The Treasure Cave: sea tales of Tiptoes Lightly (18 page)

One day—like I
said, it was the fourth Thursday in November—this turkey (his name was Tom) was
out in the woods. The colorful autumn leaves had fallen from the trees, the air
was crisp and clear, and the slanted sun pitter-patterned on the forest floor.

‘Thanks,’ said
Tom, scratching the leaf litter and finding three wiggly worms. ‘Thanks,
thanks, thanks.’

He was so busy
looking for tender morsels that he didn’t notice Doctor
Natterly-Ustor-Terrywerri-Sitt sneaking through the trees. Doctor
Natterly-Ustor-Terrywerri-Sitt (everyone called him Dr. NUTS) was a
lepidopterist—which is the horrible name for people who collect butterflies.
People who collect butterflies have to chase butterflies to catch them, and Dr.
NUTS loved to chase butterflies and catch them in a net on the end of a long
pole. The problem was that Dr. NUTS was shortsighted and only saw things
properly if they were really close. I mean REALLY, REALLY close. Which was why
Dr. NUTS was not a very good lepidopterist, for he caught all sorts of things
in his net which could have been butterflies (if you saw badly), but weren’t.
He caught flowers (hundreds and hundreds of flowers); he caught cats (at least
two dozen), squirrels (ten), poodles (seven), tiny children (three), goldfish
(two) and turkeys (one) and that one was Tom.

‘Aha! Got
you!’ cried Dr. NUTS, jumping up and down.

‘Thanks!
Thanks!’ squawked Tom in fright, flapping and fluttering inside the net.

‘O, how
magnificent! How thrilling!’ gushed Dr. NUTS. ‘A giant, brown-winged
Flapncursus,’ and he stuffed the struggling Tom into his backpack, pulled the
drawstring tight and headed for home.

Dr. NUTS lived
with his mother, the lovely Mrs Natterly-Ustor-Terrywerri-Sitt, and when he
arrived home she was about to serve a meal to the whole family: her husband,
her sons and daughters, her sisters and brothers, their husbands and wives and
children and the various and sundry folk who always manage to wangle their way
into a free meal. Dr. NUTS had been invited, of course, but he was shy and
awkward in company and had, as his excuse, gone hunting for butterflies late in
November, an excuse no one believed. However, due to the excitement of his
capture, he’d forgotten about the gathering and bumbled noisily into the house.
He was so busy taking out his catch that he didn’t notice the crowd seated at
the long dining room table, and they, in turn, stared in alarmed silence as he
fumbled with the drawstring on his pack and undid the knot.

An instant
later out flew Tom Turkey in all his feathered glory, frantically screeching
‘Thanks! Thanks! Thanks!’ at the top of his lungs. He immediately flapped and
blustered his way down the dinner table, destroying plates, shattering glasses,
ruining roasted vegetables and causing all sorts of mayhem. The ladies
screamed, the children yelled, the men leaped to their feet. Round and round
the room flew Tom, whacking heads, messing up hairdos, and knocking wine
bottles off the sideboard.

‘Thanks!
Thanks! Thanks!’ screeched Tom, landing on the table with a long slide-n-glide
that broke more fine china.

Dr. NUTS was
embarrassed and flustered. He dove for the bird, but missed (I already told you
he was shortsighted). He slid off the table, still holding the tablecloth and
pulled the whole meal onto the floor.

Tom Turkey,
meanwhile, feeling his feet being whisked away from under him, again took to
the air. Someone, I think it was Mrs NUTS, lunged at him. Tom swerved to the
right and with a mighty crash flew through the large window next to the
fireplace.

That was the
last they saw of Tom Turkey as he flew in haste back to the distant woods,
crying ‘Thanks! Thanks! Thanks!’ in alarm.

And that’s how
it all started—this Thanksgiving thing, I mean. The next year, the NUTS family
again gathered on the fourth Thursday of November, had a huge meal, and gave
thanks that there was NO turkey in the house. The tradition continued every
year and they called it Thanksgiving. Soon others were copying them, and also
telling the story of Dr. NUTS and Tom Turkey. But after a while, like most
gossip, the story got changed and turned upside down and people began to eat
turkey and give thanks for it and everything else! This is so strange if you
know the truth.

The turkeys,
meanwhile, noticed that they were increasingly being hunted just shy of the
fourth Thursday in November, and then, to add insult to injury, were thanked
while being eaten! That’s when they gave up saying ‘thanks’ altogether.
Instead, because they saw people eating so much food, they decided to protest
and forever change their call to ‘gobble-gobble-gobble’.

