15. Unsettling Discovery
Down on Earth snowflakes kept piling up on the little lamb turning it into a massive mound, no different from bulges formed by snow-covered rocks on the mountain side. It was warm inside the icy cover and the little lamb dreamt of a vast sky filled with sweet dandelions, the biggest and most delicious of which was the shooting star it had set out to follow.
*
Meanwhile, Stellaria felt her spirits sink through the closet floor. Had poor Rufus been eaten by the cat? If so, this was the end of her dreams. Some merry Christmas. Then she heard noise coming out from the hall.
“Been raiding the portkeeper’s supper shoe again, have you?” the housekeeper said. “I tell you what, you lousy cat, you are fired. The rat took off, and for good I hope. The only reason I put up with you is gone. That makes you a cat non grata in my hall.” Ms. Tidybit hated the cat almost as much as she hated rats.
Maybe all wasn’t lost after all. “Excuse me,” Stellaria said stepping out of the closet “Have you seen my rat?”
“Your rat?” Ms. Tidybit said. “Your project gone astray?” Her words clinked like icicles in the wind.
“Yes, mam.”
“Forget about the stray little fart. Some earth-cat will eat it, get a bit of gas and poop it out. That’s it.” Ms. Tidybit was never subtle.
“Now get out of my way.” The housekeeper battled with the hoses of her vacuum cleaner, which resembled a huge octopus, and switched on the machine. Anything that got in the range of its eight tentacles got sucked in and transported right into the huge black hole in the center of the galaxy, never to be seen again.
Stellaria retreated back into the closet — and almost tripped on the portkeeper’s shoe. Ms. Tidybit had been right. A half-eaten cheese sandwich lay next to it on the floor. Why did the portkeeper keep his sandwiches in his Sunday shoes? To get more flavor to the cheese? The world was a scary place.
Even scarier was that the peg was empty. Stellaria had once surprised Rufus in his secret stash of vanilla and strawberry toffee in the pocket of an old band jacket. Now the jacket was gone, all the jackets were gone except for one: a brand new one decorated with rhinestones. The other day she had sabotaged it by stitching the sleeve openings together in protest to the fact that she had not been accepted to the school’s rock band. Anyone that got in, instead of her, deserved to have the sleeves of his or her band-garmet sewn tight together. But Stellaria hadn’t thought this person would be Miro, and then she had forgotten all about the jacket, forgotten to undo the damage. It was plain obvious: Miro, finding that he could not get his hands through the sleeves, had had to take the old, worn-out jacket to be able to go out with the band. And Rufus had been in the pocket…
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