Mearsies Heili Bounces Back (11 page)

Puddlenose said they send someone around on inspection to see
if you’re actually doing the job, but if they did, we never saw the inspector,
because we all made sure our assigned streets stayed spic and span. The day
vanished, and we got a hearty dinner at the Streets Guild.

A good sized crowd of kids had packed into the place. Toward
the end of the dinner, the voices got louder and higher. There were a bunch of
languages spoken, but we finally found someone who talked in that accented
Mearsiean, who said, “Night time is the contest!”

It seemed that everybody pooled a little bit of money, then held
a competition for entertainers. Anybody could enter. You got out on stage (a
part of the room set off from the rest) and did some kind of act, there was a
general vote, and the winner got the cash.

I rubbed my hands. “Let’s do it!”

Most of us turned toward Dhana. “You dance. Easy win.” I
pointed to her.

She made a face, kind of shrugged all over, then said, “Too
noisy, and too dry.”

“Just a little dance,” I begged, looking forward to the room
full of awe. Nobody could be anywhere near as good.

“Don’t want to.”

“But we’ll
win
. Look at ’em—a bunch of clods, just
like us.”

“Hey!” Klutz twirled around on her toes with as much grace
as fence slats falling off a roof.

“Dhana,” I exclaimed, exasperated. She couldn’t possibly
think anyone was better!

 Dhana sidled a step, another step, and vanished out the
door.

I started after, but Klutz stuck a freckled paw in front of
me. “We can do a play instead! Then we all get to be in it!”

“Okay.” I fumed for a few minutes, though, while they
discussed play options. I was annoyed with Dhana, and I knew I shouldn’t be.
When I looked Seshe’s way, she studiously spooned up the last of her
pepper-and-potato stew, so I said, “What.”

“Nothing.”

“Seshe, you’re thinking something, I can smell it a mile
away.”

She gave me a weird sort of look. Pained. Then shook her
head. “She’s not a puppet.”

I clamped my mouth down on a retort. After all, I did ask.
But I was thinking,
Obviously!

Puppet! I groaned inside. If anyone ever thought
my
dancing good, I would
love
to be asked. My singing was okay, but nothing
great—I didn’t take lessons or anything, and in the first three or four acts,
there were a couple of singers who did much more interesting music than I could
offer.

But ... I sensed I hadn’t done right, though arguing inside
my head usually led to me talking myself into thinking I was in the right.

Puppet. That meant something on strings, that you made
dance—

Oh. I grinched my way past wanting to be the best in a group
until I found the uncomfortable discovery: pushing Dhana to show off might make
her feel like that’s what she was there for. Euw.

“... PJ and the goat!” Sherry said, her spoon in the air. “If
only we had Faline!”

“Well, we’ve seen her making new versions of that play for
the past month,” I said, glad to get rid of my horrible thoughts. “We can put
in the best of her jokes.”

“Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!”

That decided, we got up and joined the people heading to the
store room behind the dining room, where those who were performing were warming
up, or doing a quick rehearsal as they waited for their turn.

While the others were deciding who was going to be what, I
slipped out the side door, into the cool night air. Not that it was all that
cool—there was a hot, dry wind from the direction of the hills behind us, but
it was cooler than inside the ramshackle harbor buildings, with all those noisy
people.

I found Dhana on a wharf, leaning down, looking into the
dark water.

“Dhana.”

Her blond head lifted, barely outlined by the distant glow
of lanterns on a parked river raft.

“Sorry,” I said. “I wanted to show you off. I forgot to ask
if you actually want to be shown off.” And when she leaped to her feet, “We’re
doing PJ meets the Goat.”

“I’ll be the goat,” she offered.

“When I left, Puddlenose and Gwen were arguing over who
could do a better goat.”

“I know all Faline’s best jokes.” She took off ahead of me.

Inside, a small crowd of kids watched as Puddlenose and Id
and Gwen traded off butting Seshe and Sherry, to see which of the two made the
best snobby PJ. Seshe won hands down—she turned up her nose, turned down her
mouth. She was as good as Irene, who was usually PJ. (Later she told me she
copied Irene.)

