“It’s morning.  Time to get up,” said the lying oak they were sleeping in - for the fifth time that night.

“OUCH!” said Chris and Randolph, as they sat bolt upright and banged their heads against the ceiling of the hollow branch they were using as a bedroom.  Rosa and Gretel were sleeping higher up, with Hansel and Mimi in a lower branch.  Chevy and Hombre were bedded down in the trunk, while Llywarch was at the very top, swaying like a baby in the breeze as it rocked him to sleep.

 Everyone else missed the guest tree’s prevarications - the sounds of snoring could be heard from above and below - but sailors learn to be alert to their surroundings, even in sleep.

“I can’t take this” said Randolph.  “I’m getting up.”

“I’d go sleep on the rushes in the main tree if it weren’t for those clocks going off all the time,” said Chris.

“And imagine trying to sleep with diamonds poking you in the back.”

Chris shuddered and pulled on his boots.  “I’ll go with you.”

“It’s odd the things men do when they think nobody is looking,” Rosa told Gretel, as they watched the two through knotholes of the branch they were in.  The moon was still bright enough for them to see clearly below.

“They sure scratch a lot,” agreed Gretel.

Randolph was clearly agitated.  “We could take off in the morning and leave the group,” he said, as he kicked a stone out of the clearing, “if only I had my list,” he added, patting his empty shirt pocket, “that report is important to the future of England.”

Morning wasn’t far off.  The stars were starting to fade and streaks of light could be seen reflecting against the snowcapped peaks of the nearby Alps.  At their great height, the Alps received the morning rays of sun before anything around them, and they looked like islands floating in the air nearby.

“What about the girls?” asked Chris.

  “Aw…well… the girls - and the others - are slowing us down.  When we get the list back, we should just take off.”  Randolph started moving again, pacing rapidly

Chris was shocked, as he hurried to keep up.  “Don’t you think we should see them safely home first?  We’re so close; it would be impolite not to do so.  And,” he could not help adding, “I thought Rosa was coming with us.”

Randolph stopped directly below the guest tree.  “You don’t realize,” said Randolph.   “I can understand everything Gretel says, but she doesn’t understand me back.  If that is the way she feels, then I don’t want to have anything to do with her.  I must have an unrequited love.”

“What do you suppose he’s saying?” asked Rosa.

“I wish I knew,” came the answer.  Although they could hear the two on the ground, Llywarch was too high up for translating.

“Are you sure?” asked Chris.  “I thought I was in love with Rosa.  Then I realized what she said only made sense if she was talking about yarn.”

“What do you suppose Chris is saying,” responded Gretel.

“I think he’s interested in knitting,” Rosa chuckled.

“WHAT?  Can you understand him?  Rosa, are you in love with Chris?”

“NO!  NO!  I understand just a few words.  Larry has been teaching me some English,” she lied.  “But I hardly know anything at all.

“As if I could fall in love with such a spoiled, conceited girl.  I would rather have head lice,” came from below.

“OH!” said Rosa indignantly.  “I’ll give him head lice.”  She picked up a loose acorn and dropped it through the hole.

“Ouch!” said Chris, rubbing his head and looking about him.

The girls quickly moved back.  Gretel looked at Rosa doubtfully.  “It seemed like you understood him.”

“I just didn’t like his tone,” replied Rosa.  She leaned forward and let another one go.

“Ouch!  Can oak trees get violent?”

“I don’t think so,” answered Randolph.  “You must have woken some squirrel.  Look at this.”  The dawning light revealed him pulling Gretel’s glove out of his pocket.

“Oh dear.” said Gretel.

“Chris must have given it to him,” insisted Rosa.  Then she burst into tears.

*          *          *

“Okay, those hands are finally clean,” Mimi told Lucky, as the dwarfs lined up in the clearing for dance and deportment lessons.  “But you need to stop chewing on your fingernails.  Maybe you should polish them like Ten does.”

Lucky gave a derisive snort.

“Now everybody show me your feet.  Those shoes need shining, Pi.  Are those high heels, Ten?  They look very nice.  No, Naught!   You cannot hide holes in your socks by blacking your feet.  You must darn them with a needle.  ‘Knit one, purl two…double the loop and draw the needle through.’”

