When we last left our Tiny Alien, he had joined a society of Green Gentlemen that would have been secret except that they were all really big hearted on the inside so they didn't bother with hiding themselves much. At their recommendation, he had gone to visit the Indie Oracle, but in his excitement had uttered his standard request instead of the secret passcode that would have gotten him a pronouncement. When faced with the choice of Trick or Treat or Else, the Oracle had chosen "Trick". Now there was going to be Trouble of one sort of another since the Oracle insisted that the Tiny Alien meet her brother. . . .
The Oracle smiled and pointed to the side of the door where her brother leaned. The Tiny Alien immediately sensed all was not nearly as normal as things would appear. Mostly because it was very hard to keep the brother in his view even though the boy in question was not moving. On the other hand, The Oracle herself was impressively THERE. The Tiny Alien very much doubted that a black hole could move her off the spot she was on, unless she wanted to travel through a wormhole. He quickly ran through his series of Tricks and settled on slow motion. He pointed his ray gun and announced "OK Trick!" and let the slow motion ray wash over them.
The Oracle seemed to be slowing down, since she was smirking very slowly, but the brother tapped the Tiny Alien on the shoulder. He had a quizzical look on his face "You sure?" The brother shrugged, and then went to shake his sister's shoulder a little bit and she shook off the effects of the ray gun. That effect should have lasted a full hour!
The boy looked like he should be hanging out with a garage band somewhere, but other than that there was nothing really different about him compared to all the other local inhabitants, who were admittedly all very different from each other. Just to be sure, the Tiny Alien checked that the boy's feet touched the ground. They did. Hurumph, no answers there.
The boy disappeared in front of him again. This was very frustrating! The Oracle appeared to be gloating a little bit, "I tried to warn you, you should probably avoid Tricks that involve space, time or gravity when he's here."
"He's not here now," scowled the Tiny Alien.
"Yes he is he's right to your left. Now that he's gotten older he hardly ever wears orange anymore so we really have to work at finding him when he's infront of us. The most important thing to remember is that he's always where he is supposed to be. And how about you?"
"What?"
"Where are you supposed to be?
"Wherever I want!" stormed the Tiny Alien.
"Oh," stated the brother. "I'll help." And he would have disappeared except the brother seemed to have been missing in the first place.
The Oracle seemed suddenly grumpy. "I hope you're ready for help. He's very helpful. You don't really need anything dangerous do you? All the definitions get wavy when he helps. He's right off the charts with that you know."
The Tiny Alien suddenly got a very very cold feeling in his alien approximation of an esophagus. Clarity descended on his flustered brain cells. A deep and overwhelming desire for carbonation and world balance overtook him and he whispered. "Could you please make me, an egg cream like your mother used to make. And then could you tell me what an egg cream is?'
"Oh dear, now you're really in trouble aren't you." The Oracle turned to the fountain array behind her. "Do you want the egg cream with or without the political metaphor?"
"Without please. I think metaphors might cause me indigestion." The Tiny Alien watched as the Oracle started moving things around, pulling out specially shaped triangular paper cups, opening up secret compartments holding brown jars with yellow labels. He didn't hear the rustling behind him. Or the filling of the barrel, or the disruption in the time/space continum so when the brother tapped him on the shoulder he was once again very startled.
The brother smiled a ninja-fae smile - "These are the Jacko's, they brought some apples. They'll help."
And lo, there were four robed gentlemen, obviously practitioners of the Honorable Arts. Their Orange faces grinning. The tallest of them greeted the Tiny Alien with the ritual phrase: "Wow cool mask. Do you want to bob for apples?" and the smallest said, "It should be mostly safe, we brought the apples, but the Alex found the water. That might be a bit Tricky."
And the Oracle stirred the eggcream and studied the pattern of the chocolate syrup against the edges of the glass, and declared "Well, it seems if you bob for apples, you'll find out where you want to be. Of course that's according to the eggcream and eggcream predictions are more a part of my brother's playground than mine. It looks kind of tricky to me too."
The apples in the barrel were perfect and granny smith green. They were crisp and cool and surrounded by appropriately spooky orange faces, and the brother seemed so perfectly Almost There that for a moment the Tiny Alien thought the time of Trick or Treating had come early to the Land of Tiny Doors.
He made his way slowly to the head of the barrelbucket . . . .
Will the Tiny Alien find out where he wants to be? Is bobbing for apples with Jackos dangerous? Where did the Alex get the water from? What's an Alex? The answer to these and other questions in our next episode of Tales of the Tiny Alien . . .
