Fungi

by Orrin Grey

  The Truffalo’s upturned snout tested the air; its hooves clip-clopped daintily along the floor; its beady eyes seemed to stare into McMungus’ own. His heart thrilled when it hooted a song, and if he had been able to tear his eyes from the beast, he would have seen he was not alone. All were transfixed by the Truffalo’s grace and beauty. But McMungus found himself bewitched by a very particular copse of hair beneath its chin — a shimmering rainbow-beard that sang to the merkin-maker in a way no other patch nor thatch ever had. It was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen ….

  And, if he could but obtain it, the solution to his most vexing problem!

  “Just you wait, Eddie,” said McMungus, leaning into Captain Edwin. “Maybe you’ll model this merkin and maybe you won’t — but I’ll win this wager; you see if I don’t!”

  We may be the only ones who know what really happened later that night, in the stables where the attractions from the Mad Menagerie were housed. And though we know you may judge us for it, we confess we did not interfere in any way, helping neither Mr. McMungus nor the Truffalo. It is not our way. We watch from our perches in the rafters and lofts, listen from our dwellings in your attics. We observe from belfries, too: a cliché, perhaps, but they are well-suited to our needs. Suffice it to say we were there, blink-eyed and leather-winged — shuffling keening licking snuffling grooming — but not too occupied to see, after every stable-kitten had gone yawning to bed, the outer door open a crack — and a lone figure squeeze through with, admittedly, some difficulty.

  McMungus held his paw in front of his candle, but the flame still guttered; he was trembling with nervousness. He wanted, nay, needed to hurry — but though he looked carefully into every stall or pen for his quarry, the Truffalo was nowhere to be seen!

  He kicked the straw with his boot, spat in disgust — and very nearly fled when his ruckus disturbed a napping stable-catling into a prodigious snore. Yet, when he turned, his candle-flame flared and he spied a door at the back of the stables. Investigating further, he discovered the king’s mews, where his falcons and hunting-hawks were housed.

  And that night, it also housed the Truffalo.

  Who would have guessed that, despite those hooves and a thorough lack of wings, the beast would still prefer to roost on a perch than sleep in a stall? But the natural world is full of marvels, is it not?

  “There you are,” murmured McMungus, his excitement mounting as the Truffalo’s beard-hairs glimmered in the candlelight. “Let’s play barber, shall we?”

  He grabbed one of the knives the falconers used for cutting jesses and advanced on the Truffalo. It whinnied at him, but McMungus softly cooed to it and the creature settled down, accepting his presence. Good thing, too, for McMungus needed to get very close, indeed.

  Though dazzled by the creature’s fur, as McMungus drew closer, he saw its hide was gorgeous, as well. In between the patchy tufts of the beast’s shining pelt, phosphorescent whorls pulsed all over its skin, shimmering greenish blotches that, when McMungus touched one, left behind a powdery residue on his paw-pads.

  Unsure if he should be amazed or disgusted, McMungus wiped the dust on his haunch, where it left a blue-green streak on his orange fur. Curious as to how long the glow would last, he used his knife to shave some of the powder off of the skin-whorls. Having nowhere else to deposit it, he scraped the edge of the blade into the bowl of his filigreed meerschaum pipe, which he only ever smoked at court. The residue illuminated the interior of the bowl with a spectral light.

  Collecting the residue had unsettled the Truffalo, so McMungus stroked the creature’s back to soothe it before setting to denuding it of its beard. Using his knife, he tried to cut quietly and quickly, not wanting to tug on any of the hairs, but the fur was coarse and resisted his blade. He had to saw at it to sever the strands, and so, to keep himself focused and the Truffalo at ease, he murmured a jolly song as he worked:

  Do you know the Merkin-Maker

  The Merkin-Maker

  The Merkin-Maker?

  Do you know the Merkin-Maker

  Who sells on St. James’s Street?

  Once he had collected a hefty pawful of the shiny strands, McMungus lowered his knife — only to see, just behind where he had trimmed, a throat-tuft of the most brilliant peacock-green he had ever beheld. Entranced, the cat hefted his blade once more ….

  McMungus had not thought these hairs would be so difficult to trim, but they were. The angle was all wrong, so he took his time and made sure to be quite careful — but then, entirely by accident, he yanked a little too hard.

