Walter Jon Williams - Daddy's World

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Daddy's World

by Walter Jon Williams

One day Jamie went with his family to a new place, a place that had not existed before. The

people who lived there were called Whirlikins, who were tall thin people with pointed heads. They

had long arms and made frantic gestures when they talked, and when they grew excited threw their

arms out wide to either side and spun like tops until they got all blurry. They would whirr madly

over the green grass beneath the pumpkin-orange sky of the Whirlikin country, and sometimes they

would bump into each other with an alarming clashing noise, but they were never hurt, only bounced

off and spun away in another direction.

Sometimes one of them would spin so hard that he would dig himself right into the ground, and

come to a sudden stop, buried to the shoulders, with an expression of alarmed dismay.

Jamie had never seen anything so funny. He laughed and laughed.

His little sister Becky laughed, too. Once she laughed so hard that she fell over onto her

stomach, and Daddy picked her up and whirled her through the air, as if he were a Whirlikin

himself, and they were both laughing all the while.

Afterwards, they heard the dinner bell, and Daddy said it was time to go home. After they

waved goodbye to the Whirlikins, Becky and Jamie walked hand-in-hand with Momma as they walked

over the grassy hills toward home, and the pumpkin-orange sky slowly turned to blue.

The way home ran past El Castillo. El Castillo looked like a fabulous place, a castle with

towers and domes and minarets, all gleaming in the sun. Music floated down from El Castillo, the

swift, intricate music of many guitars, and Jamie could hear the fast click of heels and the

shouts and laughter of happy people.

But Jamie did not try to enter El Castillo. He had tried before, and discovered that El

Castillo was guarded by La Duchesa, an angular forbidding woman all in black, with a tall comb in

her hair. When Jamie asked to come inside, La Duchesa had looked down at him and said, "I do not

admit anyone who does not know Spanish irregular verbs!" It was all she ever said.

Jamie had asked Daddy what a Spanish irregular verb was-- he had difficulty pronouncing the

words-- and Daddy had said, "Some day you'll learn, and La Duchesa will let you into her castle.

But right now you're too young to learn Spanish."

That was all right with Jamie. There were plenty of things to do without going into El

Castillo. And new places, like the country where the Whirlikins lived, appeared sometimes out of

nowhere, and were quite enough to explore.

The color of the sky faded from orange to blue. Fluffy white clouds coasted in the air above

the two-storey frame house. Mister Jeepers, who was sitting on the ridgepole, gave a cry of

delight and soared toward them through the air.

"Jamie's home!" he sang happily. "Jamie's home, and he's brought his beautiful sister!"

Mister Jeepers was diamond-shaped, like a kite, with his head at the topmost corner, hands on

either sides, and little bowlegged comical legs attached on the bottom. He was bright red. Like a

kite, he could fly, and he swooped through in a series of aerial cartwheels as he sailed toward

Jamie and his party.

Becky looked up at Mister Jeepers and laughed from pure joy. "Jamie," she said, "you live in

the best place in the world!"

* * * *

At night, when Jamie lay in bed with his stuffed giraffe, Selena would ride a beam of pale

light from the Moon to the Earth and sit by Jamie's side. She was a pale woman, slightly

translucent, with a silver crescent on her brow. She would stroke Jamie's forehead with a cool

hand, and she would sing to him until his eyes grew heavy and slumber stole upon him.

The birds have tucked their heads

The night is dark and deep

All is quiet, all is safe,

And little Jamie goes to sleep.

Whenever Jamie woke during the night, Selena was there to comfort him. He was glad that

Selena always watched out for him, because sometimes he still had nightmares about being in the

hospital. When the nightmares came, she was always there to comfort him, stroke him, sing him back

to sleep.

Before long the nightmares began to fade.

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* * * *

Princess Gigunda always took Jamie for lessons. She was a huge woman, taller than Daddy, with

frowzy hair and big bare feet and a crown that could never be made to sit straight on her head.

She was homely, with a mournful face that was ugly and endearing at the same time. As she shuffled

along with Jamie to his lessons, Princess Gigunda complained about the way her feet hurt, and

about how she was a giant and unattractive, and how she would never be married.

