Lizard's Leap: Chapter Twenty Six: A bear and a Bugle

A door opened and half a dozen large ladies came into the hall. They were dressed in long brown dresses with aprons over the top covered in big pink flowers. They had slippers on their feet and shuffled along rather than walked. They wore hairnets with a scarf tied into a knot on the top of their heads. Three curlers stuck out of each lady’s scarf and lined up on her forehead.

‘Well, I sez to ‘im I sez, you can’t treat ‘er like that. And do you know what he sez back?’

‘No, Nellie, what ever in the world did ‘e say back to ‘er?’

‘‘E sez…’

The ladies walked across the room, still gossiping and totally oblivious to the visitors.

One of the women walked to the far wall and switched on a vacuum cleaner. The vacuum was a huge orange, cylinder-type with a smiley face on the front. Its brush had been removed to reveal the open hose and the cylinder had been put in a corner with the hose attached to the wall so that it ran straight up like a chimney.

The women shuffled around the room, bending down and picking up tiny pieces of litter from the floor; then they’d shuffle back to the vacuum with it and then they had to stand on their tiptoes to drop the piece of rubbish in the hose.

‘Are they mad?’ Kerry asked in a hushed tone.

‘Totally nuts, Emma agreed, loopy, wacko and round the twist.’

The women finished their ‘vacuuming,’ turned off the cleaner and shuffled back out while keeping up their constant stream of gossip the whole time.

The cousins were still giggling to themselves when another lady bustled towards them but where the cleaning women had shuffled, this one bristled with brisk efficiency.

‘Ah, there you are. I was told we had guests. Have you solved the puzzle yet?’

‘No, we haven’t,’ Kerry said. ‘We don’t even know it yet.’ The woman looked angry. ‘Oh dear, we aren’t in trouble are we?’

‘Young lady, how dare you come into this castle using such foul language? That will be one golden groat, please.’ The lady pursed her lips and looked down on Kerry while holding out her hand.

‘Oh, dear,’ Kerry said again, flustered. ‘I think you misheard me. I said that we hadn’t been told the puzzle. I never said anything bad.’

The stern woman gasped. ‘There you go again, see? Swearing. That’ll be two groats, please. Does you mother know you talk like that?’

Kerry looked at the ground. She was confused and had no idea what she’d done wrong. She had a horrible feeling that she was going to cry.

‘Listen here, love,’ Vicki began in her most grown-up voice.

‘There you go again. I’ve never heard such foul-mouthed people. Three golden groats, please.’

‘I don’t understand. What have we done wrong and what are golden groats, anyway? We certainly haven’t got any,’ Emma said.

The lady reached into her pocket, which gave every impression of being bottomless, and drew out an enormous scroll.

She cleared her throat and began to read in a self-important voice, ‘Rule seven hundred and sixty-three of the Kaleidoscope Castle Charter clearly states: ‘Anyone heard to utter any terms of endearment will be charged an on-the-spot fine of one golden groat.’

She finished reading and rolled the scroll back up before returning it to her pocket. Next, she drew from the same pocket an enormous calculator.

Without turning it on she pressed the number two once. ‘Two of those plus one of those,’ she pressed the number one, ‘makes, er…,’ she counted on her fingers almost causing her to drop the calculator. ‘Er…yes, that’s right—Three golden groats. To be paid immediately or you will be thrown into the castle dungeons for all of eternity.’

That’s ridiculous, Kerry said, saying a nice thing isn’t swearing. Swearing is swearing.’

‘Those are the rules as written in the castle charter. The castle is in trouble, you see. So King Luke made a rule that people would be taxed for swearing. We had a swear box and everything. But nobody ever swears here. So when I came to cash up there was nothing in the box so…’

‘…So,’ Emma said, taking up the story and guessing the rest, ‘You turned it on its head and taxed people for saying nice things?’

‘Exactly, that’s just how it happened. Are you an oracle?’

‘What’s an oracle?’ Emma asked

‘Oh, I don’t have time for your questions, you’re trying to bamboozle me so that I’ll forget that you owe the castle three golden groats.’ She put the calculator back in her pocket and held out her hand again.

‘Hang on a minute,’ said Emma. ‘I don’t remember uttering any terms of endearment. Do you three?’ The others shook their heads solemnly. They didn’t know what Emma was doing, but they knew she was up to something.

‘Would you mind telling us exactly what we said wrong, please?’

The lady looked right and left to make sure nobody was within earshot. ‘Well,” she said, reluctantly. ‘The first girl said ‘dear,’ twice, and the other one said ‘love’.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Emma sweetly, ‘but I’m a bit deaf and didn’t quite hear what you said.’

‘They said ‘dear’ twice and ‘love’ once,’ the woman said a little louder.

‘Oh, I see,’ Emma said. ‘Well, by my reckoning, you have just said both of those forbidden words, twice. So, if you deduct the three golden groats we owe you, that surely leaves a balance of one golden groat owing to us. Still, I think we could just agree to say no more about it, don’t you?’

The woman went pink as Emma’s trickery sunk in. But, instead of being angry she smiled. ‘Well, you’re clever. I’ll give you that. My name is Lidlia. I am the castle treasurer, appointed by Good King Luke to save the castle from ruin. It’s my job to collect as many golden groats as possible to give to the King.

The people here are so gentle and loving that the best way we could think of to do this was to fine people for the use of loving words. Nobody minds, really because everybody wants to save the castle. Maybe one day someone will solve the final puzzle. Anyway enough waffle, I suppose you want to know what the next puzzle is?’

‘Yes, please,’ they said, with a mixture of trepidation and excitement.

‘Okay. Well all you have to do is bring the bear to life and make him blow the bugle. See? Easy. I’m surprised that nobody has managed to do it in the last eight hundred years, it’s so simple.’

‘Do you know how to do it, then?’ Mark asked, in awe of the formidable woman.

‘Er…well, actually…um…no,’ she replied. ‘But if it was my puzzle to solve, I’m sure I could soon work it out.’ She looked shifty. ‘I can’t stand here chatting with you all day. I’ve got taxes to charge and groats to polish and important castle business to attend to,’ and without another word, she clipped briskly across the hall and out of one of the doors.

They moved into a huddle and discussed the problem. The bear in question was the bearskin rug, with the head still attached, that lay in front of the huge fireplace. And the bugle was hanging on the wall.

It didn’t take them long to work the problem out at all. It was actually quite simple.

Mark was taking on this puzzle and he walked out into the centre of the room feeling very important. He went grandly over to the bearskin rug and shrugged it over his shoulders. He was inside the bearskin and so it looked as if it had been brought to life. He reached up to take the bugle from the wall so that he could blow it.

‘Ah-ah-ah,’ warned Lidlia, who had silently reappeared next to them. ‘Did I mention that you are not allowed to be touching either the bearskin or the bugle when it is played?’

‘She knows flippin’ well that she didn’t,’ grumbled Emma. ‘The old—’ she looked around and saw a moose’s head on another part of the wall, ‘moose!’ she finished.

They went back to their huddle and thought some more. They thought until their heads ached. They thought until their tummies ached, which was particularly upsetting for poor Mark. And they thought until their brains ached.