Freeze Frame (127)

PSI-1

Sanaam clasped both hands to his cheeks and every opening in his face widened to maximum capacity. He shrieked like a little girl in a princess dress who has just been informed there will be a real live unicorn ride before the cake and ice cream: “You got me my gorilla!”

Maggie shut the bedroom door and pasted a silence spell over it with her open palm. “Geez, Dad, keep it down. Erik can’t sleep over his tattoo.”

Sanaam briefly ceased rocking back and forth with his gorilla, although he did not cease hugging it. “And you are going to fill me in on that just as soon as we’ve done presents, aren’t you, Mag-Pirate?”

“Yeah, I guess,” she hedged.

“Your daughter is uncomfortable with the consequences of her actions,” the General said, “which she should have considered beforehand. Although Erik having a label that will prevent an unwary physician from killing him is a positive result, even if it was obtained irresponsibly.”

“He wanted an anchor like you, Dad,” Maggie said, “but his uncle said no.”

“Well, that’s very reasonable of him,” Sanaam said. “My gorilla is missing his pillow.” He had ceased hugging it to examine it. “My gorilla is supposed to have yellow sunglasses and a heart-shaped pillow that says ‘You Drive Me Wild.’ What have you done to his pillow, sir?”

“I removed it and flung it into the closet,” the General said. “If you’d use the sense the gods gave you, you’d notice he is holding your birthday present instead.”

Sanaam lifted the wrapped parcel, to which the gorilla’s mitten-like hands were glued. “Eee! But can he have his pillow back or must he die so I can open this wonderful box?”

“I suppose Mr. Rose will be able to repair the damaged cloth if you approach him sideways and ask softly.”

“All I needed to hear!” Sanaam cried. He ripped the package away from the gorilla, flung the gorilla gently back onto the bed, and tore the remaining paper away.

“It’s an Icona!” he shrieked. “Oh, no, wait…” He held up the box and peered at it. “‘Iona.’”

“They are produced in the same factory in Farsia,” the General said tightly. “Ionas are refurbished by a third party and they feel it appropriate to remove the original logos and packaging. If you find it substandard in any way, I am certain I have the ability to repair it. It was not that we could not afford a better model, but rather that you might drop this one over the side of the boat and require a replacement, ad infinitum.”

“You’re so thoughtful, sir. Isn’t your mother thoughtful, Mag-Pirate?” Sanaam cupped his wife’s pale cheek with his large hand and kissed her on the top of the head. She glowered at him.

“Oh, I need a picture of that!” Sanaam said. He gamely lifted the box, which was plastered with white-bordered photographs of smiling, generic people and sunny days on the sides, and one large image of the camera itself on the front. Its smooth metal casing was colored metallic purple, with pale gray rubber piping to grip. ‘Grape Ice’ was written just above the model number in chilly frosted print. “How do you work this thing?”

“Open the box and read the instructions,” the General replied. She edged over to his trunk and toed at it with the side of her shoe. “And what other ridiculous object will you be using to annoy me this visit?”

———

The General was holding a blue hat with a pair of applauding, white-gloved hands sticking out of the front of it — which she had gone through three different layers of wrapping paper and two boxes to retrieve. It either had some kind of light sensor or it had been applauding ever since her husband put it in the boxes. She did not wish to investigate it closely enough to turn it off.

“Put it on, sir!” Sanaam cried.

“No.”

“Smile, sir!” Sanaam said. He depressed the appropriate button and squealed when a paper-wrapped photo dispensed from the rubber-lipped slot in the camera’s front. “Hooray! It appears to function!”

“Thirty seconds, Dad,” Maggie said. She was wearing her hat, which was rimless and just small enough to fit between the pigtails. It had a propeller on top that was making a soft whirring sound as it spun.

“You know, we have established a precedent that I do not set these things you give me on fire, but I am beginning to reconsider it,” the General said.

“The rings on the sides are for beer bottles!” Sanaam said deliriously, clutching his developing photo in one hand and the friendly, soft-cornered hatbox shape of the camera in the other. It was just big enough for him to hold in one hand without getting his clumsy fingers over the lens.

