10: THE QUEEN’S PANTALOONS
Elle had a kitten.
She also had a huge brownstone townhouse filled with gleaming hardwood floors and crystal chandeliers and oil paintings but none of that mattered to Louise. A kitten beat everything Louise had, even being part elf and in possession of a spell book. Louise wasn’t pretty like an elf. Without magic, there was no point to being able to cast spells.
The emotional minefield of keeping so many big secrets from their parents had put Louise off-balance the entire week. On top of it all, yesterday had been Shutdown and they’d failed to contact Alexander. Even on the Pittsburgh Internet, they hadn’t been able to find a phone directory.
The last thing Louise wanted to do was engage in social warfare. Besides, with a real living pet, Elle had already won. While the rest of the party giggled and shrieked somewhere downstairs, Louise curled up on the second floor landing with the chocolate tortoiseshell kitten.
About an hour later, Zahara came creeping up the stairs. She was still in her silk tribal-wrap dress with thick gold bracelets that gleamed rich against her dark skin. While nothing had been done to tame her curly hair, someone had carefully applied glitter to her face, rich blue makeup to her eyes, and lip gloss to her quiet smile.
“You’re not going to be made up?” Zahara asked.
“I don’t feel like I’m seeing myself when I put on makeup,” Louise said. “I feel like I’ve put on a mask and I’m trying to fool people.”
Zahara settled on the stair just below her. “It’s not like a mask. It’s like a bracelet.” She slid off her thick gold band and twirled it so it caught the light. “This is beautiful as a piece of art. My arm is beautiful as part of my body.” She held up her arm, slim and graceful, as dark chocolate as the tortoiseshell. “Gold does not make you beautiful. Your arm does not make gold beautiful.” She slid on the bracelet and twisted her hand to show off the band in all its golden wonder against her warm darkness. “The two come together in a celebration of beauty. We exist. We are. One does not detract from the other. So you can not claim that they add to each other.”
“But they do add to each other. I don’t think that would be nearly as pretty on Elle.”
Zahara giggled and her quiet smile broke into something younger and joyous. “Everyone has been talking about your videos all week but I don’t think anyone has been talking to you.”
“No, they’ve been just staring.” If the twins hadn’t been so wrapped up with decoding the spell book and finding a method for generating magic, it would have been very upsetting. As it was, it was embarrassing and annoying.
“My mom is a model; she’s really famous. She meets all these amazingly talented people, and they all act like it’s a big deal to talk with her. But really, she’s a normal mom that gets up in the morning hoping that there’s enough milk for everyone’s cereal and nobody overflows the toilet before she has to go to work.”
It so wasn’t where Louise thought the conversation was going that she laughed. “Your toilet overflows a lot?”
“Constantly. It’s an old building and my little brother is an idiot with toilet paper. When you meet enough ‘famous’ people you start to realize that at the core, everyone is the same.”
“So—you’re not impressed with us being Lemon-Lime JEl-Lo?”
Zahara giggled. “I am impressed! I could fangirl all over you about how funny your videos are, how amazing the costumes are, how beautiful the sets are and everything. According to my mom, though, having someone suddenly gush all over you is a little creepy.”
“Yeah, it is. A little.”
“Is that why you’ve kept such a low profile? Every time you’d release a video, people would start guessing who you are.”
Louise shook her head. “We just thought our lives wouldn’t be interesting to anyone. We just go to school.” And school was so boring that they made up games like pretending not to know French in order to make it bearable. After several attempts to write up biographies, including one that ironically claimed that they were elves living in secret in New York City, they decided to leave off all information about themselves.
“Most people think you must live in Pittsburgh because everything is so detailed and accurate. Also because you always post your new video during Shutdown.”
It was a little bit creepy that people had figured out their posting schedule. Since the date floated, they didn’t think anyone would make a connection. “We make a lot up.”
“There’s scientists saying that you’re getting most of it right. How do you know everything that you don’t make up?”
Real scientists had seen their videos? Did any of them recognize themselves? “Remember the paper we had to do in first grade about Elfhome? While we were doing research for it, we ran across this funny article.”
Their classmates had been happy to regurgitate commonly known facts like how Elfhome was a mirror Earth in a parallel universe complete with identical continents. The twins, however, realized that there was too little known about the elves themselves. It was easier to find out information on ancient kings of Babylon on Earth than the current royal court on Elfhome. Even though there were big communities of scientists in Pittsburgh, there was nothing publicly available about their findings. Obviously the information was being hidden someplace. The twins rose to the challenge and started to hack university emails, looking for clues about what the scientists were doing with the data they were collecting.
What they found was ripe for parody.
