The Color Of Her Panties (10 page)

“Well, everyone knows that-” Gwenny began.

“No, dear.  I do not want anyone's answer.  I want your answer.”

Gwenny began to show a bit of righteous rebellion.  “My answer is that it is a conspiracy by adults to make children miserable!” she said.

“Because-”

“No, do not tell why.  Just what.”

“Anything that really interests children, the adults deny.

Like all the good words that can make plants wilt and dry grass burst into fire, and the ones that curse-burrs respect.

And anything about how to summon the stork.  And they make children eat awful things, like castor oil and broccoli, instead of the good things like cake and candy.  And they won't let any boy child see anyone's panties, even if they're really pretty panties.  Or any girl child see what a boy's got instead of panties.  And they make children go to bed early, when they're not sleepy.  Things like that.”

The Adult nodded with distant tolerance.  That reminded Che of another adultish annoyance:  they seldom praised a child's efforts unless it was insincere, such as saying “Very good!” when the child succeeded in choking down a nauseating brussels sprout.  She turned to Jenny.

“Identify yourself.”

“I am Jennifer Elf from the World of Two Moons.”

“Jennifer, why is the Adult Conspiracy?”

“What?” Jenny asked, startled.

“Not what, dear, why.” The Adult was insufferably patronizing, but that was normal.

“I don't know why adults want to make children miserable!” Jenny exclaimed angrily.  “Maybe they're jealous of our open minds and sunny dispositions.  It's not that way where I come from.”

The Adult frowned.  “You can do better than that, dear, I'm sure.”

There it was again, Che thought:  the Adult was twisting things around, not accepting the obvious answer.  Adults always preferred to be devious.

But Jenny tried.  “Well, I can tell you why it might be, if adults really cared about children.  There might be something dangerous that might hurt children, so the adults try to keep children away from it.

Like maybe those words of power:  if a child said one in a straw house, it could set the house on fire, and the family would lose its home.”

Che and Gwenny looked at her, astonished.  She was making sense!  There might actually be reason for a small part of the Conspiracy, though of course that did not justify the rest of it.

“And?” the Adult inquired in that uncomfortably prodding way they had.

“And about eating the bad stuff-it's supposed to be nutritious,” Jenny continued.  “Candy-it tastes good, but after a while it can pall, and maybe it is not as good for the body as it seems.” She was evidently remembering their tummy aches of last night.  “So the adults try to keep children from getting into trouble by eating too much of the wrong things.  And about going to bed early.  I did feel better when I got a good night's sleep, instead of when I didn't get enough because of staying up late pillow-fighting.” She looked apologetically at the other two.  “And about not knowing how to summon the stork-I suppose there could be a problem if children started doing it, because they wouldn't be ready to take care of babies.  I mean, it's fun seeing a baby once in a while, but I wouldn't want to have to take care of it all the time.

And suppose a child got a baby, just for fun, and then got tired of it?

That would be pretty bad for the baby.”

Che was amazed.  Jenny's alien upbringing in the World of Two Moons must be telling; she had actually made it seem as if there were a sensible reason for the Conspiracy.

Still “And the panties?” the Adult prodded.

“Well, I really don't know about them, but maybe they have something to do with the stork.“ Jenny paused, trying to work it out.  “It seems that adults maybe really like summoning the stork, and they feel more like it if they see panties, and maybe children would feel like it too if they saw panties, and they might stumble onto the secret, so they have to be protected from that too.”

“That will do, Jennifer.” Again that contemptuous dismissal.  The gaze swung across to pin Che again.  “Identify yourself.”

“I am Che Centaur, of the Winged Monsters.”

“Do you agree with the Adult Conspiracy?”

Che knew that the correct answer was Yes.  But he was tired of being browbeaten by adult attitudes.  It was time to make a stand.  So he ventured into dangerous territory.

“No.”

“Elucidate.”

If the Adult thought he wouldn't know the word, she would be disappointed.  She wanted his reasons?  Well, he might as well get into a lot of trouble, as long as he was traveling that route.  “Maybe the adults think they have a reason for keeping things from children and making them do things for their own good.  But I think that's the wrong way to do it.  Children should get good information and good experience, so they can grow to be responsible when they finally have to be adults.

If saying a bad word starts a fire, then they should be warned about that, so they know not to set the house afire.  And if too much candy makes a bellyache, they should be told, and allowed to try it, and after they see that it's true, they won't do it again.

