The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic

by Jennifer Trafton

  “Peace offering?” Rhule took the strange bundle from Persimmony and looked thoughtfully at it for several minutes. “Perhaps she wants to join us in our honorable endeavor. Yes, there is a seriousness in her face that speaks of courage, loyalty, and resolve. Very well, the Leafeaters will not turn away from a well-meaning gift, however rudely delivered and—oddly shaped.” He tied the hair belt around his waist and bowed to Persimmony. “Welcome to our city. Of course, you can never leave now that you’ve discovered our secret entrances, but have no doubt that you will always be treated with courtesy and that we will make every effort to ensure that you are warm, well-fed, and comfortable for the rest of your life. Hand her a shovel, Rhiddle. Oh, no, my dear,” he added as Persimmony again pointed to the diggers and then to her feet frantically, “don’t worry about your bare feet. None of us wear shoes here.”

  Persimmony tossed aside the shovel Rhiddle gave her, got down on her hands and knees, and began to draw a picture of Mount Majestic in the dirt with her finger.

  “What an artistic flair she has!” Rhule exclaimed. “What surprising talent! It is a perfect depiction of a tortoise shell.”

  “And there is the tortoise inside, lying down,” said Rhiddle. “Look, she has even taken the trouble to draw its tongue sticking out one end. A remarkable attention to detail.”

  “But she has given it many tongues, not just one. Look at them all, jutting out from the edge of the tortoise shell. They look just like little shovels. What a creative mind! What originality! It must be symbolic.”

  Persimmony wiped away the drawing with her hat and stomped on it in frustration. She felt exactly like the tortoise with its tongue cut off.

  “Rhiddle!” said the chief suddenly. “Shame on us! We did not compliment her hat. Remember rule number sixty-three of the Code of Courtesy: Always compliment a lady’s hat. No wonder she is so out of temper. Young mistress, your hat is lovely.”

  If only Captain Gidding were there to speak for her! Captain Gidding, who was so full of words. She wondered whether he had managed to get away from the four Leafeaters.

  Words. How stupid of her. She could write a message. After all, she had been practicing her writing for months. But did “giant” begin with a J or a G?

  There was no time to be indecisive. She went with her first guess and began scribbling in the dirt, “J . . . I . . . U . . . N . . .” But a stampede of Leafeaters carrying buckets of dug-up earth trampled the letters into meaningless scratches as they passed. Exasperated, Persimmony grabbed one of the smaller buckets and dumped the contents over its owner’s head.

  “The poor girl, she has gone mad!” cried Rhule. “Artists often do, alas.”

  It is one of life’s great injustices that whenever you want to cry, no tears will come, but whenever it is embarrassing and childish to cry, it happens whether you like it or not. In the past three days, Persimmony had been lost in the woods, soaked in a thunderstorm, chased by a poison-tongued jumping tortoise, offended by a king, snored upon by a giant, laughed at by an entire town, led on a wild-goose chase by a band of brainless soldiers, knocked out by a tree in the heat of her first battle, threatened with a pickax, forced to listen to a surprising amount of poetry, and nearly made into stew. This was the last straw.

  The burning seeped into her nose and overflowed through her eyelids. I’ve got to save the kingdom, she wanted to tell them, but all that came out were sobs. Furious at herself, she pressed her palms against her eyes and jumped up and down several times to shake the crying out of her head. But she was trapped in her very own Ceremony of Tears.

  Above her, the dirt fell away to reveal a wall of flesh lined with earth-filled creases. “Dig harder!” Rhule called out. With blind determination, the Leafeaters hacked away.

  Chapter 24

  IN WHICH THE AIR IS FULL OF FEAR, SUSPICION, BLAME, AND VEGETABLES

  The easiest way to forget how scared you are is to get angry at someone (it doesn’t really matter whom), and so when it was time for the trial of the two Leafeaters, Rhedgrave and Rheuben Rhinkle, people from all over the island showed up. There was a large stage in the middle of Candlenut for auctions and festivals, and at the edge of this stage a pair of stocks had been set up. These were wooden frames with holes for a person’s head and hands. “Why are we being put in these?” asked Rheuben as the heavy wood was lowered over his head. “This is a punishment. I thought we were on trial.”

