Chapter II: Avrillia

"I make it a rule," the Plynck was saying, as Sara dropped the curtain behind her the next morning, "to fly around the fountain at least twice every day." As she spoke, she reached out and took, from a bundle that lay within easy reach in a crotch of the Gugollaph-tree, something that looked like a little ivory stick. She snapped it easily with one golden claw, dropped the fragments, and reached out with careless grace for another.

"Oh," breathed Sara, clasping her hands. And she could not help adding, shyly, "If I could only see you when you fly--Madame Plynck!"

Sara was very proud of herself after she had said that. She had never called anybody "Madame" before, but she had read it in books, and it seemed just the title for a creature so beautiful and gentle and stately as the Plynck. It seemed so suitable that it gave her courage to repeat, "If I could only see you fly!"

"But I don't do it often, you see," answered the Plynck, quietly.

"Why--!" exclaimed Sara. "I thought you just said--" Not for worlds would she have seemed rude or impolite to the Plynck, but she was completely puzzled.

The Plynck looked very kind. "I said I make it a rule," she said, gently. "I didn't say--you explain it to her," she said suddenly to her Echo in the pool, who had been looking on with rather an amused expression.

The Echo fluffed out her deep blue plumes a little and took up the task. "What are rules for, my dear?" she began.

"Why--to keep, I guess," ventured Sara, a little flustered. "Aren't they?"

The Echo glanced up at the Plynck with a twinkling smile. "Do you hear that?" she asked. "Bless the child! She says rules are made to keep!" She laughed to herself a little longer, then she turned to Sara more soberly. "As far as your country is concerned, my dear, you are doubtless right, and I suppose it's important for you to keep that fact in mind. But here it's very different. Our rules are made to break. Don't you hear the Plynck breaking them?"

So that was what she was doing! For the first time, Sara understood why she had so enjoyed the delightful little snapping sounds, which made her think of corn dancing against the lid of a corn-popper--or of the snapping of little dry twigs under the pointed shoes of a brownie, slipping through the woods alone on Christmas Eve. She thought it was the most completely satisfying sound she had ever heard. She thought, too, that the broken rules under the tree made a charming litter, and wished that the Gunki who were raking them up would leave them there instead. But they went on piling them into wheelbarrows and trundling them down the road toward the smithy.

"They are taking them to be mended," said the Echo of the Plynck, who had been watching her. "We believe in conservation, you see. Schlorge mends them one day, and she breaks them the next, and so we usually have plenty."

Sara was charmed. But as she stood gazing at the Plynck she remembered what she had heard her say as she came in. "Will--will she fly?" she whispered to the Echo.

"Well, I don't know," said the Echo of the Plynck. "There's a rule that she must, and so it's quite an effort. And there's a rule that she must not sit on that particular branch of the Gugollaph-tree. So of course she usually sits there. You wouldn't think, yourself, that she'd want to sit there, day after day, if there wasn't--would you?"

Sara was speechless; she was wondering why anything that seemed so reasonable and familiar should sound so strange. But it was a blissful wonder, and she stood spellbound, while the sound of breaking rules continued to fall with an enchanting effect upon the still air of the Garden. All at once she was startled nearly out of her wits by the Plynck, who dropped an unbroken rule and shrieked,

"Look! Be careful! Oh, dear, oh, dear, it's in!"

"Oh, what is it?" cried Sara, afraid to move, yet longing to clap her hand to her cheek; for she knew by a sudden terrible tickling there that something had happened to her southwest dimple--and she had meant to be so careful! And yet she had allowed herself to get so interested in the talk of the Plynck and her Echo that she had walked right past Schlorge's beautiful dimple-holder. "What is it?" she cried, jumping up and down. "Oh, what is it?"

"It's one of the Zizzes!" cried the Plynck. "Where are the forceps? Run for Schlorge--won't somebody please run for Schlorge?"

She sat fluttering her lovely pink plumes and gazing around with her sweet, wild, golden eyes in such acute distress that the sight of her grieved and terrified Sara even more than the awful tickling. "I'll go--" she began, desperately.

But that seemed to frighten the Plynck more than ever. "Oh, don't you go," she cried, more wildly than before. "You stay right here where I can watch it! Oh, somebody--"

"I can't come out of the pool," panted her Echo, fluttering around the rim distressfully.

"I know I could never in Zeelup get there, with this consanguineous handle," hesitated the Teacup, in tears.

And just then they saw one of the Gunki rushing off down the road as fast as his feet could carry him.

The Plynck drew a sobbing breath of relief. "Don't cry, dear--stand still," she said, finding time at last to feel sorry for Sara. "We'll soon have it out now, when Schlorge gets here."

