Sorry: Wrong Dimension

  Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  SORRY: Wrong Dimension

  BY ROSS ROCKLYNNE

  _So the baby had a pet monster. And so nobody but baby could see it. And so a couple of men dropped out of thin air to check and see if the monster was licensed or not. So what's strange about that?_

  Baby didn't cry all day, because he had a monster for a playmate. But Ididn't know he had a playmate, and much less did I know it was amonster. The honest truth is that for the first time since baby wasborn, I had my nerves under control, and I didn't dare investigate whyhe wasn't crying. I got all the ironing done--all of it, mind you--and Igot Harry's work-clothes mended and I also read three installments of aSaturday Evening Post serial I'd been saving. And besides this Mabel, myneighbor, and I had a couple or three cups of coffee. We also had agiggling fit. I remember once we went off into hysterics at the pictureof ourselves we had--two haggard old wrecks of women, worn out attwenty-three from too much work around the house. "But thank Heavensbaby hasn't cried all day!" I gurgled when we came out of it.

  "Neither has mine," said Mabel, who isn't due for six months.

  "Mabel, honest, you kill me," I said, "and excuse me while I comb mymessy hair--because I'm _not_ a wreck. Harry said so. He says I'm stillthe best hunk of female pulchritude he's met since high school--andwe've been married two years!"

  * * * * *

  I went into the bathroom leaving Mabel choking hysterically behind me.When I came out of the bathroom, she was hysterical but in a differentway. She'd discovered why Harry, Jr., wasn't crying. She'd been in thenursery. Her face was white as an egg-shell.

  "He's playing with something," she chattered. "It's _alive_. I heard itcooing back."

  I ran three steps to baby's crib ... one on the corner of Little JackHorner, one on the sheep of Little Bo Peep, one on the cupboard of OldMother Hubbard. "Baby!" I almost screamed. But baby cooed and gurgledand laughed and rocked back and forth on his diapers. He was playingwith his teething ring, but something was trying to jerk the teethingring out of his hands. And baby liked it.

  Baby lost his hold on the teething ring, and fell on his back. Theteething ring stayed up in the air and then by itself moved towardbaby's waving hands and let him get a hold of it.

  Mabel screeched through her teeth, "Baby's got it, the monster's got it,now baby's got it!" She began to collapse.

  "Don't faint," I snapped, "and don't let's play tennis." I was shaking.I reached into the crib. My hands closed around something that putice-water in my vertebrae. It _was_ a monster.

  "It's got fur!" I whispered. I felt some more. "And clammy scales!" Ilifted it out of the crib. "And a trunk!" I was determined to save baby.Baby cried!

  * * * * *

  We got some chairs and sat there for ten minutes close together whilebaby played with the invisible monster. "I don't know what to do!" Isaid. "It's alive. Maybe it's poisonous. But it's friendly. Maybe it'sanother baby!"

  "From another dimension," said Mabel.

  "Rot," I said; I think I picked that up from the detective in theSaturday Evening Post serial. "Let's keep our heads."

  "If baby keeps his," said my friend Mabel.

  That got me. "I've got to call Harry," I chattered. "They don't like himto be called at work, but I've got to call him."

  "You'll just worry him," said Mabel. "Call the police."

  "No!" I said. I felt like crying myself. Baby was so happy. Maybe thebaby monster was happy, too. The police would do something awful to it.But what about my maternal instinct? Something told me I simply had tosave my baby! "I've _got_ to call Harry," I insisted, and I went to the'phone.

  The dial tone sounded peculiar, I remember, but I called Harry's placeof employment. A brisk female voice cut in:

  "What number are you calling, please?"

  "CHarlemont 7-890," I whispered.

  "Sorry. You must have the wrong dimension." There was a click as shedisconnected. I sat like a statue. A haggard statue with a greasyhousedress on. A statue that hadn't plucked its eyebrows in two months.I had a lot of nerve. I was a bad mother, and a poor mistress. And I hada swell husband, who could lie like a trooper. I wasn't any good, I wasugly, I was greasy. I cried. "Mabel," I choked.

  It took her a while to get it out of me, and then her blue eyes flashed."I told you!" she cried. "From another dimension!" In her broken-downgreen wedgies she clattered toward the door. I heard her fighting it.She couldn't get it open. Then she tried a window. It opened, but shecouldn't stick her hand out. She flung herself around.

  "Stella," she said, with a quiver of that good-looking short upper lipof hers, "we're trapped in. We're in the middle of some kind of fantasy.It's a crazy world we're living in, Stella. A-bombs and H-bombs andflying saucers and space-flight--it's all the fiction stuff coming true.Now we're lost in some other dimension, and I have to get dinner in theoven."

  "Please," I mumbled. "Let's don't get desperate about the wrong things."I tried all the doors and windows in the house, and it was true. We weretrapped in. There was some barrier surrounding the house. There wasn'tanything to see outside except a kind of grey steam.

  We went back to check on baby. He was still playing with the monster. Ibent over the crib and held a fluffy, fifty-cent toy bear out. The babymonster took it invisibly out of my hand. He shoved it at baby. Babysquealed so darned happily. And I began to get some perspective.

  "Suspicion is wrong," I told Mabel. "All the time. That's what thatarticle we read a couple months ago in _Your World_ said. Remember youand I decided we'd never be suspicious. Maybe that's the reason we'rehappy--if dirty. We don't suspect anybody of anything if we can helpit--and now's no time to start. The monster is baby's friend."

  * * * * *

  Mabel shuddered. "Okay," she said. "But I'm still worried about gettingdinner in the oven. Bill's liable to--"

  "Hah, now you're being suspicious," I said, lousy with virtue. "Quitworrying. I'm going to call Harry again." This time I was a lot calmer.I decided to trust the universe a little more. I dialed Harry's numberagain. A scratchy male voice answered:

  "Sorry, dis dimension is in use. Would ya please get off da line?"

  I dug a few trenches and established a line of fire.

  "Listen," I said. "I'm in trouble."

  "A dame," he said wonderingly.

  "Yeah, a dame," I cried. "What's so unusual about a dame? Why does everymale in Kingdom Come get that note in his voice when he talks with adame? Sure I'm a dame, a good-looking dame! I'd like to punch you in theeye to prove it!"

  He laughed. He must have turned away from the 'phone. "It's a dame."

  "Okay, find out what she wants."

  "Spill it," he said into the 'phone. I spilled it. "What's that addressagain?" he asked. I told him. "Naw, naw," he said impatiently. "Theplanet. The _planet_. And the year." I told him.

  He must have turned away from the 'phone again, because I heard him sayoff-stage, "They're only ten years away." I was numb. He came back onthe line. "And what's dis about a baby monster? Fur? Scales? A trunk?The size of Harry, Jr.? Ma'am, we'll be there in a jiff," and he hungup.

  Mabel was nervously hanging on my ear, but I didn't get a chance toanswer her questions. The door in the living room opened and they walkedin.

  For a second I saw a ship that looked like a cake-pan, hanging in thegrey steam. Then they closed the door and grinned at us. Instinctively,Mabel and I tried to shrink our bust-lines.

  "Hello," said the tall one. He scratched at his hairy chest and grinnedwider. He was carrying a piece of machinery that looked like a camera ona
tripod. "Lemme introduce myself," he said. "Jake Comstock. We comeover to do you dames a favor. We'll kick you back where you belong."

  "Yeah," I said, "I'll bet."

  "And this here is Beany Rocine. He's my partner. We--uh--work