The 10:05 to Ansalem and points northwest departed just after 11:24, with a complaint from Mordecai that he’d asked Erik to call at seven o’clock, and if there were any more delays they wouldn’t make it in time. Calliope assured him that they’d catch Erik tomorrow, but that didn’t seem to make any difference.

They were riding third class in the very back of the train, just one car before the caboose. Milo had run a lap of the whole business in about five minutes and informed them via gestures that he wanted one of the old cars.

Mordecai did not think this made any sense, as third class cost the same no matter which car it was in, but Calliope got it after Milo pointed at the shiny new car in front of them. The label branded into the wood said “100% Magic Neutral Marselline Teak!” She wasn’t going to make the poor guy sit on a train for five hours and just look out the window the whole time.

Besides, the old cars had character. They looked like the old-timey trolleys she’d painted for those instant rice pilaf ads. The Mintville Treat!

She recalled about half of Mintville had burned down recently, but she was sure that was nothing to do with the trolleys, whether they were “magic neutral” or not.

The seats were all wooden, stiff, with high backs for privacy. That was less than awesome, but Milo let her and Lucy have the window, on account of he was going to be watching the train. He had taken the middle seat, and was all scrunched up with Ann’s suitcase under his legs. Mordecai also did not think that made any sense. “I have legroom over here that I’m not using, Milo! Don’t you at least want the aisle?”

“It just feels safer, Em,” Calliope said.

Milo had smiled and nodded at her, so she knew she had it right.

Now he had one hand on her leg and the other gripping the seat, with his eyes closed. Mordecai had taken a novel out of his coat pocket, which Calliope recognized as code for “I don’t want to talk to anyone,” but he seemed to be having a hard time reading.

She was glad she had the window. She didn’t think the train had been this bumpy the last time she was on it. A lot of the other folks looked a little green around the gills too. Many of them had opened their windows, and there was a pleasant breeze in the train car that made it a little better and a lot colder. She had her trench coat on and Lucy was nestled inside, with one hand poking out, so she could bap on the glass. Calliope obligingly pointed out every last moo-cow and horsie.

The rolling fields and wildflowers of the Marselline countryside had given way to foothills and rocky outcroppings, soon to be replaced with sweeping vistas of peaks capped with permanent snow. It was kind of a shame it was too wiggly to draw.

A gentleman’s valise rattled out of the overhead storage and hit the aisle, coughing up a bottle of soda that shattered and sprayed. “Oh, I’m sorry!” he said. He tried to wipe it up with a hanky but the glass and the liquid had already gone rolling under all the seats. Several people lifted up suitcases and complained.

Mordecai sighed and pocketed his novel. “Gods, there’s no point. I appreciate that they’re trying to make up time, but they’re going to kill us back here. These old cars can’t take it.”

Milo blinked open his eyes with a frown. He touched Mordecai’s shoulder and shook his head at the man. He affectionately patted the seat and signed OK.

“Milo says ‘Yes they can,’” Calliope translated.

A woman staggered past them to the bathroom, gripping the back of each seat with a pale hand.

“Well, maybe they can, but the people can’t!”

Milo folded his arms and regarded the people, pouting.

“It’s pretty outside,” Calliope told him. She indicated the side of the hill, with banded deposits, rough fissures and sparse pines. “See? Geology!”

“Environmental damage,” Mordecai said. “The mining towns around here strip all the trees off the mountains and they’ve blown up half of them. They get crazy flooding in winter, and mudslides, because there’s nothing to stop the erosion. There’s magic on all sides of this train track trying to keep it from washing out and sometimes it still doesn’t work. We’re in a tunnel right now, we just can’t see it.”

Milo brightened and put his hand to the window’s metal frame, but he sighed and shook his head.

She patted his hand down. “Babe, does it have to be technical to be interesting? There’s a whole world out there, and you’ve never been outside San Rosille.”

Milo looked sheepish. He shrugged.

“Here. Check this out.” She shifted Lucy and investigated the wooden magazine-holder attached to the seat back in front of her. When she felt something brochure-sized, she hauled it out and unfolded it. “We are here, just about. We’re on the 10:05, so we’re supposed to be in Havredete by 1:30, for lunch, but we might not make it. We’re supposed to have an hour break, but they’ll cut it down to forty-five minutes if we’re super late and they don’t have anything broken to fix. That restaurant I was telling you about has this huge window in the dining room and you can see…”

Milo had pulled out his watch and was examining the time stamps on the little map.

