Snippets of Story: Cottleston Pie

My August word-count goal of 10,000 words is coming along. Not terribly quickly, but it is mounding up, what with nearly 3,000 words in "Swing It" and another 2,000 in Cottleston Pie, not counting bits of it I am rewriting. For instance, I am switching the setting of Cottleston Pie from England (which wasn't necessary) to America, which means changing some terminology, holidays, etc. Still, after thinking on Cottleston Pie and deciding I wanted to add a couple of chapters from other points of view, I am focusing on wrapping that up and sending it to a final reader or two. I also read back through what I have in Scotch'd the Snakes and decided I need to find my notes and read up on who these important-sounding "strangers" are supposed to be up to, because I stopped writing mid-scene and quite forgot why or if they are important. Isn't that terrible? Should teach me not to suspend action for so long again. So today you get scraps of Cottleston Pie. Enjoy!

He thought he might say a few Clever and Weighty things, but the wren flew off across the purple morning and the King started his exercises: skipping thrice around the Cottleston Pie hill followed by jumping-jacks while humming “The Star Spangled Banner,” which was fantastic for getting your heart pumping if you didn’t suffocate first. When this was finished, the King did push-ups till his arms ached (after four-and-a-try, usually), and then he rolled around in the grass for a while to get the crackers out of his spine. At last, His Majeshty felt up for a stroll to clear his lungs so he’d be able to orate per usual, come breakfast.

-Cottleston Pie

"...if you’ve never taken a walk early in the morning by yourself, you can’t possibly imagine how new the world seems, how scrubbed up and polished, as with a chamois leather. Probably just for you, just this once. And yet every morning you wake up early, the world might look a little different – does look a little different – and so you form a habit of waking with it to see what clothes it puts on today because the one time you miss its wake-up face will probably be the freshest morning of all.

-Cottleston Pie

“An owlet.”

“What?”

“Is what you look like,” the King said. “Or a quail. A small one. Such as might be fixed for my birthday. If you were a quail,” he said, feeling a breakfast-less cavity gape inside him, “I would not eat you. I am magnanimous like that. Kind to my friends. Gentle-hearted. Tender, I have been called now and then.

-Cottleston Pie

Privately, the King felt ready as a buffalo, but it wouldn’t do to lord such feelings over those of the weaker type.

-Cottleston Pie

"...The quickest way to get clean is to take a bath, and wanting to be clean, I took one this morning. But while I bathed – though half the trouble is getting back into them – I took off my clothes and my crown. I put my clothes on, thank heavens!” (And here the King scrabbled his robes around himself and looked severely down on Simpian for having even suggested he might do such a thing as forget) “But I left my crown at some point between scrubbing up and playing bear.”

-Cottleston Pie

About twenty-thirty-six hours later – it had taken the King quite a while to find his crown and even longer to find anything to eat – the King once again made his way down to the field where he’d left the orphaned cloud. It was still there, which it shouldn’t have been.“Good beans,” the King muttered. “I wonder what happened to the boy."

-Cottleston Pie

Sampling Cottleston Pie

The point of this post was to share snippets of Cottleston Pie but I feel I must interrupt normal programming to make an announcement. Jennifer Freitag, one my most beloved writing friends, is as I write giving birth to a baby Freitag. That's right! Not only does Jenny make books, she makes babies. What can that woman not do? I hope you will join me in wishing Jenny and Tim all happiness. <3 MY news, in comparison, weakens. I finished writing the first draft of Cottleston Pie last night. Or was it the night before? No matter. I finished writing it and immediately about-faced and started in on editing the first three chapters which then went straight to the few readers I selected to beta read. When they are finished, I will analyze their critiques, make needed changes, and send this packet off to the publisher. Then I'll sit for twelve weeks, hoping any day to see an email in my inbox, give up by week thirteen, and try again. But for now, I will glory in small triumphs, such as officially finishing Cottleston Pie. Here are some of the trimmings:

A Pirate is always in need of a warrior...Simpian kept still and quiet after this. He plucked a stem of wood sorrel and thought and thought. Was a Pirate always in need of a warrior? All through history he thought he’d remembered that Pirates and Warriors kept well apart from each other. Black Beard didn’t have a Warrior, and you didn’t hear stories of Davy Jones carting about boatfuls of Crusaders, did you? Simpian twirled the wood sorrel between his thumb and first finger and looked sideways at the mole. Bertram, in his turn, looked back at Simpian.

Simpian stomped eight paces to the soft patch. A pace, at least at Cottleston Pie, was a little more than a walk and a little less than a jog: sort of lippity-lip, like the kind of thing Sylvi the Rabbit had done.

“You might be a Warrior and have a sword that sings,” the King answered, “but you are new here and should not poke fun at our very good ways.”

 

(Simpian) nodded, paired with a nervous glance at the borrowed pen-knife which was rusty and dull and not very steady on its hinge.

Simpian took a step forward and thought how awkward it was, this dueling thing. He could understand how two people in the heat of a moment might come to blows, but it was strange to pick a fight when perfectly calm. How did you do it? “I say, can I stick you now?” sounded too impolite. “Let’s charge at the count of three!” was better, but a little unsure of itself yet.

“We’ll be overcrowded!” the King protested. “We already sent an invitation to a Friendly One to visit. What if the Friendly One comes after all and sees us clogged up with moles and rabbits and all sorts of creatures and decides to go on the side of the Skellingtons? What then? Holy Moly, what will happen to us then? Perhaps the Friendly Ones are unaccustomed to being jealous, and perhaps they will turn green and sneak into our bedrooms at night."

She smiled as only a bird can smile. Which is to say, she spread the flexible corners of her beak in a goodwill-toward-men gape that would have looked frightening on anything that was not a sparrow.

But because trees wondered what they’d look like in gold and the Pirates wondered where they’d hidden their jewels, and the boy wondered if the rabbit had a name, there were Autumns and High Seas and Kings at Cottleston Pie.

It was okay to wonder.

Wondering is a small kind of adventure.

“I SAID,” the King boomed, “That brains are for using, didn’t I?”

