Potlendh Page 8

  “Are you deaf as well as stupid?” the Ogre called out to them in his booming voice.

  Instead of being afraid, Karen almost laughed to hear such a loud voice coming out of such a little creature.

  “We want to travel through the mirror,” Uniqua told the Ogre.

  “Not unless you tell me the password,” the Ogre insisted.

  “Okay,” Carl spoke up. “So, what’s the password?”

  “My name,” the Ogre grinned, and that grin with a mouth full of sharp and pointed teeth was the most gruesome picture of all. Just looking at his smiling face was enough to make a brave man throw down his weapons and run for his very life.

  “And what happens if we don’t know your name?” Carl asked.

  “You don’t pass,” the Ogre answered and then laughed so hard and so loud that the mountains fairly shook in concert.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  PASSAGE THROUGH THE MAGIC MIRROR

  I’d rather not fill pages upon pages with all of the members of the Group trying to guess the little Ogre’s name. This episode might remind you of that fairy tale regarding Rumplestiltskin without the danger of being harmed or losing everything if you did not correctly guess the Ogre’s name. Rather than being annoyed, like Rumplestiltskin was in that story, the Ogre was rather enjoying himself. You see, it had a been a long time since he had any sort of company, and he was really enjoying this game. For, like Rumplestiltskin, he believed that no one would ever be able to guess his name.

  I will tell you this: that the members of the Group were being rather nice about their guesses, trying to avoid offending the little creature. It was Cassandra who tried first the guessing game and started calling the Ogre all kinds of descriptive names that—although politically and socially incorrect—did more aptly describe the grotesque appearance of the Ogre. And, I’m happy to write that such terrible and insulting names did not offend the Ogre in the least. In fact, he agreed with all of the name calling and soon fell to sitting on the ground, holding his sides as he laughed louder and louder until it almost sounded like a terrific thunderstorm was passing overhead.

  The sun was setting, and the Group was quite disappointed. They were not going to gain passage today. Uniqua decided that they would all camp out nearby for the night and resume the guessing game tomorrow.

  “Good!” the Ogre exclaimed unexpectedly. “But, if you do not guess my name by this time tomorrow, you must all clear out and promise never to bother me again.”

  Thus far, the weather on the Island was always fair: not too hot to be really uncomfortable and never cold enough for a sweater or a jacket; and, except for the last few days (or ever since the twins arrived on the Island) when the sky was overcast, only a few fluffy clouds floated overhead in an otherwise blue sky. Now that it had turned night, the darkness was so complete that the members of the Group could barely see themselves, except as faint outlines, although millions upon millions of stars shone brightly overhead. Sleeping on the ground can be uncomfortable in and of itself when you have to make a bed of grass and leaves, but at least they had a good meal courtesy of the Rabbits and a warm night. Still, none of the Group slept very well, as they worried about trying to guess the name of a nasty old Ogre and only had the next day to do so.

  In the morning, the Rabbits broke camp, which means that they packed everything back up in their knapsacks and tried to return their campsite to its original, natural state. If anything, these Rabbits were very ecologically minded: they did not like nature to be disturbed unless they were the ones managing it and making it very organized.

  The Ogre patiently waited for them. In fact, it appeared that he had not moved during the night but rather preferred to sleep standing up. Maybe he didn’t sleep at all. In any case, he was just as ugly as yesterday when the Group first met him, and his mood had not changed at all.

  “Time is a-wasting,” he greeted them. “Get on with the guessing so I can go back to my hole, and you can clear out of here.”

  All morning long, the Group spoke names, words, phrases, even foreign words that the twins learned from school. All their efforts were in vain, for they did not even come close to guessing the irritable little creature’s name, while all the while the Ogre just laughed and laughed.

  “You give up?” the Ogre asked them as the Group started walking away around lunchtime to break their fast.

  “No,” Uniqua answered rather indignantly. She was kind of cross that her friends were losing not only this game but also precious time as well. Another thing that Unicorns are very picky about is the use of time and using that time both productively and wisely. “We are breaking for lunch. You’re ridiculous game of name-guessing has worn us out.”

  “Well, don’t be too long about it,” the Ogre reminded them. “You only have a half a day remaining.”

  Carl and Karen sat down together and munched on vegetable burgers in a half-hearted way. They were just as disappointed as Uniqua. Cassandra sat down on the ground so hard that she cause a miniature earthquake, despite her diminutive size, taking her anger out on the earth. The only members of the Group who did not seem to be unhappy with the situation were the Rabbits. But I guess that their attitude could be forgiven as they were already home, and so if they had to “clear out,” as the Ogre had said, then they would be right back home again. Even so, they were still rooting for the Group to finally guess the Ogre’s name and get on with the great adventure.

  “You know, I just wished I knew that stupid creature’s name,” Carl said to his sister moodily between small bites of his sandwich.

  Karen drew a sharp intake of breath in shock. “Carl, do you realize what you have just done?”

  “What?” her brother asked rather sharply, thinking he had not done anything wrong.

  “You just used up your second wish!”

