Episode 26: Read 'Em And Weep
I
"He Inoa No Kalani Kalākaua Kulele!"
Mertle still didn't know what that meant. She was sure that Moses had explained it at some point, but she hadn't been paying attention. She was pretty sure that Lilo had been doing something weird to distract her.
As Mertle listened to Moses' notes, then got changed, then met her friends and Gigi outside, she waited for Lilo to say or do anything that she could take a jab at. She already had a good line ready. When's your audition for the circus?
Then she remembered that Lilo, along with her whole weird family and most of their weird pets, was away on vacation.
Why did she keep forgetting? She assumed it was only because she was too busy to remember.
"Good girl, Gigi." Mertle scratched her snowy dog beneath the chin. Mertle rewarded her with a treat from her backpack for waiting patiently outside during the whole hula lesson.
"So..." She turned to her friends, all of them waiting as patiently as Gigi.
Victoria was there too. And her weird booger-eating bat. Mertle tried not to look at them.
"Who wants to come over to my house later? I've got some new dolls."
She waited for the inevitable synchronized yeah! Instead, all she got was a trio of uncertain looks.
"What?"
"Well, um..." Yuki muttered, fiddling with the edge of her green t-shirt.
"What?!" Mertle demanded.
"It's okay, Yuki," Victoria said, forcing Mertle to look at her.
She had too many freckles.
"I already made plans with Vic," Yuki said with sudden volume.
"Plans?" Mertle repeated, then, much louder. "Vic?!"
"Aloha, Vic!"
There was a sound like something scraping against the pavement. Mertle looked and found two of Lilo's weird pets, the red one with the conehead and the green one with the stupid sticky-uppy haircut, coming down the road on roller skates. Their arms were filled with hockey sticks, pucks, helmets, and more skates.
"Aloha, guys," Victoria, Yuki, and Snooty waved after them.
"You ready for our hockey practice?" Chopsuey called out to them.
"You bet!" Yuki called back.
"Awesome," Daniel said. "Oh, but guys?"
"Yeah?"
"We haven't figured out the brakes on these things yet, so..."
Victoria and Yuki stopped Daniel and Chopsuey with a well-timed hug each.
"Phew," Chopsuey said. "There we go. I knew we could count on you guys."
"Hey, Mertle," Yuki said. "You can join our street hockey team if you want."
"No, you go ahead," Mertle said with a grin that made her cheeks ache.
"If you say so."
With that, Yuki and Victoria, donning roller skates of their own, took off down the road alongside Daniel, Chopsuey, and Snooty.
"Well, we can go just the three of us, right?" Mertle said, turning to Teresa and Elena.
"Um..." Teresa had begun absent-mindedly adjusting her purple hairband.
Mertle narrowed her eyes at her, hoping it would make her think carefully about what she said next.
"Hey, Teresa, right?"
Now they were greeted by two more of Lilo's pets. It was the short one and the fat one who Mertle saw every time she walked by the Lost-and-Found shack at the beach. They each wore a brown fedora that looked as ugly as they did.
"That's me." Teresa, somehow energized, spun around to meet them. "Is Mr. Finder still good on his offer?"
"Yup," Bonnie said. "Got a special pile set aside for ya—all unclaimed electronics from two weeks ago or earlier. Like the boss says; lost n' found don't always mean the same fella."
"Oh, and he said you could have this as well." Clyde tossed Teresa a purple fedora that was almost the same shade as her hairband.
"On the house."
"Oh, wow, thanks." Teresa caught the hat and donned it straight away. Mertle thought it made her look like a venus flytrap.
"You wanna come too, Mertle? You might find something you like."
Mertle rolled her eyes. "No thanks. You help yourself."
"Alright. If you're sure." With that, Teresa set off with Bonnie and Clyde. Before long, they were only a row of fedoras in the distance.
"So..." Mertle turned to Elena. "Just you and me then?"
Elena let out a weary sigh. "Why'd I have to be last?"
As if by command, two more weirdos popped into existence on either side of Elena. It was the buck-toothed magician and the new kite-looking one.
