IF: Boundarylands Read online

  “There’s good news, and there’s bad news,” the princess was shouting from the front of the room. A large, rectangular table filled most of the space, and it was crammed full of important-looking businessmen and businesswomen sitting elbow-to-elbow and scribbling furiously on notepads. “The good news is...” She stopped and squinted into the back of the room. “Oh, come on, guys, it’s Bring the Kid to Work Day again?” She sighed deeply, but beckoned Polly and the others into the room. “Go on, find a space to stand, if you want. Yes, that’s it. Who are you,” she asked when the Stranger pushed through the door, “their caretaker?”

  “Unfortunately,” he grumbled.

  “Wonderful. A rodeo clown for the circus. All right, all right, you come in too, find a place to stand.”

  The Stranger joined the huddle of children in the corner of the room. He placed a hand on Polly’s shoulder. “We need to go,” he whispered. But she shrugged him off and pushed deeper into the crowded room.

  “As I was saying. Good news and bad news. The good news is, the annual income statement has been finalized, and Princess Lemon’s has netted a fafillion dollars!” A mighty round of applause erupted around the table. Polly didn’t know how much a fafillion dollars was, but it sounded like a lot. She clapped too.

  “Yes, for the tenth year in a row, we’ve made a fafillion dollars, making us the best and largest lemonade stand corporation in the whole world!” More applause followed. The princess let this play out a bit, then she raised her hands for silence.

  “But there’s some bad news, too. Looking at next year’s projections, well...I’ll just say it. We’re not going to hit a fafillion next year, not even close. Honestly, we’ll be lucky if we clear a kajillion.” A chorus of groans rose up from the employees. The princess nodded along empathetically.

  “How is that possible?” one man asked. “Aren’t people still going to drink lemonade next year?”

  “Yes, Peter, people will still drink lemonade next year.” She spoke with the weary patience of a schoolteacher. “People will always drink lemonade. It’s delicious, it’s thirst-quenching, and it’s nostalgic. The product is solid; that’s not the issue.”

  “Then what is?” someone piped up. Others murmured their support of this question.

  The princess raised her hands for quiet.

  “There are a handful of factors impacting our forecasts negatively. Melissa, can you get the lights, please?” A thin girl in glasses pushed back from the table and flipped the light switch by the door, plunging the room into darkness. The princess pulled a small remote from her pocket and pushed a button. A projector hanging from the ceiling whirred to life. “The failing economy is hitting us hard, no doubt about it,” she said. “Take a look at lemon prices over the last five years. Mostly steady, with a slight increase, an average of 3% per year. It’s been more or less in line with inflation. But look at next year.” She motioned toward the far end of the line graph. “Prices are projected to increase by 17%. That’s factoring in the per pound lemon price and inventory transport, and doesn’t include sugar processing, packaging, or delivery, either. So it could go even higher.” She clicked the remote, and the line graph was replaced by a pie chart. “People don’t want to pay as much for lemonade. When times are good, people will pay a dollar, maybe a dollar-fifty for a cup, no problem. Look at the portion of our sellers who were able to sell one unit of lemonade for a dollar-fifty in the last three months.” She pointed to the tiniest sliver of the pie chart. “Less than 2%. Another 5% sold at a dollar, 14% sold at 75 cents, and 18% sold at 50 cents. Now look at this.” She waved her hand over the remainder of the pie. “61% of our sellers had to price their units at less than 50 cents each.” There was an audible gasp from the men and women around the table. “Our profit margins are bad.” She clicked the remote again, and another line graph appeared, this one starting high and dipping low. “This is the average temperature for our biggest sales regions. According to the almanac, we’re in for record lows. Amy…what’s the ideal temperature for drinking lemonade?”

  The woman named Amy flipped through her notebook. “Ah...give me a second, here...our research says...ahm...86 degrees,” she announced.

