Chapters 4 & 5 from Lady Josa Pean and the Reading Aloud Book

A children's story I wish I had the time to finish right now... As it stands, I have made it up to chapters 4 & 5 in the adventures of 'Lady Josa Pean and the Reading Aloud Book'...

Chapter 4
The Man with the Muzzle

Years past and were shared between our Reader and Listener Only’s. If you’ll excuse me, I will allow this time to relapse without offering much in the way of detail. (The Author’s Guide to Every Rule That Need Ever Be Known will tell you I am well within my rights to do.) It is not because these times were any less extraordinary than any other in the adventure-riddled lives of Lady Josa Pean and Princess Tambudzai, but simply because they are not necessarily of This Story, and This Time. They belong to That Story, That Other Time. This Story is bound by my solemn promise to a Lady and a Princess to tell it truly… This Story tells the time of a particular adventure and one particularly peculiar book…That Most Mischievous Reading Aloud Book…

Four years had passed since that toddler’s inky cheek and the unexpected appearance of an African doll and Princess, when This Time arrived…
When through the sturdy branches of the family scarlet-blossomed coral tree, the Lady spotted him.
        A wisp of a man, barely there at all.
        Stringy arms and legs met at a skinny in-between, while atop a tired, long face a mop of tufty-soft, sandy coloured hair seemed to sway and drift, like dandelion wishes in an Autumn breeze. It was not that the man was gaunt in his thinness… Or bony and sharp, for that matter, as one might expect... Oddly, in fact, he was quite the opposite. His features seemed softened, almost blurry at their edges, making his thinness more of the invisible variety.
        What Josa Pean saw that day was a walking man of washed-out watercolours, and his thinness was but one barely there aspect of his overall faded person. 
        While it was the man’s nature to pass by unnoticed, his watercolours blending him in, the Lady could not help but be arrested, mid tree-climb, by the trail he led. At the end of a long, smudgy hand, gripped by equally long, smudgy fingers was the beginning of a leather leash. A dog’s leash, or so one would have thought.
      But lo, at the end of this leash was a muzzle and it was not bound to the mouth of any dog. Leashed and leather-caged, the man who was barely there at all trailed behind him a book.
     If you have ever stood by and watched as a cat toyed mercilessly with an injured bird… Or borne witness to a cruel child boasting a once majestic butterfly in a jam jar… Then it is likely you will have a fairly sound appreciation of the pity that gave way in Lady Josa Pean upon the sight of this unfortunate, trapped book. Deftly and swift of foot, the Lady was off, Princess Tambudzai under her arm. Down the tree and across the tarmac, the two went after the man with the muzzle. Feeling himself pulled back by the leash, the faded stranger turned to see a very serious little girl and her equally serious rag-doll staring him down in mute and disapproving tones (for which all women are the world renowned). Clutched by the Lady’s indignant hands was the muzzle-bound book.
     “Excuse me, sir, but you will be glad to know that I have a substantial amount of pocket money saved, and this book will do quite nicely, thank you,”
the Lady announced. “How much would you like for it? I see its cover has been rudely handled by your muzzle and made quite tatty, but I have been well taught not to judge books by their covers and so I will not judge this one by its. This said, I’m sure we could settle on a price that would please us both.”
    “This book is not for sale,” his words, like the sandy coloured hair, drifted wispily from his lips and swayed in the space between them. Although his words refused any sort of exchange for the book, Josa Pean saw the tiredness in his watery eyes and was triumphant. Here was a man too defeated to resist. There would be no need for winning this one, she realised. He had lost the book to the sum of her pocket money before she even asked. Truly defeated men only need true defeating once.
     Entrusting the muzzled book to Princess Tambudzai, the Lady dashed inside, returning only instants later with a couple of coins inside a cotton pouch.


     Placing the pouch inside his shirt pocket, she then slipped the man’s long, smudgy fingers from their barely there hold of the leash, satisfied that theirs had been a fair swap.
      But while Lady Josa Pean had been correct in reading the faded man’s tired eyes, and the defeat that watered them, it was not a parting entirely free of resistance… Marching back to the coral tree, she felt awash with the triumph of anyone who has rescued a bird from the claws of the cat, or a butterfly from the jar of the mean-spirited, to see bird or butterfly soar another day…
         So triumphant was the Lady that she thought nothing of the words of warning the man left swaying in the last and gaping space between them, “There are some books that must needs muzzles, miss…”






Chapter 5
Spiders-Leg Letters and Insects for Eating

Lady Josa Pean smuggled the book to safety down below.

Down below, you might wonder. Why, I thought it was an Up-Climbing house? You would be right in part, for yes, all these years later, the girl still lived and read in the Forswithe house of famous whining willow stairs. But it was an old-fashioned sort of house, to be true. Moreover, it was of the sort so very old-fashioned that they are crammed and cranking with secretive corners, in any nook and every crook.

The young Lady spent most of her time in one of these corners. It was the Underneath Corner of the home that remained in her dead father’s name. But it was also her bedroom. Altogether contrary to her adventuring mother with a love of Big Open Spaces, Josa Pean was a Reader Only in the most natural sense.
And it is the habit of a natural Reader Only to seek out secretive corners wherever they are hiding … Above… or below…. and just sometimes in the middle. Because, well, everybody knows that Secretive Corners were made for Reading. (And let us also not forget Dark and Secretive Corners, made for Torches and Reading Together.)

Her prize in one hand, ragdoll dear in the other, our Reader Only climbed into her favourite corner of the Underneath Corner where she most lived and read. It was a forest-green hammock, but more than that, it was the curling corner in the far corner of the Underneath Corner in which she dreamed her bookish dreams Every Night. (The Lady was never one for beds. They were simply far too open with not nearly enough curves or corners.)

