Fic: The Last Of The Unplucked Gems (Part Four)
Alright, week four... and it is LONG 4317 total. I WAS going to end this sooner, mostly due to LJ formatting issues, but qualapec showed me how to get around that. Which I am now doing because THIS is the completed entry, exactly as I wanted it to end. Thank you everyone for reading this month. I greatly appreciate the interest you showed in this series and will definitely be revisiting them again.
“Well? Explain yourselves,” Ms. Patience Magpie demanded when neither of the cornered wannabe pirates spoke up.
Boots (who was now well past remembering to stay in character) studied the little trench he was digging with his shoe and thought it would be a really grand thing if the upturned garden could maybe swallow him whole right then. Barring his adventures with Hearts, he was a well-behaved boy who stayed in his room and didn’t like getting on the wrong side of grownups. They had a habit of looking in such a way as to make him feel very tiny indeed. Seeing as he was already short for his age, it wouldn’t do to be made to feel even more so.
Hearts on the other hand never felt short and also remembered they were supposed to be pirates. She stepped forward boldly and mirrored Ms. Magpie’s stance - legs braced, hands on her hips, chin tilted at a defiant angle. She’d read once about a bird, the dive-downer, that mimicked others birds to display its bravery. It was her opinion that if it worked for them, then it’d work for her. She was a thousand times braver than some dumb birds!
“I’m Porcelina of the Vast Oceans and this is my sidekick, Jackboot Jellybelly!” she proclaimed. “And we’re here to steal the treasure of that fearsome feline! Are you friend or foe?”
Boots thought that was her best bit of alliteration yet, but he was too concerned with remaining invisible to say so.
Ms. Magpie had no appreciation for alliteration at all. She did, however, recognize when a game was in progress. In fact, when she’d been about their age she used to go on similar adventures after school with Floyd, the Barber’s son.
That was at least until Floyd became convinced she’d given him cooties, which she of course had not. He’d contracted the unfortunate affliction by kissing Polly Breed, which he denied ever doing. He was a bit of a curmudgeon anyway, so it wasn’t a terrible loss. But now that she was confronted with a pair of pirates … it reminded her how very fond she’d been of adventuring.
Unfortunately, fond remembrances couldn’t repair demolished gardens. If they could, then every garden in Impossiblium would be overflowing with greenery after a single high school reunion. She regarded the pair, taking in their dirt smudged cheeks, the collection of colorful scarves tied about their waists, the way Porcelina of the Vast Oceans (whom she was pretty certain was, in fact, a mischief-maker by the name of Hearts) stood rather protectively in front of her smaller companion, the flash of an overly bright sun on Jackboot Jellybelly’s metal arm….
Her heart went pat … pat-pitter.
She folded her arms across her chest, making the multitude of brass buckles click. Hearts quickly adapted her stance to match.
“You never answered my question!” Hearts accused. “Is the Dread Pirate Cat a friend of yours?!” Boots didn’t know when the Pirate Cat had become dreaded, but considering they’d just narrowly avoided death by shredding it was aptly earned. He also agreed with Hearts; if this lady was friends with the Pirate Cat, then she was probably a pirate too and might have a real plank - one she’d make them walk for damaging her lair.
He squeezed his eyes shut and hoped there weren’t any sharks waiting below that plank. Or maybe she had a lake of fire instead? One that roared and flared and smelled strongly of brimstone, whatever that was. All lakes of fire smelled of it though, so there was no reason to think hers wouldn’t either. He shuddered and wished he hadn’t thought of that.
Ms. Magpie, unaware that she’d been transformed into a pirate with a flaming lake, said, “I think you two should come inside and talk to me. Maybe tell me why my garden became a pirate battleground.”
“Why should we?” Hearts fired back defiantly.
“Because,” Ms. Magpie answered with a smirk, “I have cookies waiting for prisoners of war.”
Children are notoriously weak when bribed with confections, and Boots and Hearts were no exception. They hastily followed Ms. Magpie into the house. The eye-patch wearing cat trailed at a more leisurely pace, letting them know he did so of his own inclination.
The Magpie residence was the blandest house either Boots or Hearts had ever been in. It was so … practical. All the stairways led to places, every door opened onto rooms, every corner was a perfect ninety-degrees. That last of course couldn’t be proved without a measuring gauge, something neither happened to have readily available, but it stood to reason that if the rest of the house was in such unusual good order then the walls would be as well.
Another thing that set it apart from the other homes in Impossiblium was the complete lack of anything metal. There were no steel frames on the windows, no lithium lamps on the walls. Even the tray that Ms. Magpie’s double-chocolate-marshmallow-fudge cookies were on was metal free. For lighting there were beeswax candles everywhere, some of them having dripped over the edge of their holders like strands of frozen snot. It was beyond unusual.
Ms. Magpie set the wooden tray on a glass table in the room they’d been shown to and smiled. Boots wondered if it was standard pirating procedure to feed prisoners cookies and milk. If it was, he rather liked being a prisoner. Hearts thought about nothing but satisfying her sweet tooth and grabbed a cookie. She promptly dunked the whole thing in milk before stuffing it into her mouth.
“Now then,” Ms Magpie said as she took a seat, “you mentioned something about stealing a treasure?”
If ever the situation arose where Hearts would have to answer-or-else, all it would take was a plate of sweets and she would, as the saying goes, spill the beans.
