For the next little while, Andre told me....
But did I go? Did not. Never went to Florin, never thought much about it. No, not true, I did think about it but I didn't visit for one reason: I was afraid the place would disappoint me.
My first trip was when Stephen King more or less sent me there when I was researching the first chapter of Buttercup's Baby. (For an explanation, take a look at the intro to the 25 th Anniversary edition, you'll understand a lot more when you've read that—it's included here—along with the actual chapter of Buttercup's Baby, which you'll find at the end of the reprinting of The Princess Bride.
That first trip, I spent several days both in Florin City and the surrounding countryside, ran around like mad, saw an amazing amount of stuff—but the Museum was closed for renovations during my stay.
Figured I'd catch it the next time. Whenever that might turn out to be.
It turned out to be a lot sooner than I thought.
PROBABLY YOU KNOW this, since my name was in the papers all over the world recently. I won the Grandfather of the Year award again. I was so far in front they decided to retire the cup. Some old guy in India claimed I spoiled Willy, but sour grapes as they say.
His tenth biggie was coming up on the outside, a great opportunity for me to go overboard on a present, and I was visiting my son, Jason, and his wife, Peggy, the other night for dinner so I asked for hints. Usually they have lists of stuff. Not this time. They both got weird, muttered, "You'll come up with something," changed the subject.
I knocked on the kid's door, asked to come in. He quietly opened the door, odd, usually he just hollers for me to enter. "Wanted to talk about your birthday," I told him. Here's what you've got to know—Willy's a great receiver. He gets so excited. Even if it's something he picked out himself, when I hand it over, he is so damn great about it.
Now he just said I had been so terrific over the years whatever I wanted was fine. "Don't you have any ideas at all?" I pressed. He didn't, he said. Plus he had this frantic amount of homework to do so did I mind?
I got up to go, sat back down again, because I realized something—he knew exactly what he wanted but for some reason was embarrassed to tell me.
I waited.
Willy sat at his desk in silence. Then he took a breath. Then another. At which point I knew it was coming, so I threw in "Whatever it is, the answer is you're not going to get it."
"Well," my Willy began, the words whizzing out, "ten is a big deal in our family, because ten is what you were when you got sick and your pop read to you and when my pop was ten you gave him the book which is when you realized you had better get to work abridging and well, ten is what I'm gonna be and I'm only gonna be that this one time and ... and..." and he was so embarrassed to go on I pointed to my ear and whispered, "Whisper."
Which is just what he did.
I DON'T WANT to oversell here, but our first morning in Florin City, that miraculous postdawn blink with me wide awake, Willy the Kid snoring in the next bed, was no question a highlight of my life. Me and my one and only grandchild together on the start of his tenth birthday adventure in Morgenstern's hometown. Can't top that.
Willy was wiped out from the trip—Florin Air scored again—so I had to shake him awhile before his eyes opened, he blinked, went "whuh?" several times, then joined the human race.
"Where we off to?" he started, then answered himself. "One Tree Island, right?" I had promised him a helicopter ride there so he could see where Fezzik was invaded, made the incision with the sword, saved Waverly's life. (You should have listened to me earlier when I told you to flip to the back and read the chapter of Buttercup's Baby.)
I shook my head.
"I know I know, don't tell me—the room in the castle where Inigo killed the Count!" He bounded out of bed, started his fencing moves as he said, "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to—" and he plunged his sword forward "—DIE."
He loved doing that—he and his friends have contests to see who does it best—and I love that he loves it. But again, I shook my head. "We're definitely taking the tour, just not today."
He gestured for me to continue.
"The Morgenstern Museum opens in a little while, better get ready."
He groaned, climbed back into bed. "Oh Grandpa, please please please, do we have to start with a museum, I hate museums, you know I hate museums."
"You liked the Hall of Fame." I took him up to Cooperstown last summer.
"That's baseball."
"I have to go," I said. "Fair is fair. You knew this trip was planned."
The truth? I was about to tell him to go back to sleep. There was no real reason I couldn't get the introduction to the Museum done alone.
But I said nothing, and thank You up there for that.
THE MORGENSTERN MUSEUM is just left off Florin Square. It's a lovely old mansion, dating from who knows how far back, and by the time we got there Willy was excited again, his usual state, bopping ahead of me on the sidewalk. He held the door open for me, bowed me through—
—then he went "omigod" and stopped dead. Because in front of him, in the center of the stately old room, in a large and beautifully lit glass case, there it was—
—the six-fingered sword.
I knew it was there, Andre had told me about it, he had told me in detail that freezing night in Sheffield—
—but I still was not close to being ready for the impact it had on me. I'd heard of it for so long, asked my father all those decades ago when I was ten, what made it so special, so magical, what could it have looked like?—
—and now there it was. Inigo's father had died for it, Inigo's whole life had been changed because of it, this magical blade, the greatest sword since Excalibur.
Willy took my hand and together we walked toward it and I know it makes no sense, but right then, as I saw it for the very first time, it seemed to be dancing.
"Is it moving?" Willy whispered. "It sure looks like it is."
"I think it's the way they've got it lit. But you're right."
There were a bunch of others surrounding the case, kids, old folks, all kinds, and what was weird was when we looked at it, no one went away, we just kind of went to the next side, looked at the sword from there, then the third, finally the last.
A kid way smaller than Willy whispered in a French accent to a lady who I assume was his mother, "Allo, mon nom est Eenigo Mawn-taw-ya..."
"Sounds way better in English," Willy whispered and I realized something: All around the glass cage I could see children miming the sword, mouthing Morgenstern's words, and I'm not sure when the Museum put up its various exhibits—
—but what a thing it would have been if the great man himself could have seen what I was seeing now.
The next exhibit that took the Kid's head off was a mold of Fezzik's fingers. (Andre went on and on about it—he thought his were the biggest, he told me, till he saw the real thing.) Willy measured with great care. "His thumb is bigger than my whole hand," he announced. I nodded. It was.
Then a whole wall lined with Fezzik's clothes, beautifully pressed. Willy just stared up at where the giant's head would have been, shook his own head in wonder.
Buttercup's wedding dress was next, but it was hard to get up to because of all the girls who were surrounding it.
There was so much to see—an arrow pointed to another room where Count Rugen's life-sucking machine was off by itself—but I was anxious to get to the Curator—Stephen King had written him a letter about my arrival.
The Curator would let me into the place I most needed to get—the Sanctuary, it was called, and it was where Morgenstern's letters and notes were kept. It was not open to the public, scholars only, but that's what I was on this day of days.