Here, tucked inside her favourite corner, with book and muzzle and doll, Lady Josa Pean undid two small brass buckles on either side.
      It was with some difficulty, no less; for they had almost rusted shut For Good.
      Lucky she got to the book when she did, the Lady remarked inwardly to herself. And again, Triumph tapped on her heart and twinkled in her eyes. Chuffed and well-pleased, she beheld the freed book.
       It was a Big Enough book, though its spine was narrow. A dirty-puddle colour long faded to brown, she imagined its cover as once having been a rich and velvety purple. Holding it close, the girl inhaled its mossy smell. Her hand moved over its outward touch of bark, pausing when it fell upon the Morse-like indent of the Title and its letters. She lingered with her fingers on its silvered dull and spindly trail: Edible Insects of the Gula Gula Swamp. Silvered dull and spindly.
        And while they glistened like the bedazzling and beckoning web, the letters were unmistakably like the spider’s legs. Still For Now, but with quiet intent. 

Daddy Career Day

This was a short story somewhat inspired by the ever-present Bear in John Irving's Hotel New Hampshire... It was published in  the N.M.M.U.'s annual publication, Sharp! Vol.5 2007, and apparently made one of the students on the editorial board 'feel sick'. Totally Unintentional, on my part!

Today is Daddy Career Day.

Mother packs my school lunch, almost as usual. A toasted cheese sandwich, crusty and dry at the ends with a middle that will be soggy when I am ready to eat it. But this time, for Good Luck, she adds a jawbreaker. Ice-cream flavoured. The kind with a bubble-gum centre. She knows these are My Favourite.

Sir calls me from my room. I am looking at Matilda in the mirror.
     There is a piece of hair about to fall out of my plait. I wonder how many other pieces are doing the same. Mother has never been very good at lunches or plaits. Jody always has a neat plait. And Pierced Ears. She won a baby competition once. The Most Beautiful Baby.With Pierced Ears.

“Coming, Sir,” I yell. Mother thinks it Silly that I call him ‘Sir’. Maybe most people think so too. Or they think it is Weird. But I like, and so does Sir, because it is Ours.

Mother gives me my toasted cheese in Clingwrap. This is worse than wax wrap. The sandwich is already sweaty. It will be even soggier today. She tugs my plait and kisses me on top of my head. A piece of hair falls out. She winks. “Behave!” I nod. It is too late to fix my plait now. I put my hand in Sir’s and we go.

Everybody at Sir’s work is very nice to me. One lady lets me play on her swivel when I am bored. It is like Sir’s at home but faster. She has just unpacked some Important Boxes and gives me the bubble-wrap. Some people like to scrunch it up. So it Snaps, Crackles and Pops. I like to pop each bubble Ever So Carefully, one at a time.

Sir draws the chalk Bible stories for a television show. He is Very Talented. Sir doesn’t read Bedtime Stories like the others. Sir draws me to sleep. He draws the Most Wonderful Things.
     When I go to school tomorrow I will stand up in front of The Class and Miss Hatchet.
      Everybody will get a turn.
      I will tell them what My Father does. I go round and round on the swivel chair. Round and round. And I think. Tomorrow I will stand in front of Jody and tell The Class and Miss Hatchet that my Father wears a Pink Bow.

Sir does the chalk Bible stories but he is also a Character on the television show. It is a show for children and the two Main Characters are fuzzy animals. One is a Boy. The other is a Girl. You can tell which one is the Girl because she has Eyelashes and wears a Pink Bow on top of her head. The costume is Too Big for any lady to wear. So Sir does it.

I don’t want to go round and round anymore. I think maybe I will have something to eat. I find Sir’s Dressing Room where my lunchbox is. Sir is not there. He is getting ready to draw. I take out my wet sandwich and chew around it. The crusty bits first. The jawbreaker I put in my jacket pocket for late. There is a note on Sir’s table. The note is folded and says ‘Andrew’. I know this because sometimes I like to practise Sir’s name.

I go back to the nice lady. The bubble-wrap. And swivel chair. I finish my sandwich. The nice lady gives me a mug with Winnie the Pooh on it. I sip sweet, milky tea. I can see Sir on the Other Side. He is drawing a Bible story. There are little televisions. I see Sir in them too. I am looking at lots of Sirs. Lots of Sirs’ hands. Drawing. I decide I will have my jawbreaker and stuff it into my left cheek. I cannot speak. For now, it is too big. But it will get smaller.

The nice lady wants to show me The Building. She takes my hand. It is still wet from my sandwich but she doesn’t say anything. I suck on my jawbreaker.

Sir waves from the Other Side of the room. I smile my Big Smile. And almost choke on the spit from my jawbreaker. He blows me a kiss. I catch it. Hold it in my fist.

My jawbreaker is getting smaller now. When we get back to the swivel chair I say “Thank you” to the nice lady even though it wasn’t very fun. We had to come back so I could wee. She asks if I would like more tea. I say “No thank you.” I would like to find Sir.

The door to Sir’s Dressing Room is closed. To a peep. I push and bump into something. Not hard. On the floor. I look down. There is the head of a fuzzy animal. With Eyelashes and a Pink Bow. Next to it is the one Without. The Boy head. I hear Funny Noises. Like whispering. I swallow on my spit. It makes me feel sick. There are fuzzy arms. They are too short. They end. And out the bottom stick the Hands. Sir’s hands. Lots of Sir’s hands. But they are not all Sir’s hands. So I look down. At Eyelashes and Pink Bow and Without. Tomorrow I will stand in front of Jody and Miss Hatchet and The Class and my eyes prick. My jawbreaker crunches.Through to the bubble-gum centre. It tastes like metal. Like Monkey’s Blood. Matilda has bitten her tongue.