127. Moonstone Miniatures

  

“On the afternoon of the 31^st of October, I went to Nauta’s villa. Michael was going to hold his Halloween Party there that evening. So I thought I might check if any of the refreshments had already arrived. Because Mrs. Nauta likes to have me chased out of there by her servants, I entered  very stealthily through the first window I found open. I found myself in a workshop, a place where someone did arts and crafts. There was a lot of interesting stuff there. The item I liked best was a doll’s  head with what seemed to be stuffed  genuine snake’s skin fake snakes for hair on it. Its eyes were closed and I shook it to see if they would open, but they didn’t. I thought it would be a cool thing to take to the Halloween party and I stuffed it in my satchel. Mrs. Nauta saw me the moment I got to the kitchen. She was sitting on guard there, and she shouted to her servants who rushed to chase me out of the villa with a broom. She says she doesn’t have slaves, but you can’t imagine how she shouts at those servants.  

I meandered for a while, but got tired of waiting for the servants to stop watching out for me. I decided to see what I could find to eat somewhere else. I  ran intoTy Shyboy,  a very nice fellow. He let me have some slices of pizza left in a box he carried. I showed him the doll’s head. We thought it might be cool to put it in his uncle’s jumbisack, drenched in Shyboy oil, and see what would happen.It seemed like a good idea at the time.

By then it was dark and Ty and I got into our costumes and went to Michael’s party, which, as I have told you, was being held at Nauta’s villa. While I was busy eating, the jumbisack burst open and the snakey head leapt out of it. As I said, I was busy eating, so I paid no attention to the head. I thought it would be alright, after all, this was a Halloween party.”

Felina began to give little gasps and bite her nails.

“The revellers were petrified,” said Mr. Blake.

“You’re getting ahead of me, but yes. It seems the head had bounced all over the place turning everyone that looked at it into something like stone. The first person it got must have been my brother Darcy, because he was standing right behind me. If it hadn’t, none of this would have happend. It could have gotten me too, but I only had eyes for the food. When the shouting and screaming stopped, I saw the head bounce accidentally into Nauta’s well. When I heard the splash it made as it fell, I rushed to the well and with the kind of strength one only has in a crisis, I pushed the well’s huge stone cover on it. I didn’t peek in at all, because it was too dangerous to. I suppose it’s still in there, the head. And I sincerely hope it drowned. It didn’t make noises or anything when we were there the other day, did it? And the stone cover is still on the well.”

“Are you saying we sat on that well exchanging sayings with the creature swimming beneath us?”

Alpin nodded.

“Not to worry, I think. Like I said, it could have drowned. And not just anybody can move that stone. And if the head already hasn’t surfaced… ”

“But where were the statues?” said Mr. Blake. “I didn’t see any when we were there.”

“There aren’t any statues, except for Ty Shyboy’s. He was the only human there.”

Felina interrupted Alpin’s speech by fainting when she heard about Ty. Mr. Blake revived her with smelling salts, and Alpin went on with his tale.

“The fairies got changed into very tiny figures that looked like chess pieces made of moonstone. I put them all in my tote bag.”

“Are they still there?”

“No. I gave that bag to the ex-thief Nimbus di Limbo.”    

“When did this happen?”

“Right then. He was lucky. He arrived late because he had to feed his mum dinner first or something.”

“I assume he wanted the chess pieces to give to his mother?”

“No, I don’t think so. He took Ty too, and that figure is life-sized, far too big for his mum’s collection. Di Limbo was very scared. He said we had to hide the statue and figures before they fell into the wrong hands. I felt he knew more about hiding stolen goods and other compromising stuff than I did, so I let him take charge of that.”

“We must pay this gentleman thief a visit,” said Mr. Blake.

“Ex. Ex thief,” said Alpin.

“But still a gentleman, we must hope.”