The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories Read online

  And then his parents came bustling in, kissing him and petting him and taking him downstairs for breakfast.

  His fears seemed foolish now, in full daylight, with Mister Jeepers dancing in the air outside and singing happily.

  But sometimes, at night while Selena crooned by his bedside, he gazed into the darkness and felt a thrill of fear.

  And he never forgot, not entirely.

  A few days later Don Quixote wandered into the world, a lean man who frequently fell off his lean horse in a clang of home-made armor. He was given to making wan comments in both English and his own language, which turned out to be Spanish.

  "Can you teach me Spanish irregular verbs?" Jamie asked.

  "Sí, naturalmente," said Don Quixote. "But I will have to teach you some other Spanish as well." He looked particularly mournful. "Let's start with corazon. It means 'heart.' Mi corazon," he said with a sigh, "is breaking for love of Dulcinea."

  After a few sessions with Don Quixote—mixed with a lot of sighing about corazons and Dulcinea—Jamie took a grip on his courage, marched up to El Castillo, and spoke to La Duchesa. "Pierdo, sueño, haría, ponto!" he cried.

  La Duchesa's eyes widened in surprise, and as she bent toward Jamie her severe face became almost kindly. "You are obviously a very intelligent boy," she said. "You may enter my castle."

  And so Don Quixote and La Duchesa, between the two of them, began to teach Jamie to speak Spanish. If he did well, he was allowed into the parts of the castle where the musicians played and the dancers stamped, where brave Castilian knights jousted in the tilting yard, and Señor Esteban told stories in Spanish, always careful to use words that Jamie already knew.

  Jamie couldn't help but notice that sometimes Don Quixote behaved strangely. Once, when Jamie was visiting the Whirlikins, Don Quixote charged up on his horse, waving his sword and crying out that he would save Jamie from the goblins that were attacking him. Before Jamie could explain that the Whirlikins were harmless, Don Quixote galloped to the attack. The Whirlikins, alarmed, screwed themselves into the ground where they were safe, and Don Quixote fell off his horse trying to swing at one with his sword. After poor Quixote fell off his horse a few times, it was Jamie who had to rescue the Don, not the other way around.

  It was sort of sad and sort of funny. Every time Jamie started to laugh about it, he saw Don Quixote's mournful face in his mind, and his laugh grew uneasy.

  After a while, Jamie's sister Becky began to share Jamie's lessons. She joined him and Princess Gigunda on the trip to the little schoolhouse, learned reading and math from Mrs. Winkle, and then, after some coaching from Jamie and Don Quixote, she marched to La Duchesa to shout irregular verbs and gain entrance to El Castillo.

  Around that time Marcus Tullius Cicero turned up to take them both to the Forum Romanum, a new part of the world that had appeared to the south of the Whirlikins' territory. But Cicero and the people in the Forum, all the shopkeepers and politicians, did not teach Latin the way Don Quixote taught Spanish, explaining what the new words meant in English, they just talked Latin at each other and expected Jamie and Becky to understand. Which, eventually, they did. The Spanish helped. Jamie was a bit better at Latin than Becky, but he explained to her that it was because he was older.

  It was Becky who became interested in solving Princess Gigunda's problem. "We should find her somebody to love," she said.

  "She loves us," Jamie said.

  "Don't be silly," Becky said. "She wants a boyfriend."

  "I'm her boyfriend," Jamie insisted.

  Becky looked a little impatient. "Besides," she said, "it's a puzzle. Just like La Duchesa and her verbs."

  This had not occurred to Jamie before, but now that Becky mentioned it, the idea seemed obvious. There were a lot of puzzles around, which one or the other of them was always solving, and Princess Gigunda's lovelessness was, now that he saw it, clearly among them.

  So they set out to find Princess Gigunda a mate. This question occupied them for several days, and several candidates were discussed and rejected. They found no answers until they went to the chariot race at the Circus Maximus. It was the first race in the Circus ever, because the place had just appeared on the other side of the Palatine Hill from the Forum, and there was a very large, very excited crowd.