"Surprise, Elena!" Houdini cheered with a majestic wave of her cape.
"I mean," Elena said, "I knew you were coming."
"But you were still just a little surprised," Rhiannon said. "Right?"
"Hold on, hold on," Mertle piped up. "What're they here for?!"
"They're gonna teach me a few magic tricks," Elena said.
"You never told me you were into magic!" Mertle used her most accusing tone. She imagined herself on a judge's bench and pointing an iron gavel.
"I didn't know," was Elena's defense. "I wanted to try it out."
"But...Come on, I've got new dolls!"
"We've played dolls lots of times. This'll be new. You should come too. It'll be cool."
Mertle looked at Houdini and Rhiannon. She thought their smiles looked like the ugly paintings people always left on the sides of buildings.
"No," she said. "I've gotta wait for my mom."
"Alright," Elena said. "But you can come by later if you want."
"Ih," Houdini said with a tip of her top hat. "Down at circus tent."
"Yeah," Mertle grumbled as the last trio went on their way.
"Jeez," she heard Rhiannon say from afar. "What's up with her?"
Mertle sat on the school's steps and waited. Every so often, she looked to complain to her friends, only to remember where they were. They'd vanished into that same ghostly space in her mind as Lilo.
"Well," she said, "at least I know you'll stay with me, right, Gigi?"
Gigi looked up at her with the large, quivering eyes she only made when she wanted a treat.
A car horn demanded Mertle's attention.
"Hi, hon!"
She looked straight ahead and found her mother waving from the driver's window of her pale blue Volkswagen.
Mertle waved back. For some reason, she found standing up a greater effort than usual. Something urged her to just sit down and stare into the distance until her friends got sick of Lilo's pets and came back.
"Hey," her mother chirped. "I've got a surprise for you!"
To Mertle's surprise, the front passenger door opened. What she saw next was enough to finally compel her to her feet.
It had been ages since she'd last seen that firey orange handlebar mustache.
"Hey there, carrot-top," her father's deep voice echoed. Mertle swore that she saw the trees shake.
"Howsabout a hug for your dear ol' dad?!"
II
It took a lot to make Gantu feel small. If nothing else could be said about his record, it was that he was the tallest officer the Galactic Armada had ever recruited. Clearly, the architects of the Council Starship's cavernous courtroom had anticipated this. They so made the defendant's platform significantly lower than the judge's podium. Gantu would have needed to triple his height to even be within arm's reach of the Grand Councilwoman.
The height difference felt particularly surreal as he recalled the day, not as long ago as it felt to him, that all his troubles began. He had stood beside the Grand Councilwoman on her podium, glaring down at the mad scientist Jumba Jookiba and his abomination, Experiment 626. He had felt then like he was looking at an ant. Now he was looking at the sun.
But his neck hurt just as much.
"The charges against you are egregious, Gantu," the Grand Councilwoman said, her voice echoing throughout the vast chamber. Every officer, politician, reporter, and law student filling the extensive gallery clung to her every word, as attentive as if they were in Gantu's place.
"There was a time not so long ago when you were one of our most loyal and valued representatives. To find you on that platform is as shocking to me as it is disappointing. You have only spiraled further and further downward since the events on Earth leading to your discharge. What could possibly have compelled you to dig yourself into such a pitiable hole with such detestable company?"
As Gantu answered, he was constantly, agonizingly aware of the pathetic echo his voice made. He considered the courtroom's architect again and imagined their hands closing around him, making him smaller and smaller and smaller.
"The truth, your excellency," he began. He noticed the Councilwoman's lips curl; she didn't care for his definition of excellency.
"...Is that I wanted to be right. As far as I was concerned, Jumba's abominations were the villains, and I was the hero. Everything I did was to prove that."
Even from down on his platform, which felt more and more like a pit, Gantu could see the Councilwoman's black eyes burn.
