But off she ran, and off they all ran after her. They couldn’t leave her if they wanted to—if they got to Mummery without their steed, they’d be disqualified anyway. Saturday laughed madly and spun around a few times of his own on the way into town, without a care. September was all care, but she resolved not to show it. Not yet. Everyone deserves to go home and feel happy about it when they get there, she thought. Everyone. Queens shouldn’t worry or whine, should they? We can’t be so badly off. It’s not halftime yet. Ajax said at halftime we all swap places.
Blunderbuss tumbled into the center of town, her hugeness throwing shadows up against the night-sky shacks.
“Whoa there, cobber!” a handsome, furry wombat hollered from a twilit rocking chair on a starry porch. The sign over his head read PUDDING-FOR-ALL GENERAL STORE. He wore a smart waistcoat and small, round sunglasses. “Slow yourself down, how about that?”
For a moment, September thought Blunderbuss was going to cry. She scrunched up her diamond-shaped magenta button eye, and then her thick brass button eye. She wrinkled up her nose and shook her head bullishly from side to side. She got so choked up she couldn’t say a thing, which was certainly a first. The scrap-yarn wombat had never met a claw-and-fur wombat before.
The other wombat pulled a carrot-cob pipe out of his waistcoat pocket and lit it without a match. He had a bit of Wombat Magic and didn’t mind showing off. “No need to go thundering about like your arse’s on fire. Ruddy tourists. No respect for anyone. Go on, get your postcards and be on your way, thank you!”
Blunderbuss finally found her voice. “I’m not a tourist, I’m a wombat!”
“Oh, come off yourself, you are not,” scoffed the furry fellow.
“I am so! Look at my teeth!” Blunderbuss bared her cloak-clasp teeth, which only seemed to make the other wombat uncomfortable.
“If you’re a wombat, I’m a cockatoo!”
“She’s the most wombat I’ve ever known,” A-Through-L said with all the sternness any Wyvern can command. If only he had not had a turnip tied round his waist, even a mountain would have cowered.
The wombat spat onto his veranda. “You’re made out of yarn and you’re the size of a rhinoceros. I know wombats are the greatest animals ever invented, and it’s only natural you should want to be one, but you’re embarrassing yourself, mate.”
Blunderbuss gritted her teeth. She strode proudly over to the Puddings-For-All General Store and pointed one fuzzy lilac-colored paw at the wombat in the rocking chair. “You listen here, Little Lord Much-a-Much. I am from Chicago and in Chicago, all wombats are made of yarn and the size of rhinoceroses! Is this how you say how-do to out-of-town cousins? I always heard the Fairyland branch of the family were nice as raisins, but you’re just a cheeky little runted bear cub and I shall tell everyone so when I get back.” She was, of course, quite right. Being the only wombat in Chicago, all wombats in the city looked just like her.
The wombat creaked back and forth on his spangled rocker, puffing on his pipe. Then he burst out of the chair and off the porch, giving Blunderbuss’s paw a great, solid bite. Buss didn’t yelp. She grinned like Christmas.
“You should have said! I’ve always wanted to meet a Batty from … Chicago, was it? Well, I’m a mad old duffer, ask anyone, but I own up when I’m wrong. Of course you’re one of us! No one but a wombat could disrespect me so lovingly! Welcome! I’m called Conker, this is my store—Oy, Bluestocking!” Conker yelled into the shop. “Come meet the biggest Batty you’ll ever see! Now, there’s not room for you inside, I’m afraid, and you do seem to have a lot of friends, and that one’s a bit … well, he’s a bit all over Wyvern for my comfort, but you won’t want to stay out in the sun and roast. Let’s get you into the Night-Barn! It’s where we have our after-dinner dances and our pre-lunch layabouts. Hurry now, you great hippo, you’ll want to meet everyone!”
“Not everyone,” whispered September. “Please. The Derby.”
“Just let me have a minute,” pleaded the wombat. “A minute at home. Don’t you want a minute at home?”
September suddenly felt so tired she wanted to lie down in the road and pull it up over her like her bed under the Briary. Home. Home, with Mom and Dad and oranges and a cake in the icebox. Home.
“I’m starving!” said Saturday, and bolted off toward the barn. “The Derby will keep! Just a bunch of silly running around anyway!”