Summary: H.P., Sanderson, and several other pixies are giving young Rosencrantz a test when Gary and Betty cry for help. From… Florida?

Characters: Sanderson, Rosencrantz, Gary, Betty, H.P., Longwood, assorted pixies

Rating: T

Prerequisites: "Excitement"; this piece picks up from where my 'fic Pink and Gray ends

Posted: August 4, 2016

28. Solo ("Baby Face")

Monday April 22nd, 2002

Year of Leaves; Spring of the Last Berry

Sanderson didn't look up from his desk when the door slammed open against the wall, but he did when a low pixie voice choked itself in a sob and a tiny body dropped to the floor. The culprit didn't even have his millenium wings yet, so he could only be Verona or Rosencrantz, and crossing size with blatant emotion with what was about to happen gave him all the clues he needed.

He lay his pen aside. "Rosencrantz, you shouldn't be here. Your assessment starts in eight minutes and I'm supposed to participate in the proctoring of this one."

"I can't do it!" Rosencrantz scraped his fingers down the wall in search of peeling paper. "I can't do this again!"

As he seemed to be doing more and more often these days, Sanderson temporarily abandoned his no-hugs policy in the face of tiny wet eyes. He drifted over from his desk and lay one hand on Rosencrantz's shoulder. "Shh. Shh. You need to quiet down before word of this gets back to H.P. You don't want him to go into this with preconceived notions."

"B-b-but- b-b-but it's call a-answering training. I have to get the ph-ph-phone and solve problems by m-myself. Real problems from real cl-cl-clients. I might say the wrong thing, or send them to the wr-wrong pixie, and they might get h-hurt, and I'll get f-fired again, and they'll be hurt- and- if I fail, I have to go work in laundry until H.P. lets me take the test again next century. I can't go back to laundry, Sanderson. I can't take it anymore. Or worse." He leaned against Sanderson so his soft lips brushed his ear. "He'll make me carry. Letters."

"We never should have let Longwood take you to meet Shakespeare. Or at least not allowed the man to name a character who faces betrayal from a childhood friend and dies just because he was delivering messages after you." Sanderson picked the tiny, shivering pixie up and held him to his chest. He'd expected a breakdown of sorts to occur; he had mentored Rosencrantz himself, back before he'd failed his first century assessment, and his second, and his ninth. As Rosencrantz slipped both fists into his mouth, he said, "I think you need to hear a secret."

"Is it the secret about Longwood's biggest weakness being when he has to look at blood and things?"

"No."

"Is it the secret about the time you walked into Longwood's office and found him kissing that selkie girl and he threatened to have you demoted if you told and then you told anyway and H.P. made you hold hands and then he magicked your fingers to stick together until you two could get along and you stayed like that for the entire week?"

"Not quite."

"Is it the one about when Longwood snuck off to go see James Madis-"

"It's not a Longwood secret." Sanderson mussed up Rosencrantz's hair into a tuft, then rubbed it flat again. "You're not going to fail this part of your exam. I rigged the test this time. You only need to answer the first ten calls, and I wrote to ten goodly Fairies who all agreed to ring in and ask for simple requests. Very easy. None of the emergencies are real. It's exactly like when you were only a hundred and we used to practice responding to letters. You're going to be fine."

Rosencrantz's whimpers trickled off. Sanderson removed his shades and dabbed the pixie's eyes with one sleeve, then returned him to the floor. "Fly on down to Room 1C. The rest of us will be there in five minutes. Just keep your calm, remember to be polite, and you'll do fine. You only need two hundred points."

"Okay…"

Four minutes later, Sanderson gathered with the other proctors of the exam - Hawkins, Wilcox, Longwood, and the Head Pixie himself - outside the door.

"You all have your clipboards and two pens at the ready?"

"Yes, sir."

"I expect you all to be as objective as possible. Is that understood? Hawkins? Sanderson? There will be trouble if I see any more 'At least he tried's. We're not cutting him slack because he's already failed nine times."

