CHAPTER NINE
THE 27TH ARTICLE OF WAR
That’s another story,” Lem answered, “for another time.”
Over the days and weeks that came, the boy stayed busy helping the Little Ones rebuild their city. Burra Dryth’s design for the Great Hall was rising in the town center. When Michael had cut enough stone, he left the Construction Crews to their work. He wandered the little town and found jobs that needed doing: he shoveled the gulley that ran through the Nation, raked the Farmer’s fields of cut hay, and re-roofed the church spire.
The more he learned about these People, the more curious he became and the more he wanted to understand them. He saw how most of them met life without complaint: when things went wrong, they didn’t look for anyone to blame. They didn’t curse or celebrate their fate, but took the good and the bad and went on.
When he was around them, the problems in his own life didn’t seem as big. If they could get by, even thrive, so could he.
For their part, the Lesser Lilliputians were fascinated and confused by the new giant. They wrote books about him, taught classes on him at the University, even had a musical play based on him. They knew what they needed from Michael, but they wondered if he could really give it.
Some days, when the weather was cold or the Little Ones were taking a holiday, Michael helped Lemuel clean the old cottage. “I’ve lost control of this house,” he said. “I need to get it in order.”
Together, they cleared over-packed shelves and sorted papers. The old man asked about Mr. Fenn and the boy said he was fine, a fine little ordinary man. “But not too ordinary,” said Lemuel. “He started the Parish Pantry and that wasn’t ordinary at all.”
Michael had been to the Pantry many times. Each week, grocers in the county gathered unsold goods, food near the end of its shelf time, and took it to the church where it was given to anyone who needed it. “That was Mr. Fenn’s doing. He made the whole thing happen.” Michael had never known this. “Sometimes, you have to look twice to see real worth,” Lem was saying when an awful sound rose in the garden: a donkey’s panicked braying, wretched as a rusted gate.
The old man called for Michael to get the gun.
When the little Farmer shouldered open the door of his barn, he found huge hideous monsters eating his geese and prized pig. He’d never seen anything like these grisly beasts, each bigger than two of his horses together. They darted at him, screeching and snapping their sharp wet teeth. Evet Butz grabbed a rifle and fired and reloaded and fired again, and again and again, but hit only hay. With angry hisses and barks, the creatures slid into dark corners of the barn. But he could see their breath in the cold, still air.
Philament Phlopp was near and heard the gunshots and livestock squeals. He came running and found a scythe and helped Evet fight off the beasts.
“What are these things?!” the Farmer cried. “Where’d they come from?!”
As they flushed the creatures from the barn, Phlopp called back, “I guess they’re from over the Wall. I always thought they were a myth. But just look at them . . . !”
In fact, they were common weasels. Mustela nivalis, by the Latin name, among the smallest carnivores, cousin of the stoat, and often found around farms. Usually night hunters, weasels were sometimes active in the daylight, too. It had been years, decades, whole Lilliputional generations, since one had dared to cross Flestrin’s Wall.
Before this, the worst the People had to fear were the Sparrow Hawks. Two centuries before, the Little Ones built a stone tower and assigned a lookout to warn when a hawk-shadow crossed the sky. When the tower bell rang, they knew to run for the shelters. They were careful and cautious, and no one had been lost in a hundred and fifty years.
But the weasels were new, and the weasels were different.
Phlopp went running and yelling for the Tower Watch to sound the alarm, man, sound the alarm! As the bells began pealing, the People dropped what they were doing and hurried to the underground rooms they’d built around the city. There were hundreds, maybe a thousand shelters, expertly hidden: false rubbish bins held ladders to subterranean dens, plaster tree stumps hid chutes, some public toilets were portals to a hideaway. Every Little One heard the alarm and took refuge. Schoolchildren knew the drill and marched, single file, to the basement. Meals sat half-eaten on tables and life simply stopped. Lesser Lilliput was abandoned in seconds.
Lemuel and Michael found the weasels racing madly around the town square. The old man fired once, twice, three times and left three weasels dead and bleeding by the fountain. The dog Whitby carried them from the garden, one after the other, and the little town slowly came back.
