Munmun Read online

  “Is this an insane and crazy place to work,” I said.

  “Half the time, it’s wonderfull,” she said.

  “What about the other half,” I said.

  “Don’t worry about that half if you don’t have to,” she winked.

  Finally the tub was ready, empty but with the hoses hooked up and everything, and it all went as planned, the bankers handed me a thimble of bitter tea with scalemeds, hummed and sang quiet banksongs while I sipped it, then they left the room.

  Hanging on a hook was my future robe, a robe for someone halfscale, huge to my little eyes.

  I stripped naked and left my old clothes on the ground. The tubdoor opened and I walked out into the middle and lay down on my back.

  The tubdoor closed, I was one lonely grape in a bowl. The lights cooled, dimmed, died, and I was in blackness.

  Warm jelly crept up to me, touched my fingers, calves, sides, slid under me, and lifted me up into Dreamworld.

  DREAMWORLD

  But it wasn’t Dreamworld, or else it was but everyone was awake, or dead, because it was a Dreamworld for only me, alone.

  I swam up through the ground from the underbank and saw a stadium above me. But a little one like a toy, I was already huge. I hooped through it like a dolphin but no one was there, big or little, no one in the stands or streets.

  I was big and blowing up bigger and bigger like a balloon, the strangest feeling, everyone knows in Dreamworld you can’t change your size.

  But I was huger every minute in the empty city. I plucked houses off the hills like fruit, rolled myself in cloud, stepped off the coast to pinch and drag some islands, bit the sun. No one saw me, no one stopped me, no one helped.

  Soon I was so big, I graduated through the sky and was in the ink of space, the worldplanet shrinking into me like a melting stone. I tried to make more dreamstuff, a world I couldn’t outgrow, tried to dream a huger earth under my feet, but all I could do was touch and grab the stuff that was already there, drizzly comets, powdery stars.

  Warner, I said soundlessly, can you not control your dreamstuff or what, what’s the freaking problem, plunge out of the sky and back into Lossy Indica like an amazing bird, readysetgo, but no Lossy Indica appeared below me, no Yewess even.

  So I reached out and started pulling the guts out of this nothingness around me.

  There was groaning and whispering and in my fists was something that wasn’t nothing, almost but notquite, wisps, strands, vapors.

  Creaking, crying, slipping ripping, outerspace was an unlit underground room and the walls were paper, I was straining them, stressing them, little gills of light breathed through.

  I reached through one, grabbed either side, tried just tearing it open like a box.

  “Oh no,” said outerspace.

  I got an elbow in there, really jammed it around.

  “No no no,” yelled outerspace. “Nope.”

  But I stuck my head through.

  “Help,” cried outerspace, but it wasn’t outerspace, it was a horrified banker in the white windowless underbank, and right about then, the lights came on.

  LIFEANDDEATHWORLD

  I woke up in a littletub, in a littleroom, alone, crazy with thirst and hunger.

  But it wasn’t a littletub, it was the same middletub as the one I fell asleep in, same middleroom too, I was just fivetimes bigger.

  I gasped like a fish, trying to fill my roomy lungs.

  “Do you mind if we come in and help you adjust,” asked a banker over the pee ay, and I could only nod, couldn’t use my voice.

  The bankers came in and my heart jumped to see them shrunk to just twice as big as me, littlepoor allofasudden. Except they weren’t, Warner they’re still middlescale, you’re just bigger now, halfscale, middlepoor, you lucky idiot.

  I flailed my big numb arms, grayed from bloodlessness, asleep and wobbly.

  The bankers handed me a bottle of water so small it fit in my hands, except it wasn’t small, I was just bigger, bigenough to hold waterbottles now, my thoughts kept hiccuping.

  I drank it so fast I choked. I gripped the bottle, crinkled its thin plastic, felt like a oneyard god. I stood up in the bankers’ arms, tried to fall down, the bankers wouldn’t let me. They toweled me off, kept me on my feet, walked me into the robe on the wall, now my size exactly. They gave me another bottle of water and some powerbars and I drank and ate like an animal, sloppy and desperate.

  We practiced standing, walking, it took an hour to figure out the ground under my feet, the feeling of being in a fivetimes shrunkdown space.