Christopher, who was leaning against a tree, gave a start.  “That sounded familiar.”

“What sounded familiar?” asked Rosa.

Chris whirled around to see her standing behind him.

“You know what I’m saying,” Chris accused.  “You’re in love with me!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Rosa.  “Larry’s just over there.  What’s that in your hair?  It looks like you have head lice.”

Chris’s hands quickly went to his head.  “Ouch!” he said, as he touched two tender spots.

“Pig farming is a wonderful business,” Hombre told Thirty-nine, as he stood next to him.  Mimi ordered all the dwarfs to line up for inspection, and Hombre assumed that included him.  He was fortunate that denim boots didn’t require polishing, but he had to wash his hands twice, and once behind the ears.

Thirty-nine sighed.  “We’ll have to find something to do.  Naught’s wish ruined the bees.  I’ve never seen Negative-one looking so sad.  But now they’re worthless.  If only we could find some use for honey.”

Hombre’s ears went beet red.  “Did…did…I tell you that pigs were also very intelligent?”  He held up his hands, which after two washings still had specks of dirt under the nails.  “Another advantage is that they are especially fond of dirt!”

Thirty-nine looked interested.  But he said, “Perhaps we are worrying for nothing.  Maybe Irving will find a way to reverse the diamonds.”

Irving and Chevy were in a shed built against the side of the main oak.  They were experimenting.  The shed was filled with alchemist paraphernalia: boxes, vials, and bottles; containing all sorts of strange and mysterious compounds.  The room had the musty and smoky odor of drying and burnt vegetation.  A metal stove sat in the center, with a pipe extending through the ceiling.  Harley was lying beside it, and a wooden table stood in front of it.  The table was cluttered with stuff.

Irving pushed her glasses back up her nose and turned her beautiful eyes on Chevy.  He immediately smashed his thumb between the pestle and mortar he was using to grind compounds.  He uttered a short Anglo-Saxon word Randolph had taught him.

“Is that mathematics?” asked Irving.  “You know I can only understand you if you speak an international language, like mathematics.”

“Er…yes.  It’s about a…er…unique numbering system.  I’ll explain it some other time.  What’s this mixture anyway?”

“It’s something I’m experimenting with to make this last longer.”  Irving put on thick leather gloves and picked up an earthen vase full of murky liquid.  Using tongs, she dipped a thimble full and put a drop on a potted rose sitting on the table.  Instantly the rose disappeared.

“Blimey!” said Chevy.  “Is that an invisibility potion?”

“No,” Irving chuckled.  “Conclusions like that come from faulty observations.”  She stuck her finger into the dirt and dug out a tiny seed.

“Blimey,” said Chevy, again.  “Is that the rose?”

“Yes.”  She held up the thimble and said, “This water is from the fountain of youth.  It turns everything young again.”

“Really?” said Chevy.  “Don’t get any on me.”

“Oh, it doesn’t last.  That’s the trouble.”  She pushed the seed back into the dirt, and almost immediately the rose reappeared.

“Where’d you get it?”

“I bought it from a young man I met in the forest.  Ponce De Leon, I think his name was.  He said he was tired of having to take the vile stuff.  He was going to retire to some place called Florida and grow old gracefully.”

“So,” said Chevy.  "You are adding things to it to make it last longer.  Why?  Wait!  I know!  It’s for the diamonds!  You’re putting this on diamonds.  Do they turn back into coal?  How can I help?”

Again Irving turned those eyes on him.  “That is what I like about you.  You’re not only intelligent, but when there’s a problem to solve, you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and get dirty.”

Harley grunted his approval.

Chevy turn beet red and puffed his chest out.  “What have you tried so far?”

“Normal ingredients used to preserve things: salt, wax, iron filings.  None of them work as I hoped.  The salt got caught in the center of the diamond when it changed back.  If you shook it, it looked like snow.  I ended up making several and giving them away as Christmas gifts.”

“How about the wax?”

