“Okay, let’s do this. Let’s get it
over with as fast as we can.”
That’s what I said to Apple Alpin. If
we were going to have dealings with dubious humans, at least it had better not
last long.
“Ask her what she wants,” I said.
“Needs, Arley. Most people don’t want
help. They ask for it because they need it. Many are ungrateful when they get
it because they are resentful. They don’t like to need help. Hence the saying,
the wellborn show gratitude.”
“It’s said there is no human that
doesn’t need or want something.”
“There are honorable exceptions. But
this won’t be the case. Whatever. Let’s get this done.”
“It’s you that has to go ask her.”
“Why? Can’t you see everything with
that eye of yours? You tell me what’s going on.”
“I see too much. You will be more
objective.”
I felt he was saying that because he
needed to hide something from me. Something that would make me not want to help
Jane.
“I’ll go, but you are coming with me.
I’m not doing this without your help.”
“Moral support, Arley. That’s all I
can offer.”
“Maybe. But you and your all-seeing eye
are coming with me and watching out for me while I go about this sad business.”
I was afraid Alpin’s mum would object
when we told her Alpin was in my pocket next to a Rolls Royce and we were going out for an adventure. I
thought she might want him kept safe among the wax fruit and well under the urn.
But she turned out to be delighted.
“Like old times!” she exclaimed. “Oh,
I’m so happy to see you both active again!”
It was obvious she had no idea what we
were about to do. In my mind, I could already hear her screaming because I
hadn’t been able to keep Alpin safe and dreadful things had happened to him
again, like he had been eaten by a human and was gone for good or worse.
“We always land on our feet,
Arley,”said Alpin, spying my fears with his little eye.
“You haven’t any feet,” I said.
“Yours will be mine too.”
“How did we get to Bananawood the last
time?”
“I just wandered around. You asked one of the fauns for
directions. But I’ll ask my eye.”
We followed the path Alpin’s eye drew
for us. As we were walking along, he suddenly said, “What did thebee that saved
your life want from you, Arley?”
“What bee?”
“I don’t rightly know. Only that
this…creature… is terribly slippery. I had only perceived him once before. The
man who told you to go see the car lady.”
“You can
see him?”
“No. But I know he was there. I don’t
know what he looks like. I don’t even know if he is a man or a bee.I’ve only
seen him – the man - from behind, once, and for half a second. I’m not even sure
I have seen him. But I suspect he
is the bee who saved your life when Rosina gave you the experimental apple and
you swelled up like a globefish.”
“He saved my life? How? I don’t
remember any of that.”
“I don’t think anyone noticed but me.
I was screaming for help and you were swelling and choking and some people were
rushing towards us, and this unusually tiny, discreet little bee appeared out
of nowhere and stung you fiercely on the neck. I remember thinking that would
kill you, because it was all you needed to die, to be poisoned by a bee on top
of it all. But no. You began to get well.”
“I did?”
“You had so many scratches and bug
bites from our trip to the depths of the forest that the bee’s bite was just
one more. So it went unnoticed. Apparently. Because I had detected it, but I
didn’t say a word. I noticed because the bee disappeared into thin air without
dying like it should have after stinging you. The funny thing was it didn’t
lose it’s sting. It was whole when it vanished, so I knew there was something
weird going on. I thought of telling Rosina she should study the effects of bee
stings as an antidote to whatever was wrong with her apple. But I said nothing
about the bee because I wanted the hooded geniuses to get blamed for what had
happened to you. After all, they were
at the root of your suffering. And the bee’s disappearing whole made me think I
had better not say a word. That was no plain bee, Arley. Then I saw it again
today, when you were digging in the sand. The same darned bee! I know it was! And then you vanished. And
later, when you popped back into sight again, the bee showed up too and landed
on a stick and a piece of bark appeared attached
to it and I guessed it was the same weird bee. All three times.”
“But I was invisible. You can see me
when I am invisible?”
“Not very well. Hazily and
intermittently. And tainted a grayish green. But for a second there I thought I
saw a man tugging at your sleeve. Only that was before you vanished totally and
then returned and found the note. Who was that, Arley? What’s this about?”
“I wish I knew. I’m even more confused now
that you’ve told me all this.”
Before either of us could say more, we
heard a noise.
“Chist!”
I heard someone making a hushed noise
to attract us. I looked at where the sound came from and saw Jane hiding among
the magic chestnuts. Yes we had reached the chestnut grove. Jane was standing
among the chestnut trees and there were children peeping from behind them, very
much like little elves but without pointed hats. Or pointed shoes. Or just
shoes.
Jane was very down at the mouth. But the
minute she saw us, anger wrinkled her brow and flashed in her eyes.
Fortunately, we were not its object.
“It’s that idiot Pepperpot all over
again.”
“What’s he up to now?”
“He’s got a girlfriend.”
Was Jane jealous or what? This was
something I hadn’t thought might be happening. But it could be. She had so many
children she was likely to be amorous. I wondered if any of them were
Pepperpot’s. Even at the risk of being impertinent, I decided to ask outright.
“Of
course not! Who would want that rat-brained fool’s children? You go see for
yourselves. I’m too angry to speak about this. Go! Go!”