"The heroic Gantu," she said. "Protecting the galaxy from the friends of small children...And may I add, Gantu, that you are in no position to be calling anyone an abomination. The individual you describe demonstrated remarkable courage and integrity in confessing their mistakes and working hard to make amends. These are the very qualities and actions that you, despite second chances, have failed to demonstrate."
She leaned down, doing nothing to close the distance between them but nonetheless scorching Gantu with the heat of the sun.
"If these qualities are considered abominable, then I shudder to imagine how you would describe yourself."
Gantu wished there was something, anything, he could grab onto to pull himself out of this boiling pit. Anywhere in the galaxy would be better than here.
"However..." The Councilwoman returned to her tall, empowered stance.
"This Council has seen fit to make some reduction to your sentence in exchange for your testimony. All we ask is everything you've learned about Dr. Jacques Hamsterviel and his operations during your employment with him."
Gantu's eyes wandered to another platform off to his right-hand side, the only one in the chamber that was level with his. He expected a crimson-eyed glare from Hamsterviel, his wild face silently commanding, don't you dare say a word! But all Gantu found was a grey, sullen face. He looked right into Hamsterviel's red eyes but couldn't be sure if they were even looking back at him. Even in his maddest moments of scheming, he had never been so distant.
Gantu sighed. There really was only one person in the room he had to fear.
He wondered if, after all this time, he'd really been wrong about Jumba, 626, the girl, the abominations, and all of it. Surely, if he had been, he'd have realized before now, wouldn't he?
Maybe he just enjoyed having power over smaller creatures.
Maybe he was scared of admitting that he was wrong, because it only became true when he admitted it.
Maybe, if he'd gotten so deep into this pit, it didn't matter anymore. Now, there was only one way to climb out.
So he sang his heart out.
III
Mertle hadn't eaten dinner with both of her parents in ages. It felt even more bizarre than she thought it would. It seemed as if she'd traveled a year back in time. And yet everyone simply sat eating their meatloaf as if nothing had changed at all. They all seemed as stiff as Gigi, lying patiently underneath Mertle's chair.
Mertle thought as hard as she could, but she just couldn't think of anything she wanted to ask her father. She didn't know enough about what he did (she thought it was called "ensurance") to think of a question that wouldn't sound weird or stupid.
She thought of Lilo again and how she could come up with things like Pudges and Scrumps. Why could she come up with such ridiculousness so quickly, so effortlessly, while Mertle just sat there struggling to think of something to ask her own father? The best she could do was think about telling her friends that her father was back. They always said that he never would, yet here he was. She wanted to see the looks on their faces.
She wanted to see the look on Lilo's face. She and her disgusting pets might've taken away her friends, but the one thing Mertle would always have over Lilo would be her parents.
Parents who just sat and quietly chewed away at their meatloaf.
"So..." Mertle's father finally spoke up, his gruff voice like a sledgehammer against the silence.
"Hope you've had things under control while I've been gone, carrot-top."
"Oh, yeah," Mertle said automatically.
"That local kid still giving you trouble?"
Mertle's brain had to go searching to connect local kid to Lilo.
"Actually, she's on vacation right now," she said.
"Hm. Hawaiians going on vacation. That's a bit backward, huh?" He grinned through another mouthful of meatloaf.
Mertle felt something turn in her stomach, which she found strange as she'd barely eaten any of her dinner.
"And school's goin' alright?" Her father continued. "Making friends?"
"Well..." Mertle prodded a sole lump of meat with her fork, pulling it away from the greater mass of turkey, onions, and carrots.
"My friends are...They've got new friends now."
She imagined the larger slab of meatloaf was Elena, Teresa, and Yuki, along with Victoria and her stupid bat and all of Lilo's other stupid pet friends, with their stupid hockey and their stupid magic and their stupid lost-and-found.
Mertle realized how much she used the word stupid. It made her feel stupid.
"Their loss," her father said. Then, after swallowing his next mouthful, "shame they can't all be as accomodating as they are in the resorts. Don't worry, carrot-top. You'll make better friends."
