The Cinderella Theorem (27 page)

I
tore myself away. Calo was more important right now, and I needed to stick to
Doug’s plan. The next two cells were empty, but the third was not. When I
looked in, I saw Calo reclining in his pile of straw. Every inch of wall space
was covered with screens, playing fleeting clips of Calo’s unhappy past: Thomas
and Calo fighting as children, a lonely, younger Calo walking alone. Then the
screens shifted to a scene of the HEA office without Calo–everyone looked
glummer, Grimm especially. Then suddenly, the Happiologists started vanishing
and Levi was there greasily running things.

Calo
sighed deeply, and I looked to see what had equaled that response. There,
strangely, on the screen was
me
, working alone in our cubicle.

“Why
am I making you sad?” I asked aloud, without thinking.

Calo
turned toward the door; his eyes were wide and fearful. “Lily?” he whispered.

“Oh,
right,” I muttered, realizing I should probably be in the cell while we
discussed things. The guard could come at any minute. I opened the door and
slipped in.

As
the door opened, Calo jumped off the straw and backed away. “Lily? Is that
you?”

“Of
course it’s me. I’ve come to rescue you!”

Calo
shook his head, mumbling, “I must be hearing things. Tallis is pumping her
voice in to torture me.” He rubbed his eyes and turned away from me.

“No,
Calo. It’s me!” I grabbed his shoulder to turn him around.

He
jumped and shouted.

“Shh!”
I hissed. “You’ll attract the guard and he’ll come and see—”

“Come
and see what?” He hissed back.

I
opened my mouth and closed it again. “Oh.”

Calo:
1, Lily: 0.

I
rubbed myself visible and felt as if a heavy wool blanket had been lifted from
me. I was covered in sweat. In all the excitement of escaping my cell and
finding Calo, I’d forgotten how uncomfortably warm it was to be invisible.

Calo’s
eyes went even wider than before. “What are you doing here?”

“This
is a rescue,” I said, importantly.

Calo
sighed and rolled his eyes. “I suppose someone told you about Matt’s Law and
you decided to come save everyone.”

“What’s
Matt’s Law?”

“You
waltzed into the heart of Uppish Senna without knowing about Matt’s Law?”

“I
guess.”

“Are
you insane? Do you have any idea the risk you are taking? Do you even realize
you have jeopardized the entire kingdom?”

“Shh.”
I held up my hand and listened. Footsteps. I quickly rubbed myself invisible,
waited for the guard to pass, and rubbed myself visible again.

Calo
flopped down on his straw. “The only way this could be worse is if you just
walked right up to Tallis and volunteered to be his prisoner.”

I
bit my lip. “Perhaps, I should explain the situation before we two endeavor to
save our companions in misery.”

“
Before
we two endeavor to save our companions in misery?!?
You invoked the quest
clause?”

I
smiled sheepishly. “Apparently.”

Calo
sighed. “But if you invoked the quest clause, someone had to have sent you on
the quest. Who would be stupid enough to send the heir to the throne on such a
foolish quest?”

I
cleared my throat. “Uh, let me explain. Doug told me only I could save everyone
because I’m not living Happily Ever After yet. And then we came up with a plan
to rescue everyone. See, first I’ll get you to Less Than Happy, then—”

Calo
waved his hand impatiently. “Then, I can go around and cheer everyone up. I
know that part of the plan, Lily.” He sat down and sighed.

“How
do you already know Doug’s plan?”

“Because
it’s what I would do.” He sighed again. “Did Doug happen to mention a way to get
you
home?”

“Not
specifically,” I mumbled. “He said the best thing would be for me to become
Happily Ever After and vanish back.”

“Which
will be
so
easy to accomplish here in a dungeon.” Calo started pacing.

“What’s
Matt’s Law?” I asked, hoping to distract him.

“You’re
not allowed to know. Of course, since you’re already here and the prohibition
on telling you was to prevent you from doing something exactly like this, I’m
not sure if it matters anymore.”