  The creature screeched and pulled its head away from McMungus; McMungus, in a panic to pacify the beast, jerked his paw away. Alas! With the cat’s frantic movement, the knife-blade shone brighter than the creature’s patchy skin and, quelle horreur, violet blood spurted out from the Truffalo’s throat, spilling over McMungus’ paws and arms and cape and face! He was absolutely covered in the hot, sticky liquid and, when the Truffalo fell off its perch and began to thrash and shit itself upon the sawdust-covered floor, McMungus knew his life was over. Surely, he would be heard; surely, someone would come; surely, surely….

  McMungus returned to his senses in a dark alley several streets away from Whitehall — clutching the knife, the small pipe full of glowing powder and the hairs he had trimmed from the Truffalo.

  He had escaped!

  With a mew of triumph, he scampered back to his shop. He may have killed a unique and beautiful creature, the last of its kind, but he had achieved his own purpose in the doing of it. Not such a shabby tabby after all, he chuckled, tucking the hairs into his boot so he could open the door to Grimalkin’s Merkins.

  “Mr. McMungus, whatever has happened?”

  “What?!” McMungus swung ‘round. He had not expected to find Miss Mousha still working — but there she was, staring at his blood-caked fur.

  “N - nothing!” snarled McMungus. “Never you mind! You, ah, go on home, Mousha — but be here early anon! We have a new commission — a big job. You see here I’m covered in dye, already, ah, and I shall need you alert.” He fumbled with his belt-pouch and threw a handful of coins at Miss Mousha, more than she had earned in working for him for a whole year. “Go and buy yourself some cheese and go to sleep, Mousha — then, tomorrow! Tomorrow!”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. McMungus,” said Miss Mousha, as she gathered up the coins — and fled.

  Given that several of our number made their beds in the loft above Grimalkin’s Merkins, we were able to watch Mr. McMungus as he worked over the next few weeks — and work hard he certainly did. The merkin-maker threw the whole of himself into the endeavour, labouring over the new merkin day and night, sometimes beginning even before Miss Mousha arrived — and, every day, that poor doe came an hour before sunrise; well, every day except Caturday, of course.

  At first, McMungus refused to let his apprentice lend any help whatsoever, bidding her merely clean up after him and keep the candles lit for fear she would spoil his Great Work, but, as the days passed, a curious development forced his increasingly pudgy paw: The merkin-maker took ill. Unable to keep his claws steady, he had no recourse but to accept her assistance.

  You might think a pupil would be delighted to aid her teacher in his masterpiece, but we saw all too clearly Miss Mousha’s trepidation at handling the strangely luminescent powder, her nervousness over touching the shimmering beard. We suspect — for she did not share her thoughts with us — that her anxiety was partly her concern for McMungus and partly that she, not being stupid, realised his strange malady had begun hot upon his bringing home those odd materials. The latter we surmise because she used gloves while working, which was not her custom.

  Her caution was justified; McMungus’s illness was terrible. It began with an intermittent itching a day or two after he began work on the merkin. As the tabby was prone to odd complaints — itches, sneezes, night-hoss, and something he called “hot nostril” — Miss Mousha thought little of it … until she noticed he had
licked himself raw in places, so dire was the irritation!

  It made Miss Mousha blush to see her employer’s bare skin shining through the ever-widening breaks in his fur — and yet, she could not help but look. It was a curious thing: Rather than being smooth and pasty, as she had expected, McMungus’s epidermis was mottled with the most lovely pale-blue whorls, as though seashells pressed up through his skin. At first, she thought it must be the candlelight playing merry hell with her overtaxed eyes, but, when he absent-mindedly scratched one of these spots, it pulsed with the dim light of a distant star. We saw her looking back and forth betwixt the thimbleful of “dried firefly spit” Mr. McMungus had so recently acquired for this new project and the almost-glowing spirals speckling his patchy hide; perhaps she noticed some similarity, but we did not ask her ….

