ROSALEEN LOVE
Okay, we admit it: we couldn’t resist buying “Two Recipes for Magic Beans” from Rosaleen Love, whose story “Real Men” appeared earlier in this volume. And we’ll bet that you can’t resist this mythic story of a girl and her pig.
Or to be properly and respectably specific: Esmerelda the talking pig.
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Jinny and Esmerelda the talking pig walked along the path through the dark forest on their way to the market fair. From time to time Jinny threw Esmerelda a slice of white Sunnysooft bread from the bag slung over her shoulder. Esmerelda trundled along behind Jinny, carefully picking up every crumb. Getting a pig to the market is not easy for a twelve-year-old girl, with a pig with the strength of ten and a mind of its own. Jinny had to resort to her own low animal cunning and deep knowledge of pig food preferences.
Jinny kept sharp watch for the dragon, but truth to tell she was less worried about the dragon than being caught out of school — again.
“Organic farming is a perfectly viable career option,” Grandfather informed Miss Barnes, the day she flew in to visit. Miss Barnes was school counsellor and knew there was more in the world for smart girls like Jinny that mucking out the pig pens. She wanted Jinny to go to school and learn astronavigation, she said, for you never know what will happen to a girl in life, and astronavigation will stand you in good stead when pigs desert you.
“Pigs desert you?” queried Esmerelda the talking pig.
Miss Barnes took a pink fit when she heard Esmerelda. Her cheeks grew red and her mouth grew round in a shriek “That pig can talk!”
“Yes,” said Grandfather, “Genetic engineering is wrong. I see that now.”
Jinny hadn’t been back to school ever since Miss Barnes came to visit. Jinny wished Grandfather had explained things more. Miss Barnes just didn’t get the right message, about Esmerelda, about Jinny, about Grandfather’s agricultural reforms. Take Esmerelda. It wasn’t as if the pig could really talk. Echolalia, that was the pig’s problem. The pig was more a pig-parrot, picking up the last three words that anyone said and repeating them back. In every other way Esmerelda was a perfectly ordinary pig, not a Son of Satan or a product of the Ten Wise Ways. Though, now Jinny remembered, actually Esmerelda was a product of the Ten Wise Ways, but that was before Grandfather saw the light and took the ten-step plan to renounce do-it-yourself bio-creation.
But the damage had been done. Miss Barnes knew about the pig. That was why Grandfather was sending Esmerelda to the market.
The leaves of the dark forest hung silently above. Jinny rounded a corner of the path and saw the bridge in the clearing ahead. She paused. This was a place of danger. She threw a slice of bread onto the bridge and watched carefully as Esmerelda pushed past to get it.
Jinny shivered. There was someone there, at the edge of the forest as it gave way to the river flats. The leaves rustled where no wind blew.
Jinny stopped and motioned Esmerelda to silence.
The branches parted. Out stumbled a dragon, its back legs in the way of its front legs, and its front legs caught up in its tail.
Jinny was pleased it wasn’t Miss Barnes. Dragons she could handle.
It was only a baby dragon, uncoordinated in its movements in the manner of all baby creatures, and uncertain of its powers. Its fiery breath was just warm enough to singe the hairs on Esmerelda’s back.
Esmerelda stood her ground. The baby dragon took a backward step. Esmerelda let out a ferocious snort. The baby burst into tears and the tears ran down its face to put out its fire. It ran away, snorting puffs of air.
“Now you’ve done it,” said Jinny, “It’s off to tell its mother. We’re in big trouble. I wish you’d let me handle these things.” Jinny knew she could handle dragons on account of her knowledge of the Ten Wise Ways, though truth to tell she’d not yet been put to a proper test, not with a full grown dragon. She watched gloomily as the baby dragon lolloped its snivelling way, half flying, half jumping, across the river flat. It was on occasions like this Jinny had to agree with Grandfather, that genetic engineering, particularly in the hands of medieval theme park entrepreneurs, was wrong. Especially when the dragons went feral and took off over the electrified barbed wire on top of the battlements.
“Why is it that things always go wrong in the world, whenever we try to make a change for the better?” Jinny looked at Esmerelda and got no joy, for Esmerelda was part of the problem.
“For the better,” Esmerelda stated emphatically, turning back to her half-eaten slice of bread in the middle of the bridge.
“Mere echolalia,” said Jinny.
Esmerelda didn’t reply. Her snout was in the bread.
