Mr. Deadpan Intervenes

 247. Mr. Deadpan Intervenes

“Why have you stuck my son in that cage?” asked Uncle Richi, wide-eyed with wonder. Unlike his brothers, he was usually a very calm person, even more difficult to ruffle than Uncle Evenfall, and though he could be pushed into shaking once in a while, he was less prone to allow himself an outburst than Uncle Gen, who would on occasion return tit for tat when molested. In fact, Uncle Richi is so famous for favoring understatements that his brothers call him  Deadpan.

“And now why is this fellow here?” Alpin asked me.

Upon which I noticed that some bushes were rustling. I saw Cespuglio within them, accompanied by his pobreto dog. A pobreto dog is a dog born in the mortal world with defects and handicaps that make him so pathetic fairies adopt him out of pity, because they know he will not survive out there. If this kind of dog dies before a  fairy adopts it, it becomes a ghost dog and survives in the world of ghosts, being able to function just like any other phantom. If  a fairy brings it to our world before it kicks the bucket, it often conserves strange characteristics, but is far, far better off than it would have been among mortals, who would probably have put it to sleep. One can recognize Cespuglio’s dog easily, because it is white around the snout, has a tiny white spot that looks like a tear below an eye, a strange sort of stripe of fur on one side of the head that looks a bit like a scar, the most beautiful green eyes ever seen on a dog, with milky coffee eyebrows over them and, most significant of all, legs that don’t seem to have bones and are more like the tentacles of an octopus. In the mortal world, he would have had to drag himself on the ground like a serpent, but here, among us, he floats in the air whenever he wants to, and can swim to wherever he wishes to go. And he is wide awake and happy. And his name, it couldn’t be otherwise, is Polpetto. That means little octopus in Italian.

“Was it you?” I asked my brother. “Did you call Richi?”

Cespuglio nodded.

“Better Rich than Branna. Or not?”

“Oh, how should I know?” I said. “You’ve given me no time to think!”

I was a little upset, because though Richie is quite phelgmatic, he has a weird way of reasoning that always creates strange situations. Actually, I can’t really tell if he does reason, or just has insane ideas.

“Small seed, small devil. One bad act and end of the devil. His purpose achieved. Big seed, huge devil. Enormous harm. Difficult for him to disintegrate rapidly,” Aunt Nectarine was quickly explaining to Uncle Rich.

“I see. Well, then we’ll find an enemy and let the big fiend loose on him. Hear me, everyone!  Which of you present here has an enemy?” said Uncle Rich.

“Oh, for the love of Ivy!” I exclaimed, “We can’t do that. Fortunately, I don’t think there is going to be a big devil. Lady Luck forbid! Just this tree crammed full of little imps. We shall have to carry it off to hell, and that should be the end of that.”

“How will you do that?” Alpin asked me.

“I have to think first,” I said.  

“Well, I’m not going to hell. I’ve already been in an infernal place, a school of the very Devil’s. And they wouldn’t feed me there. And it took us hell to get out of there. Arley, you had to shout like possessed. You did face up to the Devil, yes. Do you remember, Arley? Wow! How you bawled him out!”

“I remember only too well. I don’t want to go back there either. With the rude doorkeeper and the unpleasant pupils. I want nothing to do with the Devil or anything his. But Mum can’t solve this problem. The Devil gives her the creeps and she sticks to her territory and hopes he does to his. Even Uncle Gen says he does that too. He says he only deals with the Devil when he has to exchange prisoners or hostages. ¿Do you think Uncle Gen will be able to exchange this tree for someone of interest to us?”

“But, lads, you’re in luck!” said Uncle Richie, “I pop in and out of hell like Peter does in and out of his heavenly home, seeing as he’s got the keys to it. I know practically all the trashy bigwigs down there. Surely we can find some poor devil – spirit, that is -  who would be better off if we brought him back here among us in exchange for this tree and my kid. You want to go back to your real home, my child, don’t you, my dear boy?”

Feeseepkee didn’t answer Uncle Rich because the peachwood wands had paralyzed him.

“Is he aware of anything?” Uncle Rich whispered to Greatgrandaunt Nectarine. “No? Well, better so, I suppose. How unlucky I am! The only kid that appears before me turns out to be a demon breeder!”

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I should call Uncle Gen, my dad, or my grandpa. Grandpa, I thought, better not. He would start shouting. On the other hand, that was how I had been taught to treat the devil. Yelling hard. And nobody beats Grandpa at that once he gets started. And dealing with Uncle Rich is almost as dangerous as dealing with Old Nick himself. Rich is as unpredictable as he is valuable to everyone. We could end up in worse trouble than we already were in.

“Well, I guess I had better be on my way. To the bottomless pit, of course. I´ll have to uproot that tree first though.”

Uncle Richie made the tree rise up in the air. The earth all around it turned over, trembling as it got out of the way of the roots. A leaf ot two fell off the tree, but fortunately none of the little imp faces did. Only they all started to screech like the fiends they were.

 “AAAAAAARRRRR!  AAAABBBUUUUUAAJJJAAAAAALLLAAAAAAAKAABUUUUUUUAAAR! AAAAAAABBBUUUUUUUAAAAAARUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAABAAAA!AAAAR!”

It curdled one’s blood to hear them. But Uncle Rich didn’t look impressed at all.

“What a bore, having to lug this thing all the way down there. And with those shitty psychopaths spitting out curses! It´s like transporting a wee jail or a toy madhouse,” sighed my uncle.

