“Where are you going? We haven’t decided our next move!”
“Our next move is to move. Can’t stay in one place! Ell and I hashed it out while I had the pince-nez and we agree: next stop, the Worsted Wood. Where you got your wrench! That casket makes the Queen’s sword, stands to reason it’s necessary for becoming Queen. Maybe it’s a piece of the Heart of Fairyland! And if not, the spriggans might know. Ell says they have a university, and that’s where people keep their smarts.”
A-Through-L picked September up in one claw and twisted round to put her on his back. Then, he snatched up Saturday in the same fashion. “It’s far, but we can make up time if we don’t stop to sleep, or for anything else. From this minute, no stopping till spriggans! We saw Goldmouth run by with a bundle under his arm—we hid, because he is dreadful, and I think you would be upset if you came back and found us bleeding. Though we would win, of course, in a fight! But we would probably get very bruised.” His turnip banged against his knees as Ell ran.
September wrinkled her brow doubtfully. “Detectives? The Worsted Wood? What on earth are you two talking about?”
“We only left you for a few hours,” marveled Saturday.
“If that’s what you call ‘all day and all night and half the next day,’” Blunderbuss grumbled. “We had to slap up some sort of fun. And lucky for you we did!”
“We’ve been reading!” Ell whooped. He pointed his nose toward their luggage. A small blue book peeked out from beneath the lid. A mightily abused dust jacket clung on to the cover for dear life. It showed two men in blue uniforms looking very concerned about a lovely young lady lying on a blue sofa. Above their heads, September read:
THE MYSTERY OF THE BLUE TRAIN,
BY AGATHA CHRISTIE
Ell rattled on as they ran. “Well, I have, mainly. Buss wanted to eat it, which I have tried to tell her is a completely wrongheaded way to go about literature-ing. She said I was being culturally insensitive and a complete dunce. But one of her favorite dunces, so that’s nice.”
The scrap-yarn wombat hid her face in a heap of papaya. “Aw, don’t be sore, Ell. I’m only rude to my nearest and nearest. Anyway, I should’ve remembered. Wombats start with W. You gotta learn our p’s and q’s the slow way.”
“We agreed the fairest fix was for me to read aloud. After all, if Buss did it her way, there wouldn’t be any story leftover for me. So I did and we loved it so much I read it all through again and then we had a long discussion over our fourth dinner about the themes and imagery and metaphors—”
“Don’t trust metaphors,” the wombat snorted. “If you let things start claiming to mean other things, there’s no limit on how many things they can mean! Madness! I am a stonking big knitted wombat, Ell is part Wyvern and part Library, and that’s that. We don’t mean anything but us and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise!”
“I mean lots of things, thank you kindly,” the Wyverary said, without the littlest spot of anger in his voice. They had clearly got their teeth into that argument many times in the night. “Anyhow, the point is, we’ve talked it over, and we’ve decided to become detectives.”
Blunderbuss nodded her woolly head enthusiastically. “We’re on the case! The Case of the Hijacked Heart!”
“So you don’t have to worry anymore! We’ve learned so much I feel dizzy! We are much more interesting beasts than when you left us. Now we know all about Mysteries, Deduction, Motives, Mistaken Identities, Jewel Thieves, Belgian People, Steam Trains, Red Herrings, Heiresses, Chloroform, Ballerinas, Cigarettes, Rubies, England, Femme Fatales, and Boy Femme Fatales Though There Doesn’t Seem to Be a Word for That but There Should Be. Honestly, September, you never told me half of what your world gets up to! I told you all about mine, but you kept all this fantastic stuff in your back pocket. It’s not fair. But it’s amazing! I want to know more! Do all human men have splendid mustaches, or is it only Monsieur Poirot?” And he gave her a jaunty smile, curling his whiskers once more into a perfect, bright orange petit handlebar mustache.