Mearsies Heili Bounces Back (4 page)

“A-HEM,” Irene said, stepping in the way of the horse.

He stopped, and looked down his nose at her.

“Where are you going?” Irene asked.

He yawned, and then cleared his throat, as he waved his
fingers at her to get out of his way.

“Getting a cold?” Irene asked sweetly.

“Little girls,” the fellow drawled (it took as long to drag
out the word
gurrrrrrllllllz
as it took any of us to say an entire sentence),
“ought not to be stepping in the road. Haven’t your parents told you that’s
quite dangerous?” And when she snorted, he added, “Speaking of parents. Ought
you not be home helping Mama?” He looked away—showing a practiced profile.

Irene turned to me, shrugging dramatically, hands out.

Sighing loud enough to blow leaves off trees, I dropped
down, and the other girls took that as a signal to plop, thump, scramble (or
drift, in Dhana’s case) down to range themselves behind me.

“Are you from Glotulae Auknuge?” I asked, unwilling to call
her a queen, when she wasn’t, or to give the name of her silly kingdom, which
was actually part of MH.

The guy looked so affronted I turned a six-week-old-fish eye
on Irene, who just shrugged and studied the leaves above as though the secret
of the world was written there.

“No,” he said in such a long, sarcastic drawl he managed to
get all the vowels in—with a few extra helpings. “Neiiiiiiiaaauuuooooooooowwwwwwww.”
And then he zapped any sympathy he might have won so far (which wasn’t much) by
adding, “I have come as a personal ambassador from Ujban to seek the hand of
Queen Clevarlineh in—”

“What?”

“Euw!”

“Gag!”

“—in disgust and nausea?” I bellowed.

“Hand? How about toes? Fins?” Faline cracked.

“Tentacles,” I snarled, and Faline, and doubled over at this
incredible wit.

“—marrrrriage,” he finished loudly, his fine cheeks quite
red. “She has suitors?” he added with the first real expression he’d used
yet—and I realized he’d expected us to be astonished. Maybe even grateful!

Astonished, yes, but as the girls whooped, cackled,
bellowed, snickered, and whinnied (that was Gwen, and Faline promptly started
cackling like a chicken, which got Diana ba-a-a-ing like a sheep, and so on) it
was quite clear to him that we were anything but
gratified
.

“No!” I yelped. “Watch your language!”

“And as for I,” Irene put in, even more loudly, “I have no
parents.” Then, with her most dramatic flair, she delivered a fine pocalube
against marriage, suitors, and mush. (A pocalube being an insult of at least
seven adjectives and a noun fit for villains. Pocalubes were a part of our
villain-fighting equipment.)

The guy scowled at us all—his second real expression—as he
said nastily, “You lot need a lesson in manners.”

“Who’s gonna teach it to us?” Irene fired back, even more
nastily.

The guy looked a whole lot closer to our age as he jumped
off his horse.

It was way too easy to imagine this clod knocking Irene into
orbit.

I started on a spell—but got distracted when Irene yelled, “Any
hand you get will be a fist to give you a black eye.” And she ducked behind a
tree as Sherry and Gwen laughed.

Faline snickered as well, but I could hear her wheezing, “...
ask for her nostril in marriage ...”

Seshe, on my other side, said with briskness (for her), “You
might not like our manners, but you’re here in our country.”

“I’m here on a diplomatic mission,” the fellow said. “I’m
from a very good family, and the girls at home think me handsome.”

“You won’t be with a black eye,” Irene snouted in from
behind the tree.

He gave her a glare. “I’ve heard enough from you, little
girl.”

“... ask for her wart in marriage ...”

“Mish mash,” Irene snapped, and then offered Gwen’s
contribution to snobbish language, “Pip pip tut tut ol’ bean ol’ chap ol’ SAP.”

As soon as she heard Irene squeaking
pip pip
Faline
stopped proposing marriage to body parts and went off into gales. Gwen had
brought that bunch of sayings, insisting that she hadn’t made them up, and
Faline badly wanted to go visit any land in which adults actually said
pip
pip
to each other.

“Parp parp!” Faline honked.

“Go away,” Diana said to the guy.

Before he could answer, the rest of his party
arrived—another fellow, turned out to be his cousin, and their servants.

