by Ashly Graham
Thump-in-Brackets isn’t a quadruplet, or rather a three-plus-onelet, but a fourth who was adopted as an honorary triplet. The Threeps do their best to keep like names in the family: for instance, Hump, Jump, Rump, and Thump-in-Brackets’ father is Lump, and Mr Lump has three brothers named Bump, Plump, and Chump. Bump’s children are Grump, Mump, and Stump; and Plump’s Clump, Dump, and Trump.
Chump has no children; he professes to be a minimalist in thought, word, and deed; never carries more than one thing in his head at once; and is monosyllabic in speech. He doesn’t go out very much. Mr Lump doesn’t talk about his father, Whump, because he’s the black sheep of the family, and doesn’t set a good example at family gatherings. He rolls coltsfoot—Tussilago farfara—cigarettes, and smokes them at the milk counter that Threeps use as a dining-table; passes his hip flask of Olde Sheep-Dippe amongst the youngsters when their parents aren’t looking, pinches Mrs Lump’s bottom, and tells off-colour jokes.
Threeps come to resemble their names in the way that dog owners do their pets; or is it the other way round? Delirious’s eyes roll in opposite directions, as if he’s mad or has a fever; Hilarious has the frizzy wool of one who had trouble pulling free from a hawthorn bush, or stuck her hoof in a lamp socket, which is something that one should never ever try to do, or any other part of the body; Serious’s wool is tightly curled and prim, and her legs look like blue stockings.
Atomic bounces off all four feet when he’s running, Comic is a clown, Model is glamorous with long eyelashes, Twaddle talks drivel, Waddle waddles, and Dominic looks like...well, a Dominic.
The three-ness of the Threeps doesn’t end with the way they communicate. When they leave Threepfold, where they live, to visit the Aristotles, they split up and approach the Village from three different directions.
They do this because there are three things on any given day that can prevent them from coming in by road, and a one-in-three chance that they won’t arrive at all. “Three minus two-ly,” they say, meaning firstly, the road could be undergoing repair, or a tree might have fallen and blocked it. Why the Threeps should think this, when the Aristotles wouldn’t consider expending a joule of energy fixing the road, however “ba-ad” its state, or hauling a tree trunk and branches, the Wind has no idea; but the Threeps won’t discount the possibility.
“Three minus one-ly,” the lower part of the bostal down from the hill may be so muddy, or the wind so fierce, that it’s impossible to arrive in a presentable condition.
Thirdly [of course], after torrential rain the fields through which the footpath runs may be a quagmire.
Should any of these three things happen, and the Threeps reckon that there’s a three-minus-two in three chance that it will, at least the precaution will ensure that three minus one of them make it.
Because they can’t float in the air like Aristotles, before leaving Threepfold the Threeps divide into threes, each group of which draws from three straws to decide who will walk along the road, who will take the hill, and who the field route.
Not only do they arrive from various points, but instead of walking the Threeps twirl as if they are dancing a waltz. This is made easier by their having only three feet, like a milking stool, comprising two forelegs and hind leg; or two hind legs and a foreleg, if you prefer to think of it that way. To anyone observing them from a distance, they look like spinning-tops, whirling Dervishes, or mini-tornadoes...you may take your pick from the three.
When the Aristotles entertain the Threeps, it involves three times more work on the Aristotles’ part than if anyone else were coming to see them. They are very busy from the moment they turn up—contrary to Threep expectation all of them always do—because they have to say, “Good morning” to each of them, and shake hands three times, and give each of them three cups of milk. If an Aristotle tries to save time, or milk, by shaking hands only twice, or pouring only one cup and talking fast about the weather in the hope that the Threep won’t notice, it doesn’t work. Cousin Threep says, “Bad, bad, ba-ad,” and the ritual begins again.
The process is made even more wearing by the Threeps’ habit of telling the Aristotles, without meaning to be rude but being so anyway, how their houses in Threepfold, to which the Aristotles are never invited by way of returning their hospitality, are three times the size of their cousins’, with three times as many interesting features within, and three times as many acres of land without.
