Shakespeare for Squirrels

by Christopher Moore

  As we ran down the hall after Moth and Peaseblossom, I said, “They all can’t take the piss out of the shadow king to find their power like you did.”

  “What do you know?” she had screeched. “You know nothing. You are not a slave.”

  Now, in the forest, the dawn was nearly upon us, and Cobweb still wore the anguished mask she had put on upon closing the harem door.

  “I was a slave,” I said.

  “You were?” A light in her eye. “How did you get free?”

  “My enormous apprentice crushed my master to death.”

  “Well I don’t have an apprentice.”

  “Then we shall have to find a different way for you.”

  “How? And how do we find a way for the hundred in there?” She waved in the direction of the Night Palace.

  “You may have to learn to be selfish in this instance.”

  “Maybe you should be selfish and just fuck off to lands unknown.”

  “I can’t. I have to save Drool.”

  “No you don’t. Be selfish. How long would he live anyway? Another thirty to forty years. He’s nearly dead already. Be doing him a favor, really. You mortals are as fleeting as dew under morning sun. Why not just fuck off and leave him to his fate? Like I should have when I found you.”

  I stood, paused, feeling, perhaps, as if a new perspective had opened upon the world. I said, “Why have you been watching over me? Saving me? Feeding me? Taking care of me?”

  “I loved a man once. A mortal. And when I saw you wash up in the surf, you reminded me of him.”

  “I was limp and dead in the sea.”

  “He drowned.”

  “Sorry.”

  “So I saved you.”

  “Lovely of you.”

  “I know. It is the first time I have ever tried being lovely. And I quite like it.”

  “So you were a cranky little bitch for nine hundred years?”

  “Not all the time.”

  “Why didn’t you frolic then, on the beach, to heal my wounds?”

  “We can’t do it alone. I would have had to bring another to frolic, and you were mine.”

  I sat down in the leaves next to her.

  “What now?” said I.

  “We need to rescue your mate, don’t we?”

  “I don’t have the flower for Theseus.”

  “You said it before. Rumour can fetch it. He said he taught the Puck to circle the world in forty minutes, didn’t he?”

  “He won’t do that. He quite hates me. Showed up when I was dining with Oberon, looking for his hat of many tongues. Accused me of taking the piss out of the royals just because I thrive under the threat of death.”

  “True, innit?”

  “He won’t help. Although his appearance upon the scene did convince Oberon of my mysterious yet completely rubbish powers.”

  “He will if you trade him his hat.”

  “But Jeff—”

  “Oi, Moth, Pease, after the change, you tarts think you can find that monkey and get that hat back by sundown?”

  “Oh, that would be lovely,” said Peaseblossom, well into her fourth wank of the morning, judging by her ascending scale of yips.

  Moth came over, faced us, knock-kneed and coy. “Would you carry my new frock and my razor, Pocket?”

  “My pleasure,” said I.

  “Piece of piss, then,” said Moth. “I rather fancy that Jeff bloke, anyway.”

  “He’s a monkey!” said I.

  “Not all the time,” said Moth.

  “Yes, all the bloody time.”

  “Still,” she said, shrugging off her robe and throwing the folded razor on top of it.

  “If you get the hat, find us on the trail,” said Cobweb, counting out the events on the same two fingers. “If you can’t find us, meet us on the north trail into Athens at sundown. The wedding isn’t until midnight. Rumour will have to find us, then retrieve the flower, then Theseus will release your mate.”

  “It seems there are very high odds against all of that lining up,” said I.

  “What are odds?” asked Moth.

  “Well, it is the likelihood of all of those things happening, as measured against the likelihood of all of those things not happening, and happening by the time we need them to happen.”

  “So counting?” said Cobweb.

  “Never mind,” said I.

  “We will do this,” said Cobweb. “The north trail, outside of Athens, at dusk. Don’t watch me change.”

  “What?” I said.

  “Don’t watch me change,” she said. “And if after I’m changed, I’m still shaved, don’t look.” She stood and shrugged off her black robe. “Bring that. That cloth feels lovely. And Bottom still has my hat. Bring that. And don’t let him eat us.”

