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“Um. Hello? Excuse me.”
Rebecca’s soft voice was lost amidst the customary roars and stamps and polyglot shouts that filled the main entrance hall.
“You gotta talk a little louder than that, little lady, or get someone louder to do it for you.”
Ha! ‘Little’, Jed thought, and laughed at his own joke. His arms were getting one hell of a workout, doing a sort of permanent push-up in order to keep his head above water—or pocket, in this case.
He spotted Attila and waved.
“Hey, Attila!” Jed let out a whistle like a jackal in the moonlight. It was often more effective than shouting when he wanted to get the gigantors’ attention.
Over the past few months, the Huns had learned to keep an eye out for the Wild West guys and the Romans, who, ever since the great battle of the Old Fogies and the Tablet had been roaming as free as lions in the African Plains (well, as free as the lions from the African Plains wing would have roamed if they’d lived in actual plains and not a museum). Even though Jed’s head probably looked like little more than a flower bud sticking out of Rebecca’s blouse, Attila spotted him.
Or maybe he was just checking her out.
“Help out the lady here, will ya?” Jed yelled.
Surprisingly, Attila somehow understood. His men started in on a chant. Soon, everyone on the main floor below stopped yakking or growling or whatever they were doing and looked up at the terrace.
Someone—sounded like Teddy, though Jed couldn’t see, having fallen back into Rebecca’s pocket after his arms gave out—shouted up. “Where is Lawrence?”
“He’s on vacation this week. I’m filling in.”
“Go on,” Jed encouraged her. “You’ve got ‘em eating out of the palm of your hand.”
Rebecca pulled the papers out of her shirt pocket, careful not to pull Jed out along with them. She cleared her throat and unfolded it.
“And now for the daily announcements. First, a reminder that Mr. McPhee’s office is off limits. Whoever left a flaming sword in there a couple of dawns ago… You know who you are. Don’t do it again. I have a request from Ahkmenrah. One of his jackals has lost his spear. If anyone finds it, please return it to the Egyptian wing. Oh, and this week the Romans are celebrating Saturnalia. They’ve invited everyone to join the festivities. The Neanderthals will be roasting a suckling pig in the inner courtyard tomorrow night to kick it off.”
Rebecca checked her paper and folded it up again. She was about to put it back in her pocket when Jed pulled himself closer to her ear.
“What’s this about the Romans?” he asked as they—she—walked. “What’s going on?”
“I would have thought of anybody, you’d know. I always see you over there.”
Jed bristled at this. He was not always over there. He was sometimes over there, mostly to take advantage of Octavius’s invitation to use their baths so he could wash the railroad track dust out of his hair and look at the way Octavius… Nope. He wasn’t always over there, and he definitely wasn’t there for a particular reason.
And Jedediah hadn’t even seen Octavius for six whole days. Not that he was counting.
For the first three nights, he’d found Teddy, who kept the car in his saddle bag (which no one ever thought to open during the day). But every time he parked in front of the Roman exhibit, Jed had found the place empty. Patrol and centurion duty or whatever else tomfool fancy name they came up with for standing around like a pack of statues were usually around. But not this week. The Romans had been scattered like tumbleweeds across a desert and Octavius was missing person number one.
Jedediah had been thinking of asking Rebecca to draw up “Wanted” posters with Octavius’s mugshot and paste them around the museum. Half as a joke, but half because he missed the guy. Not that he’d ever admit it. But driving around and playing with Rexy wasn’t half as fun on his own.
That’s how he’d ended up tagging along with the substitute night guard. If he couldn’t have Octavius, at least he could hang out with this pretty lady and make himself useful by helping her keep this museum full of yahoos in line.
She pulled him out of her pocket with two fingers. Jed hated when people did this. It made his shirt all bunched up and his torso look small. Luckily, she set home down on a nearby banister so he could straighten himself out and look imposing again.
“I’ll just tell you what goes on, since you’re too proud to ask,” she said. “I knew a little before—dated a guy in the Classics department for awhile, but we disagreed too much about historiography theory and the Magna Carta... Anyway, I’ve been helping Octavius set this up all week, so I’ve been learning a lot.”
Jed didn’t understand half the words she’d just said. All he got was that this was where Octavius had been all week. With her, setting up for something and not missing at all. Huh. “What in tarnation are you—”
“Tomorrow night’s the big feast. Then for a couple of days after that, there are private dinners at home for families or friends. I don’t know the specifics, but the Senate worked out with Larry to commandeer a few spaces around the museum for private celebrations.”
“Huh,” Jed said, thinking hard.
