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THE CRUNCHING OF THE CRAB

In Which Tom Thorn Stuffs His Sto Current Events in Fairyland

“Can’t you just…not be King any does it Can’t you abdicate?” Ta things she’d read about in newspapers She looked at the King of Fairyland and all his nations with sharp, pointed interest

“Oh, well, I never thought of that, did I, girlie? Just holler out NOT KING NO MORE at breakfast and put ood job I have a scholar like you to advise me”

“You don’t have to be rude”

“But I like to be rude,” Crunchcrab pouted “Don’t you?”

“Do I!” crowed Blunderbuss She scratched one ear with her back paw Crunchcrab ignored her “I suppose where you come froing Meet a nice girl and skive off to the tropics It don’t work that way here, et free without leaving your wings at the door, if you get me Fairy countries mate for life Once you’ve won her heart, Fairyland is the truest girl you’ll ever know She’ll never leave you till she buries you, and that’s the truth See, when you’re King of Fairyland, it’s e than a political systery beast She chooses you and you hafta dance with the realood—for a while! But it always ends cockeyed Revolution, assassination, accident, slow poisoning, take your pick Elderly and abed is nice work if you can get it but it makes a dull story so the world won’t have it No, Fairyland loves me, Pan knohy I’ve tried to let her down nice Had a herald read out a writ in the square and everything I, KING CC NUMBER ONE, AM HIGH-TAILING IT

ON THE TOUTE-SUITE SO BYE BYE NOW No one paid e, the little daily things you don’t think much on before you’re married, they didn’t stop either I still had to put roses in the vase in the third washroom on the fourth floor of the Briary to make the Summer come I still had to make sure the ht, had to watch every one blooht in Weep Do you know, if I don’t have the nani for breakfast, the Greatvole of Black Salt Cavern ake from her thousand-year slumber? No one else can do what I do Not even for a day And then co I do not likeis too peculiar for the likes of me, and I don’t sleep half as well as I did on my ferry, under the open stars I was happy as a ferryman, back and forth over the same patch of water, back and forth every day Good and clean and siood at carrying folk, you knoas good at that” King Crunchcrab the First sniffledanymore and I don’t want to die, and I want you to sleuth out how to do the one without the other See in between the rules”

“No,” said Tom Thorn sharply “No, no, no Nope Absolutely not Breakfast Not you Not this Breakfast Yesterday I had a bedrooeometry quiz and cold beef sandwiches in the icebox Today it’s Kings and walking cities and apparently I turn into a rock when I fall asleep but at least I’uess? And you have to eat flapjacks to keep a vole asleep”

“A Greatvole,” the King corrected “She’s got obsidian teeth and a pelt of knives and she breathes mossfire So I eat me flapjacks, yes I do, thanks plenty”

“Nobody can take this sort of thing threeto hold down his belly! Not even flapjacks! Nobody! Where did you get your tea and sandwiches? Tell ets up and walks and a King ot too much homework and what in the whole wretched world mossfire is”

We ought not to judge him It was Thomas’s first day as the owner of a troll-stomach They are not like our polite, well-ry the way you and I are awake It would not be itself if it were not hankering after a leg of panther or a silo of strawberry ice creaained with It cannot have just a little of so whole—and a troll-heart is no different

“You oughtn’t talk to a King like that, I don’t think…” said Tareatthundered and walloped and roared when they were displeased Kings, she had always thought, were like thunderstorms They came and ith a lot of fuss but there wasn’t much difference between one and another And every once in a while they tore your roof off and electrocuted your cat

“It’s all right,” King Crunchcrab shrugged “Everybody does The chief virtue of a King is how long he can stand being yelled at by several people at once Leastwise the way I do it”

“There’s a tea-tray tree” Tamburlaine pointed off down a little woodland path Between a wombat, a troll, and a Fetch, they’d stripped all the reachable branches of the Sunday dinner tree bare She s put so s in their forest