Weighted Diamond, pt. 3

``````
We're going to the pharmacy today,
There's medicine but we don't care,
We're going to the pharmacy today,
We're going to the So - Da - Jerk!

There's lots of bubbles in the root beer float,
We have a great big foamy mustache,
When we go - down - to - the pharmacy,
Waiting patiently for the - So - Da - Jerk!

Some like cof - fee, some like tea,
Some like lem - on wa - ter but not me!
There is on - ly one thing I crave most - ly!
I want a root beer float, oh - oh - oh - please!

``````

Your morning started much the same as yesterday. You woke up fifteen minutes earlier. Hauling the unfiltered letters in the den, you went through them, finding nothing scary like a big envelope to worry Lady Miesha.

You still had a third of the letters to go through when the Lord-Regent arrived. It was only lunch time.

Your god-parents had a 'conversation'.

"I have a lot of shopping to do, and I can't be late."

"You'll take her next week, I'm sure," the Lady responded.

"I wanted to treat her. If she's staying up tonight, she can finish going through these letters when she returns."

"I suppose. Say hello for me, to those you meet."

"Of course, lovey," he said. "Hurry up Daffodil! Your coat is in the closet."

You knew he meant you by the flower name, and went to get your coat, from the closet you never opened before.

This was a new coat, a rain jacket really, silver with purple frills.

You followed the Lord outside for the first time since you got to the house. The flowers were still the nice kind of smelly. Without thinking about it, you instinctively followed behind the Lord.

"We'll walk today and get a hansom back, so I can show you the town. Our neighbors are good people to know."

 They walked down the middle of the road. There were a few people arriving home for lunch, but otherwise the street was empty.

"Our next door neighbors here are Doctor and Practitioner Gilliam. The Doctor is a Traveling Physician, and Lady Gilliam is a Nurse Practitioner and the Doc's perfect assist-woman. And on the other side of the road, that house with all of the gears and gadgets neatly tied out, that's the house of our neighborhood bachelor, or I should say fiancé. He's getting the house ready for his future wife. Mr. Goff is an expert mechanical engineer, and he specializes in repairing and making bicycles. Those are his creations outside."

You looked, seeing the rustic house still in need of cleanup and repair, but with the nice polished bicycles, but then your eyes flickered to the next house across the street.

"That's ol' Huber's residence. Professor Huber was a geology professor in the old city before he retired to Ellsworth. His wife still keeps some of the town's most cherished recipes, which she introduced to Ellsworth when they moved here. The Professor, in his retirement, finds time to be a bit of a books expert. If anyone has an old book, he can cipher it, and determine its value and meaning in our time."

The Professor's house didn't look especially great, being run down, but  there was a strange smell which was fascinating, which seemed to be coming from somewhere around the house.

Maple street crossed main, and you followed your God-father, turning left and keeping to the left side of the road, as a horse rider passed by.

The Lord Regent tipped his brown hat at the man passing.

"Lord Flowers," the rider said quickly, as he trotted by.

Before the pharmacist, which you could see in the distance, on the right side of the road, there was the general store, and the post office. 

On the right side, your God-father's storefront, and the larger greenhouse which loomed in the plot of land beyond the road. There were some other stores after your god-fathers', but you didn't see them, as you had locked on to the pharmacy on approach.

But first, there were people to talk to.

"Good morning, Lord Flowers," said a lady in her early twenties. 

"Milady, good to see you," Lord Regent (Flowers) said, nodding his head at her.

"You'll be opening up firstday morning?" she asked.

"Always, of course," he said.

He watched, looking for horse or hansom, and seeing none moving quickly, he crossed to the other side of the street, holding your hand tightly. The sidewalk was nearly full! There were four people there.

"Lord Flowers," said one man.

"Milord," said an older lady.

"Ned," said a neatly dressed man, wearing a grey coat and tie.

