Blue Fire and Ice (43 page)

‘Well, Kevin, what do you think? Would you like to be Factotum of Mint?’

‘I should like that very much, Bligh,’ said Kevin, feeling a lump in his throat. ‘Of course, I shall miss all the friends I have made here in the past couple of days, but I’m sure I shall make lots of friends in Mint.’

‘You won’t lose your friends here,’ said Bligh jovially. ‘We have a bus service, you know. Once a day to Mint!’

‘Twice a day,’ Brian corrected him. ‘At thirty-six minutes past ten each morning and one minute past five each afternoon.’

‘That’s settled, then!’ cried Bligh, thumping his desk with the palm of his hand. ‘Of course, Brian will spend the next few weeks with you, teaching you all the things you need to know and introducing you to all the right people.’

He smiled at a problem solved and a job well done, if he didn’t say so himself.

‘But we have a very important job to do first. And I am going to assign both of you to the task.’ Bligh became very serious and officious. ‘We’re going to have a celebration. Our first ever Quenching Day, to celebrate the end of the blue fires. It will be the biggest celebration Beadledom has ever seen. And we will have visitors. I want you to invite all the Myrmidots and all the Muddles as a thank-you for all the help they gave us.’

‘All the Muddles?’ said Brian in alarm.

‘Every single one,’ declared Bligh.

Brian looked at Kevin. ‘All the Muddles,’ they said together and two pairs of eyes rolled skyward.

During the next week invitations were sent, caterers organised, marquees and tables ordered, plates, knives, forks and spoons counted, and tablecloths starched and ironed. Farrow and Fallow offered the use of their fields and soon their farm was overrun with busy Beadles bustling about. They laid out table after table, long trestle tables with folding legs. They could seat fifty people, and there were hundreds of them in long, straight rows; and each row was joined to the next at one end by a table placed at a right angle to the others. It was a long, snaking chain of tables, with no head and no bottom, ‘So everyone will feel the same and all will feel connected to their neighbour,’ Bligh had said.

It wasn’t all plain sailing. It is sad that even companions who have been bonded for life by danger and adventure can have their friendship strained over seating arrangements and the colour scheme of the flowers. More than once Megan was visited by an angry Brian, who was not used to someone else Organising. Several times, Aunt Mag had to listen to Kevin moan bitterly about Brian being an absolute Tartar. Both women did the only sensible thing to do in such a situation. They occupied themselves with something else, remembering to say ‘Oh, how awful!’ and ‘You poor dear!’ every few minutes.

At last, though, the great day arrived. Bell’s fire truck had been placed in the centre of all the tables, right in front of the table reserved for the dignitaries (of which there were only three: Bligh, Achillia and Whist, whose turn it was that week to be Town Leader); and the guests of honour, of whom there were twelve: the seven travellers to the High Mountains, plus Kevin, who travelled back with them; Reach, who had come to Beadledom to fight the fires; Bell, who had been tireless in his efforts to save Beadledom; Leaf, for her valiant bike ride; and a final place for Wave, who had followed Amelia and discovered she journeyed to the High Mountains.

On the morning of the party, Bligh was rather surprised when a stream of animals appeared at the gate, each with an invitation tied to its neck with a bright orange ribbon.

‘Brian! Kevin!’ he fumed. ‘What are those animals doing here? Send them away at once!’

‘But they have invitations,’ protested Brian. ‘We can’t invite them and then send them away. It would be very rude and you would hurt their feelings.’

‘Who told you to invite them?’ demanded Bligh.

‘You did,’ they both replied.

‘You said to invite all the Muddles,’ said Brian.

‘And they are Muddles,’ added Kevin.

‘But … but … they’re …’ he stammered. Something caught his eye. ‘Is that a lion?’ he asked, aghast.

‘Why, yes, that’s Eugene,’ said Kevin. ‘He’s ever so nice.’

‘A bit fussy,’ chipped in Brian, ‘but very polite. He’s perfectly harmless – as long as he has enough to eat.’ He was enjoying the moment immensely.

The animals had been looking forward to the celebrations and had gone to a great deal of trouble. Leaf had done a grand job on Calamity’s nails and the bright red suited her (though Crimson thought the red was a touch too old for the puppy). Bray had on his best hat, the one with embroidered seams around the holes for his ears. Unfortunately, as it turned out later, some wag (everyone suspected Charm, though the rabbit strenuously denied the charge) had stuck a note just above his tail, reading ‘Pin Here’. Madigan had painted her toucan’s beak in beautiful shades of blue, especially for the occasion. Priscilla, an elegant frilled-neck lizard, swayed by the promise of a year’s supply of insects, had let Brew paint her frill and every time she flared “Eat at Brew’s” flashed around the lizard’s neck.

Clark, a Muddle penguin, had on his best dinner suit. Which was identical to his second best and even to his worst dinner suit, but to which he had added a brand-new bow tie. Charm, crayon still behind her long ear, came, but had a miserable time. She’d overheard a waiter say that something called Welsh Rabbit was on the menu and she spent the entire celebration trying to remember where her parents had been born and waiting to be taken to the kitchen. Luckily her friend Shades stayed with her, standing on his thin meerkat hind legs and uttering a warning every time a waiter appeared.