That one word dug into Mertle's brain. These would-be "friends" wouldn't just be "new." They would be "better." But Mertle liked the friends she already had. Or used to have.
Was that why they left? Were Lilo's pets better friends than her?
Mertle found herself feeling too sick to eat. She took a small handful of meatloaf and leaned down to offer it to Gigi. She only looked back with those same pining eyes, staying still on the floor.
It looked like something was trying to climb out of those eyes.
Mertle wanted to climb in. After all, everybody loved dogs.
IV
The Grand Councilwoman looked over the list of charges one final time. By now, she could remember it as easily as the faces of her children. The fact that the two took up nearly equal space in her brain made her chilled blood boil. Still, it was only professional to review the accused's charges before delivering the verdict. Jacques Hamsterviel was hardly worth throwing out the Galactic Federation's meticulous legal procedures.
She placed the papers down on the podium in front of her, then glared down towards the defendant's platform. She had expected more of his usual grandstanding, monologuing, and babbling about how his genius somehow entitled him to stand above anything else in the galaxy. Instead, he only stood still, hypnotized by the empty air in front of his rat-like face. Something in his vacant expression resembled sorrow, but the Councilwoman suspected that he only regretted being captured.
It was, after all, the greatest regret of most of the prisoners on the Xenon Asteroid.
"The work of Jacques Hamsterviel..." she began. She could tell that everybody had noticed that she'd missed his title and that none of them were going to correct her. It wasn't out of fear; she could name a dozen officers brave enough to correct her on such an error.
"Marks the beginning of one of the greatest miracles I have ever witnessed in my time as Grand Councilwoman."
She could feel the silent confusion. She'd known it was coming.
"In his efforts to end all that we hold dear, he created a race of genetic experiments bent on nothing less than destruction, malice, and conquest. Not long ago, this Council saw fit to exile these pitiable creatures. We would have trapped them where their lust for carnage would be little more than unheard cries on abandoned asteroids, and the galaxy would have been content.
"However, through extraordinary circumstances and thanks to the efforts and kindness of a family on Kaua'i, Earth, these monsters were transformed into benevolent, generous, upstanding members of their newfound community. They could have sat beside you today as your peers. None of us can strive for greater achievements than saving another life, but that does not always mean saving someone from the jaws of death. The lives of these Experiments have been saved, but they have been saved despite the cruelty of Jacques Hamsterviel.
"The future before us, in which even a degenerate monster can become a beacon of kindness, is a future which Jacques Hamsterviel has continually sought to destroy. He has abused his scientific gifts to create life for the sake of enslaving it, of bending it to his demented will. The creatures I spoke of, he has tried time and time again to drag them back into his repugnant world of conceit and contempt. The Experiments he created represent the best of us, but he does not represent us at all. For this, I sentence him to a life behind glass, where I hope he will take after his creations and reflect on his actions."
Hamsterviel had barely moved. The Grand Councilwoman supposed that he either must have heard none of it or was still hearing every word echoing in his supposedly genius brain.
Then he looked up. His head rose slowly as if his neck could barely take its weight. Whatever mad fire had once burned in his red eyes had gone out. Jacques Hamsterviel was all but erased, leaving only the miserable student sitting at his desk on his first day at the Quelte Quan Institute.
"Have you something to say?" The Grand Councilwoman asked, though she already knew the answer.
"I would only like to ask..." Hamsterviel said. Even the final fading echo of the Councilwoman's last word could be heard over him.
"If I might make a call."
V
"Mertle, could you get that, honey?"
Mertle already had one foot on the stairs when the phone rang. Naturally, with her mother doing the dishes and her father doing the TV-watching, Mertle was the only one available to answer the phone.
She picked it up with a huff. She thought it might be Elena, Teresa, or Yuki, calling to tell her what a great time they'd had with their better friends. But it was almost certainly going to be someone asking if they wanted to buy some stupid network or gas card or something even more boring.
"Edmonds residence."
"Hello..."
Silence. That at least meant whoever was calling had the decency not to send a pre-recorded conversation.
"It's, um...It's Milton."
