Shakespeare for Squirrels: A Novel (Fool #3)(76)

I looked at the Puck, who was now holding himself up by bracing himself on Rumour. “Can you enchant them thus?” He nodded. “And change Nick Bottom back to a man?” Again the nod.

“Hippolyta, you shall take your warriors and your ships and return home to your island, never to return to this land again, lest you meet the wrath of the goblins. Do you understand?”

“Can’t we kill her?” said Puck.

“No, we can’t kill her. She did not come here of her own will, she was as much a slave as you. Can you do the spell?”

“Yes. But they should give shoes and hats to the fairies as well.”

“As you wish.”

“Goblins, return to your castle of night, and remember that the stars and the moon are yours, always, and you owe no one obeisance for their silvery shine. Return to this city no more, and never harm your fairy brethren, for their magic sustains you too.”

“And no eating fucking squirrels!” shouted Cobweb.

“Yes, that too,” said I. I turned to the Puck. “The stage is yours.”

The Puck struggled forward but gathered his strength, sucking in great breaths of air, and puffed his chest and prepared to speak. But there came a loud clacking noise before the stage.

Hippolyta looked up at me and shrugged. In front of her, Drool and Peaseblossom were bent over the body of Theseus, and the fairy was forcefully beating the dead duke in the face with an iron candlestick, which was where the racket was coming from.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

The two simpletons looked up with great satisfied grins. “Drool told me about tooth fairies,” said Peaseblossom. “I shall become a tooth fairy.”

“We’ve nearly a bagful,” said Drool, holding up a coin purse that looked suspiciously like it had been fashioned from someone’s scrotum.

“I’m going to get silver for them and give it to the goblins for saving our mates,” said Peaseblossom, holding up a bloody molar.

“That is not how it works,” said I. “That is not how it works at all.”

Rumour cleared his throat loudly and hopped off the stage, deferring to the Puck.

“The magic is done,” the Puck said to me. “They will not remember.” Then he moved to the edge of the stage, and to the audience, said:

“If we shadows have offended,

“Think but this, and all is mended,

“That you have but slumber’d here

“While these visions did appear.

“And this weak and idle theme,

“No more yielding but a dream,

“Gentles, do not reprehend:

“If you pardon, we will mend:

“And, as I am an honest Puck,

“If we have unearned luck

“Now to ’scape the serpent’s tongue,

“We will make amends ere long;

“Else the Puck a liar call;

“So, good night unto you all.

“Give me your hands, if we be friends,

“And Robin shall restore amends.”



Then the Puck took a great bow, another to the right, another to the left, and the audience, on their feet, applauded, even the Amazons and goblins. And the Puck dropped to one knee. Cobweb ran to him and caught him before he fell, lowering him to the floor. I hopped up on the stage and knelt over the Puck. Cobweb held his head, cradled in her lap, and the players gathered round and watched, heads bowed, as he died.

*

Two days later, Drool and I stood at the edge of the city, kitted out for travel, faced down by Nick Bottom and the three fairies.

Bottom shook my hand. “You shall always be our master of the theater. Thank you.”

I slapped his back. “You were a brave player and a good friend,” said I. “I hope Mrs. Bottom forgives you your trespasses.”

“Ah, I don’t mind sleeping out with the animals for a bit. Finding my sense memory, don’t you know. Her anger is waning. I’ll be back in the house in no time.”

“Good luck, then.”

“Jeff is staying,” said Moth, holding Jeff. “We are in love.”

“But he’s a monkey,” said I.

“Not all the time,” said Moth.

“Yes, all the fucking time.”

“Well, in the daytime we play in the trees together and it’s lovely.”

Jeff, cheeky monkey that he was, nodded and nuzzled into her neck.

“He is his own man,” said I. “Perhaps you could get a hat, to keep his interest when you’re a fairy.”

“She can have mine,” said Cobweb. She removed her bycocket hat and fitted it over Moth’s eggshell-colored hair.

“I bought you these,” I said, pulling a pair of shoes from my satchel and handing them to Cobweb. “I think they’ll fit.”

She took them, turned them around in the air, examined them. “I am ruined now,” she said.

“Yes,” said I.

“And I have these,” said Peaseblossom, holding up her nut-sack full of teeth. “For I am now a tooth fairy.”

“Yes,” said I. “How many do you think you have?”

“Don’t be a twat, Pocket,” said Cobweb. Then, as she eyed her shoes suspiciously, she said, “Where will you go?”