Season of Wonder

by Paula Guran

  She pulled the supply transport to a stop at the entrance to the palace courtyard and turned to ask Nick if he had a good enough view. He was already out the door and making his way carefully into the crowd of Rejoicers. “Hey!” she shouted, and she hit the ground running to catch up with him. “Nick!”

  He paused long enough for her to catch his arm, then said, “I need to see this, Marianne. It’s my job.”

  “It’s my job to see you don’t get hurt.”

  He smiled. “Then you lead. I want to be over there where I can see and hear everything Halemtat and his advisors are up to.”

  Marianne harbored a brief fantasy about dragging him bodily back to the safety of the supply transport, but he was twice her weight and, from his expression, not about to cooperate. Best she lead, then. Her only consolation was that, when Clarence tried to radio them, there’d be nobody to pick up and receive his orders.

  “Hey, Marianne!” said Chornian from the crowd. “Over here! Good view from here!”

  And safer too. Grateful for the invitation, Marianne gingerly headed in Chornian’s direction. Several quilled Rejoicers eased aside to let the two of them safely through. Better to be surrounded by beaded Rejoicers.

  “Welcome back, Nick,” said Chornian. He and Chaylam stepped apart to create a space of safety for the two humans. “You’re just in time.”

  “So I see. What’s going on?”

  “Halemtat just had Pilli’s Chippet clipped for playing with a Halemtat cracker. Halemtat doesn’t like the Halemtat crackers.”

  Beside him, a fully quilled Rejoicer said, “Halemtat doesn’t like much of anything. I think a proper prince ought to rattle his spines once or twice a year at least.”

  Marianne frowned up at Nick, who grinned and said, “Roughly translated: Hapter thinks a proper prince ought to have a sense of humor, however minimal.”

  “Rattle your spines, Halemtat!” shouted a voice from the crowd. “Let’s see if you can do it.”

  “Yes,” came another voice—and Marianne realized, it was Chornian’s—“Rattle your spines, Great Prince of the Nutcrackers!”

  All around them, like rain on a tin roof, came the sound of rattling spines. Marianne looked around—the laughter swept through the crowd, setting every Rejoicer in vibrant motion. Even the grand vizier rattled briefly, then caught himself, his ruff stiff with alarm.

  Halemtat didn’t rattle.

  From his pouch, Chornian took a nutcracker and a nut. Placing the nut in the cracker’s smirking mouth, Chornian made the bite cut through the rattling of the crowd like the sound of a shot. From somewhere to her right, a second crack resounded. Then a third . . . Then the rattling took up a renewed life

  Marianne felt as if she were under water. All around her spines shifted and rattled. Chornian’s beaded spines chattered as he cracked a second nut in the smirking face of the nutcracker.

  Then one of Halemtat’s guards ripped the nutcracker from Chornian’s hands. The guard glared at Chornian, who rattled all the harder.

  Looking over his shoulder to Halemtat, the guard called, “He’s already clipped. What shall I do?”

  “Bring me the nutcracker,” said Halemtat. The guard glared again at Chornian, who had not stopped laughing, and loped back with the nutcracker in hand. Belatedly, Marianne recognized the smirk on the nutcracker’s face.

  The guard handed the nutcracker to the grand vizier—Marianne knew beyond a doubt that he recognized the smirk too.

  “Whose teeth carved this?” demanded Halemtat.

  An unclipped Rejoicer worked his way to the front of the crowd, sat proudly back on his haunches, and said, “Mine.” To the grand vizier, he added, with a slight rasp of his quills that was a barely suppressed laugh, “What do you think of my work, Corten? Does it amuse you? You have a strong jaw.”

  Rattling swept the crowd again.

  Halemtat sat up on his haunches. His bristles stood straight out. Marianne had never seen a Rejoicer bristle quite that way before. “Silence!” he bellowed.

  Startled, either by the shout or by the electrified bristle of their ruler, the crowd spread itself thinner. The laughter had subsided only because each of the Rejoicers had gone as bristly as Halemtat. Chornian shifted slightly to keep Marianne and Nick near the protected cover of his beaded ruff.

  “Marianne,” said Nick softly, “that’s Tatep.”