  “86 degrees. The typical average for this time of year is about 89. But our current forecast shows an average of just 74 degrees—well below the ideal temperature. Certainly there will be warm days in there, but the almanac has been pretty reliable, and in a few months a lot of our stands will have to close for the season.” She clicked off the projector and motioned for Melissa to turn the lights back on. “So, ladies and gentlemen,” she continued, planting her fists on the table and leaning over them. “We need ideas. Or the simple truth is, we’ll be looking at over a gajillion layoffs by winter.”

  The table exploded in gasps and whispers. A gajillion layoffs? How could it be true? A zillion, maybe, or a meggitymillion, tops. But a gajillion?

  One man near the end of the table fainted and fell right out of his chair.

  “People! People!” the princess shouted, clapping her hands loudly. “Ideas! Let’s hear ’em!”

  The room fell silent. Most of the people took a sudden interest in their thumbs and the particular way in which they twiddled. A few cleared their throats as if they might speak, but backed out at the last moment. One man even went so far as to raise his hand, but then apparently thought better and lowered it again.

  “Well?” the princess demanded.

  “We could offer more colors,” one woman suggested.

  The princess shook her head. “Colors don’t test well. Pink performs, eh—so-so,” she said, wiggling her hand, “but green, red, purple, blue...all the other colors are non-starters. They make people nervous.”

  “What about different flavors?” a man near the front asked. “Appleade, orangeade, grapeade, pineappleade?”

  “You mean apple juice, orange juice, grape juice, pineapple juice?” she asked, arching her eyebrows like it pained her to speak to such a terrible idea. The man’s cheeks flamed red. He shrank back and started doodling importantly in his notebook.

  “Maybe it’s the sales team,” another man suggested. “The kids running those stands, they’re...well, they’re just kids.”

  “You want to replace them with adults?”

  “Well, not just any adults. Seasoned salesmen. Right?” he added uncertainly, looking around the table for support. But his co-workers only increased their concentration on their thumbs.

  The princess beckoned him with a finger. “Come up here,” she said.

  The man pointed to his own chest, as if to say, Me?

  She nodded.

  He pushed back his chair and rose from it slowly, beads of sweat already popping out on his forehead. He approached the front of the room cautiously and finally came to a full stop four feet away from her. He turned his body to the side a little, as if she might take a swing at him. Instead, though, she gave him a wave.

  “Hi. I’m a grown woman pulling down five figures a year. I have a mortgage, a husband who’s okay at chores, three kids, two dogs, and a stack of credit card bills thicker than a phonebook. I fired the kid who used to run this stand, and now, instead of working at headquarters on Seventh Avenue, I’m standing behind this cardboard box selling tiny cups of lemonade at a 1,000% mark-up. Wanna buy some?” she asked, holding out a small, imaginary cup of lemonade. The man flinched a little, but didn’t respond. “Well? Do you? Do you want to buy lemonade from me?”

  “No,” he admitted sheepishly. “Not really.”

  “No. You don’t.” The man turned to slink back to his seat, but the princess stopped him. “Wait a second.” She pushed up onto her tiptoes and craned her neck over the crowd at the table so she could see the children in the corner. “You there! Blondie. Come up here for a second, will you?”

  Emma, who had been about to take a bite of another éclair, froze. She dropped the p
astry onto the thin, corporate carpet. Her mouth, which had opened in delectable anticipation, remained that way, even as she said, “Who, me?”

  “Yes, you. Come on up. Please,” the princess added, giving her best I’m-not-a-mother-but-I-understand-that-children-respond-to-kindness smile. Emma stepped forward slowly, her eyes darting back and forth between the princess and the working stiffs at the table. She took a wide turn when she reached the front of the room, skirting around the man who stood helplessly in his expensive loafers, and came to a tentative halt near the leader of the group. “There we are,” the princess chirped. She bent down and whispered into Emma’s ear. The little girl nodded, but looked a little confused all the same.

  “Why didn’t she call me up there?” Polly huffed, stamping her foot. “I’m the princess!”

  Admittedly, Emma looked less than regal as she listened to the princess’ instructions. She pushed rapidly from one foot to the other and tugged nervously at the hem of her shirt.

