When Alpin, Miss Aislene and I emerged from
under the snow that had kept us buried for more weeks than there are in a month,
we crawled to Finbar O’Toora’s workshop. Though it was right in front of us, it
was not easy to get there because our limbs still had to thaw out.
We rang the bell and Finbar himself opened the
door. He stared at us wide-eyed, not understanding what he was seeing. Granted
that we all looked a little younger for all we could do below the snow was
sleep, but where we were not frozen we were soggy and where we were not blue we
were red.
While we were telling Finbar why we looked like
we did, his phone rang. It was his wife Lira, wanting to know who he was with.
“How awful, Lira! They’ve been buried right in
front of my workshop since February and I had no idea.They didn’t even have
coats on because they thought they would only be here for a few minutes and
it’s burning hot in my workshop. People always say it’s like being in a furnace
in here, but I always feel cold. I’m so like a lizard.”
When he hang up, Finbar told us Lira would be
there in a minute. It was less than that. When anyone female ventures into
Finbar’s workshop, the jealous merrow is there on the dot.
“So, Lira, we have hibernated on a bed of ice
under blankets of snow for months without being missed by anyone,” said Mrs.
Dullahan. “This is very, very sad. I don’t blame your husband, because he
didn’t know we were coming. But if I didn’t know how absentminded my husband
is, I would divorce him for this. And since all this happened because Alpin
screamed, you should understand why I need what I asked you for, sweet Finbar,
darling, favorite nephew of mine.”
“Don’t go too far telling my husband how much
you appreciate him,” said Lira, “because it makes me very anxious to hear you
say that when at the same time you threaten to divorce Uncle Ernest. By the
way, it´s not true nobody noticed you were missing. My fortunetellers saw you
stuck in the snow in their crystal balls. I was going to arrange for you to be
rescued, but they said they would take care of that. If I had known you were right
in front of Finbar’s workshop, do not doubt that I would have come for you
myself, Aislene.”
“You
consult fortunetellers?” Finbar asked his wife.
“So I will know beforehand if you mean to cheat
on me,” she replied.
“I should have guessed that!You’re wasting time
and money.”
“So I’m told. But...all the dolls in this
workshop get on my nerves! I hate April and May! They’re the months you
manufacture dolls.”
“Change
of subject!” cried Finbar. “What should the nanny be like?”
When
Alpin heard the word “nanny” his ears immediately perked up.
“The what? The what did you
say? The what?”
Aislene winked an eye at Finbar.
“What I want for Alpin is a...a...a bodyguardess. She must be quick and strong and a spectacular beauty.”
Finbar took a top hat from a cabinet behind
him, pulled out a plump bunny, fed it a carrot and put it in the hat again.
He stirred his left hand inside the hat. Then
he waved both hands over the hat and said “As
I speak, I create! Aberah Ke Dabar!”
A pink cloud of star and fairy dust shot out of the hat. And out of the cloud shot the fittest woman ever. Six feet tall, long and strong
limbed, with curly blonde hair that fell to her wide shoulders and huge dark
eyes. She was dressed from head to toe in something that looked like the
uniform of a musketeer. She pulled her black, pink-feathered hat off and bowed
before us.
“Bonjour,”
she said in a deep, throaty voice. “Je
m’appelle Gregoria Tenoria.”
“Get this person out of here now!” screamed
Lira.
“Give me a second,” laughed Finbar. “I have
something for Arley.”
He stuck his hand inside the top hat again and
pulled out something round and grey and furry. It was not the rabbit. It was a
three-footed cat.
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