“I was born a couple of days ago.”
“Not of our stock. Where’s your tribe gotten to, and why are you apart from them? Banished? Abandoned? Or did you stop to do your business and no one noticed when you got left behind?”
The other skibbereen on the stump laughed so hard they began to glow red and blow gummy clots out of their noses.
“I don’t know. I don’t really understand how creatures get born, or what a tribe means. Or even what I am, if it comes right down to it. Or what you are.”
“Me? Old Flossie? I’m a professional shrew.” She laughed in a manner not altogether kindly, but not menacingly, either. “You’re in luck, though; tonight’s the monthly Duty Pageant, and that’s an earful and an eyeful, and it’ll stuff you with civic pride. Just mark my words.” She sniffed. “Is that tuna on your breath?”
“It’s tuna on my wings, I think.”
“You need a good bath. I’ll show you where. Let’s go.”
What-the-Dickens glanced at his new associate. Pepper seemed somewhat unsure of herself.
“Come with me,” he said to her.
“No, she can’t,” interrupted Old Flossie. “She has to get this tooth down to Central Supply so it can be registered on the manifest. Don’t detain her. She hasn’t got the best record among the training Agents. As for you, you’ll be needing an interview with Doctor Ill. But let’s get you a bath so you’re presentable. Look smart, now; here’s the doorway.”
When the stump mistress led What-the-Dickens past them, the other skibbereen fell back as if afraid of toxic contagion. He turned to look at Pepper, but she was being hustled away by a crowd of chattering skibbereen. They blathered, “You could’ve been killed! He might’ve done you in! You’re lucky to be alive! That’s some tooth you snatched!”
The plump old skibberee shifted aside a pumpkin-colored fungus that grew on the edge of the stump. Behind the growth appeared a round hole. Old Flossie could barely squeeze in, but squeeze in she did, at last, descending a staircase into the interior of the tree trunk.
What-the-Dickens looked back one more time. Pepper had paused on the other edge of the stump, resisting the surge of the crowd escorting her away. What-the-Dickens raised his eyebrows: Should I?
She shrugged back at him: What do I care? But she must care about something, for she looked more than a little worried. She finally made a motion to him — Go, go! — and, not feeling sure he was glad to be home, if this was home, he went home.
“Well,” said the stump mistress, as much to herself as to What-the-Dickens, “I can’t imagine what young Pepper was thinking. She oughtn’t to have led you here. Bad move on her part. You do seem too dull to be a spy — or if you are, the clan you’re spying for is sorely lacking in the smarts department. They probably couldn’t follow directions well enough to mount an attack on us anyway.”
“I wouldn’t attack anyone,” said the orphan skibberee. “Why should I want to do that?”
“Oh, we’re a clannish sort of creature; it’s our lot in life,” said Old Flossie. “We look after our own, which means in part overlooking everyone else.”
“I don’t have anyone who qualifies as ‘my own,’” said What-the-Dickens, “and as far as ‘everyone else’ goes, that’s Pepper and you and all those others I just saw. I’d hardly want to overlook you when I just met you. I wouldn’t even know how.”
“Live and learn,” said Old Flossie. “Here we are.” They had been descending steps all the while, but now she paused on a landing and took a great iron key out of her apron pocket. “I’ll leave you to wash up in peace, and you’ll find a little bedroom just beyond. It’ll have to do.”
“What will happen to Pepper?” he asked.
“That’s her business, and none of yours,” said Old Flossie, snappily. “Enjoy.” She pushed him over the threshold, and he heard the door locking behind him.
Funny sort of welcome, he thought. But there’s so much for me to learn.
A dim light filtered from above; he couldn’t quite tell the source. The chamber was small and bare of even the simplest stool or cushion, and he couldn’t find the bedroom she had promised. The walls were hung with a dense matting of vines sporting evil-looking thorny leaves.
She must have other things on her mind, he thought. The stump mistress has forgotten that there’s no sleeping chamber adjacent to this cell. She must be very busy with a job as a stump mistress. It sounds like a harder job than being a pet.
