Pedigreed-Pet Plaza was an old townhouse dressed up with a marble facade, canopy, and braided doorman. As the afternoon progressed, a few young matrons in fine carriages arrived, presumably to visit pets. Then a carriage pulled up containing Trade Smith, a bearded gentleman whose name and face were familiar to everyone, appearing as it did along with that of his brother Mark on a box of popular throat lozenges. More recently, Trade Smith had made the rotogravures by marrying the leggy young manicurist now seated beside him in the carriage. The couple entered Pedigreed-Pet Plaza.
A half an hour later, the woman came out alone. As the doorman helped her back into the carriage, a loud squawking broke out overhead. A large forest-green parrot was sidling back and forth on a second-story windowsill, shouting something the count couldn’t quite catch. Then a hand — was it Donnabella’s? — clamped around the feathered neck and pulled the bird back inside. The honeymoon’s over, thought Sonderborg. Then he frowned. What on earth made him think of that?
At five o’clock, Donnabella left for the day, carrying a wire cage in one hand and a leather pool-cue case under her arm. Sonderborg followed at a safe distance all the way to the Central Market. He was puzzled by her purchases at the white-mouse stall, perplexed when she added to the cage the finest Norway grey in the rat peddler’s pushcart, and utterly bewildered when she sought out the lizard man, who wore his wares tied up in neat bunches by their green tails around the brim of his sombrero.
It wasn’t until she stopped at a Mr. Pumpkin franchise on her way home that things began to fall into place. He remembered the abandoned pumpkin by the roadside, the grey-whiskered coachman (a Skandahoovian? yes — but more specifically, a Norwegian), the green-liveried footmen, the team of white horses. The count’s heart beat faster. The mystery girl was about to ride again!
Pleased with himself, Sonderborg rounded the corner with careless haste. But Donnabella lay in wait for him, wearing a cruel smile. She had set down her purchases. The pool-cue case was unzipped and empty. “Messenger boy,” she said, as she finished screwing the two halves of her wand together, “you don’t listen good.”
Sonderborg tried to break and run, but the wand tap came. In a twinkling, he’d gone frog again and was hopping left and right to avoid being punted out into traffic. At last he managed to duck through a sewer grating in the curb and trembled at the bars until she crossed the street.
The Lion’s Tooth was a small bar across the street from Donnabella’s apartment. When he’d gulped down his second double brandy, Sonderborg ordered a third. Then to distract himself from his own miserable state — his neck and ears were rapidly going the way of his hair — he set himself to figuring out what Donnabella was up to. The usual fairy-godmother routine was to marry the kid up a notch or two. It looked like Donnabella was doing a hell of a lot better than that. But what was in it for her? A little business thrown Pedigreed-Pet Plaza’s way? Hardly. Or did Donnabella present a bill when the honeymoon was over?
Sonderborg straightened up with a start. Suddenly the whole damn thing fell into place, piece by diabolical piece. His smile was still smug and wide when he noticed the fat glossy blue fly buzzing against the window about ten feet away. Sonderborg hadn’t eaten yet that day and it popped into his mind that that fly would probably have a refreshing peppermint taste. The thought sent cold tears of saliva falling from the roof of his mouth down onto his tongue, which stirred like an awakening serpent. Suddenly the tongue darted forward, crowding in coil after coil against the back of his teeth. Sonderborg frowned uneasily. Then his eyes sprang open wide and he grabbed the edge of the bar with both hands. “Oh, no!” he prayed through clenched teeth. “Oh, please, no!”
“Have you eaten, Sondy?” asked Natalie, interrupting the count’s story. They were back at the picnic table in the lanterned bower. His dismal nod made her put down her sandwich, wipe a palm on her knee, and take his chin in her hand. “Sondy, how come you look so lousy?” At that moment Masterson returned with their beers.
Sonderborg took a long, long pull on his. “I’m okay,” he insisted, and continued with what he’d been saying.
“So Donnabella offers some girl in a rotten family situation — you know, wicked stepmother, ugly stepsisters — the chance to leave home, marry a titan of industry, and live on Easy Street. Soon the blushing bride lures the hubby to Pedigreed-Pet Plaza, where he gets a demonstration of what it means to have Donnabella as an in-law. Take it from one who knows, a little taste of being a doggy or a pussycat goes a long way. Pretty soon he’s signing anything that’s put in front of him — powers of attorney, voting proxies, anything.” Sonderborg stopped and spread his hands helplessly.
“That’s what they’re up to. The trouble is, I can’t prove it. Puppies and pussycats tell no tales. The trouble is—” Here the count’s voice broke and he turned away. “Fairy godmother,” he said, “you see what she’s done to me. Can’t you help? Can’t you change me back to the way I was?”
Natalie shook her head. “The only law the fairy-godmother jungle knows is Don’t be a buttinski. Besides, I can’t buck Donnabella. She carries a big wand, a Magnum Super Six.” She looked at him for a long time as though her heart was going to break. Then she added quietly, “Of course, if you could maybe steal her wand for me—”
Sonderborg’s was a proud line. One of his ancestors had bearded the deadly Cockatrice in its nest. Another had followed Good Prince Tristan into sledded exile beyond the Winter Glacier. The count smote mottled palm with mottled fist. By damn, he’d do it!
Later that evening, back in The Lion’s Tooth bar, Sonderborg, grim-faced, determined, and balding, waited for Donnabella to leave her apartment. Yes, he’d track her to the mystery girl. Then, as the fairy godmother swaggered about with the terrible wand under her arm, he would sneak up behind her, grab the damn thing, and run like hell, that’s what he’d do!
And perhaps he would have. But a wind sprang up off the harbor and the tossing trees filled Rose Garland Street with stork shadows. In the midst of this, Donnabella finally appeared, carrying her wand and the afternoon’s purchases. But by then Sonderborg’s courage had drained completely away. Rooted to his spot at the bar, he watched Donnabella and Cunegunda and Fen House and his manhood disappear around the corner. He caught the barkeep’s eye and ordered another round.
For several long hours, he brooded over his glass. Then he called for pen and paper and went to a table. First he wrote a lengthy farewell to Cunegunda, explaining he had decided to become a hermit and live far from the eyes of man in some ruined chapel by the marge of a pool. Next he wrote a letter to Rinaldo, outlining his suspicions about the Pedigreed-Pet Plaza, hoping perhaps to harm Donnabella for having brought him so low.
It was almost a quarter to twelve when Sonderborg dispatched his letters at the postal-carrier-pigeon cote on the corner. As he started to go, a fat, tweedy man with a red-and-white-checkered napkin under his chin emerged from Donnabella’s apartment building and hurried off down the street. It was the man from the night before, the one in the tree above the abandoned pumpkin. Could he also be Donnabella’s Lovey out for a forbidden midnight snack? Had Sonderborg found another, a safer way to the mystery girl?
In spite of Lovey’s habit of swiveling his head completely around and looking backward as he walked, the count managed to follow him to Embassy Row. There, in a splendid courtyard under the Sandalian banner (twelve fluttering fishes argent on a field azur), stood an orange carriage. At the fat man’s approach, the white horses set the cobblestones to sparking under their nervous hooves and the coachmen, swallowing a hefty Norwegian oath, cringed back in his box. Suddenly the lounging footmen were all jittery arms and legs. Smacking his lips over their plump green calves, Lovey bounded lightly up to the roof of the carriage.