“Seventy-five, eighty, ninety and a dollar. Thank you, and come again.”
“You’re really getting the hang of that.”
OJ smiled at his co-worker. “I’ve been watching old cartoons for practice.”
“Huh?”
“Um … never mind.”
The few seconds of silence that followed this stretched into an awkward minute.
“Anyway,” said OJ. Oh my goodness I don’t have anything to follow that up with just say anything, anything, ANYTHING FOR GOODNESS SAKE ANYTHING WHAT WOULD APPLES SAY? “Did you know that if you mix raspberry jelly and Blue Hawaii jelly—” NO NOT THAT WHAT ARE YOU CRAZY?
Hannah smiled at OJ politely. “Yes?”
“I … uh …”
“What flavour IS ‘Blue Hawaii’, anyway?” she wondered. “I know it has that certain taste but what is that? It’s not anything like blueberry—”
“Oh! Oh I know this!” OJ cried. “It’s a cocktail! I mean,” he said, suddenly aware of how unbelievably dorkish he was allowing himself to sound, “originally a Blue Hawaii was a cocktail, the flavour of which … was …” oh no oh help I’ve forgotten how to grammar “… becoming popular as drink. And for snowcones.”
“I love snowcones,” Hannah said. “I haven’t had one for a long time though, there’s nowhere—oh, Moxie! Moxie, did you know—”
“Cocktails. Yeah. Pretty cool.”
OJ watched Moxie for a moment as she refolded a couple of t-shirts—from his section, he noticed with a sudden pang.
“My, um, my sister loves snowcones too,” he said, dragging his attention back to Hannah. “Her favourite flavour is, uh, ‘everything’. I don’t mean like ‘any flavour’, I mean EVERY flavour, all mixed together. It kind of tastes like diabetes.”
Hannah laughed. “Your sister sounds cute, you should bring her into the shop sometime.”
“Aha, no, that’d be bad, that’d be so, so bad, she’s really … I mean, she’s great, of course, she’s my sister and I, um, tolerate her quite well, I think, but bringing her here … it’s not that I don’t want her to meet you or, um, Moxie, but I just think? I really just think? There should be some separation. In life. In your life. Not, um, not ‘your life’, like ‘Hannah’s life’, I just meant generally, like anyone’s life, or ‘Moxie’s life’, or … well, ‘my life’, I don’t want Apples to come here because she’s, um, it’s just better if she’s not here. Ever.”
Hannah hummed a little bit, then raised her head suddenly.
“Oh, that reminds me, I should go check the stuff in the back. You can handle things out here, right OJ?”
“Mmmph.”
“I’ll be back soon.”
Hannah disappeared out the back. OJ stared after her for a moment, then collapsed onto the shop counter, his face buried in his hands with a quiet ohgodwhatdidIjustsay?
“Quiet today.”
“I wish,” OJ mumbled into the counter. He peeled his face off it and looked up at Moxie. “I don’t ‘like’ her, you know.”
Moxie nodded, her lips slightly pursed. “Yeah.”
“I really don’t—I mean she’s okay, I don’t hate her, I don’t dislike her, I just … can’t talk to her.”
Moxie nodded again. “We’ve all got our own ways of dealing with normals.”
“Huh?”
Moxie was already walking away, with that kind of lilting I-don’t-care-how-I-walk swagger of hers, off to rearrange the sheet music display.
*
“I can’t believe we fell for that. The old ‘look, a bus!’ routine. Granted, something of a twist given that the bus in question was dancing—”
“And really well, too, I wouldn’t expect a bus to be so graceful, it’s said that buses are the ‘cows of the road’ and I agree, they’re really—”
“Wait,” said Dorothee. She squinted at Apples. “What do you mean ‘it’s said’, who says that?”
“Well, I did, just then, so technically it’s true. Anyway, pass me those Blue Packers, I’m-a hungry!”
Dorothee passed the cereal over. Apples happily shook some into a bowl then added milk.
“I love their little smiles,” she said, before crunching into her first mouthful. “Even if the crunchcrunchcrunch square eyes are kind of a bit crunchcrunch creepy sometimes.”
