Chevy and Hombre hurried down into the cavern.  Hombre had shoved a gigantic sword through his belt.  And it clanked behind him as he went from step to step.  The sound echoed through the subterranean room.  Going down was easier than climbing up and they were soon at the brick wall.

The floodgate leading to the canal was open and the pirate ship was missing.  Gone also was the carcass of the Spanish mackerel.  It had fallen victim to the appetite of one of the Devil Chickens.

They had orders from Hansel.  First they were to stop the water flow into the canal.  Then they were to close the gate that let water flow back to the river.  This would cause a build up in the reservoir

The way gates were designed to open and close was by large wheels connected to gigantic screws.  As the wheel turned the frame of the gate rode up or down the screw, raising and lowering the gate.

Hombre climbed onto a platform and grabbed the wheel of the gate leading to the canal.  With his strength, the wheel turned rapidly and the gate closed steadily, until there was a last gurgle from beneath its edge, then even the trickle stopped.

Next he closed the river return gate.

If the workers were still alive, this would have alarmed them.  Water was flowing into the basin, but none was flowing out.  The pressure on the walls would become immense.  If a wall burst, the force of the escaping water would squash anyone in the cavern like a bug.

*          *          *

Above in the Piazza, the moon showed three-quarters full.  If the battle were delayed a week, the Blue Fairy could have fought the pirated.  Its face beamed down on Randolph and Chris as they hurried to the gates of the city.  Additional light came from scattered torches, oil still burning in fountains, and from windows of houses surrounding the Piazza.

Randolph and Chris ignored the ship and its thundering cannons as they hurried to the gates.  They felt the ship was probably a feint and the real attack could come while everyone was distracted.  Hansel had concerned with the canal.  But Randolph and Chris were sure the attack would be at the gates.  And that is what they would prevent.  First they went to get Rex and Harley.  Randolph yoked Rex to the cart and Chris mounted Harley.  “Did you see that ugly beast back there?” Chris asked, as they hurried out of the enclosure.

The rest of the animals escaped when the bar failed to latch.  The ugly beast headed into the Piazza looking for its owner.  Cries of “Wolf!  Wolf!” were heard and the crowd scattered before the bleating of the creature.

*          *          *

“Where’s the Blue Fairy?” Long Louie cried, just before bending backward out of the path of a flying cannon ball.”

“That was really low, Louie,” said one of his friends.  “That would have beaten the dwarf.”

“WHERE IS THE BLUE FAIRY?” the crowd started chanting.  But it grew silent when the mime army marched out of the hall and across the bridge toward the drinking tent.

The crowd parted to let them pass through, followed by Rosa with her frying pan.  It was unnatural.  The mimes were still not making a sound, but not a one fell down.  No one passed a hat.  And they were carrying visible weapons.

A hen stuck its head out of the tent to see what was going on.  “AWK!” it sputtered, before ducking back in and spreading the alarm.  The canvas erupted with chickens taking off in all directions.

*          *          *

Back in the hall of the Grand Palace, Hansel was asking, “What do you see in that pomegranate, Larry?”

“It is hard to tell,” replied Llywarch, holding the fruit up to the light of a cannon flash.  “I think pomegranates paint too rosy a picture.  According to this one, we will not only win the battle, but women will be given the vote, someone will invent the ‘hotdog’, and the 1986 Mets will win the World Series – whatever that is.”

“Impossible!” said Hansel.

“Of course women should get the vote,” insisted Mimi.  She whispered to Gretel, “What is the vote?”

“I don’t know,” replied Gretel.  “But I think women should get it too!”

“Olives, on the other hand, are the opposite,” Llywarch explained.  “They’re too pessimistic.  According to this one, chocolate will be discovered to be fattening, we’ll soon have a library fine, and someone will invent a hairstyle called the ‘perm’ – whatever that is”

“I do not see what’s so terrible,” Gretel said to the Blue Fairy.  “I’d like a fine library.”

“Now that I can no longer use magic,” responded Mimi, “what I want is for someone to invent a way to curl hair so that it stays curled.”

