His reflections were torn in shreds by the sound of wind through talons. Talons? Yes, the claws, strong as bronze, of an old owl on his way home after a night of hurly-burly, and hungry as an owl can be even with the greasy remains of a small vole still smeared in his beak.
But we skibbereen aren’t terribly appealing to predators, thought What-the-Dickens, madly trying to fly faster. Are we?
Maybe not; but there was a little hint of tiger still lingering on the tiger tooth, and an owl is a carnivore. . . .
Help! shrieked What-the-Dickens — not with his mouth, for his head was down and his lips closed, every ouncelet of him trying to imitate a bullet. Help. Help.
Maharajah, royal creature: Break the bars of your cage and leap to help me, as I helped you. . . . I know you can hear me. I believe it. I believe it.
The owl bore down. What-the-Dickens could hear the wind slicking through the owl’s wings, but the air remained calm. An owl attacks without turbulence.
Help, he thought again, the kind of thought you have when there is no other thought left to have. Help, please. Help.
Help came, swifting in from the right, a crazed blob of lopsided traveler, weaving and bobbing, then intercepting the owl, and plucking What-the-Dickens out of harm’s way.
The rust-throated grisset, bumpy in her navigation as usual, lurched down to the west, and the owl was too big to bank swiftly enough to follow. What’re you doing here, you wonderful accident? said What-the-Dickens.
She answered him, in her way, which wasn’t exactly loquacious, but cheery enough, and welcome in any case. Flap flap, she said, flap flap! Home and back, home and back. Where is home? There is home. Are you my baby? I like to keep in touch. Blood’s blood, and kith is kin.
He didn’t know if these were words, or thoughts, or just sympathies without words. He couldn’t yet tell. Maybe he’d never know.
He knew what to answer, though. She was as close as he’d ever come to having a mother, even if she had once tried to feed him to her other children. Yes, I’m your baby, he said, which seemed to make her happy, though it didn’t make her fly any more directly. She lurched like a kite at the mercy of opposing winds.
The cloverleaf appeared below them as the owl circled and then decided to go home and nurse his grievances and digest that vole.
What-the-Dickens knew that if he told the rust-throated grisset to drop at once toward the arrival stump, she would mean well but probably veer astray. This was how grissets survived predators themselves, flying so unpredictably that even they didn’t know where they were headed.
So, apologetically, What-the-Dickens did a rude and graceless thing. He wrenched himself around in the clutch of the rust-throated grisset, and he opened his little mouth, and he bit her in the thigh.
Ingrate, barked the grisset, and flinched. Her grip relaxed. What-the-Dickens fell toward the ground, racing on a bull’s-eye course, and the sun readied its hems of light in preparation for its grand entrance.
Keep in touch, fluted the grisset, family-minded and a mother at heart, even when her stepchildren bit her in the thigh. Don’t be a stranger, stranger! Just call out my name and, you know, I might not hear you, but I’ll try!
Maybe she said that. Or maybe it was just her usual off-key commentary about the skittish nature of happenstance.
The skibberee kept his arms around the tiger tooth. The satchel with the Gangster tooth and the Tavenner tooth bounced painfully against his spine. Soon he was close enough to see Old Flossie and the skibbereen beginning to duck for cover in case he hit the runway full-force and splattered himself in a six-foot wave of skibberee guts.
He remembered his maneuvers in entering the slipstream of the bakery delivery truck on the highway. Now he revised them for a full-gravity encounter. He arched his wings into two canopies, imitating a parasail, or a pair of hinged maple seeds. He slowed himself down so suddenly that he dropped the tiger tooth.
Like a missile, it fell to the stump and drove in, point first, a kind of landing stump on a landing stump.
There his feet settled, as graceful as tumbling lima beans could do.
The skibbereen raised their foreheads above the floor of the trunk and peered, wide-eyed, from their places of safety. They all saw What-the-Dickens lower his wings and fold them against his back. Only then did the sun strike him straight in the face, making the point that no one present could deny. He had gotten in on time. Not a moment to spare, but on time nonetheless.
