Chapter 6 Chapter 6 About Blue

Charmain sighed, and pocketed the king's letter.She didn't want to share any details of it with Peter. "Why?" she asked. "Why are they angry?" "Come and see," said Peter. "It sounds too ridiculous. I told them that you are in charge of this place, and they have to wait until you and those two witches are finished." "Witch!" cried Charmain. "One of them is my mother!" "Well, my mother is a witch," said Peter. "And one look at that haughty lady in silk just now, and you know she's a witch. Come on."

He opened the door for Charmain.She walked over, thinking that perhaps Peter was right about Aunt Sembroni.The Bakers never discussed witchcraft, but Charmain had thought for years that Aunt Sembroni was a witch, but never quite so directly. As soon as she stepped into the kitchen she completely forgot about Aunt Sembroni.There are elves everywhere.The little blue people have big blue noses of various shapes, and every place on the ground where there are no dog bowls and overturned tea is full.Between the teapots on the table and on the dirty dishes in the sink.There are also women among the little blue figures, mostly sitting on laundry bags.The difference between the female land elves is that they are smaller, have smoother noses, and have more beautiful lace in their blue skirts.I want one of those dresses too, Charmain thought.Of course, it has to be bigger.There were so many goblins that it took Charmain a moment to notice that the gas bubbles in the fireplace had all but disappeared.

When Charmain entered, the goblins screamed together. "It seemed like the whole tribe was coming," Peter said. Charmain thought he might be right. "Okay," she cried aloud. "Here I am. What's the problem?" The answer was a roar like a storm, and Charmain had to cover his ears with his hands. "All right!" she yelled. "If you scream together, how can I hear you clearly?" She recognized the goblin in the living room just now, standing on a chair with at least six others.The shape of his nose is too impressive. "Come and tell me, what's your name?"

He bowed perfunctorily to her. "My name is Timmins. I know your name is Charmine Baker, which stands for wizard. Is that right?" "Probably," Charmain said.It seems that there is no need to argue with him about the name.Moreover, she also likes the name Cha Min. "I told you the wizard was ill. He was away to be treated." "You did," Timminz replied. "Are you sure he didn't run away?" The kitchen was filled with screams and jeers again, and Charmain had to yell again. "Quiet! Of course he didn't run away. I came when he went. He is in poor health, and the elves must take him to a cure. If they don't take him, he will die."

The kitchen fell silent, and Timminz said sullenly, "If you say that, of course we believe you. Our conflict is with wizards, but you may be able to resolve it. To be honest, we don't want this either. This Not very reasonable." "What's the question?" Charmain asked. Timminz winked his eyes upwards, and wrinkled the top part of his nose again. "You mustn't laugh. The wizard always laughs at us when we complain to him." "I promise not to laugh," Charmain replied. "what is the problem?" "We're angry," Timminz replied. "Our elf didn't want to wash his dishes, and we took his faucet so he couldn't do it himself, but he just smiled and said he didn't have the strength to argue—"

"Well, he's ill," Charmain said. "You know now. What's the problem?" "Because of his garden," Timminz replied. "It was Rollo who complained first, but I read it and agree that Rollo was right. The wizard planted blue flowers, which were the correct color and made sense, but he magically turned half of them pink , and some even turned green or white, which is disgusting and inappropriate." Peter couldn't help it now. "But that's what hydrangeas are!" he exclaimed. "I explained it to you! Any gardener will tell you that. Some flowers do turn pink if you don't sprinkle bluing powder on the underside of them. Rollo is a gardener. He must know."

Charmain looked around the crowded kitchen, but did not see Rollo in the large blue crowd. "He said that to you," she explained, "because he wanted to push them down. I bet he kept asking the wizard if he could level the bushes, and the wizard said no. He asked me last night too— " At this moment Rollo emerged from a dog bowl, at Charmain's feet.She recognized him, because his voice was still so piercing: "I did ask her! She was sitting on the path, just floated down from the sky, and she was pretty amazing, and then told me I could do whatever I wanted. She and Witches are just as bad!"

Charmain stared down at him. "You're a sabotage little wretch," she said. "You're going to get in trouble, and you're not going to get it!" Rollo shook his arm. "Did you hear what she said? Did you hear it? Who is unreasonable, is it her or me?" Horrible shrill noises rang out from the kitchen.Timminz yelled for everyone to be quiet, and the uproar gradually turned into a murmur. He said to Charmain, "Then you agree with him to bulldoze that unsightly bunch of flowers now?" "No, not allowed," Charmain told him. "It's Uncle William's bushes, and I'm supposed to look after all his property. Rollo's just asking for trouble."

