324. Four and Twenty Grim Birds

 

324. Four and Twenty Grim Birds

Hello! This is Heather speaking. Little Dolphus asked me to narrate this chapter myself because he gets dizzy trying to keep up with the way Beau and I think at the same time and knowing what we are both thinking even when we think differently the one from the other.

In the last chapter, a bird that could not have looked of  iller omen was roosting on Sir Mungo John Binky’s resting place, the glass coffin in which my sister Thistle and I had placed him when he succumbed to the effects of an enormous tin of Shyboy Oil. He had been sleeping off the effects of this oil for years now in that glass and gold coffin in my garden. And looking younger and younger. At first, yearly younger, now monthly younger and we have no idea if he will look weekly, daily or hourly younger or what will happen if he doesn’t wake before he becomes so young as to also become inexistent.

At first this didn’t worry us much. It was happening very slowly. But when the baleful bird began to haunt Mr. Binky’s resting place, we noticed that the prime minister didn’t look a day over twenty. And this scared us. We feared the bird might be waiting for him to be a small child, portable enough to be carried off and fed to its young.

So we decided to hie Mr. Binky off and hide him somewhere else, where the bird could not find him. And Little Dolphus suggested a dolmen known to Esmeraldo and Azuline, an odd and singular construction here in Apple Island. And Beau and Quentin Treadfaster bore the prime minister’s glass coffin between them to the said chamber tomb. And Thistle and I followed them as quietly and discreetly and invisibly as we all could.

Esmeraldo and Azuline were already speaking with the Voice that emerged from the dolmen, telling her – we supposed the voice was female, for it sounded that way – that they had discovered their vocations.

“You said you couldn’t do anyone good any good. You are under a curse that makes you able to only do good to evil beings. And that, of course, results in evil events. Evil you do not wish to propitiate, but indirectly bring about. Well we´ve been thinking about this and we’ve come to a conclusion. We want to tell you about our plans,” said Azuline to the Voice.

“I am going to bust those evildoers you can only do good to. For you,” said tough little Esmeraldo. “They will rue the day they met you.”

“Oh, dear!” said Azuline. “It’s not exactly that way. What we mean to do is the good that you aren’t able to do. And if this requires frustrating the plans of wicked beings, we will be up to it,” explained Azuline. “You told us you were a do gooder fairy. And that is what we want to be. Do good fairies. That will be our vocation.”

The Voice inside the tomb was not too sure the Richearth kids would be able to do what they had decided to do. She said the curse she was under might reach way beyond her. For if she had helped these kids find their true vocation, that had to be an act of goodness, and she couldn’t do good to anyone good. And the kids were good. So…

“Just how far can this curse go?” asked Azuline. “We won’t know unless we try.”

The Voice within the chamber tomb also had misgivings about allowing Mr. Binky to be hidden in there.

“If I let you hide him here, that would be helping good people, wouldn’t it? And I can’t do that.”

And then Thistle said, “Look, Insecure Voice, this fellow we are wanting to  hide here was a jerk when awake. That is who you will be helping.”

“Oh, Thissy,” I said, “it’s not exactly like that. He believed himself to have the best of intentions, but hardly anyone thought he did. At least not the Apple Islanders.”

“He made a misery of one of our uncles, who is probably the best of our mother’s brothers when it comes to being helpful and of service to others. And he made a misery out of our uncle’s  harmless wife too. Don’t say Binky wasn’t a jerk, Heathie, because he was.”

“All that was our father’s fault. It was Daddy’s idea that got him to go after Uncle Gentlerain.”

“Gentlerain?” said the Voice. “I know your uncle. If this fellow you are transporting was mean to someone as kind and obliging as Gentie Goodfellow, maybe I can let him hide here after all.”

And that was settled, because we grabbed at that straw as fast as we could and shoved the coffin into the cave before the Voice got the chance to change its mind.

“We’ll be in touch with you, whoever you are, Voice,” said Thistle. “But we have to make very discreet contact. Nobody must know Mr. Binky is in there with you.”

We agreed to communicate through two of my pet sparrows, who would keep us in touch in case anything went wrong. We swore the Voice and Esmeraldo and Azuline to utter silence on the subject of Mr. Binky and then Beau and Quentin and Thistle and I returned home.

And when I reached my garden…it was no longer one. It couldn’t have looked worst! All the bushes had been uprooted, and the trees almost so too. Holes of at least six feet had been dug all over the grounds, that were all raked. A true disaster area it was. And we could only conclude that someone had thought we had buried Mr. Binky and was trying to dig him up. And Thistle’s Lorcans, her pet dogs specially created by Finbar O’Toora, were howling and growling and confirming that our suspicions were true.

Yurick, Cedrick, Alderick, Roderick, Herrick and Worrick told us what had happened, yelping in unison and in verse because they were still overexcited.

“Sing a song of many pence,

Many less have I! 

Four and twenty blackbirds

Descended from up high.

When they touched the ground,

They all began to rake

With sharp claws the good soil

Trying holes to make,

Seeking for a coffin

With their beady eyes.

