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Extracts from a Diary
by Amelia Bourne-Phipps
-edited by Simon Barber-
9 July, 1937



Friday 9th July, 1937

A bright day for a trip! All of us headed out on a water-taxi to South Island, waving art the parties of brilliantly shirted tourists launching from Casino Island. It was very good to be back, though seeing the beach by the Topotabo Hotel packed with deck-chairs and picnic baskets was rather a shock having had it almost to ourselves  all Spring.

    Haio Beach was similarly thronged with a thriving business at the hot dog, ice cream and cooled drinks stalls swapping calories for cowries (and indeed shells).  The Hoele’toemi longhouse was a haven of quiet, and Mrs. H was very glad to see us. Every now and then a tourist pokes his snout and camera in through the open window of a Native hut and snaps away happily as if they were looking at a rock pool rather than someone’s home. One could get annoyed at this by August and contemplate growing Hawaiian nettles and wait-awhile thorns in a window box to catch the unwary rubber-neckers, but the Tourist board would not appreciate it.

    Everything was in full swing preparing for the wedding, which is set for Sunday! Truly Helen does not want to waste any more time, and with the Spontoonie traditions there is no delay in organising bridal costume, baking cakes, hiring reception halls or other Euro conventional duties. There is a pork pig ordered from Albert Island for the wedding feast fire-pit (apart from chicken, hardly any meat is ranched here even on Main Island) and almost everything else is available in the village or can be put together very speedily. Mrs. H brought out the wedding costume she had made years ago for Saimmi, before her eldest daughter became overwhelmingly involved with the Spontoonie religion. There are minor Priestesses who have married, and indeed it is nowhere written down that any rank is forbidden to – but they are meant to look after the People full-time and rarely have the time and energy for family life.

    It is a definite honour for Helen to wear the costume meant for the Great Mother – especially as Saimmi herself will be officiating! Still, we are both Warrior Priestesses and have come through our first mission with our tails intact having put the skills Saimmi taught us to good use. My tail drooped slightly – I will be the equivalent of the bridesmaid at least, and would not miss out on Helen’s big day for anything. Still. In Kuo Han I had hoped to break out and return in time for the Summer Solstice, one dream being to bail out along with Helen at the last possible minute on the Solstice dawn over the surf line of Sacred Island and us wade ashore into the arms of Marti and Jirry respectively. However well this Sunday turns out, it will not be a double wedding of Warrior Priestesses.

    It was wonderful to relax in the breezy warmth of the longhouse, and catch up with the news. Mrs. H is delighted to have another grand-kitten, a grandson this time born three weeks ago. Moeli is very well and out at sea with that side of the family, but they will be back for the wedding. So will her youngest sister Oiaroani who we have not met in nearly two years – she has been travelling throughout the islands on Saimmi’s business rather than Mr. Sapohatan’s.

    At lunchtime Saimmi herself turned up, somehow “avoiding” all the tourist cameras though she would have made a wonderful souvenir snapshot for anyone’s scrapbook. Then, with her abilities I think she could walk in the breeziest of Spontoonie costume through the middle of London in rush-hour and nobody would consciously notice her even though they looked her direction. She took lunch with us, and told us nobody was happier to see us back than she was. Marti and hopefully Jirry might disagree but in truth there is no shortage of pretty Spontoonie girls for them, but Saimmi and Oiaroani searched the Nimitz Sea area for suitable Warrior Priestesses amongst the native population and otherwise and to date we are it. One wonders just what qualities besides the obvious our Songmark tutors really select candidates for.
 
    As expected, while Maria helped wash up the dishes with Silk and Chestnut, Saimmi invited Helen out to the shrine at the jungle edge with me and Miss Cabot. A gruelling afternoon followed – we were “de-briefed” on our trip much as Mr. Sapohatan did earlier, though naturally from a different viewpoint. Saimmi was extremely interested on anything we could recall about our encounter with the dark Priestess and her murine apprentice – especially as she has Miss Cabot as an example of her finished work.

    I was somewhat worried as I described my final encounter in the temple, having got there about five minutes too late for Molly. Having seen and perceived just what had been done, I lost my temper more than somewhat and effectively hit with everything I had. I doubt that even most Spontoonies who are brought up with their religion really think what it can do. We know more details than many of them about the Great Ritual that left the islands uninhabitable and of rather rearranged geography, and it is not just the Germans who have ideas about what that can be done with directed Will (Vrill, in their case). Even Mr. Sapohatan had asked if I was sure the skunkette priestess was dead as I had never physically touched her – I explained that the sight of her brains running out of her ears convinced me, and he silently agreed.

    At the end of it Saimmi nodded once, and gave me her blessing. Warrior Priestesses are trained to be able to do such things, but she says the difficulty in selecting us from possible candidates is finding furs who know exactly when (and more importantly when not) to use their abilities – being able to walk up unnoticed to within yards of a world leader and do that despite him being surrounded by alert bodyguards and watched by cameras would be such a saleable talent. Molly Procyk would not have been considered, even if she had the latent ability. Dark Priestesses do not serve the people but themselves or those who hire them. Certainly, I disliked what I had to do but that is just as well. Being keen on the notion and wanting an excuse to do it again would not be a good thing.

