The Yellow Good Fairy was tall and black and slender.
She sat up, majestic, on her throne, casually dressed in her Saturday yellow
ballerinas and oversized yellow designer bag. (A present from a designer she
had helped.) Lightning bolts flashed on her
robes like gold-fish in a summer pond, matching her shoes and handbag.
Maitreiy was lost.
She asked the Fairy for help: she needed the Medicine to cure her dying
father, who withered with a strange, unknown illness. The Fairy answered - her voice warm, resonant
and slightly sad.
“I cannot give you the Medicine. But I can give you help
to find it.”
She searched inside her designer bag, and pulled out a
practical pen that doubled up as magic wand and key ring.
“What you need is three UFO’s: a hat, a scarf, and an
Oyster. Useful Fantastic Objects”, she
answered Maitreiy’s questioning look. “Do you have a Hat? Good”
Maitreiy gave it to her. The Fairy touched it lightly
with the pen wand:
“From now on, this Hat will protect you. Not only will
it cover your hair from the rain of London, so you can walk in any weather. Not
only will it shield your ears from the cold wind, so you can enjoy yourself
when others run inside for shelter.
This Hat is now magic. It will shut out your ears from
discouraging words; it will shield your eyes from bad sights, and point them on
to the right path.”
“Thank you, Good Fairy”, Maitreiy said, politely.
“Now you need a Scarf. You will find one at my sister,
the Blue Goth Fairy. She runs this Blue Goth shop in Camden Town Market. Any
time you need to change your clothes, ask the Scarf, and it will robe you
In the most appropriate attire
That you wish, need or desire.”
“The Oyster, you will need to find it yourself. This
Oyster will help take you anywhere as long as you tell it where you want to go.
It will be up to you to decide where, to discover where it’s best to go. You
will have guidance. It will come to you when you know what you want next. Or,
you may just be lucky”, she winked mysteriously. “Now go, my child. Be true to yourself, be
compassionate, and you will find your Medicine.”
With these words, the Fairy led her to the golden
mirror gate of her mansion. Maitreiy left, bewildered. Her new gift seemed
poor, and she dumped it carelessly into her bag. She wondered how she was going to make this
journey. She didn’t know where to start.
The wind brought a whisper to her.
“You don’t need to ask for ideas, or to be told. Just
let them come, and they will. Trust me on that!” Maitreiy looked around. A flame-coloured Flower smiled at her, her
petals swirling in the sun.
“All I do, all day long, is being beautiful. And think
beautiful thoughts”, said the Flower, as an introduction. “That’s all I want,
that’s all I do. I just think of all the
things I’m grateful to have in this world, and it makes me beautiful.”
“How did you know what to say to me?”
“Hmmm... luck?” The Flower smiled, with a twinkle of a rain
drop on her silky petal. “I give
beautiful thoughts to people I like. I
happen to like you.”
Maitreiy smiled. The Flower was irresistible, and her
scent caressing, like a warm summer night in a Mediterranean garden.
“My real name is Splenda - Rosa.” She sighed. “Only,
I’m very ill. A worm is eating away my roots.”
“This one?”, said Maitreiy, squashing with her foot
something that squelched.
“Oh, thank you!
I- I can’t believe it!”
“No big deal!”, said Maitreiy.
“If you ever need me, just think of me, and I’ll be by
your side. Now have an incredibly lucky day! And remember: be kind to yourself, as you were
to me. You deserve it. Bye!”
“Good-bye, Splenda – Rosa!” With that, Maitreiy left, still smiling.
It started dripping. Maitreiy looked up – cloudy. The
London weather had surely changed quickly. Ochre-grey, purple-grey, and
indigo-grey heavy clouds were hanging threateningly above her. A thick curtain
of rain swished closer. She walked
faster. It started pouring. She put down her bag and rummaged inside. The hat.
Good. She put it on. A perfect London hat.
“I see what she meant. The rain doesn’t matter when
you have a hat.”
The sky cracked into a white flash, like an old cinema
movie where the tape is broken. A few moments later, the world rumbled into a
low, threatening roar. A Dragon came flying through the opening clouds, blowing
flashes of lightning from his blood-darted eyes and roaring so utterly terrible
that her bones shivered inside of her. He swooped onto a large lawn a few paces
away from her. Her heart sank and she slid off to the nearest wall. A little
cat, frightened, ran her way, with her eyes almost popping from her wet little
head, her hair raised over her curved back.