“Are you sure you don’t have any nuts,” asked Llywarch.

“I’m sorry, Larry.  I’ve always been more of a fruit person,” replied the Blue Fairy.

*          *          *

The cannons ceased firing, because the canal had run dry and the captain couldn’t maneuver onto any new targets.  “Man the grappling hooks,” he commanded.  “Prepare to board the balconies.”

The crowd watched in horror as pirates caught several balconies with the hooks and swung onto them from ropes tied to the ship’s masts.

“Did you remember to remember to pick up your dirty socks?” a horrified wife asked her husband, as the pirates broke into their bedroom.

“Do you think we should join in the fighting,” Long Louie’s friend asked him.

“No!” said Louie.  “We used a perfectly good wish for this battle and the Blue Fairy owes it to us.  …Who do you think that man is standing in the Palace window, who keeps counting in English?”

‘NEIN!  NEIN!” Hansel hollered from above, while waving his sword.

The mime army had discovered and was attacking the farm couple.   And they were clubbing the stuffed birds on their shoulders.

“I don’t care what you think,” the farmer told his wife as they fell under the blows of the mimes.  “Next Carnival I’m dressing as a milk maid.”

Rosa had an idea.  Remembering that all the hens were named Henrietta, she walked into the middle of the Piazza and called out, “Oh Henrietta!”

A chicken flew off a balcony, landed at her feet and asked, “What?”

Rosa clubbed it with the frying pan.

“Oh Henrietta!” she called again.

A chicken stuck its head out from beneath a lady’s dress and said, “Yes?  What is it?”

Rosa clubbed it with the frying pan.

“Oh Henrietta!”

“Okay!  Okay!  What do you want?”

Rosa clubbed it with a frying pan.

The mimes got the idea.  They wandered the Piazza gesturing, “Oh Henrietta!” and clubbing the chickens whenever they popped out to answer.

“Say, Louie,” his friend asked, “Isn’t that your house that they’re breaking into now?”

Long Louie was still unperturbed.  “The Blue Fairy will take care of it.  She has to!”

“Look!  They broke the red pipe leading to the winery.”

“WHAT?” said Louie.  “This means war!”  Louie took the only weapon he had, which was the pie he won in the limbo contest, and threw it at the pirate captain.  It hit him square in the face, knocking him backwards off the ship and into the canal.

Then, with Long Louie leading the way, the citizens stormed the ship.

*          *          *

 “I’m sure glad Hansel sent us to guard the gates,” Randolph said to Chris, in the quiet of the city entrance.  “The main attack should come along anytime.”

“And we should be here.  After all, we’re the most experienced fighters,” Chris added.

Randolph was sitting in the oxcart, while Chris straddled Harley.  They were positioned to block any attacks that came that way.  They were in plain sight as a show of strength.

“Do you see anything yet?”  Randolph peered through the gates.

“No,” said Chris.  But he kept his hand on his sword, just in case.

Behind them, hiding in the shadow of the bridge, two pirates and a couple of chickens took note of them.  Then they crept away in the darkness, slipping through the dry canal to the far wall.

*          *          *

In the Piazza the chickens were mounting a counterattack.  Forming a flying V and carrying golden eggs in their clutches, they dive bombed the crowd storming the ship.

The smashed eggs sent up thick foul-smelling clouds that enveloped the crowd.  Soon people were coughing and gagging.  While they were distracted, the pirates snuck off the ship to the other side of the Piazza where they began breaking into stores looking for loot.

Three of the mimes were carrying bows and arrows.  They knelt in the Piazza and drew their bows.

Zing!  Zing!  Zing!

Three Devil Chickens plummeted to the earth.

The remaining chickens broke formation and scattered in all directions.  They regrouped on the roof of a cheese factory where they had hidden their eggs, because cheese aroma masked their smell.

Long Louie, being the tallest, was the first to recover from the effects of the bombs, as the chemical cloud settled down.  And he saw the pirates sneaking away.  He jumped into the empty canal and crossed to the other side, stopping to pick up the pirate sword of the fallen captain.  After wiping traces of egg white from it, he lifted it into the air and gave a cry, motioning the mimes to follow him.  Then he climbed out and charged the shops the pirates had disappeared into.

