Mathemagician

Midday shifts during an excessive heat warning were quiet at the gas station, and Lenny took advantage of that. The pumps had been turned off for over forty-eight hours, waiting for a fuel delivery that continued to be delayed.

He leaned against the cigarette display behind him, letting the stool tip on two feet. With no gas, no one was showing up to buy overpriced snacks and drinks. No one, that is, except the kid that struggled to pull the door open, then stood in the middle of store, in the flow of cold air from the air conditioner.

He’d seen pictures of cosplay online, but this was on a different level. Made up to look like some sort of green creature with long, pointed ears and pointed teeth with large canines both top and bottom, and what Lenny guessed were black-out contacts on very large eyes.

“Hey kid, Halloween’s a long way off.”

She turned toward him. “Kid?”

His first guess was that she was five or six based on her height, but as she looked at him now, he realized that she had a few faint lines around her eyes, and a figure that was far more mature than he’d guessed. He sat upright, the front legs of the stool clacking as they hit the tiled floor.

“Oh, god! Ma’am, I am so sorry. I just saw you walk in rather than drive, and you’re so short….” He cleared his throat. “I’ll, uh…like, still need to card you for cigarettes or alcohol, sorry.”

“What should I expect from a human?” she asked aloud, looking up at nothing in particular.

“That’s a really good costume — cosplay? — whatever you call it. Like, the skin and eyes look real. How did you do the teeth?”

She glowered at him. “What the hell don’t you understand? I am not wearing a costume or disguise. This is me.”

Lenny cocked his head. He wondered how far she was willing to push it. He’d heard of people who had other personas in their costumes. Well, if that’s what she wanted to do, it wasn’t hurting anyone.

“Is there, like, anything I can help you find?”

She pointed at the display on the counter near the cash register. “What potions are these?”

“Uh — those are energy drinks,” he said, pointing at the sign on the display.

“Do you have any healing potions?” she asked. “My sister’s injured.”

Lenny puzzled over how to answer that. “Um, there’s aspirin and stuff on aisle four.”

“Can you show me?”

“Yeah, it’s quiet.” He locked the register, dropped the keys into his pocket and led the small, green woman to the aisle with the first aid supplies.

She began pointing and asking what everything was. Lenny interrupted her. “You can’t read? That’s fucked up. Where did you grow up?”

“Not on this world,” she said.

“Okay, fine. Where did you learn English then?”

She sighed. “This ring,” she said, pointing at a ring on her left thumb.

“You learned English from a ring?”

“No, it translates spoken language. Simple magic.”

Lenny raised an eyebrow. She really was dedicated to the whole bit, but he was getting tired of it. “If you don’t mind, I’ll go back to the register.”

She grabbed his elbow, her thumb digging into the ulnar nerve, turning his attention back to her and nearly putting him on his knees. She removed the ring from her thumb. “Grrshazink rashishlk brszdilknuch.” She held it out toward him, urging him to take it.

Lenny took the ring, and she kept babbling nonsense and motioning that he should put it on his left thumb. It was too small, but he thought he’d humor her anyway. He turned his back to her so she couldn’t see when or if he put the ring on.

As the ring settled comfortably on his thumb, growing three sizes to do so, her babbling turned back to English. “…and if you think you’re so much smarter, why don’t you read the writing on my shirt?”

Lenny spun around. “I—I didn’t know it was writing. I thought it was just a design.”

“Now you know how I feel looking at all this,” she said with a sweep of her arm.

“But how did…the ring grew…but—”

“Let me guess,” she cut him off, “this is one of those ‘There is no magic’ worlds, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s….” The ring vibrated with an energy that Lenny found both soothing and disquieting. The unease won out and he pulled it off his thumb and handed it back to her.

“Magic is everywhere,” she said, after she put the ring back on. “Your world probably forgot it a long time ago, unless you figured out physics first and still haven’t discovered magic.”

“I haven’t asked yet, but what’s your name?”

“Ishgurk,” she said, “but everyone just calls me ‘Ish.’”

“Ish, I’m Lenny. Uh, welcome to Earth?”

“Lenny. That sounds like a warrior’s name, but you don’t look like a warrior.”

“I’m not. It’s actually a pretty shit name here, but my parents are like, huge Simpsons fans.”

“I think your name is just fine. Now, if you’d help me, I need medicines for swelling, pain, some bandages, and antiseptics.”

As she talked, Lenny pulled items off the shelf for her, and she followed up by pulling another dozen of each and handing them to him.

“Maybe you should take her to the hospital?”

She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “And what are they going to say when two goblins walk in?”

“Oh, right. I—I’ll set this up by the cash register,” he said, his arms full.

“What kind of food and drink do you have?”

He dumped the first aid supplies on the counter and returned to her. “We have hot dogs over there, and frozen dinners, but our microwave is busted. Candy on that aisle. Drinks are all in the cooler on the back wall.”

She looked up at the hot dog machine and took a deep sniff. “Make me two of those,” she said.

Lenny put together two dogs for her, adding every topping as she just agreed with each one as he asked. While he was closing the lids on the hotdog boxes, she took one from him and devoured the hotdog in the time it took her to walk to the drink coolers.