Sara stood as still as she could, for the tickling. "What is it?" she ventured to ask, tremulously.

"It's a Zizz, dear," said the Plynck, soothingly. "He flew into your dimple and got stuck in the sugar left there from your last smile. You should have wiped it off," she added, very gently. "Standing so close to the pool has made it sticky, and now the poor little Zizz--"

"I meant to take off my dimples entirely," said Sara, her lip beginning to tremble again.

"Never mind, dear," said the Plynck. "It will be all right now. I see Schlorge coming with his forceps."

And sure enough, in a moment Schlorge came panting up, with his forceps in his hair, as usual. Very deftly he extricated the poor little Zizz, and held it out for Sara to see, still buzzing its wings as furiously as it could, with so much syrup on them.

The Teacup fluttered down, and they all looked at it with mingled sympathy and curiosity. The mixture seemed to agree with it, too, for the familiar faint, pale-blue "zizzing" sound began to come from its wings.

"Poor little thing!" said the Echo of the Plynck. "Why will they persist in doing it? Flying right into the syrup like that!"

"It's on account of the bitterness of their tails," explained Schlorge absently, without looking up from his work.

"Oh, yes," said Sara, though she didn't quite understand. "Will it ever be able to fly again?"

"Well," answered Schlorge, "I'm afraid you'll have to dry it." He looked about him. "Where's the stump?"

He found it presently, and led Sara to its mossy base; then he gently pressed one of her shoe-buttons, and she was lifted upon it in safety.

"Now," he explained, "you got it all sticky with your smile, and you'll have to frown on it to dry it. I know it's hard to do, here, but if you keep your mind on it, you can. I'll hold the Zizz's wings out, and it won't take long. Think of something very unpleasant--something you came here to escape. Come, what shall it be?"

"Fractions," said Sara.

"All right," said Schlorge. "Now think hard. And frown."

So Sara sucked in the corners of her mouth to keep from smiling, and tried hard to feel very cross indeed. But, as you will imagine, it was not easy to do in that place. As you have already guessed, the place into which Sara went when she shut the ivory doors was a sort of garden, but not an ordinary one. To be sure, it had the pool, and the fountain in the middle, and the moon-dial, like most gardens, and the Gugollaph-tree where the Plynck sat, and a good many prose-bushes besides the one with the hemmed doorknob where the Snimmy lived with his wife. But not many gardens have such charming little openings in the flowery hedges that shut them in, through which little paths run out as if they were escaping through sheer mischief, and on purpose to lead you on. And not many are placed, as this one seemed to be, in the middle of a sort of amphitheatre, with distant mountains rising like walls about it, golden and pansy-colored, a million miles away. The space that lay between the hedge and the mountain-walls seemed to be filled with sunrises and sunsets, like the Grand Canyon. I said, all around; but, really, the walls of the amphitheatre didn't quite meet. On one side, over the hedge, Sara could see a marble balcony, with box-trees in vases on the balustrades; and beyond and beneath it there was Nothing--Nothing-at-All. Sometimes, as Sara afterward learned, the sun came to that place to set; but usually it was too lonesome, and he set nearer the Garden.

You may well imagine that it was not easy for Sara to look cross in such a strange, delicious place. But she knew she owed it to the poor little Zizz, so she tried with all her might to think only of fractions and asparagus. (Her mother had an obstinate conviction that that, too, was good for children.)

They were all so interested in listening to the deepening blueness of the sound the Zizz made that they kept quite still. Suddenly Schlorge thought of something.

"Where's the Snimmy?" he asked, sharply.

"He's gone with his wife to bathe the Snoodle," answered the Echo of the Plynck. "They have to bathe it every three days, you know, in castor oil. That's what keeps it white. And there isn't any here."

"Thank goodness!" thought Sara, who had nearly jumped off the stump at the sound of those baleful syllables. It would be good to think of, anyhow, she decided; and as she thought of it, the wings of the Zizz began to dry so fast that they fairly sang. And suddenly it zizzed right out of Schlorge's forceps and went buzzing straight off to the flowery hedge.

"Well!" said Schlorge, with much satisfaction, "that's over." Then, as Sara's face twinkled into smiles, he added, excitedly, "Bless my bellows! She's still got on her dimples! Won't you learn, Sara? Course I didn't notice 'em while you frowned. Come, now--"

"And it's time for the Snimmy to be back," interrupted the Teacup, who had fluttered down and perched on the edge of the moon-dial to see what time it was. "They said they'd only be gone two hours."