When we started barking,

They cawed bloodcurling cries!

We tried to seize their long necks,

But they outnumbered us.

They tried to peck our noses,

A back and forth there was!

Pandemonium, pandemonium,

We all began to raise!

We tore off their black feathers,

See ‘em strewn all o’er the place.

Finding naught but resistance,

The pinkheads off they fled,

And all that’s left to say is

All we’ve to say’s been said."

“I know who they are,” said Beau, and his face was worth seeing, so rigid was it that I was more scared of him and his intentions than of the desolation before me.

323. The Vulture and the Dolmen

323. The Vulture and the Dolmen

I, Little Dolphus, the intellectual Leafy, was sitting on the shady  branch of an apple tree in Heather FitzTitania and FitzOberon’s garden when I heard a shout.

“What is it?” I asked Heather, for it was she who had shouted, as I found when I flew towards the noise.

“Shoo! Shoo!” she was crying at a huge bird, the colour of a black vulture but the size of a formidable condor,  that was staring at her with great contempt.

“Go away!” I shouted at the vulture, and it turned to face me with a contempt even greater, of course.

“It won’t go!” said Beaurenard Leonado Flynn. “I’ve chased it away before, but it keeps coming back. And it won’t say what it wants. But it must have something to do with that fellow you keep in that glass coffin, because it is on that box that it always perches.”

“Oh, dear!” said Heather, very worried.  “Maybe we should get Thistle to deal with it. She’s tougher than all three of us together.”

“I’m asking you nicely. Please leave,” said Beau to the vulture. “You’re molesting my girlfriend. Don’t make me chase you away again. It´s too hot for that today.  Go now. You´ll be back when you please, anyway. We’re getting to know each other, aren’t we?”

The vulture turned from Beau to Heather. And then it flew off.

“What can this mean?” Heather went to the glass coffin and studied Mr. Binky. “He seems to be resting placidly and doesn’t look as if he’s been disturbed. But he is getting to look very young. If he sleeps himself into childhood, the vulture might snatch him to feed its young. Oh, what a horrible thought! This can’t be happening in Apple Island! There are no vultures here.”

“Maybe we should bury him somewhere else,” said Beau.

“I know where!” I said.

Wheras Hum and Rosendo had found their vocations very early in life and both worked at them with a one track mind, she as a singer and he as a beautician, Azuline and Esmeraldo were still wondering what to do with their lives. She had learned how to build ships, but didn’t think she wanted to dedícate her life to that. He had learned it was better not to be a pirate, especially if you didn’t need to be one. They would spend most of their time wandering about their father’s plantation, knowing there was no need for them to be farmers, but doing some exercise, walking and walking and meandering about. And then, one day, when they were near the entrance gate, they decided to walk outside. There was no  reason why they must not do their walking somewhere else on Apple Island.  The Island was the safest of places.

“Where shall we head for?” Azuline asked her brother.  “Grandma Divina’s? So she will give us some tutti-fruitti  ice cream? She probably won’t be at home. Grandpa’s golf course? So Rhubarb will give us lunch? It’s early for that.”

“And Grandpa is cranky,” said Esmeraldo. “We’d better not trouble him.”

“East, West, North or South?” Azuline asked.

“Let’s follow the sun,” said Esmeraldo. And they followed it until noon.

“Where are we?” wondered Azuline. “It’s getting very hot and we don’t know where we are, but though we are safe in this island, and have only to wish to be back home to get there,  we have passed by countless homes, quaint houses and tall castles, humble huts and  impressive palaces, I would like to know where we are at.”

“We are where the sun has hit its peak,” said Esmeraldo. “Isn’t that enough for you?”

“It is right on top of that hill,” said Azulime, pointing at a mound . “Shall we end our walk there?·

They strolled slowly round the hill until they came to the back that was the real front of it and they saw a large horizontal stone over two vertical ones marking the entrance to a cave. A cave that held a great yellow light within.

“Who lives there?” they wondered.

“It can’t be the sun, who has entered that cave. No, despite the great light, no,”  said Azuline. “The sun is out here and above.”

“I’m going to find out,” said Esmeraldo, always ready for adventure.

They walked up to the stone portal and a voice called out, “Please don’t come in. This is a chamber tomb."

“Oh!” said Azuline. She and Esmeraldo exchanged a look before she asked the voice, “Are you a ghost?”

“No and yes.”

“Oh! How can that be?” asked Azuline.

“That can’t be!” contributed Esmeraldo. And then he added, “Can it?”

“I’m not dead, but I am the ghost of whom I used to be.”

“And who were you?” asked Esmeraldo.

“If we may ask,” added Azuline.

“Well, since you have,  I used to be a do-gooder fairy. Do you know what that is? Do-gooders  wander around the world trying to do good wherever they are. Please don’t confuse us with comeuppance fairies. Those can reward good people but more often chastise the bad.”

“Well, why are you asking  us to go away instead of doing us some good?” asked Esmeraldo.