  When the princess was finished, she plucked a plastic cup off the table and walked over to a small, decorative tree standing in a large pot in the corner of the room. She bent down and shoveled some dirt into the cup. She came back and handed the dirt cup to Emma. Emma looked up at her for confirmation, and the princess smirked down at her and nodded. Emma shrugged and approached the gentleman standing at the front of the room.

  “Excuse me,” she said, her voice soft and quavering. Her eyes were round and moist with not-quite-tears of fear. She lifted up the cup of dirt with both hands; her shirt pulled up a bit, revealing her tummy. “Would you buy this dirt, please?” she asked.

  The man’s mouth turned to water and quivered on his face. His cheeks got wobbly, and his eyes practically gushed from his eye sockets. “Of course I will, little girl,” he said in his best I’m-a-father-and-am-completely-helpless-against-this-trickery voice. He jingled some coins in his pocket. “How much?”

  Again, Emma looked at the princess, and the woman held up three fingers and nodded. “Three dollars?” she said shyly.

  The man flinched at this, but he reached for his wallet all the same. He searched through it and in the end pulled out a single bill. “All I have is a five. Is that okay?” Emma nodded, and he handed her the money in exchange for the cup of dirt. Emma’s eyes lit up as she stared at the bill. Five whole dollars!

  “And that is why we will never, ever replace our sales team, Johnson. Now sit down and drink your dirt.”

  “Excuse me,” Polly said, storming up to the front of the room. She’d had enough. The princess whirled around and raised an eyebrow in the child’s direction. “Are you really Princess Lemon?”

  The woman laughed. It was a surprising sound, more of a gravelly bark than a proper chuckle. Cole guessed she didn’t get much practice with it. “No, dear. Princess Lemon is old, sitting on a beach somewhere with a drink in her hand and a crown on her head. I’m just a member of the court.”

  Polly’s face fell. This woman was nothing more than a common servant! And Polly had followed her like a lovesick puppy. The idea of it! The very idea! “You should take off that crown,” she said sourly, pointing to the sparkly pin. “It’s a lie.”

  The woman who was no more than a servant sighed. “It usually is, kiddo. It usually is.” Polly stomped back to her friends in the back. Emma was still gaping at her brand new five-dollar bill. The woman clapped her hands to get everyone’s focus back on the problem at hand.

  “What else, people? What else? Because if we don’t find a solution here, at least twenty percent of you will be homeless for the holidays.” Her eyes had taken on a mad gleam. “Someone tell me how we’re going to sell more lemonade. Someone please tell me how we’re going to get people to drink more lemonade!”

  Emma snapped out of her reverie and glanced up at the woman. “Give them cookies,” she suggested.

  The woman furrowed her brow and looked down at the little girl. “Excuse me?”

  “Give them cookies,” she repeated. “Cookies make you thirsty.”

  The servant woman straightened up and crossed her arms. “Interesting...”

  One of the men at the table raised a finger. “Cookies make you thirsty, sure, but they’re best with milk. Everyone knows that. Cookies and lemonade...they just don’t go together. Sorry, little girl, it was a nice idea, but it just won’t work.”

  But Emma shook her head. “Not coconut cookies,” she said.

  “Coconut cookies?” the man asked uncertainly.

  Emma nodded. “Chocolate chip cookies go with milk,” she explained, ticking the list off on her fingers, “cinnamon raisin cookies go with chocolate milk, peppermint cookies go with hot chocolate, spice cookies go with apple juice, and coconut cookies go with lemonade.”

  The woman with the princess pin stood amazed, her mouth hanging slack. “You know,” she mused slowly, “coconut cookies would pair well with lemonade. Now that’s an idea.”

  The man started to protest. “No one’s going to want cookies with their—”

  “Out,” the woman said, cutting him off.

  The man rocked backward, as if he’d been physically struck. “Out?” he asked.

  “Out, get out. You’re wrong, and I don’t want to listen to you anymore. Out.”