Your lord-regent responded to each of them. "Lord Iron, good to see you," and "Milady" and "Calvin".

'Calvin' was the only one who stopped and spoke to them. 

"I see you've brought the young lady with you to the pharmacy."

As you knew you were supposed to, you let your god-father answer in your stead.

"It's her first trip into town. A nice treat for her. I was worried for Deanne at first, but now the young miss is already marking her own path, and this time, it fits very nicely into my Deanne's own pursuits."

"Well good, good. One of these weeks, we'll have to have the family over."

"Deanne and I would like that, once we get settled in with our god-daughter."

"Good good, well I will be on my way."

'Calvin' was headed in the opposite direction, but you couldn't help but be bored by anything but the pharmacy in the moment, so you were giddy, maybe more than you ought to be, as you entered.

There was a long bar with a soda jerk, wearing his white shirt with red stripes, standing behind it. 

Two younger men were sitting at the bar drinking shakes, but you wanted the root beer float. 

The kids in school couldn't help but talk about trips to the pharmacy, that's what they all wanted when they got their god-parents. You weren't much different, even though you had bigger dreams too.

You repeated your God-father's words: "It's good to see you Mr. Jerk."

"It's good to see you too. Is there any medicinals your Lordship needs to get? I would be happy to keep the young lady company while you attend to your business."

"Thank you, Mr. Jerk. I really appreciate it. There's no better Jerk in all the River valley," your god-father said.

"Aww, geeze, thanks Mr. H. --coughs-- anyway, Lord Regent, I will take your order for the soda counter if you'd like."

Lord Flowers smiled, saying, "I'll have the butterscotch sundae, and the young lady will have a root beer float."

Then your god-father wandered over to that tall counter in the other half of the building.

"A 'scotch and a classic, excellent."

You wondered what it was like to be a Soda jerk. It seemed wonderful, but maybe you would get a stomach ache to be around the sweet stuff all day long.

You sat on one of the bar stools, fading away into a dream land of butterscotch trees and root beer lakes. Ice cream hills and cherry peaks.

What would it be like to live in a land like this,
Of vanilla and butterscotch and all kinds of pop,
Every day you swim in a lake of fizzy root beer,
Every day you sleep away on a bed of ice cream,

You were knocked out of your reverie by the Soda Jerk's words.

"Here you go miss," the Jerk told you, sliding the root beer float over in a big frosted mug.

You took quick sips of the foamy root beer to stop it from overflowing. Your thoughts wandered away again.

Swim-ming in a land full of lic-orice and pepper-mint,
Fizz pop the root beer goes until I float away,
Bubblegum and cherry candy and sweet bread,
Every day you sleep away on a bed of ice cream.

 
 You were shocked at your float. It was half-gone.

"Woah, slow down there sweetie, you'll freeze your head," said your god-father.

You decided to take a break, swooning a bit. The freeze-head flew away after a minute or two.

"Try this butterscotch," your god-father said, and you took a fresh spoon from the Soda jerk, taking a small bite of butterscotch topping, ice cream and banana.

It was wonderful, but you were already feeling a little overwhelmed. Hard to appreciate it all.

"Maybe we should have split," the Lord Regent said.

You swooned, your head was fuzzy as you stood up. You stumbled, collapsing to the ground. Why were you so clumsy all of a sudden. You blacked out, and the next thing you knew, you were laying in bed.

````

 "I thought there was no family history, Doc?"

"Her mother's side had a small susceptibility. We don't have the equipment to know anymore."

"Ruthenian," said the Lord Regent.

"Mother's Father's side. Leblanc was her mother's mother's side."

"I think she's waking, Lord Doctor, Lord Regent," said a woman's voice.

"Tabatha, can you hear me?" said your God-father.

You blinked a few times, then opened your eyes.

"I can hear," you mumbled.

"She's recovering. But, Ned, I only have so much supply. You need to keep her on a careful diet. And no more trips to the pharmacy."

You didn't want to wake up anymore. No trips to the pharmacy? You could have fought to stay awake, but you drifted off in sadness instead.

Weighted Diamond, pt. 2