  “I know,” she said. Without meaning to, she’d grabbed his arm for reassurance.

  Tatep . . . He sat back on his haunches, as if fully at ease—the only sleeked Rejoicer in the courtyard. He might have been sitting in Marianne’s office discussing different grades of wood, for all the excitement he displayed.

  Halemtat, rage quivering, in every quill, turned to his guards and said, “Clip Tatep. Hashay.”

  “No!” shouted Marianne, starting forward as she realized she’d spoken Dirtside and opened her mouth to shout it again in Rejoicer, Nick grabbed her and clapped a hand over her mouth.

  “No!” shouted Chornian, seeming to translate for her, but speaking his own mind.

  Marianne fought Nick’s grip in vain. Furious, she bit the hand he’d clapped over her mouth. When he yelped and removed it—still not letting her free—she said, “It’ll kill him!’ He’ll bleed to death! Let me go.” On the last word, she kicked him hard, but he didn’t let go.

  A guard produced the ritual scissors and handed them to the official in charge of clipping. She held the instrument aloft and made the ritual display, clipping the air three times. With each snap of the scissors, the crowd chanted, “No. No. No.”

  Taken aback, the official paused. Halemtat clicked at her and she abruptly remembered the rest of the ritual. She turned to make the three ritual clips in the air before Halemtat.

  This time the voice of the crowd was stronger. “No. No. No,” came the shout with each snap.

  Marianne struggled harder, as the official stepped toward Tatep . . .

  Then the grand vizier scuttled to intercept. “No,” he told the official. Turning to Halemtat, he said, “The image is mine. I can laugh at the caricature. Why is it, I wonder, that you can’t, Halemtat? Has some disease softened your spines so that they no longer rattle?”

  Marianne was so surprised she stopped struggling against Nick’s hold—and felt the hold ease. He didn’t let go, but held her against him in what was almost an embrace. Marianne held her breath, waiting for Halemtat’s reply.

  Halemtat snatched the ritual scissors from the official and threw them at Corten’s feet. “You,” he said. “You will hashay Tatep.”

  “No,” said Corten. “I won’t. My spines are still stiff enough to rattle.”

  Chornian chose that moment to shout once more, “Rattle your spines, Halemtat! Let us hear you rattle your spines!”

  And without so much as a by-your-leave the entire crowd suddenly took up the chant: “Rattle your spines! Rattle your spines!”

  Halemtat looked wildly around. He couldn’t have rattled if he’d wanted to—his spines were too bristled to touch one to another. He turned his glare on the official, as if willing her to pick up the scissors and proceed.

  Instead, she said, in perfect cadence with the crowd, “Rattle your spines!”

  Halemtat made an imperious gesture to his guard—and the guard said, “Rattle your spines!”

  Halemtat turned and galloped full tilt into his palace. Behind him the chant continued—“Rattle your spines! Rattle your spines!”

  Then, quite without warning, Tatep rattled his spines. The next thing Marianne knew, the entire crowd was laughing and laughing and laughing at their vanished ruler.

  Marianne went limp against Nick. He gave her a suggestion of a hug, then let her go. Against the rattle of the crowd, he said, “I thought you were going to get yourself killed, you idiot.”

  “I couldn’t—I couldn’t stand by and do nothing; they might have killed Tatep.”

  “I thought doing nothing was a diplomat’s job.”

 
“You’re right; some diplomat I make. Well, after this little episode, I probably don’t have a job anyhow.”

  “My offer’s still open.”

  “Tell the truth, Nick. If I’d been a member of your team fifteen minutes ago, would you have let me go?”

  He threw back his head and laughed. “Of course not,” he said. “But at least I understand why you bit the hell out of my hand.”

  “Oh, god, Nick! I’m so sorry! Did I hurt you?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But I accept your apology—and next time, I won’t give you that option!”

  “ ‘Next time,’ huh?”

  Nick, still grinning, nodded.

  Well, there was that to be said for Nick: he was realistic.

  “Hi, Nick,” said Tatep. “Welcome back.”

  “Hi, Tatep. Some show you folks laid on. What happens next?”

  Tatep rattled the length of his body, “Your guess is as good as mine,” he said. “I’ve never done anything like this before. Corten’s still rattling. In fact, he asked me to make him a grand vizier nutcracker. I think I’ll make him a present of it—for Christmas.”

