A while later, when he was certain the rain had stopped for good, Flip went out to check on his extensive berry garden. Some people had difficulty growing berries, but Flip had never experienced any problems. Standing at the edge of his plantation and regarding the neat rows of bushes, he grinned contentedly. Tod might be the one who was good at talking up a storm, but he couldn’t match Flip for berry-growing. Then Flip’s expression soured. Somehow, he didn’t think Jinnia would be as fascinated by masterful berry-growing as she was by a fight with a lizard.
The pale blue sky overhead still seemed tearful after the heavy storm. It reflected his mood exactly. Even so, he cheered up a little as he moved among the bushes, and he began to whistle one of his favorite songs, “A Gooseberry the Size of the Moon”.
Yes. A gooseberry. That was what he had a fancy for right now.
As it chanced, he was standing beside his best gooseberry bush, so he reached out and plucked a nice, ripe one. He looked at it for a moment, seeing the elegant tracery of veins just under the furry skin, then bit into it. Mm. Delicious. Tart yet sweet. A perfect berry.
Juice running down his chin, he was struck by a new thought. I’ll bet the berries on the other side of the mountains are twice as big and I’ll bet they taste twice as good too.
If he could go there and bring back one of those berries as proof that there really was such a place, surely it would make Jinnia sit up and take notice of him. He blinked and shook his head.
On the other hand, it might impress her even more if I could just cure myself of my constant daydreaming …
Once he’d finished his gooseberry, Flip went inside and mopped the last of the sticky juice off his face at the kitchen sink, washing his whiskers until he was satisfied they were perfectly clean all the way to their tips. He burped demurely and sat down on his couch.
The next thing he knew, he was lying down on his couch.
And the next thing he knew after, he wasn’t just lying down, he was—
The whole ground shook as an earthquake raced across the land, leaving devastation and despair in its wake.
At least, that’s what Flip assumed at first. Somehow, he was back outside in his little yard and was reaching to pluck that plump and succulent gooseberry he could have sworn he’d eaten a few minutes ago. But no, there it was, still attached to its stalk – still whole. Why was he thinking of gooseberries when the whole world was being shaken to pieces?
He looked up with his heart in his throat and saw a gigantic creature, gleaming silver, barreling through the sky straight toward him at unimaginable speed, its great fanged mouth gaping wide. The monster was as long as a tree and the spread of its wings (or were they arms?) was wider than a river. An old abandoned barn, whose existence Flip had never noticed before, was shattered to matchwood by the creature’s trailing legs.
Pure instinct threw Flip into the nearest berry bush. Lying on his back, he could see the silver belly of the great beast through the knotty tracery of the bush’s branches as it vaulted over him then clear over his cottage … but not quite.
One of its metallic feet tore the chimney away from the cottage roof, and it went catapulting into the sky, where it exploded in a cloud of dust and soot. Then, just as suddenly as it had arrived, the thunderous din was gone.
As he sat up, pushing away twigs and thorns that seemed determined to gouge his flesh as painfully as they could, Flip thought he could hear a distant thumping that echoed through the forest, but soon even that vanished. There was a silence so deep you could almost reach out and touch it, then the birds began to sing again. Flip let out a long, low breath that he seemed to have been holding for hours.
I’m alive! he thought. Whatever that … thing was, I’ve survived it. I’m surely the Adventurer Extraordinaire, am I not?
Then he fell off his couch and awoke to the sound of his chin hitting the floor.
Dusk came and with it, a stream of people passing by Flip’s cottage on their way to the party. A few were walking alone, but most as couples or families, the children running around the legs of the grown-ups and squealing in delight. Even the youngest child knew this was Mishmash’s biggest day of the year, and all thoughts of sleepiness were banished by the excitement.
Flip watched them from the window for a while, then went back to his mirror. He had combed his whiskers into an elegant downward curl, the very height of the latest fashion, and had put on his best costume: the black one with the little mahogany buttons. As he was quite tall (nearly seven inches, almost as tall as Tod, if not quite so sturdily built), the sober, dark outfit suited him well. He knew he could cut quite a dash when he wanted to. It was just that he so rarely remembered to make the effort; he simply rattled around in whatever set of clothes first came to hand when he climbed out of bed in the mornings.