They both nodded. Longwood tugged at one tight sleeve of that fluffy brown jacket of his, plainly reveling in the fact that H.P. hadn't said his name.

"And Longwood?"

"Sir?"

"You have a lipstick stain smeared beside your ear that wasn't there before Naelita Sorins went up to your office. I've noticed she's been visiting quite often lately, and less and less often when you go on break."

Longwood's face turned gumball pink beneath the dozens of red freckles that identified him as a gyne rather than a drone. His fingers went straight for the spot on his cheek. "I'm sorry, sir."

"That's twice I've had enough proof to call you on it now. Three strikes and you're out. If this happens again, I want your cap on my desk, and Smith will rise to his gyne duties and replace you as company vice president. After we finish here today, you can report to evening dish duty for two months as you did before."

"Yes, sir. Thank you for not firing me. I'll clean myself up better next time."

H.P. raised one eyebrow. Sanderson kicked his ankle, because he could get away with it.

"I- I mean, I won't do it again (Watch your fat toe, lug)."

"Do what?"

"I, erm, I won't sneak smooches during work hours, sir."

Sanderson whistled a few bars of "Kiss the Girl" from Disney's "The Little Mermaid" as H.P. looked him up and down. "I suppose that's the most compromise I'm going to get out of you. If you ever wonder why you aren't allowed to leave Pixie World unsupervised anymore, this is why."

"That's… that's perhaps for the best, sir."

"How am I doing, boss?" Wilcox asked. H.P. stared at him for a moment, rubbing his chin, then gave him a thumbs up. Wilcox brightened. Hawkins patted his shoulder with his bad hand, and Sanderson mimicked the thumbs up once the boss's back was turned.

H.P. opened the door. The room was small, with a desk and chair set solidly on the tile. A window into the observing room spanned the back wall. Arranged neatly on the desk were one landline phone, one pad of green sticky notes, his starpiece, a wrinkled purple pamphlet that listed each pixie's name, job title, and room number, and about a dozen blue and black pens. Rosencrantz sprang from the chair as soon as the door opened, holding his arms straight by his sides.

"Sir."

"Good afternoon, Rosencrantz. The time is 1:00. You will now be entering the fifth and final day of your assessment. Today you will be answering calls from clients and, if necessary, directing them to whomever you believe can be of best assistance to them. You may use the provided pamphlet, but no other notes or reference materials you may have written. You must take ten calls, and are expected to remain in the exam room until you do. You may contact any pixie for anything you need to complete your tasks. However, you cannot ask for advice on how a call should be answered. When you are finished, you must demonstrate the proper exit procedure as though you were going on break, after which you may leave the room and wait while we tally up your score. Are there any questions?"

"No, sir." Unsurprising. Rosencrantz had run through this test so many times, he probably had the opening speech memorized as well as H.P. did.

H.P. flipped the wall switch to redirect all incoming calls to Room 1C. "You may begin."

On that signal, he and the others floated (Longwood walked) through the room's rear door and took their seats in the floating chairs behind the window. H.P. sat down in the centermost one, removed his glasses, and massaged his temples.

"Twelve pens. He's nervous. The utmost he can pull out of this now is a two hundred and forty-nine."

Sanderson and Longwood dared one another with their eyes to take the place on H.P.'s right, and finally Sanderson bit his tongue and took the left seat instead. Wilcox melted into his typical violet rabbit form and sprang into the chair beside him, still positively beaming from his thumbs up.

He'll do fine, Sanderson reminded himself. This is the century he leaves the laundry behind for good. And then maybe they could all start being sent up the same amount of shirts and ties they sent down.

Rosencrantz settled at his desk, his back to them, the bases of his wrists resting on wood. His shoulders lifted as he took in an unneeded breath. His wings folded themselves flat to his back, then rearranged their order. The clock on the wall ticked. Ticked. Ticked.

