Continued from: www.deviantart.com/colorfultri…

“Cut!” shouted the director. “Great job, Emma.”

“Thanks, John.”

The crew started taking down the lights and stowing the cameras and sound equipment. A man walked up to Emma and shook her hand. “Hi, I'm the CEO, Harold Hobnotter. Dream Clean can't thank you enough for your work, Emma. And you to Jeanette.”

“Is someone going to unflatten me?” Jeanette asked.

“You'll have to talk to someone in production,” Harold said. “Artie? Anyone see Artie?” He walked away.

Emma was not sure what to do with herself. “Do you need a ride?” She said to Jeanette.

“Well, I can't drive like this.”

“We filmed the wash tub scene three days ago. Didn't they reinflate you after that?”

“It's a funny thing,” Jeanette said. “After we wrapped that scene remember they sent you home and said they wanted to get a few more close ups of me?”

“Yeah.”

“Well after the close ups, we wrapped and one of the crew picks me up and lays me down on a dolly. Then all sorts of equipment got put on top of me. Next thing I know I'm stored in a truck or something. After that, I was taken out of the truck and put down here in the laundomat.”

A man walked up and said, “Are you done with her? I need to put her back on the truck.”

“What are you talking about? She's an actress. Not a prop.”

“I'm not going anywhere.”

“Um, Artie?” The man called out.

“I'll handle this Tom. Take five.” The man was wearing a cheap business suit. “Ladies, what seems to be the trouble?”

“Tom was going to put Jeanette in storage.”

“Jeanette is an advertising cutout.”

“Jeanette is a person.”

“Jeanette was a person. Now she's an advertising cutout. All props are property of Commercial Productions, that's my company.”

“How is a person a prop?”

“What makes you think this is a person?”

“She talks.”

Artie spun the cutout around and point at a device attached to the head of the cutout. “That's just this voice box. A radio device to let her seem to talk.” He removed the double-A battery attached to the device. “See? Not a person.”

“But she was standing with me at the wash tub just a couple days ago.”

“Yes, sweet girl. But she went home. This is just the cutout we made in her likeness.”

Emma was not sure what to do. “Can I buy the cutout?”

“Well, normally I'd say no. But for you, $50 should do it.”

“My purse is in my dressing room.” She picked up the cutout and they went to the dressing room. She paid Artie and demanded a receipt.

“A receipt? Sure, let's keep this above board.” He signed a piece of paper transferring ownership of the cutout to Emma.

Emma carried the board out to her car and drove home. The whole way there she talked out loud to the unresponsive board about how foolish she felt. The cutout never responded.

She put the cutout down in the living room and went to the kitchen to find a battery. She put the battery in and Jeanette immediately said, “Oh, thank God. I don't know what they were going to do with me but I suspect I just would have ended up collecting dust in a warehouse.”

“Not a problem. But what are we going to do with you?”

“Well, I don't take up too much space, do I?” She joked. “The wizard who enchanted the washtub told me it would only last a few hours. That apparently wasn't true.”

“Do you know who he is?”

“I can tell you his name and phone number.”

Emma called the number.

“Hello?” said a voice.

“Is this Amazo?”

“It is.”

“You cast a flattening spell on my friend Jeanette as part of commercial a few days ago?”

“The really big wash tub?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, I did. What about it?”

“She's still flat.”

“She is?”

“I am.”

“Is that her? I remember they wants a flattening spell where the person can still speak. Jennifer?”

“Jeanette.”

“Yes. Why are you still flat?”

“That's what I want to know.”

“Here's my address. Can you bring her to my tower tomorrow around noon?”

“I'm free at noon. We will be there.”

“Okay. If she unflattens before that, call me.”

“Will do.”

We hung up.

“You have a lovely apartment.”

“Thanks.” After an awkward pause Emma said. “You haven't eaten in three days?”

“I'm not hungry, no. I also haven't slept. But that was nothing compared to that ass removing my battery. I was yelling and apparently you could not hear me.”

“Oh, that's terrible. Want me to park you in front of the television while I get comfortable?”

“Sure. Can't do much else.”

They watched some TV and discussed current events. The next day, after some more chatting, they went to Amazo's tower. It was actually a tower, set on a hillside. It took over 90 minutes to get there. When Emma knocked on the door it opened immediately. A woman of unusual shortness answered the door. She was not naturally short, it had to be some kind of spell that made barely two feet tall. “What'cha want?” She asked.

“We have an appointment with Amazo. This is Jeanette.”

“Flat girl? Yes, come in.” She escorted the women to a room on the second floor and said, “Wait here.”

Amazo was man in his early thirties, a little shorter than average but fit and muscular. “Let me have a look at you.” He said without preamble. After a couple “Hmm”s he said, “Ut oh. This is the problem.” He held up the cutout and pointed to small hairline cut in the cardboard below her right knee. “That little cut broke the enchantment.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means Jeanette is a cutout.”

“Is there anything you can do?”

“By myself, no. But with you here, I can transfer the enchantment to you and then turn her back to normal.”

“What happens when you do that?”

“Well, you would be a cutout like her but after a few hours, your enchantment would unravel and you'd return to normal.”

“And how does that help Jeanette?”

“Well right now the enchantment is stuck. So she will never stop being turned into a cutout. Once the enchantment is transferred, I can just do a spell that restores her. But as long as she has the original enchantment, my spell would restore her for a short period of time and the old enchantment would return her to the state she's in now.”

“You don't have to do this,” Jeanette said.

“No, I want to help. When can we do this?”

“Right now.”

Amazo led Emma into another room with some pentagrams on the floor. “You have to stand here. Say, 'I enter of my own free will.' as you do so.”

“I enter of my own free will.”

“Good, and I put Jeanette here in this other circle.”

“I don't have to say that.”

“Sadly, you are not a person at the moment. That rule doesn't apply to you. You gave permission three days ago.”

“Right.”

Amazo spoke some unspeakable words and made some indescribable gestures. After a moment, Emma felt something pressing against her, “Oh.”

“You can feel it?” He asked.

“Yes, I am being flattened I guess.”

“You are indeed.” He resumed his litany of unknown words until he ended on crescendo and shouted “Fin.”

Emma's body are flat and the cutoff was not in place to hold her up, so her body toppled over and landed flat on her back. “Whoa, that felt weird. My head and back and legs all landed on the floor at once.”

Three women, the same size as the women who answered the door rushed in and attached the cross-bar pieces to her feet so she could stand up. Then they stood her up. Amazo knelt down in front of her. “There. Tom, if he followed my instructions, cut Jeanette just below the knee with a precision knife just like I did to you.”

“What?” Emma said fearfully. “Where's Jeanette? What have you done to her? To me??”

“I've saved a lot of money. I was going to pay Tom $300 for Jeanette and instead you delivered her to me for free and I get you as a bonus. Today is my lucky day. Girls, take Ms Emma to the study. I think I'd like her to stand next to Jeanette opposite the fire place.”

The little women nodded and carried Emma out of the room as she shouted, “No, No! You can't do this to me. You won't get away with this. Stop. Unhand me. NO!”

Amazo just chuckled and left the room.