Chapter One

                                                               

I work the morning shift.  For the past seven months, that is.  I open up shop daily at Royal Curmudgeon’s Haberdashery.  Every morning at nine o’ clock I flip over the sign in the door glass from a very negative ‘Closed’ to a very positive ‘Open’.  Every day except this one that is.  New Year’s Day.
I was asked to change my regular schedule yesterday, Wednesday.  You see,  I woke up extra early to bake a batch of my special cinnamon buns.  I packed a couple of them along with my lunch and a basket full for Mr. Curmudgeon himself.  Everything was just as it was every day, until I was about to take my scheduled lunch break at precisely twelve thirty.   Mr. Curmudgeon shuffled across the road, through the gaps in traffic, perfectly utilizing the cross walk he has by now worn bare by his daily excursions to the bank to visit Ms. Ledger who is, as he says, ‘The only woman I’ve ever known to count a dollar properly!’
“Ah, Miss Smidge?” He called, entering the shop and stopping me in my path to the ice box where my turkey on rye was waiting.
“Mr. Curmudgeon, what can I do for you?” I reply.
“Ah, I would like it very much if you would not open up shop tomorrow morning but would instead close it?  You have been here long enough now that I believe you’re up to speed and as tomorrow is, as you know, a very big day in the haberdashery business, it being New Year’s Day and all, your capabilities are needed at the end of the day rather than at the beginning.”
“I see, Sir, yes, well, I am rather accustomed to working the morning shift.”
“Oh, Miss Smidge, you’ve been doing so well...” he said rather regretfully.
“Right!” I hopped up, “Well, I suppose a little rearranging of my schedule could be done and I could pack a toasted swiss with ham and thermos of black tea for dinner instead of my usual lunch.”
“Splendid!  I knew you could do it.  It’s settled then.  It’s all in your hands!  Big day my dear, very big day!  I’m off to count my buttons now, good day.”
“Oh!  Mr. Curmudgeon!” I call, remembering the buns I’d brought for him.  “I happen to have made a few too many cinnamon buns this morning and brought the extras along thinking you might possibly find a use for them or know someone to share them with? Ah! Perhaps that lovely Ms. Ledger over at the bank?  Although I know that would mean you’d have to go out of your way and make a repeat trip across the road today.  I’d hate to ask you to go to any trouble on the account of cinnamon buns but I do hate a waste.”  I’d placed the basket of lovely smelling cinnamon buns in his arms and was turning him toward the door as I was speaking.
“Oh, oh, well, hmm, yes, I do like cinnamon buns myself.  I suppose the buttons could hold off a bit and - ah - yes, I do see a break in the traffic on the street at the moment.  I’ll just take these quickly on over and ask Marjorie, ah, Ms. Ledger ...”  He cleared his throat and bustled out the door and back across the crosswalk.
So now, here it is, quarter past noon on Thursday, January the First,  and I’m not working the morning shift.  I must choose something a bit special to wear for work tonight, New Year’s Day being prime haberdashery day and all, so I pull out my red and white checked skirt and pair it with my white off -the-shoulder blouse with the white embroidery and the acorn buttons.  Leggings and boots are a must this Winter evening in the drafty shop, yes, the green leggings and my favorite knee high boots which are made of the softest leather to look just like real tree bark.  I do love those boots!  Now, for a belt ... the blue with the clouds? No, too cloudy. Ah!  My new silver belt with the black metal ants marching across it in a neat little row will be perfect.  I glance at the clock and have just minutes to pull on my rings and tie up my hair.  Checking the mirror that all is just right I lock up my door and head off to work.

       Royal Curmudgeon’s Haberdashery is indeed very busy when I arrive.  I glance proudly at the front display window as I walk through the entrance.  The very window Mr. Curmudgeon entrusted me to dress last week!
There it sits in a fine fur hat, Winter pea coat and wool trousers.  Our finest needles spiking out the top of the hat, not unlike a roly-poly porcupine, and our most imaginative buttons sewn up the front of the coat along with zippered pockets on the trousers!  I don’t want to brag but we have sold double our usual amount in the zippers since I displayed them in the window!  Of course a ‘one - size - fits -all’ umbrella would market well to the public passing by, (who doesn’t like a ‘one - size - fits - all’?) but Mr. Stitch the tailor and owner of the shop next door was so kind to shift his signage over to the left just so, advertising his discount on the tailoring of the second leg on a men’s pant, allowing me that much more space for the haberdasheries’s own signage that I felt I owed him something in return.  Therefore, I placed the new ‘Tailored Umbrella’ in the front window display.