"Then there's no time to lose," said Schlorge. He pressed Sara's shoe-button decidedly and she floated softly down upon the blue plush, like a milk-weed seed in the fall. And then Schlorge deftly took off her dimples--it felt very funny to have them removed with the forceps--and put them in the dimple-holder where they belonged. Then, drawing a deep breath, he rubbed his hands and smiled at her, saying, "What's the next thing you'd like to do?"

Sara saw that, though he was still rather bashful, Schlorge had taken a great fancy to her. It pleased her very much; he was such a useful and accommodating person. While she was trying to decide which one of several places she would ask him to show to her, the Plynck remarked, gently,

"Avrillia's at home."

Avrillia--that was it! Sara clapped her hands again, and this time no harm was done; for her cheek-dimples were safe in the dimple-holder, and her hand-dimples were on the outside, so that the clapping only jarred them a little. It was funny, she thought, that Schlorge scorned to work on hand-dimples, and even the Snimmy scarcely noticed them. But it didn't worry her. Avrillia--that was it. She had come this time especially to see Avrillia.

"Do you know where she lives?" she asked Schlorge.

"Avrillia? I should say so. Everybody knows Avrillia. At least I know her to speak to. As to what goes on inside of her, I can't say. She's queer. She writes poetry, you know."

"But she's nice?" asked Sara anxiously.

"Oh, she's pleasant-spoken," said Schlorge, "and pretty. Some like her, and some don't. The Plynck, here," he spoke respectfully, though dissentingly, "thinks the sun rises and sets in her. For myself, I like folks of a more sensible turn."

"Even fairies?" asked Sara, half inclined to protest.

For the first time Schlorge was almost rude to her. "Well, do you take me for a human? And I can do something besides write poetry on rose-leaves." He replaced the forceps in his hair with obvious professional pride--and, of course, when he put them in in that way, they stayed.

But Sara echoed delightedly, "On rose-leaves?"

"Well, go and see her, then," said Schlorge, ungraciously. Then, relenting a little, "Come on, I'll take you--if you're stuck on verse-writing females."

He took Sara by the hand, and of course his hand was kinder than his voice. To Sara's joy they struck into the curliest of the little paths, which slipped suddenly through a half-hidden arch in the hawthorn hedge, and then skipped confidingly right up to Avrillia's door. Avrillia's house was right on the Verge, but the Verge was quite wide at this point, and very lovely. It was more like a beach than anything else; and the sands, of course, like those of most beaches, were of gold; but instead of being bare, like most beaches, it was sprinkled quite thickly with lovely clumps of fog-bushes, which were of a different color every hour of the day and every day of the year; and the shells had stems and leaves, and were prettier even than most shells. And Avrillia's house had sails, instead of curtains. Still, it was not a boat, because it had star-vines climbing all over the terrace (the flowers were of all colors, except square, and only opened in the evening) and it had the marble balcony, with the box-trees in urns. For, without knowing it, it was Avrillia's balcony that Sara had seen from the stump.

"Well, there's Pirlaps," said Schlorge, lifting his shoe politely and turning back toward the Dimplesmithy. "He'll tell you where to find Avrillia."

Sara was left looking at a middle-aged fairy-gentleman with a little pointed beard, who was sitting on a sort of stool or box before an easel, hard at work. He had on white tennis-flannels, and an odd but becoming sort of cap. Usually Sara was very shy of strangers; but this gentleman looked so pleasant that she had almost made up her mind to speak to him when she saw Schlorge running wildly back up the path. "Where's a stump?" he panted. "I forgot--where's a stump?"

He spoke so loudly that the gentleman in tennis-flannels heard him and looked around. "Oh, it's you, Schlorge," he said. "Why, there isn't any stump here, you know--but you may use my step, if you like."

He had lovely manners, even with a plain dimplesmith like Schlorge; and he rose as he spoke, with his palette in his hand, and made a pleasant gesture to indicate that Schlorge was quite welcome to it. But Schlorge looked at it doubtfully; and, indeed, Sara saw that it was of chocolate, and rather soft where the gentleman had been sitting on it. "I don't want to soil my soul," mumbled Schlorge, standing on one foot and looking down at the sole of the other, very much agitated and embarrassed.

"That's true," said the gentleman politely; "I never stand on it." At that Sara could not help showing that she noticed the large black spot left by the chocolate on the seat of his trousers. He saw her look at it, and spoke to her kindly.

"That's all right, little girl," he said. "Avrillia will have me change them in a minute."

Then he noticed Schlorge's dreadful impatience for something to stand on, and rang a little bell in his left ear.