“That’s just it. You seem to be nice kids, though curious. You are asking questions but you haven’t barged in here ignoring my petition. I can’t do you any good. Not anymore. I’m under a curse. I can’t do good to good  people . Only to bad people. So I’ve built myself this tomb and I’ve retired from the world of the living. I’m not dead, so I have no place in the underworld and just sit here. I can’t do good even to myself and  I don’t want to favor bad people and help them with their wicked plans. Or become evil myself.”

 “Oh!” exclaimed Azuline. “That…that is quite a problem you have. And…I think… the next question we should ask is if we can be of help to you. Can we do you any good?”

I, Little Dolphus told all this about the cave tomb to Heather and Beau.

“Perhaps the do-gooder in there is a real do-gooder and won’t mind sharing the chamber tomb he or she is hiding in with Mungo Binky. There aren’t many tombs in Apple Island. Barely any at all, except for the Marvel on Chalice Hill, to my knowing,” I said to Heather and to Beau.

“If we take the coffin to the dolmen right now, while the vulture is gone, maybe it won’t know where to find it,” said Beau. “We can make it and ourselves invisible while we move it. This may be an emergency we have here. We’ll have to act fast.”

 

322. Little Gifts and Big Wishes

 

322. Little Gifts and Big Wishes

“It looks just like everyone else,”said Neferniki, a little disapppointed, for there was nothing  striking about Penny’s baby.

“And thank Shai for that!” said Pedubastis.

“She means the Egyptian god of fate,” Neferclari whispered to Penny. “He’s sometimes a pig with the head of a serpent.”

Penny gulped. Then she sniffed and asked, “Did you think  my baby would have twenty fingers and forty toes? I was afraid it might.”

“Why?” asked Neferviki. “What did its father look like? A pig with a snake’s head? Mortals don’t have forty toes or anything like that. They look just like anyone else.”

“Do you think it might be…like its father?”

“Mortal?” asked Nefernedi, getting directly to the point.

 “What are you going to call it?” asked Neferclari, to distract Penny from thinking her child might be mortal.

“It has to name itself,” said Neferhari.

 “Maybe it won’t be able to. Mortals don’t choose their names. Their folks do that for them,” said Neferniki.

“We can’t tell if it is mortal yet,” said Nefernedi. “The cat  Iset  told me that.”

Iset is the name of the three coloured cat who told the children about mortal and semi-mortal babies.

“Yes. When will we know if it’s mortal?” asked Nefernedi.

“Most kids that are born the way mortals are are practically always rather mortal, aren’t they? They may have some special abilities, but…,” sighed Penny nervously.

“Oh, please! Give it time! It’s just been born, only a few minutes ago!” exclaimed Pedubastis.

“If it’s mortal, it hasn’t got time. It could die any second now,” said Nefernedi.

“Of course not!” cried Pedubastis. “Mortals don’t die the minute they are born. Well, they don’t do it much lately. That’s enough worrying about nonsense! Change of subject!”

“By the way, what is your formal name, Penny?” said Neferclari, wanting to help.

“Pentafloris. The first thing I did when I was born was pick five flowers. I was holding them in my hand when my parents showed up.”

“And you said  that fancy name when your parents found you and you introduced yourself?” asked Nefernedi.

“I guess it does sound more clever than I am,” sighed Penny. “I’ve never been that clever again. My parents call me Penny because of the pennies they find in the sand there at their beach.”

“Nonsense!” said Pedubastis. “What is wrong with you? Are you having a post partum depression? There was never anything wrong with you and there won’t be about the child. You’re in the right place at the right time right now. We’ll help you.”

“Do you have a family name, Penny?” asked Neferviki.

“I’m Pentafloris Glassywave.”

“Who are your parents, the Glassywaves, Penny?” asked Neferniki.

“My father is a beach bum fairy. He gets up at noon and walks around a beach and maybe goes surfing in the afternoon.Then he plays a zither while the moon is rising. My mom is kind of musical too, in her way. But she gets up early and blows a conch to greet the sun. If I have to give my kid a name, because he can’t give himself one, I think I might call it Sunny. At least I would like to."

 “Sunny would be most  right, for he was born under an Egyptian sun drawn on a ceiling here at the temple,” said Pedubastis. “Now, whatever your kid is like, he was born with a loaf under his arm. It’s not there, but it exists and I guess it is his.”

“What?” asked Penny, not understanding about the loaf.

“Mortals say babies are born with a loaf of bread under their arms to assure themselves that a way to feed their kids will be found. Pedi told me that.  But where is the loaf, Pedi?” asked Neferviki.

“I was baking when Penny called, and I came to the Magnolia Grove with a loaf of spongy bread in my hands. If it is still there and the ants haven’t eaten it, the baby can have it.”

And we all left for the Magnolia Grove, and the spongy bread was still there, all intact.

“Why, thank you!” said Penny. “Sunny’s first gift!”

And the Atshebies began to look all about them to see what they could give the baby.

“May it bring you good luck,” said Pedubastis.