He twitched his curled whiskers experimentally and struck a pose. “What a handsome fellow you are, to be sure,” he said to his reflection.
Tod was a handsome fellow too, unfortunately. Try as he would, Flip couldn’t rid his mind of that thought. Oh, well. He would just have to hope that Tod did something stupid – fall flat on his face in a bowl of custard, perhaps – so that Jinnia would see him for the fool he was.
Fat chance.
Shrugging his shoulders, Flip headed for the door, and soon he was following a family of five along the well-trodden path toward the festivities.
The center of Mishmash was a dozen or so houses and shops, some as many as five stories high, clustered around the village green. Tonight almost half of the green was occupied by a huge marquee, out of which light, noise and people spilled to fill the other half of the green. Everybody was here, from the youngest to the oldest and everyone seemed to be talking at the tops of their voices, whether they had anything to say or not. Lanterns of different sizes and colors hung in the surrounding trees. The air was filled with the smell of roasted chestnuts and candied apples.
Flip pushed his way through the throng to reach the big tent, pausing every once in a while to say hello to people he knew. Their eyes were gleaming with elation, reflecting colored glints from the lanterns. He wondered if his own eyes looked the same or if they were dull and lifeless, the way he was beginning to once more feel. There seemed to be far, far too many people, and he found his mind turning to the quiet and solitude of the places he loved best: the unexplored forest glades, the banks of streams sleeping in the sunlight that trickled through the canopy of the trees, the hillsides where the bracken grew …
Inside the marquee was worse: even more crowded, even brighter, even noisier.
He squinted in the light and saw a sea of animated faces, piled dishes of food and great punch bowls of drink. Suddenly, he wasn’t very hungry or thirsty. What he really wanted to do was turn and bolt for home. Not exactly the sort of emotion he should be feeling if he’d come here to astonish Jinnia with his courage. He straightened his back and forced himself to hold his head up high. Was he not Flip, Adventurer Extraordinare, like it said on the sign? Had he not faced a thousand perils far beyond the ken of any one of these mindless party-goers?
There, that was better.
Confident he now looked the part, he shouldered his way over to the nearest table and helped himself to a roasted chestnut. As he did so, a paw clamped down on his arm.
“Well, if it ain’t Flip,” said a voice.
Flip did his best to control his instinctive shudder. He knew that voice. He dreaded that voice. He loathed that voice, if he were honest with himself.
“Tod!” he cried, turning around with what he hoped was a dazzling grin. “How good to find you here, old friend!”
For a moment, the expression on the bigger fellow’s face faltered, but almost at once it resumed its customary arrogant sneer.
“What’s with the costume and furwax, Flip? Hoping to make Jinnia’s pretty little heart go pit-a-pat, eh?”
As this was precisely what Flip was hoping to do, he felt his bravado shrink. “The–these old togs?” he
stammered in an unconvincing display of indifference. Tod was clad in a flamboyant motley, all shouting purples and flaring reds and beetle-wing greens, and Flip suddenly felt drab and tawdry beside him. “The–they’re,” – he looked down at himself dismissively and picked a nonexistent piece of fluff from his waistcoat – “the–they’re nothing special.”
Tod gave a loud, mocking laugh to show he believed not one word of this. There was a brief pool of silence around them as people paused in their chatter and turned to look, then the faces turned away and the babble resumed.
To calm his mind, Flip focused on what he could see over Tod’s burly shoulder. Up on the dais at the end of the tent sat the chieftain, Luti Furfoot, behind a table that creaked under the weight of the delicacies heaped on it. On one side of Luti sat Jinnia, looking a little bored but even more beautiful than ever as she picked fastidiously at a bright red berry. She was wearing a circlet woven from fall flowers on her head.