Aunt
Sally sees Tiptoes Lightly

That evening
Gramma and Aunt Sally sat with Lucy and the older children round the fire.
Farmer John was washing the dishes all by himself. He liked washing dishes when
there were lots to do and it was a real job. Uncle Finn was sitting with Johnny
Top in the bedroom. They could hear him singing a lullaby to help him sleep.

“Lullaby,

Lay
your head

Gently
down

Upon
your bed.

Close
your eyes

Your
angel’s here,

She’s
with you now

For all the years.”

“Is Tiptoes
going to tell another tale?” asked Aunt Sally. She was sitting in an armchair
with Veronica on her lap. June Berry was leaning against her legs and Tom was
lying on the rug.

“Let’s call
her,” said Gramma—so she did:

“Tiptoes
Lightly, time to tell

A story that you know so well.”

Tiptoes
appeared on Gramma’s knee. Her dress had changed to silvery blue and her golden
wings were edged with silver too. Around her neck was a delicate pearl
necklace.

“Why so
silver?” asked Gramma.

Aunt Sally
gave Gramma a puzzled look. She couldn’t see Tiptoes and wondered who she was
talking to.

“I’m silvery
because of my tale,” said Tiptoes. “And because it’s going to be a full moon
tomorrow night.”

“And that
means we’re going to have spring tides,” said Gramma.

“Who are you
talking to?” asked Aunt Sally, more puzzled than ever.

“Tiptoes,” the
children cried, pointing. “Gramma just called her.”

“Oh,” said
Aunt Sally. “I can’t see her.”

“Look really
hard,” said June Berry. “She’s sitting on Gramma’s knee.”

Aunt Sally
stared hard.

“Don’t stare,
Sally,” said Gramma. “See with your heart.”

For a moment
Aunt Sally didn’t know what Gramma meant. Then she relaxed and saw with her
heart.

“Oh, my gosh,”
exclaimed Aunt Sally. “Oh! My! Gosh! I saw her, just for an instant … but she’s
gone now.”

“No, she
isn’t,” said Veronica. “She’s still there.”

Aunt Sally sat
quietly and tried to see her again, but couldn’t.

“What are spring
tides?” asked Tom.

“Spring tides
come at new and full moon,” said Gramma. “Then the tides are really low and
really high.”

“When the sea
is really low you can find rock pools with lots of different creatures,” said
Aunt Sally.

“What time is
low tide tomorrow?” asked Tom.

Gramma shook
her head and so did Aunt Sally. They didn’t know.

Aunt Sally
called through to the kitchen: “John, when’s low tide tomorrow?” Farmer John
always knew the tides and where the moon was in the sky.

“Four o’clock
in the afternoon,” called Farmer John. “It’s going to be extra low. We should
go down and see it after our train trip.”

“Thanks. That
sounds like a good idea,” Aunt Sally called back, and the kids nodded.

“Now it’s
storytime,” said Veronica, settling into her mom’s arms and looking at Tiptoes.

Tiptoes had
sat patiently during all the chit-chat. Now she smoothed her silver blue dress
and began her story.

“This tale is
about the moon and the moon princess,” she said—and then she laughed. Already
Aunt Sally’s eyes were gently closing.

Iluna,
the Moon Princess

I have told
you of Sister Vive, the Gardener of the Sun, and how she cast seeds down to
earth,” said Tiptoes. “One of the sun-seeds she cast was called Iluna. She was
one of the Great Ones, the Bright Ones too big and too ripe to become a human
being, but also too late in the course of the seasons to become an angel. She
had warmth from Kalor the Glowing and light from Vallor the Radiant, but most
of all she was filled with life from Vive the Living. Iluna floated above the
earth. She never came down from the heights nor wanted to touch the earth. She
knew that if she touched the earth she would become a giant slow and dim.”

“All this was
in the time before the earth gave birth to the moon,” said Tiptoes. “Slowly,
slowly, the moon was growing inside Asherah the Earth Mother. She became heavy,
as all mother’s do, until at last she groaned. She groaned and tossed and
reached inside herself and gave birth to her child. She held her Moon Child up
to the sun, and cried:

‘O,
Father Sun,

Shine
upon my child,

Let
her light the night sky,

Let
her walk the day sky,

Let her be beautiful.’