The Painted Ponies of Partequineus and The Summer of the Kittens (8 page)

With Janie clinging desperately to his tail and pony-Frank struggling to free himself from the cruel talons, Guaryntis shot skyward once more and discovered Christina and Steven running hard, almost to the forest of Paximus. He growled and snarled and beat the air with his mighty wings, and the sand rose up from the desert floor in a massive whirlwind that swept over the fleeing pony and blinded him. Steven stumbled but struggled on, unable to see, and Guaryntis laughed and dropped to earth right in front of him. Steven crashed into the dragon's scaly side and fell unconscious, and Christina sprawled on the sand beside him.

Guaryntis then spotted Vanessa, standing up in her stirrups and straining forward. She was urging Alexander on as he raced for the safety of the forest. She was the only girl ever to escape from him, and he wanted to capture her most of all. He wanted
revenge
. He swooped down upon them, but Vanessa saw him coming.

“Quick, go left!” she shouted, and Alexander swerved hard and took off in the new direction. Guaryntis missed them and plunged heavily into the ground, but one claw raked the pony's flank and drew blood. He bounded up for another try. Vanessa saw him leap to cut them off.

“Go right!” Vanessa yelled. “And STOP!”

Alexander planted his hooves and skidded to a halt. Guaryntis overshot them and ploughed head first into the sand. Alexander whirled and plunged off toward the trees once more.

The dragon shook himself and screeched in fury. Still clutching tiny Frank in one claw, and with Janie desperately hanging on to his tail, he planted his powerful hind feet and leapt after the fleeing pair. He opened his mouth wide.

Vanessa screamed, and Alexander whipped his head around to see the awful monster's vicious yellow fangs flashing in the sunlight as he bore down upon them. Desperately he flung himself right and then left, his hooves scrabbling at the sand, and his back left foot dropped into a groundhog hole and tripped him. He heard an awful crack and felt a bone break. His leg collapsed beneath him, spilling Vanessa onto the sand.

Guaryntis roared out his victory. His powerful jaws gaped open and swept them up. He tossed his head in the air, and Vanessa and Alexander tumbled over his huge slimy tongue and slid toward that great open throat, plummeting down to certain death.

And behind the dragon's back, brave little Evan, with Emma's small arms wrapped tightly around his long pony neck, dashed out of the desert and into the beautiful green forest of Paximus.

Vanessa's plan had worked!

TWENTY-FOUR

 

A brilliant light exploded across the land, where moments before the monstrous dragon had flown. Vanessa and Alexander tumbled down, down, and came crashing to the sand. Little Janie and Frank sprawled beside them as bolts of lightning flashed from the sky and a huge dragon-shaped cloud erupted from the earth. It spun wildly into the greatest tornado the world has ever seen, and vanished into space.

A cheer exploded from the hundreds of people clustered about the edge of the forest. Some of them ran to help Vanessa and Alexander and Frank and Janie. The boys were ponies no more, once again wearing their golden bronze tunics. Frank climbed unsteadily to his feet, but Alexander, his broken leg twisted beneath him, simply lay there, in pain but with a huge, thankful smile on his face.

The dragon was gone forever.

Someone rescued Kathy and Tristan from the ocean. Others ran to the foothills and the meadow to bring back Alyssa and Aaron and Grace and Spencer. Christina and Steven regained consciousness, and everyone walked toward the forest, with Aaron and Steven helping Alexander to hobble along on his one good leg.

“Welcome to Paximus,” said Princess Melisande as they left the desert and stepped beneath the cool shade of the trees. “Everyone has been hoping for the day when you all would be set free.”

“Thank you, your Majesty,” Christina said.

“You're welcome to stay here with us,” the Princess said.

“That's very kind of you,” Alexander replied, “but I think we all want to go back to our own world now.” He looked around at the others, who were nodding their heads. “We have our whole lives to catch up on.”

Vanessa was troubled. “What will happen to Partequineus now?” she asked. “When we're gone, will it go back to being grey and lifeless again, the way it was before Guaryntis captured Janie?”

“No, dear,” the Princess said. “The happiness that children bring can never be destroyed or forgotten. Partequineus will become a part of Paximus now, and even the desert will soon bloom with beautiful flowers.”

“We have to go,” Grace said excitedly. “Excuse me, your Majesty, I don't want to seem rude, but… Well…”

“I understand,” the Princess said. “But remember, you can always come back to visit. The purple mist will enter the house on Chestnut Street every Friday at four o'clock, and you'll always be welcome here.”

“Thank you,” everyone said in unison, and Christina said, “Who wants to be first?”

“Me!” shouted Janie. “But I'll miss you all,” she said sadly.

“We'll miss you, too,” Christina said, “but you have to go back. It's where you belong.”

Janie smiled. “One, two, three!” she cried out, and she hopped backwards and vanished in a puff of purple smoke.

