On Moon Island with the King
"I'm the king of Moon Island, that's who."
His wandering had brought Noah along with Sir Barksalot to a tiny island in the Back Bay that was not graced with a name on any charts. It was very low tide and the ocean floor was frozen so he had walked over the hundred yards or so from the mainland and come upon a cottage that looked to be abandoned. Nevertheless, being young but not careless, he had given in to his curiosity in stages, first observing the structure from afar, then making his way over a cliff and snapping a picture through the trees before finally making his way quietly to a window where through tattered and dingy lace curtains he beheld a sight that made him stare.
A boy his age was dancing with a broom.
The room was shadowy and the rotten floor was dusty and the way the boy was dancing he flicked little clouds of the dust with the broom up and into the sunlight streaming in through the window. And as he danced, now and then he would doff his odd headgear, which looked like a crown made from a pie tin, and he would bow as if greeting someone.
Noah might have edged away again and left the little fellow to whatever eccentricities inspired his strange behaviour, but Sir Barksalot, in Noah's arms and also an observer, chose that moment to let loose with a loud and prolonged greeting of his own.
And so the broom had become a weapon. The boy had hoisted it to his shoulder and sighted along it as if it had always been a rifle and he had never stopped training with it.
"Who goes there?" he cried out, his crown slipping over one eye. "Announce yourselves or it's a bullet you've got comin' for you."
"I'm Noah!" Noah called back through the glass, not cowed for a moment by any number of bullets the broom might have held. Nevertheless, feeling he should have his own distinction, he added, "Of Noah's Ark! I'm the captain! And who might you be?"
And so they had met. And Noah had gained the first friend of his childhood that was his own age. Before they parted, Noah had been made a royal ally and had promised, on pain of being banned forever from the Moon and furthermore of being throttled and drawn and quartered and even spit on, never to disclose the secret of their palace. Also he pledged a can of paint and any boards he could sneak over that they could fix the floor with.
He went home also with the first secret of his life. And realized he had never been happier. "Except," he said softly, in bed under the covers with his hand over his heart, "except when you was here. Ma Bertie. Daddy Mac. Except when you was here."
22 February 2020
Texas Jim
Prospect, Nova Scotia
granitecoast.ca