The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic

by Jennifer Trafton

  To hear what Weeping Willow said.

  I heard her whisper through her sighs:

  “The world has lost all dreams but one.

  Though night’s dark tears may cloud your eyes,

  Look—joy is rising with the sun.

  “For fear cannot be bound with rope,

  And many swimmers drown in dread;

  But no one falls who climbs with hope.”

  That’s what Weeping Willow said.

  And so I laid my sorrows by

  And sang my beating heart to sleep.

  And that, my sighing friend, is why

  I’m dancing while the willows weep.

  When the captain had stopped, Mrs. Smudge grabbed the broom that Persimmony had left lying on the edge of the stage and began sweeping the ground vigorously right in front of King Lucas. “And that, that, THAT,” she cried, punctuating each breath with a broomful of banana pulp in the king’s face, “is what I think of your new law! No going up on Mount Majestic? No talking about it? What good will all that hushing and fearing and crying do us, I ask you? It won’t keep the giant asleep. As long as we’re not popping pepper sacks by his nose or sticking shovels in his feet, well, there’s nothing better we can do than build a bonfire on top of the mountain and dance for joy. Let sleeping giants lie—that’s what I always say.”

  “Dance for joy on top of the mountain?” said Lucas. “Don’t you see the looks on the faces of my people? The only way they would dance for joy on top of the mountain is if they were looting my castle!”

  “Well spoken, Your Highness!” cried Flack. “My fellow citizens, hear the generous words of our king! Generations of kings and queens have filled that castle with the richest treasures to be found anywhere, and he is giving them all to us! All we have to do is go up that mountain and find what’s left.”

  “Wait a minute,” sputtered Lucas, “I didn’t mean—”

  “Just think of the hand-carved furniture, the comfortable mattresses, the silk bedsheets, the silver soupspoons! How many soupspoons would you say were in the castle, Your Highness?”

  “What? Oh, about three hundred, but I—”

  “Your Highness, this is the greatest thing you have ever done,” said Flack, pounding the king on the back. “You will surely be remembered as the most beloved king of all time for this.”

  “But I didn’t ...” Lucas paused and looked out at the people. “It is? I will?”

  “Fellow citizens,” continued Flack to the crowd, “who will follow me?”

  There was an awkward pause as all eyes turned to Mount Majestic, green and silent and getting higher by the hour.

  “But it’s all buried now,” said a farmer. “It would take us years to dig through all of that rubble.”

  The Leafeaters whispered amongst themselves, and Chief Rhule stepped forward. “We,” he said impressively, “have plenty of shovels.”

  The islanders hesitated only for a moment. “All I’ve ever wanted is a comfortable mattress!” one man cried. Others ran after him. As Lucas stood helplessly on the stage, still unsure what had just happened, he saw the same strange, beautiful look glowing in the faces of his subjects that had glowed in Pepper’s face the day he had offered his sweet potato soup.

  “Hail!” the people shouted gaily. “Hail, King Lucas the Loftier!”

  “Aren’t you coming?” said Flack, suddenly turning to the king and holding out his hand.

  Lucas tried to laugh, but it came out more like a terrified squeak. “Go up there? I almost got caught in an exploding castle. I almost died. Why would I want to go back?”

  “You have a responsibility to lead your people,” said Theodore gently. “Helping them face their fear of the mountain is an awfully good way to begin. You came down, and now it’s time to go back up.”

  “No, please!” cried Lucas, clinging to the edge of the stage as a group advanced toward him. “I don’t want to be Lofty anymore! I’ll be Lucas the Lowly . . . Lucas the Lenient . . . Lucas the Less Fortunate . . . but please, please, just let me be Lucas the Left Behind!”

  Flack and three other pepper mill workers grabbed Lucas’s thrashing arms and legs. Mrs. Smudge wrapped her arms around his twisting waist. The steward picked up Pepper the cat. The Leafeaters gathered into marching formation. And together, with the cheers of the people echoing around them, they carried King Lucas back to the top of Mount Majestic.

