“I haven’t got any of those!”
“Wouldn’t be much fun if you did.”
September looked helplessly as the Blue Winds started hollering at one another over the Model A. She heard cyclones tossed into the pot, then an ice storm. I can’t buy it, she thought, her mind racing to logic it out. I can’t steal it with all of them standing about like that. They certainly won’t give it to me…
September smiled sweetly. It is easy to be sweet when you have figured out something to your advantage. “But you can’t sell it to just anyone. It’s a Tool and Tools Have Rights. Whatever that means.”
The Blue Wind scowled. “It means you ought to stop saying it. It has a name.”
“Oh, it does not! I’ve known it for ages, and if it has a name it’s Model A Ford and that’s the beginning and end of it.” September was quite tired of being told how a human car from the human world worked. She might not know much about Fairyland or Lines or magic or even money, but she knew about this.
One of the other Blue Winds stared at her as though she had just said the sun was called Robert.
“She’s called Aroostook,” the other Wind said. She pointed a long, indigo finger at the spare wheel’s burlap cover and the Aroostook Potato Company’s potato-flower logo. “Can’t you read?”
“Of course I can read!”
The Blue Wind picked at something on the furry hem of her rich sleeve. “You humans treat your Tools very shabbily. It’s not stealing at all so much as liberating. The Old Crab says: Use a Tool as you would use your own heart. Ask its leave, hold it gentle, keep it scrubbed, and put it away nice when you’re done.”
“It’s not a tool, anyway; it’s a machine,” grumbled September. “It came off an assembly line at the Ford factory with hundreds of others just like it.”
“Oh, and I suppose you weren’t born in a building with hundreds of others who look just like you?” a short, squat Blue Wind snapped, his beard as thick as ice cream.
“That’s different!”
“Only because you’re squishy and ugly and useless and it’s fiery and shiny and useful!”
A little Blue Wind, hardly more than a child, his big blue eyes full of silver flecks, took pity on September.
“It’s on account of the Pitchfork,” he piped up. “Happened in Parthalia, where the oyster-trees grow and the rum rivers flow black and deep and the Giants pummel their mountains into cities. A Giant’s pitchfork-more like a trident, the size of a cedar-woke up.”
“Was it a hundred years old?” asked September, who recalled her friend Gleam, a Tsukumogami-a lovely festival lamp who came alive on her hundredth birthday.
“Well, yes, but it didn’t hop up and talk and walk and complain about the state of modern literature. What I mean is a different sort of waking altogether. It didn’t stand up and run off to seek its fortune. It didn’t join the Giants’ country dances. It didn’t even move to a sunnier part of the barn. One day the Pitchfork just wouldn’t work. If Cundrie Cattail went to stick it in her hay, the prongs just bent aside and went dull. Once she let it be they sprang back into shape again. Cundrie wrestled with it all morning and into the evening but there was nothing for it. The Pitchfork would not pitchfork. Well, things in Parthalia go funny-side up sometimes. But by spring it had spread to her hairbrush-and a Giant’s hairbrush is as good as a Knight’s mace to anyone else. One evening it just sucked all its bristles up into its back and wouldn’t have a thing to do with Cundrie’s long mossy hair.”
“I don’t know if that’s what I’d call waking up exactly-”
But the little Blue Wind did not let her finish. “It’s saying no. That’s your first hint that something’s alive. It says no. That’s how you know a baby is starting to turn into a person. They run around saying no all day, throwing their aliveness at everything to see what it’ll stick to. You can’t say no if you don’t have desires and opinions and wants of your own. You wouldn’t even want to. No is the heart of thinking. The news went faster than a trade wind: In Parthalia, a Pitchfork said no. In the country of the Giants, a Hairbrush declined. When the Old Crab heard it heralded, he locked himself up in his Thinking Foundry for days and days. When he came out, he had built a new law. It still glowed red-hot in his royal tongs. Tools Have Rights, it said, and he hung it up on the wall of the Hue-and-Cry, which is what he calls the new Parliament most days.” A canny smile crossed his cerulean lips. “You can say what you like; machines are how humans do magic. They’re Tools as sure as I’m Blue. And the law says if you can’t deal fair with them, we have a moral duty to set them galloping. And just look at that poor thing. Hasn’t seen fair since the factory. Our cousin did a noble deed by liberating her. Don’t worry, one of us will continue her education-can a Tool say anything else or is no the limit of their notionals? All of Fairyland wishes to know.”
September heard suddenly in her heart every sputter of the engine and backfire of the exhaust, every stubborn lever and screech of protest from the brakes, every broken part or sprung leak. Were those no’s she hadn’t even known how to hear? No, no, whatever the Pitchfork said, this was not a Fairy car, it was not magic, it was not alive, it was Mr. Albert’s second-best automobile and that was all. But those growls and snarls and wheezes and clutches and chokes would not stop echoing in her heart.
“If all that’s true,” she said, “then it…then Aroostook knows I have taken good care of her over his years. My mother and I patched her tires and kept her fluids fresh and when she looked near to…to death, we made her well again. If you ask her, I am quite sure she would rather be with me than with any number of blue-in-the-face fellows who don’t know a gearshift from a grape.”
“Too late!” wailed a tall Wind with a splendid plum-colored miter on his head. September’s own Blue Wind had slipped off and was now clapping him merrily on the back. “Two hurricanes, a nor’easter, a thundersquall, an ice storm in Perth, and a cyclone in Brooklyn. On the barrelhead, spit in hand, stamped and damped and done and deeded!”
The tall Wind hopped up, turned a nimble flip in the air, and landed neatly in the driver’s seat. He looked flummoxed at the levers and pedals, pulling and pushing in a madcap whirl of blue hands and groaning metal. The Wind seemed to think just this was wonderfully exciting and well worth the price. September hid a smile with her hand-but she also winced, for she could hear the poor engine chewing on itself as the Wind mishandled all its parts. Finally, finally, he pushed the button and turned the key.
Aroostook the Model A said no.
Or at least she gave a loud splatting cough and refused to start.
The little Wind who had explained about the Pitchfork darted away and leapt into the air, floating like a hummingbird, battering the tall Wind about the blue ears with his blue fists until he spilled out of the automobile.
“If you can’t manage it, let a better bluster have a go!”
The little Wind was not so rough; he moved gracefully and September only shuddered a little when she heard an awful whine as he forced the throttle lever all the way down instead of just the easiest bit. He gave the throng of Winds a triumphant azure smile and an even more triumphant, even more azure whoop. He turned the key.
Aroostook the Model A said no.
Or at least she gave an unhappy squeal that ended in a flabby sputter of smoke.
September could bear it no longer. She stomped over, opened the driver’s door, and would have hauled the little Wind out by the lapel of his long-coat if he had not simply wafted up out of the seat, crossing his legs in the air to watch her attempt what by now was clearly impossible. The Winds had begun to drift off, looking for something more interesting and less stubborn. September dug the driving goggles out of the glove box and pulled them on. She closed her eyes behind them for a moment. She pushed in the brake. One eye, then the other. Then see what you see and face up to it. She opened her eyes and turned on the gas valve. She pushed the spark lever all the way up. It’s fire that makes a car go, my love, fire and fuel. She put the throttle smartly at four o’clock. Hardly breathing-would it work for her? Was it alive? Was this all a lot of silliness and you really couldn’t expect a Wind to know a thing about cars anyway? She turned the valve one full turn closed, then one full turn open and put the gear in neutral. Key to ON. Carburetor rod all the way back-and then let go. September waited for the engine to turn over, not daring to make a sound of her own.