As a feather tickles a toe, so! how thrilling it is to you all! as you line the streets and carriageways, as you swarm into the concert halls, as you gather at openings of hospital wings and throng to the christenings of ships, as you raise your hands, as you toss bouquets—as you do all this, sweet Subjects, in the sparkling course of this! our first official Tour of the Kingdom.
It is scarce to believe that we have lived in our Kingdom a mere fourteen and fifteen years respectfully [Editor’s note: respectively? Jupiter is 14 and Ko, 15.], and in those years, we had believed we’d seen it all. Yet, in this! our first official Tour of the Kingdom, we realise it is not so!
Why, everywhere we turn there’s something new! We turn once and look! it’s a painting we’d never even heard of, let alone seen! (but which, we are assured, is famous throughout Cello). We turn again and look! it’s a vibrant town named Lightning, whence forks of lightning shower from the sky—and we watch in awe from our carriage as the good people of Lightning gather those forks, to sew into the bindings of their factories. (I’d give away my last peach-nettle candy for a chance to visit Lightning again.) We turn again—and find we have to pause for dizziness (ha ha). (Or we turn again, and guess what, we have come full circle and are back in front of that obscure painting!) (ha ha once more).
We are writing now from our Emerald Carriage, which is quickening apace through the northern, somewhat industrial region of the Farms—hence, the mighty chaos of the handwriting. Apologies for the scrawl, especially for the wayward line that just sprang from that word!! [Editor’s note: as we have set the column in type, the scrawl of the Princess Sisters’ handwriting is not apparent here.]
What have we done today? We visited the town of Applecart in the Farms! We were delighted by their giant moose made out of pine cones, their museum of cross-stitching, and a recital by Applecart’s youngest pianist, Dorian Jo (aged eight).
The Farms are, of course, famous for baking, and Applecart did not disappoint. Princess Ko (that is to say, me, for I take the pen for this column) had morning tea with Applecart’s dignitaries (the mayor, hospital administrator and post-office clerk). A chat was had by all. We partook of raspberry muffins and sweet-potato pie (only slightly scorched on the underside, Applecart! Stop apologising!). I enjoyed these baked goods (the coffee, however, was a little strong for my taste) while Princess Jupiter slept in the carriage. (Tonight, Jupiter will attend the functions in Turquoise, G.C., while I take my turn to sleep.)
Dearest Subjects, we do wish we could visit all towns that apply! A shout-out here to Bonfire, another applicant in the Farms. I’m sure it would have been a hoot to visit, and we were intrigued by word of its Pyramid of Pumpkins, but never mind . . .! (We hear that a stray attack from a fifth-level Grey prevented the Selectors from even stepping off the train into that town. How dismal for Bonfire.)
Well, here we must love you and leave you! Oh, but one last thing, a minor matter of state (i.e., foreign affairs)—we were sorryful to hear of the plague outbreak in the southern Kingdom of Rialto! It gladdens our hearts that Queen Lyra (aka Mother) is perusing her way there in the Royal Ship, so she can issue forth boatloads of helpfulness. Anyway, hugs from us, Rialto! Get better soon! [Editor’s note: the plague outbreak is actually in the south-eastern Kingdom of Sergendop, and has, to date, killed over 6,000 people. We have been assured that the Queen will remain a safe hundred metres from its shores when she delivers her ‘helpfulness’.]
Thus concludes our splendid Royal column!
Yours with Royal Vigour and Pomp,
HRH, the Princess Jupiter, and
HRH, the Princess Ko xxx
Hector sat back, chuckling quietly.
‘They seem kind of . . . young, don’t they?’ Jimmy ventured. ‘You think you might have been a little . . . disappointed? If we had got selection? If they had come here after all?’
‘Ah, they seem young cause they are young. They’re just kids, Jimmy, and sweet ones at that. Don’t forget their language doesn’t do them justice, brought up like they were all over the shop. They’ve got dialect from half the provinces in their little princess heads.’
He reached for the glass on his desk and found it empty.
‘Cannot believe that Applecart burned a sweet-potato pie!’ He slammed the glass back down.
