The funeral was a bit of a blur. I still can’t believe Mommy is gone. If you’ve lost someone really close to you, you will understand. I’ve had this fog in my brain for days and I’m still feeling numb. And it’s one bad thing after another. The Council had to decide what to do with me. I’ve got no family at all, so they decided send me to work in the kitchen of the Meat and Cleaver tavern. The kitchen is filthy. There’s soot and grease on all the surfaces. Mr Phleg the chef is in charge of me. He's a scary looking guy, his thick unibrow makes him look angry and hungry.
“Your first job is to clean this kitchen, boy,” he growled, pointing at the dirty walls and floor.
“This place is filthy,” I blurted out.
Phleg scowled and struck me across the face. It really hurt and I was too shocked to say anything. “The life of a servant is no better than a dog. You would do well to remember that, dog.”
After that I didn’t complain about having to scrub the floors. At lunchtime Phleg gave me a crust of bread and some hard cheese while he sank his teeth into an eel pie. Then in the evening he pointed to some old sacks for me to sleep on and gave me the rest of the old cheese. That night I was so exhausted, I was able to sleep for the first time since Mommy died.
Morning! I wake up to the sound of Phleg’s voice mixed with another. A man’s voice, but higher pitched. This guy has a coppery wig and a pasty face. “Do not talk back to your manager, Phleg,” he says, looking down on a scowling Phleg.
“No, Sir,” mutters Phleg, scowling at the floor.
The manager continues talking at Phleg who scowls at the floor. “There is an alien booked this evening. A femurid woman. They like children.”
“No accounting for taste,” mutters Phleg.
“Anyhow, that boy is what their species would consider a pretty child,” says the manager guy. “Freckles, flaxen hair, periwinkle eyes…”
“You want that dog serving because you let aliens in here?” grumbles Phleg.
“You don’t have a say in who is allowed here,” says the manager.
Serving’s gotta be better than being in the filthy kitchen with Phleg.
I follow the manager into the main restaurant. The sound of chairs scraping the floors and clattering of plates and cutlery mingle with the hubbub of voices. I follow the manager to a table where a bunch of people are talking and laughing. Oh wow, one of them is a lady who would stand out in a crowd of a thousand women! She’s wearing a bright silver body glove and her face is green and very shiny, like it’s wet and glistening in the light of all the beeswax candles. She doesn’t have any eyebrows and her hair looks like thich strands of seaweed.
The lady catches sight of me and grins. “Well hello there! What’s your name?”
Her voice is low and husky for a lady’s.
“Al – Alfie,” I stammer.
The manager points at her cup. “Make sure you serve her table diligently, boy.”
The manager leaves.
The green lady pats the seat beside her. “Sit by me, Alfie.”
I hesitate and then sit on the seat. She gives off a weird smell, like damp earth after a rainstorm. “I am Zylara, darling. I am a Femurid.”
The manager did use the word when talking about the alien visiting. So this is what a Femurid looks like.
The green lady passes me a plate of crispy chicken slices and a jug of milk and a pewter beaker. I’m glad, cos I’m really hungry. I’ve had nothing but old bread and cheese since I got here.
The guy opposite scratches his beard and raises his glass to Zylara. “We’re glad you came down from the stars, Zy. Our dance at the festival was faltering and we were not going to get enough coins from the crowd to pain for dinner. But then I saw your shiny green face amongst the onlookers and saw you place your flute to your lips and your hypnotic tune made us all dance like never before. The crowd loved it.”
Zy grins. “Glad I could help, handsome. I gotta say, it’s rad what you guys do. Coming and going just as you please. And dancing!”
“’Tis a hard life,” says a lady with a white painted face who’s sitting next to Zy. “If we don’t gather coins from the crowds, we don’t eat.”
“Aw.” Zy touches her arm with a gloved hand. “I love how you dance. You’re so graceful. All the crowds love you.”
Then Zy turns to me, her green face split in a wide grin. “How about you, Alfie? Do you dance?”
My face is getting hot, so I know I’m blushing cos of the question. “I don’t dance.”
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The green woman beams at me, her happy smile lighting up her green face. “Ooh, ooh, your nose and cheeks turning pink… so adorable.”
“That’s called blushing,” says the musician guy.
“Pretty as the stars,” says Zy. “Tell me, Alfie, where is your mother?”
I feel a lump in my throat and I tremble.
Zy touches my chin with the tip of a gloved finger so that I look up at her green face. The candlelight shimmers on her green nose and cheeks. “Darling, what’s wrong?”
I cannot answer. I’m trembling. Zy scoops me up in her arms and sits me on her lap. The alien woman is really strong. She clasps me to her and I feel a huge rush of relief and put my arms around her. She’s wearing a silver body glove. I lean against her chest and she runs her gloved fingers through my hair.
I hear footsteps and hear the manager’s terse voice. “What’s this? Why is the urchin on your lap, Miss? He ought to be earning his keep by serving.”
“Sir, what do you mean?” Zy’s voice sounds cold now as she responds to the manager. “Serving? He’s only little?”
“The urchin is an orphan. Entirely destitute. The council has set him to work here to earn his keep. That is the way of things here on Urth. Perhaps it is not the way of things on your world, young lady?”
