| |
“Curfews are bad news, but admittedly, they do improve your sleep schedule.” – P.D.
Zippy and I stayed indoors the next day, wondering when the British would violate our sovereign property rights and force us from our home. Late in the afternoon, a knock sounded at the door. I rose to answer it. I opened the door a crack, revealing several British soldiers on my doorstep.
A soldier with ratty red hair piped up, “Top o’ tha mornin’ to ya. We’ve planned a sort of meet-and-greet with all y’all in the town square in fifteen minutes.” He paused for a solid ten seconds. Then his eyes opened as wide as is physically possible—like a hen attempting to lay an egg—before shouting, “Blimey! We’d love for you to come.”
I feigned a British accent of my own. “Well, gov.... You see, gov. Mah lord, I’m not feeling up to the usual spit and polish today. Come down with the plague or something, gov. Perhaps I’ll catch you during the next revolution?”
The soldier from before turned to smirk at his colleagues before making uncomfortably steady eye contact with me, boring holes in my soul. “This one’s funny. You’ll be there, or we’ll burn this cottage to the ground.” With that, the soldiers jumped and clicked their heels together before resuming their harassment at the neighbor’s.
I shut the door and hurriedly brushed Zippy’s coat, so she’d be presentable in public. (She’s forty some odd years old now, and she still can’t brush her own coat. Can you believe that?) I surfed to the town square amid a sea of townspeople who’d chosen to remain in Philly. In the square, a wagon had been fashioned into a makeshift speakers’ platform. Several large and ancient British officers were pushed up onto the wagon by their doting underlings. I edged Zippy closer to the wagon to ensure we could hear what was being said. After receiving several complaints, I stepped down from my mini mule’s back, so I wasn’t obstructing anyone’s view.
Before long, one of the officers began to mumble an impromptu speech. The entire crowd leaned in to decipher his muttering. “Herlo, erm Genral Heffleschmitty. Wer goin’ ter be her fer awherl. Gert yussed to et.”
Another officer stepped forward and began, at a louder volume and in a clearer voice, to translate. “We, your British overlords, beseech thee to make our honorable occupation of this city a peaceful one. Go about your business, but do not congregate in groups. Pretend as though we are not here. I’m sure we will get along swimmingly. Oh, and our soldiers will be living with you, and the curfew at dusk will be strictly enforced. You have been a fantastic audience. We’ll be here all year.” While the officers were still taking their respective bows, the wagon lurched from its place and rattled up the street.
I don’t know who thought it was a smart idea to keep the wagon hitched to its team of horses during the speech. Anything could’ve spooked those animals, but in that specific situation, it’d been Zippy. Nothing terrorizes a horse more than having something small and furry brush up against its legs in the center of their blind spot. If memory serves, the officers all lived. The crowd had been so thick in the vicinity of the wagon that no one suspected my mule was the culprit. Zippy and I surfed home that evening, hoping we didn’t get a total weirdo as a roommate.
Our worst fears were realized when I answered a knock at the door the following evening. When I pulled open the door, a tragically short British soldier was standing on our stoop, blowing his nose in a soiled handkerchief. I did my best to sound hospitable. “Hello, I’m sorry, but we’re full up. Better check down the street at Old Woman Parcel’s.”
The small man pushed past the knee which I’d thrown into his way to prevent his entry into the cottage. “Nah, I know you ain’t got no soldier here.” The man sat down on my small bed—the only one in the cottage—and began taking off his shoes. Behind him, I spied Zippy trundling over to the bed with my best skillet held in her jaws.
“Zippy, no!” I ran over to her, wrestled the pan from her clenched teeth, and threw it out of the nearest window to erase all suspicion that Zippy’d meant the soldier harm.
“Who’s Zippy?” The soldier asked as he sprawled out on the bed.
I held Zippy up for him to see. “This is Zippy, my miniature mule daughter. My name is Pritchard Daviess, the street sweeper Philadelphia deserves, but not the one currently being paid. Who are you?”
“Name’s Rusty. The blokes call me that ‘cause o’ me rusty musket. I don’t believe in no fancy cleanin’ o’ me musket. Takes too much o’ the fun out o’ shootin’ it, I fink.” Rusty dozed off and began snoring. I tried to continue the conversation by whispering questions in his ear in hopes that his sleeping mind would still answer me. It didn’t work. He did manage to sputter out, “Shove off, you ninny,” every time I asked a question, but that didn’t help me get to know him any better.
With Rusty sleeping in my bed, I was forced to bunk with Zippy in her crate. Since I was too large to fit in the crate with her, I sort of laid out on my stomach over the crate, using my abdomen as a sort of cushion. If anyone had peered through the window I’d shattered with the skillet that night, they might have likened my sleeping position to a plank of wood. It’s a good thing I don’t move much in my sleep.
The next morning, I was roused from my plank-like state by Rusty who rolled me off the crate and onto the floor. He stared down at me and growled, “Make me breakfast.”
“But, mah lord, we have little food. I’ve already had to go without meals myself to ensure my wee daughter gets even an unbalanced meal each day, gov.”
“Cut the hoity-toity accent. Kill or sell the mule if you ‘ave to—I want a nice breakfast.” In that moment, I heard something snap in the vicinity of my noggin. I struck Rusty under the jaw and slammed his small body against the wall.
I shouted, “I’m sorry, Rusty! I don’t know what’s come over me. I’m normally not like this.” My paternal instincts must’ve kicked in. I released his body, letting it slide to the floor. When Rusty stirred and attempted to get up again, I boxed him in the ear and sent him sailing back to the floor. “I’m not even sure where I learned these moves. Anyway, Zippy, we’ve got to get out of here. Grab some turnips for the road.”