Simpian felt himself go pink. “Yes.”

“So Vesper should put a clothespin on her beak, shouldn’t she?”

“But I wonder!” the sparrow wailed.

“STOP WONDERING,” the King shouted.

And Sylvi, for no reason at all, bounced about chanting: “Pink sticks! Cotton fluff! Chalk-dust and ink!”

 

"My sister gets to keep her cat."

This is a public service announcement to let you know that this weekend, I'm running a special deal on Anon, Sir, Anon. That's right! On Black Friday, paperback copies will be available for at least 25% off the original price, while on Cyber Monday, I'll have a similar deal on e-book copies. So if you've held off on purchasing my mystery, now is a wonderful time to get ready to buy it. This deal is part of a big Black Friday book party I will be participating in and I'll have more info on that coming up in the next several days. But I thought I'd give my own dear readers a heads-up so you can start thinking about getting your own copy of this coziest of mysteries. :)

And in case you still aren't sure if Anon, Sir, Anon is for you, there are quite a lot of reviews up on Goodreads showing a variety of opinions. You ought to be able to find something to suit. I'm still tackling the finishing-bits of Cottleston Pie over here. Writing time is a little pinched this week. I opted to see Mockingjay Part 1 instead of sitting at home writing after work yesterday...I'm glad I did, but I will admit to being entirely at the mercy of every emotion as it hit me. I haven't read the Hunger Games trilogy and my sister has. Thus, I am totally oblivious to what will happen next and everything effects me deeply. I nearly died of high blood pressure. At any rate, all of this to say, when I finish the first draft of Cottleston Pie, I will do a triumphant snippets post. If you'd like that, comment below and give me a pep talk so I'll kick my tail into high gear and finish this. I only have about seven-thousand more words to go...which is a matter of a couple "chapters" of the story. Quite feasible. I would like to get it finished this week...which means getting it finished between tonight and tomorrow afternoon because THANKSGIVING IS COMING. I am so excited for the holidays this year...my family has been rather spread out over the past six months. I've had a job and haven't been home much, my sister has been living away and interning/working at my brother's company, and Thanksgiving will be the first time we'll see my brother and new sister-in-law since the wedding! Not to mention the fact that we're also getting to spend this holiday with two amazing friends who can't make it to their own homes for Thanksgiving. So much for which to be grateful. :)

The quote is from Mockingjay and made me laugh aloud, even though I anticipated what Katniss would say.

Ten minutes of Cottleston Pie before I dash off to work. One good thing about working with kids is that I get free inspiration for Simpian Grenadine & Co. Tra!

News About Cottleston Pie

"Wait to announce your weapons until after you've fired them."

This idea is quite appropriate for me when it comes to writing stories. I am a visionary. I get excited over a story, I start writing the story, and I get so terribly caught up in the delight of new words and characters and places that I announce the story. And then I realize that I was ill-prepared to tackle the task in the time in which I said I would do it, and I go off to crash and burn. This is why I've never participated in NaNo (National Novel Writing Month). If November was not the month cram-jammed with family birthdays and occasions, I would probably be tempted yearly. But I know myself well enough at this point to know that I could not promise (or fulfill the promise) to write that much every single day without losing sanity or writing cheap prose for the sake of a word count.

"I can't help flying up on the wings of anticipation. It's as glorious as sailing through a sunset...almost pays for the thud."

-Anne of Green Gables, The Continuing Story

A little while ago I announced that I was writing a Christmas story, tentatively titled: Ring the Belles. It was meant to be finished in time to be given to a family member for a Christmas present. As I wrote, I realized that the story was not working in the era in which it was set...the tone is autobiographical and thus a bit too rollicking for the Regency Era setting. As I discussed this issue with fellow author Meghan Gorecki, she suggested I move the story to a different continent, where a slack tone of unconcealed dryness, wit, and raillery would not be unacceptable. I could keep my era, keep my plot, and keep the tone with this solution. Unfortunately, the idea of packing up the entirely 10k words and rewriting them on a new continent overwhelmed me. I had only a few days before my brother's wedding and I could not stomach the idea. So I shut down Ring the Belles till after the wedding. When I came back to writing this week, I was just not feeling a Christmas story. I did not feel much like writing at all, so I sat on my bed and did a few quick pen/watercolor sketches of the main characters in Cottleston Pie.

 

I don't know why they were stuck in my head, but they were and as I drew them and looked at these characters who are so well known to me, I realized what I really felt like doing was finishing Cottleston Pie. The Christmas story can wait. I have added six or seven-thousand words this week and am running along merrily toward a wrap-up. I intend to pitch this book as a short-novel for Young Readers (ages 8-12). The finished length will be about 25,000 words, with the option to chop the book into single picture books if need be. 
The deal is this: I do not want to publish Cottleston Pie on my own. It needs illustrations. It needs people who know what they are doing. People have said that I should illustrate the books myself, but I know nothing of illustration. I can draw, but I am unskilled in knowing how to transfer that into a digital form and transfer that into a layout and print it and anything else of that nature. This book is not for the indie-published. Of course down the road if I cannot find a publisher to take Cottleston Pie, I will probably do it myself, but I hope to be able to find a company that will publish these stories. They have a wider appeal than some things I plan to write, and I do think they could become beloved. I will be querying traditional publishing houses as soon as I have finished the first draft. I really hope something comes from this.
There is one publishing house especially that I would love to take it...it doesn't help to know that almost nobody gets their book taken by the first house to whom they pitch it. All the same...this company sounds amazing. I'll definitely be following their projects even if mine isn't among them.

So maybe I'm announcing yet another weapon before I've fired it (LIPSTICK TASER!) but I decided I'd tell you now: I'm looking for a big-girl publisher for Cottleston Pie. Proceed as usual.

So the King gave Simpian his pen-knife and told him that, yes, he could have the pen-knife and yes, it was sharp, but no, he was not allowed to hurt anyone with it and if he did that yes, the King would have Words with him. What Words? Stern ones, and holy Moly, my boy, it was a foolish person who would volunteer himself to hear Stern Words from a King of his callipiller, so Simpian had better not try or he’d see what was what. And a peck of pears with green olives.