  I saw my old clothes on the floor, reached down, picked them up, and that’s when I started crying, harder than ever before, dirty little dollrags that used to fit my body, the clothes of sad little previous me.

  It was like Prayer said. The most normal boring things felt amazing. Walking, breathing, talking, nottalking and just making sounds with your throat. Touching things, holding them. Everything in my hands had incredible textures. Wallpaper, plastics, rubbers, clothing. When you’re littlepoor, the threads of fabrics are ropes a lot of times, nothing really soft about it. But when you have middlehands to hold them they melt together into fantastic softness.

  On the drive home we ordered fried chickens and Kitty handed me a wing, the entire wing of a chicken, and I bit through the crinkly bready skin and into the slippery wingmuscle all in one bite, first time in my life, and a beautifull warmth filled my mouth, salt, juice, herbsandspices, I shrieked through closed lips.

  “What did you eat growing up?” Kitty wanted to know.

  For some reason I felt like I had to joke, play it cool, be normal, Warner, nothing amazing has happened and definitely don’t burst into tears.

  “Oh, same same,” I told her. “My family raised littlechickens.”

  “What?” said Dawn. “Littlechickens? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “Sure, littlechickens on our littlefarm,” I said, trying to joke, more just babbling. “With littlecows and littledogs. Littlehorses in the littlebarn.”

  Dawn moved her lips, repeating me silently, watching the road, Kitty watched me with the pretty eye a littlebit wall.

  “You’re joking,” guessed Dawn in a laughless voice.

  “No joke,” I blurted. “We used to fry up littlechickens just like this everyday on our littlefarm, littlefarm on a littlemountain, on a littleisland, a whole littleworld that middleriches don’t know about, so little you can’t even see it unfortunately, wish you could.”

  Kitty said, “Yeah, Mom, he’s joking.”

  “That is funny, hahaha,” agreed Dawn, trying to laugh afterthefact.

  “Sorry, I won’t ask you questions about your old littlelife if you don’t want,” Kitty whispered a little later.

  “Nono, it’s okay,” I said, she didn’t though and I was glad.

  Prayer was waiting for me on the steps of Hue Family Palace, old toobig clothes hanging loosely off the shoulders of my divorced sis, flyswatter arms dangling out of the folds.

  Ofcourse it was an emotional scene, tons of crying, hugging, laughcrying, a little just plain regular laughing, grouphugging with Kitty’s legs to tell her, we know you’re responsible and you did all of this, therefore thanks.

  With my sis around it was a little easier for me to get weepy in front of Kitty and Dawn, we thanked them a million times.

  “Well, thank Warner too, dontforget,” Kitty made sure to tell Prayer.

  “Noneed,” I said, “are you kidding, I’m required to share everything with my sis, otherwise she slaps my face.”

  But Kitty didn’t laugh, just grimaced with that scrunchy mouth, in our house we’re not huge fans of faceslapping.

  “No, Warner, forreal thankyou so much, bro, I’ll never be able to thank you enough,” said Prayer hastefully.

  “Okay sure, I’m the best,” I agreed.

  We didn’t really have space to catch up, instead Kitty toured us around the giant echoless rooms. Everywhere was tapestries an
d rugs, curtains, wallcarpet. My voice felt huge in my throat, but outside of my head it was still shadowless, flat.

  The steps and furniture were middlerichscale obviously, but fitted out for middlepoor use also, middlesteps and stepstools and footladders off to one side of everything, pretty little pieces of mahogany, cedar, copper, glasstic.

  “Is this all for us,” I asked.

  “Oh no no, we’ve hosted middlepoors before,” explained Kitty. “Kids on scholarship for med school and tech school. My dad really tries to be a cityboss for all citizens of Almanac, not just the riches in Wet but also the poors down in Eat, so he spends lots of time down there, touring schools and giving prizes to kids who aren’t screwups.”

  Immediately I felt a little less special.

  “How long do you host kids for,” Prayer asked.

  “Usually a year,” she said.

  In addition to less special I began to feel panic.

  “We’ll make it a good year for sure,” I announced.

