NEWDIE STEADSLAW

Roby had not gone to fetch glue, and had not even lingered long enough to hear the question, for her current goal was still the commissar’s butter, an object needed for the gainment of transportation—that hardly needs to be said. With Traycup and Ben Garment aboard the fair blimp, it might be surmised that that would suffice for their locomotive needs, but, as such as that Roby’s presence was not shared on the blimp, she needed of her own a way to ascend. So, logarithms notwithstanding, as the commissar was fatally distracted by surgery, there was no one to guard the locker room, and so she—here I mean Roby—made for it in all haste. Perhaps too much haste, for as she strode across the street, jaywalking profoundly and heedless of the Ampelmännchen, a wheelborne mansion sped up the street right at her, and by rights she should have become a puddle, but as luck would have it, the mansion’s front windows were open, and rather than run her down it scooped her up, smooth as a pencil-grinder, and then she was stood in the drawing room in front of all the mansionite lords and ladies, who gawked at her, and said nobilic things such as “My word!” and “Good heavens!” and of course that old chestnut, “I say!”

“Well, it would not do to stutter,” said Roby, reversing some parts, “so will someone please give me some butter?”

The fanciest of the fancy lords and ladies who gathered in that drawing room was Lord Shirechester, who was the lord of the manor, and the very baron of the duchy of Shirechester; ’twas his party, the purpose of which was for he, eligible bachelor that he was, to elect one of the fine ladies of the realm to become his wife and produce an heir, else any inheritance he had would wind up in his niece’s greasy hands. And so when he espied Roby, arguably a woman, his gaze was immediately fixated upon her, and she stole his attention utterly. Never before had the image of a person so striking and so finally unique entered any his eyeballs.

“Who is this absolute creature?” said Lord Shirechester. “I must have her,” he continued, “removed at once—so kindly throw her out of the house and into an outhouse! Honestly now, I told you all to keep the windows rolled up while we’re driving.”

All the guards showed up with bows and arrows and took aim at Roby, and Roby, seeing the direction all the arrows were pointed, assumed that they indicated the location of the butter storage facility—but then she thought that that was what they wanted her to think, and, since it must be a trick, the butter must be elsewhere—so there she went. The arrows, having done this odd job in scattering her, shrugged and punched out early and went to the pool.

Now, no one really knows what mansion rooms are called or for—they’re just drawing rooms, sitting rooms, salons. Just places to be and have things, just symbols of status, wild growths like tumors stuffed with ostentatious treasures placed in a fashion calculated to inspire envy, wrath, and as many other sins as possible. Once Roby arrove at one of these, away from the previous parlor-goers and arrows both, she was there confronted by a soap carver and a freelance prime minister, neither drawing nor sitting and certainly not saloning—which isn’t even a thing until Part Three—for they had fury in their faces, powder in their wigs, and the ones that got away in their memories.

“Well,” said the soap carver, “pick a side!”

“Who? You,” said Roby, “mean me?”

“No,” said the freelance prime minister, “not yourself—I or he. You can’t be on your own side!”

“Why not try?” said Roby. “It may be fine.”

“The girl’s philosophy amends us not!” said the soap carver. “We are no closer to settling the duel.”

“A fight seems bad, but I may be glad,” said Roby, “if you offer me butter, and nothing other!”

“You and me both, sister,” said the freelance prime minister, sharpening his aglets.

“Enough journalism,” said the soap carver. “Delaylessly spill your guts!”

“And it’s for me, I suppose,” scoffed the freelance prime minister, “to say ‘or we’ll spill them for you’? Oh, that’s too trite!”

“Indeed, so say it not, and nothing else!” said the soap carver. Their space became hotful.

Now, Roby meant to make her way to the butter, but was blocked by the duelists, who would not be satisfied until she bet on a victor, and so she was stymied. The soap carver and the freelance prime minister eyed one another and eared Roby, then vice versa, then versa vice, until a thorough examination had been completed. Roby saw that they were both butterless, and she yearned for egress and feared that the speed of Traycup’s and Ben Garment’s blimp would whisk them far away from her, and Traycup may complete his own voyage with haste—and that was a fine thing for him, but, she had begun a journey of togetherment, and hoped to complete the same. And so she produced a plot, for her brain was made of jade, after all.

“I am Roby Lopkit,” said Roby, “and nothing more than it. If you would like to share names and be friended, then perhaps your rivalness can be ended—but until that time, since you are so inclined, I must hear your voice before I can make a choice! It seems I will glean and succeed to see not a thimbleful of butter until the nimble war of battle is a thing all done and settled. And so I am bewoed to participate. Therefore—I capitulate! I will decide it, but I will hide it, and not say it aloud, for you are too proud. You must yourselves make this unsecret, and then sound the bells to call things unheated. State your case here in this place, and I will choose who will win or lose.” This, she felt, was a fine stratagem, and so it was, for the duelists acquiesced to this, and did as Roby instructed. They bowed and began to present their cases.

“I am hale of heart and sure of aim,” said the soap carver.

“I am sharp of mind and firm of will,” said the freelance prime minister.

“Surely, she chooses me,” said the soap carver, “for I am robust.”

