Panto wants a baby brother.
He'd actually wanted an older brother for months, until his parents explained that that wasn't really how it worked. He wants someone to play with outside: once they're old enough, they'll race horses and duel with scissors together. He couldn't wait!
What he gets is a tiny, red, crying, bean-shaped thing with no hair...and it's a girl.
Panto asks his dad all sorts of questions: 'is that really a person?', 'Are you sure?', 'Can she learn how to ride horses with me?'
His dad puts her in his arms and Panto leans down close to the tiny, pink-tufted baby head. The baby grabs his finger with her teensy little hand.
As the months pass, Panto learns to love the baby. His mom shows him how to play peek-a-boo, to make baby Bitzy laugh. He picks up her horse toys and seriously explains the difference between cantering and galloping, but Bitzy just holds out her little baby hands and smiles. Panto gives her the stuffed horse.
Panto tries valiantly not to sneeze.
He has three flower crowns stacked on his head, several puddled on his shoulders, and several more draped over his knees.
Unfortunately, he is allergic to flowers.
His eyes water and his head swims. Next to him, Litzibitz busily makes even more crowns. They're in every color of the rainbow, and of surprisingly good quality for the work of a six year old. Panto doesn't mind wearing them, though he wishes that there was a cure for hayfever.
It's a beautiful day at the end of summer: blue sky, light breeze, lazy cotton clouds. Panto had started the day with his normal lessons, but his tutor gave him the rest of the day off to enjoy the weather. Babysitting wasn't exactly the activity Panto had in mind, but-
"Your turn!" Bitzy exclaims, setting her latest creation on Panto's lap.
Panto looks down at all his flower crowns, making the topmost one on his head slide off. "I think I have enough crowns for now, Bitzy."
Bitzy shakes her head and laughs, "Not for you! Make one for me!"
Panto looks around him at the few flowers that have escaped Bitzy's pudgy hands. "How about you pick the flowers for me? After all, they will be for your crown."
Bitzy shakes her head. "No, silly! You have to pick them!"
Panto sighs. He carefully picks up each flower crown and sets them on the ground beside him. "Alright, but you'll have to help me up."
He holds out one of his hands. Bitzy grabs it with her two tiny hands and "pulls" him up. Panto does all the actual work while making it look like Bitzy is helping. Bitzy laughs. It's like bubbles and fairies and bells, little silver bells. Panto would do almost anything to make his little sister laugh like that.
Once Panto's on his feet, he meanders around the meadow, picking flowers as he goes. He hovers his hand over each flower before he picks it. Sometimes Bitzy says "oh, no, I don't think that one is good," or, "That one is nice!" Panto always listens. When he has enough flowers, he sits down and lets Bitzy show him how to make the perfect crown. The last time they made flower crowns together, she tied their stems together, but now she knows a smoother method.
Panto places the completed crown on her head. He picks up a stick and gently taps each of her shoulders, saying, "I dub thee Lady Litzibitz of Wendimoor."
"I don't wanna be a lady! I wanna be a sir!" Bitzy exclaims.
"Alright," Panto taps her shoulders again, "then you are Sir Litzibitz of Wendimoor."
Litzibitz looks beautiful in her wedding dress and tiara.
(The dress is bright pink and the tiara is woven from twigs.)
She stands at one end of the "aisle," Panto on the other end. She waves at Panto, who begins to sing, his voice cracking and breaking with a 15 year old's curse.
"'Here comes the bride, short, fat, and wide'-are you sure you want me to sing this, Bitzy?"
"It's the wedding song!"
Panto nods. "Here comes the bride, short, fat, and wide. Here comes the OTHER bride, she's as skinny as a…"
Bitzy pauses in her sashay down the aisle. "Skinny as a…? A what, Panto?"
Panto can't think of anything that rhymes with 'skinny.' "Here comes the other bride, she's as skinny as a broom!"
Bitzy sighs, hands on hips, before continuing down the aisle. Bigby begins her own walk. Bitzy gestures for Panto to begin the song again.
"Here comes the bride…" Panto dutifully sings.
Once both brides are safely down the aisle, he clears his throat and gestures out at Nibso, Zarf, and all of Bitzy and Bigby's many toys. The brides take each other's hands.
"Do you, Litzibitz Rosaleen Trost, take Bigby…what's your middle name?" he asks Bigby in a whisper.
"Bleena," Bigby whispers.
"Do you take Bigby Bleena Badoo to be your wife, if it's better, if it's worse, even if you get poor, or if you're sick, to love forever until you die?"
"I do!"
"Do you, Bigby Bleena Badoo, take Litzibitz Rosaleen Trost to be your wife, if it's better, if it's worse, even if you get poor, or if you're sick, to love forever until you die?"
"I do." Bigby looks very solemn, an odd expression on her eight-year-old face.
"You may hug the bride," Panto says, and the girls throw their arms around each other.
"It's time to throw the bouquet!" Bitzy says. She and Bigby look at each other. "Three, two, one!" Nibso and Zarf shriek and jump up to catch the bouquets as they soar through the air.