For the briefest of moments, Maitreiy looked at her. The Cat must have
seen something in her eyes, because she ran straight at Maitreiy and jumped in her
arms. Maitreiy pulled her tightly to her chest, feeling her heart ticking like
a clock in over-drive. The Cat squirreled down into the handbag. Maitreiy flattened herself against the wall -
near a large rose bush – her heart throbbing in her throat - and the dragon
flew past. Only the thick cloud was left of him, and the rain-drenched
pavements. “Phew!” She let out a deep
breath of relief.
“He doesn’t attack people, not in broad daylight. Too
high profile”, meowed a little voice inside her handbag. “Cats are dangerous for him. We can see in the dark. We see where they go
and when they come, in the darkest hour when nobody can see. A Guilt Dragon on a Guilt-Trip. Nobody is supposed
to know about these Trips! Shouldn’t you
be heading somewhere?”, said the Cat, changing the subject.
“Well, yes, actually, I was”, said Maitreiy, still mystified.
“Not sure where, the Fairy said I’d find some UFO’s, Useful Fantastic Objects,
to help me in my quest...”
“Let’s go to the South Bank. That’s a good place to think”,
said the Cat.
The tide was low and the murky waters of the Thames were
flowing past some people who prodded the muddy river bed with long sticks with
a disc at the bottom.
“What are these?”, purred the Cat from the bag.
“Metal detectors. Modern mud-larks. Who knows what
they are looking for.”
“In search of lost time”, said the Cat. Maitreiy giggled.
One of the people picked up something blue and threw
it away.
“Another Oyster Card! Damn those tourists. Mess with
my metal detector, they do, those magnetic cards!”
“Oyster, you said?” Maitreiy couldn’t believe it.
Could this be?.... “Let me see.” She picked it up. An average blue Oyster Card,
like those you use on the Underground trains, yet with something strange: a
little oyster embedded into one of its corner, barely larger than the size of
her nail. “I wonder if it works. We need
the Scarf, from Camden Town...”
In an instant, they were there. A loud throbbing noise
was coming from a side-street. They went to see. Standing in a doorway a tall,
dark man beat with all his might on a giant drum. He would sometimes stop, sit
quietly for a while, looking up at nothing, with a fixed, somewhat silly stare.
Then he’d suddenly stand up again and start beating his Drum.
“What are you looking at?”, Maitreiy asked. “What do
you beat that drum for?”
“For the clouds!”, he grunted. Since he beat his drum
all the time, he had forgotten to speak, and only wanted to grunt out enough
words to make himself understood.
“Why, the clouds?”, she asked, bewildered.
“It’s cool”, he growled, grinning. ”People are happy
when the clouds come. They all get together and dance, for the rain to come!”
“Do they?!”, she mused, even more befuddled. She looked
around at the Londoners rushing about in the light drizzle, their collars up
and their necks telescoped in between their hunched shoulders, as if that was
going to protect them better from the rain. One of them walked past, muttering to
his mobile phone about an umbrella he’d forgot.
“Yes, they dance all right! I saw them!”, said the
drummer.
“Where?”
“Bollywood movie!
No rain, no food, people fed up with blue skies, dance at clouds... Boom!
Boom! Beat the drum!”
Boom! The drum echoed, as he spotted the next wave of
thick grey clouds drifting in fast on a gust of wind. Thump! Boom!
“You can beat that drum all day long, here in London!”,
meowed the Cat.
“Tee -he, hee!”, he growled.
“Anyway, let’s hurry; I’m worried for my father. Do you know the Blue Goth Shop around here?”
He motioned to his right, thumping away with his
muscled, hairy arms.
They entered the shop hesitantly. Behind a rack of
black lace dresses (embroidered with white skulls), stood a single, old scarf
of butter-coloured silk. Maitreiy shook it hard. A sleepy moth rustled away in a
disgruntled cloud of dust.
“You like that?”
The Blue Goth Fairy emerged from behind the counter, all dressed in
black. Her skin was so pale it was
almost blue. Her eyes were exactly like those of the Yellow Fairy – only a
crystalline shade of Caribbean blue. “You can have it – for free!”
“Er, are you sure?”, said Maitreiy.
“I’ve been waiting to give it away, only nobody wants
it. It’s dusty and out of fashion.”