“This wax is used to cover the wood in Random’s clocks.  But waxed coal just turns back into highly polished diamonds, and I don’t know of a market for that.  The iron filings were the most interesting.  Iron lasts a long time, and I figured people could burn the coal before it started to rust.”

“Did it work?”

Irving gave Chevy a look that made him deflate his chest.  “Think for a minute,” she said.

 “Oh!  If it had worked we wouldn’t still be experimenting.”

Irving smiled and touched her finger to her head.  “You always have to be thinking.  The filings reacted oddly.  They did not change back into diamonds.  Instead they became a hard metal called steel.  Naught thinks it should be called ‘still’ because it’s still not coal, and it’s still not diamonds.”  She grinned.  “We used the steel to replace the wooden tracks in the mine.”

“I know about that,” responded Chevy, “We ran across them.”

Irving continued.  “And I made these.”  She pointed to her earrings.  “Then Pi built this stove and a tower out of the leftovers.  We sold it to somebody from France.   Eiffel, I think his name was.  He was going to use it as an educational gift for his children to play with.”

Chevy lifted the pestle from the mortar and set it on the table.  “I’m finished grinding this.  What’s in it?"

“Dried tomatoes, chives, and basil.  Next, we’re adding it to a solution of vinegar and alcohol.”

“That sounds like a recipe.”

“I got it out of one of Helga-Aberdeen’s cookbooks,” Irving admitted.  “She seems to have an awfully lot of recipes for tenderizing meat.”

“So you’re tenderizing the coal so it won’t get hard again.  That’s clever.  You’re the most brilliant alchemist I’ve ever met.”

Now it was Irving’s turn to turn red.  She tossed her head and said, “If you are ready, dump it in here.”  She held open a leather flask filled with vinegar, alcohol, and iron filings.  After he added the compound, she sealed it and shook it vigorously.  Then she dipped a diamond into it, and placed the diamond on the table.  Last she poured one drop from the thimble.

WHOOSH!

There was a flash of lightning, a cloud of smoke, and the roar of thunder.  And the diamond disappeared.

“Er…have you earned a wish?” asked Chevy.

“Not that I know of,” said Irving.  “Look!  There’s a hole in the table.”

Chevy leaned forward.  The hole was diamond shaped and lined with scorch marks.  “Blimey,” he said.  “That diamond exploded.  I don’t think it’s coming back.”

“Do you suppose there was too much basil?” asked Irving.

Chevy grinned and said, “Let's try it again.”

Out in the clearing, Mimi, Gretel and Rosa were instructing the dwarfs on how to drink tea.  They were sitting on one log, and the dwarfs were sitting on another, facing them.  The dwarfs were holding delicate cups and saucers in their rough hands, with their pinky fingers extended.  They tried to ignore the explosions that rocked the clearing, but they sloshed tea on their shirts whenever one occurred.

“Ouch!” said Thirty-nine.  “Couldn’t we use ice tea until they finish experimenting?”  Naught’s fingers were red from retrieving cookies he kept dropping into his cup.

“Oh dear,” said Gretel, who was holding the kettle.  “Do you suppose we should move on to the dancing?” she asked, as she got up and refilled the cups

The dwarfs were reluctant to do that.  “No!  This tea’s fine!” they decided.  “Let’s keep drinking for awhile.”  They all took big gulps, ignoring the burning as it went down.

“How can we talk to the sisters if we’re drinking tea?” Thirty-nine asked Mimi.  Smoke was coming out of his ears.

“When you are ready to talk, you place your cup on your knee so your mouth is free.  No, put it on the saucer on your knee, Lucky - next to the cookie.  Yes, I see that you can balance it without a saucer.  Oops!  Never mind, we’ll get you another one.”

“I used to drink and talk to my bees at the same time,” Negative-one sadly informed her.

“I am sorry about your bees,” Mimi told him, for the dozenth time.

“I can talk with my mouth full of cookies,” said Naught, and he shoved in three at once.  “Mmf,” he said.

Not to be outdone, Random insisted, “I can talk and gargle.  Watch.  Gurgle…gurgle… Ouch!  This tea is just too hot.”

“Gretel and Rosa, what do you think?  Perhaps we should collect the cups now.”

