Chapter 5 Just Ducky
Just Ducky
Big Betty puffed and rumbled on the slow black, already in big rig form. The elephant had been thrilled to be going on another road trip again so soon. The rest of Dy’s family was considerably less excited.
“But why can’t I go with you, Auntie Bandit?” Phin Jr. demanded for the one-hundred and seventh time.
“I’ve already told you why, kid,” Cha answered, checking that supplies were properly stowed in Katu, also in carriage form, and keeping one eye on Dy. She was trying to soothe the youngest three kids while receiving some sort of lecture from Phinny.
“You haven’t given me a good reason,” Phin Jr. countered, sounding exactly like Dy with her pedantic arguments.
Cha straightened, punched her fists to her hips, and stared down the seven-year-old currently perched on the fence surrounding the slow black.
With his tumbling golden curls and big blue eyes, he did look like a little angel.
One with the fulminating heart of a demon.
“What do you call that thing you’re standing on? ” Cha asked.
With an adorable, puzzled frown also just like his mother’s, he glanced down. “Duh—a fence.”
“Very good,” Cha said, oozing approval and giving him such a wide smile that he scowled at her. “And what is the purpose of this here fence?”
“To keep the kids off the slow black because it’s dangerous for them,” he answered, rolling his eyes.
“But that’s those kids. Not me.” He puffed his chest out proudly and waved a dismissive hand at his younger siblings, the twins Edur and Xavvy hanging one each off of Dy’s legs as she held Inigo and spoke earnestly with Phinny a short distance away.
Zazu, Cha’s namesake, struggled with trying to coax Dy’s loathsome lodestone, Warg to waddle/slither across the grass to Big Betty.
“Oh, I see!” Cha exclaimed with theatrical astonishment. “I forgot that you’re the oldest.”
“You didn’t forget, Auntie Bandit. You always remember our birthdays.”
Yes, she always had, even when she’d been exiled from visits, sending gifts by courier.
Even though five birthdays had begun to strain her memory and she had to enter them into an enchanted calendar reminder.
No one had ever remembered celebrated her birthday when she was a kid and she’d be cursed if her nieces and nephews felt that pain.
Still, she had a rep to maintain. “Don’t go telling people about that, kid.
Anyway, since I do remember birthdays, I happen to know you have one coming up. ”
“I do.” He bounced on the fence making it rattle. “And for my present you can take me with you.”
“You know, that’s a great idea.” She nodded, tapping her chin. “For your thirteenth birthday present, when you’re legally allowed to ride the ley lines. That’s perfect timing.”
“Auntie Bandit…” he whined, face falling.
“What’s wrong? Oh, I know. Because you, my friend, are turning eight.” She reached out and patted his head, deepening his scowl. “Not thirteen at all. What’s thirteen minus eight?”
“Five,” he said miserably.
“Wrong, it’s seven.”
“It’s five,” he insisted. “Five years. Can’t you do math at all, Auntie Bandit?”
“Oh, you’re right. Five years and three weeks from now. Which means you know perfectly well there is no fucking way you can come with us.”
“Language!” Phinny yelled, using that uncanny sorcerous ability mothers develop to sense when anyone, anywhere is stepping outside the lines.
“How did she even hear me?” Cha muttered.
“Ears like a bat,” Phin Jr. answered solemnly.
“Warg, no!” Zazu exclaimed.
They both looked over to see Warg, basically a cross between a crocodile and a salamander—though in an unnatural shade of pink with violet, palm-sized spots—galumphing toward the duck pond with rather shocking speed for a creature that dragged its copious, rippling belly over the lavender-tipped grass and leaving only mud behind.
“Arantzazu Mezzanotte!” Phinny yelled. “You had one job.”
“I’ve got him,” Zazu called back.
Phin Jr. sadly shook his head. “She does not have him.”
Sure enough, Warg plunged over the muddy banks of the duck pond and into the algae-slimed water, Zazu shrieking and holding onto his hind legs, being dragged in right behind him.
Cha leapt over the fence in one easy bound, waving to Phin and Dy and running on long legs as she quickly caught up to the hapless Zazu.
Wading in, she caught the sputtering little girl around the waist. Promptly bursting into tears, Zazu buried her filthy face against Cha’s neck and wailed disconsolately.
“There, there, honey,” Cha murmured to her, patting her back. “No use crying over an escaping Warg. If I shed a tear every time that creature ran away from your mother, I could fill a wine barrel.”
“Really?” Zazu sniffed.
Phinny and Dy had arrived to extract the happily swimming Warg from the pond, complicated by panicked ducks flapping everywhere and an excited audience of Phin Jr, the twins, and toddler jumping up and down and shouting advice.
Cha carried Zazu a short distance away from the cacophony.
“Really,” she confirmed. “Did I ever tell you about the time we were on a smuggling run in Sandstone and—”
“No stories about criminal activity!” Phinny shouted.
Cha shook her head in amazement. “She does have ears like a bat.”
Zazu giggled. Then hugged Cha’s neck tightly. “I love you, Auntie Bandit.”
“I love you, too, Zazzy, and I’m very sorry you got saddled with my name. I begged them not to do it.”
“When I grow up, I want to be just like you,” Zazu said with solemn intensity.
Cha could see it in a flash, little Zazu growing up to defy the fae authorities, take risks, sleep alone at night. “Oh, honey, no,” she said. “You want to grow up to be like your moms. You have no idea how lucky you are to have a loving family.”
“I know I’m lucky,” Zazu countered. “I have two great moms and a bad ass Auntie.”
“Language!” Phinny shouted.
Cha and Zazu both giggled. “I can have a family and be a ley rider like you,” Zazu continued, giving Cha a smacking kiss on the cheek that no doubt left algae behind. “It doesn’t have to be one or the other, Auntie Bandit,” she chided.
“I’ve been schooled by a six-year-old,” Cha informed Dy, who tromped past carrying a cumbersome, wriggling armload of Warg.
“Zazu is wise beyond her years,” Dy agreed wearily. “Meet you by the pump so we can get this shit off of us.”
“Language,” Phinny, Zazu, and Cha yelled in unison.