Olly, Olly, Oxen Frey

by Paul Manchester

  “Oh, well, that may be a wee bit irreg’lar, but.... oh.” Pricker took another look at Jack and reassessed. “Well how’s ‘bout dreams of that boy... Finn? Maybe ye’ll be liking those dreams better?” he said with a knowing smile.

  Jack screamed from every ounce of his being. “Get away from me! I wish every one of you disgusting little creatures would go away!!”

  Pricker’s eyes widened at the sound of magical tinkling and then, the startled little man disintegrated into nothing. He was gone. And there was silence. All the merry singing in the vast stone room had ceased.

  Jack stretched his neck this way and that. All the awful little creatures were gone. Just like that.

  He hardly knew what to think, but when he looked down, he saw that his left leg was no longer glowing.

  “Oh,” Jack thought.

  A moment passed.

  “I wish these manacles would release me?” he tried.

  There was a delicate tinkling sound again and both manacles clicked open. He quickly had to grasp hold of one to keep from falling to the floor far below him. Two of his fingers were no longer glowing.

  “Pinkie... thank you. Thank you,” he whispered. He took a big breath and steadied his thoughts.

  A thick red tube ran down to the floor to his left. He edged his way over and climbed down it like a rope. He ignored its bloody contents and hoped it was tightly secured at the top.

  At the base of the wall, he stood back and looked up at the rows of half conscious children who were unaware of everything.

  Jack ran along the base of the wall to see if either Jenny or Finn were among them. No Jenny. No Finn. He counted fifty-seven kids in all.

  He didn’t know what to do.

  Jack looked around the vast room. He didn’t see his clothes anywhere. Globular lights were mounted in iron tentacles that sprouted from the walls in a few spots. The ceiling was high. The stone masonry around him was like that of a medieval dungeon but there seemed to be a tentacle theme worked into the rough stonework. Above that, there were rough hewn beams supporting a dark ceiling. To Jack’s left was a monstrously large Gothic arch and a large hall beyond. To his right the wall was a honeycomb of tiny arches and staircases sized to the little red hatted creatures. Who were now... gone. The miniature stairways seemed all the smaller for a room otherwise proportioned for a giant.

  Opposite to the wall with the children was the wall with the stacked cages. Heavy footfalls sounded in the great hall to his left.

  He turned to the unconscious children above him on the wall. He didn’t know what to do!

  Then he did.

  “I wish all the locks in this room would unlock and that each of you children wake up in your own homes –healthy and sound!” he called out.

  There was a tinkling sound. And they were gone. Every single child. Gone.

  As was the glow from his arms, torso, and right leg. It didn’t appear that he was glowing anywhere now.

  Woops.

  No more wishes. He turned to run towards the stack of cages to hide.

  “Well. That was impressive,” came a thunderingly loud yet surprisingly sweet woman’s voice. “Annoying of course. But... impressive.”

  Jack turned towards the arch and saw the largest woman he had ever seen. She was taller than the tree that their tree house was in. She was blue. She wasn’t human... there was something reptilian about her face.

  The Blue Queen.

  She was beautiful in a peculiar way, though her chin curved up into a point, as did her eyebrows and her cheekbones which swept out into their own points. Her hair- if it was hair, swept back up from her head and gave her another six feet of height as it curled and flared out like shelves of lichen.

  And Jack felt helpless. He was in a diaper. His knees were shaking.

  He was frickin’ terrified.

  But then, he suddenly sensed that he did have one wish left. He could feel it!

  Jack knew that down in his diaper, there was something that was still glowing...

  Chapter 17

  Not Entirely

  Human

  Rip-One was the Redduns’ dispatcher and accountant. All organizations have someone who does the bookwork. It is often hard to remember that behind every group responsible for horrible behavior, there is probably someone who tallies up those awful things up into neat little columns, and juggles queues of numbers. What good is bad behavior if it is not profitable?