“In some ways you and your brother are remarkably similar,” said Dorothee. “But focus for a second, Apples. I don’t think it’s coincidence that we shared a dream last night and that David Bowie just happened to be passing through. Something’s up.”
“Adventure?”
“No, just suspicion.”
“Suspicion LEADING to adventure?”
“Right now it’s just general suspicion not really leading anywhere.”
“General Suspicion!” said Apples, saluting smartly before returning her attention to the brightly coloured cereal. Dorothee watched Apples half-slurp, half-crunch her way through another spoonful of the stuff before speaking again:
“Do you feel bad about not getting up to see OJ off? I kind of think he would’ve liked it.”
“He’s a guy, they don’t care about that stuff,” said Apples.
“He’s pretty sensitive, though.”
“That’s true. But it’s not like it’s a special day or anything.”
“He’s got that new manager girl to deal with, though, he might need support.”
“Oh, you mean Hannah Redivider?”
“You don’t have to say her full name every time, Apples.”
“But it’s so awesomely palindromagical! Hey, don’t you think it’s weird that ‘palindrome’ spelled backwards is, um … emor … dnilap? I’m fairly certain you couldn’t get LESS palindromical if you tried. It should be … um … ‘palininap’. Palililila … palinila … palinilli … palli … pala … pa … p. Help Dorothee help.”
“Were you trying for ‘palinilap’?” Dorothee asked, secretly immensely relieved to have said it correctly.
“Yeah! Exactly! Panilima … panilivanilli … panil—”
“I’m going to have to stop you there, Apples.”
“Phew. Thank goodness. I’m starting to see why it’s just ‘palindrome’.”
“How about ‘palap’?” Dorothee suggested. “That’s pretty simple.”
“That sounds WAY too much like that word I hate,” Apples said, making a face.
“What, ‘heinous’?”
“Yick! No! The other one!”
“Um … ‘skeeve’?”
“Argh! Doro!”
“So you mean—”
“Change of subject, change of subject!”
“Well, we were talking about OJ—”
“No, do it properly, Doro, please?”
Dorothee sighed, then got up from the table and went to a small wooden box on the wall, from which she pulled out an envelope marked ‘Emergency Change of Subject’ and a tiny knife. Using said tiny knife, Dorothee slit open the envelope and from it pulled a small green slip of paper.
“What’s it say? What’s it say?”
Dorothee stood there, looking at the piece of paper.
“Apples,” she said, “this is a coupon for half-price mini golf.”
“Oh! Which mini golf place?”
” ‘Captain No-Beard’s Crystal Cove’. It’s that pirate-themed one in Parapaparaparapa.”
Apples beamed.
“And thus the problem of ‘what to do today’ was officially solved!”
*
“—but really, if you’re gonna start anywhere with DyCha, it’s gotta be Fury White and the Pioneering Spirits. Sure, Nightmare of the Forever Ratio has some really good songs on it and it’s probably more cohesive, if you want to listen to one of her albums start to finish then that’s probably the best, and The Princess and The Pod Police has, yeah, The Big Goodbye and Pressure Sleeve, but Spirits is just … every song on it is good, some are great—I mean you’ve got Heart Worm, Luscious Wolf, The Other Song, Occasional Rainy Day just to start with—and it’s really the album where she first let herself go, I mean really started showing who she was. Did you ever see the interview where she said who Luscious Wolf was about? Wow, the passion … I was like ten when I saw that and I still completely got what she was talking about, and THAT is what makes her a genius. She uses these simple little words in ways you never even thought they could be used, she doesn’t break rules, she invents them—”
OJ watched Moxie talking with the customer while pretending to wipe down the counter.
“Oh, wiping down the counter? Thanks, those customers can be pretty sticky.”
“Um … um, yes,” said OJ, switching from ‘pretending’ to ‘actually’. Hannah smiled as she followed his gaze.
“She’s really different when she starts talking about music stuff.”
OJ nodded. “It’s, um, it’s kind of like she saves herself up for it.”