Calliope snickered. “Okay, that’s my fault. You can have the map and look at the train the whole time if you really want. But I was trying to get you to engage with the landscape too.” She tapped the window glass. “You like animals, right? I saw a mountain goat out here once.”

“I’ve got you beat, I saw a whole pack of wolves,” Mordecai said. “And this was after they went extinct in Marsellia in 1335. We had no idea someone had put them back — of course all it takes is one person with access to gods, and it’s not like they have to ask permission.

“Cars like these were first and second class back then, we used to have a second class. Third class was just hanging out in the open with no glass in the windows, like a minecart with a roof. It took ten hours to get to Ansalem, with four stops. Scheduled stops. We were parked out in the boonies for some reason. Maybe there was a wolf on the track.

“They were just walking past us like no big deal. I could’ve put a hand out the window and fed them a dog treat, if I felt like losing a hand. They’re not solid grey, you know. Their hair has black tips. I said to the guys in the band, ‘If they try to eat us, I’m taking off,’ My friend said, ‘You’re not faster than a wolf.’ I said, ‘I just have to be faster than the rest of the no-window human buffet.’”

Milo glanced up from the brochure, but seemed unimpressed with the lack of immediate wolves outside. Calliope guessed it was kind of a letdown from the Natural History Museum, where everything interesting to look at was in a glass case with a label explaining it. Stuffed wolves didn’t wander off. Well, she couldn’t fix nature, but maybe she could get him some more label content.

“Are wolves okay with coloured people?” she asked.

“I think wolves will eat a coloured person the same as anyone else, if that’s what you’re asking,” Mordecai said.

“When did you go to Ansalem?”

“A few times, but not since the war. Havredete is a cheap vacation; Ansalem is just a little farther. I saw the wolves before the revolution, early forties, must’ve been. We were just a cover band, we didn’t do tours, but we’d play wherever we could make money. Usually that meant someplace we didn’t have to buy train tickets to get to, but we went all the way up to Vignoble once. I felt like a Beatle playing in Gundaland — well, as close to Gundaland as I ever got. We didn’t play outside of San Rosille often. I could only go with the guys, like, seven months out of the year, and they didn’t have an alternate for strings. It was pretty with the snow…”

“Why couldn’t you go with them?”

“Oh.” He smiled at her. “I guess you’ve never had a reason to notice. They don’t let people like me on trains at all when there might be a storm. Trains, boats, airships, anything that goes more than a couple hours and would have a hard time throwing me off if I started to act weird. I’ve heard the Nova Line doesn’t take coloured people at all.”

She frowned. “That’s not fair. What if you need to get someplace?”

“Then I need to have a friend with a car who’s willing to drive me, or be rich enough to have one of my own.”

“That’s not…”

“No, that’s not fair, either, but there’s not much we can do about it. Nobody wants to sit next to a guy who might get hit by magic and blow up the train.”

Milo held up the brochure and pointed at it, frowning. There was a little blurb assuring nervous passengers that sixty-percent of the train cars were magic-proof or magic-neutral and thirty-five-percent of those were fully insulated. Limited reserved seating was available! Ask your ticket agent!

Mordecai winced. “Okay. Well, two things. One, that’s probably also really expensive. And two, nobody wants to sit next to a guy who won’t stop twitching and babbling about various desserts and sauces.” He tried a smile again.

Calliope wasn’t buying it, and Milo wasn’t either. “Em, they don’t throw people off trains for being annoying. I should know. I spent three hours next to some woman in a huge hat who wouldn’t stop handing me pamphlets and telling me how she got ‘saved.’ She blew right through the universal, ‘I have a book, don’t talk to me’ signal, and she smelled like sardines. I just put up with it until I could change cars. You are way less irritating than that and you have fun food. Even Chris cranks out cool art.”

Mordecai regarded her like she was an alien species and he needed to invent a whole new language to talk to her.

“What?” she said. “Am I being weird? How is that weird?”

He shook his head. “No, Calliope. You’re different from me. You and Milo and Lucy are all different from me, and you don’t have my experiences, and it’s hard to explain. I can’t be as weird as a normal person because I have a head start being weird already, but I don’t know if that makes sense to you.