Immediately a small servant, also of chocolate, came tumbling out of the house. He was the most attractive-looking person you can imagine. His eyes and teeth were exactly like the filling in a chocolate cream, and how his eyes rolled and his teeth twinkled! But it was the inside of his mouth that fascinated Sara most. It was of the lovely, violent red of certain jelly-beans she had known, and she caught the most tantalizing, cavernous glimpses whenever he grinned.

"Yassuh," said his master, "go at once and get a piece of plain white satin for Mr. Schlorge to stand on. You'll find a bolt in the tool-box."

Yassuh scrambled off down the path. (He was very bow-legged, because his mother had allowed him to go out in the sun too much, when he was a baby, and, being of chocolate, his legs had softened into that shape.) Almost immediately he came rolling back with the white satin, which he spread on the box.

All this time Schlorge had been in an agony of impatience. Almost stepping on Yassuh in his eagerness, he jumped upon the box, and, arranging his hands as before, shouted loudly, "Pirlaps, this is Sara, a little girl! Sara, this is Pirlaps, Avrillia's step-husband!" Then he sprang down and went running down the path again, shouting excitedly, "See you again, Sara! See you again!"

"Well, Sara," said the pleasant fairy-gentleman, taking her hand, "how are you? Did you come to see Avrillia?"

"Yes, sir," said Sara, looking up at him from under her lashes and thinking she had never see a shaving-person, except her own father, so delightful.

"I think you'll find her on her balcony," said Pirlaps, kindly. "I just heard a poem drop over the Verge. Here, Yassuh," he said, "take this little girl to your mistress."

Sara followed Yassuh along the path of silver gravel that led around the house, and then up a little outside staircase of marble to the balcony; and there, on the third step from the top, she paused.

Has any mortal but Sara ever seen Avrillia? Certainly there never was another fairy so wan and wild and beautiful. When Sara caught sight of her she was leaning over the marble balustrade, looking down into Nothing, and one hand was still stretched out as if it had just let something fall. She seemed to be still watching its descent. Her body, as she leaned, was like a reed, and her hair was pale-gold and cloudy. But all that was nothing beside Avrillia's eyes.

For she turned around after a while and saw Sara, and smiled at her without surprise, though she looked absent-minded and wistful.

"It didn't stick," she said.

"What didn't?" asked Sara. Her words may not sound very polite; but if you could have heard the awe and wonder in her little voice you would have pardoned her.

"The poem," said Avrillia. What was it her voice was like? Sheep-bells? Sheep-bells, that was it. Sheep-bells across an English down--at twilight! Sara had never seen more than three sheep in her life; and those three didn't wear bells; and she had never heard of a down. And yet, Avrillia's voice sounded to Sara exactly as I have said.

Moreover, it drew Sara softly to her side. Her dress smelled like isthagaria; and it was very soft to touch. For Sara touched it as confidingly as she would her own mother's.

At that Avrillia seemed to remember her. Sara saw at once that Avrillia never remembered anybody very long at a time. She was kind, and her smile was entrancingly sweet; but her mind always seemed to be on something else. Probably on her poetry, Sara decided.

Now, however, she remembered Sara, and asked, "Would you like to look over?"

"What's down there?" Sara could not help asking.

"Nothing. Would you like to see it?"

Sara drew nearer the balustrade, full of awe, and uncertain whether she wished to look or not. But presently curiosity got the better of her, and she leaned over the balustrade and looked down into Nothing. It was very gray.

"Do you throw your poems down there?" she asked of Avrillia, in inexpressible wonder.

"Of course," said Avrillia. "I write them on rose-leaves, you know--"

"Oh, yes!" breathed Sara. She still thought she had never heard of anything that sounded lovelier than poems written on rose-leaves.

"Petals, I mean, of course," continued Avrillia, "all colors, but especially blue. And then I drop them over, and some day one of them may stick on the bottom--"

"But there isn't any bottom," said Sara, lifting eyes like black pansies for wonder.

"No, there's no real bottom," conceded Avrillia, patiently, "but there's an imaginary bottom. One might stick on that, you know. And then, with that to build to, if I drop them in very fast, I may be able to fill it up--"

"But there aren't any sides to it, either!" objected Sara, even more wonderingly.

Avrillia betrayed a faint exasperation (it showed a little around the edges, like a green petticoat under a black dress). "Oh, these literal people!" she said, half to herself. Then she continued, still more patiently, "Isn't it just as easy to imagine sides as a bottom? Well, as I was saying, if I write them fast enough to fill it up--I mean if one should stick, of course--somebody a hundred years from now may come along and notice one of my poems; and then I shall be Immortal." And at that a lovely smile crossed Avrillia's face.