“Oh, is that what they’re for?” the General said. “I thought I might at least fit a pigeon in each one and drink their fluids with this convenient straw.”

“I will love you forever if you do that and let me take a photo of it!” Sanaam said. He held up the camera. The cyclopean-looking flashbulb in the center of its face gave a wink.

“No.”

“I’ll love you forever anyway,” Sanaam said. He pulled off the paper and had a look at the result. A square, black and white photo of a frowning woman holding a clapping hat. A white border which was thicker on the bottom to allow for a written caption framed the whole thing. There was a slight hitch in the motion as it replayed from the beginning, but it was close to a perfect loop. If he added another split-second to the dial he might get it just right, but she’d never allow him to take another one. He’d have to steal the hat and play with it later. “Mag-Pirate!” He held up the photo. “Look at my beautiful wife!”

“Please,” said the General. She flung the hat on the bed with the gorilla. “If you’re going to compliment me, do it properly. Brilliant. Tactical. Inventive. Terrifying…” She stepped forward to examine the photo. “Ridiculous.”

“Daddy, do me!” Maggie said. She winked and threw up a v-sign when he hit the button — frontwards, for victory, the nice way. He caught the whole motion; the briefest setting was just enough for a person to smile and wave, Iconas… or ‘Ionas’ were smart that way. But he could have up to six seconds if he wanted!

Maggie examined the image of a dark gray girl with black pigtails and gradient striped propeller beanie. It cycled endlessly, reminding her of the cheap print of the naked lady she’d found in that guy’s wallet. She should’ve put her hand down at the end, then it might’ve made a seamless cycle and looked a little more professional — less creepy. She tapped on the photo to pause it; it did so only briefly, displaying a pale gray wash with a check mark over Maggie with her hand half up.

Sanaam had the instructions unfolded, a twelve-by-twelve sheet of little creased squares with occasional pictures. He peered over it. “Oh! I think you just selected a pose, Mag-Pirate. It’ll freeze like that when the magic wears off. Did you like that one?”

“Not really,” Maggie said. She dragged her finger from right to left across the image, trying to rack it backwards; it refused to do so and continued to loop. “Oh, I see, you’re gonna make me work for it,” she muttered. She set the photo on the desk and poised over it with one finger raised.

The General tugged on one corner of the instruction sheet with a frown. “Icona brand film is more functional, although ‘lite’ featured for this model. However, it does not ship with Icona brand film.”

“You’re still a smart shopper, sir,” Sanaam said. “It doesn’t matter about the features when they freeze, and this is only the sample film. Smile!”

He gave her the whole six seconds and she did not. The flashbulb, which had a slightly bluish tint from the magic, blinked out. The paper-wrapped photo dispensed with a crisp whirring of gears.

“Ha!” Maggie said. She stabbed the photo on the desk with a fingertip, as if delivering a pressure point attack. It froze with the gray wash and the check mark just an instant before she got both her fingers vertical, making her look a bit like a Tyrannosaurus Rex. “Dammit! Uh…” She glanced at her mother, who appeared to be too engaged with the instructions and the latest photo to comment.

“Captain, do you suppose ‘earth section magnet’ is a recent technological advancement or a translation error there is no point in my researching?”

“I don’t know, but it voids our warranty if we get it wet…”

“Hand me the camera, I will add a repel function to the case and the lens… if one is not already present.”

Sanaam protectively held it away. “I need to play with it! You can’t start modding things when you barely know how they work in the first place. I remember what you did to those binoculars, sir.”

“I was not aiming for your binoculars or your precious, precious eyes when I did that, Captain. A sensible person would have realized it is unwise to activate magical devices in the presence of area countermagic.”

“I had no idea you were doing that!”

“You had no idea, period.”

Maggie observed them with a smile. My parents love each other, apparently.

She waved her frustrating and inadequate portrait above her head for attention. “You guys, let’s take it downstairs and show everyone. I want Erik to see!”

“I thought you said he was trying to sleep, Mag-Pirate,” Sanaam said.

“Yeah, but he can’t anyway,” Maggie said. “So he’s real bored. Come on!”