  “I did?” The realization of his sister’s words hit him over the head like a ton of bricks. “Well, so I did!” It was true that he felt badly about not thinking before speaking and the fact that he had used two of his three wishes that Mr. Who had given him, but he did not want to let his sister know just how badly he felt.

  “It means that I’ll have to very careful with my wishes. Geez, Carl! We’ve hardly begun our adventure, and you have already used up two valuable wishes. What if we really need those wishes in the future? What is going to happen if we need to use six wishes to get through this adventure and we only have four?”

  “Hey!” her brother interrupted. “You’re not mother; you’re not father. So, get off my case already! How do you know that I wasn’t supposed to use this wish so we could go through the mirror?”

  His question caused Karen to stop in the middle of her tirade, and she had to think about this for a moment. “Okay,” she admitted finally. “Maybe you were. But, please, let’s talk about using our future wishes before we just start blurting out ‘I wish,’ okay?”

  “You got it,” Carl promised.

  This is how the game finally ended. While the Rabbits cleaned up lunch, the twins, Uniqua, and Cassandra all walked back to the Ogre and resumed the guessing part. For about a half hour’s time, they fired off various names and words again. Then everyone turned to Carl and became silent.

  “How do we know that you’ll keep your end of the bargain?” Carl asked the Ogre.

  This question angered the Ogre, and his ugly face turned really ugly and scary, if that were possible. “You doubt my word!” he exclaimed aghast.

  “Well, it seems to me that no one has ever guessed your name before,” Carl continued, “so you have really never lost the game before. Right?”

  “Now you listen to me, you young whipper-snapper!” the Ogre fairly shouted at Carl. “I let you play the game. I set the rules, and the rules are fair and square. I may be an ugly, old Ogre—and some folks may think I’m the nastiest thing around on this here Island, but I play the game fair and square, too. If I said that if you could guess my name and that I would let you use the magic mirror, then, by
golly, you guess my name—which I believe you won’t and you can’t—then you can get through the magic mirror to the other side of the mountains. You understand me now, boy?”

  “Come on, Sweetie,” Carl responded. “There’s no need to get mad at me.”

  The Ogre turned a shade of bright green. “What did you say?” His voice shot up a full octave, and he punctuated each word with a pause in the middle out of sheer shock.

  “I said, ‘Sweetie,’” Carl repeated.

  I’m afraid that this Ogre was not a good loser—or that is to say, he was a poor loser—for he had never lost this game before. The noise that came out of his tiny mouth was something between a yell of pain and a roar of frustration, and it had to be twice as loud as his laughter, if that was possible.

  The rest of the Group looked at Carl in amazement.

  “Sweetie?” Uniqua said, and Carl nodded, his growing grin stretching from ear to ear. Then Uniqua squatted on the ground and started laughing until her sides hurt.

  “Somebody hold her,” Cassandra advised, giggling herself, which caused a whiff of smoke to exude from her nostrils. “Otherwise we may never get her off the ground and through the mirror.”

  “Well, imagine that,” said the triplets. “Old ugly a Sweetie, hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm.”

  The Ogre sat down on the ground in hopeless defeat and complete misery.

  “Come on, Sweetie,” Carl spoke to him as he approached. “Don’t take it so hard. You only lost this one time. Everyone loses once in a while.” He reached out to touch the Ogre’s shoulder.

  “Don’t touch me,” Sweetie warned. “And, don’t call me Sweetie. How would you feel if your mother gave you a name that is disgustingly sweet and nice when you’re supposed to be an Ogre, mean and rotten and uglier than anything else in the world?”

  “I would say this,” Karen said. “Names are just convenient things to call other people and things. But what really matters is what’s inside a person. Like, what kind of person they are. You might think yourself to be mean and rotten and ugly just because you were born an Ogre. But that doesn’t mean you have to be an Ogre to everyone. You just have to be you. And, quite frankly, you are nothing like the Ogres we read about in our world. In fact, I think you have a sweet disposition and are quite nice inside, despite your outward appearance.”

  “You’re insulting me,” Sweetie mumbled, but inside I believe he liked Karen’s kind words.

  “No, I’m not. I’m just telling you how I feel and how I see you, even if you can’t see yourself the way others see you.”

  “But I’m an Ogre, right? I have to live up to the reputation of being an Ogre.”

  “Who says so?” Karen challenged. “You only have to live up to the reputation of being you. You don’t have to be like anyone else just because you are different inside.”

  “You really think so?” Sweetie asked, lifting his head up to look at the girl.

  “Yes, I do,” Karen said positively.

  “You don’t have ugly people in your world?”

  “Of course we do. But that’s not the point. Some people are ugly on the outside but beautiful on the inside, while some people are beautiful on the outside but ugly on the inside. Between you and me, I much prefer the people who might be ugly on the outside but beautiful on the inside.”

  “You think I might be beautiful on the inside?”

  “Yes, I really do.”

  “Well, I have to admit, I do feel a bit better now. But—” Here he became a little despondent again. “Now everyone will know my name, and I’ll never win this game again.”