  In the final days before the Easter Ball, Miss Mousha was obliged to take over more and more of the project, as a frightful new development took place. Though Miss Mousha whispered to herself that she was imagining things, after McMungus demanded she take a break one morning for a few hours to let out the seams of his favourite waistcoat, she could no longer deny it: Mr. McMungus was as bloated as a drowned toad. Swollen and increasingly immobile, her employer was now constantly scratching at himself — and not with his tongue or toes like any noblecat should. Instead, he fixed a merkin-punch to a yardstick, as his girth was now such that he could not reach any of the worst tickles.

  Crabby a feline as he could often be, Miss Mousha’s heart went out to her master as she redoubled her efforts to ensure the merkin in her work-hardened paws was the finest ever made by cat or rat — and even as she felt a strange itching begin under her own fur, as well. She went to an apothecary and purchased a tincture for it, but she did not tell her master she had done so. He had grown strangely paranoid and suspicious and seemed to suspect everyone of plotting against him, herself included.

  Despite her resolve, Miss Mousha’s complaints began to hinder her pace and, so, it was only the night before the Easter Ball that the merkin was, at last, finished. The rat’s poor paws had been rubbed completely free of fur from all the extra hours she had volunteered, but she did not care, for what a triumph the merkin was!

  She brought it for McMungus to admire and admire he did. So, imagine her shock when, at that late hour, he insisted that she craft a dozen more! Her disbelief at this impossible order was somewhat mitigated when her master clarified that these twelve additional merkins were to be simple affairs, made from nothing more exotic than kidskin and cat-hair, but still. She was weary to her very bones, so, when, at last, she laid the last orange merkin on the worktable and rose to her shaky feet, she began to weep from exhaustion.

  McMungus, startled into kindness, put an almost fatherly paw on her shoulder — but then withdrew it quickly, grimacing in disgust when he saw the strap of her apron had worn her fur clean away to her blue skin. He was doubly revolted when he saw, too, that the belly beneath that apron was twice as round as it had been a fortnight ago! How shameful — of course she was tired if she’d been out getting herself pregnant when she should have been sleeping! The thought of all the pinkies wriggling in her guts turned his own; still, her merkin-work was magnificent and McMungus felt he owed her a compliment.

  “Excellent job,” he said. “Take a holiday tomorrow — but be here the day after! You shall return to quite the increased workload, I should think! When those prissy pusses see this piece, they’ll be breaking down my door!”

  “Yes, sir,” said Miss Mousha, her eyes brimming with tears as she looked down at her ruined paws.

  “Oh — and you won’t tell anyone about those last pieces you made — will you, Mousha?” growled McMungus.

  “Of course not, sir!” she squeaked. “I’d never tell a soul!”

  “Supurrrrb,” he purred. “Because if you did, Mousha —”

  “No one will know. I promise,” interrupted Miss Mousha, too tired for manners. “I’ve been so mum about it I don’t think even the attic-bats suspect what we’ve been up to!”

  Alas! We know she never meant to cause mischief, but, nevertheless, alas!

  “Indeed,” said McMungus. We should have known from how pale his patches went that something was amiss! “Indeed, Mousha. Well, good night.”

  “Good night, sir,” she said and departed.

  “Yes, a very good night,” McMungus said under his breath and then, too loudly we know now, he added, “I shall have to ask my upstairs tenants if they know of another potential apprentice. Mousha’s so fat she’ll spill her pups any moment and I’ll really be in trouble if I don’t have a replacement at the ready. I do hope some of them are in …. ”

  We heard him rummaging around, but who would be wary of a tradesman picking up his flensing tools? We heard him on the stair, but we were expecting him after what he’d said to his quiet shop and had already put the kettle on. We saw his ruff-wreathed head poke through the trap, eyes aglow and then Tabby McMungus squeezed through the trap-door and into our attic.

  “Let me just close that window to the street,” said McMungus, as he waddled across the garret. “I know your kind like the dark, so let’s not have that pesky moon shining in on us …. ”

  And we could hear him all too well as he muttered, “Never worked in bat before. Something for the summer line, mayhap …. ”

  Now, those of us not being murdered by a bad tabby over the perceived crime of possessing keen ears heard much that night. All the Cat Court was abuzz with rumour and speculation. Between bites of canapés and sips of champagne, every puss was speaking of the same thing: Would Mr. McMungus win the wager, or would Seignior Chiazza, the Italian master? Bets were placed on the bet, as nobles are wont to do, but the odds were all in Seignior Chiazza’s favour. Captain Edwin alone entertained even the slightest hope of a victory for McMungus, but who in all the Isles of Manx would back a weasel’s favourite?

