Clemency Pogue by JT Petty

Author:JT Petty
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
Published: 2005-01-18T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

“I HOPE THAT’S done with.” Chaphesmeeso was blushing slightly. He scratched at his head through his pointy metal hat.

“All done,” said Clemency. “And I brought that fairy back to life.” She pulled in her lips until they disappeared and produced a toothless, self-satisfied smile.

“Reanimator, you? No. How did you find her name?” Chaphesmeeso’s rabbit ears perked.

“It was written across her knuckles,” Clemency said.

“Ah. Clever. Clever, clever.” Chaphesmeeso nodded; he approved of this. A grin cracked the gourdish skin covering his face, but then faltered.

He looked down at his own hands as if he had caught them telling his secrets. He looked nervously at Clemency for a moment before splaying his mottled, wrinkled fingers out before her.

“Tell me,” he said. “Are any of these marks words?”

Clemency studied the numerous freckles, liver spots, and scars.

“Nope,” she said, unable to read anything but a lifetime’s worth of digging, “but that birthmark there kind of looks like an elephant holding an ax.”

“Egad,” Chaphesmeeso said, recovering his composure as he looked down at the pachydermatological blotch. “Maybe I’ll name him Choppy.”

“So.” Clemency was still riding high on her crest of success with Jeffrey’s tooth. “Who’s next?”

“Well, now’s the time to scratch the rind, Clemcruel or Clemenkind? A fairy in jolly old England dropped dead into the icing of a child’s birthday cake. Cream cheese frosting, I believe. The Fairy of Wishes Denied was denying young Amy’s birthday wishes by the eternal flame of her eighth and final candle. No matter how often or hard Amy puffed, the fairy relit the candle. So, fairy mortar, but fairly moral, I ask: A child’s happiness or a fairy’s life?” Chaphesmeeso rocked back on his heels.

“A child’s happiness. Let’s move on.” Clemency judged, and well, as a fairy is little more than intentions with wings and a child is possibly everything.

“Fine and good. A fairy’s life or the happiness of cows?” Chaphesmeeso asked. Occupied with Clemency, he had not yet heard of the Fairy of Random Prodding’s return to life and to the torment of jigging Texan cattle.

“A good fairy or a bad one?”

“Undeniably bad.”

“The happiness of cows.”

(These last three lines, translated into Japanese, make a beautiful haiku.)

“Fine and good. A fairy’s life or the satisfaction of a very bad child?”

“A fairy’s life. What’s the story?” Clemency was filled to the rim with confidence. Every time she moved, a little dribbled down the side.

“Hobololi, Mississippi. There is a little boy named Sinclair Grimm, an only child, except for a sibling dog. Sinclair’s dear old mom loves that dog more than her son, which is frankly understandable. The dog is friendly and smart, and the boy is not. All that we know is that Sinclair is concocting a plan. A plan like a cheap raincoat, horrible and irreversible. A Fairy of Instinct and Wisdom was hovering nearby, to intercede whenever Sinclair started to crank the wheels of his plan, but that fairy dropped dead as a sugar cube into Sinclair’s tea, and he drank her. If that boy’s actions

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