The Little Country

  Edern gave the terrier a nervous look.

  “I don’t much care for the look of his teeth,” he said.

  Jodi laughed and pushed him towards a nearby gap in the crates. As soon as they were safely inside, she turned to peer out again. Looking one way and another, she decided that no one had taken any notice of the dogs or their curious cargo.

  “We weren’t spotted,” she said over her shoulder.

  Edern slouched against a crate, legs sprawled out before him.

  “I can’t tell you what a relief that is,” he said.

  “No need to get all huffy,” Jodi told him. “I got us out, didn’t I?”

  Close at hand, both Ansum and Kitey were still directly beside the crates. The terrier sat with his head cocked, looking at her. Ansum whined and scraped a paw on the cobbles.

  “Thank you very much,” Jodi told them, “but it’s time you were off now.”

  Neither dog moved.

  “Shoo!”

  She ran a few steps forward as she shouted and the dogs jumped back, only to return to their stations once Jodi had retreated back between the crates.

  “Bother and damn,” she said. “They won’t go away, which means we have to before some nosy tar comes along to see what the fuss is.”

  Edern gave her a weary look. “Don’t you ever get tired?”

  Jodi shook her head. She walked by him, stopped long enough to look over her shoulder at him, then continued on. Edern got slowly to his feet. He looked at Ansum and the terrier. When Kitey offered him a shrill bark, he rolled his shoulders to get rid of the shiver that settled in his spine whenever he thought of those dogs, then hurried after his companion.

  2.

  It was gloomy in the small spaces between the mountain of crates. The air was heavy with the smell of fish and salt, and little daylight worked itself into the narrow corridors along which Jodi led Edern. After much backtracking and wandering about they finally reached the far side of the mountain and got a look at the sea.

  “Well, I don’t suppose we’ll be leaving by this way,” Jodi said.

  The crates were stacked right up to the end of the wharf without space for even their mouse-sized bodies to squeeze by. Below, high tide was lapping at the pilings. Out in the harbour, the fishing luggers floated in a careless array, their crews on shore, cleaning fish and mending nets until the next early morning run. Out beyond the shelter of the harbour they could see a freighter approaching.

  “What odds these crates are meant for it?” Edern asked.

  Jodi shrugged. “It’ll take time for it to dock. Then there’s paperwork to be done with the harbourmaster and another tide to wait out. We’ll be fine.”

  “I’d rather be out on the open road.”

  “You’re a bit of a tatchy wam, aren’t you just?”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  “Well, I’m not gadding about all grouchy and finicky, am I?”

  “I’m just not used to this,” Edern said. “Give me the hills to walk any day.”

  “Where some stoat or weasel would have you for its dinner. Wouldn’t that be lovely?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I suppose. I’m not exactly having the best time of my life either.”

  She slouched down, letting her feet dangle over the edge of the wharf, not caring if some fisherman spied her or not.

  “Where to now?” Edern asked as he settled down beside her.

  Jodi shrugged. “We’ll wait here until it gets dark, then we’ll go off to Denzil’s. He’ll know how to help us if anyone does.”

  “Help us?”

  “Get back to our proper size, you ninny. Do you think I want to spend the rest of my life as a mouse?”

  “I meant to tell you about that,” Edern said.

  “Tell me what?”

  Edern looked uncomfortable.

  “Tell me what?” Jodi repeated.

  He turned to look at her. “Did you never think about where the rest of you went?”

  Jodi blinked, then gave him a blank look.

  “One moment you’re full-size, and the next you’re the height of a prawn. Surely you’ve thought about the discrepancy?”

  “La,” Jodi said. “I never did notice.”

  Edern shook his head. “When the Widow shrunk you down, part of you stayed you‌—at your present size‌—but the rest of you was sort of scattered about, into the air as it were. To get those bits back, you need the third part of you, which the Widow kept for herself.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jodi said, feeling uneasy now.

