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“Forgetfulness is next to... to... irony? No, that can’t be right.” – P.D.
The next week passed much the same as the last. It was the old routine of bouncing about at close quarters with Zippy and sleeping under the stars during various forms of inclement weather. Zippy didn’t take the news that we’d returned to Annapolis very well. She snorted and huffed, making it that much harder to breathe in the trunk. She calmed down before long.
When the carriage stopped on the final day of our travels, I popped the trunk lid open and peered out. A seagull stared back. Behind the nosey gull, a large harbor spread across the horizon. I called down to Zippy where she was napping in the bottom of the trunk, “I think we’re here for real this time, mini mule!” I closed the lid when I heard footsteps. They belonged to a porter who began unloading the trunks. When the porter attempted to lift our trunk, he shouted a variety of colorful curses that would’ve made a sailor lunge for their slang dictionary.
After our trunk was dragged up a long flight of stairs, the porter threw it—and us—onto the floor of a room. I peeked out of the trunk to get a feel for our surroundings when the coast was clear. Our trunk had been tossed into a plain bedroom furnished with a desk, a bed, and a few cupboards. I clucked my tongue. “Zippy, I’m not impressed. I would’ve thought Sammy’s wealth could’ve granted us better accommodations than this.” I decided it’d be best if we waited in the trunk until Sammy unpacked it, so we smooshed ourselves back inside. Late that evening, we heard the latch jiggle on the door, and someone entered the room. Based on reasonable assumptions, I concluded it had to be Sammy.
“Okay, mini mule, get ready. On the count of five.... I can’t wait.” I braced myself against the floor of the trunk and threw my body against the lid, expecting it to fly open. At the exact instant that I pushed against the roof of the trunk, something heavy crashed down onto it, preventing my exit—by the size of it, I surmised another trunk or an upended bookcase. I slammed down onto Zippy who lay curled in a ball at the bottom of the trunk. When I struck her, Zippy made a strange noise that sounded like the air being slowly pushed out of something.
Through the thin trunk walls, I could hear the person shuffling about the room. After a few minutes, the weight was removed from the trunk’s lid, and I prepared for another attempt to scare the daylights out of Sammy. “Surprise!” I threw back the lid, leaping from the trunk. The stiffness throughout my body caused my muscles to seize. I fell in a crumpled heap on the room’s tasteful bear rug. As a bit of revenge for falling on her shortly before, I suppose, Zippy hopped from the trunk, landing hooves-first on my tender lower back.
“Sammy, come over here so I can see the look on your face. Sammy? Are you speechless, or has some unfortunate incident rendered you mute since our last meeting?” The person shuffled over to me, leaning down so I could see their face. To my dismay, it wasn’t Sammy. “Servant! Leave these chambers at once and say nary a word of this to the man who procured this room. I would strike you if I wasn’t temporarily crippled.” The servant curtsied and exited the room. “Zippy, I don’t think I can fit myself back in the trunk. I’m going to lie here and surprise Sammy like this. Remind me to strike that servant when I’ve recovered use of my limbs.”
Having nothing else to do and lacking all ability to move about, I nodded off for a few minutes. I was kicked awake by my frightened mule who cowered next to me, looking up at a figure framed in the doorway by lightning, thunder, and hundreds of tree frogs attempting to locate lost loved ones—nature’s usual pyrotechnics. The candles in the room had blown out, so there was too little light to identify the person. The man—at least, it appeared to be a man—took deep and labored breaths. “How in Rod’s name did you get here?”
“Who’s Rod?” The words squeaked from my mouth.
“You’re a dead man, you insipid fool. You shouldn’t have come to Boston.” The man squeezed the sides of his face in his hands and screamed loud enough to wake the living—he succeeded.
A voice called from somewhere outside, “Shut up, or you’ll be the dead man. We’re trying to birdwatch out here.” Ornithology has always been a popular hobby of Boston’s upper classes.
“Attack that man, Zippy! He’s a lunatic, not fit to live another instant in an upstairs boarding house apartment with this few amenities. Zippy, where’d you go?” By the sound of her teeth chattering in terror, I deduced Zippy had left my side and hidden herself under the bed. “Sir, you’re lucky I don’t have my bow and quiver with me. One of us wouldn’t leave this room alive, and there’s a certain probability, although not absolute, that it would be you. Are you willing to take a chance fighting a man who appears to be acutely immobilized? It could be a ruse meant to lull you into a false sense of security. I mortally wound houseflies on a regular basis, if that improves my dossier of self-defense.”
Lightning struck again, illuminating the man’s outline. He was busy pouring gunpowder into a pistol. “You would shoot a seemingly disabled man? If you’d come a little closer, we could make this a fairer fight.” The man indeed came closer. I’d regained enough feeling and flexibility to throw myself upon his nearest shoe, irreparably scuffing the leather. Through mouthfuls of fine cowhide, I screamed, “This is just the beginning of my vengeance if you continue to frighten my adoptive livestock. I have this whole place rigged with enough gunpowder to make Boston a modern Atlantis!”
“You’re not worth it.” The man pocketed his pistol and lit a candle. “What are you doing here?”
I attempted to roll over. My sore muscles prevented it. I called out, “Would you mind coming over here? I’d roll over, but I’m pretty comfy where I am.” The man strode into my field of vision. “Sammy! Your performance gave me chills—real ones. You should try out for a production back in Annapolis. I’d bum a ticket to see you perform. Zippy and I hid in one of your trunks, because we wanted to join you on your business trip.” I dropped my voice. “I’ve also heard that Boston is quite the hotbed of revolutionary activity, and I figured I could lend my hand at the toppling of empires while I’m not working on my checkers grunt.”
