by Jan Andrews
Ella was still so cool. She was cool as a cucumber. She was cool as an ice cube. She made the willow branches whip about like there was a hurricane going through them.
“Maybe we’re getting somewhere now,” said Ella.
Bella’s heart sank. She stopped thinking about sugar pie and devil’s food cake. She knew it was probably time to throw the recipe books away completely.
“Would you like to see what I can really do?” said Ella.
She didn’t wait for Bella to answer. She just went on.
“This is something I’ve been planning a while,” said Ella. “It has to do with that shack there.”
Bella was speechless. Well, no, she wasn’t quite. “The one it takes an hour to get to?” she got out.
“The one that’s such an eyesore.”
“The one on the hilltop?”
“I’d like to get rid of it.” Ella leaned forward just a little. She shook her shoulders very slightly. Her eyes lit up with excitement. “Are you ready?” she asked Bella.
Now it was Bella not uttering a word. Ella opened her mouth a little more than she had done before, but not much. Bella saw the clothes shake on the clothesline, she saw the flowers in the garden dance, she heard the cows in the cowshed, giving their moos of happiness.
Ella started smiling. A rumble came from the tractor, the gate moved, then the roof tiles, then the branches on the willow. The bell rang on the church that was in the valley halfway between the farm and where the shack was standing. How had the church bell got into it?
The smile on Ella’s face grew wider. There was a pause, with nothing happening – just sort of a movement in the far-off grass. Seemed to Bella like all the world was waiting.
There was no doubt about it. That old eyesore of a shack on the hilltop – the shack it took an hour to walk to – that shack was shaking. That shack was lifting off the ground. Higher it went and higher, all of a piece, just lifting, turning and turning, round and round.
Last thing Bella saw, the shack was no more than a dot in the sky. It was disappearing into the distance; it had gone over the horizon.
“I reckon that settles it,” said Ella.
Bella had to admit that it did. By then, she’d flopped down. She was lying on her back in exhaustion. Ella went inside. She made another cup of tea. She brought one out for Bella to have. She brought some cakes and cookies to give her sister strength.
Ella went to tend to the garden. Bella had to go to bed for a week. Ella looked after her. She did everything around the farm without her – whatever it was that she could manage in the absence of Bella’s strength.
Bella kept her promise. There was no more talk of Ella having to eat more than she felt like. There were a lot more salads on the menu. Ella went back to enjoying her mealtimes.
Bella knew she was beaten. She could just imagine herself getting belched over the horizon, going where the shack had gone to if she so much as mentioned Ella’s diet. She didn’t fancy that.
I have to say, I’m wondering whether the tale of Ella and Bella was rude enough for you or whether it wasn’t. I think it should be. I think I can stop worrying about that.
I’m too old to be rude now, I’m certain.
I really can’t give it a thought.
I’d much rather sit here considering
This pile of jawbreakers I’ve bought.
I’m planning on how I can suck them
And turn them around and around,
Then open my mouth to be showing
The wonderful colors I’ve found.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that rude has its limits. You’ve got to be. People always do. They don’t get it. There’s rude all over – always has been, always will. There’s rude and there are onces.
When was this once then? Is that what you’re asking?
Brace yourselves. Get ready. It was the once when giraffes had ears so long they could be wrapped around their necks to use as scarves in cold weather. It was the once when hawks didn’t soar, they scuttled. Bathtubs were all at the bottom of gardens. They weren’t in sheds; they were out in the open. You can make whatever you like of that.
I’d think about it later, if I were you. We have to get on with the story.
We haven’t been up to the sky people yet, now have we? That’s where we’re going then. We’re going to the once when they wanted to build themselves a bridge. They wanted it to cross the Milky Way so they could get about and visit their relatives more easily – their second cousins twice removed and such.
They worked away at it until the bridge was almost done. There was just one more support they had to set in place. That’s when they realized they’d used up all their materials. They searched high and low, all over the heavens. There was nothing. They started moaning and groaning and carrying on.
They might have gone on like that forever if it hadn’t been for Mr. Cheats. He lived down below in a village. He’d never heard of the sky people. He spent all his time trying to get one over on everyone around him. His name was short for Mr. Cheats The Pants Off His Old Mother. That should give you a clue as to what he was like.
He didn’t work at anything the way everyone else did. He spent all the hours he could manage gambling or practicing with his dice. A day came when he was sitting under a tree by a stream at the edge of town. He was figuring out how to roll sixes any time he wanted them. He heard a sound behind him, so he looked up. He found himself face-to-face with a nasty-looking red goblin.
“What are you doing?” the goblin asked.
Anyone else would’ve been terrified. Mr. Cheats started thinking about how the goblin might not know too much about gambling. He started showing him a game. The goblin didn’t wait to find out what the rules were. It was the dice he was interested in. He liked the shape of them. He liked the sound they made. He grabbed them up and stuffed them in his goblin-pocket.
Mr. Cheats was angry. His aim was to come out the winner. Losing wasn’t part of his plan. The goblin didn’t really mean any harm though. He offered Mr. Cheats a fan in payment.