“You know… You do know sometimes when you colour too far outside of the lines people get upset. You’re very brave about it and I admire that. But sometimes even you give up and constrain yourself just so you can exist in society and get things done in peace.”

“I am constantly doing that,” she replied. “I can’t even turn it off anymore. People don’t understand me at all if I don’t pay attention to the lines.”

Milo nodded at her and pointed to himself. Me too.

She smiled at him and slipped her arm around his waist. “That’s why art is so much fun. I get to make my own lines. Real life is like copying everything up to a standard for the ad agency. It’s a straitjacket.” Milo shuddered and turned to her. “Metaphor, babe,” she said. He nodded.

Mordecai shrugged helplessly. “You’re different from me. It feels like my constraints are stiffer than they are for a lot of people. If I act oddly in public, I know people are going to look at me and wonder if there’s magic involved and if I’m going to hurt someone. That makes them afraid of me, and sometimes they treat me badly because of that. But I guess I don’t know how it is inside you.”

Calliope unbuttoned her coat around the baby and handed her to Milo. “Hey, you know this green sweater I wear all the time? It’s too big for me and it’s all full of holes. I know that. I’ve had it since I was six, and it used to be like a dress on me. It’s my dad’s. He gave it to me for school. Because school was really miserable for me. Nursery school was okay, they let me do my own thing. I could just read books all day if I wanted, or paint.

“Real school was a pain, and I don’t just mean having to do what the teacher said. My grandpa owns the school and my dad was just a couple buildings over and they were there all day to explain me if I got in trouble. Everyone ahead of me had already done school, except Terpsichore and Polyhymnia, so they knew how to explain school to me too. I mean recess. I mean the other kids. Nobody knew how to explain them. I sure didn’t get how they worked. They were always going too fast or too slow, and they didn’t like me. I wasn’t super fond of them either.”

Milo put his arm around her and squeezed.

She stroked his hand. “So one night I laid it on the line for my parents. I said school was too hard and I wasn’t going to go anymore. And they said okay.” She smiled. “I found out Thalia said that, too, and Clio, and Erato, so Mom and Dad had practice.

“I got to stay home with Mom and Euterpe and decompress and when Dad came home, he brought me this picture book from the library. It was about a lady studying chimpanzees. I was reading it in the living room the next day, and he sat down next to me and asked me if I thought it was really worth going through all that trouble to learn how monkeys talk to each other.

“I said they weren’t monkeys, they were great apes, and they were neat. It was right in the name. He said, ‘But they’re ugly and they smell, princess.’ I said they were our closest living relatives and I’d like to know what they think of us. He said, ‘They probably think we’re ugly and we smell.’ I said, ‘Hey, Dad, give the poor monkeys a chance.’”

Mordecai covered a laugh.

She smiled and shrugged. “But I don’t know. You’re smart. You probably know where this is going. He said if I ever wanted to go back to school, I had to take it like that lady studying the apes. Our family speaks a different language, but those other kids at school are our closest living relatives, and we have to live with each other.

“For us, for me, school isn’t just math and reading and history, it’s learning how to live with the apes so they accept me and I don’t get pelted with poo as much. I’m not supposed to be an ape and I don’t have to turn into one, I just need to pay attention to how to navigate ape society. Even if they smell. Even if sometimes I put a foot wrong and get pelted with poo anyway.

“I said that sounded really lonely and messy. He took off the sweater he was wearing and pulled it over my head. It was still warm and it smelled like his aftershave. He said, ‘Sometimes it helps to wear an extra layer, princess.’”

She plucked at the knit collar. “But he also said this was just a promise, and him and Mom and everyone were gonna be there to back me up, and if ape society wasn’t working out for me, I just needed to say so. I could always come home and be safe.”

She shrugged again. “That’s how it’s been. I don’t freak out as much when it’s not safe, because I know I’m not far from someplace that is. Like home-base in Capture the Flag. Then when Euterpe said school was too hard and he didn’t want to go anymore, I made him that penguin. It used to be a pin, but it’s a tie now. Sometimes it helps to have an extra layer.”

“This is heartwarming, Calliope,” Mordecai said, “but did you just say you’re studying me like an ape?”

