The memory made him smile. “The cape was presented to me by Winkel, one of the matriarchs of a kimen village. It’s woven from the fibers of a moonbeam plant and has the impressive property of camouflage. If you remain still, you blend into your surroundings, except in bright sunlight. And inside they sewed hollows, deep pockets where anything can be stored.”
He looked at her puzzled expression and knew he had to do more explaining. “Anything that fits in the opening of the hollow disappears. When you wear the cape, you can’t feel the weight of all that the hollows hold. No bulges or lumps or sagging material give away the fact that you carry weapons and food and clothing. Librettowit once produced a raft out of his hollow. In pieces. We had to put it together.”
Ellie remained silent.
Bealomondore let out an exasperated swoosh of air. “You haven’t gone back to not believing me, have you?”
“I … I believe you, but I would like to see these marvelous things. My mind would more easily picture such a thing. Seeing would make it easier to believe, but I do believe you, Bealomondore. Don’t you understand that I could imagine these marvelous things if I had at one time seen something like them?”
“Not necessarily.” Bealomondore noticed a movement at the corner of the next building. He slowed down. “I wore the cape and would forget its ability to hide me. I would put things in the hollows, which just looked like pockets, and then marvel over the lack of evidence that the items still existed. Many times I plunged my hand back in to draw the object out just to prove to myself that it hadn’t disappeared.”
He edged closer to his companion and spoke quietly. “Ellie, I think we have finally found the children. At least one. Ahead of us, at the corner of the music hall.”
Ellie looked ahead. “I see her. I think I’ve seen her another time. Yes, I noticed her before when I was the guest of the children.”
Bealomondore made no comment about her use of the word “guest.” She’d been abducted. Right now he focused on not allowing that to happen again.
Ellie’s voice came in a breathless whisper. “She’s smaller than the others, and I thought perhaps she was younger.”
“She must be small for her age. She’s still taller than either of us.”
“True.”
The girl came out in full view and sat on the edge of the wide step into the large hall. The front of the building had huge glass-covered posters of programs. The child watched them approach. Bealomondore inspected the surrounding buildings. “Careful,” he whispered to Ellie. “She may be the enticement for an ambush.”
Ellie drew near with caution. “Hello, my name is Ellicinderpart Clarenbessipawl. I remember you.”
The girl looked up but didn’t return the smile Ellie had given.
“What’s your name?” asked Ellie.
“Soo-tie.”
“I’ve just recently met a dragon named Soosahn. He’s a laughing dragon and is funny.”
The child stared at Ellie.
Ellie tried again. “I’d like you to meet him someday. Today, we brought you a treat.”
She pushed her blouse and the cloth aside to pull out a daggart. The child rose immediately and grabbed the offering. She darted off, but another child ran out from between the buildings. He pushed her, knocking her over. Stepping on her wrist, he leaned over and wrenched the prize from her hand. He ran off.
“Oh!” Ellie ran to Soo-tie’s side. “Are you all right?” She helped the child sit up and dust off her clothes. Then she handed the girl another daggart.
Bealomondore surveyed the area, looking for more children ready to ambush Soo-tie. He heard a rush of stomping feet behind him, but he only managed a half turn before three sweaty boys barreled into him and knocked him over. The basket of daggarts left his hand and made its way down the street amid hooting and hollering by the successful raiders.
He rolled into a sit and saw Ellie and the small child surrounded by a ring of girls. The barrier did not face inward, threatening the daggart carrier, but formed a defensive circle. Boys surrounded them. They stayed out of reach of the girls’ clawing hands, but feinted attempts to charge the defensive band of six-year-olds. The girls carried sticks, and the boys hefted rocks.
Bealomondore got to his feet and drew his sword. “See here,” he called. “You are going to back off and treat these ladies with respect. Miss Clarenbessipawl has brought you daggarts. You may each have one, but there will be no fighting.”
