armour, and I want you to know that it is fireproof.”
“Fireproof? Wow!”
“You will need it very soon, Jack. I depend on you. Amoran, I am giving you a skateboard too. I love seeing how you enjoy yourselves.”
Amoran is presented with his very own skateboard. He soon manages a speed that makes him look like a shooting star.
When all the excitement has calmed a notch or two, the King calls the two boys to Him again.
“Amoran, take this bag. It contains thirty pieces of silver. Earlier in history, somebody wanted it very badly, but when it came to the final decision of the heart and its horrific vacuum, nobody wanted it. Take your skateboard, go into the Wood of Words and give it to those trees who demand it. The wood will soon burn. If this money will make those trees so happy before they die, they may have it. Bring the woman out of the wood, to me.”
“I’m gone already,” calls out Amoran, pushing off.
“Oh, and Jack,” the King puts his hand on Jack’s shoulder for a moment. “You may go to that young lady who is waiting at the school. Never underestimate the power of that Sword in your hand. Remember, I am in it, but she must make her own choices. Allow her to decide whether or not she wants to jump.”
Jack does not wait for any further invitation. Soon his board is flying over the wood of words. The abuse that the wood is shouting at him simply makes no difference any more. He looks back one last time. The King is welcoming the other members of the water team – and some other children from the School of Blood, but Jack is already too far away to see who they are.
Vuvuzela blower
The reason for 05’s “losing its way” through the wood of words is his attempt to postpone his banishment to the palace of Pestis. He has reached the pick of the woods that is ruled by the wordy lawyers of the world. Who is that? Somehow these lawyers have company again.
“If the only thing you can ever do is deliver speeches and shuffling mounds of paper, what does the money mean to you anyway?” Apatheto protests.
Molluscum has untied the woman named Merriam. One of the trees grabs hold of Molluscum’s arm.
“Leave her alone! We told you she must pay!”
“Just look at you!” Apatheto tries again. “You do not even look like trees any more. You are all as dry as tinder!”
“So what?” blurts a tree with a huge trunk. “How does that relate to the case?”
05 looks at the scene incredulously. He is hanging from a tree, as usual, and nobody seems to be aware of his presence.
“This is my lucky day,” he thinks. “If I could be the whistle-blower on these people who are trying to free a slave… why Pestis might be more lenient with me…”
Of course he does not blow on a whistle, but rather on his vuvuzela. The dry lawyer trees do not have any defence against the sparks that had also set fire to Pestis’ dinner table. Within a minute, two of them are alight.
“Go away from us!” The other trees shout, but of course there is no way any tree can move itself.
“Get us some water!” the trees shout out in panic, but none is available.
At that moment a very able skateboarder enters the ring of lawyer trees. He dumps a seemingly heavy bag in their midst.
“There is your money,” Amoran shouts. “I shall now have my passengers, thank you!”
He helps the woman called Merriam onto his skateboard. Molluscum and Apatheto have no problem boarding and helping him push off again. Amoran wonders at the lightness and control of his skateboard, which seem to improve with every new passenger coming on board. It is so much easier to fly over the wood now than when he had that bag full of silver in his hands.
“This money is far more than we charged,” shouts one of the trees.
“You can have it, little boy!” another one tries. “Just bring us some water!”
But Amoran does not listen to them. His Water Father said to bring Him the people; not the money.
Within seconds, they are all up in the air. The ring of trees is ablaze, melting the pieces of silver that were left between them.
A wish granted
“Such a pity,” croons Yersinia. “You might have been a queen in my future kingdom, but it turns out you are nothing but a quean. ” [An impudent, badly-behaved girl or woman. Yersinia is a few millennia old. That must be the reason for her use of archaic language and bad puns.] She is enjoying her moment of power over Delinquency, throning over her, the knife in her extended right hand.
Delinquency is showing neither fear, nor remorse, nor hatred. She does not seem to care about herself any more.
“I guess it’s good bye…,” Yersinia hisses. Her right hand starts the violent downward plunge.