  “Oh hey, no no no, don’t worry,” she said. “You’ll be here as long as you need. With you guys it’s my program too, not just my dad’s, he knows you’re different.”

  “We really appreciate that,” Prayer said, wide real smile saying, bytheway, I mean it.

  Again I felt gratefull for having the sis there, it took atleast half the pressure off to have the proper reactions, probably more than half really.

  There were two dogs, huge fat saintbernards, Welfargo and Cittibang. We rode them like horses through the yard until they collapsed, then we lay with them in a deathheap.

  Rules of the house were pretty simple:

  —here’s your key, only your hand can activate it, that’s for security reasons

  —familydinner is at seven and everyone has to be in their seats ontime, it’s been a problem sometimes for past houseguests, I would say even fiveminutes early is best

  —you can go back out after dinner but curfew is eleven, we have pretty strict curfew too and that’s also been a problem for past houseguests, one had a secret career dancing in bellyclubs, Dad had to kick him out, actually he’s still doing it because I check his feed sometimes and he seems super happy, belly’s looking good too

  —here are all the locations of the guns, extinguishers, bombs, floodhoses, panicdoors, backup generators, hey don’t look so worried, the last terrorattack in Wet was five years ago almost, we’re much more nervous about fires tobehonest

  —Mom and Dad are on the topfloor, kids are on the secondfloor, you two are inbetween floors in this middleroom we had specially created for middleguests, kitchen dining hosting on the firstfloor, theater gym and practicerooms in the basement, bunker in the subbasement, we don’t give guests the bunkercode and I’m really sorry about that

  —here’s a foldphone for each of you, sorry it’s so basic, limited dataplan but it’s not really an issue because a foldphone can’t really use most kinds of data, try not to open vids or gifs though, again I’m sorry, yours as long as you stay with us

  —I know I already said about dinner but it’s a pretty bigdeal, we do take it seriously and you just don’t want my dad to start thinking you don’t want to be here, so, just remember, fiveminutes to seven

  Surenough all four Hue Family Kids were in their seats a few minutes before dinner and so were Prayer and me, gazing around at these pictureperfect modelcitizens.

  Older brother Hueagain was nineteen, in med school, a nice quiet strong guy waking up early to go for runs or lift weights. Studied hard, first in his class, rarely talked, usually just smiled a funny painfull smile, the smile of true kindness but also definitely a little fear in there.

  Older sister Daisy was sevteen, highschool senior. Dawn liked to talk about the extreme genius Daisy used to be in her early years, doing advanced sciences, animating cartoons, threedee printing her own crazy dreamscapes. But mysteriously this superchild blossomed into a normal sullen teenager, always in her room being irritated by her terrible siblings.

  Younger sister Kitty was fifteen, my age, sopmore. Kitty was dad Hue’s favorite for sure. Did Kitty love being dad’s favorite?, yup, bigtime.

  Younger brother Tony was thirteen, wore suits, combed hair, clearly wished he was dad’s favorite and not stupid Kitty, modeled himself after dad completely but got the details a little wrong, a little exaggerated, told more nervous jokes than dad, laughed more when nothing was funny, worried more about whether you liked him. So actually for Hue it was probably like having a little clown running around the house, pretending to be you, except the dumb pathetic version.

  But whatdoyouexpect, he’s a kid, maybe he’ll turn out okay, sure hope so because this kid needs to chill.

  “I had a shallwesay refreshing exchange with some Oranges in class today,” Tony announced at my first familydinner. He meant kids with Orange Party beliefs, enemy of Hue’s party the Yellows.

  “I bet you did,” said Hue, immediately also saying, “Warner, Prayer, thank you for being prompt, as you can perhaps tell it’s important to us to have familydinner together everynight, and here’s why. A major problem for bigger middles is that with all of our vids and tech, we forget to make time for each other. So familydinner is a time to check in, be together, and remember what’s truly important in life.”

  “That is really lovely, and you guys are valuing the right things in life forsure,” agreed Prayer.

  “Warner, Prayer, Dad, the exchange was shallwesay refreshing, because as I was defeating them with arguments, they sprayed me with refreshing juice,” explained Tony.

  “Okay,” said Hue. “Warner, how was your first day at your new scale? How was Scale Up and everything?”