The phone beeped after three painful minutes, startling Rosencrantz's hands into the air. He made a grab for it, missed, made a second grab, flipped the entire landline off his desk, and snagged it by the spiral cord before it could smash against the ground.

"I'm sure he can recover from that," Hawkins said, and H.P. shot a look down the table. Rosencrantz panted for just a second, then pressed a button on the landline.

"We're Pixies, Rosencrantz speaking; how may I help you?"

At least he'd given the proper response. Sanderson would have to dock him for the scramble, of course, but no matter what else happened, he couldn't score less than a one. For Rosencrantz, that was considered good news.

"This is Imogen Netter. I was planning to check in with a former godkid of mine, Kylie Taylor, and I wondered if you could tell me where she's living now."

"I don't know, but I can find out for you from our files in just a moment. I'm going to put you on hold." He did.

"Hmm." H.P. marked something across his paper. Sanderson didn't have to look to know; Rosencrantz had forgotten to ask first if the speaker was prepared to be put on hold. Thankfully, the little pixie was no longer his intern and his performance didn't necessarily reflect back on him. The entire company understood these days that Rosencrantz was simply a near-hopeless cause.

Rosencrantz double-checked that he had the correct room number, then tapped at the phone again. Beep. "Keefe, I need a search on Kylie Taylor's present location."

A clicking of typing keys. "Is this Rosencrantz?"

"Yes." He listened to Keefe's response, then thanked him and relayed the address to Imogen.

"Thank you very much."

"You're very welcome. Ms. Netter." End Call 1. Sanderson chewed his lip, then gave him three points out of five. H.P. gave him two.

Almost as soon as the phone had gone down, it beeped again. Rosencrantz hit the button. "We're Pixies, Rosencrantz speaking; how may I help you?"

"Hi, I'm from Fairly Accurate News, and I'm following up on an advertisement request your company put in regarding Wish Fixers? There were some details that needed to be double-checked before my godchild called me away, and I was told it would be best if I called back when I was more readily available."

"All right, thank you for doing that. I'm going to connect you through to Cowan in marketing. And your name was?"

"Sue Symmons. Thank you for your help, Rosencrantz."

"Not a problem, Ms. Symmons."

Over the next fifteen minutes, Rosencrantz took calls from Lewis Ticker, Florensa Cosma, and Sage Payworth. They kept their requests simple, and Rosencrantz began pulling 5s. He'll make it, Sanderson thought, running his eyes down his column as Rosencrantz exchanged good-byes with Terry Rivercourse. If he keeps this up, he'll make it.

The next call opened with a scream that sent every hair across every arm on high alert.

"Um… W-we're Pixies, Rosencrantz speaking; how may I help you?"

"Rosencrantz? Rosie, is that you? Hey, I don't think I've seen you since I was thirteen and you came to my birthday party at the skate park."

Sanderson's pen slipped from his fingers and clicked against the tile.

"I still have that lamp you gave me back on my dresser at home, actually. How are you?"

"Garrett Cabrera, now is not the time!"

Sanderson stuck his second knuckle in his mouth and bit down. All four of the other pixies glanced at him, then averted their eyes back to the window. As he dropped from his floating chair to retrieve the pen, Sanderson's thoughts whipped back and forth like a banner. He knew those voices. Quite well, in fact. And they were voices that definitely weren't supposed to be calling the direct company line.

"Right, right. Rosebud, it's Gary. From the Learn-A-Torium? Betty's here with me too. We've got a situat - Watch that branch! - situation going on, and you have to patch me through to Mr. Sanderson right now!"

Rosencrantz looked over his shoulder at the window, didn't seem to like what he saw, and returned his attention to the phone. His fingernails curled into the wood of the desk.

"M-Mr. Sanderson is currently unavailable. May I take a message?"

"No, that won't help! I need to talk to him. I called him twice already, but he didn't pick up. He never doesn't pick up. Wherever he is, you need to get him on the line. This is an emergency!"