Yersinia is hit by a huge, fiery force. The knife is sent flying through mid-air, but she has no experience or feeling of it; only that she is suddenly spinning about, whirring like a spinning top, her hair twisting into a tower, looking like a huge mound of candy floss on her head. Her last word seems to have stuck in her mouth, echoing all around her and filling the empty buildings with an eerie eye-eye-eye-eye–sound.
“Delinquency! Open your eyes!” Jack kneels next to her. “The Master is here, and he is calling YOU!”
She opens her eyes for a moment.
“Jack,” she murmurs, “YOUR Master?” “The One who protected you, when you went down Kloof Nek,” she thinks, but she is unable to say anything.
“My Water Father! He is sending for you!”
Delinquency smiles faintly.
“Take me to Him,” she whispers.
In an instant, the forbidding concrete wall crumbles to rubble. Jack helps her to her feet, but he has to keep her upright. She does not seem able to walk on her own.
“Oh, just a moment, Jack,” a voice calls from the concrete mixer. “Let me help you! You cannot possibly manage on your own…” Jack turns to see who is talking to him.
“You need not be afraid, Jack,” croaks Pestis. “All I want to do is help. Can we talk?”
“No thank you,” Jack answers politely. My Water Father said I could do this with his help. I don’t need any other.”
What did I tell you? Jack has grown up! He is the most sensible boy in the whole world! And he is giving me my chance! I knew it would happen with Jack! I knew it! Do you still remember; I Amahl, am assigned to Jack Gullible – by the Power of the King!
The first thing I do is to turn the concrete mixer upside down and to start shaking it violently, like it’s a trash can. He did strike at me a bit with some kind of thunderbolt, but I have some practice myself, after 4000 years or so. (I don’t like history and all those dates much.)
So he rolls out of there like a dung ball. Drunk Yersinia comes swaying along and stops right in front of him.
“Pestis, I have done my part! I insist on having my looks and my title NOW!” she cries. “I’ve had it!”
“Not now, please,” is the only reply she gets.
OK, there is this storm when our swords start clashing. I don’t actually see Jack taking Delinquency in his arms and pushing off on his skateboard; but I know it does happen. I am just concentrating on this huge fight that I am in. Of course I am not afraid. Is there anything to be afraid of? The whole time I just wonder: Am I being brave now? Is this like being, like, really brave?
Then suddenly I hear the Star Breather’s voice.
“I guess so, Amahl. I guess so. You can stop now. Jack is back with his father, Apatheto. And Amoran and Shamare will soon be with their mother, Merriam. Just hit him back to his dark palace.”
So I give Pestis this final whack. It’s just so good to hear the Word of words saying all that to me.
“You look just like Lady Macbeth!” Pestis shouts to Yersinia before he flees the premises of her academy, the School of Blood.
I watch Doubt, Fear and their new friend Wesley Bloodbound entering the school yard. Bitzer and Sniper follow. They cannot
stop turning to admire their hind legs and the way they are hopping along. They sneak past Yersinia, who is still sitting on the ground in front of the overturned concrete mixer, trying to straighten out her hair.
The whole wood is now burning.
I find my way over it, so that I can return to Jack.
Some days later
The woman called Merriam has noticed Shamare immediately. She walks up to her hesitantly.
“Do you remember me, Shamare?”
“But thus saith the LORD, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered,” the woman whispers.
“….for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children,” says Shamare.
“It is time, Shamare, for us to be together again. ”
Shamare is laughing tears. “Mom, what happened to you? Where were you?”
“I jumped, many years ago, but there was some misunderstanding in the family about this. I was taken away from you, because your grandparents did not like my new way of life. But that is over now. You will soon understand how you and Amoran were saved by the King. “ Merriam looks at her daughter.
“It is so good that you memorised the message that He gave us,“ she smiles.
A forgotten wish, remembered
The roads are cordoned off. The pointsmen and the traffic officers are waiting.
“Are you ready?”
“Always, Jack G.” she smiles.
Jack pushes off from the Cable station. The girl follows suit. They seem to move in tandem, as if they are doing a specially choreographed dance. Hope remembers the day that she stood outside
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