Adventures of a Dwergish Girl

by Daniel Pinkwater

  “Well, since we talked, I became curious, and looked a little further into the matter. I even found a few on the street late at night, and tried to talk with them.”

  “What was the result?”

  “They don’t talk much, or at all, but I did get a sort of rough idea of what they are.”

  “And what is that?”

  “This may be difficult for you to grasp. They’re unlike anything on the planet, as far as I know. Also, difficult to describe. I’ve been referring to them as meat-robots.”

  “You mean . . . ?”

  “They’re made of tissue, such as a living creature would have, but they’re manufactured.”

  “Something like the Frankenstein monster?”

  “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “And the next questions would be, where did they come from, and why are they around here?”

  “I can only guess, but I think it would not be too much of a stretch to suggest they are interplanetary, supernatural, or possibly from another plane of existence of which we are generally unaware. And as to what they’re doing here . . .”

  “I met a man in New York City who is a Revolutionary War reenactor.”

  “I think that may be what they’re doing here.”

  “Reenacting.”

  “Instead of sentient individuals representing soldiers of the past, imagine a society with advanced technology, where some person or persons has or have an interest in history. They create these semi-alive, not exactly dead, creatures to be actors, or game-pieces, if you like, and carry out the historical events they’re interested in. My guess is that children, or possibly childish men, on some other planet, or maybe an alternate plane of existence that normally doesn’t connect with this one, are sitting in front of some kind of television screen, and watching what amount to animated chess pieces carry out their commands.”

  “So the bunch of replica redcoats, dressed in the uniform of the British 46th Regiment of Foot, from the last quarter of the eighteenth century, is here . . .”

  “To reenact the burning of Kingston.”

  23.

  "WHEN YOU SAY ‘reenact the burning of Kingston,’ are we to assume they will actually set things on fire?”

  “Well, their uniforms and the condition of their teeth suggest considerable attention has been paid to accuracy, so it might be reasonable to think they’ll have authentic eighteenth-century torches when they get around to lighting the place up.”

  “You really think they’re going to actually burn the place down?”

  “I think it’s likely. Of course, they may just burn down the part they burned in 1777, that would be the Stockade District.”

  “That’s the part we live in!”

  “True. Someone ought to stop them.”

  “How? Who?”

  “Can’t help you very much with the how. As to the who, I think it’s down to you.”

  “Me? Why me?”

  “Well, at this moment, it’s just us who have an idea of what’s about to happen. I am more about theory, whereas you are very active, and a Dwerg. It will take someone pretty energetic to locate the only person who might be able to help with this.”

  “What person is that?”

  “Witch.”

  “Which person, then. Why are you correcting my grammar at a time like this?”

  “No, I mean the witch. The witch might help.”

  “Which witch are we talking about?”

  “The Catskill witch.”

  “She’s real? Nobody’s ever seen her.”

  “She’ll take some finding. See why it has to be you who does it?”

  24.

  IT WAS NICE THAT Billy Backus had such confidence in me, but how do you go about witch finding? This wasn’t just some garden variety local neighborhood witch, either, it was the Catskill witch, the one Dwergs tell stories about, one that nobody has ever seen, and it’s not even sure that she exists. How do you look for someone like that? Where do you start?

  I started at the public library. I had been checking out books ever since I turned up in Kingston, and took out a library card in a false name. The librarian, Ms. Tieger, was nice, she suggested books, helped me look things up, and although it had not come up until now, she let me know that she could answer questions. I had a beauty of a question to ask her.

  “Ms. Tieger, how would I go about finding a witch?”

  “We have to narrow that down,” Ms. Tieger said. “Would this be a witch in folklore or fiction?”

  I said folklore for sure, but also this witch is thought to be real.

  “There are people who practice the Wicca religion, and are considered witches. Would that be of any help?”

  I told her I didn’t think so. I explained I was looking for a witch in the locality, a witch with a reputation.

  “There are a couple of garden-variety neighborhood witches, old ladies who visit the library, but I don’t think that’s what you’re interested in, is it?”

  “I need to find the Catskill witch,” I said.

  “And I am going to guess you do not mean the Catskill witch who fought in the Revolution. In those days, witches were extremely unpopular, and they tended to get harmed by the community, but in her case, because she was such a deadly shot against the redcoats, no one complained about her.”

  “I read about her in one of the books you recommended,” I said. “This witch is supposedly alive, at least I hope so. I need to meet with her.”

  “I’m going to have to go into the archive,” Ms. Tieger said. “Come back to my office and have a cup of tea, you look as though you could use one.”

  Ms. Tieger had a cozy office in the back of the library. She put me in a big cozy chair, and made me a cup of tea with an electric kettle. I sipped the tea, which was lemony, while Ms. Tieger dragged thick dusty books off high shelves, unrolled bundles of what looked like old newspapers, and sat in front of a machine that showed microfilm images on a dim and fuzzy screen, and said things under her breath like, “Hmm,” “Aha!,” “Hum,” and finally, “Eureka!”

  “You found something?”