THE NOISE WOKE UP REBECCA RUTH, but not Zeke, not at first. He rolled over and snored on. Dinah, her whole mind filled with a world of tigers and owls, grissets and skibbereen, kids and teeth and Goodness bakers, couldn’t shift her focus fast enough. Not until Gage had leaped to his feet and crashed into the wall, and sworn a most un-Ormsby-like curse, did she realize what it was.
Gage was lunging for the telephone. The phone was ringing.
He garbled into the receiver, “The phone’s working — it’s working!” as if the person phoning couldn’t have guessed.
Dinah grabbed Rebecca Ruth to shush her morning lamb-like bleet, which could become a tiger roar in about three seconds. “Who’s my baby pet?” crooned Dinah, rocking Rebecca Ruth with too much vigor.
“Hello,” she heard Gage say. “Bad connection — speak up! Is this you?”
His tone more normal, he continued, “Tavenner here.” He scratched his head, rucking up his hair. “Yes, she’s back; she didn’t stay out long. We’re all here and we’re fine.”
Oh. Must be one of those deputies. Oh, well.
Still, the phone was working now; that was something. Dinah wished she could hear both parts of the conversation.
“What’s the news?” asked Gage. “Did you have any luck at getting the temporary wall up? Any chance of power today?”
Dinah could hear a metallic sort of harangue filtering through the earpiece.
“Look,” answered Gage. “Didn’t I explain this last night? Mrs. Ormsby was having a medical emergency. Her stock of insulin was spoiled when the first power failure canceled the refrigeration, and their generator wouldn’t kick on. I would have made the effort to drive her over the ridge road myself —”
The sound, quite possibly, of a damn from the other end of the line.
“— but I wasn’t trained to help her in case we couldn’t get to proper attention, and her husband knows more than I do about her condition. And of course they didn’t dare take the children with them, knowing what was being said about the ridge road. Is it passable now?”
Dinah watched his face. How did adults manage to support faces made out of concrete? Showing nothing?
“Well, we’re all fine,” he said. “You can report in that you’ve heard —”
After another few seconds, listening to blather, Gage turned and crooked his finger at Dinah. “They want to hear your voice to make sure I’m telling the truth,” he said. “They’ve gone insane with stress and fatigue. They think I’m an ax murderer or worse, taking advantage of my younger cousins.”
Dinah wrenched the phone from Gage. “I’m here — I’m fine,” she barked. “Gage is doing fine.”
“What’s he doing?” It was that lady deputy. Rosa Herrera.
“Telling stories.”
“Hmmm. Okay, girl. You all take care. If we can get back that way today, we’ll pick up anyone ready and waiting. We’ll leave behind anyone who has decided to play hide-and-seek on us. You got me on that one, honey? Stay put. And I’m not above smacking your butt if I catch you at any funny business. But it won’t be before noon, earliest. Best case scenario, the lower road will be passable. If they can get the transformer fixed, and if the South River drawbridge is still there and functioning. Here’s hoping.” Even as Deputy Rosa Herrera was hanging up the phone, Dinah could hear that the woman’s attention was moving on: she was barking at someone else, “Now, about those preemies at the Mountainside clinic . . .”
The line went dead. There was still a dial tone, for now. But
there was no one useful to call. No way to find out what had happened to them.
Dinah hung up the receiver. “No one really knows where they are,” she said to Zeke, who was rubbing his eyes and sitting up now. “If they made it over the ridge road, everything might be okay. But it still could be a while before they can get back to us.”
“If they made it,” said Zeke. “If they could find someone with a fresh supply of insulin. Properly refrigerated. If and if. We ought to spend a little time in prayer.”
“First things first,” said Gage, “and the first thing is that someone needs a diaper change.”
“There are no more diapers,” said Dinah.
“Paper towels and packing tape,” said Gage. “Who says English teachers are useless in a crisis?”
“Brekkie,” said Rebecca Ruth. “Brekkie brekkie now.”
“Guess what we have for breakfast!” said Dinah cheerily. “Water!”
The kids ate water and tuna fish and peaches and baby carrots. They saved the candy bars. Then, since it was not yet dawn — not on a cloudy night of storm — Dinah lugged Rebecca Ruth back into the front room, and they settled in a twitchy heap, waiting for the light to arrive, what light there might be.
