Wintersmith

Feegles have turned up again.
    “ Ah,” he said. Billy Bigchin had come with Jeannie all the way from the Long Lake clan. The clan there was more at home with the reading and writing, and since he was the gonnagle, he was expected to be good at both.
    The Chalk Hill Feegles, on the other hand, were more at home with the drinkin’, stealin’, and fightin’, and Rob Anybody was good at all three. But he’d learned to read and write because Jeannie had asked him to. He did them with a lot more optimism than accuracy, Billy knew. When he was faced with a long sentence, he tended to work out a few words and then have a great big guess.
    “The art o’ readin’ is all aboot understandin’ whut the wurds is tryin’ tae say, right?” said Rob.
    “Aye, mebbe,” said Big Yan, “but is there any wurd there tae tell us that the big wee hag is sweet on that heap o’ jobbies doon in the stone castle?”
    “Ye ha’ a verra ro-mantic nature,” said Rob. “And the answer is: I canna tell. They writes some bits o’ their letters in them wee codies. That’s a terrible thing tae do to a reader. It’s hard enough readin’ the normal words, wi’oot somebody jumblin’ them all up.”
    “It’ll be a baaaad look-oot fra’ us all if the big wee hag starts mindin’ boys instead o’ gettin’ the knowin’ o’ the hagglin’,” said Big Yan.
    “Aye, but the boy willna be interested in marryin’,” said Slightly Mad Angus.
    “He might be one day,” said Billy Bigchin, who’d made a hobby of watching humans. “Most bigjob men get married.”
    “They do?” said a Feegle in astonishment.
    “Oh, aye.”
    “They want tae get married?”
    “A lot o’ them do, aye,” said Billy.
    “So there’s nae more drinkin’, stealin’, an’ fightin’?”
    “Hey, ah’m still allowed some drinkin’ an’ stealin’ an’ fightin’!” said Rob Anybody.
    “Aye, Rob, but we canna help noticin’ ye also have tae do the Explainin’, too,” said Daft Wullie.
    There was a general nodding from the crowd. To Feegles, Explaining was a dark art. It was just so hard .
    “Like, when we come back from drinkin’, stealin’, an’ fightin’, Jeannie gives ye the Pursin’ o’ the Lips,” Daft Wullie went on.
    A moan went up from all the Feegles: “Ooooh, save us from the Pursin’ o’ the Lips!”
    “An’ there’s the Foldin’ o’ the Arms,” said Wullie, because he was even scaring himself.
    “Oooooh, waily, waily, waily, the Foldin’ o’ the Arms!” the Feegles cried, tearing at their hair.
    “Not tae mention the Tappin’ o’ the Feets….” Wullie stopped, not wanting to mention the Tappin’ o’ the Feets.
    “Aargh! Oooooh! No’ the Tappin’ o’ the Feets!” Some of the Feegles started to bang their heads on trees.
    “Aye, aye, aye, BUT,” said Rob Anybody desperately, “what youse dinna ken is that this is part o’ the hiddlins o’ husbandry.”
    Feegles looked at one another. There was silence except for the creak of a small tree as it fell over.
    “We never heard o’ any sich thing, Rob,” said Big Yan.
    “Well, an’ ah’m no’ surprised! Who’d tell ye? Ye ain’t married! Ye dinna get the po-et-ic symmi-tree o’ the whole thing. Gather roound ’til I tell ye….”
    Rob looked around to see if anyone apart from about five hundred Feegles was watching him, and went on: “See…first ye get the drinkin’ an’ the fightin’ an’ the stealin’, okay. An’ when you get back tae the mound, it’s time for the Tappin’ o’ the Feets—”
    “Ooooooo!”
    “—an’ the Foldin’ o’ the Arms—”
    “Aaaargh!”
    “—an’, o’ course, the Pursin’ o’ the Lips an’ will ye scunners knock it off wi’ the groanin’ before I starts bangin’ heids together! Right? ”
    All the Feegles fell silent, except for one:
    “Oh, waily, waily, waily! Ohhhhhhh! Aaarrgh! The Pursin’…o’…the…”
    He stopped and looked around in embarrassment.
    “Daft Wullie?” said Rob Anybody with icy patience.
    “Aye, Rob?”
    “Ye ken I told yez there wuz times ye should listen to whut I was sayin’?”
    “Aye, Rob?”
    “That wuz one o’ them times.”
    Daft Wullie hung his head. “Sorry, Rob.”
    “Aye! Now, where wuz I…Oh, aye…we get the lips an’ the arms an’ the feets, okay? An’ then—”
    “It’s time for the Explainin’!” said Daft Wullie.
    “Aye!” snapped Rob Anybody. “Any one o’ youse mudlins want to be the one who dares tae do the