“You might want to bring a gift,” Rebecca continued with a teasing little smile. “I mean, in case you get invited to one of the parties. Look, I need to go check on the smaller fish in the big whale’s room, and then make sure Dexter isn’t snorting any of the plants in the Hall of Biodiversity. Are you all right here, or do you need me to drop you off somewhere?”
“Go on. I got this,” Jed said, puffing his chest out and hoping she could notice.
She strode off, one step of her long long, legs covering as much ground as it would take Jed in a whole minute of hard running. He dug his heels in and ran up the wide marble banister to the next floor. Once at the top, he jumped from there to the metal handrail. There was a ball of string tucked inside the curled up ends of all the museum staircase handrails, specifically so the miniatures could get around on their own without needing to be picked up (this had been Jed’s idea, though Octavius liked to try to claim it). Part of the sunrise protocol Larry had instituted involved tucking them away again so no one would try to tidy them during the day. Jed let it unfurl to the ground and then slid down.
He headed for the Egyptian wing on his way to the gift shop. He had a present to get.
Plus, he figured it was time to tell Ahkmenrah that the jackal’s spear was on the roof, where his guys had hidden it a few nights before. That had been a good prank.
The next night, Jed hitched a ride with Attila over to the courtyard where, as promised, the Neanderthals had gotten the world’s smallest bonfire going. It was more symbolic than anything else, because the hog had been pre-roasted and none of them wanted to get too close to the flame.
“Where did they get a suckling pig?” Jed heard Sacajawea ask.
“Rebecca bought it at Fairway, on Broadway,” Teddy whispered back. “It came with the apple in its mouth, all pre-set.”
Attila set Jed down on the ground in the area that had been corded off for the miniatures. The museum was well-lit and everyone had learned to look underfoot as they walked, but it was too dark out here for them to mingle with all the giants.
“Jedediah!”
Jed looked this way and that before he spotted Octavius running up to him. He had switched his usual uniform and feathery helmet for a multi-colored toga and cockamamie cap.
Jed had never seen him wearing anything else before. He’d never seen any of the people in the museum wearing anything different before, so he was sort of bowled over. Octavius looked stupid. And drunk. He ran into Jed with such force that they both toppled over.
“Io saturnalia!” Octavius shouted into Jed’s ear from on top of him.
“Hi-ho to you, too, pal. Where’d you get this get-up?”
“You cannot mention it to anyone, for it is a shame that only alcohol and time can make me forget, but Larry had some doll’s clothing shipped from the Amazon. Why they have tiny Roman clothes in Brazil, I cannot tell you.”
What with Octavius being so obviously drunk, it took them a little longer than it should have to disentangle themselves and get up. It was probably a little bit Jed’s fault, too. He was a little slower about it than he should have been.
Octavius grasped Jed by the shoulders and looked at him gravely. In the weird light created by the flickering flames, and with his hair sticking out of that stupid cap in weird angles, he looked a little crazy. But nice. Relaxed.
“I have been waiting for you to arrive,” he said, swaying a little.
“What have you been drinking?”
“Centurions!” Octavius shouted. “Bring me Jameson!”
“Who?” Jed had met a lot of Romans over the past few months, but there were always more coming out of the woodwork—literally. There were more of them than the day people probably imagined. Jameson must have been one he hadn't yet met.
Three of Octavius’s soldiers came running, lugging a bottle of about their height.
“They call such bottles ‘miniatures’,” Octavius complained.
“Ugh,” Jed replied, sharing in his friend’s annoyance at the word. And even still, it took three Romans and one of their crazy contraptions to bring it over and unscrew the damn cap. “At least we can serve ourselves, though. It sure beats watching Teddy pour wine into thimbles for us. Insulting. Where’d you get this?”
“Rebecca liberated it from McPhee’s office. They come from airplanes, apparently. She said we couldn’t possibly drink enough for anyone to notice. I have taken that as a challenge. But be warned; it gets a bit messy.” He turned to the centurions again. “Commence the pouring!”
Next thing Jed knew, he was sitting on the ground with the mouth of the bottle aimed over his head. He gulped it down as fast as he could, and caught as much of the rest in his hands to drink up next, but it still got all over his clothes.
When he’d drunk to choking, he wrung out his shirttails and followed Octavius over to where one of the civil war guys was using tweezers to dish out shards of meat onto dimes.
“I smell like a saloon on payday,” Jed complained.
But Octavius slung an arm around him, which might have been out of friendliness or else a need for help to keep standing. “Tonight, my friend, you smell like a Roman. And tomorrow, you shall be my guest, should you grant me the honor.”
“Guest where?”
