Oebalus Pugnax 1/7

"I am so terribly excited to see our home," the woman said, smiling serenely at the handsome colonel. "You've told me so much about the lovely grounds and the new exterior. Oh, and of course, your little girl!"

The man sitting across from her in the stagecoach smiled back. He had indeed told his new wife about his house - just far enough into the country to be free of London soot. It had hardwood floors made of Brazilian cherry, rustic, sunny bedrooms, and large garden. It wasn't quite as luxurious as his Reading flat, but sometimes one had to get out of the city for a while. His tiny, old-fashioned cottage was secluded and cozy.

Yet one thing bothered him.

"Irene, dearest, there is something I must talk to you about." He leaned forward to take her elegantly small hand. "It is my daughter. Since her birth she has had a slight impairment... I had hoped she would grow out of it, but she is not intellectually mature for her age."

"I love children of all sorts," Irene assured him quickly, "and I have experience assisting invalids, as I took care of my elderly aunt in her final years – rest her soul. I know we will get along famously!" She beamed as if a crippled stepchild were the most exciting thing on this earth.

"I'm delighted to hear it," the Colonel replied, "but my - well, our - girl, she isn't an invalid, exactly..."

~ ❧ ~

The whole world had conspired against Celestia today.

Normally, her everyday life was calm and quiet, and she was allowed to do just about anything she wanted to. The jam and preserves in the pantry were perfectly fair game, she could go outside whenever she wanted, and she was permitted to wear the same clothes for days on end. But today was distressingly out of the ordinary.

After being woken up far before the sunlight had warmed her stuffy, chilly room, Celestia had not been fed any breakfast, and her usually mild and complacent nurse was in a frenzy. Something was definitely up, and the little girl wanted no part of it.

"Hold still," the nurse snarled. Celestia couldn't understand what the obstinate woman was saying and she didn't care. Celestia squirmed wildly as the woman struggled to trim the nails on her last three digits. Nail scissors had terrified her ever since she was a toddler, and nobody had ever clipped her nails without drawing blood. The fact that her desperate wiggling was to blame had never crossed the girl's mind.

When the ordeal was over, Celestia sat forlornly sucking on two cut fingers and listened to the bathwater running. Normally she would have rushed over so she could see the water falling into the tub, but the hectic morning had dampened her spirits. The whole thing bewildered her. Why, she hadn't had a bath in weeks, thanks to her neglectful nurse! It seemed that something unusual would happen today, and Celestia resented it. She resented everything this morning.

"Water's ready," the nurse announced. When Celestia didn't move, the harried woman sighed and walked across the polished wooden floor to where Celestia had collapsed after the traumatizing fingernail incident. The nurse picked her up, removed her nightgown, and helped her into the tub. The girl sniffled, but she was resigned now and didn't put up a struggle.

As the nurse rinsed and scrubbed her golden hair with harsh soap, Celestia comforted herself by thinking about what she would normally be doing at this time.

If she had already decided to get out of bed, Celestia probably would have hurried downstairs to the spacious kitchen. If it was the cook's day off - to Celestia, it was always a mystery when the cook went missing - she would open jars in the pantry and eat whatever she wanted to. The nurse, after making sure her charge was all right, would leave and be gone until suppertime. Celestia would be free to play in the garden all day.

Celestia ruminated gloomily, pouting about being confined to the tub. There was nothing interesting to see, just her shiny pink knees sticking out of the water. At several feet away, the shiny faucet head was a grey blur to her.

The nurse left to get her clothes - even though Celestia knew that she was supposed to be constantly attended while in the tub! - then dried the little girl roughly. Celestia was forced into her nice clothes, so stiff with starch that they scratched her pale skin.

Finally, the nurse knelt down in front of her and gave her an intense stare. “Celestia, listen to me. This is very important. Your father and your new mother are coming to stay for a while. You must - must! - be a good girl. D'you understand?”

The nurse was so close Celestia could see the pores in her skin and smell her rancid breath. What's she want? the girl wondered, annoyed.

The woman took Celestia’s hand and led her to the garden. As soon as they passed the door, she tried to break free and crawl through the shrubbery, but the nurse knew all of her tricks and tightened her grip. Her meaty red hand was sweating when they reached the center of the garden.

