141. Like Tantalus

Before the sun set on the 31^st of August, I took my library card and used it again to open the door to the Iberian School of Magic.

At first, it seemed that there was no one there. There was no one at the large rectangular table. And Tansy was not sitting in his armchair. There was also no trace of Moll Avery.

Then I heard Tansy say petulantly, “Will you hold still? You make a lousy model!”

I was still. Almost petrified. So he couldn’t be speaking to me. I crept in the direction of Tansy’s voice until I saw with my own eyes what he was talking about.

In a pool of water that reached above his bellybutton, stood Alpin, jumping and waving his arms about trying to reach a branch loaded with peaches that seemed to grow out of nowhere. When he was about to touch the fruit, it drew far back. When he retreated, it would advance, tempting him to reach for it again.

“Alpin?” I said.

“At last!” cried Tansy.  

He was sitting almost in the dark trying to do a sketch of Alpin in the pool.

“How am I going to paint a masterpiece if my model won’t hold still?” he complained to me.

“What is going on here?” I asked.

Tansy explained that the devil had chosen him to keep for his own, though he couldn’t understand why, for there is nothing more useless than a lazy servant.

“My classmates were delighted to leave,” he said, “except for Ophidian the Envious, who almost envied me for being the chosen one. He and your friends had to be bounced out. You can’t imagine the trouble the old man with the sword gave before he was evicted. What a fight the old man put up! Such a kick in the shin he gave the Devil. Who would have thought he had it in him?”

“They didn’t want to leave?”

“Because of Alpin. Alpin said he would stay here for a year instead of me  if I ceded him my piece of Scrumptious Cake. I hadn’t eaten it, you see. I kept it on purpose, thinking Bunny would be stupid enough to trade his freedom for my cake. But before that could happen, Alpin offered himself.”

I raised my eyebrows and shook my head in disbelief, but I had to admit this was something Alpin might have done.

“The devil decided to keep us both. He threw the cake at Ophidian, the Envious One, who was about to ask to remain here too just to have it, though he doesn’t like sweets. Then the Devil stuck Alpin in this pool.”

“Why is Nauta in there with him?”

Nauta shook his head and tried to speak but was unable to.

“The Roman begged to stay in Alpin’s place. He said it was his fault for not having told Alpin the story of Tantalus.You know, the Greek myth about a  terribly hungry man who spends his time in hell trying to eat but never gets to. It seems the Roman tells children only the nicer myths, never the cruel ones, because he doesn’t want to frighten them.Well, to sum up, the devil blasted your friends out the door and blew them all the way to Minced Forest. Except the Roman, who was behind him, trying to get into the pool to draw Alpin out.There he is, still trying.”

                              

 “And now what?” I said. “How do we fix this?”

Before Tansy could answer Alpin glanced away from the fruit for a second and saw the Scrumptious Cakes I had brought with me.

                              

“Those cakes! Let me eat CAKE!”

Tansy leapt to his feet and blocked my way to the pool.

“Don’t even think of letting him have cake unless you want to be stuck in the pool too. That’s what happens to whoever tries to feed its prisoners.”

“I don’t think any of this is fair,” I said. “And I’m going to put a stop to it. Where is the devil? I want to have a word with him. He’s supposed to be very smart.Smart people listen to reason. People can come to an understanding if they listen to each other.”

“You think so?” said Tansy Mandrakecott, and before I could answer, the way he looked changed utterly.

                           

The Devil stood there before me, monstrously large, seeming to fill up the whole school with his terrible presence.

And I...I barely reached his knee at my tallest height. And I felt as if he were going to stomp on me with one of his enormous feet. 

He had caught me off guard, but I knew I couldn’t just stand there with my mouth open.

“You know this isn’t fair,” I swallowed and said. “You have to let my friends go. Alpin is a pathologically hungry child. Any contract he has made cannot be valid, because he is never in his right mind when it comes to food. He isn’t qualified to negotiate about food.”

“You think Alpin is legally incompetent?”

“About food, absolutely,” I insisted, hoping the Devil would accept my argument.

“Oh, aren’t you funny! You expect me to sympathize with this good for nothing imp!”

The Devil laughed uproariously, and his laughter shook the thin white columns, and echoed horribly through the halls.

“Hilarious. Look at me. Right now I’m cracking up! But I won’t be amused for long. There that scoundrel stands  and there that scoundrel stays,” said the Devil, pointing at Alpin. “And I’m done laughing. Look! There’s the door, wide open for you. You and the Roman can leave. Go!”

I didn’t even look behind me, though I felt the door was open wide.

                                                           

“You know this isn’t fair,” I insisted. “Considering Alpin’s congenital defect, what you’re doing to him is nothing less than intolerable cruelty. There has to be a limit to something like this. So I am asking you again, let Alpin go too.”

“If you keep standing by your friend, that’s just what you’ll do.You’ll end up in the pool and sooner or later you’ll be begging to be fed too.”

“I’m only asking for justice,” I insisted. “There has to be a limit to something like this,” I repeated.

                

         

                     “Arrrrrrrrrrrgggghhhhh!” roared the Devil.

The Devil’s mouth was like a furnace. As he roared, it blazed aflame. He also blandished his fork and pointed it at me. But it was the Scrumptious Cakes I had brought with me that got hit by a ray from the fork. They popped out of their boxes and one by one disappeared right before Alpin’s mouth as he leaned out desperately to try and catch them. Fumes and smoke everywhere were making my eyes water. I could barely keep them open. But the tears I saw in Alpin’s eyes were of desperation. Perhaps the first genuine tears I had seen him shed. Mine became tears of frustration.

             

 And I  lost my temper.

                           

“Stand back!” I shouted at the Devil. “Alpin, get out of the pool! You don’t deserve this! He has no right to keep you in there and therefore no power over you! We’re leaving! Stand back!”

The last of the Scrumptious Cakes bounced in the opposite direction, through the door and outside the cave. And Alpin leapt out of the pool and rushed after it. And after him went Nauta and so did I, moving backwards faster than I ever had in my life and still shouting “Stand back!” till my lungs felt as if they would burst.