If not getting enough sleep makes children feel bad the next day, they should be allowed to try it until they find out how much sleep is best.

They don't need to have adults deciding for them all the time.”

He paused, afraid the Adult was going to lift her monstrous foot and squish him to nothing.  But she merely sat there listening.  “And?” she prompted.

“And about summoning the stork-well, I think that even a small child wouldn't want to hurt a baby.  So if children were taught how to summon the stork, but also told how important it is to take care of the babies, and that they would have to do that instead of going out to play whenever they wanted to, I think most of them wouldn't do it.  The few who did do it-well, my sire says that folk do have to take the consequences of their actions, and I think that's fair for children too.

So I think children should be educated completely, about both actions and consequences, and then allowed to do what they wish.  I don't think any Adult Conspiracy is needed-if adults take the trouble to teach their children properly.”

He stopped talking, waiting for the dread verdict that he had answered incorrectly, so that they would not be allowed to see the Good Magician.

Yet it wasn't in him to falsify; it wasn't the centaur way.

The Adult's gaze scared across the two girls.  “Do you agree?”

Gwenny and Jenny exchanged yet another glance.  they fidgeted.

“Well?” the Adult demanded in that warning tone.

“Well, yes, I guess,” Gwenny said with understandable reluctance.

“You actually approve of giving such information to children?” the Adult said with that this-is-your-last-chance attitude.

“Yes,” Jenny agreed.  “I don't care what you think, he's making sense.”

“And you too, Gwendolyn?” It was the verge of doom.

“Yes!” Gwenny said recklessly.

“And you are prepared to face the consequences of your attitude?” The gaze managed to transfix all three of them simultaneously.

They were in too deep to escape.  They nodded with foolhardy bravery.

“Then you are about to join the Adult Conspiracy,” the Adult said.  She reached somewhere far away and brought back two dolls.  Each was the size of one of the girls.  She set them down on the floor before the three of them.  “Show me how these figures would summon the stork.”

“But we don't know that!” Gwenny protested.

“Don't you?”

“Of course we don't!” Jenny said.

“Are you sure?”

The girls looked wildly at Che.  “I think she wants us to figure it out,” he said.  “It's our punishment for agreeing that we don't agree with the Adult Conspiracy.  My punishment, really, only since you support me, you must share it.”

They glanced up at the Adult, but she remained impassive.  Somehow that was more frightening than whatever they had expected from her.  They glanced at the dolls, which were male and female.

“Well, if I want to be chief, I'd better learn how to figure things out,” Gwenny decided.  “I think I do have half a hint about it-maybe I mean half a brother.  My little brother Gobble Goblin is-well, my father Gouty got together with a woman who wasn't my mother to summon the stork, and the stork brought Gobble.  So from that I know that folk don't have to be married to do it; they can do it even when they're not married, and when it's wrong.

They don't have to be in love, either; my father never loved anyone.

Just so long as there's a male and a female.

It must be a purely physical thing.”

“Yet there should be love,” Jenny said.  “I don't think the World of Two Moons is different from Xanth in this respect.  We don't have storks bring the babies, but I never was clear on the exact delivery system.  I just knew that if two people love each other enough, a baby could come.

I think that if they can't love each other at least some, they can't get a baby.”

“I have of course seen centaurs mate,” Che said.  “Our kind does not use storks, I think because our foals are too heavy for them to carry.  Yet we have partial human heritage.  I wonder whether the human mode of summoning the stork could be parallel in any way?”

Gwenny picked up the girl doll, who didn't have any clothes.  “If these were centaurs, what would they do to get a baby?  “

Che picked up the similarly bare boy doll.  “I think they would get close together, like this.” He put the male doll beside the female doll.

“But we were closer than that when we pretended to apologize,” the goblin girl pointed out.

“Not in one detail,” he said.

“What detail?” Jenny asked.

He poked around with the dolls.  “This one, I think.”

The two girls stared.  “But-” Gwenny said.

“But-” Jenny echoed.

“Maybe it is different, with centaurs,” Che said.

“It's disgusting,” Gwenny said.

“Not to centaurs.” But he was shaken.  Could it be?

They stared some more.  “Maybe it is possible,”

Gwenny said.  “But can that be all?”

