"Mother, I can't take it anymore!" Sissy shrieked as she slammed her teacup down, sloshing burning liquid all over the table.
"Ow! Watch it you pig-faced oaf, your manners are revolting!" Prissy shrieked back, wiping some of the tea that had splashed onto her slender, white wrist.
"Girls, girls, please." Mother touched a delicate finger to her temple. "You're giving me a headache so early in the day."
"But mother! We've endured enough. We've sold most of our good ball gowns already, and now our matching sapphire necklaces! This cannot be borne!" Sissy brought her fist down on the table at each exclamation, her golden ringlets bouncing on her rosy cheeks.
"Mother, I agree, this is too much! I hate it! I hate being poor! Phanny!" Prissy screeched, her own golden ringlets bouncing about.
At the sound of her name, Phanny stood up from where she crouched scrubbing the floor just outside the door (to better listen in) and rushed in to wipe down the spilled tea.
"Yes, dears, I don't much like it either. But we've got no choice but to keep selling all your gowns and jewels one by one. Unless you're ready to do as I'd advised." Mother sharpened her clear blue gaze on the two women, who have suddenly gone still and quiet.
"But, mother, Mr. Boone? That old boar? I can't possibly marry him," said Sissy.
"Neither can I! He's positively revolting!" Prissy said, "Besides," she continued, raising a slender brow at the girl wiping the table at her elbow, "I'm not the one he fancies."
Sissy, quick to catch her twin's meaning, snorted. "That's right. The fat rich man fancies the dirty housemaid."
The twins, finding this statement so impossibly funny, could no longer hold in their laughter, and burst into loud horse-like giggles.
Phanny, realizing she'd already mopped up all the tea, stepped away from the table, clenching the damp rag in her hands, and as she always does in the face of their ridicule, shrank into herself.
They were beautiful, she always thought. They really were. Prissy and Sissy and Mother. Under the right lighting, Mother could look like the missing triplet. With soft, golden curls crowning their heads, and their milky white complexion, and their sparkling, blue, calf's eyes, they looked like angels.
And it wasn't just the way they looked. Even with their meanness, or perhaps because of it, they seemed so vibrant and bright and bubbling over with life. So unlike dull, gray, silent Phanny, with all her sunshine drained away a long time ago.
"Why so quiet, Phanny darling? Isn't it so just like a fairytale? The poor abused maid getting swept away by the rich merchant to his fancy mansion?" Sissy said, before they again fell all over themselves in laughter.
"Enough, girls!" Mother's sharp voice whipped through the laughter in an instant, quieting the room.
Phanny felt, rather than saw, Mother's cool gaze study her. It never failed to chill her, meeting that silent regard.
"You're dismissed, Phanny. I'm sure you've got a hundred things to do."
"Yes, Madam." Phanny said in her tiny voice with her head down, ignoring the sounds of suppressed snorting coming from her stepsisters.
She walked out of the room and stood in the hallway, Mother's voice trailing after her.
"No matter how you feel about Mr. Boone, he could be the one to lift us out of this dreadful situation. He's visiting again this afternoon, so you two must be on your best behavior."
β¦ β¦ β¦
Now, don't be misled.
Even in Fantasyland, fairytales of the kind that Phanny reads about in her book, are the stuff of legend. There are trolls and goblins and fairies and witches and even dragons, and one kind of magic or another, yes, that's true. It is, however, more likely for one to read news about witches cursing each other, or angry mobs setting fire to another ogre's home, than it is to read about daring rescues of damsels in distresses or happily ever afters or true love.
In Fantasyland, as well as in our world, joy is a rare thing, indeed. And sorrow, too abundant. Having tasted her own little slice of sorrow, Phanny knows this all too well. So, she didn't much trust in Mr. Boone coming around to rescue her from her pitiful circumstances.
"Have you heard, Mrs. Nice, of the Creature Confiscation?" Mr. Boone asked, reaching across the tea table, and taking three lumps of sugar with his very own pudgy fingers, before dropping them into his cup with a plunk, and stirring very loudly. Every now and then, smoothing back his greasy comb-over that flutters in the wind.
"Of course, Mr. Boone. I heard they were capturing all manner of Fantasy creatures in the Capital, and all the way to Farham, though I still don't understand why," said Mother, doing a good job of concealing her disgust as she watched Mr. Boone break every rule of tea. πππ’ππ¦, ππππ π ππππ ππ βπ’πππ ππππ‘βππ , she thought.
The twins, on the other hand, tried to conceal their horrified expressions not at all. Though from where Phanny stood sentry a few feet away, she would add that they still looked immaculate, with their hair pinned up with fake jewels, golden curls falling gently against their white necks. And with all their moaning about losing their nice things, their matching pink and yellow muslin gowns with its tiny bits of lace embellishments looked quite fetching, indeed.
With the exception of Mr. Boone, the tea party looked perfectly picturesque, especially with the backdrop of blue skies and the clear, placid, Wilder Lake behind the house, beside which they decided to take their tea on this fine day. Phanny, on the other hand, felt quite shabby in her faded blue cotton dress, patched up in quite a few places, that she'd long overgrown.
"Farham! Indeed, Madam, the Capture's reached our little Wilderwhile!" Mr. Boone said, throwing suspicious looks at Medusa, the cat, who was relaxing on Sissy's lap.
"Goodness, me, have they really? But what could possibly be the reason for such medieval antics in a modern country like Fantalasia!" Mother said.