News of what happened to the farm animals moved quickly through the city. For the first time in their history, Flestrin’s Wall had failed them. For the first time in memory, monsters straight from the Land of Naught and Nil had invaded the Sovereign Nation of Lesser Lilliput.
Burton Topgallant couldn’t speak the thoughts echoing around his head: when the weasels were done eating the Farmer’s livestock, they’d move on to the villagers themselves.
“These People have always been safe here,” Lemuel told the boy. “They are small and vulnerable and take care of themselves as best they can. Still, they can only do so much.”
The old man settled into a chair and Michael saw it had taken a lot out of him. He was pale and his breath was loud and raw: “It’s getting late. You’d better be going.”
“You’re not going to stay here all night.”
“No sleeping on watch,” said Lem. “Twenty-seventh Article of War forbids it.”
“Isn’t there some other way?” the boy asked. “It’ll be cold and wet and . . .”
But Lemuel didn’t answer and Michael left.
Snow fell that weekend, mounding by tree trunks and walls, dangerous drifts at a Lilliputian scale. Michael came on Sunday to sweep the garden clear, moving street to street. Pale ribbons of smoke rose from chimneys across the city. The Great Hall stood half-built, open to the weather, its dome unfinished. These days were too cold for the Little Ones. What was a chill to Michael could mean much worse for a race this small.
He was sure there was something more he could do, some better way to help them. But he didn’t know what it was.
The Lesser Lilliputians kept mostly to their houses, day after arctic day. Cooped and cramped, their tempers grew sharp and short. They argued over meaningless things and forgot all that mattered.
Hoggish Butz spent the long nights alone, counting up the slights that had been done to him. Take the Great Hall—what a monumental waste of time and energy! Nobody asked his opinion. It was Topgallant who was behind that. How had he become Grand Panjandrum, and not Hoggish?
One such night, Dr. Ethickless Knitbone brought a nice Dunch Dump Pudding and Hoggish shared his bitter thoughts with her. “It makes no sense!” he howled as he ate. “Why should THAT FOOL wear the Golden Helmet!?” he yowled as he ate. “It’s not fair!” He dropped his head to the table in a puddle of sour tears.
But the sobbing slowed as Dr. Knitbone said, “Burton Topgallant is a bogglesome nobkin.”
“Bogglesome nobkin?! He’s a Blefuscudian Lump!” (Blefuscudian, a term of uncertain origin, was probably meant as an insult to one’s lineage.)
“Precisely,” she told him, “and we both know it.”
“Yes, Dr. Knitbone, dear. I know it and you know it, but THEY don’t know it! Oh, the unholy THEM, the great unwashed rabble, the mindless masses, the ill-bred and easily led!”
Hoggish had given himself a Nervous Stomach now and he took to his great sagging bed, calling for Knitbone to bring the pudding and quickly, dear, quickly.
“The other day, I had a long talk with Topgallant,” she said to him, soothing him. “I could tell he was uncomfortable being around someone of my intellect. So I took his hand in mine, hold
ing it gently, you see, stroking it softly, as one would a stupid cat,” she said, she soothed. “I looked in his eye and what did I see, Hoggish?”
“What did you see, dear Dr. Knitbone?”
“I saw a man with the I.Q. of a worm!”
“A WORM!” Hoggish gasped. “And not a smart one, I imagine.”
The doctor nodded. “Not smart at all.”
“Why don’t the others see these things!?” cried Hoggish and his great gut bubbled and burbled.
“We see the truth. The others see what they are told to see.”
“They are dumb!” Hoggish wept. “Dumb, dumb, dumb!”
“As always,” Knitbone nodded, “your insights are keen and to-the-point.”
“Drown the World! I should be Grand Panjandrum. I should wear the Golden Helmet!” He swallowed a wad of pudding.
Knitbone nodded again and said, “The Golden Helmet was made for your head,” and she stroked that head as one would a stupid cat. “You are no one’s fool, Hoggish Butz.”
“No one’s!”
“You are cunning, clever. You are independent, a freethinker. Intellectual, cerebral!”
