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.Excelsior	By : keithcompany Category: Titles in the Public Domain > Gulliver's Travels Views: 2163 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work fiction, based on Gullivers Travels by Jonathan Swift.

Chapter List
- 2
- 3
- 4
Not quite a sequel, but in the same universe as Excelsior....

----------------------

Jack lay on his bed, staring at the poster, counting in his mind.
One more year of high school.
Four years of college, hopefully at the Academy.
Four years of service in human-only craft.
Then he could apply for a multi-scale command.
His parents thought he had a poster of the Excelsior on his wall because he wanted to be in space. What he wanted was to be picked up by Albalureindis, or another Brobdingragian woman. Space forces was about the only way he could have someone else pay for it. He just wasn't sure he could wait nine years.
His best friend, Cindy, had to wait about 9 DAYS. She'd gotten a sweet ticket to spend her Senior year as an exchange student in Brobdingrag. Much as he like her, as a friend, he envied her. Sometimes, he felt bad about that envy. But he actually thought she'd understand.
If she knew that he was a macrophile, anyway. He'd just never told her. He'd never told anyone. Not after that TV program about humans paying thousands of dollars to use a giantess escort service, and the way his parents talked about the weirdos...
A dot of red light played across his poster, circling the egg-shaped spaceship. He popped up to the window and waved. A minute later he was in the treehouse that bridged two trees between his and Cindy's house. Cindy was waiting there with an envelope.
"Jack! I need a big favor!" she asked.
"Yes!" he shouted. "I'd be glad to take your place in Brobdingrag!"
"WTF?" she gestured. "No. No, i'm going. Thing is, there was a mix-up. We applied to be host OR guest, and the programs must not talk to each other." She shook the paper in front of his face. "We were approved to receive a Lilliputian exchange student! She'll be here in a week. And I leave on the 28th!"
"Bummer," he said sympathetically. "I guess you'll have to cancel your trip to-"
"If you say that one more time," she growled, "I will feed your bike to you, one piece at a time."
He nodded apologetically.
"No, idiot, what I mean is, Mom is still willing to host her. I just need someone to be her sponsor at school. Take her to classes and games, teach her how humans do things. Maybe escort her to a dance. Willing?"
He really could not deny almost anything to Cindy. Even without her matched superpowers of LipQuiver and PuppyEyes. It had been his personal Kryptonite since the third grade.
"Yeah, sure," he said. "She'll be right next door. As long as we have the same classes, it won't be a big thing."
"GREAT!" she yelled, giving him a brief, platonic but sincere hug. Then she was gone.
A Little Lilliputian Lass, he thought. Exactly a hundred-eighty away from how he wanted to spend his school year. Without his wingman, who was getting to live HIS fantasy on her own. Could this get any worse?
Well, yes. Of course it could.
The local paper got a press release from the International/Intersize Student and Teacher Exchange Program, and followed it up with an interview.
Jack's parents discovered that he was sponsoring one Brunellete of Mildendo in the morning paper. A teaser on the front page invited them to a large picture on the front of the D section.
Jack was surprised at their anger when he got downstairs. Later, he told Cindy about it as she packed.
"What were they het up about? They're not religious fundies, are they?"
"No, no. Giants and elves don't bother them. Neither as proof of, or crimes against the gods." He twisted Cindy's Smally Dolly around until she sprawled across the dresser in a Centerfold pose.
"Then what was the matter? The publicity?"
"They're PR reps. There's no problem there."
"Then what?" She noticed her dolly's position and laughingly restored her to her usual position.
"They're concerned about me being responsible for a teenaged girl, and probably being alone with her for hours at a time."
Cindy blinked at him. "You're serious?"
"Yeah. Species, size, politics, none of that is on their radar. Just her gender and age."
"What...what do they think you're going to do with her?"
Jack rolled his eyes and flopped back on the bed. "I don't think they've thought that through."
Cindy heaved her suitcase onto the carrier and set the hover. Then she sat on the footboard. "The mechanics are simply impossible."
"Yeah. Now, if it was you with a teenaged boy..." he muttered.
"Ugh," she shuddered. Cindy's preferences were well known to her and Jack's family. Thus their freedom to hang out privately. But that sparked a new thought for him.