“Huh?”
“Uh … uh, nothing.”
“What do you mean?”
OJ grimaced, just slightly. “Uh, just like … she’s pretty quiet and, um, like cool normally, I don’t know, all just … then when it’s something she’s interested in, she like … opens.”
“Oh … yes. I understand.”
They watched Moxie for a moment.
“—if you like Ex Parte McCardle then you definitely have to check out Syncrophasatron. This Is Reportedly True is like the sequel to And Of Life, if you get what I mean—”
“She’s good for the business, anyway,” said Hannah. “Whenever she talks to anyone they always end up with a lot more than they came in for. Especially the guys.”
“Uh, um, uh, I, uh, um, yeah.”
“Oh, could you go clean up the headphones? I know it’s not really your job but—”
“No, that’s, um, that’s fine. I’ll go do it now, the cleaning stuff’s in the back, right? Okay. B-bye.”
OJ clenched his teeth as he went into the back room.
*
Apples and Dorothee sat outside the little shop by the mini golf course, eating ice cream.
“I think I like playing with you more than with Toad and Vin,” Apples said. “Because you always win and you always have money for the winner’s forfeit.”
“I don’t always win. More like … wait, actually you may be right. Huh. It’s not like I’m even that good at mini golf—”
“I think maybe it’s because you take it seriously and I always just have fun?”
Dorothee frowned at her ice cream before taking an aggressive lick.
“This is one of those things where even though I won, I lost, isn’t it?” she said.
“Huh? No, you definitely won Doro, I have the scorecard right here. Apples 78, Dorothee 42. That’s pretty decisive.” Apples sucked a gumdrop from her ice cream. “You know I go through phases of liking different ice cream flavours, but really Goody Goody Gum Drops is pretty much the best thing ever invented.”
“I like Hokey Pokey,” said Dorothee.
“You say that but actually you would’ve been happier with GiGiGi-D. Or Cookies and Cream, that’s also sooooo good—and I’m not dissing Hokey Pokey, definitely not, I mean I bought seventeen tubs of it in my Ice Cream Rush but really, if you’re going out for ice cream …” Apples trailed off, a thoughtful expression on her face. She took an attentive lick of her ice cream. “Well, even just vanilla is nice to get sometimes, really ANY ice cream is pretty great, every time I have one I feel pretty thankful that it was invented, but just getting Hokey Pokey every time—”
“You’re right,” said Dorothee.
“Wow, I am?”
“I would’ve preferred Goody Goody Gum Drops. Or Cookies and Cream, or Furuba Explosion or Crunky Crunky Go Monkey or Paradise Rainbow. But Hokey Pokey just seems like the ‘adult’ option. The kind of ice cream a grown-up should have. And winning at mini golf, does that really matter when I had about a tenth as much fun as you did?”
“Well, even a tenth of the fun I had must be pretty good,” said Apples, licking around the cone of her ice cream to stop it from dripping onto her hand. “Because I had at least thirteen GigaCarnivals of fun today.”
“Even given that one-point-three GigaCarnivals of fun is pretty good, I feel like I’m missing out. How do you have so much fun?”
“I don’t know, I just enjoy everything.”
“But HOW?”
“Ummmm … some? Somehow? I don’t know, Doro, it’s a tough question! I just do fun stuff, I guess, and I don’t think about other stuff while I’m doing it. Maybe it’s one of those ‘choice’ things?”
“You mean ‘a choice’?”
“It’s like when it’s raining, you can be all ‘o no rain how dreadful there is nothing lovely about rain’ or you can be like ‘o yay rain how cool I haven’t seen rain like this for ages and it’s good for the flowers and things and the roads will be all cool and reflective after it stops so we can go for a drive and look at all the cool reflections of lights on the streets’.”
Dorothee was silent for a few moments, then she licked at her ice cream delicately. After another moment she nodded, decisively.
“I’ve decided,” she said. “I’ve decided what I’m going to do now.”
“Oh cooooool, what is it?”
“I’m going to take another holiday,” said Dorothee. “I’m going to live my life Apples-style.”