Timminz frowned at her while talking: "Are you finished?" "Yes," Charmain replied. "that's it." "Then," said Timmintz, "you are left to fend for yourself. No earth elf will help you from now on." Then, they left.And so the blue goblins among the teapots, dog bowls, and dirty dishes vanished at the same time, leaving only a breeze to reverberate among the remaining bubbles, and the fire burning brightly on the grate. "You're so stupid," said Peter. "What do you mean?" Charmain asked angrily. "That's what you said the bushes should be. You see, Rollo provoked them on purpose. I'm not going to allow Uncle William to come back and find his garden all leveled, will I?"

"True, but you could be smarter," said Peter. "I thought you were going to say, we're going to say the bluish spell and make those flowers blue, or something like that." "Yeah, but Rollo's still going to want to level them," Charmain said. "Last night when I disagreed with him, he said I was a disappointment." "You should let them see him for who he is," Peter said, "and not make them angrier." "At least I didn't laugh at them like Uncle William did," retorted Charmain. "He made them angry, not me!"

"Then look how much trouble it got him!" said Peter. "They took his tap and the dirty dishes couldn't be washed. Now we have to do it ourselves and there is no hot water in the bathroom." Charmain slumped in his chair, and opened the king's letter again. "Why wash?" she said. "I have absolutely no idea how to wash dishes." Peter was shocked. "Don't you know? Never washed?" Charmain opened the envelope and produced a large, handsome, neatly folded piece of letter paper. "My mother raised me to be decent," she said. "She never let me near the sink or into the kitchen." "Unbelievable!" said Peter. "How can you be decent when you don't know how to do anything? Is it decent to light a fire with soap?" "That," said Charmain haughtily, "was an accident. Quiet now, I'm going to read the letter." She put her spectacles on her nose and opened the stiff letter. "Dear Miss Baker," she read. "Okay, I'll try it then," Peter said. "I don't want to be threatened by a bunch of little blue people. I thought you'd help me." "Shut up," said Charmain, still paying attention to her letter. Charmain's heart was pounding as she read the letter, and it was not until the end that she believed the astonishing, impossible, unbelievable thing had happened: the King had agreed to let her help in the Royal Library!Tears welled up in her eyes, and she didn't know why, so she took off her glasses.Joy surged in her heart.Then came a shock.Is today Wednesday?Did she miss her chance? She didn't pay attention, but she heard Peter banging on the pot and kicking the dog bowl as he went into the back room.Now she heard him back again. "What day is it today?" she asked him. Peter put the large saucepan on the fire and it hissed. "If you tell me where he puts the soap, I'll tell you," he said. "Damn it!" said Charmain. "In a bag in the pantry, it says Caninitis or something on the label. What day is it?" "Rag," Peter said. "Tell me where the rags are first. You know there are two more bags of clothes in the pantry right now?" "I don't know where the rag is," Charmain replied. "What day is it today?" "First the rag," Peter said. "I asked and he didn't answer." "He didn't know you were coming," Charmain said. "Is today Wednesday?" "I don't see why he wouldn't know," Peter said. "He got my letter. Ask about the rag." Charmain sighed. "Uncle William," she said, "this stupid boy wants to know where the rag is, thank you." The genial voice replied, "Honey, I almost forgot about the rag. It's in the desk drawer." "It's Tuesday," Peter said, throwing himself at the drawer, hitting Charmain in the stomach as he opened it.He took out a rag and a dish towel and said, "It must be Tuesday, because I left home on Saturday and it took me three days to get here. Satisfied?" "Thank you," Charmain said. "That's very kind of you. Then I think I'll go into town once tomorrow. Probably not all day." "Then may I be lucky enough to look after this place for you?" Peter asked. "Where are you going to hide?" "The King," replied Charmain solemnly, "the King asked me to help him. Read the letter for yourself, if you don't believe me." Peter picked up the letter and read it carefully. "I see," he said. "You want to go to two places at once. Not bad. Then you can help me with the dishes now, and there's hot water." "Why? I didn't dirty them," Charmain answered.She put away her letter and stood up. "I'm going to the garden." "I didn't dirty it either," said Peter. "Besides, it was your uncle who offended those earth elves." Charmain walked past him and went straight into the drawing room. "There's nothing inappropriate about you!" Peter yelled after her. "It's just lazy!" Charmain paid no attention and walked straight to the front door.Waif followed her, flitting around around her ankles, but Charmain was so annoyed by Peter that he ignored Waif. "Always finding fault!" she said. "He hasn't stopped for a moment since he's