A Rag Doll's Guide to Here and There

by Richard Roberts

  The bat guided us turn after turn through the tangled maze of Cul-De-Sac’s streets, until we hit a long road that ran out to what looked like the very last ring of houses. Just as we started to race down that way a shadow caught my eye. I looked up to see a pleasant little half-timbered cottage tumble through the air. It hit the road several blocks ahead of us, collapsing into a heap and throwing up a cloud of dust.

  I pointed and shouted at Sandy, “Oh, my. Do you think we’ll see House Cuckoos?” We didn’t, because our guide bat was entirely unfazed by the sudden street blockage. It ducked us into an alley that fit Harrison along the sides by mere inches. When we came out into a street of slumping buildings and ragged, uneven cobbles we took another two quick turns, and suddenly the exit out of town appeared before us.

  As we passed the last battered Cul-De-Sac house the bat peeled off away from us, dropping its token into one of those little golden bowls like I’d seen on our way in. Harrison and Brenda didn’t see this as any reason to pause. Instead, they sped up until I was glad of the glass shield in front of the seats. It kept the wind off! The patter of Harrison’s padded feet blended into a hum, and we galloped down a pretty herring-bone patterned road between green fields that glowed in the morning sunshine.

  We passed one of those sculpture gardens bored tinkers make out of extra materials, and—oh, my, listen to me! Like I’d ever seen one of these in my life! I’d only heard someone talk about them once.

  Sandy leaned way over Harrison’s side, arms folded on the edge of the seating compartment. She watched the approaching jumble of shiny metal with a broad smile, and I climbed out of my basket and up onto her shoulder to get a better look myself.

  Not, perhaps, one of my best ideas. As I mounted Sandy’s shoulder the wind became terrible, and I locked my arms around hers just to keep from being blown away! My little dress fluttered and flapped, and one of my legs lost its grip, lifting my lower half up into the air.

  Sandy leaned back into her seat again, reaching her other arm around to take secure hold of my middle and lift me free. Then, just to be sure, she put her other arm around my waist as well, holding me up to face her—but not so high as to be hit by the wind coming over the window. She was so thoughtful!

  I spread my hands and apologized, “I’m sorry about that, Miss Sandy. I’ve never traveled in such a fast-moving vehicle before! Or, indeed, any vehicle. I was unprepared for the wind. I was aware that as a clothling I’m one of the lightest-weight people Here, but that seemed like a random and irrelevant fact until now!”

  Sandy reassured me with a quick little laugh, and then leaned her head forward until her hair touched mine. Hers was so fine and soft compared to my coarse trim of rainbow yarn. Her affectionate smile did not match the tensely nervous tone of her voice. “No, I’m sorry, Heartfelt. I know you only peeked at the innkeeper to please me. I didn’t think about how serious being a sidekick is for you.”

  I adjusted my glasses, and this time I had an excuse. I had to hold onto the wires with my hands to stop gusts of wind from tugging at the stitching holding the frames in place. I also hoped it would make me seem like I was taking this very seriously and thoughtfully. That should be one of the benefits of glasses. “It is what I do now. It’s the whole of who I am. It’s also not just an honor, but a joy. I’ve lived more in this one day than my whole life before I died.”

  Ooh, better avoid that thought, Heartfelt.

  Even without going there, Sandy looked glum and sounded haunted. “I’m not worthy of someone devoting their life to me.”

  Human thoughts went back and forth, didn’t they? I had no such doubts. “Of course you are. You’ve saved my life literally and metaphorically, uncovered the bundlish secret, saved another life, tamed and ridden a wild House Cuckoo from over There, and awed an entire town with your magical power. More important than your heroics, you treat me kindly when you think about it and also when you’re not thinking about it.”

  While I talked, Sandy’s eyes got as wide as—well, actually humans seemed to have very small eyes, but they certainly tried to get bigger and rounder. “Do you really mean that?”

  “I do mean that,” I promised her. Then an interesting thought struck me. “I’m not sure I’m even able to lie to you. ‘The sky is orange.’ Alright, I’m physically capable, but I think it’s likely, even overwhelmingly likely, that a desire to deceive you is now outside of my nature.”