`````
Morning is happy to see you,
So be happy to see the day,
Wipe the night from your eyes,
Let your voice echo in the day,

The birds are happy to hear you,
So be chirping right along,
Put away the clothes of night,
Put on the new day bright-ly,

Oats in the pot and man the door,
The kettle whistles watch the sky,
Break the egg, daddy's on his way,
Make the breakfast and begin your day,
`````

You woke up sometime later, you didn't know when. Peering out of your bedroom, you noticed it was still dark.

"Go back to bed, Bellflower," said the Lord Regent, his voice carrying from the hallway.

"Yes sir," you said, getting back into bed, shifting your position in the big bed until finally you just lay there for a while before drifting back to sleep.

Somehow the sun enters your room despite any windows. It's only a few shafts of light, one across your bed and one on the floor.

You change out of your night clothes and then put on the blouse and skirt from last night. You don't know if you need work clothes for the day or how life is going to go for you.

Lord Regent was gone already, and Lady Miesha was in her den, already in letter mode.

"Breakfast is at the table. Clean up after you're done."

Breakfast was cold, but you had slept in. It was a new concept. At the Children's center you were woken up by the matrons. By the time the staff of the Center were ready for the children it was a bit later in the morning anyway. You had to get used to waking up a bit earlier.

You picked up the Lord and Lady's plates and washed them all up. After that you went into the den.

"Today sweetie, I'm going to show you some simple things that you can help out with. And then we'll work together on something a bit bigger that you can work towards doing."

Lady Miesha was seated in her rocking chair reading another letter.

You sat in the straight backed chair and looked around.

After finishing reading the letter, she looked to you. "You can start by hauling in today's letters. There's a big metal bin full of them outside the door. Bring them over to your chair, and then you can work on them this morning."

You didn't know what to do with them, so you were about to ask.

"I'll tell you what to do once you get them inside," she responded to your unasked question.

The bin was solid iron on the bottom and the lower part of the side, but like a grid of metal bars on top, just wide enough to push another letter in. The top section tilted open as well, but you didn't dare play with the open and closing, while the bin was full.

You could barely push, pull or drag the bin along, fiercely pulling it up the little ledge from the walkway into the house's entryway, and you took a break then for a few seconds before summoning your strength to lift it up and bring it into the Den. You tried to set it down next to your chair gently. It landed with a thud.

You went back to close the front door, because to not do that would be foolish.

Lady Miesha continued with your instruction after that, "Your goal is to get all of the bad letters out of the bin, and all of the good ones back into it, without making a big mess."

"How do I tell what's a good and bad letter?" you asked.

She walked over and took a letter from the bin.

"Bad, horrible spelling," she said throwing one into the fire, and "Bad, the town says Wolfsburg, but the postal stamp says Outer Gall."

A lot of places were bad and not good, you had learned at school. Outer Gall, you didn't remember it exactly, but the tone of Lady Miesha's voice made it sound appalling.

"This one, this one -- it's not a good letter, but it sure looks like it. When you read the actual letter, you find horrible disjointed writing, This was printed, not handwritten. But the Envelope was hand addressed, and the stamp was forged."

"If you aren't sure, throw it in the fire. I'll check a few before we actually light it tonight. Just to make sure you didn't throw anyone important away," she continued.

Without any further guidance, you tried to do this. You decided to pile up the good letters right next to the bin, but you didn't find any good ones for a while.

You could have missed some of the ones involving implausible countries, or postal stamps, you didn't know all of the places these were coming from, but suspiciously, they were written in perfect cursive, except every other word was badly misspelled.

Some of them were not letters at all, but postcards.

You asked the Lady about those, "Toss them," she said. She was the lady of Letters, not postcards or cute pictures with a little writing.

There was one larger envelope, which you were about to open.