"I'll marry you when I get bigger," Jamie said loyally, and the Princess's homely face

screwed up into an expression of beaming pleasure.

Jamie had different lessons with different people. Mrs. Winkle, down at the little red brick

schoolhouse, taught him his ABCs. Coach Toad-- who was one-- taught him field games, where he

raced and jumped and threw against various people and animals. Mr. McGillicuddy, a pleasant

whiskered fat man who wore red sleepers with a trapdoor in back, showed him his magic globe. When

Jamie put his finger anywhere on the globe, trumpets began to sound, and he could see what was

happening where he was pointing, and Mr. McGillicuddy would take him on a tour and show him

interesting things. Buildings, statues, pictures, parks, people. "This is Nome," he would say.

"Can you say Nome?"

"Nome," Jamie would repeat, shaping his mouth around the unfamiliar word, and Mr.

McGillicuddy would smile and bob his head and look pleased.

If Jamie did well on his lessons, he got extra time with the Whirlikins, or at the Zoo, or

with Mr. Fuzzy or in Pandaland. Until the dinner bell rang, and it was time to go home.

Jamie did well with his lessons almost every day.

When Princess Gigunda took him home from his lessons, Mister Jeepers would fly from the

ridgepole to meet him, and tell him that his family was ready to see him. And then Momma and Daddy

and Becky would wave from the windows of the house, and he would run to meet them.

Once, when he was in the living room telling his family about his latest trip through Mr.

McGillicuddy's magic globe, he began skipping about with enthusiasm, and waving his arms like a

Whirlikin, and suddenly he noticed that no one else was paying attention. That Momma and Daddy and

Becky were staring at something else, their faces frozen in different attitudes of polite

attention.

Jamie felt a chill finger touch his neck.

"Momma?" Jamie said. "Daddy?" Momma and Daddy did not respond. Their faces didn't move.

Daddy's face was blurred strangely, as if it been caught in the middle of movement.

"Daddy?" Jamie came close and tried to tug at his father's shirt sleeve. It was hard, like

marble, and his fingers couldn't get a purchase at it. Terror blew hot in his heart.

"Daddy?" Jamie cried. He tried to tug harder. "Daddy! Wake up!" Daddy didn't respond. He ran

to Momma and tugged at her hand. "Momma! Momma!" Her hand was like the hand of a statue. She

didn't move no matter how hard Jamie pulled.

"Help!" Jamie screamed. "Mister Jeepers! Mr. Fuzzy! Help my Momma!" Tears fell down his face

as he ran from Becky to Momma to Daddy, tugging and pulling at them, wrapping his arms around

their frozen legs and trying to pull them toward him. He ran outside, but everything was curiously

still. No wind blew. Mister Jeepers sat on the ridgepole, a broad smile fixed as usual to his

face, but he was frozen, too, and did not respond to Jamie's calls.

Terror pursued him back into the house. This was far worse than anything that had happened to

him in the hospital, worse even than the pain. Jamie ran into the living room, where his family

stood still as statues, and then recoiled in horror. A stranger had entered the room-- or rather

just parts of a stranger, a pair of hands encased in black gloves with strange silver circuit

patterns on the backs, and a strange glowing opalescent face with a pair of wraparound dark

glasses drawn across it like a line.

"Interface crashed, all right," the stranger said, as if to someone Jamie couldn't see.

Jamie gave a scream. He ran behind Momma's legs for protection.

"Oh shit," the stranger said. "The kid's still running."

He began purposefully moving his hands as if poking at the air. Jamie was sure that it was

some kind of terrible attack, a spell to turn him to stone. He tried to run away, tripped over

Becky's immovable feet and hit the floor hard, and then crawled away, the hall rug bunching up

under his hands and knees as he skidded away, his own screams ringing in his ears...

... He sat up in bed, shrieking. The cool night tingled on his skin. He felt Selena's hand on

his forehead, and he jerked away with a cry.

"Is something wrong?" came Selena's calm voice. "Did you have a bad dream?" Under the glowing

crescent on her brow, Jamie could see the concern in her eyes.

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