Whatever that meant.

"In TECHNICOLOR."

It was inevitable because our Triumvirate (plus gobs) always ends up taking one another's ideas and it was only right that I'd come up with a vlog too. This is a thing I've been wanting to do for some time but a thing to which I'd never buckled down. Now I have. And here is the product. Not as nice a product as Jenny's, but I blame that on the fact that I don't have an iPhone and I don't know how to turn down the music's volume in the background of a video. HARUMPH. I will learn. This is the first of many, I hope, so enjoy. Also, if you've any questions about me or my writing, do please leave a comment below! I love to interact with you. Really and truly. :)

Ciao! 

The Nameless New Lair

By ten-thirty yesterday morning, I was fairly certain I'd never feel organized, tidy, or able to think again. My Lair was no more, my bedroom looked like the aftermath of Armegeddon, and Sarah and I had both inhaled so much dust that she, at least, had begun to crack puns. And we both hate puns. We were getting loopy. There's a fair amount of brain power involved in combining two stuffed bookcases into one, toting out a heavy hopechest stuffed with letters, favorite books, and things from my childhood, moving another hopechest into that spot, finding where on earth my art supplies was to go, and carting in a desk and all my trappings. We did it, though, and fled downstairs to find there was nothing to eat but salad. After having nothing to eat all day but yogurt. That sent us packing to Starbucks where I bought an Izze and buried myself in Stephen Lawhead's Tuck between three different groups of our friends descending on us by chance. (This is what happens when there is only one coffee shop in town, apparently.) An Izze and friends do minister to a mind diseased (unlike plum puffs) and I returned home in a far better mood than I left. Soon after my return, the UPS man came with two boxes stuffed full of copies of Fly Away Home which I then promptly autographed and packaged up. Mama is sending them this morning after Sarah tests for her license. So those of you who ordered copies, SO sorry for the wait; you will receive them soon and I hope your enjoyment won't be lessened by the unfortunate wait.

Today, after waking up properly, I decorated this new writing space with the old things (small wall-space meant things like the illustrations for Cottleston Pie had to go into the hope-chest) and stood my sign from Wyatt Fairlead above the door. That is always the final measure in designating a new writing space: does my Author's Study sign adorn the lintel? If so, I really have moved in.

The longer I spend in this corner, the more I think it will serve well. I think I will be comfortable here. I haven't found the perfect name for it yet, but it is a pleasant, more public writing space that I think I will grow to enjoy quite a lot. Public? In your bedroom? Darlings, if you knew how much mine and Sarah's room stands as a family hang-out, you'd laugh. Levi is now playing matchbox cars on the floor, and Leah and Anna are traveling back and forth from the hall, through my bedroom, through the bathroom door, into their bedroom through the bathroom. They've decided to go with a travel-theme as soon as Abby moves out. The little girls painted my Lair an astonishing shade of pink. They love it, but I had to laugh because it literally makes the room glow. Hopefully as soon as they have furniture in it, the color will tame. Currently it is quite...energetic. Anyway, I thought you'd probably like to see pictures of the new scene of all crimes. Let me know if you have any brilliant ideas for a name!

I decided to display our antique books in the tea-cup cabinet near my desk.

There you have it! Do you have any idea what it ought to be christened? I suppose that will come with time. For now, I'm just blessed that Sarah is in support of letting me commandeer a whole corner for my work. :)

"I'm in shock...see...I've got a blanket."

Being a writer is all fun and games until someone rips away your pen and replaces it with words like "vector images", "ISBN", "formatting" and "deadlines." The above is my face after getting through a stack of technicalities today. Who knew it could be hell to format page numbers? (Just one of the things I haven't figured out yet.) Thank heaven I have a cover designer (St. Rachel) who has been amazing and a tech-y friend with hair like Sherlock Holmes (Dan Tate) who is saving my life over this thing:

What is "this thing"? Well, I had all of you on Facebook and Instagram guessing earlier this week. This fellow (contrary to popular inquiry) is not a character from Redwall. Oh, how he'd scorn that title. This is Bertram, the Mole Warrior, and his sword "Ruby Elixir" from Cottleston Pie. If you are wondering about why that has to do with anything at all, I am here to tell you that it has a lot to do with the imprint I am founding for publication of my novels:

Ruby Elixir Press 

I mentioned to you that I am striking out in a spirit of fierceness and sunshine? Well what better emblem than that of the bravest, most practical and valiant mole in all the world? 

 And just when Simpian was wishing the Rickets would hurry up and kill them—or better yet: go away--he felt a very small earthquake beneath him. Rolling over, Simpian saw the earth crack open in a furrow. Something very like a cigar-butt peered out at him with a grin and two bright black eyes beneath a paper soldier-hat.

I have long thought that I should like Bertram to be on my side in any fight...and since independent publication is certainly an uphill fight, I thought I should like Ruby Elixir and Bertram on my side forever and always. So. Dan Tate is helping me turn that scrawl into an emblem for my books...rather like Penguin's penguin, or that unicorn or Pegasus or what-have-you on the other books. "Ruby Elixir Press brings you Fly Away Home"...has rather a nice ring to it. 

I have been busy planning the Cover Release blog party as well as the Fly Away Home Debut Blog-Hop and I have actual dates for those so go ahead and get out your pens and calenders and write this down:

Cover Release Blog Party

-January 15-17-

Fly Away Home Debut Blog-Hop

-February 14-20-

To clarify anything confusing up there, you will first get to see the cover on January 15, 2014. (This year.) The rest of the three-day blog party will consist of a giveaway, a tag, a chat with my cover-designer, and more fun. You will be able to purchase a copy of Fly Away Home on February 14, 2014. VALENTINE'S DAY, people! So look, even if you don't have a guy of your own, you can buy a copy of Fly Away Home and fall in love with Wade Barnett. Just sayin'. The rest of the debut blog-hop will consist of guest-posts, interviews, and even a giveaway or two. I will be posting where I appear each day during the party, so come here to find your directions for trotting off elsewhere! 