“Your sister, the Yellow Fairy, said I’d find one
here...”
“My sister sent you, then? I see.... Let me have another look.” The Fairy passed the Scarf through her silver
filigree ring. When she gave it back to Maitreiy,
it was light as a feather and thin as air. “Now it’s the right scarf”, she
said, mysteriously, and vanished at the back of the shop. As she didn’t come
back, they left.
“Now what?”, said Maitreiy. “I’ll go to work tomorrow,
and we’ll see.” (She had a job, like any other Londoner of her age, you see.)
The following morning, Cat in her bag, they went to
work. They passed by the sandwich shop,
the one that always smelled like they burned the omelette. A sandwich-man stepped out, and
unceremoniously captured them.
“You have trespassed on the territory of the King of
Spit!”, he grunted.
“The Spit King of Should! Very powerful, very annoying, if you ask me”,
purred the Cat softly in her handbag. Maitreiy didn’t have time to be
surprised. ”The nasty, dark, cold land of Should.”
A mosaic in gold letters was embroidered on the floor
of the King’s throne hall – so you could read it at leisure while you bowed to
him. It proclaimed: “To be serious you
Should not be funny”. The King held his
nose up so high, that his eyes would cross when looking down at them.
“Those
Londoners, they aren’t half as good as us”, he said, spitting on an elegant
Page to his right.
“He likes to
spit on people’s heads - to make himself feel superior. The Page’s job is to
walk by the King’s side and to be spat on”, whispered the Cat. “Whenever the
King is annoyed, threatened, or confused, he only relaxes when he can spit on someone’s
head.”
“That’s the best candidate so far!” – the Page
quipped.
“It’s the first one! You idiot”, muttered the King. “Pthew!”
– on the head of the Page.
“To amuse the Army will your Task be”, the King said
in a solemn, booming voice (this is how Kings speak, you see).
“The Army of Wives!” The Cat shuddered with fear.
Maitreiy laughed. “Army of Wives?!”,
“Don’t you laugh, meaw!” The hair on the back of the Cat stood up, bristling. “The Citizens of Should figured out the Wives
were the most fearsome, cunning and astute creatures of the Land of Should. Somewhere
– on a pen, a handbag label, a T-shirt logo - they all have the Motto: ‘Never
mess with the Wife’. So they put them all into the National Army. The Land of Should has never been this safe
since. Only, the Wives get grumpy very
quickly, and everybody grows very, very afraid of them and keeps very, very
quiet indeed. Everybody does their best to keep the Wives amused. Otherwise they
walk around with their heads down in fear, their shoulders hunched and their
necks pulled in, very much like Londoners when it rains. Everybody, including
the King. When he is afraid of his
Wives, he keeps a low profile, and his crown falls off and it rings so loud,
that everyone knows he is afraid of the Wives too. He even forgets to spit!”
“Amuse them – with serious things, of course, like
Culture”, declaimed the King and waved them away.
“Hmmm....” Maitreiy
smiled, trying to ignore the flickers of worry in her stomach. “How do you
amuse the Wives?!... I think we are stuck.”
“A-meaws, a-meuws... a-muse?”, the Cat twitched her
tail, rolling the word around like a woollen ball. “You need a Muse!”
“A Muse! That would be nice!”, said Maitreiy scornfully. “Where do you get a Muse in London?! If they
ever existed, they were all in Greece anyway.”
At that moment, a Crow fluttered above her, crowing:
“You’re no good. You don’t know anything. You never
learned anything. You are a fake. Everything you did in your school exams was
short-term memory, you’ll never remember anything useful.”
Maitreiy felt worse. It was as if her own doubts
called the Crow.
“He’s right. Maybe I should make friends with this
Crow.”
“You’re talking like a citizen of Should!”, purred the
Cat. “No way, you won’t make friends with him!
Believe the Crow and you will just give up.””
“I don’t want that!”, said Maitreiy and shooed the
Crow away. “You are a very well informed Cat!”
“Now you notice!
I know so much, they call me the Encyclopedi -Cat. But I prefer just Cat”, she purred, curling
her tail modestly around her paws. “Anyway, back to our job. Modern times call
for modern Muses”, she said, smiling under her whiskers. “Think of Easyjet...
Those Greeks! Get your Oyster and let’s
go.”
