Scurvy Goonda by Chris McCoy Page A

Vango often
colors
his sentences with additional details,” said the vampire. “He sees the world differently than the rest of us.”
    “Who are you?” said Ted.
    “Ah. I am Dwack,” said the vampire. “Member of the eternal undead, and the unofficial tailor for this group.”
    “He’s great at hemming,” said Vango. “I should have had him hem my ear.”
    “He stitched me a nice jacket,” said Dr. Narwhal.
    “You should wear that jacket more often,” said Dwack. “It’s slimming and—”
    “STOP!” said Ted.
    The three turned to look at him.
    “You still haven’t told me where I am,” said Ted.
    “Ah, apologies,” said Dwack. “You’re in Middlemost, the place where we abstract companions are born.”
    “And the place to which we return when we’ve been tossed assside,” said Dr. Narwhal.

III
    Scurvy was strapped to a foul-smelling camel, and his back was sore from fighting with Persephone’s guards—an Irish athlete holding a hurley, which was an ax-shaped stick used in the sport of hurling, and an Indian man holding a cricket bat.
    “Like eating that rope, do ya? Like the way it
tastes
?” said the Hurler, smacking Scurvy on the back of the head.
    “Mmmf,” said Scurvy.
    “
Mmmf
is right,” said the Cricketer.
    “Trfl ee nfng prrsph,” said Scurvy.
    “Take off the gag for now,” said the Cricketer. “It’ll be fun to put it on him again.”
    The Hurler removed the gag.
    “What do you want to say?” said the Hurler.
    “Just curious,” said Scurvy, spitting out some sand that had been bugging him, “why ya felt tha need tah abduct me while I was
minding me own business
eatin’ bacon, and if it might have something tah do with Persephone’s recent political victory.”
    “You are supposed to call her the Most Honorable President Skeleton,” said the Hurler.
    “Honorable? That bag of bones ain’t ever been right in tha noggin!” said Scurvy. “And now she’s got all this bleedin’
political power!
What a nightmare.”
    “And why does she want to see you?” said the Cricketer.
    Scurvy paused. “Never ya mind that,” he said.
    “Fine, then,” said the Hurler, moving toward Scurvy with the gag.
    “No,
wait
, not tha gag,” said Scurvy. “I’ll tell ya. Perseph—er,
the Honorable President
or whatever she is, she used tah be me bird.”
    “Your bird, as in, your lady?” said the Hurler.
    “Me bird as in tha bird that used to sit on me shoulder when I was sailing tha high seas. She was me little skeleton cockatoo,” said Scurvy.
    “She’s tall now,” said the Hurler.
    “Guess she can afford a bit of tha old chop-chop cosmetic surgery,” said Scurvy.
    “So why does your old pet want to see you?” said the Hurler.
    “Well,” said Scurvy, “I always got tha feeling that me Persephone was a bit
different
than tha birds me mates had, aside from being a skeleton and all. Their birds might sit on yer shoulder and take some food out of yer hand, but ya always got tha sense that they were just
birds
—they’d look out at tha water, they’d squawk, but ya knew they had little brains and ya knew they were gonna be tha same tomorrow as they were today.
    “Not my Persephone, though. When I looked into that bird’s eye sockets, there was something
strange
there. This is gonna sound mad tah ya, but that bird
loved
me—I’d be willing tah bet me life on it. I used tah be trying tah captain my ship, and she would just sit on me shoulder and
stare
at me. Stare at me like we were on our
honeymoon
, and without
eyeballs
at that.”
    “Birds do such things, lad,” said the Hurler. “I had a bird. Iput a mirror in its cage—the thing used to look at itself all day long.”
    “But it wasn’t just tha staring. You know how birds talk?
‘Polly want a cracker
,’ that kind of stuff?”
    “Of course,” said the Cricketer.
    “Persephone never said anything like that. She’d go like this:
‘Squawk! I love you! Squawk! You fulfill me! Squawk! Let’s have