———

Erik had progressed from not sleeping to sitting in one of the big chairs in the front room and not being able to find anything fun on the radio. Milo had magicked it to follow him around like the General did Calliope’s record player before. Just not as well, the General would have opined if she had bothered to examine the spell.

“Just music,” Erik muttered. He shoved at the glowing console with his functioning hand. The radio bobbled unsatisfyingly in the air like a happy balloon. I’ll just hang out right here and be boring then, little guy!

“Dear one, why don’t you work on the new monsters?” Mordecai said, offering crayons once again.

“They’re… too… hard,” Erik complained. He also shoved lightly at the Pocket Book of Monsters, which was resting in an annoying fashion on the end table. His uncle kept following him around with it like the damn radio. He didn’t even get why ‘The Manager’ and ‘The People-Pleaser’ were supposed to be bad. Or ‘The Boxer.’ He liked sorting things… and people! He’d already expurgated ‘The Not-Helping’ and crumpled it up in front of his uncle’s face. Maggie is not a monster, I won’t draw that.

“I know they’re hard, that’s why this is important,” Mordecai said. “You and I both…”

“I don’t wanna talk about it!” Erik sang. That was doubly appropriate because his uncle played that when he was really dumb and annoyed Ann before.

“Erik figured out he doesn’t slow down if he sings when we had everyone over for Fake Twelfth Night,” Maggie explained, for her father’s benefit.

“Aha,” Sanaam said. He was aware that the poor kid was only two days out from a new gold tattoo, and still feverish and sore. He had personal experience with that. It had to be frustrating; eight-year-olds were just as busy and active as young sailors, with slightly less rum involved. “Hey, Erik! Smile!” he attempted, leaning over the upstairs railing at a comical angle.

Erik looked up and did so reflexively. The flashbulb engaged and he blinked on one side and closed the iris mechanism entirely on the other. “What?”

“Dad’s birthday present!” Maggie announced. “It’s a camera!”

“We met everyone’s ‘friends,’” the General disdained in a low voice as she and Sanaam descended the stairs. “They were as incompetent as one would imagine, including Calliope’s ex-boyfriend and Mr. Rose’s… I don’t even know what that was. Ex-suitor? He brought a pair of high-heeled shoes over to the house and pretended he needed lessons walking in them because he thought Mr. Rose might date him, of all things. They appear to be friends now, but I have no idea. Ah, and after dinner, Corporal Santee accepted my invitation and broke into our house. We had sandwiches.”

“How is she?” Sanaam said.

“As well as can be expected.”

Hyacinth popped up from the basement, where she had been making her best effort to arrange Sanaam’s recent acquisitions in Ann and Milo’s absence. “A camera? Maggie, have you had that?”

“Yeah,” Maggie said.

“But I only vivisected poor Mister Hellmouth, Version Two last night!” Hyacinth cried. “We could’ve had photos of him!” She was having to make do with Milo’s schematics and Calliope’s memorial drawing. It was labeled In Loving Memory in delicate script which Hyacinth did not consider at all sarcastic. She’d hung it on her kitchen wall next to the collage Calliope gave her on Fake Twelfth Night — that one was a lot of cut-out magazine letters like a ransom note which read, nO MaTteR WhERe I SEver MY GueSTs, thEy SeeM To LiKe my KiTchEN BEsT, which Hyacinth also found very appropriate and sincere.

“A fire-breathing toy monkey of Mr. Rose’s design,” the General informed Sanaam, like a translator at a diplomatic event.

“That just raises further questions!” Sanaam cried, delighted.

“Oh, gee, did we have a camera that whole time?” Maggie said, tramping down the last few stairs. “I guess I forgot.”

“Maggie, why do you hate me?” Hyacinth said miserably.

“Your views on childhood education are bass-ackward,” Maggie replied.

“Sure, that makes as much sense as anything else,” Hyacinth said. “Sanaam, you better hide that thing before Milo sees it if you want it in original operating condition.”

“Hyacinth, that was never an option,” Sanaam said. “You know what I’m married to.”

