“And when I am king once more, we will have a parade. With banners and streamers and flowers.” He delivered the words in a high-pitched shout. “And I’ll declare the day a national holiday. It will be known as Winkie Wednesday, and it will be held on the first Wednesday of the month. What do you think?”
“Yes, excellent,” said Elspeth in such a way that the sarcasm could be detected only by the expertly trained ear. “I think celebrating Winkie Wednesday on a Wednesday is probably the right call.” She began crawling toward the cave entrance (or in this case, the exit). “Good luck with it.”
“Oh, luck will have nothing to do with it,” said William. “It will all be due to your skill and bravery.”
Elspeth stopped, then sighed and spoke without bothering to turn her head. “Hey listen, Winkie . . .”
“King William, please,” Winkie interrupted. He rushed around to once more place himself in Elspeth’s line of sight.
“Whatever,” she replied. “Either way, you have me confused with someone else. I’m a sixth grader, not a brigadier general, okay? And I have about as much intention of restoring you to the throne as I do of volunteering at a soup kitchen.”
King William remained silent, still unsure and waiting for further clarification.
“Which would be none! As in no intention whatsoever!” Elspeth shouted while fighting off the urge to give the tiny man a good shake or a sound flick with her index finger. “Zero, nada, no chance at all. Got it? Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m on my way to the castle.”
“Great,” beamed King William the Umpteenth. “Getting started right away. I like it.” He rubbed his hands together as if warming them over a roaring bonfire of revenge. “That Krool won’t know what hit him. I can’t wait to see the look on his smug face when he’s hauled off to the dungeon for the unspeakable crimes he’s committed. Then perhaps I will finally find a queen with whom to share the glory.”
Elspeth stared at the former king. He was either a very poor listener or a door-to-door hearing-aid salesman’s dream come true.
“For the last time,” she said, “I’m going to the castle to see Jack and Jill, apparently the only two people who know how to get out of this ghastly place. And as soon as they tell me where the well is, I’ll be back home before you can say hickory dickory dock. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
Elspeth resumed crawling toward the exit when William scampered in front of the girl, again blocking her way (as well as a way can be blocked by someone the size of a bowling pin). “But you can’t just leave,” he said in a voice that sounded demanding and plaintive in equal measure. “You absolutely must restore me to my throne. It is written in the Book. I’d show you, but there are only two copies in existence.”
“Listen,” said Elspeth. “A lot of things are written. Doesn’t make them true. I once wrote that I wanted to be president of the chess club because I enjoy working with others.”
King William once again looked unsure.
“I don’t,” said Elspeth. “At all. In fact, not only do I not enjoy working with others, I’m not that fond of others in general. Or of working, for that matter. And this is beginning to feel a lot like work.” With the back of her hand, she nudged King William aside and then crawled out of the cave.
Lying on her belly, she shimmied backward until her legs fell over the side of the ledge.
“But if not you, then who?” William whimpered. “Who will rid the people of that evil despot?”
“Why don’t you recruit some of your loyal subjects?” Elspeth grunted as she lowered herself from the ledge and dug her feet into the side of the cliff.
“Are you kidding?” said William. “Why do you think Krool banished them to begin with? Because they’re all a bunch of sniveling, yellow-bellied cowards.”
“On that much we agree,” said Elspeth.
“Except for Dumpty, I suppose,” said Winkie. “Shame about the vertigo.”
“Yeah, real tragic,” said Elspeth. She released her grip on the rock ledge and began a controlled slide down the sheer, powdery surface.
“But please,” William shouted after her. “I did save your life, if you recall.”
“Yes,” said Elspeth. “I’ll be sure to send you a thank-you card the minute I get home.” She skidded down the remaining several feet and then walked toward the switchback trail.
A quick visual assessment showed that it had suffered some damage at the hands of the passing storm. Large chunks of the trail had been blasted away, while other sections were blocked by piles of simmering rocks. All of this would increase the degree of difficulty and add time to an already arduous climb. There was no use in complaining, but Elspeth didn’t let that stop her. She muttered and cursed as she trudged up the trail. Meanwhile, Winkie continued to call out after her, his words coming through only in snippets.