Meanwhile the mimes used the bridge.

*          *          *

Christopher nudged Randolph.  “Did you see that?” he asked, pointing away from the gate to the far wall of the city.  “I thought I saw someone creeping over there.”

Randolph looked unconcerned.  “It can’t be,” he said.  “That’s a solid wall.  They can’t get through there unless they came through the canal.”

“Maybe Hansel is right,” said Chris.  “Let’s go see.”

“No,” said Randolph.  “Let Hansel do that.  Besides, it’s full of water.  What if we left and the pirates stormed the gates?  We must hold this position at all costs.”

“I wonder if things are this slow in the Piazza?” asked Chris, as the mime army silently crossed the bridge behind them and started engaging in hand-to-hand combat with the pirates in the shops.

*          *          *

One mime was winning his fight with a fierce pirate, when the chickens dive-bombed again.  Fumes from a smashed egg blinded him.  And he missed a thrust, while his opponent parried.  And he lay mortally wounded.  It was the mime who slipped on bananas.

Two other mimes lifted him by his arms and the legs and carried him to the Grand Palace and the triage center.  There they left him on a cot with the Gretel and Mimi.  After silently saluting him, they turned and hurried back to the battle, covered in his blood.

“Oh dear,” said the Mimi, who had never seen blood before.  She fainted on the floor.

Gretel stepped over her and grabbed several blue squares.  She pressed them down on the wound in the mime’s side.  Then she bound them with curtain sashes.  But they soaked through.

“Oh dear,” she said, as she applied more pressure.  The blood was covering her hands.

The mime started to gesture.

“Don’t talk,” Gretel told him.  “Save your strength.”

On the floor, the Mimi moaned.  Then she got up.  She was pale and weak, but she placed her hands over Gretel’s and helped with the pressure.  “I’m sorry,” she said.  “This is the first time I’ve seen blood. 

The mime insisted on gesturing.  He was weak.  His face would have taken on an ashen appearance, if it hadn’t been covered with pancake makeup.

Mimi translated.  “He says he is going to die.  He wants a mime parade and a twenty-one gun salute at his funeral.  Then he wants to be buried in his imaginary box.  He leaves his makeup to his friend Bernie.  And he asks that Bernie take care of his imaginary dog, Fifi.”

The girls lifted their hands from the wound.  There was no blood left to flow.

The Blue Fairy pressed a damp blue rag to his forehead. She told him, “You’ll have your parade.  And we will see that Bernie takes care of Fifi.”  She paused and then asked, “Is there any chance that Fifi named after two maiden aunts?”

Instead of answering the mime went rigid.  His arms stiffened at his sides and his toes cocked forward.  He shook three times, lifting entirely off the cot as he did so.  Then his face relaxed into a sweet smile and his hands came up to rest on his chest – holding an imaginary lily.  His toes cocked one last time.

And he was gone.

By the busted window, Hansel asked Llywarch, “What do you see now?”  They were unaware of the sad event behind them.

“This is interesting,” answered Llywarch.  He was holding two fruits up to the light of a torch.  “An apple and orange saying the same thing.  They tell that the pirates are starting to sneak into the city under the wall through the empty canal.”

“I knew it.  By emptying the canal, we not only grounded the ship, we also tricked the pirates into entering the same way.  I was sure they would when they saw Randolph and Chris guarding the gates.  I must give Hombre and Chevy the message that it’s time.”  He walked over to the trapdoor and stomped three times.

*          *          *

Below, Hombre and Chevy heard the booms.

“Cut the rope,” Chevy said.

Hombre took a swing with his sword and sliced a rope strung between a torch bracket and the top of the cave.  With it cut, a massive log fell, yanking another rope wrapped around the canal wheel like a toy top.  The floodgate to the canal rose instantly.

While the battle above was raging, Chevy and Hombre rigged this contraption to rapidly turn the wheel.  This sent a massive wall of water into the canal.  It was a tidal wave.