  The magistrate ignored him. “Jury, are you ready?” One the other side of the stage, the spice merchant, the dairy farmer, the seamstress, the carpenter, and the owner of the stolen rooster all nodded.

  “I have a question,” said Professor Quibble, stepping onto the stage. “Is it not true that, as the pepper mill workers have so loudly confirmed for us, there is a giant lying asleep underground with its head at the western end of the mountain and its feet at your end? And is it not true that at this very moment the Leafeaters are digging toward the very place where those giant feet lie? And is it not true that if the giant wakes up and the kingdom is trampled, the Leafeaters will have what they have always wanted—peace and quiet without all the rest of us around?”

  A loud murmuring rippled outward. “But—but you can’t possibly believe that the Leafeaters are trying to wake up the giant on purpose?” cried Rheuben.

  “How dare you blame us for this unfortunate turn of events?” sputtered Rhedgrave. “We wouldn’t have been digging into the mountain at all if your king hadn’t stolen our trees and written such a rude letter to our chief.”

  “Perhaps if you let us go,” Rheuben said, “we can hurry back to Willowroot and stop the rest of the Leafeaters from digging any further. That brave daughter of Simeon Smudge has gone to do it, but I fear they may not believe her.”

  Theodore stood up suddenly from the cart where he had been resting. His eyes flashed with relief and new concern. “Persimmony! You’ve seen her? She is heading to Willowroot?”

  But Rheuben’s reply was interrupted by the other person Theodore had been seeking. “Persimmony? Persimmony has gone to find the Leafeaters?” Ever since that terrifying moment in the cave, Mrs. Smudge had been uncharacteristically quiet. Even when the pepper mill workers had raced through the villages spreading the news, she had done little more than wander in the fields and mutter to herself, “You foolish, foolish woman—why didn’t you believe him?” Now she began shoving aside bystanders to escape from the throng. “Let me through, let me through! I’ve got to get to the woods. I’ll search all night until I find her. My poor courageous lamb! So like her father!”

  “Mother, don’t leave me!” shrieked Prunella. She started to run too but suddenly found herself in the thin, firm arms of Theodore, who patted the girl’s trembling shoulders and gripped his cane to steady both of them. He cast a concerned glance at her mother.

  “Amelia,” Theodore said gently, “she is like her father, and that’s why you need to let her do what needs to be done.” Mrs. Smudge stopped and turned to him with surprise and suspicion in her face. “Gentlemen,” he continued, addressing the magistrate and the professor, “it is an excellent idea for you to let these two Leafeaters go back to their people and warn them of the danger. I suggest—”

  “If you think,” the magistrate sneered at Rheuben, “we’re going to let you go and trust you to stop your conniving, unscrupulous people, then you have misjudged your judges. We weren’t born this morning.”

  It is very difficult to maintain your dignity when your head and hands are sticking out of blocks of wood, but Rheuben was doing his best. “Come, come, let’s try to be rational. Calm discussion, an honest facing of the facts, and a firm rejection of all unnecessary adjectives and adverbs—that’s the way to get to the truth of things.”

  “The truth, nephew,” grumbled Rhedgrave, “is that it is the lot of the Leafeaters to suffer. We have suffered patiently for centuries at the hands of Sunspitters.”

  “What about us?” Flack turned an accusing stare on the older Leafeate
r. “It’s because the Leafeaters went underground so long ago that the tortoises have gone wild and taken over the Willow Woods!”

  A cry of outrage burst from the townspeople of Candlenut.

  “Let me remind you,” said Rhedgrave coolly, “that it was because of your people’s disdain for all tradition, beauty, and wisdom that our ancestors built the city of Willowroot to begin with.”

  “Let me remind you,” one of the farmers hooted, “that you are outnumbered. We don’t need you! We don’t want you!” And the rest of the farmers began raising their rakes and pitchforks and inching closer to the captive Leafeaters.

  “Have you all ever cried?” Rhedgrave snapped. “Really, truly wept over the world? Well, we do. A Leafeater’s grief is so profound, so monumentally tragic, that a mere swallow of our tears can make one of you Sunspitters tongue-tied for days. Well! Maybe it’s time you had something to cry about.”