*
“Oh, OJ, cool.”
OJ looked up from the box he was rummaging through and managed a slightly manic grin.
“I, um … I don’t seem to be able to find the cleaning stuff,” he said. Moxie nodded sagely, then went to stand beside him, reaching past to tap a spray bottle.
“Oh,” said OJ. “Um. I can’t believe I missed that.”
Moxie shrugged. “The cleaning stuff goes invisible at certain angles. There’s kind of a knack to seeing it.”
OJ moved his head to look at the spray bottle from a couple of different angles.
“Huh,” he said. “Neat.”
“Yeah, isn’t it?”
Moxie walked past OJ to one of the back shelves, reaching up for a high box.
“Oh, uh, I can get that,” OJ said. Moxie glanced back at him, eyebrows raised.
“Yeah, okay,” she said, after a moment. He squeezed past and got the box down, then handed it to her with a shrug.
“Sorry you’re so short,” he said, immediately following this with, “oh gosh I can’t believe I actually said it like that.”
Moxie laughed as she searched through the box, not looking up. “It’s cool.”
“I mean, I don’t think it’s bad or anything, it’s pretty cool actually, I mean you use it well—no, that’s not what I wanted to say, I mean with your clothes, that like big leather jacket and … that skirt … the eye-patch … purple and black …”
“Yeah, I know,” said Moxie, taking out a couple of CDs from the box and putting it back on a lower shelf. “Hannah’s getting wound up, you should get out there pretty soon or she’ll think you’re slacking. Either that or, y’know, something else.”
“I, um … hey, you were saying about Ex Parte McCardle before, right?”
Moxie perked up. “Yeah, aren’t they great? I mean their new stuff is kind of wishy-washy but And Of Life—”
“Yeah yeah, I love that one song Web Rings—”
“Fearlessly excellent,” Moxie stated, grinning wide. “Definitely my favourite on that album, I always thought it’d be great as like some kind of theme song for something, like a bright quirky video game where you have to collect stuff.”
OJ stared at Moxie for a moment. “Um,” he said.
“Anyway, I wasn’t kidding about Hannah, I mean it might be fun to watch her explode but you know it’d just be us two that’d have to clean it up.”
“That might not be so bad,” OJ managed. Moxie laughed again.
“Yeah, maybe. I gotta go restock anyway—hey, put Ex Parte on when you change the music, why don’t you? Then once Web Rings comes on let’s have a race to grab the most old price tags on the DVDs, we’ve gotta change them anyway.”
“Okay, yeah, that sounds, um, unbelievably fun.”
“Looking forward to it!”
OJ watched Moxie leave the little back room, then all-but collapsed against a nearby shelf.
“Complex!” he gasped.
*
Apples and Dorothee sat on the floor, staring at each other. After a minute, Dorothee cleared her throat.
“Um—”
“Silence, if you please!” cried Apples.
Dorothee was silent. Apples nodded, apparently satisfied, using her ‘serious face’.
“I just—”
“Look,” said Apples, “if we’re going to do this we’re going to do it properly, okay? If I’m going to be your Wise Old Master then we have to start by focusing our thoughts and centreing ourselves.”
“But you’re supposed to be teaching me how to have fun, I don’t see how sitting on the floor staring at each other is supposed to be fun at all.”
Apples assumed what she probably thought was a ‘wise’ expression.
“When you can find the fun in simply sitting on the floor staring at each other, then you will be ready,” she said, wisely.
“Ready for what?”
“… ice cream?”
“Apples—”
“But actually I guess you’re right, this isn’t so fun. Let’s play a game!”
“Well, okay. Which—”
“Rockstar Maniac! I’m gonna do the drums!”
“I’m not good at those music games—”
“This isn’t about being good,” Apples said, running around the lounge pushing chairs and couches out of the way and assembling the components of the game. “It’s about having fun, remember? Turn on the thing, okay? Oh! But we should get costumes first!”