Without an ounce of hesitation (and a mouth near bursting with cookie) she told Ms. Magpie about Save the Planet - pirate style. She told her everything, from leaping into Boots’s room that morning to how the eye-patch wearing cat stole the Last of the Unplucked Gems to Terrapin Thirty-Three, though she was at least careful not to mention it was located in Cherub Rock thus preserving its status as a secret hideout.
The whole time she spoke, Boots continued to nibble on his cookie and take in their surroundings. There was quite a bit of blue in the room, he decided, which then gave him the idea they were sitting in the sky. Or maybe the sea since there was nothing that really resembled clouds. He took a deep breath and held it, puffing his cheeks out in an imitation of a fish. They deflated when Ms. Magpie gave him a funny look.
“What was that face for?” she asked.
“Oh, he was pro’lly just wondering what it’s like to be a puffer fish,” Hearts replied for him. He was very glad she monopolized the dialogue segments.
Hearts sprang suddenly to her feet and marched over to a shelf on the far wall. It had all sorts of things on it: little glass animals, fancy pottery, photographs. The sorts of things that adults told children to look but not touch. Naturally, this meant nothing to Hearts. She stood on tiptoe so as to better peer at the box she’d just noticed.
It was a heart shaped box made of white stone with flowers carved all over it. It wasn’t very big, but she figured since it was up on a high shelf with other valuables that it must be special.
“Hey, is this the treasure chest?” she asked as she picked it up.
“Well… it does hold a treasure, but it’s not the one you think,” Ms. Magpie answered. She gave an odd little smile and picked up a fresh cookie.
Boots had seen that sort of odd smile before. It was the kind that should have been a frown but somehow managed to get itself flipped around the wrong way. Hearts brought the box back over and sat down. She lifted the lid and he peered inside, curious to see what had made Ms. Magpie’s frown go wrong.
There was a photograph of Ms. Magpie, a man that Boots decided to call Mr. Moustache on account of his impressive facial hair, and a little girl with wild curls. The girl’s smile was made crooked by a metal cheek prosthetic.
Boots quickly looked away and sank as far as he could into the sofa cushions. The room no longer felt like the sea. It felt like a small, sad blue room with furniture and knickknacks and no metal anywhere - except his arm and the girl’s cheek.
He glanced at Ms. Magpie and noticed she was looking at his arm. Boots squirmed uncomfortably and placed his normal hand overtop his metal one.
Hearts, unaware the mood had changed, tilted her head to examine the picture. “Look, Boots,” she said, holding the picture out for him to see. “She’s got a metal arm just like you!”
Boots didn’t look, but he nodded anyway. Ms. Magpie wasn’t paying any attention to Hearts at all.
Hearts made a great spectacle of squinting and turning the picture at various angles. She laughed suddenly and tapped a finger over the girl’s face. “She’s also got a metal cheek!” She nudged Boots with her elbow and grinned. “You should get one of those, too!”
He shrugged and muttered, “Maybe….”
She scowled and, before he could even think to duck, she pinched his cheek between her fingers and pulled. “Maybe?! What’s that s’posed to mean, huh?!”
Ms. Magpie, rightly worried that Boots’s cheek would be stretched beyond repair, interjected, “There’re more cookies in the kitchen, Porcelina. You can help yourself to however many you’d like.” She felt no compunction about filling someone else’s child with an overabundance of sugar.
Hearts grinned and jumped to her feet declaring, “This is the best captive situation ever!” She left the room, marching a little more firmly than usual to express her joy at more cookies.
Silence returned to the room as soon as she was gone, having been too put off by her brashness to stick around earlier. It was so quiet that Boots could hear his heart ticking. Ms. Magpie was staring at his arm again.
Boots chewed his lower lip, his toes curling and uncurling in his boots. His socks were kind of sweaty, which was a very gross observation to make and didn’t help at all in making him feel less squirmy. He hoped Hearts would get back from stuffing her face soon.
Ms. Magpie’s sigh drew his attention to her. “She would have been sixteen this year,” she said quietly.
Boots didn’t need to ask who she was talking about. He also didn’t miss the use of past tense. “What’s her name?” he asked.
“Marigold.” She paused before looking at him once again. “She was about your age in that picture. It was the last one we took of her.”
Suddenly, the lingering sweetness of cookies didn’t taste so good. He also regretted drinking all of his milk because his throat was dry. Boots opened his mouth to speak then closed it again, not really wanting to ask his question.
Ms. Magpie leaned across the table and took his metal hand. “They’ve made all kinds of breakthroughs since then. Just the other day I heard about a new experimental drug. D-7, I believe they’re calling it. It’s supposed to slow the fading process.”
He nodded and smiled because he knew that was what she wanted him to do. She gave his hand a little squeeze and sat back just as Hearts returned with cookies in each hand and one in the process of being swallowed.
Hearts wasn’t the most observant, but even she noticed the change in atmosphere. She decided it was probably an awkward silence trying to butt in and concluded that the only solution was to speak extra loud to drive it off. “These cookies are the best I’ve ever eaten! I should know! I’m a cookie connoisseur!”
Ms. Magpie laughed and said, “Then you should come by more often. You tell me about your adventures and I’ll give you cookies. Deal?”
She pretended to think about it for a few seconds (this was called a ‘stalling tactic’) before grinning and sticking her hand across the table. “Deal! But you’ve gotta give cookies to Boots too, even though he doesn’t say much!”
