Casserole Diplomacy and Other Stories

by Various

  Her parents smiled at one another when she did that. Her father, Elbow, was a paper folder, and made the crispest, straightest creases you have ever seen. Her mother, Ramble, was a painter. Every day, puppets came to her and said, “I’ve just been given a very important job. Can you please give me a serious face?” or, “I’m feeling blue—can you please put a happy face on me?” Hour after patient hour, Ramble gave her customers the faces they wanted.

  One day, Elbow brought home a big box full of old papers. “The mayor found these in the basement of City Hall,” he told Ramble and Still. “And she wants me to fold them all up so that they can be put away properly. It’s going to be a hard job. See?” He held up one of the pieces of paper. It was yellow around the edges, and crackly-stiff from having been damp and then dried out. “If I make even the slightest mistake, the paper might tear, or the crease might not be straight!”

  “Well then, we’d better stay out of your way for a while,” Ramble said. She kissed his cheek. “I’ll go and grind up some lemon peel and amber for my paints. Still, why don’t you go up and clean your room?”

  “All right,” Still said. Up the stairs she went. Her room was a mess. There were socks on her bookshelves, and books curled up asleep on her desk, and pencil shavings spilling out of her drawers.

  “Hmph,” Still thought. “This will be a lot of work. I wonder where I should start?” She sat down on the bed to puzzle it out. As she thought, she tucked her violin under her chin and began to play.

  “Still,” Ramble called. “Are you cleaning your room?”

  “Ye-ess,” Still called back. She couldn’t put her books away until she moved her socks, but she couldn’t put them away until she tidied up the pencil shavings, and she couldn’t do that until she moved her books . . . As she thought, her fingers picked out a little tune on her violin.

  “Still!” Ramble said loudly. Still jumped. Her mother was standing in the bedroom doorway, her shoe going tap tap tap. She hadn’t bothered to pencil a frown on her forehead, but Still could tell that she was exasperated. “Elbow needs to concentrate. If you want to play your violin, why don’t you go outside?”

  “Can I go to Mister Leaf’s?” Still asked. “He told me last week that he thought I was ready for some special lessons.” And music lessons are much more fun than cleaning, she added, but only to herself.

  Ramble’s shoe went tap tap tap a few more times. Then she nodded. “All right. But you have to clean up your room when you get home.”

  “I will!” Still promised. She gave Ramble a hug, then clattered down the stairs. The front door went bang! behind her.

  The sky was blue, and the air had that clean, damp smell that comes after rain. Still skipped along the cobblestone streets, playing little tunes as she went. She went straight to Mister Leaf’s house—except for one little detour to slide down a brass handrail in the park, and another to wave at a big passenger balloon that was taking off for the moon.

  Mister Leaf’s house stood next to a little square park full of trees and benches. It was a nice part of town. There were no glass rats creeping half-invisible across the stones to gnaw on her legs, or pirates in red and gold lurking in the bushes, waiting for a chance to bundle her up inside a roll of carpet and smuggle her onto a ship and haul her halfway across the ocean to sell her to a pride of lions so that she could scratch them under their chins when they were finished hunting. It was a nice house, and a nice summer-sunshine day. There was no way Still could know that it was going to be the worst day of her life.

  A single drop of rain went plop on the cobblestones. Another drop plopped beside it, then another. “Oh, bother,” Still said crossly. She didn’t mind the rain (although Ramble always made sure that she got herself completely dry, so that she wouldn’t warp), but it put her violin out of tune. She looked up at the fat, gray clouds, then ran tik tik tik across the cobblestones and rang Mister Leaf’s doorbell.

  A moment later the door opened, and a deep, warm voice said, “Why, what a pleasant surprise! Please, please, come in.”

  Mister Leaf wore blue and orange and a polka-dot hat. He had black curls painted on his forehead and a big smile painted on his face. His eyes were made of tiger-orange topaz. They were so friendly, they almost seemed to shine.

  He stepped out of the way and waved her in. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” he asked.

  “My father has some very important work to do,” Still told him as they went upstairs to the music room, “so I was hoping that I could get a special lesson.”

