Meepy's Interest, by Kristy

Meepy didn't want to be found. I told Tersa I'd get Meepy, and considering the mood I left her in, I wasn't going back without the monkey.

If Meepy wanted to be found, you couldn't stop yourself finding him. Even when you tried. But when he didn't want to be found, forget it in a billion languages. I guess he was playing hide and seek with me or something. Very cute, Meep.

I wandered around, saw my dad working on someone's machine, waved and kept going. He was such a star last time we talked, I didn't want to test it with another conversation. My class was in with Sra Bainbridge, all of them except me and Ters. I waved to them too. Sra Bainbridge just shook her head because she gave up on me a few galaxies ago.

Then I remembered what Tersa said about Meepy having a telerally. I could check the viewslots. Sure as shallot stars, he was on.

He was wearing his wool scarf, the kind people used to wear back before the Animal House Revolution. He looked spacey as a floating teacup in it. That was the point, I guess. Think about it. What does an animal with natura-fur need wool duds for? And since the advent of total climacontrol a hundred billion years ago or whenever, what does anyone need a scarf for? Yeah. His disciples dug him for it. "Wool scarf, yeah why not, go-go Meepy!" And that tribble.

Meepy let out a roar that shook even me, and I've heard it before. He practices it in front of a screen. It's hard to remember he has a few billion followers, sure as peloti. But yeah, his viewers roared back all into it and raging. Meepy smiled. His vintage smile. I happen to know he has an orthodontist on pay who specializes in nonhuman primates. But forget what I know in a billion languages--again. Meepy could get those billions of crazed animals to do anything he said.

"Alama Neca to Pets!" said Meepy. The creatures screamed. It's their ironic greeting phrase and it's been around for a millennium, but they acted like he invented it then and there.

"Okay, okay, thank you," said Meepy to quiet his frenzied viewers. "I organized this telerally today for a very specific purpose."

(He digs on the ancient classics and even talks that way. The animals love it without doubt, but I don't have a grasp.)

"There is something serious going on all around us, today and every day. You've probably seen it, but I want to call your attention to it right now. Every day, you may see what I see: animals drinking water."

Meepy threw in one of his famous pauses. His followers waited.

"We know that the essential juices created by our revered Rev Salika, foremother of the Revolution, contain everything animals need for optimal nutrition. But we don't always drink them. Sometimes--often--we drink water instead. (I say 'we' in the friendly sense, not the literal. I never drink water.) Why is this? Perhaps it's to save a credit or two. Maybe our local purveyor has run out of Esse Juice?"

Meepy looked through the viewer with his sarcasm face. He's an ace at acting. To be true, I wonder if he's following an acting career and it's only the disciples that think he's doing the political thing.

Meepy frowned. "I consider it the most pressing issue of our times. Who filters water?"

He paused. After a galaxy or two, the viewers dug they were supposed to answer this time.

"Humes!" they shouted.

"Yes, humans. Who creates the channels and systems through which the water flows?"

"Humes!"

"Yes. And which phylum created Esse Juice?"

"Animals!"

"Who controls the production and distribution of Esse Juice?"

"Animals!"

"And who has our best interests at heart?" Meepy put on his fatherlike aura.

"Animals!"

"Who?"

"Animals!!"

"Did you say humans?"

"Animals!!!"

It was cosmically deafening. He had them in a true rare spirit.

Meepy smiled broadly. I wouldn't have cared for it if I were them, but the viewers smiled back through. "What will we drink, from this day forward, exclusively?"

You guess what they screamed.

Later I caught Meepy, mostly because he wanted to be found now. He wasn't even fazed after the rally. He took off the stupe scarf and rolled up his jeans another length.

"Meepy, tell me true," I said first. I thought I'd warm up to getting him to visit Tersa in her bubb. "You have a fiscal interest in Esse Juice?"

"For true, man," he said. He grinned at me.