Sara stood a long time, thinking. She couldn't help loving Avrillia, although she knew that Avrillia was not nearly so fond of her as the Plynck, or Schlorge, or even the Teacup. Yet she would have loved Avrillia, even if she had not been kind to her at all.

Now she attracted her attention again by timidly touching her dress.

"It--it seems a waste," she murmured. I think probably she was thinking of the rose-petals rather than of the poems. All those lovely "rose-leaves"! And she had never seen even one blue one. But Avrillia was thinking of the poems.

"That's the regular way to do about Poetry," she said, with a pretty little air of authority. "First, you write it, and then you drop it over the Verge into Nothing. But it must be very good--otherwise, it isn't worth while to spend your time on it." But just then the thermometer went off.

Yes, the thermometer. Well, perhaps you do set the alarm-clock; but Avrillia was a poetess, and a fairy besides, and she set the alarm-thermometer. It sounded very pleasant to Sara, like soda-water running through a straw on a hot afternoon; but Avrillia seemed to find it rather nerve-racking.

"There it goes," was all she said, however. Sara noticed that her voice and manner were extremely quiet and controlled; but she had a suspicion that it was because her eyes were so very wild. Oh, yes, they were beautiful, but wild--wilder even than the Plynck's. The Teacup, however, had quite tame eyes; it must be confessed that, when Sara saw the effect of the thermometer upon Avrillia she wished for the Teacup, a little.

But Avrillia merely called Yassuh in her sweet, controlled voice, and, when he appeared, said to him quietly,

"Go tell your master it's time for him to change his trousers and shave."

When Yassuh was gone she turned to Sara again--rather as one entertains a visitor when one really wants to be doing something else--and said, politely, "I suppose you know he's my step-husband. That makes it rather troublesome."

Sara, remembering Pirlaps and his white trousers, looked so eager and so uncomprehending that Avrillia evidently felt called upon to explain further.

"It makes it necessary for him to sit on the step constantly, you see. And it's of chocolate. That's unfortunate, too, but it can't be helped. It's all right in winter, of course, but in summer it's a great deal of trouble. When we were first married he used to wear black trousers in summer; but I soon put a stop to that. I have him trained now so that he always wears white ones, and I set the thermometer and remind him to change them every two hours. That's my part of the bargain. He has forty-seven pairs. And, every time he changes them, he has to shave. That's part of the agreement, too."

"Why," began Sara, "I thought he had--"

"To be sure he has," said Avrillia, looking a little amused. "It grows so fast, you see."

Sara turned this over in her mind for several moments. Then her thoughts returned to the step. She simply couldn't help making suggestions to Avrillia. She seemed, for all her little haughty politenesses, so helpless.

"You might put something over it--" she began.

"I have suggested that," said Avrillia, "but he would not consent to it. He says it would be circumnavigating Nature. Of course, when it's necessary to offer it to guests--"

But just at that moment Pirlaps himself came out of the house, wearing a fresh, immaculate pair of trousers. His little pointed beard was gone; but Sara thought she could see it already coming back. Yassuh came along behind him, carrying the step.

"You see, marriage is very civilizing, Sara," he said, in his gay, kind way. "I wouldn't do this for anybody but Avrillia. How's the poetry, Avrillia?"

"Doing nicely, thank you," said Avrillia, pleasantly. "How's the painting?"

"Flourishing," said Pirlaps, cheerfully. "How are the children?"

"I haven't seen them this week," said Avrillia. "I vanished them last Roseday."

Pirlaps' face fell a little--perhaps an inch, altogether. But Sara cried out, clapping her hands again with impunity (try doing it that way, sometime--it's great fun),

"Oh, are there children?"

"Yes," said Avrillia.

"How many?"

"Oh, about seventy," said Avrillia, a little languidly.

"May--may I see them?" asked Sara.

"I hope so," said Avrillia. "Perhaps you'll come some day when they're not vanished."

Sara, somehow, felt herself to have been politely dismissed; and she soon found herself walking beside Pirlaps down the little marble stairs. She slipped her hand into his as she would into her own father's, and, looking up into his face, said, enthusiastically, "Oh, isn't she lovely?"

Pirlaps seemed very much pleased, and looked down upon her more kindly than ever. "You like Avrillia?" he said. "That's good. It isn't everybody that appreciates Avrillia."

He stopped before a lilac-colored fog-bush and put his step down before his easel. Sara did not dare remonstrate, but she cast an agonized look first at the step and then at his lovely white trousers.

"Is--is that what is meant by step-relations?" was all she could say.

"Why, yes," said Pirlaps, sitting firmly down on the chocolate. "Are you interested in relations?" he asked eagerly, after he had adjusted his easel. "Because, if you are, we'll go to see mine, some day. I have a lot."