One of the boys turned and hurled the rock directly at Bealomondore. He raised the sword and knocked the stone away before it could hit him. He heard Ellie squeal and saw that the girls had converged upon his friend and the smaller child she attempted to protect in her arms. The boys joined the fray, hitting the girls as well as Ellie.
The girls pounded on Ellie and Soo-tie with the sticks. The boys didn’t need any weapons other than their fists. Some of the girls turned and attacked those attacking them. Besides poking and hitting with their weapons, the girls pinched and slapped at the boys.
Bealomondore roared and charged. The flat of his sword swatted the backsides of several boys. They hollered, but it took more than one swing to dissuade them from their rough game.
The tumanhofer wielded his sword with precision. It didn’t even come close to cutting one of the children. Bealomondore gave thanks for the sword that had taught him how to fight and, in battle, directed his aim. To maneuver among this crowd without really inflicting harm required concentration and precision. But he suspected the edge was as dull as it had been the last time he used his sword to ward off grimy urchins.
One bully reached through the fray and grasped the handle of the basket. He wrenched the prize of daggarts from Ellie and took off. Screeches of protest filled the street, and most of the children raced to catch the successful thief.
“Why are you crying?” asked Soo-tie. She looked at Ellie with concern. “No one is supposed to cry. They’re extra mean to you if you cry. You need to stop. They’ll come back and pull your hair if you keep crying.”
Bealomondore sheathed his sword and came to help Ellie get up.
“Oh, look.” She pointed after the gang.
Two children lay in the street. One held his head and moaned. The other wiped a bloody nose on his sleeve. Ellie limped to where the first one was stretched out on his back. Blood dripped from between his fingers where he had them buried in his long, tangled hair.
She knelt beside him while Bealomondore went on to the second child. Soo-tie followed, seemingly more interested in the tumanhofers than in her fallen comrades. Bealomondore helped the boy with the bloody nose get up and come back to Ellie’s side.
She pulled out a handkerchief, folded it, and applied it to the first boy’s head. The child interfered by trying to get his hands back to the wound.
“Stop it,” Ellie fussed. “Your hands are filthy, and the cut will become infected. It’s a small wound, but head cuts bleed a lot. Stop it and let me hold this. It’ll quit bleeding if you just let me hold the pad there. Am I going to have to sit on your hands? Stop it!”
Soo-tie laughed. “Sit on his hands!”
Bealomondore sat the other boy down, told him to lean his head back and apply pressure under his nose. He found the abandoned cloth from Ellie’s basket, wadded it up, and shoved it into the boy’s hand. “Use that.”
He moved closer to the boy with the head wound. “Let me see, Ellie.”
She pulled the cloth pad away for a moment.
Bealomondore inspected the boy’s scalp. “It probably could use stitches, but it will have to do without. If we keep it clean, he’ll heal up just fine.”
Ellie returned the pad. She took a deep breath and sat down next to her patient. Leaning him against her in a more comfortable position, she managed to get a better hold of the wiggling child to keep pressure on his wound. Tears still stained her cheeks, and she hunched first one shoulder and then the other to scrub them away.
She sighed again. Bealomondore cou
ldn’t quite determine whether she was weary or disappointed, disgusted or resolved to carry through with her agenda.
“My name is Ellicinderpart Clarenbessipawl. What is yours?”
Bealomondore looked away, grimaced, and turned back. She hadn’t given up.
The boy sniffed. “Porky.”
“Well, Porky, you and your friends have no manners. But that is going to change.” She addressed the bloody-nosed boy. “And what is your name?”
“Cinder.”
“Cinder, you are going to learn to enjoy life. You will find it is good instead of bad, fun instead of boring, and safe instead of dangerous.”
He lowered his head to look straight at her. The rag muffled his question. “Do you have more of them daggarts?”
“I do.”
He put his head back again. “I don’t think we want manners. Daggarts are all right. But I don’t know about the manners.”
“No manners, no daggarts,” said Ellie.
Bealomondore shook his head. How did she plan on withholding daggarts until she got the manners she wanted? So far, they’d engaged in two battles with the horde.