  The potter lifted his hand to calm the people. “Please,” he said, “don’t allow your fear to cloud your good judgment. There have been many wrongs done, but no one is the villain here. We will solve nothing by warring with each other. There are much more important things to worry about—for one thing, we all need to find safe cover immediately.”

  “Of course there’s a villain,” said Flack. “Every story must have a villain. Every side must have an enemy.”

  Prunella burst into tears and buried her face in the potter’s white beard. “I don’t understand anything that’s happened since we left home.”

  “There are many things to talk about, and many things to explain,” said the potter, “but right now we must find places to hide.”

  At that moment an ear-splitting sound brought the arguing to a halt. It wasn’t thunder, nor was it the growl of an animal or anything so safe—it was a deep, immense, sky-filling, heart-stopping CHUCKLE. Everyone except the Citizens Against Giants, who went on facing the other direction, turned their gaze toward Mount Majestic. The island was silent.

  Dustin Dexterhoof had been trying to get everyone’s attention for at least twenty minutes. He jumped onto the stage. “Pardon me, my dear fellow citizens, I believe you are overlooking the obvious, inescapable, and in fact quite blatant truth that, despite our understandable desires to blame other—”

  “Spit it out!” the magistrate snarled.

  “Don’t you see? The only real enemy is the one who lies underneath that mountain.”

  As if in answer, the eastern end of the mountain seemed to ripple and buckle like the surface of water when a large fish swims underneath. Then it settled into solid green again.

  “We’ll kill the giant!” someone shouted.

  “We can’t kill him,” said Professor Quibble. Now that he had finally admitted the existence of such a creature, he considered himself an expert. “There’s no poison strong enough, no dagger big enough, no method of execution guaranteed to kill a sleeping giant before he has time to stir. Not to mention the fact that even if we did kill him, we’d be stuck with an enormous, stinky, decaying corpse.”

  “What right have we to kill him?” said Theodore. “He has done nothing wrong except exist—and sleep.”

  Fear was like a fierce ocean wave dashing itself against a wall, but the people held it back desperately with their hearts. And the more they held it back, the angrier they became.

  “We’re a good island! We don’t deserve this!”

  “Well, of course you deserve it,” yelled the owner of the stolen rooster. “I am ashamed to be standing here in the Day of Wickedness. Many years ago, when the Lyre-That-Never-Lies prophesied that the turnip crop would come early, I told everyone that there was more to it than turnips. For a turnip is as despicable a vegetable as I’ve ever tasted, and if we were going to be cursed with an abundant turnip crop, it was a sign of approaching DOOM, that’s what it was! But did anyone believe me?”

  “If you have a prejudice against turnips, why don’t you just say so?” demanded Flack.

  The mad sweet potato farmer (he was mad—his potatoes were sweet) began banging on the side of his cooking-pot-hat with a pipe. “Woe, woe, woe is you! Woe is me! Woe is everyone! The sun has taken ill, and the sea is drowned! The earthworms are wiser than we are! There is no more tea in my sugar bowl!”

  No one ever knew who threw the first tomato. It smacked Rhedgrave Rhinkle in the face. After that, the air was full of flying fruits and vegetables. Nearly everything in the Candlenut marketplace was soon pelting the stage and its occupants. Tomatoes, mangoes, oranges, bananas, plums, avocados, peaches, heads of cabbage, ears of corn, buckets full of carrot juice and raspberry jam, coconuts, pumpkin pies, coffee beans, eggs, turnips, sweet potatoes, blueberries . . .

  And then the earth shivered, and the mountain roared.

  Chapter 25

  IN WHICH A FEATHER AND A FLUTE PROVE THEIR WORTH

  A huge chunk of earth erupted from the end of the tunnel and crumbled to the ground, startling the Leafeater diggers, who stared at their own shovels in surprise.

  “Hurrah!” shouted Chief Rhule. “Superb digging! Look at that mountain come down! Keep it up, keep it up!”

  Persimmony watched miserably as the Leafeaters continued piercing the giant’s foot and cheering at the unexpected success of their efforts amidst a shower of dirt. This was the moment in which everything depended upon her, and she had failed.

