The Gray House

Bird-Logs came back. Dragging in Vulture’s stepladder. Mermaid and Needle came with a round tray. There was a pie on it. They put it next to me and set to cutting it up. I grabbed the knife and joined in. The aroma of the pie made me realize how beastly hungry I was. It was a meat pie, still warm. I had no idea how they’d made it and with what, but they certainly weren’t using a hotplate. We arranged the slices on the same tray.

“I think we should try it,” Mermaid said. “If it came out all right, I mean. It’s getting cold.”

So the three of us took a piece each, and we gave one to Tubby as well. He was slurping it with such gusto that everyone immediately gravitated to us, eager to participate in the tasting. We only managed enough willpower to get the pie away, on top of the wardrobe, when there was about half of it left. Humpback climbed on the table to place the tin pan over it, to keep it from Nanette, and when he stepped down again he was in a kind of a swoon. He said that he’d marry the one who made this pie. Mermaid and Needle exchanged glances and giggled.

“It was a joint project,” Mermaid said. “You’d have to become a polygamist.”

Humpback confirmed that he would gladly do that. He was absolutely serious when he said it. Deadly serious. Like this thought just hit him, that the one thing that had been missing from his life up to this point was polygamy. I couldn’t believe it was really him saying that. Always so reticent, so quiet, and suddenly—promises of dancing, paper airplanes, joking with the girls . . . It sure was strange, the effect that the upcoming graduation was having on him.

“Oh! I have to go get changed!” Needle said and ran off.

“What about you?” I said to Mermaid. “Are you getting changed?”

“I did,” she said, reddening. “Changed, I mean.”

“Ah. Of course. Right. How stupid of me not to notice! You look great.”

I was desperately casting for something I could point out and praise, something that I didn’t see on her every day. In vain.

Mermaid nodded. Then she teased out a long strand of hair and showed me the fish. It was tiny, whittled out of a striped seed that didn’t look like it came from any fruit I knew. She shook it, and something inside the fish rattled. Not exactly ringing and not exactly knocking, something in between.

“There is this one single seed inside, very resonant, so it’s a fish and a bell at the same time,” Mermaid explained.

“Cool!” I said. “What’s it made from?”

She shrugged.

“Blind’s present.”

I assumed that guests meant Vulture with Beauty, Shuffle, Black, and maybe a couple more of those who usually turned up some nights. I was completely off.

Vulture came with Lizard, Angel, Beauty, and Horse. Red brought Viking, Corpse, Zebra, and Whitebelly. Along with Black came Owl, who’d never been in our room before, and then also Shuffle and Rabbit. They were carrying musical instruments. Two guitars, two flutes, and a lute. Vulture delivered two bottles of tequila, his own creation. Red hauled in a jug of mulled wine. An unfamiliar girl with green hair, wearing a long red evening dress, brought a packet of cakes.

It was getting crowded on the table, so I climbed down, first to the nearest bed, the one by the window, and from it to Black’s bed.

All the wheelchairs they had lined up in the hallway, there was no place for them inside. Blind must have left Lary’s bed at some point, because I saw Zebra and Corpse climb up there along with their backpacks.

Red was hectoring everyone to hurry up and take a seat, because the mulled wine was getting cold.

Then Mermaid sat next to me, thankfully. Then Lary, and finally Needle, flushed and out of breath. I nearly tumbled down from the bed when I saw her. She had on a real wedding dress. The train, the veil, everything a proper bride is supposed to have. The works. She was also holding a small round bouquet bound with shiny ribbon. Mermaid struggled to help her fit the expansive white skirt on the bed between Lary and me. He squeezed into the far corner and I had to press myself to the wall to make enough space for the chiffon creation. After it had been duly positioned and straightened, Mermaid was able to sit and wrap it over herself, or rather burrow into it like it was a snowbank.

I could imagine that our merry gang was pretty silly to look at. Snow-white in bridal finery and three dwarves peeking bashfully from under it. Everyone felt it their duty to approach and compliment Needle’s dress. She was sitting there beet red from embarrassment but uncommonly pretty, nodding and thanking them, and I thought how it was strange that a simple wedding dress can turn even a homely girl into a beauty.