Piglet Dreams

Chapterlette 10

Mr. Sneakers-Reilly awoke the next morning with a splitting headache. That man, he thought, and that vile, contemptuous, little piggy. Why had they tried to disrupt what could have been a perfectly normal day in the city? He could have gotten that very lucrative Machine-o-Tron order out, but on the contrary!

“Vanderhorn! Bring me my robe and slippers!” he shouted at his ornate bedroom door. Clattering ensued from off in the hallway distance, followed by a moment of silence, followed by Vanderhorn, a wider-than-tall gentleman with a pronounced snout and beard, entering the bedchamber with Mr. Sneaker-Reilly’s pink, fuzzy robe and slippers.

“Have you located that old man and his piggy?” snapped Mr. Sneakers-Reilly. Vanderhorn nodded furiously, an oil tanker of a smile spreading across his hairy face. The hairs protruding from his snout bristled with delight.

“Not yet!” he merrily grumbled.

“Then why, in the name of progress, are you grinning like a fool?” Mr. Sneakers-Reilly was not pleased, not pleased at all.

“Because they’ll never be able to get out!” Vanderhorn growled, his eyes almost crossed.

Mr. Sneakers-Reilly shoved his feet into the fuzzy slippers, stood up almost too abruptly, and crossed to his wall panel window. He muttered, “curtains,” and his wall opened to a gleaming sunrise over the city. Vanderhorn trotted over to stand next to his employer, staring blankly at the shiniest points he could find.

Scanning the outer neighborhoods from his expensively high vantage point, Mr. Sneakers-Reilly found what he was looking for.

“See, Mr. Boss! They’ll never make it out!” Mr. Sneakers-Reilly stared in shock at the 200 floor walls that were creakily rising to a halt at the border to the city. Every single one of his 75 multicolored telephones began to ring.

“You’re all white and scared, Mr. Boss!” Vanderhorn peered down at his boss, who turned slowly, sat back on his mattress, and removed one slipper at a time.

He gulped. “Curtains.”