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Chapter 14
Over the next couple of days, everyone seemed to have gone barking mad. By lunchtime the day after the kidnapping, a group calling themselves The Satyr Liberation Army had created social media presences on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. They shared a photo of Mr. Happy basking in the sunshine on a lounge chair at the lakeside. A cheap pair of sunglasses was perched upon his horns beneath a large, touristy straw hat. A miniature version of the hat was balanced upon his much-ballyhooed organ. Whether it was to protect his modesty or save him from sunburn was anyone’s guess.
The hashtags below the photo were #ChildrenOfGaia #SatyrLiberationArmy and #MrHappyOnVacation.
The next day, he was standing in a field of flowers wearing a curly blond Shirley Temple wig and an embroidered gingham pinafore over a puff-sleeved peasant blouse, next to a bored-looking shaggy-haired goat. The caption read:
Shirley Temple,step aside! There’s a new Heidi in town!
#ChildrenOfGaia
#SatyrLiberationArmy
#MrHappyOnVacation
Queenie’s roarof outrage could be heard from across the ocean. Her biggest rival in the talk show industry had managed to entice her supporters into pulling a fast one, and Queenie wasn’t about to be embarrassed like that. She tweeted:
Queenie Abara@queenieabara 17 m
Minions take heed!I will pay $1,000 for the safe return of Mr. Happy.
#BringMrHappyHome
There were 714 responses,3,498 retweets and 11,980 likes.
Graziella Giordano leapedinto the fray less than two hours later, doubling the ransom, resulting in a Where’s Waldo type frenzy of alleged sightings and suggestions for his recapture, including hiring a private detective agency and compiling a list of known Gaians within a 10-kilometer radius.
Gaia was delirious with joy. She clapped back:
Gaia@motherearth 1hr 7m
As the mother of all earthly creatures, I declare that satyrs are our brothers! Mr. Happy was not meant to live in captivity! Let us ensure that he remains free!
I will pay $1,000 for each photo of him, basking in his freedom.
Down with tyranny!
#FreeMrHappy
#SatyrLiberationArmy
It was accompanied by a clip of a tenor lustily singing a fragment of the French national anthem: Le jour de gloire est arrive!
There were 264 responses, 1,396 retweets and 6,395 likes.
The Satyr Liberation Army,emboldened by their patroness’s endorsement, went all out. A liberation relay was set up among Gaians along the coast, and the satyr was transported from willing hand to hand by car, truck, or train.
By late afternoon they posted a photo of him living it up in a ritzy gentlemen’s club in Antibes, wearing a purple velveteen smoking jacket with a cigar taped to his lips. Two club hostesses in sequined evening gowns were curled around him like anacondas.
Queenie published a one-word Tweet: Vengeance!
The Minions did not take this insult lying down. By late that evening, cars began driving up into the front yard of the cottage without a by-your-leave, depositing a variety of nude male statues on the front lawn, including a copy of Michelangelo’s David who, though far less splendidly endowed than Mr. Happy, still had a lot going for him.
Someone else brought the cutest little replica of Duquesnoy’s Manneken Piss, the toast of Brussels, and at once Rhys claimed it as the centerpiece of his herb garden.
There was a Greek Olympian made of bronze, poised to launch his discus, and a more modern piece featuring a man who looked suspiciously like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime, posing sans underwear.
In the days that followed, Melanie received naked water fountains, naked lawn jockeys, and naked bookends. A tin of anatomically correct gingerbread men, lovingly detailed in pink fondant, was FedExed over by an 83-year-old great-grandmother in Iowa.