Aware of people watching, I got that show off feeling again.
But I knew I was okay this time, because weren’t we all performers? So I said
to those looking at us, “This is a play about somebody really stupid where we
live.”

“Help me with the farmer,” Gwen said to me, her eyes wide. “I
forgot all Faline’s stuff.”

“Just pile on the pocalubes.” I pretended to be shoveling. “The
very best pocalubes.”

“Pocalubes?” one of the boys asked, in Mearsiean. “Is this a
word from the other Mearsiean land?”

“It’s
our
word,” Sherry said proudly.

“Seven adjectives and an insult,” I explained. “And they
have to be
interesting
words.”

We began zinging our best ones back and forth cracking up so
much that we almost forgot why we were there, until suddenly it was our turn.
So we turned away, still laughing, and Puddlenose said, “I’ll be the goat.”

“I’m PJ!” Sherry insisted.

“Seshe’s funnier as PJ,” Dhana said. “She doesn’t laugh.”

“I’ll be the farmer’s pig, then.” Sherry shrugged. She never
argued. “That’ll be extra funny, PJ trying to make a pig bow as well as a goat.”

We were waved to somewhat impatiently by the man in charge,
and so we hustled out to the space cleared for the acts. Kids sat on the tables
as well as the benches and the floor around the stage area. Glowglobes marked
off the stage, beyond which the crowd talked, whispered, looked at us
expectantly.

When Seshe drew up, nose high, at one end, and Puddlenose
bent over and acted goatish at the other, there were some snickers and giggles
at Puddlenose, but when they came together and Seshe started, “You! Why are you
not bowing?” nobody laughed. They waited for the joke.

So I stepped out and said, “This is about a prince who
thinks he’s better than anyone else. His first rule is, whenever he meets
someone, they have to bow. Or they go to jail.”

A few snickered, some murmured.

“This includes animals,” I added. I laughed—I mean I thought
it was funny, but I was kind of laughing like a stupid laugh track on the earth
TV show
I Love Lucy
, to hint that funny stuff was coming. As soon as I
heard my stupid titter, and the silence after as the kids all waited for
something to happen, I began to get that distinctly nasty feeling that we were
about to lay an egg. A two week old one.

‘PJ’ marched forward a couple steps, nose in the air. Some
kids snickered.

The farmer hastened up from the other end, pig in tow, but
Sherry was giggling more than she snorted, so she seemed more like a girl with
a sneeze problem than a pig.

‘PJ’ pointed a regal finger. “Bow! Then let me cross!”

“Pow? Getcher hoss?”

The farmer was supposed to be deaf, turning all PJ’s words
into pocalubes. But Gwen suddenly had stage fright—she just stood there,
staring at Seshe like she was the Evil Mage of Doom.

“Me-eh-eh-eh!” Puddlenose said from behind. We’d never had a
pig before, so he just crawled out behind Sherry, looked around and made goat
noises.

Some kids laughed at the goat noises—but when Puddlenose
tried to get by, Sherry was right in the way, giggling helplessly, which
started Gwen off. She bent her head and raised a hand to hide her face.

“You must bow to me, then let me pass first. For I am Prince
Jonnicake the Magnificent!” Seshe proclaimed, too loud—she was trying to drown
out the giggles.

I whispered to Gwen, “Stinkout smackdoodle, give me some
gas.”

Gwen yanked her hand down. She said too fast, “Stinka
stinka, uh, gas!”

A couple more laughs, but more rustles, and some whispers in
Mearsiean from the back, “What are they saying? What’s going on?” made me
mutter a little louder to Gwen, “Stinkorama smackadoodle—”

Seshe waved her finger regally, but I could feel it, the
play was just dead.

Gwen looked around, then plunged away, Sherry following, her
snickers almost as loud as the rustles and the “Do they know what they’re
doing?” comments from the back.

Finally Seshe said, “You bow like this!” and
demonstrated—Puddlenose butted her—she flew across the room, arms windmilling.

There were a couple laughs at that. Puddlenose grinned at
the audience, gave a loud goat noise, and came after us.

As we passed by a clump of kids, a girl looked at my crown, sneered
on down to my bare toes, then back at my crown. She curled her lip. “If they
were even
half
as funny as they think they are, people wouldn’t be
asleep.”

