24. The Lonely Mermaid

     Thus it was, Prince Arturo brought Momo to live at his family’s castle along a wide plain, and what a grand castle it was! It had high walls, towers, fountains, and banners floating along the walls. Within the castle, elaborately carved wainscoting, famous artworks and statuary adorned walls and niches.  The grand ballroom was large enough for hundreds of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen to enjoy.

     The castle was surrounded by beautiful gardens of all kinds: a stroll garden, a rock garden, a miniature garden, a statuary garden, a water garden, flower gardens, and a maze. Each garden blended into all the other gardens in such a way that it was impossible to tell where one kind of garden ended and the others began. All of these gardens were joined by pathways and by streams with waterfalls and fountains. Hidden behind the castle were an herb garden, a vegetable garden, greenhouses, and stables full of fine horses. One of the bridle paths followed a small creek running through the nearby mudflats, and from there to the sea.

     Among the clothes Arturo provided Momo was a set of riding clothes. The two of them often went out riding to various places in the kingdom. On one such occasion, they rode to a patch of dry ground along the mudflats, where they laid out a picnic lunch.

     It was on that day that Momo learned that Beauteous Kingdom had enemies that would stop at nothing to harm the royal family. A man with a bow and arrows crept from the forest. Unseen by Momo and Arturo, the man moved closer and closer, until he felt close enough to shoot an arrow into the prince.

     As he drew back his bow to shoot, a sparrow hawk swooped down from the sky, snatched the hat from the man’s head, and flew away with it. The man’s shriek of surprise caused Momo and Arturo to turn around to look. There they saw the man running after the bird, screaming, “Come back here, you stupid bird!” Of course, the bird had no intention of coming back, and this made the man look foolish. As he ran across the mudflat, a mangrove tree put out one of its roots and caused the man to trip over it and fall face down into the mud.

     Covered with mud, the man was angrier than ever. He kicked the tree root and said words that shouldn’t be repeated. Then he turned to look at Momo and Arturo. He shook both fists at them, said something else that shouldn’t be repeated, turned, and stormed into the forest.

Arturo, seeing the questioning look in Momo’s eyes, said to her, “Nobody seems to know what his name is. We call him Ghasan the Assassin. Every few weeks or so, he tries to kill someone in the royal family, but he never succeeds. Mainly, he tries to kill me, since I mingle more freely among the people and roam the woodlands. The living things of the forest always protect me.”

     He realized just how odd that sounded, so he further explained, “The creatures and other living things of the forest manage to do things to stop him from doing wrong. You see, assassins have an unwritten rule that they must look presentable when they kill somebody. Mainly, they have to look like someone who can scare people. If something makes them look foolish or awkward, they have to go away and, perhaps, try again some other time. A proper assassin can’t allow himself to be seen falling face down in a mud hole or having pigeon droppings on his coat or having his face covered with bee stings. It’s also bad form to try to commit an assassination after someone has seen you get chased by dozens or squirrels, or if you’re seen screaming and shaking your fist at a rabbit. It’s even worse form to commit an assassination when you’ve been sprayed by a skunk; all the assassin can do then is go home, take a bath, burn his clothes, and try again some other time. I have to give Ghasan the Assassin credit for one thing, though: He doesn’t give up.”

     Prince Arturo added, “Our kingdom has enemies in a land far away. They hate us for our happiness.”

23. Beauteous Kingdom

     Momo was happy to learn that Prince Arturo’s father, King Zaniddiate, was a very kind ruler who cared for all of his subjects as if they were his children. Unlike Momo’s father, the King of Marbella, the King of Beauteous Kingdom was always busy making decrees to improve the lives of his subjects.

     Of course, the royal treasury needed to use a lot of gold and silver for all of this involvement in the needs of the people of Beauteous Kingdom. That was not a problem because King Zaniddiate was as wise as he was caring. Many years earlier, thirteen powerful magicians had come to Beauteous Kingdom and began working for the king.

     These magicians had the power to create gold and silver out of thin air. Much of what they did and how they did it was a carefully guarded secret, but a few things about their methods were well known. The magicians would write magic words on slips of paper, and gold and silver would magically appear in the royal treasury. As long as no one actually looked into the royal treasury, the gold and silver would keep piling up. That was the only way the magic would work. King Zaniddiate and his ministers were enormously pleased with this arrangement because it means that they could spend as much as they wished, and the gold and silver would keep piling up.

     Because King Zaniddiate was such a wise and caring person, no one in the land was poor. That doesn’t mean that no one ever complained about his lot in life. In every kingdom, you’ll find some people who complain that they don’t have enough money or that they have reason to be unhappy, even when everyone else is happy and prosperous.

     You see, at the same time the thirteen powerful magicians came to Beauteous Kingdom, several lesser magicians arrived. These magicians spent all their time counting things and adding them up, and multiplying and dividing and all sorts of other magic that they did with numbers. They even had magical ways of counting things that no one else was able to count—things such as happiness and well being. For that reason, these magicians were called happiness counters.

     In their wondrous prophesies, happiness counters were always using such magic words as Kurtosis and regression analysis. Because of the magical ways they worked with numbers, the happiness counters knew that you can’t always believe what you see.

