Hero´s Manual 13
Chapter 13: Shadow puppets
Apparently Huzzah was better at casting shadow puppets than at finding things. He excused himself mumbling that powers had to have a hierarchy of strength. Gwen thought Huzzah wouldn’t be able to find his own lamp if he wasn’t perpetually streaming out of it. Hero thought Huzzah’s Deformed Rabbit wasn’t so very different from his Deformed Dog.
The three were taking a break from searching through the dusty carpets stashed in Vicky’s cellar. Huzzah had already gone through Vicky’s hallways, examining the carpets Quasi had managed to wrestle down and nail to the floor. Hero had absolutely insisted, however, that Huzzah first find a box of matches; the glow Huzzah’s billowing form might have been faint, but it was enough to chase the shadows that kept and crawled towards the panic-stricken Hero.
“This is an old man with a crooked nose.”
“No, that’s an old man with a beard. You’ve done it already.”
Huzzah was entertaining Hero, at his polite command, with a show of shadow puppets. They were using the light of the various candles Hero had lit in a fit of panic when Huzzah had wafted under the cellar door to investigate the hallways. The two were sitting on the sofa, their knees resting on the sofa’s back as they cast shadows on the wall. Gwen sat on a pile of carpets, squinting in the low candlelight at each carpet’s design.
“Well, how do you like this one?” said Huzzah.
“Is that a whale?”
“No, fool. That’s the Kraken.”
“Still looks like a whale.”
“Fine,” Huzzah sighed, blowing a small cloud of purple smoke in Hero’s face. Then he smiled, and pulled back the sleeves of his mist-tweed jacket. He lifted his hands to the wall with a flourish. “What do you think of this one?”
“Aaaaaahhh!”
Gwen looked up in alarm, looking first at the huddled figure of Hero, then at Huzzah, floating above the sofa, hands still posed before the candlelight. Then she squinted at the wall.
Eventually, when Hero had stopped moaning and Huzzah had drifted towards the window, Gwen shuffled closer and lay a hand on Hero’s back. “Hero, dear,” she began, trying to be soothing and stifle the smile that threatened her lips at the same time, “why are you so afraid of frogs?” Hero cringed away, hiding his face further into the suffocating sofa pillows.
“Leave him be,” said Huzzah, floating towards them. “I think I know why.” Gwen looked up at the genie curiously, but Huzzah shook his head slowly. Gwen nodded and turned back to the carpet pile and began flipping through them. “Hero,” said Huzzah softly, “look at this. It’s a racing tiger. And chasing it,” Huzzah brought up his other hand, “is an elephant.” Hero looked up from behind his crooked elbow. “And on the elephant is a man,” continued Huzzah, morphing the tiger into a human head, “who wants very much to catch this tiger, because, as you can see, he has no nose.” Hero quirked a smile.
“How does he smell?” asked Gwen, a smile on her lips.
Huzzah’s filmy eyes twinkled as he finished the age-old joke. “Terrible.” Hero laughed and let himself relax as Huzzah continued his story with shadow puppets.