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| Fairystories and Poems |
| Quint and Trout's Mistake |
  | I don't suppose anyone has ever told you before, but about a kilometre from where you live used to be the most magical place on Earth.
Long, long before people built the road or the houses nearby, it was inhabited by little people. Their great, great, great, nieces and nephews would be known to us as Piscies and Leprechauns
Lake Piscie would seem like a pond to us and the long days of summer that the world knew then would seem like a dream. There were more trees, the skies were filled with more birds, the land teemed with mammals, the seas had more fish and the lake was frequented by many of the famous people of their day.
They loved the shape of the lake, the seven white stones that were set against the water and the trees that bent towards the waters-edge. Most of all they enjoyed the company of the little people, who lived there and were always full of jokes, good stories and well cooked food.
One of the very best story tellers amongst them was a fellow called Quint who told a story about him and his brother Trout when they were younger men and thought they knew everything there was to know. Like most know-it-alls they were wrong most of the time. One of the good things about Quint was the way he could tell a story and make you laugh and this one showed him up as a fool. But he did not mind being a good natured person.
In those days the lake was clear and bright and the stones shone at night like lamps. One day, after they built a small dam to increase the height of the lake so they didn't have to jump down so far to swim in it, a white, messy slick developed over the surface and stuck to the bank and the stones.
It smelled of rotten eggs,
looked very ugly,
made the waters uninviting
and worried them very much.
"Well then, brother Quint, " asked Trout scratching his bald head, "what d'you make of that then?"
"T'aint a proper thing," replied Quint wrinkling up his nose at the smell.
"Maybe not, but there it be and there it stay unless we see to it."
"No telling where it comes from," said Quint who did not like the idea of 'seeing to it' one bit.
"Well then we needs to find out."
"Find out what?" asked young Ned coming up to them. Trout looked at Ned and nodded to the lake,
"That white stuff there mucking up our lake."
"What is it?" asked Ned.
"Exactly," said Quint.
"The very question," said Trout.
"Which one of you two is going to find out?" asked Ned.
"You," said Quint.
"I'm not one of you two," argued Ned.
"But you be brighter than we and better equipped, as it were, for adventuring."
"How so?" asked Ned who thought he was being roped into one of their silly and dangerous adventures again.
"You be younger for a start," said Trout.
"Only by two days," said Ned. "That isn't enough to work with."
"You be stronger," pointed out Quint as if that settled the matter.
"Maybe this will take brains not strength," Ned said carefully.
"You be taller to, which is always a good thing amongst folk that go adventuring," said Trout.
"As to that," said Ned, "small people get away with more because they are harder to see. Besides I'm no more than a bee's wing taller."
"A precious distinction," said Quint.
"A perfect bee's wing," mentioned Trout.
"Still," said Ned, "if all we do is talk nothing will be done I suppose."
"There," said Quint, "the very root of the problem and he goes to it, no stopping. He's the one for the job. There'll have no other."
"And the job is here," said Trout as the white, gooey slick got thicker.
"Very well," said Ned, "but don't think I'm doing this because of all your silly talk. I'm going because I want to find out for myself what is polluting our lake."
So saying Ned took off his jerkin which his mother had made for him and folded it onto the grass and dived into the water and swam down. Quint and Trout sat on the bank and Quint started smoking.
"That's that then," he said, "we'll never see him again."
"Pity," said Trout eyeing up the jerkin for size, "he was a good sort anyways."
The water was not very cold but it was chilly enough to keep Ned awake as he swam down. He saw a thin wisp of the white gunk coming out of a tunnel at the bottom and followed it through until he surfaced beneath the ground in a dim and smelly cavern. The white slick was flowing into the water from a gloomy hole in the wall. As he moved towards it dripping wet trying to get his breath back he heard a burp.
"Pooh," he shouted out, "you got any manners in there?"
"Sorry," said a deep and sonorous voice, "I wasn't expecting any visitors."
"Who are you" asked Ned.
"Borf," said the animal showing itself in the gloom. It was very fat, with a belly three times as big as its head and legs that looked like bulbous and blotchy mushrooms. The white was dripping down its mouth. The smell was all over it. Ned looked at it and said,
"See here we live upstairs and this white stuff is polluting our lake. You have to stop it."