“Should the baby eat this? The best way for a mortal to become  a fairy is to eat fairy food, isn’t that right?” asked Penny.

“Oh, by the erect questioning  tail of  Bastet! Will you stop asking silly questions? You aren’t going to feed the baby a loaf like that just yet! Milk and honey, well mixed first. Even a mortal child would tolerate our milk and honey. You eat the loaf yourself, dear. Or keep it mummified as a memento of this day. It could work as an amulet.”

And Penny picked up the loaf, and shrank it and put it in her pocket, because she said she was too nervous to eat a thing.

“Are you now going to return to the beach with your parents the bums?” asked Neferhari.

“Oh, by the wrath of Sekhmet! Of course  she’s not! That might come later. For now, she’s going right back to the temple and staying put there for a while. Until we see things more clearly and she knows what she has to do,” said Pedubastis, “because I am seeing she has no idea what she is about.”

“And whether her baby is mortal or not,” said Neferedi. “And if we have to make it fay quickly. She has to know that.”

“Gifts and wishes!” cried the children, who were now ready to bless the child in their little ways.

And Neferclari gave the child the loveliest magnolia flower she could find, so it  would know what beauty is and remember to be always  beautiful  itself inside and outside.

And Neferhari gave the baby a beetle with a special shine, an amulet he had bought at the cat temple’s shop so it would always have the will and the strength to move forward when it faced an obstacle, and turn every disadvantage into an advantage. 

Nefernedi generously gave the baby half the fairy coins from his own jacket pocket, so the child would never lack means from the very start. Penny put them in her pocket because the baby had no pocket but was wrapped up in Penny’s great pink mantle. Penny herself had never claimed her Apple Island gift of pocket gold because she had never lived in the island, and hadn’t even learned about it till that moment,  so she was very grateful to Nefernedi for giving her that information, because if her child turned out to be mortal it would need to be supported,  and Nefernedi wished the baby would always have the knowledge he needed to survive in any situation.  

Neferedi gave the child a fay butterfly, who had agreed to become the baby’s personal steed. The butterfly said its name was Carrier and that the baby would easily get to wherever it wanted to. 

Neferviki gave the child a piece of glass that caught the sun’s rays and made lovely prisms, so the child would learn how to make beautiful things out of anything and be thus useful. 

And Neferniki, who had the loveliest meow and the best singing voice, broke into song, and wished the baby the power to sing splendidly, making up the words and the music and all. And Neferniki’s song was wafted away by the air and cracked a little as it dissolved in it, but his wish must have come true for the baby began to wail most melodiously. And Pedubastis said indeed the baby could be hungry and it was fed its first fairy food, milk well mixed with honey. 

And I, Dolphus, have been asked what Neferniki sang for the baby, so I reproduce the song, the Glassywave Lullabye, here:

Little Glassywave,

One day you’ll surf the seas,

But now on your mum’s knees

Please, please go to  sleep

And dream of the dreamy deep.

You’ll be wrapped up in blue waves,

Like you are in a pink mantle now,

Little fish will bite your toes,

but before you big fish will bow.

A conch blown by your nan

Shall wake you with the sun.

Gramps' zither will play music blue

To lull the moon and you.

Why, my little babe,are you shaking your head?

No, you will not sleep, but why?

Oh, gosh, you ain’t been fed!

321. Penny

 

321. Penny

The Atshebies were playing fay peek-a-boo in a magnolia grove in Minced Forest.  They  made themselves invisible and then made only their faces visible among the leaves and the flowers of the trees  for just a  brief second. If they were spotted by me, Little Dolphus, the intellectual Leafy, I cried out the name of the kittykid whose face I had spotted. Basically that was how we played. It may be a silly game, but we find it fun.

And then Penny appeared, interrupting our play.

“Where is  Pedubastis?” she asked us.

“What do you want with her?” I asked suspiciously. I am always suspicious. It’s a Leafy trait. Penny is a pretty fay girl who always looks a bit messy, but that day she looked different. She looked a little bloated.

“It’s personal and urgent,” she said.

“I don’t think Pedi knows we are here in the forest,” said Neferhari. “We shouldn’t be.”

“I always know where you are, children,” said Pedubastis, appearing on the branch of a tree and leaping down to the ground where she turned into an Egyptian person. We had never seen what she looked like when she wasn’t a cat before. So we were very surprised. She didn't look like we had expected her to. We had thought she would be plumper, like she is when she's a cat. 

“What is it, dear?” Pedubastis asked Penny.

And Penny, who was wrapped up in a huge pink mantle allowed it to drop to the ground.

“I need a midwife,” she said.

“Oh, my!” said Pedubastis. “Is it a mortal’s or a dwindler’s?”

“A mortal’s.”

“And why hasn’t he found you a midwife? They are mostly mortals. There are no fairy midwives.”

“What does Penny need?” asked Neferedi.

“Hush! I’ll tell you later,” said Pedubastis.

“I’m not with him. It was a one time thing.”

“Was it voluntary?”

“Oh, yes! All my doing!”

