This week’s post
is a short story and possibly not a very good one at that but it had just had to be done.
I heard a discussion this week about a grammatical rule that I had never heard of before.
I immediately felt (as I occasionally do) that there might be a story to be built around this little factoid so I resolved to give it a go.
I've written some of these on the blog before. There's one here and another here.
For me, these type of stories are more akin to devising a crossword puzzle than any kind of meaningful literary endeavour. The words get erected around the primary foundation, the characters are bent to suit the trick.
Still, they're fun to do. For me at least.
Here it is:
I immediately felt (as I occasionally do) that there might be a story to be built around this little factoid so I resolved to give it a go.
I've written some of these on the blog before. There's one here and another here.
For me, these type of stories are more akin to devising a crossword puzzle than any kind of meaningful literary endeavour. The words get erected around the primary foundation, the characters are bent to suit the trick.
Still, they're fun to do. For me at least.
Here it is:
Felicity Figures It Out
“So all I can ask you, most humbly, is that you please consider the
situation and return with all haste what is so very precious to me.”
Felicity’s plea was modest and impassioned and seemed to hit home with
the twelve small faces who stared up at her from behind their tiny ink-stained desks.
She could not imagine which of her beloved pupils had acted in this way against
her. Could it be Bosede, who looked so guarded and who would not meet her eye
this morning? Or could it be Dikelede, whose exceptional poverty was widely known
in the village?
For a moment, she held out some hope that her transparently emotional
approach would be enough to see her stolen torsade bracelet safely returned to
her possession with no further harm done.
This hope lasted for all of thirty seconds, when the English teacher Simon
Dufrene careened into her classroom.
“What’s this I hear? What nonsense is currently afoot?” His jacket was
askew and his moustaches trembled. “Show me the culprit, present him to me this
minute.”
Twenty-four brown eyes in the classroom widened. Twenty-four lips tightened.
Twenty-four tiny fists clenched tightly.
“Simon, there is no call for mayhem.”
“Mayhem? I’ll show them mayhem. I will not leave the colour of them upon
the ground.”
Felicity coloured a little herself at Dufrene’s lack of composure but she held
her own as she knew she must.
“Really, Simon, we have had a small moment of confusion which I am well
on the way to resolving satisfactorily. Your intervention is every bit as much appreciated
as it is unnecessary.”
Simon Dufrene took a long moment to quietly try to grasp the import of
what he just been told. Failing spectacularly, he returned to his default position
of high-volume bluster.
“The note, show me this famous note.”
“Really, I don’t think- “
“Show it to me!”
Felicity was reluctant in the extreme to produce the note but Simon was
the senior teacher in the mission school and she could not refuse his demand to
see it. She slipped it from her sleeve. The note was written on a sheet of
foolscap which had been yellowed from the dust of the village. It had been folded
as many times as necessary to render it very small against her wrist.
“Confounded liberty,” said Simon as he unfolded the sheet. He read it in
two seconds flat and then exploded all over again.
“Who wrote this?” he roared at the twelve terrified children in the classroom.
“I know one of you wrote it so who was it?”
The children all looked to each other to see who might confess but nobody
did.
Simon produced his pocket watch and made a great show of flipping the
gold cover open and studying the time displayed therein.
“I shall give you thirty seconds,” he said, “and, in that time, one of you
will confess to stealing Miss Adams’ heirloom bracelet and will, for his or her
trouble, receive six of the best from the cane in my office. “He looked up from
his watch and his blue eyes appeared hooded and mean to the young assembly
before him. “But, mark me on this, if nobody confesses, I will take each of you
in turn to said office and I will gift you twelve of the best across the backs
of your legs and before I am done, by heavens, somebody will speak.”
The room trembled. Felicity trembled too but she tried not to show it.
“Simon,” she said, “while I greatly appreciate your assistance, I think
it would help my standing in the classroom if I were to deal with this in my
own way.”
Simon thrust the note back into Felicity's hand, crushing it a little as
it went.