They shook hands firmly and Boots rejoiced over the fact that he was going to get free cookies because of Hearts’s negotiating skills.
Ms. Magpie stood up then, smoothing her hands down the buckles adorning her front. “I hate to put an end to things now, but I’ve got a dinner to prepare and your parents are probably wondering where you’ve wandered off to.”
“But there’s still a few cookies left!” Hearts protested. She got to her feet anyway and Boots was right behind her. He was actually a little relieved they were leaving now.
Their host smiled over her shoulder as she led them to the front door of the non-metal house. “You can come over tomorrow, if you’d like.”
Hearts’s grin was so wide it quite literally went from ear to ear. She really did have a big mouth. “Then we will! C’mon, Boots!”
Boots barely had time for a quick, “Thanks for the cookies,” before he was being dragged out the door by his arm.
They were halfway back to Bobcaygeon Cliff when Hearts suddenly stamped her foot and shouted, “Aw, dang it!”
Boots, having momentarily been distracted by dandelion puffs floating away on the breeze, blinked at her outburst. “What’s wrong, Hearts?”
Hearts’s hands fisted as she gave her foot another satisfying stamp. Dust formed a little poof cloud around her ankles. “We forgot to steal the Last of the Unplucked Gems! That pirate lady tricked us!”
“That’s okay,” he replied as he scuffed his foot across the road to create his own dust cloud.
Her arm locked around his neck for a world class noogie. “Okay?!” she growled as she dug her boney knuckles into his scalp. “Okay?! That’s not okay! What kinda hero fails to Save the Planet and then says okay?!”
“I only meant - ow - that it was still … fun,” he grunted. He didn’t know which of her arms to grab: the one strangling him or the one intent on giving him a premature bald spot.
She released him so quickly that he nearly fell over. “Really?”
He righted himself and nodded, fixing his goggles back where they belonged. “This was the best day ever.” Boots meant it, too; he would probably remember this day for the rest of his life.
Hearts smirked and resumed marching, and he immediately fell into step alongside her, though without all the stomping. “Of course it was. I’d planned it like that!”
Boots didn’t doubt for one minute that she had, right down to them getting cookies from a stranger after ruining her garden. Of course, he would never tell her that. It would ruin her image of spontaneity.
“Y’know,” Hearts mused as their houses came into view, “we’re gonna have a hard time topping this one. But! That’s what tomorrow is for! R’member, tonight you’ve gotta finish making up our language so we can Save the Planet: multilingual style!”
“I will,” he promised. He paused before adding, “You’re the best friend ever, Hearts.”
Hearts’s pigtails whipped about as she turned toward him, blinking rapidly at the unexpected declaration. But then she flopped her arm across his shoulders. “Well, yeah I am! But it’s only ‘cause you’re the best friend ever, too! And tomorrow we’re gonna have an even bigger and better adventure than we did today! Because that’s what best friends ever do!”
Boots grinned and she reeled in over-exaggerated shock. It was the first time ever she’d seen more than a handful of his teeth, not counting that one time they were camping and she’d pried his mouth open to see if any spiders had crawled inside.
She finally got used to seeing all his teeth and snickered. “See you tomorrow, Boots! If you’re late, I’ll never forgive you!”
“G’bye, Hearts.”
Maybe it was just her imagining things (she did have a very vivid imagination, after all) but his g’bye sounded awful permanent to her ears. Hearts shrugged it off and sprinted into her house.
The next day started out as usual. MacGregor’s steam powered rooster robbed the sun of his glory. The sun in turn bumped rusting that metal scene-stealer into an early grave to the top of his priority list. And Hearts, like always, took a running leap right through Boots’s window with a fresh battle cry.
The battle cried died abruptly when she realized Boots wasn’t there.
Hearts’s looked about his silent room with some confusion. There were sketches on the floor: of her making a really ferocious pirate face, of the eye-patch wearing cat (though, to be fair, he didn’t look nearly so demonic in person), others of the ruined garden. His bed was unmade, which meant he’d gotten into it last night, which meant he should still be in it this morning.
Scoffing at him playing hide-n-seek, Hearts made sure to stomp extra hard as she took the four flights of sloping steps downstairs. If he wasn’t in his bed, then he was probably having breakfast, and if he was having breakfast then she wanted some, too. She hoped his mom had made waffles.
There were no waffles. In fact, there was no one in the house. But there were also no waffles. She was very disappointed about that. Now her stomach wanted waffles and there weren’t any to be had.
Hearts searched the house, opening doors and peering behind chairs and couches. The longer she looked, the quieter her footsteps became until she was no longer clomping about but walking in a (surprisingly) civilized fashion.
She exited the front door of his house with slumped shoulders and a very puzzled frown between her brows. Hearts’s feet dragged across the ground as she walked the few feet between houses. Her stomach gurgled at the smell of baking deliciousness, which didn’t do a thing to make her less confused but did prompt her to lift her feet a little faster.
Hearts entered the kitchen and was confronted with her mom’s rear sticking out from the oven. “Mom, Boots is gone,” she grumbled, kicking a chair away from the table and plopping down in it.
“Yes, cupcake, he is,” her mom replied cheerfully as she pulled her head and a tray of big cheese biscuits out from the oven.
She sat up a little straighter as her mother, humming under her breath, began transferring biscuits onto a plate. “Whaddya mean by that?”
Her mom brought the biscuits and a pitcher of orange juice and sat down with her. “They left last night in an aero zeppelin.”