On Luti’s other side was Old Cobb. Now how did they manage to coax him from his home? thought Flip. Old Cobb had the longest beard and the shortest sight of anyone in the village, and he hadn’t set foot out of his filthy cottage for a long time. He’d even missed the past few years’ festival parties. Some of the children, reluctant but acting under strict instructions and dire threats from their parents, had taken goodies from the feast to his doorstep so that he wouldn’t feel left out. At least, that’s what the grown-ups had told them. All they’d received by way of thanks from Old Cobb had been a torrent of reedy, querulous abuse hurled through his gnarled bark door. Although, as everyone had joked, he’d eaten the food and drunk the cider readily enough once he’d convinced himself no one was watching.
The tales were that many, many moons ago, Cobb had been a sprightly young fellow who’d known the woods like the back of his paw. Some said he’d learned how to talk to the birds, so they did his bidding, but obviously this couldn’t be true. Birds were big and savage and dangerous, and could tear a person to pieces with their swiftly slashing beaks and claws.
At the moment, Old Cobb was turned away from Luti, earnestly saying something to the chair next to him and quite unperturbed by the fact that the chair was empty.
“… and she won’t give you so much as a second look,” Tod was saying in that offensive bray of his. “The prettiest girl in the whole of Mishmash and the chieftain’s daughter as well – what makes you think she’d have a moment to spare for the village headcase?”
Flip tried desperately to think of something witty and devastating to say.
“B–but,” was all he managed.
Tod ignored this as beneath his contempt.
“She told me that what she loves are real adventurers, adventurers who laugh in the face of danger.”
Tod put his fist on his chest and let out another sample of the kind of laugh real adventurers gave in the face of danger. It sounded to Flip like someone who’d never played the trombone before, but it seemed to have the desired effect on the merrymakers around them, who once again paused and looked at the big peacock-like figure Tod struck.
The audience didn’t go back to their gossiping this time, but kept their attention on the big fellow as he continued declaiming to Flip.
“Too bad you don’t fall into that category,” Tod boomed. “I’m surprised you dare to call yourself ‘adventurer’ at all.”
I’m cowering, thought Flip furiously. I really am.
He tried to make his shoulders bulge. Remembering his secret wish at the cottage, he shot a few nervous glances around, hoping to spy a bowl of custard.
No such luck.
“There are some who do,” said Flip, “and some who don’t, but still talk about it.”
He’d spoken very quietly, almost in a hiss, but all those standing in the temporary silence around them heard every word. Glancing up at Tod’s face, Flip suddenly realized with a jolt of astonishment that the shot had struck home. There was an unusual uncertainty behind the braggart’s eyes. You could see the thoughts chasing each other there. No one had ever called Tod’s bluff. Was Flip about to? If so, Tod could be doomed.
Tod visibly tried to shake off his doubt. “I don’t have the time to waste standing here chatting with you, dear chap, much as I’d like to,” he blustered in a show of hollow good humor. He waved a sheet of paper under Flip’s nose. “I have my speech to practice, you know. My voice will need a little warming up if it’s to be at its best.”
With a final wave of his paw, he pushed back through the crowd and soon, even the top of his head was out of sight.
Someone pressed a goblet of cider into Flip’s paw. “Good to see that fabricating loudmouth getting a little of his own back.”
Surprised, Flip looked around. He only vaguely recognized the grinning face. It was one of the millers who lived on the far side of Mishmash and only occasionally came into town. Then he noticed the miller’s wasn’t the only smiling face; the people to either side of him were glowing with approval as well.
“Thank you,” he said politely, raising the cup first to its giver and then to his lips.
A bell rang – the signal that the grand festival dinner was about to be served. As Flip scouted around for somewhere to sit that would give him a good view of Jinnia (he might never capture her heart but he could still admire her from afar), his mind was full of speculations. He’d always assumed Tod was popular, but earlier he’d seen that Dodgem didn’t much like the fellow and now, it was clear that there were others who felt much the same way. If all of those people can see through Tod’s bragging and despise him for it, he thought, maybe Jinnia does as well.
