Vulture dismounted from the stepladder, hobbled to the desk, muttered “My apologies,” grabbed the sprout, swallowed it, and added, “Told you time and time again: if it’s rotten, prune it back!”
He passed his handkerchief over the desk.
“Thank you,” Ralph said.
Vulture smiled beatifically.
A cup of coffee appeared from nowhere in front of Ralph. As he was regarding it in surprise, duckweed sprang up on the surface.
“As you can see,” Vulture said, “one is hard pressed to keep track of everything at once. It pains me greatly, it really does.”
Ralph tried to get his mind back together.
“While I was away . . .”
“We all missed you,” Birds announced happily.
Vulture beamed with pride.
“And this Pheasant flew over to the Fourth,” Elephant said, picking his nose. “Who knows why. Not us, but them. Who knows . . .”
“The affairs of the Fourth are not our concern,” Lizard snapped. “Keep your mouth closed!”
Angel struck a pose.
“The House is not quite the House without you, esteemed Ralph. So I keep telling them, constantly! Just ask them, go ahead, ask . . .”
“Happy to hear it,” Ralph said. “Anything else?”
“A song!” Angel crowed, delighted. “Dedicated to you! Finished rehearsing it only yesterday! Permission to perform?”
“Denied,” Ralph said. “Songs will have to wait.”
Birds sighed in disappointment. Angel, infuriated, sank his teeth into his own arm.
“Excuse me?”
There was a small man at the door, bald, wearing a blue suit. He was studying Ralph, squinting myopically.
Ralph rose up.
“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” the small man said, stepping inside.
“I am a counselor,” Ralph explained. “Back from vacation. Just came to visit with the boys. I won’t interfere with your lesson.”
“Not at all,” the teacher fussed, “please, talk all you want. I’ll come later.”
“We have already talked. I don’t want to disrupt. I’m sorry.”
Ralph went around the bald man and into the hallway.
The teacher squeezed out after him.
“You are
“I certainly would,” Ralph said politely, unclasping the teacher’s fingers. “But it’s time for your lesson.”
“Yes,” the teacher said, looking despondently at the door. “It is. But I am certainly experiencing a palpable discomfort. Please don’t misunderstand me. This is vexing.”
The cloying scent of a bog wafted through the crack in the door.
“You’ll get used to it,” Ralph promised. “Give it time.”
The teacher slumped and disappeared inside. Vulture immediately filtered through the door in the other direction.
“Lay it on,” Ralph said. “Everything that’s happened. And make it brief.”
Vulture leaned against the wall.
“Nothing has happened in
“No one’s asked you to do any prying.”
Vulture smiled, exposing red gums.
“The biggest news is that Pompey is no longer with us. Untimely succumbed to a stab wound. Might be considered a suicide, but then again it might not. I would call it that.”
“Would others?”
“The others could regard it differently.”
Ralph thought it over.
“So it was not, in fact, a suicide?”
Vulture shook his head pensively. “It is a question of semantics. When a person spends a considerable amount of time and effort digging a hole in the ground, carefully installs sharpened stakes on the bottom, and then finally jumps in with a cheerful shout, I call that a suicide. But people are free to express a different opinion.”
“All right,” Ralph sighed. “Anything else?”
“The rest is trifling. I am having a hard time imagining what could be worthy of your attention. Maybe the one about the Pheasant transferring from the First to the Fourth. Sphinx’s godson. He is yours now. Also Noble was taken away to the Outsides. The Fourth is in mourning . . .”
Vulture stumbled and fell silent, wincing as if his own words disgusted him for a moment.
“Is that all?”
“Well,” Vulture sighed. “If we are to include the happenings of an earlier time, Wolf died. Back over the summer, soon after you left.”
“What happened?”
“Now this, no one really knows.”
A gangling, blondish apparition with bugged-out eyes suddenly came into view.
“I’m sorry,” it muttered, squeezing in the door past them.
“You’re late!” Vulture screamed testily. “You son of a Log, will I ever see the end of this?”
Horse moaned, shaking his hair, and disappeared inside. Vulture spat a chewed-up lemon leaf after him.
“Bastard,” he said. “Useless weed!”
His face suddenly contorted; he clutched his knee and hissed in pain.
Ralph watched him intently.
“Anything else?”