"Who's that, honey?" Mertle's mother called from the kitchen.
Mertle briefly considered answering with 'it's my old talking gerbil' but thought that would sound too weird.
"It's for me," she said. "It's my friend."
"Oh, okay. Well, tell them I said 'aloha.'"
Mertle walked away as far as the phone cord would let her.
"Mom says hi."
"Oh...You have the same word for both hello and goodbye, don't you?"
"Around here, yeah. Why're you calling?"
"From what little I know of the subject, I believe it's commonplace for people to call their friends and simply talk. 'Chatting' is the word, isn't it?"
"Basically, yeah."
"...I may need some help. I've never chatted before."
"Well, I don't know, uh...How have you been doing?"
"And then I say I've been doing fine, right?"
"You don't have to."
"Well, see, this is the trouble I've found with chatting. If somebody isn't doing fine and they say so, then they can't be chatting anymore. They have to...Do something else."
Mertle couldn't have ever thought of a response to that. Suddenly, small talk with her father seemed like a much more feasible task.
"I miss when you were just my funny talking gerbil."
Milton let out a small laugh. It sounded like it hurt his throat.
"You know what? I miss that, too. I never thought I would, but I do."
"I, uh...There's someone else I miss who I didn't think I would, too."
Milton was silent for a while. Mertle felt something welling up in her eyes. Blinking seemed to keep it at bay.
"I think you should go see them," Milton finally said.
"But I've never gone to see them. They were always just kind of around when I wanted them to be."
"Then you should start seeking them out. It will do you better to go out and find the things you need, rather than sitting and wait for them to need you."
Mertle thought she'd have something to say about that. It was almost what she needed to hear. If she could just think of the right response-
"Oh. I'm afraid I have to go now...With your permission, I'd like to call you again when I next get the chance. But I understand if you'd prefer me not to."
Before Mertle even knew what she wanted, she heard a shuffling sound followed by a final silencing click.
She returned the phone to its hook, feeling as though she were putting Milton away with it, and then went upstairs to her room.
Her bed was decorated with a mountain of dolls who greeted her with smiles of yarn. She thought they might comfort her, but they were ruined when she considered that they'd be smiling no matter who entered the room.
Gigi was asleep at the foot of the doll mountain. Mertle wished she was a dog. Everybody wanted to be friends with a dog.
She crossed over to her bedroom window. The town's lights were coming on. No matter where she looked, she recognized a building or a street or a window where somebody who was friends with Lilo lived or worked. The town was a web, and Lilo was the center.
It wasn't right. Lilo was supposed to be the weird girl with no friends. That was how it had always been. Mertle had spent ages mastering that reality, and now the table was flipped.
It wasn't fair.
It was stupid.
Why did they always have to change everything?
"Mertle?"
She turned and found Gigi awake.
"Mertle?" Gigi spoke again, as if reading Mertle's mind and knowing she hadn't quite believed that her dog had talked.
Her voice wasn't one that Mertle would've expected from a talking dog. She almost sounded like she could be Lilo's twin sister.
Mertle thought she would scream, but she barely gasped. The part of her that she thought would scream must have been asleep.
Or maybe Lilo had finally infected her with her weirdness.
"Yeah, Gigi?" Mertle said.
"I think we should talk," Gigi said.
Mertle sighed and came to sit beside her. Gigi curled up against her as she always had as if her newfound speaking skills had changed nothing.
"Could you always talk?" Mertle asked.
"Of course," Gigi said. "All of my cousins can talk."
"Cousins?"
"You know, Stitch and Angel and all the others. Haven't you been paying attention?"
"I guess not...So you're one of them?"
"Yeah. Sorry I didn't tell you sooner."
"And I thought you were much better than Lilo's weird pets."
"No. I'm your weird pet, Mertle."
At that, Mertle stroked Gigi's thick, silky fur from between her ears to the tip of her rising tail. She had to blink again.
"You don't want to stop being friends with me, too, do you?" Mertle asked.
