neatly relocated to the alien suburbs, and still wasn’t exactly sure how it had happened.

Shredding a blade of grass between her fingernails, she stared glumly beyond the fence into the well-manicured lawn across the street where two other humans were…well, she hated to say

‘playing’ but that was exactly what they looked like they were doing. She recognized the old, slightly-hunched man from yesterday. He was still dressed in a green house robe, probably the same green house robe. In his hands, he held an oblong yellow ball over his shoulder, waving at an equally aged old woman to ‘go long’ before he cast it to her. Every now and then, they would glance over at her, and Judy would sullenly shred another blade of grass.

She felt an itch between her shoulders, but resisted the urge to glance back at Tak’buh’s house behind her. She knew what she would see: Tak’buh peeking out the window to see if she was enjoying her time in the yard or perhaps to see if she weren’t playing with one of the many toys that dotted the lawn around her, and quite possibly chief on his list, reassuring himself that she hadn’t managed to escape this blasted collar and then the yard.

Not that she hadn’t tried. Oh, how she had tried!

She had stubbornly struggled to squeeze her collar up and over her head for so long that the back of her neck felt raw. Her fingers were, too. They both looked and felt swollen, red and sore from sliding along the rough edges of her tether as she’d heaved and pulled to uproot the stake. Unfortunately, Tak’buh had pounded that thing so deeply that pull and yank though she tried, the stake remained steadfast. Her attempts at digging it out had resulted only in ten torn, broken and thoroughly dirty fingernails. She had three bloody fingertips before, dirty, sweaty and sore, Judy finally just gave up. She’d dropped into a disgruntled heap in the grass to sulk and watch as the world carried on around her, completely oblivious to her misery.

The old man gave a little shout and threw his ball. The little old woman missed the catch by almost a yard, and so Catch became Fetch as she toddled after it. The old man glanced across the street at Judy again, and then, after a quick indecisive look back at his own house, he started into the road.

Not sure she wanted to talk to anybody, much less someone who had so thoroughly and traitorously subjugated himself into a house pet, Judy nevertheless stood up to meet him. She was already at the end of her tether, and that was all the closer she could shorten the distance between them.

Having caught up to the ball, the old woman promptly dropped it again when she saw where her companion was heading. She clapped both hands across her mouth to keep from calling after him. Glancing nervously back at the open front door of their house, she started to follow him but ventured only as far as the edge of their lawn before stopping again. She kept her hands over her mouth, making no sound at all as he trotted across the road and jogged to a stop at the fence 35

closest to her.

“Hello,” he called, resting his hands lightly on the wire bars that surrounded Tak’buh’s well-manicured lawn. A faint smile hooked one corner of his mouth as he slipped his forearms through the square openings and leaned into it. “You must be new.”

“And you’re not,” she replied, more depressed than she was angry. How he could look so comfortable in his silly green clothes, and with that black collar around his neck just barely glimpsed behind the braids of his snow-white beard, was beyond her comprehension. Just looking at it, that black band with its golden license sparkling as it caught the brightness of the sun, made her own seem to burn and constrict where it gripped her throat. “You wear that really well.”

It was the coldest thing that she could think of to say, but he didn’t seem offended. He did, however, reach up to touch it, lightly tracing the medallion with his fingertips, before admitting,

“It takes some getting used to; I’m not saying it doesn’t. But,” he gestured to her baby-doll dress, “at least yours seems to want to take care of you. What does he want you to call him?”

“Tak’buh.” Angry as she was, the word had a sour flavor she had to fight not to spit from her mouth.

The old man’s smile became just a shade more crooked. “Papa.” She knew it.

Frowning, Judy shredded another blade of grass, her jaw clenching tightly as she fought to keep from exploding into an all out temper tantrum right here on the lawn.

“Even so, life here’s not so bad. Once you’ve had time to think about it, I’m sure you’ll—”

“Never,” Judy vowed. The promise was a useless one, and her hands began to tremble because of she knew it.

He knew it too, and his smile gentled sympathetically. “I said the same thing when I first came here. Forty-seven years later...” He spread his hands, encompassing the robe, the collar, the forest green ribbons that held the braids in his beard. “I know you’re going to ignore me because I did pretty much the same thing when I was new, but do yourself a favor and give your new Papa a chance. Try talking to him. It can’t hurt, and since you can’t go home, you don’t have much to lose by cooperating. Besides,” the humor in his eyes faded just a bit, though his smile never did, “you don’t want to find out firsthand how bad things could become if you let your pride and temper makes too difficult. I promise, bite the hand that feeds long enough or hard enough, and you very well might.”