    Much as had been done at the hospital, we had a full “check-up” to be sure we had not brought any taint of that darkness back with us. This took the rest of the afternoon, while Miss Cabot joined the rest working in the garden. Saimmi shook her head over Miss Cabot’s condition – it is the work of higher (or more accurately more ancient) powers and would need something equivalent to restore her. Something that I had thought of but Helen had not – although Henrietta and Megan were effectively wiped clean, Molly has been … replanted, one might say, with Miss Cabot as a different person like a different but perfectly healthy plant in the same pot.  Naturally the new Miss Cabot is putting down roots.  Not only will this make it more difficult to change as time goes by, but … one has to think about what would happen to the new Miss Cabot herself.

    By the time we had finished, thanks to Mrs. H and Maria there was one task done I had been dreading. The Penningtons are now reunited, as far as that seems ever likely to happen. Emily and Lucy were most upset – we did our best, but it must have been like giving them two convincing-looking actresses made up to resemble their sisters, not the sisters themselves. They thanked us for doing what we did – which was gratifying especially as we took casualties, one might say.

    I met Nairoba who has been keeping an eye on Lucy and Emily, and she gladly took on the rest of their family for the time being. It is too soon to ask them their plans – whatever Emily and Lucy might have thought of is rather changed now. Getting passports for Silk and Chestnut will be a problem, and without them they will have difficulty getting off Spontoon – or rather, getting them into anywhere else. Maria says her Uncle has a scheme where furs of Italian stock remain Italians no matter what Citizenship paperwork they have “unto the seventh generation.” If he thinks he can conscript and drag back successful Gnu York plumbers and restaurant owners on the basis of where their great-grandfathers came from, he needs to think again. Anyway, there would have to be a surviving Confederate government-in-exile for any such a scheme to help the Penningtons.

    By the time Saimmi had finished with us it was past four o’clock. I made my mind up, and we all agreed – we were going back to Songmark, and let Miss Devinski lock the gate on us if she wishes.  She might have written to us today care of the hospital but there is no time to go back there and check. It is the last day of our third year’s full course, and I wanted to be there to see it even if it is looking in through the fence. So we jogged straight back across South Island onto a water taxi, and at five minutes to five we were at the compound, steeling ourselves for a disappointment. But it was a chance that had to be taken; we did not get this far for our nerves to let us down now.

    After all this time, it did not amaze me to see Miss Devinski walking towards the open gate with her stop-watch in paw, evidently expecting us. How she does it I still have no idea despite all Saimmi has taught us. Of course one might have a string of neighbours looking out all the way from the ferry dock primed to pick up the telephone and report us heading this way, but I doubt it is anything so prosaic. We all saluted and announced we had returned – in my case with my shield (strictly speaking one might say Molly carried on it rather than me) with everyone we planned to rescue.

    Miss Devinski looked us up and down for a good minute, while the hands of the clock in the guard room ticked towards five and the last seconds of three years at Songmark. With ten seconds to go she nodded and said we had cut it close this time – and invited us in. With one second to go our tails were inside Songmark!

    Whether Mr. Sapohatan tells our Tutors about us or however it happens, she knew just what had happened on our mission and with one of her rare smiles announced she would not be expecting a report from us. Further she announced that we had ten minutes to shower and get into our Songmark uniforms for the last time, as the rest of our year has been waiting for us.

    I suppose it is rather like swimming or learning to ride a bicycle; whatever happens one never forgets. Miss Cabot was as fast as any of us getting into our third-year dorm, bouncing into shower thoroughly but without wasting a second or a drop of hot water and out again to dress in two minutes still adept at the quick-change technique that nobody properly learns inside a year.  Our best outfit and blazers were laid out on our beds waiting for us, which cut vital seconds off our time. One last mutual checking and grooming then we were down the stairs and into the dining hall – total time elapsed six minutes eleven seconds. Our third best time, but we are a little out of practice.

    Considering I only decided to come here an hour earlier, Miss Devinski predicted it exactly – my ears drooped imagining if I had decided not to. Our year would have waited for us in vain till the clock ticked past six, and sadly gone on without us. As it happened, we made it to our own graduation. Everyone else was there and pleased to see us - it was wonderful to see them, even Beryl.
 
    Well! Our Tutors worked on us three years and we worked hard enough after all it seems, though to hear Miss Devinski one would never have guessed it. There has not been a single day we could have rested on our laurels – no laurels awarded at Songmark, more like a bed of thorn branches and Hawaiian nettles. But we got here.

    Our Tutors had one final joke on us. The graduation meal was brought in by grinning cooks – ears and tails drooped as we discovered it was three-finger poi in a very meagre ration so that even Missy K grumbled at the portion if not the menu. We all sat down with steely determination to eat it, and everyone cleaned their plates much as Beryl says prisoners do with their porridge on the last day of their sentence. I had no trouble doing that, and in fact it tasted rather fine. But better was in store – as the second and far larger course was wheeled in, roast chicken! There must have been a few cowries left in the Songmark budget after all – still, my dorm has not been eating here for six weeks. Looking around our year, there was a definite lump in my throat realising that tomorrow we might start scattering across the globe like leaves blowing off a tree in Autumn, never to return.
 
    It was quite an evening. We could have all headed out to Mahanish’s or elsewhere, but by unspoken agreement everyone wanted to stay in for one last evening, catching up on events. We were even in bed by lights-out, reflecting that there are harder beds to sleep on but they are mostly in Kuo Han.


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