“But you don’t need costumes to—”
“Since when has ‘need’ had anything to do with ‘fun’? Come on, I’m gonna wear a headband! You should put on a suit or something, like a cool suit jacket and a skirt.”
Half an hour later, Apples stood dressed in one of OJ’s old denim jackets, a large pink headband pushing her hair back. She was also wearing red boots that were far too big for her and seven belts buckled around her waist. Dorothee, meanwhile, had on a white suit jacket, a tie, a tiny black plastic top hat attached to her head by means of an elastic band, a long green gypsy skirt, and bare feet.
“I don’t really understand the bare feet part?”
“I just couldn’t think of any good shoes for you,” said Apples. “Anyway, hush! We have to think of a name for our band!”
“Do we—okay, let me think … how about ‘The Papples Experiment’?”
“Hmm … that’s not bad, but I think we can do better. What about ‘Dorothee Learns Fun’?”
“Mm. Maybe not.”
“Oh, I’ve got an idea,” Apples said, running to the computer that was humming away in the corner. “It’s a way to create a new band name, someone posted about it on my board, you just go to UkiUkipedia and use their ‘random article’ thing. You’re guaranteed to get a GREAT band name!”
“Okay, let’s try it then,” said Dorothee, joining Apples at the computer. “That does kind of sound fun.”
“Right? Okay, here we go. Are you ready?”
Dorothee nodded decisively. “I’m ready.”
“Let’s go then. Our new band name will be …”
Click.
” ‘Pylesville, Maryland’,” Dorothee read. She glanced at Apples. “Um, is that fun?”
“Let’s just call that a practice run,” Apples said, clicking the ‘random’ button again. ” ‘Human Advancement’. Huh. ‘Pippa Doll’ … well, maybe. ‘Eigenvalue Algorithm’. ‘WLJS-FM’. ‘List of Toronto Parks’, no. ‘H’its Huge ’84′, what?”
“I’m not sure how ‘random’ it is if you just keep clicking until you find one that you like—”
“Okay fine so that wasn’t such a great idea. Let’s just call ourselves ‘The Doro Swings Both Ways’.”
“That makes it sound like I’m bisexual or something. How about ‘Apples And Doro Couldn’t Think of a Band Name’?”
“No, that’s way too meta to be really fun. Um, ‘The Key to Fun Town’.”
” ‘Nor Should There Be Apples’.”
” ‘Dorothee Gets Things Done’.”
” ‘Better Apples Inside’.”
” ‘Look Who’s Holding The Doro’.”
” ‘The Apples Theory’.”
” ‘Doro-Tea Time’.”
” ‘Moon Over, Apples!’.”
“Oh, nice,” said Apples, laughing. “Hey, we should do this properly, get some paper and crayons—”
“I thought we were playing a game?”
“Oh yeah … I kind of got caught up in ‘name fever’, okay so—”
“How about ‘Papples and the Doro Tree’?”
Apples stared at Dorothee, then pointed straight at her.
“That. Is. Perfect.” Apples spent a minute entering the name, then nodded, satisfied. “Okay, now we just have to make our characters look EXACTLY how we’re dressed and then we can play.”
“Having fun is a lot more work than I expected it to be.”
“Hush, you! I’m trying to figure out how to hack this game into letting me put seven belts on my character.”
“Maybe I’ll make a cup of tea while I wait.”
“As long as you do it in a fun way! And make me a Milo!” Apples called, as Dorothee went to the kitchen. “You can draw the face on my cup for me as a special treat!”
“What should I draw?”
“Something fun, of course!”
*
Meanwhile, in one of the Seven Nerd Lairs of Mayberry Free Arts College (Wellesley):
“Goodness, such an example of ‘programmer art’.”
“I don’t know, I think the Letas are pretty cute.”
“Hah. ‘Cute’. Is that what we are working towards here? ‘Cute’?”
“I don’t think it hurts, anyway—okay then, how about the tileset for the Deep Cave, as an example? I mean, for a procedurally generated location—”
“It could be argued, the success of that is more down to good design and programming than the tileset itself—”
“But it all fits together nicely, I mean there are a couple of special tiles in there that really tie the whole thing together, that one that covers up that little ‘two doors down’ bug alone—”
“When we’re surrounded by amazing artists, however, it seems almost a waste—”
“You know how most of them get, though.”