  “I did! Here it is, the Yorkville witch.”

  “The Yorkville witch? But it’s the Catskill witch I’m looking for.”

  “That’s why I didn’t find your witch right away,” Ms. Tieger said. “The Catskill witch moved to Yorkville and is alive and doing business there!”

  “Is this Yorkville a town, or the neighborhood in New York City?” I asked.

  “The neighborhood. The witch’s address is 361B East 86th Street.”

  “I was just there!” I said. “My friend and I went to Papaya King!”

  “Two blocks from the witch’s house on the corner of Third Avenue,” Ms. Tieger said. “By the way, it says no appointment necessary, just ring the bell.”

  “This is the same witch who was known for years as the Catskill witch?” I asked. “She was considered a pretty big witch, powerful and unapproachable and all that. And now she’s working out of a building on 86th Street?”

  “Well, she has excellent reviews online,” Ms. Tieger said.

  “This is amazing,” I said.

  “You can get a lot done with libraries and research,” Ms. Tieger said. “People don’t seem to know that. Instead of coming here with their questions, they talk to someone like Billy Backus.”

  I decided not to comment. Instead, I told the librarian I had to go sleep in a tree, thanked her, and left with a little slip of paper with the witch’s address.

  25.

  I TOOK AN EARLY BUS, never realizing that it was going to hit Manhattan during rush hour. The bus was fairly full, and the passengers had grim expressions, but that didn’t give me a clue of what was in store. What was in store, what I experienced from the moment I stepped off the bus, was organized madness. There were people in motion everywhere. Everybody was moving in a direction, purposely. They knew where they were going, and they were wasting no time in going there. I felt that if I s
topped moving, if I stood still, I’d be trampled to death, I had no choice but to move, and the waves and currents of people moved me in directions I had no intention of taking. I got swept along for a whole block sometimes, and it took a few corrections before I finally got myself onto 42nd Street, going east.

  I took the subway! I didn’t actually decide to take it, I just thought about it for a moment, wondered if I should go down and do it, and when I thought, I hesitated. I was standing near an entrance to the IRT Lexington line. The surge of people going down the stairs carried me with them. I didn’t know where to buy a ticket or token, or whatever was called for, but it didn’t matter, I was just carried onto the train. There were people crammed up against me! Bodies pressed to mine, front and back and both sides! There were times when my feet didn’t touch the floor. The humanity thinned out a little as we rumbled uptown, and I was able to throw myself out the doors at 86th Street.

  Most of the people using the stairs were going down and into the subway as I was trying to go up and out. I held onto the railings, scrambled with my feet, used my shoulders to push against people sometimes, and managed to drag myself up. It was hard work. When I got to the level of Carlos Chatterjee’s store, and I saw the lights were on, I got myself unstuck from the torrent of down-stairsers, and went inside. I was panting and sweating.

  “Hey, Molly!” Carlos said. “Back so soon!”

  “Gotta catch my breath. Give me a minute,” I said.

  “I understand. Rush hour is a hustle, isn’t it. I get the impression you haven’t lived in the city very long.”

  “I haven’t lived in it at all. This is only my second time being here.”

  “You’re welcome to pull yourself together right here in my shop, after which, go down the street and get yourself a papaya juice, it’s just what you need.”

  “I’ll definitely do that. Meanwhile, just on a crazy impulse, may I ask you a question?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Do you know anything about someone known as the Yorkville witch?”

  “What a coincidence! That’s my witch! She lives just up the street, at 361B, in the back.”

  “She’s your witch?”

  “Yes, I go to her for advice, and spells, and communicating with my dead ancestors. I have to say, my tremendous success here in my shop has a lot to do with her help.”

  “So you are saying she’s a good witch?”

  “I am saying she’s an outstanding witch.”

  “I mean, not a wicked witch.”

  “She’s wicked good. I used to go to a witch all the way downtown, and she didn’t do half as much.”

  “I’m on my way to see her.”

  “You won’t be sorry.”

  26.

  THERE WAS A LITTLE WHITE CARD tacked above the bell-button, which said Witch. I pushed the button. A little white-haired lady opened the door. “By the Great Mother!” she said. “A Dwerg girl in New York City! Now I’ve seen everything! Come in, dear.”

  “I brought you a papaya juice,” I said.

  “How very kind!” the old lady said. “I will get glasses. Don’t you agree that it’s a little uncouth to drink from a paper cup when one is indoors?”

  The apartment was small and tidy. The furniture was old and worn-looking. There were framed pictures of butterflies on the walls.

  “Sit here, dear, and tell me where you come from, and why you come to me. No, wait, let me guess . . . You’re from that village of civilized Dwergs, with the goats and the goldmine, am I right?”

  “You are,” I said.

  “Do you all still do that latihan thing where everybody hums?”

  “We do,” I said. “I didn’t know that was what it was called.”

  “It’s just my name for it, a Javanese word. I did my junior year abroad when I went to Sarah Lawrence. That’s a college.”

  “I don’t live in the village at present,” I said. “I’ve been living in Kingston and working in a pizzeria.”