  He turned to Marianne. “Share?” he said. “I was too busy to watch at the time. Were you and Nick mating? If you do it again, may I watch?”

  Marianne turned a vivid shade of red, and Nick laughed entirely too much.

  “You explain it to him,” Marianne told Nick firmly. “Mating habits are not within my diplomatic jurisdiction. And I’m still in the diplomatic corps—at least, until we get back to the embassy.”

  Tatep sat back on his haunches, eagerly awaiting Nick’s explanation. Marianne shivered with relief and said hastily, “No, it wasn’t mating, Tatep. I was so scared for you I was going to charge in and—well, I don’t know what I was going to do after that—but I couldn’t just stand by and let Halemtat hurt you.” She scowled at Nick and finished, “Nick was afraid I’d get hurt myself and wouldn’t let me go.”

  Tatep’s eyes widened in surprise. “Marianne, you would have fought for me?”

  “Yes. You’re my friend.”

  “Thank you,” be said solemnly. Then to Nick, he said, “You were right to hold her back. Rattling is a better way than fighting.” He turned again to Marianne. “You surprise me,” he said. “You showed us how to rattle at Halemtat.”

  He shook from snout to tail-tip, with a sound like a hundred snare drums. “Halemtat turned tail and ran from our rattling!”

  “And now?” Nick asked him.

  “Now I’m going to go home. It’s almost dinner time and I’m hungry enough to eat an entire tree all by myself.” Still rattling, he added, “Too bad the hardwood I make the nutcrackers from is so bitter—though tonight I could almost make an exception and dine exclusively on bitter wood.”

  Tatep got down off his haunches and started for home. Most of the crowd had dispersed as well. It seemed oddly anticlimactic, until Marianne heard and saw the rattles of laughter ripple through the departing Rejoicers.

  Beside the supply transport, Tatep paused. “Nick, at your convenience, I really would like you to share about human mating. For friendship’s sake, I should know when Marianne is fighting and when she’s mating. Then I’d know whether she needs help or—or what kind of help she needs. After all, some trees need help to mate . . . ”

  Marianne had turned scarlet again. Nick said, “I’ll tell you all about it as soon as I get settled in again.”

  “Thank you.” Tatep headed for home, for all the world as if nothing unusual had happened. In fact, the entire crowd, laughing as it was, might have been a crowd of picnickers off for home as the sun began to set.

  A squawk from the radio brought Marianne back to business. No use putting it off. Time to bite the bullet and check in with Clarence—if nothing else, the rest of the staff would be worried about both of them.

  Marianne climbed into the cab. Without prompting, Nick climbed in beside her. For a long moment, they listened to the diatribe that came over the radio, but Marianne made no move to reply. Instead, she watched the Rejoicers laughing their way home from the palace courtyard.

  “Nick,” she said. “Can you really laugh a dictator into submission?”

  He cocked a thumb at the radio. “Give it a try,” he said. “It’s not worth cursing back at Clarence—you haven’t his gift for bureaucratic invective.”

  Marianne also didn’t have a job by the time she got back to the embassy. Clarence had tried to clap her onto the returning supply ship, but Nick stepped in to announce that Clarence had no business sending anybody from his ethnology staff home. In the end, Clarence’s bureaucratic invective had failed him and the ethnologists simply disobeyed, as Nick had. All Clarence could do, after all, was issue a directive; if they chose to ignore it, the blame no longer fell on Clarence. Since that was all that worried Clarence, that was all right.

  In the end, Marianne found that being an ethnologist was considerably more interesting than being a diplomat . . . especially during a revolution.

  She and Nick, with Tatep, had taken time off from their mutual studies to choose this year’s Christmas tree—from Halemtat’s reserve. “Why,” said Marianne, bemused at her own reaction, “do I feel like I’m cutting a Christmas tree with Thomas Jefferson?”

  “Because you are,” Nick said. “Even Thomas Jefferson did ordinary things once in a while. Chances are, he even hung out with his friends.” He waved. “Hi, Tatep. How goes the revolution?”

  For answer, Tatep rattled the length of his body.

  “Good,” said Nick.