“Why? Why? Why?” With each successive word, Sammy’s voice grew louder until the birdwatchers started hollering again. Zippy skittered from her hiding place and nudged the door shut.
“Since I arrived in Annapolis, Zippy and I haven’t seen much of you, and I wanted to have some time to reminisce—really dig deep. Remember that time when you pushed me off that bridge, and I almost hit that rock? I could’ve died!”
“Yes, I remember, Pritchard.”
“Maybe we can recreate the whole thing so Zippy can see it.” Zippy made a wide birth around Sammy and stood behind me. She began licking my hair to wet down my cowlick. “Thank you, Zippy. I didn’t realize riding around in that trunk had left me so disheveled.”
“In the morning, I’ll charter a carriage so you can return home.”
“But, Cousin, I want to stick around for a while and help with the war effort.”
“There is no war, Pritchard. Who knows when that will come? You should return home and help your parents. That’s your place.”
“Really? Because those papers I took down to your cellar included some pretty specific schemes to overthrow the Crown. Are you sure there’s nothing I can do? Stamp parcels? Rip up old blankets for field dressings?”
For no apparent reason, Sammy began counting out loud while hunting for his pulse. He got to three hundred and twenty-seven before his breathing stilled. Sammy turned and stood at the window, peering out at the storm. Sammy was the only person I’ve ever known who took time to really appreciate the craftsmanship of colonial window construction. “On second thought, Pritchard, I have just the job for you.”
“Anything! I’ll do anything—except leave my mule. Or be tarred and feathered as a sort of martyr for the revolution.... How about, anything, save sacrifice my life or my mule daughter’s for the cause? Everything else is fair game.”
“How about attending a fancy dress tea in my stead?”
“Zippy, did you hear that?” She shrugged her ears. “Does the party have a theme?”
“Oh, yes, Pritchard.” Sammy paused to chuckle. It was the sort of chuckle that was just begging to be punctuated by a well-timed lightning strike. We weren’t disappointed. I’ll take this opportunity to include a brief moment of silence in this narrative to remember the brave ornithologists who were smitten by said lightning strike. I’ll say this much—it takes courage to birdwatch during a thunderstorm. “The theme is Native Americans of the pre-colonial period. The tea begins tomorrow night at dusk at the home of a Ms. Milson. Her home isn’t far from here. You’ll recognize it when you see it. It’s the biggest one in the city. Don’t get there too early, though. Around here, everyone who wishes to be taken seriously arrives late. In fact, I wouldn’t go until at least midnight. If you don’t see any lights in the house, don’t let that dissuade you from going in. The curtains will probably be drawn. Oh, and if the doors are locked, they won’t mind if you break a window.”
“Sounds A-okay, Sammy, but how is this related to the revolution? Will we topple the British with mere small talk, clinking glasses, and raised pinkies?”
“Am I the sort of person who’d give distant relatives by marriage innocuous tasks to ensure they won’t screw up something far more vital to the coming rebellion?” That settled it. I, Pritchard “Jamby” Daviess, had been given one of the earliest and most important missions in inciting the revolution.
Sammy worked his connections and got Zippy and me our own room. We didn’t see much of him the next day. Every time we called at his room, no one answered our boisterous knocks at the door. There were some sounds of stirring within the chamber, but I’m certain it was just a host of startled rodents. Our room in the carriage house sure had a lot of them.
With the whole day to ourselves, Zippy and I did what any good guest of a fancy dress tea does to prepare—we cased the place. As Sammy said, Ms. Milson did have an expansive estate. Rinky-Dink was still bigger, but not by much. The place was adorned with lavish water features, servants, and hand-painted cattle. “Plenty of windows to break, eh Zippy? Show me your best cannonball.” Zippy curled into a tight ball of fur and hooves, prepared to be tossed through an unsuspecting window. “At ease, child!” My mule resumed her typical casual posture.
“The ballroom is the obvious point of entry, Zippy, since the post-tea chitchat will no doubt spill into there. However, I’m a fan of embracing spontaneity whenever possible, so we’ll enter through one of the lesser bedrooms—preferably, an occupied one.”
Zippy drooped one ear, cocking her head to the side. “Well, if you’ve got a better idea, spit it out.” My mule daughter proceeded to cough up some unrelated trinkets, including my long-lost mouth harp. “My plan it is.”
Skulking around Ms. Milson’s property, we took stock of the home’s many bedroom windows. “Pick your poison, mini mule.” Zippy scooted away from me, her eyes as wide as... well, wider than normal. “I’m not going to poison you, Zippy. I meant pick which window you’d like to be pitched through.” Her eyes returned to their normal size, and she skittered over to a reasonably-sized window. “Sure, why not? We shall return at midnight!”
In those days, no one really kept time. That was the church’s job. Unfortunately, no deacons stayed awake to toll the church bells at midnight, so my time of entry at Ms. Milson’s had to be approximated. I could’ve woken up a parson and said the Portuguese were invading then coyly asked him for the time as he frantically ran to toll the bells to alert the town of the coming hordes of the Iberian nation. But that would’ve been an awful lot of work. It’s too bad Ann’s grandfather hadn’t been there to sound the time with his gong.
Zippy and I spent the afternoon wandering around Boston’s many shops and cafes of ill repute, asking after Ms. Milson’s estate. It’s important to understand what you’re getting yourself into when attending a twilight fancy dress tea. I said things like, “I wonder where maid Milson keeps her valuables in such a massive mansion?” Or, “Does the home have any secret passages whereby a person and their small, furry companion might gain entry to the house under the cover of darkness?” Or my old standby, “Are there any dogs or other feral animals/bodyguards who might maim a trespassing miniature animal in an unfortunate misunderstanding?” If anyone was unwilling to answer, I followed up with my inquiry with, “I’m just asking for a friend.” That seemed to allay people’s fears.