“Hello,” the nurse mumbled with an awkward curtsy. “Here be - here is the child.”

Oh, Celestia realized, feeling very stupid. How could she forget what this frenzy to make her presentable meant? It was that man with a mustache. The man she was expected to act nice around… and, she remembered, nurses were usually replaced after he came to visit. Good riddance.

“Why, the little girl I have heard so much about!” someone cried breathily. “Will you come see your new mamma?” Celestia tried to escape again, but the nurse had not relaxed at all, and she shoved Celestia up onto the picnic table bench to sit between the two strangers.

~ ❧ ~

Celestia sat uneasily still, wedged between her unfamiliar parents. The man was only slightly less foreign than the woman, but since he had visited before Celestia scooted next to him and grasped his wool cardigan. The man smiled and patted her head.

"How is my little girl?" he looked at Celestia, but the question was unmistakably directed at her nurse. Celestia scratched lines in the wooden table with her jagged fingernail. She wished vehemently that she were somewhere else.

The nurse sat across from the family and clutched her teacup nervously.

Celestia had been given a cup of milk, which she greedily devoured. She seldom was allowed milk, as it was stored in the cellar to keep it cold. Her nurse was shrewd enough to keep her away from the large, damp place - for if the child caught pneumonia, the woman's income was at stake. It was the possibility of losing her job that made her chapped, rough hands shake as she reported to the colonel.

"Celestia has made many advances since you were here last," the nurse began, careful to avoid the coarse speech that had cost her many high-end employers. "She can buckle her shoes all by herself now, and I've been teaching her to thread needles."

The colonel frowned. These were not great accomplishments for a child of nine - even he knew that.

The nurse prattled hurriedly along. "She still has trouble with manners sometimes, though I have been teaching her to curtsy. The child is still having problems with her speech-"

"How developed is her vocabulary?" The colonel's wife broke in swiftly, and gave the poor nurse a cool, searching glance.

"Well, marm, - madam - so far it is very limited."

"How limited?"

"Well, I... I have never heard her speak, besides, well – if she's hungry, she'll say 'food', and if she needs to relieve herself, well..." The nurse had lost the courage she had so carefully gathered for this interview, and she could tell that her position was crumbling. Hastily, she asked to be excused.

"She definitely must go," the woman said disgustedly as soon as the cheap green hem of the nurse’s dress disappeared behind the garden fence.

Celestia had not been following the conversation closely. Instead, she had been systematically searching her father's clothing, looking for presents. She had found a new brush - not pleasing at all! - and a piece of candy, which she immediately devoured. The most exciting thing she discovered, however, was a medium-sized orange and brown beetle. She had never seen one like it before, and she was somewhat of an expert on bugs, at least the ones she could observe in the garden. She pointed it out to the Colonel.

"Ah, so you are smarter than that nurse could have guessed. That particular bug is from the United States, where I have been working..."

"… And no one must learn of that, my dear," Celestia's new mother put in with a tight smile.

"Of course," the colonel agreed with a dashing grin, "but she seems to like it. Celestia, this is the Southern Stinkbug - Oebalus Pugnax.” He repeated the name, wondering if she was bright enough to understand.

"Oebalus Pugnax," Celestia parroted. Before now, she had only known her own name, but now she knew Oebalus Pugnax too. The little girl held the bug on her fingertip and stared at it. Oebalus Pugnax was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. He looked so friendly... although the expression was unchangeable, locked into the plates of his exoskeleton. He tasted Celestia's finger with his thin, brown tongue.

“Well!” the colonel guffawed. “It seems your ex-governess really had no idea of what you are capable of! Now, “ he winked jovially, “you just need to learn that girls – at least, nice girls like you – don't like insects.” With that, he casually ground Oebalus Pugnax into the picnic table with his teacup.

Celestia was so shocked that she didn’t start crying for several seconds, only staring at the jumble of body parts before her dismayed blue eyes. Then she began to scream.

The nurse heard the familiar sounds of a tantrum as she closed the back gate, and a mean sort of revenge filled her heart. Now the over-privileged, inexperienced parents would have to watch their own brat, she thought with a grim smile.

