He could feel his face getting red. “Well—I guess I was getting sore at them for showing off in front of you girls. I didn’t want to be left out. They were always calling me the runt and bugging me. And you were watching them, and I didn’t want you to think I was chicken…”
“Oh, Rolf,” she said, shaking her head. “Boys are so silly. Why would I think you’re chicken? I’ve known you all my life; I know you’re not chicken. A little silly sometimes, maybe…”
She laughed, and Rolf found that he was laughing with her.
“I guess I just wanted you to think that I was as big as any of the guys. As important as any of them.”
Her face grew serious again. “Is that why you’re helping the gremlins? So that they’ll help you feel important?”
“Yeah… no…” Rolf felt confused. “Aw, I don’t know. I’m not even sure how I got into this.”
Baneen did not meet them before they got to the Hollow, as usual. In fact they came into the very Hollow itself before any sort of attention was paid them by the gremlins. When they reached the lip of the hollow they saw why. All work seemed to be at a standstill, with all the gremlins watching one corner of the Hollow that seemed to be obscured by a cloud of green smoke. Curious, Rolf went toward the smoke, with Rita and Mr. Sheperton behind him, and as he got close, he heard voices coming from it. Specifically, he heard Baneen’s voice, on a high sarcastic note.
“…Ah, round is it, indeed? A round universe?” Baneen was saying. “And what happens to magic when you’re on the underside of it, may I ask now? It’s all upside-down is it? And all the spells backward?”
“Not so!” hissed the voice of O’Rigami—and Rolf with Rita and Mr. Sheperton pushed through the green smoke to find a clear space within which O’Rigami and Baneen were confronting each other, with perhaps six feet of distance between them. “Being round, all praces on universe identicar. Sperrs arways the same!”
“Ah, dear me, and do you really believe such nonsense?” demanded Baneen, still sarcastically. “It’s a fever you must be having, for certain. I’ve noticed you’re not looking yourself, nowadays—”
As he spoke, he passed his hands one over the other and O’Rigami turned from his normal gremlin green color to a bright reddish brown plaid in color.
“Am in perfect shape and coror!” snapped O’Rigami, turning sharply back to green. His fingers twinkled and a piece of paper which had appeared from nowhere suddenly took on the shape of a miniature garden fountain. “Also happen to understand more of universe than others who might stirr be too ignorant—”
The fountain suddenly spouted a fine stream of water which arched up through the air forward and curved down again abruptly to splatter Baneen generously behind his pointed gremlin ears.
Baneen yelped and dodged. Suddenly he turned into a crocodile which charged at O’Rigami, jaws agape, drinking up the water from the fountain as it came.
O’Rigami’s flying fingers abruptly fashioned a Spanish bullfighter’s cape with which he executed perfectly that pass with the cape known as a veronica. Completely fooled by the cape, the crocodile thundered past, discovered itself facing nothing, and whirled about. But O’Rigami had already folded a complete stony medieval castle about himself and was hidden in it.
The crocodile turned abruptly into a gopher, which leaped forward and began to tunnel into the earth out of sight and toward the castle. The castle arose on two thin green legs and scurried aside. It unfolded and disappeared suddenly, revealing O’Rigami, whose flying fingers wove a fisherman’s net in the air where the castle had originally been.
The gopher popped up through the earth where the castle had been. The net fell about it in folds, entangling it. And abruptly the gopher turned back into Baneen, trapped in the netting.
“Help!” cried the little gremlin. “Help. O’Rigami, help now! Turn me loose!”
“Onry,” said O’Rigami, sternly, “on condition you wirr not insist any more on this nonsense about the universe being frat!”
“I promise. Indeed, I promise!” cried Baneen. “Word of Baneen!”
“No, you don’t!” said O’Rigami. “This is fourteen thousand, five hundred and ereventh time you’ve brought up same argument. I don’t want to argue it with you ever again. Give me your gremrinish word—or you stay in that net for the next million years!”
“Ah, no!” begged Baneen. “Not that! O’Rigami, friend of me youth—”
“Your gremrinish word, or there you stay!” said O’Rigami implacably, folding his arms.
Baneen sighed and drooped inside the net.
“All right,” he said, sulkily. “My gremlinish word—I’ll agree the universe is round from now on!”
O’Rigami waved his hands and the net vanished. Baneen climbed to his feet and brushed himself off. But his face was sulky.
“Ah,” he said, “but it’s a terrible thing, it is, for one true gremlin to require the Unbreakable Promise from another. Bad dreams to your cruel mind, O’Rigami, and may your conscience prick you that did such to an old friend—”
Just then he became aware of Rolf and the others watching, and his sulky look was transformed into a smile.
“But here’s the lad and the lass as well, to say nothing of Mr. Sheperton!” Baneen exclaimed. “Welcome to our humble abode, fairest of lasses. It’s pleased we are that you’ve come to visit with us.”
Rita’s eyes sparkled like a child’s on Christmas morning. “How did you know I was coming here? I mean, you weren’t surprised to see me at all, were you?”
“Of course not. Gremlins can foresee the future, you know—er, only on special occasions, such as this one, that is. And only up to a limited point, don’t you know.”
“Foresee the future?” Rita asked. “Can you…”
“Ah, but it’s not my chatter you’ve come for, is it?” Baneen said. “You’ve come to meet our masterful and baleful leader, Lugh of the Long Hand, Prince of the Royal House of Gremla.”
Rita laughed, delighted. “He knows everything!”
But Rolf, somehow, was feeling much less than happy. Baneen led Rita into the misty-aired Hollow and Rolf fell into step behind them.
Mr. Sheperton, walking beside Rolf, muttered, “Trust a gremlin to flatter a human straight out of his—or her—senses.” But he seemed to be saying it more to himself than to Rolf.
Baneen was saying, as they went through the Hollow, “Lugh’s not here at the present moment. He’s out watching those scalawag poachers in their great oily boat.”
“They’re back again?” Rolf asked.
“Sure enough. That squeaky-voiced captain and his two ugly sailors have brought a few businessmen with them this time. He’s showing them what a grand view they’re going to have of the launch. And promising them roast wild duck for their dinners! Lugh’s there at the beach, protecting them from being spotted by the rangers. And boiling in his own juices if I know Lugh the Terrible-Tempered.”
“Hmph,” said Mr. Sheperton.
“So I’d be advising you,” Baneen continued, “to be careful of not being seen by the poachers. And be even more careful of not triggering the wrath of Lugh. He’ll be in a foul mood, no doubt. Making magic on a continuous basis for several hours is a terrible strain, especially next to all that water, you know.”
Lugh did look terribly strained when they saw him. And angrier than ever. He was standing atop a high dune that overlooked the beach, his cheeks puffed out, his face red, his fists clenched at his sides. From time to time, as a breeze puffed in from the sea, he would actually float off the sand a few inches, like a balloon, and then settle down again slowly.
Baneen called to him when they got near enough. “Lugh, me magic-making marvel, I’ve brought you some visitors to help pass away the morning.”