“Show me! Show me!” Erik sang out, causing Mordecai to wonder when in the hell the boy had seen ‘My Fair Lady.’ (Did they remake that? Or are the gods feeding him music now?)

Sanaam obligingly handed over the photo, Maggie intercepted it, and both children ran off to confer over it. Mordecai followed to make sure they didn’t destroy it, “You have to wait to take the paper off…”

“I know,” Maggie said.

“Milo is worse,” Hyacinth said defensively. My mad scientist is better than your mad scientist, I had him tested! “Did you see that thing in the basement?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” Sanaam said. “I was hoping to get home with more metal before you started in on the decoys.”

Hyacinth knocked the heel of her palm against her forehead. “Shit, we have to start doing decoys! We might get an early storm…”

“That thing in the basement is not a decoy?” Sanaam said.

“What? No. It’s Erik’s old highchair. Decoys don’t need to be complicated, just a lot of them. That guy, Liam, he made a bunch out of broken plates. That’s how come…”

“Why does Erik’s highchair need eight legs?” Sanaam cried.

“Or six, we haven’t decided yet. We’re starting with eight because I wouldn’t let Milo hurt the tarantula.”

Sanaam’s expression approached plush-gorilla proportions. “You guys have a tarantula?”

“No, we returned him and got the money back. We just needed him for the motion study… Which also would have gone easier with a camera!” Hyacinth snarled in Maggie’s direction.

Maggie appeared wounded. “You guys didn’t tell me we briefly had a tarantula.”

Meanwhile, Erik accidentally selected a pose with his off hand, which was sore and numb at the same time. He panicked and tried to hand the photo to his uncle, in case it was broken. Pictures were expensive.

“Oh, gee, I guess I forgot,” Hyacinth replied acidly.

“We briefly had a tarantula?” Mordecai cried. “Aren’t those things poisonous?” Erik stuffed the possibly-broken photo into his vest pocket, patted it once, and then nonchalantly strode away. It was too bad he didn’t know how to whistle, like the cartoons.

And that’s why I didn’t mention the tarantula, Hyacinth thought with a sigh.

“Venomous,” the General said. “That is, unless you were intending to eat it.”

“It’s more like a bee sting,” Sanaam said. “And some people are allergic to the hairs.”

Mordecai felt they were losing track of the original issue: “Why does Erik’s highchair require a rental tarantula?”

“That is a rare phrase,” the General noted. It was a bit long to be useful, but she could pare it down in the analysis. ‘Rental tarantula’ alone might do it.

“Maximal stability,” Hyacinth said. She sighed again. “Mordecai, you live here. You know we’re nuts. Milo’s just having fun, it’s not like he trapped you in the basement and the house almost burned down.”

“That is oddly specific,” Sanaam said.

“The spell was badly designed,” the General grumbled. “It was so badly designed, I found it impossible to remove. But this was not intentional, I am sure.”

“What spell?” Sanaam said.

“I kidnapped Seth and locked him in the basement for a week,” Hyacinth said. “Milo put magic on the stairs. Everyone got sick. Except Barnaby, he just moved things around and pissed me off. That’s why we had Twelfth Night late. Doesn’t Maggie tell you these things?”

“Apparently not!” Sanaam said. He was midway between amused and annoyed, he couldn’t decide. I live in this house! Voluntarily! “Was that before or after a man in high heels tried to pick up Milo?”

“After,” Hyacinth said. “We had a busy Yule.”

“I got sheet music,” Erik said. He sighed and flexed the fingers of his left hand. “I can’t play it because I turned into a bird.”

“My kingdom for anyone who can coherently explain what goes on in this house in my absence!” Sanaam cried.