Jimmy regarded him thoughtfully. Then he shifted his gaze to the shelf across the room, the one that held Hector’s collection. A souvenir album from the royal wedding; several volumes of The History of Royal Tradition; four or five royal teacups hanging from hooks; and a framed portrait of the royal family. In the portrait, which was a few years old, King Cetus and Queen Lyra were seated on high-backed chairs, their four children gathered around them. Prince Chyba, who had had braces on his teeth at the time, was smiling cautiously; the Princess sisters, Ko and Jupiter, had caught each other’s eye and were giggling; and little Prince Tippett, his expression serious, was holding up a large toy frog.
Jimmy turned back to the window. ‘What’s the fax?’ he said.
‘It’s from Jagged Edge,’ Hector replied, flicking through the papers. ‘Ha! Another one for you, Jimmy. Up for the challenge?’
Jimmy shook his head. ‘Hector, when are you going to stop telling the whole Kingdom they can send missing persons reports my way?’
Hector grinned. ‘It’s your own fault for being so good at it. Stop solving them and I’ll stop asking for them.’
He scanned the fax, breathing in through his nose—it was a sigh of concentration. ‘Guy been missing six months,’ he said. ‘Electrical engineer. Last seen heading out to work—blew the wife a kiss. She remembers that distinctly, she says. Never got to work. Colleagues say—You listening, Jimmy?’
‘Who’s this then?’ Jimmy turned side on to the window and squinted down the darkening street. Two people walked through the rain along the path; each held an umbrella in one hand and a suitcase in the other. They were walking oddly: leaning their umbrellas towards one another while their suitcases kept tilting them apart.
The Sheriff looked up.
‘There’s a kid,’ said Jimmy. ‘It’s two people with a kid. They’re holding their umbrellas together to shelter the kid.’
Hector flicked through the fax again.
‘Seems he was caught up with some shady computer page, some kind of a—can’t figure out—gambling is what they mean, I think.’ He turned a few more pages. ‘Got in over his head—they’re trying to say the loan sharks got him and he’s dead in the harbour. Just come out and say it then!’ He rustled the papers angrily, winced and touched the bandage on his hand. His face was white.
Jimmy crossed the room. ‘You need a refill,’ he said. ‘A refill and a rest. Attack from a fifth-level Grey? Most people would still be in hospital, and here you are back at work.’
With one hand he poured whisky for Hector; with the other he took the fax.
The Sheriff leaned back and closed his eyes.
Jimmy rested an elbow on the counter, studying the papers.
The room rustled quietly; the rain fell hard outside. Hector reached for his glass, sipped and swallowed.
Then the door to the station opened with a whoosh, a creak and a burst of rain, umbrellas and suitcases.
The door slammed shut. A man and a woman stood on the carpet, shivering and dripping. They were both short and plumpish, pale hair slicked down on high foreheads.
‘Is it not ever raining out there like to a tantalising foghorn!’ exclaimed the woman.
So now they knew that the woman was from Olde Quainte. It is a province with curious turns of phrase, many of which make no sense.
‘Call yourselves a good evening from us, will you not, as good as the owl with sooty elbow suggests, and hello, we are the family Twickleham.’
So the man was from Olde Quainte too—even more so than the woman.
A shape emerged, a little girl of maybe six, and the room seemed keen to hear what she might say.
‘She doesn’t speak,�
�� the woman stage-whispered—a whisper so loud it seemed to rattle windows.
Sadness slid over the girl’s face, and she stared at Jimmy and Hector, wide-eyed. Both the man and the woman placed their hands, gently, on her shoulders. The child’s hair was damp and tousled, fine strands springing up with static.
‘The family Twickleham!’ cried Hector, leaping to his feet and then stumbling a little—his right knee could hardly hold him. ‘Jimmy, you know who this is? It’s the Twicklehams! Here to take up the lease on Abel Baranski’s shop! Well, welcome to Bonfire! Welcome to the Farms! You are from Olde Quainte, of course you are! But hey now, weren’t you expected a few weeks from today?’
Hector was embracing each of the Twicklehams as he spoke.
‘Indeed, and so we are early,’ said the man. ‘I’m Bartholomew. Here’s Fleta, my good wife, and this is our little Derrin. If you will know it, we sold our house sooner than we thought. And as the golden hawthorn sheds its leaves at the scent of the wind-addled skylark, so we set off.’