Che shrugged.  “With centaurs, it seems to be enough.”

“No wonder they keep it secret!” Jenny said.

“No wonder!” Gwenny echoed, giggling.

Then they were all laughing.  But it was the mirth of embarrassment tinged with shame.  They had never suspected that the Adult Conspiracy concealed something like this.

“I think we had better keep the secret, after all,” she said after they subsided.

The two girls nodded.  Both were blushing, which suggested that they were just as uncomfortable about this as he was.

The giant Adult faded away.  Where she had been was an open hallway leading into the main part of the castle.

Sammy got up and stretched, his nap done.

It seemed that they had surmounted the challenge, and could now meet with the Good Magician.  But at what a price?  Their innocence was gone.

Ida was a foundling.  She appeared as a baby one day near Faun Mountain, and a nymph carried her back to Nymph Valley.  The other nymphs made a great fuss over her, and brought her milkweed pods to nurse on, and set her in a nice bed of leaves and flowers.

But it was evident that she was not a nymph.  She was a human baby that the stork must have misdelivered or lost.  A neighboring otterbee spied her there, and swam back to his fellows.  “She otterbe with us for the night,” he said.  “So she won't forget, the way the nymphs do.”

They agreed, for otterbees were good creatures who never shirked a task.

So as dusk closed and the nymphs lost interest, they took the baby and swam with her across the marsh to their warm nest, and made her comfortable there.  In this manner they protected her from the night magic of the nymphs and fauns, and allowed her to remember her prior days.

However, some damage had already been done, and the baby did not remember very much anyway.  But after several years her memory improved, and as she grew through normal child and girl and young woman stages she was able to remember most of her life back to about the age of three or four.  Now she understood that she must not stay the night in Nymph Valley, though she enjoyed spending her days there.  Of course because she was not a nymph she did not indulge in nymphly activities with fauns.  She was satisfied just to watch them having their fun.  She did however swim with the otterbees, who were creatures of the water and shore who also were happy in their fashion.

“She otterbe educated in the human fashion,” the otterbees decided.  So they prevailed on an itinerant centaur named Cerebral to give her lessons in the human mode.

(For some reason centaur scholars did not wander, they were itinerant, but it meant much the same thing).  In this manner Ida learned to speak human speech, and to don human apparel, and to brush her hair.  She no longer ran around bare the way the nymphs did.  She regretted that, but the centaur tutor was very firm about the importance of maintaining the conventions of one's kind, and he knew more than all of the fauns, nymphs, and otterbees combined, so she had to do it.

She came to appreciate the liabilities of nymphly status.

Some other creatures preyed on fauns and nymphs.  Sometimes an ogre would stomp by, pick up a screaming nymph, and bite off her head.  That stopped her screaming, and he would then carry her away for a more leisurely repast, chewing as he went.  Nymphs did not like that very well.  Sometimes a dragon would slither through, chomp a faun in half, and swallow the pieces.  If it happened to be a fire-breathing dragon, it would toast the faun first.  Fauns were not too keen on that.  But the following day it was as if nothing had happened; the fauns and nymphs frolicked as before, never missing the chomped ones.  Ida tried to tell them about such events, but they did not believe her, because they could not remember anything beyond the one day.  After a while Ida realized that they were perhaps better off that way.  What was the point in moping about bad memories?  Still, it bothered her.  “There otterbe a better way,” she muttered.

“There is a better way,” Cerebral informed her.  “The human way.  Fauns and nymphs are chained to the present, as are animals, creatures of the moment.  But humans remember and reflect, almost in the manner of centaurs, and are therefore superior.  Remember that, for there will be a pop quiz.”

Thus did Ida learn what set her kind apart from other creatures.  She did remember, and she passed the quiz, and was duly rewarded with some pop from Lake Tsoda Popka.

Cerebral believed in the salutary effect of incentives.  This meant, in normal terms, that good things came for learning.  Ida would never admit it, of course, but she found learning fun for its own sake.  There was just so much to know, and it was fascinating.

When she came to be twenty-one years old, according to the judgment of the centaur, who had looked at her teeth, the otterbees decided that she otterbe on her way to find her destiny.  “We love your company,” they told her, “but we are only animals, while you are a human being. You deserve better things.”

Ida wasn't sure about that, for the otterbees seemed like very deserving creatures to her.  So she asked Cerebral.

