Chapter Ten

Sister Grace raised an eyebrow when Vanessa strode into the sewing room wearing nothing but her belt cord and a smile. Grace's other eyebrow went up when Highwing stumbled in after the mousemaid, haphazardly draped in Vanessa's habit.

They explained what they wanted done, and Grace immediately went into a flurry of activity, making Highwing stand upon a dress-fashioner's box near a well-lit window while she fished out bolts of fabric and cutting tools to commence the project. She gave Vanessa back her habit, but the younger mouse cast it aside for the moment.

Grace shook her head in admiration. "Long ago, when I too was a fetching young mousemaid like yourself, I might have dared to go traipsing about the Abbey like that. If I tried walking about in the buff these days, everybeast would run screaming."

"But, Sister Grace, I'm not totally in the buff," Vanessa playfully protested, twirling the loose end of her waistcord. "See?" she grinned. Her carefree encounter with Stroker had left her feeling decidedly less inhibited than when she'd first given Highwing her habit.

"Oh, you shameless creature!" Grace laughed. "But, I have to admit, I've been mighty tempted to doff my own robes more than once these past few days. I suppose oldsters like me just have to content ourselves with paddling our paws in the pond. Anything to beat the heat!"

"You're telling me. Days like these, I almost wish I could take off all my fur, too!"

"Now wouldn't that be a sight!" Grace said. "You'd be none too pretty to look at, without any fur. Uughh! Makes me shudder, just thinking about a furless mouse!"

"Oh? Then what about a furless squirrel?"

"Heehee! Then their tails would look just like ours! How about a furless mole?"

"They'd burrow underground and never come up again, modest as moles are! Ha! Here's one for you - a furless otter!"

"Oh, they'd dive into the pond and not resurface 'til nightfall!"

"Are you joking? Our otters are far more shameless than I, and wouldn't think twice about baring it all. They'd probably revel in it!"

The two mice took a moment to catch their breath, then looked each other in the eye and blurted out, in unison, "Spikeless hedgehogs!" Vanessa literally fell back onto her tail, she was laughing so hard.

"Ahem!" Highwing loudly cleared his throat. "While you ladies are amusing yourselves over the idea of repellently naked creatures, here stand I, naked as a jaybird. Wasn't the whole idea to make something to cover me up with?"

"Oh? Then how's about this?" Giggling, Sister Grace cast an unrolled sheet of greencloth over the sparrow's head. "There! I've always heard that a covered bird never squawks, because it thinks it's night. Let's see if it works!"

"Don't count on it," Vanessa snickered, picking herself up off the floor.

"No, don't indeed," Highwing said from beneath his shroud, then pulled it off with one talon and offered the fabric back to Grace. "The fit is not quite right. I suggest you tailor it a bit, otherwise I'll be flying into trees!"

"Oh, and how would that be any different from the way you fly now?" Grace asked, triggering off a whole new set of titters from the two mice. Vanessa plucked at one of Highwing's tailfeathers.

"Hey, Sister Grace, here's one we missed: a sparrow without feathers!"

Highwing ruffled in indignation. "If this is how it's going to be, I'll just be off ... " And he started to step down from the fitter's box.

Grace halted him with upraised paws. "We're sorry, Highwing. Please don't go. We just caught a bad case of the sillies, but we're over it now. Nothing wrong with a few laughs before getting down to work, is there?"

Mollified, Highwing resumed his tailoring pose on the box, while Grace began the job of draping, pinning, marking and measuring the fabric for the bird's cloak.

Vanessa collapsed into a highbacked wing chair, still giggling slightly. "Gracious! Between all that laughing and this heat, I'm feeling positively faint!"

"Then close your eyes and take a rest," advised the older mouse. "Many's the time that comfy, overstuffed chair lured me to sleep on a warm summer afternoon."

"But please don't snore," Highwing added.

Vanessa shut one eye. "I never do snore!"

"Oh, not really," the Sparra mocked. "Only like a winter's gale that shakes the shingles from the roof."

"And how would you know that?"

"Ah, how soon they forget!" Highwing clacked his beak in amusement. "All those nights we spent huddled together down in Cavern Hole this past winter, when I was but a babechick, newly fallen from the sky. If any creature would know whether or not you snore, t'would be I."

"Well, you snore too, featherbrain," Vanessa retorted, both eyes now closed.

"I, snore? Never! Sparra do not snore in our sleep. Rather, we cheep, chirp, chirrup, tweet, trill, sing, whistle, warble, croon, twitter, peep, cluck, coo ... "

But Vanessa was no longer listening. The laughing and heat of the day had indeed taken their toll, and now her chest rose and fell in the slow rhythm of slumber. Sister Grace quietly crossed over to the chair and gently covered Vanessa with her habit, then returned to the task of Highwing's cloak.

00000000000

Two days later, after a little experimenting, Highwing had his flying cape.

The first version of the garment that Sister Grace fashioned for the sparrow was sleeveless, but otherwise contained almost as much fabric as a regular Redwall habit. The idea was that Highwing would be able to close the robes completely around him when he was standing at rest, and still have them free to trail after him when he flew. Unfortunately, that much loose cloth got in the way of his wings, and Highwing's test flights ended in several ungainly bumpy landings and one spectacular collision with the upper branches of an apple tree; this last misadventure left him dangling talons up and head down, ensnared within his own vestments until Alexander and his fellow squirrels could carefully untangle him. Clearly, modifications were called for.