  Rip-One was not particularly good at accounting. Nor was he particularly violent by the normal standards of his Redduns family. His name had nothing to do with performing violent acts, but had everything to do with why he didn’t travel in the intimate swirl of goo with the rest.

  Rip-One struggled with gas. Not just the mild little toots of your grandma gas, but foul and effusively flatulent with a tendency towards disturbing wetness sort of gas. The type of gas that not only clears a room, but burns it down and requires hazmat suits for a good fifty years afterwards sort of gas. And as embracing as the Redduns were towards many other flavors of ickiness, they drew the line at gas. Gas is flammable (as many a drunken frat boy has had the delightful but painful opportunity to discover). When a swirling tornado of snot is infused with as much gas as Rip-One could produce, the dangers were tangible.

  It wasn’t fair of course! He deserved to be out adventuring and having fun with the rest of them! But, it was not to be. Rip-One was given the job of bookkeeper – not because he was good at it – but because it kept him out of the way.

  This morning, he was sipping a hot frothy cup of his regular bloody mouse latte and going through the backlog of reports. He’d seen the gang returning from their mission, rowdy in the echoing stone hallways... laughing and congratulating themselves on their cleverness. Of course he’d wanted to go on the mission too, but they had turned him down again.

  He hated them. He wanted to be one of them. He hated every gooey brother and sister he had. But it was awful to always be alone.

  In front of him was a printout from the most recent intake door. He was rather proud of how he’d modernized things. Using a combination of magic and mortal world supplies that he’d cleverly bargained for from the nixies, he’d installed scanners at each of the traps where children fell into Frey. He also had installed alarms around sensitive locations around Frey. When any of these were triggered, he sent out the team.

  The child was supposed to have been a seven year old girl – which was not what they just brought in with the wiggling bag of fuzzy-wiggles. The old scanners now were rather belatedly showing the arrival of two almost sixteen year old boys. He was surprised they got through the door as sixteen year olds were almost too old for the Queen’s needs. Obviously one of them was still free – in addition to the seven year old. That dodgy battery in the scanner was crazy-making.

  The device scanned the bodies sucked through the magic door, and also kept the door shut against adult humans. They also collected the genetic data for the quick grow changelings spores that were released after the children were grabbed. It had clearly malfunctioned from its years of misuse. Maybe the tube was clogged. Something was wrong. He’d have to go out into the field and check it out. Of course, that first seed would probably be defective... sitting at the end of the tube like that and exposed to air. Hard to say. Changelings often don’t live long enough to become human. Probably didn’t matter. They were just temporary copies. But he did need to check out the device to make sure it was working.

  That door hadn’t picked up any children for years. He’d been ready to submit a change-in-location form to the Acquisitions Department who handled those things. He was rather fond of a feathered lizard in there who wore the most tantalizing red glasses. Sheela. He still might submit the form as it would give him an excuse to say hello. Sheela had no sense of smell whatever. He found that kind of sexy.

  Th
e Queen would like that fresh stock of fuzzy-wiggles.

  Rip-One took a second glance at the report. This was interesting. One of the sixteen year olds was only half human? It wasn’t clear what the other half consisted of.

  The boy they caught was golden and glowing. Rip-One didn’t think that was normal for a human. Perhaps that was the half-human? Either way, there were still two children on the loose.

  He could tell the other Redduns. But, perhaps not. Perhaps this was an opportunity to show his quality to the Queen...

  Maybe he could discuss it with Sheela? Over a warm frothy mouse whipped into a tender romantic meal? Maybe he could catch these missing children himself?

  Chapter 18

  Pirates!

  “Pirates!” came the screams of nixies down by the river. Jenny and the Wishermans grabbed their belongings and raced out the door to find someplace safer.

  Jenny felt a strange mix of sheer terror and overwhelming excitement. “Pirates!” She desperately wanted to see what they looked like.

  Boom!

  Crack!

  Jenny screamed.

