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Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE


Button spent the rest of the morning listening to Change and his tailor arguing behind closed doors, the muffled shouts betraying a dispute over the weight Change had put on around his midriff. Button had made the mistake of pointing this out when trying to squeeze him into his dinner jacket a week ago. It was safe to say that Button now made sure that she complimented the President daily on his appearance and impeccable dress-sense.

It fell to her to focus on performing her main and, as Change would argue, her most vital role for the rest of the morning. It revolved around misdirecting calls to unmanned telephones that had been set up in empty cupboards all across the building. Extensions four through nineteen were dead ends. Twenty used to be the same, but as punishment for trying to get the President to field a call this morning a hapless intern was now stationed in a broom cupboard on the third floor with a working telephone on that number. Occasionally, however, an interesting call would come through and Button would spend a few minutes indulging the person on the other end. One woman had misdialled whilst looking for the Water Board and before Button had a chance to correct the lady on her mistake she was on the receiving end of a tirade regarding the state of her bill. It turned out that the woman had a legitimate complaint and Button spent a good fifteen minutes making surprised, sympathetic and outraged noises down the phone. Other than that, Button managed to snag herself two bags of free samples from this month’s Clothes Show, care of an eager-to-please representative who was desperate to secure an appearance by the President. It was, to the casual observer, a pretty normal morning for Button. The sweat patches under her armpits and the myriad of crazy doodles across her paperwork suggested otherwise.

Button perked up when Bob, one of the senior members of the Church of the Great Hand, pushed his thin, anaemic face against the frosted glass that looked into her office. He then slipped through the open door and slunk up to her desk. The hairs on the back of her neck started to ever-so-slowly rise up and she could feel her heart palpitate, what felt very loudly, in her chest.

Why do you feel so nervous? The question lingered. You’re going to tell him what happened to you this morning…right?

Meetings with the senior members of the Church of the Great Hand represented the only work Change was forced to do on a regular basis. They held high ranking positions and wielded a lot of power between them. One of the worst kept secrets in politics was that the National Church of Lomme held a great deal of influence, something which permeated all aspects of governmental life. Its agenda was the country’s agenda. Whomever the church officials supported, the country supported. And so, the President had little choice but to listen to them.

There were five of members of the Senior Clergy in total. The first was the Mighty Thumb; he was in charge, whilst the other four were a part of his cabinet. They were the Impressive Index (Finger), the Grand Middle (Finger) and the Eminent Ring (Finger). Despite natural convention suggesting that the last officeholder should have the words ‘pinkie’’ and ‘finger’ somewhere in their title, someone had dropped the ball and failed to come up with the obvious moniker. The position was eventually named after the first person to have held it. The Bob and the other four clergy members met with the President on various days throughout the week: the Mighty Thumb on Monday morning; the Bob usually accompanied the Great Index on Tuesdays; the Grand Middle on Wednesdays and the Ring on Thursdays.

As the mammoth wad of paper in her kitchen swiftly returned to the forefront of her mind, she silently thanked her lucky digits that it was the Bob she’d be speaking to rather than anyone else. At least he seemed vaguely normal.

“Hello Bee.” The Bob dropped noiselessly into a chair opposite.

Come on Button! Do your civic duty!

Her inner voice sounded as enthused about the idea of giving up her Gift as it had earlier, but something else inside, something innate and insidious, was winning out. It was a strange desire that wanted her to just hold onto the thing, at least until she’d figured out what it was precisely. It had hovered there all morning, gnawing away at her concentration. She so desperately wanted to take another look at it, to just take a peek at the strange combination of symbols she’d only momentarily clocked before having to leave the house. Button glanced down at her to-do list and noticed just how busy it was with numerous little doodles of the numbers and letters she’d seen before folding it up this morning.

She slowly moved her hand over the notepaper and, ever-so-slowly, crumpled it up.

The Bob rummaged around in his pockets and took out a grimy tissue. After blowing his nose noisily, he stuffed the filthy article back into his robes. They were far too big for him and the rich colours made him look exceedingly pale. Button got the distinct impression that they were seldom washed. Other than his poor personal hygiene, he was a nice man. Like her, he didn’t care much for pomp and ceremony either.

She opened and closed her mouth a few times before her brain fully kicked into gear and she managed to form words. They weren’t quite the words she’d hoped would escape her mouth.

“How’s your wife?”

The Bob shrugged. “Eh, about the same. Oh, she has been spending a lot of time out in the garden.”

“Oh? Growing anything interesting?”