Thank you everyone for your delicious support in this venture. My younger sister keeps coming up and jogging my elbow (not unlike Agnes in Despicable Me 2) and saying, "It's just not sinking in that by Valentine's Day your book will be published!!!!!!" 

Yeah, darling. I have so many details crammed into my head...I know exactly how movie producers feel when  they have committed to a release day. Come hell or high-water, Fly Away Home will be here soon. 

Ack. Someone give me chocolate and a paper bag to breath into. Or a neck massage. My ankle is acting out of socket which means I can't even escape to the great outdoors for a walk. Or maybe I can...I'll just look like a limping Bozo.

No wonder Peter Jackson gets fat by the end of filming a trilogy.

Well, darlings, I shall leave you with the back-cover blurb for Fly Away Home to whet your appetites! February 14. Just. Keep. Breathing.

1952 New York City:    Callie Harper is a woman set to make it big in the world of journalism. Liberated from all but her buried and troubled past, Callie craves glamor and the satisfaction she knows it will bring. When one of America's most celebrated journalists, Wade Barnett, calls on Callie to help him with a revolutionary project, Callie finds herself co-pilot to a Christian man whose life and ideas of true greatness run noisily counter to hers on every point.
     The new friendship sparks, the project soars, and a faint suspicion that she is falling for this uncommon man grows in Callie's heart. When the secrets of Callie's past are exhumed and hung over her head as a threat, she is forced to scrutinize Wade Barnett and betray his dirtiest secrets or see her own spilled.
      Here, there is space for only one love, one answer: betray Wade Barnett to save her reputation, or sacrifice everything for the sake of the man she loved and the God she fled. The consequences of either decision will define the rest of her life.Self-preservation has never looked more tempting.

Oh. And if this weren't ulcer-inducing enough, I watched Episode 1 of Sherlock Series 3 (Thanks again, Dan Tate), and Anne Elisabeth Stengl has bumped the winner-announcement date of her Five Glass Slippers contest up to February 1.

Be still, my soul.

Cottleston Pie Resurrected!

You probably all know by now that I wrote Cottleston Pie (what of it I wrote) for my youngest sister, Grace. Gracie is the craziest kid I know: personality-wise she's a mixture of The King and Simpian Grenadine, so it's always fun for me to click open the Cottleston Pie document and write out the next dose of nonsense. I hadn't done this for months now--probably since January or February. To write nonsense, you must be in a very particular frame of mind where nonsensical things roll off your brain at a rapid rate. "Holy-Moly, m'boy. It takes brain-power!" So I don't push to write nonsense in any time-frame. Since Cottleston Pie is more episodic anyway, I work on it whenever the mood strikes me. :)

Last night while the younger ones were folding laundry, they asked for a story. I, in my ever-thoughtful imagination, told them a story about a Dingle-Hopper bird that had spoons for feet, knives for a beak, wings made out of waxed paper and a body made out of sugar. He stole all the fresh produce every night from the poor chef's garden, and finally one night the chef trapped him under a basket by way of a blueberry pie. It rained that night and the next morning the Dingle-Hopper had dissolved, leaving nothing but spoons, knives, and waxed-paper wings behind.

They all got tears in their eyes.

What on earth makes them throw their loyalties to the villain of the story? Eh. Anyway, to cheer them up from that tragedy, I read to them Cottleston Pie and this morning I tapped out another chapter at which I thought you might like to have a peep. You will need to know that the King thinks cows are "Skellingtons" (and is mortally afraid of them), and Simpian and the King just sent a message to The Friendly Ones (the friendly whats?) by way of a reluctant, nasty old crow and await the reply. Enjoy this chapter--it's especially inspired by Gracie who has a dread of getting rickets but isn't quite sure what they are. :)

-Cottleston Pie-

Chapter 4: A Plague of Rickets

Simpian and the King lived for some days in a paste of Anxiety and Despair while waiting to see if the crow had taken their message like a proper carrier-pigeon to the Friendly Ones. There were just so many things that could go wrong with a mission like this; the crow could have untied the string with his bill—though since the King had threatened to cook him, Simpian wasn't certain he would have tried that—or perhaps the scroll of paper had dropped off his leg while flying and was now speared on some thornbush in the Middle of Nowhere and would never get to the Friendly Ones ever in their life; what a sad prospect.

So it was that the mood at Cottleston Pie was a bit less “Happy Birthday” these days and a bit more like “Time for a Bath”. Simpian tried not to be cross with the King for all the silly things he did, like tying Simpian's shoes to the door of the tree-house for a knocker, “carving” things with his pencil on the floor, or eating the ginnerbread Simpian was saving for the Friendly Ones whenever they came.

Simpian had just awakened from not-sleeping when he saw the the King running his red pointer-finger round and round the inside of a rather empty tin. “Your Majeshty!”

The King jumped and turned the color of Tottles's head-rag. “I'm washing the dishes so you don't have to,” he hurried to say, and popped the last of the crumbs into his post-box mouth. “The ginnerbread's all right.”

“There wouldn't be dishes to wash if there was still ginnerbread in that box. Did you eat it all?”

The King turned the tin upside-down over his head and shrugged. “I can't imagine where it went. Holy Moly, boy, but it's fast! It just took one look at me and said, 'Catch me if you can' and off it went toward the Rickety Pines.”

Simpian stood, brushed the grass from his pants, and took the tin from the King. It really was tragically empty. “You're lying to me. You ate it.”

“I'm not lying. I'm sitting up. Look at me: the model of Perfect Poshter.” The King sat up straight as a tree and even made an effort to fix his crown. Simpian looked at him closely. As far as he knew, liars grew enormously long noses—the King's nose was enormous, but it wasn't what you'd call long.

Simpian tucked the tin under his arm and drummed on it with his fingertips. “Did you maybe just taste the ginnerbread?”

The crown slipped over the King's nose and he righted it again with a sorry smile. “I did. As a reward for my Perfect Poshter.”