“Her mother and father will be so glad to see her,” Vanessa said.

“Of course they will,” Aaron said, “but they won't know where she's been. Where Janie is now, it's still two hundred years ago.”

“I'm going right now,” Evan announced, and took three steps backward and disappeared.

“Me, too,” Alyssa said. One by one the children vanished, going back to their interrupted lives, until only Vanessa and Alexander were left.

“You saved us,” Alexander told her. “If not for you, we would never have figured out how to defeat the dragon.”

“I think you would,” Vanessa said, “sooner or later. But I'm glad I could help.”

“Will you ever come back to Partequineus?” he asked.

“I don't know. Not right away, anyway. It will be nice to have my life settle down for a while.”

“I feel the same way. Let's go. But you'll have to help me.”

“It will be my pleasure.”

Alexander leaned on her shoulder, and she put one arm around his waist. “Count with me,” he said.

“Goodbye, Partequineus!” Vanessa shouted. She helped Alexander to hop backwards on his one good leg. “One! Two! THREE!”

TWENTY-FIVE

 

Vanessa was just eleven years old. She was sure of that now, because the world was back to normal. In fact, she wasn't absolutely sure that her adventures in Partequineus hadn't simply taken place in her imagination.

Two weeks had passed, and Vanessa sat in Mr. Carson's English class during reading period. She was just finishing the last chapter of
The Abandoned
. After her visit to that strange, bright land of her dreams, Paul Gallico's fantasy about a boy who thought he was a cat no longer seemed so odd and extraordinary to her.

She looked up as she heard the classroom door open, and Mrs. Watkins, the principal, walked in.

“We have a new student joining us today,” Mrs. Watkins announced. “He just moved here to our town. I hope you'll all make him feel welcome.”

She stepped aside so everyone could see the handsome boy who stood in the doorway. “His name is Alexander,” she said, “and he's had a little accident. He'll need your help to get around until the cast on his leg comes off.”

Vanessa grinned at the newcomer, at his crutches, and at his oh, so familiar face. Alexander grinned back at her.
It was all real
, she thought to herself.
I can never tell anyone else what happened, but Alexander knows. And I just know we'll be friends forever.

 

The Summer of

the Kittens

Dedication

 

The Summer of the Kittens
honours two very important people in my life. I chose the young narrator's name in loving memory of my maternal grandmother, Hanna M. Hulse, gone from this earth since 1966, but still very much alive in my memories and so often in my dreams. And the story is especially for our son Kendrick, keeper of tadpoles, nurturer of cats and hamsters and guinea pigs, and rescuer of birds and mice and baby skunks. Francis of Assisi would have been as proud of him as I am.

 

Acknowledgements

 

Shelley Hustins, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, was kind enough to offer her guidance and expertise concerning the care of orphaned kittens, for which I am deeply in her debt. I also owe a special vote of thanks to Taffy, our tiny bottle-fed kitten, who slept warm and cuddly on my lap and kept me company as I edited this manuscript. And I will be forever grateful to Joanne Hudson, who cared for Taffy so lovingly after he lost his mother when just four days old.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Edmund Burke

 

Without a hurt, the heart is hollow.

Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt

 

“
Try to Remember”
(The Fantasticks)

 

MY VERY OWN DIARY

Hanna McCormick

Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada,

North America, Earth, the Universe

 

May 16
^th

 

Hey, Diary!

I've got lots to tell you. Something happened today that got me wondering about a lot of stuff.

My mother thinks that most of the people in the world are good. At least that's what she says, although the way she talks about some of the neighbours makes me wonder if she really believes it. Our minister says that good and evil exist side by side in the world, and that everybody gets to choose whether to be one or the other. And my Dad? Who knows what he thinks. He isn't around much anymore.

I'm not sure if Mom is right about most people either, 'cause there's like about six or seven billion of us in the world, right? And I only know the ones who live on my street, and some of the people who work in the stores downtown, and the kids and teachers at school and our relatives, maybe forty or fifty people in all, so I don't have much of a data base to work from. And Reverend Davis is a nice old man, but he's so boring that I've given up listening to him. I only go to church because Mom says I have to, and two minutes after he stops preaching I can't remember anything he said. His sermons never have anything to do with me.

Dad won't go to church, not even on Easter Sunday or at Christmas time. I guess he doesn't believe in God.

You know what I think about the good and evil thing? I think that most people aren't either one or the other.  Not good, not bad. What they are is indifferent. They just don't pay much attention to the consequences of the things they do, at least until they get caught doing something bad. Whatever they decide to do, no matter how it might affect other people, they just go ahead and do it. Like the three college students who drove down our road today when I was sitting in the tree in our front yard.  Jimmy was there too, but he wasn't up in the tree, of course. We'd just come home from school, and we had to get dressed up for our class pictures today, and I hadn't even changed my clothes yet.