310. FUL U

310. FUL U

“So you want to be a naval architect?” little lizard fairy Azuline asked her brother Esmeraldo, the tiny seahorse sprite.

“A what?” 

“That’s what people who build boats are called. Naval architects. You have ever so many boats Daddy bought for you, but you say you want to build one yourself.”

“Right. A naval architect then. That’s what I want to be.”

Azuline consulted her crystal ball and said, “The person who can teach you the trade is a certain Professor Whackwave. He is head of the faculty of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at the University of Fulyu, known too as FUL U whatever that is, and he can grant you a master’s degree. Shall we go for it? Fulyu University is off our island. Maybe we shouldn’t go there.”

“I’m a go-getter. I’m going for it.”

“Well, I’m a go-protect-your-brother, so I’ll go with you.”

Now as anyone with a two fingers’ width of forehead can tell you, fairies don’t go to universities unless they are losing it and about to end up being darksiders. But Esmeraldo and Azuline, enterprising as they were, were not even  two years old, so they didn’t know much about the dark side and all it entailed. They only knew some bogey might eat you, that was all they had been told about it. And they only dreamt of the pride and joy of building one’s own ship their very selves. So they broke the rules for minors and left Apple Island on their own and went for the knowledge and the degree to Ful U, a place on the brink of an entrance to the underworld that was right between the devil and the deep blue sea.

“Now, where have you wise kids come from?”  yawned Tansy Mandrakecott. Our old acquaintance, the shady artist, was falsifying Turners before that deep blue sea. There was an excellent view of the ocean right before Ful U’s  shipyard, which was where the kids were now at.

“We are two of Demetrius Extraricus’s children.”

“Ahhhhhhhh!” exclaimed  Tansy softly, but impressed. “Then you are the grandcildren of AEternus Virbonus! And therefore there is no denying you entry.  Let them in your class  if you know what’s good for you, Whackwave.”

Professor Whackwave was a very tall man, tall as a professional surfer´s longed for wave. A veritable giant among fay darksider men he thought himself. Or so he liked folks to think he did. And he didn’t give a tinker’s cuss what was good for him. He was a combative fellow who thrived on quarrels, always wanting to see who would be left standing.

“You know those teachers everyone says are really good?” he asked Mandrakecott. “They’re nothing but sentimental crumbling cupcakes. A real teacher never teaches. He waits for you to learn by yourself.”

“I…see…,” drawled Tansy. “That could take forever, but, well...okay.”

“Tomorrow before dawn, at exactly a quarter past three a. m., when the night is darkest,  I will examine aspirants. Right there in that cave next to this shipyard,” said Whackwave grinning  cruelly at  the children.

“An entrance exam?” asked Tansy.

“Certainly not. A kick-you-out-of-here exam. If you know the trade, you get booted out of here with a piece of paper that says yes, you do. It certifies that. And if you don’t, you leave empty-handed.”

“Ah, I see,” said Tansy.

But Azuline saw too. Nothing to do with bullies, she thought. So she didn’t go register herself or Esmeraldo for the exam and didn’t spend a faypence on its fees. She did see enough to know that she didn’t like Whackwave and didn’t need the approval of a tormentor. So she took Esmeraldo by the hand and led him to her Aunt Mabel’s library at Gentle Manor.

“Aunt Mabel says there is nothing one can’t learn in the right  library,” she said to her brother. “We’re not playing Whackwave’s game and we are not entering his cave.He might eat us or something just as bad. I don’t like the way he looked at me. Or you. It wasn’t just supercilious, his look. It was sinister. If we have to do this on our own, we´ll do it on our truly own. We´ll start by seeing what information we have right here.”

The kids were in luck. Since Mabel’s father, the Memorion, was a sea fairy and lived in a boat, there was good material on naval architecture in the library. In half an hour of browsing, Azuline had piled up two dozen useful  books and discarded the three unintelligible ones there were there that were written  by Whackwave himself. But  Esmeraldo had nodded off while she was at it. When he awoke, he said he wasn’t reading all those books. If he couldn’t learn how to  be a naval architect in a practical way, he would be a pirate. That is what dealing with Whackwave had done to him. Turned him into a delinquent.

“First thing I’m going to do is I’m going off to steal a ship,” he said.

“Why? You own dozens of ships. Why would you need to steal one?”

“No self-respecting pirate marauds on a ship his daddy has given him for Christmas,” said Esmeraldo, and he left to look for trouble.

Azuline would have gone after him, but she figured she would be able to help him better if she read all the books she had gathered on naval architecture  first. So she stayed to read them, thinking Esmeraldo wouldn’t have time to get into a mess before she was done. She was not only a voracious reader. She was also a very fast one.