“I’m cunning, clever, a freethinker!” he shouted. “I’m—I’m—those other things you said.”
She fed him still more pudding and said, “I’ve been thinking, Hoggish, and I have come up with a plan. If you do as I tell you, the Golden Helmet will soon be yours.”
“I will, Dr. Knitbone, I’ll do just as you say!” said Hoggish, eyes wide and wet with joy. “Tell me, please! What is our plan . . . ?”
CHAPTER TEN
THE GREAT DUNCH DUMP CONSPIRACY
Hoggish Butz leaned close to hear every wonderful word as she laid out her scheme in that quiet room on that cold night. In time, the Lilliputian histories would remember it as the Dunch Dump Conspiracy. For now, it was only Dr. Ethickless Knitbone’s nasty plot to remove the Golden Helmet from Burton Topgallant’s head.
The scheme was simple, the scheme was this: Hoggish would begin chipping away at the others’ confidence in Topgallant, cautiously, carefully, cunningly—a biting comment here, some cutting criticism there, a few droll rolls of the eyes. He would undermine everyone’s faith in the man, stealthily and steadily, and he’d be so subtle about it, no one would know what he was doing.
Then, with the coming of Spring, Hoggish would make his move. He would call for a new election—anyone could do that—and with some creative vote-counting, if needed, he would claim his rightful role as the Grand Panjandrum of Lesser Lilliput.
The next morning, Christmas Eve, the Market was busy, noisy and alive with late shoppers buying up sauces and spices and all the overlooked things that make a holiday dinner. Fenn and Michael, even Myron, worked hard to keep up with the crowd. When the noon bell rang at St. Edwards, Fenn closed the doors and called Michael to the storeroom.
Myron followed and Fenn turned on the lights and there was the red 21-speed from Gadbury’s. “Yours,” he told Michael.
“Whatdoyoumeanhis?!” wailed Myron. “What about—me?!”
“What do you need with a bike? He’s only, what, ten?” Fenn coughed and told them both to go home and have a good Christmas.
And Michael said, “Thank you.” And, “I’m twelve.”
He took the new bike on a long wandering course through the village. He flew through the Market Square, past Gadbury’s, past the Bookshop. He rode by the Youth Court and up the hill, where the big houses were. He saw the girl named Jane getting in her father’s car. He waved to her and nearly drove the bike into a tree.
When she waved back, her father asked, “Who’s that?”
“His name’s Michael,” she told him.
“Who ran under the car,” Mr. Mallery remembered.
“Yes, that’s him.”
“I’ve known kids like him,” her father went on. “They never go anywhere, never change, never grow. One day, he’ll wake up and be forty and right where he is now.”
After he’d checked in with the Court, Michael rode to Lemuel’s cottage. The streets of Lesser Lilliput, empty under the light snow, had been decorated for the holiday. Everything was strung with garland and light, tiny wreaths on tiny doors, and a three foot tree in the town center, heavy with ornament.
He found some of them in the parlor of a house, bundling into costumes, Upshard Tiddlin adjusting each one, adding touches to their made-up faces. From the Topgallant house, not far away, came the sounds of a lively party: cider scent and music, that music, filled the cold air.
Michael knelt in the snowy street and watched a dozen Little Ones, all in costume, slip through back alleys and gardens, laughing like schoolchildren. They ran the short blocks to the Topgallants’ and pounded the door.
“Come, come,” they called, “let the mummers in!”
The door was opened to them and they were greeted with food and drink and they began a noisy little play. One of them, dressed as Santa Claus, cried out: “Here I am, good Father Christmas, am I welcome or not? Don’t tell me that Christmas has been forgot!” All the children of Lesser Lilliput swarmed as he tossed hard candy among them.