Apparently elves knew that the humans would view them as lab rats. There was an entire section of the treaty forbidding the collection of genetic material from elves. It went so far as listing out “stray DNA” of dandruff, fingernail cuttings, and stray hairs. Because the elves were immortal, most questions about ancient history were viewed as personal and rude. While the enclaves had public areas open to the humans, a bulk of the compounds were deemed private and off limits to close study. The elves were also reluctant to talk about private issues to anyone outside of their household.
It forced researchers to become super-secret spy scientists that the twins parodied by making them ninjas in their videos. In every scene, they had one or more ninja anthropologists, sometimes well hidden, sometimes badly. It made every video an Easter egg hunt for scientists.
The true trigger for their videos was an “eyes only” paper on elf names and why they were taking English nicknames.
“When elves are born, they’re taken to Summer Court and the royal fortune tellers give them these amazing, lyrical names with great deep meaning. Their real names are really like ‘Pavana Gali Vento Ceyandalo Nagi Taeli’ which kind of means ‘bare branches swaying in night wind.’ There are rich layers of meaning to the entire name, since most of the words don’t really have matching English words. Like ‘Ceyandalo’ means the ‘alive but not in foliage’ kind of ‘bare,’ not the ‘naked’ kind of ‘bare.’ Then the word order is different, so the name really is ‘moving back and forth to brush dark hair, branches that are bare from winter, in the night wind.’ All the elves in Pittsburgh are Wind Clan, so their ‘last name’ is always some form of ‘wind.’ Humans, being humans, started to shorten the elves’ names, chopping off the Wind part, and such like. Since most humans didn’t understand the nuances of Elvish, they were really butchering names and pissing off the elves. Like they accidently called that elf ‘Hairbrush.’ The elves started taking English nicknames to stop that.”
Zahara giggled just like they did when they first read the paper. But then she gasped as she followed back the implication. “Wait. You mean there’s a real Hairbrush and Umbrella?”
“Kind of. Hairbrush actually uses the name ‘Winter’ and Umbrella is ‘Sunny.’”
“Really?” She laughed. “What about ‘Suppository’?”
“We made that one up.”
“Prince Yardstick?”
“That’s Viceroy Windwolf. His real name is Wolf Who Rules Wind. Ruler. One third of a yardstick?”
Zahara giggled again. “That’s so funny. My sister loves Prince Windwolf. She’s got this poster of him on her wall. But she thinks Prince Yardstick is a stick in the mud.”
Technically Windwolf wasn’t a prince even though he was a cousin to Queen Soulful Ember. All the reports on him stated that he was completely unflappable and resolute. The twins translated that into a character that was completely unfazed by the madness that they unleashed around him. Usually he didn’t appear until the video hit maximum insanity, which he would then view with mild confusion but utter calmness. Often he also was the person that put the world back in order—usually with a massive show of magic. She found it odd that anyone would consider him as dull, fussy, or old-fashioned. Maybe Zahara’s sister didn’t know what “stick in the mud” really meant.
Ava came to the bottom of the stairs and looked up. “Zahara, it’s your turn for photographs.”
“Come on.” Zahara hopped up. “You should try the makeup. It’s fun. And your parents will love the photos.”
Their mother would. Considering everything they’d been doing behind their parents’ back, it would probably be good to do something nice for them. Scooping up the kitten, Louise let Zahara lead her back downstairs.
The makeup artist blinked at her in surprise. “Didn’t I…oh, wow, your sister didn’t tell me she had a twin! She had me make her up as an elf princess.”
“She did?” Louise thought they were going to keep that secret.
“I have a whole box of these cool ear prosthetics.” The makeup artist held up ear tips. “Elfhome parties are very popular.”
Louise’s heart leapt in her chest and she blurted out, “Oh, yes, please,” before she even thought it out.
“Your sister is so cute and funny.” The artist tilted Louise’s head and painted something cool onto her ear tips.
“Yes, she is.” Louise felt the familiar uncomfortable twinge of envy. She couldn’t understand how it was that most people couldn’t tell them apart and yet it was always Jillian who was described as “cute.” What was it that made Jillian prettier? They had nearly the same hair—well, before Louise’s was burned off. Same shade of brown eyes. Same chin. “Can you make me just as cute?”
* * *
Thirty minutes later, Louise looked like an elf. The makeup girl somehow made her eyes appear very almond-shaped. The elf ears peeked out between hair extensions braided with ribbons and little silk flowers and pinned cleverly into Louise’s blast-shortened hair. She was dressed in a lovely copper lamé ball gown and had her face and bare shoulders dusted with glitter.
If she ignored how short she was, she looked completely like an elf.
There was the small matter that everyone else was probably made up to be a princess or a mermaid. At least, Jillian was also an elf—wherever she was. Louise hadn’t seen her twin since they’d arrived. Still carrying the purring kitten, Louise went in search of Jillian.
