293. A Peculiar Game

293. A Peculiar Game

The Atshebies had been belabouring their nanny Pedubastis since very early that morning. They had breakfast in their bedrooms, where she would bring them trays of hot toast with fresh butter and golden honey and tumblers of borosilicate glass, handmade and decorated with bubbles and that would not break when the kids tumbled them spilling orange juice. Since these tumblers were magical, all one had to do was whistle for the liquid to slip back into the glasses and for the tumblers to get up.But as I was saying, the Atshebies had been belabouring Pedubastis because they had breakfast in their huge, communal crib, where they had been jumping and leaping more than usual on their patient and long-suffering mattress and had indulged in a ferocious pillow fight which had resulted in all the feathers and herbs from within their pillows flying out of them, for the kittykids, when they turned into kittens, had the fiercest nails, no matter how often Pedubastis pruned them, and with these they had torn and ripped the pillows. Now Pedubastis had to sweep up all the turkey, wild duck, moorcock,dove and lapwing feathers and all the sprigs of lavender, rosemary, jasmine, basil and more that had been the stuffing of the pillows, and not only change the sheets as she did daily, for they usually were occupied by crumbs of toasted bread that made one itch when one got into bed. And she had to shake the sheets outside the windows before washing them, looking out for honey that could have dropped onto them and made everything they grazed sticky and icky.

“Enough meowing! You are driving me insane!” shouted Pedubastis to the kids. “Come on, go out and play in the garden while I make this place decent. It looks like we´ve been attacked by Apep.”

"Her god of chaos," whispered Neferclari knowingly, and the other Kittykids nodded. They had heard Pedubastis mention this Egyptian god before. 

The Atshebies had never gone anywhere on their own. This was because their mother, Catsheba, was afraid of what her mother Jocosa’s friend and enemies might do to the chilren. So they were surprised to hear that Pedubastis wanted them to go out on their own and asked her what could happen to them if she weren’t with them in the garden.

“Nothing!” said Pedubastis. “Well, yes, you could be sequestered,  by poor, unlucky kidnappers. But I don’t think anyone will dare to sequester you if you don’t leave the garden of this castle. It is common knowledge that your father is a fiend and that your mummy is worse yet. I should know, I brought her up and trained her myself, so I know her well. So nothing will happen to you if you stay where people can tell whose kids you are. And this is Apple Island, where we all live together in peace and bliss.So out you go! Move!”

But the Atshebies had another question to ask.

“What is sequester?” asked Neferclari.

“To be kidnapped. Abducted. Someone carries you off by force and takes you somewhere else.”

“Where to?” asked Neferhari.

“To a place you don’t want to be at and won’t like at all.”

“Why not?” asked Neferviki.

“Because they would be mean to you. They would feed you disgusting food, and you all so choosy and finicky as you are. And they would force you to work for free and without will or vocation.”

“Why would they do that to us?”” asked  Neferniki, fascinated.

“To annoy you. There are bad people who want everyone else to be unhappy. And so they can have slaves. That’s it. Bad people love to have slaves.”

“And what is that?” asked Nefernedi, for the children had never heard of slaves.

“I just told you. Slaves have to work for free even if they don’t want to. They can’t lie on a bed of roses. They have to crush stones and stuff like that. They raise a lot of dust doing that, and it gets into their lungs and they cough and cough and if they are mortal, they kick the bucket.”

“Why are stones crushed?” asked Neferedi.

“What does that matter? They force you to do it to annoy you, and that’s it. The purpose is to annoy you, so don’t annoy me, because I have a lot of work to do. Come, go out into the gaden once and for all.”

And the Atshebies left Castle Attor, They did so very cautiously, like the pussycats they were, Before they walked out the great castle doors made of the most robust of oaks they peered out a little from between both sheets. Then they stretched out a little paw and when they saw the heavy bridge of the moat didn’t give neath their ever so light weight,  they put out another paw and advanced.

Once in the garden they sat under a great tree, though this was meaningless because it had lost all its leaves and gave no shade, which they didn’t need anyway, because the sky was rather grey and it rather looked as if it might rain or even snow. And they all began to think what they could do out there.

And Neferhari had a brilliant idea. “What if we sequester someone?” he said.

“So we can have a slave?” asked Neferclari. And she added, “Why would we want one?”

“It’s a game we can play, isn’t it?” said Neferhari.

“And we annoy this person making him crush stones?” asked Nefernedi.

“How does one do that? Crush stones, I mean. Because to annoy is easy,” said Neferedi.

“Very easy. We do it a lot,”said Neferviki. “Anyone can annoy anyone.”

And Neferniki said, “Well, first one must find a stone to crush and then one has to give it knocks till it breaks up.”

“That isn’t easy,” said Neferviki. “It’s not easy to beak a stone.”

“But it can be done,” said Neferniki, “or there wouldn’t be slaves. Or not?”

“There are stones in this garden. A pile. Small ones and big ones. It would take time to crush them,” said Nefreclari. “But who would do it? Who will be our slave?”

“Daddy is strong,” said Neferhari, “and one had to be strong to crush stones.”

“I don’t think Daddy would allow himself to be sequestered,” said Nefernedi. “Pedubastis said he wouldn’t allow anyone to kidnap us, because he is a fiend. He won’t let himself be sequestered either.”

“I’ve never seen him crush stones,” said Neferniki.

“Great Grandpa has a stick,” contributed Neferedi, much inspired.

“He has lots of them. But they are golfclubs,” said Neferniki.

“And he breaks them when he is upset,” said Neferhari.

“He hits something  hard with them as if it were a stone,” said Neferviki.

“He hits a ball, but if we kidnap him, he will have to strike a stone. What would it matter to him? One thing or another?” asked Neferniki.

“If he is our slave, it can’t matter to him at all. He will have to crush stones, yes or yes,” said Neferedi.

“And if that annoys him, so much the better. Or not?” asked Neferhari.

“Of course,” said Neferclari. But she added, “Why do we want to annoy him?”

“Because we are playing at having slaves. How do we do it? Sequester Great Grandpa, that is,” asked Nefernedi. “Because we are six and he is one, but he is kind of big. He´s not the size of a sparrow or a doormouse or a cricket.”

This story is being told you by Little Dolphus, the intellectual Leafy.