The book of Mening

CHAPTER ONE
THE DINNER INVITATION

Penny Beebird lived in a little town, in a little house, in a little room. Even though she had everything she wished for she was never quite happy. She always sat next to her window and looked outside into the starry sky, wondering how life was beyond her town.

The years went by and she became more and more anxious, her desire for knowledge drove her mad almost every night, filling her dreams with wonderful scenes of strawberry shortcakes and flying pink machines that suddenly became hanging clocks that drowned in golden river streams.

So one day, when she really could not take it any longer, she packed her things and went to her best friends’ house, Doran Buzzlebay, to tell her the news: she was leaving in search of a grand adventure and she was welcome to come along if that was her wish.

Doran was a very pretty blond girl, no older than sixteen, who was deathly afraid of the woods, not for the big trees or dangerous cliffs, but because of the tiny insects that lived in it, which, word had it, were extremely poisonous. When her friend turned up at her doorstep in the middle of the day with a backpack on her shoulders and a demented look, she knew nothing good could come out of it.

For hours they stayed there, discussing the pros and cons of leaving town in such an epic adventure. Epic if not foolish, many in the town said, because this little town had very little information about the rest of the world, so little in fact that there were not even maps of the woods, or the streams, or the mountains; all they had in the public library was a collection of books for cooking, sewing and, if you were lucky enough to find it, singing.

The sun set for the day and still they had come to no agreement as to whether Doran would accompany Penny or not, so they sat down in Doran’s living room and did what they were best at, draw. Doran drew pictures of lovely rainbows and cats with blue tails, Penny drew landscapes of far away worlds full of color and life. Drawing, they fell asleep.

Penny only woke up when she felt a soft moving sensation around her and realized she was no longer home. Startled by the movement and change of scenario she did not notice that Doran was with her as well, at least not until she heard a very loud squeal of terror coming from her right as a bug placed itself upon Doran’s terrified face. She screamed and moved her hands around, trying in vain to get the bug away form her, yet the bug remained put, determined to scare the living light out of her. If it had not been for Penny’s quick reaction and steady hand maybe the adventure would not have lasted much longer.

They looked at each other and then they looked out, they were definitely no longer home. The trees were big, the bugs were even bigger, the sun shone brightly and the air blew around them freely as it had never done before.  Wherever they were it was a different place from the little village, it was a wonderful place. But how had they come here? Who was carrying them? Those were the troubling questions that crashed the innocent fascination they had had so far. The last thing they remembered was having sat down in the living room and talked while drawing for a very long time, now they were somewhere else and no matter how much they tried to look at the people who were carrying them, they just could not.

Penny and Doran started to coax up a plan; because if there was anything they were good at together, it was coaxing up plans. More than once the little town had been a victim of these plans, no one had forgotten the time they had penned pal a community at random and their response had been an envelope stacked with a weird dust that, latter on they found out, provoked an epidemic that took no lives but left many birth-like marks behind. Yes, they were great at planning together, what usually was a disaster was the outcome of the very plans. However, when panicking in a weird yet fantastic situation you do not give a lot of things a second thought; your mind is set in a non logical “go for it” mode that is very hard to disobey.

They sat whispering and looking around for useful materials or things that could get them safely outside the wooden door-less box in which they were.  There were a lot of trees, Penny thought, but that would not do a lot of good unless they had something to tie around a branch so they could swing off.

If they had stopped and taken a good look around at what was inside instead of what was outside they would have realized that the backpack was with them and inside it there was plenty of rope. But no one does the logical thing in an adventure.
So they looked the other way around and found hook flowers, very resistant and big enough to hang from anything. They had a smaller variety in the little town which they used to hang the hammocks, so they took a pair.

Now all they had left to do was jump as high and as far as they could and very luckily place the hook around a branch. Needless to say the plan did not work out as expected.    Both of them missed, Penny threw herself too high and Doran threw herself too far, in the end the result was the same: they both ended up in the soil with their behinds hurting. While rubbing their backs they stood up and silently tip toed behind their kidnappers.

Along they went for half an hour before the kidnappers decided to rest and check upon their hostages. Penny and Doran did not notice the sudden stop and kept on walking, crashing hopelessly with the kidnapers and giving away their so far acceptable escape plan.  The four of them fell to the floor and despite the fact that they were supposed to be enemies, did not move for the longest of moments.

Penny and Doran had never looked at anyone from another town, so their fascination was understandable. The kidnappers, in the other hand, must have been experts in routes and maps and must have traveled to many towns and places in order to have kidnapped them successfully, so how come they were as awed as Penny and Doran?

They stared the longest stare ever and then, without warning, stood up and went for each other’s throats. Penny got hold of the biggest one and was rolling away in the soil, choking him, it, whatever it was, with all her might. Doran was not so lucky, she was being held by the hands and was immobilized, the more she struggle the less control she had over herself. It was not until Penny looked at Doran and the kidnappers looked at each other that they came to realize they were stuck like this. If something happened to Doran then Penny was sure to finish off the kidnapper, and if something happened to the kidnapper then Doran was surely finished off as well. At the same time, out of a silent truce, they separated.