  That got a real laugh out of Sandy, and turned me around, wrapping me tightly in one arm as she sat up and pointed. “Okay, sidekick. What is that?”

  I looked. “It’s pretty and it’s a lake, but I’m sure you’re looking for more advanced knowledge. I really don’t know. I thought the literary swamp was between us and Library Tree.”

  “Discussion between tinkers has classified the Great Flubbo as an elemental, not a lake,” Brenda informed us.

  Sandy snorted a laugh. “The Great Flubbo?”

  It was an interesting name for a lake. A thought occurred to me, and I smacked my fist into my other hand, which produced a wholly undramatic and barely audible “pif” sound. “We can look up the origins of the name when we reach the Library Tree.”

  Something else had consumed Sandy’s attention. She stood up in her seat, taking hold of the protective glass shield and peering over it down the road.

  “Is that a cliff?” she asked.

  I stared. The road did turn suddenly up ahead, and the landscape looked…

  “Oh, my.” She was right.

  Should we say something to Brenda? The road did turn, but it appeared to head right for the lake instead. In fact, it headed right for the mass of wood—

  I felt suddenly quite silly. “That’s the Great Flubbo Dam.” I stared down at my dangling legs, because if Sandy gave me the look of scorn I would have given myself, I just could not take it.

  With a screech, Harrison turned sideways, his little legs extended and the metal plates of his feet scraping on bricks. I jerked my head up automatically, in time to see way, way down over the edge of the cliff at the patchwork of plants and pools and roads below.

  Harrison shuffled at a gentle pace along the road toward the dam. With the lessened wind, Sandy hoisted me up to look over the window with her. Raising her voice—although I had noticed the tinker had excellent hearing—she asked Brenda, “How do we get down the cliff?”

  “In case of travelers, the beavers have installed a balcony road,” she answered in her unflappable, singsong way.

  There it was. The brick road ended at a wide wooden ramp that crisscrossed the front of the dam, with wide platforms to turn around on both sides. The dam itself was huge, made of tightly packed logs with beaver homes jutting out every-which-where. Beavers ran up and down the ramps carrying wood, or climbed up the side with smaller loads. Everywhere they repaired and rebuilt, prying out worn down old logs and fitting in new ones. Water fountained out of a number of leaks all along the wooden wall.

  One of the leaks was right in front of us. Water dripped and dribbled down between two logs, and a beaver was right there, fixing—

  No, he seemed to be widening the gap. As we watched, he chewed his way through the wood, digging his head in deeper. More and more water leaked all around him, even spraying over his body. He looked distinctly soggy already.

  His efforts hadn’t gone unnoticed. A brightly colored dargon trundled up the ramp as fast as his stumpy legs could carry him, waving a truncheon and shouting, “I see you, Chippy! Don’t you dare! You know what will happen! Rar! Rar!” He blew a couple of flickers of green fire as he ran, but he was panting so hard they were barely visible.

  Chippy, which was presumably the beaver’s name, ignored the watch-dargon entirely. His sharp beaver teeth sliced into the wood, digging deeper and deeper, until he broke through. A blast of water flew all around him, and he fell back onto the ramp with a squelchy thud.

  The spray of water arcing over the ramp split. A water sprite leaned out of it, a beautiful human gi
rl if human girls were made of water. She reached out a glittering hand toward Chippy, making bubbly noises. He answered with very damp squeaks, and reached his own little black paw up toward her.

  “No no no no! Don’t let her— awww, drat,” swore the watch-dargon.

  Chippy’s hand had touched the water sprite’s, and she pulled him up, wrapping him in her arms. They kissed, long and slow, with Chippy’s furry body almost completely surrounded by her watery embrace.

  The dargon shouted, “Rar!” and blew a gust of green flame almost as long as his own head. The lovers’ kiss broke, the water sprite gave the dargon a nervous glance, and she disappeared again into the spray.

  The beaver landed with a very, very wet splat on the ramp and lay there, soaked all the way through and unable to move.

  “Is he okay?” Sandy asked.

  She hadn’t addressed anyone in particular, so I answered. “He’ll dry out, Miss Sandy. I’m afraid sawdust gets waterlogged. Water sprites and beavers do not mix.”

