Nancy Atherton (26 page)

khaki-colored canvas, it looked like an old army-surplus tent, with

straight walls and a peaked roof. It wasn’t fancy, but it appeared to

have plenty of headroom and enough floor space to accommodate

170 Nancy Atherton

four very close friends. I borrowed a handful of water from the jug

and used it to rinse my mouth thoroughly before pulling the tent flap

aside and entering Edmond’s domain.

It was a humble, almost spartan domain. The tent didn’t have a

floor, but Edmond had made provisions for rainy days by stacking

his meager belongings atop plastic milk crates. The only other furnishings were a narrow camp bed, a card table, and a folding chair.

The table was set with a plastic plate, a plastic cup, and plastic

utensils, and a camping lantern hung from the roof pole. His shaving kit, a neatly folded towel, and a small square mirror rested on a

milk crate at the foot of the bed.

A crate near the head of the bed held one solitary object. The

framed photograph of little Mirabel had been turned to face the

thin pillow. In it, her long brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She wore a pale pink T-shirt, blue jeans, and brown sandals,

and stood on the steps of a modest brick bungalow, smiling bashfully at the camera lens, as though she were a bit embarrassed to be

immortalized on film.

As I looked down at Mirabel’s shy, smiling, and very young

face, I wondered if she knew how much Edmond loved her. I

doubted it. The Steady Eddies of the world didn’t get much credit

for having deep emotions, yet Edmond’s love for Mirabel was as

powerful as it was pure.
I don’t care if you ever look at me again,
he’d

said.
I just don’t want you to be hurt.
His happiness counted for nothing, as long as he knew she was happy, but he could not stand idly

by and do nothing if he knew she was at risk of being hurt.

I felt sorry for Edmond, but I thought I understood Mirabel, too.

She was too young to value what Edmond had to offer her. Reliability was an admirable trait, but it wasn’t exciting. At this stage in her

life, Mirabel wanted fireworks, not a steadfast, dependable flame,

and I couldn’t blame her. Who wouldn’t trade the ordinary world

for one filled with wizards and dragons and dreams? She hadn’t lived

long enough to learn that wizards could be evil, that dragons could

Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon

171

breathe fire, and that the worst dreams were sometimes the ones

that came true.

Mirabel wouldn’t appreciate Edmond’s true worth until her

fantasy world came crashing down around her. I had to keep the

young handyman from doing something that would land him in jail

for the rest of his life because a noble heart like his was worth saving, and because his ladylove would need him desperately when the

king’s dalliance with her had run its course.

I turned away from the photograph, surveyed my surroundings, and sighed. I didn’t need to search the tent to know that King

Wilfred’s crown wasn’t there. A pointy diadem set with glittering

gems would have stood out like an inflatable alligator among Edmond’s meager belongings. I examined the dirt floor hopefully,

looking for signs of a recently dug hole, but I found nothing to indicate that he’d hidden the crown by burying it.

I could have howled with frustration. I’d gone through an awful

lot to reach Edmond’s tent. I’d been scared half to death by Lord

Belvedere, leered at by grubby foot soldiers, and physically assaulted

by Sir Jacques de Poitiers, and it had all been for nothing. Though I

refrained from howling, I allowed myself a small, self-pitying moan

before I returned to the entrance. I’d accomplished all I could accomplish in Edmond’s tent. I wanted to go home.

My fingers were touching the tent flap when I heard the sound

of approaching footsteps.

“Edmond!” a man called. “Hold on a minute, will you? I need to

talk to you about the schedule for next weekend.”

I snatched my hand away from the flap and jumped back from

the entrance, feeling cornered and incredibly stupid. If Edmond

caught me inside his tent, I stood a good chance of ending up in

prison before he did. I briefly considered staying put and brazening

it out, but concluded that such tactics would do me no good in the

long run. Once Edmond saw me close-up, he’d remember me, and

I’d never again be able to follow him covertly.