  “How about if we make a promise,” Carl suggested. “You let us through the magic mirror now, and we promise never to reveal your name or the password—which is the same, of course—to anyone as long as we live. Okay?”

  The Ogre thought this suggestion over for a moment before agreeing. “Now then, I suppose you’ll be wanting to travel immediately to the other side. You wouldn’t like to sit and chat for a while, would you?”

  “My dear friend,” Uniqua interjected herself, wiping the remaining tears from her eyes with her forelegs. “Nothing could please us better. But we will make you a second promise. We need to get these two children as quickly to the Mountain of Power as we can. When our adventure is concluded, we promise that we will all get together and throw a party that will make all the inhabitants of this Island talk about for the rest of time.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” the Ogre agreed. “Well, then, let’s get moving. The mirror is in the back of my cave home.” With that, he led the Group through the bushes that completely hid his cave from possible prying eyes and into the mouth of his home. For an Ogre’s home, it was quite tasteful. There was none of that nastiness that we read about in the fairy tales, like bones scattered here and there with spider webs filling up the corners of the walls. Indeed, it was quite homey and comfortable with a grass rug thrown down on the floor, scenic pictures of various parts of the Island alongside portraits of family members hung carefully on the wall, and well made furniture to accommodate guests when he had any—which I doubt he had in a long time—along with a tidy little kitchen that sparkled clean. His bedroom was hidden by a floor length curtain and separated from the main part of the cave. Oh! One more thing: it smelled fresh like newly bloomed flowers.

  “Here it is,” Sweetie proudly showed off the mirror, moving aside a blanket whose color matched the cave walls to hide the treasure. The mirror itself was oblong, meaning that it was much taller than it was wide, and it was framed in a wide, dark, wooden frame that glistened from frequent polishing. “All you have to do is walk right up to it and into it.”

  “Have you ever been through it?” Uniqua inquired.

  “Me? Oh, goodness, No! If I went through it, how would I get back again? It’s my job to guard it, not to use it.”

  “Then what’s on the other side?” Uniqua pressed the issue.

  “Only from what I’ve been told by the Lord of Power himself. Don’t worry, my newfound friends. Passage through the mirror is safe. But I cannot guarantee you that the other side will be safe. The land is thick with trees so ancient that no one remembers them when they were saplings, and a strange race of monkey-like creatures live there. I don’t even know what they look like or how they might react if they meet you. I just hope for your sakes that they are not cannibals.”

  Uniqua was on the verge of telling Sweetie that since they were not monkeys or monkey-like that these creatures could not be cannibals unless they were in the habit of eating each other, but Carl was anxious to leave and had stepped up to the mirror. She was about to tell him to wait when he vanished.

  “I wish that he would not be so impetuous,” Uniqua muttered. Karen uttered another gasp, but since the Unicorn had no wishes to use or waste, her worry was unfounded.

  “Carl?” she called out, and then she, too, disappeared through the mirror.

  “Goodbye!” Sweetie bade them all as each member of the Group followed the twins through the mirror.

  Traveling through the mirror was akin to walking through a giant rolling barrel at a carnival, where you have to walk kind of sideways to keep your balance. Plus it was all dark. At least when you walk through the barrel at the carnival, it is not a long walk; and, at the same time, it is kind of fun to be able to do it, especially if a younger brother or sister falls down when you did not. Again, time is very strange on this Island, so the Group did not know for sure how long their journey lasted. It was still daylight when they entered the Ogre’s cave and passed through the mirror’s surface, but it was already night when they emerged into a very thick jungle on the other side.

  Carl, being the first to arrive at the new location, quickly looked back and saw his sister emerge from an eerie portal made of light. He continued to watch as each member of the Group joined him and his sister, and after the last Rabbit had come out of the portal, this vibrating energy that signified the exit of the magic tunnel just disappeared into a very small
pinpoint of light before completely vanishing. Carl then retraced his steps and tentatively stretched out his arm and waved it around in the space where the portal had previously formed.

  “Guess we’re stuck here,” he announced after finding no anomaly, because that was what a portal was when you consider such a phenomenon and compare it with the normal things that happen in life.

  “Since it is already nighttime,” Uniqua stated, “and we do not know what time it is or when the sun will come up again, I suggest that we try to get some sleep. We’ll be better prepared for the next step of our adventure.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  GUERRILLA BASE

  When the sun finally peeped over the horizon and bathed its rays upon the Island, the Group still found themselves in a kind of twilight, but at least they got a good appreciation for their surroundings. Although I wrote that they were in the middle of a thick “jungle,” perhaps I should have written a “forest.” Unfortunately, the word “jungle” gives a word picture of something that includes big snakes, tigers, hippopotami, maybe primitive native tribes, and all kinds of sounds that one usually thinks of when you read or hear the word “jungle.”

  In this case, however, the trees were thickly spaced like a jungle, the trunks growing so close together that it was very difficult to pass between them. Only the Rabbits, being small in size, seemed able to squeeze between the rough, scratchy trunks, but then the grasses that grew in-between were difficult to walk through, because their leaves were very sharp and tended to cut tender flesh.