been here. It's as if he's perfect himself!" she said, pushing open the front door. She gasped.The elves must have been busy just now.Very busy and very fast.True, they didn't bulldoze the bushes because she told them not to, but they cut off all the pink flowers, and most of the lavender and white flowers.The path by the front door is strewn with pink and lilac hydrangeas, and there are more in the blooms.With a growl of exasperation, Charmain rushed forward and picked them all up. "Didn't you say I'm lazy?" She muttered to herself as she picked up the hydrangea and put it on her skirt. "Oh, poor Uncle William! It's such a mess here. He must wish it was colourful. Oh, those little blue bastards!" She went to the table outside the study window, poured all the flowers from her skirt on it, and found a flower basket by the wall.She took the flower basket and walked back to the flowers.Waif jumped up and down beside her, whining and whining, while Charmain gathered the snipped hydrangeas in baskets.She smiled contemptuously when she discovered that the goblins weren't always sure what blue was.They left the greenish and lavender flowers uncut, and there must have been a clump of flowers where every flower was pink in the middle and blue outside.Judging by the little footprints around the bush, they must have had a meeting about it.Eventually, they cut off half of the flowers and kept the other half. "See? It's not that easy," Charmain said aloud, as if there were goblins eavesdropping around. "It's an atrocity, and I think you should be ashamed." She went back to the table with the last basket of flowers, chanting, "Brave. Despicable. Scoundrel." Hopefully at least Rollo was around to listen. Some of the largest flowers have very long stems.Charmain gathered these into a bouquet of pink, lavender, and white-green, and spread the rest out on the table to dry in the sun.She remembered reading somewhere that hydrangeas could be dried and they would retain their color and be used for decoration in winter.Uncle William would like it, she thought. "So, do you see, it's useful to sit and read!" she said into the air.Yet at this moment, she realized that she was trying to prove herself to the world - if not to Peter - and she was deeply proud that she had received the king's letter. "Oh, all right," she said. "Come on, Waif." Waif followed Charmain into the house, but stepped back, trembling, as he opened the kitchen door.Charmain understood why as soon as he entered the kitchen, and Peter looked up with the steaming pan in his hand.He found an apron from nowhere, and piled all the utensils neatly on the floor.He looked sullenly at Charmain. "Very like a lady," he said. "I asked you to do the dishes for me, and you picked flowers!" "No, really," Charmain said. "Those nasty goblins cut off all the pink flowers." "What did they do?" Peter asked. "Too bad! Your uncle will be very sad when he comes home, won't he? You can put the flowers in the saucer where the eggs were." Charmain looked at the pie plate filled with eggs, next to a large bag of soap flakes, and the teapot. "Where are the eggs? Wait a minute." She went to the bathroom and put the hydrangea in the washbasin.The bathroom was damp and dripping, but Charmain didn't want to think about it.She went back to the kitchen and said, "Now I'm going to take all the water in the teapot and put it on these hydrangeas." "Not bad," said Peter. "Then you'll spend hours. Do you think the water will still be hot?" "It's just steaming," Charmain said. "I think it's almost bubbling. And I won't have it in a few hours. Just watch." She found two larger plates and poured the water from the teapot into them.She said: "Being lazy is good, you know," and suddenly found that the teapot disappeared just as she put it back on the table. "Leave one for us," said Peter anxiously. "I want some hot tea." Charmain thought for a moment, and carefully placed the last teapot on the chair.It's gone too. "Oh, all right," said Peter. He was clearly trying not to look too unfriendly.So Charmain said, "We can go to the drawing room for afternoon tea, and I'll pour these out. When my mother comes, she brings another sack of food." Peter perked up immediately. "Then we can have a good meal when we finish washing these," he said. "Let's wash it first, whether you agree or not." He grabs Charmain despite her protests.As soon as she came in from the garden Peter snatched the book out of her hand and put a piece of cloth round her waist.Then, he led her into the kitchen, and something mysterious and terrifying began.Peter handed her another piece of cloth. "You wipe, I'll wash," he said, taking the steaming pan off the fire and pouring half the hot water over the soap flakes in the sink.He held up another pail of cold water from the pump and poured it half in the sink as well. "Why are you doing that?" Charmain asked. "So as not to get burned," Peter replied, pouring the knife and fork into his mixture, and then into the pile of plates. "You don't understand anything?" "I don't understand," Charmain