172 Nancy Atherton

I scanned the milk crates, the camp bed, and the card table, but

if there was no place to hide a crown, there was certainly no place

to hide a full-grown woman. Then my eyes caught the gleam of

daylight shining through the gap between the tent’s bottom edge

and the dirt fl oor, and I hit upon a daring escape plan.

I darted to the rear of the tent, flung myself to the ground, and

dragged myself under the back wall to freedom. The tricky maneuver cost me my muffin cap, but I thrust a groping hand back through

the gap, found the cap, and pulled it to safety mere seconds before

Edmond said good night to his friend and strode into the tent.

Weak with relief, I jammed the cap on my head and tried to

crawl away on all fours. I learned almost instantly that it’s not easy

to crawl in two ankle-length skirts and an apron. I managed to

cover about three feet of ground before I accidentally knelt on the

apron and pitched face-first into the dirt. After that, I threw caution to the wind, got to my feet, and ran.

It took me longer than I’d anticipated to return to the fairground,

because the encampment was a lot more crowded than it had been

when I’d first arrived. Everywhere I looked, people were cooking

dinner, playing guitars, practicing yoga, quaffing ale, engaging in

naughty shenanigans, and generally finding ways to blow off steam

after a hard day’s work. The spike in the population seemed to confirm what Edmond’s return had already suggested. The fair’s opening weekend was over and the fairground was closed to the public.

It meant, of course, that the main entrance doors in the gatehouse would be locked and bolted, but I wasn’t worried about spending the night trapped inside the fairground or, worse, in the

encampment, because I knew of an alternative exit. As soon as I

reached the fairground, I headed for the Shire Stage and the nearly

invisible gate Jinks had opened for me on the way to our picnic on

the banks of the babbling brook.

I was so dispirited by then that I wouldn’t have let out a peep of

protest if I’d been arrested for trespassing. A ride in a police car

would have spared me the long walk home, but though I kept an eye

Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon

173

out for an officious night watchman, the fair’s lanes were deserted,

the stalls were closed, and the stages were empty. It was sad to see

a place that had been so full of life brought to a silent standstill and

I felt no regrets as I slipped through the gate and closed it quietly

behind me.

I followed the privacy fence to Mr. Malvern’s pasture, then followed the cattle track to the stile. Jinks’s camper-van was gone when

I got there. He’d evidently wasted no time kicking the dust of the fair

from his feet and setting out for his friend’s flat in Cheltenham.

“No quaffing with the lads tonight,” I murmured as I climbed

over the stile. Then I recalled his preference for Riesling and hoped

for his sake that his Cheltenham friend had a decent wine cellar.

It wasn’t until I was standing in my own back garden that I remembered Edmond’s shed. The storage unit behind the Farthing

Stage would make a perfect hiding place. King Wilfred’s crown

could be concealed inside a toolbox, covered with an oilcloth, or

tucked behind a sack of sawdust, and no one but Edmond would

ever know it was there. The realization that I’d thrown away a

golden opportunity to search the shed at my leisure while the fairground was deserted was so monumentally demoralizing that I swayed

on my feet.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I muttered, thumping my forehead

with the heel of my hand.

“Lori?” said Bill, stepping out of the solarium. “Are you okay?”

When I’d imagined Bill seeing me in my garb for the fi rst time,

I’d imagined him seeing me as Jinks and Lord Belvedere and even

foul Sir Jacques had seen me. Instead, I was filthy, sweaty, disheveled, dejected, and beet-red in the face from exertion. The injustice

of it all welled up in me and the howl I’d suppressed in Edmond’s

tent could no longer be contained. I threw myself into Bill’s arms

and burst into tears.

“I’m f-fine,” I managed, sobbing uncontrollably into his shoulder. “It’s j-just been a v-very long d-day.”

Eigh teen

Will and Rob galloped into the garden to find out what all

the fuss was about. After studying me judiciously, they

deduced that I was upset because I’d gotten my new

dress dirty and advised their father to get it off of me and into the

washing machine as quickly as possible.