And the horde had won both battles.
“The bleeding has slowed.” Ellie dabbed at Porky’s wound with another clean cloth.
“There’s an apothecary a few blocks over.” Bealomondore looked up from washing Cinder’s face. “We could walk over there and get some sticking plaster.”
“Where are the dragons of the watch?” Ellie looked up and down the street as if they would suddenly appear. “It would be handy if they kept tabs on us instead of on all the empty parts of the city.”
“Are you proposing to organize the little band?”
“I bet they have followed the same routine for decades.”
“You’re probably right, but I don’t know how easily they can be persuaded to adopt another schedule.”
Ellie pushed on the boy leaning against her. “Come on, Porky. We’re going to take a walk.”
Soo-tie jumped up to go with them. “Does he need stitches? Are there stitches at that place? Are you going to make stitches? What kind of stitches? Like sewing? Eww! Will it hurt?”
Porky scowled at the girl and put up clenched fists. “You think I’m going to cry. I’m not. So you won’t have a thing to tell on me.”
“Hush, children,” said Ellie. She patted Porky’s shoulder. She had to look up to see his face, but she determined to treat him just like Gustus. “You chomp down on all those angry words. Think of something nice to say. You too, Soo-tie.”
Cinder snickered.
Ellie pointed a finger at the boy tagging along. “You aren’t out of it, Cinder. You think of something nice to say to both Porky and Soo-tie.”
Cinder made a face like he smelled cooking cabbage. “I don’t know anything nice to say.” He glowered at Soo-tie. “You go first.”
She lifted her chin and let a smug smile set on her lips. “I do know something nice to say. Since you chose me to go first, you know I’m smarter than either of you two. Else you wouldn’t have said for me to go first.”
“That’s squatty poop,” yelled Cinder.
“Hold it!” Ellie’s voice sounded loud and clear. “No one is to say another word until I give you permission.”
The three children clamped their mouths shut.
“Soo-tie, I appreciate your willingness to be first. However, you didn’t make it clear that you admire Cinder’s choice because he is clever enough to recognize that you are gifted in conversation and would be perfect to be the first to try a new way of speaking.”
“Huh?” said Cinder and Soo-tie.
Bealomondore winked at Ellie. “She means since Soo-tie talks more than the boys, then she probably could talk the way Miss Clarenbessipawl wants her to.”
“How does she want us to talk?” asked Porky.
“She wants you to talk in a way that makes the person talked to feel good.”
Puzzled glances passed between all three children.
“Why?” asked Cinder.
“Remember what I told you?” said Ellie. “You are going to learn to enjoy life. You will find it is good instead of bad, fun instead of boring, and safe instead of dangerous.”
Porky snorted. “Talking like you want us to is going to do all that?”
The other two snickered.
“Speaking politely will put you on the right road. Instead of being covered with the slime of destruction, you will be lifted above the mire.”
The three children turned to Bealomondore.
“She means that every time you speak in the way she doesn’t like, it’s like you fall in the mud. It gets in your clothes, in your hair, in your mouth. Sometimes it gets in your eyes and makes it hard for you to see. Sometimes it clogs up your ears so you can’t hear.”
“And if we talk like she wants us?” asked Soo-tie.
“The more you talk her way, the more dirt and grime and muddy slime drop off you.”
The children looked at themselves and the grubbiness that clung to each of them.
“This stuff washes off,” said Porky. “We don’t have to talk different. We just have to jump in the fountain.”
Bealomondore smiled. “Ah, but it’s not the dirt and mud you can see that is the problem.”
Cinder narrowed his eyes and looked suspiciously at the male tumanhofer. “What do you mean?”
“It’s invisible,” said Ellie.
“Invisible and”—Bealomondore let his voice drop to a deep, solemn whisper—“it goes inside you and sticks to your innards. Particularly your heart.”
“And in your blood,” added Ellie.
“You can’t wash it off,” said Bealomondore with a sad shake of his head.
