Quen Nim (6 page)

“Not only near, but nearest the Castle, ever so nice, evenings of singing and dancing and pies,” sang Motty.

“Introduce me,” ordered Nimble. “Lead on. Well? Go. Fly!”

Truly, Motty was so such delighted. Always pleased when ordered to be in the company of Nimble Missst, her pleasure moved up to delight when she heard Nimby's command. She sat immobile, stunned with delight, and that was the very why that she had to be prodded to move. But move she did at long and at last, and when she did, she flapped her yellow stubby wings furiously and flew straight to a green and white striped conical cottage not far from the Castle of the Boad, All Fidd and Leee Combined. Cloud Castle City's majesty floated in the sky nearby.

“Knock on the door,” said Nimble Missst when they landed. “Quickly, we mustn't be seen.”

Before Motty could move even one of her six legs forward, the door flew open, and a stream of joyous hutters spilled out. They clapped Motty on the back and smiled and bowed toward the princess.

“Come in! Come in! Motty, dear Motty! We were just finishing up our morning dance before we take to the fields!” enthused the Father hutter. “Princess, an honor. Won't you step in? Mollywater? Ladgecakes? Palmpear oat cobbler? Mother makes the best. She spoons it with Clover honey, don't you know.”

“Yes, in. In. Let's all go in,” said Nimble Missst, peering over her shoulder and up at Cloud Castle City.

In they went, and the hutters lined up, short to tall, next to the round oaken table. Without a prompt, they sang in wonderful harmony their welcoming rhyme. What a thrill it was for ‘em. The Princess with the Snapjaw Mind stood in THEIR cottage.

The princess hissed at Motty to stop dancing and turned to the beaming hutters.

“A good song. Well rhymed,” she commented. “I have a question.”

“We have answers,” said the Mother hutter eagerly.

“Have you found the prince and tied him up and dragged him here?” piped up the smallest hutter.

“Manners, littlest. The princess has a question,” said the Father hutter, coloring a darker blue in his cheeks.

“Yes. I … Hah! Your table! It's been moved! A scrape nudge! He was here! Lift it, Motty!” cried Nimble Missst, diving at the table's legs.

The Father hutter was quicker than Motty and beat her to the table. He lifted. Nimby snatched up the oat parchment clue with a Princess shriek of triumph.

“Ridiculous! He thinks he can outwit me! Ye entertained a strange hutter here last night. When did he leave?”

“No more than an hour past,” gasped the amazed Mother hutter.

Nimble Missst stood triumphant with the slip of oat parchment held high in her ash green hand. Her snapjaw mind whirled. She trailed him by one short hour. She brought the clue down to read it, and just then there is when a Royal herald appeared at the door and announced, “Your Worthy Royalness, Princess of Cloud Castle City, your arrival has been noted, and you are hereby summoned to bask in the presence of the Queeeeeeeeeeeeeeen and to reveal to her the whereabouts of her rude nephew Zootch.”

Chapter Seventeen

Interview with Zilp

A disgusted and maddened, but dutiful, Nimble Missst would submit to being ushered into the presence of the Queeeeeeeeeeeeeeen. Instead of this ridiculous waste of time, I should be racing to the northern Leee and the Outerest of Orchards. So such she thought. She'd solved the clue at a glance. Balanced one width of a hair from defying the Royal summons, she gave in to duty. Ridiculous, but the quicker there, the quicker gone. She bounded from the hutter's cottage and leaped to the air and over the Castle wall before the clarion call of the herald's announcement properly faded away. She slammed through the Great Hall and up the stairs. At her furious approach, the door to the Queeeeeeeeeeeeeeen's Chambers were thrown open by a pair of doortenders, who in their haste at the fearsome sight of Nimble Missst clonked their heads together. The Queeeeeeeeeeeeeeen's Attendant jumped and scuttled to the alcove where Zilp sat motionless. She barely had time to formally announce Nimby's arrival.

“The Royal Princess of Cloud Castle City,” she hurriedly gushed.

“Great Majesty,” said Nimble Missst, keeping the ‘Ridiculous' she added between ‘Great' and ‘Majesty' to herself, “ye see me here on the verge of triumph. Your nephew, the ridiculous Zootch, is right now, as we waste time speaking, in the northern Leee, and here I am telling ye this, instead of flying there to capture him. He leaves clues! Ridiculous! He means to outwit me! I'll have him here and ye'll be on your way to the 300 retirement huts or whatever they are before night. That is, if I am allowed to proceed without any more time-consuming interruptions.”

