Summary: An interpretation of what Gary's desperate phone call to Sanderson might have been if the Musical weren't, well, a musical.

Characters: Sanderson, Gary, H.P.

Rating: K

Prerequisites: None

Posted: July 24, 2016

27. Fight or Flight? ("School's Out! The Musical")

Thursday June 20th, 2002

Year of Leaves; Spring of the Last Berry

The true secret to an assured victory of mind over matter was a little phenomenon known as moving forward without dwelling too much on the past. Successful people pour their entire soul into some piece of work they've taken on and loved, and upon its completion they continue on to the next project and avoid looking back at the old with the intention of regretting. They work because they love what they do, not because they plan to hover about awaiting praise.

Sanderson was in that state now as he leaned back against the side of the Head Pixie's private hot tub. It was purple, of course, from the material down to the foaming bubbles. And wooden too, which might not have been the best idea for beings with paper wasp genetics embedded in their DNA, but if the thing ever collapsed due to wearing, rotting, and/or chewing, they could always buy another one. Or ping one up themselves, if they cared more about getting the thing fast and less about its quality. Come to think of it, that was almost certainly why the wooden one was up here in the first place.

Well, that and because it was one of the only wooden materials in the entire vicinity of company headquarters, and it wouldn't do not to keep something of the sort around in case some poor pixie should happen to spill salt (Sanderson had had a bad encounter with an anti-selkie once) or - especially - step on a crack. While pixies didn't have biological mothers, the colony still had a biological founder and, well…

H.P. raised his white eyebrows above the bubbles as he readjusted himself against the opposite wall. "And thus, Sanderson… Here we are again. We finally rule all of Fairy World."

Not for long. No, both of them knew it, as surely as they knew Jorgen liked to dab mascara around his eyes for the dark and haunting circles it left like warpaint or that an old injury had left Anti-Cosmo always swerving much more to his right side than he really ought to when he flew too fast with the wind behind him. It was never for long. But it was the principle of the thing that kept them going, kept them picking one another up and dusting off the other's dirty clothes: Knock the Fairies around every once in awhile. Let them remember who else was here above the clouds. Try to beat the high score. Flappy had been running the world for three days straight now, and the old record had been two and a half.

"Yes, sir. The time has come. The deal's gone through."

Just as the last word left his mouth, his gray motorola let out a warning chirp in his hand. Perhaps he shouldn't have, but Sanderson allowed his content smile to fall into a grimace. Shaking off bubbles and flecks of wetness, he flipped the cover down and brought the phone to his ear.

"We're Pixies. Sanderson speaking." He wanted to add, "What's so important?" on the end, but he held his tongue. The screen said the call came from the Learn-a-Torium. They couldn't risk offending Flappy.

"Mr. Sanderson?" The words, pinched and high, tumbled out like sheets of paper from one of those printers that refused to stop after 'Cancel'. Worse, the ones swollen with wasteful full-color pictures. "I'd like to register a complaint. It's madness down here, sir- Complete and utter madness!"

"… Gary?"

He could almost see the redhead licking his lips, then rubbing the wetness away with the back of one wrist, the way he'd done for as long as Sanderson had known him. "Sir, they're everywhere!"

Sanderson's eyes slid up to meet H.P.'s. He bobbed unhappily among the bubbles. "What's that?"

"The children! They- they're everywhere! Flappy's gone mad. And that one Tucker or Turner kid you said we were supposed to keep an eye on, he disappeared somehow and then- Betty!" The phone clattered against stone. Gary must have dropped it, and the spiral cord had snapped it against the wall. His fumbling fingers gathered it up again. "Oh no, oh no, oh no. They got Betty with chains this time!"

"'This time'?"

"They tied us up with ropes half an hour ago, but we broke free!"

The pixie sat, silent. Gary forged on, gasping still.

"They're throwing food- that Aingeal girl started it- the redheaded one you sentenced to the kitchens, I mean- um, and the rich Tang girl threw a riot in the ballpit, and McBadbat's strung toilet paper all through the day care room, and then the Chang boy still hasn't come out from the supply closet as far as we know, but he kept screaming that he knew who was in charge 'up there' and he wanted to switch sides, and the mini black-haired Gary you said smells like he's made of fairy magic won't stop twisting the words to Flappy's songs and he's horrible at it, Mr. Sanderson, and there's this like little Indian kid and I don't know his name, but there were cookies baking, and, um, I think the younger Aingeal girl helped, and I met this girl and she was holding an enormous hairy brown spider up by only one leg and it was so gross."

"… The children are terrorizing you and Betty, even to the point where they tied you up and rubbed your skin raw with rope, and you still managed to escape and get this information to me before any of the pixies up here who are supposed to be keeping an eye on things."

