Fire: Tales of Elemental Spirits Read Online Free Page A
Author: Peter Dickinson, Robin McKinley
Tags: Science-Fiction, Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy & Magic, Short Stories
relieved itself it laid the ember on the stovetop and used its beak to hammer it into fragments, which it then picked up and swallowed as neatly as a pigeon picking seed off fresh-sown tilth. When it had finished them, it stood and gazed at Dave with a bright, unblinking stare.
ʺAll right, sonny. Got you,ʺ he said, and the bird turned away, satisfied.
His gamekeeping had given Dave a wide experience of the intelligence of birds, from the idiocy of the pheasants he reared to the wiliness of some of their would-be predators, but even by the standards of magpies and jays he found this impressive.
He didnât get a chance to report the loss of the Cabinet House until Tom Hempage dropped by four days after the fire with Daveâs weekly basket of provisions from the Estate Farm kitchen. The bird stayed out of sight and didnât make a sound while Tom was in the room. He was under-gamekeeper so this was a busy season for him. Not that the tenth earl was specially interested in shootingâpolitics was his form of madnessâbut his New Year house party was a major event in the political calendar, and it was important to have sport to offer his guests. Daveâs wood was awkward for a lot of guns to shoot, so theyâd been banging away elsewhere. Tom said heâd report the fire, but he doubted anybody would be by until the last of the gentry had left.
It was another fifteen days before anyone else came, and by then the bird was fully fledged and its mode of existence had undergone a marked change. It was as if the true feathers acted like some kind of overcoat, insulating it from the cold. Perhaps, too, it now had less heat to lose. Though warmer to the touch than any animal Dave knew of, it was no longer literally scorching. At any rate it had abandoned the inside of the stove and taken to perching on top of it during the day, and roosting on a ledge up the chimney, with the flue-pipe running close by for warmth. It could fly short distances from the very first, without any of the normal clumsiness of young birds learning the knack, but as if it already knew how and was limited only by its plumage not yet being fully developed. By now it was a splendid creature, a blazing and commanding presence, like a living embodiment of the sun. In his head Dave had already been calling it Sonny. Spell it either way, he thought. No disrespect . He began to be afraid that once it was fully grown it would decide that his cottage was nothing like grand enough for it and fly off to find its true destiny. Though he had known it less than three weeks, he would have minded that fully as much as heâd minded the death of old Fitz.
His visitor, when he came, was Mr. Askey, the estate manager. They went out together to inspect the ruins of the Cabinet House.
ʺStill getting about then?ʺ said Mr. Askey. ʺYou seemed a bit shaky last couple of times I came.ʺ
ʺâAd a bad go all through the back-end. Wasnât sure Iâd be lastinâ that long, to be honest with you. But I been feelinâ a deal better lately.ʺ
ʺLooking it too. But then youâve never looked your age, anything like. . . . We took it, by the way, that you wouldnât want a lot of palaver about you reaching your hundred.ʺ
ʺNo, sir. Tell you the truth, sir, Iâve not been easy about that. Mebbe Iâve been wrong all these years about âmemberinâ Trafal gar, eighteen-oh-five. Couldâve been Waterloo, mebbe. Eighteen-fifteen, werenât it?ʺ
For the life of him Dave didnât understand why heâd answered as he had. The time for making a fuss about his birthday was over, and anyway Mr. Askey wasnât the sort to make a fuss without Daveâs say-so. They knew each other well, ever since Mr. Askey had been brought in by the ninth earl (mad on improvements) as his new manager, planning, among other things, to build a series of model cottages for all the estate workers. Mr. Askey
ʺAll right, sonny. Got you,ʺ he said, and the bird turned away, satisfied.
His gamekeeping had given Dave a wide experience of the intelligence of birds, from the idiocy of the pheasants he reared to the wiliness of some of their would-be predators, but even by the standards of magpies and jays he found this impressive.
He didnât get a chance to report the loss of the Cabinet House until Tom Hempage dropped by four days after the fire with Daveâs weekly basket of provisions from the Estate Farm kitchen. The bird stayed out of sight and didnât make a sound while Tom was in the room. He was under-gamekeeper so this was a busy season for him. Not that the tenth earl was specially interested in shootingâpolitics was his form of madnessâbut his New Year house party was a major event in the political calendar, and it was important to have sport to offer his guests. Daveâs wood was awkward for a lot of guns to shoot, so theyâd been banging away elsewhere. Tom said heâd report the fire, but he doubted anybody would be by until the last of the gentry had left.
It was another fifteen days before anyone else came, and by then the bird was fully fledged and its mode of existence had undergone a marked change. It was as if the true feathers acted like some kind of overcoat, insulating it from the cold. Perhaps, too, it now had less heat to lose. Though warmer to the touch than any animal Dave knew of, it was no longer literally scorching. At any rate it had abandoned the inside of the stove and taken to perching on top of it during the day, and roosting on a ledge up the chimney, with the flue-pipe running close by for warmth. It could fly short distances from the very first, without any of the normal clumsiness of young birds learning the knack, but as if it already knew how and was limited only by its plumage not yet being fully developed. By now it was a splendid creature, a blazing and commanding presence, like a living embodiment of the sun. In his head Dave had already been calling it Sonny. Spell it either way, he thought. No disrespect . He began to be afraid that once it was fully grown it would decide that his cottage was nothing like grand enough for it and fly off to find its true destiny. Though he had known it less than three weeks, he would have minded that fully as much as heâd minded the death of old Fitz.
His visitor, when he came, was Mr. Askey, the estate manager. They went out together to inspect the ruins of the Cabinet House.
ʺStill getting about then?ʺ said Mr. Askey. ʺYou seemed a bit shaky last couple of times I came.ʺ
ʺâAd a bad go all through the back-end. Wasnât sure Iâd be lastinâ that long, to be honest with you. But I been feelinâ a deal better lately.ʺ
ʺLooking it too. But then youâve never looked your age, anything like. . . . We took it, by the way, that you wouldnât want a lot of palaver about you reaching your hundred.ʺ
ʺNo, sir. Tell you the truth, sir, Iâve not been easy about that. Mebbe Iâve been wrong all these years about âmemberinâ Trafal gar, eighteen-oh-five. Couldâve been Waterloo, mebbe. Eighteen-fifteen, werenât it?ʺ
For the life of him Dave didnât understand why heâd answered as he had. The time for making a fuss about his birthday was over, and anyway Mr. Askey wasnât the sort to make a fuss without Daveâs say-so. They knew each other well, ever since Mr. Askey had been brought in by the ninth earl (mad on improvements) as his new manager, planning, among other things, to build a series of model cottages for all the estate workers. Mr. Askey
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