A sharp whistle cut the air behind him, and he quickly turned to see his owner standing on the porch. The giant clapped his huge hands, calling the old man home with a cheerfulness that his alien face did not reflect.

“You’d better go,” she said bitterly. “Wouldn’t want for you to get into trouble.” The old man looked at her again and then shrugged. “Can’t say you weren’t warned.” He withdrew a step from the fence. “Think about it, though. Communication can make all the difference, I guarantee it.”

The alien clapped again, and the old man turned obediently for home. He didn’t exactly break into a run, but he did walk a little faster. The little old woman was already at the porch, the ball tucked under one arm and her hand clasped in her master’s. Belated as it was, the old 36

man’s obedience was rewarded with an affectionate pat on the head before the alien stepped aside and ushered them both inside. He then looked back across the street and, after staring at Judy for some time, followed his pets inside and closed the door.

Once more lowering herself to sit gingerly on the lawn, Judy drew her knees up to her chest and shredded blades of grass while she waited to be let back indoors.

Communication.

She frowned, glancing back over her shoulder once to find Tak’buh peeking back out at her.

His arms were folded across his chest, the length of one finger idly stroking beneath his lower lip as he considered her obvious unhappiness. As much as it grated her to think about cooperating with him in any way, there was no denying how totally, completely, dismally even all her defiance and protests to date had failed. What did she have to lose?

Tak’buh was only just turning away from the window when Judy made up her mind and stood up again. When waving her arms did not recapture his attention, she picked up one of the toys he’d left her with—a soft, plushie, multicolored ball with a rattle hidden within the stuffing—and threw it at the window. Her aim was spot on. If it weren’t for the glass, she’d have pegged the back of his head, but the sound of the ball bouncing off the window did exactly what it was supposed to. Tak’buh snapped back around, looking first at the glass, and then at her, and then coming right up to the sill, bracing his hands upon it as he tried to get close enough to see what she’d thrown.

He frowned and looked at her again. Another spanking lurked there in the depths of his dark eyes, but drawing a deep breath, Judy beckoned to him anyway. Ignoring the startled look that instantly crossed his face, she held out her arms—a grown woman in baby’s clothes, asking without words for Papa to pick her up. For the longest time, neither of them moved, but Judy didn’t drop her arms until he finally turned from the window and vanished from sight. He reappeared a half-minute later at the front door.

Watching as he crossed the yard and feeling like a traitor in her own skin, Judy nevertheless reached for him just as soon as he drew near enough to pick her up. He untied the rope, praising and cradling her as he carried her back indoors. It almost made her sick to admit it, but the old man was right: if ever she wanted to be seen as anything other than a wayward puppy to be leashed in the yard or a bad baby to be spanked and put into the nearest corner, then she was going to have to talk to Tak’buh.

37

Judy’s first forays into learning Papa’s language were a dismal failure. She spent two hours trying to get him to voice the names of everyday common household items or furniture, and so far all she got out of it was a smack on the hand for playing with things she shouldn’t and a flick on the nose when she protested the hand-smacks. Fifteen minutes were spent trying to get him to name her toys, but she gave that up when he only sat down across from her, fully intent on playing with those toys with her. Two minutes of coaxing him into identifying certain body parts resulted in a highly annoying twenty-minute spat of peek-a-boo, and after that, Judy was done. By the end of the day, she felt fairly comfortable with saying that she had no hidden linguistic talents whatsoever.

“Talk to me!” she finally erupted, batting away the teddy bear that he seemed perpetually inclined to shove into her arms. “Talk! Talk!” She raised her hand to her mouth, pantomiming words falling from her lips, only to be suddenly snatched up off the floor and rushed into the nearest bathroom where she was promptly suspended with her head hanging over the waiting toilet.

“I am not going to throw up,” she said dryly.

Papa kept her there anyway, held under one arm, her waist braced against his hip, her feet dangling a good eighteen inches off the floor and her long braids captured in his free hand, until he was absolutely sure she wasn’t going to be sick. Language lessons for the day ended with her facedown across his lap, her hands once more pinned behind her while he took her temperature via the wrong orifice entirely.

“I’m not sick!” she protested, helpless to do anything but lie there as he checked her temperature, then re-seated the thermometer firmly back inside her bottom and consulted that

‘How to Raise a Happy Human’ handbook of his yet again. He gave her an enema and a spoonful of pale blue and extremely foul-tasting medicine that left her shuddering, sputtering and coughing so enthusiastically that when he went to fix her a bottle, she not only snatched it right from his fingers, but she threw back her head and sucked vigorously to get it all down, swishing frequently in an effort to clear the medicine from her mouth. It was trading one extremely bad taste for another lesser one and she didn’t do it gracefully.