“Better, then,” said Pedubastis. “If you are walking alone in this, we’re off to the Temple of Mayet.”

And we were all covered by a mist, and when it dispelled, we were inside the Temple of Mayet.

“What is happening?” cried all the Atshebies. “Why are we here?”

“Wait till I see to Penny and then we’ll talk,” said Pedubastis.

Pedubastis spoke with three cats from the temple and they led Penny off.

“Go play in the pond. Try not to drown. I have to be with Penny,” said Pedubastis.

The Atshebies didn’t feel much like playing. They went outside but didn’t get into the little barque  there was in the crescent shaped pond round the temple. What they did was start to ask me questions.

“Who is that?” they said, when a cat arrived with a woman, both moving very decidedly into the temple.

“She’s a mortal,” said Nefernedi. “I can tell. Because of the way the cat was clutching her and she clinging to the cat. She's been transported. She couldn't have made it here on her own, at least not this way.Why is a mortal here?”

“I don’t know if I should be answering your questions,” I said. “But yes, that woman is mortal. Don’t ask me more questions. Just wait till Pedubastis is ready to tell you.”

“I’ll tell them,” said a three coloured cat who had been watching us from a distance. She approached and said, “Maybe you are a little young to know, but since you’ve seen Penny…”

And she told the Kittykids something they didn’t know till then.

“Fay children usually pop out of nowhere. You know that, don’t you? Like you probably did.”

“We were ordered kids,” said Neferviki.

“Even so. Your daddy is fay, your mummy is too, and you popped up and were collected and delivered to your parents by the regular childgivers. But what you don’t know is that fairy women can have kids with mortal men. If they do, they bear those children in their bellies for a while, like mortal women do. And then they drop them out. They usually need the help of a midwife to do this easily.”

“Penny will have a baby?” asked Neferclari.

“Yes. And its father is a mortal or a dwindler.”

“What is a dwindler?” asked Neferniki.

“A fay who has gone bad and is losing it.”

“Who is no longer magical?”

 “Who is somewhere along  the process of degenerating from mean fairy into mean mortal.”

“They lose their special abilities,” said Neferedi wisely. “I’ve heard of them, but I didn’t know they were called dwindlers.”

“Penny said the father of her baby is mortal,” I said. “No need to dwell on dwindlers.”

“Let’s hope he was a nice one. So she’s lucky and the child will be nice too,” said the cat.

“Oh, dear!” said Neferclari. “I wonder what the baby will be like!”

And we all began to go up and down  the temple steps nervously and impatiently, waiting to see what kind of a child Penny would have.

 

320. The Bellyman

320. The Bellyman

Out in the gardens of Castle Attor, three children were about to quarrel on the late afternoon of what was soon to be Christmas Eve. They had been gathering mistletoe and holly and ivy, but these festive plants were not what they were ready to fight about.

“You’ve been bad!” Kittykid Neferhari accused his uncle Esmeraldo. “You won’t get a thing tonight from Santa.”

Esmeraldo didn’t look too happy. He wasn’t sure Neferhari wouldn’t be right as right can be.

“Pirates don’t get gifts from Father Christmas,” insisted Neferhari.

“He has not!” Azuline chided her nephew. “He hasn’t been bad at all. He was only playing. He’s not really a pirate. Only a makebelieve pirate.”

“Great Grandpa is hopping mad. He’s jumping like Mexican beans.He almost blasted Elucubrius and Bunglemore to bits at the St. Lucy Bazaar. Great Grandma barely managed to stop him.”

“Esmeraldo didn’t know they were jailbirds. No one keeps jailbirds in a cage like that bountiful galley.”

“Well, when Great Grandpa is good, he is very, very good, but when he is bad, he can be horrid.”

“Grandpa is never very, very good. He is always whacky in his ways. I’ve never seen him be utterly  horrid, though. They say he presses but doesn’t strangle.”

“Azuline, I promise you he can be horrid. He once fooled me into entering a sack and then tied it up with me within.”

“But you’re out here now, so I guess he didn’t try to drown you, Kittykid.”

“No. But he gave me the fright of my life.”

“Yours is a very short life,” said Esmeraldo suddenly. “You are bound to be frightened worse more times.”

“I’m older than you are, though you are my uncle,” retorted Neferhari. “So I’ve lived more. And…Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!”

“Now what, ancient guy?” asked Esmeraldo, seeing his nephew gasp and recoil.

Neferhari turned himself into the black cat he could change into whenever he wanted to and  leapt up to the castle wall.

Azuline turned around to see what had frightened the Atshebie.

“It’t true,” said Esmeraldo, who had also turned to have a look. “The man with the sack has come for me!”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” scolded Azuline. “There’s no such thing on this island.”

“Then what are we looking at?” asked Esmeraldo.

They were looking at a messy and red-haired man who was wearing a beret, and  was smoking a pipe, and leaning on a stick and carrying… a sack!

“Hey there, rapaziños! Boas festas! Any of you wanting your belly rubbed?”