“Who are you and why did you kidnap us?” asked Doran, amazingly bold for someone who had been seconds away from being fish food.

“We did no such thing!” said the biggest of them, taking a hurt tone that fooled no one.

“We were in my house last night, we woke up in a box this morning without our consent: I believe that is called kidnapping,” retorted Doran as she cleaned her very black neck collar.

“Not in the place we come from, we call it asking friends for dinner and you should be thankful because it took us many years to find out how to get to your little town,” said the smallest one. He had deep blue eyes, a big nose and spiked black hair.

“Who are you?” asked Penny, torn between amazement, anger and curiosity.

“You sent us a letter two years ago; we sent you back a pouch of powder -”

“That almost killed our entire town, we were outcasts for a week thanks to you!” snapped Doran before she attempted to throw herself at them again but was intercepted by Penny.

“Go on,” demanded Penny while struggling against Doran and trying to keep a steady voice.

“Sorry about that, it was only after we had sent it we realized we had forgotten to attach the instructions as to how to use it. The powder was for decoration, it was meant to be placed in a container at once, not to be spread…” mumbled away the smallest one.

“And why is it that you kidnapped us?”

“We did it to have dinner with you. We knew there was no way you were going to open up another one of our envelopes so we took a shot at asking you ourselves,” said the biggest one.

“I was under the impression that when you asked someone to do something you have to speak to them,” shot Penny, all curiosity faded at the lack of manners from their pen pals.

“When we arrived you were asleep so we just kind of invited ourselves in and just sort of assumed that you had said yes to our invitation. It is custom in our town not to let strangers see where we live, so we had to make you sleep even deeper, just in case,” explained quickly the smallest one, clearly afraid of the reaction this little speech would have in his companions.

“If we were under the influence of whatever it is you made us breathe to put us to sleep, why did we wake up?” asked Doran as she dodged a bug, her fear of insects clearly overcame at the idea of being drugged.

“That is exactly what we have been wondering all along…maybe you required a bigger dose because you are from somewhere else,” said the biggest one, clearly not afraid of the two girls. How could he when he was almost an entire head bigger than them?

Nervous looks were shot, no one moved because no one knew what to do next. Through Penny’s mind crossed a thousand useless thoughts that would have been no good for an escape plan seeing as she now came to appreciate once and for all the truth: she did not have the slightest clue as to where she was. The feeling of adventure hushed her common sense, giving the explorer in her a boost, making her want to accept the dinner invitation.

“Our town is that way in case you want to come to dinner,” said the biggest one, pointing to his left and looking hopeful.

“That would be quite nice, but first I would like to know your names. Calling you pen pal one and pen pal two would turn out too tiring on the long run,” said Penny to the two strangers, while the biggest one mumbled something that sounded a lot like “…right, manners…” and stretched his hand towards them.

“I am Nott Willowpecker and this is Wrey Silvershot, we are from Fruzzle,” introduced Nott, while shaking hands with them both and then walking towards the direction he had pointed earlier on.

Silently they walked towards Fruzzle, passing the occasional stream, going up one or two mountains. Penny and Doran had never seen mountains like these, green to the very inch, full of green petal roses and green flower daisies. The path was not clear; in fact there was no path at all, only rocks that covered a portion of the soil which served as a natural route towards the town that was becoming bigger as they came closer. 

At last they saw it, a big wooden sign that read “Fruzzle, home of maps”. They walked through the bridge and under the arc, directly into the main plaza of the very busy town. The boys had covered the girls’ eyes just before passing the bridge, having remembered the law which forbid any stranger knowing the whereabouts of the town under penalty of death; after all, the town was the main producer of maps in this side of the world and if its location was to ever be known, then other jealous towns could try to besiege the place and take away all the information they had so cautiously collected throughout the years, hundreds of years.

The girls walked blindfolded, concern invading their bloodstreams as they revived so many caution speeches their parents had given them in the privacy of their homes not many years ago. “Do not trust strangers”, “Always keep your eyes wide open in a new place” and most importantly “Watch each other’s backs when you are in danger”…well, none of those advices were being followed as the two of them walked side by side, blindfolded and trusting a couple of men that had kidnapped them not one day ago. Mom and Dad would be very mad if they ever found out, thought
Penny.

While walking through the crowd their conscience began to hurt as they came to think of all the people in the town that must be looking for them with not even the faintest idea that they were fine. What if the little town made something crazy like send out a search party? No one knew how to navigate or even less how to cross a river. The only book in the library that contained such information was hidden in Penny’s backpack, she had taken it years ago from the library and had liked it so much she never bottled up the courage to let go of it and hand it back.

“Where is my backpack?” asked Penny as they stopped under the shadow of a tree.

