Twice Upon a Marigold (2 page)

Before long, everyone in Granolah was calling the new arrival Angie, and had accepted her presence as part of their village life. The only problem was with the animal that had been trapped inside her dress. He was miserable, as well as terribly noisy, inside the fishing creel. But when the Appenzellers tried to dump
him outside in the woods, he raced them back to their cottage and sped straight for their visitor, who was ter-rifled of him.

"Perhaps he was your pet in the life you've forgotten," Ubaldo finally suggested. "Maybe he remembers what you don't." He handed Angelica a scrap of platypus left over from their previous night's dinner. "Here. Try feeding him. See how he reacts to you."

"
You
try," she said. "I'm afraid he'll bite my hand off."

"It's you he seems so fond of," Ubaldo said nervously, pressing the platypus scrap into her palm. He flipped up the lid of the creel. "Don't cringe," he encouraged her. "Be brave."

The animal jumped out of the creel, looked around, and headed for Angie, fast as lightning. He scaled her like a mountaineer, bypassing the platypus and nestling on her shoulder with his nose in her ear, making pitiful little mewling noises.

"See?" Mr. Appenzeller said. "He likes you. Better than platypus even."

Angie sat as still as a post, her eyes wide and terrified, the platypus forgotten in her hand. But when all the animal did was continue his whimpering in her ear, she gradually relaxed. Tentatively, she patted his furry back, which caused him to snuggle even closer.

"Maybe you're right," she whispered. "Maybe he
was
my pet."

"Sure looks that way to me," Ubaldo said. He removed one of the leather straps from the fishing creel, and said, "We can put a collar on him, and a rope. That way we can keep control of him." He dangled the strap toward the woman. "He'd probably like it better if you did it."

It took some coaxing and jockeying by both of them, but finally they got the collar on the creature's neck. The length of rope tied to it seemed unnecessary considering how closely he huddled against the woman's skirt.

"I guess he needs a name now," Ubaldo said. "Anything come into your mind?"

Angie looked down at him. "No. So why don't we call him—I don't know—Fenleigh, let's say."

"Pretty highfalutin name for a—whatever he is—but I guess that's his name now."

T
O EVERYONE'S SURPRISE
, Angie made a friend of the village's most troubled resident—Lazy Susan.

Lazy Susan was Sleeping Beauty's half sister, and she had never gotten over her resentment that Beauty was so much younger, so much more spoiled, and had grown up in a castle. Lazy Susan had been left behind
in Granolah with her grandparents when her mother, a pretty young widow, married the monarch of a distant kingdom and went off to forget she'd had any life before that. By doing absolutely
nothing,
Beauty had won herself a handsome prince, while Susan herself did a
few
things (though none of them very well, or very fast) and couldn't even get the local sheepshearer to give her a second look. And now that she was past her prime, the sheep wouldn't look at her, either.

Most of the Granolahans were pretty tired of hearing about all this, especially since Lazy Susan wouldn't take any advice, such as "Get over it," or "Stop frowning so much," or "Learn to do something really well." But Angie, always accompanied by a meek Fenleigh now, was willing to listen endlessly to Lazy Susan complain, or mourn, or rehash the past. This caused some Granolahans to believe she really was angelic.

In these ways, a year went by, smoothly and peacefully, as almost every year in Granolah went. And during that time, almost everybody forgot that Angie hadn't always been there.

Then, early one morning, Wivinia and Ubaldo Appenzeller were wakened from a sound sleep by a shriek coming from Angie's room. They scrambled out of bed, tripping over their nightshirts, their nightcaps askew, Ubaldo wielding a pitchfork that he'd kept under his bed for years in the event of an emergency that had never happened. Until now.

When they burst through the door of Angie's room, they found her sitting up in bed screaming her head off, with Fenleigh buried under a pillow, only his rear end and tail sticking out.

"What is it?" Ubaldo stood in the doorway, his pitchfork raised.

Wivinia rushed to Angie, but when she tried to put her arms around her, Angie shoved her away and screamed louder.

After a moment, Ubaldo and Wivinia could tell that Angie was screaming words. And the words were, "Where am I? Who are you?" and something that sounded like, "Get me Rollo!"

Trying to reassure her required more screaming by Ubaldo and Wivinia. This went on for a while, with nobody listening to anyone else, until all three of them were hoarse and coughing, and finally had to stop yelling.