“How many times did you taste it?”

“Leventy-twelve.”

“Aha.”

The King grinned and shook Simpian's hand. “And a very good 'aha' to you.”

Simpian scratched his head and wished the King hadn't eaten all the gingerbread...he didn't know if Tottles would let him have anymore and they must have a treat for the Friendly Ones. “Didja take that many tastes because you had such good Poshter?”

“Holy-Moly, boy. Did you ever see such a straight spine and fine legs? I had rickets as a child but lookit me now! I'm big as a genie in a bottle who's got out of his bottle.”

Simpian now sat on the tin, curious. “What's Rickets?”

“Rickets is a disease. A terrible sickness that'd kill you soon as look at you.”

Rickets. Simpian liked the sound of it...it sounded a little like crickets and a little dangerous. “Where do you get it from?”

“From dancing.” The King said. “Or...” and Simpian noticed his face looked a little pale, “Or from being too handsome. Or sometimes just because the Ricket jumps on you--not in a polite way such as 'Can I make you ill?' but more of the sort that catches you by surprise in the middle of the Night, or the middle of the day. Or at the tea-table.”

Rickets. Villains, that's what. “What happens to you when you've got a Ricket?”

“Your back hurts and your nose stuffs and then you start to walk like a hunchback.”

Simpian felt a shiver-fish slide over his body at the mention of a Hunchback. “What then?”

“Then your legs go like noodles and Holy-Moly, boy, that's not the worst part.”

“What is the worst part?”

The King's face was serious and quiet like he had a pain somewhere. “The worst part is that you can never ever ever get better again.”

“But how did you get better?”

“I didn't say I couldn't get better, did I? You're the one that would never get better. That is, if you were lucky enough to be stricken by Rickets. It's choosy about who it Strikes. You can't be too careful if you're a disease, striking people who don't deserve it.”

Simpian wished the King would stop talking about sicknesses and...and Hunchbacks. He remembered hearing about another king in a history book sometime. This king had a hunchback and he really wasn't very nice to the two little boys he kept locked up in a Tower. “I don't want Rickets,” he said, and plopped on the ground Indian-style.

“Well,” the King sniffed. “That doesn't much matter to them. What matters is, does Rickets want you?”

“I hope not.” 'Specially because the King had said he'd never get better, and though Simpian liked being coddled well enough, and getting things like pudding and cambric tea, he didn't much like the thought of having to be Only Allister forever an' ever. He always had to be Allister when he was sick, because things like Rickets don't bother Pirates named Simpian Grenadine. Which, Simpian thought, was probably just as well because Pirates don't have doctors either and there'd be no one to give him medicine.

“Ohhhhhhh!” The King groaned so loudly that he jostled Simpian out of his thoughts and made him jump like when someone says “Boo!” in a dark room.

“What's wrong?”

“The Rickets have got me!” The King rolled over onto his side, clutching his stomach and blubbering to himself.

“What do I do?”

“There's nothing to do. Holy-Moly, boy! This is the end! Say goodbye to the dear old Cottleston Pie Tree for me.”

“It's right behind you.”

The King squinted open one eye and felt the tree with a groping hand. “So it is, my boy. So it is.” He wrapped his arm as far around the tree-trunk as he could. “Ohhhhh ow ow ow. Farewell, or as the French say, Ar-Ree-var! You have been a good home to me and how often I have spent a pleasant afternoon eating peppermint sticks under your leaves. Goodbye, stars! Goodbye moon! Goodbye Rickety Pines. Skellingtons and Crows can trouble me no more. Goodbye world.”

He kissed the bark of the tree and then returned to rolling around on the ground with his hands on his big stomach, moaning.

Simpian thought it a little curious that the King had said Rickets attacked your legs and back, but here he was holding his stomach. “Are you sure this is Rickets?”

But the King would do nothing but moan. Probably ate too much ginnerbread. Simpian watched the King for some time, and then he began to feel odd himself. It started as a tingling feeling in his legs. Rickets. And the tingle spread to his knees. Simpian tried to thing about something else—how a Pirate might kill a Ricket if one tried to attack him—but that was hard to do when your head started aching and your stomach flip-flopped like a drying tadpole. Was it really Rickets? Would he be sick for the rest of his life, or would it kill him quickly?

“Ohhhhhh, ow ow ow! The Rickets has a knife! It's killing me!”

Simpian dragged himself over to the King's side and grabbed his hand. “The Ricket has got me too. If we have to die we can do it together.”

“As friends?” The king asked.

“As best friends.”

“Bravo. You're a noble Pirate, Simpian Grenadine but--Ow--you might try getting us some Medicine!”

Did Pirates faint, and it they did, would now be a good time? Simpian wasn't feeling well at all, he imagined. “What sort of medicine?”

“Lemon-grass,” the king panted. His round face was pale in some spots and red in others. Simpian wondered if he looked as terrible as the poor King.

“Lemon-grass grows in India.” Simpian laid his head on his arms and watched a passing ant with one eye, deciding he felt miserable. So this was Rickets.

The King fished around the base of the Cottleston Pie tree and brought forward a handful of clover-like leaves and pretty purple blossoms. “This is lemon-grass.”

“That's wood-sorrel.”

“Don't argue with a dying Majeshty.” The King curled up in a ball again. “Owwwwww. Quick boy, make a poultice.”

“A what?” Simpian got to his knees, forgetting to feel sick for a moment.

“A poultice. You chew up the leaves and smack them on my wound.”

“You don't have a wound.”

The King fixed him with one glassy eye. “Holy-Moly, boy. Don't argue with a dying—ooooooh.”

He sounded in terrible pain this time. Simpian took the handful of flowers and leaves and stuffed them in his mouth. They did taste like lemon, actually. Simpian swallowed because he was hungry, come to think of it, and picked some more to chew up for the poultice. When the leaves and flowers had been reduced to a paste in his mouth, he spat the mixture into his hand. It glistened green and sticky in the morning sunlight. “What now, Your Majeshty?”

