Chapter Twenty Eight: In Which Ralph and Company encounter gypsies.

We can pass over much of the first part of the journey to Xanadu.It was late afternoon when the intrepid travellers set out - I say they are intrepid because they are walking towards the location of a known evil villainous twin, and some of them are perhaps more intrepid than others, given that they are walking in the company of a suspected even more evil and villanous twin -and as the shadows were lengthening a lot faster than they could walk, they didn't get very far at all. In fact they had only been travelling for about an hour, maybe two if you were a very fast counter of the minutes, before the sun had sunk so low beyond the horizon that they had to stop and make camp before it got completely dark.They would probably have been just as well off staying at Mad Pete's house the night and leaving in the morning. But when you want to leave, you want to leave, and Ralph the Timid had not been able to wait another minute. And with Ginger McSporran on Ralph's side, there had not been much argument. Majority rules, and all that.
It was odd, Ralph the Timid had thought as he lay awake that first night, how someone could be so eager to get to some place, but also so reluctant to arrive. He was terrified by the thought of being evil. If it turned out that he was, how could he ever go home again? It did not occur to him that since he had not been evil up to now, maybe the omnipotent power of the birth dates was somewhat less omnipotent (in fact, not omnipotent at all, you can't be a bit omnipotent, after all) as it was supposed to be. Such was Ralph's faith in the system.
So that had been the first night, and then the next day they had walked for a long time, starting at the crack of dawn and going at a relatively quick pace as set by Ginger McSporran who had longer legs than the others. As the shadows were drawing in again and night was nearly upon them they crossed from the Low Plains to the Wide Flat Plains.
There really was no obvious difference between these two areas. Perhaps botanists could have pointed out some unique flora, and perhaps zoologists could have discoursed at length on some particular beetle or bird that was found only on the Low Plains, but to the layman - and certainly to Ralph the Timid and Ginger McSporran, who were not locals - there was no appreciable difference at all, and no good way of telling where one set of plains ended and the next began.
Except of course for the nice big wooden sign painted in bold red and green that suddenly loomed up in front of them bearing the words "You are now entering the Wide Flat Plains." That made it quite easy. The other side, Ralph noted looking back to read it as they walked past, said "You are now entering the Low Plains." Really made it very easy, he thought.
It was by this time getting dark, so the travelling companions put down their gear - Mad Pete with a long suffering sigh, as he had been walking much faster than he was accustomed to all day - and settled in to eat what they had - not much, as their trip had not been meticulously planned, talk desultorily, and eventually turn in, to sleep off the rigors of the day.
Ralph was just drifting off, listening to Ethel warble gently in the night. Warble warble warble tweet warble warble warble warble warble warble, she warbled. Tweet tweet warble warble warble warble warble warble warble warble tweet warble warble warble warb - she suddenly stopped short.
Ralph the Timid opened his eyes in blearily surprise. Why had Ethel stopped warbling so suddenly? He rubbed his eyes then let out a yell of surprise as he realised that he was staring up into the faces of three grinning men. They were all strangers to him, and each wore a brightly coloured bandana. They were all of swarthy complexion with a distinctly stubbly beard. One was missing teeth. Another was missing an eye, apparently, because he wore an eyepatch. The third was talking. "Hello, zhere." he said in heavily accented tones. "Ant how are vee totday?"
Ralph the Timid scrambled up to a sitting position and looked around for Ginger McSporran and Mad Pete, both of whom looked equally bemused. Ethel, he saw from the corner of his eye was happily eating something involving intestines. Well, that was a good way of shutting up an Unexpectedly Large Warbler - shove some food in her mouth. But - he returned to the problem at hand - who were this people? were they pirates after Mad Pete? But he thought they'd stopped going after thim. He decided to ask them.
"Who are you people?" he asked, his voice quivering only a very little. "Are you - are you pirates?"
"Ha haha ha ha ha!" laughed the man who was missing teeth."He hehe he he heee!" chuckled the man who was wearing an eye patch."Ho hoho ho ho ho!" chortled the man who had said hello.They seemed to think this was an immensely funny question.
"What's so funny?" asked Ralph defensively. He noticed that Mad Pete and Ginger McSporran were also laughing.
"Pi - pi - pirates!" sputtered the man with less than his normal complement of teeth.
The man with the eyepatch said nothing but just slapped his thigh and writhed in helpless laughter.
The man who had said hello gasped for air and finally managed to gasp out "Pirates! Young man! We are miles from the sea! How could we possibly be pirates? What would pirates be doing this far inland?"
Ralph the Timid clamped his lips down on the words 'kidnapping Mad Pete' suspecting, correctly, that a phrase like that would set the men off into further paroxysms of laughter. Instead he said, still more defensively, "Well, who are you then?"
The man who seemed to do all the talking bowed graciously, bending nearly in half, his head practically brushing his feet. "We are Maurice, Shadbolt and Abendigo," he said, indicating the sparsely toothed man, the one eyed man, and himself in turn. "And we are members of the tribe of the foot reading gypsies of the Wide Flat Plains. We bid you welcome to our domain."
He clapped his hands, and suddenly fires surrounding the group burst into flames flooding the area with light. Music poured from a nearby caravan that Ralph had not seen before, and there were people running everywhere and laughing and talking and squealing.
Abendigo put out his hand to Ralph the Timid. "Come and join us in our celebrations, lad!"
Ralph the Timid took his hand cautiously and got pulled to his feet.
"What are we celebrating?" he asked with curiousity.
Abendigo laughed, and so did Maurice and Shadbolt. "Our visitors, of course!"

(Word Count: 39184)