‘And here we be, wet through to the dandelions,’ Fleta took up the story, ‘and nowhere to stay!’
‘We thought, surely the local Sheriff will tell us where the nearest inn might be. For isn’t,’ and here Bartholomew paused, ‘isn’t a Sheriff exactly like a warthog’s ingrown toenail?’
At this there was a brief, startled silence. For some reason, both the Sheriff and Jimmy looked toward the little girl; something about her silence, maybe, seemed to hold an edge of the rational.
She obliged them by shivering violently.
‘What are we thinking?’ cried the Sheriff.
‘Come by the fire,’ offered Jimmy. ‘We’ll get you towels and hot chocolate. And some of Hector’s famous oatmeal cookies.’
‘I’ll call Alanna at the Watermelon Inn,’ said Hector. ‘If she’s full, there’s the Bonfire Hotel, of course, but I’d recommend the Watermelon—prettiest rooms you’ll ever see, little stencilled flowers all around the skirting boards. And I can personally guarantee that Alanna does the best breakfast in this province!’
Everyone bustled, making phone calls and switching on kettles, until they were all pulling chairs around the fireplace to drink their chocolate.
The little girl, Derrin, chose a chair, seemed dissatisfied, chose another and changed her mind again. They all watched until she had settled on one.
There was friendly quiet, everyone taking great breaths, to demonstrate to each other what good chocolate it was, then Bartholomew Twickleham turned to the Sheriff and said, with curious reverence, ‘Can it truly be that you have sampled every breakfast in the province? What a feat!’
Again, there was a loud, silent moment of confusion. As one, they recalled Hector’s guarantee that the Watermelon served the best breakfast in the province.
‘Well, now,’ began the Sheriff, and he paused and touched a finger to the bandage on his forehead. A pair of frown lines ran straight through it, like train tracks disappearing into heavy snow. Was the man serious, or making a joke? Or was he being snide?
‘Now, we’ve arrived early, as you know,’ said Fleta comfortably, as if her husband had not spoken, ‘so the lease on the Baranski shop has not officially begun. But what do you think? Would Mrs Baranski let us move in early? From what we’ve heard, her husband only used the shop itself, not the upstairs flat where we intend to live, so—’
‘We hear it’s been vacant a year,’ Mr Twickleham interjected. ‘So perhaps it is ready? Much as a horsefly—’
The Sheriff interrupted. He glanced at Jimmy, and both his voice, and Jimmy’s gaze, were heavy.
‘What you might not know,’ he said, ‘but ought to know, going into the Baranski shop as you are, is that there’s a hole in this town. A hole the size of the Inland Sea.’
The little girl, who had just lifted a cookie to her mouth, paused and stared at the Sheriff.
The Sheriff stood and walked to the window. He looked out into the heavy rain and almost-night.
‘Abel Baranski, as you know, used to run that electronics repair shop,’ Hector began. ‘His brother, Jon Baranski, co-owned the Watermelon Inn with his wife Alanna. And Mischka Tegan was a high-school physics teacher. A year ago, we woke one morning, to find all three were lost.’
The Twicklehams gasped, the little girl most loudly. Her parents frowned slightly, looking down at the child and back up at the Sheriff.
‘I’m sorry to say this in front of your little one,’ the Sheriff said. ‘But she’ll hear it at school anyway—in gruesome detail, no doubt. Now, young Derrin.’ The Sheriff crouched awkwardly by her side. ‘What happened that night was an attack from a third-level Purple. But I don’t want you to be afraid. Our warning tower’s one of the best in the province, and that I know for a fact.’ Here his voice rose slightly, taking on a sharpness, but he caught it and turned back to Derrin. ‘When you hear the bells, you get inside. All right?’
He addressed her parents again, his voice low and hoarse.
‘Jon Baranski was found dead out on Acres Road,’ he said. ‘But Abel, our electronics guy—could fix anything even looked like a circuit board—and Mischka, the teacher—well, they were gone. Abel’s truck, engine still running, abandoned by the side of the road.’
They stared.
‘The Purple had taken them, as Purples sometimes do.’
‘Oh, now.’ Bartholomew’s forehead seemed to sag; Fleta’s mouth did the same.