"On your right, Gary! Don't stop!"

"Oh, smoof! Nice hawk eyes, Betty! I didn't even see that one!"

Sanderson tried to keep the tip of his pen hovering over his clipboard where it was supposed to. His starpiece had been left back in his office per H.P.'s orders so he couldn't use it to interfere with Rosencrantz's test. All company calls were supposed to redirect to Room 1C. He hadn't expected a private one like this getting in the way of his careful scheme.

"So, wh-when can we expect him to be available, Rosie?"

Rosencrantz's right hand trembled above the phone. "Um… Not until you stop calling? I'm pretending to be the only pixie here right now."

Wilcox pulled his long black ears over his eyes. "That's it. He's not coming back from that one."

"Oh, give me that. Give me the phone, Gary!" There was a fumble amid splashing footfalls, and then Betty's sweet voice replaced Gary's frantic jabber. "Rosencrantz, this is no time to mess around. We need Sanderson. We have no idea where we are, but we're in a swamp and being chased by about seven alligators right now. Crocodiles?"

"Gators. Gators have teeth sticking out both bottom and tOP IT ALMOST BIT ME DID YOU SEE THAT BETTY THIS PLACE IS THE PURE OPPOSITE OF SAFE!"

"We're up to our waists in hot water poured inside a pickle here! Can you help us, Rose?"

H.P. clicked his pen and leaned forward, one hand curled on his chin and left cheek. "Oh yes, Rosencrantz. Can you?"

Sanderson swallowed.

"U-um. Um." Rosencrantz flipped through his pamphlet. "What… what exactly do you need?"

First there was a scream, followed by, "We really just need to get back to Dimmsdale, thank you. Think you can manage that for us?"

"It was a godkid- tell him that! We found another fairy godkid! We were poofed, not pinged. You felt it, right? How hot and stuffy it was, not all warm and calm and comforting?"

"We just need to get home."

Rosencrantz stared down at the reference pamphlet in silence, and Sanderson knew why. There was no such person in charge of a Department of Teleportation or anything like that. Normally, a request like this one could be considered a complaint and really would be forwarded to Sanderson. But Sanderson wasn't in his office. Rosencrantz would have to figure something out on his own.

"Like, now, Rosebud! I AM LITERALLY UP A TREE AND THIS GATOR LOOKS LIKE HE WANTS TO CLIMB AFTER ME EVEN THOUGH HE'S SUPER-DUPER FAT AND I REALLY DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHY HE'S SUPER-DUPER FAT!"

This wasn't in the plan.

Betty's hand muffled the phone. "Gary, yelling at him won't do any good." Her fingers moved away again. Creaking branches. "Rosie? You still there?"

"I… I… I'm trying! I have my starpiece, but I can't ping you anywhere if I don't know where you are first!"

Sanderson could see it now. Both teenagers were tattered and panting, but temporarily out of immediate danger. While alligators circled below, Gary would be clinging upside-down to a thick branch with all four of his limbs. Then Betty was beside him, leaning her head back against the trunk, her knees pulled up to her chest and eyes closed. He could hear the whimper bobbing in her throat as she tried to force down her anxiety. It wouldn't take much more to trigger one of her attacks. She said, "Okay. Okay. Rosie, you've gotta listen to me now. I've been patient, I've played your little game, but you're only nine by our standards, sweetheart. We need a grown-up's help with this."

"I-I'm going to put you on hold while I talk to somebody." For a few silent seconds after he pressed the button, Rosencrantz simply hugged himself and beat his wings. Then he pushed two more buttons and waited for the beep. Beep. "Madigan, I have a question. Um. Where do alligators live?"

"Oh," murmured H.P., "I see where this is going."

Fingers flew across Madigan's keyboard like ricocheting hail. "Alligators. Alligators. Let's see… Alligators are found in the southeast United States. Mostly Florida, but sometimes they can also be found in Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, and so on. Does that help you, Rose? This is Rose, right?"