“Oh, for gods’ sakes,” Maggie said. “Look, okay?” She picked up her hand and enumerated on the fingers, starting over from the thumb when she ran out, “Uncle Mordecai took Erik to buy sheet music because he learned how to sight-read pretty well. Before that the actor who murdered Ann last year when you also weren’t here tried to learn how to walk in high heels and he fell down our stairs a bunch of times. Then Erik turned eight. Then he found out his uncle gets high on hash brownies with Calliope sometimes — but don’t tell Milo because he still doesn’t know about that. So we came up with sneaking out to turn Erik into a bird, and we found out which god we needed and shoplifted the absinthe like Barnaby said, but we couldn’t do the bird part because the guy who teaches the school caught a cold and drank two bottles of expired medicine, so Miss Hyacinth kidnapped him and locked him in the basement, and everyone tried to teach school for him, and I got him fired, and then we got sick. That’s why we held off on Twelfth Night, and Ann thought we should invite all our friends, and that’s why Corinne broke into the kitchen and we almost set her on fire. Then we did the bird thing, and Erik needed to throw up the absinthe and Mordecai almost killed him because Hyacinth doesn’t label things consistently. So Erik can’t play his sheet music because of the tattoo. Now, why is that so hard to understand?”

Calliope opened the front door and peeked in. She was wearing the trench coat which Sanaam recognized from her wall, and a conservative black skirt that hit her just above her striped men’s socks. “Aw, man, we missed Sam getting home! Did you bring us presents? We were at Hennessy’s eating toast.”

“…And Cin and Ann and Calliope went to a stupid-expensive department store and bought Calliope some clothes that fit,” Maggie said. “Not at the department store.” She panted a few ragged breaths. “And Milo and Hyacinth rented a tarantula, but I didn’t know about that. Am I missing anything else?”

“I finished painting you naked!” Calliope announced. “I didn’t want to give it to Glorie for Twelfth Night in case she hates it. If it’s not a present, you can say you don’t want it. It came out a little weird, honestly.”

“I need to see this painting you think is weird right now, Calliope,” Sanaam said.

Maggie sighed and deflated. “Okay, I have no idea what goes on in this house when you’re not here and I cannot coherently explain it.”

“Is that a camera?” Calliope said.

“It’s an Iona!” Ann said, beaming. “I think it’s a bit like a pun. You can tell right away because they have to cover the logos, so they powder coat the casings in fun fashion colors! Milo says they’re exactly the same as Iconas, but they’re scratch and dent, so they’re much less expensive…”

“They are refurbished,” the General said tightly.

Sanaam lifted the camera and triggered the flash. “Smile, ladies.”

Ann lifted a surprised Lucy up to shoulder height, pulled Calliope near, and did.

———

The painting consisted of round, off round, and flat-looking earth-toned shapes on a black and white mesh background that looked not unlike graph paper, but held at an angle impossible to Euclidean geometry. In prominent gold paint, but positioned artistically rather than in any orientation with reality, were twin hearts shot through with an arrow and an anchor.

“I’ve deconstructed him!” Calliope explained.

“I have often considered it, but I never thought it would look like that,” the General said.

“I like the tattoos but I couldn’t get both in no matter how I messed him around,” Calliope said. She grasped the air and twisted with both hands as if she were deforming a blob of modeling clay. Maggie, Sanaam and Mordecai winced. “So I took him apart!” the proud artist finished brightly.

“It’s like sheet music,” Erik said. You couldn’t really hear it, but there were dots where it was supposed to be.

“It’s lovely, dear!” Ann said. “I like how it’s…” Milo, for gods’ sakes help me out! “…almost like graph paper and it makes no sense! But it’s very pretty!”

…Milo, you are completely useless.

“It’s not really cubist,” Calliope said. “He’s too round. I don’t think ‘spherism’ is gonna catch on. You don’t have to have it. Or you could keep it awhile and pitch it out when I’m not looking.”

“I want to have it forever!” Sanaam cried. “I want to have it for my birthday! Calliope, can I?”

Calliope smiled. “Sure.”

He made for the canvas as if it were the world’s largest candy bar, but the General interposed herself, “I will keep it at home for you, Captain. It is a bit large for the ship.”

“Sir, nothing is too large for my ship!”

“It will not do you much good tucked away in the hold,” the General said. “Besides, it… it is vaguely reminiscent of you.”

Sanaam grinned at her. “You sentimentalist.”

“You could take a picture,” Calliope said. “Then you can share.”