Tired but not despondent, he sat cross-legged on the floor and lowered his chin into his hands. He thought about Pepper and hoped that she wouldn’t get in trouble for bringing him here. Trouble was the last thing he had ever meant to make. Make good, maybe; make believe, yes. He wanted to make himself believe in something. But make trouble? Never.
Suddenly a hot storm of light flooded the chamber from above. The whole ceiling was burning white, too bright to look at. Invisible cords pulled the drapes of ivy back. On all the walls behind the ivy — even paneling the door through which he’d come — the silvery glint of mirror screamed at him. Showed him the truth: not one lost twin, as he’d once believed, but several images of sad, sorry What-the-Dickens, with his raked-up hair and his pretty wings with their useless, diamonding lights.
“Who are you?” brayed a voice from somewhere.
“What-the-Dickens, if you please,” he answered.
“Who are you!” the voice repeated.
“What-the-Dickens!” he answered back, roaring a little, in case the invisible questioner was hard of hearing. Then he answered the same question five more times in a row, even though the voice got louder and louder, as if it could scare a different answer out of him. But there was no other answer, not that he knew of.
“What is your colony?” the interviewer bellowed.
“I have no colony, I have no colony, I have no colony,” he answered, to save the loud inquisitor a little time and breath.
“Where are you from?”
“Beyond, somewhere. It hasn’t got a name, far as I know.”
“Who are your friends?”
This one was harder. “A grisset and her young. A proud white cat named McCavity. A Bengal tiger called Maharajah. That’s about it.” He didn’t think he could count as a friend the foul old woman who had trapped him in a drinking glass.
“What are you doing here?”
This was the hardest question of all. “I followed Pepper because she said, ‘Let’s go home.’ I was trying to see if this was home.” For the first time he began to lose his nerve a little. “Maybe I was wrong. Do you have to be so loud?”
“What are you doing here?”
“Hoping to get a little rest and then meet Doctor Ill, I guess? And make a home for myself with my own kind?”
“What are you doing here?”
The more often he heard this question, the less he was sure of the right answer. “Breathing? Waiting? Being scared? Watching myself in the mirror?”
“What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know.”
“What are you doing here?”
He gave up. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
Suddenly the harsh light paled, and the vines rolled back into place on three walls. The fourth wall slid aside, revealing Old Flossie. She stood with her arms around her bosom, frowning a little.
“Since I’ve never known the question chamber to fail,” she said, “I do believe you’re not a spy. You’re telling the truth.”
“Was that you shouting all those questions at me?”
“Sorry about that. We have to take precautions. My voice is magnified through this seashell apparatus built into the wall.”
“Wow. Cool. And all that light?”
“Heavy-duty torch that some human worker on the power lines left behind by accident. I say, you’re curious enough to be a spy. But I have to give you credit. I was watching from behind a two-way mirror. Pretty impressive, What-the-Whatever. You
weren’t even terrified of your own image. Usually it makes skibbereen crumple on the floor. Breaks their spirits, you see, softens them up for the interview.”
“I didn’t know that skibbereen are never seen until a little while ago,” he explained. “So I haven’t had time to become shy about it yet.”
Old Flossie beckoned him closer, and stood aside. Behind her was a little bed snugly tucked into the wall. “I guess you’ve earned your rest. I’ll go give an initial report to Doctor Ill, and when you’re more yourself we can make the formal introductions. Somewhat to my surprise, you passed the test pretty well, young fellow. Especially for someone who seems so dim. But here’s your bunk. There’s a basin to the side; kindly splash yourself free of that tuna perfume. I’ll let myself out.”
He didn’t believe he had fallen asleep — wasn’t he too nervous to sleep? — but now Old Flossie was shaking him by the shoulder, saying, “Come on, dunderhead, it’s almost dusk. Time to get up. I’ll be back in five minutes with some dandelion wine.”
She settled a firefly on a little wall sconce, where it could light the chamber, and she took herself off again, muttering.
What-the-Dickens blinked himself awake. He looked around. He had been so worn out that he hadn’t noticed a thing about the little antechamber in which he’d been installed. The space was pleasant enough, a plain cell carved out — or perhaps eaten out — of the dry dead wood of the tree trunk. The walls were smoothed with rubbing and varnished nicely with some natural gloss, so they shone in the firefly-light.