"Wait... Didn't anyone have a concern about YOU and a teenaged girl being together for...?"
"No one asked," she said with a shrug. "So, are you still allowed to be Brunellete's sponsor?"
"Yeah, as long as I'm never alone with her in your house or mine. Not a big deal."
"Not a big deal?" Cindy asked. "How can you say that? You're going to spend time with someone whose POV is drastically different from yours!" She gazed around the room for a moment, finally picking up a Space Suzy action figure and tossing it over. "Someone about that size, but as smart as you! A whole person, one twelfth your size!"
"Not quite," he said, turning Suzy around in his grip. "She's one twelfth my height. She's, like, 1/1800th my size." He smiled up at his friend. "It's a math thing. Don't worry your little girl head about it."
She threw a pillow at him. He ducked, and found himself face to face with the action figure.
Up close, the production shortfalls were apparent. Of the figure's two eyes, the paint of one was only halfway overlapping the eye itself and the lipstick was off center.
The face was fairly flattened, and slightly lopsided.
"Hey," he said, "I never noticed before. Space Suzy's a bit ugly."
"You never got past her cleavage," Cindy pointed out.
"Oh, yeah."
Two work days before school started, Jack went with Cindy and her mother to pick up Brunellete. He stayed to the sidelines for most of the day.
The state department rep understood the arrangements and quickly briefed Jack on his responsibilities. The press attending, however, concentrated on pics of Cindy: holding Brunellete; of her mom holding all of Brun's luggage in a plastic sack; of Brun waving up to the reporters from her transport.
Jack didn't actually meet Brun until the car drive home. Mrs. Juston drove, with Cindy and Jack in the back seat. The carrier was lashed into the seat between them.
"Brun, this is Jack Lender. Like I said, he'll be the one sponsoring you." Jack barely noticed the person. Lilliput fashions were positively Elizabethan this month. Walking in her hooped skirt, Brun looked like a yellow muffin spinning around.
"Ta be meeting, Jacklender," she said. As an official escort, he was given a pair of ear plugs to carry her voice, and also to give him a clue about her direction.
He'd read about the plugs, and the little echoing beeps, but it was entirely different to have to interpret them. Still, he'd probably get used to it.
"Nice to meet you, too, Brun," he replied. Cindy frowned.
"Sound like you're pleased, not pressured," she said.
"I am pleased," he insisted. The two girls looked at each other, passed some sort of message, then started talking about clothes, comparing the Lillput fashion she was wearing to the more varied human selections she was seeing.
Jack tuned out.
The next day, he dutifully turned up at the Juston's, to wave Cindy off, and to take Brun to school for registration.
Cindy gave him a quick peck on the cheek and a hug. With her face on his shoulder, and hidden from her parents' view, she whispered a message. "Treat her right, or I'll put your peepee in a pencil sharpener and plug it in."
"You know I'll try," he promised. She gave another kiss to the little girl taking her room and then she was gone.
"You me to the school be taking?" Brun asked. Jack lifted her carefully to his shirt pocket.
"That's the plan," he said. He didn't notice that he avoided looking at Brun's face. It was a subconscious thing, he kind of expected her to look, on close inspection, like a mispainted action figure.
Brun noticed. She sighed and settled into the pocket. Jack never noticed the sigh, either.
The principal was quite excited to register the international visitor. She made effusive welcome to the girl, but constantly looked over Jack's shoulder.
"Where's Ms. Juston?" she finally asked.
"Brobdingrag," he replied.
"Brobdingnag," she corrected.
"Printer's error," Jack corrected her correction. He didn't know three cities in Lilliput, but he was very much a Brobdiphile. "He apologized at a later point, making the correction. In the giant's tongue, it's not much of a..."
"Giants here are right now not being," Brun pointed out from the desktop. "Little Lilliputian now registering?"
"Yes, of course," Mrs. Kolp agreed. "It's just that we wrote your schedule expecting Ms. Juston. We'll have to match it to Mr. Lender. Just a tick."
"Going paperless didn't cut down the red tape any," Jack said softly as the woman turned to her computer.
"In Lilliput, the yellow tape a red wax is being," Brun replied. She turned a bit away from the principal, speaking softly so only earplug-enhanced hearing would pick it up. "A civil servant your computer a form has filled out using. How is later you telling this?"