“Surely, she chooses me,” said the freelance prime minister, “for I’m not sawdust.”

“She chooses me,” said the soap carver, “because I am known to the chess-makers and to the billiard balls!”

“She chooses me,” said the freelance prime minister, “because I can see a dozen of the highest quality muffins, and am as gainly as an insect!”

“It is I,” declared the soap carver, “for my feet don’t fail me now, and forget-me-nots forgot me not!”

“It is I,” declawed the freelance prime minister, “for I have an eye for an eye and in truth a tooth for a tooth, and I’ve been on a fair few busses in my time, too!”

But then Lord Shirechester burst through the door, having scaled the one hundred steps in the stairway above the dining room at no small expense—the steps were of finely sculpted filigree, and each stair demanded a new silk sock in its stepping—and in one of his hands was a great brand of fire, and in his eyes was a suspicion of accounting errors, mail fraud, and leftover fish sticks.

“A-ha!” was the baron’s triumphant declaration. “As foretold—you are returned, as accomplices are wont to follow their ringleader into the viper’s den. But know that I am finer than a viper—I am a real adder, at least! For behold!” And the baron cast off his cloak and displayed his array of scales, proving his lineage as the maestro of serpents, and he spread his wings, and darkness fell upon the chamber so that all was lost in shadow—save only the glowing brand of fire.

“The fiend brings forth its reekish form!” said the soap carver. “Then, we’re upscaling the event!” He drew a holy sword made of ice and clouds, and held it aloft.

“A fine trap well-laid!” said the freelance prime minister. “The time is ripe to strike it down!” He drew a sacred sword made of smoke and water, and held it aloft.

Roby did not draw a sword of any type. Instead she sat down and ate a big pancake.

The respectable gentlemen threw themselves into a normal battle, swords clashing with magic fireballs, rattling snake-tails whipping about, furniture thrown overhand at one another’s neckular bones, and many oaths cast at the loathsome opponentry. Scorching flames scarred the walls and reduced the tapestries hanging thereupon to burnt ends, thunder crashed and floods washed over the land, and a toothpick dispenser got knocked over in the seething chaos. But at the end of all things, even the combined might of the soap carver and the freelance prime minister was not enough to defeat the lord of the manor—at least, not in this manner. Lord Shirechester grew one hundred arms and seized them both, and sealed them up in barrels, and set them down in the wine cellar to rot slowly and melt into wine—and then he turned again to Roby.

“Ah, the shambling witch,” he said. “You who espies my house as a place for plying her dark craft, know you this: my soul is sacrosanct, and your dark master shall not have his hands upon it, not this day nor any other!”

“I want not your soul, you can keep it,” said Roby. “I only wish to pause and eat this. But how dry the taste. It is such a waste! For my pancake wants for a pad of butter, which your house lacks in full and utter.”

“‘Lack’!” shouted Lord Shirechester with incredulosity. “You speak as if a fool! No, I lack lacks. Your last meal shall be adorned! Let it not be said that I am not professional in richery! Feast first, and be smote for dessert!”

Lord Shirechester called three new butlers to the fore, and bade them carry Roby kitchenward, where she may acquire the butter she yearned for and see her ’cake topped—but his unspoken plan was to see Roby tossed out the rear window at highway speeds so that she may become nothing more than a smear on the pavement and a delay in the lunchtime commute, and not spoil his manor with any part of her corpse, and so, as the butlers hauled Roby away, the wily lord secluded himself in the dumbwaiter, so as to meet them at their destine and see his plan sprung.

So the entourage, Roby included, approached the kitchen in a flurry, and the head chef beheld them arrive.

“Well,” said he, “a guest don’t belong here, but one’s brung, so say why.”

“If I may,” said Roby, “I would like to take away a butter-stick—simply that shall do my trick.”

“That’s the entirety?” said the head chef. “Here’s one.”

He gladly gave Roby a whole stick of butter, and she wrapped her hands around it and took it securely and quickly and gladly. Butter at last! The increasingly complex mission was a hair’s breadth closer to completion.

The three new butlers fumed in a slight way.

“What’s a problem?” the head chef said to them.

Being bashful, the three new butlers could not put their request to words, but held out their splayed palms, which were empty of all things, including butter.

“It’s wanted amore?” said the head chef. “Oh! Who’m I to no-say?” The head chef fetched more butter for the three new butlers, but he had no sticks handy, and had to give them a bunch of those little packets that you get from restaurants. The three new butlers, upon acquiring their butter, began to paint lanes for the horse races.

And then Lord Shirechester leapt from the shadows with a burst of roaring and motion, a fully distractable eruption, and he bore his great flaming brand, perceivable by nearly almost all, and swung it all over the room somewhat. “Lo!” he cried. “I’ve come to strike, so make yourself ready to get struck!” Lord Shirechester hefted high the brand, and cast his eyes upon Roby, who had finished her pancake butterless, saving the dairy for her quest.