"Can you boost me?" Litzibitz asks. Panto laces his hands together and Litzibitz puts one foot into the makeshift stirrup. She pushes herself up the wall, wedging her other foot into the space between two rocks.
Litzibitz peeks up over the ledge of the nearest window, which is really just an empty rectangle designed to let in fresh air.
"There's no one in there!" she whispers.
Panto smiles up at her. "Perfect!"
Litzibitz wiggles around until she finds a more secure place on the wall. Then she pushes herself up onto the windowsill and swings her legs over. "Coming in?"
Panto rubs his chin as he considers the wall. "Why not?" He's over a foot taller than his sister, which makes climbing the wall much easier, though he has a harder time squishing through the window.
They drop to the ground inside the kitchen at the same time.
The kitchen is one of Litzibitz's favourite palace rooms. It's rough and rocky on the outside, daubed with cheerful white plaster on the inside. One wall is dominated by the fireplace, always well stocked with firewood, often cooking many stews at once. During the day, golden sunlight bounces all over the kitchen, reflected off copper pots and pans. Now the kitchen is dark and still.
Litzibitz's particular target this afternoon is a tray of maple-glazed apple pastries dusted with cardamom and powdered sugar. She'd already tried sweet-talking the cook to get one or two, but no dice: they were for some special event that night to which Litzibitz hadn't been invited.
"You stand lookout!" Litzibitz whispers.
Panto nods and moves quietly across the room, peering through the crack between the door and the wall.
Litzibitz tip-toes through the kitchen, inspecting each cupboard as she passes it. Most of them have some sort of treat squirreled away for the event that night: great big roasts glistening with fat, braided loaves of bread, shiny purple apples.
"Why can't I go to this thing? What even is it?" Litzibitz asks Panto.
Panto looks over at her from his position near the door. "You're only twelve, Bit-Litzibitz."
"So?" she demands.
"So, everyone else there will have much more experience with political matters. I'm going, but Dad says I should listen and not speak." Panto makes a face. "So I'm not sure it's even going to be fun."
Litzibitz makes a nearly-identical face. "You still get to go, though. You get to know what's happening."
"I can't argue with that."
Litzibitz opens another set of doors to reveal the pastries. "Got 'em!" she says.
The kitchen door flies open, smacking Panto against the wall.
"You, make sure the silverware is polished! You, you're on tablecloth duty! Go go go, people!"
It's the head chef.
Litzibitz scrambles into the cupboard and closes the door behind her, heart pounding. Light pours into the cupboard through the crack between the doors. There's banging and rustling as the kitchen staff prepare everything for the dinner.
Litzibitz's mouth waters as she looks down at the pastries, so she looks away, sucking in her lips to avoid temptation. She takes quiet breaths in and out through her nose as she looks around the cupboard. There is nothing with which she could cover herself, nothing she could hide behind. Dang flabbit.
Steps approach her cupboard. Litzibitz curls her hands into fists and tries to calm her pounding heart. The door begins to open and she shrinks against the back of the cupboard-
"Not in that cupboard, you fool, the other one!" Chef shouts, and the door swings shut. Litzibitz breathes out a sigh of relief, louder than she meant to. The door begins to open again.
Litzibitz desperately holds a finger to her mouth, trying her best to do 'puppy dog eyes' at the servant who opens the cupboard. Their eyes widen.
"I just said, you fool-!"
"Yes, Chef!" says the servant, shutting the cupboard again.
Smash!
Panto's voice rings out through the kitchen, "Oh, I'm so sorry I smashed this dish! Would most of you come help me?"
"Of course, Your Royal Highness!" several people exclaim. Footsteps patter across the stone floor.
"I was looking for a snack before the special dinner. It's been so long since lunch and I'm so hungry!" Panto continues, speaking unnaturally loudly.
"We will get you a snack, sir!"
Litzibitz leans forward and opens the door of the cupboard just a crack, enough to see that the kitchen is a flurry of activity as various servants dash for a broom or for food. Panto jerks his head towards the back of the kitchen. Litzibitz doesn't need to be told twice. She grabs one of the pastries before darting out of the cupboard and out the back door of the kitchen.
It isn't much later that Panto joins her behind the kitchen. She gives him half of the purloined pastry.
"I think I owe you for that one. Thanks, Panto!" Litzibitz brushes powdered sugar off her upper lip.
Panto laughs and shakes his head. "You'll never owe me for anything, Litzibitz." He looks down at his half of the pastry. "Were they worth it?"
"Um, obviously! I'm gonna ask Chef to make more sometime."
Panto takes a bite. "Mmm! Well, next time you need to steal something, you know where to find me. I have to go to that dinner."
Litzibitz holds out her hand for the short version of their secret handshake. "Tell me how it goes."
"I will." Panto reaches down to ruffle Litzibitz's hair.
"Eww, Panto, bug off!" Litzibitz screeches.
Panto just smiles and waves as he walks backward towards the rest of the castle.
It turns out there's something nice about having a little sister after all.