"D-don't get them in trouble because of us! I'm sure they're just busy doing other worky things."

Sanderson shook his head. The two humans simply radiated love and cheer the way a sprinkler sprayed water droplets, and not a single of his co-workers had ever been able to stand either one. Longwood especially enjoyed picking on them with random acts of double homework and cancelled sports games and botched dates- obviously because he knew it irritated Sanderson to no end.

They were his responsibility and his handful of rambunctiousness to deal with, but apparently Sanderson had never realized the full scope of disdain the other pixies felt for them. If they had ever asked him directly to choose sides, he'd stand with the rest of his kind without hesitation. He still would now if it were H.P. asking where his loyalties lay. But stabbing his innocent charges in the back in their own safe haven - and when there was a 37-year plan coming to fruition, no less! - was just asking for battle lines to be drawn across the conference room.

"How exactly has Flappy gone mad, Gary?"

"There are toys, and games, and the kids are just- just being kids! Acting up and eating dirt!"

"There's fun?"

"It's chaos, sir!"

The pixie pushed his shades up with one finger. "Gary, you and Betty realize that every last Pixie contract, including the Sanderson-becomes-your-legal-guardian agreement, contains an enormous loophole stating that you're allowed to leave a situation you ended up in due to following the contract when there is any obvious and immediate threat to your life or safety that we fail to protect you against, correct? And without any repercussions on your end, aside from the part where the contract is void and whatever magical involvement there was will be revoked. We've gone over this in great detail every year since you and Betty were eleven. If you're in real danger, you should evacuate the area."

"But… but I can't just leave! My shift doesn't end until seven."

"Of course it doesn't." Sanderson swapped the phone to his left ear while he popped a particularly large bubble that had settled on his elbow. "Well. I can ping you both up here, but you need to realize that there is very little atmosphere surrounding Pixie World. You would both need to stay in the foyer and try to conserve your breath until we get this mess sorted out. No moving. No singing. The other pixies may not look at you as favorably as I do, but they would still be here if you should require anything at all. Do you understand?"

Gary's breathing slowed to mild panic. "No," he said, "No, no. Betty has her anxiety attacks, and they'll only be worse after how she got her… you know. Rosie and the gator? We'd have to explain- She'd be so confused- I can't do that to her."

"That's fine; pinging just one of you will be even easier, and it will probably be for the best because I'm not in the mood to explain everything to her again. Or, I could drop you off where Kenny is and the pair of you can watch each other's backs and make yourselves useful. I only need you to locate an area completely free of magical beings, constructions, and objects. We drained so much of the supply reshaping the Earth, and the lines have become somewhat muddled together. It wouldn't be safe to perform a teleportation, unless you don't mind the risk of losing an arm or having your eyes appear on your stomach. An empty field would be ideal, but anywhere on the street should do so long as you aren't too close to a-"

"I can't do that either, sir."

"Excuse me?"

"Betty's my friend. I won't abandon her." He swallowed. "She needs me."

Sanderson hesitated, listening to the cheers and screams in the background. "Gary, so long as you find a place that isn't supersaturated with leftover magic, I can also ping you both to some other location elsewhere on Earth. But if things should become more chaotic, I'm not certain we could spare the pixies to look after you. Dimmsdale is soaked with magic now - the lines are dangling in loops everywhere - so I would need to drop you both a considerable distance away from the town without knowing when I could attend to you again. You might be completely alone to fend for yourselves, and that went so well when Turner's fairies sent you to Florida."

"No." Gary's voice grew a little firmer. "I won't just abandon Betty."

Perhaps that was just as well. Could they spare the time it took for them to flee to a cleaner location?

"But- but you still might want to do something quick, Mr. Sanderson! They're tearing the whole place apart from the inside out."

Even though Gary couldn't see it, Sanderson held up his hand. "Stay there. We'll come to you."

"Hurry!"

The rest of the message dissolved in screams as Gary went down beneath a mass of kids. Sanderson could hear their delighted chatter, voices layered one upon another so the words were indistinct. The phone was fumbled. Betty screeched his name. He finally ended the call with a snap.

"I take it he wasn't inviting us to lunch this time?" H.P. asked.

"Unfortunately not. It would seem Flappy is beginning to have second thoughts about ruling the world."

"Turner's gotten to him."

"I can't confirm that, but I would imagine that's a possibility, sir. Let's ping on down and show who's the boss."

H.P. leaned his head back into the bubbles, sighing deeply through his nose. Then, swishing the water with a few flaps of his wings, he started to get up. "Well, Sanderson. In that case, let's be off. It's high time we wiped the smile off that clown's painted face anyway."