"That's the thing, Mertle," Gigi said between purrs at Mertle's strokes. "Nobody wants to stop being friends with you. Weren't you listening today?"
Mertle didn't answer. She imagined that afternoon, from the roller skates to the fedoras to the magic tricks, playing out before her.
"Yeah..." She whispered. "They all said I could hang out with them if I wanted."
"Nobody wants to stop being friends except you," Gigi said. "And I don't know about you, but I'd like to spend some time with my cousins."
"Then why stay here? You could leave whenever you wanted."
"Because I don't want to have to choose between them and you..."
Mertle's hand rested between Gigi's ears. She took off her glasses, thinking, somehow, it would make it easier to keep blinking.
"Would it really be so bad if you were Lilo's friend?" Gigi asked.
Mertle sighed a trembling sigh. "I don't know."
"Why don't we find out together?"
Mertle stopped blinking. She'd built up a waterfall's worth of tears.
"Sure," she said. "Together."
VI
"You've been awfully quiet," the guard growled at Jacques, keeping his gloved claws on his shoulder as he guided him back to his cell. He said it as if he were accusing Jacques. Just one more item on his ever-growing list of charges.
Jacques didn't answer. He didn't know what he would ever have to say to this guard, or any of the guards, for that matter.
He'd wished he'd had more time to speak to the Earth girl. She was the only person he could even begin to think of things to say to, and even then, his ideas wore thin.
He was shoved into his cell. It was clean, orderly, barren, and completely lifeless. A glass wall offered a muddied view of the other cells in the block, stacked wide and high like a valued collection.
This was it. All of his grand schemes, his master plans, his tremendous ambitions were done. They'd all been leading him here, to being just another item in this collection of pacing nobodies. It felt abrupt. He found himself standing, waiting for the guard to return with some additional news. He didn't know what it would even be, but it didn't matter. No guards came.
This was it. This was the end of Dr. Jacques Hamsterviel. Whatever came next was merely an epilogue.
He wandered to the pitiful block that was now his bed. A cardboard box waited there. Peering inside, Jacques found a strange round device, small enough to fit in his hand, connected by wires to two small speakers. Beside them was an assortment of square plastic cases bearing the portraits of various flamboyant figures. A note lay on top of them.
Enjoy.
-Stitch.
It might've been as sincere as the way Jumba used to praise him years ago. It may have been as bitter and venomous as each time Dean Gunther Freem told him his ideas were nothing but crackpot garbage.
Jacques could tell that it was from one of his Experiments. He had no scientific proof; he could simply feel it in his gut. However, he couldn't, for the life of him, remember which one that peculiar Earth girl had named Stitch. He couldn't even tell from the handwriting because he'd never taught any of his Experiments to write. What need would they ever have possibly had for it?
Was it 033? The hammer-faced one had always held a particular disdain for him. The memory of his scowl stung much more than a blow from his hammer ever could've.
Perhaps it was 010? No doubt the cleaner would've sought out one final petty revenge after being captured by him twice.
It may have been 628, wanting, once more, to have the last word. His voice's echo was as deafening in Jacques' mind as it had been on the university's rooftop.
Baby, can't you see,
I've got to break free.
He went back into the box; he wasn't getting anywhere with thinking.
The speakers fit snugly into the folds of his long ears. From the selection of discs, he chose one created by a creature called Barry Manilow. It greeted his ears with a series of lonely, wandering notes.
"I've been trying for hours just to think of what exactly to say,
"I thought I'd leave you with a letter or a fiery speech,
"Like when an actor makes an exit at the end of a play..."
As he listened, he paced to the glass edge of his new world. His feet felt infinitely heavier than they ever did before.
"And I've been dying for hours trying to fill up all the holes with some sense,
"I'd like to know why you gave up, and you threw it away,
"I'd like to give you all the reasons and what everything meant..."
Looking up once more at the stacks of cells, Jacques saw the ghost of his old laboratory laid over them. The cells filled with water, and their occupants shifted into the floating forms of his sleeping Experiments.
