With a skittering thump, something barreled toward September, nearly crashing into a lovely, tall mother-of-pearl candelabra that lit the way into Almanack, only righting itself with a wild thrashing of four of its eight legs as it careened up on its side. It brought itself in hand with a thud and a scrabble and looked up at September with piercing, intelligent eyes: a broad, polished, black-and-white-checkered crab.
“Afternoon,” he said crisply. “Name’s Spoke and I’ll be your Taxicrab on this fine day. First visit to Almanack? I can always spot a first-timer. Can’t stop gawking at the ceiling. Sometimes they throw up! Please don’t throw up. I’ve just had a wash.”
September looked from the checkered crab to the green pearl ceiling and back again. “But I didn’t call for a…a Taxicrab,” she said softly.
“Who calls for one? Screamingly inefficient, if you ask me! Almanack takes care of all your needs. I suppose if you felt like insisting on it I could fetch you a walking map, but they’re a devil to catch and take at least four hands and an opposable tail to operate so it’s my professional opinion as a crabbie of venerable years that you ought to climb on and let me scuttle you wherever you need to scut!”
Indeed, a very comfortable-looking cushioned chair was strapped to the crab’s chessboard back with a number of enormous black belts. Throw pillows in all the shades of mother-of-pearl plumped invitingly along the seat.
“I’m afraid I haven’t got a fare…” September bit the inside of her cheek so as not to show the fullness of her embarrassment. How hard she had tried to avoid this! How carefully she’d saved!
The Taxicrab’s slender claws went snick-snick-crunch. “Fare? I don’t know the meaning of the word! You’re a fair young girl; I’m a fair old crab and I pinch my children equally when they’ve been wretched. But if you mean paying your way, like I summed it, Almanack looks after your littlest need before you know you’ve got one in your pocket. Hup, hup, hup! In you go, don’t be shy, I won’t drop you-well, I won’t drop you far. I’m low to the ground, which is how I spell safety!”
September could not help smiling. After the Blue Wind, she felt the crab’s cheerfulness wash over her like a hot and happy bath. She put her foot in one of the belt loops like a horse’s stirrup and hoisted herself onto the plush seat.
“Where to, my four-legged maid?”
“I haven’t got four legs! I think you must have miscounted.”
“Sure you have! Just like I’ve got ten. Oh, the ignorant will say eight, but my claws are for walking as well as snatching and pinching and digging. I daresay you could walk around on your hands and knees if you had a hankering to do it. And why slow yourself down by only using your body parts for only one thing each? Very limiting!”
September laughed and held a little tighter to the arms of her chair, suddenly not entirely certain of the sort of locomotion Spoke intended to use on her. “I’ve got to see the Whelk of the Moon, if you please,” she said nervously.
The Taxicrab made a burbling sound somewhere deep in his shell, an uncertain sort of giggle.
“Pardon and all but you’ll have to be more specific. Where there’s a Whelk there’s a way, I always say! Well, we all say. I can’t take credit. It’s the Taxicrab motto.”
“I… I don’t follow, sir. But I’ve got a lovely long casket”-she felt it best to talk up the box a little so no one would think it suspicious-“and I’m meant to bring it to the Whelk of the Moon and I hoped someone else would know who that was. I’m not from these parts-I’m not even from the parts this part is part of!”
The Taxicrab bubbled again. “Nup, nup, I’ve got you now. Don’t spin your head about it. I’ll spin it plenty on my ownsome!”
Spoke reared up like a pony, stabbed his fore-claws down into the stuff of the street, and launched forward with a tremendous vault, clearing streetlamps, a skating rink, and a throng of little Naiads with ribbons in their seafoam hair, who squealed in delight and waved their hands. They came down with a chin-jarring crunch near a shop full of round rice candy in the windows and skittered away so fast September’s hair blew back and her eyes watered. The Taxicrab obeyed no logic at all. He dashed up one wall and swerved toward the ceiling until September cried out in terror, having no seat belt and hanging nearly upside down. Then he leapt out, checkered legs splayed wide, and landed in some poor soul’s back garden, shredding their delicate snow-colored grapevines-which tore off and trailed out behind them like streamers when he leapt again.
“On your left you can see the Stationary Circus in all its splendor! Not far nor wide will you find dancing bears more nimble than ours, ringmasters more masterful, Lunaphants more buoyant!”
September looked down and leftward as best she could. She could see the dancing bears, the ringmaster blowing peonies out of her mouth like fire, an elephant floating in the air, her trunk raised, her feet in mid-foxtrot-and all of them paper. The skin of the bears was all folded envelopes; they stared out of sealing-wax eyes. The ringmaster wore a suit of birthday invitations dazzling with balloons and cakes and purple-foil presents; her face was a telegram. Even the elephant seemed to be made up of cast-off letterheads from some far-off office, thick and creamy and stamped with sure, bold letters. A long, sweeping trapeze swung out before them. Two acrobats held on, one made of grocery lists, the other of legal opinions. September could see Latin on the one and lemons, ice, bread (not rye!), and lamb chops on the other in a cursive hand. When they let go of the trapeze-bar, they turned identical flips in the air and folded out into paper airplanes, gliding in circles all the way back down to the peony-littered ring. September gasped and clapped her hands-but the acrobats were already long behind them, bowing and catching paper roses in their paper teeth.
“Up top you’ll find the College of Lunar Arts-home of the Lopsided Library and the Insomniac Coliseum. Oh! Too late, we’ve passed it-look faster! If you practice, your eyeballs can move so quick you can see yourself go by before you’ve even thought to leave!”
Everything flew by in a sleek swirl of color. September’s eyes swam. “Maybe a crab can!” She gasped.
“A Taxicrab must be as limber as time and twice as punctual!” Spoke rocketed over a vast expanse of pale, milky flowers waving sweetly. “Straight lines are a loser’s game! I once picked up an old lady hobgoblin, no bigger than a stump, eyes like a lantern fish! Got her to an appointment she missed when she was a maiden, just in time to give a man a donkey’s head, kick him twice, and still turn up early for supper.”
“You don’t mean to say-”
But they reared up again, dizzyingly, the house-cluttered ceiling of Almanack yawning into view and out again-and then the crab stopped short, claws clicking triumph.
“Here we are, Central Almanack, Executive District! Off you hop, no need for thanks, I’m wanted down the circus, careful now, my belts do like to tangle, there you are, safe and sound, and here I go-check your watch, I’ll get to the off-duty bear before she sees her bicycle’s sprung a flat! All in a day and a night, my girl, just look sharp and you’ll find your mark.”
And the Taxicrab was gone. His checkered body zoomed off faster than September’s eyes could follow.
Spoke had left her in a little grotto so thick with mother-of-pearl it humped up in stalagmites and antler-points and great dark bulbs. A thin filigree net stitched with tiny specks of light like fireflies hung high up above her head. Bowls of liquid lay on every flat surface, as though a great party had just ended and no one had finished their drinks. Down in the heart of the grotto stood a very pale, very small, very beautiful person. After a moment, September caught her breath-how jangled and bashed about she felt after the quake and the crab!-and started down the rills and hillocks of hard, slick colors. The person stood in a kind of alcove, very still.