I unclip my name badge from where it hangs near the register and clip it onto the front of my blouse. ‘Justa Smidge’ it reads above the official Haberdashery name in gold.
I take my place at the front counter and get to work, selling off all the wonderful little things anyone with a material fetish might fancy.
The day eventually draws to an end and evening settles over the shop.  My tummy rumbles and I realize I’ve hardly had a minute to step away from the counter and only then to usher one customer or another to a specific aisle to find something of need. (Circular zippers?  Left handed sewing shears?  Glittered needles for sewing on glitter? Or how about a thread ball unwinder with the de-knotting attachment? )  I will just have to eat my supper once I’m back at home then, I think, as I flip over the ‘open’ to ‘closed’ on the shop door.
I head to the back of the haberdashery to gather my dinner and my coat from the armoire when I notice it’s positively shining.  The armoire that is.  There seems to be a light streaming out from the crack in the doors.  That’s odd, I think, I’ve never noticed the armoire being lit before, but then I always work the morning shift and have no need for lights in back of the shop.  Well, can’t leave Mr. Curmudgeon with a high electric bill and I do so want to prove to him that I am just as capable of closing shop as I am at opening! I pull open the doors to look for the switch and see that the light is coming from behind the aprons and coats.  I push them aside and press my way to the back and find the wooden flooring turns soft beneath my feet.  Just then I hear a high shrill voice call out, “There you are!  Just in time.  I knew you were punctual.  I just said to myself not a moment ago ‘I’ve always known her to be punctual!’”
I step out onto a large, rolling, green lawn and look over to see a very fluffy woman rolling towards me.  She looked very much like an overstuffed chair, full of goose feathers, very fluffy indeed, and was in fact rolling as she seemed to be wearing roller skates.
“Excuse me?” I call back “The shop is now closed, as of five minutes ago.” I inform her.  She scuffs her wheels to a stop on the soft grass and looks me up and down.
 “Are those roller skates?” I ask pointing to her feet.
“Of course!” she replies “Never leave home without your roller skates!  Is that ... tableware?” She asks in her high pitched trill eyeing my rings on my fingers.
“Oh, yes," I hold out my hands and wiggle my fingers.  "I find wearing tiny forks, spoons and butter knives on my fingers is rather handy.”
“Punctual AND handy she is! I’ve known you to be punctual but handy is a surprise!  A nice surprise!”  She claps her hands giddily.
“I’m sorry, have we met?  I think I would remember.” I ask confused. 
The woman steps closer.
“I’m Perry Moppins ,and you are, ah, Justa Smidge?” She says squinting near my shoulder.
“You seem to know a bit about me, Mrs. Moppins and I feel I’m at a loss ... when would we have met?”
“Why just now little dear!” She trills.
“Then how is it you know my name and that I tend to be punctual?”  I question.
“Really dear, that is your name upon your blouse is it not?” Pointing to my name badge I’d quite forgotten I was wearing,  “And now that we’ve met, you are right on time, therefore, punctual for as long as I’ve known you!”  Perry Moppins replies matter of factly.         
 “ Right... I suppose, but what am I right on time for?”  I ask searching my brain for what I might have had penciled on my wall calendar.
 “Why tee dotting of course.  We always go tee dotting on Thursday grounds and it is Thursday is it not?”
“Wellllll, yeess...”   I stammer.
“Exactly!  Punctual, handy and accurate she is!”  Perry Moppins says looking at her own shoulder.  “I told you we would be good friends did I not?  This will be a fine day on the grounds! Yes, yes, I know, she’s come without her roller skates but she IS wearing table ware! I should think that makes up for it.”
 I peer over her shoulder and find nothing there.  Nothing beside her fluffy, floral, upholstered skirt either.
 “Who - who are you speaking to?” I venture.
She tips her head down toward her shoulder, eyebrows raised as if surprised I could miss her companion.  I look to her shoulder to see a pea sized dot trembling on her puffy sleeve.
  “Is that a tick?!” I gasp.
“ Hmm?"  Perry asks looking back to me and sees me pointing aghast at her shoulder.  "Yes!  But he’s a rather nervous tick so please forgive his quivering,  I tell him he should get out more, then he might be more comfortable around others but he insists on sticking by my side.  I call him ‘Tock’.  As in tick tock?  Ha ha ha!” she laughs. 