  The names of the charioteers were announced as they paraded their chariots to the starting line. The trumpets sounded, and the chariots bolted from the star as the drivers whipped up the horses. Jamie watched enthralled as they rolled around the spina for the first lap, and then shouted in surprise at the sight of Don Quixote galloping onto the Circus Maximus, shouting that he was about to stop this group of rampaging demons from destroying the land, and planted himself directly in the path of the oncoming chariots. Jamie shouted along with the crowd for the Don to get out of the way before he got killed.

  Fortunately Quixote's horse had more sense than he did, because the spindly animal saw the chariots coming and bolted, throwing its rider. One of the chariots rode right over poor Quixote, and there was a horrible clanging noise, but after the chariot passed, Quixote sat up, apparently unharmed. His armor had saved him.

  Jamie jumped from his seat and was about to run down to help Don Quixote off the course, but Becky grabbed his arm. "Hang on," she said, "someone else will look after him, and I have an idea."

  She explained that Don Quixote would make a perfect man for Princess Gigunda.

  "But he's in love with Dulcinea!"

  Becky looked at him patiently. "Has anyone ever seen Dulcinea? All we have to do is convince Don Quixote that Princess Gigunda is Dulcinea."

  After the races, they found that Don Quixote had been arrested by the lictors and sent to the Lautumiae, which was the Roman jail. They weren't allowed to see the prisoner, so they went in search of Cicero, who was a lawyer and was able to get Quixote out of the Lautumiae on the promise that he would never visit Rome again.

  "I regret to the depths of my soul that my parole does not enable me to destroy those demons," Quixote said as he left Rome's town limits.

  "Let's not get into that," Becky said. "What we wanted to tell you was that we've found Dulcinea."

  The old man's eyes widened in joy. He clutched at his armor-clad heart. "Mi amor! Where is she? I must run to her at once!"

  "Not just yet," Becky said. "You should know that she's been changed. She doesn't look like she used to."

  "Has some evil sorcerer done this?" Quixote demanded.

  "Yes!" Jamie interrupted. He was annoyed that Becky had taken charge of everything, and he wanted to add his contribution to the scheme. "The sorcerer was just a head!" he shouted. "A floating head, and a pair of hands! And he wore dark glasses and had no body!"

  A shiver of fear passed through him as he remembered the eerie floating head, but the memory of his old terror did not stop his words from spilling out.

  Becky gave him a strange look. "Yeah," she said. "That's right."

  "He crashed the interface!" Jamie shouted, the words coming to him out of memory.

  Don Quixote paid no attention to this, but Becky gave him another look.

  "You're not as dumb as you look, Digit," she said.

  "I do not care about Dulcinea's appearance," Don Quixote declared, "I love only the goodness that dwells in her corazon."

  "She's Princess Gigunda!" Jamie shouted, jumping up and down in enthusiasm. "She's been Princess Gigunda all along!"

  And so, the children following, Don Quixote ran clanking to where Princess Gigunda waited near Jamie's house, fell down to one knee, and began to kiss and weep over the Princess' hand. The Princess seemed a little surprised by this until Becky told her that she was really the long-lost Dulcinea, changed into a giant by an evil magician, although she probably didn't remember it because that was part of the spell, too.

  So while the Don and the Princess embraced, kissed, and began to warble a love duet, Becky turned to Jamie.

  "What's that stuff about the floating head?" she asked
. "Where did you come up with that?"

  "I dunno," Jamie said. He didn't want to talk about his memory of his family being turned to stone, the eerie glowing figure floating before them. He didn't want to remember how everyone said it was just a dream.

  He didn't want to talk about the suspicions that had never quite gone away.

  "That stuff was weird, Digit," Becky said. "It gave me the creeps. Let me know before you start talking about stuff like that again."

  "Why do you call me Digit?" Jamie asked. Becky smirked.

  "No reason," she said.

  "Jamie's home!" Mister Jeepers' voice warbled from the sky. Jamie looked up to see Mister Jeepers doing joyful aerial loops overhead. "Master Jamie's home at last!"

  "Where shall we go?" Jamie asked.

  Their lessons for the day were over, and he and Becky were leaving the little red schoolhouse. Becky, as usual, had done very well on her lessons, better than her older brother, and Jamie felt a growing sense of annoyance. At least he was still better at Latin and computer science.

  "I dunno," Becky said. "Where do you want to go?"

  "How about Pandaland? We could ride the Whoosh Machine."