"That sounds like a blonde joke," he replied, leaning a bit closer. "I guess if there's a wax signet on the key?" She clapped for him, her giggle sounding in his plug.
"We on the screen are saying," she admitted, "but your answer better am liking."
----
He introduced Brun to his parents that afternoon, at a Labor Day cookout. The two families had a pleasant barbeque. Lenders brought the food and the Justons cooked.
Brun was the star of the evening, as none of the adults had had much direct experience of Lilliputians. She fielded many questions, though only Jack and Mrs. Juston had been given earplugs, so they often had to repeat her answers.
Mr. Juston resolved to locate enough for everyone as soon as possible.
Jack understood the big deal about the little girl, he just didn't share it. His disinterest in the general discussion of elf-life was dismissed as general teen angst. At least, by all the adults it was.
No one ever got close enough to Brun's portable apartment at night to hear her cry herself to sleep.
Tuesday, Jack wriggled free of his mother's last minute grooming - "You KNOW there are going to be cameras, dear!" and staggered out the door.
With due respect to the occasion, and the possibility of media, he used the sidewalk rather than his more usual path through the hedge.
Knocking politely on the door, he greeted Mrs. Juston and Brun. A shoulder strap fixed the Lilliputian's carrier in place across his chest and they went off to school.
Jack was in the advanced courses of everything, shaping his education like a missile aimed at the Space Academy. To his surprise, Brun had qualified for College Prep in all his courses and electives.
In Home Room, there were a number of photographers to record her introduction to the class: the school's, the yearbook's, one from the paper, two from TV stations and almost everyone in class lifted up a phone to snap off a quickie.
"Class," Mrs. Burton said, "we're very privileged to welcome Miss Brunellete of Mildendo. She's an exchange student, and will be staying with Lender, here."
Despite the attention, the teens all raised an eyebrow and whistled or moaned at the implication.
"No, no, Mrs. Burton," Brun said, her voice coming from a speaker on the teacher's desk. "I'm staying with the parents of your classmate Cindy Juston. Jack only sponsors me for the class time."
"Ah. Well, that's cleared up. Let's continue with our morning rituals." Jack stared at his little ward after her speech. She noticed, but didn't say anything. It was the most attention he'd given her in days and she didn't want to spoil it.
In their next class, English, Mrs. Cox thought it a wonderful opportunity to review sentence diagrams with Lilliputian syntax.
"Now, when Miss Brunellete says... Say something, dear."
"I America loving am, but Lilliput missing do."
"Great." The teacher quickly sketched out the sentence. "Notice, no matter where the speaker puts the verb, either in the middle or the end, we still graph it in the same place in the diagram."
"She can speak right," Jack said. Everyone turned to stare. "I mean, she can talk like us."
"I suppose she can," Mrs. Cox nodded. "Did you ever take a foreign language class, Mr. Lender?"
"Um, yeah?" He squirmed in his seat from all the attention.
"And in your later classes, did your teacher have you speak in that language all the time?"
"Yeah....?"
"Well, I'd expect that in her English classes, she was taught to speak 'proper' English. So she can, although it may be hard for her to think in English. So she knows the words, but it's just easier to use the syntax she's been using all her life. Is that about it, Brunellete?"
"It is exactly about that, Mrs. Cox," the speaker said. Mrs. Cox went on with the lesson and the class turned to pay attention.
Jack found that he was squirming just as much, but from the attention of only one person. She turned her speaker to the private earplug channel.
"I will try to speak right, on from now," she said softly.
"No, no," he said. "I just meant-"
"Is there a problem, Mr. Lender?"
"No, Mrs. Cox," he replied. He quieted. But to his credit, he was finally starting to realize that there was one.
Social Studies and Histories was the next class. Mr. Telt opened with a recording of the original Elf Sketch by Linkman and Brise. He played part of it through, watching the class.
"Okay, you're all kind of bored. I guess you've seen it a time or two?" Mumbled replies. "Okay, then let's have someone act it out." Jack got to be Brise's character, Dell the reporter. Linkman's Publisher was played by his friend, Tomas.
"You ready to write your editorial, sir?" Jack asked shakily. He wasn't too comfortable knowing everyone, esp. Brun, was watching him. And he wasn't too sure how Brun felt about the skit.
