Chapter Twenty-Three

Nimby Here, Nimby There

As Zootch in hutter guise passed over the drawbridge and into the Castle, Nimble Missst in red vest and pantaloons shook Motty awake in the grotto below the tusk of rock at the top of the Falls of Horn.

“Wake up! Let’s go! I’m certain I’ve solved it this time!” urged and announced Nimble Missst.

Motty’s froggy eyes bugged open, and she yawned and rolled her tongue in a mighty stretch to the far wall of the grotto. She stretched her arms and her wings and her six legs in turn.

“What a dream of delight, little Nim. The thundering Falls made it so, don’t you think?” she sang.

“Ye see, I took it to the left when I should have taken it to the right all along,” explained Nimble Missst, ignoring Motty’s comments. “That was the misstep. I thought ‘witch’s cottage’ led to ‘Swump of Greedge’, a natural conclusion if ever there was one. But no, those ridiculous sloobular swumpogglers made it plain enough that ‘Falls of Horn’ was a seemingly better fit. Oh, true, I was miffed and angered and ireful all the way up to a fierceness. Truth to truth, let it be said. Mistakes are ugly blemishes. They’re ridiculous! Here, plain enough, the Falls are no better than the Swump! Left, left, I went left when right was right. Clear now. Let’s go!”

Motty felt tempted to ask where they were going, but decided she really didn’t need to hear any more snapjaw gibberish so early in the day. So such, she merely nodded and followed the revitalized Princess up out of the grotto and onto the tusk. The pair launched into the sky. Motty hadn’t had sufficient time to smooth her black trousers or to tug her yellow gloves. She hoped the flight would not be a long one.

North above the Villcom Wood they soared. A few Chalky Gray Elves, gathering sudplums in the crowns of trees, saw ‘em go streaking by.

“What were that?” called one to another in a neighboring tree.

“The red one with the blue wings were some kind of Royal, if my eyes am trustworthy,” came the answer.

“The black and yellow plump one, too?” asked the first.

“Who can say what am known? A servant, mayhap? It are none of our mind to be bothered about,” said the other, resuming her sudplum collecting.

Nimble Missst arrived far ahead of Motty at the Well of Shells next to the bramble border hedge of the bendo dreen. She strode to the Chronicler’s hut, which stood a short span from the Well. She interrupted the work of the famous Chronicler Harpo, aged blind roamer, and his scribe, Lace, a younger maiden roamer.

“I am here to collect the prince,” boldly announced Nimble Missst.

“Who is it there, Lace?” asked Harpo with a kindly smile while feeling his way out of the hut.

“Snapjaw mind,” said the calmly unruffled Lace, emerging in Harpo’s wake from the hut with beeket quill pen in hand, “and a hollowite.”

Motty had of course fluttered into view. She saw her little Nimby pacing below and gesturing in front of a pair of roamers, one ancient, one young. She landed, legs, legs, legs, two at a time in quick succession, and hoped for a pleasant chat. She’d never visited the Well of Shells. She’d never met the Chronicler, though she knew him at a glance. His fame was so such that widely well known. She danced forward, preparing a tune of introduction. Howsoever, before she could open her mouth, Nimby turned, flashing the fiercest of glares from her startling violet eyes.

“‘Witch’s cottage’ means ‘Chack Tree Forest’. Fly!” she blurted shortly, leaping to the sky with a powerful pull of her powder blue wings.

Motty merely shrugged her regret and took off after her once again angry little Nim. She was so such ashamed to hope the princess was angry enough to change herself into a cloud. Therefore, she was both satisfied and guilt-ridden when her hope became truth. She easily kept pace with the angry boiling green cloud writhing its way to the Chack Tree Forest. When Nimble Missst jelled on the green grass carpet floor of the Forest surrounded by halls of fire white pillar tree trunks, Motty came in low under the dense dark green ceiling of branches and overlapping leaves to join her.

“He HAS to be here,” said Nimby with more than a shade of desperation.

“He has to be somewhere, that’s certainly true. The blue chacks are ripe. Won’t you have one?” sang Motty in a so such attempt to soothe her little Nimby.

“Ridiculous. Yes,” said Nimble Missst, and she snatched the offered chack from Motty’s yellow-gloved hand and flung it with all of her frustration and rage at a fire white pillar tree trunk, where it splattered and dribbled blue.

“I have a suggestion,” sang Motty, and she dared to touch the left wing of her Nimby and give it a little caress.