Chapter 18a: This Night Is Magic

t was a good dinner little Jeanette's mom had made tonight. Ham, with that clovish glaze, and the potatoes - the ones that don't come out of the Ore-Ida can. Her mom's special mashed potatoes, the ones she mashes herself and adds honey. 'Takes too long,' her mom always said when Jean asked her to make them. But tonight she did, and Jean had had thirds.

But all good things must end, and Jean reluctantly put down her fork and Pocahontas knife on her plate and pushed herself away from the table. She had always liked to help clear the table, but she had dropped a plate last week and her mom got angry with her. I tried to catch it, she thought; it broke on the arm of my wheelchair. That's not my fault, is it?

She hated the loss of her mom's trust, but tonight she didn't mind not having to work at the kitchen sink. Her dad had gotten her set up with an Internet connection on Monday, and she'd been spending most of her extracurricular hours exploring her new world. She rolled out of the dining room and over to the PC that she'd gotten, secondhand, for her birthday.

Last week she had found a link off of Excite For Kids that led her to http://www.monkees.net. It was a site that seemed to be about a music group, or TV stars, or something. She couldn't tell. But she liked their faces, and she knew her mom had a record album by them. She'd seen it, and once tried to hear it by resting her head on the stereo speakers, feeling the vibrations.

Behind her now, against the far wall of the living room and below the oil painting of an impossibly beautiful garden, the television was on. The annual broadcast of The Wizard of Oz had begun just a few minutes ago; Judy Garland, in glorious sepia, was leaning against her adopted family's farm split-rail fence and singing, the words appearing in closed-captioning on the screen bottom.

"...over the rainbow, way up high..."

Jean clicked on her old 386 and tapped the monitor power button. Static caressed her hand as the monitor warmed up and the memory check countup faded onto the screen. She turned to watch Judy.

"...there's a land that I've heard of, once, in a lullaby..."

The old 20 MHz box would take a little while to boot up, so Jean continued to watch the movie. This was always one of her favorite things on TV, and though the tornado was terrifying, this part of the movie - the calm before the storm - fascinated her. Melancholy and hopeful, riding together; Dorothy fighting the battle between her experience and her imagination. Evil and good. Black and white.

"...Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly..."

Jean sat frozen, watching, emotions playing out on her young face; at last, the smile won out over the sadness and Jean glowed with a wide, honest grin. The commercial break shattered the spell, and Jeannie turned back to her PC, now showing the Program Manager over her wallpaper, a Monet painting of a Japanese bridge. She clicked on her new Internet icon, and logged in to read her e-mail.

***********
From: ray9na <infinit@umich.edu>
To: monkees@lists.primenet.com
Sender: owner-monkees@lists.primenet.com
Reply-To: monkees@lists.primenet.com
Time: 10:09:48 
Subject: Vote NOW!!!

I've gotten some answers from Ms. Gallagher at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
THEY ARE GOING TO ACCEPT THE PETITION!!!  She had her people go through the
charter, and requirements specify only that 50,000 votes are required to get
our guys on a ballot to send to the Foundation.  There's nothing that
disbars electronic submissions, and she feels that there's nothing keeping
us from submitting the required votes electronically!  She's gotten TONS of
responses from the submission form, and actually liked the idea of the
Monkees becoming the first rock group to be submitted purely through the
internet!  :)

So, get over to the submission form (I forget the URL - Torka, Eva, Zan..?
Oh, and Tim, any luck tracking down who's responsible for that form?  I
haven't gotten any responses from the postmaster at that domain; they all
come back "COMMUNICATION FAILED") and VOTE!!!  With what's going on here in
Cleveland, we can do it tonight!!!   And keep an eye on www.rockhall.com!

ray9na

***********

Jean's smile spread across her face as she clicked on her browser and pulled down the bookmark for the submission form. She has stumbled over it when she did a web search for more of the Monkees after finding the home page, but wasn't sure what it was. She bookmarked it, not trusting herself to find it again if it turned out to be something cool.

It took forever to finish loading, but as soon as the hourglass disappeared little Jeanette began entering her name and address into the form. She clicked on "Submit," and logged off.

Little Jeanette went to bed early that night, so she'd have more time to dream.