“Don’t count on me to help you with this, brother-in-law,” said Alpin.

“No need. I can do this by myself with an arm tied behind my back. I’ll hold the tree up in the air, floating all the way. The bad part is having to concentrate on this, when there are so many much more pleasant things I could be thinking about. And the cage I will have to carry by hand. It wouldn’t look good if I just kicked it there, like some stone in my path, instead of treating it like something frail and fragile. Poor Feeseepkee. What a misfortune! What a perfectly awful turn of events!” sighed Uncle Rich.

“I will help you,” I volunteered. In truth, I didn’t trust poor Uncle Rich a bit, and was afraid to think how this adventure of his might end. He could meet someone on the way who might persuade him to…but there was no time to elucubrate.  And Uncle Rich was very happy to see someone backed him.

“Hey, Rich” said Alpin. “What do you eat when you visit Hell? And what do you go there for? Surely not to flirt with some temptress? My sister wouldn’t like that at all.”

“I go to play cards,” said my uncle. “And to sing a little, like acting in Las Vegas. The way Julio Iglesias and Sinatra do. Only this last guy is more at hand lately.  Don’t think I haven’t got quite a few fans there.”

“And do they pay you for showing up there or do you lose a lot of money at the gaming tables?”

“No! I win every time! It´s even scary. I beat the Devil every time we play. So much so that I’m scared to play the next game. I’m always jittery and shaking and biting my lip when I play. I win so, that I think he lets me win, but will wait till the last game to pounce on me. Nothing bad has ever happened to me, but since I don’t know when the last game will be, I suffer horrors.”

“Why don’t you just get up and leave when you’ve won a lot?” asked Alpin.

“No, lads! That´s not elegant. ´Tis not polite to leave while you are winning. You have to wait until your opponent throws the towel. You have to give him a chance to beat you. That’s the gentlemanly thing to do. Listen and learn, boys.”

“But why do you return?” I asked.

“I guess gamblers enjoy risks,” shrugged Uncle Rich.

Alpin was the one to say what I was thinking.

“You’re as mad as a hatter.”

“Those imps have to shut up,” said Greatgrandaunt Nectarine. And she began to curse back at them and strike the tree with her peachwood wand. The little faces shut their mouths and went mute. Lots better that way, it was. Though one couldn’t go off guard.

“And is there food there?” insisted Alpin.

“For the players, yes. Free drinks and a lot of gourmet sandwiches and canapés. Created by a guy who is in hell because he poisoned I forget which frog king. In truth, he shouldn’t be there, for he probably did everyone a favor. The tyrant’s successor certainly must have benefitted from this demise. Hey, maybe I can bring that cook back home with me in exchange of the tree and my son. I would hand him over to Papa, who is still sore at me for my part in Fishfin’s marriage and he might pretend nothing has happened here now.”

“Don’t even mention Grandpa,” I said. “At least not yet. He’s to be our last resource.”

“Right. We´d better keep him out of this or I will never hear the last of it. I don’t need to be criticized for my choice of a son just now. I need to feel confident, not stupid, if I’m to bargain with Old Nick. It´s not easy.”

“Listen, Rich. Don’t those hellish canapés upset your tummy?”

“No, that cook will never dare to poison anyone again. Guaranteed. And besides…”

Uncle Rich raised the cuff of his sleeve and showed us something that looked like a wristwatch but had no watch. It had another sort of case instead. Kind of serpent-shaped, the whole article was solid gold with emeralds encrusted all over, a huge one on the case, that looked like the snake´s head.

“Papa gave this to me. To protect me.”

“Is that gold and emeralds?” asked Alpin upon seeing so rich a jewel.

“Sure. But the real jewel is inside. This head opens.”

“Hey! And what do you have in there that is worth so much?”

Uncle Richearth smiled, and began to sing, as if reciting a lesson learnt by heart.

“Balsam herb, cassia,anise and rattan palm,

Asafoetida, acacia juice, poppies and hypericum,

Dried rose tree leaves, parsley, storax and arabic gum,

Amber tree resin, Illyrian iris, myrrh and cardamom,

Opoponax and saxifrage or broken stone, turpentine and olibanum.

Junctus acutus, spikenard, shepherd’s purse and piper longum,

Walnuts, figs, rue leaves, Mecca balsam and Indian malabathrum,

Ginger, cinnamon, and castoreum, lollipop flowers and galbanum,

Liquorice, poison darnel, amber tree resin and gentian,

Cretan carrot seeds, orange saffron, pomegranate juice amd valerian,

Cytine juice amd rhubarb roots,

Basil, laurel and elephant ear plant shoots,

All in different proportions, not one like to the other,

Make sure these are always another and another and another,

Macerated in honey and formed into an almond-sized pill,

One shan’t be poisoned, try as hard as anyone will.” 

“Because you have already poisoned yourself, you nitwit!” said Alpin. “How can you take all that junk and live?”

“You don’t know who Mithridates is, do you, little bro-in-law?”

“That is mithridate?”I asked, because I did know who this king of Pontus was and how he was obsessed with toxicology and experimented on himself as well as on others and created a legendary antidote.

“Much improved,” nodded Uncle Rich proudly.

“But why take all the trouble?” insisted Alpin. “It isn’t easy to poison a fairy. We only feel like we´re dying for a week at most. Then, we start convalescing.”

“Enough chattering!” hissed Aunt Nectarine. “We´re off! Before the next full moon outruns us!”