Jinny hadn’t always lived with Grandfather and Esmerelda. Astronavigation, that had been the cause of her present plight. She didn’t want to explain to Miss Barnes, that astronavigation had been the life choice her own mother had made, while Jinny was left with Grandfather to keep her company, while Mary Beth went off to the stars. “There’s just no child care out in space,” Mary Beth had said, “That’s the way of it. I’ll be back as soon as I can be, relativistically speaking. But I’ve had the call of the wide open starry spaces, and I’ve got to answer that call, and follow it, wherever it may lead.”
Jinny knew it would be a hundred years or so before she saw her mother again. Their relationship had been only a biological link and, as such, soon superseded. Whatever had happened, and for whatever reason, it had happened; Jinny tried to look on the bright side. She glanced after the departing dragon. Perhaps renouncing biological ties might have its up side. There was this pull of biology, but there was also the pull of cosmic destiny, and Mary Beth had chosen one above the other.
Jinny brooded. What would her own future hold? She forgot where she was, what she was doing. She forgot to throw another slice of bread at Esmerelda.
Esmerelda gave a loud harrumph, and set herself down in the middle of the road for a good sulk. Jinny walked on, not noticing.
A helicar skimmed past and the driver honked. It shook Jinny out of her dream. It was Professor Rhine, the genetic engineer from the theme park.
“Some pig,” the Prof, yelled. He landed the helicar in a paddock and ejected with pizzazz.
“Some pig,” said Jinny, “You don’t know how mad Grandfather is with you. That’s why he’s sending us to market.”
“Some Prof.,” Esmerelda muttered to herself, lumbering into motion. She walked purposively along the road to greet her former engineer.
The Prof, stroked the sooty bristles on Esmeralda’s broad pink back. “Hey-up, have I been looking for you two.”
“We’re going to the market,” said Jinny, “We have to be on our way.”
Esmerelda harrumphed to get their full attention. When both Jinny and the Prof, obliged, Esmerelda asked, “I’ve been meaning to ask. Just what is this market thing? What’s in it for me?”
Jinny was stunned.
“Some pig!” said the Prof, with pride in his engineer’s eyes.
“Did you hear that?”
“I heard that,” said the Prof., pleased.
“She really can talk!”
“I knew that,” replied the Prof. “You have to respect her choice. She simply decided not to talk when people were listening.” Professor Rhine stroked Esmeralda’s bristles from back to front. Esmerelda purred.
“I don’t believe it.”
“And she can purr,” said Prof. Rhine, pointing to the obvious.
“It’s not just parroting, then.”
Esmerelda took full advantage of Jinny’s confusion. She put her head in the Sunnysooft bread bag and helped herself.
“Pig!” Jinny snatched at the bread bag.
Esmerelda glared at Jinny and snuggled closer to the Prof.
“Some pig,” Jinny muttered.
“I called by at the farm, and here you are. I’ve come to fetch Esmerelda. I heard she was for sale.”
“Was for sale?” The pig spoke in a tone of voice which indicated some surprise.
“Pig, you think you’re so smart,” said Jinny crossly.
“You’re going to the market. I’m going to the market. Hey, let’s cut a deal.” The Prof, took out his purple haversack.
Jenny glared at him suspiciously. She had seen the contents of that haversack before. But before she could object, the school bus hovered by. “Miss Barnes!” cried Jinny. “She’s out to get me.”
The hoverbus circled in to land. “I’ve got to make a break for it,” said Jinny.
“Lucky you’ve got me,” said the Prof. “In you get.” He pulsed the hovercar and the roof slid open to permit entry.
Jinny had no choice. Together they heaved Esmerelda into the back seat and soon they were off, up and away.
Now Miss Barnes was on the ground, out of the bus and looking up at the sky. But not at Jinny and the pig. There was some kind of commotion just above the forest. The dragon. This time, it brought its mother. “See, what did I tell you?” Jinny turned to Esmerelda.
“Even a small dragon means big trouble.” With wild flurries of wings and puffs of fiery air, the two dragons dived straight for the school bus. The baby trailed after its mother, closely mimicking her actions.
Miss Barnes leapt back in the driver’s seat and activated the force field. Jinny relaxed into her hoverseat. That should take care of Miss Barnes. Dragon calming is a lengthy business. Miss Barnes couldn’t really get mad with Jinny. She’d always said Jinny should use the brains she was born with.
But what would happen next? Miss Barnes and half her old class were trapped in the school bus, and soon the news crew would arrive, and the fire department, and Grandfather would be forced to send Jinny back to school. Another school. Somehow, as she looked down at her old school bus, she knew that Miss Barnes would never have her back with her old classmates again.
Jinny glared at Esmerelda. “You and your little pig secrets.” The pig was clearly worth a packet, but Grandfather wouldn’t want to know about it. Not now he’d renounced his former wicked ways.