“Unfortunately it is true,” he replied.  “You are no more an otterbee than you are a nymph, and you must not allow your horizons to be limited by theirs.  You must seek your destiny among your own kind.”

“But I don't even know where my kind are!” she protested.  “Where is there a Man Mountain or a Woman Valley?  “

“I know of no such artifacts of terrain,” the centaur admitted.  “Perhaps you should seek instead the castle of the Good Magician, who I understand is back in business at this time, and inquire about your destiny.”

“He was out of business?” she asked, slightly curious.

“For several years.  But then the castle became active again, under new auspices.  Of course there may be a certain difficulty locating and entering it, and you may be required to do a year's service for the Magician in return for an Answer to your Question.  However, there are those who believe this to be worthwhile despite the difficulty and Cost.”

Ida had learned that the Cerebral was not necessarily expressing the opinions he seemed to be.  He had the didactic manner she assumed was common to his kind.  Didactics never spoke directly and simply.  “Do you believe this to be worthwhile for me?”

He considered, for he was never so incautious as to express a thoughtless opinion.  He had once suffered a bout of hoof-in-mouth disease, and been exiled from centaur association.  That was why he was available for tutoring her.  He no longer put his hoof in his mouth, but remained excruciatingly careful.  “Yes, other things being equivalent, I suspect it is.”

So Ida set out for the Good Magician's castle.  She carried with her a small magic purse the otterbees had given her, which contained her formal clothing, a hairbrush, and a change of unmentionables as well as a magic sandwich in case she got hungry.  She wore a bracelet which protected her from harm by any other creature.  These were things the fauns and nymphs had found, and the otterbees had rescued from being forgotten.  The otterbees were not covetous; they merely saved things until they could be used as they otterbe.

She bid a sad farewell to the otterbees, fearing that she would never be as happy away from these good creatures as with them.  She knew she would always have a liking for ponds and mudflats and sandy shores.  Then she set foot on the path leading to unknown Central Xanth.

At first the way was reasonably familiar, because she had poked all through this region during the past two decades or so.  She knew which side paths to avoid because they led to tangle trees or dragons' lairs, and which fruits not to eat, such as choke cherries.  But the farther she went the less familiar things became, until she was in strange territory.

She came to a fork in the path.  Which way was best?

She couldn't decide, but she didn't want to dawdle.  She was no longer in Nymph Valley, where dawdling was a way of life.  Furthermore, she needed to pause for an unmentionable function and wasn't sure whether that counted as dawdling.  One of the odd things about the centaur tutor was that he handled his own functions in a completely open manner, yet insisted that she as a human being should pretend that no such functions existed.  This was the human way, he said, and she had to emulate human ways so as to be able to associate with her own kind, in due course.

Then a goblin came down one of the forks.  Ida had an idea.  Goblins were not the nicest of folk, but they could be helpful if approached in just the right manner.  Maybe she could ask him where the best place for the unmentionable was, and if he gave a good answer for that, she could ask him which fork was best.

“Hey, burp-nose, where's the worst place to do something unmentionable?” she asked.

The goblin looked at her, then around at the scenery.

“Over behind that bush,” he said, pointing.

So Ida went behind the bush.  Then something happened.  “Eeeek! “ she screamed in the manner the centaur had prescribed for maidens, which was how he classified her.

She marched angrily back to the path, where the goblin stoically waited.

“That bush tickled me!” she said.

“Naturally.  It's a tickleberry bush!”

“But I asked you the worst place to go.  You were supposed to lie,” she said indignantly.

“I did lie,” he replied.  “The worst place is that gooseberry bush over there.”

Ida thought about that, and decided that the goblin had after all been true to his nature.  “Then what's the worse path of these two?” she asked, indicating the fork.

The goblin considered.  “That's hard to answer.”

“Why?  All you have to do is lie about the better path.”

“But they are equally bad.”

That meant equally good.  “Very well, I withdraw the question.  Get lost, snot-head.”

The goblin, evidently charmed by her courtesy, resumed his walk down the path.

So her idea had worked out.  Often they did.  But probably she owed most of whatever success she achieved to Cerebral's apt instruction.  She had had the idea that he would be the best possible instructor when she first saw him, and that had been amply vindicated.  In ordinary words, that meant he had been good.

She set off down the right path, because she didn't want to take the wrong path.  She had confidence that it would take her where she was going.