“What use is a fan to me?” Mr. Cheats demanded.
The goblin rubbed his hands together. He made Mr. Cheats turn round. Mr. Cheats heard the fan go flap a couple of times. He felt the movement of the air. Next thing he knew, something was happening to his posterior. He put his hand behind him. He felt around. He knew then his bottom was twice its normal size.
“What are you up to?” he burst out.
“I’m giving you a demonstration of what this fan can do,” the goblin explained to him.
“I liked my bottom the way it was,” Mr. Cheats insisted.
“It’s all right,” said the goblin. “I’m just showing you.” He turned the fan over. “This side now – the plain side – that’s for shrinking. The other side – the side with the pattern – that’s for growing,” he went on.
“Well, would you shrink … ”
“It’s already done,” said the goblin.
“Does the fan only work with bottoms?” Mr. Cheats demanded.
“Only with bottoms,” the goblin replied. He put the fan down on a tree root. “You can take it or not – as you fancy. I have to go back to where I came from.”
It was Mr. Cheats who was rubbing his hands together now. He picked the fan up. He stroked it. He smiled a horrible smile. The goblin went on his way. Mr. Cheats went back to the village. He sat on a bench in the village square. Soon enough, a rich old lady came by, out for her daily stroll. She was the one he’d been waiting for. Her name was Mrs. Falackerty. He pretended not to be paying her any attention. He waited until she was beginning to go by.
Mrs. Falackerty walked with a cane. She went so slowly it was easy enough for Mr. Cheats to get her with his fan. She fell to the ground. She let out a cry. She was little and she was frail, but her backside was the size of a horse now. Her servants had trouble getting her home. She took to her bed. She called all sorts of doctors.
Pe
ople were afraid she’d been struck by some kind of plague. They thought any minute they’d all be getting enormous rear ends as well. There were rumors about bottoms the size of rhinoceroses or elephants.
It was only Mrs. Falackerty though. She was the only one afflicted, as they say.
Mr. Cheats went on like he knew nothing about it. He didn’t say a word. He waited a week. He left her in her misery. The poor old thing was so unhappy. She’d have let in a rattlesnake if it had promised her a cure.
When Mr. Cheats showed up at her house and the servants told her he’d said he could do something for her, she didn’t think about it twice.
“Bring him to me,” Mrs. Falackerty told them. “Bring him to me at once.”
Mr. Cheats made a great fuss about how he had to be in the room alone with her. He made her close her eyes. He said all sorts of magic words. He did all sorts of mumbo jumbo. He took the fan out from his pocket. He gave a flap to her bottom with the plain side.
“I think I might be feeling something,” Mrs. Falackerty said to him.
“Keep your eyes closed,” he insisted.
He did a bit more mumbo jumbo. He gave her bottom another flap. And another.
“Yes, yes,” she whispered.
He made the whole show last an hour. That’s how long he kept her lying there (with her eyes shut tight all the time, mind you) before he made it so she could be her own true self once more.
Mrs. Falackerty was so delighted at finding her fanny the scrimpy, boney thing it was supposed to be she got up straight away. She wrote Mr. Cheats a check for a whole lot of money. She gave him a fine meal. She said he could come to the house whenever he wanted. She told him he could walk in the garden. Mr. Cheats reckoned he’d do that. He’d do it right then.
Oh, he was pleased with himself. He strutted about among the fruits and the flowers and the fishponds. He lay down in the hammock, thinking he’d have himself a snooze. It was a hot day though, a very hot day.
He took the fan out so he could cool himself off. He didn’t think anything of it. It was all right in the beginning anyway because he was only fanning his face. It went on being all right – no growing, no shrinking – until he started nodding off.
His hand slipped lower and lower. It hung over the hammock’s side. It dangled there at the end of his arm. Back the fan went and forward, the side with the pattern pointing you-know-where. Mr. Cheats was getting really comfortable. He started snoring. He rolled over onto his side.
It just so happened the sky people were looking down on him. They’d been doing a lot of looking down lately, on account of being so unhappy about their unfinished project and not knowing quite how to pass the time. Mr. Cheats’s bottom looked like just what they needed for their bridge. Not only that, it was rising up to meet them. Any minute they’d be able to reach out and grab it. It was that high.
It looked good too; it looked solid. It looked like it was made of the right stuff. The tallest and strongest of the sky people leaned forward. He grabbed Mr. Cheats by the bum. Mr. Cheats woke up. He yelled and hollered.
“I need all the help I can get,” that tallest sky person called out to his friends.
A lot more of the sky people got in on the action. Mr. Cheats pulled as hard as he could against them. They decided they’d better tie his bottom in place. It wasn’t quite the right shape, but they reckoned they could deal with that later.
“Let go of me!” Mr. Cheats shouted.
The sky people didn’t. Why would they? Right then, Mr. Cheats’s bottom was what they wanted most of all in all the world.
The fan, Mr. Cheats thought, where is it?