Rosencrantz nodded, then remembered that Madigan couldn't see him and said, "Thanks". He returned to Betty's line. "So, alligators live in mostly Florida. Are you in Florida?"

"Are we in Florida, Gare-Bear?"

"Do you want me to ask the thirteen gators trying to snap off my knees for directions?"

Betty cleared her throat. "Is Sanderson almost out of his meeting, Rosie?"

"Erm, S-Sanderson's not in a meeting. He's here with me, he's just… he's just not going to talk to you right now."

Oh, that wasn't fair. Sanderson looked sideways at H.P., who flicked his lidded eyes to him for half a second.

"He's not WHAT?" Betty's screech crackled with thundering static. Sanderson swore he saw the lights flicker overhead. "Mr. Sanderson, I know you can hear me! Please… Please…" On came the first wave of sobs, dribbling between her curled fingers. "Nineteen's too young to die! I h-haven't gone to prom, I haven't kissed more than one boy, I haven't r-recorded my first album. My little b-brother's birthday is next week. I can't die bef-f-fore that."

Sanderson fidgeted with the cap of his pen. "Sir?"

"Please don't interfere with the exam, Sanderson."

"I-it's not like that! I'm taking my placement test right now and Sanderson is watching me. I've almost passed it this time. Really, I have! I can't stop now!"

Gary's voice- "What's more important? Your career or our lives? You're immortal. You'll have another chance. Oh, Betty. Betty, please stay calm- you have to breathe."

"Mr. Sanderson, you c-c-can't leave us here to be eaten just because of some placement test. We need you. We signed a contract! You're supposed to be our guardian a-angel. But you're not. Did you st-string us along, abandon us, and dump us on Rosencrantz as soon as you grew tired of playing with our lives? I actually believed we m-mattered to you. Thanks a lot for restoring my faith in the world just to crush it between your thumb and forefinger. And thanks a lot too, Rosie. You've just k-killed us both. But at least 'you tried'."

"Sir?"

H.P. put a finger to his lips. Rosencrantz covered his ears. "I c-can't do this anymore! You're not real! This isn't a real emergency! Go away!"

This definitely wasn't in the plan.

"Betty? He's… he's really not coming for us?"

"He would have if he were going to." Deep breath. Second breath. "This is how it ends. We're going to die in Florida, Gary, e-eaten by alligators, and no one who matters is ever going to know. Mr. Sanderson? I hope you choke on your own bling. Preferably while eating from the massive secret c-candy stash you keep down in the 'Caudwell' drawer in the filing room and plan to blame on Mr. Longwood, just in case there's anyone else listening to this."

As Longwood leaned forward to stare past H.P. over his shades, Sanderson put on his best, Who me? Pah, she's nuts! look. In the exam room, Rosencrantz slid from his chair, hovering a teaspoon's worth of inches above the floor. His chin and hands rested on the desk.

"We needed you, Sanderson. I th-thought I could trust you. I shouldn't have (hic) shouldn't have let you stop me from s-scratching up my arms. S-sorry I made you waste your time on me for t-ten years. Any last words for Mr. Sanderson, Gary? … Gary? Oh my- GARY!"

Her voice cut off before she finished calling his name. Rosencrantz stared, flew to one corner of the room, then another, and finally zoomed up to the window separating him from the other pixies. Salty tears had welled up in his eyes. They leaked out from beneath his shades in pairs. He pounded on the glass with his fists, pointing backwards at the dead phone on the desk. "Stop the test," Sanderson said, rising to his wings.

"Sit down, Sanderson. You're still proctoring."

He did, bristling regardless. "I've had enough, boss. Rosencrantz has as good as failed. Two of my charges are in real danger. They aren't thinking clearly, they're under the impression that I abandoned them, and they will turn against us and possibly turn Flappy Bob with them if we don't set the record straight. Stop the test."