“Oh, that is really excellent,” Sanaam said. “I can have it in my wallet and confuse people!”

He took two, so Maggie could also confuse people. She labeled her copy simply, Dad. Sanaam gave Calliope her due deference and wrote, ‘Nude Sanaam Descending a Staircase’ — Calliope Marshmallow Otis, 1377. The General made off with the original copy and hard-stuck it to the wall above the desk in her bedroom — for future artistic analysis.

———

Sanaam showed Calliope, Ann (and by extension Milo) and the kids how to work the camera. Sanaam, Calliope and the kids (Ann and Milo abstained) spent the next twenty-four hours, including the middle of the night, leaping out at each other and demanding “Smile!” or “Do something funny! Six seconds!” Sanaam had to run out and buy more film. He got the cheap stuff so they could ruin it. Who cared how the photos froze?

Most of the pictures of the General were of her mouthing ‘no,’ and/or turning away. “Glorie! Do something funny!” from Calliope was a rare exception. It resulted in a shot of a pale hand coming towards the camera lens, concurrent in real life with a patient explanation about wasting the film.

Hyacinth’s use of “Smile!” on Barnaby while delivering breakfast resulted in dropped dishes and snarling admonishment to bring him every last photo they didn’t want so he could dispose of them properly — including the one of Milo crying.

It did not seem to be possible to take photos of whatever was in Room 101, even by using the quickest setting, throwing open the door, and running away afterward. There was never a photo in the camera or anywhere around the camera or in somebody’s pocket where they had forgotten it. “Smile!” made no difference at all.

Lucy didn’t quite understand “Smile!” or “Do something funny!” but if you smiled very big at her and made your voice happy, she usually did something worthy of photographing, even if it was just sticking her doll’s foot in her mouth. Calliope was going to have a lot of cute pictures to send to her family and/or Chris.

“Smile!” directed at Mordecai got smiles which were increasingly exasperated. “Do something funny!” got a frown and a ‘no.’

“You look just like my wife,” Sanaam said.

“I do not!” Mordecai said.

Sanaam presented Mordecai’s ‘no’ side-by-side with one of many from the General. They were almost in sync. The General’s frown was a trifle earlier, possibly because she was expecting yet another photo.

“You can’t expect a person to come up with something funny in six seconds!” Mordecai said.

“Ann stuck out her tongue and made goggles with her hands, Maggie set her head on fire with magic, Calliope flashed me, and Hyacinth melted a fork but it was overexposed,” Sanaam said. “And Erik tried to throw his eye up in the air and catch it in his socket but it bounced out and rolled under the kitchen table. I am sorry about that.”

“Calliope did what?”

“I threw it in the oven with the paper still on.”

“I appreciate that. I will be right back. I just need more than six seconds.”

Mordecai returned wearing a rather loud tie with yellow stripes and clutching a scissors. “I have confirmed that Hyacinth picked an ugly one to give me on purpose. We do not have a can opener at the moment, so I am improvising. Six seconds, is it?”

“I can lower it,” Sanaam said, a finger on the dial.

“No, no. Just make sure you get it, I can only do this once.” He smiled for the camera. When the little blue light came on, he zipped the scissors up the length of the tie, flapped the two resulting tails once, and then cut both off at the knot. Clutching the remnants in one hand, he swept out both arms and bowed theatrically. “Well?”

“Like a mini-film at the arcade,” Sanaam said, grinning. “Man Ruins Tie.”

“But I have all my clothes on,” Mordecai said. He bowed again and departed.

A second application of, “Do something funny!” with Erik behind the lens produced a clear shot of a patient Mordecai mouthing, Dear one, I don’t have any more ugly ties. Erik carefully and lovingly stenciled this in the white space under the photo, selected a pose with his uncle’s mouth half open, and stored it behind the liner of his case of tin soldiers — with the deflated balloon from Papillon Island and the dial from the watch Milo made him. It was almost like the funny picture from the locket, and Erik knew better than to ask for one like that.

Hyacinth claimed the one where Mordecai ruined his tie. (“It’s my tie, it’s my photo!”)