“We placed it with you, up in the box. I thought you were carrying it,” said Nott.

“Well I am obviously not! I need my backpack...it has everything I need for my adventure!”

“What adventure?” asked Wrey, rather curious on the whole subject, of what he had come to find out, the little town people did not look like the adventurous type.

“The one I was going to leave on until you kidnapped us in the middle of the night!”

“If it is so important we will pick it up first thing tomorrow, the gates of the town have been closed for the day and no one can leave,” assured Wrey, giving them a stern look.

Even though the whole “closing of the gates” was a concept none of the girls understood they embraced it, mainly because they were too tired and hungry to discuss.

Wrey undid the knot that blindfolded them, allowing them to take a good look at the town for the first time. The first thing they noticed was that the town was, unlike their own, huge. So huge, they thought, it should not have been considered a town. There were big streets filled with people walking or riding horses, carrying hand-carts and selling all types of weird things they never knew existed. The town was surrounded by stone walls which had four gates, one for each cardinal point. They were in a hidden part of the town, probably the outskirts, but even from there they could appreciate the beauty of what they thought to be the center, they could see a big building rising in the middle of it all and smaller houses circling it.

Their town was so different from this one they struggled to believe someone could live like this, what with all the noise, passing trolleys and many houses, someone was bound to have gotten lost at least once in their life inside such a place. They were amazed and terrified of the town, they could not have lived in such a place even if they had tried to; they were very used to their quite life in the little town with no moving carts and no banning walls.

Nott opened the door of the house and in they went. The town could have been very different, but the houses were exactly the same, same height of the sealing, same round living room and same chimney place. The girls looked at the boys for two seconds, waiting for them to signal a welcome and invite them to sit down, but as it did not come they did so anyways, manners not being paramount at the moment, their legs hurting like never before; in their little town they had hardly walked from Doran’s house to Penny’s house, and that was not very far away.

Despite the fact that they had been delayed due to the quarrels in the woods they made it on time for dinner. Wrey went into the kitchen to cook some stew while Nott searched the cabinets, looking for spoons, forks, knifes and china to place on the table.

Penny and Doran stayed sited, not moving or talking, though inside their quiet bodies their minds were racing. Penny’s was the busiest mind, she was no longer worried about the people from the town, they could send them a letter in the morning and they will hopefully receive it before next week; and in the worst of cases the whole town was aware that she had always craved an adventure and on the evening of her disappearance she had been about to overtake one, so maybe they would draw conclusions and think that she had not been kidnapped against her will but that she had gone willingly. As to Doran’s whereabouts, they would think she had been dragged into the adventure by her; she had always managed to drawn Doran’s good sense and induced her to be her sidekick in the most innocent mischief. No, that was not what worried her. What kept her thinking were her new friends. There was something about their story that did not fit.

Doran was lying in the other couch and she was incredibly concern less. Doran was one of those girls that always worried about every little thing and this kind of thoughtlessness was very much uncharacteristic. In her mind everything was settled, this adventure into which she had been dragged was not such a bad thing; sure, people will miss her in the town but they would eventually assume she was well, and if not then she will correct their mistaken thoughts once she was back home, though she did not plan to go back for a very long time.

This new world suited both of them, despite their differences they had always agreed on something, even if they had never said it out loud; the quiet life was not for them. They had been born for mischief, adventure and excitement. Their little town with its little windows and little streets was too narrowed minded for their ideas, too little for their crazy and unexplainable desire of venture.

Wrey came out of the kitchen with a bowl in his hands and signaled them to sit down in the chairs; the table had already been set marvelously. Penny and Doran had never been guests in a foreign town, Nott and Wrey had never hosted for anyone before, so all of them sat down nervously, looking at the forks and knifes rather than at each other, wondering who ought to take the first bite.

“Well, it is a pleasure having your company tonight, help yourselves to some food, you must be hungry; I do not know if you are aware of it but you have not eaten in five days,” said Nott, immediately wishing he could take back the last part of the sentence.

“What do you mean by “five days”? That is silly, we had dinner yesterday at my house!” laughed Doran.

“…Erm…Not exactly, you were asleep for five solid days,” admitted Wrey.

“Then this is very far away from our little town. How did you find us? And why bother making a five day trip back and forth just to invite us to dinner?” inquired Penny, a flare of suspicion rising inside her.

“Never you mind that right now, eat. It is getting cold. Tomorrow we will answer that and many other questions,” answered Wrey, giving them the same stern look he had had on his face when he explained about the closing of the gates.

The dinner went on uneventfully, no one spoke, each either hungry or worried. At
last, they cleared the table and the boys showed them the way up the stairs. The master bedroom had two beds which were to be occupied by the girls. The boys would sleep in the couches downstairs, claiming them to be very spacey and cushy. Without further ado they said good night and went to their corresponding beds, the girls so sleepy they could not ask any questions and the boys relieved, because they did not want to answer any.