Peter & Max - Bill Willingham [46]
Peter followed the river upstream. It was slow going, because he’d learned over his recent troubled months that he could successfully live off the land or move through it, but seldom do both with good results.
Gradually the forest widened out from the riverbanks on both sides, as small villages and farmsteads began to appear. Peter was torn, not knowing what to do. He was filthy and cut and scraped and dressed in rags by then, and had no idea what sort of reception he was likely to receive should he present himself at any of these strange doors. At the same time, the idea of Hamelin Town had become a talisman to him — a name to conjure with. If he could only make it to Hamelin Town, all would be well again. His family and the Peep family would all be there, safe and comfortable and waiting for him. Hamelin itself was transformed in his mind to a magic place of refuge. Peter couldn’t risk his welcome at any place but Hamelin, so he passed the other settlements by. He stayed at the edge of the forest, sometimes venturing out at night to steal eggs from henhouses, or vegetables from fields or gardens. And once even (oh, glorious day!) he helped himself to an entire blueberry pie that had been set out on a country cottage’s windowsill to cool.
Max had once accused Peter of being a terrible thief and it seems his accusation, while false at the time, was prophetic. Peter had become a thief indeed. When he saw a new (to him anyway) set of clothes, hanging out on a line to dry, he took them to replace the rags he wore. It would not be fit to present himself at the magical city’s gates as a filthy ragamuffin. Likewise he stole a bar of good lye soap from an outdoor washtub, and bathed himself in an isolated spot along the river.
Peter looked quite human again as he topped a rise one day and looked down into the valley beyond. There in the distance, spread out over two hills, and filling the lower lands between them, was the great walled city of Hamelin. The sun was out, birds sang in the forest, and all of Peter’s troubles were finally over.
In which we ponder
the eternal question:
How good were the
good old days?
THE MORNING AFTER HIS INTERVIEW WITH THE sheriff and The Witch, Peter boarded an international Lufthansa flight from New York’s La Guardia airport, bound for Frankfurt, Germany.
The last time he’d flown on a plane, it was powered by propeller engines, seats were roomy, full meals were served in-flight by polite and pretty hostesses who seemed genuinely glad to serve you, the napkins were cloth, the dinnerware was made of real glass and china, utensils weren’t made of flimsy anti-terrorist plastic, and all of the passengers applauded after every successful takeoff and landing. Things had changed since. Now the airport was an oppressive mess, the flight crew seemed annoyed at the passengers, just by virtue of their existence, the seats were cramped, and the meal (designated a snack actually, and six dollars extra for those in coach) was a pre-packaged mystery in aluminum foil. Worst of all, no one besides Peter seemed at all impressed by the absolute miracle of the flight itself — crossing an ocean in less than a day? Wondrous!
Surrounded by grumps and the terminally jaded, he pulled out his book (a paperback detective story) and settled in for a long flight.
In which a terrible
transformation is completed,
and Max passes up
a good meal.
AFTER EVERYONE ELSE HAD SCATTERED into the darkness, screaming and crying and moaning their fears, Max stood alone for a moment in the small circle of soft, flickering light given off by the dying campfire. He felt the blood drying on his face and the alarming thrill of what he’d done. He trembled with the enormity of it. There would be no going back now. Max Piper was no more. The flute-playing son of a flute player had died forever, victim of the same heavy, wet stone that had brutally transformed his father into