“I’m trying to understand you,” she said, “and I’m trying to operate so you understand me, and so I don’t hurt you. If you don’t like it, I don’t think I can quit. I like you and I don’t want to hurt you, so I try to pay attention all the time. I know sometimes I don’t, but that’s an accident. Like when you get so worried about something that hurts that you start yelling and hurting everyone else.”

Milo put up a sudden hand. His expression was maybe about fifteen-percent more worried than usual. He put the hand down again, touching the underside of the seat like he had been. The rattling train car smoothed out and the scenery out the window began to unspool just a bit slower. It was most noticeable in the nearest trees.

Mordecai blinked. He looked down, then around, but he didn’t seem to know what he was looking for. “That was you?” he muttered aside. “You made the train go so fast everyone in here has been throwing up for two hours? You can just DO something like that? There aren’t safety precautions to prevent it?”

Milo cringed and looked away, out the window.

“Em, you said you were scared we weren’t going to get there in time for Erik to call,” Calliope said. “He fixed it for you. Say ‘thank you.’” She touched Milo’s shoulder. “I think it’s awesome, babe. You’re gonna hafta draw me how you did it. I can hardly wait…”

He grabbed her hand and pressed it to the metal window frame.

She shook her head at him. “I’m sorry, babe. I know you want to show me, but I can’t see it like you do.”

He held up his hand, Wait, and then put it over her eyes. She kept them closed for him, then he put his hand over her hand again.

There were wheels turning in the darkness. They were not quite seen, and almost felt. It was as if someone had cast their shapes in gold metal and left them working in the blind void behind her eyes, so she could almost trace their shadows on the lids. She couldn’t really hear them, except she could, because they were under the train, rolling away. She could feel them bumping and negotiating the rails too.

She snickered. That brochure was trying to make everyone feel safe with the “fully insulated” cars, but it didn’t mention the wheels. Metal was conductive. If you weren’t stuck in one of the “fully insulated” cars, you could feel the whole train and the tracks underneath it.

Above the wheels, connected by spiderwebs of metal and magic, there were pistons pumping and turbines cycling. There was ductwork conveying toasty steam heat to newer cars, and a magic-variable exhaust system that was converting the coal smoke into fine, ultra-combustible fairydust.

In multiple first class cars, coffee makers were percolating and coolers were chilling springwater. The pipes with the potable water touched, but never crossed the sewage supply concealed just above the rolling wheels — tanks that were conspicuously absent in the old cars, which dumped water waste directly onto the track.

I knew those were the tracks I saw when I flushed, she thought.

There seemed to be an intelligence guiding her attention through the maze of golden machinery, like she’d tried to get Milo interested in geology and mountain goats. Maybe like he was watching her look and he had a highlighter, or even just a pencil.

It read as way more obvious against the complicated background of churning metal. Less a guy with a pencil and more a helpful fairy lit up like a sparkler. She knew it was just Milo pointing at moo-cows and horsies on a map for her (We are here!) but she couldn’t help feeling that was really him running around in the workings of the real train. A gremlin.

Or maybe a machine elf. She’d heard about those and they seemed a little more positive than gremlins, but she never thought she’d meet one without doing a lot of drugs.

Milo the Machine Elf circled the function of the engine in scintillating light. It was a powerful thing, almost alive. A beating heart and a thinking brain and a coiled muscle like a sprinter’s leg. But, Calliope saw, someone had stuffed this sprinter in one of those hobble skirts Em had told her about. There was an artificial limitation wrapped around it and it could barely move.

Milo wrote with the sparkler for her, enclosing the engine in brackets and adding 75 mph!! at the tip.

“Oh, man, no fair,” Calliope muttered.

It was pegging a sorry 45, because the old cars and the tracks weren’t good enough. He didn’t have to tell the train to go faster, all he had to do was loosen up the skirt so it could. He had cinched it tight again. He couldn’t tell her why, he was just pointing at stuff so she could see how it worked. She knew it was because Em was more upset about the people puking than about getting to Ansalem in time for Erik’s call, though.

She kinda wished she didn’t mention how you could get distracted trying to prevent one kind of hurt and end up causing another. She didn’t mean it like that. She felt bad for the train.

Calliope opened her eyes and pushed Milo’s hand down so she could talk. “Hey, Em, you made Milo strangle the engine and that is not cool.”

“What?” said the red man. He had picked up his novel again.

“Babe, show him like you showed me. Maybe he’ll let you ease up on it a little.”