  Persimmony stared after them, laughing. Then she tossed the broom to Prunella, who laughed too. Those who stayed behind with them in the Candlenut town square grabbed brooms and mops and rags and dusters and rakes, and there had never been such a cleaning day recorded in the annals of history. And all the Un-Blue Things that may exist beyond the great blue sea must have seen, that day, a billowing dust cloud rise from an island that may (or may not) be at the Center of Everything. For the giant was not awake yet, and the islanders were kicking their heels and twirling and sweeping and scrubbing with all their might. After all, they said to each other, what more is there to be done? Life is a mess and a miracle. So pick up a broom and dance.

  EPILOGUE

  I wish I could tell you the kingdom was perfectly peaceful and content after that, but if that were so, I would be writing a fairy tale and not a history.

  Nubbins the steward, Captain Gidding, and the rest of the soldiers managed, with a great deal of tangled rope and bruised shins, to pitch tents at the top of the mountain where the king and his servants could live until a new castle could be built. This meant that King Lucas had to get used to sleeping on the ground, with twigs and rocks poking through his blankets, and instead of scrumptious suppers prepared in a royal kitchen, he ate much smaller meals cooked over a fire under the stars.

  Lucas soon learned that it was a lot more difficult to be the most beloved king of all time than he expected, but he made a valiant effort in the days that followed the falling of the castle. He walked for the first time in his life through the fields and orchards and woods of his kingdom to talk with his subjects face-to-face and share meals at their own humble tables. Of course, it was a bit discumbersomebubblating to walk into a barbershop and see a wig on the broken head of the statue that had once stood in the great hall. And the day he spotted a scarecrow wearing his best robe with the pearl-studded palm trees was a day that tried his soul. But he made sure to compliment the pepper mill workers on their fine new soupspoons, and he made a law that no one was to cut down any trees in the Willow Woods without first getting Chief Rhule’s approval.

  Of course, King Lionel the Lofty would never have done this. But perhaps (Lucas thought to himself) there is such a thing as being too much like one’s father. A king must have his own page in the history books, after all. He did not want to end up with a picture of his face on a muddy doormat.

  And perhaps (I may add), buried deep within Lucas’s own heart, as the Lyre had prophesied, there was still a treasure waiting to be discovered.

  People still looked a bit suspiciously at the Leafeaters, and on the Western Shore the Rumblebumps’ sadness had mellowed their games and slowed their speech. Despite these odds and ends of discontent, however, the islanders discovered that even though life may never be the same again, it can still be a very good thing indeed. The farmers still whistled in their fields, and the fishermen caught just as many fish as they ever had. The Citizens Against Giants disbanded, and Flack became the new foreman of the pepper mill, which thrived under his just leadership and square meals. In fact, since the king no longer demanded so much pepper, there was plenty of it to go around, and pepper soon became a staple in every household kitchen on the island. Dustin Dexterhoof was put in charge of the excavation of the castle ruins, and the potter returned to his cottage in the Willow Woods, happy once more to make his pots in peace.

  The Leafeaters began to invite a few of the more polite villagers down into Willowroot, and when these brave folks returned, their neighbors remarked that there was something different about them—an elegant lift to their heads
or a courtesy in their manner—that was rather pleasing. And then there was the matter of the poison-tongued jumping tortoises, who were behaving themselves much better these days.

  But towering above all the islanders, with a slowly shrinking mound of ruins on its top and a hidden face slumbering within, was a terrible, majestic Possibility.

  As for Persimmony, she swept the floor of her cottage so often and so wildly that Mrs. Smudge and Prunella often had to leave to avoid getting covered with dust (and sometimes furniture). There was an especially joyful day of sweeping, for example, when the Leafeaters’ tears finally wore off and Persimmony’s voice came back to her. Even more joyful was the day the townspeople of Candlenut erected a statue in the middle of the town square—of a man riding a goat through a sea of apples—with a plaque underneath that said, “To Simeon Smudge: Come back soon and save us.” And most joyful of all was the day Rheuben Rhinkle showed up at the Smudges’ door with a soggy (but still intact) basket and two (uneaten) pine-needle creations: a turtle and a grasshopper. They smelled strongly of paprika.

