The Irish Tales

Chapter 4


"HULLO GEEZER ! HOW THE DEVIL ARE YE ?" bellowed Patsy to the King of the Green Monsters.
"PATSY, YE MEDDLING OLD FOOL ! I IS FINE, M’LOVELY. AND YOU ?" screamed the King.

And before you could say, this is a rum old do, Patsy and The King gave each other a good, old-fashioned Irish pub –hug, which is to say they sort of grabbed at each other, missed, but fell to the mud, more or less entwined and making nicely amiable noises.

Which would have been fine, but they fell directly onto Jay, who was smaller, thinner and more easily bruised than they, not to mention more confused than they.

After all, hadn’t she and Patsy come to The Forest of Green in order to inflict punishment on the King ?

Apparently not.
Once they had all picked themselves up and dusted themselves down, Patsy made the introductions.

"Kingy, this is Jay, my fledgling. Jay, this is Kingy, King of the Green Monsters, an old friend from way back when and the Lord and Master of the Forest of Green. Now. Shake hands, sit down and eat."

Jay did as she was bid, rather dubiously, then looked curiously at the plate of food offered to her.
It looked very much like jam roly-poly with custard.
Indeed, it smelled very much like jam roly-poly with custard.
And when she took a tentative sip, it was indeed jam roly-poly with custard.

"You approve, fledgling?" asked the King, a little anxiously.
"Yeth," replied Jay, her mouth stuffed with custardy, spongey, jammy stuff.

"But…Imnorrafledgling," she managed to say.
The King and Patsy exhanged puzzled glances.

"I mean…I am not a fledgling. That’s a fledgling, "she said, pointing at the small green monster, who stood shivering on the edge of the group.

"Ah, let me explain, " said Patsy, in that way that Scaremonsters have when they know they’re right. A little bit like fathers and mothers, in fact.

"A fledgling is a creature yet to reach grownup-ness. Like yourself. Or like Impy here. Or like fox-cubs or puppies. Impy, like so many fledglings, wandered off beyond the hedgerows when he shouldn’t have and ended up in your sock drawer."

Here Patsy threw a thunderous glance at Impy. "Where he may well have stayed until every last ounce of his monstrous blood was drained from him, were it not for me."

Impy cast his eyes down and shuffled his feet and there was silence in the glen, broken only by a gentle snuffling and the occasional burp, as the other monsters tucked into their jam roly-poly.

All eyes remained on Jay as she slowly swallowed the quite scrumptious pudding.
"So…you aren’t monsters, then ?"

Patsy and the King and the others burst out laughing. In fact, some who had just swallowed vast plates of pudding, absolutely burst out of their skins and rolled around displaying their insides in a most unseemly way.

"Of course we’re monsters," laughed the King. "But, we’re GOOD monsters."
"GOOD MONSTERS !" Echoed Patsy.

Jay blinked, then shook her head, then found herself incredibly sleepy.
Much as I do now.
Shall we call it a night and talk more a demain ?
I think so…..
　
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