Susie and the Snow-it-alls

by Gregory Dark

  Susie yanked. The heavy hawser heaved closer to the bank. Susie shuffled herself backwards. The chain responded. Soon they were indeed returned to safety and solidity.

  “Forward,” announced 31.

  “The Snow-it-alls,” announced 32, “are waiting.”

  “May their …” 31 started to announce but was silenced by a glower from Susie. She’d had enough.

  “You can just wait,” she said, “until these two are warm and dry.”

  “There are towels in Snow-it Hall,” said an abashed 31.

  “And heating,” said an abashed 32.

  “M-m-m-m-m-m-m-mayb-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-be,” shivered Miss Chief, “w-w-w-w-w-w-w-we …”

  “Or, of course,” said O’Nestly, “you could stammer yourself to death.” Miss Chief pointed at Susie’s pocket. “You’ll be wanting, am I right, to travel in Susie’s pocket?”

  Miss Chief nodded that that was right. Even her nod was stammering from shivering. “You too, Mimimi?” Mimimi, also shivering, also stammered out a nod. “Out you hop, then, Mr E.”

  “Plenty of room, don’t you know, for three,” Mr E suggested.

  “You ever tried snuggling up to an icicle?” asked O’Nestly. “Not, Mr E, to be recommended. Out you hop now.”

  Mr E took the point and with arthritic alacrity hoppled from the pocket. Their teeth chattering like gossipy castanets, saviour and saved took his place. Susie rubbed the outside of her pocket to try and get its two inhabitants again into some semblance of warmth and dryness.

  “Really,” said Bluemerang, “you should let me have blueming done that. You never know, you know, when you’re not going to meet some unex-blueming-pected danger, the odd croco-blueming-dile or something.”

  “That would be the famous iced crocodile, would it?” asked O’Nestly.

  “You’d be laughing, my friend, the other side of your blueming face if you ever did blueming come across one,” Bluemerang ‘suggested’.

  “The Snow-it-alls …” stomped 31.

  “Are waiting,” O’Nestly mimicked the tone. “I think we get the message.”

  “May their names,” said Bluemerang, “be blueming reverenced.”

  The I-knew-it looked between its faces. Neither could decide what was the appropriate reaction and opted therefore for none. The group shuffled off. Almost to the flamenco beat of clacking teeth.

  G-g-g-g-g-go in the s-s-s-s-snow.

  T-t-t-trudge in the s-s-s-sludge.

  S-s-so s-s-s-low in the s-s-s-snow.

  Chapter 15

  The ongoing trudge (in the sludge) to Snow-it Hall was uneventful. Other than that it was accompanied, Susie kept feeling, by something or someone else. She kept spinning her head round to see. And she caught sight of very fleeting things: the end of a carrot, for instance, the bottom of an aubergine. Scarcely significant or menacing. Incongruous, though, to the snow-covered surroundings.

  So much so that she felt she had to keep it to herself. She didn’t want to be accused of paranoia, nor to be considered someone who went around imagining things.

  Snow-it Hall tried to be impressive. But, however many ‘Beware of the Dog’ signs you stick to the gate, however robust the leather of the collar you put about its neck, however many lessons you may give the dog in fierceness and snarling and behaving Dobermanly, a Chihuahua remains a Chihuahua. Its attempt to be ferocious may well be more impressive than the ferocity itself. Thus with Snow-it Hall.

  It was a large, windowless box, stuck in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Its periphery was the periphery. There was nothing ornamental surrounding it – no frozen flower beds or trees. The walls were the concrete colour of their construction. They were less walls than slabs. From its roof projected an entire panoply of antennae and satellite dishes and weird examples of cabled sculpture, the significance or purpose of which Susie could not even guess at.

  As, to begin with, she could only guess at how you got into the building – or out. It took some concentration to discover in the slab a rectangular delineation of about door-size.

  This discovery was quickly followed by the delineated ‘door’ pushing itself out from the building and sliding to the left.

