TVA BABY and Other Stories (8 page)

Yo Mom

I have the Game Room all to my self. All the other kids are dead, even Estelle. They are in a pile in the corner. It doesn’t smell so good any more. This Gameboy is cool tho, I hope I get to keep it when Pirate Week is over. The batteries are mine anyway. They are from Aunt Beas hair do thing. Well good night from your loving son —

Hi mom

Good news! I have been rescued. It was scary at first but only for awhile. I fell asleep at the computer last night and when I woke up all the Pirates were gone. It was awful quiet and when I ran out there were just a few dead people left on the decks. It was kind of sad after all the Plundering and Pillaging, like at the movie when the show is over and everybody stands up. The ship was leaning pretty bad and it was hard to walk, but I held on to the rail. There were still a lot of fingers and stuff. Pirates never clean up! The front of the ship was burning and the smoke smelled like hair, so I went to the back to wait, called the stern. Sure enough, the helcopters came back, and a boat too. The sailers wore sailer suits and they told me I was a hero. Two of them wore wet suits. My picture will be in the paper I bet. Im writing this from the computer room in the Navy ship. There going to bring me home on a Navy helcopter!

Yo Bug

Im writing this from the computer room in the Navy ship. Its like the Game Room only better. You wouldnt believe the stuff they have! The Navy guys are nice but I like the Pirates better. The greaf countsler took my necklace away but it was turning black anyway. She let me keep my Pirate hat. I didnt show her Curtises nose in my pocket. She has been trying to make me cry. No luck so far!

I will see you at the Capetown airport tomorrow. Tell dad to come to. My greaf countsler says I am a survivor. Thats like a hero. Well all be on TV so tell dad to come to. Ill wear my Pirate hat and the Johnny Depp mask that Claude gave me. Tell Unc and Aunt Bea thanks if you see them before I do. Im sorry they didnt have fun. I could tell they didnt. Wait till you see my Gameboy. Your loving son —

“Captain Jack Sparrow” (Yo ho ho)

E
verybody collects something, even if it’s only stamps.

Or dreams.

Orville collected stamps. His big brother, Wilbur, collected dreams.

That made it hard to know what to get Wilbur for his birthday. He would be twelve soon.

Then Orville saw the magazine.
WONDER TALES for BOYS
. The perfect thing for a dreamer!

“Happy Birthday,” he said.

Wilbur loved it. It was filled with stories about submarines and flying machines. He hoped he could get his little brother, Orville, something half so nice. He would be eight in a few months.

Wilbur looked through the little ads in the back of the magazine. They were for novelties of all kinds: invisible ink, handshake buzzers, secret signal whistles.

Then he saw the ad for STAMPS FROM THE FUTURE.

“Perfect,” he said to himself. He ordered them for Orville’s birthday—which was in the future, after all!

They came just in time. “Happy birthday,” Wilbur said.

Orville tried to hide his disappointment. He only liked real stamps, and these were just gag fakes. Plus there were only four of them.

One stamp showed a man called Elvis. He was pouting like a girl.

Another showed a Negro with a baseball bat. Nobody ever put Negroes on stamps.

Another was of a woman without a crown. Real stamps only showed women when they were queens.

Another showed …

“Hey, this is neat!” said Orville. Suddenly he was excited. “How did you do this?”

“Do what?” asked Wilbur.

Orville handed him the stamp. It showed two grown men in stiff collars with a box kite behind them.

The two men looked familiar.

Underneath them, it said: The Wright Brothers.

“This,” said Orville.

“I didn’t do it,” said Wilbur. “I just sent for STAMPS FROM THE FUTURE. It was a novelty ad. I didn’t tell them what to send.”

“Maybe they’re really from the future,” said Orville. His voice sounded spooky.

“That’s impossible,” said Wilbur.

Orville shrugged. “You always told me that nothing was impossible,” he said. “Maybe you and I are famous in the future.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Wilbur. “For what?”

Then Wilbur looked at the stamp more closely.

There was a man lying flat on the box kite behind the grown-up Wilbur and Oliver. He was flying through the air.

Maybe I was right, thought Wilbur. Maybe nothing is impossible, after all.

“I can’t wait to show this to my friends,” said Orville.

“Not yet,” said Wilbur. “Put it away for a few years. You and I have work to do.”

L
ou was almost thirty. He had a job and an apartment, but he was lonely. He didn’t have any friends. He didn’t know why; he just didn’t.

So he did what everyone who is lonely does: YouTube and eBay. One day it was eBay.

“Say, look at this!” he murmured. Lou often murmured to himself.

CRIMESTOPPERS™ VIDEO CAMERA
Catch ‘em in the Act!
BUY IT NOW: 19.95
Brand New in Box.
Batteries Included.
One to a Customer
Shipping, 4.99

That didn’t seem like all that much. The shipping wasn’t bad either. That’s usually where they get you. So Lou did what every lonely person with PayPal does. He clicked on BUY.

Four days later, it came. It was about the size of a cell phone, with a little viewscreen that folded out to one side.

It only had two buttons: SHOOT and PLAY. Not a lot of features. But the price was right.

Lou pointed it at his cat and looked in the viewscreen.

There was the cat. The picture in the viewscreen was black and white, with a little Date&Time display at the top. It was even grainy, like a real surveillance video.

Cool! Lou pressed SHOOT.

The cat took a crap in the corner, and then left the room, looking like a criminal. But cats always look like criminals.

Lou pressed PLAY. There it was again in the viewscreen: the cat, the crap, the corner, in grainy black and white, with Date&Time at the top:
04/18/2008/8:44 p.m
.

The cat slunk off and the screen went blank.

Lou hit PLAY and watched it again.

“Cool,” he murmured.

It was time to try it out in the real world. There was a Seven-Eleven only blocks away.

It was empty. Lou went in and wandered to the back of the store. He looked through the viewscreen and scanned the scene, from the beer case in the back to the Pakistani clerk reading a magazine behind the counter. He looked pretty bored.

Lou hit SHOOT. The Pakistani clerk looked up from his magazine toward the cash register. He hit NO SALE and took a bill out the cash register and stuck it in his shirt pocket.
04/18/2008/8:58 p.m
.

Lou hit PLAY and watched him do it again. It was a five.

Cool
, thought Lou. He looked around the store through the viewscreen. In grainy black and white, with the Date&Time display, it looked like a crime scene. But Seven-Elevens all look like crime scenes. What it needed was more people.

A black guy came in for Salems and a lottery ticket. Lou got him in the viewscreen and was just about to press SHOOT when the black guy turned and looked straight at him.