The Room of Ridiculousness

Maizy made Branch super light again, and he zoomed up the tree. He was beaming, having a wonderful time. He loved carrying Maizy on his back!

"We're going to get you outfitted with your own poncho and gloves today," Branch said, still trying not to laugh. "Just... try not to make farting sounds while my mom's fitting you! Ha!"

"Ki iiigaaah!" Maizy squeaked, the memory of the door still too fresh—and too funny.

"Hah! You sound hilarious!" Branch grinned, vowing to make her laugh as much as possible today.

"Then we're going out on a special delivery. With your ascendals, I bet we'll be done in no time." He paused, thinking. "Oh—and you're the only one allowed to use them right now. Postmaster's orders. Because of the Kad Post Cup."

They reached the courtyard outside the Post Office, and Maizy hopped down.

"Kad Post Cup?"

"Every wobble, we have a race to see who the fastest deliverer is," Branch explained. "Look." He pointed above the Post Office, where a few kads were hanging a banner that read, "Kad Post Cup."

"We always lose. Ugh." He threw his hands up. "There's this monster of a mountain kad who's won every Kad Post Cup since before I was born. Every wobble, it's the same thing. He says, 'I'm going to beat the record this wobble,' then he fails and swears he'll beat it next time. He's just so fast on the ground parts. No one can keep up."

Then Branch turned to Maizy. "But you are going to turn it all around for us!" He gave a sinister grin. "Because for you—with your ascendals—there is no ground part.  Muwahahaha!" He cackled.

They want me to compete!?  Maizy pointed at herself, giving Branch a questioning look.

"Yes, you. You're going to be our competitor this wobble!" He smiled brightly. "Mom says that if you win—and we all know you will—you get a whole wobble of vacation!"

Awesome! I can get out of half of my mandatory service!  Maizy suddenly felt super motivated.

Branch smiled. "Once we're done getting you outfitted, my job today is to take you through the course so you know where to go." He raised his eyebrows. "Not that it's complicated.  For you," he pointed at Maizy, "it's a straight shot from here to Stillhome. You deliver a letter to the Post Office there, pick up another letter, then come back to the finish line here—where you started."

"I'm looking forward to seeing the expression on Slope's face when he finally makes it back here and sees you broke the record by some huge amount, hah!" He pumped his fist in the air. "Your ascendals were invented just in time! Oh, this is so perfect, because the mountain kads don't know about them yet! They left the mountain yesterday and will be arriving this afternoon—so there's no way they could've heard about them or made their own."

As they made their way into the Post Office, Maizy noticed that Grove's carvings had been covered by a big piece of paper that said, "Under Renovation."

Smart.

Instead of going down the ramp or into the conference room, Branch went toward the door he had emerged from yesterday. "Your new poncho and gloves are in here."

Once inside, Maizy's eyes lit up in shock.

This must be the 'room of ridiculousness' Nook mentioned!

The room was overflowing with stuffed animals and dozens of little kad dolls. Pink and purple pastels dominated the space. Large spools of cloth hung from the walls, and a corner area had clearly been set up for sewing and embroidery. There was even something resembling a sewing machine.

The Postmaster then appeared from a ramp that led to the floor above.

"Oh good, you're here." The Postmaster was smiling—a rare event. She picked up what might have been the smallest Kad Post poncho ever made. "The Woodmaster gave me your sizes, so I don't think alterations will be necessary."

"Unless you wreck it regularly like some kads." She squinted at Branch.

She walked over to Maizy and lowered the poncho over her head. Unlike adult kad ponchos, it was sewn closed in the front, so no woggle or button was needed to keep it on.

"Yesss." The Postmaster beamed. "So cute!"

Branch's eyes lit up as he noticed the hood. "It's got ears! Wow! Good idea, Mom!"

Ears?

The Postmaster grinned. "Yes. Yes! At first I made round ears like a kad, but then I thought better of it and made them more like kittay ears. Gods!" Her eyes went glassy and she started rocking back and forth.

"Mirror?" Maizy signed.

"Over here." Branch closed the door leading into the lobby—there was a mirror on the back.

Maizy looked at herself in the mirror and grinned. Then she gave an open-mouthed smile. Then she looked at herself sideways. Then she spun around and looked some more.

Eee! I AM cute! Yes! Okay WHAT, you did good on this one.  Maizy was satisfied with her body—and this super-cute poncho.

"Gloves?" Maizy signed.

The Postmaster snapped out of her trance just long enough to point to a spot next to the sewing machine where a set of fingerless gloves sat on top of a book about sewing. Maizy ran over to try them on.

Is this snake skin?

Branch noticed Maizy looking very closely at her new gloves. "They're made out of that demon you killed. They may have magic properties—but who cares? They're sooo black. So cool." He gave a thumbs-up.