“But it is written . . . saved your life . . . big parade . . . Winkie Wednesday.”
When she came to those piles of rocks blocking the path, she managed to get beyond them by clinging to small outcroppings on the cliff side and shuffling over, being careful not to take so long as to be steamed alive by the heat rising off the newly formed stones. When she encountered those places where the path had been obliterated, she jumped across the expanse, giving little consideration to the fact that one misstep would send her sliding and tumbling back to the flatlands below. It wasn’t that Elspeth was necessarily brave so much as she had become completely fed up. Her tenacity was fueled far more by outrage than by courage.
This is the way it had been for almost as long as she could remember. On her first day of school a small group of children, led by the always-catty Sofia Jean Fleener, began needling her about her pudgy arms and her overly round face. When she replied with a lispy “Thticks and thtones may break my bonth,” Sofia Jean pounced upon that as well, and Elspeth did what many children might do in that situation. She cried.
The next day, the teasing began anew, but this time Elspeth did not cry. Instead, she made a split-second decision to punch Sofia Jean firmly in the solar plexus, while the other children looked on in horror. This time Sofia Jean was the one doing all the crying, and Elspeth decided right then and there that she much preferred this result to the previous day’s outcome.
From that moment on she vowed that anyone who dared make fun of her would be very sorry to have done so. Or, in her own words, “If you thay that again, you’ll be thorry.” And though her ominous threats and fierce reprisals garnered her no friends, they did earn her a reputation as one not to be messed with. And no one did mess with her. Or play with her. Or talk to her. She became a loner, losing herself in books and wild imaginings, though none quite so fantastic as the reality in which she now resided. And, as she would soon discover, things were about to get a great deal stranger yet.
When hard work and anger had finally spurred her to the top of the cliff, she found herself once more out of the desert, standing on a grassy plain beneath the shade of a large tree. Looking out across the plain, her heart sank at the sight of the castle, a tiny dot on the horizon, still perhaps two miles off. On the verge of tears for the second time in one day, she managed to fight them off.
“No,” she said, with a long sniff. “This is nothing to cry about. You’re tired, that’s all. You just need to lay down for a moment, and you’ll be as good as new.”
“That’s lie down,” came a familiar voice from above.
Elspeth looked up to see Fergus perched upon a low-hanging branch of the tree and looking perfectly smug. “Lay is a transitive verb,” he added for clarification. “You can lay an egg, but you can’t lay down.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Elspeth. “I can’t lay an egg. Not all of us are birds, you know. And I can lay down. Just watch me.”
Fergus gave his wings a quick couple of flaps and glided down to a large rock next to Elspeth, who by then was neither laying nor lying but sitting in the tall grass. “I was speaking figuratively,” Fergus said.
“The question is, why are you speaking to me at all?”
There may have been anger in Elspeth’s voice, but secretly she was happy to see a familiar face, even one belonging to someone as annoying as Fergus. “Did you follow me all the way here just so you could correct my grammar?”
“No. I followed you here to make sure you made it back to the forest alive.”
“For someone so concerned with what other people say, you sure don’t listen very well, do you?” answered Elspeth. “In case I haven’t made myself clear, I have no intention of going back to the forest. Once I find the way out of here, you and your whiny little friends will never hear from me again.”
“There’s so much you don’t know,” said Fergus, gazing off in the direction of the castle. “He’s a monster. Believe me. You have no idea what he’s capable of.”
“Aha,” said Elspeth, jabbing a stubby index finger in the direction of the confused owl. The interjection caught Fergus completely off guard. “You just ended a sentence with a preposition,” Elspeth explained. Reenergized, she jumped back to her feet and performed a victory dance as if she had just scored a go-ahead touchdown in the Super Bowl. Fergus seemed flustered and at a complete loss for words, able only to sputter out a few syllables that sounded like the beginnings of words.