He sat up. The mattress on which he’d fallen asleep was made of dried moss. He pushed aside a small silvery afghan crocheted out of strands of recycled spider’s web. The pillow was several fluffy white dandelion heads stitched together — soft and agreeable, though he had to pick feathery bits out of his hair. What a cozy nest. He hoped he could sleep in this berth every day.
He stretched and flexed his wings and did some knee bends to loosen up. Then he arranged his trailing skin shreds to fall more neatly, as a tunic or a cape might. He was ready enough — as ready as he could get — when Old Flossie returned.
She twisted her lips, assessing his attempt at comeliness. Perhaps she was trying to smile and wasn’t very good at it. “You’re not much to look at; I’ll give you that,” she said, “but then that’s the whole point with a skibberee, isn’t it?”
She handed him a plastic screw-off cap from a discarded water bottle. It sloshed with a drink the color of antifreeze. “Here, help yourself to this decoction, duckie. Wet your whistle. I’ve brought you a bite of crystallized honey, too. I let you sleep as long as I could, but the compound is gathering for our Duty Day revelry. If you’re really an orphan as you claim to be, much of the goings-on will be new to you. You’ll learn something about Undertree Common, I reckon.”
“Undertree Common?”
“The homey name for it. Technically we’re Northwest Sector, Division B. Come along.”
He came along.
They left the guest bedchamber and followed some steps down. He guessed they were dropping deeper into the trunk of the tree, perhaps down its central taproot. When the staircase was met by other descending flights, the steps widened and the treads became deeper — much the way an accumulation of rivulets will broaden into a stream.
There must be dozens, maybe hundreds of rooms beneath the old tree stump, each with its own private entrance. Each with its own potential friend, thought What-the-Dickens, stirred by happy anxiety. And one of them was Pepper’s room. Where was she?
Then the flight of steps turned a corner and finished through an elegant carved archway. What-the-Dickens and the stump mistress came out upon a gallery looking down into a wide and plunging underground coliseum.
The cave had been laboriously carved out under the old tree. What-the-Dickens could see tree roots high overhead in the packed earth, trained like grapevines to form a dome. The ribs of the roots were tied back in places, and embellished here and there with carvings of florets or the faces of ancestors. It wasn’t so much an auditorium, exactly, as a kind of town square.
Several hundred skibbereen murmured excitedly. They were all on foot, pushing to get what seats there were, or jostling for prime places on the floor. They were getting ready to watch something on the stage in front.
“Why don’t they fly up and perch along the walls?” asked What-the-Dickens.
“We frown on flying indoors, because even in the best of circumstances it isn’t easy for skibbereen to control their wings,” said Old Flossie. “You’ll have noticed that yourself, simpleton though you seem to be. The tight quarters of this compound have led to many accidentally slapped faces, impromptu duels, grievances and griefs and untimely deaths. It is simply safer to walk.”
“Oh,” said What-the-Dickens. He was sorry he had asked, for skibbereen were turning at the sound of Old Flossie’s lecture. He felt the eyes of the collective upon him.
He didn’t sense overt hostility, nor did he imagine warmth or real welcome.
He supposed it was caution, and he supposed that was a good thing. There were other colonies, he had deduced, and so it was reasonable for the skibbereen to imagine he might be an enemy, even if he wasn’t.
Shall I wave, to show them I’m friendly? he thought, but decided against it. He was too shy, and anyway, waving might look dorky.
He was glad when Old Flossie led him forward to a narrow carved bench in a section up front marked “Reserved.” Pepper was waiting for him there. She was nibbling the edge of her wing tip.
“Hi, Pepper!” he said, perhaps too exuberantly, for all the skibbereen in the nearby rows fell about laughing and echoing, “Hi, Pepper! Hi, Pepper! Hi, Pepper!”
“Oh, do shut up,” said Pepper, and they did, but their smirks didn’t stop smirking. More quietly, she commented, “I am glad to see you. I was afraid they’d concluded you were an enemy alien and —”
“And what?”
