SPARROW SOUGHT IN ROBIN SLAYING
NCD officers are eager to interview an unidentified sparrow in connection with the murder of Cock Robin in Redhatch Copse last night. A witness who described himself as a Fly, told us, “I saw him die—with my little eye.” The alleged murder weapon, a bow, has not yet been recovered. “It’s early days,” said DS Spratt of the NCD when asked to comment on the case, “but we have a good description and will be wanting to interview all of Reading’s 356,000 sparrows.” Cock Robin will be buried on Thursday by Parson Rook; floral tributes to Chief Mourner Dove.
—Article in The Gadfly, February 22, 1980
“Beans?” said Jack’s mother. “BEANS?” she said again, her voice growing louder with rage. “For a Stubbs cow? Have you taken a wild leap away from your good senses? What do I want with these?”
She held the shiny beans in a trembling outstretched hand. They gently changed color in the warmth of her palm, but not even their singular elegance could dull her disappointment and anger.
Jack sighed. He had explained the whole story to her from beginning to end, but she had obviously failed to grasp the essential facts. He started again.
“It was a fake. I—”
She interrupted him. “It was not. I had it authenticated in the sixties. It was worth over a grand then!”
“You did?” asked Jack, suddenly feeling a bit stupid.
“Yes. Mr. Foozle must have gone soft in the head. You can go straight back into town tomorrow and sort him out. As for your beans, this is what I think of them!”
And she threw them out the window with a triumphant gesture. There was a pause as they stood and stared at each other, the only sound the steady tock of the grandfather clock in the hall and the gentle hum of the indefinable number of cats running incessantly around the furniture.
“Great,” said Jack as he turned to walk through the French windows.
“Wait! Where are you going?”
“I’m going to pick them up,” said Jack from the garden, “or Mr. Foozle will charge me a hundred quid for them.”
“Oh!” said his mother, and joined in the search.
“I think I threw them down near the potting shed,” she said, looking around in the light of the garden floodlamp. “Why do we have three bags of wool in there anyway?”
“It’s evidence, Mother, but there’s no room in the station—Did you see that?” Jack jumped up and pointed at the ground.
“What?”
“The beans. They were glowing and sort of burying themselves!”
“Not possible,” she said as she patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll look for them tomorrow. Come inside, it’s raining.”
But Jack wasn’t so easily put off, and he searched for another twenty minutes before giving up. He promised to do what he could to get the Stubbs back, kissed her and departed.
“Don’t worry,” said Madeleine as soon as he had returned home and told her about the Stubbs. “It might have been worse.”
“How?”
“It could have been raining.”
“It was raining. You know, when she threw the beans out the window, I got this really weird feeling. Like it felt kind of familiar.”
“Déjà vu?”
“Sort of—but more. A feeling of inevitability. Does that sound weird to you?”
“You’re probably a bit stressed over the Guild thing. Or the pig thing. Or the egg thing. Or the NCD-disbandment thing. Or the Chymes thing. Or an ongoing unspecified thing. Or an—”
“Okay, okay,” he said with a smile, “I get the picture.”
“Here,” she said as she handed him Stevie’s bowl, “you try and get him to eat it. Can you do supper?”
“Sure.”
She took off her apron and sat at the kitchen table for a rest. She was behind with several deadlines but was enjoying Stevie too much to want to start thinking about child care.
“How’s work?” she asked.
“Chymes tried to muscle in on the Humpty case, but it all seems to have blown over.”
“Be careful of Chymes, Jack,” warned Madeleine.
“I can handle him.”
He was doubtful about that last statement, but it made him feel better.
There was a knock at the front door, and Madeleine opened it to reveal Prometheus, who was dressed incongruously—given the poor weather—in a rumpled white linen suit and panama hat.
“Mrs. Spratt?” he said as he raised his hat. “My name is Prometheus.”
“Jack!” she yelled. “I think it’s for you.”
He came out of the kitchen in a flash.
“Ah! Prometheus. Welcome. This is my wife, Madeleine. Darling, this is the lodger I was telling you about. He said he’d lend a hand with babysitting if need be.”
“One moment,” said Madeleine to Prometheus before beckoning Jack off to where they couldn’t be heard at the foot of the stairs.
“This won’t be like having that tart Kitty Fisher living here, will it?”
“No, no.”