But sadly, she was incorrect. Irene explained to Colonel Westing that when children cry over something trivial they should be left alone as punishment. Her mother was a child psychologist and had a lot of knowledge about childcare. Thus, the two of them finished a charming tea while Celestia hid in the depths of the garden. They sat leisurely outside until it became evening, chatting about Colonel Westing's property and assets. When the sun began to set, he called for Celestia.

The girl was in the furthest part of the garden, leaning against a brick wall. She heard the call and ignored it resolutely. The garden was easy to get lost in, and Celestia’s weak eyes could only penetrate a few feet into the undergrowth, but she had long since memorized every branch and tuft of grass in the enclosure. She would be hard to find.

“We cannot leave her alone here at night!” the colonel said vexedly.

“I am not about to go searching through that tangle,” Irene decided imperiously. “The cook is here – call her to catch the child.”

It was done and worked out beautifully for the parents. The cook had difficulty forcing her bulk through the tall bushes. She cursed and growled, causing Celestia to bolt from hiding place to hiding place. Finally, Celestia was captured and given supper, then sent off to bed.

Our heroine was exhausted. It had been a troubling day. She stared up at her ceiling, as distant to her as the sky, and waited to go to sleep. Her door creaked open, however, and the lady from the garden came in on slippered feet.

“Hello, Celestia.” Giving her most winning smile, Irene handed the girl a cup of chamomile tea. “I know you’ve had a trying day.”

Celestia sat up and burned her tongue on the tea as Irene continued. “It seems like you have a hard time being ladylike. I am aware that, to a little girl, the role can be boring. But really, a lady can be daring, too.” Her eyes took on a misty look. “I am sure you are well acquainted with the story of Jael, but it never hurts for a young lady to hear it again…”

Celestia fell asleep as Irene recited in a soft, sweet voice: “Then Jael, Heber’s wife, took a nail of the tent, and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary…”

In the middle of the night, some sound woke Celestia. She couldn’t go back to sleep, so she got up and silently padded outside to the garden.

~ ❧ ~

The moon cast glowing beams onto the shining hardwood, but Celestia no longer needed to see to find her way through the spacious house. She was well acquainted with all of the breakable objects kept around for appearances, the “dangerous” objects, like scissors, and of course, all of the best hiding places. It was easy to locate the back door to the garden.

Celestia made her rounds through the tiny, wandering trails that only she knew. The trails wound through the dense young willow bushes, a thin ribbon of bare ground where the frequent tread of small feet had prevented plants from growing. While everyone else was asleep, the little girl in her white nightie patrolled the grounds making sure everything was peaceful, and always alert for new occurrences. Tonight she found a robin that had died - from what, she had no idea. Celestia settled down to watch a few sleepy flies nibbling on the bird, along with those relentless grey beetles that made even her shudder - perhaps because somehow she instinctively knew that someday, they would be gnawing the flesh from her own dead bones. She could learn a lot from this savage little plot of land.

After she had finished her rounds, Celestia stood in the center of the garden, beside the picnic table. She could tell that something was off – the air had smelled like smoke for a while, but now the it was too thick to breathe. The girl began to feel terribly nervous, but then she discovered that the further into the garden she went, the clearer the air was. So Celestia spent the night in the most remote corner of the little arbor while, tragically, her house burned to the ground.

~ ❧ ~

It was a grey, murky dawn when Celestia woke up. The sun shone through smog thicker than London’s, and everything was coated in ash, the girl included.

Celestia got up and surveyed her surroundings. The garden was the same as ever, besides the smell and the soot. None of it seemed burned. Celestia decided to sit here until her nurse - wait, the nurse had probably been dismissed yesterday. The cook, then - found her. After fifteen minutes had passed with no assistance, she got bored and began to make her way carefully to the house. But when she finally reached the end of the paved garden walk, there was no house there, only a thick pile of ash. Celestia was puzzling over this development when someone cried out.

“Why, it’s a little girl!” The voice was male and unfamiliar to Celestia. She contemplated running away. “What do you suppose a child is doing here?”

“There was rumor that the Colonel had a daughter, as was noted in the material I supplied you. But then, you are not the most careful of readers,” a different voice answered the first.