“How positively horrid!” I slap my hand over my mouth failing to stop my words before they make it out and offend the woman.
She only shakes her head and says,
“Oh, no.  He couldn’t make it today, something to do with a formal ceremony over at the Outer Houses.  I believe he’s being given a title.  Lord, or Baron or something of the sort.”
I gulp and manage to squeak out, “ Who?  Your little tick friend here?” This is all becoming very odd.
Perry Moppins looks at me as if I’ve grown a tick of my own on my nose.
“No, no, dear girl.  Posi Horrid! Don’t you know him?  He’s not a tick!  He’s a fly.  Near a tick in some ways but ...” she edges her face nearer mine to whisper away from the tick “you know, with wings.  Flying makes him superior as I’m sure he would make clear to you if he were here.”
“You are friends with a fly as well as a tick?”  I can hardly believe I’m asking a grown woman this question.
“Don’t look so repulsed Dear.  I’d think a person with ants crawling across her dress wouldn’t be so against a tiny tick!”  Replied the woman, pointing at my belt.
“Oh, these aren’t real ants ..”  I try to explain.
“Real or not, it makes no difference!”  She cuts me off.  “Now, I wouldn’t exactly say I’m Positively Horrid’s friend, but acceptable acquaintance more like.  You know flies.  Always trying to elevate themselves, in any way they can.  Not sure he’d find me at his level.  Not to mention, he usually only stops by if a smell amuses him and I’m not sure yours would.  What is that?  Cinnamon buns?” She asks me sniffing around nearer my head.  “You must remind me to shop with you next time you’re out for fragrances - I would love to get some of that one for myself!  Righty then - we must be off!  Tee dotting is a lengthy activity and time is a wasting!”  She picked up her fluffy skirt hem and began skating off over the lawn.
Completely forgetting my coat, the armoire and my job of closing shop, I follow after her calling “Mrs. Moppins, Mrs. Moppins!  I’m not quite sure what I’m meant to be doing!”
“Perry, dear girl, we are such good friends by now with all this chatting, I insist my friends call me Perry!” She calls back behind her. 
“Perry then, what exactly are we doing?”
“Tee dotting, dear girl.  If you haven’t brought your brushes I do have extras today!” At that she whipped three small paint brushes out of one large upholstered pocket.
“ I haven’t brought any brushes and once again, I feel at a loss.  I’ve not heard of this tee dotting before.”
“Never dotted tees?  Ever?!  Well then, I will be happy to show you my dear friend Miss Smidge.  Take this brush, bend at the knees, not the waist, cross your eyes and go!”  At this she took off rolling over the green, bending every few seconds and poking her tiny brush onto something on the ground. I looked at the tiny brush she gave me, it seemed to have a bit of black ink on the tip.  I trotted over the rise of the lawn looking about for what I was supposed to be ‘dotting’ and saw nothing but spikes of grass, some taller than others, but grass all the same.  A very fine lawn it was but not something I’d waste a drop of ink on!
 “Miss Moppins!  Perry! I don’t see anything but this very nice lawn!”
“Are you crossing your eyes Justa?!  You must always cross your eyes when dotting your tees!”  She called rolling over the next hill.
 I crossed my eyes, feeling quite silly and looked out to now see two large, arm chair like figures rolling over two hills and there across the expanse of green lawn appeared hundreds of tiny, white tees, poking up through the grasses!  As I looked closely, many of them left in Perry’s wake had tiny perfect black dots of ink on the tops.  To either side, however, were many without dots and I felt an undeniable urge to complete as many as I could with a dot of their own from my brush.
It seemed hours that we scurried about the greens, dotting the tees spread over the hills and finally we seemed to reach an edge.  The tees faded out and a dirt path took the place of the emerald grass.
I flopped down on one soft patch, stretching my back and flexing my fingers.  Perry’s face was quite flushed as she wheeled to a stop next to me.  “Ah there, wasn’t that fun?  Gives a gal an accomplished feeling! I did enjoy Thursday with you dear girl but now, you look quite parched!”
“Yes, I do feel very thirsty.  But you aren’t wrong - it does feel a successful day.”
“It does indeed Justa, but now I must be getting my little tick home himself before he dies of nervousness at being out so long.  If you like you can follow that dirt path there and I’m sure you’ll find a tall drink of water to quench your thirst.”