“What?!” Since when did Boots go on adventures without her - and on an aero zeppelin?! She was going to rub the hair right off his head when he got back!
“I’m not surprised you missed it,” her mom continued, helping herself to a biscuit. “You sleep like the… like a log.”
Hearts wondered what Boots would think about sleeping logs, but she shook her head and grabbed a biscuit as well. “When’s he comin’ back?”
Her mom’s hand paused in smearing butter over her pastry. “I’m not sure, cupcake. This wasn’t exactly a planned trip, y’know.”
Scowling, Hearts took a giant bite of her cheese biscuit. “Well, that’s just great!” she complained, wiping escaped crumbs from her shirt. “We’re supposed to Save the Planet, but he’s off riding aero zeppelins without me!”
“Don’t be too mad at him, Hearts. I’m sure if he had a choice he would have stayed to Save the Planet.”
Hearts shot her a skeptical look and shoved the remainder of her biscuit into her mouth.
Her mom cocked a brow and leaned forward so their noses were almost touching. “Besides, Boots is your best friend. You can’t be mad at your best friend. That’s against the guidelines.”
“I thought you said guidelines were meant to be broken,” Hearts argued, though she did so more on principle than because she actually wanted to be mad at Boots.
“No, that’s rules, cupcake.”
Hearts’s mouth opened in a silent “oh”. She grabbed another biscuit off the plate and stood up, kicking the chair back in place again. “I’m gonna go sit outside and wait for him to come back then!”
She couldn’t see it, what with having turned her back, but her mother’s smile was more than a little strained as she replied, “You go ahead and do that, cupcake.”
And Hearts did exactly that. Every morning, as soon as MacGregor’s rooster crowed, rather than jump into Boots’s window she would thunder down the stairs and settle herself on the front steps to wait. She wouldn’t be moved, no matter what kinds of treats her mom tried to bribe her with. Best friendship was stronger than confections.
She would have camped on the porch too, if her parents had let her. They said it went against house guidelines for any member of the house to camp out on the porch. She made her dad promise though to wake her up if Boots came back while she was asleep. He did, and he even crossed his heart - a very serious thing to do when it came to promise-making. Everyone knew that to break that sort of promise meant a needle in the eye.
It was forever before an aero zeppelin finally rose into view over Bobcaygeon Cliff. It was really only four days, but forever sounded much more epic and thus it became forever in her mind. As soon as Hearts saw the silvery, billowy vehicle bobbing over the horizon, she was on her feet and racing toward it, arms waving wildly. The aero zeppelin’s engine hummed and buzzed with electromagnetic energy, and the sound of it brought her parents out of the house as well.
The craft slowed to a hover barely three feet above the houses, blocking the sun from peeking down below. He added aero zeppelins to his growing hit list and carried on with his daily rotation. A ladder dropped from the carriage basket and when Hearts saw Boots’s dad swing himself over the edge she grinned. Boots’s mom followed soon after and she began bouncing up and down excitedly. Any minute now and Boots would be coming down that ladder, maybe even with the metal cheek she’d told him he should get.
His parents landed on solid ground and the ladder was drawn up again. Hearts blinked and stared up at the aero zeppelin as it began floating away, giving the sun an unobstructed view once more.
Where was Boots?
Hearts watched, utterly and completely befuzzled, as her parents moved forward to hug Boots’s mom and dad tightly. They were talking, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. She didn’t know why, but she had a funny feeling that something was different - and not the good kind of different either. This different was very bad and it had something to do with Boots.
Boot’s mom looked at her then and Hearts froze when she saw how puffy and red her eyes were. She pulled away from the group of adults and came over. Hearts didn’t remember forgetting to breathe, but that made sense since she didn’t normally have to think about breathing anyway. His mom was holding something to her chest. Very slowly, she held it out for Hearts.
It was Boots’s goggles. He never went anywhere without them.
Hearts’s lower lip trembled as she took the goggles. Something wet splattered on the tinted lens, which she wiped away with her thumb. She sucked in the snot that was trying to escape and nodded once, as if to say well-that’s-that. Then, without a word, she ran away.
She didn’t have a clue where she was going. Hearts hoped her feet at least had some idea, because her brain most definitely didn’t. She just ran and ran and ran until she came to a little wooden gate with a chipper mat outside that said, “Welcome To The Jungle!”
She pushed through the gate like she owned it, walked right up to the door, and knocked.
It took a minute before Patience Magpie opened the door. She looked at Hearts, looked at Boots’s goggles, and closed her eyes. “Come on in,” she said quietly as she stepped to one side.
She did and the door closed. Hearts followed her wordlessly back into the same blue room and sat on the same sofa she had yesterday. Ms. Magpie disappeared, but she came back with a tray of cookies and milk.
“Butterscotch oatmeal today,” she announced, holding the tray out for Hearts.
Hearts nibbled at the cookie and was disappointed that it didn’t taste as sweet as she’d thought it would. A crumb broke away and fell onto Boots’s goggles that were sitting on her lap. She flicked it away before setting the cookie aside and picking up the goggles. Then, with very deliberate care, she put them on her head exactly how Boots wore them and pulled her pigtails through so they weren’t crushed to her ears.
Ms. Magpie smiled approvingly. “The look suits you,” she commented.
Hearts went back to eating her cookie for a moment before saying, “Wanna hear about the time me and Boots had a run-in with the Hairspray Queen?”