  A creature came out. It was just as peculiar as the I-knew-it, but in an entirely different way: an oval blob covered in what appeared to be a fudge-coloured anorak. The anorak covered the whole body, bar a letter-box slot for eyes covered permanently with tinted goggles, and feet which weren’t feet at all in the traditional sense, but enormously long lengths of what looked like skis. The creature took one step outside, executed a remarkably complicated manoeuvre to turn itself round, and returned into the hole left by the opened jar, which slid closed behind it and invisibled itself again with the encompassing slab.

  “What,” asked Susie, “was that?”

  “That?” asked 31 and 32 together.

  “That whatever-it-was that scuttled out of the door and back in again?”

  31 and 32 looked at each other. They couldn’t think what Susie was referring to. “You mean the Emo?” asked 32, in much the same way as an earthling, asked to identify it, would say, “You mean the dandelion?”

  “Emo?” asked Susie.

  “Emo. Yes, Emo,” 31 duh-hed at her.

  “And what exactly,” temeritied Susie, “is an Emo?”

  Again 31 and 32 looked at each other. They had no idea they existed, creatures quite as dense as this earthling appeared to be.

  “Emos,” said 32, “are the menials. They do the undemanding work on Grammarcloud. So undemanding, in fact, it can scarcely be called work.”

  “They do all the work, you mean, so that the Snow-it-alls can get all the benefit?” Susie suggested.

  “To the contrary,” said 32. “The Snow-it-alls do all the work so that the Emos can benefit. We live in an emocracy here. It is the cornerstone of our success. All of us working for the common wealth.”

  “The Snow-it-alls,” insisted 32, “do all the hard work. All the decision-making, the difficult work like that. Their two watchwords: ‘care’ and ‘compassion’. It’s only the easy work delegated to the Emos. Who, of course, rejoice in the doing of it. Such being for the benefit of the IAO generally.”

  “The what?” Susie asked.

  “IAO,” 32 repeated. “Iffies-Andes-Orbutties.”

  “Oh right,” said Susie. “That’s the region of Grammarcloud where we landed,” she reminded herself.

  At which point they found themselves confronted by the grey slab. The I-knew-it pushed a button by the door’s side, so inconspicuous as also almost to be invisible.

  The door ‘phhhted’ open. It withdrew from the slab, and pushed itself to the left, granting ingress to what looked like a circular lift cabin of stainless steel. This cabin, presumably in order to accommodate the Emos’ enormous feet, was substantial – that rather of a bridge on a luxury liner than of a tug-boat. The party therefore fitted comfortably within it.

  The I-knew-it pushed a button. And the outer door ‘phhhted’ closed.

  There was a moment of blackness and a judder. Then the semi-circle on the opposite side to the external door ‘phhhted’ itself open.

  It gave onto a vast corridor.

  Standing at its entrance, though, was a large what Susie would have described as a penguin. It was carrying towels. And it was wearing on its beak a broad smile which ran symmetrically from one end to the other.

  It was the most menacing grin Susie had ever seen.

  Chapter 16

  “The name, modom,” said the almost man-sized penguin, “is Bleenice.” He smiled again. Again the smile sent shivers xylophoning up and down Susie’s spine. “Terry Bleenice. I am the Snow-it Hall orbuttieler. I understand, modom, you have about your person two representatives of the chattering classes. I have towels.”

  “Just hold me, Susie, don’t you know,” said Mr E. “You can return me to the pocket once the other two have gone.”

  “Thank you,” Susie said to Terry, mostly on behalf
of Miss Chief and Mimimi whose ability to articulate was still only to articuchatter. They wrapped the towels around themselves and huddled into their nestling warmth.

  “You’re most welcome, modom,” Terry told Susie. “As, modom, it is most welcome. The change I refer to: being ‘thank you’ed, perhaps even ‘please’d. Yes, indeed, a change most welcome.”

  Along the vast corridors, skedaddled more of the funny creatures Susie now knew were Emos. Their feet, though, were longer than the width of the corridor. If they needed to turn around, they had (as Susie had already witnessed) to exit the building, turn around in the open air and re-enter it. The ‘phhhting’ door, as the I-knew-it told Susie, was designed to keep the germs out. The windowlessness of the building was to ensure that the Emos, lazy both by nature and by nurture, were not tempted to slacken by looking out at distracting things like views.