Even with Hombre’s strength, opening the gate normally would have been too slow.  But Chevy figured out this way to improve it.  He and Hombre raised a log they found floating in the basin to the top of the cavern using the waterwheel that connected to the tower above them.   Then they anchored it to the torch bracket where it was ready to fall when cut.  Another rope, tied to it, was wrapped around the wheel.  When the log fell, the wheel spun, and the gate shot up.  The force was such that the wheel ended up flying from its screw and clattered about the floor, while the water shot through the gate with the force of a storm and rushed up into the canal.  Even the spray hit Hombre and Chevy with such force that it almost knocked them off the platform.

“It’s working,” Hansel said to Llywarch, as a wall of water rose from out of the cavern into the canal.

It picked up the pirate ship like it was a tinderbox.  The pirates climbing under the wall saw it heading for them and were frozen in place.

*          *          *

At the city gates where Randolph and Chris kept their vigil, the Captain said, “I wonder when the pirates are going to attack.  I can’t believe how quiet it is.”

The ship carried by the gigantic waves smashed to bits against the wall and the water that flowed under it swept the sneaking pirates back outside the city, depositing them far out to sea.

Back in the Piazza, Long Louie was discovering his leadership abilities.  He was leading mop up operations against the remaining pirates and chickens, going door-to-door in urban combat.  The evil pirates and foul fowls were dispatched one by one.

Whenever a chicken took to the air in an attempt to escape, the archers shot them down.  The owner of the cheese factory climbed to his roof and destroyed what was left of the golden eggs.  He was the only one who could do so without gagging or covering his face with a kerchief.  In fact, he enjoyed himself.

When the last pirate was thrown into the canal to be washed out to sea, the Piazza burst out into cheers and mime gestures.  The city had defeated the pirates on their own, without even using the Blue Fairy.

No one noticed one lone chicken creep along the top of a wall and then hang by its wings until it dropped on the other side, escaping into the bushes.

*          *          *

 “I don’t think the pirates are going to attack,” Chris said to Randolph.  “It is beginning to be daylight.”

The fight had lasted the entire night.

As the sun rose, Randolph and Chris decided the battle was not to take place.  The pirates just weren’t coming.  “I think we scared them away,” said Randolph, puffing out his chest.  “If this is all that it takes, I’m not sure they ever needed a Blue Fairy.”  They turned the animals around and rode towards the Palace.

Throughout the Piazza, the citizens were doing a line dance with Long Louie leading the way.  In one hand, he was waving a bloody and nicked sword.  On his shoulders, he was carrying Rosa.  In one of her hands, she was waving a bloody and dented frying pan.  Carcasses of dead chickens littered the square, being collected by citizens in chef hats.  It was easy to find the mimes in the line.  Theirs was the part of the line that kept slipping.

“We won!” exclaimed Hansel in the Palace.  He hugged Mimi and twirled her in a circle.  Then he stopped.  “What is this blood?  Are you injured?”

Mimi shook her head.  She pointed to the body of the mime.

Gretel was preparing him for burial.  Closing his eyes, she washed his blood off and stitched the cut in his shirt.  Then she applied fresh makeup.  Lastly, she bowed over his body in silent prayer.

“This is the first person ever lost to the pirates,” said the Blue Fairy, sadly.  “He was so young and an outstanding mime.”

“You can’t protect everyone,” Hansel consoled her.  “That’s not the way of life.”

“”It was my job, “ sighed Mimi.  “I was supposed to protect him”

“Listen,” said Hansel, “Last night was a good lesson.  They’ve learned that they can protect themselves.  They beat the pirates without your help.”

“Are you saying I’m no longer needed?“ asked the Blue Fairy.

“I need you,” said Hansel.  “Marry me!”

“Oh Hansel, “ said Mimi.  She turned to Gretel, “See.  I told you it would be romantic.”  When she went to hug him, she bumped her window.

It hit Hansel in the face and fell to the floor.  A large crack appeared across it.

Hansel sat on the floor of the hall of the Grand Palace.  Blood was flowing.  Hansel reached up and touched his face.

“You broke my nose,” he said.