"Who's Rollo?" Ubaldo croaked, as Angie was rasping, "Who are you?"

"Why, Angie, what do you mean?" Wivinia asked. "We're the Appenzellers. Ubaldo and Wivinia. You've lived with us for a year."

"I have done no such thing," Angie said. "And why are you calling me Angie?" She grabbed Fenleigh by the tail and yanked him out from under the pillow. "Get out of there."

"Oh," Wivinia said. "I don't think Fenleigh likes being treated that way."

"Who cares about that?" Angie said. "And how do you know his name, but not mine?"

Wivinia scratched her head. "You picked his name.
And yours, too. Don't you remember?" Turning to Ubaldo, she said, "I think she's lost her memory again."

"Lost my memory?" Angie said. "What do you mean
again
?"

So the Appenzellers told her the story of how she had come to Granolah, and what the last year had been like for her.

"I did laundry?" Angie asked, appalled. "I swept and carried
water
?"

"Well, yes," Ubaldo said. "The same as the rest of us. Why shouldn't you?"

She drew herself up in the bed and slung Fenleigh around her shoulders like a stole. "Because I am Queen Olympia of the kingdom of Beaurivage. And today is my daughter's wedding day."

Well, Ubaldo almost fell on the floor laughing. When he recovered, he said, "For goodness' sake, Angie, you had us scared to death. I have to say, this is about the best practical joke I ever heard. Queen Olympia, indeed!" And he started laughing all over again.

Wivinia, however, didn't find it so funny. She patted her chest over her heart and said, "Don't ever do that again, Angie, please. You gave me palpitations.
You know we wish you could recover your memory, but this is just cruel—and so unlike you."

"Hah!" Olympia said, getting out of bed. "I
have
recovered my memory. And I
am
Queen Olympia. It's all coming back to me. I fell off the terrace of Beauri-vage Castle into the river during Marigold's wedding. And you're telling me that was a year ago? I must get back to Beaurivage immediately. No telling what's gone wrong in my absence. Get me a carriage! And something better to wear than this"—with two fingers she held out the nightgown she and Wivinia had lovingly made together—"this rubbish."

Wivinia had never seen a real queen, of course, but she'd heard plenty about their behavior from Lazy Susan. And she suspected she was witnessing some of that behavior just then. It was certainly unattractive—and nothing like the way Angie would have behaved. Wivinia said so to Ubaldo.

"You think so? Really?"

"I do. That would explain a lot about the fancy clothes and the gold coins in the dress and the way she arrived here. I think she really is a queen."

Being mayor suddenly seemed a very puny thing to Mr. Appenzeller. And thinking that a queen had spent a year sleeping in the tiny room that had once
been the potato and turnip storage space made him feel a bit light-headed.

"A carriage! Now!" Olympia commanded. "Where are my clothes?"

Obediently Wivinia lifted the lid on a chest in the corner, and pulled out the single silver shoe and the white-and-gold dress Olympia had been wearing when they'd first seen her. "We did our best," she said, "but we couldn't get all the stains out." She gestured to several garments hanging from a peg on the wall. "Those are what you've been wearing."

Olympia gave her a horrified look. "You can't be serious."

Wivinia shrugged and nodded.

"Very well," Olympia said in resignation. "I'll just have to wear my old dress. Where's that other shoe?"

"In the river, I suppose," Wivinia said. To tell the truth, she was feeling pretty offended by this highhandedness from someone she'd sheltered for a whole year. She could see that her friend Angie was truly gone, and she didn't care at all for the new person who'd arrived in her place, queen or not. Wivinia was sure that if
she'd
been a queen, she'd have been a lot nicer to her subjects. This Queen Olympia was an example of why peasants staged revolts.

"Well, what am I supposed to wear home?"

Wivinia opened the chest again, displaying the collection of shoes from Granolah's shoemaker. None of them were as fancy as the silver one. There was no need for such shoes in Granolah, but they were certainly well made and plenty stylish enough for village life.

"I'm glad to see I didn't forget
all
my preferences," Olympia said, inspecting the shoes. "I'll take ... these." She pulled out a pair of red sphinx-1eather pumps with high stacked heels. She turned to Ubaldo. "You! What are you waiting for? I need that carriage!"

