135. Enlisting Seven

The first thing I did when we got back home was to search for my mother. I found her in Mrs. Dullahan’s garden. It was International Fairy Day and my mum and Alpin’s mum were preparing to celebrate this event. 

 “Mum, are you friends with the devil?” I asked her.

       

“Mean gossips like to say so,” said Mum, “but no.To be frank with you, he gives me the creeps. But he has his territory and I have mine. So I try to be politically correct, which is all I can do about him.That’s all.”

“Then you won’t come with me to see him?”

“Today? It’s Fairy Day! I have to be in a hundred places at the same time. Oberon, take Arley to see the devil, he wants something with him.”

Nobody ever has said my dad likes the devil. And I think that had something to do with his answer.

                         

“Aaaaah! With the Otherworld Football Championship about to begin, I haven’t a minute. I’m really stressed.”

“You are going to let your son deal with the devil on his own because of a football match?” cried Mum. “I can’t believe this, Oberon.”

“I’m not going to do that. I’m going to invite him to tag along to the match with me. Today football is so important, that one can’t allow just anybody to win a match. Every goal has to be politically correct. Why don’t you come see how the Otherworld Championship is organized? You’ll learn a lot more useful stuff about corruption and such than with the devil.”

“Is the Sidhe Band and the Ye Fay Coalition going to win?” I asked.

“No. We don’t have the money to buy that this time. What I want is for our team to lose as quickly as possible and return home without causing great expense. But I don’t want somebody who will give us trouble when we are better off to win now. It’s not so easy to fix these matches, no.”

Somebody that had to do with the coalition came up to Dad then and they got engrossed in a conversation and I slipped away.

We couldn’t ask Gregoria Tenoria to come with us because she had dumped Alpin and was now Valentine’s nanny. She never left my sister’s side because Val is always in danger. Being Ibys’ girlfriend and there being a lot of bad lots who still had accounts to settle with Ibys’ father, Val really needed protection. And there was no question of taking the baby to hell along with us just so Gregoria would come too.

Then Alpin said he knew two fellows who were willing to participate in any adventure and we went off to enlist them.

   

As we were leaving Miss Aislene’s garden, a man seated under a tree waved at me. I recognized Omar Khayyam, the great poet. I stopped to say hi and asked him if he wanted to join us in our adventure.

                      

“Myself when young did eagerly frequent doctor and saint and heard great argument about it and about, but evermore came out by the same door as in I went,” he said. “Don’t mix with those who do not know how to love. Sit here under this bough. My loved one will soon arrive with music and refreshments.”

It was good advice he gave us, but we were too young not to want the pencil. And adventure.