  “It’s a kind of code of what makes you properly you. A charm, if you will, that will call back the scattered bits when you’re ready to go back to your proper size.”

  “I’m ready now.”

  Edern shook his head. “Without the charm, you’ll never be restored to your rightful size.”

  “A charm,” Jodi said slowly.

  Edern nodded.

  “That the Widow has?”

  Another nod.

  “Bother and damn. Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

  “You didn’t give me time.”

  “I gave you all the time in the world. More than likely you just wanted to get away yourself, and didn’t want my head cluttered up with other concerns.”

  Edern gave her a wounded look.

  “Or maybe not,” Jodi said. “So what’s this charm look like?”

  “It’s in the shape of a button and it’s sewn to the inside of her cloak.”

  “And yours? What’s your charm?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I saw her work the spell on you‌—that’s how I know as much as I do. When she worked it on me, I was in the same state as you were. Unconscious.”

  “So we have to go back?”

  “Only if you want to be your proper size.”

  Jodi shook her head. “I can’t believe it. Here it is, my Big Adventure, and how does it turn out? A quest to look for a bloody button on some old woman’s cloak. If this were in a book, I’d be embarrassed to turn the page.”

  “It’s not my fault.”

  “I suppose not. But where’s the Romance? Where’s the Wonder?”

  “Well, you are a Small.”

  “Oh, yes. What a wonder. To be a mouse. Maybe I’ll find some rat prince to rescue the day. Wouldn’t that be romantic?”

  “There’s always me.”

  “Oh raw we,” she said.

  “But, of course, I’m too old for you.”

  “Much too old,” Jodi agreed.

  And then she sighed‌—a long, heartfelt exhalation of air that did nothing to settle her gloomy mood.

  “I suppose it’s my own fault, really,” she said. “I was always lumping about, waiting to stumble in upon that Big Adventure of mine. And now that I have‌—well, it’s typical, isn’t it?”

  Edern looked bewildered.

  “That when I do,” Jodi explained tiredly, “it would be so‌—oh, I don’t know. So laughable. So pedestrian.”

  “Maybe all adventures are that way and they only seem exciting when they’re written up,” Edern said. “Though,” he added, “when I think of our escape, I could do without any more excitement, thank you kindly.”

  “You know what I’m saying. I’d just like it to be a bit more meaningful than scrabbling about Bodbury, being no bigger than a mouse and on a quest to find a button. It seems so unremarkable.”

  “A person being reduced to our size is unremarkable?”

  “Don’t be a poop.”

  “Now who’s being tatchy?”

  “And don’t be a bore.”

  Edern glanced at her and she gave him a grin.

  “I’m just being sulky,” she said. “And I know I am, so don’t lecture. I’ll be over it all too soon and then you’ll be wishing I was back to sulking again.”

  “You’re not very good at scowling,” Edern told her.

  “Can’t help it. I don’t ge
t enough practice.” Her grin widened. “Tell me what it’s like to be a traveling man,” she added. “To pass the time.”

  “What’s to tell? It’s walking the roads, up hill and down. . . .”

  Jodi pushed her worries to the back of her mind and settled contentedly against the crate, feet still dangling above the steadily rising tide, and closed her eyes. As Edern spoke, she brought up images in her mind to accompany his words‌—images of roads that wound through wild moorland and down craggy footpaths to the sea, of roads with hedgerows patchworking pastures and fields on either side that wound in and out of stone-cottaged villages in places she’d never been, of roads that were sun-drenched by day and mysterious by night. . . .

  It wasn’t until the sky darkened beyond their refuge, the long shadows of Bodbury’s buildings cast out across the harbour, that she woke up to discover that she’d fallen asleep with her head on Edern’s shoulder. He was asleep too, so she stayed where she was, looking out across the water until twilight grew into night. Then she gave Edern a poke with her elbow and sat up.

  “Time to go,” she said.

  “Give me five more minutes.”

  “I never realized that a traveling man could be so slothful.”