  “Ah,” her teacher said. “Very good. Very good. But look, your violin is wet. Here, you should dry it off.” He took a tea towel from on top of the piano and handed it to her.

  Still brushed a few drops of water off her violin, then handed the towel back to Mister Leaf. As she did so, their fingers touched, and his eyes suddenly seemed to sparkle.

  Still felt as though she had a blush painted on her cheeks. She turned around to face the window and tucked her violin under her chin. The rain was darkening the red bricks of the houses across the street. “Shall I start with scales?” she asked.

  “Of course,” Mister Leaf said. “And remember, not too fast. The most important thing is to hear the music as you play it.”

  Still played a G scale, then a B scale, and then a C-sharp scale, which was the hardest scale she knew. Mister Leaf nodded his head to help her keep time, and said, “Good, good,” or, “Slow down—try to smooth the notes into each other.”

  “Very good,” he said when she finally finished. “Now, would you like to play a song for me?”

  “If you’d like,” Still said. She laid her bow on her violin’s strings and drew it down. The sound was as sweet and as thick as chocolate syrup, but as clear as the purest ice. She closed her eyes and played a slow, sad gypsy waltz.

  When she was done, she opened her eyes. Mister Leaf had stepped forward, so that he was standing just inches away from her. “Ahhh . . .” he breathed. “That was beautiful. May I try?”

  “Try what?” Still asked.

  “Your violin—may I play it?”

  “Oh my,” Still said. Her clockwork seemed to be whirring double-time inside her. “I—I’ve never let anyone else play my violin before,” she said. “I don’t know if I should.”

  “I’ll be careful,” Mister Leaf promised. “We can keep it a secret if you want.” He held out his hand.

  Suddenly, Still felt guilty. He was being so nice, giving her an extra lesson like this. What harm could it do?

  “Here,” she said impulsively, holding it out to him. “But please be careful.”

  Mister Leaf took the violin and bow from her. He gazed at them for a moment as if they were the most precious things in the world. Then he brought the violin up to his cheek and laid his cheek against its bottom side. “It’s perfect,” he whispered. “The varnish . . . the polish . . . It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Suddenly he turned the violin right side up and tucked it under his chin. He thrust the bow across the strings. HRING! He pushed the bow back across the strings, then drew it down again, HWAH-HWING!

  “Wait, stop!” Still said. “You mustn’t play so hard!” But Mister Leaf didn’t listen. He began to fiddle furiously, faster than Still had ever seen anyone play. The bow flew back and forth across the strings. The violin sang, then shrieked, then howled as he played high notes and low notes, chords and pizzicato and trills that ran from one end of the scale to the other.

  “No, wait, stop! Stop! Oh please, stop!” Still cried, but Mister Leaf just played on. Still grabbed his arm and tried to pull the violin away from him, but he was too strong. Faster and faster he played, until suddenly the strings went PLINK! PLINK! PLINK! He had cut right through them!

  But even then Mister Leaf didn’t stop. Before Still’s horrified eyes, gray wisps of smoke began to rise from the body of the violin. He was playing so fast that the violin was catching on fire!

  It must have bee
n the smell of smoke that made him stop, because there is nothing that puppets are more afraid of than fire. Mister Leaf raised the bow with a flourish. Then, to Still’s horror, he began to chuckle. The chuckle turned into a laugh, and the laugh got bigger and bigger. “Ah hoo hoo hoo,” he chortled. “Ah hee hee hee. Oh, th-th-that was fun! That was fun!”

  As he laughed, Still began to cry. “What have you done?” she wept. “What have you done to my violin?”

  Mister Leaf laughter subsided. He blinked at the violin. “Oh my,” he said softly, “what’s this?” He peered at the violin as if he had never seen it before, then pushed it back into Still’s arms.

  “You broke it,” Still sobbed, clutching the violin in her arms.

  “Sh, sh,” Mister Leaf said. “It’s not that bad. We can fix it.”

  “But what will I tell Ramble?” she wailed. “And Elbow?”