While they were doing so, Mimi said, “Lets decide what you should say to these sisters.  Maybe you could tell them a little about yourselves.  Something personal,” she added.

“I have a blister on my foot,” said Ten.  “It’s caused by these high heels.”

“I have a rash on my chest.”  This came from Thirty-nine.

“That’s just tea burns,” said Lucky.  “This is a real rash.”

Mimi blanched and averted her face.  “Perhaps you shouldn’t tell them that,” she suggested.  “And especially don’t show them.”

“I get nose bleeds quite easily,” offered Negative-one.

Naught hadn’t said anything.  He was distracted by a butterfly.  Now he asked, “Could I tell them about my hobby?”  The beautiful butterfly came to rest gently on his outstretched finger.  Its blue and gold and purple colors shimmered on its wings.

 “Yes,” answered Mimi, gratefully.  “I am sure they would love to hear about your hobbies.”

Two fat, ugly, blackbirds swept down and each stole a cookie just as another explosion was heard from the shed.  The force of the explosion caused the sides of the shed to bow outward.  As they retracted, a powerful puff of black smoke streamed through the rooftop pipe.  “Whoopee,” could be heard from within.

Startled, the birds took off leaving dark rings in their wake.

“How curious?” wondered Thirty-nine, swiping at a ring with his finger.  “That looks like coal dust,” he added, before Mimi made him go wash his hands, again.

Llywarch, Hansel, Randolph, and Chris were leaning against a shade tree watching the lessons.  “I wish I could have a cookie,” said Chris.

“I agree,” replied Randolph, picking up an acorn.  “I am so hungry, I could eat this nut.”

Startled, Llywarch felt in his robe for his bag.  He sighed in relief as his hands closed around it.

“Helga-Aberdeen makes good gingerbread cookies,” said Hansel, remembering his childhood.  “But you should be happy you’re not out there.  Mimi thinks you two could use lessons, as well.”

“What?  I can dance with the best of them,” said Randolph.

“And I am quite good at deportment,” insisted Chris, although he wasn’t sure what that meant.

“I wonder how they’ll teach dancing,” said Hansel, “since there are not enough females.”

“Randolph!  Chris!  Can you come over here please?” Mimi called to them.  “We want you to join in the dancing.”

“Oh boy,” said Randolph, tossing aside the acorn.  “I get Gretel.  I bet she asked for me, herself,” he added, ignoring his intention to have nothing more to do with her.  “You can have Rosa.”

“You’re needed also,” Mimi informed Hansel and Llywarch.  “No,” she said to Randolph, as he bowed before Gretel.  “I want you to dance with Ten.  Gretel is going to dance with Lucky”

Gretel blushed and said, “He seems so interesting.”  She took him by the hand and asked, “Later, do you think you could show me your dice?”

 Rosa was paired up with Pi, while Chris was led over to Random.

“Gosh, you have such big muscles,” Rosa told Pi, loud enough for Chris to hear, as she felt his arm.

“What I’m the best at,” replied Pi, “is going around in circles.”

Randolph took Ten by his painted hands and said, “I don’t care what Mimi says…I’m leading.”

“Hombre, you dance with Negative-one.”

“Have you given any thought to pig farming?” Hombre asked the sad dwarf.  “I think you would like it.”

  And Larry, I want you to dance with…”

She was interrupted by a sudden blur and a whirl of wind that swept past.  When it settled, Zelda, the old woman from the Pyrenees, appeared before them.  She smiled at Llywarch and smoothed her wind blown hair.

 Llywarch took off his hat so she could see his cornrows

“What are you doing here?” asked Rosa.

 “Well…," the old woman blushed.  “It’s my day off.”  She looked shyly at Llywarch.

“Wonderful,” he said.  “It looks like I already have a partner,” he informed Mimi, as he tucked Zelda’s arm in his.

Mimi was stumped for a moment.  “Thirty-nine,” she finally said.  “It looks like you will have to dance with Helga-Aberdeen.  Wait, while I go and get her.”

She soon return with the reluctant witch.

“I can only take a few minutes,” the witch insisted.  “I was just about to give Rex a bath.  Has anyone seen my vinegar and basil?”