277. Off to Work

277. Off to Work

Before I set off on any trip or mission, I always drop by my sisters´ ideal homes. The ones who are only a little older than I am, my sisters Heather and Thistle. I get to see my other sisters much less often and almost always at family gatherings.

I go to see Heather and Thistle so they can wish me luck, and they do, and that has always given me some, I think. So on the thirty-first of December I found Heather in her garden, shovelling snow off Mr. Binky’s glass coffin.

“I’m going to plant bulbs round this place. And make it so the snow won’t fall on it. Thistle says I break my back shovelling here when there’s no need to. Mr. Binky is fine in there. No snow leaks in. Still, I fear someone might trip over this monument thinking it´s just a soft snowbank and get hurt. A little perpetual spring garden round it, don’t you think, Arley? So people can see where they shouldn’t step.”

“Has it ever ocurred to you that someone might kidnap Mr. Binky and ask for a ransom?” shouted Thistle coming out of the door of her own ideal home, followed by her six Lorcan puppies. These are a special breed of dogs created by Finbar O’Toora and she had asked for one for Christmas and everyone heard and she ended up with half a dozen.

"Who would pay that?" I asked. Heather took our sister more seriously.

“Hush, Thissy! Don’t give eavesdroppers ideas. And come over. Arley is here to say goodbye. He wants to start work tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Why not wait till after Twelfth Night? Or after Grandma’s birthday?”

“I want to get my training done as fast as I can,” I explained.

“You know what we learned on Christmas night? Grandma doesn’t really have a birthday. She chose one for herself. Do you know why she chose Burns’ Night?” said Heathie.

I had no idea why she had made this choice or even that she had. And why that date was a mystery to the three of us.

“Mum says that’s why Grandpa kicked us out of his place when we took him a birthday cake to try and encourage him to celebrate his birthday. She says he gets all upset when someone mentions his birthday to him because he hasn’t got one. He seems to have always existed. And Grandma too.”

“But she filled her lack choosing a day to celebrate her existence. He just sulks.” 

“And he refuses to celebrate Gran’s birthday, so he can’t celebrate  even Burns’ Night anymore. At least not with Grandma.”

“Everyone kept asking him if it was his birthday too when, thinking it was just being held for Bobby Burns,  he went to Gran’s first birthday party. He threw a fit and left and has never been to one since.”

“Just like Grandpa,” I concluded.

“Are you really going to replant Binky’s plot, Heathie?” Thistle asked our sister. “How many times have you done that already?”

“Why don’t we help her? I have nothing to do till tonight,” I said.

“Treadfaster!” hollered Thistle, turning towards her ideal home. “Come out here and prove you are good for something!  Help my sister with this blasted task she never gives up on!”

With a great big smile on his face, Quentin Treadfaster came out of Thistle’s house, where he had been playing pool, and took the shovel from Heathie. He was done in seconds, moving faster than anyone I have ever seen move in my life.

“This is what the Treadfasters are good for,” Thistle whispered to me, “since their oldest ancestor, a very slow fellow, wished his progeny would be faster than he was. Now, dig holes,” Thistle told Quentin, and he did. My sisters and I dropped bulbs into the holes in the earth and he covered them up.

“Are they all in? Yes? Now, do the perpetual spring spell, will you, Heathie? Maybe this time it will hold,” Quentin said to Heather. “I’m not sure I know how to do that one.”

“Heather has planted this plot before,” said Thistle. “It seems to work at first, but for some reason it doesn’t hold. Do you think Uncle Gen comes here clandestinely and spoils the garden and covers Binky up with snow in winter and rotting leaves in autumn and wild flowers in spring and weeds in summer? He should, you know, for what he did to him. And I’m with him if he does, though I’ve asked for the doggies so we can catch whoever cracks Heathie’s spell.”

“Uncle Gen wouldn’t do that. Not spoil a garden, no. I think it is Mr. Binky’s own family that wants him out of sight, out of mind,” said Heather. “They may be paying someone to cover him up.”