  Sandy cinched me up higher in her arm, reaching around to stroke my cap. I didn’t think she knew she was doing it. Her voice sounded distant and mournful. “Really? That’s sad. They looked like they were in love.”

  Harrison’s rumbling stopped. His legs pulled up until he was resting on the rounded edges of the wheels, and he went completely still. On the front edge, Brenda announced, “Our contract requires that we take a brief break to witness the human perform a miracle.”

  “A miracle? Just like that?” Sandy squeaked, squeezing me much tighter.

  I pushed against her as hard as I could. I couldn’t fight a human’s strength, but I got enough room to encourage her, “You have the magic, Miss Sandy. Just try to help them. It will happen!”

  Sandy’s crushing grip released. She looked down at me, her eyebrows tilted up, anxious but also hopeful. “You think I can?”

  I wriggled up a little farther, and looked her right in the eyes. “I know absolutely and for certain that you can. You should go try just to prove it to yourself.”

  Sandy took a deep breath, and climbed over the edge of the car, landing on her feet on the wooden boards of the ramp. She hardly made a sound. The ramp was good and solid, the wood dark and cut flat and packed and smoothed into one solid wood grain mass, much prettier and sturdier than the dam. Of course, nobody wanted to chew through the ramp.

  Sandy crouched down next to the beaver, Chippy. Water leaked from all of his seams, forming a small puddle that quickly blended into the spattering from the spray of water over our heads. He was quite resilient. I saw a paw twitch already, and his lips purse. Oh, my. That must have been quite a kiss.

  Sandy’s face twisted, pinched all up on one side. Was that disgust? Human faces were so emotive, I knew I was missing the details. She poked the seam under Chippy’s chin with a finger, and certainly didn’t sound disgusted. “Now I wish Sam were here. She’d love this.”

  She hadn’t mentioned a Sam before. Given how briefly she’d been Here, that must mean another human from Elsewhere. “A friend?” I asked.

  “No,” Sandy answered sourly. Then a moment later, she corrected herself. “Kinda.” That sounded guilty. That guilt disappeared when she corrected herself again. “She’s in the next year up. I wish we were friends. When she caught the Jenkin twins laughing at my nose, she got a teacher to sneak up and listen, and the twins got suspended. She likes bones and bats, and when some boy in her grade asked if she had a skull collection, she brought it in the next day. Her science teacher put it on display the whole week.”

  Sandy’s scrunched up disgust turned to a half smile as she told that story with clear satisfaction. Reaching her hand around to lift up Chippy’s head, she finished, “If she met living taxidermy beavers stuffed with sawdust, she’d be in heaven. Look at the little glass eyes. I wonder—”

  Red and yellow movement caught my attention at the same time it interrupted Sandy. The dargon had sidled anxiously close enough to wave his truncheon at Sandy and bark, “Put him down! I’m warning you! Rar!” Leaning forward, the dargon opened his mouth as he roared, and I could clearly make out the flicker of green flame before it went out.

  Perhaps I should applaud? It had been very good. He was a fine figure of a dargon, almost spherically plump, with a white stripe down his back and a white stripe down his belly and red and yellow stripes down both sides. His wide tail ended in an arrow head point, and he had four blunt horns on his head, with the back two curling back nicely. He hopped nervously from foot to foot on legs so short he barely stood off the ground, and the itty-bitty bat wings on his shoulders flapped in perfect time. Why, he was quite the most noble dargon I’d ever met!

  Sandy certainly thought so. She let go of me, and as I fell onto my back on the ramp she lunged forward and wrapped her arms around the dargon’s neck, hugging him tightly and squealing, “You’re so cute!”

  I couldn’t blame her for dropping me. It didn’t hurt, and she had obviously been overcome by meeting such a magnificent dargon up close. So overcome that she’d lost control, and had hardly dragged him into a hug when she let go and apologized, “Oh. I’m sorry. I like dragons, and you’re just…!”

  She let that hang, and as the dargon’s ears slumped I picked myself up and tugged on Sandy’s dress. “Dargon, Miss Sandy. Not dragon. All the big dragons are dead.”