  I looked to Gritch just as he stood over his dead friend and fit the silver armlet onto his arm. “He is gone,” he said.

  “Blimey,” said Bottom. “That’s strange.”

  I turned to see a horned-eared red squirrel standing on her hind legs in a puddle of black satin, looking at me with squirrelly recrimination.

  “That’s what’s strange? After all we’ve seen and done, that you find strange?”

  “The world is a wonder, isn’t it?” said Bottom, musing philosophical. “Two days ago I was a weaver who had never been more than two miles from his house, practicing a play for a wedding, and today I am a transformed half man escaping from a goblin castle pondering shaved squirrel snatch.”

  “I’m not looking!” I said to the red squirrel, but she chittered angrily anyway.

  The brown and white squirrels that were Moth and Peaseblossom were already away into the trees. Cobweb ran up a tree and perched on a limb high above us.

  “We should be off, Bottom. Gather up those robes if you would. What of you, Gritch?”

  The goblin looked back at his friend. “I will bury Talos and then flee the sun. We will be at the duke’s wedding tonight.”

  “We?”

  “Many goblins.”

  “Find us at the head of the trail, north of the city, then, as soon after dark as you can get there.”

  The goblin nodded. “What about the three words? The fairy said you know the Puck’s three words. Puck said he would tell us.”

  “I thought they were ‘do piss off.’”

  “No,” said Bottom. “That was just the fairies having you on before letting you in the harem.”

  To Gritch, “Sorry, mate, I haven’t the slightest. But once I find out you’ll be the first to know.”

  Gritch nodded as his skin began to smoke by the dawn’s early light. He turned and ran away, scooping up his dead friend’s body as he went and throwing it over his shoulder.

  “I’ll bet the lads are wondering why I haven’t been to rehearsal,” said Bottom.

  Chapter 16

  Preview in the Forest

  We had been walking for hours, the red squirrel bounding through the trees above us all the way, chattering down at us if we dared to stop to rest or have a wee.

  “So, if the goblin didn’t kill that young Athenian, who do you think it was?” asked Bottom.

  He was munching a handful of clover as he went and I let him. As I had not had the heart to tell him I had secured no remedy for his donkey form, I could not deprive him of that small green pleasure.

  “Blacktooth and Burke were quickly on the spot, weren’t they? Perhaps they decided to do their own killing and take the reward this time. Although my blood was high with the frolic when I gave chase, and I think if it had been a mortal I would have caught him, or at least caught a glimpse of him.”

  “Could be. A silver armlet like the goblin had would fetch enough in Athens to buy a small farm. I’ve no idea the value in goblin coin.”

  “The goblins don’t give a tick’s willy what you can buy with silver,” said I. “They love it for the color, the beauty, and the feeling of it. Methinks a goblin would have the same passion over the reflection of the moon in the water.
In fact, if you could convince him that you put it there, he would be your slave, I’ll wager.”

  “And so did Oberon convince them thus,” said Bottom. Then he tossed away his bouquet of clover, raised his arms, and commenced to orate as if upon the stage. “Here are the moon and the stars, I have made them, only this Tuesday, and now I give them unto you, so that you might build me a great palace of night and pay me tribute with your sweat and your blood. All good things flow from me and it is only by my grace that you take breath, which I, the shadow king, will snatch from you on a whim.” He ended his speech with a great flourish, as if winding up his cape of night and tossing it behind him.

  I applauded his performance, as a measure more of pity than of appreciation, and Cobweb chirped from her perch in the tree above. “Good Bottom, thou hast righteously traded your bundle of clover to chew the scenery to a tattered motif. Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!”

  “Thank you,” said Bottom, bowing to me, to Cobweb, to the odd shrubbery as he went. “You are too kind. Too kind.” He laughed, a hee-haw of satisfaction with himself, and danced a little jig. “I do hope I am transformed back in time to perform Pyramus for the duke. I would not want to let the Mechanicals down over a mere misadventure with a fairy queen. Wouldn’t be brotherly, for surely, he who treads the boards with me this night shall be my brother, no matter how dimwitted he may be, and all the men abed in Athens shall hold their manhood cheap, that they were not on the stage with Bottom upon the duke’s wedding day!”