Milo rather gingerly took one of Mordecai’s hands and pressed it underneath the seat.

Mordecai said, “Milo, people put their chewing gum — Oh, my gods!” He jerked back and folded both hands under his arms. “No. No-no. No. I don’t need to see that. I’m just waiting for a piece of it to fly off! Milo!” He shook his head. “You shouldn’t be able to do that. You know that, right? If you can do that, someone else can. They could break the train and hurt everyone on it. That’s terrible.”

Milo shrivelled and turned in on himself, gazing at Ann’s suitcase between his feet.

“Milo is smarter than other people and he’s not gonna break anything,” Calliope said, frowning. “Gods, Em. If you’re gonna be the line-police, just read your novel and look the other way.” She took Milo’s hand and put it back on the window frame. “Hey, babe? Show Lucy. It’s okay.”

Milo hesitated, so Calliope put Lucy’s hand on his hand.

“Ah?” Lucy said. She giggled and bapped Milo’s hand with her hand, but that broke the connection. She stuck out her lower lip and began to cry.

“No-no, Lu. It’s still there. Here. Like this.” Calliope put her hand over Lucy and Milo’s hand and held both. She shut her eyes. Milo the Machine Elf was hiding behind a spinning turbine and not doing anything particularly expository.

“Dada,” Lucy noted.

“You want Daddy to show you the train? She likes trains too,” Calliope assured Milo.

The invisible sparkler effect shyly circled one of the turning wheels. Lucy squealed and bounced herself in Calliope’s lap. The sparkler zipped out from under the wheels, paused, and took off, doing another lap around all the moving parts. Lucy babbled her approval.

Calliope leaned in and whispered in Milo’s ear, “Hey, babe? Let it go a little faster. I won’t tell.”

◈◈◈

A mildly queasy train pulled into the picturesque, chalet-style station in Havredete at 1:25 PM. Relieved passengers in third class collected brown paper bags, picnic baskets, and bottles of soda and wine.

Mordecai said some of the newer trains in Gundaland had dining cars, but there was no way Marsellia was going to give up its breads, desserts and sauces for whatever slop you could heat up on a train. Better to stop and let everyone picnic, or purchase a meal from a decent restaurant.

Calliope had told her semi-family not to bother packing a lunch. The restaurant at the station wasn’t too horribly expensive, and it was worth a little extra money for the view.

Not that the view from the picnic area was bad, it just included bugs and sun and no highchairs. If Milo and Em wanted to picnic on the way back, that was cool. They could fit a blanket and sunscreen in Ann’s suitcase. She just wanted to show them the restaurant and hotel. They had really great bread bowls, and soup.

It was always good soup weather in Havredete, rain or shine. It was over a mile above sea level, nestled between even taller mountains that provided snow and shade.

“You ever see Heidi, Milo?” Calliope asked him with a grin. She flung out both arms to indicate the rolling green fields, vibrant yellow wildflowers, and pale indigo matte-painting-style peaks against the blue denim sky.

He shook his head, gazing around, wide-eyed. Milo evidently preferred his landscapes ultra-saturated.

“This is way better than colour film, they have real-life fudge,” she assured him.

“Woo,” Mordecai said. He stumbled down the metal step onto the wooden platform and laid a hand on the train car. “Oh, man.” He coughed into his sleeve. “Sorry.” And then again. “Sorry, sorry.”

Milo put an arm around him to hold him up.

“Oh, geez, Em. I’m sorry,” Calliope said. “It’s the mountains, isn’t it?” He was nodding. “Can you make it inside? They’ve got water. You can sit down.”

He was shaking his head.

“You wanna sit down right here for a sec? We’ve got time.”

Mordecai reached into his coat. Instead of producing a handkerchief, he held up a sandwich in a waxed paper bag.

Calliope planted a hand on her hip. “Hey, what the hell, Em? I told you about the restaurant! Are you trying to ditch us?”

Milo shook his head at her, frowning.

“I know!” she snapped. “I don’t want him to suffocate, but this is just hurtful!”

“No restaurant,” Mordecai managed.

“Third class is allowed in the restaurant and the hotel and the toilets and the gift shop with the fudge!” Calliope said. “Just none of it’s included! I will pay for you, all right?”

He shook his head.

“What’s your problem?”