"Yes. It'll be about the Little Lilliputians."
"Sir, they're all 'little' Lilliputians," he read.
"Ah. Well, are there Liberal Lilliputians? I like an alliterative headline."
"They're all Liberal Lilliputians, sir, by our standards."
"Okay, stop there," Mr. Telt directed, then turned to the board. "Okay, no offense to anyone in the room, but does anyone have a complaint about describing Lilliputians as little?" He wrote 'little' on the smartboard, which waited patiently for a vote. No one raised a hand.
"Okay by you, Miss?" he asked Brun.
"I am desktop seating," she replied. "Who arguing could, and be not a foolish?" Telt's eyes flicked back and forth while he parsed her words, then he smiled.
"Okay, then. Now, Liberal. Why did Linkman's character say that they're all liberals?"
"Because they're small," Tommy Dender shouted, "and they have no power in Congress."
"Only since the last election," Sarah pointed out. "They're coming back after what the Conservatives did in Vienna."
"Enough," Telt said sharply. "What does 'liberal' basically mean? And not as a party, but an outlook?"
"Fondness for change?" Brun asked.
"Okay, that's right," Telt said, turning to write on the board. "And with Lilliputian attention spans, change is something they all embrace. At least compared to our society. To them, there are just different rates of change.
"Okay, what was the next adjective in the skit?" Jack watched Brun as much as he could for the rest of class. She didn't appear to be offended by the skit, or by the discussion about Lilliputian traits.
She even joined in on the punchline, after Tomas read off all fifteen L-words: "Oh, hell, Dell, let’s call ‘em all Ellllllllllllllllllllllllllllves."
"Okay, so that's why Lilliputians, and Blefuscans, are more easily referred to as 'elf.' Any questions?"
Jack was thoughtful as he walked to the next class. He'd never really considered the comedy sketch in terms of actual Lilliputian society.
Just before entering Algebra III, he stopped and looked down at the carrier.
"Brun, how do you feel about being called an 'elf?'"
"Eh," she replied, "For all biggies can't move fast, they're sure in a hurry to say things. Brunellete to Brun, Little Liberal Landlubber Laboring Lefthanded, etcetera, Lilliputians to Elf. I can live with it."
"Kay," he said and went in.
That afternoon, he returned them to his house. The Juston's were both at work, but Jack's mother worked out of her office at home. The families had agreed...or more importantly, the adults had agreed, that the two would do homework under her supervision until dinner.
"You guys got homework?" she called out when she heard the door.
"Just reading today," Jack replied. They set up in the kitchen. Jack fixed a snack, crushing a cookie and letting his guest pick from the crumbs. She thanked him and they started their assignments.
"I was an idiot," he said after a while. She looked back at him. "I mean, a moron. I offended you, needlessly and heedlessly." She still stared, motionless. "I...I've been a jerk. You're not the problem, you're not the cause of my problems, and I've been a poor host."
Her stillness was marked, especially for an elf. He stared back, finally asking, "Are you going to say anything?"
"Aye, if you ever say something wrong," she replied. Her smile broke the mood, though. "It is okay," she said slowly, making sure of her diction. "I do need to learn to speak the way everyone around me does. If nothing else am needing... If nothing else, _I_ need to be understood at all times."
She stood up and walked over to his hand, patting it in a comforting manner. He smiled back.
"It was just, I dunno. I heard you talk in class, and I wondered, 'if she can talk normally, why bother with the accent?'"
"Seriously?" she asked, hand over her smile.
"Seriously," he admitted, eyes rolling up.
"You indeed a moron are," she agreed. They laughed for a moment. Mrs. Lender, walking through the kitchen to use the bathroom (and not coincidentally performing something akin to a bed check) smiled at the sound.
"Teach me Lilliputian," he said. She went still again.
"I am needing to speak how Americans speak," she pointed out. "Time spent teaching you my language is teaching me nothing English."
"Oh, not the whole language. Just some basics. Something I can say, to show people I really knew an elf."
"Alright," she said. "Repeat after me." Her voice, in her native tongue, was musical. He wondered why he'd never noticed just how lilting she sounded.
Maybe because it was the first time he was really listening, some part of his mind suggested. He shook that thought away and tried to repeat the line. She giggled.
"What did I say?"