“You don’t like it very much, do you?” Elspeth gloated. “Having someone pounce on you the moment you make a mistake.”
“No,” said Fergus, finally able to utter an actual word. “I suppose I don’t. But please understand, I get no enjoyment out of correcting people, I really don’t. It’s just that I can’t help myself. It used to drive Vera batty.”
“Vera? Who’s Vera?” asked Elspeth.
The owl’s round, yellowy eyes narrowed. “She was my wife,” he said. “You would probably know her better as the Pussycat.”
“The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea,” said Elspeth. “Of course. I didn’t realize you two were married.”
“For many years,” Fergus confirmed.
“Seems like an odd match,” said Elspeth. “Don’t cats usually eat birds?”
“I suppose they do,” admitted Fergus. “But not my Vera. She wasn’t like that. She was the kindest, gentlest soul one could ever hope to meet. You would have liked her. Everyone did.”
“I don’t know,” said Elspeth. “We have a cat. Mr. Comfy. I’m not terribly fond of him. He throws up in my shoes. Does your wife ever throw up in your shoes?”
“Not much use for shoes,” said Fergus, looking down at his talons. “Besides, I’m a widower. My wife is no longer with us, as they say.”
“Oh,” said Elspeth. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“No, you’re not,” said Fergus. “The fact is you couldn’t care less.”
“That’s not true,” said Elspeth.
“It’s quite all right,” said Fergus. “I don’t judge you for it. Because that cold, cold heart of yours is the very thing that’s going to help me avenge the death of my beautiful Vera.”
The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea,
In a beautiful pea-green boat.
They took some honey and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
Then Krool sailed by on his luxury yacht,
Escorted by two submarines.
Wearing only a Speedo, he cried, “Fire the torpedoes,”
All because he detested pea green.
Chapter 10
Fergus was wrong, or at least partly so, for even Elspeth could not help but feel sorry for the owl upon hearing the full story of his wife’s untimely demise. After all, in addition to having lost his beloved Vera, Fergus bore the extra burden of not having been able to save her, as well as the added guilt of being the sole survivor of the attack on the pea-green boat.
“The sad fact is,” he said, “that owls can fly for much longer than cats can float. Believe me, I tried my best. I took her by the nape of the neck with my talons, and with all my strength I struggled to lift her from the water. But there’s a reason that cats eat birds, as you pointed out, and not the other way around. With her fur soaking wet, she was just too heavy. In time, she slipped from my grasp and vanished beneath the waves, never to be seen again. Eventually, I was rescued by three men in a tub who happened to be passing by.”
“Probably should’ve been wearing life jackets,” said Elspeth. “You have heard of the Titanic, haven’t you?”
Fergus, who had not heard of the Titanic, chose to ignore the callous remark. He looked off toward the castle again with those round yellow eyes.
“You see that?” said Fergus, gesturing with his wing. “The part with all the scaffolding?” Elspeth’s eyesight was excellent but no match for an owl’s, and she squinted off into the distance without success.
“Word is he’s putting in a new bowling alley,” Fergus continued. “If you can believe such a thing.”
“I sure can,” said Elspeth. “I love bowling. Knocking those pins for a loop like they were ten Sofia Jean Fleeners all lined up in neat little rows. Bam! Take that!”
“It’s not a matter of whether one enjoys bowling,” Fergus snipped. “The point is that he’s building it while there are people going hungry. I’m confident that once you meet the scoundrel you’ll feel just as strongly as the rest of us do about him. Speaking of which, you’d better get going if you want to be back by nightfall.”
“You mean you’re not coming with me?” asked Elspeth, her nonchalant attitude an attempt to hide her disappointment.
“Don’t worry,” said Fergus. “I’ll be watching.”
“Whatever,” said Elspeth. “I’m glad you’re not coming along. You’re just an old stick in the mud, anyway.”
