Each day was an improvement for Poly. She spent six, seven hours a day practicing. At first she was sure it was annoying me. She offered to move to one of the rim staterooms. I begged her not to. Usually it was scales, arpeggios; finger exercises. Studies for the student. But notes flew into the air and I drank them in, even the simplest, most monotonous run. I seldom saw her when she practiced. The sound came through the open window of her tree house, and each sweet tone soothed me.
At the end of a session, when we would usually share a sumptuous picnic prepared by the ship's gourmet-chef program, she would come alive describing her day's progress. Her skills were returning faster than she had been led to believe, faster than she had dared hope. She was starting to think she might even be ready to play professionally by the time we got to Luna. Most of the time I had no idea what she was talking about. To tell the truth, she had sounded just fine to me on the first day of practice. I have what I consider a good ear. I can carry a tune; Lord knows, I've sung in enough musical theater. But you don't need a perfect voice to sing what have become known as "Broadway" musicals. In fact, you don't even have to have a "good" voice, as long as you can belt it out and not hit sour notes. The genre is famous for its scratchy altos and "singers" who do more speaking than singing. But I know the difference between the sort of music I can make and that made by a real professional musician. I know most ears are not tuned to the fineness needed to distinguish a good performance from a work of genius. Poly has that sort of ear. You have to have it if you expect to move in the circles she aspires to, which, for now, would be concertmaster with a middling philharmonic orchestra. First chair with the King City Symphony, solo work... that would have to await more experience and maturity.
So things are well with Poly. A little sex would brighten my day, but so far she hasn't responded to my hints. I don't intend to push her.
The other thing going on involves Toby, and I blush to bring it up. Toby has lost his mind.
From the moment the two tigers, Shere Khan and Hobbes, padded into the galley Toby had been absolutely gaga over Shere Khan. It was love at first sight.
When humans have sex with animals they call it bestiality. What is it when one species have sex with another species? Hybridization, I think. Didn't I hear that a donkey and a mule can have sex and produce... a horse? Somehow I don't think I got that right. Maybe it's a donkey and an ass. Maybe I don't know what the heck I'm talking about.
Not that sex was involved here. You could call it puppy love, I guess. Toby began following Shere (which is what we called her, though Kipling's Shere Khan was a male tiger, I believe) with his tongue hanging out. When she would sit down somewhere, take a nap—which tigers can do up to about twenty hours a day—Toby would be there, climbing up on her striped flank, licking her behind the ears, on the muzzle, around the jaw; anywhere he could reach. For a few days Shere kept casting dubious glances at him. When she looked at me I swear she seemed embarrassed. But eventually she settled into it. Soon she began to purr, and to drift off to sleep with an extremely satisfied look on her savage face. Then Toby would walk in a tight circle for a while, like dogs do, and nestle himself into the curve of her neck, tuck his head down around his belly, and doze. If she stirred he was instantly up, ready to follow her anywhere.
Hobbes was a different story. There's no other way to describe him than a great big pussycat. Shere Khan bullied him mercilessly, and he didn't seem to mind. She stole his food; he just went to get more for himself. If he tried a romantic approach she would roar a warning, and he would put his ears back and slink away while Toby yapped at him, as indecently pleased as any dog in the history of the world, I think. The big sissy would never assert himself. It's true she outweighed him by about a hundred pounds, but really!
"Pussy-whipped," Poly would observe, then go over and scratch him behind the ears. What that said about the human condition, or about our situation in particular, I don't even want to guess.
So the days pass, Poly fiddles, Toby moons, I fish, and we're coming up on Jupiter. Why we have to go by way of Jupiter I don't know, but it promises to be quite an event.
LAST STAND IN NEVERLAND
Part One of a Series
by Hildy Johnson
It's the biggest party I've ever been to, and I've been to some big ones.
The guest of honor arrives on the back of a live brontosaurus.
What shall we call him now? For years we've all called him Sparky. Just Sparky, and that was enough. Like Elvis. All that time his real name has been Kenneth Valentine, but who knew? The fact was seldom mentioned in the billions of pages written about him, in the thousands of hours of tape, of paparazzi shots stolen through very long lenses. Little Kenny Valentine has been as thoroughly immersed in the part of good ol' wire-haired, zigzag-headed Sparky as any actor in history. There were times when, if you'd asked him his real name, he would have stared blankly at you, and then thought it over for a moment, like somebody trying to recall someone met many years ago, and only briefly. And Sparky was always a child of action, not reflection. He would give you his wonderful grin, then move along.
But Sparky has decided to grow up.
Now there's a phrase. Maybe you've heard it before, but it wasn't meant literally. How do you "decide to grow up"? What is it about your thirtieth year that makes you decide "Well, that's enough of childhood. Time to do that old adult thing."? The Sparky show is doing as well as it ever has, consistently in the top five. Generation after generation seems to find the little moppet irresistible. There's no real reason why the show can't go on for another twenty years. Forty years. Hell, who knows? Not only that, but the Valentine family and corporation have parlayed the bucketloads of money into an entertainment empire far beyond the dreams of the modest production company, Thimble Theater, that gave it birth. So why quit? Could it be that little Kenneth Valentine wants to... learn to act?
Well, sure, he acted as Sparky. Won some awards. But though you earn a trillion dollars and the admiration of your peers in the children's entertainment industry, though you stand at the pinnacle of your profession and do what you do better than anyone has ever done it before, there is respect, and there is respect. Nobody with wiry hair and no pants has ever earned respect in the realm of "legitimate theater." No one ever will. And Sparky... sorry, Kenneth Valentine comes from a distinguished theatrical family. His father, John, is a thespian to the soles of his feet, which were planted on the boards while still in his swaddling clothes. (Some say this was shortly after he was laid in a manger... at least according to John Valentine.) Kenneth's upbringing was no less classical. It is said he knows the Shakespearean oeuvre by heart. Every line from every play. Can it be that such an education will forever produce nothing more than the best children's series ever made?
Not if John Valentine has anything to say about it. And John Valentine has plenty to say, take my word for it.
More about that later.
The dinosaur's name is Nessie. Over her back is a glorious brocaded drape in gold and purple. Strapped around her middle is a structure you'd have to call howdah, after the platforms usually borne on the backs of elephants, but this one is five stories high, with two levels depending on each side of the beast. On Nessie's back are three more stories, including a pointed gazebo on the very top. Maybe two dozen actors cling to the railings and scamper up and down the ladders and staircases, all in festive costume. Nessie lumbers on, oblivious, her red-rimmed eyes indicating to anyone knowledgeable about these creatures that she's high as a kite on a double dose of reptile tranquilizer. I know for a fact that a cherry bomb exploding two feet into her anal canal wouldn't even make her blink. (Your humble narrator had a rather wayward childhood on her mother's bronto ranch.)