  “Oh, you mustn’t tell them anything,” Mister Leaf said hastily. “Why, if they found that you’d let this happen, they’d—they’d—why, they’d put strings on you, that’s what they’d do! They’d screw little eyehooks into your elbows and knees, and run black silk strings through them, and they’d never let you move your own arms and legs again, just to make sure that this could never happen again. Do you want that? No, I didn’t think so. Now, the rain has stopped—I think it’s time for you to go home.”

  Afterward, Still couldn’t remember how she had found her way home. She must have fallen, though, because by the time she recognized the streets again, she had an ugly dent in her cheek. All she could think about was her violin—her poor, scarred violin.

  Her joints and limbs were aching with the damp and cold by the time she reached her front door. She practically fell through it into Elbow’s arms.

  “Still!” he cried out. “Still, honey, what’s wrong? What happened?”

  “I—I fell,” she sobbed. She held up her violin. “And I—I—”

  “Sh, sh, sh,” he said, rocking her in his arms. “Come in here where it’s warm. Ramble! Ramble! Come quick!”

  The two puppets sat their daughter down on the couch in the living room and gave her a cup of warm linseed oil to drink. “Here, let me see that,” Ramble said gently. She took Still’s chin in her hand and turned her head from side to side to look at the dent in her cheek. “Oh, it’s not so bad,” she said after a moment. “A little bit of putty, and some careful sanding, and you’ll be as good as new.”

  “Why, it’ll even make you look more grown-up,” Elbow said. “Just like the dimples in my cheeks. I wasn’t carved with them, you know. I got this one when I fell out of a tree, and this one when—”

  “But what about my violin?” Still interrupted. She had wrapped three thick blankets around herself, but she still felt cold, cold, cold. Even with a big gloop of honey, the linseed oil tasted like ashes. All she could think about was the black scorch on her violin.

  “We’ll take it to the shop tomorrow and get it fixed, I promise,” her mother said gently. She took the violin from her daughter’s stiff hands and laid it aside. “Now, why don’t we put you to bed? You can clean up your room tomorrow.”

  Still lay in bed a long time the next morning. Her window grew brighter as the sun rose, then dimmed as it passed overhead. Her mother and father came in to see her a couple of times, but she closed her eyes and pretended that she was sleeping.

  Finally her mother brought the doctor to see her. He had narrow shoulders and a beaky nose, and wore wire-rimmed glasses without any glass in them. He put his stethoscope on Still’s tummy and chest and forehead and listened to her clockwork go tick, tock, tick, tock. Then he sighted along her arms and legs, one by one, to see if they had been warped by the rain.

  “There’s nothing wrong with her wood,” he said to Ramble. “She’s as sound as the day she was made. And that dent in her cheek isn’t as bad as it looks—I’m sure you’ll be able to fix that up in no time.”

  “Then what is it?” her mother asked. “What’s wrong?”

  The puppet doctor shook his head. “I don’t know. Perhaps her clockwork got a bit jumbled up in the fall. I’m sure it will sort itself out if you give her some time.”

  So Still got to stay home from school that day, and the day after that. Each morning she lay in bed until her mother or father came to get her up. She brushed her teeth and oiled her joints and got dressed, then went down to the couch and sat under the blankets, staring out the window at the carts going past on the street and the balloons going by in the sky. Sometimes her fingers twitched, as if she was playing the violin, but she never mentioned it, or wondered where it had gone.

  But all the while, Still felt like she was floating in dark, still water. Whenever she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, the dent on her cheek made her look like someone else. She stared into her eyes, and saw a stranger. “You mustn’t tell,” she whispered. “They’ll put strings on you if you do.”

  On the third day, her father came into her room with a big smile painted on his face. “If you’d like to get up and get dressed, there’s something waiting for you downstairs,” he said.

  “All right,” Still said. A moment went by. She didn’t move.

  “Oh, come on, daffodil,” Elbow said. “It’ll cheer you up, I promise!”

  “All right,” Still said again. Somehow, being cheered up didn’t seem to matter very much.