Celestia heard the rustle of clothing by the old garden gate and turned to face the sound. In a few seconds she could see two blurred figures. As they came nearer, she could smell that one of them was smoking a pipe. Soon they stood before her, towering, indistinct silhouettes to Celestia’s weak eyes.

“Well, child, what is your name?” One of the men bent down to Celestia’s level and courteously put his putrid pipe away. After an awkward silence, she smiled politely at the man and curtsied.

“Yes, very nice. And your name…?” This time the silence was stifling to Celestia.

“She must be mute, Holmes,” the smoker’s companion decided, “or perhaps she is in shock? I'll take her pulse - “

“No need for that.” Holmes stood. “I heard rumors that the colonel kept his child out of the public eye for many reasons, but the most repeated gossip was that she was mentally ill. Sadly, I believe it is the truth.” He turned and began walking away. “Pick her up and we will take her to the flat. It is not safe that she should be left here, especially with the precarious situation of the deceased colonel.”

The other man, grumbling, lifted Celestia from the ground and slung her across his shoulder like a sack. She was borne this way until his friend happened to glance behind him.

“Watson! You are transporting a damsel in distress, and she must be carried as such!”

The man made a face and juggled Celestia around into a more dignified position. Soon she was cradled comfortably like a princess - so cozy that she fell asleep before they reached the men’s carriage.

~ ❧ ~

It took an hour and a half to get from the charred house back to London, and Celestia slept the whole way. The men spoke quietly at times, but mostly sat back and pondered the unusual situation.

When they finally reached Baker Street, Celestia was brimming with energy. She skipped up the stone steps ahead of the men, then opened the door and scurried inside the building.

“Wait!” Watson cried, hurrying after her. “You don’t know which flat is ours!”

“Catch her quickly, before she does much damage,” Holmes called after the man, as he made his own leisurely way up the steps. He entered the apartment building to find Watson dragging the girl from a coat closet, spilling an umbrella basket in the process. Holmes grinned and walked upstairs.

Subdued, Celestia watched silently as Watson picked up the umbrellas and straightened the coats. She had never been entertained by cleaning, so the extent of her assistance was trying to stand on the ends of the umbrellas when the mustached man wasn’t looking. He would try to pick it up, but succeed only in pulling her across the wooden floor. It was like a game, but he didn’t seem to see it that way. When the closet was no longer spilling into the entryway, Watson took Celestia by the arm and showed her the way to Holmes’ flat. As soon as they were through the door, he collapsed into a chair, gasping with fatigue.

“Ah,” Holmes remarked from his chair, where he had been reading a thick commonplace book, “children are such a joy.”

“Never,” Watson growled, “I hope I never have one to call my own.”

Celestia, meanwhile, was investigating Holmes’ fascinating living room. The girl had an invariable trait of finding trouble wherever she could, so naturally she followed her nose to Holmes’ table of steaming chemical experiments.

“Don’t touch thaaat,” Holmes commanded sharply when something crashed onto the floor.

“Holmes, what are you going to do with this brat?” Watson demanded as Celestia hurried away from the bubbling mess on the floor. “She obviously cannot stay in your flat.”

Celestia examined the room more thoroughly. In moments, she had discovered a pile of newspapers and began riffling through them.

“Perhaps your wife would look after the darling,” Holmes suggested.

“The child will not step into my house under any circumstances,” Watson said firmly. “Why, look at what she has done to the papers. She could be dangerous!”

Holmes peered over the top of his book. Celestia was carefully ripping a picture from the center of a paper. Her eyes were intense, and she was mumbling something quietly.

“That looks difficult,” Holmes remarked. He went to his desk and hunted around, then returned with a pair of scissors.

“You would give scissors to that child?” erupted Watson. “You must be mad!”

Holmes ignored him and handed Celestia the scissors, then looked closer at the picture she was removing. “What an interesting choice,” he said slowly. “And what is that you’re whispering?”

Celestia triumphantly held up her ragged picture. “Oebalus Pugnax!”

~ ❧ ~

“Well, this is a defining discovery,” Holmes exclaimed.

“The child can speak,” Watson agreed. “Astonishing!”

