Chapter Twenty-One - Secret Pamphlet Making Technique: Long Horizontal Fold!

Pam had a lot in her pamphlet, her metaphorical one.

Dreamer wouldn’t nom her, not as long as she was useful, which meant that she had to make herself useful. That wasn’t all that simple.

Today she was out on the streets, walking at a good pace through the city with her head on a swivel. She had to find someone who could help her.

Last time, that had been the nice pamphlet-making man. He had given her a name, had taught her how to make pamphlets and was very nice. She liked him, and he was just a normal mortal. Then again, so was Abigail, and even Pamphlet, who had barely interacted with Abigail at all, knew that she was pretty great.

So now she was thinking very hard about finding another person who could help her.

The problem was that there were a lot of people in Five Peaks, a whole city’s worth of them, and she didn’t know which one would be the best to ask for help. There was Daphne, but Daphne wasn’t an expert on what Pam was looking for.

Charlotte was very nice, but she was also busy, so Pam couldn’t ask her.

She sighed and slowed to a stop at the next street corner. A few carriages were blocking the intersection, the people driving them screaming at each other about who had the right to turn first while their horses neighed and looked uncomfortable about the whole thing.

She looked around at all the people around her. Did any of them seem nice to talk to?

There was a gentle old lady, and a young woman that looked a bit like Abigail nearby with a big basket before her. A less old-lady was whispering with an equally less-old friend next to her, trading gossip about the logos on the sides of the carriages.

They didn’t seem right. Instead, Pam focused on an old man next to them. He had a nice suit on, and a tubular hat that marked him as a person of some middling importance. He also had a cane, but didn’t seem to have a limp, so Pam wasn’t sure what to think about that.

“Hello mister,” she said.

The man looked down at her. “I don’t give money to beggars,” he said.

Pam shook her head. “I’m not a beggar. I’m a pamphlet giver.”

“Well, I don’t want it,” he said.

“That’s okay,” Pam said. She didn’t intend to give him one anyway. She only had Not Today pamphlets on her anyway. “I have a question.”

The man sighed. “Well, ask someone then.”

She nodded. He was someone. “I have questions about stuff, who can I ask?”

The man chuckled. “Have you tried asking the Inquisition? They’re rather fond of those.” He sniffed, then walked around her. The congestion on the road finally freed up as one carriage pulled out ahead of the other.

Pam considered what he’d said. The Inquisition were those people that Dreamer had gotten some of her nicer hats from. They were the very rude people that used to meddle in Abigail’s stuff until Dreamer kindly asked them not to and threatened them with the great bapping paper of bapping.

There were always a few of them spying on the cafe, on Abigail, and on her friends.

Pam had even given a few of them some of her pamphlets. They had placed the pamphlet in a little baggie with some long metal tongs before running off.

She glanced over to a nearby alleyway between a house and a bakery, and the Inquisitor spying on her ducked back in a hurry.

Well, if the old man said so...

Pam walked over to the alley, then into it.

There were two people there, both young men in very normal clothes. They weren’t even wearing any hats. But they felt like Inquisitors. All of those Inquisitor people had meddled with a certain amount of eldritch magic, which left a stain on them that was easy to spot. “Hello Inquisitor people, I have a question,” she said.

“Uh, hey there, I don’t know what you mean,” the one on the left said. He was shorter, and had boring brown hair and boring brown eyes. He smiled strangely and took a step back and away from Pam.

The other man didn’t seem nearly as nervous. He was taller, with more muscles, and a mean look in his eyes. “Don’t need to be afraid, it’s just one of the thing’s clones.”

“My question is who can I ask about hugs?”

“Uh, we, ah, we have to go,” the shyer one said.

“C’mon, look at it—it’s hardly a threat.”

“You weren’t there when it broke into the headquarters and made a mess of everything.”

The bigger one shook his head. “You Five Peaks people are so weak. It’s unbelievable. I’d rather die than cower in front of a bloody child.”

Pam blinked. “Oh,” she said. She reached into her pretty dress, which had a few ribbons she used to tie pamphlets with, and undid one that held onto a Not Today pamphlet. “Here,” she said as she extended the pamphlet to the man.

It was one of her latest ones, her very best work.

He scoffed and slapped her hand to the side. Her pamphlet flipped over in the air and landed in a puddle of dirty water without even a splash. “Don’t approach me, you extra-dimensional filth.”

Pam looked at her pamphlet, then backed up to the man. She felt a feeling in her tummy. It was very warm and she didn’t like it.

“Hey, don’t antagonize it,” the softer guy hissed.

“Oh, please, it’s not even human.” The big guy stepped up to Pam, then jabbed his forefingers onto her head. It wasn’t a pat, it was a poke, and it hurt.

“Stop that,” Pam said.

“Or what?” the man asked. He poked her again.

The warm in her tummy turned cold.

Her purpose was to make pamphlets, that’s all she was good for, but making pamphlets was an art, and all art came with advantages. She stepped forwards and shot her hand out, smacking the man in the chest with a tiny whump.

“Was that meant to hurt?” the man asked. “See, it’s useless.”

She pouted. She wasn’t useless. “Secret Pamphlet Making Technique: Long Horizontal Fold!”

The man’s laughter cut off as his feet twisted, toes turning to point at each other. Humans were able to do that much, it wasn’t even hard. Then his knees snapped around and faced each other, with something in his hips popping.

When his hips folded in half he screamed, even as his stomach bent in on itself.

The scream stopped when his ribs folded forwards and touched each other, then his neck, and finally his face.

It was weird, seeing a person’s face squish into itself, then twist around so that their eyes smacked into each other.

The man fell to the ground, folded in the middle.

Pam shook her hand out and looked to the softer man, who was breathing very hard. “I’m looking for people who are good at hugs,” she asked.

***