  And off he charged toward Athens, even though, for all I knew, we were miles from town. Cobweb ran down a fir tree until she was eye level with me, then tapped her paw and barked harshly at me, which I took to mean, “You had better tell him, you blistering fuckweasel!” (She had a very eloquent bark.)

  “I was getting to it,” I said to the squirrel. The bloody barking ginger squirrel did not relent. “Fine!” said I. “Fine, I shall dash the hapless weaver’s last hopes posthaste.”

  I ran after the ass-man and caught up to him just as . . .

  ENTER RUMOUR, PAINTED FULL OF TONGUES

  “Zounds!” cried Bottom, going from a full gallop to backing up the trail away from the peculiar narrator as if he wore a cloak of vipers rather than tongues. I caught the ass-man by the shoulders and steadied him.

  “And so, the ne’er-do-well English fool, devoid of principles or any sense of decency—nay, humanity—betrayed his own traveling companion by keeping secret—”

  “Rumour!” I called, with great jocularity and joy, as if I had encountered a long-lost uncle along the trail. “Just the gent I was hoping to see, for I have splendid tidings to share, which shall bring you great pleasure.”

  Rumour squinted at me as if he might gaze into my intentions if only he could see beyond the glare of my sunny disposition. His suspicion was betrayed by the waggling of the tongues on his cloak, all of which seemed to be performing a silent and disturbing ululation.

  “What are you up to, fool? I know, of course, but I’m just checking to see if you’re even capable of telling the truth.”

  “I would embrace you, but alas, you are a horrid, hollow creature and the idea rather shrivels my wedding tackle, but nevertheless, welcome to our band of jolly travelers. What delicious trifle of narrative do you bring to us today?”

  “Are you having me on?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well it doesn’t work if you just tell me you’re having me on.”

  I made as if to put my arm around his shoulders, to take him into my confidence, but then, he was covered with tongues, so I merely mimed the gesture, allowing my arm to hover a handbreadth above his shoulders. Nevertheless, his cloak tried to lick me.

  “You see, good Rumour, we have found your hat of many tongues, and you need only meet us at the head of this trail in Athens, at dusk, with a blossom from a purple love potion flower in hand, and we shall return it to you. You know of this flower, I presume, as you know everything twice more than everyone?”

  “I’m not going to do that. Oh, I will have my hat, but I will not bring you your flower.”

  “Why not? Why would you not fetch a simple flower that would save my apprentice, who is a good-hearted if profoundly thick lad—an innocent in this heinous fuckery?”

  “Because you are complete rubbish at following clues.”

  “I don’t follow,” said I.

  “Exactly. I told you the key was the lovers. Nothing. I told you about the Puck’s three words, you still know nothing. I told you the key to his passion lies with the prince. Nothing. Methinks you are a fool, fool.”

  “That is not true, I know the meaning of all of those clues, I simply have not had opportunity to reveal them.”

  “Oh,” said Rumour.

  “So help me release my mate.”

  “No, but the key to your revelation is the play. The play’s the thing, wherein you’ll catch the conscience of the king.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. ‘The play’s the thing’?”

  “Aye, there’s the rub,” he said, and with a whoosh he was off again.

  “Well that’s a soggy sack of squirrel spooge,” said I.

  “But now how will you get your friend out of the dungeon without the flower?” asked Bottom.

  “I suspect we are going to have to craft a plan for his escape. First, I will shave Cobweb’s tail and rub ashes on her, so rather than a red squirrel, she appears to be a large rat. Then—”

  At that point Cobweb ran down the tree I stood by, stopped at eye level, scratched, tapped her paw, twitched her tail violently, and let loose a rather angry fusillade of barks, screeches, and several noises I was not aware a squirrel could make.

  “I don’t think she’s keen on the bit about having her tail shaved.”

  Cobweb made several barks of affirmation and tried to bite one of the tentacles of my hat.