“I’m coloured, Calliope,” he said weakly. “I’m sorry. You were really excited about the restaurant and I didn’t want to ruin it. This is your trip with Milo. I can eat outside. It’s not…”

Calliope snarled and slapped a hand on her forehead. “Oh! Gods! I have had it up to here with ape society!” She stamped away and sat down on a bench with Lucy.

“Mama?”

“Mama’s sorry the world is so stupid, Lu.” She sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. The brilliant landscape and the brightly painted chalet with the great soup was mocking her. It was all full of lines like an electric fence. Even more than she’d noticed after all her careful studying. They turned ‘em on and off depending on what you looked like, those dirty rotten cheaters.

Milo sat down next to her. Mordecai sat on the far end of the bench, like she might be mad at him.

“I’m sorry, Em,” she said. “You’re not the line-police. It’s not your fault. You’re just sick of getting zapped when you step a foot out of your cage.”

“I really should’ve put a little more thought into this,” Mordecai said. He coughed just once and covered it. He seemed to be having an easier time with no stairs. “I didn’t mean to be so upsetting.” He lifted a hand. “I know. I know it’s not me. I didn’t make things unfair like this. But I should’ve sat you both down and warned you like a good friend instead of trying to sneak past the upsetting stuff and thinking you wouldn’t notice. I underestimated your intelligence, both of you, and I’m sorry for my part in this. It’s not your fault, either, Calliope.”

She pointed a finger at the chalet. “They have delicious fudge in there, it’s like a velvet orgasm, I was gonna buy some for you, and I don’t even want it anymore!”

Mordecai reached across Milo and took her hand. “That’s okay, really. I’m sure it really is good fudge. I wouldn’t mind good fudge, and I wish it wasn’t so complicated and upsetting to get it. That’s not fair. But I like my good friends a lot better than fudge, and you both are here with me.”

He smiled at her. “I also kinda like how you guys get mad on my behalf. It makes me feel a little more secure that you like me, and a little more hopeful that things will get better in the future.” He shrugged. “And I know how to make fudge too. You know?”

“You shouldn’t have to,” Calliope said.

“You’re right. But there’s a bright side, and I’m sure you know where this is going because you’re smart. When they flat out won’t let us colour inside the lines, that’s like giving us permission to paint in the margins however we want. It’s more work, and it’s not a fair amount of space to play with, but it can be a lot more fun. I know a lot of pretty places to hang out around here. They’ve even got umbrella tables we can use outside the hostel. If you don’t mind buying a couple sandwiches to-go, you can eat lunch with me and I’ll show you around.”

“Do we have time?” she said. “You can’t go very fast, Em.”

“I am willing to bet you cash money that we will be here at least an hour and a half while they’re trying to figure out what the hell happened to speed up the train.”

Milo blushed and covered his mouth with a hand.

Calliope snickered. “Okay.”

They were there two hours and fifteen minutes, by Milo’s watch. Thus, when they got back on the train, Milo felt it necessary to speed it up again.

◈◈◈

The Ansalem train station was all outdoors, with benches and a couple ticket booths that also sold snacks, for the rare people who didn’t care to walk to a nearby restaurant. They pulled into it at just around five-thirty — Milo had been conservative with the train, on account of the vomiting. There was still plenty of time to get home and take Erik’s phone call.

Milo nudged her arm and pointed out the window.

There was a big brick wall lining the tracks to cut down on the noise. It was regularly repainted with murals. On the left, there was an orchard of rose bushes with playing-card people painting the white ones red. On the right, the Mad Tea Party was ongoing, including huge-headed caricatures of local celebrities. Calliope recognized the Duck Lady, several street performers, and Melpomene’s boss. She smiled. It was nice to know folks at home were doing okay.

“That… is new,” Mordecai noted, with blinding obviousness.

Milo was leaning across her lap and glued to the Mad Tea Party window. He kept pointing.

“Tomorrow, babe, okay?” she said. “Next day at the latest, depends on what Mom and Dad are doing for the party. I’ll take you downtown and you can meet everyone.”

He stared at her.

“What?” she said. She regarded the mural. “Did you think someone made all of them up?”

He nodded.

“Aw,” she said. “Nah. This is Ansalem. The lines are different here. Oh, look!” She indicated an elderly geisha with a head like a hot air balloon and a tiny paper umbrella. “It’s Ojichan!”