“¡Ahhhhhhhhhh!” hollered Esmeraldo and his sister, and they flew up to the wall, to where Neferhari was waiting to see how things might go. All three then crashed into the castle through a window yelling “Pedubastiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis!”

“Now what?” said Pedubastis the Egyptian nanny cat. She sounded more bored than surprised or upset.

“Grandpa has sent the Krampus to get me!” wailed Esmeraldo.

“No, that’s not it!” said Azuline.

“Of course it isn’t!” yawned Pedubastis. “The Krampus isn’t allowed on this island. And he has  nothing to do here ever. He never got even Chickenbroth Pestle when that fellow was a promising child.”

“He can’t have gotten Elucubrius and Bunglemore either,” said Esmeraldo, taking heart. "I floored those guys and the Krampus hasn’t, so he may not be that tough. But the bloke outside is, because he drinks blood. It was spilling from something  that looked like a leather boot.”

“Don’t you want to know who is out there, Peddy?”asked Neferhari. He was his little boy self again and pulling his nanny towards a window.

“Frankly, no!” said Pedubastis, trying to break free from all three children who were now harassing her and tearing at her.

“He does have a sack!” said Azuline. “Look at it, Pedubastis! It seems to be full. He must have kidnapped other kids. We have to save them!”

“No way!” cried Pedubastis. “There are enough of you here today, and more there will be at AEternus’ home when we go have dinner there tonight.”

“He speaks weird. Almost in another language. He said he wanted to rub our bellies!”

“AEternus?” asked Pedubastis. This did surprise her. “When you are cats, I suppose.”

“No, the man with the sack!” insisted Azuline. “And Esmeraldo and I don’t turn into cats.”

And suddenly Pedubastis looked out the window and leapt out of the castle, and onto the wall round it, and down to the garden that surrounded it.

“Who the devil are you and what are you wanting from my charges?” she asked the fat little man who had addressed the kids. She had blown herself up to the size of a lioness, but that didn’t seem to frighten the man.

“I’m the Bellyman,” he said. “Haven’t you heard of me? I feed poor children on Christmas Eve.”

“There are no poor children here. Unless you have some in the sack.”

And Pedubastis tore the sack with one of the claws on her paws. And out spilled loads of chestnuts.

“Oh, no!” cried the man.

“What is the meaning of this?” asked Pedubastis.

“Like I said, I feed poor chilren on Christmas Eve and wish that they be fed  every night all year and not starve. I rub their bellies to see if they are well fed or not when I see them, and if they aren’t, I feed them chestnuts, and once they’ve eaten, I wish they will have good meals all the coming year. And they do, because that’s my magic. Help me pick these chestnuts up, will you?” asked the man.

“Pick them up yourself while I go for a better sack than that mended  and to be mended  again rag you have there,” said Pedubastis.

“Could you bring me a new wineskin too? This one leaks a little,” said the man. “It’s medicinal wine, I assure you.”

 “I’ve never heard of the likes of you before, but something tells me you are a legal fellow. Though you’re not where you should be. There are no starving kids on this island. Not on Christmas Eve. Not ever.”

319. The Crowned Heads Choir

 319. The Crowned Heads Choir

Esmeraldo had had enough. Tired of all he had been through, wheeling and dealing and rampaging and kidnapping and meeting too many strange people, he suddenly burst into tears.

“Wahhhhhh!” went Esmeraldo, reminding everyone that tough as he was, he was just a baby, “I want to go home!”

“Oh, the poor child!” cried Lady Splendour. “That’s what the poor thing is, really is! For all his bravado! You’ve just been playing at pirate, haven’t you, dear? You aren’t really one. As fortune would have it, you found yourself stealing your own daddy’s boat, for that’s what it is. Well, the lucky part is that since it is your daddy’s, it all stays in the family. Yes, that’s where it is staying. Generosity and I between us will find something more suitable to grace Lady Jittery’s Peevish Pond with. Now the unlucky part of this business is that you, I think, have unwittingly given two bad guys the right to be free from the constraint they were subject to. I wonder what can be done about that.”

“If I may speak, Lady Splendour,” I, Little Dolphus, the intellectual Leafy said, “they aren’t half as bad as they are stupid, these offenders  Gemmy has favored aren’t. I admit they do have the stupidest ideas, but within the foolish genre, not precisely the evil. Our problem here is AEternus, for since they attracted his attention, he has a strong dislike of them. In any case, they are about to enjoy the few days of leave they have a year. And that is the time we have to find what to do with them when their free time is over.”

“Ufff! Old man AEternus is awfully hard to please. He is terribly exacting and likes everything to be in the right measure. Needless to say, he’s not too fond of me, though he can be splendid any time he wants to. Now and again…, oh, well, we’ll let him be Divina’s problem. She knows him best. As for now, I’m taking you all home,” said the Lady Splendour. “Just give me a few minutes to pack a few things, stock mostly, for my daughter Dadivosa’s bazaar. Soon it will be Christmas and I myself should be getting out there.”