"Not the right thing. Fuscan is a difficult language for humans pronouncing."
"Any harder than English is for you guys?" he asked, intrigued.
"No, we just imagine that someone ties a brick to our vocal cords and dragging them down to our belly buttons."
"So, what am I trying to say?"
She waved away the concern. "Doesn't matter until you can pronouncing it. Mouth skills first," she ordered. "When you can oolt your fost, we'll working on vocabulary."
They collaborated on a vocals program on his laptop, comparing his sounds to the desired ones, so he could practice after Mr. Juston came to collect her.
To his parents' surprise, he worked on it for two hours after dinner. By bedtime, he had made marked progress. The computer graphed his uttering to within 10% of the target.
And any Lilliputian in the world would have understand him say, "I a hurtful biggie am. Please my nuts a crushing to request."
----------
Three weeks into the school year, a friend of Jack's was waiting at the house when they came home.
"Dorian!" Jack shouted, clasping hands with his friend. "Brun, this is my friend from school. He graduated last year, got an entry level job at the paper as a photojournalist." He listened for a second, then conveyed, "She says she's glad to meet you."
"And I'm glad to meet you, Brunellete," he said. To Jack and Brun's surprise, he knew her full name without prompting. He also knew to address her directly, which few people did on introduction.
There was a short catching up, then "So let me tell you why I'm here."
"'Kay," Jack agreed.
"You ever hear of an Encounter Room?"
"Yeah," Jack said, and after a second, "So has Brun."
"They've got one over in Springfield this week. Next month, they'll be bringing it over to your school."
"Brun says that'll be cool." Dorian cocked his head. "Okay," Jack corrected. "She says that'll be 'clean' but that's what Lilliteens are saying this season instead of 'cool.'"
"Anyway, I've been assigned the job of taking photographs when they do. BUT, I figure the gym's going to be a madhouse when they do. What I want to do is run you two over to Springfield tomorrow, take the pics, and run them in the paper with the story next month."
After some negotiating with parents and guardians, and a review of the rules for long distance travel with an Interspecies Exchange Student, it was decided that Mrs. Juston would drive the high schoolers to the Encounter Room, Dorian could take his own car.
About noon, the four of them were in the Mall parking lot, in line for the Room. A young woman with a clipboard worked her way down the queue.
"How many in your party?" she asked. She'd asked so often, it was starting to sound like one word.
"Four," Mrs. Juston answered. The attendant looked them over.
"Are you waiting for someone to park the car?" she asked. Jack opened his jacket to reveal the carrier. "Oh, why didn't you say so?" She pulled open the line markers. "Come on, people with their own elves get front of the line."
"You mean," Mrs. Juston said pointedly, "that elves get front of the line privileges, along with the humans that attend with them. We don't 'own' anyone, least of all a representative of another nation."
"I...uh, yeah. I meant nothing by it," the girl stammered.
"All right it is," Brun said. "Biggies are always making that mistake," she pointed out. "But thanks, I say, for not thinking of me as a pet!"
"It's quite alright," Mrs. Juston said. Then she turned to the young woman. "Brunellete says that she doesn't mind your statement. So we'll forget it," she said brightly.
At the entrance, the ticket seller was delighted to make Brun's acquaintance. There was an elevator that was raised to the level of the carrier, then whisked her away to the interior. Even without earplugs, the humans could hear the squeals of delight when she entered the room with her countrymen.
They made their own way inside. The Encounter Room itself was a brightly lit space, dominated by a large tank of liquid. As the three entered, it flickered to life. There, in the tank, an image of Brun formed, human size.
Jack was astonished. All this time, he'd unconsciously expected Brun to look like the Space Suzy action figure: blotchy with bumps.
She looked more like an anime figure come to life, he thought. Tall and slender, her long neck supported a rounded face. With slightly-to-large eyes, it reminded him of a deer.
She smiled gently when she saw him. Her teeth flashed and his heart melted. The others left him alone as he staggered forward.
He'd known her hair was long, but had never noticed the gentle waves in it. It was a brown that lent support to his doe impression, covering her shoulders and upper arms.
The pert nose seemed to him to be the cutest thing he'd ever seen and he was nearly paralyzed by those eyes. Deep, dark and brown, her gentle humor sparkled and dazzled him.