"I can't," said Borf in a low moan.
"Why not? You only just started after all."
"I haven't only just started to floss my teeth," said Borf, "I have always flossed my teeth. I need to use this limestone to floss my teeth. There is nothing better. If I lost my teeth where would I be? Do you know what they do to toothless Borfs?"
"No."
"They...burn them."
"If you've always flossed your teeth why have you never before polluted our lake?"
"Ah, that's because I've never flossed my teeth here before. This gloomy hole is not my real home."
"Then move back to where you live."
"I can't," said Borf mournfully belching again and sniffing up in misery ready to cry.
"Why ever not?"
"Because I'm scared of the Pyr-pyr."
"What, "asked Ned patiently, "is the Pyr-pyr?"
"It's a nasty, hot animal that threw me out of my house."
"It must be strong," quipped Ned.
"There's no need to make fun of my weight. I was born this way."
"Your poor mother."
"Do you want to hear about the Pyr-pyr or do you want to insult me?"
"I don't know. After all I'm not sure I believe anything could throw you out of your home."
"Well, actually strictly speaking, it didn't. But it won't let me go past it's cave and that's as bad because until I can I can't get home and because I can't get home I'm eating a lot and because I'm eating a lot I'm flossing more than usual and...I'm flossing here." He sat back as if he had never quite said so much in one breath before.
"What if I go and speak to the Pyr-pyr? If I persuade it to let you go past, will you go home then?"
"Would you do that for me?"
"I would."
"Well...be careful. It breathes fire. It burnt me in a very painful place. I couldn't sit down for ages afterwards."
"Maybe it just doesn't like you."
"I don't know why," said Borf, "I'm a perfectly friendly Borf."
"Wait here," said Ned, "and try not to floss too much whilst I'm sorting this mess out."
He waded back into the water and swam down the cavern to a small waterfall which he crossed and surfaced flinging his wet hair from side-to-side and rubbing his face.
"I swear the water is sweeter here," he said.
"I think you are right," said a mellow, feminine voice that liked to sit on its vowels and stretch them out like elastic.
"Who are you?" It went on.
"Ned," he replied, "do I have the honour of meeting the Pyr-pyr?"
"You do," she said. She laid her long head down and winked at Ned in traditional greeting. "You belong to the up-above do you not? Why are you here?"
"Well, Borf..."
"Ah, you have met that idiot," she said unusually terse and short.
"That overweight, stinking pile of flesh that actually thought it could
get me to leave my retreat in the extremity of my need.
No thought of help. No. Never thinks of anything but its next meal.
No idea of asking what was wrong just 'mind out of my way!'
No question of inviting me to tea so that I could at least calm down.
I ask you, would you not have been tempted to scold the rude,
ugly beast? Burning its backside was too good for it. It really was."
"Well," said Ned, "if I knew all the facts maybe I could help you."
"I am homeless," said the Pyr-pyr, "and when I first met that lard-laden ninny I was newly homeless and very fractious. I was not in the mood for indifference."
"So you scolded him.?"
"Right on his big, fat bum," said the Pyr-pyr. "If you've got it, use it," she said breathing our a little flame to heat up the cavern. Ned saw her shimmering skin and nodded,
"I can understand your position," he wisely suggested (after all he was talking to the mother-of-all-dragons) "but why are you homeless?"
"Because of the bugs that have taken over my cave," Pyr-pyr told him. "I never normally walk this far up the cavern and I certainly don't like it too much. It's much warmer in my place but the bugs took over and I itched too much and had to get out and once out I can't seem to get back in. Nasty things bugs."
"But as long as you are here, Borf won't move and our lake will stay polluted," said Ned. "So it would seem I need to get you home before I can deal with Borf so I will have to meet with the bugs."
"Would you? They may not bite you. You are small and they seemed to like my skin because I'm big. If you help me I'll apologise to Borf and stop him polluting your lake by going home. But please make sure all the bugs are out of my home. One is all it takes to make my flesh creep. And don't let them keep any eggs under my sofa. I don't want infant bugs all over my rooms in the spring."
"Fine. Now where do you live?"
"Straight on, second left. You can't miss it."
Ned went wading down stream and suddenly the whole cavern opened up and from the hole in the ceiling, beams of lights flooded in. The water gave way to a slow moving stream that bubbled as it fed into the lake beside which Quint and Trout were still sitting mourning the loss of their friend Ned with a game of I Spy.