That made Id, Klutz, and Puddlenose almost collapse with
laughter, as we filled in behind the other performers. My ears burned and my
guts boiled.

Some kids sang a song, a kid juggled bottles, three boys did
a dance with a lot of handstands and kicks, somebody else sang, and then they
were done. When the man called for each performer or group to stand, we got
about ten claps.

None of the others seemed to care, but I brooded about that
as
funny
as they think they are
for the rest of the evening.

o0o

The next day, we returned to the harbormaster’s. Because
half the shanty town was gone, leaving little for the scavengers, we were told
we could either wand again, or move on.

“There’s real work in Danai harbor, next up eastward,” a
woman behind the counter told us. “Follow the coast road. But be careful.
Rumors are, there’s trouble in the governments of those little countries.”

“Well, we’re not about to get mixed up with any government
slobs,” I said. “Thanks!”

“So do we go east?” I asked, when we were outside.

“East if you go far enough is Chwahirsland,” Puddlenose
said, holding his nose.

“Ugh!”

“Ech!”

“Pfui!”

“
How
far?” I asked.

Puddlenose shrugged. “Never been in these parts either, that
I remember.”

“But the harbor is before it, sounds like.” Klutz cracked
her knuckles.

“I vote for the harbor, and we be careful,” I said, still
fuming over that nasty comment. I wanted to get away from the river town, the
sooner the better.

Shrugs, hands turned out, rolled eyes—and eastward we
tramped.

The land looked much the same as Bermund, and the first
couple of small villages like most places, villages clumped along water and
roads. (Or maybe the water came first, then the village, and then the road.)
Anyway, Autumn asked at the tavern or inn at each village if there were any
leftovers, and if the people were nice (and gave out leftover food) she also
asked if anyone had seen a boy and girl more or less our age, both musically
talented—the boy could play popular tunes on several instruments, the girl’s
voice was like birdsong.

Nobody had seen any kids like this, but I guess word went
out that strange kids were going along asking questions, because late that day,
as we were toiling over the last low hill wondering where and how we’d get
something to eat, we heard galloping. We got to the side of the road, thinking
that whoever was coming was traveling too fast to stop.

The horseback riders crested the hill—and before we knew it,
we found ourselves surrounded by guys dressed all alike in rusty-brown tunics,
trousers, and riding boots. A uniform.

Klutz and Id exchanged sour faces. In their experience,
uniforms led straight to Madame La Guillotine.

They outnumbered us by about five to one, and had a lot of
steely things to help convince us to come along. So we each had to ride on a
horse with a guy, over two more hills past more brushy country, some of it
farmed, until we reached an outpost castle. This one was made of granite, like
most, and not designed to be pretty. It was full of the guys in the brown, and
some women. Most of those didn’t wear the brown tunics and pants. The ones who
did were obviously riders. The other women wore long gowns in the same color.

The men herded us inside, where somebody yapped questions.
Autumn was the only one who spoke the language, and so she introduced us, being
polite and helpful.

And gave our real names.

Puddlenose smacked his hand over his eyes.

Autumn had just a moment to give us a bewildered
What did
I do wrong?
look before they separated off “the princess with the crown”
and shoved me up some stone stairs and into a bare cell. They hadn’t finished
the ceiling in it—the rafters were bare timbers and iron bars, with a
rusty-barred window just above.

I tried jumping, but the ceiling was like other ceilings,
above my reach.

However ... I looked down at myself. Why not?

I took off my vest, which is good, sturdy linsey-woolsey.
Even in summer, this world is seldom as hot as I was used to on Earth, so I’d
taken to wearing the black vest over a white shirt. If the air was cool, the
sun on the vest kept me warm, but not too warm. The white cotton shirt was
perfect for most weathers.

Linsey-woolsey is linen and wool combined, not easy to tear.
I managed to get it to rip in strips, but I knew they’d be tough. I twisted my
strips into a kind of rope just long enough to loop over a rafter. By swinging
and climbing (all that tree work got me in good shape, I discovered) I got my
fingers on the rafter. Once I got up on that I crawled along to the window. The
rafter was wider than some tree branches.