Nimby subsided, breathing heavily, and waited for a response from Zilp.

“Rudeness,” sighed the Queeeeeeeeeeeeeeen. “What other am I to expect in this devastated, torn wreck of a shambles that I am condemned to endure? Yes, drag my hospitality under rotted logs. Yes, bury my lighthearted japes deep in the muckiest mire of mulch. A simple Blossom maiden grown old, betrayed by her beloved sister, denied the peace and serenity of simple retirement. When, oh when, will I be able once more to turn my face to the sun?”

“This afternoon, if ye'll let me go now,” quickly wedged in Nimble Missst.

“Go. Go then. Be gone. Go. Why remain in the presence of a once noble plant gone to brittle dusty decay? Why remain, forced to witness this wild tantrum?” said Zilp in her dull monotone, sitting motionless.

And she continued droning on and on, her words ever contradicted by her manner in the usual Blossom Royal way. However, she spoke so such to no one. Nimby had exited after “Go”. Down stairs, through the Great Hall, citizens fell back to give her room. Nimby on purposeful wing made a magnificent sight. Startling violet eyes flashing, green-rooted flame orange curls aquiver, ash green skin, powder blue wings spread wide and flapping whoosh, red vest and red pantaloons, she sailed through the courtyard and over the Castle wall.

“Did I miss something?” asked Kinng Forr, stepping into the courtyard from the Gate tower.

“She flew in. She flew out. Looks mad,” answered a cartjagger, rubbing with a buffcloth the spokes of her laden vedling cart.

“I'd best attend the Queeeeeeeeeeeeeeen,” said the Kinng, and he paced away quickly toward the Great Hall.

“Something's arumble,” commented a sweep, leaning on his broom.

“Wager that Snapjaw Princess drags in the prince before this day am done,” said a kitchen sculger passing the sweep on his way to chop and scrape.

“What odds?” asked the sweep.

“Give you two bowls of ool if she don't,” said the sculger.

“What if she do?” said the sweep.

“That broom. Give it me if she do,” said the sculger.

“Done,” said the sweep, and they clapped hands to seal the wager.

Chapter Eighteen

Zootch in the Outerest Orchard

A single conical cottage stood in the fair true center of a gadapple orchard located on the northernmost fringe of the Outerest Orchards of the Leee. The cottage boasted yellow and white stripes. The silver-barked gadapple trees blushed in golden blossom, as wondrous a sight as Zootch had ever seen.

Riffle Sike spoke truth from the root. Gold and silver in bloom! He marveled while strolling among the glinting silver and gold of the trees. Cap of Cloak firmly on his head, he appeared to be what he wasn't, a common hutter. He squinted as the so such bright dazzle assaulted him. That is the why he failed to notice the maiden hutter until she spoke, though truth she stood clear bold right there.

“Strange hutter, welcome. Are you weary? I am gathering gadblossoms to make a pudding. Won't you rest at our cottage and have some oat tea while I prepare the pudding for you?” said the hutter.

“Ah, hutter, a welcome bloom. I have wandered days and days from my green and white home rooted south in the fields of Fidd and near the Castle Boad. Oat tea? The very dream I was lost in when your charming voice interrupted my reverie. Such was why I jumped. A pardon. I am a thinker, you see. I walk and walk, pondering on how to double the oat crop. Triple it!” said Zootch smoothly, his snapjaw mind humming.

The hutter maiden carried an oatstraw gatherbasket brimming with golden gadapple leaves. She plucked one up with her pale blue fingers and offered it to Zootch. Zootch received it with a nod and the softest of smiles. He placed the petal on his tongue, so such like as Riffle Sike had instructed him to do. Wonder! His eyes widened. The melt! The nectar sweetness!

“The pudding I make is even better,” said the hutter maiden shyly.

“Is that possible? I'm sure it is so if you speak it, but truth to the root, it is hard to believe. In my home we've tasted only dried gadblossoms. I thought they were wonderful, but wonderful is inadequate now that I've had fresh!” spouted Zootch. “Please show me to your cottage. I AM weary. I would like some oat tea. I anticipate a glorious pudding! To sit at a round oaken hutter table would be a familiar comfort to me.”

The hutter maiden smiled and blushed and led the way through the orchard to the yellow and white striped conical cottage. She opened the door and apologized for the absence of the others, who were all of ‘em off working hard at hutter tasks. She promised they would return at lunchtime to sing for him. Zootch contented himself nodding and smiling as he thought.