“Ooo, it sounds exciting already!”
“It was! See, about three years ago me and Boots were heading off to Terrapin Thirty-Three when this lady with really crazy hair just came outta nowhere and….”
“Well? Explain yourselves,” Ms. Patience Magpie demanded when neither of the cornered wannabe pirates spoke up.
Boots (who was now well past remembering to stay in character) studied the little trench he was digging with his shoe and thought it would be a really grand thing if the upturned garden could maybe swallow him whole right then. Barring his adventures with Hearts, he was a well-behaved boy who stayed in his room and didn’t like getting on the wrong side of grownups. They had a habit of looking in such a way as to make him feel very tiny indeed. Seeing as he was already short for his age, it wouldn’t do to be made to feel even more so.
Hearts on the other hand never felt short and also remembered they were supposed to be pirates. She stepped forward boldly and mirrored Ms. Magpie’s stance - legs braced, hands on her hips, chin tilted at a defiant angle. She’d read once about a bird, the dive-downer, that mimicked others birds to display its bravery. It was her opinion that if it worked for them, then it’d work for her. She was a thousand times braver than some dumb birds!
“I’m Porcelina of the Vast Oceans and this is my sidekick, Jackboot Jellybelly!” she proclaimed. “And we’re here to steal the treasure of that fearsome feline! Are you friend or foe?”
Boots thought that was her best bit of alliteration yet, but he was too concerned with remaining invisible to say so.
Ms. Magpie had no appreciation for alliteration at all. She did, however, recognize when a game was in progress. In fact, when she’d been about their age she used to go on similar adventures after school with Floyd, the Barber’s son.
That was at least until Floyd became convinced she’d given him cooties, which she of course had not. He’d contracted the unfortunate affliction by kissing Polly Breed, which he denied ever doing. He was a bit of a curmudgeon anyway, so it wasn’t a terrible loss. But now that she was confronted with a pair of pirates … it reminded her how very fond she’d been of adventuring.
Unfortunately, fond remembrances couldn’t repair demolished gardens. If they could, then every garden in Impossiblium would be overflowing with greenery after a single high school reunion. She regarded the pair, taking in their dirt smudged cheeks, the collection of colorful scarves tied about their waists, the way Porcelina of the Vast Oceans (whom she was pretty certain was, in fact, a mischief-maker by the name of Hearts) stood rather protectively in front of her smaller companion, the flash of an overly bright sun on Jackboot Jellybelly’s metal arm….
Her heart went pat … pat-pitter.
She folded her arms across her chest, making the multitude of brass buckles click. Hearts quickly adapted her stance to match.
“You never answered my question!” Hearts accused. “Is the Dread Pirate Cat a friend of yours?!” Boots didn’t know when the Pirate Cat had become dreaded, but considering they’d just narrowly avoided death by shredding it was aptly earned. He also agreed with Hearts; if this lady was friends with the Pirate Cat, then she was probably a pirate too and might have a real plank - one she’d make them walk for damaging her lair.
He squeezed his eyes shut and hoped there weren’t any sharks waiting below that plank. Or maybe she had a lake of fire instead? One that roared and flared and smelled strongly of brimstone, whatever that was. All lakes of fire smelled of it though, so there was no reason to think hers wouldn’t either. He shuddered and wished he hadn’t thought of that.
Ms. Magpie, unaware that she’d been transformed into a pirate with a flaming lake, said, “I think you two should come inside and talk to me. Maybe tell me why my garden became a pirate battleground.”
“Why should we?” Hearts fired back defiantly.
“Because,” Ms. Magpie answered with a smirk, “I have cookies waiting for prisoners of war.”
Children are notoriously weak when bribed with confections, and Boots and Hearts were no exception. They hastily followed Ms. Magpie into the house. The eye-patch wearing cat trailed at a more leisurely pace, letting them know he did so of his own inclination.
The Magpie residence was the blandest house either Boots or Hearts had ever been in. It was so … practical. All the stairways led to places, every door opened onto rooms, every corner was a perfect ninety-degrees. That last of course couldn’t be proved without a measuring gauge, something neither happened to have readily available, but it stood to reason that if the rest of the house was in such unusual good order then the walls would be as well.
Another thing that set it apart from the other homes in Impossiblium was the complete lack of anything metal. There were no steel frames on the windows, no lithium lamps on the walls. Even the tray that Ms. Magpie’s double-chocolate-marshmallow-fudge cookies were on was metal free. For lighting there were beeswax candles everywhere, some of them having dripped over the edge of their holders like strands of frozen snot. It was beyond unusual.
Ms. Magpie set the wooden tray on a glass table in the room they’d been shown to and smiled. Boots wondered if it was standard pirating procedure to feed prisoners cookies and milk. If it was, he rather liked being a prisoner. Hearts thought about nothing but satisfying her sweet tooth and grabbed a cookie. She promptly dunked the whole thing in milk before stuffing it into her mouth.
“Now then,” Ms Magpie said as she took a seat, “you mentioned something about stealing a treasure?”
If ever the situation arose where Hearts would have to answer-or-else, all it would take was a plate of sweets and she would, as the saying goes, spill the beans.
Without an ounce of hesitation (and a mouth near bursting with cookie) she told Ms. Magpie about Save the Planet - pirate style. She told her everything, from leaping into Boots’s room that morning to how the eye-patch wearing cat stole the Last of the Unplucked Gems to Terrapin Thirty-Three, though she was at least careful not to mention it was located in Cherub Rock thus preserving its status as a secret hideout.
