Pence Page 36

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  Pence and the nut wren danced in a happy circle, holding feather-tips and fingerless hands.

  “Direct hit!” cried Pence. “The day is ours!”

  The nut wren shuddered with a raucous hoot, “I never heard of a whale playing at leavesdroppings before! Then again, I never heard of a whale flying, either. Good idea, Gramsy!”

  The white bird winked as she watched the two celebrate.

  The whale swam in a ponderous loop around the garden, halfway between the clouds and the kingdoms of man.

  The celebration was short-lived. The white bird clucked once and the nut wren disengaged herself from the merrymaking. “Look!” the wren whistled to Pence.

  Down below, every face surrounding the white fence turned to the whale in the sky like so many clovers opening for the morning star.

  “Fans!” said Pence. “I knew people would look up to me, one day.”

  “No, look in the garden,” piped the wren.

  The Prince had caught up to the Queen a scant pace before she could reach the gardener.

  “Hurry!” shouted Pence, leaping onto his new friend’s back.

  The white bird was all at once next to them. She held the patchwork purse in her beak. The edge of the penny stuck out to Pence.

  “Take it,” the nut wren prompted.

  Pence looked the white bird in the eye as he grabbed the penny. “If you were a potato girl, I should like you very much, and if you were lucky I should give you a kiss on the lips.”

  “Pence!” screeched the nut wren, jumping into flight as soon as her passenger had his luggage secure, “you can’t talk to the Oldest Bird in the Sky like that! How insolent can you be?”

  Pence grinned so wide it seemed the corners of his mouth knew no ends. He hunched low to his new friend’s back. “We’re about to find out. Let’s go crash a garden party!”

  The wren folded her wings like a sealed envelope and they dove toward the earth.

  A diminutive glint on the outskirts of the crowd caught Pence’s eye. “I don’t believe it! My sword! I see it! It’s a miracle!”

  “Where?” asked the wren. “Shall I turn?”

  Pence hesitated only an instant. “No time. Look, he has her! Hurry!”

  They landed just inside the gate.