This notion was so stunning that for a few long moments, he was frozen in place. By the time he’d recovered, he discovered that all the chairs around him had already been eagerly seized. He looked about for any sign of a vacant space at the trestles, but couldn’t see one. He noticed somebody waving at him in the distance. It was Luti Furfoot. Why would the chieftain be trying to attract Flip’s attention?
Then he saw that the chieftain was not just waving, but pointing to the empty chair beside Old Cobb. It seemed to be the only one in the tent that was still empty, and no wonder. Nobody would sit next to Old Cobb if they could possibly help it. It wasn’t that Luti Furfoot especially wanted Flip to dine at the top table. It was just that the chieftain was desperate to find someone to distract the dotard’s attention so that he, Luti, wouldn’t be stuck talking to him for the rest of the night. And, standing there with his mouth open as if he’d just been stung on the rear end by a bee, Flip was the obvious candidate.
Ho hum, thought Flip as he made his way to the dais. At least I’ll be near Jinnia.
When he got closer he found that Old Cobb had dozed off, doubtless from one cup too many of strong cone cider. Cobb’s head rested on his shoulder and a steady snore issued from his nostrils. A little drop of drool had formed at the corner of his mouth. Flip scooted into his seat as quietly as he could, for fear of waking up the ancient.
He was just in time. He’d hardly settled when Luti Furfoot pulled himself up onto his hind legs and hammered the table in front of him to call for quiet in the room. Old Cobb stirred a little as the conversation died away, but mercifully did not waken.
The chieftain cleared his throat loudly and the last of the whispers stopped.
“I bid you all welcome,” Luti Furfoot proclaimed, “to the two hundred and fiftieth harvest festival of our proud community of Mishmash!”
There was a roar of applause. If the tent had rafters, the cheering would have raised them.
Flip joined in the ruckus cautiously, one eye on the still-snoozing oldster beside him.
“Today,” the chieftain continued, once the noise ebbed a little, “is a very special day for me, as many of you know. For today is not just the birthday of my beloved daughter, Jinnia Furfoot, but also the day on which she has come of age. As her proud father, I have to confess that this creates for me a certain amount of trepidatiousness.”
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Luti was grinning as he carefully enunciated the long word, chosen deliberately for its cumbersomeness. Everybody knew what he meant. Before today, anyone who wished to claim Jinnia’s hand in marriage had to gain Luti’s permission for the union first. From now on, the choice of consort was solely up to Jinnia. Although one assumed she would still ask for her father’s blessing, she was legally entitled to go ahead and wed whomsoever she chose without it.
There were cheers, stamping and a few shouted off-color remarks. Squinting along the table, Flip could see Jinnia blushing prettily as she toyed with some morsel of food on her plate.
“But most of all,” cried Luti Furfoot, his voice rising to a crescendo, “her coming of age gives me great joy!”
He paused for a split second.
“Now, let the festivities begin!”
This time, the cheering was like a rapidly advancing tidal wave, a wall of sound that seemed ready to engulf everything. Scores of hats were hurled into the air. Laughter and shouting added to the din.
The food that had been on the tables earlier had merely been the beginning of the feast. An army of young folk emerged from all sides, staggering under the weight of serving dishes that seemed half as big as they were and at least half as heavy. Some of the boys rolled mighty barrels in front of them filled with cider, beer or fruit juice. Every plate in the room was soon piled high, every goblet brimming.
Flip ate sparingly and drank only a little of the beer an enthusiastic youth poured for him. Restraint in eating and drinking was a habit he’d picked up during his long ventures away from the village. Too much of either slowed the wits and the body, which was not at all what an explorer wanted when an unknown peril could lurk around every corner. He couldn’t help noticing that it was a habit that Tod, sitting among a group of his cronies at the table directly in front of the dais and tucking in with enthusiasm, had not acquired. Flip idly wondered if the big fellow had really ventured far from Mishmash at all or if, as soon as he was out of sight, he just holed up in a tree for a while with a mound of nuts and berries.
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