“This cannot stand. A theft, a ransom note, by God’s blood. It’s a damned
outrage and it shall not stand. I shall show you, Felicity, how a gentleman
takes command.”
He glanced at his watch again.
“Fifteen seconds. Who will now speak and save his comrades?”
Adise, at the front desk in the classroom, stood up tentatively. Dufrene’s
eyes fell upon him.
“Was it you? Do you confess?”
“Sir, I would gladly confess to save my friends and if I am permitted to
do this, I will.”
“Did you steal the bracelet?”
“No, sir.”
“Then sit down and be quiet.”
Felicity read the note in her hand once again. A childish script, a rudimentary
grasp of spelling and grammar. One of these children had to be responsible.
There was nobody else.
The note read as follows:
“Missyadams. I
have taken your jewellery away from yu. Leave two shillings under the village Baobab
tree and it will come back to yu in safely. I offer you 10,000 apppologys but
my need is verry grate.”
“That’s it. Time’s up.”
Defrene produced a lengthy bamboo cane as if from thin air and commenced
to swishing it around, cutting the air in the classroom noisily and leaving a tangible
vapour of discord in its wake.
“Who shall be first? Who shall taste the consequences of their continued
silence?”
Felicity stared at the note. In a single moment, she saw what she had not seen
before. She surprised herself by not being very surprised at all.
“Simon?”
“You must not try to reason with me, Miss Adams. Discipline and the Rule
of Law must prevail.”
“I quite understand but may I ask you one question?”
“A question? At this critical moment?”
“Just one.”
The cane cut the air impatiently.
“Very well then. Just the one.”
“Thank you.”
Felicity hesitated a moment.
“Well?”
And then she took a very deep breath and proceeded.
“Do you have some regard for me, Mr. Dufrene?”
“What?”
“This is my question. Do you have regard?”
Dufrene looked anxiously at the twenty-four brown and two green eyes that were fixed on
him.
“I think you must know, from my genteel advances of late, that I do
indeed have some considerable regard for you but I don’t quite see- “
“And do you aspire to impress me as a gentleman of power?”
“Really, Felicity, have you lost your mind?”
“And would you do one terribly important thing for me if I were to most
humbly ask?”
Dufrene paused, dumbfounded.
“Would you?”
“I suppose I would.”
“Then let me ask you this. Will you now return my Mother’s bracelet to
me?”
“I will, by God, I will. I will leave no leg unmarked in my quest to do so. The culprit may not produce it forthwith but I feel confident it will soon appear underneath that brute of a tree without need for payment of any ransom.”
Felicity pressed on.
“You misunderstand me, Simon. I am asking whether you will return it to
me for I am now quite certain that you have it in your possession.”
All was silent in the room.
A droplet of sweat formed on Dufrene’s brow and trickled down his nose.
“You are impertinent. I am your headmaster.”
“You have my bracelet. I know for a fact that you have it. Will you now
return it to me?”
Dufrene stared at her in open disbelief, his cane poised as if to strike.
Then, ever so slowly, he dipped his free hand into his jacket pocket, removed a
small packet and placed it into Felicity's outstretched palm. His voice dropped
several levels so that only she would hear it. Everyone in the room
heard.
“I apologise.”
“Accepted.”
He turned to leave but spoke over his shoulder as he went.
“How did you know?”
“It’s not important. A trifling thing.”
“Please.”
“You wrote the note as one of the children might but you also unthinkingly penned
it in accordance with a certain rule of grammar. A rule these children could not yet
know.”
“It was the numbers, wasn’t it?”
“It was. You wrote 'Two' and '10,000'. One to one hundred should be written as words…”
“…anything higher should be written as numerals.”
Simon Defrene nodded sadly as he turned to exit the classroom.
“I only sought to impress you,” he said, “To display for you my true power
as a gentleman.”
Felicity also nodded as she closed the door gently behind him. The latch
clicked shut decisively as she whispered gently to herself.
“You failed,” she said.