Bill thought a hot bath would help, too, and after he’d followed

the boys’ advice to the letter, he ran one for me and left me to soak

in it while the boys set the table and he put a roast in the oven. Their

solicitousness only made me feel worse. By the time Bill came back

to check on me, I’d added copious amounts of salt water to my

bath.

My poor husband had to sit on the edge of the tub for a solid

half hour and assure me that I wasn’t a terrible mother or a horrible

wife or the most bird-witted twit who’d ever walked the planet

before I could stop crying long enough to finish bathing and get

dressed. Before we left the bedroom, I leaned into his arms again.

“I’m sorry I missed the joust,” I said in a very small voice.

“I know,” he said, stroking my back.

“I’m sorry I didn’t spend time with you and the boys at the fair

today,” I said.

“I know,” he repeated.

“I’ve got a lot to tell you,” I said.

“I kind of figured you might have,” he said dryly. “We’ll talk

later. After the boys are asleep.”

I nuzzled his neck, shook off the last of my tears, and went with

him downstairs to the kitchen. Uncontrollable sobbing was a fairly

reliable indication that I’d bitten off more than I could chew. Once

Will and Rob were in bed, I would bite the bullet as well and tell

Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon

175

Bill about my investigation. He might even offer to help me with

it—if he ever stopped laughing at me.

I had a momentary setback when Will and Rob sat down at the dining room table and plopped two new stuffed animals beside their

plates. I had no problem with stuffed animals joining us for dinner,

but the sight of two black dragons peering at me over the boys’

baked potatoes had a quelling effect on my appetite. Had the twins

named either one of them Jacques, I might have been forced to

leave the table. Luckily, the new members of their stuffed animal

family were named Flame and Fireball, and they were so adorably

goofy-looking that I fell in love with them before I’d finished my

first helping of carrots.

The twins had been itching to tell me about their day at the fair,

so I didn’t have to contribute much to our dinner conversation. I

threw in an occasional “Fantastic!” or “Wow!” to let them know I

was listening, and they rattled on happily without any aid from

their parents.

They had a lot to talk about. In addition to riding in the procession and in the arena, they’d played in the bouncy castle, learned

to braid rope, eaten wild boar sausages on sticks, watched a Punch

and Judy show, learned to juggle two beanbags, listened to a story

about a lost dragon, met a woman who had a unicorn tattooed on

her shoulder, learned how to churn butter, snacked on sugared almonds, fudge on sticks, and cotton candy, and visited the petting

zoo, where, as I’d predicted, they’d been overjoyed to make the

acquaintance of Ajeeta, the six-foot-long python Lilian Bunting and

I had seen before Saturday’s opening ceremonies.

I was delighted to hear that they’d adopted Flame and Fireball

not because they admired a certain unworthy knight, but because

they pitied the lost dragon in the story. I nearly lost it, however,

when they informed me that they’d turned down King Wilfred’s

offer of knighthoods because I wasn’t there to see the ceremony, and

176 Nancy Atherton

when they asked why I hadn’t been at the arena to cheer them on,

my guilt glands went into overdrive.

“I was having lunch with Jinks the jester,” I explained. “The

only time Jinks can eat lunch is during the joust.”

The boys’ faces lit up as soon as they heard the jester’s name.

“We like Jinks,” said Rob, with a firm nod.

“He showed us how to do cartwheels,” said Will. “Want to

see?”

“Let’s save the cartwheels for tomorrow,” I suggested. “It’ll give

me something to look forward to.”

“Okay,” they chorused.

I gazed at my sons fondly. Although they hadn’t offered to forgive me, because they saw nothing wrong with skipping the joust

in order to have lunch with a likable man who’d taught them a cool

new trick, I felt forgiven.

I was about to clear the table and bring in dessert—fresh strawberries with absolutely no added sugar—when the boys announced