The whole time she spoke, Boots continued to nibble on his cookie and take in their surroundings. There was quite a bit of blue in the room, he decided, which then gave him the idea they were sitting in the sky. Or maybe the sea since there was nothing that really resembled clouds. He took a deep breath and held it, puffing his cheeks out in an imitation of a fish. They deflated when Ms. Magpie gave him a funny look.
“What was that face for?” she asked.
“Oh, he was pro’lly just wondering what it’s like to be a puffer fish,” Hearts replied for him. He was very glad she monopolized the dialogue segments.
Hearts sprang suddenly to her feet and marched over to a shelf on the far wall. It had all sorts of things on it: little glass animals, fancy pottery, photographs. The sorts of things that adults told children to look but not touch. Naturally, this meant nothing to Hearts. She stood on tiptoe so as to better peer at the box she’d just noticed.
It was a heart shaped box made of white stone with flowers carved all over it. It wasn’t very big, but she figured since it was up on a high shelf with other valuables that it must be special.
“Hey, is this the treasure chest?” she asked as she picked it up.
“Well… it does hold a treasure, but it’s not the one you think,” Ms. Magpie answered. She gave an odd little smile and picked up a fresh cookie.
Boots had seen that sort of odd smile before. It was the kind that should have been a frown but somehow managed to get itself flipped around the wrong way. Hearts brought the box back over and sat down. She lifted the lid and he peered inside, curious to see what had made Ms. Magpie’s frown go wrong.
There was a photograph of Ms. Magpie, a man that Boots decided to call Mr. Moustache on account of his impressive facial hair, and a little girl with wild curls. The girl’s smile was made crooked by a metal cheek prosthetic.
Boots quickly looked away and sank as far as he could into the sofa cushions. The room no longer felt like the sea. It felt like a small, sad blue room with furniture and knickknacks and no metal anywhere - except his arm and the girl’s cheek.
He glanced at Ms. Magpie and noticed she was looking at his arm. Boots squirmed uncomfortably and placed his normal hand overtop his metal one.
Hearts, unaware the mood had changed, tilted her head to examine the picture. “Look, Boots,” she said, holding the picture out for him to see. “She’s got a metal arm just like you!”
Boots didn’t look, but he nodded anyway. Ms. Magpie wasn’t paying any attention to Hearts at all.
Hearts made a great spectacle of squinting and turning the picture at various angles. She laughed suddenly and tapped a finger over the girl’s face. “She’s also got a metal cheek!” She nudged Boots with her elbow and grinned. “You should get one of those, too!”
He shrugged and muttered, “Maybe….”
She scowled and, before he could even think to duck, she pinched his cheek between her fingers and pulled. “Maybe?! What’s that s’posed to mean, huh?!”
Ms. Magpie, rightly worried that Boots’s cheek would be stretched beyond repair, interjected, “There’re more cookies in the kitchen, Porcelina. You can help yourself to however many you’d like.” She felt no compunction about filling someone else’s child with an overabundance of sugar.
Hearts grinned and jumped to her feet declaring, “This is the best captive situation ever!” She left the room, marching a little more firmly than usual to express her joy at more cookies.
Silence returned to the room as soon as she was gone, having been too put off by her brashness to stick around earlier. It was so quiet that Boots could hear his heart ticking. Ms. Magpie was staring at his arm again.
Boots chewed his lower lip, his toes curling and uncurling in his boots. His socks were kind of sweaty, which was a very gross observation to make and didn’t help at all in making him feel less squirmy. He hoped Hearts would get back from stuffing her face soon.
Ms. Magpie’s sigh drew his attention to her. “She would have been sixteen this year,” she said quietly.
Boots didn’t need to ask who she was talking about. He also didn’t miss the use of past tense. “What’s her name?” he asked.
“Marigold.” She paused before looking at him once again. “She was about your age in that picture. It was the last one we took of her.”
Suddenly, the lingering sweetness of cookies didn’t taste so good. He also regretted drinking all of his milk because his throat was dry. Boots opened his mouth to speak then closed it again, not really wanting to ask his question.
Ms. Magpie leaned across the table and took his metal hand. “They’ve made all kinds of breakthroughs since then. Just the other day I heard about a new experimental drug. D-7, I believe they’re calling it. It’s supposed to slow the fading process.”
He nodded and smiled because he knew that was what she wanted him to do. She gave his hand a little squeeze and sat back just as Hearts returned with cookies in each hand and one in the process of being swallowed.
Hearts wasn’t the most observant, but even she noticed the change in atmosphere. She decided it was probably an awkward silence trying to butt in and concluded that the only solution was to speak extra loud to drive it off. “These cookies are the best I’ve ever eaten! I should know! I’m a cookie connoisseur!”
Ms. Magpie laughed and said, “Then you should come by more often. You tell me about your adventures and I’ll give you cookies. Deal?”
She pretended to think about it for a few seconds (this was called a ‘stalling tactic’) before grinning and sticking her hand across the table. “Deal! But you’ve gotta give cookies to Boots too, even though he doesn’t say much!”
They shook hands firmly and Boots rejoiced over the fact that he was going to get free cookies because of Hearts’s negotiating skills.
Ms. Magpie stood up then, smoothing her hands down the buckles adorning her front. “I hate to put an end to things now, but I’ve got a dinner to prepare and your parents are probably wondering where you’ve wandered off to.”