As you can imagine the few things Lady Splendour packed were far from few. But I won’t go into that now. I will only say she took the children and me to Apple Island, to the Richearth plantation, where I too spent the night. We had dinner and a nightcap of chamomile tea, which is one of those things it is good to have after an adventure. We awoke late, several days after, in fact, but not so late or so tired that we couldn’t make it to the Crowned Heads’ Concert.

And just what is that you may ask, if you are not in the know? Well, every year, some day in December, the fay kids who have reached or will reach the age of seven during the current year get together to celebrate their coming of age. A party is organized for these kids, with a show in which they participate, and they form a choir and sing together for the delight of their families and friends. They themselves wirte the music and the lyrics of half the songs they sing. The other half of the songs are traditional or the work of those who came of age before them. Old Crowned Heads Choir hits these last are. The songs these young ones write are almost always sweet in tune, though there can be surprises. As for the lyrics, well, there is always something a little weird about them. Not bad, just odd. 

The little bat fairy Angelmouse Grigio, now a grand divo in his own right as well as a professor of the school of voice run by the siren Marina O’Toora, was to direct the choir.

It is called the Crowned Heads Choir because these young fairies who have come of age or are a few days from it and will do so before the year ends, are now their own masters and monarchs of their very own ideal homes, which can be claimed starting the first of January of the new year. And for their feast they wear bright, glowing crowns on their heads to make this statement, that they are free and commanding themselves. Most of them are good kids, almost all. This year, every one to the last is good. Twelve they are this year, which is a good enough number for a choir, for there have been years when only two or three or even only one fay babe has grown up. 

Being good kids, this year’s crop are expected to remain living in Apple Island forever and a day. Also, I must say, this batch sang rather well, and so everyone was happy. They ended their concert reminding people that on the eve of the thirteenth of December Generoso and Dadivosa’s Christmas Bazaar would be held and everyone present was expected to be so there too. And the last song they sang, to the music of seven gold-stringed harps, was Lambent Lucy, the lyrics of which I publish here in case you aren’t acquainted with them. I particularly like this song because it was written by one of us, a fay child of Minced Forest, and describes our ways.

Up in the heavens, veiled by black clouds, the pale moon is struggling to shimmer,

To see and be seen tiny stars fight mists that wish them dimmer and dimmer

Through a lace of branches black and bare! Ah, the wind is still, frozen air!

Put an end to this endless night! Lambent Lucy, bring back the light!

We have left our warm beds for it’s got in our heads to welcome dearest  Lucy!

Down in the forest, the pines and we covered in snow shiver silently,

Toes clad, fingers gloved, yet they are so numb, noses red, knees knock soundlessly, dumb.

Put an end to this endless night! Lambent Lucy, bring back the light!

Stiffling yawns in this most longest night, awake await to witness the sight,

Chant now in the dark so like the lark we can joyous sing away the night!

Black turn dark blue, then rose and then bright, for when it is darkest dawns the light!  

Put an end to this endless night! Lambent Lucy, bring back the light!

318. Castle Cloud's Other Inhabitants

318. Castle Cloud's Other Inhabitants

“Ye whom we are overhearing!” sang the chorus of little shimmering  lights, “Have we heard right? Is it your  intention to visit Splendida?”

“Erh…yes,” I said. “That and what we’ve just done. Get Esmeraldo to know about the virtues, I mean. This part of our business has concluded. Successfully, we hope. I’m sure we’ve achieved something here. You’ll be a better person from now on now that you know how to be one, won’t you, Gemmy? ”

Esmeraldo saw it was necessary to say he would indeed be a better person if he wanted to solve the question of the legal ownership of the Outrageous.

“I promise to consider all I have learned here and try to do things better. That should be enough for you for now. I can’t do better until I’ve digested all this and have a chance to, ye who are standing there blocking my path,” and he added, for he thought maybe he hadn’t reassured the guardians sufficiently, “I mean what I’ve said. Honest to goodness.”

Now the guardians were not stupid, and while he had been speaking they had sent one of their kind to investigate. And this light returned saying, “There is a dissension out there about to whom a certain bounteous galley may belong, and these people are here to settle the question before the disagreement becomes bitter. The ship is splendid and  could belong to Splendida. I think we should allow them to see her.”

“The trouble is we haven’t let her loose yet,” said another of the lights. “Can’t this wait till Christmas?”

“¡¡¿¿Let loose??!!” exclaimed Azuline. She was quite shocked to hear the lights speak in this way.

“We have some explaining to do, I think,” said another of the lights. “Are we agreed?”

And the chorus said in chorus, “This is not just the homesite of the Remedial Virtues, who fight the seven vile vices we’d rather not mention here by name. Also here, in their own space, we have residing with us the Seven Excesses, of which the Lady Splendour is one.”

“They reside here or are retained here?” asked Esmeraldo, who young as he was,  had experience sequestering people.

“These people aren’t horribly bad,” said the Lights. “In fact they are sometimes too good. And that…well, that can cause problems. We can’t kick them out of the Island. Not even out of its airspace, which is where it has been decided they should dwell.”