  Becky wrinkled her face. "I'm tired of that kid stuff," she said.

  Jamie looked at her. "But you're a kid."

  "I'm not as little as you, Digit," Becky said.

  Jamie glared. This was too much. "You're my little sister! I'm bigger than you!"

  "No, you're not," Becky said. She stood before him, her arms flung out in exasperation. "Just notice something for once, will you?"

  Jamie bit back on his temper and looked, and he saw that Becky was, in fact, bigger than he was. And older-looking. Puzzlement replaced his fading anger.

  "How did you get so big?" Jamie asked.

  "I grew. And you didn't grow. Not as fast anyway."

  "I don't understand."

  Becky's lip curled. "Ask Mom or Dad. Just ask them." Her expression turned stony. "Just don't believe everything they tell you."

  "What do you mean?"

  Becky looked angry for a moment, and then her expression relaxed. "Look," she said, "just go to Pandaland and have fun, okay? You don't need me for that. I want to go and make some calls to my friends."

  "What friends?"

  Becky looked angry again. "My friends. It doesn't matter who they are!"

  "Fine!" Jamie shouted. "I can have fun by myself!"

  Becky turned and began to walk home, her pale legs rapidly scissoring against the deep green hillside. Jamie glared after her, then turned and began the walk to Pandaland.

  He did all his favorite things, rode the Ferris wheel and the Whoosh Machine, watched Rizzio the Strongman and the clowns. He enjoyed himself, but his enjoyment felt hollow. He found himself watching, watching himself at play, watching himself enjoying the rides.

  Watching himself not grow as fast as his little sister.

  Watching himself wondering whether or not to ask his parents about why that was.

  He had the idea that he wouldn't like their answers.

  He didn't see as much of Becky after that. They would share lessons, and then Becky would lock herself in her room to talk to her friends on the phone.

  Becky didn't have a telephone in her room, though. He looked once when she wasn't there.

  After a while, Becky stopped accompanying him for lessons. She'd got ahead of him on everything except Latin, and it was too hard for Jamie to keep up.

  After that, he hardly saw Becky at all. But when he saw her, he saw that she was still growing fast. Her clothing was different, and her hair. She'd started wearing makeup.

  He didn't know whether he liked her anymore or not.

  It was Jamie's birthday. He was eleven years old, and Momma and Daddy and Becky had all come for a party. Don Quixote and Princess Gigunda serenaded Jamie from outside the window, accompanied by La Duchesa on Spanish guitar. There was a big cake with eleven candles. Momma gave Jamie a chart of the stars. When he touched a star, a voice would appear telling Jamie about the star, and lines would appear on the chart showing any constellation the star happened to belong to. Daddy gave Jamie a car, a miniature Mercedes convertible, scaled to Jamie's size, which he could drive around the country and which he could use in the Circus Maximus when the chariots weren't racing. His sister gave Jamie a kind of lamp stand that would project lights and moving patterns on the walls and ceiling when the lights were off. "Listen to music when you use it," she said.

  "Thank you, Becky," Jamie said.

  "Becca," she said. "My name is Becca now. Try to remember."

  "Okay," Jamie said. "Becca."

  Becky—Becca—looked at Momma. "I'm dying for a cigaret," she said. "Can I go, uh, out for a minute?"

  Momma hesitated, but Daddy looked severe. "Becca," he said, "this is Jamie's birthday. We're all here to celebrate. So why don't we all eat some cake and have a nice time?"

  "It's not even real cake," Becca said. "It doesn't taste like real cake."

  "It's a nice cake," Daddy insisted. "Why don't we talk about this later? Let's just have a special time for Jamie."

  Becca stood up from the table. "For the Digit?" she said. "Why are we having a good time for Jamie? He's not even a real person!" She thumped herself on the chest. "I'm a real person!" she shouted. "Why don't we ever have special times for me?"

  But Daddy was on his feet by that point and shouting, and Momma was trying to get everyone to be quiet, and Becca was shouting back, and suddenly a determined look entered her face and she just disappeared—suddenly, she wasn't there anymore, there was just only air.

