A Penny in Time Chapter 6: R-E-S-P-E-C-T (part 2)
“Well,” he sighed, “perhaps we may have to come to a compromise. Let me propose this: I shall call you Dusty, and you may call me,” he paused and squinted, but I think beneath the pained expression might have been a glint of humor, “Mr. D only,” and he emphasized it again, “only when we are by ourselves. It is especially important for you to remember this when we come before the Perfect Council. Do we have an agreement?”
“Sure,” I stuck my hand out and we shook on it. “Now, we’d better get some food for Yugo. He’s awfully hungry.”
Mr. D bristled. “I cannot. We must wait for the Perfect Decision.”
“Mr. D,” I felt an upsurge of anger that swept away all the cobwebs from my head, “Yugo’s fate will be decided whether or not he has a full stomach. I wouldn’t let you go hungry. You talk about ‘the way things are, the way things must be’, but have you no sense of what is right or wrong?”
Yugo really perked up while I made my speech and punctuated my sentences with sharp squeals. Mr. D appeared rather stunned, like he had been frozen for a couple of centuries in the same spot. He must have considered what I said, because his face thawed into a smile.
“I believe there might be something that the misbegotten could ingest. Come with me to my house.”
I didn’t see that we had much choice, whether or not to go to Mr. D’s house or back to the desert. This is the sort of situation you never want to try to explain to your parents, how sometimes you know you’re not supposed to do something, but you don’t have much of a choice, or if you have, you don’t know it.
I think Yugo must have been telling me that it was all right, because I got a sense of being in the right place at the right time. Although I thought it pretty strange that I was here, thinking about right time and place. Some of our immediate problems were taken care of, like we were inside the city, not out, so we were some place, not lost, and we at least had the promise of being fed and sheltered. I would really rather be at home, where I know it would be no problem taking care of Yugo or myself, for that matter. If I want unreasonable, I have my Dad.
We were the only ones walking along the quiet, empty streets. Rows of houses bordered the sidewalks, spaced like a perfectly planted garden of lettuce heads all in a row. “Where are all the others, Mr. D?”
“Oh, childling,” he chuckled, “everyone has a place to be and is there. There is no reason for anyone to be about at this time.”
“Is it day or night, Mr. D?” Yugo was asleep again and I could swear he had grown in just the short time we had been here.
“It is,” he answered, then added, probably because I looked like I felt, annoyed, “one and the same, here. There is no change of season, either.”
“I see.” Inside, I recoiled at the thought of sameness, the color of gray. Yugo stirred but did not awaken.
We walked on, up one, then down another sidewalk, like we were in a brightly lit maze winding through the city, until we stopped in front of one drab, medium-sized house that looked exactly like the other beside it, with one tree per patch of brownish front lawn.
“How do you know which house is yours, Mr. D?” I asked, not even trying to disguise my disgust.
“Why, I’ve always lived here! Third house from the last, the right side of the street. Simple.” He motioned me to enter, and before the door shut behind us, I got a quick look at the etched nameplate on the door, “Mr. dIAmand” in small, block letters.
“Oh, boy,” I looked around, not the least surprised that the living room had an easy chair, one couch, a coffee table, with no magazines or clutter anywhere, and each visible room had the same off-white walls with light green fabric curtains pulled neatly in two halves from the windows. “Nice place you’ve got here, Mr. D.” I plopped down on the couch and let Yugo burrow beside me.
“Yes, well, thank you. I shall be back momentarily with food for Yugo. If you’ll excuse me.”