There was music, magic, juggling. Frigary Tiddlin tried reciting a holiday poem, but had a fit of giggling and left the room, red-faced. Everyone clapped anyway and Hoggish raised a glass and said:
“A toast to our Host! To the Grand Panjandrum! Mm, fine cider, Ms. Topgallant. And you made it nice and watery so it wouldn’t run out like last year. Join me, friends. In this time of Peace, Love, and Joy, let’s toast the man who has kept us safe! Well—never mind the awful fire that nearly KILLED us all. And, of course, the little incident with those monstrous CREATURES from beyond the Wall. We can’t expect too much of him, can we? He is only a man, no better or worse than any of you.”
There were some coughs, some shuffling and foot-scuffing in the uneasy silence that followed. Then, someone thankfully clattered a bell and called them to dinner and brought the whole awkward thing to an end. But Hoggish didn’t care. It was a first step. He was sowing the seeds of doubt. And in time, those seeds would bear fruit.
A new fire was stoked and the Lesser Lilliputians feasted on tiny servings of boiled beef and veal, buns, grilled Barnsley lamb, cheeses, dumplings, cake; and they sang a Christmas carol set to their one eternal tune.
As Michael was leaving that night, he turned to look at the fat moon rising by the chimney, by the old empty nest. “It’s a stork nest,” Lemuel told him. “Maybe the only pair left in the country. They spend their winters in Africa, a thousand miles from here, but they always come home.” And, he added, “A stork on the roof is good luck, you know.”
“You never told me the rest of the story,” Michael said, “about what happened to the girl in the palace.”
“No,” said Lemuel, “I didn’t.” And now he did.
“I sent many letters to the Maharaja’s floating island, but none were answered. There was no way to know if she’d got them. After half a year, I decided to go back and talk to her myself.
“The Maharaja welcomed me and gave me a suite of rooms overlooking the lake. The next morning, I asked Maya to come back with me, to marry me.
“It was then she told me she would be married at the end of that month, to a man she’d never met. It was a different time and place, and these marriages were arranged almost at birth. Maya had no say in it. She begged her father, but it had all been settled, long ago. She’d meet her husband on the wedding day.
“I asked the Maharaja to stop the marriage and asked for his daughter’s hand. He told me that I should leave and not come back or I’d be killed on sight. Three of his guards took me to the port city that night.
“But I did go back. At the edge of the compound, there lived a very old man—a Mahar, blinded and crippled in a battle long ago. He was the gatekeeper a
nd kept track of all who came and went. He knew the Maharaja’s order and knew he’d be the one to kill me. He asked why I’d come, knowing I’d die. I told him the simple truth, that I had no choice but to return.
“The old Mahar took pity on me and sent a message by Maya’s maid, his wife. She’s the one who helped spirit me past the guards and into the palace.
“On a small balcony above the lake, I once again asked Maya to come with me. She wanted to go, but was scared. She was sure that her father, the great tiger hunter, would track us down no matter where we went and have us both killed.
“And so, finally, I left and brought nothing with me but her music.”
“Her music?” Only then did Michael realize that the little band was still playing in the back garden.
“That I’d heard in the stone temple, the music you hear now. I remembered it and taught it to the People here. As long as they keep playing, her song won’t end.”
It was after six when the boy reached the crossroads, where he waited for a car to pass. But the car didn’t pass. Its headlamps shone hard in his eyes and he heard doors open behind the glare.
“Been lookin’ for you.” It was Robby. Nick and the other Boys stepped up as Michael got off the bike.
“Hey, Nick,” Michael said quietly. “Hey, guys.”
“We’re not all here, are we?” said Phil.
“Gordy’s gone, squire,” said Peter.
“’Cause of you,” Robby put in.
“Me? What’d I do?” said Michael. “I didn’t do anything.”
“That’s right,” from Nick. “You didn’t do anything but let us down again. If you’d been there like you promised, he wouldn’t have got caught.”
“No, I told you, Nick,” Michael started, “I can’t hang with—”
“Got a present for you,” said Nick and he gave the Boys a nod and they gave Michael a bloody beating. They went at him with feet and fists, all four of them. Robby caught him square in the face and blood blasted from his nose and he felt an eye swelling shut. Phil hit him in the ribs, again and again, and he could hardly breathe. Someone got him in the back of the head and he fell into muddy snow.
The Last of the Gullivers Page 6