The musician guy speaks up: “Urth is almost identical to Earth as it was three hundred years ago. You know about Earth, Zy?”
“I do indeed.” Zy’s gravelly voice quivers. “I know about the inhumanity of child labour in Earth’s past. It’s horrifying to think of that sort of thing going on right here, right now.”
“Horrifying or not, it is the way of things on Urth,” says the manager.
The manager grabs me with his heavy hands and takes me away from Zy. The alien woman gazes after me, biting her dark green lip, her shiny green face creasing into an expression of worry. She reaches out with her gloved hands as if she wants to take me back, but the manager heaves me to the grimy kitchen and puts me down.
“Phleg! Phleg!” When the manager yells, Phleg comes shuffling over, curling his lip.
“Stir your stumps, man!” says the manager. “Tomorrow night, we will host a distinguished alien. A skullkrill. Be prepared.”
Tonight, I fall asleep and dream of Zy’s green face and wishing suddenly that she could take me away from here.
00O00
The next morning, the manager is snapping at Phleg again.
“I’m telling you, Sir,” says Phleg with a sneer, “nothing could break out of this larder.” The larder is a small, bare stone room with a heavy iron door. Phleg locks it with a bunch of keys and then kicks at the door.
“You had better not mess things up,” says the manager. “Now I must sample the latest delicacies and see if they are fit for our wealthiest clientele.”
When the manager is gone, Phleg rounds on me angrily. “Here I am forced to eat biscuits to appease my cravings while that plaguey manager stuffs his gullet with marzipan and cubes of jellied milk. Why then should you taste my bread and cheese? Dogs eat scraps on the street. You should do the same.”
I don’t get a meal that day, I just get to scrub the filthy pots and pans.
Now it’s evening and the manager comes bursting into the kitchen. “The skullkrill comes…” he announces.
The double doors at the end of the kitchen burst open and I feel a chill of terror. It’s the most hideous thing I’ve ever seen – a monster with lidless eyes, snapping beaks and feathers like razers.
“Raarrk! Where is the Femurid meat you promised, human?” the monstrosity demands, snapping its beaks at the manager.
“We’ll soon have her in the larder, oh patient one,” says the manager, giving the horror a curtsey. “Until then it would be prudent if you are out of sight so as to allay her suspicion.”
The monster shuffles out of the kitchen.
I turn cold. Does the manager mean what I think he means? That he’s going to feed Zy or another Femurid to that horror?
The manager leaves the kitchen to go back to the restaurant.
Phleg aims a kick at me. “You stay out of the way, dog.” I crouch in a corner to avoid his feet.
A minute later, the manager is ushering Zy into the filthy kitchen. Zy is carrying a long silver board that’s the same colour as her body glove. What’s it for?
The manager’s talking to her. “This is where that orphan works. Pleasant is it not?”
The flickering lights of the tallow candles shine off Zy’s green nose and cheeks. “It is not pleasant. You ought to be ashamed. How could you keep my little frecklefaced boy in this dump?”
“The kitchen is not pleasant enough?” The manager’s holding a stick which is fizzling and crackling with sparks at one end. He strikes Zy in the back with it. She gives a little cry and then Phleg and the manager shove her into the larder and Phleg locks it.
“Get the cauldron boiling, Phleg,” orders the manager. “The Skullkrill wants Femurid Hotpot tonight.”
A Skullkrill? That horrible many beaked monstrosity is a Skullkrill?
The manager leaves. Phleg is grumbling and tending to the fire underneath a bubbling cauldron. And then my heart leaps as I see the bunch of keys hanging on the hook by the larder door. I quickly unhook them and fumble with the two largest keys, opening the stiff locks in the larder door, like I’ve seen Phleg do.
Phleg isn’t looking. He’s grumbling. “Alien scum! It can only be a good thing that they eat each other. I’ll be glad to serve the Femurid to the Skullkrill.”
“I’ll get you out of this mess, Zy,” I murmur through the door as I fumble with the locks. There! Done it! The door is unlocked!
But Phleg has seen me. He gives me a whack round the head that sends me reeling. “Dog! You dare pry into what doesn’t concern you? How dare you take the keys and unlock the larder door?”
He raises an arm to strike me again, but a silvery gloved hand catches his arm and squeezes hard, making him yell. Zy has come out of the larder. “I could have broken out myself. But I wanted to give you a chance to show your true character. And you have. You are vile.”
She smacks him with the back of her gloved hand, sending him flying into a corner.
Now Zy gathers me up in her arms and steps onto her board. “We’re getting out of here, darling.”
To my amazement, the board rises from the stone floor and glides towards the double doors at the end of the kitchen. Zy knocks one of the doors off its hinges with a blow of her gloved fist and we’re out into the starry night and the board is rising. I feel giddy as we rise high into the air, the icy wind blasting my face. I cling tight to Zy and her smell of damp earth after a summer storm invades my nostrils.
“You’re such a sweetheart, trying to save me,” says Zy. “Since you don’t have anyone, I’m going to adopt you as my son. How does that sound?”
But at that moment there’s a terrible shriek and the beating of many wings and the snapping of many beaks. Looking over Zy’s shoulder, I can see the terrible Skullkrill flying towards us, its many lidless eyes gleaming with evil intent. In a chilling, rasping voice, it calls into the night: “I will dine on you tonight!”