"Medieval? No, indeed, Madam. I, myself, believe it to be progress. These Fantasy creatures are unnatural, freaks of nature, so that scholar Mr. Ripperton is saying, and a danger to us all! Why, last week, I heard a Werewolf went and ate up an entire family with little children down by Swampwallow." Mr. Boone ended with a loud slurp of tea.
"Oh, dear me. Well, it must be as you say, of course, Mr. Boone." Mother said, "Phanny will you please fill up Mr. Boone's teacup."
"Progress? Isn't it just proper kidnapping? In town, everyone calls it πβπ ππππ‘πβπππ," said Sissy.
"Well, that they do. I don't expect the little minds in Wilderwhile to understand. Me myself, Madam, I've cooperated by handing some of those things over, who are under my employ," He continued to chatter, looking down the front of Phanny's poor, tattered gown as she poured tea into his cup, "Though they were only a few dwarves and goblins, nothing much to fetch a good price."
"A price! Are you telling me, sir, that the government is actually paying for the creatures?" Mother's ears were definitely perking up at that.
"Yes, indeed," Mr. Boone fished around his jacket pocket and produced a folded piece of parchment which he then handed to Mother, "The prices are all listed, as you can see, Madam, and the rarer the creature, the higher the price."
"Goodness!" Mother's eyes wandered the page excitedly, "Fairies, 100 gold each, werewolves 300, small dragons 450, mermaids 500, unicorns 1000 gold!"
"1000!" Chimed Prissy, "Why, that could set you up, for, forβ¦"
"A very good long while, dear." Mother said, a distant look in her eyes, lost in her dreams for a moment, before finally folding the paper up and handing it back to Mr. Boone. "If only we knew any unicorns."
"Yes, yes," said Mr. Boone distractedly, eyes still glued to Phanny's meager breasts, as she refilled teacups around the table. Phanny held back a shudder.
The twins were right, Mr. Boone really wasn't much of an impressive person. Greasy comb-over, horrendous manners, slimy looks, and questionable opinions aside, what Phanny truly could not forgive was the way he treated the cat.
Medusa was a real sweetheart, and the friendliest, most affectionate cat in the world. And with her fluffy, white fur and round baby blue eyes, Phanny could not imagine a soul in the world who wouldn't be charmed! Even her stepsisters, who had undeniable mean streaks, spoiled Medusa to no end.
So, she didn't understand, as she stood back in her position a few feet away from the table, why Mr. Boone was so afraid of Medusa.
The said cat had now jumped down from Sissy's lap and was trying to make friends with Mr. Boone by rubbing herself on his leg. Determined little thing that she was, having never met another creature who didn't fall in love with her in the end, kept trying and trying to win him over, no matter how much that leg kept shaking her off and pushing her away under the table.
"As I was saying," Mr. Boone continued, "This whole Confiscation is really for the best, I believe the creatures would be shipped off to live on some other unpopulated land far east, to constitute a country of their own. It's all sorted out, really. And then, us actual people can live peacefully ever after," under the table, he continued to kick the cat away more forcibly. On her part, Medusa was now waving her tail in the air excitedly, watching the man's foot like a mouse to be captured.
"But that's preposterous! What do you mean, πππ‘π’ππ people? Dwarves and goblins are people, too." Sissy said, and from a few feet away, Phanny nodded her head in support, though no one was paying any mind to her.
"Sissy," Mother warned.
"I think your sentiment sweet, Ms. Nice, truly, however scholars like Mr. Ripperton have the right of it, I believe, shoo, away with you, cat, who says these creatures should not even exist! All freaks, they are. And it's proven! All very scientific, take my word for it."
"I think this Mr. Ripperton of yours is a right true Fraud," said Sissy, her eyes filling up with that dangerous, rebellious shine it sometimes gets, that Phanny has always admired, "And you are nothing but an old idiot, for believing him."
"Sissy! That's enough!" Mother's eyes took on that fierce look that could silence even Sissy.
From her position, Phanny had a good view of the havoc as it descended on this once-peaceful tea party. She saw it as if in slow motion.
Mr. Boone's melon-like head growing red, from the crown of his head under that ridiculous comb-over, to the tips of his second chin. The redness slowly creeping down his neck, the pudgy fingers clenching into tight fits. And sweet, gleeful, Medusa, unaware of the danger around her, rearing back for that one, fateful leap on the man's leg.
Phanny saw those dear, tiny claws sink into Mr. Boone's trousers, and heard his shocked yowl. Saw the hand descend and grab the cat by the scruff, saw him stand up abruptly, letting his chair fall back on the grass, saw the arm stretch back and catapult the cat high into the air.
Medusa sailed in the spring sunshine, a blur of white, landing far into the middle of the lake with a keen kitty wail and a splash.
For a moment it was quiet. Everyone was too stunned to fully make sense of what had just happened. Then Prissy burst into squeaking sobs, crying the lost cat's name.
"Phannyβ¦" The named slipped from Mother's lips softly, and until now, no one knows why she called Phanny's name, or what she would have said next. Perhaps it was only the shock, or perhaps the name left her out of habit, accustomed as she was to calling on the girl to clean up messes and retrieve needed objects.
But just then, it did something almost like magic. It woke Phanny up from her own shock and moved her to action.
Before anyone knew it, Phanny was running towards the lake, down the wooden dock, and dove down the crystal-clear waters, remembering belatedly that she didn't know how to swim.