When I said that trigger word, “turnips,” Zippy’s salivary glands started to work overtime. Within a matter of seconds, the cottage floor transformed into a veritable oil slick. That incident cost me several dozen bottles of Zippy’s lucrative drool. I slipped and slid around as I tussled with Rusty. After a struggle, he broke my feeble headlock and screamed, “Help! He’s tryin’ a—" I silenced him by shoving a turnip in his mouth.
As typically happens in these situations, a passing group of British soldiers overheard Rusty’s cry for help and kicked down the door to my cottage. I was restrained and thrown onto the front lawn. Judging by the various grunts and exclamations of pain I heard echoing inside the cottage, Zippy put up a heroic fight. I spat out a chunk of sod. “Bite, Zippy! Turnips! Turnips!” Fifteen minutes later, my mini mule was similarly tied up and tossed onto the grass next to me. I wiggled over to her and whispered, “I’m proud of you.” Through a muzzle, Zippy was able to lick the corner of my ear.
Once they’d tended to their wounds, the British soldiers dragged Zippy and me to the “Town Gaol.” Nobody’d had the heart to change the sign. The jailer ran to meet—and greet—us as we approached. At first glance, it was fairly obvious that he was a loyalist to the Crown of jolly old England. His red homespun jacket was covered in buttons like, “Yum, Crumpets,” “More Taxes, Less Representation,” and “Kiss Me, British.”
The jailer introduced himself as “Yimmy the Yailer.” He led Zippy and me to a cell where he cut our bonds and locked us in a ball-and-chain. Before he left, Yimmy informed us that, “Yinner wheel be har bye see-vin.” That first day wasn’t so bad. Zippy and I paced about the cell, studying the walls and floor for any weaknesses we could exploit to escape—at least, that was how we spent the first half hour. After that, we sat around, moaning and dragging our heads along the bars of the cell.
Yimmy returned the next morning and led me from the cell. I cried, “Where are you taking me, you traitorous jailer?” He didn’t respond. Before I knew it, I was sitting alone in a room surrounded by massive British flags. One wall held a thick glass-paned window. Through it, I could see Yimmy and several British soldiers standing in an adjacent room, watching me. The door creaked open, and a man dressed in the garb of an executioner strode into the room. He had a noose in his hand.
My otherwise stoic demeanor was interrupted by a tremulous jiggle of my Adam’s apple. The executioner sat down opposite me. A flimsy table separated us. He sat a slate on the table with a piece of chalk and scooted them over to me. “Spell the word ‘color.’” The man’s nasal voice shrieked from under his hood. The task seemed easy enough. I picked up the slate and wrote out the five letters that I hoped would satisfy his request. I put down the chalk and showed him the slate.
“Wrong,” he screamed, striking me across my face with the noose.
“But I!” He struck me again.
“Spell it the proper way.” I looked over at the men standing in the other room. The sadists were slapping their knees in delight. I realized that I was to endure a truly cruel method of linguistic torture. I picked up the slate and chalk again, wiping the tablet clean with my sleeve. I slowly wrote out the first four letters again and paused. I glanced up at the executioner who raised his noose in preparation to strike me again. Convinced I should swallow my pride for the sake of others-preservation (the other there, being Zippy), I finished out the traditional British spelling. I stared down at the slate and “colour” stared back. It was enough to make me physically ill. Ensuring Zippy’s safety was the only reason I succumbed to these tortures. If I’d been childless, I would’ve just given up the roast and told the British to put me out of my misery.
The executioner forced me to write several other words. After a little while, I’d been forced to write out, “honour,” “rumour,” and many other spelling variants which I shudder to recall. When Yimmy returned me to my cell, Zippy jumped into my arms—at least, she tried to. The ball-and-chain jerked her back to the ground. I tousled her tuft of hair and curled up in a corner, hoping to forget the torment that I’d been put through.
On the second day of our imprisonment, I was again led away to the torture chamber by Yimmy. I tried to plead with him on the way, “Please, Yimmy. I don’t know if you can understand me, but please don’t do this. Could I be reassigned to break large rocks with smaller ones? Anything but this torment.” He didn’t respond. I tried to feign his accent, not out of ridicule but out of necessity. “Yeeze, Yimmy! I yave a young yule yaughter. Yo yeasy on ye.” Yimmy smiled but did not return me to the cell.
The setup for the day’s torture was much the same as the previous session. I sat waiting for a while as several officers observed me from the other room. That day, when the executioner opened the door, he was followed by several British soldiers wielding classical instruments. There must’ve been at least fifteen of them. They piled into the cramped room. Again, the executioner sat opposite me. He raised his noose as a signal to the musicians.
Sound burst forth from their instruments in wave after wave of cacophonous music. I put my hands over my ears, but I was struck with the executioner’s noose until I dropped them. After what seemed like symphonies, the executioner raised the noose, and the musicians ceased. “Will you sign an oath of allegiance to the Crown?” The nasal whine pierced my already ringing eardrums.
“Never!”
“Very well. Musicians! Let’s show this man the contributions of our great nation to orchestral music.” He lowered the noose, and overpowering music again surged into my ears. I screamed in horror. The sound filled my mind so completely that I could hardly remember to breathe. The executioner waved his noose along with the music. After a few hours of extended torture, the musicians grew tired, and my suffering ceased for the day. It’s a good thing too because, by that point, I’d heard all the Handel I could handle. My ears were ringing so powerfully that Yimmy had to drag me back to my cell. When I’d regained my sense of balance, I revisited the idea of escape.