They arrived again on the South Bank, on the Thames,
close to the National Theatre.
“Here we are, at the Muses’ Chairs”, purred the Cat
sleepily from Maitreiy’s bag. “They each have a chair, marked with her name. Caliope
– Poetry, Terpsichore– Dance, Euterpe – Music, and so on. Nine of them. The Chairs are nailed up high on the wall so
the muses can fly and land on them, and sit there above the common mortals.”
“How do we call one?”, asked Maitreiy impatiently.
“If you walk past the Barge House in the morning, you
will sometimes see a grumpy Bucket and a Mop and wiping off Grafitti. They are very grumpy because they have to do
this every day. To send a message to The Muses, write a Grafitti here – only do
it in the late evening after the Bucket and Mop have gone home for dinner. Ask them
in the morning for any odd messages they’d wiped off.”
It was late evening. Maitreiy scribbled on the wall:
“Come.” She didn’t know what else to write. Someone tapped her on the shoulder,
startling her.
“Here I am.” Maitreiy looked around, feeling like a
vandal.
“You thought I’d fly?!”, said a girl of her age with a
big strange guitar over her shoulder.
“Terpsichore, the Muse of Dance”, purred the Cat.
Terpsichore was a Music student, plump but beautiful,
with a mane of dark curly hair and thick, black eyebrows. “Call me Terpy”.
“Your guitar looks like it swallowed a watermelon!”,
said the Cat.
“Guitar!
Humpf! It’s a bouzouki! The Harp is not that
fashionable, we Muses like to keep up with the times. Even this is a bit
traditional, but I like it. Better than an electric keyboard. More original,
you see.”
“Terpy, can you help us amuse the Wives?”, asked Maitreiy.
“Amuse – hmm, I
can’t amuse anybody. I can only inspire.
Don’t you know anyone who likes to dance?
Someone beautiful or arty?
Anybody will do. ”
“The Flower!
Splenda-Rosa!” The Flower
gracefully landed by their side.
The following morning they all went to the Concert
Valley of Should, where the Army of Wives was assembled.
Terpsichore strummed her bouzouki. The music burst like a ray of sunshine after the rain,
making the green leaves sparkle, gushing forth with such joy that the Flower
closed her eyes, swaying and smiling. The bouzouki
weaved a silken thread of light music, a deep, simple, childish joy for life
that swirled around in a rhythmic, playful dance. Splenda-Rosa started to dance. She blossomed, perfumed, rained petals on
the Wives, who felt their hearts softening, even the hardest-hearted of them
all.
Slowly, one by
one, each of the Wives started to dance too. The Old danced, and the Ugly
danced, and the Nagging, the Clever, the Super-Clean, the Good Cook and all the
other Wives. The great Valley of Should
looked like a seething sea of colour, and all the elegant ball dresses, pin-striped
suits, saris, sarongs, jogging track suits and party dresses, they all swirled
and swayed, fluttered and tapped and waved to Splenda-Rosa’s entrancing dance.
“But this is a
Concert Valley. A place of Culture – Culture shouldn’t be this fun!”, whispered
an usher. Nobody paid any attention to him.
When Splenda-Rosa
finished and the Wives were all tired and giggly, she said:
“I need to go
back to my roots now. Only when I am true to my roots can I be strong, honest
and happy”, she said, and fluttered off.
The King was
very happy indeed to see the Wives giggling.
“Now tell me”,
said he, “what are you searching for? To
reward you is my wish.” Maitrey told him about the Medicine.
“That’s a very
rare and secret potion. I can send you to someone who can help you, to the Dark
Rock Prince, but only if you prove to me you are worthy of my recommendation”.
He looked around impatiently. The Page quickly came to be spat on.
“If you
vanquish the Guilt Dragon, my Wife will escort you personally with her
battalion to the Dark Rock Prince, who will be your guide.”
They were
thrown into a dungeon.
“The Guilt
Dragons walk around seething and hissing and letting out shallow and soothing
silver poisonous fumes”, said the Cat, shivering. “These fumes are choking; their
stench is like long-worn shoes, like the trainers of mountain hikers and
students. They grip your stomach like a searing indigestion, making you feel
guilty for standing up for yourself, guilty for not pleasing the others, for
not being the same. The fumes make you think the others care about you letting
them down, more than they actually really do. They haunt you with regrets and
guilt and feelings of being no good, unsuccessful, a freak. They infect your
thoughts with imagined arguments - with those people or cats who have long
forgotten about it, arguments you can never win because those people and cats
are not actually there, to forgive you and tell you they don’t care anymore,
and have never really cared much in the first place. They are never there for
you to punch in the face, or scratch,even.” The Cat hissed and spat, her spine
curved up, bristling. She was rather surprised
at her own words.