“The diorama is too small for each family to have a home, so we have claimed various spots around the museums for the festivities. I will pick you up in the car, if you agree.”
Oh right. This was what Rebecca had been telling him about. “’Course I’m in. What’re we havin’?”
“It is meant to be a surprise.”
Jed gave Octavius a noogie that went on a little longer than he meant it to, what with the way Octavius seemed to lean into it more than he should have and the way Jed turned it more into a hug than he should have. Somebody—one of the Pacific Northwest miniatures—coughed. To cover up his embarrassment, Jed figured he should explain what a noogie was so that the next time someone tried to do it, Octavius would know better.
Octavius listened with an out of place, smug little smile, swaying all the while.
It took a lot for the museum folk to start a new night feeling anything but exactly the same. For decades, life had been like that DVD Ahkmenrah had found in a locker, where every day was exactly the same. Everyone had been locked in their rooms, and everything had always been cleaned up as though nothing ever happened. But tonight… tonight Jed felt different. He felt still drunk.
The party must have raged even harder than his scattered memories suggested. Everything was a blur. He remembered a pig, some whiskey, a statue set up to look like he was a real guest of the party... Something about Octavius and Jed up on the balcony singing New York, New York with their arms around each other. Rebecca passed out next to Attila in the stairwell, wrapped up in his furs. Someone had stolen the jackal’s spear again.
But tonight was a big night, if his limited knowledge of this holiday meant anything.
He was leaning against the base of the bench when Octavius showed up in the car. The Roman exhibit was empty again, with everyone having sidled out one by one for their private celebrations.
Octavius leaned out the window. He was still wearing that stupid rainbow toga and cap. “Jedediah! Are you ready?”
“Been ready for half an hour,” Jed lied.
He got into the car and checked the backseat. Only while he had waited just now did he start wondering why he was getting picked up tonight. Only just now had he started wondering about Octavius’s life outside of the nights they’d started spending together. It wasn’t every day, by any stretch. Maybe Octavius had other people Jed didn’t know about. Maybe…
“Anybody else coming?” he asked, as casual-like as you please. “Rebecca was telling me tonight’s the family party.”
Octavius cleared his throat and stepped on the gas. “The generals were not given families, as our purpose in the exhibit was organization, leadership and military prowess.”
A gazelle strolling into their path saved Jed from having to think of a comforting reply. They careened around corners, dodging elk and Neanderthals alike. Jed always liked to say that no one on the outside probably knew how to drive the way he and Octavius did. No one on the outside probably had to face the kinds of obstacles they did. Nerves of steel, he and Octavius had. Nerves of diamonds.
He apparently said that last part out loud, and not just in his head, because Octavius suddenly said, “Speaking of diamonds….”
“What?”
The question was answered when they pulled into the Hall of Gems and Minerals. Jed had only been here once, after taking a wrong turn. He hadn’t stayed long. Having free rein over the museum was still new enough of a development for everyone that they’d all been busy meeting each other and making friends. Nobody had time for a room full of rocks, where no one lived and nothing happened.
No one except Octavius, it seemed.
“This is us?” Jed asked.
“Indeed. It has a peacefulness that reminds me of the park that night. Do you remember?”
“'Course I remember,” Jed said. The only night he’d ever been outside. The night everything had changed. The night he and Octavius put aside the decades-long dislike that had only really existed because their dioramas were too small. Nothing personal. Seemed like a lotta wasted time in retrospect.
“They didn’t see fit to give me any family either,” Jed confessed as they parked. “But I don’t think I was meant to have any, if I’d been in the real West.”
“How do you know?”
“Just a feeling. Us cowboys were oftentimes orphans.”
“I am sorry to hear it,” Octavius said.
“It’s no big deal,” Jed blustered. And it wasn’t, but it rankled that Octavius seemed sad about this. It rankled that he didn’t have what some of the other Romans had. In Jed’s estimation, Octavius deserved to have anything he wanted.
He looked around him at all the glittering rocks. This was still the outer room, where all the meteors sat, along with the big rocks still in their rough stone. The crown jewels were over in the smaller rooms.
He looked at Octavius, who’d been watching him with a weird look in his eye. Something soft. Jed had seen it before and assumed it was dust or something. Maybe fur from the mastodons (it tended to roll around the hallways like tumbleweeds). But tonight, replacing each other as family on what sounded like Christmas with less church and more drinking (he had to hand it to the Romans) and surrounded by precious stones, Jed started to wonder. The way Rebecca had twinkled at him when explaining the holiday. The way Ahkmenrah had gone out of his way to help him navigate the wares of the gift shop. The way even the creepy, faceless Confederates had done a silent but unmistakable version of sniggering when they’d seen him waiting for Octavius to pick him up tonight…
Jed didn’t have a mama, but if he had, she would have said he was no fool. As quick on the draw with his noggin as with his guns.