The rest of the party was down the hall, laughing and shrieking loudly. As Louise walked cautiously toward it, she realized she could hear Jillian’s voice slightly above the rest, quoting from their video, The Queen’s Pantaloons. Louise stopped at the doorway, surprised to find that Jillian was the center of attention. Obviously Jillian was using their fame to take over the party. Elle had a stone-hard smile locked into place even though her eyes stormed. All the other girls, though, were laughing as Jillian played the part of the clueless anthropologist, the extremely nearsighted Dr. Forthwright, the only non-ninja scientist from their videos.
“Such fancy needlework.” Jillian held up a facial tissue that was standing in for the lacy pair of oddly shaped underwear. The scene was based on odd wording used in academic papers to describe the elves’ method of dealing with no elastic or zippers to create clothing. “What do you suppose it is? A table dollie? A handkerchief? It has such wonderful perfume.”
“The—the—the Queen’s Pantaloons!” Zahara was standing in as Hairbrush, who they often portrayed as a hapless victim of cultural misunderstandings. She always managed to say the worse possible thing and then react wildly to resulting confusion.
“Pantaloons,” Jillian muttered as she mimed typing the word into a translator. “Pantaloons. Pan-ta-loons. Pan. Ta. Loons.” She paused, eyeing the tissue that was standing in for the lace panties. “Canadian water bird? No, I think not. Forgiveness. What are pantaloons?”
Zahara did a very good job of copying Hairbrush’s wild takes—that was half the humor of the scene. “Knickers. Drawers. Bloomers. Tanga.”
“Hmm, tanga.” Jillian consulted the nonexistent translator again. “Currency of Tajikistan. Ah, I see: it’s money. What’s the exchange rate?”
“Once per day?” Zahara sputtered out after a full minute of surprised and confused looks.
Jillian tossed up the tissue and the room burst into squeals of excitement. One girl after another snatched the white tissue out of the air and quoted a ninja anthropologist line from the video and then tossed it up again. Not all the quips were from The Queen’s Pantaloons, displaying a slightly scary range of knowledge.
Elle’s smile started to tremble and the anger in her eyes turned to hurt. It was her birthday party and she was about to cry.
Louise darted forward, caught the tissue and tossed at to Elle. “The queen! The queen!”
Elle’s eyes went wide in surprise.
Jillian quirked a frown at Louise but sketched an elaborate bow. “Queen Soulful Ember.”
Elle’s eyes narrowed but she rose regal as a queen. “Hairbrush? Hairbrush? We have laws against mimes.”
Zahara did a perfect triple take. “Mimes? We do?”
“Surely we do. Frightening things: mimes. What will humans think up next? If we allow mimes, kabuki is sure to follow.”
“Kabuki?”
Elle struck the first pose of Noh play Tamura or Dance of the Ghost. Amazingly, she had the dance fairly well approximated. Anyone that hadn’t spent hours researching and recreating the dance with Barbie dolls and CGI animation wouldn’t know the difference. Why did Elle know the dance so well? Was she a closet fan or had she learned it merely because she knew all the other kids liked the video? The other girls supplied “music” as the ninja anthropologist/musicians, drumming on side tables and pretending to be playing flutes.
“Noh!” Zahara cried. “Your majesty, Noh!”
“Are you telling your queen no?”
“Of course not!”
“But you just did!”
“But… But… But.…” Zahara did Hairbrush’s whimper as she once again found herself in verbal quicksand. “That is not kabuki, it’s Noh.”
A withering look from Elle, probably for Zahara’s part of stealing the spotlight during Elle’s party. “There is a strange female in the garden.” Elle pointed with the same circling flourish as the video, a subtle clue that the queen was on the verge of leveling everything with fire strikes. “We think she might be a mime. She’s moving her mouth but nothing coming out. We can’t allow mimes; next thing we’ll know we’ll be up to our armpits in all sorts of scary things. Mimes. Clowns. Frenchmen.”
“Oh! Oh! Her! No! I—I—I mean to say ‘she isn’t a mime,’ your majesty. She merely swallowed the gossamer call.”
Elle did a perfect comedic pause, hands cocked like a gunfighters, fingers twitching, as the other girls screamed with laughter. She finally broke her silence only when the laugh died to excited giggles. “What?”
“The gossamer call. It generates a sound audible only to gossamers…and mimes.”
Elle let her hands flutter up, fingers twitching madly and the girls all shrieked with laughter. “Blast it all!”
Mrs. Pondwater came in, clapping her hands for attention. “Jillian. Louise. You’re the last girls for photographs. The photographer is waiting for you.”
They allowed themselves to be shooed to the formal living room where a thronelike chair had been set before a smoky-gray backdrop. The photographer eyed them with surprise.
“Elves? Are you sure you two are at the right party?”
Jillian waved off the comment. “We’re just killing time until the next Shutdown, then we’re heading to Elfhome.”
Louise shivered as the words raised the hair on the back of her neck.