Package of Raisin

Taking Leave

In the Itchy Thicket, where Polywog Bog becomes less marsh and more meadow, nestles a village of gnomes. The name of the village is a variable thing, as the gnomes have the charming habit of renaming things--including themselves--when the whim takes them.

Raisin's weekly housekeeper was a notorious widow named Muffin (Tart in her younger days, if that helps to explain her notoriety). On the day Raisin took his current name--being now as old and wrinkled as you might imagine--she fancied a courtship had launched. It hadn't.

Raisin now entered Muffin's house with all the trepedition of a fly calling on a spider. But where the spider thinks only to catch and eat the fly, Muffin wished to snare Raisin in the sticky bonds of matrimony. Yes, all things considered, flies had it quite easy.

"Raisin! Oh, you're a morsel, and just in time for tea!"

Spiders use poison to subdue their prey. Muffin served tea.

"Can't stay, Mistress Muffin. Merely dropped in to inform you that I'll be leaving the village for a time."

"Oh dear! Whatever for?" Muffin pressed a steaming cup into Raisin's reluctant hands.

"Important affairs, Muffin." Raisin chanced a polite sip of tea. He made a face, but his usual wrinkled expression disguised it well enough. "Please, look after the house."

"Of course." Muffin's mouth pinched in sympathy, completely misreading Raisin's distress.

"Now, I really must go. Preparations, you understand..."

"But your tea! Here, let me freshen you up..."

"No, need!" In a bold move, Raisin drained his cup in one fierce draught. The bitter shock did not kill him outright. Staggered him, certainly, but he covered it while rising to his feet. If Muffin took any offence at his abrupt departure, he was too dazed to know it.