"I would imagine," said Ned to himself thoughtfully, "this is a right proper place to live." He looked for the second left and found a rather large door with an impressive handle and written on it were the words,
'Private'
and underneath that was,
'Appointments Preferred'
and underneath that were the words
'No Playwrights'.
It was signed,
'Pyr-pyr'.
"Well at least I've found the right place, and there was mum telling me I can never find anything." He knocked on the door and heard a buzzing and rustling but nothing else. So he pushed it open.
"Who said come-in," shouted a very high, shrill voice from the floor.
"No one but I knew you were in here."
"Close the door then and stop the draught," said a similar voice.
"Only if you promise not to bite me or make me itch."
"Alright, alright," chorused hundreds of voices," we promise now shut the door its freezing!"
Ned shut the door and came in. The fire which would have made the whole place lively was quite cold as bugs cannot make fires. The Pyr-pyr had also kept a window open and the air coming in was fresh enough to make the bugs shiver. Ned was getting used to things by now and shaking the water out of a boot he said,
"If you find it so cold here why don't you leave?"
"Wish we could," said a bug." Ned shook his head sadly. He wondered what he was going to hear about this time!
"Why can't you?" he asked.
"Flooded out," said a bug.
"Almost drowned into the bargain," said another.
"No warning. No 'if you please' no 'mind the way there' just a lot of water suddenly flooding right around where we liked to be," said a third.
"And where was that?"
"In the bank of the river yonder," said the bugs together, "the earth was warm and cosy and we never bothered anyone and no one ever bothered us. It was dreamy. We've lived there generations."
"But no more," said one of the bugs. "No more. It is all wet now like your socks. Sodden, dripping and squidgy."
"Even muddy," said another.
"Quite flooded out," said a third.
"Well," said Ned, "if you live by the riverside surely you expect to be flooded."
"Do you indeed," said the bugs. "We never have been before."
"No never," said another.
"Not a once," said a third.
"We certainly did not expect it at all," they chorused.
"Well then something unusual must have happened. But you realise do you not that because you have had to move, the Pyr-pyr has moved. And because she was fractious and cold Borf won't dare to pass her and so he sits flossing his teeth polluting our lake. We must solve your problem to solve theirs."
"Well," said the bugs, " you seem an all right sort of person so if you can help us we'd be only too pleased to leave. After all it was never our intention to make someone leave their home."
"Even though someone made us leave ours," said another.
"Where exactly is your home?" asked Ned.
"If you like," said a voice as a bug jumped onto his shoulder, "seeing you are helping us I'll come with you and show you."
So Ned opened the door quickly and closed it even more quickly so they did not all catch cold and with the bug on his shoulder he made his way out. There he found himself on the knoll overlooking the lake.
It had been a long journey all around the lake to come out above Quint and Trout who were sound asleep after all their exertions. Ned followed the directions of the bug and came to a piece of the river behind the dam Quint and Trout had built, and there under water he saw the tidy little doorways leading to the homes of the bugs. Ned went over to the wooden dam and began to take it down.
The water immediately flowed down, down, down and soon the doorways were showing and soon the doorways were open and the bugs started to dry out their homes in the sunshine. Meanwhile the Pyr-pyr was told and after heating up their homes to dry them out more quickly she moved back into her home setting out a lovely warm fire and making herself a long awaited cup of tea. Borf went back to his cavern and flossed his teeth where no one minded. Ned told them all what had happened and who was responsible for the dam.
That's why Quint and Trout did not just wake up. They were thrown headlong by the Pyr-pyr into the water where Borf gave them a good ducking and when they came out the bugs bit them so badly they were in bed for a week. But they had learnt their lesson and from then on all the little people, even the Piscies who took their name from the magical lake that once stood near your home, knew that one thing very often depends upon another.
Quint and Trout were only too pleased to do without their dam as long as it kept the fearsome and fractious Pyr-pyr and the biting bugs in their own homes.
As for Ned he found he had made several very pleasant new friends | | Posted: 10.3.2008 at 04:15 | Read 187 times | 0 comments | Leave Comment |
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| Daniel | | 
"The world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel:Horace Walpole" |
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