“This sounds to me like a restraining order,” said Esmeraldo. “Is this place a madhouse you have here? Because if it isn’t a prison…”

“No, no, no, no!” protested the shimmering lights, all flickering indignantly. And then it became clear there was, despite their initial vehemence, some dissension too among them.

“The real madhouse is way down in the unnameable place.”

“The bottonless pit?”

“EeeeeK!” went all the little lights.

“Yes, but not exactly. The Seven Deadly Sins each have a princely throne there,” said one. “There, I’ve said it. But the leader they answer to allows these princes’ subjects to roam the mortal world. To recruit more of their persuasion  if they can. We don’t force anyone to stay put here. The Excesses of Virtue are here voluntarily. This is a home. Their home sweet home. They can’t control themselves so we help them do that.”

“Our visitors will understand better when they meet the Excesses, I think. Please remember we are speaking of well-intentioned people who would like to control themselves but can’t always.”  

We then followed the lights across a courtyard to the other side of the castle, the back part of it, right into a very large hall fitted up as a sitting-room. There were several people  there, each about his or her business.

“Little girl,” said a bearded man standing by the door to Azuline, “why are you showing your fine head of hair so brazenly? Don’t you realize you could get into trouble for that? Some man could sequester you.”

“Me? Why would he want to?” asked Azuline innocently.

A laughing, very pleasingly plump and pretty-faced lady whose own splendid head of  teased hair was well visible, just as was a treasure chest hoardof emeralds and amethysts all hanging from her, making her look like a spectacular Christmas tree, all lighted up too, laughed out loud. “To make you wash his filthy underpants!” said the lady.

“Yes!” said a woman who was on her knees despite her elegant velvet frock, trimmed with French lace,  busily scrubbing a floor that couldn’t have been already cleaner. “Some people are too lazy to wash their own clothes. Pay no attention to Mr. Prudery, dear. He can’t help exaggerating. It’s in his nature. He’s not to be taken into account. Now, please be so kind as to float a little above the floor so as not to muck it up. It’s not that I would mind cleaning it again. It’s that I’ve a lot of other things to do, darlings. I wouldn’t be Dame Workaholic if I didn’t.”

“Well, I think it is a little vain of this little girl to show off her lovely hair. It is truly lovely, dear, but precisely because of that you really ought to cut it off. You don’t want to be considered too proud. It would hurt the feelings of those who can’t have lovely hair like yours. You look like a nice girl that wouldn’t  want to do that. Personally, I don’t mind. I’m used to being almost bald and gray and mousy. And I would never have what it takes to hurt anyone, least of all a child. But there are those who might harm you out of envy. Not here. You’re safe here, like we are. We’re safe from oursleves too.”

This speech was said by a man who sat by an umbrella stand full of measuring rods and tapes and divided scales and such.

“Get back to reading your favorite book, dear,” said the most bejewelled lady to this second gentleman. “Uriah Heep is Mr. Toomeek’s  favorite villain,” she then explained to us, as this man quietly did as he was told and picked up a worn paperback version of David Copperfield and nailed his eyes on it, as if only too conscious and sorry that he has spoken too much.

“Hypocrite!“ Mr. Toomeek hissed softly at an illustration of Mr. Heep.

“He doesn’t like people who only pretend to be humble!” smiled a jolly-looking, sweet-faced old fellow, patting Mr. Toomeek comfortingly on the shoulder. “Don’t fuss too much about Uriah,  old chap, you know he will get his comeuppance!”  He did that with his bright  eyes on us, where they had been since we had entered the room, and he said to us, “I’ve been dying to ask what I can do for you! What shall it be? Do ask! It shall be granted to you!”

“We’re here to see Splendida,” said Esmeraldo, getting at once to the point.

“Oh,” said Mr. Servile, sounding a little disappointed. “Of course you are. She’s so…splendid there’s no competing. Still, if there’s anything I can do, don’t hesitate to ask. I’m more than willing to be of service.”

“Splendida?” said the most bejewelled lady. “Now what could a little green lad, a blue little lady and an imposingly  spectacled Leafy want from me? It’s because of this black Friday furor, isn’t it? Or because Christmas is near!”

“Ah,” sighed Dame Workaholic, “such a wonderfully busy time Christmas. But it’s still a while off, isn’t it, Apathy?”

“I don’t mind waiting,”said a quiet little creature sitting almost invisibly in a corner.

“Ah, yes. Too much for the nerves of the likes of you it is, anyway. Pity you can’t perk up and lend me a hand with all the organizing and preparations.”

“Look here, darlings,” said voluptuous Splendida, “I won’t put a penny into your hats. A whole flock of geese each will I shove in there. Ask through your honeyed mouths dears, and I’ll know what to give you. They don’t call me Opulence for nothing.”

“I like that,” said Esmeraldo before anyone else could speak. “This lady speaks my language! What like? I love your attitude. But before you begin to dish out, Lady Splendour, could you tell me why Temperance in Excess isn’t in this room?”

“Oh, but Scarcity is here! Hiding behind the curtains, being as scarce as possible!”