Within five heartbeats we were all involved in a grand old insult
fight. At that point Seshe stayed out of it, withdrawn and silent. In the
middle of it all Faline, then Sherry, then Gwen started exchanging body-parts
in marriage again—this time between them, like “My little toe requests your
spleen in marriage,” and then making
Parp parp, pip pip, pop tut!
noises.

When Sherry and Gwen got to animal parts (tentacles,
hedgehog spines, antennae, hooves, etc) the cousin started laughing. Our guy
started getting mad, and threatened Irene. At that point it was time for the
Spam Pie of Justice.

These guys were not nearly as hardy as PJ’s slobs. Barely
had the two Ujbanians received a sour-cream/sauerkraut deluxe and a
cherry-banana-rhubarb supreme apiece when they rode off.

In triumph we went off to tell Clair.

She’d finished morning boredom and was just sitting down to
lunch when we all flocked in. At once Janil broke out the food that we would
have been transferring down to the Junky if we’d stayed below, as we all told
her what had happened.

By now I’d gotten pretty good at reading her expression.
Though she smiled and laughed at all the right places, the only time her eyes
crinkled up in a real laugh was when Sherry said earnestly, “He came seeking
your elbow in marriage.” Followed by Faline tootling, “Tut tut tut!”

“So anyway.” Irene dusted her hands. “He’s gone, and you’re
safe.”

“Why?” Clair returned.

“Huh?”

“Why did you need to keep me safe?” Clair asked. Not mad or
anything, but Irene looked as if she’d taken aboard a face-load of the cherry
supremo instead of the cousin.

“Well—”

“I would have liked to do my own refusing,” Clair said.

Diana nodded once. “Thought so. Be fun for you,” she added.

“Well, I don’t know about fun,” Clair said. “I mean, he came
from another country, so I suppose I should be diplomatic. Like you say he said
he was being—though that makes me suspicious.”

“Like he’s a spy?” Irene asked, aghast. “I didn’t think of
that.”

“No, more like marrying me sounds like a great way to become
a king, get rich, not have to work, or any of that stuff.”

“But—eeeeuw,” Sherry said, her eyes wide.

Clair grinned. “Well, if I didn’t have the kid spell on me,
what would I be? Fifteen or sixteen? How fun, I’ve forgotten. Maybe I should
count so I can gloat on my next birthday.”

“I did,” I said—my first birthday, the thirtieth of
fourth-month, having just been a couple weeks before.

Clair smiled my way, then continued. “Anyway, if they don’t
know about the spell yet, he might think I’m the right age for courtship and
all that flummery.”

Seshe nodded. “From a distance it sounds reasonable.
Probably selfish motives, but reasonable. Plenty of people court for that
reason.”

“And even say yes,” Clair admitted. “So I’ve found in the
records. Another reason not to grow up! Well, I’ll have to smooth all that out,
unless you girls want to go apologize and be ambassadors.”

Well, I knew duty even if it hadn’t been spelled out.

“Who’s coming with me?” I said. And, “Get some nice clothes.”

“No problem!” Irene said, smacking her hands and rubbing
them.

o0o

Before we left, Clair asked us to review good manners for
visiting adults in their homes. When most of the girls kind of looked uneasily
at each other, Seshe turned bright red. “I could offer some things,” she said
to the floor.

“Great idea.” Clair grinned. “We’ll have a Propah Dinner tonight.
I’ll tell Janil to dig out the really good porcelain dishes in the back
storage, and everybody has to put on her fanciest dress. Diana, you have to
find a shirt without any holes in the elbows.”

The girls agreed, and that’s what we did. Janil cooked up a
fancy meal and served it with delicate dishes and golden utensils I’d never
seen before. Even Clair looked surprised by it all.

Pretending to be snootier than the snootiest duchess, Seshe
demonstrated proper table etiquette, with a lot of crooked fingers and
suchlike, to make the girls laugh. So it ended up being fun, but it also was a
good lesson in how to eat nicely, and be a representative for the kingdom. “You
never know when you might need it,” Clair said. “Spies always have to take
manners lessons, I have read.”

“Spies!” Faline exclaimed, eyes wide. “Wow! Manners? No,
nuh-uh. The only lessons they get are in sneaking around, and maybe codes.”

“Spies have to blend in when they aren’t sneaking. Look at
the records.”

Faline cast a terrified look at the library as if the books
would come flapping out like bats and make her read their words. When the
others were done snickering at the look on her face, they galloped off to spend
the rest of the evening doing fun stuff, as we’d leave early the next day.