"Well, I could tell you goodbye, or maybe 'see you around,'
"With just a touch of a sarcastic thanks..."
Long ago, they'd been his army. The sight of them lined up, even in a catatonic state, halted even Jacques' heart.
"It started out with a band at the top of the world,
"Now the guns are exhausted, and the bullets are blanks,
"And everything's blank..."
Their eyes hovered open. Their arms rose, slowly but surely, in time to the music. They looked straight at Jacques, their stares as intent as if Jacques were the only other thing that existed in all the cosmos.
"If I could only find the words, then I would write it all down,
"If I could only find a voice, I would speak..."
This was it. This was when they broke free of their tanks and made their first attack; their first great triumphs. Except now they were coming for Jacques.
He stayed where he stood, ready for their claws. His feet were too heavy to run anyway.
"Oh, it's there in my eyes, can't you see me tonight,
"Come on and look at me and read 'em and weep..."
The water drained, revealing all the colors of the Earth girl's beloved island. Golden sand and waters of the most crystalline blue. They dulled the surrounding steel of the prison cell.
The Experiments seemed to brighten with their surroundings. Their fur puffed up, and their eyes burned with a kind of fire that Jacques never even imagined existed. The fires in his mind clung to the burning remains of the Galactic Armada. What he saw in his Experiments' eyes would have fit snugly in a fireplace on a freezing Turonian night.
"Oh, it's there in my eyes and coming straight from my heart,
"It's running silent and angry and deep..."
They were all dashing and dancing about, fulfilling whatever new purposes and passions they'd discovered in their new home.
158 was hugged by a child relieved to be reunited with their lost toy. 222 flew from the ear of a woman leaping to her feet, invigorated with health. 601 cheered on a line of scrawny humans as they pushed up like their lives depended on it. 624 and 626 held hands as they bowed to a street erupting with applause.
No matter what they were doing, they found time to look back at Jacques, roasting him in their eyes' passionate flames.
"Oh, it's there in my eyes, and it's all I can say,
"Come on and look at me and read 'em and weep!"
They were meant to level cities, overthrow governments, conquer planets. That was all Jacques had wanted for them. Now, they weren't destroying anything. Instead, they were improving things, using their powers to overcome inconvenience, inspire courage, and lift up the diminutive residents of their new home.
Somewhere along the way, Jacques must have made a mistake so grievous, so fundamentally flawed, that it led to him accomplishing the exact opposite of his initial goal.
But what was it?
What was it?!
"For all the hours we'll be spending alone,
"For all the dreams we'll ignore..."
His Experiments...The Earth girl's Experiments...They were singing now. They harmonized with the Manilow creature swarming in Jacques' ears. 021's flute, 033's piano, and 544's drums carried their voices. 248, 617, and 625 led the accusing choir.
For the first time in ages, Jacques listened carefully.
"For all those promises we promised to keep,
"They won't be kept anymore..."
They didn't even know what to say to him. They'd sent him this song just to tell him in the most insultingly beautiful way they knew that they couldn't find the words for him.
It was all there in their eyes.
It was perfect; he didn't know what he would say to them either. He didn't know if the words even existed. What could he say that would be better than just staying in his world of glass.
"For the memories still alive in the bed,
"For all the lies we believed..."
Dragging his heavy feet, he left the Earth girl's Experiments to their lives and went to bed.
At the very least, he could still sleep.
"For all the things that can never be said,
"Why don't you look at me and read 'em and weep?"
VII
"You're pretty nervous, huh?" Gigi asked as Mertle held her close to her chest.
The seconds passed like centuries once Mertle had knocked on Victoria's front door. Even the comfort of Gigi's puffy fur only did so much to calm Mertle's nerves.
"I just..." She said. "What if they decide they don't want me to come after all?"
"But they invited you," Gigi said.
"I know. But if I were them, I wouldn't let me in."
"But you aren't them."
"Yeah..."
Behind the wood of the door, Mertle could hear Victoria's chipper voice call out, "I'll get it!"
Behind it, she could also make out the faint echo of a chorus of singing voices.