He remembered then it was still in his hand. He turned it over; he went to reach his bum again, to stretch his arm behind him. He was almost there. He was, he was really. The sky people gave the knots on the ropes they were using a couple of jerks. The fan fell out of his grasp.
There it was. It was drifting downward. He couldn’t get it again. He couldn’t. He couldn’t even see it. It was gone.
That’s it then. He’s probably still up there, making it so the sky people can get from one part of heaven to another over the Milky Way bridge. He’s probably doing it to this day. Truth to tell, he’s likely more useful in the heavens – uniting families, keeping them together. He’s more useful than he ever was on earth.
As for the fan, I don’t know where it landed. I don’t know that at all. I’d advise you to be careful if you ever happen to come upon a fan that nobody’s using though. It might be in a drawer. It might be in an old antique shop. It might be on a path. Wherever it is, if it’s plain on one side and patterned on the other, I wouldn’t go picking it up. I wouldn’t go waving it about and fanning anyone. I wouldn’t go fanning myself.
So why bother with rude? So why would you
When there’s lots you can do that’s much worse?
Like hexing and potions and magic
And putting folks under a curse.
Like turning them all into birds’ nests
To sit out in the wind and the rain
While you’re dancing a waltz down below them
To show them their cries are in vain.
We’re getting to the end. We’re almost at the last story. Let’s make it special then. Let’s go to the once when camels didn’t have their humps yet. They didn’t even live in deserts. They made their homes on rooftops. They climbed up on ladders that had special rungs. They gazed at the stars and sang songs about dragons all night. People liked to listen to them; their voices were so sweet.
It’s a good once because it’s lovely to think about and because the girl in the story is lovely as well. It wasn’t so much that she was so beautiful to look at. It was more that she was good to everyone. She spoke to people no one else would. She helped friends and she helped strangers. She never said a cross, rude word.
You’ll probably think she doesn’t belong in a book like this from what I’m telling you. I’d advise you to wait and see about that. I really, really would.
Angelina was her name. She lived with her father. She was his only child. Her mother was dead. Angelina wasn’t married yet. That’s how it was in those days. If you were a girl, you couldn’t leave home until you were.
Now it happened that a young man from another country came to the town where Angelina lived. He was taking a walk; he caught sight of her while she was stepping out the door. Right there and then, he decided he wanted to marry her. He sent a matchmaker to ask her father for her hand.
Angelina didn’t know anything about it. She just knew her father was having all these meetings. That’s something else that was part of those days and that place there. Marriages had nothing to do with two young people meeting and making up their own minds. Marriages were arranged by adults getting together and dreaming and scheming and working things out.
The first that Angelina heard of it, the wedding day was fixed. Her father came to tell her when she was having her breakfast.
“My daughter, you’re to be married,” he announced.
Angelina knew what was right and proper. She leaped up at once to run to him and put her arms around his neck.
“I’m so thankful to you, my father,” she cried out.
She went on like that – being thankful – through all the wedding preparations. She helped with the lists of invitations, she stood still as could be when her dress was being fitted, she made sure everything was going to be pleasing to the guests.
Angelina’s father was rich. He owned six thousand cattle. He owned all sorts of other things. The wedding went on for days. It was a great celebration. Everything was the finest. He spared no expense.
All good things come to an end, of course. At last, the wedding was over. Angelina was waving good-bye. She was setting off for her new home with her new husband. She had to admit to herself, when she got there, that she was surprised. The house was a lot smaller than she was used to. It was a lot barer. In fact, it really didn’t have much in it at
all.
Angelina didn’t mention any of that. She let her new husband show her around. She smiled at him. She kept on smiling as he explained to her that all he’d ever had in all the world was a hundred cattle that had been left to him by his parents.
“Where are the cattle now?” she asked him.
“I’ve given them to your father,” he said.
“All of them?” said Angelina.
“All of them,” said her husband. “A hundred cattle was what your father demanded so that the wedding might take place.”
“You have nothing left?” asked Angelina.
“Nothing,” said her husband.
“Were the cattle how you made your living?” said Angelina.
“Cattle are all I know about,” her husband replied.
“But you have no cattle now,” she reminded him.
“I’m good at milking. I’ll do the milking for other people. I’ll ask them to pay me for my labors,” he announced.
Angelina did her best to look satisfied, and she succeeded. “You’ll milk cattle and I’ll keep house. I’ll cook whatever you bring us,” she declared.
That’s how it was then, and again you have to remember – this was a time and place when men and women had different tasks. Maybe it would have been all right too, except that when people paid the husband, they mostly paid in buckets of milk. Angelina did her best with that as well, just as she’d promised. She served milk hot; she served milk cold. She served milk smooth; she served milk frothy. She used milk to make yogurt. She boiled milk down to turn it into sweets. She curdled milk and hung it in a bag to drip so sometimes they had cottage cheese.
I won’t try to pretend she didn’t long for something different, but did she even so much as murmur that to her husband? She did not.
Her husband had to walk quite a ways to get to all the herds he worked with. He was often gone for many, many hours. Angelina kept herself busy. When everything was done inside the house, she’d go out to sweep the yard.