Free Perchance to Dream by Lisa Mantchev Page B

suppers—”
    “Breakfasts.”
    “Whatever!” Spinning like a compass needle, Bertie sought out the Scrimshander, though the growing cloud bank made it difficult to spot him. “I could be dragged off at any second!”
    Behind them, the mechanical horses whickered, matching metallic whinnies that were a prologue to the rattle and shake of the caravan lurching forward. Bertie twisted around in time to see their clockwork livestock led away by a man with a blacksmith’s musculature.
    “That’s ours!” she shouted as Waschbär’s nose peeped over the side. Bertie flapped a hand at him in a silent if agitated order to get down and stay put. “Just where are you taking that?”
    “In lieu of payment for the damages.” But he halted, looking to the constable for orders.
    “I didn’t say we’d trade the caravan!” Bertie tried to calculate how many people they might trample if she put the buggy whip to the mechanical horses.
    “They are going to perform for us instead,” the bride said, intercepting the constable. “As part of the wedding celebration!”
    “A limited engagement. One hour only!” Ariel nudged Bertie aside and ran back to the caravan, leaping atop it.
    “Ah!” The constable and the blacksmith shared a whispered conversation that ended with the latter unhitching the horses and leading them away.
    “Until the debt is paid,” the constable said in passing. “We’ll permit you to retain use of the caravan, since it no doubt stores your costumes and properties.”
    “A thousand thanks, kind sir!” From one of the bags, Ariel had produced a black silk top hat. Buoyed by the shifting tides of excitement below his perch atop the driver’s seat, he rolled it deftly up one arm, across the back of his neck with a bounce, and down the other arm. “Ladies and Gentlemen, we are but a group of humble thespians, traveling the fair countryside in search of an audience to astound and amaze!”
    Hat firmly in place, Ariel began juggling scarves of brown-patterned silk which, midair, transformed into flaming billets of wood.
    “Oh!” said the crowd.
    As the sticks turned into green-glass wine bottles, Bertie hoped the villagers’ subtext was “Oh! How amazing!” and not “Oh! They’re witches! Someone fetch the ducking stool!”
    Ariel hasn’t been the King of All Games around me for a long time.
    It was years ago that they’d crawled through the catwalks, played leapfrog over the auditorium chairs, whistled in scene changes that transported them to any fairyland they liked. Her nostalgia was short-lived, though, as the Scrimshander towed her several feet away from the crowd surrounding the performing air elemental. Contemplating a return to the lap belt, Bertie circled around to the side of the caravan.
    Out of the corner of his smiling lips, Ariel hissed at her and the fairies, “Get a puppet show set up,” before raising his voice back to a ringmaster’s bellow. “We are performers of all sorts: mimes, mimics, and mummers, with a little magic thrown in for good measure!”
    “I absolutely and unequivocally refuse to mime,” Cobweb announced, landing on Bertie’s shoulder.
    She turned her head to glower at him. “You got us into this mess, you can help us get out of it.”
    He deflated, but still managed a sassy “mimes are creepy. All that time spent not talking is unnatural.”
    “Mimicking is fine,” Moth said, “but we don’t have enough bandages for mummers.”
    “We could rip up some of the clothes,” Peaseblossom said. “I would like to be the Queen Mummer.”
    They flew atop the caravan, where they put their little heads together and set to rummaging in the boxes and bags. Snippets of satin, sequins, and string drifted about them like gaily colored dust motes as they argued in undertones, pausing only to shout, “We need a stage!”
    Casting about her for something that could serve as a performance area, Bertie asked “Will a hatbox do?”
    “Cut a proscenium arch into