Toots Underground by Carol Hughes

Author:Carol Hughes [Hughes, Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-49201-2
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2011-08-03T00:00:00+00:00

PALYDIA AND BLANCHE

Eventually they stopped by a door in the tunnel wall. With a wince and a sob Palydia gingerly held out her flaking hand. Around her wrist was a heavy silver chain, and from this dangled a small, bright key. Ever so gently, Elizabeth took hold of the key and guided it toward the keyhole.

“Ow!” squealed Palydia, trying not to move her mouth. Large flakes of skin fluttered down from her wrist where the heavy chain chafed. “Oww,” she groaned. “Why can’t I just give her the key? Why do I have to wear it like this?”

“You know very well we can’t have her running in and out all the time,” replied Blanche through clenched teeth. “You know she can’t be trusted. Now shut up and move closer to the door. You’re making it take forever!”

“Ow, ow, ow!” wailed Palydia as Elizabeth fitted the key into the lock. “Be careful!”

As soon as Elizabeth had turned the key, Palydia pushed past her, completely forgetting that the key was still in the door. As the chain yanked against her wrist, Palydia ricocheted back into the tunnel and collided with her sister.

Blanche was not pleased.

Elizabeth intervened and quickly removed the key from the keyhole. Then she held the door wide open while Palydia dipped her feather-crowned head and disappeared inside. Dragging Toots by the ear, Blanche followed. Toots didn’t want to go, but where her ear went she had to go, too.

The chamber they now entered was as different as could be from the dark, bare tunnel. It was splendid and strange. The walls and ceilings were hung with bright silks. Tall candles burned in elaborate candelabras. And all this splendor was reflected in many gold-framed mirrors on the walls. In the corners were two carved wooden screens that displayed pictures of tiny insects. Palydia immediately disappeared behind one of these, whimpering as she went. As soon as the door to the chamber was locked behind them, Blanche let go of Toots’s ear and, with a muffled shriek, hurried behind the other screen.

Toots looked around. The strangest thing of all was that right in the middle of this fancy room stood two plain wooden tables. They didn’t seem to belong there at all. At the far end of one table was a small cart on which stood a large, old-fashioned mincing machine with a huge wheel for grinding whatever was put into the funnel at the top.

Palydia soon appeared, wrapped in a fluffy pink bath towel. A moment later Blanche came out in a blue one.

With a great deal of difficulty the two sisters hoisted themselves onto the tables and lay back like languishing heroines. Elizabeth gently removed their spectacles. All around their eyes large pieces of skin were flaking away like peeling wallpaper. It looked painful.

“Hurry!” whined Blanche without moving her mouth.

“Hurreeeee!” screeched Palydia.

Elizabeth quickly transferred the furzeweed thorns from her satchel to the mincing machine and began to turn the handle. Soon great dollops of smoothly minced furzeweed dropped into a bowl at her feet.

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