She reached down to straighten the hem of her shirt and drew his attention across her figure. Lilliputians are much less affected by gravity than bigger humans are, and slender hardly begins to describe most of them.
Brun made every cheerleader in Jack's school look pudgy. Her graceful curves swept up and down and dragged his mind along with them.
"Ahem!" Mrs. Juston said, crashing more than a few fantasies in a single blow.
"I, uh, you... You're lovely," he forced out.
"You're much cuter than I thought," she replied. "Those freckles look this big," she held her hands apart, "from down here."
"AHEM!" Mrs. Juston repeated. The voice almost physically yanked Jack back and away. Dorian started taking pictures.
After their time was half-way through, another woman stepped up beside Brun. Dorian asked if he could take a picture of the two of them, and Brun translated.
The sound of the lilting voices reminded Jack of his new skill.
"Oh, hey!" he said. "I can show her what you've been teaching me!"
----
On the drive home, Jack sulked but Brun would not stop laughing. Cindy's mother had a hard time keeping a straight face, too, especially when the full story was explained.
"I wonder if Dorian got a picture of the look on her face?" she mused. "That'll look good in the yearbook."
"I just want to die," Jack moaned.
"Oh, you can't," the woman scolded him. "At least not until the Encounter Room makes it to your school. I wonder if they rotate Lilliputians through the staff, or if you'll meet Miss Elliooly again?"
Jack sank deeper into his seat and tried to ignore the laughter in his ears.
=========
Brianna was walking across the courtyard during lunch when Brittney and Brielle waved her over. They were standing next to a picnic table on the grass.
When she started over towards the other cheerleaders, they gestured for silence. The table they were near had one person sitting there.
As Brianna got closer, she realized that it was the nerd, the Lilliput guy. He was mumbling something, with his face down on folded arms.
Brit and Bree waved her closer, wide smiles showing.
"Yes," he was saying, "I'm a jackass. Yep. Nope. No, a pig refers to someone who's stubborn. I just made a horrible error. Yes, bonehead applies. Yes. Yes. No, wussy means weakness."
Bri looked up at her friends, who shrugged, but went on listening. He seemed to be conversing with the elf girl, and she seemed to be going through an industrial strength list of insults.
Slowly and silently, the three girls sat at the table across from the guy. Presumably, across from the pair.
"Cunt? No, that's a body part I don't have. It refers to a girl that-"
"Ahem!" Bree coughed. The nerd sat up straight, eyes wide in shock. When he realized what he'd said, and who'd heard it, he blushed and adorable shade of purple.
"Whatcha' doin'? Brit asked him.
"Uh, we, uh, I..."
"What does Brun say you're doing?" Bri asked. He cocked his head in that listening position.
"She says I'm being roundly identified, classified and defined as a character of low intelligence and brute sensibilities." Then he stopped talking, looking down to the table top.
The trio passed looks at each other. Then Bri leaned towards the carrier. "You wanna come out and say hi, Brun?"
Jack (That was the kid's name!) silently lifted the carrier and opened it. The little girl stepped out and shocked the larger ones.
"Her arm! Is that a sling?"
"Oh, she's been HURT!"
"Poor little thing. What happened to you?" There was no speaker handy for her transmissions, but no one missed the look she gave her sponsor.
"Todd was in the hall with a football," he explained. "I yelled, 'I'm open.' He threw. About the time she said, 'Open for what?' I caught it."
"Todd?" Bri asked. Jack nodded.
"Quarterback Todd?" Bree asked. He nodded again.
"The guy voted most likely to break a rib by passing a ball?" Brit asked. Another set of looks passed the three.
"You idiot!" they said, together.
"She already did that one," Jack muttered. Brun waved. "But," he continued, "she welcomes any assistance you might offer."
"So, you were out of class this morning, getting her looked after?" Brit guessed. Jack rolled his eyes.
"Oh, man. There's one nurse at the hospital with anything like Lilliputian Medical Training. She conference-called a hospital in Mildendo. Where it was about 2 in the morning.
"Luckily, her family doctor was available. Unluckily, they had to call her family to find out who he was."
"Oooh," Bree sighed sympathetically, "her folks got into the conference call?"
"Yes. They don't speak English, but the message came through loud and clear."