  It was Seignior Chiazza who entered the king’s hall first that night, revealing his merkin to the sound of ringing trumpets. Even Captain Edwin went quiet at the sight, for a finer piece of wiggery had never before been seen at the Cat Court. Even those skeptical of Continental fashion could not dispute the glory of the Seignior’s merkin, a Rococo piece of such delicate beauty that more than one molly swooned at the sight of it and more than one tom wept to know his own loins would never be valanced as finely as this upstart Italian’s. We saw King Chester himself bow upon seeing it — and heard him make a tasteful enquiry after its asking price.

  The wager — nay, that Tabby McMungus was even expected to attend, fell from the minds of the Court as all jostled closer to get a better look at the feather-and-shell mortis, the butterfly-antenna threading, the precision of the needlework. The already-enraptured audience issued a collective sigh as the lanky, spot-hided Seignior, after winking at his patron Lord Delon, triggered the music-box component of his masterpiece, filling the silent hall with a haunting aria.

  The entire Cat Court was entranced — awestruck — bewitched! The wager seemed so decided in the Seignior’s favour that the clowder jumped as one when — just as the merkin’s tune completed itself — three sharp raps came from the entrance to the hall. All eyes turned to the open double doors; King Chester deigned to glance up, half-annoyed at the intrusion, half-curious so see who would have the cheek to bang his swagger stick on the floor like a solicitor calling on a country squire.

  There, silhouetted in the wide doorway, was none other than Tabby McMungus himself!

  He waddled into the hall as if he owned the palace and, to the Cat Court’s credit, the first thing we heard them commenting upon was neither how handsome was his fur (it shone from what must have been hours of grooming) nor the unexpected girth McMungus had acquired during the last month (though it was startling), but, rather, the magnificence of the merkin he had crafted. It was a thing of rare beauty and, though subtler than Seignior Chiazza’s, no less marvelous for it. The gentlecats immediately began to argue in whispers: Was it pa
le-blue, or pale-green, or the pale purple-pink of wampum from the Colonies? Did it shimmer or glow? Was it woven or knotted?

  Hearing the hubbub, Seignior Chiazza looked around at the captivated Court and, dismayed, realised he had all but lost — and lost to whom? Mr. McMungus of Grimalkin’s Merkins? It was not to be borne! Why — just look at him! Fat, gross, low and staggering under the weight of his own bloated stomach!

  The Seignior desperately glanced back at King Chester, whose covetous eyes were transfixed upon McMungus’ magnificence. With the sovereign so obviously enchanted, all seemed lost, but then Seignior Chiazza noticed the molly by the King’s side: Lady Widdershins, the Duchess of Portsmouth. She alone seemed unimpressed by McMungus’s merkin — nay, she seemed … dismayed! Revolted, even!

  Seignior Chiazza saw the way to win back the crowd’s favour and, yes, the bet itself. Everyone knew Lady Widdershins had King Chester tied around her dewclaw; perhaps, if he won her over, she could influence the mangy monarch? He knew that sort of behaviour was dishonourable, but he couldn’t lose! Lord Delon’s continued — and necessary — patronage rested on Chiazza’s winning and he had poured a not-insubstantial portion of his own savings into the construction of his contest entry!

  The Seignior made his decision. Striding up to McMungus and sniffing in disdain, he said loudly:

  “I see nothing remarkable in this merkin — or, for that matter, its maker! Why, it is so commonplace that to present it here is nothing less than an insult to this court!”

  “Indeed, sir?” McMungus slurred. His lips were as swollen as the rest of him. “Are you calling me out?”

  “Calling you out?” Seignior Chiazza tittered behind his paw. “To call you out, I would need to know what you are called! It has escaped me — was it … Tabby McMungus? Because, if so, I think you ought to change it to Tubby McMungus!” And then he poked McMungus in his pendulous gut.

  “Oouf,” said McMungus, feeling a bit funny in his tummy.