“Put it on my wound.”

“Where?”

“Here.” The King tapped his forehead and Simpian made a face.

“On your head?”

“Owww. Do as I say.”

Well well. So this was how to make a poultice and cure Rickets? Being a doctor was easy. Simpian patted the lemon-grass into a neat green stripe on the King's head. He didn't have to bind it up because it stuck together on its own. “Now what?”

“Leave me in peace.”

“Will it help your Rickets?”

“Nothing helps Rickets.”

“But you said--”

“It helps me think,” the King moaned.

Simpian laid beside the King, starting to feel ill again. If only the Friendly Ones would answer their message and come looking for them. The Friendly One might be a doctor or an Indian-Brave who would know how to cure Rickets. But there was no one. They were all alone, the King and Simpian Grenadine; all alone at Cottleston Pie. They'd die quietly together, best friends and companions, and maybe someone would build a cross over-top of them and wonder who they once were.

Simpian thought all these things as the laid in the bright sunlight, and the day grew hotter and more impatient around them. It wasn't nice at all being sick. It felt just like being grumpy, only his stomach and head were involved. It felt a little like being hungry too, except for the grumpiness and the headache. In the background, the King whimpered.

“Do you think the Friendly Ones will come?” Simpian slipped his hand back into the King's and squeezed it a little.

“I...ow...don't know.”

“We could sing for them.”

“You could.”

“I could sing for them.”

“Do that.”

So Simpian made up a song about the carrier-pigeons and Cottleston Pie, and the Friendly Ones and Rickets and he watched the land all round their hill:

“Rickets aren't crickets

They're ouch-er and meaner

And crickets aren't Rickets

They're nicer and cleaner.

And carrier-pigeons deliver

the mail

So we hope that our carrier-crow

will not fail.

We'd be willing to pay a good doctor a dollar

For splints or a bandage or something to swoller...”

(this last bit didn't quite rhyme and Simpian made a face while he sang it, but something had to go there and “swoller” would just have to do.)

“But nobody's coming, and waiting's no fun,

And if you don't come soon we'll get cooked by the sun.”

No one came. The sun grew even hotter and Simpian's head began to throb. He'd been keeping a watch through the whole song and could see very well the Dark Woods on one side of the hill and on the other, the Field leading up to Waterloo and the Rickety Pines. No one. Not a single speck that could maybe be someone by-and-by.

And just when Simpian was wishing the Rickets would hurry up and kill them—or better yet: go away--he felt a very small earthquake beneath him. Rolling over, Simpian saw the earth crack open in a furrow. Something very like a cigar-butt peered out at him with a grin and two bright black eyes beneath a paper soldier-hat.

“Are you a Friendly One?” Simpian asked, liking the look of this fellow. “Or better yet, can you cure Rickets?”

The Star-ship, Silverbarren

Last month I gave you the first installment of Cottleston Pie. This month I have another piece for you. I'm still hoping to get at least a short version of it finished in time for Grace's Christmas present. After all, both chapters combined make it close to 10k words, so they're more like individual short stories. :) Anyway, here is Part Two.

Chapter Two: The Star-Ship, Silverbarren

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are!” Simpian sang the song to himself and kept time with a dandelion stem. He stopped after that line of his song and thought for a while. Why did people wonder what stars were? He knew what they were. They were jewels—pirate jewels. And if he had could get a ship to sail among the stars he’d soon be the richest fellow in the world. Simpian flopped down on the grass in the Soft Patch with a sigh. The problem was getting the ship. Every night he was able come away to Cottleston Pie, Simpian thought about the star-ship and wondered why no one had ever invented one. A proper star-ship would have billowing sails made of wax-paper which would cause a lovely crackling in the wind. And it’d have a tiller made of a peppermint sticks you could lick if you got too hungry, and a rudder like a pocket-knife to cut through the clouds if it got too foggy up there.

As Simpian thought, he rolled over onto his stomach and took his dandelion stem and drew a picture of the ship in a bit of dust nearby. There. Such a lovely ship! If only! If only he was quite clever enough to build such a star ship and go sailing in the night sky! He would bring back gobs and gobs of the star-jewels and never have to go home again. He could live at Cottleston Pie forever an’ always! It seemed like such a good plan if only he were a little more Grown-up and a deal smarter, that Simpian sighed again and almost felt like crying.

“I say! What’s this?” a voice boomed.

Simpian yelled—a great big yell that felt like it would rip his throat in half—and did a somersault out of sheer surprise. When he came right-side-up, he saw a strange man—a grown man—standing in front of him. The man wore a long red robe all edged in white and black-speckled fur, and long purple slippers with the toes turned up at the end. On his head, cocked to one side as if he’d just finished an Enormous Sneeze, was a golden crown.

“Are…are you a…king?” Simpian asked when he found his voice again. (He’d dropped it when he’d done the somersault and had only now got it back.)

“I’m not a king. I’m the King.”

“I understand.” (only he didn’t.)

“I’m the cleverest King,” the King said, as if to convince himself and Simpian both.

“Aha.” There—he remembered to say it this time. Simpian felt less frightened, saying it, so he did it again, just to make certain. “A very good ‘Aha,’” he said.

“And a very good Aha to you, too,” the King said with a strong handshake. He shook Simpian’s hand so hard and his robe was so very red that Simpian thought he looked and felt rather like a lobster—his face was red too, and his nose was very large and lumpy, and his eyes were little and black and shiny like blackberry-seeds. But for all this, Simpian thought he liked the King pretty well.

Simpian stood up, brushed his pants off, and stuck his hands in his trouser pockets. He paced back and forth for a little while like he’d seen his Papa do a time or two, and hummed to himself.

“What is that you’re humming?” the King asked. His voice was so loud.

It startled Simpian again. “Don’t do that!”

“Do what?”

“Shout like that.”

“I’m not shouting,” the King shouted.

“Are too.”

“I am not. THIS,” he yelled, “IS SHOUTING!!!!!” and when he said it like that, Simpian had to admit that his first voice was not shouting at all.