"Stop!" Lady Miesha said insistently.

"That shouldn't even be in the bin. Carefully put it the fire."

She strode up to the fireplace after you gently placed it inside.

You couldn't throw a letter with any skill so you had been getting up after each bad letter and standing half the time.

Lady Miesha reviewed your rejections briefly sifting through the fireplace.

"This one," she said, pulling a purple envelope with blue paper out of the mound, "This is legit. Remember, Outer Kingston is still a place, unlike all of the other Outer places. Except Outer Hereford, that's another safe Outer name."

"It had misspellings," you protested, and then stopped.

"These are good person misspellings. You'll learn quickly."

Once she'd gone through the letters in the fireplace, she drew the chain link barrier closed, removing the papers from view. Brushing her fingers against the mantle, you heard the roaring of the fire, and when the lady opened the fireplace up again, only coals were left.

"Guess it wasn't anything harmful," Lady Miesha said. "But one can never know."

You handled the sorting of good and bad letters much more slowly than the Lady, finishing what she did in an hour in four.

"I wanted to get your writing practice started today, but we'll wait on that. Before your God-father gets home, I'd like to make a small step towards finding your specialty. What did you learn about in school that you really liked and wanted to get interested in, in a bigger adult way?"

You thought about it. Everything at school had been little kid stuff. What interesting thing could be of worth for this family.

"I'm not sure," you said, your eyes downcast. You really didn't have any ideas that you didn't reject right away.

"Just a moment sweetie," Lady Miesha said, disappearing into the hallway. You waited, trying to think of something useful. You had learned the basics of writing and the merchants' numbers. Your Safe class had covered the key information about staying safe, and a hint of where men and women could learn to protect their homes from the attackers in the night.

There were a few trifling things you liked from school, but they seemed to not match the serious tone of your God-parents. You doubted learning to read and write poetry and playing the recorder would be thought serious.

But you were wrong, as Lady Miesha came back with a letter written on plain paper.

"I thought I had a letter from the Administrator of your Children Center. Let's see: She spends hours pouring over the poems in our old mythbooks. When no one is looking, she writes little poems of her own. She tried the recorder in Music class, but I didn't sense any great potential in that area."

"I guess I didn't think it was useful or helpful," you offered. "I like poems though."

The Lady looked at you with a peculiar intensity. "My mentor thought that, back in the old days, when the day was no safer than the night. Every person, coiled up in fear in the bounds of their own home. But when my mentor began to write, and brave souls took up the cap of Post-man, the power of the letter to unite us was stronger than anyone dared to think."

"The mythbooks then?" you asked, your thoughts swirling around the hope that the Lady offered.

 "Written by those of a generation or two before. The pen and sword together, are mightier than either separate."

"How do I get serious about poetry? I don't want to just continue my childish approach. I know you and Lord-Regent are trying to help me grow up and understand adult things," you asked.

"Sometimes people write poems in their letters. How about you bring out a new stack of writing paper, and I'll give you any of the letters with poems. You can read a poem, and write a poem back. Practice on an extra page of paper until you can make your handwriting neat and appropriate."

 Lady Miesha continued to going through more stacks of letters while you waited for one letter with a poem in it. You decided to practice your handwriting, slowly tracing the cursive forms, correcting yourself after your lines dipped into the next line, or rose up into the line before.

You made sure to completely exhaust each page with writing, even filling up the back of the page, before placing it in the fireplace.

Finally, near the end of the day, when the Lord-Regent of Flowers would surely be returning home soon, the Lady gave you a letter with a poem in it. To understand the poem, you read the whole letter.

Dear Lady of Letters,

Since last I wrote, East Hampton's grain mill has been attacked, and the silos haven't been able to accept any more grain until the mill can resume running, or another arrangement made for the silo's processing. This could set back bakers across our region, certainly Nan will be affected.