  “And are you getting on well, living with the English?”

  “That is what I came to see you about,” I said. “Not the English as in everybody who isn’t us, but English soldiers from the days of the Revolution, only they’re not, really. A friend of mine calls them meat-robots, and we think they are going to reenact the burning of Kingston.”

  “That is clearly expressed, and succinct. You’re an intelligent girl. Interestingly enough, a young man who comes to me for witchcraft is a reenactor, but I don’t think he and his friends do any actual harm.”

  “Carlos Chatterjee, I’ve met him.”

  “Have you?”

  “I have, and I would be interested in whether you think he is an honest and trustworthy person.”

  “I do. He is a fine young man, and a good person to call on should you need help. He’s Hispanic and Hindu, it’s a real New York story. So, what did you want me to do about these . . . let’s not call them meat-robots, it doesn’t have a nice sound . . . Let’s call them androids.”

  “Well, stop them from burning down Kingston, or the oldest part of Kingston. Can you do that?”

  “I could do that, or you could do it. I would help you, of course. Which do you prefer?”

  “I have no idea how I would do it,” I said.

  “I will tell you what to do, and you will do it. I think that is the best way.”

  “But you’re the witch,” I said. “Wouldn’t it be better if you just handled it?”

  “Have you ever considered that you might want to be a witch yourself someday? And even if you have not, saving a historic town from being consumed by flames would be quite an experience for a girl your age. It would give you confidence.”

  “I’m pretty confident by nature,” I said.

  “Good for you,” the Catskill/Yorkville witch said. “Then it is settled. I will give you some hints, but not too many, and you will save the town.”

  “I feel a little dizzy,” I said.

  “Of course you do. Now sip your papaya juice while I work out how you’re going to do this.”

  27.

  "BEFORE YOU GET STARTED, tell me how I should address you.”

  “Thoughtless of me, not to introduce myself. I am Lucinda Pannen. You may call me Mrs. Pannen, or Mevrouw Pannen.”

  “Meh-frow?”

  “Close enough, it means Mrs., and what is your first name? I know you are a Van Dwerg.”

  I told her Molly.

  “Just tell me, briefly, everything you know or have observed about these inflammatory infantrymen. Leave nothing out, but keep it short.”

  I told her, leaving nothing out, and keeping it short.

  “Excellent. Now hush while I make a plan.”

  I hushed while Mrs. Pannen walked around the small living room with her hands behind her back. Occasionally she stepped on the cushions of an old sofa, and then onto the back, where she walked up and down like a cat. A couple of times she surprised me by jumping over an armchair like a sprinter clearing a hurdle.

  A time or two, she stopped and looked at me with a strange, staring expression. “You said they ate disgusting frankfurters, and half-baked pizza, is that correct?”

  I told her it was.

  Finally she flopped into the armchair and patted her forehead with a lace-trimmed hanky. “That was invigorating,” she said. “Now, in exchange for my telling you how to deal with the androidal arsonists, will you agree to follow my instructions, and also to give me what I ask in exchange?”

  “Yes, I was going to ask you what kind of fee. I have gold, and I can get more.”

  “Keep your gold. And, by the way, if you’re talking about Dwergish coins, they’re intensely valuable. Worth thousands apiece, I would imagine.”

  The thought crossed my mind that I should find time to do something very bad to Angus McMelvin.

  “What I require in exchange for my witch-wisdom is that you carry out one final instruction when all the rest is done. Would you be willing?”

  “W
hat is the instruction?”

  “When everything is accomplished, you are to leave Kingston. Clear out, and live someplace else.”

  “Well, I’ve been camping outdoors, and had already thought I’d be moving when the weather turns cold, and I was thinking about living in this very neighborhood.”

  “Because of the papaya juice, I expect,” Mrs. Pannen said. “Of course, New York City is an exciting place to live, with many fine cultural opportunities, but I want you to live somewhere else for a while. I want you to go to Poughkeepsie.”

  “Poughkeepsie? But that place is a joke. Everyone makes fun of it. They say you’d have to be crazy to live there.”

  “There are often rivalries between nearby cities. No doubt Poughkeepsians make the same sort of jokes about Kingston.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Not really. But I want you to live there for a while anyway.”

  “Of course, I’ll follow the advice of a famous witch, but may I ask why?”

  “You know what destiny is, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, it is your destiny to be in Poughkeepsie in order for certain things to happen. You might say it is written.”

  28.

  "THIS IS WHAT YOU MUST DO. Find Oom Knorrig, tell him I sent you. Explain what you want to do, and ask if he will lend you the duck.”

  “Oom Knorrig? The duck?”

  “Oom Knorrig is the old original Dwerg. You might call him the king of the Dwergs.”

  “We have a king?”

  “Not as such, but Oom Knorrig, it means Uncle Grumpy, is the primary Dwerg. He is the living and hereditary example of what Dwergs were before they became the civilized, suburban Dwergs you grew up among, and felt the need to leave. He is a wild Dwerg. It will do you good to meet him.”