  The air was rather old, however. Its rankness was approaching Field Marshalship. In Susie’s opinion, Bo had smelled better on his return from country walks and rolls in matter unspeakable. It also felt old, the air. It weighed on their shoulders like that before a thunderstorm. Except that the promise it held was not of something refreshing like rain, but of something altogether more louring. A twister, perhaps. But not of wind, of cruelty.

  The corridor along which they now walked was also bereft of paint or paintings. At regular intervals slabs of the same cement jutted out in a rectangle, but these, clearly, served more of a functional than an aesthetic role. By each of these sticky-out bits stood other penguins, slightly smaller than the orbuttieler, but all of them adorned with the same broad symmetrical, almost artificial, grin. A grin Susie continued to find – for no reason that she could fathom – extremely menacing. To Susie it appeared that all these penguins were lying in very badly disguised wait, ready to pounce.

  “And the penguins?” she asked twentytatively of the I-knew-it.

  “Penguins?” replied 31.

  “If the Emos do all the work …”

  “All the drudge,” 31 corrected her. “All the work, all the hard work is done by the Snow-it-alls.”

  “What do the penguins do?” asked Susie.

  “Penguins?” 31 asked, not understanding. “Penguins?” she asked again.

  “Those,” said Susie, trying to point circumspectly.

  “Oh,” 31 replied, “pengrins.”

  “Pengrins?” It was now Susie’s turn not to understand.

  “They’re our guards,” 31 replied. “Not that we really need guards. There’s nothing to guard against. Since the Snow-it-alls took over …”

  “May their names be reverenced,” 32 added hastily.

  “ … the IAO has become a veritable Heaven in the heavens. It is that part of Grammarcloud which is Cloud Nine. Its citizens are happy, its burghers, its doyens, its seniors and its juniors, all are blissfully happy. There is now such plenty in the IAO that there’s even plenty of plenty. What a difference to the way it was before the Snow-it-alls – may their name (yes, sir) be reverenced.”

  All of which while Emos had continued their scuttling along the corridor, and the pengrins had grinned their threatening grin.

  Miss Chief and Mimimi were warming up. The clatter had ceased being a flamenco dance on hot coals and had become the strum of lazy crickets. Bluemerang and O’Nestly looked around them somewhat wide-eyed. And Nespa had smelled the banquet. Nespa’s tongue was already lolling in anticipation and her tail was wagging enthusiastically.

  Mr E was very quiet. If Susie had been a little bit more tuned in to him she would have found it ominous that Mr E was so quiet.

  It was always an ominous sign when Mr E became so quiet.

  Terry, the orbuttieler, who had led the way, finally came to a pair of double-doors. He thrust them open. “Susie and the Sufrogs,” he announced.

  Chapter 17

  The room was baronial – if, that is, the baron in question were a cheapskate and indifferent to comfort. It was big. The ceiling was high. The floor, though, was of cement. The walls and ceiling likewise. It was a cube. If it had been a die it could have rolled into any position and, architecturally, it would have remained the same. Bar the double-doors, of which there were four. Set not quite in all four corners. And it was cold – both cold cold and creepy cold.

  There were no Emos within, but pengrins there were apparently-plenty.

  In the middle of the room, ready to greet their guests, were two gowned figures. Like the I-knew-it, they were doubleheaded. But they were much larger than the I-knew-it, and of countenances far more daunting. Susie had often been accused of not being the sharpest knife in the box, but even she was able correctly to surmise that these two figures were Snow-it-alls – may, as 31 and 32 were very quick to unison, their names be reverenced.

  The first body held the heads, as the I-knew-it introduced them, of Master Thirstoy and Mistress Smega. The second of Momma Shingle and Dr Poppa Pellet.

  This last immediately attended to Miss Chief and Mimimi. He looked at them right way up. Then he looked at them upside down. He then gave them a brace of lozenges apiece, to ward off infection from their time in the frozen water. “Don’t take them on an empty stomach,” he urged them. “There could be unwelcome side-effects.”

  The I-knew-it withdrew.

  “Please,” sniffed Thirstoy, “help yourself.” He extended an arm indicating a long trellis table at one end of the room.

  “To what exactly?” asked Susie.