"Uh, we don't have any carriages in Granolah. We never go anywhere."

"Then you figure out a way to get me back to Beaurivage while I get dressed. And remember, I can sentence you to death. Or worse."

Or worse?
Ubaldo thought.
What was worse?
Since he didn't really want to know, he turned around and went out the door, still in his nightshirt, to find some help getting this harridan out of Granolah forever.

It took him a while, since he had to explain what was going on to the first few people he encountered, including the worse-than-death threats. After that, they spread the word around the village as fast as they could. It was even juicier news than Angie's arrival. And he had to wake up Lazy Susan, to see if Angie's
best friend could get her to calm down and quit making unreasonable demands and threats. Truthfully, he just wanted somebody else to deal with her since he was having such little success at it.

By the time Olympia was dressed, which fortunately took a long time, considering all the repairs she needed to make after a year of cosmetic neglect, the mayor had rounded up a couple of mules, a wheelbarrow, and Lazy Susan, also still in her nightie.

The look on Olympia's face when she came out of the cottage and saw what Ubaldo had concocted for her was something Wivinia would call to mind for years afterward whenever she needed a good laugh.

"Hi, Angie," Lazy Susan said. "What's going on? I haven't been up this early in ... well, never."

"Who are you?" Olympia asked imperiously.

Lazy Susan gave Ubaldo a look that indicated she hadn't believed him at first, but now she did. "I'm—I'm Lazy Susan. I've been your best friend for the whole last year."

"I find that very hard to believe," Olympia said. Lazy Susan looked as if she were about to cry. Then, turning to Ubaldo, Olympia said, "You expect me to arrive in Beaurivage in this
contraption
? Pulled by
mules
?"

"It's ... it's the best we have to offer," the mayor
stammered. "Some of our Granolahans made great sacrifices to give you these things—
their
things. And they aren't too happy about it. They really should be compensated." He trailed off, sure he was wasting his breath.

To his surprise, Angie—or Olympia, or whoever she was—said, "Are you suggesting I'm a thief? I pay for whatever I take." She bent, felt the hem of her dress, and straightened, her eyes flashing fire. "Where are my gold coins? My dressmaker uses them to weight my hems so my skirts hang correctly, but I can also use them for purchases."

"You've already spent them," Ubaldo said. "In the year you've been here. Mostly on shoes."

This seemed to make sense to her. "Very well. Then I'll have to compensate you once I get back to Beauri-vage. And I'll also return these"—she pointed to the wheelbarrow and the mules—"
things.
I certainly will have no further use for them. Now let's get started." She stepped into the wheelbarrow, rolling her eyes as she did so. Fenleigh clung to her shoulder. "Well? Who's going to drive this thing for me?" In the silence that followed, she pointed to Lazy Susan. "You!"

"But I can't," she began, and then paused. "So you want me to come with you? You did say we'd be friends forever."

"
I
said a thing like that?" Olympia asked, 1 n-credulous.

Lazy Susan nodded.

"Hmmm," Olympia mused. "Well, all the better. You can be my maid as well as the driver. But you'll have to ride one of those." She pointed to the mule. "This"—she patted the side of the wheelbarrow—"is all mine. And Fenleigh's, too, of course."

"I need to get dressed," Lazy Susan said. "And I know I can get you to Beaurivage. I was there once before with Beauty." She sneered at the name. "For the triplets' weddings."

"You were at that wedding?" Olympia asked. "Wasn't it lovely? My daughters may not be the smartest girls, but they did marry well. Didn't I look splendid in that peach mousseline?"

"I have no idea. I was so far back in the crowd I couldn't see a thing," Lazy Susan said, hurrying away to dress and pack.

Olympia drummed her fingers on the side of the wheelbarrow until Lazy Susan returned with a gunny-sack full of her clothes, which she tied onto one mule. Then she mounted the other one.

"Good-bye, everyone," Lazy Susan said, waving. "I'm going to the castle at Beaurivage with Queen
Olympia. You can tell that to Beauty if you see her. Ciao!"

Once the wheelbarrow procession reached the edge of town, which took only a few minutes, Ubaldo turned to Wivinia and said, "I hope we never see that woman again. I wouldn't ever be able to trust her to stay whoever she said she was. Do you think everybody will blame me for rescuing her from the river? Do you think that will hurt my chances for reelection?"