     They knew that there were deceivers known as outliars who were constantly trying to interfere with their work. An outliar was someone who was able to out lie anyone else. For example, whenever the happiness counters conducted a survey to prove that people were happy, the outliars would say the opposite. Since you can’t believe what an outliar tells you, their answers were always excluded from the survey.

     Of all the magic words the happiness counters used, the most powerful was granger. The word was always in the comparative; nothing ever had grange or grangest, whatever that meant.

If the happiness counters said that pigs fly, of course everyone would doubt it. On the other hand, if the happiness counters said that flying pigs had granger, no one doubted it. In fact, if flying pigs were said to have granger, several former skeptics would tell you that they’d seen lots of flying pigs.

     No matter how much certain people (the outliars, I mean) complained that the people were miserable and hungry, the happiness counters were able to use their numbers and something called a “like it scale” to prove that nine and seven eighths out of every ten people in Beauteous Kingdom were prosperous and deliriously happy, and that all the others were comfortable and moderately pleased.

22. The Mermaid and the Prince

     The sun was just rising when Momo groggily stirred. Though she felt a stabbing pain in the lower part of her body, grogginess got the upper hand. Momo rubbed her face and shook her head to clear the cobwebs from her brain.

     Suddenly aware that someone was watching her, Momo startled to semi-alertness. As her head quickly cleared, she saw Prince Arturo standing before her. His face was an image of confused indecision as to how to handle the situation.

     Momo began to feel uncomfortable by the way Prince Arturo was staring at her. She was sure he meant well, but he was, after all, a twit—rather awkward in social situations that were new to him. Arturo just stood there and stared, mouth agape, his eyes as wide as two fried eggs.

Then she became aware of her smooth, pretty legs—legs like a human girl. For the first time in her life, Momo began to feel embarrassed at the thought that her legs must be disconcerting to him. Little did Momo realize that it wasn’t her legs on which Prince Arturo’s dark eyes were focused.

     At that moment, several people came rushing from the palace. A Moorish slave girl, taking no heed of the fact that Arturo was a prince and she was a slave, snatched the cape from Arturo’s shoulders. Then she quickly helped Momo to her feet and wrapped the cape around her.

     Prince Arturo was such a twit and a blockhead that this simple act of courtesy would never have occurred to him. As the Moor and the others escorted Momo into the palace, Prince Arturo recovered enough of his wits to tag along with them.

     They asked Momo who she was and whence she came, but she was unable to speak. All she could do was look at them with her expressive blue eyes.

     The slave girls took her to a bath and washed the salt and sand from her body. Then they dressed her in costly robes of silk, sequined with jewels and cross stitched with images of birds and flowers.

     They watched Momo as they finished dressing her. She had never worn clothes before, and she rather liked it. She tried out her legs and noticed the approving looks on the women’s faces.  She walked with a graceful gait that rivaled the waves undulating on gentle seas.

     The cooked foods of the palace also were new to Momo, but she was sure she’d grow accustomed to them. Because others were watching to see her reaction, Momo pretended to like the taste of these foods from the first bite.

     The day passed in a flurry of activities that Momo could scarcely understand. Still, she accepted each event as a part of her new adventure and her new life as a human.

That evening, the slave girls bathed her again and changed her clothes once more. At some point, she thought, she should become familiar enough with bathing and dressing that she could do it herself.

     The slave girls, in groups and individually, sang for Prince Arturo and the other members of the royal family. They all had beautiful voices. One girl’s voice was lilting; another soared operatically; another had a forceful, hard-driving voice. Each had her own style that set her apart from the others.

     Momo wistfully recalled when her voice was the most beautiful voice in the sea kingdom of Marbella. Alas, but she had given up her enchanting voice to be with her prince. Sadder still, Prince Arturo had no way of knowing that it was she who had rescued him or how much she had sacrificed to be with him.

     The slave girls began dancing for the royal family. As with their singing, each had her own dance style that could be called her forte.

     One girl danced as liltingly as she had sung. I believe she called it “The Dance of the Swans.” She ended with something she called “The Dying Swan.”

Another did something appropriately called belly dancing. Actually, her belly seemed to be doing less dancing than the rest of her; but Momo could see that most of the energy of the dance seemed to come from the girl’s belly. Momo also realized that humans, like mermaids, had navels.

     Momo took her turn in dancing. Unfamiliar with human dances, she drew from her swimming experience and mentally put that experience into her new legs. Everyone acclaimed Momo’s dance as poetry in motion, gently swaying and pirouetting like dolphins, darting and suddenly changing directions like a school of fish, raising her arms expansively in a manner that suggested a puffer fish. Everyone who saw Momo dance wildly applauded.

     Momo was filled with joy when Prince Arturo told her that she would stay with him always. Then came the big let down: He would have a cushion placed outside his bedroom door where she could sleep every night. Well, I did say that he was royalty. I did say that he was a blockhead and a twit.

     Thus, Momo slept outside his door each night. Each morning, when Prince Arturo awakened, Momo could hear him passing gas. Prince Arturo’s five cats also heard, and they took that sound as a signal that he was awake. In a herd, the cats ran toward the bedroom—sometimes running across poor Momo’s face—and leaped onto Prince Arturo’s bed. For them, it was time to be petted and fed.

     Momo wondered, What have I gotten myself into? She would find out soon enough.