“It has to wear off.” Ellie nodded with encouragement. “Sometimes it does fall off in chunks, but then you can’t see it, so you don’t know by what you see whether it’s here or there.”
Cinder blustered. “If I can’t see it, why should it worry me?”
“Because of what it does.”
Cinder held out his hands, covered with grime and dried blood from his nose. “It’s just dirt. It don’t do anything. Just because I can’t see it doesn’t make it more dangerous than plain dirt. If you’re trying to trick me into a bath, it’s not going to work.”
“A bath?” asked Bealomondore with a more vigorous shake of his head. “Hadn’t even crossed my mind.”
Porky looked at Ellie. “Are we going to be late for noonmeal?”
“I don’t think so.”
“We’re almost there,” said Bealomondore.
Ellie patted Porky’s arm. “I’m going to give each of you a sentence to say. We’ll practice saying nice things.”
“I don’t want to,” said Porky. “I have a wound.”
“The wound isn’t in your mouth,” said Bealomondore.
“I’m tired and hungry, and I don’t feel like talking like she wants me to. Why should I?”
Ellie heaved a giant sigh.
Bealomondore’s face became a mask of formidable adult determination. “Miss Clarenbessipawl, give him his sentence.”
“All right, Porky. This really won’t be hard.” She paused. “Your sentence is, ‘Thank you for staying to help me, Miss Clarenbessipawl.’ ”
Porky’s face darkened, and he didn’t say a word.
Bealomondore stepped in front of him, turned abruptly, and stopped. He spoke between clenched teeth. “Thank you for staying to help me, Miss Clarenbessipawl.”
Porky clenched his teeth while still glowering at Bealomondore. With his chin still looking like a donkey’s jawbone, he growled out, “Thank you for staying to help me, Miss Clarenbessipawl.”
Bealomondore’s face immediately melted from ice to sunshine. He thudded Porky on the shoulder, announced, “Good job,” and turned to Soo-tie.
“What do you have for our brave Soo-tie, Ellie?” Ellie smiled. “Cinder, I’m sorry you had a nosebleed, and I’m glad it stopped.” br />
Horror washed across Soo-tie’s face. “I don’t care if he had a nosebleed. That’s his goings-on, not mine.”
Bealomondore spoke before Ellie could begin the lecture forming in her head.
He put his arm around Soo-tie’s shoulders and gave a friendly squeeze. “That is one of the keys to what Miss Clarenbessipawl is talking about.”
“What? What is she talking about? She talks a lot.”
“This one is, ‘You are going to learn to enjoy life. You will find it is good instead of bad, fun instead of boring, and safe instead of dangerous.’ ”
“Huh?”
“You can’t enjoy life unless you can see good, have fun, and be safe. First key! Are you ready for it?”
Soo-tie looked skeptical, but she didn’t say anything to stop Bealomondore. Ellie wondered what the key would be.
“You are not alone,” he announced. “First key is that you do not live without others. First key is that you are blessed with people around you. First key is that you are not alone.”
Soo-tie stopped in the street. Bealomondore stopped as well, and so did the other three.
“Look around you, Soo-tie,” Bealomondore instructed her as he slowly turned her in a circle. “Who do you see?”
“You, her, Porky, and Cinder.”
“Excellent. Now you must realize that it is good that you are not alone. What would it be like if none of the other children were here?”
Porky wiggled in Ellie’s grasp. “She’d get more to eat at noonmeal.”
Bealomondore threw a comment over his shoulder. “There probably would not be enough for others if she were the only one.”
“Oh,” said Porky with a distinct air of disappointment.
Bealomondore turned back to the girl and his point. “What if there were no children here but you, Soo-tie? No one to talk to, no one to run with, no one during the night when it’s dark.”
He waited. Ellie leaned forward, anticipating the girl’s response.
Bealomondore asked, “Would that be good?”
Soo-tie shook her head.
“You are so right, Soo-tie. Having people around is a good thing. Because you are smart, you can see that the other children being here is a good thing.”