CHAPTER EIGHT
Le cirque est plein du haut en bas;
Les spectateurs, perdant la tete,
Les spectateurs s'interpellent
A grand fracas!
Apostrophes, cris et tapage
Pousses jusques a la fureur!
Car c'est la fete du courage!
C'est la fete des gens de coeur!
Allons! en garde! Allons! Allons! ah!
Toreador, en garde! Toreador, Toreador!
(translation)
The arena is full, from top to bottom;
The spectators, losing their heads,
The spectators began a big fracas!
Apostrophes, cries, and uproar
Grow to a furor!
Because it is a celebration of courage!
It is the celebration of people with heart!
Let's go, on guard! Let's go! Let's go! Ah!
Toreador, on guard! Toreador, Toreador!
— The Toreador Song
From the opera "Carmen" by Georges Bizet
"Oh, Mister Rotten, is there anything I can possibly do to repay you? I'm in awe of your courage. If it weren't for you, I can't imagine what would have happened to my little Zigfried."
Still smarting from a thorough scolding, Ziggy smiled shyly at the man from his seat next to the GP's desk. The doctor herself was examining a blistering red wound on Robbie's shin. She clicked her tongue.
"This is the same poison we found in old man Meanswell's veins. You didn't get nearly as big a dose of the stuff, Mister Rotten, but I'm still baffled at the speed of your recovery. Technically, you should have lost the ability to walk by now."
At this moment, the door rattled open, and in burst Sportacus.
"Robbie!" He cried, almost bowling the doctor over to reach him. "How are you feeling?"
All this time, Robbie had been staring at the plain white wall directly in front of him. He didn't shift his gaze, nor did he give any indication of having heard the elf. Sportacus became worried.
"Robbie?"
At long last: "The smell was terrible."
Sportacus nodded sympathetically. "Pabbi reckons the stink of dead flesh was strong enough to have brought the Mayor's uncle to the house, all the way over from next door."
Robbie narrowed his eyes at the wall. "Not that," he responded, "the dining room. I remember the smell in that dining room. The countless meals of boiled meat and bland, overcooked vegetables. Devoid of any pleasure. The moment I stepped in there, the memory of that smell stuck in the back of my head. I used to feast on tarts and truffles. Then I had to subsist on my father's metallic-tasting swill."
Sportacus wished he could find words of solace for this.
After a fitful night's sleep, Robbie was driven by hunger to head into town. A slight twinge in his leg still niggled at him as he climbed the stairs, but it was nowhere near as discomfiting as what awaited him when he opened the hatch.
"Hey Robbie!"
The little boy's buck teeth glinted in the sunlight, and Robbie squinted.
This was the only child who had ever harboured fear for the villain. The others thought nothing of confronting and reproaching him, but Ziggy had usually kept a respectful distance. He seemed to be the most sensitive one in his group, adoring Sportacus and dreading the villain's own antagonism with a genuine passion.
Robbie sighed inwardly when he realised what effect last night would have had on the blonde urchin.
He thrust out a crumpled plastic bag.
"Want some of my coconut ice?"
Robbie gave him a wan smile, weakly pushing away the bag. Too wearied to get angry, he decided to apply casual indifference in the hopes it would shake the boy off. He climbed out of the hatch, hopped down onto the earth and began striding along the road.
He turned around. Ziggy was cheerfully trailing behind like a puppy.
"Um um um, I got the day off from school today, and Mummy is taking me to the café for a yummy sandwich. D'you wanna come, huh?"
Robbie pursed his lips. He had been planning on going to the café as well. Short of packing the kid in a box and mailing him to Helsinki, he was stuck with him.
"Sure," he exhaled, defeated.
"Yaaay! I'll give you some of my sandwich if you like!"
Along with the cheesecake he was craving, Robbie made a mental note to order a large, strong coffee.
The little bell on the café door was drowned out by a swell of deafening screeches.
"Oh, THERE HE IS!"
"The hero of the hour!"
"Our very own Dark Knight!"
Oh good, Robbie thought, once his ears stopped ringing. Not only am I a target for kids today, but mothers as well. Cheesecake couldn't have been worth this.
The quartet of ladies dragged him over to the table they had been sitting at, and plonked him down on an empty chair. All talking over the top of each other, Robbie could not make sense of the interrogation. Happy to join in the clamour, Ziggy hopped up onto his knee, also chattering away.
One woman managed to eclipse the others. Robbie felt a thin hand, all rings and painted nails, grip his own.
"Oh, Mister Rotten, I do declare," twittered the woman who Robbie knew to be the rich boy's mother, "how on earth did you slay that horrible beast?"
The expectant silence was rather creepy after all that noise.
"Um… I kinda… stabbed it."
They all gushed at this simple statement.
"Oh, if only poor old Murgatroid had been lucky enough to have your help," the rich woman cooed.
