335. Peter Keys by Noonlight

 335. Peter Keys by Noonlight

“Different boxes, different keys,” said my Uncle Gentlerain. “We’re to use a five leaf clover for this one.”

And he made the second coffer stolen from the Aureas with their express permission appear.

“Will it be by moonlight again?” asked Neferclari.

“By noonlight, dear. Where can we find five leaf clovers, Richie? There’s not many of them readily available on the island, because they all have to do with treasures, and one doesn’t want one’s treasures messed with, does one?”

“I have like a hundred and fifty in my gardens. But I don’t know if any of them will open the second silver coffer. I’ve never linked them to a treasure or tried to find one with them. So far, they’ve been just for show. Except I haven’t shown them to anyone but myself. Would you like to see them?”

“Obviously. We´ve enough problems without having to go hunt for a five leaf clover, don’t we?”

“You´ve got this wrong,” said Azuline. “The second box must be opened by a Peter Key. I’m sure I heard that right.”

Uncles Rich and Gentlerain glanced at each other. Azuline had made them doubt.

“The child might be right. I was so concerned about having to steal the boxes that I may have got the instructions wrong.”

“The Aurea was rather confusing,” said I, Heather, “when she spoke.”

“It’s moonwort by moonlight, Peter Keys by noonlight and a Five Leaf Clover by no light,” said Azuline. “That’s what the golden girl said. It’s not the two last plants by noonlight. It’s the clover by no light at all.”

“Promising,” said Gentlerain to Azuline. “That’s what you are. She did say something like that. Or that, actually.””

“Alright. Now, Peter Keys can be found almost anywhere here on the island, but the best place for them is near cows. Where there are cows, there are cowslips,” said Richearth. “And that, to my knowledge, is what Peter Keys are. Yellow flowers that grow where cows have…well, deposited  and rid themselves of what they are better off without.”

“Dung!” said Esmeraldo, in case someone hadn’t understood what his father was saying.

“What a place for keys to fall in!” said Neferclari.

“But they were St. Peter’s keys, the keys to Heaven, so when they fell into the waste they made pretty flowers grow right out of it as soon as they grazed it.”

“You have cows on your plantation, Richie?” asked  Gentlerain.

“I don’t even have my ten sheep. I don’t know where the ten sheep I have a right to are, now that I think of it. Sheep aren’t good for plants.”

“Well, don’t worry about them now, if you haven’t till now, Richie.”

“This girl Betabel, the one who married the Ravenous Unchagedling who evolved into a Garbageeater…  how do you spell that? Garbageeater with one e after another?”

“I have no idea,” said Gentlerain. “Never heard of one. Well, yes. Alpin I have heard of, and his succesion of trasnformations too. But not of any other eaters of garbage, the usual vermin excluded. I’ve never seen that word in print either.”

“She was taking care of my sheep for me. And then she went and married this horrible fellow and I hope he hasn’t eaten my sheep. He ate everything he set eyes on. He was my brother-in-law. I should know.”

“He is your brother-in-law, though you may have lost contact. Your sheep were never garbage, I’m sure. So surely he hasn’t eaten them.”

“Before he was jinxed into becoming a garbageeater, he might have. Of course, for a while there he was an oyster, but that doesn’t count. They don’t eat sheep. What do they eat? Phytoplankton and other teensy things I suppose. Boy, it does make me nervous not to know how to spell garbageeater. Irritating sensation.”

“Call him a rubbisheater and be done with the ee problem, Daddy,” said Esmeraldo.

“Does that have a hyphen?”

“A what?” asked Esmeraldo.

“A little line between both words that shows they are connected.”

“Your sheep are probably with Betabel’s family. Other members of her family were shepherds too and tended unclaimed sheep,”  I said.

“I want them back!”

“Not now, Richie. We have other things to do,” said Uncle Gent.

“I think it’s irresponsible of Betabel not to have warned me that she was going to abandon my sheep. Is she my sister-in-law now? Or is she just my brother-in-law’s wife? He’s still my brother-in-law, though I haven’t seen him in ages. That I like.”

“Like Heather has just said, someone from her family must be tending to the sheep. Let´s get on with the coffer business. Take us to a cow, Rich.”

“I don’t have even a single chicken in my plantation. Only my dogs and cats and Branna’s Arcane, who is a dog too, and they don’t count.  Not as farm animals, do they? I really want my sheep back now that I´ve thought of them. I´m not going to be able to go anywhere until I have  found my poor lost sheep. What if they are off the island and some wolf eats them?”

“Look here, Richie, I will call and have someone from my office go find your sheep this minute, but you take us to a cow while I give the order.”

“Texas?” said Richie. “We’re going to Texas? With the yellow roses. But are there cowslips in Texas? I don’t think so. Not naturally.”

“Somebody on this island has to have a cow,” said Uncle Gent. “But first I have something on my mind too. I want to thank my daughters for having disowned me in front of Granny Grimface, Thank you, girls. I want to think you did that so she wouldn’t eat me for having let your grandmother raise you instead of doing it myself.”

“We have no problem with you, Daddyman,” laughed the Blue Twins. “But that witch might have seen it otherwise.”

“I saved my dad too,” said Esmeraldo. “Though I’m still hopping mad at him for considering ceding me to Ambivolo.”

“I did nothing of the kind. I just reminisced about a man who was older than the hills and tried to fool me into being his daddy,” said Richearth. “Actuallly, he did fool me for a while there.”

“Were you drunk?” asked Esmeraldo.

“Certainly not! I never am!”

“Then stupid. I was trying to find an excuse for you.”

“We’re done!” cried Gentlerain raising his voice a little. Something he very rarely does. He has such a clear, steady voice, never saying a word louder than the next, and is always easily understood.  “We’re done with reminiscing and complaining and  thanking and spelling  and sheep and other distractions. Let´s find us a cow!”