  “Why do you think we wander about like geese, instead of settling down in one place?”

  Jodi merely grinned. She stood up and stretched the kinks out of muscles, then faced him, arms akimbo.

  “Ready?”

  Edern groaned and made a great pretense of being an old man as he slowly rose to his feet.

  “I suppose you have some new amazing plan?” he asked.

  Jodi nodded. “We’re still off to see Denzil. He might not be able to make us bigger, but I’m sure he’ll be able to think of a way for us to get those buttons away from the Widow.”

  Edern shivered. “Maybe it’s not so bad, being a Small.”

  “Maybe,” Jodi agreed cheerfully, “but I don’t intend to settle into the life of a mouse until I have to.”

  The last of her words were thrown over her shoulder as she set off to retrace their path back through the winding maze made by the mountain of crates. Edern followed at a slower pace, wondering how she could move so surefootedly through the dark. It seemed to take forever and he was barely paying attention when she came to a sudden stop ahead of him. He only just stopped himself from bumping into her.

  “If you’re going to stop like that, the least you could do is warn me so‌—”

  “Whisht!” Jodi said.

  “What is it?” he whispered, moving up beside her.

  He had time to see the enormous bewhiskered face of a cat staring in at them from beyond the crates, then both he and Jodi were scrabbling back as a clawed paw came shooting in to try to catch them. The cat hissed in frustration, stretching its paw in farther. Jodi and Edern backed up well out of reach.

  “Bother and damn,” Jodi said. “Now what do we do?”

  “Did you never hear of good fortune where you came from?” Edern asked.

  Jodi gave him a withering look. “Don’t you start,” she said.

  “You mean you can’t charm it?”

  The cat made an angry growling sound as it continued to reach for them.

  “What do you think?” Jodi asked.

  Edern sighed. “I think we’ll still be here when the men come to move these crates onto the freighter in the morning.”

  3.

  Denzil Gossip was at his worktable, fussing with a small model steam locomotive, as night fell. He was hunched on a stool, back bowed like a victory arch, as he concentrated. His glasses kept slipping down his nose and he’d have to pause in his minute adjustments of the train’s clockwork mechanism to push them back up again. Moments later they’d fall back down once more.

  It wasn’t until it was almost fully dark and he couldn’t see a thing that he sat up and looked around his shadowed loft. Seeing that there was finally a chance to gain his notice, the animals immediately began to vie for his attention.

  Rum gave a sharp cry and scratched at the door, working new grooves into the wood to join all those he’d already made in days past. Ollie swung down from the top of a bookcase and landed on his shoulder, startling him so much that he dropped the tiny screwdriver he’d been using.

  “Now look what you’ve done,” he said.

  “Dumb, dumb,” Noz cried from his perch and opened his wings to fan the air.

  As though he’d planned it from the start of his leap, Ollie continued down from Denzil’s shoulder to land on the floor where he stood innocently picking at his nose.

  The mice and rats ran back and forth in their cages, excited by the sudden movements. The lop-eared rabbit pressed its face against the mesh of its cage front. The lizards skittered about, before freezing into new positions. The turtle stuck its head out of its shell and stared. The crow gave a loud caw from where it was perched on the top of the window sash. Only the catfish gave no notice, but then they never did to anything except for when bread bits or something equally edible was sprinkled on the surface of their water.

  Was it early morning or evening? Denzil wondered.

  He got off his stool to search for his screwdriver, but Ollie already had it and was trying to poke it into his ear.

  “Give me that,” he said.

  “Brat, brat,” Noz said.

  Across the room, Rum added yet another series of scratches to the door.

  Denzil stuck the screwdriver into his pocket, took off his glasses and gave them a perfunctory wipe on his sleeve, then crossed the room to the window where he put them back on.

  Early evening, he decided. That meant a day had gone by‌—only where had it gone? Had he been asked, he would have assured his questioner that he’d only sat down to tinker with the clockwork train a half hour ago. Perhaps an hour, tops. Just after breakfast. . . .