“I’m not having the spare room used as a bordello.”
“Keep your voice down. No, Prometheus is quite different—besides, Jerome is doing a project on ancient Greece and needs a bit of help. What do you and I know about history?”
Madeleine shrugged, and they returned to the front door, where Prometheus was still being rained upon.
“Why don’t you come in?” said Madeleine. “We can discuss it.”
“Thank you.”
They walked through to the kitchen. Stevie was given a biscuit, which he promptly dropped on the floor. The cat opened one eye and then closed it again. Stevie then stared at Prometheus with all the seriousness that one-year-olds can muster, which is quite a lot.
“Da-woo,” he said at length.
“A-boo,” replied Prometheus.
“Woo…?” asked Stevie doubtfully.
“Wa-boo. Oodle-boo,” responded Prometheus with a large smile.
“Da-woo!” said Stevie with a shriek of laughter.
“You speak baby gibberish?” asked Jack.
“Fluently. The adult-education center ran a course, and I have a lot of time on my hands.”
“So what did he say?”
“I don’t know.”
“I thought you said you spoke gibberish?”
“I do. But your baby doesn’t. I think he’s speaking either pretoddler nonsense, a form of infant burble or an obscure dialect of gobbledygook. In any event, I can’t understand a word he’s saying.”
“Oh.”
“Wow!” said Megan, who had just wandered in. She walked up to Madeleine and clasped her hand tightly.
“That’s Prometheus, isn’t it? Tell me it is. I know it is. He can be my show-and-tell tomorrow at school. Miss Dibble is a big fan of his. Can he come to school and tell us all about how he had his liver pecked out in the Caucasus? Can he, Mum? Please?”
“Darling, I—”
Ben walked in. Being sixteen, he was fashionably unimpressed by anybody and everything. Prometheus, however, proved to be an exception.
“The Fire-Giver!” he exclaimed. “Awesome! Like your style, man.”
“You are man,” corrected the Titan coolly. “I am Prometheus.”
Ben gaped. Street-cred overload. Prometheus smiled modestly. He enjoyed a devoted following among the young. He was, after all, the ultimate rebel—it takes a lot of cojones to stand up to Zeus.
“Ben’s the name,” he said at last. “You here for long?”
“He might be the new lodger,” said Jack.
Ben rolled his eyes. “That is so unbelievably cool! What do you know about the sort of girls who like to play the harp?”
“Boo!” said Megan petulantly, crossing her arms and pouting.
“He’s my show-and-tell, Ben. Your dopey girlfriends can wait their turn!”
“Can it, shrimp.”
Pandora walked in. She was wrapped in a dressing gown and was still damp after a shower. She hadn’t realized there was a visitor.
“Oh,” she said, blushed, then rushed back upstairs to get dressed, stopping halfway to sneak a second look at Prometheus through the balusters. Prometheus watched her go and had to be nudged by Jack to stop him staring.
Madeleine softened. She had been concerned for the children, but Prometheus seemed to fit in perfectly.
“Welcome, Mr. Prometheus.”
“Thank you.” The Titan smiled. “And it’s just ‘Prometheus.’”
Madeleine put the kettle on and continued, “It’s not often I have a political refugee in my house. I’ve followed your struggle with interest. Perhaps we can talk about ancient Greece a little later?”
Prometheus gave another short bow and smiled politely.
“Well,” he began, “‘ancient Greece’ is a little bit of a misnomer, really; when I was there, it was simply a collection of city-states—Athens, Sparta, Thebes, Delphi and so forth. Sparta was a tough place to grow up in, but Athens was a blast. Full of people wrapped in sheets having good ideas. We used to have this thing called ‘ostracism’ where you could vote anyone you didn’t like out of the city—I think I’m an Idiot, Get Me on Telly! uses the same format. Your idea of modern Greece really only began with Diocletian’s division in 286. I can tell you a bit about harpies, Ben, and Megan—I’d very much like to be your show-and-tell. Jack, I’m also pretty good with torque settings on Allegro wheel bearings.”
“Can you cook?” asked Madeleine.
“I love to cook. Do you all like Mediterranean?”
They stared at him, awestruck. He was over four thousand years old, and so he knew almost everything there was to know about everything. Truly, he was the tenant of the gods.
“Which way is the karzy?” he asked, puncturing his sagelike image somewhat. “I’m dying for a dump.”