“… mm, you speak the truth. What about Apples, your friend? She’s easygoing, and at this kind of stuff she’s not bad. Doing the concept art and then going from there, if she’s not a great pixel artist even … she did those murals on the Great Eastern Toilet Blocks?”
“Yes, a surprising amount of the ‘untouchable’ stuff in Magical Clover Rainbow Dance Dance Dance room is hers too. If you can get her to focus on something she’s actually kind of amazing. I haven’t seen her around for ages, though, not since that whole Apples Party thing. Prinny might know where she is—”
“Prinny! Her also we should get on board—with computers she’s good, and also design—”
“She mostly does t-shirts and badges and stuff like that, but it’s true, she is good … and she and Apples are good together.”
“Then there’s no objection?”
“The only thing is, whenever Apples gets involved with something … I don’t know, it’s not like she means to do it, and she’s pretty much the complete opposite of a control freak, whatever that is, but she does tend to make projects snowball.”
“That may not be a bad thing, in our case. Let’s take a risk, why not?”
*
Star Lurker One-Oh-Nine
as made famous by Cindy Chapman
performed by Papples and the Doro Tree
Don’t Look Now, I’m right behind you
There’s another me standing
Still as -
(Doro, I want to be singing this, why are you singing?)
Because you gave me the microphone?
Anyway, it’s – oops – visiting someone else’s dreams
Listen because I’m telling you how
It happened again and again and again
When you dream of another Apples,
Why did you set this on ‘Expert’?
I’m not even very good at this game
When it’s on ‘Normal’
(Just try! It’s fun to try even if it’s really hard!)
Because there’s nothing else to do
I just – we’re in the red, Apples, we’re going
To lose, it’s going too fast
(It’s okay, the chorus is coming up, we can – oh.)
*
“How was that fun?”
“How was that NOT fun? That was great, Doro, let’s try again!”
“We didn’t even get a third through the song, why don’t we play on ‘Normal’ instead of ‘Expert’? Wouldn’t it be more fun to actually get through the whole song at least?”
“No! Doro, you’ve got to try to understand here, fun isn’t about ‘success’. Fun is about enjoying yourself! If we wanted ‘success’ or, like, ‘accomplishment’ then we’d borrow some of OJ’s guitars and stuff and write our own song … which actually probably would be kind of fun, but that’s not what I’m talking about right now, what I’m saying is that playing Rockstar Maniac on ‘Expert’ is fun even when you lose! ESPECIALLY when you lose, even! And if you actually manage to finish a song then it’s much more satisfying than doing it on boring ol’ ‘Normal’. Huh. ‘Normal’. As if I’d ever pick that option, ever!”
“… well, I suppose it’s true that ‘Normal’ doesn’t seem very ‘Apples’.”
“Right? So, come on! That song might not be the best one for us to play anyway, it’s definitely not one of my favourite Cindy Chapman songs but it’s the only one on here … I guess because it’s one of her more normal ones. Anyway, how about … hm … Doro, you pick.”
“Me?”
“It’s training, training! Pick us a fun one!”
Dorothee flicked through the song menu, searching for something she recognised. Apples, meanwhile, sipped at her lukewarm Milo. Her mug had a painstakingly drawn expression of rather orthodox ‘fun’ on it; cross-eyes and a tongue sticking out. About this Apples had made no comment.
“Maybe OJ’s right, maybe I don’t listen to enough music,” said Dorothee. “I just don’t—oh, I remember this song … okay, let’s do this one.”
“OJ used to like this one too,” said Apples, as the song loaded. She adjusted two of her belts. “That was aaaaaages ago though, like just aaaaaaages, like when I was eight or something.”
“Don’t make me feel old, Apples.”
“But anyway—oh, here we go. Ready, The Doro Tree?”
“Ready, Papples.”
Apples and Dorothee both struck poses.