Gage had two aspirin for breakfast, and water. “Ahh,” he said. “A balanced diet: one aspirin for each hand.”
Zeke went to the bathroom and was in there longer than usual. Maybe he’s crying, Dinah thought. He shouldn’t let the faucet run for an hour.
Zeke could be a bully about prayer sometimes. Dinah didn’t want to have to argue with him. “Get started on the story again,” she told Gage. “Before he gets back.”
“Give me a break. You’re merciless.” Gage rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Let me come up to room temperature, will you?”
Dinah didn’t plan to say what she said next; it just came out. “You were asleep, and you jumped so fast for the phone. You were hoping that phone was for you,” she observed. “You want someone to care about what’s happening to you, too — not just to us. Don’t you.”
You have someone of your own, she thought.
“I’m doing just fine,” he said, “for a sleep-deprived citizen of our fair land.” He scratched his scalp and grinned. “None of your business. But I’ll say this, sweetheart: To feel all alone sometimes doesn’t mean you’re going to feel alone forever.”
“Tell me about it,” she replied. Her voice sounded cold.
“I will,” he promised. “Do you remember what happened last?”
“What-the-Dickens made it back safely,” said Dinah. Then without warning her own eyes ridiculously filled up, stinging hot. “He made it. He made it. He made it.”
“You again!” said the stump mistress. “You’re the burdock stuck to my behind, aren’t you? You’re not expected back. Didn’t you get the message?”
“There’s been an emergency,” said What-the-Dickens. “I have to report a catastrophe.”
“Whatever,” said Old Flossie. She sounded as if What-the-Dickens could say nothing that might deserve her full attention. Indeed, she turned to address the runway assistants. “Speaking technically, the arriving agent needs to touch down on the runway by exactly the first ray of sunlight. But this wastrel is standing on some sort of plinth, not on the runway itself. Make a note of it.”
“It’s not a plinth,” said What-the-Dickens. “It’s a tooth, a tiger tooth. Now, about Pepper —”
“About Pepper,” said Old Flossie, “— or the skibberee previously known as Pepper — I note that she is absent. She hasn’t fulfilled her mission. She’ll be dealt with accordingly. Pity, but there you are.” She put her hand to her eyes and scanned the skies. “Even she can’t argue that she almost made it. Where is she?”
“Steady yourselves for bad news,” said What-the-Dickens feelingly. “She’s been hurt, and captured.”
He expected this report to be greeted with silence, at least. But Old Flossie only harrumphed and remarked, “She’s been well-trained. She’ll know what to do.” The other skibbereen, giggling without much focus, returned to their tasks.
They picked up little whisks made of five or six evergreen needles and swept the tree stump clean. Then, in artful artlessness, the welcoming crew arranged several dead leaves and a pinecone on it. Very convincing, thought What-the-Dickens. Any human being tramping through the woods would imagine that nothing was amiss. Nature was busy rotting and thrusting itself into life again with its usual force, incoherence, and charm.
Without comment What-the-Dickens surrendered the Tavenner tooth and the Gangster tooth. The tiger tooth he would not surrender. “I shall deliver it personally to Doctor Ill,” he said. “A token in memory of Pepper.”
“In memory of whom, dear?” asked Old Flossie pointedly. “Anyway, I don’t believe you’re welcome here.”
He followed her into the sweet haven of Undertree Common anyway. The various domestic skibbereen were at work, keeping the colony clean and orderly. Each at the assigned task. Unnamed, uncounted, and un troubled.
Then, suddenly, there was Silviana, the very same, in her full skirts sweeping along a corridor reciting something to herself. What-the-Dickens felt respect and nerve bloom in him at once, and before he could talk himself out of it, he reached out and touched her on the shoulder as they drew abreast of each other.
“You were wonderful at the Duty Pageant,” he told her.
She reeled back against the wall, far more startled than he’d expected her to be. “Heavens!” she said.
“I’m sure everyone says this to you all the time but — well, I’m new — and I never saw anything like it before.”
“I have no doubt,” she said, regaining her composure. And fluttering her eyelids.