“— Well . . . it would have been my fault if they’d —”
“If they’d what?”
“Never mind,” she said breezily, straightening up. “No harm done. Happy endings, and all that.”
“Did you get your credits?” asked What-the-Dickens, grabbing her hand as he sat down.
“Don’t touch me. Skibbereen rarely touch each other.”
All these rules, he thought. I’ll never learn.
“Please,” she said. “Don’t be glum. I’m glad you’re okay. Now, shhh: The pageant’s about to start. Look, there’s Doctor Ill.”
Old Flossie settled down on the other side of What-the-Dickens and dragged some handiwork out of a sack. She armed herself with two thorns shaped into knitting needles. A wodge of curlicued metallic scrubbing pad supplied the thread. “I knit handcuffs as a hobby,” explained Old Flossie happily, and set to work. “Idle hands get up to no good, so I like to be prepared in case I meet up with any idle hands.”
What-the-Dickens glanced to where Pepper was pointing. Above the stage area, in a kind of private theater box for Very Important Personalities, a husky skibberee had appeared. Oh, the stateliness of a statesman. Broad of belly but narrow of chin, goateed and pomaded and laced into a tartan vest, Doctor Ill waved with a grand plump hand at the crowd below. The loyal skibbereen roared their greeting back. It took What-the-Dickens a moment to realize that Doctor Ill was sitting on the back of a muzzled mouse.
“He’s been crippled for quite a while,” whispered Pepper. “Some time back, he lost the use of his legs in a horrible dental accident.”
“The poor mouse,” said What-the-Dickens. “Does it like its muzzle?”
“Who knows?” Pepper shrugged. “It’s all muzzled up so it can’t talk.”
What-the-Dickens began to reply, but Pepper added, “That’s just a joke. Mice can’t talk, you little fruit fly.”
“Oh,” he said.
“Let the Duty Pageant begin!” called Doctor Ill, waving a cane made out of a porcupine quill. The hubbub below sim
mered down, and the fireflies in the ceiling of the coliseum dimmed their lights to quarter-strength.
A small but sprightly orchestra offstage somewhere struck up a merry tune, and the curtains were pulled back.
“Ohhhhhhhhhh!” gasped everyone.
“It’s the same every time,” whispered Pepper. “I don’t know why they always act so surprised.” Old Flossie leaned in front of What-the-Dickens and rapped Pepper’s knees with a knitting needle to make her hush.
The overture crashed to a close in a rapture of cymbals. A chorus of bees bumbled onstage and took its place on a kind of bleachers made out of old Popsicle sticks. The bees hummed in less-than-perfect thirds.
Next, in strict formation, some male skibbereen marched on with red plastic toothbrushes slung over their shoulders like military firearms. They came to a halt on either side of a podium made of two old wooden spools, now bare of thread. One spool stood atop the other, secured together by a nail driven through their centers.
The music of the bees droned toward a climax. Finally a glorious female skibberee, in a skirt made out of a Sunday newspaper color supplement, paraded onstage. Rapturous applause from all sides. “Why does her dress say ‘Parade’?” asked What-the-Dickens.
“Shhh,” said everyone.
“Greetings, Doctor Ill,” began the silky-voiced hostess. “Greetings to all the loyal residents of Northwest Sector, Division B: our own Undertree Common! My name is Silviana, and I love you with all my heart!” She blew kisses at one and all.
“I love you back!” cried What-the-Dickens, smitten. But when all the skibbereen took up his cry, it wasn’t entirely in mockery, and Silviana pouted and preened and cut capers till the applause died down.
“You don’t talk back to a star!” hissed Pepper. “Just shut up and listen.”
“Oh, sorry,” whispered What-the-Dickens.
Silviana went on. The rustling of newsprint followed her as she drifted from side to side of the stage, displaying to each and every skibberee in the room her personal glamour.
“Every month at the full moon,” sang out Silviana, “we gather to remember our humble origins as skibbereen. We recall our ancestors. We relish our relatives. We refresh our sense of mission. Also we refrain from putting old chewing gum on the undersides of the benches. This means you. Let the Pageant begin!”