Characters: Mundo, Isaac, Quentin, Robin Hobb
“What do you suppose they’re talking about?” Mundo asked between bites of a chocolate chip cookie. He, Quentin, and Isaac were gathered around the window inside the cookie-maker’s treehouse, looking up at the girls in the branches of the tree. They had been up there for a while, having “quality girl time,” as they called it, leaving the guys alone with the cookies. Not a good idea. They were already on their eighth batch.
“The same thing girls always talk about when guys aren’t around,” Isaac shrugged. “Make-up, their hair, and PMS.”
“Now that’s one conversation I’d like to hear from something other than Cosmo,” Quentin said, pressing his face against the glass. “Hey, I got an idea! Let’s eavesdrop on them. It’ll be just like a college panty raid, except without the college since we’re in high school and without the panties because we don’t know if they’re wearing any and without the raid since there’s only three of us and raids require a party of at least twenty-four players. C’mon, what do you say?”
Mundo yanked him back. “Are you insinuating through that terrible metaphor that we deliberately invade their privacy? Forget it. There are two things I respect in this world: girls and their privacy. We have no right to invade either.”
But he couldn’t hold a straight face for long. Soon they were barreling over in laughter.
“Oh, yeah right,” Isaac said, slapping him on the back. “That was a good one. Respect their privacy—ho. What’s next—listening when they talk? Telling them their pants really are too tight?” And that got them laughing harder.
“Wait, wait, I know!” Quentin interjected. “Trying on their lipstick, slipping into their silky pajamas, and claiming to be their twin sister? Haha! I did that to my mom once.”
They stopped laughing.
“…Dude,” Isaac said after a moment. “Why are you even in this story?”
“Methinks the three of you are mad,” Robin Hobb said as he came over with a fresh batch of oatmeal raisin cookies. “Only a simple-minded fool would tempt a girl the way you so carelessly do. In case you’ve forgotten, or really are insane, they’re capable of making you vanish with one step.”
“Naw, they wouldn’t do that,” Mundo said with an arrogant brush of his hand. “They like us.”
But the bandit leader wasn’t so convinced. “Not too long ago, I seem to remember those same girls tearing through the men like beggars over a loaf of bread. Do not be so fooled by their civilized manner. To them, we’re nothing more than bugs. Remember what the Priest said—Women will never see Men as equals.”
“Bullshit,” Isaac spat. “Kim has always been my equal. We’ve been dating for six months and we share everything fifty-fifty, if you know what I mean.” He nudged Mundo.
“Well, I don’t know what you mean, particularly by the word ‘dating.’”
“With you wearing those tights, that doesn’t surprise me.”
Robin Hobb looked down at his bright green tights and then back up to the snickering guys. “Is there something I don’t get here? What is this ‘dating’ thing that thou speakst of?”
“Oh, man, you really are lost,” Isaac said, throwing up his arms.
“No, wait,” Mundo interrupted. “Of course they wouldn’t know what dating is! Think about it.” While they thought about it, he tried to explain it to Robin. “Dating…it’s, like, when a guy and girl go out.”
“Go out… Like, go outside?”
“No. Well, sometimes, but…no. No, dating is when they go out for fun. You know, like out to eat.”
“Oh, that happens all the time here!”
“Really?”
“Yeah, the girl takes the guy out and then eats him. ‘Dating’ is an odd phrase for it…”
Mundo shook his head. “No, no, no. It’s…ugh, do you guys know how to explain it?”
“Explain what?” Quentin asked.
“Dating.”
“What’s that?”
“Damn you people! Isaac, tell him.”
“Um, alright….” Isaac started. “You see, when a man meets a woman…” He started reaching for his pants, but Mundo stopped him halfway.
“Nevermind,” he said quickly. “Eating. Yes. That’s what dating is. It’s when a girl takes a guy out and eats him.”
“And you’ve been…dating this ‘Kim’ for six months?” Robin raised an eyebrow at Isaac. “Are you that bad that she hasn’t eaten you yet?”
“As a matter of fact, we’ve—” Isaac began, but Mundo stopped him again.
“We’re not going there,” he said.
Robin’s eyebrow remained suspended. “Anyway… As I was saying, I don’t know why these girls are on a quest to defeat the Dark Lady Sorena, but it seems to be quite certain that it isn’t to give equal rights to you guys, because frankly, you’re all a bunch of idiots.”
“How would you know that!?” Mundo demanded. “You’ve only known us for a few hours!”
“Well, first of all, because your friend just passed out from shoving his flute too far up his nose, and secondly, because you’re naïve enough to believe these girls are looking out for your best interests.”
“But you said yourself this afternoon that you steal from the rich and give to the poor. Certainly you of all people would understand that not everybody is looking to better themselves, but to better the whole world as well.”
“Ha!” Robin laughed, a great belly laugh. “Ye of little mind, hear me out. Most men don’t live as long as me and dear Little John. It’s only by conceding to the female superiors that we maintain our longevity.”
“What’s he talking about?” Mundo whispered to Isaac, but he only shrugged in response.
“You see, children, in this world, you must always be on your toes. Trust no one—especially those of the female persuasion! You’ll love longer that way.”
Isaac interrupted, “You obviously don’t know my Kim.”
“…How long, Isaac?” Robin asked, turning his back. He peered over his shoulder and clenched his fist around a soft cookie. “How long before you become just another snack, just another bug on the ground to be crushed, to her? How long before your humanity fades…and so does hers?” Crumbs sprinkled to the floor, much to the anger of the anal-retentive cookie elves, who rushed over with a broom and dust pan. “…Think wisely about your course of action. Your life may soon depend on it.”
Isaac looked out the window, up at his girlfriend Kim as she talked, so innocently, so sweetly behind that waterfall of her warm red hair, to Kendira and Rachelle. What was it she was saying? Why couldn’t she say it in front of him? Why did Rachelle fall out of the tree laughing?
Why?
Giantess World