“And I have some terrific new material for you — about Pepper and a tiger tooth. It’ll wow ’em.”
“You don’t talk to the likes of her, you,” said Old Flossie, and tried to give him the back of her hand, but he ducked.
“My name is Silviana,” she said. “I have a name,” she asserted, and curtsied, mostly to herself.
“Deeply impressed,” said What-the-Dickens. “I do too. What-the-Dickens, at your service.”
“If you’ve decided to oppose Doctor Ill, let’s get it over with,” said Old Flossie, tugging at What-the-Dickens. “We mustn’t keep Doctor Ill waiting.”
“I haven’t decided to oppose anyone,” said What-the-Dickens. “I want to explain to him about Pepper. Maybe he’ll have some idea about what to do.”
“I have no doubt,” said Silviana, more insistently than before.
“Miss Silviana, you must forgive him, and forget all about this,” said the stump mistress. “He’s a simpleton, no more, no less, and he won’t be in residence much longer.”
“I have no doubt about that,” she replied, a bit wistfully, and she fled down the hall in a thistly rustle of skirts.
“She has no doubts,” mused What-the-Dickens. “None at all. I have nothing but doubts.”
“A skibberee who doesn’t know when to clam up is a skibberee with a big problem,” barked Old Flossie. “Now, not another word out of you until Doctor Ill asks you a question.”
They walked on. I’m more at home here now, thought What-the-Dickens, because I know it better. I know this corridor, these lights, this stump mistress.
But I’m less at home here now, too. Because I know it better.
The paradox made his wings ache.
“He’s cruel, isn’t he?” said What-the-Dickens. “The crown, I mean. Your boss.”
“Ask no questions!” said Old Flossie sternly, and at once, as if she’d anticipated the remark. “He has our good at heart. It’s easy to prattle off an opinion about his manner or methods, but he’s kept us safe for many years. In the world at large, we’re small.” She continued in a softer voice. “You’re very young yet, and preposterously thick. Perhaps you haven’t quite taken in the measure of us. We’re quite small. Very, very small and fragile. He??
?s our crown. Don’t disrespect him.”
“That mouse he’s muzzled. And rides around on!” Suddenly What-the-Dickens was offended. “Hardly better than caging a Bengal tiger.”
“He lost the use of his legs, you know. You, the nosy question-asker, haven’t asked how.”
“Pepper called it a dental accident.”
“Everything in our lives is a dental accident, you idiot. Actually, the incident was an attack by the little vermin who call themselves the colony of Sequoia Heights. Northwest Sector, Division D. Uppity sort. Doctor Ill was the first one into the fray, you know. The crown of Sequoia Heights was riding a captive iguana, who savaged Doctor Ill’s legs. But Doctor Ill never paused. He’s a military hero. Bolstered by his courage, our troops withstood the attack, and we fended off our enemies. He wasn’t Doctor Ill back then. He was a mere Agent of Change. Name of Aking.”
What-the-Dickens raised an eyebrow. So an Agent of Change could become an upper? In certain circumstances? Pepper hadn’t known this.
Old Flossie misunderstood his silence. “The name Aking derives from ‘baking soda.’”
“Oh.”
“So he knows strategy firsthand,” finished Old Flossie. “Now shhhh, we’re here.” They knocked and were bade to enter the crown’s chamber.
Muzzlemutt prowled back and forth in his little cage. Doctor Ill was reading an old scrap of advertising copy about mintyfresh dentifrice.
“Oh, it’s the little anomaly, what’s-its-name,” said Doctor Ill, with boisterous good humor.
“What-the-Dickens,” he said.
“Yes, that’s it. And your accomplice, that quirky good-for-a-joke agent-in-training. What was her name?”
“Pepper,” he answered, a little irritably. “Don’t you remember? She was on a mission last night — a final mission to qualify for her license as an Agent of Change.”
“Of course,” said Doctor Ill blandly. What-the-Dickens had the sense that Doctor Ill would have said “Of course” in response to any report he heard, whether it be that Pepper the tooth fairy had come home triumphantly, or had been reported missing in action, or by popular acclaim had been nominated as the next President of the United States.