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Category: Fantasy
Description: Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet is a twice-yearly zine of eclectic fiction and so on. Issue No. 18 features a house monster. Black & white with handtinted woodblock cuts by famous and unknown artists. Printed on a 12th century Chinese letterpress on sheets of kelp-paper handmade by centaurs and sprites. Unattractively bound in the skins of dead animals. Alternately: attractively bound in more handmade paper, these sheets fairly traded from The Mysterions: Those Who Live at the Center of the Earth. Featuring brilliant stories by David J. Schwartz, John Schoffstall, Becca De La Rosa, Scot Peacock, Stephanie Parent, Will McIntosh, E. Catherine Tobler, Matthew Lee Bain, Peter Bebergal, Sarah Micklem, Angela Slatter, Jeannette Westwood, Fred Coppersmith, Michael Emmons, and Veronica Schanoes, poetry by Jenny Benjamin-Smith, Sunshine Ison, and Tsultrim Dorjee, nonfiction by Erik Gallant, Gwenda Bond, and William Smith.
eBook Publisher: Small Beer Press/Small Beer Press, 2006
eBookwise Release Date: May 2009

Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [194 KB]
Words: 39363
Reading time: 112-157 min.

"Tiny but celebrated."--The Washington Post

"Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet never fails to hook me."--New Pages

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David J. Schwartz

Amy: Pretend I'm Jack.

Tommy: I want to be Jack.

Amy: We're both Jack, and we're going to the giant's house for dinner.

Tommy: I'm bringing bean soup.

Amy: Yes, but the rabbits ate all the beans and got tummy aches, so their mother brought them some cats--some cast--

Tommy: Caster oil?

Amy: Yes, she gave them that and then she scolded. She said, "You can't eat the beans or you'll end up in a pie."

Tommy: I'll bring a pie to the giant's house. A baloney pie. But the giant ate it all up and now there's just potato salad.

Amy: There's deviled eggs, too.

Tommy: The goose ate the deviled eggs because she said they were hers. And we tried to eat the potato salad to be polite, but it was poison.

Amy: And the giant started to cry because he's sorry.

Tommy: He's a baby giant.

Amy: Yes. And he cries and he cries and the table gets washed away and we have to climb on some stinky cheese so we don't get drowned.

Tommy: I like cheese.

Amy: This cheese is really stinky. Nobody likes it except for wolves.

Tommy: Uh-oh. Now there's a wolf that comes and finds the cheese.

Amy: Is he a good wolf or a bad wolf?

Tommy: He's bad. He says he's going to eat the baby, unless if--

Amy: Unless if we get married. Except we can't because we're both boys.

Tommy: I'll be the girl. I'm Alice, but I don't wear a dress.

Amy: OK, we have a wedding, and the wolf says I pronounce you. And then I die.

Tommy: How did you die?

Amy: The ring cut my finger. Also, the Queen did it.

Tommy: OK, I killed the Queen, and she told me there's a magic horse that can find you.

Amy: I'm in Hell.

Tommy: Right, but the horse can find you if I feed it lots of mushrooms. So I tell the baby to find mushrooms but not to eat the toadstools because they're poison.

Amy: I'm having tea with the King of Hell. He's in love with me.

Tommy: You're married to me. Besides, you're both boys.

Amy: I know. He's in love with me and he lets me call my parents to tell them I'm dead and don't worry.

Tommy: Anyways the baby comes back and he ate so many mushrooms that he turned into a horse.

Amy: Is he still a giant?

Tommy: No, he's a baby and a horse. I have to carry him and ride him at the same time.

Amy: Is he fast?

Tommy: He's really fast, and he makes snorty noises. He takes us to the underworld. There's a cat that guards the underworld.

Amy: It's a dog.

Tommy: It's a cat and a dog and a pig in one animal, and the cat and the dog fight all the time, and the pig eats everything. He eats the horse, but me and the baby get past him.

Amy: The King of Hell wants me to torture, but I said I won't.

Tommy: Who does he want you to torture?

Amy: The Pope. But I said I won't because of morals.

Tommy: What's morals?

Amy: It's little people that talk in your ears and tell you what to do. Like Bugs Bunny.

Tommy: OK. I'm in Hell, and I find you, but there's a monster.

Amy: Is it scary?

Tommy: It's a dragon with red teeth from all the blood. The blood's because he didn't brush good and his gums fell out.

Amy: He wants to eat the baby.

Tommy: Yes, but the baby tells me how to kill it. With poison. Now you can come home.

Amy: I want a divorce. I'm in love with the King of Hell.

Tommy: What about our baby?

Amy: I don't like the baby. You're the mom.

Tommy: OK, we're divorced. I'll marry the Wolf.

Amy: We'll have a double wedding. The baby does the ceremony. I'm the King's husband and you're the Wolf's wife and we live across the street.

Tommy: Across the river. We live in a castle and you live in a castle.

Amy: But you can't come over because the King thinks the Wolf is a blowhard.

Tommy: I can't come over because the Wolf won't let me leave. He goes out every day to hunt rabbits and locks the castle behind him.

Amy: All the doors inside are locked, too.

Tommy: No, just this one closet.

Amy: I'm coming over for a visit. I knock on the door.

Tommy: I can't hear you because we're in the attic. The baby knows how to pick locks and he opens the closet and there's seven dead grandmas in there. The Wolf poisoned them all.

Amy: Oh, no.

Tommy: There's Grandma Rabbit and Grandma Horse and Grandma Ostrich and Ugly Grandma and Fat Grandma and Grandma Mushroom.

Amy: That's only six.

Tommy: I know. There's Hairy Grandma, too. She has so much hair that she used to knit tomato blankets out of it.

Amy: Throw down the hair!

Tommy: I know. The baby cuts off Hairy Grandma's hair and ties it to the doorknob and lowers it out the window and he climbs down first. I'm coming down after, but you have to promise not to look up my dress.

Amy: You said you wouldn't wear dresses.

Tommy: The Wolf made me. You have to promise.

Amy: I promise.

Tommy: OK, I made it down.

Amy: Let's hold hands. I don't like the King of Hell anymore. All his friends are dead.

Tommy: Uh oh, the Wolf came back and ate the baby.

Amy: Oh, no!

Tommy: I thought you didn't like the baby!

Amy: Is the Wolf going to eat us now?

Tommy: He can't because the baby was poison and he grew into a giant again. The Wolf died.

Amy: Let's be friends.

Tommy: OK, but next time I want to be the boy.