This Boad, All Fidd and Leee Combined, is a realm most worthy, a garden of delights, he thought. To be Kig, no ‘n' at all, would be a truly rooted treasure. Hmmm … To be wed to a haughty Princess who never smiles and changes into a cloud. Hmmmm … It is said that she spends most of her time at a waterfall. Hmmmm …

“Clover honey?” the hutter maiden asked, startling Zootch from his drifting raft of thoughts.

“What? Oh. Clover, is it? You do possess nothing but the best, so it seems. Of course, I'll have two drops, if you please,” said Zootch.

“Shall I sing a rhyme while I make the pudding?” asked the hutter maiden, climbing the rungladder up through the kitchen floor.

“An honor. A pleasure,” called out Zootch, and he returned to his raft of thought.

My snapjaw mind is a secret. To have a secret is something. To be Kig is something, too. To have ladgecakes, gadapple blossoms whenever I decree. Hmmmm … Away from the terraces and … her. Trade haughty unsmiling Mother for haughty unsmiling wife? Hmmmm … To be Kig …

Zootch took a blank slip of oat parchment from his hutter tunic pocket. He smoothed it on the round oaken table. From the same pocket he pulled a stub of charstick. He wrote the words ‘witch's cottage' on the scrap. He bent down, shouldered the table atilt, put the scrap on the floor and dropped the table so such that one of the legs covered it. He straightened up and gripped the Cap of Cloak with both hands. He shouted for the hutter maiden to come to the rungladder for a moment. She appeared, peeking down through the kitchen floor hole. Zootch smiled and raised the Cap of Cloak. Silver and gold, battered and pummeled, he revealed his true form of Blossom Prince. So such astonished, the hutter's jaw dropped and her hands flew to her throat. She watched him move his lips in mumble. He vanished.

Chapter Nineteen

Nimby in the Outerest Orchard

‘only one wyn' were the words written in rune on the slip of oat parchment in Nimble Missst's hand. She flew high and straight for the northernmost of the Outerest Orchards. Flapping stubby yellow wings and gasping in her wake trailed Motty, struggling to keep pace.

“A rest, Nimby Nim, a rest for old Motty,” she sang before sinking so such away to tumble a six-legged landing between two rows of palmpear trees in the Innerest of the Outerest Orchards. Nimble Missst, truth in disgust, crumpled the oat parchment note and flung it away. She sheared off and down to join Motty among the palmpears.

“Ridiculous!” she snapped before she had even folded her wings away. “All right. All right. Five minutes. Five minutes is all ye get. And no dancing! Sit! Rest! Breathe! Why such a simple clue? ‘only one wyn'. Only one. O O, Outer or Outerest Orchard, obvious. Wyn. White yellow north. N no color, therefore north. W therefore white, not west. White yellow hutter's cottage in a northern orchard.”

All these words the snapjaw Princess muttered to herself while pacing back and then forth, five paces, swivel, five paces, swivel. After a few minutes span of pacing, she stopped short and shot a glance at Motty.

“Well?” she demanded.

“I didn't want to interrupt my precious darling Princess. I've been ready as ready can be for some time,” sang Motty, hopping on her three left legs, and then on her right three trousered limbs.

“Ridiculous!” shrieked Nimble Missst, and she leaped for the sky.

North over orchards they flew, veering to examine every hutter cottage. Yellow and blue, yellow and red, white and blue, red and orange, no yellow and white. On to the northernmost Outerest Orchard they winged, and there, such was so, the startling violet eyes of the princess lit up with a light of triumph.

“Aha!” she shouted, and dove for the yellow and white conical cottage among the golden blossoming silver gadapple trees.

She marched to the door of the cottage and boldly thrust it open.

“Aha!” she repeated. “Where are ye, ye so-called hutter? Jump out. It's over!”

She swept in and observed at a glance the empty room. At another glance, she saw an astonished drained almost blueless face at the top of the rungladder.

“You there, hutter maiden! Where is he? Where did he tell ye to hide him?” demanded Nimble Missst.

The hutter maiden could only wobble her jaw. No words spilled out. Not ten minutes earlier, she'd watched a strange hutter transform himself into a sort of a gadapple Prince. She'd seen him disappear, vanish before her eyes. Now confronted by a vision that could only be the Cloud Castle Princess, the hutter lost the power of speech. Startling violet eyes! Oh, more startling than the stories had told. Oh, snapjaw mind! She can change to a cloud! Flame orange hair green at the roots. Oh, flame orange! The hutter's jaw moved. No words spilled. Motty entered the cottage.