King Peggy by Peggielene Bartels

Author:Peggielene Bartels [Bartels, Peggielene]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-385-53433-8
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-02-20T16:00:00+00:00

14

The day had started off badly, with Tsiami making such a fool of himself and the late king’s daughters’ mean-spirited request, but it rapidly got worse. When the sun was at its highest point, and Peggy was eating her fried fish, a taxi careened to a stop in front of the house, spewing sand and pebbles. Holding two suitcases, Ekow barged in the front door.

“Mama, Mama, King Nana Mama, I am here!” he cried.

Peggy stared at him, dismayed. Ekow had, if it was possible, lost weight since she had last seen him a year earlier. His face looked more like a dried prune than ever, and his ears seemed to stick out farther than before.

“Ekow,” she said briskly. “How did you know I was coming here?”

“The relatives are all talking about it,” he said. “It is nice and very, very fine. I will sleep on the floor in your room. I will help you keep things clean.” He bustled down the hall to Peggy’s room, dragging his two bags. Peggy looked at his retreating form and groaned.

A few minutes later, Tsiami stopped by to apologize for pretending he had lost the stool room keys, for taking the late king’s children into the stool rooms without Peggy’s permission, and for lying about it all. “It is quite common for kings and their tsiamis to fight frequently,” he said, shrugging. “But still, I can’t imagine what got into me.”

“I know exactly what got into you, Tsiami,” Peggy retorted. “Alcohol. Through your mouth. That’s what got into you. Do you think I don’t know where much of the ancestral libations ends up? If someone gives you a bottle of schnapps to pour to the ancestors, you pour half down your throat and the other half into the ground. Yours is the perfect profession for an alcoholic.”

Tsiami said nothing.

“And the next time you pour libations for a ceremony at the palace, I am going to smell your breath first to make sure you are sober. I am going to stick my head inside your mouth and take a deep whiff, so be prepared. I will not have you botch the ancestral libations.”

Tsiami considered this. “All right. I will drink afterward, then.”

“Fine,” Peggy replied. “But if you don’t perform your priestly duties correctly, I will fire you, which will be a great dishonor. So bear that in mind.”

Tsiami nodded, stood up, and strode out of the house. Gazing at his skinny form retreating into the bush, Peggy was glad that he had apologized. Perhaps her efforts at trying to teach him to respect her would pay off, the way they had paid off with her brothers and the dish duty. Come to think of it, though, her brothers had been very young, and youth is a time when the human mind is flexible and readily accepts new notions. Age, on the other hand, stiffens people, who may become rigidly inflexible, like those trees in California that had petrified and turned to rock. Most likely it

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