Calo
looked like he might be about to tell me, but shook his head instead. “I better
not tell you. If we do make it out of here, there’s bound to be some sort of
inquiry.”

“Do
you think Doug will get into trouble?” I was surprised by all this forbidden
“Matt’s Law” business. After all, I had created this situation. Logically and
mathematically, I had to be the one to fix it.

“Doug
should be fine.” Calo paused, then added, “So long as I get you back in one
piece.”

I
nodded. I must have looked a little frightened about the prospect of staying in
Uppish Senna forever, because Calo took me by the shoulders, looked into my
eyes and said, “I promise you, Lily, I will not leave these dungeons unless I
know you have found a way home as well.”       

I
shook his hands off in time to rub myself invisible as the guard approached.
Calo flung himself onto his pile of straw. After the guard had passed, I hissed
at Calo “I don’t have to go back. I’m not doing any good at HEA, but
you
have to go back. You are a brilliant Happiologist and HEA needs you.”

Calo
snorted. “If I’m such a brilliant Happiologist, then you should trust me to
make the decision about you getting back. Make yourself visible and we’ll
compromise.” He waited for me to rub my marble, then he stuck out his hand.

I
took it and we shook.

“Neither
of us will leave without the other,” he said.

I
nodded.

Calo
ran a hand through his hair. “Right. Well, next we should come up with some
sort of plan, and for safety’s sake, you’d better stay invisible. I’ll just
shut up when the guard walks by.”

“Fine.”
I rubbed myself invisible and then took off my shoe. An update from Doug had
just arrived. “Hey, you’re already up to Not So Happy. Just six more levels to
go.”

“How
did you know that?” Calo spoke to the wall, so that if the guard passed it
would look like he was muttering at the images on the screens.

“Doug
is updating me through my shoe on any changes in levels.”

“Clever.”
Calo smiled. “But we’d better not aim for Happy. Let’s just shoot for Less Than
Less Than Happy. I can make people Happy on that and then, when it’s just us,
we’ll work out something else. I’ll know when I’m getting close, by the way, so
you won’t need the updates for me.”

“You’ll
know when you’re getting close to what?”

“To
Less Than Less Than Happy. I’ve trained myself to recognize the subtle differences
in my levels.”

“That’s
possible?”

“Lily,”
Calo’s tone was patient. “You just turned yourself invisible by rubbing a
marble. Anything’s possible.”

“Could
I learn to do it?”

“Probably.
It’s still sort of controversial. Not all Happiologists like it.”

“Why
not?”

Calo
cocked his head patronizingly. “If Happiologists can learn to do it, then why
couldn’t regular citizens learn it too? We’d be out of a job.”

“Do
you really think the need for HEA could be eliminated?” I tried to visualize
Smythe’s SFL minus HEA, but I couldn’t get the equation to formulate.

“I
doubt it,” Calo went on. “It takes a lot of time and discipline to master your
own emotions and happiness. Most people are perfectly willing to let external
sources affect their happiness.” After a moment, he added, “And unhappiness.”

“But,”
I began and stopped just as quickly when I heard the guard outside the door.
His footsteps reminded me that we were supposed to be getting Calo’s levels up.
The unasked question hung around me waiting to be asked like a math problem
begging to be solved. “I’ve got one more question and then we’ll start trying
to get you to Less Than Less Than Happy.”

“Don’t
worry about that, Lily. Talking with you has been helpful already.”

“Really?”

“Well,
to be quite specific,” Calo spoke slowly, choosing his words as he went,
“…instructing you improves my mood.”

I
scoffed. Of course. Calo liked showing off that he knew more than me. I just
rolled my eyes and took out the latest shoe update. “Alright, Mr. Brilliant Happiologist,
let’s see if you’re right about what your level is.”

Calo
tilted his head considering. “I feel like I’ve Been Happier.”

I
made a disgusted noise, balled up the note from Doug, and threw it at Calo.
“You’re brilliant.”

Calo
smiled, “You said you had another question.”

“Even
if mastering your own happiness is difficult, why wouldn’t everyone want to do
it? Isn’t it a good thing? It’s hard to learn your multiplication tables, but
you’ve got to memorize them if you want to work with math on a higher level.”