The Bob sniffed. “No, burying the fish.”

“I see.” She didn’t.

“They’re dead,” he added. “I knocked over our tank yesterday. Algae all over the carpet.”

He was a simple man, was The Bob. Change often complained about how infuriatingly banal he was, how he would ramble on and on about nothing and anything in their meetings and wouldn’t take the hint that he just wasn’t welcome. Several months ago, the President had called Button into his office and demanded they come up with some sort of code that, when spoken, would prompt Button to make up a reason for why The Bob (and anybody else with him) should leave immediately. Button had nodded along dutifully but, of course, done nothing. It was one of the few little acts of rebellion that she allowed herself from time to time. It had made her feel proud of herself, even though she’d received a lot of earache for, what Change called “utter insubordination”. Change had since dropped the pretense and didn’t even bother to hide when he wanted the Head Clergy to leave. He’d simply murmur something about needing to get on and wave them out of the room. This was something he was able to do with most of them but never with The Mighty Thumb. He decided when he left. Change behaved when he was around.

Button nodded slowly as she listened to The Bob narrate the story of how he inadvertently killed his wife’s pets, whilst mulling over how best to introduce the topic of a giant piece of paper from the heavens. Finally, she settled on something that she hoped sounded nonchalant.

“So, anything interesting fall out of the sky recently?”

The Bob peered at her curiously. “Interested in religious affairs all of a sudden?”

Button shrugged. Truthfully, and despite the wealth of evidence sitting in her kitchen, she wasn’t a particularly religious person. The Great Hand itself was pretty difficult to deny as a large proportion of the population had witnessed what only could be described as fingertips coming out of the clouds. Along with the infrequent dropping of strange objects, it wasn’t so much a case of faith with the Great Hand, but that of knowing. It was the mythology surrounding the Great Hand was something entirely more subjective and tightly controlled by the Church. Their opinions of the Hand, its desires, whims, beliefs etc. were what Button found difficult to believe in.

“Nothing of note, I’m afraid. The last Gift was a boulder, which fell on a field of grazing animals. Nasty business. Kept it a bit more hush-hush. Some of my fellow clergy wanted to label it as the act of a vengeful being and a sign of the impending judgement, but we thought something that apocalyptic might put a downer on everyone’s day.”

Button brightened a bit. “So some Gifts aren’t particularly welcomed by the Church?”

“Welcomed? Maybe not…but you didn’t hear me say that.” He tapped his nose and winked. “But doesn’t mean that we don’t want them, thank The Great Hand.” Button was never sure whether she actually had to thank the Great Hand when people said that so she mumbled in agreement and cast her eyes to the ceiling for appearances-sake. The Bob sucked air in through his teeth and continued. “We display everything we get…albeit without the particulars of how it arrived here.” He guffawed. “Even the lint.”

Button shook her head in disbelief. Even the lint. Even the matted balls of grey material that appeared everywhere and was, thus, credited as some sort of manifestation of the Great Hand itself, they kept it all.

The message was clear.

Come on, Button!

She opened her mouth and closed it again. A guilty blush slowly rose up her neck, headed towards her pale cheeks. Bob stared at her curiously.

“Are you alright Bu-”

The Bob was interrupted as the Impressive Index and his PA strolled through the door. Button’s blush quickly receded.

“Granola and muesli are not the same thing, Miss Cara. I demand you go away and research the difference before putting that muck in front of me again.”

“Research muesli. Yes sir. Got it. Anything else?”

“For the Church fundraiser tonight, no olives. I want no sight of olives. Slippery little...” He stopped mid-sentence and smiled grotesquely at Button. The whole left-side of his face looked lopsided and it took a lot of effort not to tip one’s head in order to try and bring the two sides level. The corner of his mouth was turned down and the left nostril looked distinctly larger than the other. He tended to squint out of his right eye as well. If he wasn’t such a loathsome man, Button might almost find him comical.

“Please take a seat,” she said to the two men. “I’ll let the President know that you are here.”

Button opened the President’s door a crack to see if the argument had died down. Change had his arms up at ninety-degrees to his body and was stood with both of his legs apart. He looked over at her expectantly.

“Yes, Button?”

“The Impressive Index and The Bob are here to see you, sir.”

“Send them in,” he replied, commandingly.

“Are you sure?” Button narrowed her pale-blue eyes and gave Change a quizzical stare.

“Oh, yes.”

Button shrugged and threw the doors wide open, just as the tailor asked whether Change dressed to the right or left.

Next Chapter: Chapter Four