“What a rant!”, laughed Maitreiy. “I’ve never seen you
so angry!”
“Don’t you laugh. There’s nothing worse than the Guilt
poison. It can haunt you for years. The Dragon Office issued a declaration that
these are not official, standard Dragons. They are officially very nasty
indeed.”
A silver smoke reached them. They heard a hiss:
“Seeping, slithering, silent smoke!”
“Oh my God, I’m starting to believe you. Oh, Lord! Here he comes!”, cried Maitreiy.
“Some sort of salamander!” the Cat hissed too, much to
the Dragon’s gruff, vile amusement. “Are
you going to start singing a Gospel Song now?! Meaow! They all start like that
– Oh Lord!”
“Tush!”, said Maitreiy, annoyed. The Dragon was
approaching fast. “Hardly the time for
jokes! What are we going to do?”
“You aren’t getting anywhere!” The Crow swooped on her.
“You’ll never succeed! Give up! You’ve never done anything important in your
life! You’re lazy! Nobody cares about you.”
Maitreiy picked up a stone and threw it at him. “I’ll
show you!” Then she turned around to the Cat.
“Is there any antidote?!”
“There is only one: clapping! Only I can’t clap...”.
The Cat studied her soft paws, and gave them an elegant lick with her pink
tongue. “...Now that’s an idea! Bring your
Gospel choir in with the Oyster!” (The
Cat knew that Maitreiy was singing in one every Tuesday.) “They can clap so
loud, that they’ll scare any Dragon and Guilt and take all the fumes out of
you. Sing this:
I don’t want to please you – meaw!
I don’t really care,
I don’t owe you anything,
You can go to hell!
I don’t want nobody – meaw!
It’s more fun like this
I don’t owe you anything
I can sing alone!
You don’t have to like me – Meaw!
I don’t really care
I don’t need to please no-one
I can be just fine!
Meaw Meaw!
I am very clever, purr,
I am very smart
I know I can walk alone
Walk alone and far!
Purr purr!
The Cat danced a sort of a kazachok as she sang this.
The Gospel Choir repeated after her and clapped very loudly as they all sang
together. Their voices echoed each-other in harmonies, like the sea-waves in
the storm, or an organ playing in a cathedral. The song was so moving, it made Maitreiy
laugh and cry, and she sang and danced and clapped with them. The Crow fluttered
away sheepishly, and the Guilt Dragon danced so hard he panted. He just
couldn’t stop.
“What a philosophical Cat-zachok!”, said Maitreiy when
they finished. The Guilt Dragon lay exhausted
on the ground, flat like a pricked salamander balloon, his tongue out, and the
silver smoke had vanished.
The King of Should now said: “You are worthy of my
recommendation. My Wife will take you to
the Dark Rock Prince, who will guide and protect you along the way.” He didn’t
even spit on his Page this time.
The Dark Rock
Prince lived in a Mansion at the top of a remote Volcano, very beautiful when
erupting, very dangerous too. When they arrived, the sun was setting, throwing
golden flecks on the dark night clouds. The sky turned from blue to pink and
violet as they approached, and then the moon rose, light pink on the deep
indigo night sky.
The Price welcomed them in. He was tall, dark and
handsome. Maitreiy felt him to be quiet and strong. He had a serious air about
him, serious and a little sad, like he had known much about suffering and
terrible pain, but kept it to himself, as a secret. His eyes were gentle and
mysterious, his voice deep.
One look at him, and Maitreiy’s mind stood still.
Behind her eyes, however, a process as complicated as the wheels of a Swiss
clock ticked in motion, with little square cogs neatly engaging others in other
wheels, which in turn set other, larger, wheels in motion. She was only to
understand this much later.
“This guy is as serious as a headache”, said the Cat,
jumping out from Maitreiy’s bag and making herself at home by the imposing log
fire.