“PAPPLES AND THE DORO TREE! ONE DORO TREE FOUR FIVE LET’S ROCK!”
*
“That’s cheating! That’s SO cheating!”
“Like the song says, ‘don’t stop now for bitter dark clouds; don’t stop now for all the sad things; do your love, do your love baby, it’s gonna be happy; it’s gonna be happy just grab at the web rings; don’t stop don’t stop you’re the reason; the every reason, the delight of life, the web rings’.”
Moxie paused. “Okay, good point,” she said. “I guess you won, then. We should’ve set up some kind of punishment game for the loser—too late now, though!”
“What! If you’d won you wouldn’t be saying that!”
Moxie scowled, surprising OJ. “Yeah, I would be,” she grumbled.
“I, um … sorry, I was just—”
“Hello, you two. What are you looking so red-faced and giggly about?”
“Oh, um, uh, we were, y’know—”
“Customer,” Moxie said, swaggering over to the young couple in the Pop Rock section. Hannah looked at OJ, an open, mildly expectant expression on her face.
“I, um. Hello,” said OJ.
“Hello,” said Hannah.
“I should probably put these tags in the back. Um, we’ve got to send them away, right? You said something like, uh, um, something like that earlier. I seem to r-recall. Then I might head home, it’s actually past my quitting time.”
Hannah nodded. “I was going to say something but you seemed to be having so much fun with Moxie—anyway, I think it’s great that you’re getting comfortable here.”
“I, um, maybe, I don’t know, um … yeah.”
OJ scuttled off, glancing at Moxie as he passed her.
“—Sophia Range is pretty good, I mean she’s not the sort of singer you’d ever call your favourite but if you’re having a dinner party or whatever—or even when you’re just cooking by yourself it’s nice to have some music, on, right? So, Sophia’s great for that kind of situation, just to put on soft in the background—The Redhead Had Been Right is perfect for that sort of thing—”
“She is good,” OJ muttered. “Can’t deny that.”
*
Dorothee’s expression was set, her mouth a tight line, her dark blue eyes focused on the screen. Her hands were cool and dry against the plastic of the guitar, and the step she took towards the microphone was both firm and deliberate.
“Goodbye sadness!” she sang. “An absence of come-what-may; how simple a thing; have a nice day.”
Apples played along on the drums. As best she could.
“I’m just standing here wondering where plastic and metal collide Apples-tighten-up-that-rhythm-you’re-putting-me-off who decided this would be the end?”
“No time for tightening, final chorus!” Apples cried, leaping up from the drums to join Dorothee at the microphone—
“GONNA KEEP ON DRILLING! IT’S A MAN’S ROMANCE, DRILL DRILL COME ON YEAH, KEEP ON DRILLING OKAY HERE WE GO NOW ALLLLLL NIIIIIIGHT LOOOOONG … DRILL PASSION!”
“We’re good! We’re really good!” Apples cried, as the on-screen fretboard exploded. “Doro, we got through the whole song!”
“That … that was fun!” Dorothee said, as their score came up. “We got three stars, is that a good score?”
“Who cares! We finished the song and we NAILED that final chorus and we had fun! Who cares how many stars we got? Let’s play another one, let’s try Star Lurker again!”
“Okay!”
“What on earth are you two dressed up like that for?”
Apples and Dorothee looked back from where they were playing to see OJ standing in the entrance to the lounge. He didn’t exactly look impressed.
“We’re having fun!” said Dorothee. “Um. I mean, I’m trying something.”
“Come and join, OJ! We’ll change the name of the band to include you, we can be ‘Papples, Oranges and the Doro Tree’!”
“You can’t change a band name in that game after you’ve entered it,” OJ muttered, as he threw his wallet and keys into the waiting arms of a carved wooden mole-bat. “Besides,” he called out as he walked into the kitchen, “I’ve been doing music stuff all day, I’m not in the mood for more now I’m home.”
“Doro,” Apples whispered, leaning close to her friend. “That’s a really good example of how NOT to have fun.”
“I think we should stop now anyway, Apples. It was a fun afternoon but it’s probably time to settle down and be sensible for a while.”
