A Highly Unlikely Scenario, or a Neetsa Pizza Employee's Guide to Saving the World by Rachel Cantor Page A

said. Do you know him? You have traveled perchance in the south?
    Not likely, Leonard said. He’s been dead thousands of years.
    When the Jew with the letters met the Greek with the numbers, he wept. Can you imagine? You live! he cried. We are one! cried the Greek, and together they danced. They juggled letters and numbers together, making the most glorious patterns, which the people of that place turned into the most peculiar paintings, some of them made with sand. But you—how did you learn such fantastic methods of communication? How is it that you and I speak?
    I just pick up the telephone, Leonard said.
    You just pick it up. Fantastic, Mill said. No need to mutter formulas or turn this way and that around an invisible circle?
    A what? Leonard felt the hairs in his afro stand on end.
    You must be very advanced indeed, Mill said.
    I gotta go, Leonard said, and hung up the phone. And did something he’d never done before: he took the phone off thehook, disabled call queuing, and walked out of his White Room in the middle of his shift.
The world was strange
    The world was strange; the moon shone silverly on the safety swing, on which Felix seemed to have left some crowdies.
    Milione knew about the circle? It was one thing to say he’d met Pythagoras in a desert, and saw a Spaniard with dancing letters, but the circle? Leonard sat on the swing facing the moon and held the crowdies out to Medusa, who was suddenly there. He pushed himself forward and back inchwise with his toe, not caring whether he dirtied his whitesuit.
    A rare bird cried out in response to the swing’s rhythmic creakings.
    How could a crazy man in the Finger Lakes District know about the circle? What was the circle? He seemed to think the circle enabled mystic communication …
    Thwack! Leonard felt a sharp thrusting pain in the back of his head and fell forward, insensate, into the besoiling mud.
Whagghes
    When he awoke, it was still night. Carol had him under the armpits and was dragging him through the mud toward her house.
    Whagghes, he murmured. Carol looked back at him. There were actually three Carols in the starlight, three Carols all infuzzy outline, wearing black climbing suits and dust caps, clutchbags slung over three of their six shoulders.
    What were you doing out here? they hissed at him in unison. You’re supposed to be at work! What am I supposed to think when I look out my window and see a stranger swinging on the safety swing?
    He knows about the circle, Leonard mumbled. Who do you think he really is?
    If you can talk, you can walk, Carol said, dropping his arms so his head fell back again into the mud.
    Am I wasting my life, Carol? Leonard asked, looking up at the stars. Should I find a ship, head out to sea?
    Come inside for some chicory, she said. We’ll talk.
    The world is full of wonders, Mill had said. All places have their fascination, you only have to pay attention. Bravery is easier, in the long run, than the alternative. The alternative being loneliness and fear.
    Leonard rolled and turned gingerly onto his knees, then waited for the yard to stop swirling. When he finally stood, the back of his head pounded like justice sticks smashing against a door.
    Inside, Carol had disposed of her clutchbag and was now wearing nightgear, as if Leonard really had disturbed her sleep with his spectral swinging. She was brewing chicory in a large earthenware samovar.
    Leonard thought she was going to quiz him on his outrageous behavior, leaving the White Room in the middle of his shift, but no, she wanted to talk about Felix.
    He’s the best boy in the world, isn’t he? she asked.
    Of course, Leonard said, sitting down in a high-backed chair.
    We’d do anything for him, wouldn’t we?
    We would, Leonard said. Are there any tatties left?
    We would never let anything bad happen to him, would we?
    We wouldn’t, Leonard agreed.
    We would protect him no matter what, Carol suggested.
    No matter