13. Puck on Strike

My dad left the forest in a pink and gold whirlwind to recruit Darcy. For once, Puck did not follow him. The edges of his mouth had slumped down and he himself slumped down too, under his favorite oak tree.

Next morning, Alpin and I dropped by the tree to see how Puck was and found him sitting within it, like on a small rustic throne, as he likes to do. But he was carrying signs that read On Strike! and Oberon unfair to this employee.

I had never seen a fairy on strike before and never have again. And I had no idea Puck considered himself dad´s employee.

“Employee? Does he pay you?” I asked.

“With compliments. There is nothing I like better than to hear him say I am the best.”

The best...what? Was it servant? Henchman? Minion? What exactly was Puck? I didn’t dare to ask. He’d said employee, but I just couldn’t see him as that.The best friend he certainly was. No wonder Puck was offended because Dad had sped off to fetch Darcy.

Alpin also had a question for Puck.

“Have you anything to eat? I’m getting hungry.”

Before Puck could answer, there was a clamor in the forest and something to eat appeared. It came with about fifty people who arrived to give Puck their support.

There were representatives from labourers’guilds Puck sympathized with, ready to sympathize with him in turn. Puck’s old acquaintance, Nick Bottom, was there of course, in his own name and that of the weavers.Tom Snout came for the tinkers, Francis Flute for the bellows-menders, Snug in representation of the joiners, Peter Quince for the capenters and Robin Starveling for the tailors. Fergus MacLob said he was there for the shoemakers, and how could Michael O’Toora not be there for the English teachers?   

My mum’s fairies in waiting were there too. Peaseblossom and Moth and Mustardseed were curious to see how this affair would turn out, but Cobweb was aggressively annoyed with Oberon for his treatment of Puck and didn’t hesitate to shout so. She had a bagful of whistles and flutes and tambourines and began to pass them around and soon she had managed to raise a riot.

With these ladies was Señora Estrella, Don Alonso’s housekeeper, who had become Cobweb’s close friend and who provided a huge pot of chickpea stew for everybody and another even huger pot just for Alpin so everyone else would have time to eat before he went after their food.

It was not long before Prime Minister Binky arrived, in the company of the militant banshee Glorvina. While Glorvina encouraged Puck to protest, Mr. Binky asked him if he realized he could do nothing of the kind without having informed the authorities first. 

Mr. Binky handed Puck some papers he expected him to sign, saying they detailed the conditions on which Puck could go on strike and listed the minimum services he would have to perform despite not wanting to.

Puck tore the papers in bits after saying he would have done something worse with them if there hadn’t been minors present.

Mr. Binky wanted to have Puck arrested for this, but we don’t have a police force. Mr. Binky lamented not having had time to create one, but there were so many things to be done. Then he turned to Artemius and asked him to force the crowd to disband by dragging Puck out of the oak tree and kicking him out of the forest for provoking a disturbance there.

Artemius said he couldn’t be ordered to do that because he wasn’t a civil servant. What he did in the forest was purely voluntary and he wasn’t up to volunteering to confront such a dense crowd. Especially since most of its members were people who had made him king.

Glorvina then asked a crucial question.

“Where is Oberon? He ought to be here.”