"We have to see how he does without us-"

"Dang it, Wilcox!" He knocked the clipboard out of his paws, startling Wilcox back into pixie form. The board went skidding over the floor and bumped into the wall. "Real life is not like 'Finding Nemo'. For the last half hour, we've done nothing but watch what he does without us, and it's pathetic." So saying, Sanderson slid from his chair to his feet, because they let him march to the door the way his wings did not. "It's not going to be okay. How could we ever be so thick as to believe it would be? This is Rosencrantz."

H.P. snapped his fingers twice. "Sanderson. Sit down. Now."

Sanderson turned on his heels, flapped his wings three times, and dropped back into his seat. He folded his left leg over his right and crossed his arms. No one spoke. On the opposite side of the window, Rosencrantz had huddled up in the far corner to hug his shoulders and rock back and forth. The phone trilled with the next call. He didn't get up to answer it.

"H.P.," Longwood mumbled at last, "I think we ought to stop the assessment now."

H.P. threw his pen on the floor, then shoved his chair back from the floating table. Much like Sanderson had, he hit the ground and stormed towards the door with clicking heels. Sanderson shared a lifted-eyebrow look with Wilcox, and they both followed with Hawkins and Longwood behind them.

Rosencrantz jerked up his head at the banging open of the door. The pale color drained from his face. He did his utmost to dodge around the Head Pixie and seek solace from his former mentor, but H.P. caught him by the arm and dragged him back to the desk. He grabbed the phone and jabbed in three digits.

"Larson, send a thematic of the magic usage across Florida within the last hour down to Room 1C, stat."

Rosencrantz trembled in H.P.'s grip. "I tried! I tried as hard as I could!" He didn't get an answer, so he wrapped both arms around his boss's waist. "I'm sorry, sir!"

The thematic chart of Florida materialized against the wall beyond the desk with a high ping. There were only eight patches of color across the gray- most of them yellow, but two pink. H.P. grabbed Rosencrantz's starpiece from the desk, shoved it into the little pixie's hands, and marched him to the chart.

"Okay, Rosencrantz. You decided they materialized somewhere around here. Now, what do you do with that information?"

Rosencrantz shook his head.

"You can do this. It's in your pixie blood. We are genetically identical. If I can figure out the answer, you can figure it out too. You just have to set aside these emotions you're emitting and think about this situation logically. Forget your feelings and only think."

Rosencrantz shook his head again.

H.P.'s fingers twitched into fists. He held both of them upwards just below his chin, his cell phone clenched between them. His wings shivered behind him. Through tight teeth, he forced out the words, "You have to. There are people out there who are struggling. They're looking to you, a pixie, as a source of stability in this chaotic world."

"For the love of-"

"Sanderson, I'll request your commentary if I decide I want it."

So Sanderson was forced to hover beside Hawkins while Rosencrantz scanned the chart in a helpless manner. Again and again the pixie whimpered, "I can't do it, sir."

H.P. pointed to the yellow patch in the Okefenokee Swamp. After he'd swallowed some of the saliva leaking from his lips, Rosencrantz lifted the starpiece in his trembling arm. He flipped it open and typed out a keyword.

"I-I think I locked onto something, sir. Two human shapes, moving fast, with green energy clinging around them in a cloud. Sir?"

"And what are you going to do about it?" Sanderson pressed when H.P. merely raised one brow.

Rosencrantz shook the little gray cellphone. Ping! went the sound of magic. Thud! went the sound of four bodies slamming against ground directly in front of him. Two of them were Gary and Betty, who scrambled away in a crab-like manner, yelping. The other two were a pair of massive gray-green alligators. Their tails whipped. Their teeth gnashed. The first one took a slithering step. Then another. Rosencrantz froze, his hand still outstretched. Gary and Betty hit the corner of the room and couldn't back away any further. The only thing that stood between them and the gator was one tiny pixie.

