Stories: All-New Tales by Neil Gaiman; Al Sarrantonio

Author:Neil Gaiman; Al Sarrantonio
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Anthologies, Anthologies (multiple authors), Fantasy fiction, Short Story, 21st Century, General, Fiction - General, American, English, American fiction, Fiction, Short stories
ISBN: 9780061230929
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-04-22T07:00:00+00:00

January 3, 2234

NO, THE LAST STRAW was today. I did phone Mother last night and she did, after a lot of squirming, give me Dodeca’s private number. The trouble was that I didn’t know what to say, and all these parrots make it so difficult to think—not to speak of yet another swan versus goose fight erupting every five minutes. My God those birds can be vicious! Then I sat on an egg when I started to phone Dodeca and gave up. I said I’d do it today.

Today started with those cowgirls coming round here whining and whingeing. There were beds but no sheets or blankets next door, they said, and it was not what they were used to. And where did they put the twenty gallons of milk? I said pour it away, why not? And they said it was a waste. Anyway, I got rid of them in the end, but only by ordering a stack of sheets and blankets online, which cost a bomb.

Then the bird deliveries began. By then we were almost out of bird feed, so I ushered this lot, swans included, into Stepdaddy Five’s garden and raced off to the corner shop. They only had canary food, so I bought all they had of that. I was staggering towards my flat with it when I saw an entirely new sort of van drawing up and Housebot, that traitor, blandly opening my front door to it. The men in it began unloading and putting together a large number of frameworks. I crossed the road and asked them what the hell they were doing.

They said, “Out of the way, miss. We have to get all these into this flat here.”

I said, “But what are they?”

“Trampolines, miss,” they said.

This caused me to bolt into my flat and race about scattering canary food and looking for that list Liam gave me. I found it just as they manoeuvered the first trampoline in. There were supposed to be nine of them. How they thought they were going to fit them in I have no idea. As I opened the list, one of the men got attacked by the broody goose on the sofa and they all went outside to let it settle down. Liam had written, “Ninth day: Nine lords a-leaping; Tenth day: Ten ladies dancing; Eleventh day: Eleven pipers piping…”

I didn’t read any more. I gave a wild wail and raced into my bedroom, where all the parrots seemed to have congregated, and to shrieks of “I love you, Samantha,” I packed all the parcels of rings into my handbag for safety and raced out again to the nearest public phone, praying it wouldn’t have been vandalised.

It wasn’t. I got through to Liam. “What is it now?” he said grumpily.

“Liam,” I said, “I’ve got nine trampolines now. Is it really true that I’m going to get ballet dancers and skirling Scotsmen next?”

“Pretty certainly,” he said, “if you got milkmaids yesterday. Did you?”

“Yes,” I said. “Liam, I have had enough.

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