Indeed, it took her to a quaint little old cottage, just as dusk threatened to overtake her.  Maybe there would be a sweet little old housewife inside who had a room to spare for the night and a warm pot of stew on the hearth.

Ida knocked on the door.  It opened, and there was the grandmotherly woman.  “Why, I was hoping for a nice young traveler to use my spare room tonight,” the woman said.  “Come in, dear, and have some warm stew.”

Ida came in, gratefully.  “Your house was in just the right place,” she said.  “I was hoping I wouldn't have to sleep out in the forest.”

“Are you a quiet sleeper?”

“No, I toss and turn all night.  I'm hyperactive.” That was the centaur's word for her restlessness.

“Wonderful!“

It turned out that the old woman's old husband had gone on a trip to the market, and would be back with a basket of beans on the morrow.

Meanwhile the house was quiet, and the old woman wasn't used to that.

She wanted to be able to hear that there was someone else in the house with her, especially when it was dark.

After supper they sat by the fire and exchanged news.

Fortunately the old woman never left her house and yard, and Ida had never been away from her home vicinity before, so neither of them had very much news to exchange.

Ida was tired and the old woman never stayed up late, so they both went to their rooms to sleep, contented.

But as Ida changed into her nightdress and lay down, she suffered a qualm.  Qualms were clamlike thoughts that lay at the watery bottom of consciousness and only showed up when the water got very quiet and clear, as happened when a person was trying to drift off to sleep.

Suppose, the qualm inquired, all was not quite as it seemed?  Could the nice little old woman have some unnice secret she wasn't telling that would make mischief for her guest?  Ida didn't like that notion, but couldn't quite expunge it.  (Expunge, in human terms, meant to get rid of something.  Sometimes she mopped up spilled milk with an old expunge).  She was concerned about what the darkness might reveal.

Sure enough, the moment she blew out the candle a ghost loomed up.

“Hoooo!” it cried airily, flapping its sheet tails.

Ida squirmed down under the covers.  “It's only meeee,” she replied apologetically.

The ghost seemed embarrassed.  “I beg your pardon!  I mistook you for the dirty old man.”

“Dirty?”

“He never washes his feet.  They get the sheets all messed up.  I can't stand to see sheets abused.  So I haunt him.” The ghost reflected for a moment, before the mirror.  “How are your feet?”

“My feet are clean,” Ida said.  She poked a foot out from under the sheets.  “Maidens are supposed to have dainty feet, so I try to conform.”

The ghost examined them.  “You're right.  Those are very clean, dainty, maidenly feet.  When will the dirty old man be back?”

“Tomorrow, I think.”

“Then until tomorrow-” The ghost faded out.

Relieved, Ida settled down to sleep.  She was so glad it had turned out to be a nice ghost.

In the morning she mentioned the matter to the old woman.  “Did you know you have a ghost?”

“A ghost?  I thought it was a hussy!  He's a dirty old man, you know.”

“Yes.  His feet get the sheets dirty, and the ghost doesn't like that.”

“Well, I'll make him wash his feet!” the old woman said.  “I don't like dirty sheets either.”

After a nice breakfast of beans porridge, Ida resumed her walk along the path.  She wondered what she would have encountered along the other path.  She was almost tempted to go back and take the other one, just to find out, but restrained herself.  After all, the sooner she found the Good Magician's castle, the sooner she would know her destiny.  She hoped it was a nice one, for she was a nice girl.

The path did not lead directly to the castle, however.  It led to a dragon's lair.  Ida almost stepped into it before she realized.

She backed away.  As a general rule, dragons' lairs were not good places to be, for those who were not of the dragon persuasion.  Now she would have to return to take the other path, though it was a rather long walk.

At least she would satisfy her curiosity about it.

Then the shadow of a dragon fell, and after it the dragon himself.  He had coincidentally cut off Ida's escape.  “Well, now,” the dragon said.

“Allow me to introduce myself.  I am Dragoman Dragon.  What have we here?”

“Nothing but a delicate maiden,” Ida replied truthfully.

“And do you know what I do with delicate maidens?”

Ida had a notion, because of her memories of the dragons who had poached nymphs from Nymph Valley.  But she knew that her magic bracelet would protect her from harm.  “I think you shall have to let this one go, for you cannot harm me.”