“Is this some sort of date?” Jed asked. “You’re not… you ain’t…” He blanched, staring up at a jewel the size of a bowling ball.
Octavius turned as red as his stupid Saturnalia cap. “I merely wanted to show you something. But we must climb.”
There was a string hanging down from somewhere high above, similar to the ones on the staircase banisters. Octavius took the first go, and Jed was left on the ground, watching his friend climb up and up, trying (not trying very hard, to be honest) not to look up Octavius’s toga.
“How’d you set this up? This isn’t one of our usual strings,” Jed shouted up at him.
“Attila assisted me,” Octavius huffed.
When Jed followed, he found himself blinded by purple. He was in an amethyst as big as a cave.
Octavius stood in the center, on top of one of the little outcroppings of purple rock, looking like the most regal king in the world. “It reflects the light nicely, does it not?”
“Sure.” As purple rocks went, it was fine, but Jed had always had more of an eye for gold. “How’d you ask him? Atilla, I mean. About the string.”
“You cannot tell anyone, as it is a great secret,” Octavius whispered, a little too close, a little too heatedly into Jed’s ear, even though no one else was in the exhibit, “but Attila understands English.”
“Quit pullin’ my leg.”
“He has a wager with Teddy to see how long they can keep it secret from Larry. Gambling is normally frowned upon in Rome, but as this week is the holiday, I set put down a small wager of my own.”
Jed smiled. This, this right here was why sometimes (more than sometimes) he felt a little hog-tied around this silly Roman with his silly headwear, and his stupid accent, and his overly formal manners, and his exhausting obsession with physical exercise. He looked downright joyful, with his mouth twisting into a wide, goofy grin. Looking at him now, you’d never know he was a fearsome warrior or leader of men.
“I have something for you,” Octavius said.
Jed was prepared for this, the whole proto-Christmas thing. He just didn’t know where Octavius could have a present hidden away. There wasn't anywhere to hide in this rock.
And then Octavius reached into his pocket and pulled out a nut. Not even a nut. The little nub from between two halves of a peanut.
“Is that dinner?” Jed asked, confused.
“Io Saturnalia,” Octavius said, with the same salute as last night. “I give this to you, my friend, to thank you for everything we have shared in the past few months.”
“Is this some sort of Roman joke?”
“No, it is…”
“It’s a nut, is what it is. When I got you a BB-8 droid for Christmas!” Jed said, so upset that he accidentally gave away the surprise. “Do you know how hard those things are to get?”
“What is that?”
“It’s… oh never mind.” Jen tried to sit down, but the rock points poked him in the butt.
Octavius scratched his chin and looked disappointed. “You procured for me something valuable?”
“Well,” Jed mumbled, trying to backtrack. “It wasn’t that big of a deal.”
“I see.”
Something was wrong. Jed didn’t know why Octavius was the one sounding disappointed. Not when Jed had just gotten a nut for Christmas, Saturnalia, whatever the hell it was.
“So now what?” Jed asked, sticking his hands in his pockets.
“I had thought of a picnic, but…” Octavius had gone all stiff again, like back when they’d barely known one another.
“That nut’s all I have room for. Don’t know if I could eat a picnic after that,” Jed groused, still feeling angry, though he couldn't quite say why
“I see,” which Octavius only said either when he didn’t see at all, or when he was real ticked off.
“What’s the problem, compadre?” Jed asked. “What’s got your goat?”
“I had thought we were friends. Close. Hence why I, tonight…”
“So did I. Don’t know what I did to—”
“The value of the gifts is usually in inverse to how intimate people are,” Octavius said, tripping on the word intimate in a way that left no doubt as to the reason behind his current blush, turned purple by the light of the rock. “The more expensive the gift, the shallower the relationship.”
“Well, if that ain’t just the stupidest…” Jed shook his head, finally getting it. “Romans. Always taking the most roundabout roads to the simplest…”
Jed grabbed him by the toga and kissed him. Octavius went all stiff at first—typical Roman—but then let himself melt into it a little. They pawed at one another enough that his toga started to come loose. Interesting.
“Kisses are free,” Jed said. “That cheap enough for you?”
“It is in the spirit of the holiday,” Octavius said, smiling again. “Both free and easily given, hopefully in large quantities.”
“Easy as pie,” Jed said, and went back in for more.
The next night, BB-8, followed them around, turning its head around to the back and making embarrassed beeps when its two new masters gave each other more free gifts.