Calo
smiled. “Yes, Lily. It’s a very good thing. But not everyone wants to take the
time and effort to learn their multiplication facts. They could just get a
calculator. And it’s the same for their happiness. Why bother mastering your
emotions if you know a Happiologist will come along and make you happy?”

“That’s
awful and irresponsible and mathematically unsound. A calculator could break or
a Happiologist might not make it in time.” Or worse. I thought of Ella. Her Happiologist
had failed her. I had failed her. My stomach dropped faster than an infinite
slope as I considered telling Calo what I had done.

Calo
was laughing. “Which are you more upset by? That people use calculators or that
they use Happiologists?”

“You’re
okay with the citizens relying on us for their happiness?”

He
sighed. “I don’t have to be okay with it. I don’t have to think about it at
all. I just have to do my job and do it the best I can.”

“But
if they can learn how to be responsible, shouldn’t they?”

“Let
it go, Lily. When we’re up against the possibility of Cinderella vanishing, I
can’t take the time to teach her to be happy herself. If I don’t act, if I
don’t find her a cleaning job, she could vanish. I know you don’t really follow
fairy tales, but Cinderella is pretty well known. Here’s a syllogism for you:
Cinderella is to fairy tales what Pythagoras is to math.” He rolled his eyes.
“And please don’t critique my logic. I’m just trying to point out that we don’t
have the time to make E. G. Smythe’s Salty Fire Land a perfect world, we’ve got
just enough time to make sure the citizens stay in it.” He paused. “Do you see
what I’m saying? I’d rather have a co-dependent Cinderella than no Cinderella
at all.”

I
took a deep breath and said, “Calo, I have to tell you something.” Then I
rubbed myself visible, just as the guard passed. “I’ve had sort of a side
project, recently, and…um…I decided to prove that being normal equals being
happy. And to test my theory, I tried to make an unhappy citizen normal in
order to make her happy.”

Calo’s
eyes narrowed. “Her, who?”

“Maybe
we should check your levels, Calo. I don’t want to set you back.”

“Angry
is not unhappy, Lily. Her, who?”

“Well,
I...I used Ella as my test subject.”
Calo was silent for twenty seconds, but it felt
much
longer. “What were
the results?”

“Um…she
became happier, much happier, but I think it was superficial.”

“Why?”

“Because
she vanished,” I whispered, meekly.

“
You’re
the reason she vanished? Are you telling me that in your first month as our
princess you managed to vanish the most well-known fairy tale of all time?”

“Yes.”
My voice surprised me. I didn’t know it could be so quiet.

After
a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Calo said, “At least some good has come
from your incompetence. I’m nearly happy enough to go rescue everyone.”

“Glad
to be of service. I also memorized everyone’s sad items, so you’d know what
we’re up against.”

“Exactly
how many people are we rescuing?”

I
did the math quickly and answered, “Ten. Tallis let the birds go free in
exchange for my capture.”

“You
mean you really did just
volunteer
to be a prisoner and you ransomed
yourself for some birds? I didn’t know you liked animals that much.” Calo
smirked, obviously feeling better.

“Very
funny. The exact terms of the agreement were that he would empty a cell. I
didn’t know which one he would choose. I just hoped it wasn’t you, because I
really needed you for the plan.”

“Tallis
wouldn’t be foolish enough to let me leave. He desperately wants me on his
side.”

“He’s
already asked you?”

Calo
nodded. He went thoughtful and pensive for a moment. I wondered how I knew the
word pensive and would my quest clause vocabulary be available to me when this
was all over.  

Calo
came out of his reverie (!) and asked, “Who are we rescuing? I want to start
formulating plans.”

“Okay.
Well, there’s Ella and Aven obviously. Ella’s stepsisters.”

“Adelaide
and Amaryllis,” Calo interrupted.

“And
her stepmother.”

“Agatha.”

“Then
just your grandmother, grandfathers and your parents.” My eyes darted to Calo
to see how he would take this news.