Challenge #00910-B179: Origin Story

More of the Unexpectables please.

Find a need, the expression went, fill a need. And there were people, Munashe well knew, who needed a fairy godmother. She and Corinna came up with the idea over wine and badly-colourised old movies and so far… things had been going well.

Munashe’s first job had been making a power outfit for Corinna so that taller people would take her seriously. Corinna wore it, now, with a polished selection of makeup and refined jewellery that practically blared that she was an adult.

Munashe’s own outfit was her work, too. It said, I can afford to have clothing tailored to my ample frame. And since she practically glowed with health, she hoped that few would comment on her weight.

The Wirths were too polite to comment, at least. An old-money family who managed to stay discrete in a field where money was meant to provide excess. They stayed under the radar. Very, very quiet and restrained. The Wirths had sense.

What baffled Munashe was why they were hiring Corinna and herself. Especially when their resume was so… very, very light.

“We’ve heard that you work miracles,” said Mrs Wirth.

“We need a miracle,” added Mr Wirth.

“It’s our Jemima,” sighed Mrs Wirth. “We’ve almost lost all hope.” And between the two of them, they spun a tale. A brilliant child with amazing scholastic capability gradually became increasingly shut off from the world until all she ever did was mess around on her computers or hide from everyone or everything in her ‘little nook’.

It was where she was hiding now, in the depths of her suite.

Jemima’s suite was twice Munashe’s and Corinna’s separate apartments put together. There was a ‘salon’ and a bedroom and an ensuite. All palatial.

The bedroom had a four-poster with an overhead canopy. But it was the bright colours that gave it away for Munashe. Jemima was allowed to buy what she liked for her own comfort. And what she liked were bright, unnatural colours, shiny, glittery things and huge amounts of soft and fluffy things.

A veritable mountain of plushies almost buried Jemima’s bedclothes.

Corinna found the ‘little nook’ in a walk-in wardrobe. Someone had taken a large, tent-like storage tube and lined the inside with cushions and at least one beanbag. The inside was strung with softly-changing Christmas lights. A dangling, rainbow-clothed sock betrayed the presence of Jemima.

As did the rocking of the tube and a low, monotonous hum.

Munashe felt more than heard Mrs Wirth’s inhale of doom and politely turned with a smile. “We’d like to begin working with Jemima, now,” she said diplomatically. “And that commences in a place of her comfort. It’s going to be all right. We don’t judge.”

Mr Wirth said, “I trust we’re also paying for your discretion in this matter.”

“Of course.”

The wardrobe was bigger than Munashe’s first flat. Corinna made herself comfortable while Munashe examined the books. Conan Arthur Doyle. Louis McMaster Bujold. Terry Pratchett. Ursula K. LeGuin. Douglass Adams. These were books that had been read and read again. They were not like the ones on the public bookshelves, there for display purposes only. These were books that Jemima liked.

Corinna found a rain stick in the book pile and turned it up, making a stream of tiny ball-bearings rattle through the tube.

“Autistic?”

“Definitely,” murmured Munashe. “Either Mr and Mrs Wirth are in denial, or they think Jemima can be cured and turn ‘normal’. Impossible, even if we could do miracles.”

Corinna turned the tube upside-down, making it ‘rain’ again. “They expect something. We can’t tell them there’s nothing we can do.”

The rainbow sock, and the foot inside it, withdrew into the tent.

“Most parents expect socialisation. Making new friends. It’s difficult, isn’t it, Jemima?”

There was a face, staring at them through the vertical slit of the tent. Dark, owlish eyes framed by dark and wavy hair. A vague ghost of a voice, just on the edge of hearing, “…’es.”

“Hello,” cooed Munashe. “I’m Munashe. Some of the kids I work with call me Aunty Moon. And my friend is Corinna.”

“You can call me anything, really,” Corinna joined in with the gentle voice. She tipped the rain stick again. “Cora, Rinny. Or Corinna.”

“…i like mimi,“ murmured Jemima. “…are you gonna take me to an assylum, now?”

What? Were her parents really threatening to do that? Munashe continued to pretend calm. “No. We want to help you out, Mimi. We want to help you feel safe.

Mimi had a taste for bright colours and shiny things, and the almost typical deep-ASD difficulty with concepts like ‘inside out’ and ‘right way around’. She loved rainbows and soft things and making things on her computer.

And, as it turned out, she was a technological genius.

Who could roleplay when she needed to cope.

“Moon,” murmured Corinna. “Remember that cyberstalking case we’re stalled on?”

Munashe began to grin. “Oh yes. Mimi? How would you like to help us help someone else?”

Mimi, though she had emerged from her safety cave, was still hugging herself and rocking. “…i didn’t think i could help anyone until i’m normal…”

“First, I have some really good news - normal doesn’t exist. And second - we can all help other people. All we have to do is figure out how.”

Mimi, in front of her computer array, was almost a completely different person. Gone was the slouch. Gone was the mumbling murmur. The rocking remained, but it was more in the rhythm of her work and kept her focussed.

“It’s not one person, it’s three. That’s why the IP is all over the map,” Mimi said. “They have three places in common. A cybercafe, a library, and the school where your client works. All areas with free wifi. If I take away the wifi origins from the activity map…”

Three houses. With a list of occupants. “All the teenage girls of those houses go to the school. I’d ask them about it.” Mimi turned away from her keyboards. “Is that it? I like being a detective.”

In the end, they sold the job as occupational therapy for Mimi. She got out of the house, spent time working in the office, and got to help people. In turn, Munashe and Corinna allegedly helped with her social skills between cases.

It would be two weeks before they discovered that Mimi functioned better with a human teddy-bear in tow.

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