"Send it back, send it back!" the pair screamed together. Sanderson blinked as he took them in. Both had their white shirts and pink sweater vests torn at the bottom so their bare bellies showed. Graduation caps and cheerful bowties were mangled. Swamp muck dripped from their shoes, and was plastered all along Betty's left side. Gary had a scrape across his forehead that bled.

This was going better than Rosencrantz's fifth assessment had, actually.

The first alligator lurched forward in its awkward way. The second began to follow it. "It's not working," Rosencrantz howled, jerking his arm up and down.

"Are you focusing on where you're trying to ping it?" Wilcox asked. He, along with the other pixies, had retreated near the door. Only H.P. kept where he was, near the desk behind the gators. He had his arms folded.

"I can't do it!"

"Sir?" Longwood asked.

Ping! The nearest alligator disappeared. "Uh-oh," Rosencrantz said, looking after it. "That's not who I meant to teleport to Dimmsdale."

It probably didn't matter. Judging from how heavily Rosencrantz was punching holes in the energy field, Sanderson rather suspected that either Turner, Peterson, Harrington, or Buxaplenty would sense a ripple in the magic-space continuum and take care of it before too long.

The second gator was on its way. H.P. waited until the whimpering little pixie had pinned himself in the corner above Betty and Gary's heads. He dropped his cell phone. They all covered their faces as the alligator lumbered towards them. It parted its jaws, lined with jagged yellow and white points. Before it was near enough to take a bite out of Betty's ankle, H.P. whipped his own starpiece back out from beneath his jacket, spun it through his fingers, and hit just one button. The alligator vanished in a blocky scattering of purple.

Gary was the first to crack open his eyelids. He slid his gaze around the room, then uncurled himself from around Betty. "Mr. Head Pixie! Mr. Sanderson!"

"Sanderson?" The name jolted Betty back to reality. Her face, usually so light and pretty when framed by her pale blonde hair, turned as purple as a bruised plum. "You!"

She shoved Gary away and started coming forward, as Sanderson darted from Hawkins to Wilcox to even Longwood. "You lying-wying, treacherous-wecherous, cowardly-wowardly, snakey-wakey-" Her palms hit his chest and sent him flying backwards into the wall. His wings crumpled. "You were supposed to be there for us! We had a deal! Don't- don't think I don't know what's going on if the Head Pixie got involved here. Rosie said it was an exam. This wasn't an a-accident. Would you really have let us die because you had to give Rosie-Wosie your precious testy-westy?"

H.P. snapped his fingers twice. "Betty. Don't forget your place or whom you're speaking to."

Betty spun on her toes to face him, spraying swamp mud from the ends of her pigtails. "I know Gary and I are only humans. Two of billions. Our lives will pass in the blink of your e-e-eyes and you'll forget about us as anything more than blotted-out names in your permanent records. Our eighteen or so years are crumbs compared to your lifespans. But when I s-signed up for this, I didn't realize that you all honestly b-believed that moving up in this business was really more important than life. Mortal as we are."

She'd slammed her palms to Rosencrantz's desk on 'life', breathing through her nostrils. Then she whirled around without waiting for an answer and clipped back towards the door.

"I'm finished with all of you. I'm finished with this entire stupid company, if it deserves to be called one. I want out of the benefactor program."

Gary tagged on her heels. "Please, Betty, let's think about this-"

"Elizabeth Lovell! You have not been dismissed!"

She threw her hat behind her without looking back. "I don't have to be your puppet and fake a smile and let you bully me around for another ten years, cone-dome! I quit."

"Betty!" Gary hollered again. The door slammed after her. He stopped, head hanging, then turned around and clasped his hands. "It's her anxiety attack- The thin atmosphere- She's not thinking clearly, that's it! Please don't hold it against her!"

