The first thing Uncle Evenfall did when we
got to Hawaii in his motorboat was meet with the Menehunes. These are a tribe
of ancient Hawaiian fairies.
“Baby Pele,” nodded a white-bearded elder
when Uncle Even described Candle.
He didn’t say more but smiled, and offered us
a guide, a lively kid called Kaholo. He led us up a hill to a spot where Candle
and Spikey and a friend they had made called Iolana were completing the
building of a small fish pond.
“Hush!” whispered Uncle Even. “Let the
children finish their task before we show ourselves.”
Candle set the last stone in place and Alpin
lost no time in shouting, “You little minx, we´ve come for you! Don’t try to
make a break for it! We’re wise to you now!”
Candle frowned at us. She didn’t look any the
worse for wear. Her hair was blonder than ever because of the sun and she,
being Brightfire’s daughter, had managed to tan her skin without a problem.
Spikey, however, was pink and red all over and I think he had a boil or two.
But he looked very happy.
We thanked Kaholo for the Menehunes' kindness
to us and to the children and invited him and Iolana to visit us at our own
island, which they promised to do. Candle and Spikey agreed to accompany us
back home without making a fuss. They gathered up their bags and a sackful of volcanic rocks and a large basket with a
vast collection of seashells they had acquired and even packed the fishpond they had built to
bring it back home with all the rest of their souvenirs.
The sun had set by the time we got to Apple
Island, and Uncle Even was looking a little drowsier than usual.
“Our mission is accomplished, uncle,” I said
to him. “I can carry on from here. I’ll take Spikey to Henny and have his boils
lanced and then take Candle to Pearl at Uncle Gen’s. She’s about to prepare
dinner. You can go home and rest.”
“Arley,” yawned Uncle Evenfall, “I’m afraid
the day isn’t over. There is going to be a lot of yelling and screaming, and I
fear Candle isn’t the only imprudent creature that has had to be retrieved
today. I’m going with you, in case I am needed.” He snapped his fingers and his
motorboat disappeared and his armchair appeared instead. “Going, but seated.”
And he sat down on the chair and streched his arms and legs and yawned again.
When we got to Uncle Gen’s, Pearl, who should
have been happy to see us, began to tremble like an aspen leaf.
“How am I going to explain Melissa to Fi?”
she said, and burst into tears.
That was her new concern. I had forgotten
that Melissa was a kidnapped child and that she might have to be returned to
whoever she had been stolen from.
But before we could begin to think what could
be done about this last problem, Grandpa AEternus appeared, frowning something
awful. With him was Uncle Richearth, looking rather sheepish and soaking wet.
And ten years older than Grandpa, who at that moment looked like he was only in
his late teens.
“Can you believe this idiot? What he’s done?”
Uncle Evenfall shook his head in answer to
his father’s question.
“He went and got himself kidnapped. And the
kidnappers have had the guts to ask me, ME, for a ransom.”
“Oh, Pappy, I can afford that!” protested
Uncle Rich. “It’s no big deal. Seems I wasn’t worth much to them.”
“You don’t have to pay for anything, because nobody
has. I have rescued you, you nitwit, not ransomed you. Aren’t you aware of that? You can’t tell
the difference?”
Things had happened, just as Uncle Rich had
planned they would, at least in the first stages. Word had spread that Uncle
Rich was offering a reward for whoever could return Candle to her family. Elucubrius and Bunglemore, two off-the-island fools who aspired to be delinquents
and were regular clients of the Pestles, sailed over the very day Rich made his
offer, heard about it from Chickenbroth and decided to be enterprising and benefit from it. They
had no idea where Candle was, but it occurred to them that they could pretend
to know and gain access to Uncle Rich and
then sequester the unsuspecting man himself. They went up to Uncle Rich’s front
porch, where he was sitting sipping mint julep and being a courteous gentleman he offered
them something to drink too. They said they didn’t like mint julep and
Richearth got up and went to the door to call his butler and the two miscreants
took the opportunity to pour a narcotic they had bought at the Pestles’ shop
into Uncle Rich’s glass. My innocent uncle conked out right after the butler
had brought some beer for his guests and the three made a toast. Elucubrius and Bunglemore drank their beers thirstily and
then hauled Uncle Rich off between them both. They took him to the boat in
which they had sailed to Apple Island and stowed him in the hold below the deck.
Then they went off to AEternus’s golf course to ask for ransom money. What Grandpa did to these two
poor devils, I did not dare ask. But they did not return home in their boat.
From where we were, it could be seen floating aimlessly in the water. It was
Grandpa who had gone to the boat and towed his son out of the hold and dumped
him into the sea to wake him.
By now Uncle Evenfall had fallen fast asleep in
his chair. The louder everyone around him shouted, the more deeply he snored.
“You see what you’ve done, you selfish,
wayward hussy?” Grandpa asked Candle. “I don’t give a tinker’s cuss how worried
your silly mother has been, because that is between you both. Or even what
damage your incendiary father could have caused if he’d been aware of your disappearance.