The Aristotles do not doubt what they are told, for none of them has more than a postage-stamp cottage garden at the front, and a pocket-handkerchief vegetable and flower patch at the back. This is all one could want, or need, given that one has all of the downs and the air above one to roam over, with no upkeep involved.
The Threeps boast about everything from the three holidays a year they take, to how their cups have three handles so that they can pick them up whichever way they put them down, without having to turn them around or use the wrong foot. When they sit down for tea, instead of curling half a hoof away from the cup like the Aristotle aunts and uncles—which is not easy to do unless one doesn’t know that one is doing it—they fold one of their three legs underneath their bottoms on the chair.
The Aristotles are grateful that, although the Threeps get through a great deal of milk, they’re not putting away three times as much food as the Aristotles. For if they were, not only would the Aristotles be eaten out of house and home, but Mr Stedman at the Bakehouse, whose nerves aren’t steady at the best of times, even though he was able to walk a tightrope blindfolded as a child, would have a breakdown; and then what would they do?
Despite their differences, however, the Aristotles are fond of their cousins, and share with them a love of stories. Although they don’t believe every Threep word—one in three would be closer to the mark, and the other two they take with a handful of sugar—it’s of no consequence, because whatever happens in a story is true after it’s told.
But the most enjoyable part of every Threep visit is the dancing that takes place when tea is over, to music that one of them plays on a violin with three strings.
Threeps are natural hoofers in waltzes, courantes, galliards, mazurkas, minuets, passepieds, and sarabandes, because the music they are danced to is in triple time, with three beats to the bar. But they tie themselves in knots when, after a glass of dandelion wine, they try an allemande, bourrée, cakewalk, galop, gavotte, gigue, march, musette, paso doble, pavan, polka, quadrille or cotillion, rumba, schottische, or tango; or after two glasses, a reel or strathspey...never a fox-trot, for Threeps and foxes don’t get along...because those dances are in duple, or “common”—“very common”, the Threeps say—time with two or four beats in each measure.
In classical dancing, the Threeps’ artistry is a wonder to behold. Their placement, or posture, is impeccable. Their body positions of arabesque and attitude, and their elevation and extension and standing on pointe, are exemplary. Their execution of the steps and movements of glissade and glissé, chassé, développé, passé, brisé and battement, is immaculate. In the assemblé, jeté, plié, piqué, relevé, cabriole, and saut de Basque, they are not to be faulted. Their rondes de jambe, and triple tours en l’air, and their pirouettes leave nothing to be desired.
And they can spin so fast on the spot that they look like big pieces of cotton wool, with hooves sticking out all heepledy-sheepledy like drumsticks.
Any ballet aficionado would thrill to the elegance of Threep dancing. Dame Alicia Markova, if she had seen all the Threeps together doing thirty-three fouettés en tournant, which is one more than the legendary Pierina Legnani was the first to execute, in the ballet Swan Lake, as choreographed by Lev Ivanov, Enrico Cecchetti, and Marius Petipa, would have given up her dream of becoming a prima ballerina assoluta, kept the family name of Marks, and trained as a secretary instead.
And their performances of the pas de trois can only be marvelled at.
The Aristotles, who have no Terpsichorean ability whatever, prefer to sit the dances out an
d watch their cousins’ artistry. But when they’ve seen as many entrechats with three leg-crossings as they can take until the next visit, they’ve a problem, because the Threeps dance three times longer than the most devoted balletomane could wish, with their eyes closed in blissful concentration.
The Aristotles used to try everything they could think of to hint that, perhaps, their cousins should be moseying home. They coughed and yawned and talked loudly; if they had mobile phones they would have called each other on them, using the most annoying ring tone on the menu, set to high volume: not The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss, had it yet been written, because that is a waltz, and it would only encourage the Threeps to keep going; but something like the theme of Rossini’s overture to his interminable opera William Tell, which is in two-four time.