  “I may have good news to share with you at the Christmas party,” added the Rejoicer.

  “Then we look forward to the Christmas party even more than usual,” said Marianne.

  “And I brought a surprise for Marianne all the way from Dirt,” Nick added. When Marianne lifted an eyebrow, he said, “No, no hints.”

  “Share?” said Tatep.

  “Christmas Eve,” Nick told him. “After you’ve shared your news, I think.”

  The tree-trimming party was in full swing. The newly formed Ad Hoc Christmas Chorus was singing Czech carols—a gift from Esperanza to everybody on both staffs. Clarence had gotten so mellow on the Christmas punch that he’d even offered Marianne her job back—if she was willing to be dropped a grade for insubordination. Marianne, equally mellow, said no, but said it politely.

  Nick had arrived at last, along with Tatep and Chornian and Chaylam and their kids. Surprisingly, Nick stepped in between verses to wave the Ad Hoc Christmas Chorus to silence. “Attention, please,” he shouted over the hubbub. “Attention, please! Tatep has an announcement to make.” When he’d finally gotten silence, Nick turned to Tatep and said, “You have the floor.”

  Tatep looked down, then looked up again at Nick.

  “I mean,” Nick said, “go ahead and speak. Marianne’s not the only one who’ll want to know your news, believe me.”

  But it was Marianne Tatep chose to address.

  “We’ve all been to see Halemtat,” he said. “And Halemtat has agreed: No one will be clipped again unless five people from the same village agree that the offense warrants that severe a punishment. We will choose the five, not Halemtat. Furthermore, from this day forward, anyone may say anything without fear of being clipped. Speaking one’s mind is no longer to be punished.”

  The crowd broke into applause. Beside Tatep, Nick beamed.

  Tatep took a piece of parchment from his pouch. “You see, Marianne? Halemtat signed it and put his bite to it.”

  “How did you get him to agree?”

  “We laughed at him—and we cracked our nutcrackers in the palace courtyard for three days and three nights straight, until he agreed,” Chornian rattled. “He said he’d sign anything if we’d all just go away and let him sleep.” He hefted the enormous package he’d brought with him and rattled again. “Look at all the shelled nuts we’ve brought for your Christmas party!”

  Marianne almost found it in her heart to fe
el sorry for Halemtat. Grinning, she accepted the package and mounded the table with shelled nuts. “Those are almost too important to eat,” she said, stepping back to admire their handiwork. “Are you sure they oughtn’t to go into a museum?”

  “The important thing,” Tatep said, “is that I can say anything I want.” He popped one of the nuts into his mouth and chewed it down. “Halemtat is a talemtat,” he said, and rattled for the sheer joy of it.

  “Corten looks like he’s been eating too much briarwood,” said Chornian, catching the spirit of the thing.

  Not recognizing the expression, Marianne cast an eye at Nick, who said, “We’d say, ‘Been eating a lemon.’ ”

  One of Chonian’s brood sat back on his/her haunches and said, “I’ll show you Halemtat’s guards—”

  The child organized its siblings with much pomp and ceremony (except for the littlest, who couldn’t stop rattling) and marched them back and forth. After the second repetition, Marianne caught the rough import of their chant: “We’re Halemtat’s guards/We send our regards/We wish you nothing but ill/Clip! We cut off your quill!”

  After three passes, one child stepped on another’s tail and the whole troop dissolved into squabbling among themselves and insulting each other. “You look like Corten!” said one, for full effect. The adults rattled away at them. The littlest one, delighted to find that insults could be funny, turned to Marianne and said, “Marianne! You’re spineless!”

  Marianne laughed even harder. When she’d caught her breath, she explained to the child what the phrase meant when it was translated literally into Standard. “If you want a good Dirt insult,” she said, mischievously, “I give you ‘birdbrain.’ ” All the sounds in that were easy for a Rejoicer mouth to utter—and when Marianne explained why it was an insult, the children all agreed that it was a very good insult indeed.”

  “Marianne is a birdbrain,” said the littlest.

  “No,” said Tatep. “Halemtat is a birdbrain, not Marianne.”

  “Let the kid alone, Tatep,” said Marianne. “The kid can say anything it wants!”

  “True,” said Tatep. “True!”