“That’s not what I meant at all,” Holmes admonished, then picked up the abandoned Commonplace book and began to read:

“‘Colonel Westing, believed to be one of the Swine’s Dozen, has been implicated in countless crimes but never arrested. His latest suspected crime was a massive insurance scam in the Southern United States. According to the authorities, a fictional company sold millions of dollars of crop insurance to farmers. Since many farmers were suffering from a stinkbug epidemic, they quickly invested in the company. After making millions of dollars, the company vanished into thin air, while, at the same time, the Colonel could not be found anywhere. A week after the money had disappeared, he surfaced in London with his new wife - who, suspiciously, is American.’ And now,” he continued, “both of the suspects are killed in a house fire, leaving behind this little girl who seems to only know the words ‘Oebalus Pugnax’, the Latin name for the Southern stinkbug. Many, many coincidences, wouldn’t you say, Watson?”

“I must agree,” Watson replied, “but what does it all mean?”

“It means I must send a telegram. You stay here with the child.” Holmes jumped up and began getting ready to go.

“You’re not possibly serious,” Watson began.

“I’ll send Beetle to help you.”

Watson sat down on the floor beside Celestia. She had tired of cutting up newspaper, but this place was full of novelties. She felt that this flat could entertain her for hours. Smiling gleefully, she grabbed Watson's mustache and snipped a large chunk out of it. To her great annoyance, he wrenched the instruments from her hand and flew into the bathroom to survey the damage. Celestia followed him and stood in the doorway, listening to his laments. Staring at his reflection with tears pooling in his eyes, she heard him murmur:

“Thank goodness I can abandon her to Beetle.”

~ ❧ ~

True to his word, as soon as there was a knock on the door Watson grabbed his hat and muttered an excuse as he hurried from the apartment, leaving a young teenager standing confusedly by the door.

“What was he in a hurry about?” Beetle asked Celestia. She was sitting on the ledge of the washbasin, mixing together two containers of Holmes’ spy makeup in the sink. Of course she didn’t answer. Beetle came over to see what she was doing, and Celestia took a good hard look at him. He had light brown hair and looked to be about the same height as her, though he seemed much older, probably because of his large, official-looking round glasses.

“Oh, no,” he cried, “that is not the proper use for Mr. Holmes’ face paints! I thought that Watson had been watching you!” Celestia only stared at him. He could see that she was clueless as to what he meant.

Beetle was a smart young man (he had to be quick witted to live on his own at the age of thirteen) and he was good at looking after children. It perplexed him that this girl, who must be at least nine, couldn’t understand what he was saying. Then it all became clear to him. Beetle had an inquisitive mind and had helped Holmes with several cases, so he made a mental list:

Clue #1: The girl does not understand when I speak to her.

Clue #2: From the state of Mr. Holmes’ flat (broken beakers, shredded newspaper, paint in the sink) I can see that she is used to having her own way.

Clue #3: She turned up mysteriously in Mr. Holmes’ flat.

From these clues, Beetle formed a hypothesis:

This little girl must be foreign, as she cannot understand my speech. She must be rich, since she is spoiled. And since many of Mr. Holmes’ clients are well-off…

“I see now, Your Highness. You must be a princess from a far off land, probably misplaced, or perhaps you have been kidnapped and Mr. Holmes rescued you. Now you need a sitter, and I have been called.”

As Beetle stood there in thought, Celestia became bored and hopped off of the sink. She strolled back to the living room, leaving sloppy black footprints behind her.

“Wait, Highness!” Beetle called, hurrying after her. “Wipe off your feet first!” Celestia thought this was another fun game. She ran as fast as she could around the flat, climbing athletically over furniture to evade Beetle.

This was the state of affairs when Holmes returned with a guest.

~ ❧ ~

Holmes’ visitor gasped in alarm, but Holmes himself seemed to have been expecting something of the sort. He ignored the disheveled appearance of the room and the even worse appearance of Celestia, who, along with her paint-covered feet, was still smudged and scratched from sleeping in the garden.

“And here she is,” he said, gesturing toward Celestia as if this were a perfectly normal introduction. “Mrs. Kabra, meet your newest student, Miss Westing.” The woman smiled gracefully and knelt down to Celestia’s eye level, quite a feat, considering her hearty girth.