But Lord Shirechester’s brand fell not, for just then there was a great deal more of shouting, and the pantries flew open and out came a cheerful army of mice and rats and squirrels and birds—all well-meaning vermin, surely—and all were dressed in their Saint Plasticine’s Day best, with too many frills and even more lace. Indeed, these vermin were dressed beyond the nines—they were dressed to the tens. “Is it really Saint Plasticine’s Day already?” they cheered, already drunk.

“Is it?” said the all the kitchen staffletes. “Oh! Let’s get the chorus rolling, then!”

And so everyone began singing the traditional Saint Plasticine’s Day song—you know, the one everyone “knows” but no one realizes it actually has a hundred official verses, and each of them sang their favorite as loudly as they could, and as they heard one another’s improving volume they each redoubled their own, so in short it became a thunderesque cacophony. The kitchen staff, in defiance of the joyless lord of the manor, naturally celebrated every holiday they could and many they couldn’t, and as they shouted their song they all ran about and jumped up and down and spun around the lord until they were a blur, and he knew not where to strike—indeed, even Roby was enchained in the linking of arms, though she knew few song-words, but flapped her lip so as to seem a participant. Lord Shirechester couldn’t land a lock-on, but strike he must, else what was the point of the flaming brand? So he commanded the firebrand to find its own mark and hurled it, and in the blur of everyone in costume and singing, flashing colors and booming song, a swirling whirl of holiday delight, the one person the firebrand could put an identity to, the one target standing still long enough to scale their spot, was Lord Shirechester himself, and so the brand struck him and killed him in a single smoteful blow.

All the singers stopped, except for some. They looked down at the dead lord. The flaming brand realized it had erred and fled to parts unknown.

“Who will be our master now?” everyone said. Well, everyone except for the mice and birds and stuff, because they were drunk and still singing holiday songs, and called no man “Master” anyhow, so they continued singing, but a coppersmith pushed them into a granary and told them to hush and read magazines for tweens.

“Poor Lord Shirechester,” said Roby. “He was a mild pest, though.”

“Aha!” said the kitchen staff, for they were simple folk, and saying a lord’s name was as frightful a prospect as drawing rings around the beans. “You know his name!”

“Yes!” said Roby. “That was no guess.”

“Then,” said the helpish folk, “you must be dearly beloved by him. Can it be so? Shall you take up the mantle?”

Roby then said, “I—shall, for before his fall, he did bequeath to me the manor hall! Call me your lord and you shall find your pleas not ignored, for I am kind, and I shall see that each of thee is paid much and more and not grow poor. But first I have a command, for the house drives unmanned, so please see it stopped ere a gasket is popped, or the rear gear sheared, I fear, or a tire or wire caught afire for a while!”

“Then you will become,” said the staff, “the new Lady Shirechester!”

“That is fine,” said Roby, “but please—stop the house in time for me to leave!”

And so it was that Roby became the new Lady Shirechester, master of the manor, baroness of whatever, and as long as no one questioned the legality of the situation, everything was on the up-and-up, and there were no concerns to be had. The staff ran off to call the mayor so she could be officially crowned.

Roby’s focus, however, was on the now-had butter. But, how to inform Traycup?

Concurrent to the preceding—meanwhile, if you like—Traycup was doing other stuff, but had seen almost none of the above save Roby’s initial scoopage, and so had a concern for his friend’s safety and separation. He knew not of the butter, obviously. The blimp, at Ben Garment’s generous urging, was flying higher and farther, free as they were at last from the depths of the commissar’s purse.

“Fly, you bloated bird!” said Ben Garment. “Call the Earth ‘Master’ no more! Now, this is a real heist, if I say so—which I’ve done!”

“Ben Garment,” said Traycup, “we’ve to rescue dear Roby, for she’s been enmansioned, I fear.”

“Tut! She’s a grown lass, and can find her own route,” said Ben Garment. “This is the nature of Life, after all.”

“It’s so,” said Traycup, “and yet, momentarily, we’re set on tripping together—we’re for Oopertreepia, y’see! Let’s go pluck her from her woes and blimp onward together!”

“Oh? You said ‘Oopertreepia’?” said Ben Garment. “So, you’re a real journeyman? That’s twisting! I’ve betraveled myself at times, but not to that so-called place. Call me with you, if you like—that’s a trek for doing. But I guess this: Oopertreepia is cleverer than that old stone, and like as not to take off at a moment’s note, if it guesses our approach. If any are set to arrive, we ought to double and triple our haste!”

“That’s a tip—and it’s indeed vital to report that sight I saw,” said Traycup, “yet I confess that poor Roby is as mislocated as an oval badger on the ice’s skater rink! She may be too doomed in that city without an aider!”

“And you fancy yourself that same aider?” said Ben Garment. “How congealable!”

“Had you seen?” said Traycup. He peered down at the maplike city, seeking to spot the speck of the object that enclosed Roby. “She fled and was scooped by a house—a house most unsavory in’ts look! And now the house races through the town. Only a mansion on the finest of ball bearings might make such a trip—so the threat is plain!”

“No—the threat is plane,” corrected Ben Garment.

“Proffer explanations, if you would,” said Traycup.

Ben Garment had not time to elucidate his pun.

“You again?” screamed the seven forty-seven.

Then they collode.