“But there’s still a few cookies left!” Hearts protested. She got to her feet anyway and Boots was right behind her. He was actually a little relieved they were leaving now.
Their host smiled over her shoulder as she led them to the front door of the non-metal house. “You can come over tomorrow, if you’d like.”
Hearts’s grin was so wide it quite literally went from ear to ear. She really did have a big mouth. “Then we will! C’mon, Boots!”
Boots barely had time for a quick, “Thanks for the cookies,” before he was being dragged out the door by his arm.
They were halfway back to Bobcaygeon Cliff when Hearts suddenly stamped her foot and shouted, “Aw, dang it!”
Boots, having momentarily been distracted by dandelion puffs floating away on the breeze, blinked at her outburst. “What’s wrong, Hearts?”
Hearts’s hands fisted as she gave her foot another satisfying stamp. Dust formed a little poof cloud around her ankles. “We forgot to steal the Last of the Unplucked Gems! That pirate lady tricked us!”
“That’s okay,” he replied as he scuffed his foot across the road to create his own dust cloud.
Her arm locked around his neck for a world class noogie. “Okay?!” she growled as she dug her boney knuckles into his scalp. “Okay?! That’s not okay! What kinda hero fails to Save the Planet and then says okay?!”
“I only meant - ow - that it was still … fun,” he grunted. He didn’t know which of her arms to grab: the one strangling him or the one intent on giving him a premature bald spot.
She released him so quickly that he nearly fell over. “Really?”
He righted himself and nodded, fixing his goggles back where they belonged. “This was the best day ever.” Boots meant it, too; he would probably remember this day for the rest of his life.
Hearts smirked and resumed marching, and he immediately fell into step alongside her, though without all the stomping. “Of course it was. I’d planned it like that!”
Boots didn’t doubt for one minute that she had, right down to them getting cookies from a stranger after ruining her garden. Of course, he would never tell her that. It would ruin her image of spontaneity.
“Y’know,” Hearts mused as their houses came into view, “we’re gonna have a hard time topping this one. But! That’s what tomorrow is for! R’member, tonight you’ve gotta finish making up our language so we can Save the Planet: multilingual style!”
“I will,” he promised. He paused before adding, “You’re the best friend ever, Hearts.”
Hearts’s pigtails whipped about as she turned toward him, blinking rapidly at the unexpected declaration. But then she flopped her arm across his shoulders. “Well, yeah I am! But it’s only ‘cause you’re the best friend ever, too! And tomorrow we’re gonna have an even bigger and better adventure than we did today! Because that’s what best friends ever do!”
Boots grinned and she reeled in over-exaggerated shock. It was the first time ever she’d seen more than a handful of his teeth, not counting that one time they were camping and she’d pried his mouth open to see if any spiders had crawled inside.
She finally got used to seeing all his teeth and snickered. “See you tomorrow, Boots! If you’re late, I’ll never forgive you!”
“G’bye, Hearts.”
Maybe it was just her imagining things (she did have a very vivid imagination, after all) but his g’bye sounded awful permanent to her ears. Hearts shrugged it off and sprinted into her house.
The next day started out as usual. MacGregor’s steam powered rooster robbed the sun of his glory. The sun in turn bumped rusting that metal scene-stealer into an early grave to the top of his priority list. And Hearts, like always, took a running leap right through Boots’s window with a fresh battle cry.
The battle cried died abruptly when she realized Boots wasn’t there.
Hearts’s looked about his silent room with some confusion. There were sketches on the floor: of her making a really ferocious pirate face, of the eye-patch wearing cat (though, to be fair, he didn’t look nearly so demonic in person), others of the ruined garden. His bed was unmade, which meant he’d gotten into it last night, which meant he should still be in it this morning.
Scoffing at him playing hide-n-seek, Hearts made sure to stomp extra hard as she took the four flights of sloping steps downstairs. If he wasn’t in his bed, then he was probably having breakfast, and if he was having breakfast then she wanted some, too. She hoped his mom had made waffles.
There were no waffles. In fact, there was no one in the house. But there were also no waffles. She was very disappointed about that. Now her stomach wanted waffles and there weren’t any to be had.
Hearts searched the house, opening doors and peering behind chairs and couches. The longer she looked, the quieter her footsteps became until she was no longer clomping about but walking in a (surprisingly) civilized fashion.
She exited the front door of his house with slumped shoulders and a very puzzled frown between her brows. Hearts’s feet dragged across the ground as she walked the few feet between houses. Her stomach gurgled at the smell of baking deliciousness, which didn’t do a thing to make her less confused but did prompt her to lift her feet a little faster.
Hearts entered the kitchen and was confronted with her mom’s rear sticking out from the oven. “Mom, Boots is gone,” she grumbled, kicking a chair away from the table and plopping down in it.
“Yes, cupcake, he is,” her mom replied cheerfully as she pulled her head and a tray of big cheese biscuits out from the oven.
She sat up a little straighter as her mother, humming under her breath, began transferring biscuits onto a plate. “Whaddya mean by that?”
Her mom brought the biscuits and a pitcher of orange juice and sat down with her. “They left last night in an aero zeppelin.”
“What?!” Since when did Boots go on adventures without her - and on an aero zeppelin?! She was going to rub the hair right off his head when he got back!
