5. The Make-A-Wish Kid
Rippa had spent all night awake, tossing and turning this way and that, thinking. At some point, she even tried to clear her mind by browsing through X, which didn’t help much.
When she heard Mom and Dad go through their morning routine, and when noises came up from the kitchen downstairs, she finally got out of her bed.
***
“Morning,” greeted Rippa as she entered the kitchen.
Mom and Dad looked up from their bacon and eggs.
“Couldn’t sleep either, huh?” Dad commented, then his eyes registered the gym bag Rippa had brought.
“Hitting the gym? You?”
“Eh? No, just a swimsuit and some towels,” answered Rippa. She could see her parents’ eyes narrowing. “I think I’m going.”
Mom and Dad looked at each other, and then back at Rippa.
“You know, I thought, perhaps if I think of it like Make a Wish—”
“Filippa!” Mom gasped. “That’s horrible!”
Dad silently poked his bacon with the fork. He seemed to be weighing Rippa’s decision.
“Well, OK,” Rippa conceded, “that’s a bit of a mean way of approaching it, but come on! Aliens!”
Dad chuckled and broke his silence. “You know, it’s kinda ironic when you think about it.”
“What is?”
“You are always ranting about this conspiracy shit. The Feds are watching us, the Feds are doing this, mustn’t get on the Feds’ list. All those shits. And you end up attracting alien attention?”
Rippa shrugged.
Dad sighed. “You set on this?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m thinking,” said Dad, drumming his fingers on the table, “if they can put a hole in your furniture with some space laser, they can certainly fry us, too, whenever they want.”
“But they were so nice,” Mom objected.
“Exactly,” Dad nodded. “Let’s keep it that way.” He then scowled. “Oh god, I sound like I’m pimping out my daughter.”
Rippa and Mom laughed. Somehow, it felt as if the tension had lifted somewhat.
With the decision reached, Dad gestured for Rippa to join the table. “Come. Breakfast. You still have a couple of hours to kill.”
“Huh?”
“Filippa, it’s seven thirty in the morning.”
***
It was obvious Buttons had been waiting. Face lit bright, the kid sprang up from her sofa and ran the short distance to Rippa and looked up.
“You came last night!”
“Yeah, erm… that was a practice run,” Rippa lied, recalling last night’s embarrassment.
She looked around. Goggles was nowhere to be seen. Miss Pendrake was there, at the table where Buttons had been sitting. She rose from the seat and gave a polite nod in greeting.
Next to her was a wooden doll maid, but quite different from those Rippa had seen yesterday. This one, unlike the others, had one long horizontal bar of silver with an equally long red crystal insert across the eyeline. Instead of a smooth bald head like the others, this maid had elaborately sculpted and carved curly bob-cut hair, with silver pins encrusted with shiny gems. This one wore a dark leather belt with a vertical holster on the right hip that housed a complicated-looking cylindrical object.
The special doll, too, stood up and greeted Rippa with a nod. Rippa greeted the two in the same manner and looked back down at Buttons.
“Where can I change? I brought my swimsuit.”
Buttons’ smile went even wider. Yes, Rippa came to play with her! She looked at the doll maid, “Madam J.D., would you please?”
The maid named Madam J.D. waved her hand.
On the beach, next to the pavilion, a wooden shack appeared. At this point, Rippa wasn’t surprised anymore. Nevertheless, she noted, ‘So, even these dolls can do that, too?’
When Rippa changed and came out of the shack, Buttons was on the beach, stretching. To Rippa’s shock, the kid wasn’t wearing anything.
“Ah, erm, aren’t you gonna wear something?” asked Rippa, uncomfortable.
“Eh?”
Rippa turned to Madam J.D., who seemed to have understood Rippa’s discomfort.
The doll plucked a simple dark-blue swimsuit out of thin air and proceeded to get Buttons dressed.
“Aw, these things creep up my bottom,” the child complained, but the maid paid no attention.