“I am not a stick in the mud,” Fergus protested.
“You’re right. At least with a stick in the mud, you can flick mud at people. You’re no fun at all.”
“I am very fun,” said Fergus in a tone that, to Elspeth, didn’t sound the least bit fun. “Ask any of my friends. And I have plenty of them, which is something I doubt you could say for yourself.”
Before Elspeth could respond, Fergus took to the air, first flapping in the direction of the castle before banking sharply to the left and disappearing within a grove of trees.
And so Elspeth did the only thing she could. She began walking. Trudging would be a more accurate description, her heavy feet scraping along the ground. For the next half hour she encountered not a single soul, and she eventually felt as though perhaps she’d been too hasty in having thrown Gene, the indignant stick, into the brush.
As it often did when she had no one to talk to, her mind started to wander. She began to find amusement in the look of her shadow, which by now was that of a lanky giant with thick feet and a long, tapered head. She stretched her arms out ahead of her, locked her kneecaps, and began walking like Frankenstein’s monster. She even added the accompanying guttural groans for her own amusement. She continued this until she was overcome by the feeling of being watched.
Elspeth stopped in her tracks, lowered her arms, and raised her head to see several sets of eyes gazing back at her. Eight of the eyes belonged to four exhausted-looking horses, while four more pairs occupied the heads of the pudgy men sitting upon the backs of those horses.
The men were all dressed identically, with poufy red hats and dark-blue tunics over bright-white shirts. Each of their faces bore some type of decorative facial hair: a Van Dyke beard on one, a goatee on another, one man with a waxy handlebar mustache, and the fourth with a full beard and thick, shrubby sideburns. In their hands were long spears, the business ends pointing skyward while the butts rested in leather holsters attached to their horses’ saddles.
“Elspeth Pule?” asked the largest of the men, the one with the Van Dyke. By the way the others deferred to him, he seemed to be the highest-ranking member of the group.
“You too?” said Elspeth. “How do you know my name?”
“We have been dispatched
to escort you to an audience with His Majesty, King Krool, Ruler of All the Land, Lord of the Seas and the Moon, Duke of Banbury Cross, Baron of Gotham, Royal Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of Silver Bells and Cockle Shells, Earl of St. Ives, Great Steward of the Pumpkin Eaters, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honorable Order of Knick-Knack Paddywhack, and Royal Grand Champion of the Order of Pickled Peppers.”
“Wow,” said Elspeth as the man drew in a much-needed breath of air. “That’s quite a mouthful. How do you remember all that?”
“Practice, ma’am,” the man answered. “Now, if you please, his lordship is very anxious to meet you.”
Anxious to meet her? By now Elspeth’s irritation was turning to intrigue. Though she had no idea where she was or how she got there, King Krool, a man reportedly capable of unlimited evil, was anxious to meet her. What did that mean, anxious? Anxious as in excited? Anxious the way a person is before a big exam?
The man with the Van Dyke climbed down from the large black steed, an action that seemed to bring the horse much relief. “Madam,” said the man. He held the reins in one hand while gesturing toward the horse with the other.
“You want me to get on that horse?” asked Elspeth.
The horse leaned toward Elspeth and whispered, “Please. If you don’t get on me, then he will.”
“Quiet!” the man sharply addressed the horse. “No talking in rank.”
The four-legged beast snapped to attention and dutifully obeyed the order for silence. By now, Elspeth’s legs felt as heavy as bags of wet sand, and she would have been agreeable to riding a porcupine. And so, with assistance from the soldier, she climbed aboard the weary horse.
This was Elspeth’s first time on horseback, and as the man led the animal on foot toward the castle, she had to admit that she was very much enjoying the experience. Asking for an alpaca now seemed like a ridiculous request when she could have a horse instead. If only Dolly Dew Eyes (or Fashion Farrah, or whatever her name was) could see her now. Wouldn’t she be sorry that she had cast her old friend aside so abruptly?
Blue in the Face Page 6