Fallo Gapple has an interesting day

Fallo Gapple was convinced that he'd heard his master's voice up there, calling for help.  He didn’t know why Madame Voskamp would be in that apartment, but Fallo's knowledge of his master's social schedule was limited beyond the portion of the day when he was at her beck and call.  He listened, turning his tiny orange head to get all of his ears in on the action, trying to hear again what he'd just heard and convince himself it wasn't what he'd thought. 

Of course, his being here at this particular moment was coincidence or serendipity, or just plain bad luck.  He’d been crossing this human neighborhood on an impromptu walk from his apartment in the Imp Quarter, and it was only thanks to the keen sense of hearing that his species had been either graced or cursed with that he’d even heard the voice at all. 

“Help!”  The voice was faint, but it clearly belonged to Madame Voskamp.  Fallo sprung into action.  Well, “sprung” might have been an overstatement.  He said “pardon me” to a portion of the sea of human legs swirling around his small frame, said “excuse me” when the “pardon me” proved ineffective, and when that didn’t work, he waved his orange arms over his head and made a ululating noise that he thought might scare them off.  He was finally able to get across the flow and to the door. 

The buzzers for this building were at human eye level, so for him they might as well have been at the top of the Peak of Thrall.  He hopped as high as he could, managing to smack the lowermost two buttons with the tips of his long, orange fingers, hoping someone would answer, and landed hard on his claws, wincing.    

No answer. 

Fallo pounded on the door. 

Nothing.

 “Can I help you, little fellow?”  A voice from behind.  Fallo whirled around and faced a set of knees.  He looked up into the leaning face of a particularly tall human.

“I need to get in there.  My master is in trouble,” said Fallo.

“Now how do you know that?”

“I heard her.  With these,” said Fallo, pointing to all three of the ears arranged around his bald, pyramidal skull.

“Well, I live here, so I'm going to open the door, and I'll let you in, but you behave yourself, ok little guy?  I don't want to have to call a Reclamation unit on you.”

Fallo bristled at the human's condescension, but held back any insult.

“Yes, sir,” he said instead.  “Thank you, sir.”

The human's legs swept past Fallo, and the human's hands opened the building's door with a swipe card.  Fallo followed behind and entered the building.

The lobby had been hexed to be bigger on the inside, so what had looked like a simple brownstone from the outside was now a sumptuous mansion's entry hall, and a sweeping staircase led upward. An elevator with blue doors stood next to it.  The human walked to a bank of mailboxes on one side, and Fallo walked to the elevator and pressed “up.”

Fallo fidgeted as he waited for the elevator.  When it arrived, he discovered to his annoyance that it, too, had been hexed to be bigger on the inside, no doubt an expensive touch to quell claustrophobia in the building's residents.

His ears had pinpointed the sound of Madame Voskamp's voice to an apartment on the fourth floor, so he pressed the button to go to that floor.  The elevator doors, much farther away from him than they should have been, closed, and the elevator started moving.

At the fourth floor, the doors opened, and Fallo felt a weird sense of vertigo as he exited the cavernous elevator into a narrow hallway that could not have possibly contained it. 

Madame Voskamp screamed to his left.  He launched himself at a door, hit it, and bounced off, his thin shoulder throbbing. 

Still, he'd clearly made enough noise to rouse the occupants.  The door opened, and a human male, who Fallo estimated to be somewhere in that vague age range humans called “middle,” answered wearing a shiny purple robe that flowed down to a bare set of feet.  Fallo looked past the human to see if he could get a glimpse of Madame Voskamp. 

“Yes?”  The human male asked.

“Is Madame Voskamp here?”

“Who?”

“Fallo? That you, Fallo?”

“I'm here, Madame.  I heard you calling for help.”

“What?  No I didn't.”

“We're all fine here,” said the man, blocking Fallo from entering.

 “But I could swear -”

“Did you just talk back to me?” The man asked.

“No, sir.  I just -”

“Fallo, it's all fine,” said Madame Voskamp from somewhere.  Fallo trained his ears, trying to get a sense of her state of mind. 

It honestly all seemed to be fine. 

Then what was that all about?

“A- are you sure you're ok, Madame?”

“Yeah,” said Madame Voskamp, coming to the door at last.  She was clad in a skintight plastic leotard, which should not have looked that good on her, and a set of handcuffs dangled unlocked from one wrist.  

Oh. 

His orange cheeks flushed pink, and he had an overwhelming urge to crawl into a hole and pull a blanket over his head forever. 

“Oh, um, very sorry to disturb. I thought you – I'll just...”  He bowed effusively and backed into the hallway. 

“Be at the club early tonight, Fallo.  I'm doing my special act,” said Madame Voskamp.    She gave a little giggle.  The man closed the door.

Fallo leaned against the wall next to the apartment door and closed his eyes.  He took a deep breath.  He swatted at his work shorts and tunic absentmindedly, as if the humiliation could be brushed away like tangible crumbs.

“What are you doing in here, imp?”  A short human was addressing him, a male child, about Fallo's height. 

“Nothing, apparently,” Fallo responded.  “Wasting my time,” he added.

“Is it true you can walk through doors?”

Fallo winced at that.  “No.”

“But I heard -”

“Some imps can walk through doors.  I cannot.  Which, to be honest, was a good thing just now.”

“Why?” 

“Because of reasons.” 

“What reasons?”

“Reasons you'll know about when you're older.  Now, please excuse me.”  Fallo turned away from the child and walked down the hall back to the elevator.  The blue doors opened and the impossibly large space behind them caverned away from him.  He decided to take the stairs.

Back out on the street, Fallo seethed.  He knew that nothing that had just happened had been Madame Voskamp's fault, per se, but it was the sense of obligation he had for her well-being that was really pissing Fallo off.  Fallo was a smart imp, smarter than a lot of other imps he knew.  And yet here he was.  Subservient.  Menial.  Doing his imp duty. 

“Hey, brother,” a voice said behind him.  It was his old friend, Ganna Magog, a tall imp as imps went, with pointier ears than Fallo had, and a penchant for wearing brightly colored scarves.  Fallo turned and embraced the other imp with enthusiasm.

“Hey, Ganna,” said Fallo. 

“What are you doing in this part of town?”

Fallo shook his head.  “Don't even ask.  It's just...don't even ask.  What are you doing here?”

Instead of an answer, the other imp said, “Listen, I'm glad I ran into you, actually.  There's a meeting in three days.  A meeting of imps.  I want you there.”

“What?  Meeting?  What are you talking about?”

Ganna shook his head.  “Ok, I really think we should keep our voices down.  Come over here.”  Ganna grabbed Fallo by the elbow and maneuvered him around the current of knees to the mouth of an alley. 

“What's so secretive?”

“SHH.  Look, this is about imp self-preservation.  Imp self-determination.  It's about thinking about our relationship to humans in a completely different way.”

“Whoa, what?”

“What are you two imps conspiring about?”  The voice came from a green clad Reclamation officer standing nearby.  The sea of pedestrians parted for him. 

“Nothing, just catching up on old times, officer.  Sorry,” said Ganna. 

“Move along, you two,” said the officer.

“I'll get in touch with you later,” said Ganna.  Fallo nodded.  Ganna walked away.  The officer gave Fallo a sideways glance and then moved on.