The final version, arrived at through some additional trial and error, eliminated fully two-thirds of the material from the original design, as well as the hood, once it was demonstrated that there was no easy way for a bird to pull a cowl up over its head without the help of another creature. (Highwing's efforts to bear this out provided his otter audience with hearty laughter aplenty.) What remained was more of a narrow half-cape, latched at the neck by a simple clasp which Highwing could easily open or close with one talon. The small size was less than the young sparrow had hoped for, but it would not encumber his flight. As for the color, Highwing had insisted on novice green, the same as Vanessa wore.

"But Highwing," Vanessa had said to him, "all the full brothers and sisters of the order wear brown robes, not green ones. Those are for novices."

The bird looked her up and down. "You're still wearing green, and you've been Infirmary keeper for almost a season now."

"Uh, um ... well, I still feel like a novice in that position, and Abbot Arlyn said I could keep wearing the green habits for as long as I like."

"Can't fool me," Highwing winked at her. "You just like the color."

"So what if I do?" the mousemaid asked defensively.

"So nothing at all! I happen to think it sets off your eyes quite beautifully. You should stick with it. But, if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me too, and go hang tradition."

"Hmm. It's times like these that your otter pedigree shows through," Vanessa smirked. "Just don't let the Abbot hear you talking like that, or he'll have us both forcibly tied into brown habits for the rest of this sweltering season!"

After his final test flight, Highwing fluttered down to the lawn where Vanessa, Grace, Montybank and Alexander awaited. For a change, his landing went rather smoothly as he bounced onto the thick living carpet in a bobbing stop.

"Well, that looks to suit you," Sister Grace commented. "From where we stood, that cape didn't seem to hinder your flying at all. How did it feel?"

"Most satisfactory, from a purely practical standpoint, I suppose," Highwing replied. "But it's hardly a proper habit, is it? Will this cape really identify me as a Brother of the Redwall Order to everybeast I meet in Mossflower?"

"You've already tried a more fully proper habit," Alex reminded him, "and the results were rather, um, disastrous."

"And by making it green instead of brown," Grace added, "it's more clearly visible. It might not be the same color that the other brothers and sisters wear, but since birds don't normally wear clothes of any kind, yes, I think that cape will mark you as a Redwaller."

"I think it will be just fine," seconded Vanessa. "No other sparrow in all of Mossflower has ever been gifted with a raiment so true and deserving. You will stand out at a glance as a creature of Redwall."

This greatly mollified Highwing. "Well, that's what's important. That, and being able to fly."

A gaggle of the Abbey children approached, being skillfully herded by Maura the badger; ever since the second day of the heat wave, when Brother Trevor was brought face to face with the truth that such weather made his students incapable of sitting still for lessons, the youngsters had all been under the care of Redwall's badger Mother, who watched over them as they played and cavorted out on the Abbey grounds.

"All done with your flying?" Maura asked Highwing. "You were keeping these tykes well entertained, but I kept them at a distance in case you came in for another one of your famous crash landings."

Highwing puffed out his breast feathers indignantly. "Brothers of the Redwall Order do NOT have crash landings, my good lady!"

"Oh," the badger retorted wryly, "then that must've been some other cocky young lopsided birdbrain I've seen plowing up furrows in our lawns with its beak." The children gathered around Maura's hem giggled and squealed in appreciation of her expert put-down of the pompous Sparra.

Highwing pointedly ignored the jibe, turning his back to his audience and spreading his wings wide to display the cape. "So, what do you think?"

"Well, when you hold your wings up like that, the cape sort of gets lost in the plumage," Maura said. "Put them down at your side ... ahhh, that's better. Yes, it does look very smart. Almost regal, in fact. That's funny - even though it's cut from the same cloth as the regular novices' habits, on you it looks more like finery. You could pass for Sparra royalty!"

Highwing actually appeared crestfallen at this assessment. "That's hardly fitting, all my fellow brothers and sisters walking about in humble robes, while I'm decked out like a viscount of the winged folk. The whole point was for me to blend in with everybeast else here. Sister Grace, maybe you should use the brown cloth after all ... to make it plainer."

"Plainer? After you twisted my paw to get me to use the green cloth? Why don't I just trade it in for gray sackcloth or dingy burlap instead? No, I've already put quite enough work into this garment over the last two days. You've got something now that looks just fine and doesn't hamper your flying; I should think that would be enough to satisfy you."

"Aw, you oughtta know by now, Sister, our birdfriend 'ere's never satisfied when there's more t' be got!" Monty laughed.

Highwing hung his head, abashed. "I didn't mean to belittle your efforts, Sister Grace. Please forgive me."

"No apology necessary," Grace said, ruffling his neck feathers affectionately. "But this cape really does look good on you, if I do say so myself. If I were you, I'd want to keep it just the way it is."

"She's right," agreed Vanessa. "That cape is a perfect fit for you ... and it sets off your eyes quite beautifully!"

Highwing held his head up high again. "Then I'll keep it and wear it proudly, and thank you, Sister Grace, for providing me with such a fine garment!"

Montybank thumped him on the back, right in the middle of Highwing's new cloak. "Looks like yore just gonna hafta get used t' bein' King Bird, matey!"