A second day passed like this. Now and then Meggie wondered where Dustfinger could be and whether Farid was still with him, how Elinor was, and if she was beginning to wonder where they were.
There was no answer to any of these questions, and Meggie didn't find out what Fenoglio was doing behind his study door either. "Chewing his pencil, " Paula told her when she had managed to hide under her grandfather's desk. "Just chewing the end of his pencil and walking up and down. "
"Mo, when are we going to Elinor's house?" Meggie asked on their second night, when she sensed that, yet again, he couldn't sleep. She perched on the edge of his bed. The bed creaked just like hers.
"Soon, " he said. "Go to sleep again now, OK?"
"Do you miss her – my mother I mean?" Meggie herself didn't know why she asked that question out of the blue. All of a sudden it was there, on the tip of her tongue, and had to be spoken aloud.
It was a long time before Mo answered.
"Sometimes, " he said at last. "In the morning, at midday, in the evening, at night. Almost all the time. "
Meggie felt jealousy digging its little claws into her heart. She knew that feeling; she felt it every time Mo had a new girlfriend. But how could she be jealous of her own mother? "Tell me about her, " she said quietly. "I don't mean the made-up stories you used to tell. "
She used to search her books for a suitable mother, but there were hardly any mothers in her favorite stories. Tom Sawyer? No mother. Huck Finn? Ditto. Peter Pan and the Lost Boys? Not a mother in sight. Jim Button was motherless, too – and all you found in fairy tales were wicked stepmothers; heartless, jealous stepmothers… the list could go on forever. That had often comforted Meggie in the past. It didn't seem particularly unusual not to have a mother, or at least not in the books she liked best.
"What do you want me to tell you?" Mo looked at the window. The tomcats were fighting outside again. Their yowls sounded like babies crying. "You look more like her than me I'm glad to say. She laughs like you, and she chews a strand of hair while she's reading exactly the way you do. She's near sighted, but too vain to wear glasses -"
"I can understand that." Meggie sat down beside him. His arm hardly hurt him now. The bite from Basta's dog had almost healed, but there would always be a scar, pale as the scar Basta's knife had left nine years ago.
"What do you mean? I like glasses, " said Mo.
"I don't. Go on. "
"She loves stones-flat, smooth stones that fit comfortably into the hand. She always has one or two of them in her pocket, and she weights down books with them, especially paperbacks. She doesn't like the covers to stick up in the air, but you were always taking the stones away and rolling them over the wooden floor."
"And then she was cross. "
"Oh, I don't know. She tickled your fat little neck until you let go of the stones. " Mo turned around to look at her. "Do you really not miss her, Meggie?"
"I don't know. Well, only if I'm feeling angry with you. "
"About a dozen times a day, then?"
"Don't be so silly!" Meggie dug her elbow into his ribs. They both listened for any sounds in the night. The window was open just a crack, and it was quiet outside. The tomcats had fallen silent, probably licking their wounds. For a moment Meggie thought she could hear the sea breaking in the distance, but perhaps it was only the traffic on the nearby highway.
"Where do you think Dustfinger has gone?" The darkness enveloped them like a soft cloth. I'll miss this warmth, she thought, I really will.
"I don't know, " said Mo. His voice sounded absent. "A long way off, I hope, but I'm not sure. "
Nor was Meggie. "Do you think that boy's still with him?" Farid. She liked his name.
"I expect so. He was running after Dustfinger like a dog. "
"He likes Dustfinger. Do you think Dustfinger likes him?"
Mo shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know who or what Dustfinger likes. "
Meggie rested her head against his chest, the way she always used to at home when he was telling her a story. "He still wants the book, doesn't he?" she whispered. "Basta will make mincemeat of him if he catches him. He must have got ten a new knife by now. "
Someone was coming along the narrow alley. A door opened and was closed again; a dog barked.
"If it wasn't for you, " said Mo, "I'd go back, too. "
30. TALKATIVE PIPPO
"We were told there was a village nearby that might enjoy our skills. "
"You were misinformed, " Buttercup told him. "There is no one, not for many miles. "
"Then there will be no one to hear you scream, " the Sicilian said, and he jumped with frightening agility toward her face.
William Goldman, The Princess Bride
The next morning, at around ten o'clock, Elinor called Fenoglio's house. Meggie was sitting upstairs with Mo, watching him remove a book from its mildewed binding as carefully as if he were releasing an injured animal from a trap.
"Mortimer!" Fenoglio called up the stairs. "Come down at once, will you? There's some hysterical female on the phone, shouting in my ear. I can't make head nor tail of it. Says she's a friend of yours. "
Mo put the book to one side, minus its cover, and went downstairs. Fenoglio handed him the receiver with a gloomy expression on his face. Elinor's voice was pouring rage and despair into the peaceful study. Mo himself had some difficulty in making sense of what she was saying.
"But how did he know… oh, of course…," Meggie heard him saying. "Burned? All of them?" He passed a hand over his face and glanced in Meggie's direction, but she had a feeling that he was looking straight through her. "All right, " he said. "Yes, of course, though I'm afraid they won't believe a word of it. And the police down here aren't responsible for what's happened to your books… yes, of course. Naturally… I'll pick you up. Yes."
Then he hung up.
Fenoglio could not conceal his curiosity. He scented a new story in the offing. "What was all that about?" he asked impatiently as Mo just stood there staring at the telephone. Rico was clinging to Fenoglio's back like a little monkey. It was Saturday, but the other two children hadn't turned up yet. "What's the matter, Mortimer? Aren't you talking to us anymore? Look at your father, Meggie! Standing there like a stuffed dummy!"
"That was Elinor, " said Mo. "Meggie's mother's aunt. I told you about her. Capricorn's men broke into her house. They swept the books off the shelves all over the house and trampled on them, and the books in Elinor's library…" He hesitated for a moment before going on. "Her most valuable books – they took them out into the garden and burned them. All she found in her library was a dead rooster."
Fenoglio let his grandson slide off his back. "Rico, go and look for the kittens, " he said. "This is not for your ears. " Rico protested, but his grandfather pushed him out of the room and closed the door after him. "What makes you so sure Capricorn is behind this?" he asked, turning back to Mo.
"Who else would do such a thing? Anyway, as far as I remember the red rooster is his emblem. Forgotten your own story, have you?"
Fenoglio was looking downcast. "No, no, I remember that, " he murmured.
"What about Elinor?" Meggie's heart beat anxiously as she waited for Mo's answer.
"Luckily, she wasn't back yet when it happened. She took her time going home. Thank heavens. But you can imagine how she feels. Her finest books – my God!"
Fenoglio was picking up some toy soldiers from his rug with trembling fingers. "Yes, Capricorn likes fire, " he said huskily. "If it was really his doing, your friend can think herself fortunate he didn't burn her, too. "