Even Weed seemed brighter than usual. His orange feet and beak were scrubbed and he had cleaned and preened his brown-and-black wings and polished the small green cap of feathers on his head. Though he was heard to remark to Charm that it was such a nice day that it was bound to rain as soon the dessert was served.

There were lots of other animals who came with their orange ribbons and invitations. Even Nanny’s goat came and she delighted in catching Brian’s eye at every opportunity and giving him a little bleat.

The only Muddle animals who didn’t present an invitation at the gate to join the festivities were Sparkle and Calamity. But come they did, Sparkle pulling Home’s fire, with Calamity poised and elegant on the seat. Sparkle pulled the cart right into the middle of the tables, next to Beadleburg’s shiny red engine. As a special thank-you, Sparkle was given her own nose bag with ‘Sprinkle’ written on it and a promise from Hugo, who sold Beadleburg’s finest horse gear, that he would do it again and get it right the next time.

It was a splendid party. There was food of all sorts, enough for all and something to please everyone. There was even a plate of fresh fish for Miniver, including a large juicy catfish that winked at Miniver and disappeared just as she opened her mouth to eat it. Miniver could have sworn that she heard it say ‘Abracadabra’ just before it vanished from her plate.

For dessert there were cakes, jellies, macaroons and éclairs, tarts and crème caramel, lemon meringue pie and pumpkin pie, coffee ice cream and coffee fudge cake; there were cinnamon biscuits, chocolate chip biscuits and peanut butter biscuits. There was bubble water of every flavour; punch, spiced wine and frothy ale. And all of it the best that there could be.

There were speeches, too. Bligh stood and gave a heartfelt speech about friends and neighbours and the bond between the peoples of the Land. Achillia, who’d had slightly too much punch, gave a pretty speech about the heroism of all Beadles and the bravery of the travellers. She presented Copper and Dot, and their companions, with the Medal of Myrmidia, their land’s highest honour, which she had thought up just for the occasion. She hugged Bligh three times during her short speech and the third time Beatrice had to prise Bligh loose from Achillia’s arms. It was Whist’s turn to speak. She cleared her throat. ‘Ahem.’

‘That’s a good start,’ said Patch to Bright.

‘I was told that I’m supposed to start with a joke,’ she began. ‘But I’m afraid I haven’t got Japes’s skill at telling jokes. So, I’ll just tell you something I thought the other day. I was thinking about being a Muddle and how glad I was to be a Muddle. Because being a Muddle means that you’re always surrounded by friends. If you look at a map of the Land, you’ll know what I mean.’

And she sat down again.

No one spoke. Hundreds and hundreds of puzzled faces looked at each other. Then, like a Mexican wave, smiles came to the faces of every Beadle and Myrmidot and a huge cheer erupted. Bligh shook Whist’s hand, and Achillia hugged her.

‘And now,’ declared Bligh, ‘we have a special Quenching Day cake! Bring out the cake!’

The flaps of the kitchen tent opened and eight servers emerged. On a large board covered with silver foil, they carried the biggest cake anyone had ever seen.

The cake had sixteen layers and was six paces across at the base. It was completely covered in blue marzipan icing, with cream piped around each layer. Coloured sugar beads and rosettes were swirled around it and a thousand tiny meringues were perched atop the cream. And at the very top stood a bear made of coffee fudge, circled by eleven figures made of white, milk and dark chocolate.

Everyone cheered as the servers carried it carefully to the main table.

‘It’s a pity about the joke,’ whispered Japes to Coll. ‘It was a good joke. It was about a Beadle, a Myrmidot and a Muddle, and they were on a bus. Um, I’m not too sure who was driving the bus. It might have been Megan, but, ah, maybe it was Shift. Well, anyway, the driver asked where they were going. Come to think of it, maybe it wasn’t a bus. Maybe it was a tram. No, it couldn’t have been a tram. They don’t have drivers …’ She gazed skyward thoughtfully.

‘What,’ she said in a loud voice after a minute, ‘is white, fluffy and looks like a bird?’

Everyone nearby heard Japes’s riddle. Even the eight servers carrying the cake stopped, just as they were about to set it on the table.

‘Oh no,’ groaned Brian.

‘Awesome,’ said Dot.

The shimmering haze of so many Muddles mixing in one place flooded the farm. Myrmidots and Beadles watched as the Muddle next to them flickered, glowed and mixed.

‘Oh,’ said Kevin.

It was too much for the poor servers holding the cake. They jumped in surprise and the cake tottered in their hands. It tottered, teetered … and toppled.

The cake hit the table where the honoured guests sat. The table shook, then slowly fell over. The servers staggered backwards, bumping into the table behind them. The table swayed from side to side, then collapsed, hitting the table next to it. That table collapsed, right onto the one next to it. And then that table collapsed …

Putting all the tables together in long snaking rows had seemed like a good idea at the time. As they toppled like dominoes, Bligh wasn’t so sure.

Farrow and Fallow’s peaceful farm was filled with the noise of crashing tables, smashing plates and cutlery clattering to the ground. Farrow watched as the field of tables transformed itself into a field of debris.

Brian pulled himself from under the wreckage. He looked around at the mess. Bligh was covered in cake, little coloured beads dotting his clothes. Achillia sat on the ground, splattered with cream and icing. A meringue perched on the end of her nose.

‘I hate Muddles!’ cried Brian. Then he threw back his head and laughed.

The End