I lingered.

Clair gave me one of those looks of hers. She said, “Seshe
has what are called scruples. I think that’s what made her run away from
wherever she was born.”

Scruples. I knew that word—sort of. A boring word, the kind
of word adults ranted at you about, before they turned around and did what they
wanted, NOT what they said.

Wrestling back my impatience, I said, “That’s kinda like a
conscience, right?”

Clair looked out the kitchen window, toward the Squashed
Wedding Cake in the distance. “There aren’t enough scruples—or consciences—in
the world. Here’s what I like about Seshe, she never tries to be anyone else’s
conscience.”

“That’s true,” I exclaimed. “You’re right!” And so my own
bubbles of irritation when I saw Seshe doing the right thing were because my
own under-used conscience would wake up and boot me when I should be heeding
it. Even though she never, ever, yapped at us for being wrong.

I went off to think about that—not that I came to any
conclusions, except the usual: to be a better princess. That always lasted
until the first pocalube-causing snackle-wit got in my way!

o0o

There’s really only one other thing from that silly mess to
report, which wasn’t us being brats. Clair spent a full day making us a
transfer token, once she located the guy’s family on an old map, and the notes
for the nearest magical transfer Destination. That way we wouldn’t have to risk
traveling past Fobo’s lair on our way north. Traveling by magic didn’t feel
good, but it turned a trip of several days into one of at most an hour.

We ended up being guests at the home of the guy’s mother,
who was a countess. She was related to the rulers, so Clair had been right out
that courtship business being (at least partly) diplomatic.

I talked to the countess, being careful to use all the ambassadorial
terms that Clair had suggested. The countess was pleased, and gave me an
interview with the cousins. I apologized, explained about our mistake, and the
mention of the Auknuges was convincing, though they didn’t particularly like being
compared to them. I got an idea that Princess Glotulae (they didn’t call her “Queen”
either) had once tried to get her brother to invade Ujban. I ended by slipping the
countess and her family an addition that I’d made up, and they became very
thoughtful. Then, at the mother’s invitation, asked us to stay.

We were on our best behavior—Seshe was our guide on manners
among toffs—but there was one thing she couldn’t do that ended up making a bit
hit. And we hadn’t expected it at all.

See, they had a ballroom at that palace, and they weren’t
afraid to use it. I mean, they had balls almost every night. Balls! I certainly
would never have gone to one on my own, unless it was one for kids—you know,
you get to wear a pretty dress with a swooshy skirt, and twirl around to music,
but there’s lots of food, and maybe a food fight and some hide and seek,
possibly a pool to fall into, which is ten times funnier when you’re in fancy
clothes. Drinking wine and dancing around with a bunch of boys is
not
fun stuff unless you’re being zombies or something.

Anyway, the only ball I’d been to so far was when we broke
in accidentally on one held by PJ when they practiced a dance while all dressed
up. This was when we were scouting for furniture for the Junky. If he’d ignored
us, we would have left him alone, but he yowled for the guards. Ordered them to
kill us. Then started chasing us himself, waving his diamond-studded sword and
bellowing death threats. Of course we had to waylay him and toss him into the
nearest fishpond, diamond sword and gemmed velvet and all.

What’s more, those guards hadn’t exactly been Speedy
Gonzales about trying to catch us.

Anyway, we had misgivings about this ball.

We wore our nice clothes and when things began, we were
careful with our manners. Faline even kept her jokes to a minimum, not saying a
single “Parp parp!” to any adults.

Well, all of us like music, some more, some less. But one
thing we agree on is that music made by many musicians is a real treat. Those
of us who love it often go listen to the cloud-top musicians practice. But what
is even more fun is having a giant room all fixed up fancy with silver-veined
marble, and carvings, and velvet-covered little chairs, an orchestra playing
music with a dancy beat (waltz time being my favorite) and a swishy skirt on so
you can jump and leap and twirl to your heart’s content and not bump into
anybody.

Anyway, we danced by ourselves, though the cousins teased us
for it. (We more or less got things on a neutral footing once they found out
Clair is still a kid and not planning to marry anybody—but they couldn’t resist
teasing, and of course we piled on the pocalubes right back, but funny ones,
not the stinkeroos we reserve for real villains.) In fact, Irene was in the
middle of a long argument with a couple of guys Puddlenose’s age, when everyone
fell silent one by one, some staring with their mouths open.