Conquistadora

Chapter 9

It was well after midnight when Flora arrived home in her car. She got out and carried her box of shrunken captives and walked through the front door of the house, but it was still unlocked. Flora's grandmother Irene and her grandfather Roland were still awake and waiting for her in the living room. The television was on, and tuned to a news channel. The volume was low.

"Did you take Nick out somewhere?" Irene asked. "Because I couldn't find him anywhere!"

"Yes, grandma," Flora replied, "I took him to a party at Sharky's. He had a good time!"

"Do you realize how dangerous it was for you to take him out in public like that? On the news they were showing places where shrunken people were getting swallowed and stomped on!"

Irene turned up the volume on the television, and it showed a group of protesters in Griffith Park.

"Who are those demonstrators?" Flora asked.

"They're all Latinos," said Irene, "but they're protesting what happened tonight. They're angry that people were miniaturized. But don't try to change the subject! Where is your cousin Nick?"

He's right here!" said Flora, holding up her necklace. "I put Nick inside this locket! It's the perfect size to keep him safe! You're trippin' over nothing, grandma!"

"I'm thinking about taking Nick away from you, and looking after him myself!" said Irene. "If you're not going to be careful with him, maybe I should!"

"Nick should be able to make up his own mind about who takes care of him, and he chose me! He's better off with me anyway, he doesn't want to stay with a couple of old people who sit around and do nothing all the time!"

Flora walked to her bedroom and slammed the door behind her. She set the box of shrunken people on her desk, then opened the box and dumped some of them out. Flora was angry that her grandmother had yelled at her, so she started smashing the tiny people with her fist, over and over again. Some of them tried to run toward the edge of the desk to escape Flora's wrath, but it did them no good; Flora's fist came crashing down on them before they could even get close to the edge.

"This is kind of fun!" said Flora. "I don't like swallowing them, but I like smashing them!"

When Flora was done smashing captives, she got out her cell phone and called Rica. "Hey, do you want Nick? I'm going to teach my grandmother a lesson! I'm just going to give him to you!"

"I'll come and get him tomorrow," said Rica over the phone.

Right after Flora hung up, her phone rang again, but this time it was Vikki De la Cruz.

"Hi Vikki," said Flora, "what's up?"

"Did you see the demonstration at Griffith Park on the news tonight?" Vikki asked.

"Yeah," said Flora, "I saw some of it. Why?"

"I want to go join the demonstrators tomorrow, and I was wondering if you wanted to come with me!"

"No, I've got nothing against the Conquistadora! I think the world is a better place!" said Flora.

"What about your cousin Nick?" Vikki asked. "Aren't you mad that he got shrunk?"

"He'll learn to deal with it," said Flora. "You'd better be careful if you go to one of those demonstrations, because the Conquistadora might punish you and the other people in attendance there!"

"I'll keep my eyes open," said Vikki, "but I'm still going to the demonstration. Well, take it easy!"

"Goodbye!" said Flora, and she hung up.

The next day at Griffith park, Vikki De La Cruz met up with Summer's Moon and Soledad Suarez.

"I'm surprised you came, Soledad!" said Vikki. "You sure seem to enjoy swallowing shrunken people, so you're the last person I thought would show up here at the demonstration!"

"I'm not interested in protesting," said Soledad. "I just want to meet a cute guy!"

"What about you, Summer's Moon?" Vikki asked. "Are you here to protest?"

"Kind of," said Summer's Moon. "I wouldn't even be full-sized if I hadn't lied to Narcisa about being Mexican. It's people like me who got shrunk down to ant-size, that's why I would never hurt a shrunken person! But the main reason I came is because Soledad came, and she's my best friend!"

"Well, at least you're both here!" said Vikki.

Meanwhile, Nacho had heard from Sharky that Soledad was going to be at the demonstration, so he drove up there and made his way through the crowd, looking for her. Several times he thought he had found her, only to be embarrassed that it was the wrong person. After looking around for an hour, Nacho finally found Soledad with Vikki and Summer's Moon.

"Hey, Soledad!" said Nacho.

Soledad had her back to Nacho, so she turned around when she heard his voice.

"Nacho?" Soledad asked. "What the hell are you doing here? Did you follow me?"

"No, I just decided to cruise over here and look around, and I happened to bump into you!"

"Nacho, don't lie to me!" said Soledad. "I've known you too long for you to be able to lie to me without me knowing about it!"

"You're right, you're right!" said Nacho. "A relationship should be built on trust, so I guess it's wrong to lie to you!"

"Nacho, we don't have a relationship! We never have, and we never will!"

"Forget about all that!" said Nacho. "I came to tell you something!"

"What?" Soledad asked.

"I know why you came here! You want to meet guys! But the kind of guys you'd meet at a place like this aren't even interested in the cause, they just want to hook up with you!"

"Well, I'm fine with that," said Soledad, "because I'm only interested in hooking up with them, too! I never cared about this cause!"

"Soledad, you'll be taken advantage of!" said Nacho.

"Nacho, get the hell out of here!" said Soledad.

"He probably wants to sabotage your efforts to hook up with a guy!" said Summer's Moon. "If you meet a nice guy, Nacho will probably try to scare him off!"

"I know!" Soledad replied. "Goodbye, Nacho!" Soledad waved her hand at him as she said this, and Nacho turned and walked away.

"Why don't you like Nacho?" Vikki asked. "I think he's kind of cute!"