“Sure, and thanks!” I called after him as he hurried to the kitchen. Mr. D didn’t seem all that stuffy now that we were here at his house, almost like he was happy to have us staying with him. Maybe he had really wanted to do the right thing and take care of Yugo, but didn’t want, or couldn’t, put himself in the position to be responsible for that kind of decision. I had no idea what it was going to be like before the Perfect Council, but I made up my mind I wasn’t going to let it scare me, or make me do what I knew wasn’t right. Of course, I didn’t like to think too much about what ‘they’ could make me do; I had some ugly images of blood, gore and torture. But surely, this space and place was civilized, or so I hoped. Then I looked down at Yugo, softly sleeping against my leg, and questioned how these beings could throw away their own babies and not care for them. Maybe ‘they’ wouldn’t care if I was a kid or not, no rules need apply here about what’s fair or decent or right. I only prayed that I knew what I was doing when it came time to stand up and face the Perfect Council. I was sure that Mr. D wouldn’t or couldn’t offer much more assistance, and since Yugo was the problem, he sure couldn’t do much in the way of helping.
Mr. D came back into the living room with a huge glass of thick, chalky stuff that smelled a lot like my old tennis shoes. “I’m sorry to say that’s all I have for him.”
Maybe to change the subject quickly, he blurted, “I have been informed that soon we will go before the Perfect Council, Eliz…Dusty.” He sat down in the easy chair, clasping his hands together and shaking his fur to lay smooth. “They have agreed to meet in six hours.”
“Why so long, why can’t we get it over with sooner?” I had difficulty getting the milkshake fast enough into Yugo’s demanding mouth. He slurped and gurgled while I tried not to slop any of it onto the couch, let alone worry about what was getting on me. I was going to look real nice after this feeding, just perfect enough to go before the Council.
“Oh, no sooner! Everyone will want to attend and hear the outcome. It has become a major issue, and we will be very anxious to know the decision concerning the misbegottens. It will affect us all, one way or the other.” For a moment, Mr. D lost his smile and I had a flash of misgiving. “This has created a great deal of talk amongst us, you bringing the misbe…Yugo, here inside the city. I don’t think it will be an easy decision for the Council. No,” he stood and paced between the dining room and living room, “I don’t think this is going to be easy for any of us. Your being here has disrupted us already; we cannot be the same as we were before you came. But I don’t know,” he stopped in front of me, clearly distressed, “if this is for the better or not!”
“Changes are always hard, even if they’re good for you,” I replied, wiping the last glob of liquid from Yugo’s chin. “But isn’t that life? Don’t we grow and change all the time?” I peered up at Mr. D. “Or do you like living the life of a robot?”
“Oh, childling,” he huffed, straightening to his full impressive height, “there’s nothing wrong with life being predictable.”
I looked pointedly from Yugo to Mr. D. “Something’s wrong with this society, something’s really wrong. And I bet there are some of you that aren’t real happy with the way things are.”
“Well,” he stammered, “I suppose you always have malcontents, in any society. But not enough to influence the whole network.”
“If you’re so happy with the way things are, then why did you take us in?” I felt I was ice skating across the Atlantic, but if I couldn’t make Mr. D see my point of view, I knew I was in for some real trouble up ahead.
He drummed his fingers on the fireplace mantel, answering in a low voice, “Because, Dusty, you’re right. Something is wrong, terribly wrong with our society. And I hope,” his head turned ever so slowly, his eyes seeking mine in a hard stare, “you can effect changes. You’re the only one that can.”
There seemed nothing more to say and Mr. D sat down again. I wondered just how I was going to convince ‘them’. I held onto the thin thread of hope that if I could change Mr. D’s mind, I could change the Perfect Council. I had to: it was so obviously the right thing to do that I knew I had no choice. I hoped that if I never got back home, my Mom would somehow know what I had done and be proud of me.
Yugo stretched and purred, flopping into my hands like a cat does, totally relaxed and contented. Without a worry. Mr. D reclined in his chair, with his head thrown back and eyes shut, probably asleep, too. I was wide awake, along with all my concerns. I felt like we had used up some brownie points, and I sure hoped we hadn’t emptied the cookie jar just yet. Because, I thought as I tucked Yugo close against my leg while he slept easy, what we needed was another minor miracle.