replied.She thought angrily that of all the books she had read, not a single one mentioned washing dishes, let alone explained how to do them.She watched as Peter quickly wiped the lingering dinner crumbs off the calico plates with a dishcloth.Dishes come out of the soap suds clean and bright.Charmain liked the pattern on it so much that he almost thought it was magic.She saw Peter dip the dishes in another bucket to rinse them.Then he handed her the plate. "What am I going to do?" she asked. "Dry it, of course," he said. "And pile it on the table." Charmain tried.There is no end to the horror.The dishcloth was barely absorbent, and the dishes always seemed to slip from her hands.She scrubbed much more slowly than Peter, who quickly piled up a pile of dripping dishes at the sink, and she grew impatient.And so, naturally, the most beautiful plate slipped from Charmain's grasp to the floor.Unlike those weird jugs, it shattered. "Oh," said Charmain, staring at the debris on the floor. "How do I get them back?" Peter rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "It can't be done," he said. "Just be careful you don't break it again." He collected the fragments of the plate and threw them into another bucket. "Now I'll wipe. You try to wash it, or we'll be dry all day." He drained the now brown water from the sink, took out the knives, forks, and spoons from it, and put them in the rinse in the bucket.To Charmain's surprise, they all seemed to be clean and shiny all at once. She watched Peter put soap and hot water in the sink again, and she thought that Peter must have chosen the easy job on purpose, although it made sense. She found out she was wrong.It's not easy at all.It took her a long time to clean each of the utensils, during which time the front of her clothes got wet.Peter also kept passing her plates, cups, saucers, mugs back, saying they were still dirty.He also didn't let her wash those dog bowls, but had to finish washing the human utensils first.Charmain thought, he was very bad.Waif licked each basin so clean Charmain knew that these must be easier to wash than the others.Besides, what frightened her most was that her hands were red and strangely wrinkled when they were taken out of the soapy water. "I must be sick!" she said. "I've got a horrible skin disease!" Peter taunted her, which made her even more annoyed and angrier. But the drudgery was finally done.The front of Charmain's body was soaked and his hands were wrinkled.She went back to the living room angrily, and began to read The Twelve-pointed Wand in the last light of the setting sun, leaving Peter alone to stack the clean dishes into the pantry.At this moment, she felt like she was going crazy if she didn't sit down and read for a while.I haven't read all day, she thought. But Peter quickly cut her off.He came in with a vase he had found, filled with hydrangeas.He dumped the flowers on the table in front of her. "Where is the food you said your mother brought?" he said. "What?" said Charmain, looking at him through the flowers. "I said food," Peter replied. Waif leaned against Charmain's feet, groaning in agreement. "Oh," said Charmain. "Yes. Food. You can eat it, as long as you make sure you don't stain any of the dishes when you eat it." "Okay," Peter said. "I'm so hungry I could lick it off the carpet." Reluctantly, Charmain put down the book in his hand and pulled out the bag of food from under the armchair.The three of them ate a delicious pie brought by Mrs. Baker, and then had afternoon tea twice on the trolley.While they ate, Charmain put the jar of unsightly hydrangeas on the cart.But when she looked up again, they were gone. "Don't know where they went," said Peter. "You can sit on the cart and you'll see," Charmain suggested. But Peter didn't want to do that, much to Charmain's disappointment.As she ate, she was thinking of how to persuade Peter to leave and go back to Montalbino.It's not that she hates him so much, it's just that being in the same room with him is disturbing.She knew, as Peter had told her, that the next thing he wanted her to do was empty out the contents of those laundry bags.The thought of washing things again made her shudder. She thought, at least I won't be here tomorrow, he can't make me do this. She immediately tensed up again.She is going to see the king.She was crazy, absolutely crazy, to write to him.Now she's actually going to meet the king.She suddenly lost her appetite.She was eating the last of her scones, when she looked up and saw that it was dark outside.The magic lights in the house turned on, making the room look like golden sunlight shining, but the windows were still dark. "I'm going to bed," she said. "There's a lot going on tomorrow." "If your king had any sense," said Peter, "he'd kick you out as soon as he saw you. Then you could come back here and do your laundry." Because these were exactly what Charmain was afraid of, she didn't respond.She just picked up Memoirs of an Exorcist, wanting to read something light, and she took the book to the door and turned left to the bedroom.