An attempt to photograph Maggie turning into a bird, which came out overexposed, begat a slew of bird-related photographs in the kitchen. They might as well, as long as they had her that way. “Do something funny!” as a bird had a lot more options, which culminated in a splat of droppings on Hyacinth’s counter.

Sanaam wiped them up, although he did not dispose of the photo.

When the General came in, in search of her husband or a lunch due to the inclement weather, she found him and the other childish people positioned around the kitchen table and arguing over the best way to whip one’s head around and face the camera in an overdramatic fashion.

“It’s funny because it’s spontaneous,” Calliope opined. She turned away and turned back, widening her eyes and parting her lips in vague shock. Her ponytail hit her in the cheek. “You look too rehearsed, Maggie. He’s just a hedgehog, he doesn’t know what he’s doing even when he’s doing it.”

“I think it’s funny because it looks like he knows exactly what he’s doing,” Sanaam said. He turned his body sideways to make his own attempt, “‘It’s you!’ Oh, hello, sir.” He laughed.

“Your situational awareness remains teaspoon sharp, as always,” the General said. “What foolishness are you engaged in now?”

“It’s funny because of the zoom,” Erik told Calliope. He held up the postcard and tapped the image to freeze it. “You hafta lean in and fake it,” he advised Sanaam.

“There’s a little wobble at the end there like the camera guy’s surprised too,” Calliope said.

“We’re doing Calliope’s funny postcards, but starring your daughter,” Sanaam said proudly. He displayed a black and white image of a magpie sweeping its head towards the camera and widening its beady little eyes. Maggie, standing on the kitchen table, did it again in real time, somewhat improved.

“‘Dramatic Hedgehog,’” Calliope said, which was the title from the obverse side. She held up the card. “Also ‘I Can Has Sammich’ and ‘Cupcake Puppy.’ We couldn’t do ‘I’m Eating Ur Foods’ because you don’t have a refrigerator… or a pantry with a door, even.”

“‘Muffin Magpie’ isn’t very good either,” Erik said. “You don’t look sad enough, Maggie.”

“She knows no one can keep her away from it if she wants it,” Sanaam said.

The General compared the images of a devastated spotted puppy having a frosted cupcake removed from its reach, with her daughter being denied a stale old poppy seed muffin. “Avian features are not as versatile as mammalian ones,” she said. “They must be accounted for if one is to successfully convey an emotion. Just a moment.” She exited the kitchen via the dining room. There was a tearing sound and a flash like distant lightning.

“No!” Sanaam said, grinning.

“Yes!” Sanaam cried, as a large golden eagle hopped into the kitchen via the dining room. Due to the close quarters, she chirped at him and demanded a boost onto the table.

“Sweet! I’m drawing her!” Calliope said. She ran out.

“Hi, Mom,” the magpie said. The eagle gave another chirp.

“Which one do you want to do, sir?” Sanaam said. He lifted the camera.

If she could have frowned, she would have. But that, of course, was the challenge. She turned her back, expressing her intention to do Dramatic Glorious Golden Eagle.

———

They were examining the various results (the General thought hers were better) with Maggie and the General still in bird form and a new roll of film inviting more attempts, when Milo came home from work.

Giddy with excitement, Sanaam burst out of the kitchen, triggered the flash and cried, “Milo! Do something funny! Six seconds!”

Milo froze. His expression melted into one very much like Cupcake Puppy. He turned and ran out of the house — down the stairs and back towards the bus stop, where it was safe.

Maggie turned back into a human just so she could say, “Geez, Dad! You’re dumb! Now we’ll hafta wait dinner!”

“I wasn’t thinking,” Sanaam said, blinking.

The General turned back into a human just so she could say, “You never are.”

Calliope removed the paper from the photo. “It’s really good, though.”

Erik shook his head and swatted her lightly on the arm.

“Oh, it’s mean,” she allowed. “I don’t like it. But check out the resolution. You can see the tears welling up.”

That photo went into the oven like the one of Calliope topless, to hell with Barnaby’s portents.

When they finally found him, Milo was not interested in doing a picture of slapping Sanaam in the face, but Hyacinth obliged.