“I need something like a strong tea,” she said. “I’m tired and still have a ways to go before my day is done.”

He stood beside the cooler and began pointing out her options. “These are tea, but not very strong, these are iced coffee, stronger than tea, with a load of sugar and cream, and these are sodas, mostly sugar with some caffeine—”

Ishgurk interrupted him. “Without sugar, and no cream, please.”

He pointed to the energy drinks on the top row. “These are all sugar-free, but they’re still sweet. They’re, like, five or ten times more caffeine than the tea.”

She nodded and waved her hand toward the cooler. One of the cans on the top shelf rose into the air and glided gently down to her waiting hand. “Oh! It’s so cold!”

“Yeah. Are you sure that’s the one you want? It’s pretty strong.”

“What is it flavored with?”

“Just, like, citrus or something.”

“Good enough.” She carried the drink to the counter. “Since you have cold boxes, do you have ice?”

“Sure. Let me grab you a bag.” Lenny pulled the keys out of his pocket, opened the locked ice chest near the register, pulled out a bag, and re-locked the chest. “I’ll just get you rung up here real quick.”

He scanned the items, loading them into bags as he went, the total climbing on the register. After scanning the drink Ishgurk still held between her hands, he said, “Your total is 76.57.”

Ishgurk set the drink on the counter and reached into a pouch she’d pulled from inside her shirt. “Will this work?” she asked, holding out two small, unadorned, golden disks; like blank coins.

“Um…is that, like, real gold?”

She bit into one of the disks, leaving an impression of her teeth. “Pure gold. 24 karat.”

Lenny put his hand out. She dropped them in his palm, and he was surprised at the weight of them. He put them on the digital scale, where they showed up as just over one-half-ounce together. A quick search on his phone found that the gold value in the two coins was around a thousand dollars.

“That’s, like, way too much,” he said. “Your total is less than a tenth of that.”

“Keep it,” she said. “I may still need your help later. My sister — the perfect one — is injured, and until she’s capable of moving easily, we can’t open a new portal. This place is close to where we’re hiding and has supplies.”

Lenny swiped his own debit card to pay for her purchase. “Are you sure, Ish? I mean, it’s…a lot.”

“I’m sure. If my sister is feeling better in the morning, we’ll come back together for more hotdogs. I liked it.”

She took the bags from the counter one by one, and they disappeared into the pouch she’d pulled the coin from. Lenny watched wide-eyed at the casual display of magic. Whatever he thought he’d known about the universe had been upended.

“So, like, what’s the deal with your sister? You don’t like her?”

Ishgurk sighed. “I love my sister, honest. It’s just that she’s got the perfect darker green skin, jet black hair with no green streaks—”

“I like your green streaks.”

“—longer fangs, and the prettier name; Grzzniksh. On top of all that, she’s a gifted mage while all I can do is light telekinesis. I could never wrap my head around the advanced math for magic.”

“I think Ishgurk is the prettier name,” Lenny said, “and you have nothing to worry about in the looks department. I mean, like, you’re small but you’re cute…attractive, I mean. You could get a guy — or girl, if you prefer — easy. As for math, that’s what calculators are for, and advanced math is beyond most everybody, probably. Besides, you’re the one taking care of your sister.”

“Thanks, Lenny. Even if you’re just saying it to make me feel better, it makes me feel better.”

“Just calling it the way I see it.”

Lenny saw her puzzling over the can and showed her how to open it. She seemed delighted with the novel experience. After a tentative sip, she guzzled down the can in seconds before letting out a massive belch and falling into a laughing fit.

Worry setting in, Lenny asked, “Are you going to be okay? That’s a lot of caffeine for someone so—”

Ishgurk smiled wide. “I’m fine. In fact, that’s better than a vigor potion! I’ll be having another in the morning,” she said, handing him the empty can.

“Wait,” he said. He grabbed a pre-paid cell phone off the display behind him, rang it up and ran his card again. After opening the box and activating the phone, he dialed it from his phone and added his number to the contacts. He set the permissions to allow both phones to see the other’s location.

He showed her how to call him and had her do so for practice. While he understood what she was saying from standing next to her, her voice from the phone was not translated.

“Okay. If you’re in trouble, call me and say ‘Help.’ Take off your ring and tell me your word for help.”

She took off her ring and said, “Grrsh.”

He said, “Grrsh, help.”

“Hellup,” she said, before putting the ring back on.

Lenny smiled. “If you call and say help in your language or mine, I’ll know you need me. We can both see where the other’s phone is on this app here so, I can come right away and help, or you can find me if you want.”

“How will I know when you are here?”

Lenny pointed to the location of the phones on the map. “If my phone is here, I’m here.”

“This is a map, and these lines are streets?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s nice to know that humans on this world are kind to goblins,” she said.

“Well, I would guess that most would be if they talked to you. Some, though, don’t even like other humans. So, maybe, some humans on this world are kind to goblins?”

“As my sister, the great and ever-precise mage and mathematician would say: ‘We know that at least one human on this world is kind to at least one goblin.’”

“As soon as she’s well enough, bring her by to see me and we can make that at least two.”