"He's too desperate," Soledad replied. "Maybe if he cooled off and I got to know him, I might like him! But as long as he comes on strong, I'm not interested. If you think he's cute, do me a favor and take him off my hands!"

"I'm not interested in him myself," said Vikki, "I just thought you and him would make a cute couple."

Just then, a public speaker got up at a podium with a microphone and prepared to give a speech. Soledad, Summer's Moon, and Vikki listened.

"All of us share a common bond!" said the speaker, a young man in his early twenties. "All of us have relatives who didn't make the cut, and ended up shrunk! How many of us have relatives who were one quarter Hispanic, and they were shrunk down to one centimeter tall? Now we must look after these loved ones and treat them like pets!"

People in the audience started to cheer.

"We must stand up to the Conquistadora, we must challenge her! Yes, her technology is great, but every revolution started out against great odds!"

"That guy's crazy!" said Soledad. "How can he hope to fight someone who has technology from twenty thousand years in the future? I'm ready to take off!"

"Some things are worth dying for!" said Vikki.

"The only reason I'm here is to get a boyfriend," said Soledad. "I'm not in this for your revolution!"

Soledad pulled a sandwich out of her purse, then she got a small pink plastic cube. She took the plastic bag off the sandwich, then she opened the plastic cube.

"What are you doing, Soledad?" Vikki asked.

"I'm eating lunch!" said Soledad. "With some shrunken captives sprinkled on for good measure!"

Soledad dumped some shrunken people onto her sandwich.

"Don't do that!" said Vikki. "I want to make a good impression, and I don't want the people here to think I'm friends with a cannibal!"

Three shrunken people were standing aloft on the top piece of bread of the sandwich, and five more were still inside the plastic cube. Soledad hesitated, as if pondering Vikki's words. In the end, Soledad decided not to embarrass Vikki, so she poured the three captives back into their plastic cube and closed the lid.

"See?" said Soledad. "I can be reasonable."

"Thank you!" said Vikki.

"Actually," said Soledad, "I didn't do it for your benefit, I did it because if I meet a cute guy here he might get upset if he knew I ate shrunken people, so I want to keep that on the down low!"

"I figured that much," said Vikki. "By the way, how do they use the bathroom when they're in that cube?"

"I give them bathroom breaks!" said Soledad. "They know that if they piss inside the cube, I'll swallow them, so they put a lot of effort into keeping the inside of the cube clean!"

"But you're going to swallow them anyway!" said Vikki. "So what's the difference?"

"I know!" said Soledad. "Aren't I merciless?" Soledad giggled.

"You know what?" said Summer's Moon. "We should bring that voice amplifier Flora's cousin Nick built and have a shrunken person give a speech, so we can hear of their plight from their perspective!"

"That's an excellent idea, Summer's Moon!" said Vikki. "Remind me to ask Flora if we can borrow it! Do you two want to come back here with me tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I'll come!" said Soledad.

"Me too!" said Summer's Moon.

"Then let's go," said Vikki, "we can come back tomorrow when we have the voice amplifier! Maybe we can talk Flora into letting us take her cousin Nick with us, so he can speak to the audience!"

The girls walked to Soledad's car and got in, and they took off back to Whittier. Soledad was driving, and she stopped at a Circle K and they got out and went inside to buy some drinks and snacks. Soledad got a bottle of soda, while the other girls got Arizona iced teas and chips. They stood outside the store with their snacks.

"Watch this!" said Soledad, and she took her small plastic cube that contained the shrunken captives and took the lid off, then she uncapped her drink, and poured the captives in. The other two girls could see the captives floating in the drink.

"Who wants to bet on whether I can drink this whole bottle of soda in one swig, captives and all?" said Soledad.

"I don't think you can do it!" said Summer's Moon. "I'll bet you five bucks you can't do it!"

"Why does everything have to be a Roman holiday with you?" Vikki asked. "Can't you just keep captives as pets and be bossy to them without hurting them?"

"What would be the fun in that?" Soledad asked. "Okay, Summer's Moon, you're on! I'm betting five bucks I can do it!"

Soledad took a swig from the bottle, tilting her head back and guzzling like crazy. The other two girls could see the eight captives trying to stay afloat near the bottom of the upside-down bottle. Soon, the bottle was half empty, but Soledad showed no signs of slowing down. In a matter of seconds there were only a couple of ounces of liquid left in the bottle, and the captives couldn't resist the flow of the liquid, and were pulled into Soledad's mouth.

"Aaaah!" said Soledad after downing the last drop of soda, captives and all. "I did it! You owe me five bucks, chick!"

"That was so mean!" said Vikki. "Don't you even care about the lives you just ended? Those were people with families, they had hopes and dreams!"

"If you're going to hang out with me," said Soledad, "you're going to have to accept that I'm a mean person. As far as I'm concerned, they're not people any more, they're the food of the gods! And we're the gods!"

"I'm sorry, Soledad!" said Vikki. "I guess what you do with your captives is really none of my business!"

"When I was younger," said Soledad, " I used to like stepping on ant-hills! When I saw movies about people getting shrunk, I would fantasize about it, imagining that I was able to capture them and dominate them! To you, this whole situation with the Conquistadora gives you a political agenda, but to me, this is like the answer to my sexual fantasies! Nothing will prevent me from dominating shrunken people, it's something I've dreamed about since I was very young!"

"She's right," said Summer's Moon. "I remember when we were kids and she stepped on ant-hills! She did that a lot!"

To Be Continued!