  “But you can sneak in by the guards as a rat, then at dusk, you will return to your most fit and comely woman form, not that you are not the loveliest of squirrels, to be sure, but then you can free Drool from his cell and perhaps provide him with a weapon.”

  At which point Cobweb leapt from her tree onto my head, relieved me of my hat, and began to remove my scalp in squirrel-bite-sized patches, until I snatched her by her tail and flung her affectionately back into the tree from whence she came.

  “Fuck’s sake, sprite!” said I.

  “You keep making her cross, she’s never going to shag you again,” said Bottom.

  “It was just an idea,” said I.

  Cobweb chittered angrily from the tree.

  “She says that plan will not do,” said Bottom. “The play’s the thing. We must hurry and find my mates.”

  “Just because you are covered with fur, it doesn’t mean you are suddenly able to translate from the squirrel,” I replied, but he had galloped away.

  * * *

  “Two households, both alike in dignity,” read Peter Quince, the gray-haired carpenter, from his scroll. “Two families, equal in stature—”

  “Oh, well done,” called Bottom as we emerged from the wood into the clearing where the Mechanicals were rehearsing. “Well done!”

  “Bottom!” cried Tom Snout, the tinker, who was still annoyingly tall and still wore the stupid bunny-eared doeskin hat. “You have returned, and in fancy dress too.”

  “What has happened to you?” said Peter Quince. “You have the voice and clothing of my friend Nick Bottom, but what is this mask?”

  “He is enchanted,” said I.

  “And you have with you the elf!” said Robin Starveling, the balding, bad-mannered wankpuffin who seemed eager to be beaten about the head with a puppet stick.

  “Not an elf,” I replied.

  “Fear not,” said Nick Bottom, his muzzle on a swivel as his friends gathered around him to examine the changes he had suffered. “This countenance is but a temporary spell, put upon me by the Puck, but soon to be lifted by Oberon, the king of the night and the goblins.”
<
br />   “Oh woe, oh woe, oh woe,” said the young lad whom I had last seen playing Thisby, and who again wore the veil and spoke in falsetto. “Our Bottom has gone quite mad. He is ruined, a lunatic who must wander the forest, living upon rocks and tadpoles, oh woe, oh goodbye, sweet sanity! Farewell, sensibility! Adieu! Adieu! Adieu!” And he collapsed to the forest floor in a heap.

  “The bitch is dead,” pronounced Tom Snout gruffly.

  The Mechanicals all turned to the fallen Francis Flute and clapped politely.

  “Oh, brava,” said Peter Quince. “I think you can see, Master Pocket, how Francis has taken your method to heart. He has played the brokenhearted maid since last we met. Was thrown out by his father and declared a simpering pooft by his sweetheart, yet the lad has not broken character. Although we have changed the name of Thisby to Juliet, and the wall is now a balcony, and oh, yes, the lovers die by poison, but there is a smashing swordfight and gobs of blood.”

  “All done with good taste, so as not to disturb the ladies,” said Tom Snout.

  “But am I to play Pyramus still?” asked Bottom.

  “Now you shall be Romeo,” said Quince. “Although the lines are nearly the same. And methinks you’ll need a hat to cover those ears or there may be suspicions our play is not serious.”

  “Fear not,” said Bottom. “By midnight I shall be myself again and with a spot of greasepaint I shall be a most passionate and pathetic Pyramus.”

  “Romeo,” corrected Quince.

  “I shall be the smoothest and most powerful of Romeos,” said Bottom.

  And Cobweb chittered angrily from a tree high above.

  “Look! A squirrel!” said Robin Starveling.

  “I cannot look, for I am tragically perished,” wept Francis Flute, from his heap of femininity.

  “Forget the squirrel,” said I. “Bottom, I fear I have sad tidings. As fortune has it, Oberon said he would not change you back to your manly form. Sorry, mate.” I waited then for the news to settle on the ass-man like a cloak of doom. His mates all watched with me, as if waiting for a prompt for their next line.

  “But be of good cheer,” I said. “You’ve got cracking great hearing, and your other gifts, I’m sure, will be much appreciated by Mrs. Bottom.”