Chapter Four Getting the Idea
'On the Ball, Small Paul. Squawk! Squawk!'
"Stop Mary, Stop."
"Mary Stop! Mary Stop! Squawk!'
"Mary! Stop tormenting your brother," Mrs. Melancholy said sounding peeved. She winked at Mrs. Tweedlebare. "How many times do I have to tell you? Small Paul told you. Freddie Fudge told you. I told you. Is it also necessary for Mrs. Tweedlebare to tell you?"
"I'm not touching him."
'R2 R2 R2 Squawk!'
"This very minute!" Mrs. Melancholy said.
"That is amazing," Mrs. Tweedlebare said. "It's almost as if Freddie Fudge knows whereof he speaks."
"As long as Mary believes it be so," Mrs. Melancholy replied with a smile. "It doesn’t much matter whether we believe Freddie can actually talk."
"It reminds me of unexpectedly meeting a bear when I was about six. Not knowing what to do and anxious to get home before dark with my pail of wild blackberries, I continued walking towards the bear because the bear was standing right on the path that I had to take to get home."
"That must have been scary."
"It was but I felt that I had no choice. Besides, I was really more concerned about my berries than I was about myself because bears love berries.”
“Berry much,” Barbara said.
“As I got closer, I realized that the bear was no longer a bear. I couldn’t figure out what it was but I knew that it wasn’t a bear.”
“That must have been a relief.”
“In a way it was but in another way, it was even scarier.”
“Better the devil you know than the one that you don’t. Fear of the unknown, ” Barbara suggested.
Mrs. Tweedlebare nodded. “A few steps nearer, the bear suddenly grew into a great big … "
"A what?" Barbara Melancholy asked with a delicious shiver.
Even when Mrs. Tweedlebare was merely trying to make conversation, she could not resist adding a touch of suspense.
"A stump."
"You must have been no less scared when you thought it was a bear than if it had been a real bear." Mrs. Melancholy said.
.
"Exactly," agreed Mrs. Tweedlebare.
She helped herself to another gingersnap but neglected to jot it down. The time for gingersnap counting was over. Mrs. Tweedlebare had gathered all the information that she needed. It was all that she needed, in order to help Mary with her story, the reader should understand.
While on a story prowl, counting gingersnaps was a great way to warm up. When she began to close in on her target, she would become careless about collecting what seemed to be useless facts. She was now on the lookout for pertinent facts. The trick was to sort out the useful from the useless, in the interest of helping Mary with her story the reader is advised.
Mrs. Melancholy said. "Freddie Fudge is really, Paul's bird. Those two simply adore each other."
"And Mary is just a wee bit jealous," said Mrs. Tweedlebare.
"True."
Mrs. Tweedlebare hastily made notes but her mind was now focused on the story so that she was carefully filtering the facts as they were presented to her. She was beginning to home in on her target so that she could help Mary. She felt like a homing pigeon must after skimming tangled jungle and twisted river about to drop out of the sky right over its coop.
Who would keep homing pigeons in the jungle? That is a weird thought, thought Mrs. Tweedlebare. Oh that is how it came about. I was thinking about jungles and jaguars and am now at the point where I am ready to start my story, I mean help Mary with hers.