  When she came downstairs, a big box wrapped in brightly-colored paper was waiting for her on the kitchen table. The creases were as sharp as the edge of a knife, and the folds were so clever that her father eventually had to show her how to get the paper off without tearing it.

  She set the paper aside and took the lid off the box. “Well?” her father asked. “What do you think?”

  Her violin lay inside the box. Fresh strings had been put on it, each one a different color. Its body had been sanded down smooth and re-varnished. There was only a faint, shallow groove to show where—where—

  “What do you think?” her father asked again. “Doesn’t it look just as good as new?”

  “I guess so,” Still said. “Thank you.”

  “Well all right then,” Elbow said jovially. “Now, if you hurry, you can still get to school in time for juggling.”

  “I guess so,” Still said. She stood up and began to walk toward the front door.

  “Aren’t you going to take your violin?” Elbow asked.

  Still stopped, then said, very softly, “I guess so.” She picked up the violin and walked out into the street.

  Still trudged along the cobblestone streets to the school. The sky was a warm, clear blue, and little clockwork birds were chirping in the trees. The puppets she passed chattered to one another as if it was just another day. She ran her thumb back and forth over the faint groove in the top of the violin that was the only sign of—of— She pushed the thought out of her head.

  Still didn’t stop when she reached the school gate. She just set her books on a bench very carefully for anyone who wanted them and kept walking. She didn’t pay any attention to where she was going—she just let her own weight carry her down, down, down.

  As she walked, the streets grew narrower, then dirtier. Gaps began to appear in the cobblestones, and tendrils of fog began to fill the air around her. They grew steadily thicker until Still could barely see from one side of the street to the other.

  And as she walked, the puppets around her started to change as well. Their faces became cracked and worn. Some of them had so little paint left that it was impossible to tell who they were, or how they might feel. None of them looked straight at her, and she was careful not to look straight at them.

  Finally Still reached a dead end. She was too tired and hungry to think. An old banana crate full of newspapers lay on the ground beside her. She climbed into it, curled herself around her violin, closed her eyes, and fell straight into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  She woke up once, in the middle of the night, when something cold and hard scampered across
her leg. “Tee hee,” it giggled. She hugged her violin close to her chest and shivered. She’d never seen a glass rat, not for real, but other puppets had whispered stories about them at sleepovers. What they wanted more than anything was oil to stop them squeaking, and if the only place to get it was from a puppet, well, “That’s why they have diamond teeth,” everyone would whisper in unison.

  It took her a long time to get back to sleep.

  She woke up hungry the next morning. She hid her violin behind an old sign for a watchmaker’s shop at the end of the alley, then trudged up through the fog to a small market.

  Still folded a piece of newspaper to make a box (now, who had taught her how to do that?) and set it on the sidewalk. She stood there for a moment, as still as her name. The wind felt like ice water on the dent on her cheek. Slowly, she ducked her head down, as if she had a violin on her shoulder. Slowly, very slowly, she raised her arm as if she held a bow.

  And then she began to play. A few puppets stopped to watch, and then a few more. They stared at the strange sight of a young, beautifully-painted puppet playing a violin that wasn’t there. Still didn’t make a sound, but the puppets around her would have sworn that they could almost—almost—hear music. It made one puppet think of black butterflies fluttering among blood poppies under a full moon. It made another think of a hawk circling patiently over a snowy field in winter, just waiting for the rabbit’s clockwork to run down.

  When Still stopped, the puppets around her sighed. A peg-legged old puppet in a soldier’s uniform pulled a grimy green gumdrop from his pocket and tossed it into Still’s paper box. Plop plop plop went a few other pieces of candy. Still bowed gracefully, then picked up her takings and trudged back into the fog.

  And so began the pattern of her days. Every night she found a box or doorway, and curled up with her violin in her arms. Every morning she hid the violin somewhere safe, then walked into the market to play her silent music. She forgot to remember that she had once slept in a warm, dry bed, or that the puppets who had made her had loved her. The worn-out puppets who worked in the markets on the edge of the fog wondered about her for a while, then found other things to wonder about. In no time at all, she was just another nameless toy.