“Do you think your father will fire me, Arley?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “He can’t do a thing without you. Mum says he’s too lazy to even try,” I assured him.
I wasn’t saying mean things about my father. What Mum and Dad thought of each other was common knowledge and think what they might, they couldn’t do without each other anyway, so their quarrels might be shocking to behold but were always of little consequence.
And then, finally, late one afternoon Dad showed up. He came just as he had left, in a puff of pink and gold light. But he was inside something very special.
“What is that artifact?” exclaimed Puck, surprised into speaking. He had sworn he wouldn’t speak a word to my dad until he received an apology.
“It’s James Bond’s coolest car,” announced Dad proudly. “I bought it for Darcy to drive me about in. Now, Darcy, say you’re just dying to drive it!”
Just before Glorvina could begin to wail because of the petrol, Mr. Binky intervened.
“Not so fast!” cried the prime minister. “Darcy hasn’t got a license.”
“So what?” snapped Oberon. “Nobody in Fairyland has one. I haven’t got one and I’ve come all the way here driving this car.”
Before he finished speaking, Mr. Binky handed him a ticket. He was fining Dad for having driven without a license.
“How dare you!” roared Dad, turning the ticket into a crow that flew up cawing into the nearest tree and observed us with interest from there. Crows are very smart birds and so was this one even if he used to be a ticket. “Give this man Darcy a license this minute!”
The Prime Minister was not impressed.
“Not so fast,” he said again. “First, he’ll have to take driving lessons. And the next thing he’ll have to take is a test. I mean to make it very difficult to pass that test. I don’t want accidents.”
“Get into the car!” shouted Dad at Darcy. “You’re driving me home. I’m too tired to deal with nonsense just now.”
But Darcy was as good as his word. There was no way Dad could get him to drive Bond’s car. Dad was so upset he kicked the car and threw the keys to the ground and stomped on them, hopping mad. Darcy had to ask him to stop insisting and forget about the whole affair. And Dad did. Because there is no saying no to Darcy. But unfortunately that wasn’t all that happened.
“Where am I? What is happening here? I can’t see a thing!”
Darcy should have asked Dad to calm down first, because he was in such a blind rage that he had literally gone blind.
“Puck, take his majesty home,” said Glorvina. “He’ll have to rest a little before his sight returns. Do give him a cup of linden tea, will you?”
But Dad said he wouldn’t move from where he was until someone explained to him what was going on. When they did, he was even hopping madder. But he kept forgetting what he was angry about and had to be reminded again and again. And then Nick Bottom came up and advised Dad to laugh.
“It’s what I did that one time when you made a fool of me and turned me into a donkey, Oberon. Laughing at the whole affair made me feel better.”
“And what we did when the play we performed went awfully wrong and we felt ridiculous,” seconded the rest of Nick’s cast.
And Dad saw reason. Well, kind of. He would laugh and then he would rage and next it was laugh again and fret again and his sight would come and go in flashes. “I’m a good sport!” he would insist, trying to convince himself more than anyone else. “Ho, ho! I have a terrific sense of humor. Ah, ha, ha! I can take a joke even if I’m the butt of it!”
Puck finally came down from the tree and took hold of Dad´s arm and began to lead him home so he could have the tranquilizing cup of linden tea in peace, just as Glorvina had prescribed.
“Watch your step!” called the moles after Puck and Dad. “You don’t want to fall into one of our holes.”
“I certainly will,” nodded Puck.“It’s like the lame leading the blind. My legs are so stiff from sitting crosslegged for so long that I can barely walk.”
But Puck was happy. He was being useful to Dad again.
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