None of this had any effect, because the Threeps could not be distracted. The Aristotles considered taking themselves off to bed without saying good night; but, as the Threeps’ relatives and hosts, they discounted the idea as unworthy of them.
The problem was solved one evening when the Aristotles were at their wits’ end as to how to get rid of their cousins without offending them. A clever Aristotle called Aristotle, noting the Threeps’ habit of shutting their eyes in ecstasy as they danced, after yet another waltz asked them if they’d be kind enough to favour the assembled company with yet another waltz.
The Threeps were of course happy to oblige; and as soon as The Woolly Waltz was under way, and the Threeps had their eyes firmly closed, Aristotle whispered to the others that they should make a gap in the circle they’d formed around the dancers to watch.
It wasn’t long before one of the Threeps, Nipper, a yearling who wasn’t as in control of his steps as his older sister Pippa, his brother Zipper, and the others, danced his way through the hole in the circle and, sheep being sheep, the rest followed. Without splitting into three groups they all conga’d off—a conga is a single-file dance in which each three steps are followed by a kick—down the road, on which no trees were down, to Threepfold and into their beds. And without having to count a single sheep instead of the usual thirty-three, they were all fast asleep, exhausted from the dancing.
When they awoke in the morning they had no recollection of how they’d got home, and didn’t ask each other about it in case they’d overdone it on the fermented elderberry jelly; which, judging from the way the sheets were all messed up as if they had been dancing in their beds, they had.
An additional advantage of Aristotle Aristotle’s ingenious stratagem was that, in future, not only could the Aristotles bring the Threeps’ visits to an end when they wanted to, but they didn’t have to spend an inordinate amount of time saying goodbye, which like the hello-ing took three times longer than necessary.
In the Aristotles’ village it is a custom that, to preserve their sanity after a Threep visit, nobody is allowed to mention the number three for a week, or to do anything in threes. For as much as they love their cousins’ company in small doses, the Aristotles have no intention of turning into Threeps themselves.
Because the no-three rule is more difficult than one might think to adhere to, Aristotle children are taught it starting in nursery school and kindergarten. When the teacher asks them to count their numbers from one to ten, they leave out three and jump from two to four. And in Aristotle schools there’s never any talk about learning the Three R’s.
For their part, the grown-up Aristotles won’t order three of anything at the Bakehouse…they prefer four or more anyway...where there are no three-pound cakes for sale, and nothing costing thruppence or three ha’pence. They won’t discuss doing something in three days’ time, or turn to page three, or join a threesome, or say the glass is three-quarters full, or wear a three-cornered hat, or play a three-card trick, or put three scoops of tea in the pot.
So solemnly do the Aristotles observe the rule that, as they sit around their firesides in the evenings knitting and darning, the Aristotles won’t mention threading a needle, in case anyone should mishear them and fine them a fruitcake, which is the penalty for saying “three”; and ask each other if they would like “...a cup of, you know, something fourtifying.”
“Really,” say the Aristotles, “avoiding That Word is almost as tiring as receiving a visit from our cousins the Two-Plus-Ones, or the One-and-a-Halfs Times One-and-a-Halfs, and their four-minus-one children!”
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On many a sunny afternoon the Aristotles take a picnic up the downs and go sailing. They meet at the spring, where it bubbles out from under the hill before flowing through the village in its channel alongside the winding Street.
Weighed down by the hampers on their backs, the Aristotles remind themselves, as they climb, that what goes Up must come Down. Indeed, once they’ve arrived at the top, and unloaded their precious cargoes with the utmost care, after they’ve launched themselves into the wind their mood becomes one of such supreme happiness that—if it weren’t for the pangs of hunger—the Aristotles could stay in the sky for ever, and in the fullness of time turned into insensible clouds of vapour.
For Aristotles, sailing is easy: they just tuck in their toes and float up and up on the thermal currents of air.
To be over the downs on a sapphire day with an uninterrupted view of the world is wonderful, and the Aristotles bump and jostle each other with joy, and scramble up ever higher to see the sights. They look to the south, where the hills slope gently down to the sea, and in the other direction down the escarpment they’ve just ascended to where the village lies, compact and placid; and beyond it, the thousands of acres of dense forest, the Anderida, or Andreadsweald, that stretch to the blue-grey ridge on the horizon where that lower range of hills, the North Downs, sends back an echo of their own.