“I’m not surprised you missed it,” her mom continued, helping herself to a biscuit. “You sleep like the… like a log.”
Hearts wondered what Boots would think about sleeping logs, but she shook her head and grabbed a biscuit as well. “When’s he comin’ back?”
Her mom’s hand paused in smearing butter over her pastry. “I’m not sure, cupcake. This wasn’t exactly a planned trip, y’know.”
Scowling, Hearts took a giant bite of her cheese biscuit. “Well, that’s just great!” she complained, wiping escaped crumbs from her shirt. “We’re supposed to Save the Planet, but he’s off riding aero zeppelins without me!”
“Don’t be too mad at him, Hearts. I’m sure if he had a choice he would have stayed to Save the Planet.”
Hearts shot her a skeptical look and shoved the remainder of her biscuit into her mouth.
Her mom cocked a brow and leaned forward so their noses were almost touching. “Besides, Boots is your best friend. You can’t be mad at your best friend. That’s against the guidelines.”
“I thought you said guidelines were meant to be broken,” Hearts argued, though she did so more on principle than because she actually wanted to be mad at Boots.
“No, that’s rules, cupcake.”
Hearts’s mouth opened in a silent “oh”. She grabbed another biscuit off the plate and stood up, kicking the chair back in place again. “I’m gonna go sit outside and wait for him to come back then!”
She couldn’t see it, what with having turned her back, but her mother’s smile was more than a little strained as she replied, “You go ahead and do that, cupcake.”
And Hearts did exactly that. Every morning, as soon as MacGregor’s rooster crowed, rather than jump into Boots’s window she would thunder down the stairs and settle herself on the front steps to wait. She wouldn’t be moved, no matter what kinds of treats her mom tried to bribe her with. Best friendship was stronger than confections.
She would have camped on the porch too, if her parents had let her. They said it went against house guidelines for any member of the house to camp out on the porch. She made her dad promise though to wake her up if Boots came back while she was asleep. He did, and he even crossed his heart - a very serious thing to do when it came to promise-making. Everyone knew that to break that sort of promise meant a needle in the eye.
It was forever before an aero zeppelin finally rose into view over Bobcaygeon Cliff. It was really only four days, but forever sounded much more epic and thus it became forever in her mind. As soon as Hearts saw the silvery, billowy vehicle bobbing over the horizon, she was on her feet and racing toward it, arms waving wildly. The aero zeppelin’s engine hummed and buzzed with electromagnetic energy, and the sound of it brought her parents out of the house as well.
The craft slowed to a hover barely three feet above the houses, blocking the sun from peeking down below. He added aero zeppelins to his growing hit list and carried on with his daily rotation. A ladder dropped from the carriage basket and when Hearts saw Boots’s dad swing himself over the edge she grinned. Boots’s mom followed soon after and she began bouncing up and down excitedly. Any minute now and Boots would be coming down that ladder, maybe even with the metal cheek she’d told him he should get.
His parents landed on solid ground and the ladder was drawn up again. Hearts blinked and stared up at the aero zeppelin as it began floating away, giving the sun an unobstructed view once more.
Where was Boots?
Hearts watched, utterly and completely befuzzled, as her parents moved forward to hug Boots’s mom and dad tightly. They were talking, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. She didn’t know why, but she had a funny feeling that something was different - and not the good kind of different either. This different was very bad and it had something to do with Boots.
Boot’s mom looked at her then and Hearts froze when she saw how puffy and red her eyes were. She pulled away from the group of adults and came over. Hearts didn’t remember forgetting to breathe, but that made sense since she didn’t normally have to think about breathing anyway. His mom was holding something to her chest. Very slowly, she held it out for Hearts.
It was Boots’s goggles. He never went anywhere without them.
Hearts’s lower lip trembled as she took the goggles. Something wet splattered on the tinted lens, which she wiped away with her thumb. She sucked in the snot that was trying to escape and nodded once, as if to say well-that’s-that. Then, without a word, she ran away.
She didn’t have a clue where she was going. Hearts hoped her feet at least had some idea, because her brain most definitely didn’t. She just ran and ran and ran until she came to a little wooden gate with a chipper mat outside that said, “Welcome To The Jungle!”
She pushed through the gate like she owned it, walked right up to the door, and knocked.
It took a minute before Patience Magpie opened the door. She looked at Hearts, looked at Boots’s goggles, and closed her eyes. “Come on in,” she said quietly as she stepped to one side.
She did and the door closed. Hearts followed her wordlessly back into the same blue room and sat on the same sofa she had yesterday. Ms. Magpie disappeared, but she came back with a tray of cookies and milk.
“Butterscotch oatmeal today,” she announced, holding the tray out for Hearts.
Hearts nibbled at the cookie and was disappointed that it didn’t taste as sweet as she’d thought it would. A crumb broke away and fell onto Boots’s goggles that were sitting on her lap. She flicked it away before setting the cookie aside and picking up the goggles. Then, with very deliberate care, she put them on her head exactly how Boots wore them and pulled her pigtails through so they weren’t crushed to her ears.
Ms. Magpie smiled approvingly. “The look suits you,” she commented.
Hearts went back to eating her cookie for a moment before saying, “Wanna hear about the time me and Boots had a run-in with the Hairspray Queen?”
“Ooo, it sounds exciting already!”
“It was! See, about three years ago me and Boots were heading off to Terrapin Thirty-Three when this lady with really crazy hair just came outta nowhere and….”