Munmun(33)

“One more night,” I said.

He frowned, fingertapped my skull, walked away.

Prayer came to visit around lunch, tearstreak cheeks, trembly jaw, more badnews.

“Paddy lost a ton of munmun,” she told me. “Ohmygod, so much.”

“How,” I made my mouth say.

“Freaking vidpoker,” she trembled. “Freaking riggedup cheating robots on vidpoker, our munflow is cleanedout and he owes payments on the Quickstand, payments to New Planetary, it’s suchamess.”

I saw Belt listening in and headshaking sadly like, I’ve heard that bedtimestory before.

“So what happens now,” I asked.

She stared me down, took two hard breaths, and said in a driedup voice, “Well, one of two things can happen now, either we lose the stand, or he loses me.”

“When will you know,” I asked.

“I think I know already,” she shivered.

“Dang, that breaks my heart a little, gotta tell you vidcards are pure poison,” Belt told me after she left.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Neverforget, those robots are smarter than you, and if you think you’re smarter, that’s exactly what they want you to think,” Belt informed me, caging me up.

“Belt, can I ask you to show me something,” I said.

“Depends on what, redfish,” he said.

“I just want to look at a high school, like pictures of it,” I said.

He didn’t question me, instead just opened picsearch on his foldout phone, probably weird and old but still amazing tech to me.

“How about Wet Almanac Middlerich High School,” I said, heartthumping.

“Sure, that’s a nice one,” he said, typing it in, and pics came up, maps, threedee zoomthroughs.

Yeah it was a nice one, unbelievable honestly, basically a hotel resort getaway on a beautifull cliffside, gyms, pools, gardens, theaters, screenrooms, planetariums, canyonviews, paradise.

“Be nice to go there, huh,” said Belt.

“Yup,” I said, furiously memorizing it.

“What a life,” said Belt, and he folded up his phone and took me back to the cage.

? ? ?

That night I tried hard to sleep and dream, not just doze, but it was hard. The psycho Nick was in my cage that night, more tweaked than usual, Wilt had played shootemups all afternoon and now Nick was glaring and sweating and making wild threats.

“Go to sleep, allofyou, nightynight, can’t wait to bite through your necks,” he yelled, stuff like that.

I glanced over and vampire psycho was staring right at me.

Ohwell, I thought.

I relaxed, breathed deep through the nose, closed the eyes, slowed the heart.

In Dreamworld, Wilt was waiting.

“POP POP BOOOOOM,” he yelled, sniping with rifles, then following up with a bazooka, overkilling, joyfull.

“Crap, I’m awake,” I yelled to make him happy, and fell through the floor, notawake still.

I tunneled down into the ground and all the way through to the nightsky bottom, fell out of the sky like a diving kite, wild and wobbly because no control, outofpractice, skidded facefirst into the highschool roof, rumpling tiles like carpet.

And here I was above the big beautifull campus, comfortable middleriches allaround, lacking homework, being naked, banging in the grass, typical schooldreams.

But no Kitty anywhere.

“Here we go,” I thought, also said, and made a grumpy rat.

My plan was to make a huge one, a giant scowler you can see for miles, Kitty sees him through the window or wherever she is and thinks, “Grumpyrat, why is that familiar, AHA.”

And then she will come find me, I will ask her please sing to me one more time, she will sing.

I will hear it and then know, can I die or do I need to live.

So I sat on the roof of the beautifull high school and made a rat with a funny grumpy cartoon face, red, jacked arms and legs, a perfect rat to signal that Warner is on your schoolroof, only one problem, the rat was tiny.

Get big, I said to the rat.

But it didn’t.

I tried to dream it bigger.

But it was nightmare dreaming, flailing and failing, no control.

Mom and Dad used to tell me some mornings, beautifull dreaming, little redfish, and I know it feels effortless, but just remember kiddo, most people can’t just dream whatever they want, you’ll learn this too one day, dreams are out of your control sometimes.

Manohman would that be terrible, I used to think, good thing I’m special, it will never happen to me.

No, it can happen to you, Warner, infact after a dreamless year in kidjail, ofcourse it’s what happens.

Come on, I begged my perfect grumpy rat, holding him in my hands, trying to make him big big big, but he refused, just kind of lolled around and if anything shrank.

What a new bad feeling, the feeling of you don’t control your own mind.

“No no no,” I pleaded.

In a panic I gripped him and tried to throw him up in the air atleast, but he had the weight of a brick, unthrowable.

“RAT,” I yelled. “GET HUGE.”

The little rat cleaned his whiskers, chuckled, scuttled around on the tile.

First I felt despair.

Then another feeling, a funny tickle on the neck.

I realized what it was, told myself WAKE UP, but couldn’t rightaway, frozen, paralyzed.