  The man gasped, but he gathered his things and headed for the door.

  The woman continued: “Cookies would offer a complementary expansion to our line.”

  “Cookies would double the cost of production,” one woman said.

  “But we could charge three times as much for them. And the more cookies they eat, the more lemonade they’ll need to drink. This could increase lemonade consumption by at least, what, 30 percent? Forty? And even if we make only an additional fifty cents net revenue per cookie sold...and I think we’d make more, but even at fifty cents more...we’d be able to avoid layoffs altogether! And maybe even top a fafillion dollars next year!” A series of cheers went up around the table.

  Emma clapped happily. The other children looked at each other, uncertain of what exactly had just happened. The Stranger checked in on the map and frowned at the distance they still had yet to travel. They needed to leave, and soon. But he was willing to give Emma a little bit more time in her triumph. He got the sense that she needed it. He got the sense that all the kids might end up needing something like it.

  “We’ll need a name for these cookies,” the woman continued. “Something catchy.”

  “Lemon buddies?” someone suggested.

  “Coconutties,” someone else offered.

  “King Coconut!” Emma cried. The woman snapped her fingers and pointed at the little girl.

  “That’s it. Not King Coconut, but...Coconut King Cookies! Princess Lemon’s Coconut King Cookies!” She winked at Emma, and Emma smiled bashfully back. The woman nodded at an empty chair. “Have a seat, you little genius,” she said, “and tell us what else you’ve got.”

  An Interlude

  He watches with satisfaction as Zeus slinks away with his tail between his legs. Once the Master of Olympus, once the King of the Gods, he has now been brought low before the Royal. They’re petty, these feelings of triumph, and he knows this. Even so…he enjoys them.

  It’s not every day he gets to break a god.

  Zeus and his merry band of has-beens won’t be the first Deletion. The actual process is currently little more than theory, and it will take several tries to get it right. And he wants it to be right when he wipes the Olympians from the face of the Boundarylands. Once the system is tested and perfected, the Olympians will be the first to go publicly. The Royal has come to understand that fear is power, and the Deletion of Olympus will make him more powerful than ever.

  He savors the feel of that phrase in his mind. Deletion of Olympus.

  But Deletion is months, perhaps years, perhaps eons away. Time is difficult to pin down, and th
ere are other matters that require his more immediate attention.

  He beckons Roark with a nod, and the faithful servant steps forward. “Yes, Majesty?”

  “There are children in the realm.” His words are blunt, but he does not like to waste them if he can help it. And anyway, these particular words have their desired impact. Roark turns a ghostly pallor.

  “Children? In the Boundarylands? Who are they?”

  “They’re at the edge of the Boundary, still near the Way Station, not yet near enough for me to see their faces. But they are coming.”

  “Here, Majesty?” Roark appears as if he might be sick. The Royal nods. “How shall I deal with them?” the good servant asks.

  The Royal smiles, a crooked twist of the lips that slashes his face like a scar. It is horrible to look upon, and he can see Roark struggle to keep from averting his eyes. “Send the Scabs.”

  “The Scabs,” Roark says, a small smile of his own playing across his lips. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  Chapter 6:

  On the Imperative Nature of Dental Propriety

  Dr. Mandrill rapped his knuckles on the weathered counter board and looked doubtfully into the kiosk. The old crow was nowhere to be seen. He sighed and rubbed the side of his taut belly, a habit he’d fallen into since his gut became a paunch. Not that one would say Dr. Mandrill was a fat man; he had a belly, yes, but he was tall, with broad shoulders, and what weight he gained, he carried well, and on a much thinner man’s legs.

  He leaned forward and inspected the stall. The counter creaked and groaned under his weight. If she’s not here, I’ll send one of the nurses back with a sickle probe, he decided, in the same manner that any other man might decide to have potatoes with dinner rather than peas.

  He knocked again. “Hellooooo,” he called. His voice was powerful, but blunted somehow, softened, like the voice of God through a thundercloud. “Someone rang the doctor?”