Free MA11-12 Myth-ion Improbable Something Myth-Inc by Robert Asprin

kid, Glenda got up and went back over to the guy behind the bar.
    I kept pretending, wishing the stuff tasted good, since the idea of eating had made me hungry.
    After a moment the guy in charge nodded to Glenda, smiling as if she had promised him more than I wanted to think about.
    She motioned that I should join her and I did, carrying our plates. The guy led us through the door and into what might be called a kitchen. There were barrels of the different veggies against one wall, and some dirty plates and glasses stacked near a water barrel. No wonder everything tasted so bad. I didn’t want to even think about the fact that I had eaten a bite of some of the stuff from this room.
    “Wash water is in the barrel,” he said. He tossed me a dirty towel. “Dry the dishes before wiping down everything else.”
    Glenda put her hand on his shoulder and eased him around toward the door.
    “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll get everything all cleaned up.”
    “I know you will,” he said. The guy was more putty in her hands than I was, and for some reason that thought just annoyed me.
    He went back out through the door and Glenda turned to face me.
    “Well, handsome, my father was right. You are special.”
    I could feel myself blushing. “Thanks.”
    “No, thank you ,” she said, “for everything. In all the years of trying to find the silly treasure on that map, I never thought I’d know exactly where it was at.”
    “Well, now we do, and we can get there pretty soon,” I said. “Jump us back to Vortex #6.”
    She smiled and shook her head.
    “Sorry, my prince in a white hat. Maybe next time.”
    With a slight wave and a kiss motion, she vanished in a slight POOF!
    “That’s not funny,” I shouted, staring at where she had been.
    The guy came in, looking puzzled.
    “What’s not funny? And where is your beautiful friend?”
    I glanced around, and then pointed at the back door.
    “I told her I’d get started on the dishes. She’ll be right back, I’m sure.”
    “Good,” he said. “Let me know when she returns. She said she had a surprise for me.”
    He headed back out into the main room, leaving me standing there alone in a strange kitchen.
    In a strange dimension.
    It seemed he wasn’t the only one Glenda had planned a surprise for.

NOW I HAVE to admit that my first reaction after Glenda left me standing there in that restaurant kitchen was to scream and shout and call out her name, along with Aahz and Tananda’s names.
    Screaming would have covered up the panic I felt, but I knew for a fact that screaming would have done no good. But I still wanted to, more than anything.
    I didn’t.
    My second reaction was to run like crazy out the back door, but then I would be a wanted man for skipping out on the lunch bill, and considering I might be stuck here for some time, I managed to not run either.
    But I sure wanted to.
    The third reaction I had was to go into automatic to give my poor mind time to sort through what had just happened. That was as good as anything I could do, so I turned and started washing off the dishes, dumping the garbage in a big pail, and dipping the plates enough in the dirty barrel water that they pretended to be clean.
    I could imagine that on the outside I looked calm and collected, but on the inside I was a mess.
    “Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic,” I kept saying to myself, timing the phrase with deep breaths and the dipping of the dishes in the water.
    Finally I got myself under enough control to ask a few questions.
    Why had she left me?
    No easy answer. At least none that I wanted to really admit, yet there was nothing else that made sense. She had left. That simple. She had seen the location of the golden cow treasure and that was the last thing she needed from me or Aahz or Tananda. On the first opportunity she had headed off on her own.
    Leaving me alone in a kitchen in a strange dimension.
    “Don’t panic,” I said to myself, dipping more dishes.
    I