  A week after what was supposed to be his funeral, King Lucas held his birthday party on top of the mountain, and Persimmony was invited. Mrs. Smudge, after citing all of her moral objections to birthday parties, permitted her daughter to go in the safe company of the potter. It was a joyful celebration full of side-splitting laughter, even though the Rumblebumps were not present. Persimmony, Lucas, Worvil, and the soldiers danced for hours, while Chief Rhule and Rheuben Rhinkle told the other guests wonderful tales of noble rulers and valiant deeds that made them sigh wistfully and vow to be valiant someday too.

  At last, it was time to eat. The guests sat on the grass around a large tablecloth lit with candles. The meal was sweet potato soup—without pepper—and pineapple upside-down cake, which King Lucas had thought appropriate considering the present position of the castle. After they had all had their fill, Lucas stood up and cleared his throat.

  “I hardly need to say,” he said, “that the kingdom is forever indebted to those who followed the call of duty and saved us all from a very flat existence. But there are two people who deserve special honor.” He turned to Persimmony, and she felt the color rising to her cheeks. “Persimmony Smudge, talented young basket maker from the cottage at the edge of the woods,” he continued, “in appreciation for your extraordinary courage, not to mention your surprising skill with feathers and brooms, I hereby name you the King’s Ambidextrous.”

  Everyone stared at him in silence.

  “Um, what exactly are the duties of an ‘Ambidextrous, ’ Your Highness?” Persimmony asked.

  “Oh, you know, going on special missions for me, taking important messages to important people, making peace between warring parties, shaking hands ...”

  “Ah! I believe you mean ‘Ambassador,’” said Professor Quibble. “‘Ambidextrous’ means being both right-handed and left-handed.”

  “Even better. She shall be the King’s Ambidextrous Ambassador, and she shall shake hands with twice as many people at once.”

  This sounded awfully tiring to Persimmony, but it did have a glamorous ring to it. She thanked the king whole-heartedly, even managing a lopsided curtsy. On her head was her blue hat, newly washed, which Jim-Jo Pumpernickel had let her keep after remembering that drowning apple tree hats had just gone out of style. Around her waist was a braided belt of the giant’s hair, which Chief Rhule had graciously given back to her once he found out what it was.

  Lucas then turned to Worvil. “And to you, Worvil, wherever you come from and whatever you are, I offer a new position in my court (once I have one again). From this day forth you shall be known as the Royal Player of Lullabies. May the music of your flute never fade.”

  But Worvil blushed deeply and declined, explaining that he had decided to live with the Rumblebumps in his very own cave, which had now been comfortably furnished with a real bed. “I’ve realized that they need me,” he said. “After all, they never worry about anything. Somebody’s got to teach them about Mights and Possibilities before it’s too late! There’s just one thing that bothers me.”

  “What is it?” Persimmony asked.

  “Well, you see,” Worvil said, very embarrassed. “For an entire hour this morning, just after I woke up, I wasn’t able to worry about anything. I tried and tried, and I simply couldn’t. I mean, take the bed for example. If I put it too close to the edge of the cave, a big wave might come while I’m sleeping and flood the cave and sweep me out to sea before I even have time to scream for help. And if I put the bed too far back in the cave, it’s so dark there that even when the sun rises I might not wake up. What if no one ever came to wake me and I was asleep underground for a thousand years with no sun, all because of my bed? But this morning, instead of worrying about it, I spent a whole hour listening to the tide coming in instead. What if that happens again? All sorts of terrible things might happen to me because I wasn’t ready for them! It’s very distressing.”

  Persimmony sighed and shook her head fondly at her friend. “There you go again, making a mountain out of a molehill.”

  “Well, there are worse things for a mountain to be made out of!”

  “Don’t remind me.” Persimmony suddenly had a thought. “You know, you’re right: It is best that you live on the Western Shore. Then if the giant ever starts to wake up again, you can run into the cave and play your flute until he falls back to sleep.”