Simpian took one hand out of his pocket and shook the King’s hard, lobster-y hand. “I’m sorry, Your Majeshty. Welcome to Cottleston Pie.”

“Is that what this is?” the King asked, looking about with a pleased expression on his fat face.

“Yes. And I am Master of it.” Simpian wondered if the King might pick a fight like Sylvi had, but the King just chuckled to himself in a jolly way and patted Simpian on the back.

“It is a very good place, I think. There are stars here.”

“You mean you like the stars too?” Simpian asked.

“Love ‘em.” The King plopped down on his royal bottom with a “ploooooosh” noise, and flicked the ends of his robe out on the ground behind him till it looked like a river of red velvet in the starlight. Simpian joined him on the ground and together they looked up at the stars for a while. No one spoke. Simpian wasn’t sure if it was all right to speak to a real King. He wondered where the King was from, and how he’d ended up at Cottleston Pie.

The King whipped out a long cardboard tube and squinted at Simpian through the end of it. “What is your name, Master of Cottleston Pie?”

“Simpian Grenadine.” Simpian puffed his chest out when he said this, and felt proud.

The King laid aside his tube and took a pencil from behind his ear, and licked the tip. “Simp-ee-an…Gren-uh-deen,” he said, while writing it on his cuffs.

“Why are you doing that?” Simpian asked.

The king raised one of his red eyebrows. “So I don’t forget to remember.”

“Aha.”

“And a very good Aha to you too,” the King said with another of his pinching handshakes.

Ouch. Simpian wrinkled his nose and pointed to the sky. “Do you ever wonder what it’s like up there in the stars?”

“Never,” the King replied, and  again he stared at Simpian through the end of his tube.

“Never ever?”

The King flipped onto his ample stomach. “Why should I waste time wondering when I know? I’m the greatest ‘stronomer alive!”

“What’s a ‘star-nimer?”

“A ‘stronmer’s a man who studies stars.”

“And you’re the greatest one alive?”

“And shouldn’t I be?” The King gestured to the dark, jewel-filled sky. “If I stare hard enough at any part of the sky I can find the Big Dipper. That takes talent, my boy. It takes talent to find the Big Dipper where all the silly ‘stronomers say it can’t possibly be. They think there’s only one way to see the Big Dipper. That is silliness, my boy.”

Simpian hugged himself—the air was a teensy bit chilly. “You say you’re the cleverest King and the greatest ‘starnimer alive?”

“Holy-moly, yes, my boy.”

The King was almost shouting this time, but Simpian didn’t wish to test him again—his ears still hurt from the Demonstration. Simpian had an idea. If this King was so clever—and furthermore, if he really was the greatest ‘star-nimer alive—perhaps he could help him build the star-ship. “King?”

“Yes, my boy?”

“What should I call you?”

“Your Majeshty.”

“Your Majeshty?”

“Yes, my boy? (Marvelously done!)”

“Have you ever wanted to go sailing among the stars?”

“You mean in a space-ship?”

Simpian coughed and laughed at the same time, and felt like choking for a minute. “Goodness, no.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“I mean building a star-boat. And scooping up all the jewels in the sky.”

“What do you mean?” the King asked, and his eyes were very sharp and black in that moment. “What do you mean ‘jewels’?”

Simpian pointed to the sky again. “The stars are made from jewels.”

The King peered through his cardboard tube. “Oh. That. Yes they are. But how do you know? Are you a ‘stronomer too?”

Simpian thought about this. He supposed he was, in a way. He liked to look at the stars quite a lot. “I think I am a ‘star-nimer. Listen, your Majeshty. Will you help me build the boat?”

The King scrambled to his fat feet and stood at attention. “Holy-Moly, ‘course I will, my boy! Where do we start?”

So Simpian Grenadine and the King set to building their boat with the sails of waxed paper and the tiller of peppermint, and the rudder like a knife-blade. It wasn’t easy—not one tiny bit. Once in a while that evening and the several following it, Simpian thought he’d like to give up. But every time he got hot and sweaty and angry over the King dropping the hammer on his toe, or licking the peppermint sticks meant for the tiller, or doing any of the number of annoying things the King did, Simpian would take a deep breath and ask him nicely to stop it.

“But I’m a King,” the King would say. “I’m a regent. And a royal.”

“So?”

“So I can do what I want. And what I want to do is lick the tiller. You said we could. You said that was why you are making it out of peppermint.”

Simpian rolled his eyes and snatched the handful of peppermint sticks away from the King. “I said we could lick them when we were up in the sky. Are we up in the sky? No. So stop licking them.”

“You could say please,” the King huffed.

“I could say lots of things.” He left it at that, and continued to glue the peppermint sticks together with the paste he’d made of some flour and milk from Tottles’ kitchen. He’d taken the peppermint sticks from his own Private C’lection he kept buried under the roots of the Cottleston Pie tree. He kept them in a battered coffee-tin and consequently they smelled half like Christmas and half like Early Mornings. Once the sticks were glued together, Simpian moved the tiller into the body of the boat.

It was a square-ish shape which looked more like an orange-crate than a ship, but the King assured Simpian it was correct.

“This is how all the ‘stronomers build their star-ships,” the King said, holding his hand up to show Simpian how serious he was. “It is the Best Sort of ship.”

“But it looks like a box.”

“And haven’t you seen boxes fly?”

Simpian thought about this. Then he remembered a very windy day not so long ago when a box had blown out of the barn and tumbled down the hill. It was almost flying then. Perhaps a box-boat was the proper sort after all.

So together they worked on the star-ship. Every evening after Only Allister’s dinner, Simpian returned to Cottleston Pie and waited in the Soft Patch for the King. And every evening the King came and stood by, tasting the tiller when he thought Simpian wasn’t looking, and offering advice in between. Now and then he hammered with the hammer, or sang in a very loud voice that was almost a shout.

Then the final evening came—the evening Simpian and the King had agreed upon to go sailing in their star-ship. Everything was ready. The tiller was in place, the King had donated his pocket-knife for the rudder-blade, and Simpian had spit-shined it till it gleamed in the faint light of the stars. The King climbed into the rear of the ship. It listed starboard.