I guess I should try them out.  Maizy pressed her right palm on the sewing book and shrank it. Probably a bit too much.  Oops.  She grimaced as she searched the table for the now-tiny book.

A fraction of a moment later, she spotted it and managed to restore it to normal size. She tried to make it bigger than that but it didn't work.

Branch saw her quizzical look and thought he understood. "You can't make books bigger than their original size, but there are some things where that works."

Maizy gave Branch a questioning glance.

"Magic crystals—if they're touching the tree," Branch laughed. "I tried once, thinking I could save tap time by making crystals bigger at the top. Turns out it takes so much magic it's not worth it. I nearly passed out, haha."

Tap time?

The Postmaster broke free of her trance. "She's too young to be think about that, Branch. Let her just be a kaydee."

"Hah! That's rich, coming from you!" Branch sounded unusually petulant. "You had me collecting sap as soon as I could make it from the bottom to the top!"

She squinted at her keedo. "Would you rather have gone on deliveries?"

Branch pressed. "So those were official Post Office tasks then?"

There's something more here that they're not saying.

The Postmaster looked at Maizy. "You know what? I think you're ready to go!"

Branch took the hint. "Okay Maizy, let's go do your first delivery."

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Branch led Maizy to the back of the Post Office, where two uppee devices sat beneath an open ceiling. Off to one side were baskets of letters. Above them, neat labels read: Local, Mountain Village, University, Stillhome, and Remote. A small red basket sat empty.

The red basket must be for red letters... direct-to-person?  Maizy wasn’t quite sure how those worked.

Branch pointed at the baskets marked Local. "Local deliveries are for destinations in the tree, as well as the kittay village, Mirehaven. Make sure you check the destination when doing local deliveries, you're too young to go down to Mirehaven on your own."

Maizy signed, "How know where?"

"You want to know how to tell where each letter goes?" Branch asked.

Maizy nodded.

"Well, every address is listed on the maps over there." He pointed at a number of maps on the wall—each one for a specific branch or layer of the tree. "Obviously not all branches are laid out evenly, so you'll have to learn which ones are higher or lower than the base level of the map."

Branch laughed. "There are only sixty-two branches with addresses! How hard could it be? Haha."

Ugh.

Maizy ran over to the wall of maps to get a good look at them—locking them into memory. Branch knew exactly what she was doing and laughed again. "Good luck with that! The maps are fairly accurate, but trying to chart a tree that grows twelve decasticks in random directions every wobble isn't easy."

"All of us shapers are constantly doing maintenance on everyone's buildings to make sure they don't fall off the tree. Two wobbles ago, Doctor Roof's place actually did fall off. Total fiasco. That's why his new place is all shiny and has that super-strong ramp. I helped build it." He gave a thumbs-up, clearly proud of his work.

Maizy signed, "Why not use pouch DIMENSIONS?"

"I don't really understand it, but if you have too many close together, they can interfere with each other."

Ah.  Maizy nodded.

"If you want to lock maps into memory..." He pointed across the room, where a map of Gnotus hung next to a larger area map with Bark Village in the center.

Maizy ran over and studied it.  Fifteen continents and a zillion islands? What the heck?

Branch rummaged through the "Stillhome" basket and pulled out a scroll that was rolled but untied. "Here we go. This one's for a building near the Post Office over there. We'll make it your first delivery. Probably the longest first delivery ever." He nodded, then tossed it to Maizy—who was quick, but still fumbled and dropped it.

Branch giggled, "That was kind of pathetic, haha."

Hey!

Maizy signed, "I'm only 7 days!"

Branch grinned, "Haha, I'm just fluffin' your tail."

"Try shrinking that letter just enough to fit it into one of the pockets in your poncho."

Maizy did as he asked—and failed. The letter vanished under her hand and clattered to the floor. She dropped to her knees, crawling around in search of it.

"Oh kad. It's all those titles you've got." Branch watched her carefully sweeping the floor with her claws. "You'd better practice lots and lots of shrinking tonight, or you'll be fumbling like this tomorrow morning at the starting line."

Found it!  Maizy delicately picked up the tiny letter with her claws and tucked it into one of her poncho’s many pockets.

"Oh! Before I forget..." Branch pulled a small object from his poncho. "Here—something for you. It's a ruler like Glen's, except I added the hardening symbol." He handed it to her.

"If you unlatch it, it should expand to full size quickly. Pump some magic into it and it’ll become nearly indestructible. I figure that's all you need to defend yourself—because of your mass tail." He grinned and leaned closer. "And no one will ever suspect a ruler of being a powerful weapon."

What a thoughtful gift!  Maizy’s eyes shone as she signed, "Thank you." Her heart skipped a beat as she accepted the gift.

Branch tilted his head, studying her. "So—want to ride on my back while we fly, or should I hold on to your tail, like your prophesied triumphant return?" He flashed a grin.