They see into the future: at first there are stockaded clearings in the forest, and then woods and fields dotted with cattle and sheep and horses. Seagull-streaming ploughs are pulled by deep-chested shire horses across dark squares of loam. In the home of the goddess of fertility there are so many acres of wheat and barley, yellow rape, and blue linseed crops that the land looks like a chessboard or patchwork quilt.
Willowed rivers wind through meadows. Sleepy lanes are lined with thick hedges. Hangers and holts and hursts, shaws, hazel copses, and groves of alder and birch resound with the pheasant’s call and pinion beat; and at night in bluebell woods, badger glades, and moon-etched spinneys, foxglove bells ring at fairy dances.
There are furnace, or hammer, ponds for iron works. Farmyards are filled with geese and ducks and chickens. There are belfried churches, and some with shingled broach steeples; barns, and dovecots; and, far above a secret valley ribboned by a silver stream, a viaduct echoes with the clattering fade of a train. There are thatched roofs, cottage gardens, and lawns, belvederes and pergolas.
On lazy summer days, farmhouses hung with red tile shimmer in the heat. Autumn smoke rises from bonfires and chimneys; and in winter the trees and hedgerows are spangled with frost, and millponds are frozen over.
The Aristotles ride on the Wind’s back and beg him to go faster. They scud, zoom, roll, twist, and cavort in the airy deep. They ambush each other. They yell and scream and squeal and shriek and laugh and cry tears of joy.
But there’s only time for so much fun because a rumbling sounds, which could have been a peal of thunder, except, as you may have guessed, it’s the growling of Aristotle stomachs that can only be appeased by Bakewell tart and ginger cake. For as sure as rose-petal jam or lemon curd goes best on white bread, it is time to go down for tea; and whereas the Aristotles rose like Yorkshire puddings or well-yeasted dough for bread, now the Siren song of the picnic baskets causes them to stoop like peregrine falcons to the ground, or drop like a suet pudding or spotted Dick, where they land so hard that they bounce along the ground before coming to rest.
Then there’s a race to spread the red-and-white check tablecloths on the grass, and unpack. The hampers are made of sturdy wicker with lea
ther straps, and inside they have compartments for cups and saucers and plates and cutlery. There are bottles of milk, and pots of savoury spreads and jams; containers of butter, and sugar, salt, pepper, and mustard. There are padded pockets for the Thermos flasks of tea, to prevent them from getting broken, and deep spaces for the sandwich tins, each of which are marked with the contents, so as to save time identifying which is which.
The only things missing are napkins, but Aristotles don’t use them: they never smear their faces or spill anything, it would be a waste.
As they began the afternoon boisterously with sailing, now the Aristotles go berserk over their meal, and they are soon full of a lot more than joie de vivre. Because they are outdoors, they don’t have to restrain themselves as they do at the Tea Shoppe, and good manners go by the board as they help themselves, and don’t bother with such niceties as, “Is there anything I can pass you, Fenella?”, and, “My compliments, Ichabod, on the seed-cake,” and, “Mary, these sponge fingers are delicious.”
No, they grab what they want, which is some of everything, and although the tea isn’t freshly brewed, it tastes even better than usual for being drunk alfresco with a panoramic view.
When the last morsel is gone, and the rest of the afternoon has been spent sailing—for you’ll recall that, no matter how much they eat, the Aristotles are still lighter than air—with a mixture of satisfaction and regret they pack up the baskets and check that nothing is left on the grass.
Going down the hill is made even faster by the hampers being so much lighter. But the Aristotles have to be careful where they put their feet, because of the many rabbit holes. Rabbit homes have a lot of round entrances and exits, which they call doors even though they are hung with none, owing to the rabbits’ communal style of living, and their always being in too much of a hurry to bother with keys and locks and bolts.