“Careful, my boy!” the King roared. He tipped his tipsy crown back to the other side of his head. It looked worse than ever.

“I’m not doing anything,” Simpian shouted back.

“You breathed on it.”

Simpian clenched his fists and tried not to lose his temper. It would do no good to be angry with the cleverest King alive, and the greatest ‘star-nimer on top of that. “I’ll try not to breath. But if I faint you’ll have to steer.”

“Sounds fair enough, my boy,” the King boomed. “Anchors aweigh! Stars ho! All aboarrrrrrd!” He bounced in his half of the ship, and slapped his hand against the side. The boards wiggled, and Simpian was glad all of a sudden that that they would only be sailing in sky, not sea. He wasn’t certain their ship would hold water if put to the test.

Simpian stepped into the boat and reached above his head to attach the waxed-paper sails. They snapped and crackled like fury in the faint breeze that whispered through Cottleston Pie. “We haven’t named her yet,” Simpian said, sitting down with a plop in the bottom of their ship. He almost crunched the tiller, and had to scoot over and rest his elbow on it instead of his buttom.

“Easily mended, my boy! Easily mended!” The King stepped out of the boat and it listed to the other side. “WHOA!” he roared. “Stop your breathing, my boy! You’ll sink our craft!”

“It’s not my fault,” Simpian growled.

“Say what?”

“IT’S NOT MY FAULT!” He had lost his temper now. He looked fearfully at the King and wondered if he would be very angry.

The King just pushed his crown back the other direction once more, took his pencil from behind his ear, and scribbled something on both sides of the star-ship. “There,” he roared, getting back into the ship. “AND QUIT BREATHING!”

Simpian held his breath just in case, and the ship only rocked the slightest bit. “What did you name her?” he asked after a bit.

“The Silverbarren.” The King breathed loudly through his nostrils, a bit out of breath, and his eyes defied Simpian to challenge the name.

“It’s a good name,” Simpian said, trying to think how best to put this. “But what does it mean?”

“What does it MEAN, my boy?” the King roared. “It means we’ll strip the silver and jewels and what-not right out of the skies! That’s what it means! We’ll be the best, richest ‘stronomers the world has ever known!”

Simpian licked the peppermint tiller in a contemplative way. The King spoke as if they were taking every star-jewel out of the sky. He licked the tiller again. He didn’t think that was the way to go about it. “Your Majeshty,” he said.

“Yes?”

“Are we taking all the star-jewels out of the sky?”

“Every last one!”

“Every last one?”

“Yes—and every first one too. And every one in between! The whole Big Dipper full of ‘em. Holy-Moly! It’ll be an adventure, my boy!” The King hugged himself and chuckled and his whole red face quivered.

Simpian bit his lip. He peered through the leaves of the Cottleston Pie tree and could see the star his Papa called Venus, but he called the Beautiful One. Would they steal that too? It would make a lovely ring to give to Mum, and that smaller one right above his head would be perfect for Tottles. He’d take some of the others and make them into buttons and cuff-links. But he didn’t need all the star-jewels. Perhaps once they got up in the sky, the King might agree to take just a few and leave some to make the darkness look pretty. The business at hand was getting up there.

“How do we get started?” he asked.

The King scratched his bald head and the crown bounced. “How d’you usually launch a ship?”

“By lifting the anchor, I suppose,” Simpian said.

“Yes, but you only need anchors if you’re in water—isn’t that right?” the King asked. His breath was coming hot and fast and his nostrils were very big indeed now.

“That’s right,” Simpian replied.

“So if we are to launch this ship, we can’t do it by lifting an anchor.”

“No.”

“Nor by tug-boat, I presume?” The King looked hopeful over this suggestion, and peered around Cottleston Pie. It didn’t help—there were not star-tug-boats there.

“Not much.” Simpian lounged back in the ship, then sat up. “We could sing! Maybe that’d help!”

“Sing what?”

“ ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star?’ It’s about ‘star-nimer things, at least.”

“Very much so. Holy-moly, boy! Let’s do it!”

So the two of them sat there in the Silverbarren and sang and sang. They sang through all the verses Simpian knew, and made up a several more. Some of them rhymed, and some of them didn’t, and one finished with a very loud “HOW WE WISH YOU WEREN’T SO FARRRRR!” sung by the King himself in his loudest shouting-voice. Yes. That was the problem. Because the star-jewels were so far away and the ship wasn’t moving.

The wind rattled the waxed-paper sails merrily, the peppermint tiller gave off a pleasant, chalky aroma, and the King and Simpian still sang their sailing song. But the ship would not budge. Not an inch. They sang long and longer and left off from “Twinkle, Twinkle” and moved on to “Ninety-nine-cartons-of-milk-on-the-wall” and went all the way through that, and still nothing happened. At last Simpian broke off a piece of the peppermint tiller and handed it to the King.

“Many thanks, my boy, many thanks,” the King said, then snapped off the end of his peppermint stick and chomped it like a cow chomping hay.

Simpian ate his peppermint stick, then another, and another. Pretty soon the whole tiller was gone except for one stick, and the King was asking for his pocket-knife back. There went the rudder.

“Do you need to keep that?” the King asked.

“Keep what?”

“The last peppermint stick?”

Simpian looked at it lying all lonely in the bottom of the box. “No.”

“Then wrap it up in the paper. I don’t wish it to get my robe sticky.”

Simpian wrapped the last little piece of the tiller in the sails, and sighed. “Well, we’re home, I suppose.”

The King sprawled on of his fat, lobster-y legs over the edge of the boat and settled his head against his arms which he crossed behind him. “Yes, we are. And do you know what, my boy?”

“What, your Majeshty?”

“We can be very good ‘stronomer’s here. Right here. Without the troubles of tillers and rudders and things.”

And as Simpian lounged in his end of the Silverbarren and watched the star-jewels wink in the sky, he figured the King was spot-on. They could be wonderful ‘star-nimers. Right here.