Free B Is for Beer by Tom Robbins

adult society would have them buy into. Do you agree? And do you think now might be the time to encourage gramps to pop open another brewski?
    In any event, before the fairy could say more (if, indeed, she intended to say more), she and Gracie were startled by the sound of screaming and crying. They turned to see a terrified young woman clawing her way up the grassy hillside, while close behind, two men pursued her, smirking, panting, and lurching, obviously intending to do her harm.
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    As the shrieking maiden, wild-eyed and bloody-kneed, neared the summit of the hill, the Beer Fairy was the first to act. Like a redheaded bullet with its pants on fire, she sent herself zinging at the nearest of the two pursuers. She circled his head, poking him in the eye, then the ear, then the eye again, with her wand. Around and around his head she buzzed, her wings whirring, her wand stabbing.
    The fellow must have believed he ’d disturbed a nest of oversize, particularly disagreeable bees. Cursing the entire insect species and the Satan who surely created it, he swatted furiously at the fairy, who continued to circle his head with blurry speed. She rammed her wand up his nostril. He snorted.
    She shoved it in his ear. He yelped. Turning in circles, he was fast becoming dizzy, though anything but glad. The fact that he was intoxicated to begin with didn’t help his coordination.
    Finally, however, one of his swats connected. He was a hefty farmboy type and the strength of his swat sent the dainty pixie hurtling head over heels to the turf. Stunned, she lay in the grass, breathing hard, crown askew, her tiny back throbbing with pain.
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    Meanwhile, the young woman had reached the hilltop, where she stumbled forward, allowing the second attacker to catch up with her. Before she could regain her feet, he grabbed her roughly by the wrist. Although out of breath, he was snig-gering, and cooing some insane kind of baby talk.
    Gracie knew she must intervene—but how? For one thing, she couldn’t remember which side of the Seam she was on. She thought that after they’d poofed out of the brewery, she and the fairy had returned to This Side, but she couldn’t be sure; and if they had not, neither the attacker nor his victim could see or hear her.
    Uncertain just how to proceed, she ran up to the big snock-ered lout and yelled in her deepest voice (which was not much deeper than the chirp of a nervous cricket), “Stop! Let her go, you stupid man!” The lout didn’t release the hysterical woman, but his leer switched to an expression of great surprise. What was this child doing here? Apparently, he ’d heard and seen Gracie all too well, and was now looking around frantically to ascertain whether or not she was accompanied by adults.
    Back in early September, when Mr. Perkel had been the coach of Gracie ’s peewee soccer team—this was before a group of the soccer moms had banded together and fired him—he ’d 100
     
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    drilled his daughter over and over on what he called the
    “lawyer kick.” It was a way to kick an opposing player in the leg so hard she ’d topple over and have to leave the game, yet was so sneaky that most of the time the referee would fail to notice it, so wouldn’t assess a penalty. Gracie considered it a dirty trick and she never tried it, but she remembered it perfectly well.
    The lawyer kick was delivered to the man’s shin with the full force of six-year-old indignation. “Hai dozo!” Gracie yelled as she kicked, imitating a cry she thought she remembered from martial arts movies. “Go go Tokyo!” she yelled, and kicked again. Already unsteady from excessive drink, the attacker lost his balance and dropped to one knee, maintaining, nonetheless, his grip on the woman. It was then that Gracie shouted,
    “Sapporo! Chop suey!” and kicked again. This time the kick accidentally landed higher. Much higher.
    For a couple of seconds, the drunken