  Shingle cracked her knuckles – and those of Poppa Pellet, of course. “Food,” she duh-hed, “and drink.”

  “Except that there would appear to be none,” suggested O’Nestly.

  “You shouldn’t take pills on an empty stomach,” Poppa reminded Miss Chief and Mimimi. “Side effects.”

  “We eat the table, is that the idea?” asked Miss Chief.

  Smega clapped her hands – and Thirstoy’s, of course.

  Emos arrived bearing trays, some steaming, others not. Nespa recognised the fare immediately. “Snowwiches!” she announced with delight in her heart and spring in her tail.

  Susie had by now wondered over to the tray of steaming food. She was not aware of it, but a third Snow-it-all had by now entered the room. This stood by one of the doors, watching, its face buried so deep within a cowl that it could not be seen.

  Without moving a visible muscle the Emo holding the steaming tray told her, “We must talk.” Susie glanced quizzically at the creature. On its forehead had been embossed what Susie supposed was its name: ‘Dremo’. All Emos were engraved with their names on their foreheads. This, Susie later discovered, was to save the Snow-it-alls the tedium of remembering them.

  “It’s not all banquets and snowballs,” Dremo again whispered to her, again without apparently moving a muscle. “Don’t talk now,” Dremo whispered to her urgently. “Later, later. We must talk later.”

  Susie dipped her finger into an olive-green sludge. And tasted her finger. “Yuck,” she said. “Tastes of peas.”

  “Of course it does,” Dremo said, as he scuttled from the room. “It’s pearidge.”

  The third Snow-it-all immediately clapped its hands, and all the Emos disappeared. So did the food and drink.

  “Oh trés well done, Susie,” sarcasticked Nespa at Susie. “Magnifique.”

  “It tasted of peas,” Susie replied with a shrug of an apology which wasn’t certain whether or not it should be there.

  Pursuing the table out of the door was an effusion of Gallic complaint. This had no sooner bounced off the walls, however, than a gaggle of odd-shaped birds arrived and sat themselves down on a raised triangle in the corner.

  “Who are they?” Susie asked Terry.

  “The storkestra, modom,” came the reply.

  “Of course the storkestra,” said O’Nestly. “What else would you be expecting?”

  “Ze food, he – pouf! – vanish,” increduloused Nespa. “We sit, we salivate, ze table, she is – pouf! – disappeared.”

  �
�You do know, do you,” O’Nestly asked Miss Chief, “your face is turning a serious shade of purple? Yours and Mimimi’s?”

  “At what hour is it precisely zat we eat?” Nespa asked Terry.

  “Dinner has already been served,” he told her.

  “I sat, I salivated and – pouf! – ze table, she was table-jacked,” Nespa lamented.

  “In Snow-it Hall,” Terry disdained to the dog, “dinner is eaten at the time the Snow-it-alls designate dinner should be eaten. What does not get consumed in that time is withdrawn.”

  Further debate was foreshortened by a roll on the drums …

  “We didn’t get a drum-roll,” Miss Chief pointed out. “We’re only saying,” she replied to the glower directed at her by O’Nestly.

  A cold draught arrowed through the room. All eyes swivelled to the double-doors. Susie’s eyes, those of the Sufrogs, could not but follow the same direction.

  The doors opened. There was a pause. The I-knew-it returned, walking backwards, its two heads bowed, its right hand across its breast.

  From the door, Terry, the orbuttieler, announced: “The grand Vis-all-seer, the Snow-it-allest, Ma’am Elaide.”

  With which she swept into the room.

  Ma’am Elaide was a good foot taller than the other Snow-it-alls. She was equally as broad. What chiefly distinguished her, however, is that she only had one head. Whose hair appeared to be chiselled greyly into a pyramid which thrust out from her nape.

  “It is customary to curtsey, child,” Ma’am Elaide told Susie, with a smile designed to be regal. “You are, however, new to the IAO, new to its ways. Please to ensure it does not happen again.” There was a gentle brogue bagpiping a lament on the shores of her voice.

  Susie’s indignation wanted to tiger forth, but her pragmatic side realised that if she let it out of its cage neither it nor she would have any place to go. “Right,” she said with bitten tongue.