While Buttons was getting ready, Rippa couldn’t help but note the prosthetic leg. Buttons first wore, now underneath the swimsuit, a leather belt around her waist, from which two straps of leather went down along the left thigh, front and back, to her knee. There, a slip-on kneeband with four rings evenly spaced. The two straps were secured to the front and the back rings. From the rings on each side of the knee, another pair of leather straps went down and connected to the socket of the prosthetic, keeping the whole thing from falling off. Rippa thought the arrangement was a bit redundant as the socket seemed to fit well and snugly enough not to slip off that easily.
The leg itself was nothing ‘alien.’ Just a modern prosthetic with a metal shaft shin, a movable ankle joint, and a foot-shaped end. Just scaled down to a kid-sized version.
“I have a wooden peg leg, too,” Buttons commented, having noticed Rippa looking at her leg. “For when I play pirate captain,” she added.
Rippa smiled, trying to hide the awkwardness of having been caught looking at the child’s prosthetic leg. Thankfully, Buttons didn’t seem to mind.
Madam J.D. conjured up two already-inflated floaties. A small donut with a strawberry pink glaze, clearly for Buttons. And a large glossy slice of orange for Rippa. She then made Buttons do some simple stretching and warm-ups for the next ten minutes, following Miss Pendrake’s lead, for the next ten minutes. Rippa felt awkward just standing there, so she joined in. She thought to herself ‘God, this actually feels good. I should do some stretching from time to time.’
The water slide wasn’t anything spectacular. After walking up a zigzag of stairs, there was a simple, rainbow-colored chute that swerved left and right from maybe a modest fifteen-foot height, ending in a quite generous straight section at the end that’d make Rippa plop into the water that came up to her waist, or to Buttons’ shoulders. It definitely wouldn’t be the main attraction in any water park, Rippa thought, but the kid seemed to love it.
The water was pleasantly warm, yet cool enough to feel refreshing. The sun was bright, but not scorching. Even the gentle breeze was perfect. Whatever climate control technology was being employed, the aliens were doing a fantastic job, Rippa thought.
After a dozen or so times on the water slide, Rippa had noticed a pattern. Buttons, at the top, would shout through the chute, “Rippa, are you clear?” and wouldn’t start until Rippa shouted back up that she was well out of the way. The kid was being overly cautious, Rippa thought.
“You know what? Let’s go down together this time,” Rippa suggested. Buttons had just slid down, shouting, “Whee!” plopped into the water, and was now pushing wet hair off her face.
“Nope,” Buttons rejected it right away, much to Rippa’s surprise. The child then, with some effort and almost falling backward, raised her prosthetic leg out of the water for a brief second. “It’s hard, solid metal, Rippa,” said Buttons, lowering her left foot back down and steadying herself. “It could seriously hurt you if it bangs into you.”
Rippa couldn’t argue with that, but she noted this kid might actually be more mature than she looked.
After a dozen or so more slides, Rippa noticed Buttons was wheezing and panting a bit, and taking a tad bit longer climbing up the stairs, showing signs of exhaustion.
“I feel a bit tired. Is it OK with you if we rest a bit?” Rippa offered.
“Oh, nice. I was about to suggest the same,” answered Buttons and beamed a smile.
Rippa offered her hand, which Buttons gladly took. They waded toward the beach.
A group of maids was setting up two deckchairs underneath a large parasol. Beyond, Rippa could see Goggles was at the bar, preparing some cold drinks. She wondered when he had come.
Madam J.D. was waiting on the sand with a clean, white beach towel that was neatly folded and looked so soft and creamy like a cake.
When Rippa and Buttons were almost out of the water, Miss Pendrake came over with a thick, white, hooded beach robe and draped it over Buttons. The special doll came to Rippa and offered the towel.
Rippa took the towel and thanked Madam J.D. She turned to look at Buttons. Miss Pendrake was drying Buttons’ hair with the hooded robe. For a second, Rippa thought Miss Pendrake had grown a few inches taller. But then it hit Rippa like a truck. The blond girl was standing on the water.