  Jamie began to cry. So did Momma. Daddy paced up and down and swore, and then he said, "I'm going to go get her." Jamie was afraid he'd disappear like Becca, and he gave a cry of despair, but Daddy didn't disappear, he just stalked out of the dining room and slammed the door behind him.

  Momma pulled Jamie onto her lap and hugged him. "Don't worry, Jamie," she said. "Becky just did that to be mean."

  "What happened?" Jamie asked.

  "Don't worry about it." Momma stroked his hair. "It was just a mean trick."

  "She's growing up," Jamie said. "She's grown faster than me and I don't understand."

  "Wait till Daddy gets back," Momma said, "and we'll talk about it."

  But Daddy was clearly in no mood for talking when he returned, without Becca. "We're going to have fun," he snarled, and reached for the knife to cut the cake.

  The cake tasted like ashes in Jamie's mouth. When the Don and Princess Gigunda, Mister Jeepers, and Rizzio the Strongman came into the dining room and sang "Happy Birthday," it was all Jamie could do to hold back the tears.

  Afterwards, he drove his new car to the Circus Maximus and drove as fast as he could on the long oval track. The car really wouldn't go very fast. The bleachers on either side were empty, and so was the blue sky above.

  Maybe it was a puzzle, he thought, like Princess Gigunda's love life. Maybe all he had to do was follow the right clue, and everything would be fine.

  What's the moral they're trying to teach? he wondered.

  But all he could do was go in circles, around and around the empty stadium.

  "Hey, Digit. Wake up."

  Jamie came awake suddenly, with a stifled cry. The room whirled around him. He blinked, realized that the whirling came from the colored lights projected by his birthday present, Becca's lamp stand.

  Becca was sitting on his bedroom chair, a cigaret in her hand. Her feet, in the steel-capped boots she'd been wearing lately, were propped up on the bed.

  "Are you awake, Jamie?" It was Selena's voice. "Would you like me to sing you a lullaby?"

  "Fuck off, Selena," Becca said. "Get out of here. Get lost."

  Selena cast Becca a mournful look, then sailed backwards, out the window, riding a beam of moonlight to her pale home in the sky. Jamie watched her go, and felt as if a part of himself was going with her, a part that he would never see again.

  "Selena an
d the others have to do what you tell them, mostly," Becca said. "Of course, Mom and Dad wouldn't tell you that."

  Jamie looked at Becca. "What's happening?" he said. "Where did you go today?"

  Colored lights swam over Becca's face. "I'm sorry if I spoiled your birthday, Digit. I just got tired of the lies, you know? They'd kill me if they knew I was here now, talking to you." Becca took a draw on her cigaret, held her breath for a second or two, then exhaled. Jamie didn't see or taste any smoke.

  "You know what they wanted me to do?" she said. "Wear a little girl's body, so I wouldn't look any older than you, and keep you company in that stupid school for seven hours a day." She shook her head. "I wouldn't do it. They yelled and yelled, but I was damned if I would."

  "I don't understand."

  Becca flicked invisible ashes off her cigaret, and looked at Jamie for a long time. Then she sighed.

  "Do you remember when you were in the hospital?" she said.

  Jamie nodded. "I was really sick."

  "I was so little then, I don't really remember it very well," Becca said. "But the point is—" She sighed again. "The point is that you weren't getting well. So they decided to—" She shook her head. "Dad took advantage of his position at the University, and the fact that he's been a big donor. They were doing AI research, and the neurology department was into brain modeling, and they needed a test subject, and—Well, the idea is, they've got some of your tissue, and when they get cloning up and running, they'll put you back in—" She saw Jamie's stare, then shook her head. "I'll make it simple, okay?"

  She took her feet off the bed and leaned closer to Jamie. A shiver ran up his back at her expression. "They made a copy of you. An electronic copy. They scanned your brain and built a holographic model of it inside a computer, and they put it in a virtual environment, and—" She sat back, took a drag on her cigaret. "And here you are," she said.

  Jamie looked at her. "I don't understand."

  Colored lights gleamed in Becca's eyes. "You're in a computer, okay? And you're a program. You know what that is, right? From computer class? And the program is sort of in the shape of your mind. Don Quixote and Princess Gigunda are programs, too. And Mrs. Winkle down at the schoolhouse is usually a program, but if she needs to teach something complex, then she's an education major from the University."