orthrow things at him, and he'd stand strong and silent until they stopped, evenif it took months. His teachers quickly learned that calling on him in classmeant standing in awkward silence, while he sat stoic and waited for them tocall on someone else. The social worker could make him go to school with thesoft ones, but she couldn't make him act like one.
George watched the boys carefully, as carefully as he had when he stood silentlyin the schoolyard, not seeming to watch anything. He was better at spotting adonkey than any of the soft ones. When a boy was ready to turn, George couldalmost see the shape of the donkey superimposed on the boy, and he radioed akeeper to pick up the donkey come morning. He got a bonus for each one hespotted, and according to Bill, it had accumulated to a sizable nest-egg.
George looked at the inventory and decided that the fudge was getting a littlelong in the tooth. He'd start pushing fudge-nut dips, and by the end of hisshift, the tub would be empty and he'd be able to give it a thorough cleaningand a refill from fresh stock. "Hey guys!" he called to three boys. "Is anybody_hungry_?" He dipped a floss and held it up, so that it oozed fudge down hiswrist. The boys shyly approached his booth. George knew from their manner thatthey were new to the Island: probably just picked up from a video-arcade orlasertag tent on the mainland that afternoon. They didn't know what to make oftheir surroundings, that was clear.
"Step right up," he said, "I don't bite!" He smiled a smile he'd practiced inthe mirror, one that shaped his soft, flexible features into a good-naturedexpression of idiotic fun. Cautiously, the boys came forward. They were thetarget age, eleven-to-fourteen, and they'd already accumulated some merch,baseball hats and fanny packs made from neoprene in tropical-fish colours,emblazoned with the Island's logomarks and character trademarks. They had thebeginnings of dark circles under their eyes, and they dragged a little with lowblood-sugar. George dipped two more and distributed them around. The eldest, atowheaded kid near the upper age range, said, "Mister, we haven't got any money-- what do these cost?"
George laughed like a freight train. "It's all free, sonny, free as air!Courtesy of the Management, as a reward for very _special_ customers like you."This was scripted, but the trick was to sell the line like it was fresh.
The boys took the cones from him timidly, but ate ravenously. George gave themsome logoed serviettes to wipe up with and ground the fudge into his wrists andforearms with one of his own. He looked at his watch and consulted the laminatedtimetable taped to the counter. 1300h, which meant that the bulk of the Guestswould be migrating towards Actionland and the dinosaur rides, and it was time topush the slightly down-at-the-heels FreakZone, to balance the crowds. "You boyslike rollercoasters?" he said.
The youngest -- they were similar enough in appearance and distant enough inages to be brothers -- spoke up. "Yeah!" The middle elbowed him, and theyoungest flipped the middle the bird.
"Well, if you follow the midway around this curve to the right, and go throughthe big clown-mouth, you'll be in the FreakZone. We've got a fifteen-storeycoaster called _The Obliterator_ that loops fifty times in five minutes --running over _ninety-five miles per hour_! If you hurry, you can beat the line!"He looked the youngest in the eye at the start of the speech, then switched tothe middle when he talked about the line.
The youngest started vibrating with excitement, and the middle looked pensive,and then to the eldest said, "Sounds good, huh, Tom?"
The eldest said, "We haven't even found out where we're sleeping yet -- maybe wecan do the ride afterwards."
George winked at the youngest, then said, "Don't worry about it, kids. I'll getthat sorted out for you right now." He picked up the white house phone and askedthe operator to connect him with Guest Services. "Hi there! This is George onthe midway! I need reservations for three young men for tonight -- a suite, Ithink, with in-room Nintendo and a big-screen TV. They look like they'd enjoythe Sportaseum. OK, I'll hold," he covered the mouthpiece and said to the boys,"You'll love the Sportaseum -- the chairs are shaped like giant catcher's mitts,and the beds are giant Air Jordans, and the suite comes with a regulationhalf-court. What name should I put the reservation under?"
The eldest said, "Tom Mitchell."