  A blast of something colorful slammed into a tree nearby and left quite a dent. The cannon ball broke into a thousand pieces and showered down on them.

  Boom!

  Crack!

  Another ball slammed into a root right above them. They jumped aside as the ball bounced off the tree and bounced near them without breaking.

  “That looks like a Jawbreaker!” Jenny ran up to inspect the smoking ball. “That’s the biggest Jawbreaker I’ve ever seen!”

  It was about eight inches in diameter, but she licked her finger, rubbed it across its rainbow surface and then tasted it. “Yup. That’s a Jawbreaker.”

  She was now more curious than ever to see what these pirates looked like. Mamy and Papy were climbing under a root to hide.

  “Hurry quick, Jenny or ye’ll be cap-smackled!” Papy whispered as loud as he dared.

  Jenny turned to follow, but decided to take a quick peek to see the crazy happenings below them.

  “No, Jenny! No!” Mamy hoarsely whispered!

  “I’ll be right there!” Jenny whispered back.

  Jenny looked.

  Below her was a row of nixies all tied up along a log and they seemed to be... giggling?

  In front of the nixies were the pirates. They weren’t at all what she expected! They were short. Quite short. She thought they might be about as tall as Papy... about up to her waist (Whereas the nixies wouldn’t come up to her knee). The pirates had big furry heads atop small furry bodies. The pirate costumes were amazing. She loved all the miniature hats and scarfs and blousey shirts.

  “Up there!” hollered a high voice.

  “– to catch a captive fair!” shouted another voice.

  “Behind the tree!! added the first voice.

  “She should despair!” yelled the second.

  “Aye, tremble ye! And say yer prayers!” said a third.

  “No one escapes the Brown Corsairs!” They all sang in unison and leapt in her direction!

  And faster than she could have thought possible, Jenny, Mamy, and Papy were trussed up and carried below by a crowd of little furry brown pirates.

  It was when she was sitting on the log alongside the still giggling nixies, that she recognized what they were!

  “You’re Brownies!”

  There was a sudden silence. Even the nixies stopped giggling.

  Jenny continued. “You’re in one of my books at home!”

  The brownie pirates all groaned as one!

  “Arh! Those cur-sed, blas-ted books!

  Damning us to po-esy hooks!!”

  sang three tenor brownies in harmony.

  “No curse in hell ‘smore fine-ly wrought

  than forced to rhyme when we would not!”

  -added another three who had particularly deep voices.

  Neddy the nixie then piped up, “Ye shouldn’t be mentioning those books! Its just ter’ble! Since those books came out, the brownies all be speakin’ in verse. They ain’t even allowed ta do free-verse!”

  “That’s why they be such fearsome, but romantic corsairs!” giggled little Birdle.

  Mamy gave a great big sigh. “I really wanted ta avoid all this.”

  “Abs’lutely, their po’try is just awf’l!” complained Papy.

  Jenny looked at all the tittering nixies. “Ain’t you supposed to be a little more upset about bein’ captured by pirates?”

  A little green nixie piped up, “No! It be ever so excitin’,” she shrugged. “Though ‘tis true they don’t play the takin’ game the same as we do.”

  “But it is fun ta get tied up and all!” cooed a pink one. “I so love me a bit of Cap’n Billy Blind!”

  The pink nixie wiggled her brows at an extravagantly dressed brownie who modestly shook his head with a raised hand to draw their attention. He sang out with a rather golden baritone voice:

  “No time for pillagn’ play today

  we’re here ta take this child away!

  We got the word a girl be seen

  that might be temptin’ ta the Queen!”

  At that, Cap’n Billy Blind (who didn’t seem blind at all) gave a genteel smile to the crowd with a florid bow.

  And Footbe stepped out from a shadow.

  “Ye’ll have ta forgive me and these piratical poets. We all be more than tired of our shunnin’s from the Blue Queen. We be thinkin’ she might be removin’ ‘em if we paid a visit to her with yerself in tow.”

