The plant - By Stephen King Page 0,41

the world's nicest one by any means - Tommy Flannagan. He was skinny as a rail. He had a sister, maybe a year or two younger, who was much heavier. And sometimes he would chase her until she cried, yelling Greedy-guts, greedy-guts, greedy-greedy-greedy-guts! I don't know if poor little Jenny Flannagan was a greedy-guts or not, but I know that's what we looked like right then, the five of us: a bunch of greedy-guts editors sitting around in Roger Wade's office.

That look haunts me, because I'm sure it was on my face, too. The plant feels good. It gives off good smells. Its touch isn't slimy, not repulsive; it feels like a caress. A life-giving caress. Sitting here now, my eyes drooping after another long day (and I still have reading to do, if I can ever finish this entry), I wish I could feel it again. I know it would revive me, cheer me up and rev me up. And yet, some drugs also make you feel good, don't they? Even while they're killing you, they're making you feel good. Maybe that's nonsense, a little Puritanical holdover like a race memory, or maybe it's not. I just don't know. And for the time being, I guess it doesn't matter. Still...

Greedy-guts, greedy-guts, greedy-greedy-greedy-guts.

There was a moment of silence in the office and then Sandra said, "No one's going to spill the beans, Roger."

Bill: "It's not just about saving our jobs in this lousy pulp-mill, either."

Herb: "We want to stick it to that prick Enders as bad as you do, Roger. Believe it."

"Okay," Roger said. "I do. Which brings me to the last thing. John has been keeping a diary."

I almost jumped out of my seat and started to ask how he knew that - I hadn't told him - then realized I didn't have to. Thanks to Zenith down there in Riddley Walker country, we know a lot about each other now. More than is healthy for us, probably.

"It's a good idea," Roger went on. "I suggest you all start keeping diaries."

"If we're really going to crash a bunch of new books into production, I don't expect to have time to wash my own hair," Sandra grumbled. As if she'd been put in charge of editing a newly discovered James Joyce manuscript instead of World's Sickest Jokes.

"Nevertheless, I strongly suggest you find time for this," Roger said. "Written journals might not be worth much if things turn out the way we hope, but they could be invaluable if things don't... well, let's just say that we don't have any clear idea of what forces we're playing with here."

"He who takes a tiger by the tail dares not let go," Bill said. He spoke in a kind of baleful mutter.

"Nonsense," Sandra said. "It's only a plant. And it's good. I felt that very strongly."

"A lot of people thought Adolf Hitler was just the bee's knees," I said, which earned me a sharp stare from the senorita.

"I keep going back to the thing Barfield said about the plant needing blood to really get rolling," Roger said. "The blood of evil or the blood of insanity. I don't really understand that, and I don't like it. The idea that we're raising a vampire vine in the janitor's closet..."

"And no longer just in the janitor's closet," I added, earning myself dirty looks from Sandra and Herb, plus a puzzled, rather uneasy one from Bill.

"I'd just as soon it didn't sample blood of any kind, that's all," Roger said. "Things are rolling quite enough to suit our purposes right now." He cleared his throat. "I think we're playing with high explosives here, people, and in a case like that, record-keeping can come in handy. Notes and jottings are really all I'm asking for."

"If they were ever read in court, journals about this stuff would probably end us up in Oak Cove," Herb said. "That's the nut-farm old Iron-Guts broke out of, just in case any of you forgot."

"Better Oak Cove than Attica," I said.

"That's comforting, John," Sandra said. "That's very comforting."

"Don't worry, sweetheart," Bill said, reaching out and giving her ankle a pat. "I think they send the ladies to Ossining."

"Yes," she said. "Where I can discover the joys of Sapphic love with a three-hundred-pound biker chick."

"Stop it, all of you," Roger said impatiently. "It's a precaution, that's all. There's really no downside to this. Not if we're careful."

It wasn't until then that I realized just how desperately Roger wants to turn Zenith House around,