My music changed to “Spirits in the Material World” by the Police while Dopey shared his short, familiar tale of relationship woes with the guys, all of whom made sympathetic noises and kept him rolling. The song was clearly a clue, but I already knew that the superconsciousnesses were vapor, essentially, and that they were acting in the physical world.
Looked around at everything while Dopey got up and started giving the squirrels orders—in between continuing to share about him and Grumpy and how none of this was his fault but all hers—most of which related to making the animals that were in holding in the various bins alive. Didn’t look around in wonder, but in hopes of seeing if there was another spirit in here, maybe. Possibly Grumpy hanging about, or maybe Sandy. Nada.
But what I did note this particular time, now that I was accustomed to the weirdness—which now included the squirrels using small guns that truly looked like Super Soakers to shoot something into every one of the bins and seeing the animal shells in said bins wake up and leap out—was that it was all very fantastical, too bizarre and too ridiculous, and most of it seemed to have no actual effective purpose.
No normal adult would have created something like this. No crazy adult would have, either.
But a child might have.
CHAPTER 36
DOPEY WAS STILL LISTING Grumpy’s faults as the squirrels kept on spraying the whatever it was into the many bins and the pygmy elephants and tiny horses ran out of the room once they were brought to life. “Come with me if you want to live,” Dopey said, as he ran out after them. The squirrels stayed, doing their weird work. There were still a ton of bins they hadn’t gotten to yet.
“I’ll bet he’s been waiting a while to say that,” Chuckie said. “Do we follow him?”
“The hell with that,” Jeff replied. “We have people missing in here.”
“Do we split up or stay together?” Christopher asked.
“I’d suggest teams of two at least,” White replied. “We have no idea what’s actually going on and we need to ensure that Charles isn’t left here without an A-C.”
“Then Chuck’s with me and Kitty,” Jeff said.
My music changed to “Stay” by Oingo Boingo. Considered who all Algar wanted to stick around. Hoped I was interpreting it right.
“You guys go ahead.” They all stared at me. “Seriously. I need to think. I’ll stay here in the giant throne room where it might or might not be safe and you guys go forth. Find Oliver, Butler, and my pets. But hurry. Dopey leaving us to run away seems somewhat worrisome.”
Jeff opened his mouth to argue. Put up the paw. His mouth closed. I truly loved the One True FLOTUS Power. “I’m serious. I’ll be fine, but I need to think. And I think I need to stay here. Just . . . don’t be too long. And before you guys all start arguing, let’s be real—no matter what’s going on, it’s unlikely that we have a ton of time to waste.”
They left, unwillingly, and with White literally dragging Jeff out of the room. That left me and SuperBun staring at each other while the squirrels carried on and the elephants and horses leaped out to do whatever. Decided I needed to do what I’d told my men I wanted to—think. So I did.
And my thoughts were basically that this seemed like a child’s weird idea of a cool thing. Ergo, lead with that assumption.
So, did that mean that Dopey and Grumpy were children? Sandy seemed like all the other Powers That Be out there—old as dirt and just as much fun. But Sandy had had a lot more time with me, had chosen to wander and learn, and hadn’t—and this was probably key—chosen to fall in love with another of his kind.
Of course, I had no idea how superconciousnesses created. Maybe they fell in love, but based on what I’d learned from Sandy during Operation Defection Election, they didn’t. Ergo, falling in love was definitely an unusual thing to have happened.
Considered this point, but went back to the idea that Dopey was a kid. If Jamie had taken over a world, what would she have done? Maybe made herself Santa, because, as Dopey had said, Santa was a most benevolent figure, and even the most despotic liked to think of themselves as Kindly Protectors Of The People. Possibly she’d have taken animals she thought were really adorable and, perhaps, made them more her size.
Size. Chuckie had said that the perspective was all off.
My music changed again, this time to “No Such Thing” by John Mayer. Didn’t think Algar was telling me I was wrong, so listened carefully. The chorus was that there was no such thing as the real world, just a lie that John felt we all needed to rise above. And it was also sort of “set” in high school.
It wasn’t hard to guess that this world wasn’t “real” in the normal sense of the word. So much was clearly manufactured or created. So that was part of it, but not all.
If I went with the high school angle, it meant that the kid I should be thinking about was Lizzie. And teenagers were hella dramatic—God knew I got a dose of drama daily from Lizzie whether I needed it or not. Plus, they were more likely to fall in love and break up ugly.
Of course, little kids “fell in love,” too. So maybe that was what had caused the breakup—they were now older and their wants and needs had changed. Not that older people were immune to this—far from it—but the first real love and the first real breakup were always the worst in their own special way. And Dopey’s reactions and comments really seemed like first love gone badly.
So, what we were seeing likely wasn’t real and Dopey and Grumpy were probably teenagers by now, at least in terms of their new and improved superconsciousness lifespans. Wondered again if Bruno and Ginger saw this place differently. Possibly. That might be why they went with Oliver, or he went with them. Maybe he saw it differently through the camera’s lens, too. Perhaps the camera showed the world as it actually was, not as Dopey wanted it to be. In fact, perhaps that’s why SuperBun had demanded that Oliver come along and hadn’t complained about Ginger and Bruno joining us, either.
They weren’t nearby, and I wasn’t sure that I could trust SuperBun—rather, I wasn’t sure, even with all that was going on and being out of the room, that Dopey wasn’t monitoring SuperBun so closely that my talking to him would cause us all more problems. But I did have Poofs with me. And, potentially even better, someone who’d lived here for a while.
Reached into my purse and pulled Peter out. “What is it you see, when you look around?” I whispered to him.
He shuddered and cuddled into my breast. So, whatever it was, it wasn’t jolly. Shocker.
“I need to see it like you do. Can you help me do that?”
Peter closed his eyes and continued his terrified snuggling. But I could see what he saw now.