All the bricks came wrapped in notes. Some were
flattering. Others were totally illegible. These last had odd signs and bars
drawn more than written on them and Michael had no idea what these sinister
doodles could mean.
One late September afternoon, the banshee
Glorvina and Michael’s brother Kevin, the trouble loving Amadan, dropped by to
have tea. They couldn’t help noticing the scar on Michael’s forehead.
“It has
to do with all those bricks that are lying around your treehouse?”
“Someone certainly has a hostile way of
communicating with me,” said Michael. “But when the notes say something
intelligible, this is always favorable. They ask me to keep up the good work,
and things like that. I don’t know why the sender can’t just post a comment if
he wants to say something kind about my blog. And there’s no explaining the
apparently meaningless scrawls on other sheets.”
“You must put a stop to this,” said Kevin. “The
bricks are harming your tree. It doesn’t have to put up with such rough
handling, does it, Glorvina?”
The Leafies that shared the tree with Michael
all agreed. They were fed up with being startled by the flying missives. And
some had been knocked to the ground and almost flattened out of their wits.
“Messages bound to bricks are always threats,”
pronounced Kevin. “It is an enemy you have. The kind words must be sarcasm.
Someone wants you to stop writing your blog.”
“What? Why, nobody is interested in my blog at
all. It’s nowhere near being popular. Only my two pupils read it and I don’t
think I could have offended anybody by it.”
“You have a mad enemy then,” said Kevin. “Lucky
you! I hope he’s terribly frightful. People are also judged by the calibre of
their enemies.The worse he is, the better you will look when
you defeat him.”
“The last thing I want is an enemy. I wouldn’t
know what to do with one.”
“You don’t want to be famous like Beanstalk
Jack or that British kid with the scar on his forehead? Or the hobbits and that
guy who wanted to rule over all with some rings? You’ll never be anyone without
an enemy.”
Glorvina being a woman of action, she immediately
telephoned Dr. Watson, who was a personal friend of hers. They occasionally
coincided by the bedside of someone who was passing away and he was attending and she was wailing for.
He appeared on the spot with the celerity of a
good doctor making a house call for a dear friend. And he brought the blade
sharp Mr. Holmes with him.
“These notes were written not by one, but by two
people,” proclaimed Mr. Holmes after examining the missives. “The hand that
writes the kind words is not the same as that responsible for the scrawls. The
scrawler is in all likelihood responsible for the irregular method of delivery.
My guess is he is some kind of an idiot.”
And Mr. Holmes had more to say. He suggested
Michael visit the Royal Library of the Sainted Job if he wanted to find the
culprit.
“Why St. Job’s? That’s at Apple Island.”
“A scrap of paper one of the bricks was wrapped
in has a watermark that identifies it as part of the stationery used by the
librarian there.”
A word about the Royal Library of Saint Job. It
was founded in the dark ages by a human named Job Hob who was so interested in
studying fairies that the doyenne of the
fairy world, Mrs. Parry, invited him to live among us. He brought his private
collection of priceless manuscripts with him, and everyone, including my
parents, has been donating texts to the library since then. Copies of many
written treasures that have disappeared from libraries, including the
unfortunate library of Alexandria, can be found there.
“Michael, I’m giving you a week’s leave to go
find this abominable brickcaster and put an end to his unseemly behaviour,”
said Glorvina.
“I can’t look into this now. At least, not till November,” pouted Michael. “I’m
overwhelmed by the work it takes to organize my Halloween party.”
This is what the man Michael
has to find thinks of what he does.
“I’m only doing
my duty.”
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