“Sensible! That doesn’t sound fun at all!”
“OJ’s been working hard while we’ve been goofing around, Apples. We should be nice to him.”
“Curses,” Apples muttered. “That’s really mature and reasonable, why you gotta make so much sense, D-Dog?”
“I’m just awesome like that,” said Dorothee. “Come on, take off those belts and let’s pack up before he finishes making his sandwich.”
“Oh! Sandwich! OJ—”
Apples was cut off by Dorothee grabbing her and putting her hand over her mouth.
“I think that at this point in time it would be better if you made your own peanut butter, chocolate hail and chocolate sauce sandwich, Apples,” she said quietly. “In fact, we should have offered to make OJ’s—”
“No,” said Apples, struggling free. “Because he has his own technique, he makes the BEST ChocoChocoP-B sandwiches in the world. I keep telling him he could open a shop—”
“I don’t think there’s the demand for this kind of sandwich that you think there is,” said OJ, as he emerged from the kitchen again. “And by the way, as both of you know, it’s not difficult to hear people talking in the lounge from inside the kitchen. Almost impossible NOT to overhear, actually. Here, Apples, you can have half of my sandwich.”
“Oh, wow! Best Brother Ever!”
“You didn’t have to do that, OJ,” said Dorothee.
“I was doing it anyway, and if there are peanut butter, chocolate hail and chocolate sauce sandwiches being made in this house they might as well be made right. Apples always goes overboard with the chocolate sauce and just ends up making a mess.”
“I can’t control myself with that stuff,” said Apples, through a sticky mouthful of sandwich.
“Besides, I’m kind of in a half-sandwich mood right now,” OJ said.
“How was work?” Apples asked, already halfway through her sandwich. “How was Moxie?”
“Cool, as usual,” said OJ, sitting down on the couch as Dorothee cleared away the Rockstar Maniac peripherals. “We talked about Ex Parte McCardle.”
“Wow,” said Dorothee. “Actual communication.”
“We have talked before, you know,” OJ said. “It’s not like this was entirely without precedent.”
“Hm.”
“You should talk to her about her cat!” said Apples. She popped the last of her sandwich into her mouth, chewed ferociously for a few seconds, then swallowed hard. “If I worked there I’d be like ‘Hey Moxie, how’s Roxie?’ every chance I got.”
“I’m sure that wouldn’t ever get old,” said OJ, dryly.
Dorothee finished packing up the drums and joined him on the couch.
“I think it’s nice you’re talking to her. How about the other one—”
“Hannah Redivider!”
“Yes, her,” said Dorothee, with a warning look at Apples.
“Um, she’s okay. She’s a Mundane, though.”
“You always say that like it’s some kind of dreadful affliction,” said Dorothee. “I mean, I’m a Mundane and I don’t think it’s so bad.”
“You spent the afternoon playing Rockstar Maniac dressed up as your avatar, Dorothee, that’s not Mundane,” said OJ. He finished the last of his sandwich and passed his empty plate to Apples, who skipped off to the kitchen. “You’re an honorary Proper in any case, just being Apples’ friend.”
“Best friend!” Apples corrected, calling from the kitchen. “Oh hey, you really CAN hear everything out there from in here!”
OJ yawned and nestled back into the couch.
“I like being home,” he said, after a moment. Dorothee smiled at him.
“We just played Drill Passion,” she said. “Apples said you liked it.”
“Yeah, when I was like sixteen.” OJ shrugged. “I guess it’s still pretty okay.”
“Apples thought it was cute that we both liked the same song even before we knew each other.”
“What? EVERYONE liked Drill Passion back then, it was impossible not to sing the chorus bit if it was on the radio or something.”
“That’s true,” said Dorothee. “Still, it was pretty fun.”
“Yeah, it’s a good song to play in Rockstar. The last solo is pretty tricky, though.”
“I just Maniac-ed my way through it,” Dorothee admitted.
OJ let his eyes close.
“Well,” he said. “You gotta do what you gotta do.”
