Published 'Butterfly & Bloomer!' 1996
Pillowy was a pet that lived in a Palace but, unlike the other pets that lived in that Palace, Pillowy was unclaimed by any of the Royal children.
Prince Claude spent time tussling playfully with a tigerine, Prince Clarence mollycoddling a ratlet, Prince Aubergine teasing Rabbitina and Cousin Paul tripping lightly with Tortoise Tom.
Pillowy was neither here nor there, this nor that, hers nor his, just something the pets claimed as their own - and with Pillowy these other pets played when they were themselves not being played with.
Claude, Clarence, Aubergine, but not Cousin Paul, one day, decided to play a trick on their pets’ plaything. The fact Cousin Paul was already playing with Tortoise Tom at the bottom of the Palace garden caused him to be unaware of such goings-on, goings-on in which he might have wanted to participate, had he known.
“Are you happy, Tortoise Tom?” asked Cousin Paul, as he watched the shell spin slowly on its geometric centre of gravity, so slowly spinning was barely perceptible.
“Yes, I’m happy as a tortoise can be,” answered Tom breathlessly.
“And how happy is that?”
“As happy as a sandboy.”
It was in a sandpit, - the Royal children’s sandpit - that Tortoise Tom was buried during his hibernation period...not that there was any longer ever a real season of Winter in the Palace lands during global wheelings of the warming world.
Meanwhile, Pillowy was being cornered by the other Palace children, cornered into a Palace corner. His whiskers trembled, his legs wobbled and his eyes weltered. The ratlet and the tigerine (who were nameless), together with rabbitina, watched from their various perches and hidey-holes in the Palace outdoor nursery as their owners taunted Pillowy in yet another corner...
Tortoise Tom was still spinning his shell as Cousin Paul tiptoed off to beat nettles. Lo and behold, Cousin Paul wandered further than Cousin Paul had ever wandered before, and there beneath the beaten nettles was Pillowy’s body,... eyes still weltering, legs still wobbling, whiskers still trembling and hide thrashed. Cousin Paul screamed and ran back to the Palace - but Cousin Paul tripped over Tortoise Tom, landing in a flower bed with a crunch.
From that very bed the Palace servants gathered blooms for a monumental head-rest for Cousin Paul’s final resting-place.
Meanwhile, Claude, Clarence and Aubergine played corner leapfrog. Their pets had lost their novelty.
The world was still spinning with the Palace and its occupants upon it (or in it). Nobody had any time to shed tears. Nobody knew that corners were steps on their sides.