‘And that’s why the electronics shop is vacant,’ whispered Fleta.
‘We’ve been insensitive,’ said Bartholomew firmly. ‘As to the shedded teeth of a lionsnake.’
‘We have,’ his wife agreed. ‘Can you forgive us?’
The Sheriff limped back to the window. ‘You think I told you that to make you feel bad? How could you have known? You’ll be staying at the Watermelon tonight, is all. It’s run by Alanna, and she lost her husband Jon. And her tiny girl, Corrie-Lynn, well, she lost her daddy.’
‘We’ll be more tactful from now on,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Thank you for sharing.’ He stood and formally shook the Sheriff’s hand.
‘And then, too, you’ll be seeing Petra Baranski tomorrow, no doubt.’ The Sheriff withdrew his hand, turning so they could not see his grimace at the handshake. ‘Asking if she can clear out Abel’s things sooner than planned. And why shouldn’t you, but—’
‘But it will be difficult for her.’ Now Mrs Twickleham stood, nodding, and she also grasped the Sheriff’s hand. He flinched this time, but her gaze was lost to tears. ‘We see that now.’
‘Difficult for her,’ Jimmy agreed. ‘And for her boy, Elliot.’
‘And Elliot,’ the Sheriff said firmly, ‘is a very fine lad.’
They were all standing now, by the window.
The Sheriff spoke again. ‘As for how Elliot feels about his mother reletting the shop,’ he said, ‘well, there’s something else you should know. Everyone knows that Abel and Mischka are never coming back—there’s not a Purple in the Kingdom that’ll get you in its talons, or take you to its caverns, and let you live. But Elliot? He’s already taken five or six journeys in search of his dad. He’s been to the Purple Caverns of Nature Strip, and to the ones in the Golden Coast, and the Purples have nearly killed him—tore him up anyhow—and he’s planning on taking another trip, right after the deftball finals next week.’
There was a sad quiet.
‘He’s got it in his head that he’s bringing his dad home, see? And while he might not blame his mother for renting out his dad’s shop, well, he could easily blame you for being there, if you see my logic.’
Mr and Mrs Twickleham nodded. ‘We’ll be prepared,’ said Fleta.
‘There’s more.’ The Sheriff hesitated. ‘Elliot’s a popular kid. He’s got a group of friends, see, grew up together, most of them. And, well . . .’
The Twicklehams waited.
‘If Elliot doesn’t like you, neither will those friends.’
Now the Twicklehams smiled. ‘Oh
, but they’re just kids. Teenagers, yes?’
‘Kids raised on farms,’ the Sheriff said bluntly, ‘are not exactly kids.’
Jimmy nodded his agreement, and the Twicklehams, all three of them, raised eyebrows.
There was silence, and Hector’s face softened.
‘Used to be,’ he said, ‘Elliot’d come to the high school every day around this time and practise throwing ball with his dad. He’s a champion deftball player, is Elliot, can throw a ball so high it’ll bruise the sky. Now you know what he does? He practises against the wall.’
He pointed through the window to the shadowy figure in the high-school grounds across the road.
They all peered into the darkness. Little Derrin rose on her toes so she could see.
Each time Elliot threw the ball, he also threw himself onto the ground, rolled, then jumped to his feet and held up a hand to catch it.
‘We should be going,’ said Fleta. ‘It’s late.’
‘I’ll give you a ride,’ Jimmy offered.
They all moved towards the door, but the Sheriff turned back to look across at Elliot again.
That wall was getting trounced.
6
Two days later it was summertime in Bonfire again.
‘Fifth time in a month!’ Clover Mackie, town seamstress, called from her porch. ‘Each one hotter than the last.’
She had a glass of orange juice in one hand and a battery-powered fan in the other.
Elliot was approaching. He wore jeans and a faded grey t-shirt. Old sneakers without socks. A baseball cap shadowing his face.
‘You reckon you could get the town to dig a swimming pool in the square?’ Clover continued.
Elliot grinned briefly, pushed through the gate and ran up the three steps to the porch. He swung his backpack onto the empty chair and opened its straps as the clock tower started up its chiming.
‘Eight o’clock in the morning,’ Clover continued, ‘and already I’m drooping like a teabag. What have you got there?’
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