"Desperado,
"Why don't you come to your senses,
"You've been out riding fences,
"For so long now..."
The door swung open so fast that Mertle was nearly blown away by it.
"Aloha, Mertle," Victoria said, grinning as if her hair wasn't a sopping wet mass clinging to her head. Snooty was perched on her head, tying the soaked strands of hair into a ball of knots.
"Glad you could make it!"
I never thought your hair could look any stupider.
The words echoed in Mertle's brain, but it felt as if somebody had mischievously planted them there. She tried to blot them out, replace them with something else.
"Oh, you're a hard one,
"I know that you've got your reasons,
"These things that are pleasin' you,
"Can hurt you somehow..."
"Aloha, Vic." Mertle thought this must be the first time she'd used either of those words.
"And aloha, Gigi." Victoria held her arms out, and Mertle found it alarmingly easy to trust them with Gigi.
"Hey, Vic," Gigi said, her voice rising to the pitch of the yapping bark which Mertle had come to know so well.
"Gosh, it's great to be able to talk to ya! Is everyone else here, too?"
"You bet," Victoria said. "Come on; they'll be excited to see you guys."
Mertle had envisioned Victoria's house as some kind of ridiculous funhouse, decorated in garish colors and demented paintings. However, it seemed remarkably similar to her own relatively normal house. The only difference was the music echoing from the living room's TV, beside which a person-sized plastic bucket was set up on a quilt of towels.
On one side, Teresa sat on a purple couch between Bonnie, Clyde, and Finder, cheering, "Chop! Soo! Ee! Chop! Soo! Ee!"
On the other, Elena sat cross-legged with Houdini, Elastico, and Felix, with Rhiannon hovering above them, all cheering, "D-A-N! I-E-L!"
On either side of the TV, Yuki and Ace alternated between both chants.
The center of the spectacle was Daniel and Chopsuey, leaning into the bucket down to their elbows.
I think your weird pets just drowned.
Mertle shook her head. The voice was harder to silence than she thought.
"Don't you draw the Queen of Diamonds, boy,
"She'll beat you if she's able,
"You know the Queen of Hearts is always your best bet..."
The chanting turned to applause as Daniel Chopsuey emerged, each clutching one end of the same apple in their teeth. Their drooping fur turned pink at the sight of one another.
"Ooh!" Gigi raced towards the barrel with Snooty perched on her back, his wings blowing behind them like a majestic cape.
"Can I try, cousins?!"
"Sure," Yuki said. "You can go against Rhiannon next."
"So..." Mertle turned to Victoria, who seemed to have only just taken notice of her soaked hair.
"What kinds of things are we doing at this party?"
"Well, we've got bobbing for apples now," Victoria said. "Then we're gonna have a pie-eating contest later. El and Felix baked apple, pumpkin, and cherry ones specially. And we've got the TV on the whole time so we can watch Stitch and Angel and everyone's live show. And it's music, so we might do a bit of dancing, too, if we want to."
"So...No dolls or anything?"
"I have some if the others want to try."
They'd better.
"It's not a huge deal. I think it'll be fun anyway."
Victoria grinned. "Me too."
Mertle wasn't sure if she was ready to try bobbing for apples yet. She thought she might give the pie-eating contest a try. Until then, she was content to grab a seat on the couch and cheer Gigi on as she bobbed against Rhiannon.
Her eyes were drawn to the TV. Lilo's other strange pets, somewhere across the sea, traced burning orange shapes in the air with their fiery batons as they danced and sang.
"Now it seems to me some fine things have been laid upon your table..."
Mertle wasn't sure if she got it—the dancing, the bobbing, Victoria, Gigi, Milton, her father. It all seemed so strange.
Perhaps that wasn't a bad thing. Maybe all that mattered was whether she enjoyed the music.
"But you only want the ones that you can't get..."
And Mertle enjoyed every note.
Right up until the man strolled onstage.
He didn't seem strange, but the orange-furred, purple-eyed creature perched on his head...
"Desperado..."