H.P. snapped his fingers and pointed at the door. "Longwood, I want her brought to Jorgen and her memories wiped. Standard soft-reset procedure: all contact with magic cleared away. Make sure to include the teleportation to Florida and the gators. Take Wilcox with you."

"Yes, sir."

Sanderson grabbed his arm just as Longwood caught Rosencrantz's starpiece. "You're not seriously going through with this. They're my charges. According to their contracts, you have to clear it with me before you can…"

There was no more contract with Betty. It was written in the bottom paragraph: She could quit if she wanted to, so long as she informed both him and the Head Pixie of her intentions. He just hadn't expected her to end up in the same room as both of them before he and Gary could talk her out of it.

Longwood's glance was pitiless. "I don't make the rules, Sanderson. I merely do as I'm asked. That's why I'm company vice president, and you're head of the complaints department." He disappeared with a ping, leaving Sanderson clutching empty air. He blinked, twice.

"You can't do this!" Gary shouted, snatching up Betty's graduation cap and hugging it to his chest. "P-please, sir, give her another chance! What about her brother? Mr. Sanderson promised that next week we could-"

"Don't try my patience, Gary, or you'll be next."

"Y-yes, sir. My apologies, sir."

Rosencrantz, still hovering in the corner, piped up in his small voice then. "D-don't punish them because of me, boss-"

H.P. rounded on him. "You're finished, Rosencrantz. I have had it up to here. You've failed your basic-level placement exam ten times in a row, and I won't be proctoring another. There is no place in the company for you. You can report down the street to laundry for the next eight hundred and forty-six years. Come and talk to me then."

Sanderson lifted one finger. "Ch-check your blood levels, sir."

His ears burning with red, Rosencrantz flew to Hawkins and latched on like a thumbtack. Hawkins bent down to rub him between the wings. "Boss? I mean no disrespect, but perhaps the pixies we're bringing in these days are beginning their training too young."

Waving this notion off with his entire arm, H.P. turned his back and started gathering up the items left on Rosencrantz's desk. "Sanderson, take Gary back to Dimmsdale and stay with him until Longwood and Wilcox return with Betty. While you're there, pin down exactly which godkid is responsible for this and find out everything you can about him or her. Check up on how Flappy is managing as well. I want a full report in my basket by seven."

"Yes, sir." Sanderson floated towards the door. "Follow me, Gary. I need to stop by my office to pick up my starpiece."

The redheaded teenager glanced over his shoulder once as H.P. readjusted his hat. Then Sanderson let the door fall shut and started down the hall. He made it decently far before he realized there were no footsteps behind him. When he turned back, he found that Gary had crumpled cross-legged to the floor with the heels of his hands pressed into his eyes.

"Gary. Come on, we don't want to be here when H.P. comes out. Don't… do that crying thing. It's very… human."

"What?" Gary lifted his face from his palms, teeth set in a cheery smile. "Why, don't be a silly-willy, Mr. Sanderson! If I were crying, it'd mean I had been hurt, and that would never happen in a place as safe and full of love as this one!"

Sanderson took hold of Gary's arm. He didn't exactly pull him to his feet - Gary was, of course, a human and weighed far more than he did - but he did urge him up and start him walking. "We need to go. Please try to conserve your breath. The atmosphere is much thinner here than it is on Earth. Gary? Gary, you stopped again. Why have you stopped?"

Gary's right wrist still rested in Sanderson's grip, but he gazed down at his left, rotating it one way and then the other.

"Nothing," he said. "I'm just bleeding. The gators bit me a few times. Wh-when we were in Florida." He hid the hand holding Betty's cap behind his back and put on his smile again. "So. I don't remember being in Headquarters before. Which one is your office?"

Room 2A. It was up a floor. They stepped into the elevator, and Sanderson pressed the corresponding button. The whole fifteen seconds they were in there, Gary kept his dry face turned towards the ceiling, and he smiled, and smiled, and smiled, with his hands clasped behind his back since he didn't have anyone else's to hold.