  He went to the door and let Rum out, then realized he had to follow the tomcat down the stairs to open the street door. He caught Ollie by the shoulder as the little monkey made to follow Rum out onto the street.

  “Don’t be bold, you,” he said as he swung Ollie up to sit in the crook of his arm.

  He took a look up the street, then down it, before closing the door and heading back up the stairs. Ollie squirmed in his arms, but he held on to the monkey until they were inside the loft and he’d closed the loft door behind them.

  The vast room seemed very empty for all the animals. Denzil lit a lamp, then another. Very empty. And no wonder.

  Jodi hadn’t been by yet today.

  Now that was odd, he thought. Where could she be?

  As he went about cleaning cages and feeding the animals, he tried to remember if she’d said anything about not coming ’round, because it was quite unlike her not to stop in at least once during a day. More often a half dozen times.

  All he could remember was talk of missing pages and loose ends and porpoises‌—no, that had been purposes. Purposes in life. She’d mentioned Taupin again‌—just to irritate him, he was sure‌—and then gone out, only to return with some gossip about a Small being spotted at the Widow Pender’s. In short, a typical day’s worth of her cheeky conversation.

  But not a word that she wouldn’t be by today.

  Was she ill?

  Unlikely. She seemed to be blessed with a constitution that didn’t know the meaning of the word.

  Run off, then?

  To where? And from what? For all her talk of boredom and lacking a purpose in life, she loved her Nettie and she’d never go without first saying good-bye to him.

  Kidnapped by thuggees, perhaps? A ludicrous thought, Denzil told himself as he stood by the window, looking out at Bodbury’s benighted streets. Still, where was she?

  Frowning, he thrust his hand into his pocket and immediately impaled it on the sharp end of the screwdriver. He pulled his hand out and sucked at the cut, then made up his mind.

  If she wasn’t coming here, why then, he’d go looking for her.

  He
put on his jacket, then a stovepipe hat that canted to one side. From a bamboo holder by the door stuffed with canes and umbrellas, he selected a walking stick topped with a silver badger’s head.

  Because he was worried.

  “Be good, you,” he told the animals as he closed the door behind himself.

  Awfully worried, really.

  When he reached the street, he stood there uncertainly.

  The trouble was, he didn’t know where to begin to look.

  The Unfortunate Cup of Tea

  Courtship consists of a number of quiet attentions . . . not so pointed as to alarm, yet not so vague as to be misunderstood.

  ‌—LAURENCE STERNE

  Janey slept late that morning. By the time she got up and made her way next door for breakfast, the Gaffer was already back from his morning’s deliveries and sitting down for a cup of tea before lunch, his copy of The Cornishman on the table beside his cup. He took in her sleepy look and gave her a grin.

  “And how are we this fine and sparkling morning, my robin?” he said.

  “Mmm,” Janey replied.

  She sat down at the table with him. Pouring a half inch of milk in the bottom of the cup the Gaffer had set out for her when he had his own breakfast, she pulled the teapot over and filled the cup up to its lip. The Gaffer went back to his paper until she’d finished that cup and had poured herself a second.

  “Where’s Felix?” she asked, eyeing the box of cereal on the sideboard without much enthusiasm.

  “Went out early for a walk.”

  That woke her up. The clock beside the door leading to the kitchen told her it was nearing half past eleven.

  “Did he say where?”

  The Gaffer shook his head. “He borrowed a pair of my old gum boots, so I’d suppose he went up along the coast path.”

  “Did he say when he’d be back?”

  The Gaffer shook his head again. “Give the lad a chance to get his own thinking done, my love.” When she made no reply, he added, “Made a decision, then, have you?”

  “No. Yes. Maybe.” Janey sighed. “Oh, I don’t know. It was so good seeing Felix again; I never realized how much I missed him till he was standing there in front of me. But what’s going to change? He still won’t want to go gigging, so where will that leave us?”