  “Great, amazing, forsure,” I said.

  I felt timid and small, so I made a silence and Tony jumped in.

  “It’s like, nicework, geniuses!” said Tony. “Now you have less juice.”

  “Not your best story, Tony,” said Hueagain through a mouth of porkthighs.

  “Warner, Prayer, you should know that Hue was born middlepoor, infact below halfscale until he was a teenager,” Dawn told me. “So he knows what it’s like to scale up majorly in life.”

  “Oh wow,” Prayer said.

  “Dang, noway,” I said.

  “Yes, it’s true,” said Hue. “My dad was a plumber and my mom sewed business shirts. So I know from personal experience that here in the Yewess, our scale doesn’t limit our potenchill. That’s the Yewess I know.”

  Daisy made a grumpy throatnoise, immediately got a deathstare from her mom.

  “But another thing I know,” continued Hue, “is we need to work harder at creating opportunities for poors, forsure. And too many riches and middles don’t think poors can take advantage of opportunities. So Warner, Prayer, you’re here because you deserve a second chance, sure, but also because I think you two can help me prove them wrong.”

  “Dad, okay,” said Daisy.

  “Daisy, we have guests,” said Dawn.

  “No kidding, Mom, we literally always have guests,” snapped Daisy, as Kitty made sad smiling eyes at me of, please forgive my sister, the jerk.

  “I really don’t understand why you insist on behaving this way,” said Dawn.

  “What I don’t understand is why Dad has to give a stumpspeech at dinner for an audience of his own freaking family, plus two nervous speechless kids Kitty met hanging around the jail and dragged here because she needs everyone to like her because she’s basically Girl Dad,” said Daisy.

  “Whaaaaaat, over the line,” chuckled Hueagain painfully, meanwhile Hue murmured, “Okay, Daisy,” in a different voice from before, softer sadder family voice, also with the sympathetic face of, my poor tragic daughter, maybe one morning she will wake up and no longer be a sociopath.

  “Prayer wasn’t in jail, just me, Prayer was busy being married to a crusty freaking jerk,” I corrected nervously.

  “You should think about hanging around a jail, Daisy,” suggested Kitty. “Then maybe someone would final
ly like you.”

  “Ohmygod, are you even listening to yourself,” cried Daisy.

  “Daisy, it’s never okay to attack poor Kitty,” defended Tony, “anyway if anyone’s similar to Dad I would say it’s either me or Hueagain, except he’s in med school and I’m more into politics, so, process of illumination, me.”

  “Everyone, silence,” yelled Dawn. “Daisy, I need you to apologize to Warner and Prayer immediately.”

  Daisy locked eyes with me, then Prayer, then me again, not even angry.

  “Warner, Prayer, I’m sorry,” she said, getting up. “I’m sorry my jerky family wants you to be campainprops.”

  “That is not how anyone sees you, obviously,” explained Kitty after Daisy left.

  “As a little girl she was completely different,” Dawn wanted us to know.

  Tony’s dumb words were the ones echoing in my head though, never okay to attack poor Kitty, what does that mean, didn’t ask though.

  DREAMWORLD

  In the special cozy halfscale bedroom Prayer and I finally got to catch up, huddling and whispering. My voice still felt like a monster’s boom to me but Prayer assured me it was still quiet and small.

  “You’re just not used to being halfscale yet, trustme, they can’t hear us outside the room,” she soothed.

  Her day with Hue actually was prettygood. She said Hue seemed to like her, made a point of telling her how polite she was and wellbehaved and even charming, made it clear to her though that he really hoped she applied herself in the days and weeks and months to come.

  “Kitty doesn’t really want me here so I need her dad on my side,” strategized Prayer.

  “Whaaaat, that’s crazy, ofcourse Kitty wants you here,” I lied.

  “Bro, comeon,” said Prayer.

  “Why do you think she doesn’t want you,” I asked. Prayer made a big shrug and eyeroll, whoknows, actually I do probably know, judging from this enormous shrug and eyeroll, but I’m not going to tell you, why don’t you just change the subject.

  So I asked her if she was sad about her dead marriage, nononono, she whipped her head toandfro, if I never see Paddy again it’s toosoon.