Alpin and I continued on our way,
taking care to be very invisible from that moment on. It was a very short
distance to Bananawood from the chestnut grove. You could see it from where
Jane was at. But as I turned invisible, I reflected that since she was within a
magic part of Minced Forest, she and her children could not be seen even if
they hadn’t been slinking and skulking behind the chestnut trees.
“She shouldn’t be here,” I whispered
to Alpin.
“She’s in hiding.”
“She should only enter to gather chestnuts.
That’s all we gave her permission to do. And the kids can’t enter at all. How
did they get in here?”
“She must have carried them in, one by
one,” guessed Alpin.
“Now that they know this place exists
they can tell anyone.”
“But we could be lucky and no one
might believe them.”
“That might be the best we can hope
for. This is going to be one big mess,” I sighed.
Bananawood looked exactly the same as
it had when we had last been there. The bananas were still blue with cold and I
asumed, rightly as it turned out, that they were still being frozen and sold to
foreigners. When we got to the palace that had belonged to the Greed King and
that the Sheriff of Bananawood had given to Petey, it looked shinier than I
remembered it. And there was something that definitely blinded one in front of
it. We moved towards the blinding light and when I was closerto it I saw it was
a solid gold statue of a frightfully thin hag basking in the sun. An inscription
below read, “To Penia, my goddess. The love of the heart of Petey Pepperpot is
only for you.”
“His girlfriend is a statue of the
goddess of Poverty?”
This was not unheard of. There was Pygmalion,
the sculptor who had carved himself a statue of a beautiful woman out of marble
and had asked the goddess of love to give it life.
“That’s not her. He’s given life to
Poverty, oh, yes he has. But that’s not his girlfriend. What it says there is
only nonsense he speaks. The truth is worse than that.”
“Look here, Alpin, I know you aren’t
telling me what you know because you wanted me to come here at any cost and I
might not have if I’d had more information. But I think you should tell me what
this is about before I ask Petey for an audience.”
“Don’t ask! He doesn’t like being asked. Just pounce
on him and kill him,” said Jane, who turned out to have been creeping behind
us.
“You can see us, Jane?”
She was not supposed to be able to see
us when we had made ourselves utterly invisible.
“All those chestnuts she ate must have
made this possible,” reasoned Alpin.
“What?
This means Petey will be able to see us too?”
“I never fed that madman chestnuts,”
hissed Jane. The hatred in her voice was so terrible it hurt one’s ears. “Only
the sheriff,” she added, in a less envenomed voice. “Petey would have
confiscated the chestnuts. The sheriff was respectful and never asked where I
got them. Only told me they were delicious.”
“A wise man,” nodded Alpin. “I suppose
I frightened him enough not to want the least trouble. Get back in the forest,
Jane. You don’t know how to make yourself invisible.”
“Where is the Sheriff of Bananawood?” I
asked before she could leave. The kind of action she suggested I perform was
more in his line than in mine.
“We don’t know. He disappeared one
day. Pepperpot said the sheriff didn’t need a cook because he wasn’t there to
be fed and kicked me out of the sheriff’s kitchen. Then he confiscated the
sheriff’s house. No sheriff, no leftovers for my children.”
“I notice the bananas are still blue.
That must mean they are still being sold to foreigners instead of used for
feeding your people.”
I remembered having heard Pepperpot
say that he loved poor people and was going to make everyone poor so he could
love everybody, because he had such a big heart. Back then, I hadn’t paid much
attention to his words. To me, it was just gibberish he was speaking. But it
seemed he had made his threat good. Pepperpot had managed to sink his people
into even greater misery than the Greed King had.
“I can’t use the chestnuts openly because
I’m scared of him and his girlfriend discovering I do. Once I cook them, she
can see what I’ve cooked. And she’ll want to know where I got them. And she’ll
tell Petey. And he’ll confiscate them even if he can’t see them. You don’t know
what he’s capable of confiscating.”
“Jane’s done considerably well hiding
the chestnuts, considering she’s human,” said Alpin.
“Is there any clue as to where the
Sheriff might have gone?”
My one idea was to get the Sheriff to
feel responsible for this mess and fix it. Any way he could.
“No. No clue,” sighed Jane.
“Alpin?” I asked.
“The Sheriff can’t be counted on,
Arley.”
“But you can see where he is at?”
“Yes, and so will you once we get into
the palace. Come,” he said, “I’ll show you.”
“Get back in the woods, Jane,” I said.
“And don’t let any of those children wander out. It could be dangerous.”
It was sure to get ugly, I thought.
Alpin no longer had the powers he had frightened the Sheriff with. All he could
do was see what was happening. Spectacularly, of course, but all-seeing as he
was, that was all he was. And I… Need I say that never in my life had I pounced
on anyone? Or anything similar. Well, maybe playing football with my brothers.
But it was ages since I had. I had to be out of practice. I looked at Jane,
feeling bad because I felt I would fail her. I didn’t think I could do what she
had asked me to do. And as I gazed sadly on her and her children I realized
that these couldn’t be the kids she’d had with her when last I had seen her. Time had gone by.These were too
young to be the same kids.
“Where are your older children, Jane?”
Tears of rage sprang from Jane’s eyes.
She couldn’t speak. She could only make desperate faces and desperate gestures
with her hands.
“Go back inside the wood, Jane. I’ll
show Arley,” urged the Little Apple.
No comments:
Post a Comment