“You know, we have been thinking all sorts of things we could do about Mr. Binky, but we just can’t decide on one. We´ve thought of waiting till he gets so young he can be adopted again and find him a space in the Treadfaster family, where he can begin all over. The way he was, he wouldn’t fit there much, but maybe he has changed. And Quentin's mum likes to have babies tottering round her house,” said Thistle.

“We´ve considered sending him to Sherbanania with Petey and Jane to put things in order there instead of messing them up here, but Dad lost no time in discouraging that. He says Grandpa would hit the roof if we messed with human affairs again, so no way! And that Mr. Binky himself knows he can't change humans, which is why he tried to change us.We've also thought of sticking Mr. Binky in a  ship like Uncle Richie did with his kidnappers and setting him to chase those two bounders’ boat with his own. Maybe he can get them to pay taxes. But Grandma says the dough in The Flying Kidnapper is really Uncle Richie’s and he might suffer a depression if  Mr. Binky goes for it and Richie can't just spend it like crazy and then he might not sing or stroll about the fields and we could all go hungry, because Grandpa says there is no way he will be persuaded to work the land again. Anything that has to do with Uncle Richie is a delicate matter, for when his Demetrius is threatened, Grandpa is quick to show his fangs,” explained Heather.

“Quicker than my Lorcans. Uncle Rich is untouchable,” nodded Thistle.

“And Uncle Gen says getting Binky to chase anyone is both inhumane and unfay. And he should know.”

“Dad did that, you know,” I said.

“Dad,” nodded Thistle. “Is Dad okay with your working for Grandpa, Arley?”

“No. He says the job will give me a headache and that if I have any love for myself I won’t like it and will fall foul of Grandpa when I resign and end up on his black list, like Ati. But I have to try, don’t I? And, anyway, I don't see that Grandpa is so mean to Ati.”

"That's because Grandpa feels responsible for Cathsheba's happiness. And for that of the Atsabis. If you look closely, Grandpa doesn't really do truly mean things to people. Almost always, he just lets happen what may, what they themselves have gotten into," explained Heather.

"He was mean to us when he kicked us out of his house," Thistle reminded her.

"He thought we were teasing him. Drawing him out. And probably there on Grandma's orders." 

“Will you be gone forever or at least till you resign?” my sisters asked in unison.

“I’ll be gone for weeks or months, till I learn the trade. Then I will have the weekends and some other days off, once I start to work in serious, for I will be part of a team and we shall take turns and have shifts and such.”

“So we will be seeing you again?”

“You might. Like you see Camelia. She works with the Mnemosinites. I´m to be like her.”

“Nobody ever sees the Memorion. We know he exists, but we´ve never seen him. It must be tough to be Grandpa's memory and remind him only of what matters when it does so he doesn't have to be worried all the while.”

“I know he has dinner with Aunt Mabel. I have no idea how often.”

“Are you taking Patty Intrepida with you?”

“She said yes when I asked her at the Christmas party. I’ll fetch her early tomorrow and we´ll meet Camelia at Mr. And Mrs. Momo’s house.”

"Aunt Tolly's and Mr. Momo San's."

"Is it Tolly or Torry? He calls her Torry," asked Thistle. 

"Her name is Anatolia. He sometimes has trouble with the letter l."

“Well, come have tea with us now at least, for Auld Lang Syne.”

We had tea, all four of us, and my sisters asked me what I wanted to be done about my Twelfth Night gifts. I asked them to keep them for me till I got back, and they said they would send them all to me because I would want to thank those who had given them to me.  Then we dressed for the New Year’s Eve celebration. Once the clock had struck twelve, I said goodbye to Mum who started crying. This surpised me, because she doesn’t get to see me much anyway, but I supposed she was feeling gushy given the loud music. Then I went for Patty Intrepida, which was easy to do becasue she had been chasing after me like a third shadow all the evening, so motivated was she.

When we got to the Momo home she asked Camelia, “What are the names of the soldier girls? The ones that guard the purple fountain.”

And Camelia responded that their names were Olive and Aveline.

And she said there was a third guard, who was almost always invisible, and who followed Grandpa wherever he went, and that her name was Laurel.

"Ego hic."

 And I may be gone for a while, because off to work we went.   

Meanwhile, be sure to have a happy New Year. I wish you one.