  “An excellent idea!” said Lucas. “Worvil, you shall be the Royal Player of Lullabies.”

  Worvil was just about to say that he still had plenty of worry left in him, when Theodore rose from where he was sitting. “Now it is time for your last birthday present,” the potter said, and he handed Lucas a new clay pot.

  Lucas looked at it with surprise and a little bit of suspicion. This pot was simpler than the other one, with no intricate patterns traced on the outside, but it was tall and smooth and noble. He reached his hand inside warily, almost expecting milk again. Instead he felt his hand close around something hard, and when he pulled it out he saw that it was a hammer.

  Lucas stared at the hammer in his hands for a moment, then looked back at the stones and splinters that used to be his castle.

  “The past is being cleared away,” said the potter. “What will you build now?”

  The question lingered in the air for a long time. As the guests sat waiting expectantly, they could hear in the distance a low rumbling, growing louder and louder, like a roll of thunder. Worvil groaned, “Of course it would storm! I’ve never known a birthday yet to end well.”

  But it was not thunder.

  Professor Quibble peered hard through the deep blue moonlit darkness to where a new shape was rising in the west. “Impossible!” he said, alarmed. “A tidal wave couldn’t reach this high!”

  But it was not a tidal wave. At least, not of water.

  Around the edge of the castle ruins they came—rolling billows of colorful coats with too many pockets and buttons, tossing crests of long, tangled seaweed-hair, a thunderous roar of big feet pounding the ground as a great host ran and jumped and cart-wheeled toward the little group sitting out under the stars. Just as the king’s guests rose from their seats, the wave of Rumblebumps broke upon them.

  “It’s alive! It’s alive! The starfish is alive! It’s not dead anymore! We thought it was crushed forever, but tonight we looked in the pot and there it was, all nice and new with its arms back just like it always was. It’s alive, it’s alive! Have you ever seen anything more wonderful and beautiful and marvelous in the whole wide world? Oh, life is the sunrise, and life is the sea, and life is a game, and life is a pot of tears, and life is a starfish growing its arms back, and now everything is different again ...” The Rumblebumps hugged everyone they could reach and trampled the tablecloth and knocked over the soup bowls in their excitement. Lucas laughed and Persimmony laughed and the Leafeaters found they could laugh now without a feather to help them. Even Professor Quibble caught himse
lf almost grinning and had to quickly clean his eyeglasses to make sure no one noticed.

  But it was soon clear whom the Rumblebumps had really come to find. Guafnoggle opened Worvil’s hands and laid the little orange starfish in them, its five arms perfect and whole. A hush fell over the others as they gathered respectfully around him. “You know what to do, Grand Stomper. There’s only one thing left to do.”

  Worvil gazed down at the starfish in his hands, then his face slowly spread into a smile. “To the sea!” he cried. “To the sea!” And he took off running in the direction of the Western Shore. He was followed closely by the Rumblebumps, who were followed by the Leafeaters, who were followed by Lucas, who was followed by Captain Gidding carrying the elderly potter on his back, and the rest kept up as well as they could along the mountain and down the rocky cliffs.

  Persimmony paused at the top of the giant’s shoulder and looked out toward the invisible horizon between the moon and its glittering, watery reflection. The world seems so much bigger now that I know you are out there, she thought.

  “Worvil, wait for me!” she called, climbing quickly down the rocks to catch up with the others. And they laughed until they cried, and the tears made their faces shine in the moonlight as they raced to the sea.

  All this was related to me in great detail afterward by those present, for I was not invited to the party. No matter. Pineapple upside-down cake makes me dizzy.

  So instead I sat at my desk in my new library in the middle of Candlenut, nibbling the nib of a new quill pen, staring out the window at the slow, steady falling of the mountain, and waiting for midnight, when it would begin to rise again.

  Breath by breath.

  Every breath means another day, and every day is only a breath.

  I could have told them, if they’d asked, that—

  But never mind. The Lyre-That-Never-Lies has prophesied that, despite all appearances to the contrary, we will live happily ever after. And I believe it.