173. A Preventer's Work is Never Done

173. A Preventer’s Work is Never Done

“Go home now,” said Uncle Gentlerain. “It’s way past midnight. Our people left a while ago and they are back home celebrating. They’re at Green Dale City. They have lighted bonfires and are drinking more liquor than we made antidote. They are bound to be asking why you aren’t doing that too.”

“What about you?” I asked.

Uncle Gentlerain made a face of desperation.

“I have business to see to.”

“Here?”

“Well, yes. But don’t let that bother you. Everything is under control. Go, Arley.”

“If you are going to work on this, I want to be here with you.”

“Unless you have the gift of ubiquity, I suggest you go party. Believe me, it isn’t convenient for you not to show up back home right now.”

It so happens I do have the gift of ubiquity. I had only used it once before  then. But that is another story, and long and complicated too. So back to this one. I was beginning to feel very tired, but I couldn’t leave Uncle Gentlerain to fix whatever there was left to fix all by himself. So a part of me went to Green Dale, which belongs to the Grindlebul Elves, and wandered about the bonfires waving my hand and smiling, and letting myself be seen. And getting patted on the back till I thought my heart would fall out of my chest. But fortunately nobody thought of hoisting me on their shoulders and running about with me on them or an even worse way of making much of me. They’d had one too many to be able to do that. Was I glad I had arrived late!

The other part of me just asked Uncle Gentlerain what we had to do.

“Speak with Cobweb,” he said. “That’s definitely the first thing we have to do.”

Cobweb was  in Sherbanania with her cleaning squad trying to figure how she could sort out the remains of the pipnoshers that were whole from those that had been stepped on and crunched to infinitesimal pieces by the Sherbananians.

“We’ve made stacks of those insects we easily found whole. But there’s a lot that have been trodden on. Where are the tanks and the barrels so we can keep the whole ones we’ve classified and get them out of the way?”

“Go home, Cobweb,” said Uncle Gentlerain, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Join the party. I’ll call out my ants and have them do that.  They can sort those creatures out more easily. We can’t put those you’ve stacked in the tanks and barrels anyway because these are still half full. We made a lot more antidote than we needed. Do me a favour. Tell  anyone you find sober  back home not to throw any of the leftover antidote away. Thymian will store  it somewhere. One never knows what one will need, does one? We’ll probably be out of certain plants and soap for a while too. But  we will deal with scarcity  tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day, huh?”

“So we  will go help Thymian,” said Cobweb, proving her reputation as leader of a band of workaholics. 

“If you insist. Do me another favour. Please don’t tell anyone what you’ve seen out here.”

“The dead pipnoshers?” Cobweb looked surprised. Everyone had seen that.

Uncle Gentlerain shook his head.

“The wasted sunflower fields,” he said in a whisper.

Cobweb gasped with horror  as she suddenly noticed what had happened to the sunflowers the fairies thought they had liberated.  There was nothing left in the fields except ashes and a few brown stumps.

“I will have these fields full of flowers  standing proudly in the wind by tomorrow before the sun sets,” said Uncle Gentlerain, rubbing some soot off his nose.  “Nobody will notice the difference. There is no need for you to disappoint our people. Don’t pour a bucket of water on the victors. Am I making myself clear?”

Cobweb nodded.

“Can’t we at least help you get rid of all the ashes the wind is blowing about?”

Uncle Gentlerain shook his head.

“It will rain before noon.  Just  get your staff out of here before someone else notices this disaster. Go help Thymian like you said if you feel you must. And thank you, Cobweb. For both favors.”

When Cobweb had left, Uncle Gentlerain cast his eyes about the field.

“We’ll begin by shielding this place from intruders of any kind,” he said.

We flew all around the fields setting up a magical bounce away barrier. I had never seen one installed before. They are very similar to magic circles, but more like transparent tents.   However, when we were done, we saw someone had intruded before we had finished. There was a magnificent black dog standing in the fields, staring at Uncle Gentlerain fixedly. Large it was, very. And when it rose up on its hind legs, I realized this was, or had to do, with Anubis. He barked at Uncle Gentlerain and I knew he was saying something to him. But I don’t understand dogs that bark in Egyptian. Uncle Gentlerain raised his hand. That must have created an opening in the barrier because the dog vanished.

Uncle Gentlerain looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

“That dog was Anubis, wasn’t he?” I asked.

My uncle shook his head.

“That wasn’t a dog. It was a jackal. And it wasn’t Anubis. Just one of his priests. We aren’t important enough for the god to come in person. The jackal said to just use all this trash as fertilizer. His master has what the jackal was sent for.”

And then Uncle Gentlerain called out his pet ants. There were thousands of them. He said he had rasied their forbearers on an ant farm he had when he was a child.

“You’re like Achilles,” I joked. “You have an army of Myrmidons.”

He nodded, looking pleased.

The ants began to work ever so conscientiously on the land, turning over the soil and burying the remains of the pipnoshers. After dividing the fields in many furrows, they also buried the healthiest looking seeds I have ever seen. Uncle Gentlerain made them appear in cloth bags. He and I flew about casting them into the furrows when the ants told us to.

“These will have grown sky high by tomorrow before sunset. The Sherbananians won’t even remember they burnt the fields. But I’m not doing this so they will have something to sell. Or because the fairies will want to kill them for destroying the plants. I’m doing this so nobody will want to lynch you and me and above all the little red apple for reminding them of the futility of war. They would lynch us if they knew what really happened here, don’t you doubt it, kid.  Now tell me, Arley,  which of you is more pooped? The partygoer or the field hand?” 

“The partygoer,” I answered without hesitation. While it mingled with the crowd, my partying self was doing nothing but yawn. It wanted desperately to go off and have a good night’s rest.

 “That’s the adrenaline that’s abandoning your system,” said my uncle. “There’s just one more thing you have to do before you can conk out.”

“I will conk out when you do,” I said bravely.

“We’re going to do that as soon as your partygoing self finds Thistle and tells her to jab more tranquilizer into Pepperpot should he wake before you and I do. We´re going to need a  good rest before we can handle him. He’s bound to freak out when he wakes.”