"Good," Bree said, sucking all the empathy out of her voice. "Least of what you deserved." Jack winced. "But she's okay?"
"Strained a shoulder," he said. "Oh, and worried her parents like to death and twice." He gestured to indicate that it was Brun's comment. "And Mr. Juston had to skip a meeting to be a medical sponsor for her treatment."
Satisfied that the girl wasn't unduly damaged, the girls relaxed a bit.
"So," Bri mused. "You don't have a doctor in the area?" Brun shook her head. Bri giggled.
"What?" Bree asked. Bri tried to wave it away.
"No, what?" Brit joined.
"Just imagining her in our...stirrups," Bri finally admitted. Jack was the only one at the table that didn't laugh. He had no idea what horse riding had to do with his day so far.
"She says that...there's a doctor scheduled to make the rounds of the Lilliputian exchange students during the year. And that they use something other than stirrups anyway." He refused to inquire further.
"Hey!" Brit observed. "I think Todd owes you an apology. Have you seen him?" Brun shook her head again.
"He's sweet," Bree said, "and cute, in a brute force kind of way." All four girls noticed Jack squirming in his seat.
"Yep," Bri added, "and when he's in that football uniform, with the tight, tight pants on his butt..." Jack groaned and lowered his face into his hands. Brun waved encouragement, then spoke.
"She wants to know if he has any freckles," Jack reported. "She's come to find freckles a distinct mark of a LACK of character."
The three teased Jack for a bit longer, by talking 'girl talk' through him, to Brun's delight.
"Are you going to the dance?" Brit asked. Jack looked confused.
"She, uh, she doesn't know," he said.
Brun stormed over and kicked his wrist. "What I mean is, she says: No one has asking me?"
"Not even you?"
"No...but I mean, I'm her sponsor. I'm the one that has to take her."
"Have you asked her?"
"No..."
"You know," Bri said, "there's a speaker installed in the girl's room next to the school office."
"There is?" Jack asked.
"Well, yeah, in case she has any... difficulties."
"Why?" Bree asked. "What bathroom has she BEEN using?"
Jack waved helplessly towards the carrier. "She has these bags..."
"What?" Brit yelled, drawing the attention of everyone outdoors. "That's enough." She leaned down to the elf.
"Brun, I'd like to carry you to the girl's room, we can have a talk. Is that okay?" At a careful nod, Brit carefully held out her hands and collected the tiny teen.
They stormed off together, leaving Jack behind.
"Oh, man, no good can come from this," he muttered.
-----
Brun was quite excited for the rest of the day about making new friends. Jack was happy for her, really, but wished that the circumstances were different.
Luckily for their friendship, she didn't torment him much more about the accident. She couldn't have, not without getting in line.
He had to explain everything to his parents, then again after his parents talked to her hosts. Then again after her hosts called her parents and told his parents what her parents had as concerns.
He got a call from the offices of the Exchange, from the Lilliputian Embassy, from the paper, from the school counselor, and from several classmates.
They never told him, but his parents were actually pleased with his response. He was honest and forthcoming, apologetic without trying to blame anyone else, and obviously very sincerely sorry for what he'd done.
And he never tried to downplay her injury, as she did, with 'just a strain.' He clearly knew how bad it could have been.
Together, he and Brun satisfied everyone that he could remain her sponsor.
He did daily, temporarily, give up sponsorship during fourth period. One of the B-girls, of which Brun was now a member, took the carrier from him in Physics, escorted Brun through lunch and Phys Ed, and returned her during Government.
But that wasn't a punishment for him as much as a reward for Brun. Her contacts with fellow students increased dramatically.
So, in the long run, almost everyone benefited in the aftermath. Except for Todd. He never quite understood the exact worries about the pass.
It wasn't his fault, no one thought that. He only vaguely recognized Jack in the first place, and had the haziest of ideas that there was even an elf in the school.
But he was proud of the fact that his passes were powerful enough to send people to the hospital. That was about all he got out of the story.
Three days after the incident, he showed up with a stick figure painted on the door of his car, like the 'kills' painted on fighter jets.
Two days after that, and three hours after school was let out, Todd was found by the janitor. In the girl's bathroom. Naked (except for a fetching pair of nylons). Bound, gagged and tied to a toilet. He refused to identify his assailant, no charges were ever made.
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