“There’s Ms. Washburn!” Patrick flung out his arm accusatorily, pointing.
“What?” Father Souza peered across the parking lot. The library was just closing for the day; it had no parking spaces of its own, so people using the library parked in the St. Catherine’s lot. Ms. Washburn had indeed emerged from the library, and was even now making her way to her solitary silver Volvo. She walked upright as a soldier, holding her keys like a weapon.
“She’s so mean,” said Patrick in a choked voice. “I thought she was nice at first. She laughed at me!”
“I know,” said Father Souza. “But you have to learn—”
There was a shimmer in the air. All the leaves in the rectory garden fluttered, the big, glossy leaves of ivy and acanthus, the red leaves of ornamental plum, the broad and pointed maple leaves. There was a gust of heat; there was a wave of overpowering smell, like a banana-scented car freshener overlaid with crushed and steaming vegetation, and a certain mammal stench.
They burst out of the ivy like brown cannon balls, screaming.
“Monkeys!” yelled Patrick in delight. “Get her, monkeys!”
But they were already racing across the asphalt toward Ms. Washburn, two dozen howling monkeys, with pink-rimmed fuzzy ears and streaming, curly tails, like Curious George on crack, beating the ground with their knuckles as they came, baring their fangs. Behind him Father Souza heard thumps and the swaying of tree branches. Black hairy bodies hurtled past him, chimpanzees as real as any on an Animal Planet special. They, too, converged on Ms. Washburn, shrieking threats.
“Holy God,” cried Father Souza. “Get into your car! Get in and lock the door, Ms. Washburn!”
She lifted her head and looked out at him, across the advancing tide of simian rage. “I beg your pardon?” she said coldly.
“Look out for the damn monkeys!” shouted Father Souza, leaping to his feet.
“What monkeys?” she said, just as they reached her.
He braced himself, expecting to see her torn apart; but she made a negligent gesture with the hand holding her car keys, and the sharp silver keys glittered in the afternoon light, and the foremost monkeys in the pack burst like bubbles, vanishing without a trace. The others pulled back angrily and swarmed around to either side, circling, and some produced cocoanuts from thin air and hurled them at the Volvo. Its windows began to crack and star, but Ms. Washburn didn’t seem to notice.
“Come on, monkeys!” ordered Patrick, leaping up and down. From the shadows under the big eucalyptus trees vaulted baboons, with long, gray bodies like jungle wolves and hideous red and blue muzzles, and white manes, and long, white teeth. They roared forward in a second assault, but Ms. Washburn looked right through them. By this time the chimpanzees had found something else to throw at her car, and it splatted and stank, but nothing seemed to touch her.
“Ms. Washburn, for God’s sake!” Father Souza started down the steps to her, his heart in his mouth. The first of the baboons to reach her vanished in midleap, though foam from its jaws flecked her dress. “Don’t you see them?”
“There are no monkeys,” she said, raising her handful of keys. The little monkeys cowered back and then sprang again, hooting, beating her car with bananas, and the baboons bit savagely at its tires. With a hiss, the left rear tire flattened.
“Yes, there are!” shouted Patrick gleefully, as ten silverback gorillas pushed up out of the cracks in the asphalt, throwing flat chunks of it aside like tombstones, and lumbered forward. They stood upright, rocked from hind foot to hind foot and beat their chests, grunting menace. One after another they worked themselves into frenzies and rushed Ms. Washburn, who stood her ground and stared through them defiantly.
She refused to acknowledge when they veered away at the last possible moment, merely gripped her bright keys. Her unbelief was a silver helmet, her refusal an Aegis. Three of them exploded into powder, but the others attacked the poor Volvo. They put their fists through the windows, they leaped up and down on the roof.
“Go, monkeys, go!” said Patrick, running forward. Father Souza ran after him and pulled him back.
“Patrick, you have to make them stop—” he said, just as a roar shook the earth. He looked around and saw nothing new emerging from the bushes, from anywhere in the parking lot; then something moved at the edge of his vision and he tilted his head back to see—
“Oh, no,” he murmured. Patrick looked up and fell silent, cowering against him.
For something black was lifting itself above the hilltop behind them. A monstrous face moved jerkily up from the reservoir fence, stared down with living eyes out of what was patently so much rabbit fur and rubber skin, but it was still Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World, and it was ten stories tall. Its grunts sent gusts of hot wind rushing down the long grass. Up and over the hill it came, moving unevenly but with appalling speed, trampling everything in its path, making straight for Ms. Washburn.
Ms. Washburn turned pale, but did not flinch. She raised her little fistful of keys. “There are no monkeys,” she repeated.
Over the past thirty seconds Father Souza had felt something growing in him, inappropriate joy mingled with entirely appropriate terror mingled with something else, something he couldn’t quite put a name to but which seemed obvious, something that burned through him and lit him up like neon.
These events are only as real as we make them.
He saw the boy, brilliant innocent of terrifying faith; he saw Ms. Washburn in all her harsh bravery and steely resolve. Monkeys who could envision a heaven full of glorious divinity, or a crystalline rational universe of ice and stars. Wonderful monkeys! Who could have made such creatures?
“Enough,” he said, in a voice not his own, and a blast of blue-white light and shockwave force moved out from him at high speed. It caught the little generic monkeys and blew them into oblivion like so many autumn leaves. The chimpanzees, the baboons and gorillas puffed out like smoke; and Kong itself became no more than a towering shadow, before dropping in a rain of black sand across the parking lot.
“Dude,” said Patrick, awed.
Father Souza looked at himself in disbelief. Little residual white flames were running down him like water, sinking into him as though he were so much spiritual blotting paper.
Only as real as we make them.
“Ms. Washburn, can I call you a tow truck?” he heard himself saying.
“No, thank you,” she replied, in a voice nearly as firm as was her accustomed wont. “Why would I need one?”
He looked up and watched as she got into her car. She ignored the broken glass and the fact that she had to crouch forward because the roof had been so badly dented. The engine started up and the Volvo limped away on three wheels, shedding cocoanuts and banana peels as it went. Ms. Washburn did not look back.
Real as we make them.
“That was so cool,” said Patrick. “Except, um, King Kong. He was too scary. But, see? You can, too, do spells. I would have stopped him myself, except he was so big. When I get my superpowers, though, it’ll be different.”
Father Souza stretched his shoulders, rolled his neck, felt all the little stresses and tensions of years of everyday life melting away.
“You know,” he said, “you’re going to have to swear to use your powers for good, right?”
“Okay,” said Patrick happily. “Does this mean I don’t have to take catechism classes anymore?”
“Oh, no way.” Father Souza leaned down and grinned, putting a hand on his shoulder. “They’re more important than ever, now.” His grin widened. “You belong to God, Patrick.”
“Okay,” said Patrick, grinning back. “I can pretend I’m taking secret ninja lessons, all right?”