I've been calming down, however. So I will spare you from all of the aches and pains and troubles we all experience.

It was great to hear from you that your Lord husband has found new cultivars for his garden. To hear of so many beautiful and protective flowers safeguarded for our future is truly heartening. I especially loved your mention of the white flowers. I have always found white flowers especially calming and safe, and I love baby's breath. Some think it is merely an accessory for floral arrangements, but I love the flower on it's own terms.

You must be anticipating being a god-parent again, after your god-son became 2nd lieutenant. The uncertainty must be galling, though.

With all that's going on, and knowing you love the art of short letters, I'll finish here with a poem I wrote after consoling Nan.


The wind blows cold from the north,
Across the bay a droplet holds to it,
Not knowing where the wind is going,
It slips away, falling over the land,

The droplet weeps leaving the wind,
Arriving, seeping into the land,

The seed laid dead in dryness,
Finding no moisture to comfort it,
Until the drop parted from wind,
Arrived at it's burial creche,

Alive again the seed rejoices,
It becomes a sprout rising,

The wind which releases,
The land which reclaims,
The hour that takes away,
Is the hour seed may sprout.

Written by my hand,
Sir Thomas Majera - Lord-Regent of Schools

The letter was almost as interesting as the poem. The poem reminded you of one in the mythbooks called "He Gives and Takes Away".

 You assumed your poem would come after the Lady's writing, so you decided to just write the poem without any prose. But what could it be about? The man was like your Lord of Schools, whom you had only met once. You pondered the thought of school, now that you had left it.

We sing the same morning song,
We have the same breakfast,
But we each found our buried gold,
A teacher's honey revealing the comb,

Safe class and farm-craft and writing class,
One kid follows the safest Man in school,
One kid that doesn't run from the bull,
Our lovely teacher holds gold in his hands,

No bully snatch the gold,
No student forget where it's from,
No mocker pushing us away,
Safe Keeper help us from these,

We still walk in dimness,
We handle our gold in careful steps,
We love the walkers of our way,
We never know when's our last day,

Teacher this student hopes you remember,
For every student who turns away,
Its another day for your good students,
They will walk and love your wise ways,

To build a whole school,
Full of gold and gold-smiths,
To make students gather,
And the gathered to be students.

The chest maker worked to make,
He made a gold chest of drawers,
He hired goldsmith and woodworker,
Brought candles for the night's work,

He has made a good work's foundation,
Is he forgotten among the goldsmiths?
Is he forgotten among the seekers?
Let them all say thank you Safe Keeper!

Remember sweetly the Safe Keeper of a school,
Because he keeps safe that which is gold to me,
The Teacher who writes, he held out his gold for me,
But I've seen in every teacher gold for the seeker,

You had been writing and pondering the poem for so long that the Lord-Regent was sitting in the den with his lady, and yet they had not interrupted you.

 You handed the paper (two pages) to Lady Miesha.

After a long pause (but too quickly to have read it all), she said, "This will be special to the Lord of Schools. Thank you sweetie. Now go ahead and wash up for dinner."

...

Thankful we are as we toast,
Let this food strengthen the house,
Let it make firmness in our bones,
Lest overrun we fall on our cups,

...

The beef stew was pretty good, with carrots and celery, and just a little salt.

"I couldn't take you to the pharmacy today, I got stuck with a new variety of daisy. A blessing really. But I will take you tomorrow. We also need to stop at the Farm store. Tomorrow night is the Vigil, which I'm sure the Childcare center did differently than a home. This is another opportunity for you to learn about being an adult," the Lord-Regent was saying.

"Yes Lord-Regent, I'm excited, even if we can't have ice cream floats," you said, interested in seeing what was at the farm store. Did they have potatoes or those other root vegetables?

 Dinner passed and cleanup seemed to go by in a flash. Tomorrow night would be your first time staying up. At the children's center, kids staying up would just cause more problems and work for the caretakers who had to keep the place safe.