And the Prof, was no help. He set the automatic pilot and swivelled his seat round to face Esmerelda. He whispered his message in her large soft pink ear. “Want to know what I know about the market?”
Jinny knew she should never have got into the hovercar with him, let along bring Esmerelda along. That pig would never protect her from the wicked ways of the Professor’s brave new world. That pig was a pig which put pigs first.
“I want to know,” said Esmerelda. “I think I should be told.”
“It’s where they buy and sell pigs.” The Prof, nodded in Jinny’s direction.
Esmerelda glared at Jinny, her round pig eyes narrowing into slits.
Jinny wriggled in her seat.
“But, hey, what’s past is past, and there’s a whole new world to come. And have I got a deal for you,” the Prof, announced.
There was a bellow from the pig. “Sell pigs at the market? Sell me?” Jinny threw Esmerelda a slice of white bread, but this time Esmerelda only toyed with it. The pig was thinking.
“That pig is some pig,” said the Prof. “I want her for my new project.”
“You’re not going to trade her for magic beans?” Jinny glared at the Prof. “I told you Grandfather’s had it up to here with genetic engineering.”
How well Jinny remembered her first packet of magic beans. It was back in the old days, when she still went to school, and Miss Barnes had taken the class on an excursion to the medieval theme park.
“Jack and the beanstalk,” said the Prof, that fateful day when she first met him. “The goose that laid the golden eggs. Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum, you know, all that’s a story. But these here magic beans, well, take them, plant them, and, hey, trust me, something good will happen for you.”
Jinny won the beans, fair and square. She had to guess the number of feathers on a dragon, and she was the first person to guess right. There are no feathers at all on a dragon. A dragon is a reptile, not a bird, bio-created from pterodactyl DNA, with firefly and glow worm additive genes for fiery breath.
“Some girl!” said Prof. Rhine, back then when Jinny first met him and learned she couldn’t trust him.
Jinny planted her magic beans and when they grew fast and high into the clouds, she knew better than to climb up to see what was there.
“Genetic engineering, hey?” said Grandfather, scratching his head when he came out next day to take a look. “What’s it good for then? Bigger and better beanstalks, with nary a bean in sight. All show and no go, all process and no product.” Grandfather renounced his faith in genetic engineering. He chopped the beanstalk down and turned it into biomass compost.
A golden goose of unknown species toppled out of the sky and ran off into the bush. A giant landed heavily some distance away, and found a home in the medieval theme park, Fee, Fi, Fo, and Fumming at medieval banquets.
There’d been nothing in it for Jinny, nothing at all.
“Magic beans are just not worth the problems they bring down upon your head,” said Jinny firmly.
“You are so right,” the Prof, agreed. “I’ve seen the light myself. Forget the golden goose. It’s pig teleportation I’m into now. This pig is for the stars.”
“Some Prof.” Esmerelda dropped a soggy slice of white bread into Jinny’s lap.
“Now why would anyone want to teleport a pig?”
“Not just any old pig. This pig is a talking pig.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Beam me up, beam me up. Magic words. Need I say more?”
“If you want this pig you’ll have to talk big business, and I mean big money and not just magic beans.”
“Aha, but these magic beans are a new improved variety.”
Esmerelda snorted for attention. She cleared her large pig throat. “Weighing up the balance of probabilities,” she said, “I think I’ll go with the Prof.”
“It’s a deal?” the Prof, asked.
“Do I get to have a choice?” said Jinny bitterly. “It’s always the same. You get me into trouble. I get to take the blame, and it’s never my fault.”
The hovercar landed at the market. Esmerelda refused to budge. Jinny climbed out.
“Look,” said the Prof., “I don’t want to rob you. Take the haversack. Miss Barnes was right. Use your brains to think.”
Jinny did as she was told. She took the haversack tall of magic beans, but this time she did not plant them herself. She set up a stall at the market and traded magic beans for education credits. She bought herself a place at the university and studied astronavigation. Then she piloted a spaceship to the stars, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Esmerelda became an ambassadress for earth.
Jinny met up with Mary Beth upon her travels, and the mother and daughter team explored the furthest reaches of the galaxy, where no pig had gone before.
* * * *
AFTERWORD
“Two Recipes for Magic Beans” began as a joke. I’d been asked by Ellen Datlow to be part of a Round Robin story for Omni Online with three other writers. Our story was going to be the second in the Round Robin series. The first Round Robin story was a story of a boy and his dinosaur. I was terrified at the Round Robin idea, and in my panic I sketched a story of a girl and her pig. It turned into “Two Recipes for Magic Beans”, a kind of homage to Charlotte’s Web and Babe.