  It’s not my fault, she thought. If Captain Gidding hadn’t been so wrapped up in his poem . . . if the soldiers hadn’t been so stupid . . . if the Leafeaters had built a city that made sense and went somewhere . . . if the tortoises hadn’t attacked us ... if Theodore had told someone his suspicions sooner . . . if the king hadn’t been so selfish . . . if the giant . . .

  No, it’s all my fault. If I hadn’t stopped at the cottage . . . if I had run back to find the soldiers instead of getting more lost . . . if I hadn’t taken a gulp of that stew . . . She was the wrong person to have gone on such a mission. She had let everyone down—Theodore, her mother, Prunella, Captain Gidding, Worvil, and worst of all, her father.

  “Something always goes wrong,” Worvil had said.

  “So like a Smudge,” the townspeople had said.

  “She’s not important at all,” Captain Gidding had said. He had said it to protect her, of course, but deep down she knew that it was true. How could she have thought that she could save anyone? She wasn’t enough. The giant was important. He was Somebody. He was powerful even when he was asleep—so powerful that a kingdom could be turned upside down because of him. Even if he slept for a thousand more years, while everyone else went on living and dying above him, he would still matter.

  Suddenly she was filled with a great longing to be home. She wished she could hear her mother’s comforting voice lecturing about the evils of soap, and see Prunella’s quick fingers knitting a stocking, and know that it was just a dull, ordinary, normal day after all. She closed her eyes, but instead of seeing the cottage she was back in the cave, gazing at a majestic face—and feeling the breath of her father, who had once gazed at that face too.

  Worvil was lying in the center of a whirlwind. The warm breath of the giant now burst out of his mouth in fierce gusts, and for the first time there was the deep, resonating throb of an immense Voice:

  Worvil could sense the massive face beside him beginning to stir, and the ceiling of the cave started to shift and rain down pebbles upon him.

  He wanted to scream. He wanted to scream. He wanted to scream.

  Screams echoed through the island as the trembling underfoot grew to a thunderous quaking. An avalanche of stones and dirt came rushing down the side of Mount Majestic.

  Every day the mountain rose and fell—once. But now its rising and falling was like the chaotic tossing of the waves on a stormy sea. Up and down, up and down the mountain bounced, and the castle shook as if it were a boat about to capsize.

  “The island will break apart!” someone cried. “We will all fall into the ocean!” Men and women picked up t
heir children and dashed for their homes, trampling flowerbeds as they ran. Out in the fields, the farmers hid in haystacks. The fishermen in the north took refuge underneath overturned boats, and the fruit pickers huddled in empty apple barrels. Those who had gathered to watch the Leafeaters’ trial in Candlenut scrambled over the mess of food on the ground toward safety as fences flipped, chimneys tipped over, and merchants’ goods went tumbling, bouncing, and spinning down the streets. A squawking, swirling, feathery tempest of ducks and chickens announced the end of the world.

  With one violent quake, the stocks toppled off the stage and cracked open. Rheuben helped his uncle to his feet, then yelled to those nearby, “Hurry, get under the stage!” The magistrate, the jury, the professor, the archaeologist, the potter, and the king’s steward followed the two Leafeaters under the stable wooden structure and clung to one another.

  “The pepper mill!” Mrs. Smudge cried. “The pepper mill is the strongest building around!” Grabbing the hands of Theodore and Prunella, she ran toward the edge of town, and the rest of the pepper mill workers tripped along behind them.

  “Stand firm, Citizens Against Giants!” called Flack, planting his feet solidly in the town square and linking arms with Ned and the others who remained. “Faces to the sea! The ground may crumble, the sky may sink, the world may fall apart around us, but we shall not be moved!”

  And back and forth through the panicking hordes of people rode Jim-Jo Pumpernickel on Toddle’s back, throwing colanders and shouting, “Here, take a helmet. You can pay me later.”

  The castle was losing the battle. Up and down and side to side it went, and each time it landed, it lost a few more spires and towers. Flags tore loose from their poles and floated off into the empty wind. The many windows like a hundred eyes stared out in silence from the doomed precipice.