  Sandy laid her hand on top of the dargon’s head, flattening his little blue cap and scratching his scales. His wings flapped ecstatically, but he looked so guilty about it that I was pleased she was looking down at me and not him as she said, “That’s sad. What happened to them?”

  “Humans killed them.” When her eyes went wide, I held up my hands and continued, “Don’t feel bad. It was one of the things we needed humans for. Dragons were all very scary and dangerous and they caused a great deal of destruction.”

  The dargon nodded. He pulled his blue watch-dargon cap off and held it against his belly as he sighed. “I wish I could have been one of those. Huge, scary, soaring through the sky and burning the countryside, and then when a hero slew me there’d be a celebration and a monument. It would say ‘Tumbledown the Terrifying.’”

  Sandy gave him such a smile that I could hardly believe her chest didn’t start glowing. She gave his cheek a farewell pinch before withdrawing her arm, and instead tucked her head lower so she could try to look into his downturned eyes. “So Tumbledown is your name?”

  It hit him who he was talking to. He drew himself up very straight, holding his cap over his heart with one hand while he held the other out to Sandy. “Tumbledown Q. Rollover, your Humanity. At your service.”

  I blurted out, “What does the Q stand for?” It wasn’t my conversation, but I just had to know.

  “A letter that rolls easily,” he answered.

  That got one of Sandy’s giggles. She shook his hand and introduced herself. “And I’m Sandy Golding. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Tumbledown.”

  The ice was definitely broken. He peeked up at her with a curious smile. “Call me Tumbles. It’s still scarier than Tumbledown. Are you the princess we’ve been hearing about?”

  “I’m the other one,” Sandy corrected him.

  “SHE’S THE OTHER ONE!” Tumbledown yelled over his shoulder. Everywhere on the dam, beavers stopped working, stared, and then started chattering at each other.

  I was glad, right now, that Sandy was the other one, and of any extra delay before we had to see the official Princess again.

  Oops. Where were my manners? I curtseyed. “Miss Sandy is officially a mysterious hero. I’m her sidekick, Heartfelt.”

  “SHE’S A MYSTERIOUS HERO!” Tumbledown yelled back. The beavers paused, and then started chattering with even more excitement.

  His official duties seen to, he bent down to shake my hand. His stumpy fingers had hard, dull claws and a very delicate touch. While he was practically face to face with me, he whispered, “Did the human give you those glasses?”

  I nodded eagerly. �
�They were hers! And she fixed my eyes!”

  He leaned in a little closer, until his beak practically touched my face. That let him whisper so low that maybe Sandy couldn’t hear us. “She must be magic. If your eyes matched, the glasses would look too big. This way, you look really smart.”

  “I feel really smart!” I squeaked back at him.

  I liked Tumbledown.

  Further getting to know each other had to wait, because while we’d been talking Chippy had been drying out. Now he stopped playing opossum, rolled over, and scurried right past Tumbledown’s feet. He galloped toward a ladder and started climbing with admirable speed for a beaver who still made squishing sounds when he moved.

  Tumbledown jumped and chased after him, waving his truncheon over his head again and yelling, “Hey! Get back here and let the tinker work on you right now, Chippy! Your seams are busting already!” The problem became apparent to me before Tumbledown grabbed the first rung. He was such a fine, fat dargon that his hands and feet couldn’t reach the ladder at the same time. He knew it, too, and gave up after a token pull.

  That raised a question of its own. A watch dargon would have to get around the dam, as would beavers with big loads and less mobile visitors. What were Tumbledown’s other options? I could see a staircase way down at the far end of the ramp, and he could go past us and loop around onto the top of the dam. He could also take the freight elevator, which looked entirely rickety hanging from a long rope, and was in use near the bottom of the dam besides. With the rascal beaver’s head start, all of these options seemed foolish.

  That was just my first question. Fortunately, I had been taken into service by a very curious girl, and she asked the next. “Does this happen often?”

  Tumbledown waved a clawed hand at the other leaks in the dam. I did note that a leak seemed to take multiple beavers and much more time and effort to patch than to gnaw. One of the leaks had only a single beaver working on it, and he had dropped his bundle of sticks and was chattering excitedly with a water sprite in the stream.