That’s between him and the victims of his ill temper. But do you realize you could have starved the whole
of this island to death if something had happened to your undeniably silly but
very generous Uncle Richearth due to your lack of consideration, ungrateful
chit?”
“Nah, don’t exaggerate!” scoffed two year old
Candle. “Don’t try to make me feel guilty, AEternus. It’s not easy for people
to starve, especially fairy people. And you would have done something about it,
like you just have. So you needn’t act up, drama queen!”
“Wait and see what will happen to you!”
threatened Granpa. “For this! Yes, miss, for going off without telling anyone.
Wait and see what life will do to you.”
“As long as you don’t hassle me, I’ll be
fine,” said Candle. “You know, AEternus,
right now you look like a cool kid, real cute, but you’re really nothing but a grumpy
and mean old man. It's too obvious the minute you open your mouth. You'll never fool anyone unless you remain quiet. You never ask me if you can go play golf, do you? You see? You
always do as you please yourself.”
“You yourself! I’m done with this one,” said
Grandpa AEternus. “She’s just been left to her fate. But there’s this other kid
I want to have a word with you about, Richie.”
“With me? Why? I haven’t tried to ransom
anyone else, Papa. No, indeed not!” said Uncle Richearth with surprise.
“Dig up that poor kid you are keeping buried
in the grim earth as if he were a corpse or a carrot. Do it right now, you hear
me? Before you even dry yourself.”
“Ah!” said Uncle Rich. “You must mean
Feeseepkee. No, but you see, he’s a Murkee. He likes to be buried in the ground.”
Grandpa lost it and began to shout like mad
then.
“No grandson of mine will ever live
buried under the ground as if he were
dead! I do not keep Murkees for grandsons! My grandsons don’t sleep in the womb
of the earth and wait for a moonless night to jump up and dance giving people a fright like a
Jack-in-a-box! My kids dance and sing and play in the sunlight, in the
moonlight, in the starlight, in candlelight and gaslight light, and under
electric lights too. And they do whatever they do under the blessed light in
unconstricted liberty! My grandchildren are free children of the light! And they are
all most awake and most bright! Even those there is no putting up with are
radiant and luminous!”
Uncle Gentlerain, who was home, had come out
of his house even before things had livened up, but had remained silent and at
a distance until he had probably heard enough to understand what was going on.
“Rich,” he said now, “I have to agree with
Papa on this one. I don’t see how your kid can be a Murkee. Murkees aren’t
born, they make themselves. And that kid hasn’t had time to know what he wants.
Where did the old Murkee find him, anyway? I don’t see how he can be the kid’s
dad.”
“Harvest that kid and scrape the dirt off him
with a knife if necessary! Don’t make me do it myself!” Grandfather AEternus
ordered Uncle Rich. “And you shut up!” he scolded Uncle Gen, “I don’t need your
help to right this.”
“I’ll have to consult Branna,” hesitated
Uncle Rich.
“Why don’t you ask your kid what he wants, Rich?”
said Uncle Gen, ignoring his father. “Or what he is? He can’t be a genuine
Murkee. There's something fishy about that.”
“I want to play golf,” said Feeseepkee, suddenly showing up. He turned to AEternus and asked, “Will you teach me, Grandpa?”
“Ah, no!” said Grandpa retreating a step or
two back. “I don’t teach just anyone. But Arley will. You will be so kind as to
teach your grimy cousin to play golf for
me, won’t you?” he said to me. “When I’m not at the golf course. While I’m
playing chess. You’re not scared of grime, are you? Because I am phobic about it.”
“I’ll teach him, Grandpa,” I answered mildly.
“Don’t say yes!” Baby Candle hissed at me.
“Refuse to. You’re being used and imposed upon.”
“Mmmm!
Wait and see what life will do to you,” Grandpa again warned Candle, wagging a
finger at her.
“No, it’s alright. I don’t mind doing this,”
I said. “But what about Melissa?”
“I can’t keep her without telling Fi I
kidnapped her,” said Pearl, wringing her hands and crying again.
“Silly woman,” said Grandpa. “Assert
yourself, fool! You don’t deserve this child,” he turned to Melissa, who was
hovering by Pearl, and said, “Do you want to return where you came from? That’s
a tree with a beehive, if I’m not mistaken, child of Mother Nature. And I never
am.”
Melissa shook her head.
“Do you want to come home with me then? I
haven’t had a daughter in ages. You aren’t the kind of kid that gives trouble.
And you’ve learned to make prime cheesecake. You’re an asset, sweetheart. My
wife will want you too,” said Grandpa very kindly.
But Melissa shook her little head.
“You don’t have to go anywhere. You can stay
here if you like it here,” said Uncle Gen, just as gently. “Mabel and I haven’t
had a child in centuries. In fact, it´s like we never really have. Our
daughters were brought up by their granny. You can be our child and live with
us and Granny Milksops, like you’ve been doing. Only as our daughter and no longer our niece.”
But
Melissa shook her little head again.
And then, to everyone’s surprise, she flew up to me and said, “With you!”
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