“I actually do have a headache”, he smiled, much to Maitreiy’s
surprise. “Do you have a Nurofen? ... I often get them, that’s why I look so
serious. People think I’m scary.” A mischievous smile passed on his otherwise
serious face. “I like that.” Maitreiy giggled.
“My name is
Blaize. Like ‘blaze of burning fire’. Dark Blaize. I will take you to the
Creature of Infinite Wisdom. She has the
Medicine for your father. I have a torch of Darkness that projects a cone of
darkness at will. With that I can ‘shine off’ the light and hide things, just
as with a real torch you can shine a light and show things. I will make you
invisible to the Gatekeeper of the Creature of Infinite Wisdom.”
The following morning, Blaize lead them her to the
Creature of Infinite Wisdom. They reached the foot of a very tall mountain.
“We have to leave you here, my dear Maitreiy”, he
said. “You have to walk the last part alone, with none of your friends. I will shine my torch of darkness over you
while you pass the Gatekeeper, but from afar.
Be brave, I trust you. I will
wait for you here.” And with that, Maitreiy left.
The climb on the mountain was hard. Maitreiy felt
very, very ill, very weak, in pain, tired, worried and sad. The Crow came to
feast upon her misery. It was the Crow’s happiest day. He soared up and down,
crowing so happy he almost sang. He crowed and laughed and cackled - so loud,
that he chocked and spluttered and cackled even louder. He turned somersaults
in the air and swooped down, and strutted and skipped and paraded. So hard he crowed
and so pleased was he, that he rolled on his back and held his stomach with his
wings, hooting with glee, and piped away on his stomach like on black, feathery
bagpipes. He just couldn’t stop.
“You’ll never be any good, and they know it! They know
you failed. You were oh so high and mighty, and now there you are, no more Miss
Strong Woman, weak, weepy and afraid. Ha ha ha ha!!”
The Crow grew huge as a condor. Maitreiy tried to shoo
it away, to throw stones, even large ones, but in vain. He was only getting
bigger, and so were her doubts.
“Maybe I really won’t make it.” But the thought of her
father gave her strength. The Hat! Only that could close her ears from the
merciless cackle of the Crow. She stuffed it over her ears in earnest. She
passed the Gatekeeper in a cone of darkness that the Prince shone on her with
his torch from afar.
It was scorching hot. She felt as if she was walking
on the surface of the Sun. If only she had something cool to wear! She remembered the Scarf and asked it for an
astronaut costume. The Scarf was of a
different opinion, because it turned into a flowing summer dress that felt breezy.
Then she finally saw it. The Creature of Infinite
Wisdom.
A Hen.
Hatching eggs.
“Don’t look at me like that, my dear”, the Hen said in
a friendly cackle. “You found me all right. Each of these eggs are a London
day. This one is a spring Chicken-Day. How the day goes depends on what you
feed me. I feed on prayers - they flutter up like sea-gulls, and then land on
the river of the Night. They bob up and down on its dark waters, like little
white paper boats, all the way up to my dinner-plate. Gold grains hatch sunny
days – only they are rare. They are the prayers of gratitude. Most prayers are
shopping lists, so the grains are gray, and so are most London days.”
“This is the secret Medicine: feed him good food, good
water, and Good Words. Encouraging words, words of Health, words of Hope, words
of Courage, words of Strength, words of Endurance. Tell him about the things he
likes, and how he will do them when he gets better. Tell him how much you need
him. Tell him how much everybody else needs him and wants him to be there. Tell
him about all the beautiful things he likes in the world, about all the places
and flowers and sports and things that bring him joy. This will give him the
Desire to be here. The Desire to Live and be well again.”
“I can cure him with a bit of fun?”, said Maitreiy.
“Fun? Well, yes, my dear. Fun, or joy. Joy for life.
The most important and serious thing in life. Only playing is almost as serious
as this. Now go to your Father. He is waiting.”
Maitreiy listened to this, and then thanked the Hen
and returned home to her father with Blaize and the Cat. Her father recovered,
and gave his blessings for her to marry Blaize. Every evening from then on,
when Blaize came from the supermarket, he found his father-in-law playing with
his grandchildren, who liked to ride on his back giggling. And every night, Blaize’s
eyes would meet Maitreiy’s over the heads of the children and her healthy
father, and she knew she was happy.
The Cat would sometimes play with them too, or go to
sing with the Gospel Choir, who were very fond of her song and asked her for
many other songs.
