Wood Sprites

Louise spent the rest of the day searching through the rough translation of the codex for some references to the gossamer call while watching the numbers soar on JelloShot01’s channel. Debate broke out on the fan website as to whether this was a real video or a fake created by Nigel. The doubters pointed to the odd posting time, insisting that Lemon-Lime was based on Elfhome and wouldn’t be able to upload during any period other than Shutdown. Others pointed out that if Nigel was working with Lemon-Lime, then he could have arranged for work visas for Pittsburghers. This triggered a spirited debate between people who thought the twins had to be elves and those who believed that they were Elfhome “natives”—Pittsburghers born after the first Startup.

Fifty-three minutes after JelloShot01 copied their video, the first report of the frame-by-frame analysis hit the boards. Louise imagined that she could hear the massive wails of dismay as they discovered the hidden messages. Another twenty-eight minutes and their fans had decided that Lemon-Lime had sought Nigel out in order to raise money to replace their equipment. This completely ignored the fact that Nigel had posted a very public message seeking Lemon-Lime. Another theory surfaced after someone decided to take the video’s storyboard as gospel truth. Obviously, this new camp stated, Lemon-Lime was trying to warn Nigel that he was about to be tricked into a one-way trip to Elfhome. This was quickly refuted by fans that were also followers of Nigel’s work. Apparently Nigel had been fairly public in his attempts to get to Elfhome; the production company that handled his nature documentaries had been denied travel visas by the EIA for several years. His fans also pointed out that Nigel was in New York for the Today Show as part of his pitch to NBC to do a series on Elfhome. Nigel had reached out to Lemon-Lime before the April Shutdown. Lemon-Lime, they theorized, could have left Pittsburgh last month and joined Nigel in New York.

This triggered a furious reexamination of Nigel’s appearance on the NBC morning show and the phrase “hope to be working.” Some stated that this and the video indicated that Lemon-Lime hadn’t agreed to anything. Others claimed that the “hope” meant that Nigel hadn’t locked in the NBC backing yet, and Lemon-Lime was only defending Nigel from the backlash of his shout-out. Yet another group suggested that NBC was waffling on their decision, and Lemon-Lime’s video was an attempt to sway the network by adding their fanbase to Nigel’s.

“Wow, they really overthink everything.” Louise closed the window on the seemingly endless debate. “They’re making it all more complicated than it really was.”

“Maybe,” Jillian said. “We had no idea if it was really Nigel Reid trying to make contact with us and we don’t know why he’s in New York and we didn’t expect such a huge shout-out from him. Face it, we didn’t even know we were famous, and from what I can tell, we’re up there with blockbuster movie stars. Some of what the fans are saying might be right.”

Louise didn’t want to believe that Nigel had used them. He always seemed so genuinely nice on camera. She wanted it to honestly be what it be appeared to be — Nigel had only contacted them to learn something interesting to him. She had to admit that she could be wrong.

“Do you know what really sucks?” Jillian sighed. “If we could go public, then everything would work out. We could sign a movie deal with some big studio and use the money to save the babies.”

Louise’s stomach sunk at the idea of so many people focused on them. “No one is going to offer us a deal. Even if they did, as soon as the studios found out we’re nine-year-olds, they’d back out.”

“I don’t know,” Jillian said. “People in Hollywood make some pretty crazy decisions.”

“We’re still minors. We can’t sign contracts on our own. Mom and Dad would have to agree to anything, and you know what they’ll say.”

“That we should have as normal a childhood as possible,” Jillian growled with frustration. “Alexander was so lucky. Her grandfather didn’t make her be normal.”

“He must know what it was like, growing up and being like us. Mom and Dad are doing the best they can, but they can’t know how boring it is to try to keep at everyone else’s speed.”

“This might be the perfect way to nail a Hollywood deal, and it’s going to just slip away. Everyone loves us now, but how long is that going to last? A year? Two? It’s not going to last until we’re eighteen.”

Louise liked doing the videos, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to do them another eight years. Hollywood was Jillian’s dream. If Louise had a dream that included Hollywood, it’d be doing nature documentaries like Nigel. “Well, maybe not The Adventures of Queen Soulful Ember, but that doesn’t mean we can’t come up with something just as cool.”