81. Gem and Min

While we were on our way to the North Pole to see the toymaker Finbar O’Toora, Mr. Binky was working really hard on the first of his New Year’s resolutions. He had promised himself he would better his image. On the advice of the ex-pirate Salty Boogerbeard, he had consulted the famous plastic surgeon Dr. Cameron Campbell. The doctor offered the PM over a hundred new looks. Not feeling attracted to any, Mr. Binky decided to consult some of his worst critics, the Leafies of Minced Forest.

The Leafies were thrilled when Mr. Binky showed them an album with the hundred possible faces Fairyland’s PM could have and asked them to choose one for him. They had to pick the face they trusted the most.

 “Wow!” said Vinny. “I vote for the hot lady with the gold earrings!”                

“I think the man who looks as if he might turn into a werewolf is more interesting,” mused Leopold. “It’s been ages since we’ve had a werewolf in our forest. They sure can keep humans out.”

“Not in this century. Now the humas come thrill-seeking in droves, bearing cameras and recording machines and all kinds of sensors and the latest technology. There's no scaring that kind of jerks off. We ought to vote for the face that reminds us most of ourselves. One of us is always the best choice for anything,” said Malcolfus.

The Leafies almost settled on the man in the moon type on the upper right, because he looked like Robertus. Bob was a very popular Leafy, shaped like a yew tree leaf. These are sort of crescent-shaped. But after hours of debate, voting and counting votes, Mr. Binky was able to say that his grandmother was always right.

  

“Grandmother told me that nothing works like being yourself. It seems my people really like me.”

“No, we don’t!” growled Malcolfus. “We chose to let you keep your own face because we hate change. Don’t you think this means we’re going to support you.”

“Oh, well,” sighed Mr. Binky, making the best of it, “at least now I can cross out the first item on my list of resolutions and get on with the next.”

When Mr. Binky left, the Leafies whispered among themselves that they ought to go see how the Dullahan was doing. If only out of curiousity, of course. It is hard to be friends with someone like scary Mr. Dullahan.

Mr. Dullahan was not well. First of all, his son and his wife had been missing for weeks. He was not too upset about that. Being at a distance from Alpin is bound to agree with almost anybody. And he knew both his son and his wife were perfectly capable of fending for themselves. In fact, woe betide whoever fell foul of them. But lately something in or near his house had been going knock, knock, knock on his door at certain times for days in a row. Because Death’s Coachman was usually polite, he had armed himself with patience and repeatedly opened the door of his home to attend whoever was knocking with such insistence. But there was never anybody to be seen knocking out there.

Because the tapping persisted even with the door open, Uncle Ernest, who was always very considerate with animals, kindly asked the birds of his garden if there were an invisible woodpecker among them. Birdies are always a great source of information, but these ones said they were as puzzled as he was about the knocking. And it didn’t sound like a woodpecker wearing a cloak of invisibility to them. None of the forest creatures had seen anything, but they all could hear the rapping too.

“I suppose that should comfort me,” said Ernest. “I know I am going crazy, but if you can hear this tock-tock yourselves, I’m not there yet.”

Convinced that this had to be an act of vengeance because of the disturbance Alpin had caused in the neighborhood screaming for the blank check, Mr. Dullahan stood in the middle of his garden and in a stentorian voice reminded the invisible knockers of something that was very true.

“It’s a question of time, fools!” he roared. “Nobody can hide forever from Death’s Coachman!”

  

“So now he’s threatening us,” said Gemaniah Worrywart.

“He’s threatening you,” said Minafer Ominous. “I’m already dead.”

Gem and Minafer were knocking from many, many miles away.

Minafer, plump, blond, sharp nosed and blue-eyed, was the ghost of a late Victorian who had once been a Spiritist. Sometimes he looked old and fat and outdated in a blue greatcoat but other times he was younger and slimmer and handsomer and had a nice tan and  wore showy Hawaiian shirts.

Gemaniah had not yet become a true ghost. He was a medium who had been almost turned into a zombie by his enemies somewhere in Central America but had recovered and become a strangely different version of himself. His skin was now a phosphorescent yellow, then a phosphorescent green. His short, curly hair was sometimes a darker and sometimes a lighter shade of bird’s wing blue when it was not dove gray, his eyes were bulgy and his pupils moved out of orbit. He was tall and thin and liked to dress in long, colourful robes of African cotton, wore eyecatching hats and also weird piercings and voodoo amulets. He was always interesting to look at, a kinder, friendly version of the Saturday Baron.

Both men were usually in a good mood and there was little that could ruffle them. They lived together somewhere in the mortal world where they were in the business of fortunetelling. But they also had faithful fay clients.

“It’s no use trying to contact this fellow our way. He’s typtologically illiterate,” said Minafer.

Typtology is a language ghosts use to communicate with the living. They do this by rapping on things, usually those made of wood or metal.

Minafer stopped tapping on a little three-legged wooden table. It was this special table that had been sending a message to Mr. Dullahan’s door. What the mediums wanted to tell Ernest Dullahan was that Mrs. Dullahan, Alpin and I, were trapped under ice and snow in the North Pole. This had happened when Alpin had provoked a roof avalanche,  when we were just outside Finbar’s workshop, while complaining out loud because he was cold and hungry. Abominably out loud.

“It no longer matters, I think,” said Gem. “Spring is reaching the North Pole and the sun will shine there soon. Because of the global warming, some of the ice and the snow will begin to melt. They’ll be free soon.”

A question of time.