"Speaking of which," another pantsuited woman purred, squeezing Robbie's shoulder sharply, "I've heard you're quite the Mister Fix-it. I've got plenty of things around the house—"
"WINNIE! I hardly think Mister Rotten needs your kind of patronage."
Huh. Just last week, Robbie had caught this flirtatious lady demanding that Officer Lolli be put on twenty-four hour watch by the villain's billboard.
And then, something happened which was completely unexpected, though not entirely unpleasant. Sometime during all of this, the school bell must have rung. The café door opened, and in bounced Stephanie. She scanned the tables until she set eyes upon Robbie. Without a moment's hesitation, she rushed over to the table, flung open her arms and squeezed him as tight as she could.
It was the first hug he had been given in many years.
"I'm so sorry, Robbie," she exclaimed.
Ill at ease, not sure what to do, he remained still. "Oh… okay. Why?"
"It's my fault Ziggy went in there, it's my fault you got hurt."
The women gasped. Someone murmured an "Oh, Stephanie."
"Um, I'm alright, the wound just kinda tingles now," the man alleged, trying to placate her.
She looked up at him with huge brown eyes. "That doesn't matter. I told Ziggy I was worried about Uncle Milford, and I put the whole idea into his head. I'm so glad you were there, if you weren't, he'd be dead, like my great-uncle."
The child squeezed him again, her thick pink bob pressed into his shirt, and Ziggy decided to do likewise. Two little kids were cuddling him— Robbie wasn't quite sure how to feel about it. They were acting like he was Sportacus.
There was something nice about receiving such attention, but a part of him felt like he didn't deserve it. Now that he thought about it, he had slain that plant largely for his own sake. Created by his father, the ultimate source of all recent suspicion against him… He couldn't have simply run away and allowed it to keep living upon Lazytown soil.
**
He eventually escaped from The Females That Shame Forgot, and bought a whole stockpile of sweets and pastries at the supermarket. He decided that he would try to avoid going out until the novelty of the bad-boy-turned-rescuer had worn off. Everyday villainy would, for now, not be an option.
Having returned to the silence of his lair, he felt a yearning to continue working on his current creation— the one which, he was certain, would defeat Sportakook's domination over him. It was taking form beautifully, smooth and white, an exquisite glossy masterpiece. It was sitting in a small room to the side of the lair's main chamber, and almost seemed to beckon to Robbie.
Remembering himself, he looked to the objects sitting on his workbench. The previous night, as he was being carried to the clinic, he had commanded Sportacus to fetch two things for him from the manor: a sample of the dead mutant plant, and the small potted lilac which had quietly watched the whole struggle from its snug corner.
Donning gloves, he then pulled a slime-covered stamen out from the zip lock bag it had been contained in. This specimen would be more than enough to work with.
As for the lilac… Robbie could not bring himself to uproot and dissect it. Gingerly, he took a small clipping of the plant, and then placed the pot on the table by his armchair. If it managed to flourish in that awful house, it would also flourish down here.
Turning back to his workbench, he commenced his experiments.
**
A few weeks passed, and Níu remained in town. Even though the beast that had threatened the people's lives was now gone, Lazytown was reluctant to farewell one of its beloved protectors. Likewise, the old elf was quite pleased to stay— partly because, as he divulged to his son, he was not sure it the whole problem had been truly sorted out. He was a man who hated leaving things unfinished, and was waiting for a sign of true closure.
During one of the first genuinely warm days of the year, he was at the sports park with Stephanie. The girl had pulled him aside after school and asked for a one-on-one lesson in Glíma. Níu was surprised that she had even known about the old form of Icelandic folk wrestling (had Sportacus told her about it?), but he was happy to oblige. Ever the gentle patriarch, he made sure to go as easy as possible on the little girl, but was impressed at the vigour of her performance. She also seemed to take to the sport's code of honour quite strongly: It was a gentleman's game, and despite her zeal, Stephanie performed more chivalrously than many of the older, hulking male opponents that Níu had taken on in his time.
As she sat under one of the apple trees after the lesson, drinking in a book about the sport which Níu had provided, the old elf leant against a stucco wall, staring up at the clouds. His son was ascending to his newfangled airship after a standard-issue rescue. The Spring rains would be coming very soon.
"Psst."
Níu looked around.
"Hey, Grandpa. Over here."
The elf rolled his eyes. "OH, HI ROBBIE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING THERE."
Robbie scowled up at Níu from his hiding place behind a flowering bush, as Stephanie rushed up to the two men.
"Where have you been, Robbie? Ziggy's been asking for you every day!"
The man tried to ignore her.
"I have something I need to show you," he said flatly.
"Oh?" Níu intoned.
"Come and meet me behind the theatre later this afternoon."
"Can I come too?"
Robbie grimaced at the little girl. "Sure, whatever. As long as you don't touch anything."
"Where will you be taking us?" Asked the elf, already guessing the answer.
"To show you the secret of that mutant plant."
**