  Of course it was hard to tell with a face like a goat, but it seemed to Jenny that he looked a little sheepish.

  “I told ye he be no good!” cried Mamy.

  Soon a pirate ship pulled up alongside the village. Despite the circumstances, Jenny thought it was the most beautiful miniature pirate ship that she’d ever seen. The entire boat was about the same length as her dad’s old VW van.

  What it had in charm, it lacked in comforts.

  * * * *

  The pirate ship was called The Palmer. Its green sails filled out spectacularly in the wind as it sailed out of the Riddle River and into a beautiful lagoon with the wide ocean beyond.

  The phooka was seated in the back of the ship – filling up most the poop deck – his spread legs left just enough room for a brownie navigator to man the wheel. Jenny wondered if that should be brownie the wheel... but then again... perhaps not... especially on a poop deck.

  Jenny, Mamy, and Papy sat up front on the forecastle or bow of the boat. They were still tied securely.

  Jenny felt horrible for disobeying the Wishermans when they told her to hide.

  Papy sighed. “Well Jenny, it prob’bly woulda done no useful-good anyways as they knew you was there somewheres.”

  Papy would get back his basket of wishes and the giant net thing that he’d made, but it had been chained up below for safe-keeping. The pirates had even offered (in verse) to drop Papy and Mamy off at the Wish Mongers floating island, if they could time it with the island’s arrival. Jenny was surprised they were so nice. She wondered if she could talk the brownies into not handing her over to the Queen.

  A young brownie named Gibbie polished wood near her and he whistled while he worked.

  Jenny decided to be friendly. “You’re doing a beautiful job with that woodwork.”

  Gibbie gave her a proud smile.

  “The chore with boats ‘tis not the sea

  but all the woodwork that thar be.”

  “So,” Jenny whispered, “I’m a bit curious. What is a shunning?”

  Gibbie gave her a sad look and to Jenny’s complete surprise, he pulled down the back of his britches to expose a brand on his butt that said ‘Shunned!’.

  “When ye be shunned, the case is shut!


  Ye get a brand upon yer butt!

  Tho’ could be worse - instead of butts

  it might ha’ been upon me -”

  “Ya jest stop right there!” shouted Mamy. “Thar be ladies present!”

  Which made all the brownies within hearing giggle hysterically.

  But Jenny was undeterred. “But what happens if you get shunned?”

  Gibbie opened his arms expansively and sang,

  “If ye be shunned, ye’re forced to shirk!

  Ye can’t be used fer hon’st work!”

  Jenny laughed, “But if you’re wearing pants, how would they know if you’ve got a brand or not?”

  To Jenny’s surprise even the Wishermans looked with surprise at her question.

  Gibbie responded,

  “But all folks know to earn a crumb

  ye gotta show yer boss yer bum!”

  Papy spoke up. “That’s why all Wishermans be self-employed! Or at least-wise ah’m only employed by Mamy here!” he laughed. “And she’s seen me butt!”

  Even Mamy laughed at that.

  Jenny blushed and wasn’t sure what to say. “I don’t think it is like that where I’m from. Sounds kinda too personal.”

  Papy laughed. “Ah can’t say, but ah’m a thinkin’ it be like that most wheres.”

  The brownies burst into another fit of giggles.

  As Jenny inspected the horizon, she recollected her father saying something about his boss “riding his ass”. When she got back home, she’d have some serious questions for her father. The adult world seemed like a confusing place.

  The brownies were a festive bunch. They burst into song so often that at times it felt like one of those old musicals that Jack liked. The ship sailed out to sea with so much contagious laughter that the captives almost forgot that they were prisoners. Except for the being tied up part. That part was annoying.

  And the prospect of being handed over to the Queen for her blood. Jenny stopped laughing.

  Every once in a while Jenny would get a glimpse of the silent phooka at the back of the ship. His face kept staring at her through all the rigging from the back of the boat. She wondered what he was thinking.