Kelly Link - Get in Trouble - Stories

“It’s not any of your business,” she said. “But thanks.”

“I thought we were better friends than this, Bunnatine.”

He was looking hurt.

“You’re still my best friend in the whole world,” she said. “I promise.”

“I love this place,” he said.

“Yeah. Me, too.” Only if he loved it so much, then why didn’t he ever stay? So busy saving the world, he couldn’t save the Land of Oz. Those poor Munchkins. Poor Bunnatine. They were almost out of beer.

He said, “So what are they up to? The developers? What are they plotting?”

“The usual. Tear everything down. Build condos.”

“And you don’t mind?”

“Of course I mind!” she said.

He said, “I always think it looks a lot more real now. The way it’s falling all to pieces. The way the Yellow Brick Road is disappearing. It makes it feel like Oz was a real place. Being abandoned makes you more real, you know?”

Beer turned him into Biscuit the philosopher-king. Another thing about beer. She had another beer to help with the philosophy. He had one, too.

She said, “Sometimes there are coyotes up here. Bears, too. The mutants. Once I saw a Sasquatch and two tiny Sasquatch babies.”

“No way.”

“And lots and lots of deer. Guys come up here in hunting season. When I catch ’em, they always make jokes about hunting Munchkins. I think they’re idiots to come up here with guns. Mutants don’t like guns.”

“Who does?” he said.

She said, “Remember Tweetsie Railroad? That rickety roller coaster? Remember how those guys dressed like toy-store Indians used to come onto the train?”

He said, “Fudge. Your mom would buy us fudge. Remember how we sat in the front row and there was that one showgirl? The one with the three-inch ruff of pubic hair sticking out the legs of her underwear? During the cancan?”

She said, “I don’t remember that!”

He leaned over her, nibbled on her neck. People were going to think she’d been attacked by a pod of squids. Little red sucker marks everywhere. She yawned.

He said, “Oh, come on! You remember! Your mom started laughing and couldn’t stop. There was a guy sitting right next to us and he kept taking pictures.”

She said, “How do you remember all this stuff? I kept a diary all through school, and I still don’t remember everything that you remember. Like, what I remember is how you wouldn’t speak to me for a week because I said I thought Atlas Shrugged was boring. How you told me the ending of The Empire Strikes Back before I saw it. ‘Hey, guess what? Darth Vader is Luke’s father!’ When I had the flu and you went without me?”

He said, “You didn’t believe me.”

“That’s not the point!”

“Yeah. I guess not. Sorry about that.”

“I miss that hat. The one with the pom-poms. Some drunk stole it out of my car.”

“I’ll buy you another one.”

“Don’t bother. It’s just I could fly better when I was wearing it.”

He said, “It’s not really flying. It’s more like hovering.”

“What, like leaping around like a pogo stick makes you special? Okay, so apparently it does. But you look like an idiot. Those enormous legs. That outfit. Anyone ever tell you that?”

“Why are you such a pain in the ass?”

“Why are you so mean? Why do you have to win every fight?”

“Why do you, Bunnatine? I have to win because I have to. I have to win. That’s my job. Everybody always wants me to be a nice guy. But I’m a good guy.”

“What’s the difference again?”

“A nice guy wouldn’t do this, Bunnatine. Or this.”

“Say you’re trapped in an apartment building. It’s on fire. You’re on the sixth floor. No, the tenth floor.”

She was still kind of stupid from the first demonstration. She said, “Hey! Put me down! You asshole! Come back! Where are you going? Are you going to leave me up here?”

“Hold on, Bunnatine. I’m coming back. I’m coming to save you. There. You can let go now.”

She held on to the branch like anything. The view was so beautiful she couldn’t stand it. You could almost ignore him, pretend you’d gotten up here all by yourself.

He kept jumping up. “Bunnatine. Let go.” He grabbed her wrist and yanked her off. She made herself as heavy as possible. The ground rushed up at them and she twisted, hard. Fell out of his arms.

“Bunnatine!” he said.

She caught herself a foot before she smacked into the ruins of the Yellow Brick Road.

“I’m fine,” she said, hovering. But she was better than fine! How beautiful it was from down here, too.

He looked so anxious. “God, Bunnatine, I’m sorry.” It made her want to laugh to see him so worried. She put her feet down gently. The whole world was made of glass, and the glass was full of champagne, and Bunnatine was a bubble, just flicking up and up and up.

She said, “Stop apologizing, okay? It was great! The look on your face. Being in the air like that. Come on, Biscuit, again! Do it again! I’ll let you do whatever you want this time.”

“You want me to do it again?” he said.

She felt just like a little kid. She said, “Do it again! Do it again!”

She shouldn’t have gotten in the car with him, of course. But he was just old pervy Potter and she had the upper hand. She explained how he was going to give her more money. He just sat there listening. He said they’d have to go to the bank. He drove her right through town, parked the car behind the Food Lion.

She wasn’t worried. She still had the upper hand. She said, “What’s up, pervert? Gonna do a little Dumpster diving?”

He was looking at her. He said, “How old are you?”

She said, “Fourteen.”

He said, “Old enough.”

“How come you left after high school? How come you always leave?”

He said, “How come you broke up with me in eleventh grade?”

“Don’t answer a question with a question. No one likes it when you do that.”

“Well, maybe that’s why I left. Because you’re always yelling at me.”

“You ignored me in high school. Like you were ashamed of me. I’ll see you later, Bunnatine. Quit it, Bunnatine. I’m busy. Didn’t you think I was cute? There were plenty of guys at school who thought I was cute.”

“They were all idiots.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that they were really idiots. Come on, you know you thought so, too.”

“Can we change the subject?”

“Okay.”

“It wasn’t that I was ashamed of you, Bunnatine. You were distracting. I was trying to keep my average up. Trying to learn something. Remember that time we were studying and you tore up all my notes and ate them?”

“I saw they still haven’t found that guy. That nutcase. The one who killed your parents.”

“No. They won’t.” He threw rocks at where the owl had been. Nailed that sorry, invisible, absent owl.

“Yeah?” she said. “Why not?”

“I took care of it. He wanted me to find him, you know? He just wanted to get my attention. That’s why you gotta be careful, Bunnatine. There are people out there who really don’t like me.”

“Your dad was a sweetheart. Always tipped twenty percent. A whole dollar if he was just getting coffee.”

“Yeah. I don’t want to talk about him, Bunnatine. Still hurts. You know?”

“Yeah. Sorry. So how’s your sister doing?”

“Okay. Still in Chicago. They’ve got a kid now. A little girl.”

“Yeah. I thought I heard that. Cute kid?”

“She looks like me, can you imagine? She seems okay, though. Normal.”

“Are we sitting in poison ivy?”

“No. Look. There’s a deer over there. Watching us.”

“When do you have to be at work?”