Chapter Seventeen

Apparently a god was coming to ssscoola. “In person,” Miz Britt said, meaning, I guessed, that the god would be taking you-men form. Monkey gods are said to do the same, form simian. Teecha suggested the kibs (she called them, bigger than wee-bees) write down a question to ask the god. Remarkably, every kib in the holding pen took the suggestion, scramched on colored carrds with colored sticks, passed them forward. The god’s name, apparently, was Greta, the very same invoked by Inga at bedtime the night before!

I dozed to the hum of Miz Britt reading from the cardds, which made it sound very much like it were she asking the questions—perhaps the kibs helped her moodle in this rudimentary way, shared thoughts via colors and squiggles.

“Will there always be maple trees?” one cardd spoke.

And Miz Britt nodded. “That’s a good question. No name on this one. Frank?”

Everyone roared. I did not get the joke, but the jollity was amusing in itself, and pushed into my dreams: Beep swinging down to the forest floor among urgent peccaries, some kind of warning that wouldn’t come through. And Beep surfacing to the laughter of the kibs, another question entering their minds via the interaction of its cardd with Miz Britt’s mind: “Will Nyork Citty be under how much water?”

“That’s kind of two questions,” Miz Britt said. She’d gotten more gentle as the morning wore on. “But two good ones! Will Nyork Citty be under water? And if so, how much?”

“I would add, When?” Inga said.

“Yes good,” Miz Britt said. “If inevitable, then when? Who can tell me what inevitable means?”

“Gonna be!” shouted a male.

“I have a question,” bulbish Becky said suddenly.

“Yes, Becky?” said Miz Britt skeptically.

“When will Inga get how much boobs?”

The class fell into raucous laughter.

Inga sagged into her dezzk.

Miz Britt looked stern, then cross, and the hilarity died. She said, “We all develob at our own paces, Becky Crankbrood. And you have just develobed a week’s demention.”

“I’m serious, though!”

“Two weeks, Becky Crankbrood. Last straw. One more peep and I’ll put you up for discipline board and probable susbension.”

Susbension meant hanging, some stray thought informed me, possibly arising from one of the big boogs behind Teecha’s station.

“Not fair!” Becky cried. “I’m just telling the truth!”

“That’s it,” Miz Britt said evenly. “You’re to see Brincibal Markette.”

Sent away! And good. My Inga had not recovered, head on her dezzk.

Becky was only defiant, this Brincipal no punishment to her. She needed some monkey mediation. Earlier I’d seen her unload her orange noopsook just in front of my closet, and while the class tittered and clamoured and Miz Britt wrote on a paber for Becky to take to this chieftain called Brincibal, I managed to creep down and unzib the thing. Silently, I removed every item in that noopsook, boogs and gumm and paber and samweedges in blastic, and finally something even a monkey knew was secret: a blankie, sweet soft thing adored to tatters and smelling of hot tears. And put everything back but the blankie, zibbed the noopsook closed but nipping the sweet weaving so that it hung from the gape, then leapt back to my hiding place.

Sullen Becky said, “You’re not the boss of me!”

Firmly unperturbed, Miz Britt said, “Just get your things and march yourself to the offizz!”

“Gladly!” And like a storm she blew back to the clozzet, ducked dramatically to grab her noopsook, threw an angry arm through a strabb, stomped among the dezzks of the room toward the door, her blankie bouncing unmistakable.

“It’s pinkie!” some no-doubt wounded former intimate shouted.

“Pinkie! Pinkie!” half the class began to chant. They’d known one another from momma-riding days.

Exquisite.

Becky gave a shriek, rushed to the dar, waited for Miz Britt to let her out, some device in the noob she fiddled with as the class hooted their derision.

“Stop!” someone cried suddenly. “Just stop it, now!”

Inga!

She surveyed the class, the rooom suddenly silent. At last she said, “Let she without a Pinkie throw the first stone. Becky is our, our, our friend!”

Becky wailed, pushed at the unyielding dar. At last Miz Britt got it open, stepped away, poor Becky rushing through.

And now this monkey felt terrible.

The class erupted in chatter, Inga the lone atom at the center, chin once again held high.

Miz Britt only managed to quiet the kiblets down, but only after a long interval, gave a little lecture about kindness, bless her. And then, efficient woman, it was back to class.

A good if not uncomplicated day’s work already accomplished, this monkey let his eyes droop, fell asleep in the capacious warm embrace of the arm of Inga’s jagget.