“Hello, Miss Westing. I run a special school for little girls like you, and Mr. Holmes has asked me to look after you for a while. I think we are going to have a grand time!”

Celestia peered into the woman’s face. She looked happy – extremely happy. Almost too happy to be true. Somehow, her words seemed terse to Celestia, maybe even memorized. She had black hair that was greying near the temples, and to add to her grandmotherly appearance, she was wearing a wide, fluffy purple dress.

“Ah… what was your name, again?” Beetle asked from the bathroom doorway.

The portly woman gave him a huge smile. “I am Mrs. Natalya Kabra. What was your name?”

“Beetle.”

It seemed that everything had already been worked out for Mrs. Kabra to take charge of Celestia, and the girl was whisked into yet another carriage and taken for another long ride.

As they rode, Celestia thought. She didn’t know many words, but she could think without them perfectly fine; Celestia was not actually stupid. She thought of her house, and decided that she had been gone far too long. It had been an exciting day, but she was hungry and longed for the orange marmalade she had eaten half of yesterday. Why hadn't she just finished it? Now she wished she had. Part of her even missed her old nurse.

Mrs. Kabra broke into her thoughts. “I just know you will like my school, Miss Westing. There are so many little girls for you to play with, and all of the teachers are nice – they've been hand-picked by me. We have a nice big yard, and the secretary even takes the girls on walks to the park if they are especially good. Everything is just peachy when you're a good girl! We teach lessons in French, drawing, needlework…”

Celestia ignored the woman. All she wanted was to be back home, thinking of getting ready for bed.

Instead, when the carriage pulled up, it was under a cheery sign reading, 'The Academy for Emotionally Disturbed Girls.'

Celestia was bustled inside, fed a quick snack, and put to bed, all in just a few moments. Her arrival barely made a hardly disturbed the routine in the artificially placid lake that was The Academy.

~ ❧ ~

When she woke up the next morning, Celestia was more confused than she had ever been before. Someone shook her roughly, pulled her out of bed, shoved her into a scratchy brown-and-orange wool dress, and braided her hair tightly behind her head. In a matter of minutes, she was being rushed down a flight of stairs with a noisy herd of other girls. Only when she sat down on a wooden bench and someone began to say grace was she able to get her bearings.

Girls sat on either side of her, wearing exactly the same ugly wool dresses. Their heads were bowed silently. Across the table, Celestia could see a long row of brown smudges, which she inferred to be more girls.

As if by a silent, mysterious command, the children around her became animated. Girls laughed and talked, and older children circumnavigated the table, passing out bowls of gruel. Celestia tasted hers, only to find it intolerable.

Just as abruptly as they had come to life, the girls became silent again, and one by one, they left the room. Celestia was left quite alone.

The first thing she did was pull out the hairpins holding her braid in place. She yanked at her hair until it was no longer painfully tight. Then she began to remove the shoes that had appeared on her feet overnight. She had one foot free when someone hauled her to her feet by the back of her uniform.

"What do you think you're doing, kid?" a harsh voice snarled. Celestia squirmed around to see her attacker. It was an older girl, though she was stubby and only a few inches taller than Celestia. Instead of wearing the conventional uniform, she was decked out in crimson, purple, and black. She shook Celestia, her green eyes flashing with distaste.

"Why aren't you in class? Are you a rebellious child?" She stared into the girl's shocked eyes. "No. You must be a retard, then. Come on." Celestia screamed as the girl dragged her out of the dining room. Considering the circumstances, she thought it was a much merited scream, but when she was deposited in a classroom, she decided it hadn't been a great idea. Everyone gaped at her. She could only see a few students well, but could feel the searching gaze of everyone in the room. Meekly, she sat down in the nearest available seat.

The girl who had caught her went to the front of the room and began to complain to the teacher. Celestia breathed a sigh of relief.

The girl in the desk beside her immediately began to whisper. She had short, wispy hair that nobody had taken the time to braid. Her vacant brown eyes fixed on Celestia and she babbled conspiratorially.

"Hey. What's yours? Name, that is. I'm Bedlam Vigo. My friends call me Viggs. But actually, I don't have any friends. Except you, that is. Let's be best friends." Viggs smiled so winningly that Celestia was compelled to smile back.

~ ❧ ~