George made the reservation. "You're all set," he said. "The monorails run rightinto the hotel lobby, every ten minutes. Anyone with a name tag can show you tothe nearest stop. Here's a tip -- try the football panzerotto: it's a friedpizza turnover as big as a football, with beef-jerky laces. It's _my_ favorite!"
"I want a football!" the youngest said.
"We'll have it for dinner," the eldest said, looking off at the skyline ofcoaster-skeletons in the distance. "Let's go on some rides first."
George beamed his idiot's grin at them as they left, then his face went slackand he went back to wiping down the surfaces. A moment later, a hand reachedacross the counter and plucked the cloth from his grip. He looked up, startled,into Joe's grinning face. Unlike his brothers', Joe's face was all sharp anglesand small teeth. Nobody knew what a child of a tongue was supposed to look like,but George had always suspected that Joe wasn't right, even for a third son.
"Big guy!" Joe shouted. "Workin' hard?"
George said, "Yes." He stood, patiently, waiting for Joe to give him the clothback.
Joe held it over his head like a standard, dancing back out of reach, eventhough George hadn't made a grab for it. George waited. Joe walked back to hiscounter and gave it back.
"We're dozing the FreakZone," Joe said, in a conspiratorial whisper. He put aspin on _We're_, making sure that George knew he was including himself with theIsland's management.
"Really," George said, neutrally.
"Yeah! We're gonna flatten that sucker, start fresh, and build us a new themeland. I'm a Strategic Project Consultant! By the time it's over, I'll be anImagineer!"
George knew that the lands on Pleasure Island were flattened and rebuilt on aregular basis, as management worked to stay ahead of the lightspeedboredom-threshold of the mainland. Still, he said, "Well, Joe, that's marvelous.I'm sure you'll do a fabulous job."
Joe sneered at him. "Oh, I know I will. We all do just _fabulous_ jobs, brother.Just some of us _have_ fabulous jobs to do."
George refused to rise to the bait. He could always outwait Joe.
Joe said, "We're thinking of giving it a monster theme -- monsters are testingvery high with eleven-to-fourteens this year. Dragons, ogres, cyborgs, you know.We may even do a walk-through -- there hasn't been one of those here since thesixties!"
George didn't know what Joe wanted him to say. He said, "That sounds very nice."
Joe gave him a pitying look, and then his chest started ringing. He extracted aslim phone from his shirt-pocket and turned away. A moment later, he turnedback. "Gotta go!" he said. "Meeting with Woodrow and Orville, down at Ops!"
Alarm-bells went off in George's head. "Shouldn't Bill go along if you'remeeting with Orville?"
Joe sneered at him, then took off at a fast clip down the midway. George watchedhim until he disappeared through one of the access doors.
#
Bill was clearly upset about it. George couldn't help but feel responsible. Heshould have called Bill as soon as Joe told him he was meeting with Orville, buthe'd waited until he got home.
He'd been home for hours, and Joe still wasn't back. Bill picked absently at thedinner he'd made and fretted.
"He didn't say how Orville found out?" Bill asked.
George shook his head mutely.
"Why didn't he invite me?" Bill asked. "I always handle negotiations for us."
George couldn't eat. The more Bill fretted, the more he couldn't eat. It waslong dark outside, hours and hours after Joe should've been home. Bill fretted,George stared out the window, and Joe didn't come home.
Then, an electric cart's headlights swept up the trail to their cabin. Thelights dazzled George, so he couldn't see who was driving. Bill joined him atthe window and squinted. "It's Joe and Orville!" he said. George squinted too,but couldn't make anything out. He took
Bill's word for it and joined himoutside.
It was indeed Orville and Joe. Orville was driving, and Joe was lollingdrunkenly beside him. Orville shook hands with Bill and nodded to George, wholifted Joe out of the cart and carried him inside.
When he got back, Orville and Bill were staring calmly into each other's eyes,each waiting for the other to say something. Orville was dressed in his workingclothes: a natty white suit with a sport-shirt underneath. His bald head gleamedin the